Treatment Statistics, or one more way they lie

Prohibitionists using statistics in false ways to lie is not new. But it’s important for us to regularly debunk the lies to keep them from becoming the accepted reality.

One of the most pernicious lies (pushed heavily by the government under the reign of Drug Czar Walters) is the one that says that the numbers of people in treatment for marijuana prove that marijuana is dangerous, or that the increase in treatment admissions for marijuana proves that today’s marijuana is more dangerous.

We see this all over the place…

DEA

Legalization of marijuana, no matter how it begins, will come at the expense of our children and public safety. It will create dependency and treatment issues, and open the door to use of other drugs, impaired health, delinquent behavior, and drugged drivers.

This is not the marijuana of the 1970’s; today’s marijuana is far more powerful. […]

  • Among all ages, marijuana was the most common illicit drug responsible for treatment admissions in 2003, accounting for 15 per cent of all admissions — outdistancing heroin, the next most prevalent cause.
  • In 2003, 20 per cent (185,239) of the 919,833 adults admitted to treatment for illegal drug abuse cited marijuana as their primary drug of abuse.

CASA

From 1992-2006:

  • There was a 188 percent increase in the proportion of teen treatment admissions for marijuana as the primary drug of abuse, compared with a 54 percent decline for all other substances of abuse.

“The message for teens is clear — today’s pernicious pot is not your parent’s pot,” said Joseph A. Califano, Jr., CASA’s Chairman and President and former U.S. Secretary of Health, Education, and Welfare.

“The THC potency in marijuana seized in the 1970s, when marijuana use was most prevalent, was less than one percent; today such potency levels have climbed to 8.8 percent. This increased potency parallels the increases we see in teen medical diagnoses, treatment admissions and emergencies. Parents and teachers, coaches and clergy, all who work with teens, must understand that marijuana is a risky and addictive drug with serious health and social consequences.”

Link

Marijuana is NOT a Safe Drug… in fact, it is a VERY DANGEROUS DRUG […]

According to the Department of Health and Human Services TEDS (Treatment Episode Data Set), in 2001 there were 255,394 admissions of people into drug treatment programs who stated that marijuana was their primary drug of addiction (a 176% increase since 1992.)

Link

What is the Evidence? Its use can be very serious, dangerous, and have a profound impact upon the quality of life for hundreds of thousands of Americans and their families. […]

According to the Department of Health and Human Services TEDS (Treatment Episode Data Set), in 2003 there were 284,324 admissions of people into drug treatment programs who stated that marijuana was their primary drug of addiction. The fact is that our treatment agencies are full of marijuana-dependent individuals with personal testimonials to the power and dangers of marijuana. According to the TED Survey, of the two million people admitted into treatment clinics each year as many as 24 percent have reported that marijuana is their primary drug of addiction.

And even today, the notion of marijuana treatment being a big deal continues to permeate discussions of legalization.

Opponents say legalizing pot would create more problems than it would solve.

The public health costs of increased drug abuse would outweigh any financial gain from legalization, Redman said.

“It’s a horrible idea, because when you reduce the perception of harm and increase availability, (drug) abuse goes up,” Redman said.
Substance abuse programs cost the county and the nation billions, Redman said. Taxing marijuana would not raise enough money to cover the cost of the problems it would produce, he said.

But, of course, the truth is very different.

I first exposed the government numbers on this blog in August, 2004 because I got fed up listening to the nonsense over and over again. I’ve now updated the analysis with the 2007 TEDS data here. Go check it out — you’ll find it quite interesting.

It shows clearly that of all admissions to treatment with marijuana as the principal substance,

  • Only 14.8% were self-referred (including referral by family and friends). The is lower than any other drug.
  • 56.9% were referred by the criminal justice system (ie, people who got caught with marijuana and were given the option to choose treatment over jail). This is higher than any other drug.

This isn’t an indication of marijuana’s addictive qualities at all. It’s reflective of greater enforcement (simple arrests for marijuana), and the subsequent increase of treatment as a substitute for jail. What makes it even sillier is that 36% of those entering treatment with marijuana as the primary substance of abuse had not even used marijuana in the previous month.

