Why do people act like it's harmless?

---

Really? Television addiction is real, it has negative effects on people's health and on their social lives. It alters their state of mind and many people find it very hard to control their habit or stop it. It has been known to cause, in some people, a lack of motivation and feelings of listlessness, depression, and anger.It may be silly to you, but it is a serious problem for others. To quote the title of this thread, why do people act like it's harmless?

1 - I didn't say that cannabis smoking is harmless. Quite the opposite, I supported an earlier comment about pot smoking causing lung damage.

2 - Another what? Another serious health problem that many people do not take seriously? How about pornography addiction? Internet addiction? Computer game addiction? Exercise addiction?

3 - I completely agree with you on the heroine addiction point. Luckily for me, Cannabis is not physically addictive. It can potentially be psychologically addictive, but so can anything.

These are artificial stimuli intended to alter your emotional state. I believe he meant "artificial stimuli intended to physically alter"

Well then exercise addiction can still count. Exercising has a direct physical effect on the body.

Excercising is "aritificial" or external chemically induced?

One of the worst parts of addiction is that most people refuse to admit that they're addicted.

Here's one of my favourite scenes from a rather crap-ish movie.Let me speak like one of the "others here": "Well that's just a movie, we know movies aren't real"But I thought it was funny.And let's face it, these people would rather drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes than admit that weed may not be all that bad for you.They ignore things like the fact that there are 0 deaths directly linked to marijuana, while there are hundreds of thousands of deaths every year from the other two legal substances I mentioned.I guess Henry Anslinger did get to some people. I bet these people here think heroin addictions leads to marijuana, too (which is what they used to say)!Edit: And I'm sure the $45.5 billiion spent on the war on drugs in 2005 were well worth it! Screw the poor people in the country, let's get the weed off the streets, right?

Ok, let's take your last sentence and take out a few words:> using something else is just another step, should you choose to take it.Wow, it still means the exact same thing.

My point is, whether you use marijuana or not, it's just one more step to using other drugs.So the idea that marijuana leads to other drugs is just... wrong.The only thing that can be related to that is if you become a heavy marijuana user, chances are you are more likely to see/know people who do other drugs. But again, if you've already made up in your mind you don't want to do any other drugs, that's not going to happen.If someone does tend to migrate to other, worse drugs, then chances are they would've done so anyway, whether they had smoked marijuana or not.

Ok, I read that wrong.But it'd still be a good idea for other people to read my post.

That's why I think it's stupid when people say marijuana is a gateway drug.There's no such thing as a drug that makes you want to do another type of drug.

In a perfect world that would be true, but it's not a perfect world, and people are going to experiment. If they experiment and it were up to me, I'd much rather have kids experiment with marijuana than heroin/coke/etc.

Can I say "Duh" here?If it really was so "duh" to everybody, this thread wouldn't be here in the first place.

_People can and do START on heroine or some other such drug without ever having done pot._
Some perhaps, but in general, I think that's BS. Pot is probably the first easily accessible drug aside from glue and other shit like that. Most poeple are not going to just jump into more hardcore drugs. Those who never got into smoking are probably not going to just try meth or heroin, etc.. Those who like getting high off pot, are probably more willing to try "other" highs. I'm not saying they will but the probability has to be higher than a non-user.

I fall into the "some" category. The first drug I ever tried was LSD.....then multiple pills and exstasy. In my head, I always thought I don't smoke cigarettes, why would I ever do a drug that I had to smoke?Maybe if I tried pot first I would have been too tired to try anything else. (I'm just joking!)

The wording came out all wrong..Anyways.. It's my opinion that some may jump right into harder stuff, but I believe many will start with pot and then be more tempted to "try" other stuff. If they are smart and don't, then that's great.

Again, the people you describe are already open to the idea of doing drugs.Just because most of them start with weed doesn't mean anything. Every one of these people could just have well started with crack.

"That finding comes on the heels of a government report that linked pot use to psychiatric problems, including depression..." that was found to be a load of bullshit. It was a government report that was worded to support the government's own policies and was criticized worldwide for being distastefully biased.As for the story, it fails to note significant limitations of this study. First, the authors did not control for use of other drugs. While those with diagnosable dependence on other drugs were excluded, occasional or regular users of cocaine, MDMA, heroin, etc., were not. This could well have confounded the results.Second, although the putative mechanism for increased heart risk involves triglyceride levels, the marijuana users in the study did NOT have significantly elevated triglyceride levels.It's also worth noting that there remains no data showing that marijuana users actually have higher rates or heart disease, or increased mortality from any cause. This has been noted by such prestigious organizations as the Institute of Medicine and the British government's Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs.This is a nearly meaningless study, and the reporting of it has been careless at best.

Of course it isn't completely harmless! IT'S SMOKE for god's sakes, and any smoke will have effects on the lungs. I also know what you mean by those idiots who just get crappy grades because of it... But, you cannot blame stuff on the plant, afterall it's ONLY a plant. I blame the people that decide to act like idiots instead of trying to blame your problems on something that was intended to be on this earth for some reason.

Vaporizers are the answer to those worried about the smoke. But if you've ever seen the movie "Super High Me", the main character has been smoking for decades and his lungs show absolutely no signs of damage. Bongs and bubblers are also decent at cleaning out some of the more nasty stuff in the smoke. I have friends that smoke all day and deal and all that and have amazing grades.I don't think you can blame the plant on the laziness, I think it's just those people's personalities to sit around all day doing nothing, the marijuana just helps pass the time.