I just think it should be left up to adults. Alcohol and cigarettes are legal, which do cause far worse side effects.... why not allow us to decide for ourselves if we wish to use marijuana or not?
I agree, we are all adults and need to make informed logical choices for ourselves and our health.
Cigarettes arent necessarily less harmful btw...
Numerous studies have shown marijuana smoke to contain carcinogens and to be an irritant to the lungs. In fact, marijuana smoke contains 50-70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke. Marijuana users usually inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer than tobacco smokers do, which further increase the lungs' exposure to carcinogenic smoke.
Other Information Sources
For additional information on marijuana, please visit
www.marijuana-info.org.
Data Sources
* For street terms searchable by drug name, street term, cost and quantities, drug trade, and drug use, visit: https://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/...ms/default.asp.
** These data are from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Highlights 2007: These data are from the Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Highlights-2007: National Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment Services (Office of Applied Studies, DASIS Series: S-45, DHHS Publication No. SMA 09-4360, Rockville, MD, 2008), funded by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. The latest data are available at 800-729-6686 or on line at
www.samhsa.gov.
*** NSDUH (formerly known as the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse) is an annual survey of Americans aged 12 and older conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Department of Health and Human Services. This survey is available on line at https://www.oas.samhsa.gov/nsduh.htm.
**** These data are from the 2009 Monitoring the Future survey, funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, National Institutes of Health, Department of Health and Human Services, and conducted annually by the University of Michigan's Institute for Social Research. The survey has tracked 12th-graders' illicit drug use and related attitudes since 1975; in 1991, 8th- and 10th-graders were added to the study.
References
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2. Pope HG, Gruber AJ, Hudson JI, Huestis MA, Yurgelun-Todd D. Neuropsychological performance in long-term cannabis users. Arch Gen Psychiatry 58(10):909915, 2001.
3. Budney AJ, Vandrey RG, Hughes JR, Thostenson JD, Bursac Z. Comparison of cannabis and tobacco withdrawal: Severity and contribution to relapse. J Subst Abuse Treat, e-publication ahead of print, March 12, 2008.
4. Moore TH, Zammit S, Lingford-Hughes A, et al. Cannabis use and risk of psychotic or affective mental health outcomes: A systematic review. Lancet 370 (9584):319328, 2007.
5. Mittleman MA, Lewis RA, Maclure M, Sherwood JB, Muller JE. Triggering myocardial infarction by marijuana. Circulation 103(23):28052809, 2001.
6. Tashkin DP. Smoked marijuana as a cause of lung injury. Monaldi Arch Chest Dis 63(2):92100, 2005.
7. Hashibe M, Morgenstern H, Cui Y, et al. Marijuana use and the risk of lung and upper aerodigestive tract cancers: Results of a population-based case-control study. Cancer Epidemiol Biomarkers Prev 15(10):18291834, 2006.
18. Polen MR, Sidney S, Tekawa IS, Sadler M, Friedman GD. Health care use by frequent marijuana smokers who do not smoke tobacco. West J Med 158(6):596601, 1993.
9. Gruber AJ, Pope HG, Hudson JI, Yurgelun-Todd D. Attributes of long-term heavy cannabis users: A case control study. Psychological Med 33(8):14151422, 2003.