Now, when it comes to the truth about legalization, it doesn’t really matter whether marijuana has a high dependency rate or not — the simple fact is that prohibition isn’t a useful tool for dealing with dependency and it brings a lot of other destruction. Prohibitionists would like you to believe that legalization will lead to an explosion of increased dependency, yet they have absolutely zero evidence (all evidence tends to point to no or limited increase).

So when they say that treatment statistics prove that we should not legalize marijuana, they are positing information that is both a lie and irrelevant.

Sure, there are some people who have marijuana dependency. But there are a lot in treatment who do not. Legalize marijuana and you probably reduce the rolls by probably most of the 56.9% who were referred by the criminal justice system. Possibly more. Then maybe those who do need help can be better served.

Over 100 million people have used marijuana. Over 14 million used it in the last month. In 2007 only 42,000 were having enough problems with marijuana to feel the need to check themselves in for treatment (or were checked in by family/friends). That means well over 99% did not.

To defend prohibition based on the statistics of treatment admissions is like destroying every house in America that has a basement — merely because one of them had evidence of termites.

Lies, Damned Lies and Drug War StatisticsFor more reading about how statistics are used to lie in the drug war, see
Lies, Damned Lies, and Drug War Statistics: A Critical Analysis of Claims Made by the Office of National Drug Control Policy.

For a more accurate and useful presentation of the government’s drug war statistics than you’ll get from the ONDCP, see Brian Bennett’s site: Truth: the Anti-drugwar.

This entry was posted in Uncategorized. Bookmark the permalink.

23 Responses to Treatment Statistics, or one more way they lie

  1. truthtechnician says:

    But Pete, they aren’t lying. These admissions numbers are not falsified.

    Is there such a thing as lying by omission? 🙂

  2. BruceM says:

    Absolutely, lying by omission is just as much of a lie as any other. Half truths are lies. Someone named “truthtechnician” should know that 🙂

    Maybe if someone would take these claims and say “government says marijuana more addictive than heroin (because more people are in treatment for marijuana than for heroin)” the government would be forced to respond with a clarification that would diminish the initial lie. Either that or they’d look really stupid to laypeople. Just a thought.

  3. truthtechnician says:

    I apologize. I was being facetious.

  4. Pete says:

    truthtechnician — of course! And that’s how the drug warriors justify their lies. They claim they’re not lies because they’re using true numbers. And unfortunately, they work the press who are too often willing to let that go unquestioned.

    But an attempt to deceive is a lie. And that includes using true numbers in an attempt to make people believe something false.

  5. Buc says:

    You really have to love how drug warriors use arguments that are self defeating and contradictory to other arguments they have.

    For example, they say that cannabis is dangerous. Then they say that it’s a gateway drug. Saying it’s a ‘gateway’ drug implies that it leads to harder drug use, which implies that cannabis itself isn’t that bad and the bad part is that it leads to use of cocaine, heroin, etc. Also, the ‘gateway’ argument implies that smoking pot literally makes you want to try other drugs. If you can find me one drug that has the side-effect of making you want to try other drugs, I would be impressed.

    Another good one is how today’s pot is more dangerous than the cannabis of the 60s and 70s. Hmm, are they admitting that arresting people for cannabis during those time periods was wrong? Obviously, they would never admit that, but the argument they make is implying it.

  6. BruceM says:

    The stronger pot is, the healthier it is. Just like, all else equal, hard liquor is healthier than beer (less calories to get the same degree of inebriation). Likewise, stronger pot means less smoke to get the same degree of highness. The whole “not your 60’s pot” crap is to make parents who smoked pot and lived to tell about it feel better about being hypocrites in telling their kids not to touch pot. Being able to distinguish something in one’s mind is the easiest means of justifying hypocrisy. In reality people should always get the strongest pot so they can inhale less carcinogenic smoke.

  7. DdC says:

    Smoky weekend, blazer about 10 miles up the coast. Califonograph wants to be the Burger King of Rehabs. With Jerry Brownose and other low lifers selling humans, Americans at that. Sure as on the auction block. For a Nixon lie falsely scheduling Ganja, these human traffickers can coerce innocents into prison slave labor or rehabs, pisstaste and probation. Get paid by taxes or life savings and house deeds. For nothing more than money. In the name of their god, like most of them. Building a stair er wa ay to hea ven with the money. How some of these clowns, Lungreen and Isshole and a few more raving loonies ever get elected in this weird state is beyond me. All of the Liars cook the books, make up statistics and lie bold face into the camera and no one calls them on it. No one questions their tax shelters as long as its about fighting Americas longest civil war. Hypocrites and Liars selling out the country. Fucking scum. Military Madness wearing badges stealing bodily fluids to prove you were illegally relieving pain or spasms. If it ain’t drug thug zealots terrorizing the sick and dying, it’s Mother Nature’s fire? Or a Califono follower eradicating the heathern devil weed?

    WAMM Pot Garden Threatened by Lockheed Blaze

    “It’s an uncanny thing to witness,” Corral said. “We’ve been taking shifts every half-hour to keep an eye on the perimeter. I figure if I can do something I will, but I would have nothing if it weren’t for the firefighters. They are incredible.”

    Prayer flags waved in the breeze above a special memorial garden on the property dedicated to WAMM members who have died. The garden was left completely untouched by the flames.

    “There are grave stones up there and special rocks to remember them by and it didn’t burn at all,” Pfeil said. “We’re amazed, it went right around it.”

    The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) collects its data on ‘marijuana related emergencies’ by noting every single time someone tells their doctor that they use marijuana. So if I were to accidentally break my leg and go to the ER, and my doctor asked if I use any drugs and I say I occasionally smoke marijuana (as I should, as we should all be honest with our physicians), then this would be a ‘marijuana related emergency,’ even if I hadn’t smoked in weeks.

    Harkin to Lie

    (F)Utility of DAWN: Experts Look at the Drug Abuse Warning Network

    The Counterculture Colonel

    Pot Potency? Boomers’ blissfully unfazed by mere facts.

    Joseph A. Califony, Jr. and his Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA)
    The proactive nature of CASA is understandable. Califano says he felt that he was on a genuine religious mission, explaining that “For me, establishing and building CASA and Committing myself to this battle against substance abuse was doing the Lord’s work.” 2 Activism rather than research is more characteristic of religious missions. On the other hand, readers might not associate the deception Califano describes in fund raising for CASA to be consistent with doing the Lord’s work. Nor is the political correctness Califano admittedly used in creating CASA’s board of directors necessarily consistent with religious integrity.

    Califano graduated from College of The College of the Holy Cross, an undergraduate Roman Catholic Church Liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts,

    O.N.D.C.Pope

    The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse: A Center for Alcohol Statistics Abuse?

    Califano and CASA just won’t die

    Big Lies from the King of the Whopper

    A Microscopic Dobbs Drug War Round-Up
    Dobbs, with enough makeup that he looked like a powdered doughnut, was only the second-most-doughy guy on stage. Dreadful fatass Joe Califano cited a stat during the show that 100,000 sexual assaults take place on campuses each year, “an average of 6 a day”. Now, I’m no mathemetician, but I know that 6 x 365 doesn’t get us close to 100,000. Thehim has more on the lies, damn lies and stats employed by Dobbs’s guests. Also check out crappy and not-as-crappy GWU student coverage. Three giant cheers to SSDP for handing out sensible, well-received lit after the taping.

    Read CASA Chairman Joseph A. Califano, Jr.’s blog
    and share your comments .

    Lester Grinspoon Revisited

    The Real Reason for US Aid to Colombia

  8. DdC says:

    carcinogenic smoke?

    Bullshit

  9. DdC says:

    Smoky weekend, blazer about 10 miles up the coast. Califonograph wants to be the Burger King of Rehabs. With Jerry Brownose and other low lifers selling humans, Americans at that. Sure as on the auction block. For a Nixon lie falsely scheduling Ganja, these human traffickers can coerce innocents into prison slave labor or rehabs, pisstaste and probation. Get paid by taxes or life savings and house deeds. For nothing more than money. In the name of their god, like most of them. Building a stair er wa ay to hea ven with the money. How some of these clowns, Lungreen and Isshole and a few more raving loonies ever get elected in this weird state is beyond me. All of the Liars cook the books, make up statistics and lie bold face into the camera and no one calls them on it. No one questions their tax shelters as long as its about fighting Americas longest civil war. Hypocrites and Liars selling out the country. Fucking scum. Military Madness wearing badges stealing bodily fluids to prove you were illegally relieving pain or spasms.

    WAMM Pot Garden Threatened by Lockheed Blaze

    “It’s an uncanny thing to witness,” Corral said. “We’ve been taking shifts every half-hour to keep an eye on the perimeter. I figure if I can do something I will, but I would have nothing if it weren’t for the firefighters. They are incredible.”

    Prayer flags waved in the breeze above a special memorial garden on the property dedicated to WAMM members who have died. The garden was left completely untouched by the flames.

    “There are grave stones up there and special rocks to remember them by and it didn’t burn at all,” Pfeil said. “We’re amazed, it went right around it.”

    The Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) collects its data on ‘marijuana related emergencies’ by noting every single time someone tells their doctor that they use marijuana. So if I were to accidentally break my leg and go to the ER, and my doctor asked if I use any drugs and I say I occasionally smoke marijuana (as I should, as we should all be honest with our physicians), then this would be a ‘marijuana related emergency,’ even if I hadn’t smoked in weeks.

  10. DdC says:

    Harkin to Lie

    (F)Utility of DAWN: Experts Look at the Drug Abuse Warning Network

    The Counterculture Colonel

    Pot Potency? Boomers’ blissfully unfazed by mere facts.

    Joseph A. Califony, Jr. and his Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA)
    The proactive nature of CASA is understandable. Califano says he felt that he was on a genuine religious mission, explaining that “For me, establishing and building CASA and Committing myself to this battle against substance abuse was doing the Lord’s work.” 2 Activism rather than research is more characteristic of religious missions. On the other hand, readers might not associate the deception Califano describes in fund raising for CASA to be consistent with doing the Lord’s work. Nor is the political correctness Califano admittedly used in creating CASA’s board of directors necessarily consistent with religious integrity.

    Califano graduated from College of The College of the Holy Cross, an undergraduate Roman Catholic Church Liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts,

    O.N.D.C.Pope

    The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse: A Center for Alcohol Statistics Abuse?

    Califano and CASA just won’t die

    Big Lies from the King of the Whopper

    A Microscopic Dobbs Drug War Round-Up
    Dobbs, with enough makeup that he looked like a powdered doughnut, was only the second-most-doughy guy on stage. Dreadful fatass Joe Califano cited a stat during the show that 100,000 sexual assaults take place on campuses each year, “an average of 6 a day”. Now, I’m no mathemetician, but I know that 6 x 365 doesn’t get us close to 100,000. Thehim has more on the lies, damn lies and stats employed by Dobbs’s guests. Also check out crappy and not-as-crappy GWU student coverage. Three giant cheers to SSDP for handing out sensible, well-received lit after the taping.

    Read CASA Chairman Joseph A. Califano, Jr.’s blog
    and share your comments .

    Lester Grinspoon Revisited

    The Real Reason for US Aid to Colombia

  11. DdC says:

    Harkin to Lie

    (F)Utility of DAWN: Experts Look at the Drug Abuse Warning Network

    The Counterculture Colonel

    Pot Potency? Boomers’ blissfully unfazed by mere facts.

    Joseph A. Califony, Jr. and his Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse (CASA)
    The proactive nature of CASA is understandable. Califano says he felt that he was on a genuine religious mission, explaining that “For me, establishing and building CASA and Committing myself to this battle against substance abuse was doing the Lord’s work.” 2 Activism rather than research is more characteristic of religious missions. On the other hand, readers might not associate the deception Califano describes in fund raising for CASA to be consistent with doing the Lord’s work. Nor is the political correctness Califano admittedly used in creating CASA’s board of directors necessarily consistent with religious integrity.

    Califano graduated from College of The College of the Holy Cross, an undergraduate Roman Catholic Church Liberal arts college in Worcester, Massachusetts,

    O.N.D.C.Pope

    The Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse: A Center for Alcohol Statistics Abuse?

  12. BruceM says:

    DdC: all smoke contains carcinogens. Some smoke may be worse than other smoke, but the less smoke you inhale into your lungs, the better off you are. If I could get high by taking 12 puffs or equally as high by taking 2 puffs, I – and any other intelligent person – would choose the latter.

  13. truthtechnician says:

    Smoke contains carcinogens. I’d also like to take this chance to point out that vaporization is not necessarily harmless. Studies done by NORML/MAPS show that vaporization most likely contains some of the toxic compounds found in combustible smoke, yet in vastly smaller quantities. I think it was less than 10% tar.

    Carbon monoxide and smoke tars were both qualitatively reduced by the vaporizer, but additional testing is needed to quantify the extent of the decrease.

    http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4250

  14. DdC says:

    5000 years of toking Ganja = No cancer no mortally wounded.
    1000? years of organic tobacco use = No cancer no mortally wounded.
    20th century adulteration of tobacco with chemicals = 100’s of thousands of deaths per year. So yes there are some of the same burned chemicals in all 3 groups going to show up under a microscope, but there is no comparison or carcinigen connection. Only not dealing with what is really harming smokers, with the poor getting more with generic brands. More taxes to treat with the same drugs companies adding the chemicals to the tobacco. Ganja is an expectorant and anti-cancer doesn’t bode well with cancer. Gossip only prevents it from preventing cancer, reality’s a bitch.

    “Users in our matched-pair sample smoked marijuana in addition to as many tobacco cigarettes as did their matched non-using pairs. Yet their small airways were, if anything, a bit healthier than their matches. We must tentatively conclude either that marijuana has no harmful effect on such passages or that it actually offers some slight protection against harmful effects of tobacco smoke”
    ~ Cannabis in Costa Rica,
    A Study of Chronic Marijuana Use; Institute of Human Issues.

    Organic Cannabis/Tobacco vs Chemical Cigarettes

    Cannabis Less Risky Than Alcohol/Tobacco, Says Report

    Cancer risk in relation to radioactivity in tobacco

    CANNABIS AND TOBACCO

    Nixon lied to schedule Ganja #1

    The Ganjawar Fraud

    Virtues’ of Ganja

  15. DdC says:

    Smoke contains carcinogens.

    air contains carcinogens.

  16. Chris says:

    I’m sure Pete has pointed this out before, but to me, the really glaring omission in the government’s arguments about marijuana is the complete absence of any death statistics. They have to try desperately to frame the argument so that it’s about treatment, not mortality, since using the latter would automatically lose the argument for them, not to mention any credibility they have left with the citizenry.

  17. allan420 says:

    It’s this use of statistics that makes the word “obfuscate” a drug war key word. Hope it’s in Gil’s Dictionary.

    … and yeah life is carcinogenic. Have any studies ever been done comparing the smoke contents from joints, bongs and vaporizers? I love a good bong and nothing beats the old bamboo originals. Bongs are ancient… I’ve heard tell that there is a mural in a monastery somewhere in Thailand showing monkeys smoking bongs. fwiw

  18. DdC says:

    New study affirms smoked marijuana anti-cancer properties
    Aug 11 2009
    Researchers say 10 to 20 years of marijuana use was associated with a significantly reduced risk of head and neck squamous cell carcinoma.

  19. BruceM says:

    DdC you don’t know that in 5000 years of smoking pot there has not been one case of cancer. Insofar as there may have been less cancer 4000 years ago, it was because people didn’t live long enough to get it. The life expectancy was 24 years old, with most people getting killed by the big foot of a wooly mammoth. As such, few people would live long enough to get cancer. Inhaling smoke is never good for you, but you should be free to do it. However bad smoke is for you, prison is far worse for your health.

    As for that study, what does it say about lung/throat cancer? Come on, that’s like those studies that come out every few years, based on questionable sample groups, saying that bacon grease is good for your heart. A reasonable person simply would not believe that inhaling smoke is good for your health. At least not with respect to causing lung/throat cancer – it may be good for other aspects of your health (pain relief, etc.).

  20. DdC says:

    one case of cancer?

    Oh get real, name them or it ain’t real. It’s gossip.
    40 years of daily toking and my lungs are fine.
    With two tokes of a camel straight to prevent coughing.
    Hundreds of cultures and thousands of years including kids using it medicinally. Keeping records on every herb including Ganja, except in the land of corporate whores, keeping a viable competition off the Wallmart St market. Simple, all your poltergeists do is keep the teabaggers marching to the Dick Armey prohibition lobby.

    Buzzwords and perpetuating soothsaying predictions. Miss Cleo presents potential maybe’s and “reasonable”.

    “The reasonable man adapts himself to the world;
    the unreasonable one persists in trying to adapt the world to himself. Therefore, all progress depends on the unreasonable man.”

    — George Bernard Shaw

    We, until quite recently and still in many places survive with fires. Ganja as a natural protector is now doomed and gloomed with eeks of possibles and DEAth hypothesis. Bastardizing the farm industry with poisons, fossil fools spewing what hemp would eliminate. Because Nixon lied and you don’t grow medical symptoms off of lies.

    “All research into the oxygen blood transfer effects caused by cannabis indicates that the chest (lung) pains, extremity pains, shallowness of breath, and headaches we may experience on heavy smog days are usually alleviated by light cannabis smoking throughout the day. However, heavy pot smoking works no better.”
    ~ Dr. Donald Tashkin, the U.S. government’s leading scientist on marijuana pulmonary research, told us in December, 1989*, and again in December 1997, that you cannot get or potentiate emphysema with cannabis smoking!

    Your theory would have gone with those “majority of reasonables” telling Wilber and Orval his pile of wood and hemp can’t fly. No matter how much you profit on the drug war it ain’t gonna change the laws of physics. Politics is mastering the art of Bullshit. When you start with Bullshit you have less to barter with. Your theory has absolutely no science other than a comparison to what has already been discussed , and obviously not read or comprehended. Its the chemicals added for your smoking pleasure, not in organic tobacco or Ganja, sage or fog. The Asthma inhalers kill thousands while Ganja has been known to stop a full blown attack. Your theory is beyond skepticism, its more of an agenda of chaos.

    “By the 27th Century B.C.E., the Chinese cultivated “Ma” (cannabis hemp) for fiber, medicine, and herbal use. 3,700 years later (circa 1000 C.E.), China called cannabis “Tai-Ma,” or “great hemp,” to differentiate it from the minor fiber plants, which were grouped under the generic fiber term “Ma.” Their pictogram for true hemp is a large “man,” indicating the strong relationship between man and hemp.”
    ~ Shen Nung Pharmacopoeia,
    Ponts’ao Ching; Han Dynasty classics; et al.

    Thousands of years of use and no records, when records were being kept. Like editing the bible, its what ain’t there that should be that tells. Your gossip hurts people and until you got something besides hunches that maybe water flowed up hill once and appeasement to the Fossil Fools, Booze and Pharmaceuticals. I reject your theory.

    “A tumor is a mass of swollen tissue. Cannabis is an incredibly successful herb for reducing many types of tumors, both benign and malignant (cancerous).”
    ~ Researchers at the Medical College of Virginia

    I don’t care if an anomaly may could have might have or could possibly in the future horshit. It is or it isn’t and so far in the real world of atoms and measurements there are no victims of cancer caused by Ganja. Vapor in the lungs is potentially a problem since lung moisture is called pneumonia.

    “Taking a hit of marijuana has been known to stop a full blown asthma attack.”
    ~ Jack Herer
    Personal communication with Dr. Donald Tashkin,
    December 12, 1989, and December 1, 1997

    You don’t even recognize that more carcinogens are spewed in the traffic jams making more bucks for Exxon. And because of doubting perpetuators they won’t be protected from the fumes. Or from these local wild fires the central coast is experiencing. Hobgoblins kill.

    “Cannabis is the best natural expectorant to clear the human lungs of smog, dust, and the phlegm associated with tobacco use.”
    UCLA Tashkin studies, 1969-95
    U.S. Costa Rican, 1980-82
    Jamaican studies 1968-74

    Ignorance breeds “treatment” and profits. Period. The only recognized part of the Ganja plant to smoke is the resinous “bud”. The government IND schwagg sticks, seeds and leaves with 30% THC are not smokable, but ignorance also breeds censorship as tools of prohibition, in a toolbox of corporate synthetic killers.
    Nixon lied… thats all folk’s.

    Clean Renewable Fuel outlawed do to gossip.

    “Many of the claims regarding severe biologic impact are still uncertain, but some others are not. Despite the acceptance of the ‘new’ dangers of marijuana, there is still little evidence of biologic damage even among relatively heavy users. This is true even in the areas intensively investigated, such as pulmonary, immunologic, and reproductive function. Marijuana used in the USA has a higher THC content than in the past. Many critics have incorporated this fact into warnings, but the chief opposition to the drug rests on a moral and political, and not a toxicological, foundation.”
    ~ Merck Manual of Diagnosis and Therapy, Fifteenth Edition, 1987, Robert Berkow, M.D., Editor-in-Chief. Published by Merck Sharp and Dohme Research Laboratories Division of Merck and Co., Inc. (Pharmaceutical) Rahway, New Jersey, 1987.

  21. BruceM says:

    DdC: I’m not saying it’s dangerous, but it’s ignorant to think breathing smoke is good for you. The bottom line is that you should have the right to make that decision for yourself.

    Everyone knows of someone who smoked a carton of cigarettes every day and lived to be 101. That doesn’t mean cigarettes are good for you. We can agree that THC is perfectly safe and has never killed anyone. But when its delivery system is burning smoke, there is a cancer risk. That anyone would disagree with that is news to me. Note that the cancer risk is NOT why the government claims pot should be illegal. I’ve never seen an anti-pot propaganda ad that even mentions cancer. Also, note that I’m not saying THC is carcinogenic. It’s not.

    Also, none of your cites support your position that marijuana smoke contains no carcinogens and has never caused a single case of cancer in 5000 years of use. Whether it’s a good expectorant is irrelevant to that assertion. If you’re going to use cites, learn how to use them right to support your position. If I say the color red has the longest wavelength of the visible spectrum, quotes about all the other colors are completely irrelevant.

  22. DdC says:

    Cannabis Chemicals May Help Fight Prostate Cancer By Ben Hirschler
    CN Source: Reuters August 18, 2009 London

    Chemicals in cannabis have been found to stop prostate cancer cells from growing in the laboratory, suggesting that cannabis-based medicines could one day help fight the disease, scientists said Wednesday. After working initially with human cancer cell lines, Ines Diaz-Laviada and colleagues from the University of Alcala in Madrid also tested one compound on mice and discovered it produced a significant reduction in tumor growth.

    DdC: I’m not saying it’s dangerous, but it’s ignorant to think breathing smoke is good for you. The bottom line is that you should have the right to make that decision for yourself.

    Not when you lie. Your ignorance is the only thing stating facts that are only assumptions do to ignorance of Ganja. Yes Ganja smoke is good for you. I’ve shown you the studies and I’ve shown you the logic and I’ve shown you the Nixon lies and you still cling to the “myth’s” The same as the regular people when Galileo told them the earth was not flat. Thats ridiculous just look at it they said, don’t be ignorant and just the same, the government censored him so for 100 years fools stayed fools believing in the flat earth. Cograts. Your assumptions only work for the prohibitionists. Lets see, men say they can fly eh? Or go to the moon. Not a wonder how easily Boosh duped the public into the lies of Iraq.

    Everyone knows of someone who smoked a carton of cigarettes every day and lived to be 101.

    I don’t. I have done hospice work for 20 years and that just doesn’t make sense. We have all seen the victims of chemical cigarettes, not tobacco. I’ve never heard of anyone smoking a carton a day. I have heard of others living to 101. They probably smoked Ganja.

    That doesn’t mean cigarettes are good for you.

    Bait and switch again? I told you cigarettes kill hundreds of thousands of people a year. Tobacco leaves are being studied for Parkinson treatment, releasing dopamine. It calms nerves better than white powders, but again I wouldn’t advise “cigarettes” without the expectorant of Ganja. Most processed food is worse than Ganja.

    We can agree that THC is perfectly safe and has never killed anyone. But when its delivery system is burning smoke, there is a cancer risk. That anyone would disagree with that is news to me.

    That is not a surprise with 75 years of censorship. Your education does you more harm than illiterates. Your in a hole where they stand on the surface. You were taught with censored school books and graduate with honors, sealing your ignorance. You have a diploma stating smoke is harmful and thats that. So your body’s THC receptors and transmitters throughout the skin signal cells to turn on or off to cancer. Ganja prevents the signal and as a balancer in many aspects. Keeps the body the way it was intended. They’re just starting to map it out and that is the questions not being ask. Why hasn’t this been done before? Prohibition and the Gossip that feeds it..

    “…the primary reason to outlaw marijuana is its effect on the degenerate races.”
    – Harry J. Anslinger – America’s 1st Drug Czar (FDR – JFK)

    That can not lead to medical conditions. Though 3000 or so were lynched for insolence, probably from Ganja smoke.

    Note that the cancer risk is NOT why the government claims pot should be illegal. I’ve never seen an anti-pot propaganda ad that even mentions cancer. Also, note that I’m not saying THC is carcinogenic. It’s not.

    You haven’t seen a lot of things and that explains your assumptions. Klintoon raved on and on about “legalizing” cancer sticks. that joints were coffin nails. No actual body counts, just average, reasonable, gullible lemmings going along with what sounds right to them. I don’t think “believers”, either religious or reefer madhatters can see the truth because they would have to admit all the harm their gossip has done. So they keep torturing Americans for the good intentions. Pitiful. Maybe you should tell these people…

    Again this just in… Cannabis Chemicals May Help Fight Prostate Cancer

    Also, none of your cites support your position that marijuana smoke contains no carcinogens and has never caused a single case of cancer in 5000 years of use.

    Bring the name or stop the horshit run around. You want proof that Ganja doesn’t cause cancer by showing you Ganja smokers without cancer? Go to India or China, no cancer. Early Americans, no cancer. Europeans, no cancer. South America, Canada, give it up dude. No victims no crime. Like I figured, ya got nothing and my links are pretty clear in what they say. Your lack of any evidence tells the story. You are the accuser and you have no proof, don’t lay it on me to disprove your hobgoblins. Hobgoblins aren’t real to prove would be impossible. Bring a victim or shut the fuck up.

    Whether it’s a good expectorant is irrelevant to that assertion.

    No, its science as the link stated. The expectorant is what rids the body of harmful carcinogens, irrelevant is your denial. Your assertions are from paid liars. Diverting the issue with red herrings only delays the truth. That is your agenda, to keep selling lies you can’t have truth anywhere near. Your silly assumptions only work on prohibitionists lapdogs.

    If you’re going to use bla bla bla nothing…
    If I say the color red has the longest wavelength of the visible spectrum, quotes about all the other colors are completely irrelevant.

    You are irrelivant and very boring with status quo gibberish. So, this conversations over… Unless you find me something besides little girl rumors. Although I suspect that is your only intent.

  23. BruceM says:

    It may very well have lots of health benefits. It may better your eyesight, increase your IQ, help your breathing, increase the size of your penis, allow greater orgasms, increase fertility, relieve constipation, regrow lost hair, and thousands of other things… but inhaling smoke also can lead to cancer. I’m the most pro-drug person you’ll ever meet, I believe children should be taught how to properly inject themselves with heroin in first grade, and EVERYTHING should be legal and readily available. But inhaling smoke increases the risk of cancer. It does. It’s not propaganda… the last thing I want to do is say anything negative about drugs. But inhaling smoke of ANY KIND, despite any benefits it may have, also contains carcinogens and increases the risk of cancer. You’re the first person I’ve ever met in my entire life to claim there is zero cancer risk with inhaling smoke. I wish it were true.

Comments are closed.