Drugs: As Bad As They Are Portrayed To Be? - Comments

Many thanks to you, [b]Kurtni Von Teese[/b], for hitting the nail on the head.

Just because marijuana is less destructive than other harder drugs doesn't make it [i]good.[/i] And [b]fool's paradise[/b], you must be out of your mind. LSD is a hallucinogen (yes, that means it makes you see things) that your brain retains PERMANENTLY. That means FOREVER. It's highly addictive and kills, just like any other drug. There are records of people going through horrendous LSD trips and jumping off buildings, believing they could fly. Tell me that's not 'dangerous.'

I don't, however, see the problem with regulated medical use of marijuana. We pump chemicals into patients' veins every day; how many of those are known killers? How many of those have turned out to be more harmful than beneficial? Morphine is one of the most addictive pain medications available, and yet doctors use and prescribe it routinely with patients suffering extreme pain. If you're in that much pain, and marijuana works for you, why not?

Anyway, just my two cents.
Until you verify your facts, I have no reason to believe any of your statistics are valid.
I think I'll stick to sobriety, thanks. :)

"Education and Moderation is key."
Good job. People can use this wonderful phrase in everyday life. Maybe they'd lay off us innocent (and enlightened) pot smokers.

Valve oil is another widely-available inhalant and is cheap enough to get most places. : ) Just thought I'd mention that.

Look, I have friends who do pot and other such drugs, and I really don't mind. But to say that it hasn't caused any deaths? I highly doubt that.

I believe drugs are a sort of escapism. Why should you need some pot to enjoy life? There are beautiful things all around, and I don't need to be high to see that.

I completely agree with this article. I myself, don't smoke. But almost every single one of my friends do. I've seen good effects and a couple bad effects.
Some examples:
Shawn - Single mother raising three kids. Went back to college, got a degree in Psychology, has a house for her kids, provides for them and lives a good life working, going to school, taking care of her children, and she smokes regularly.
Charles - Smokes before he goes to school, and does his work, gets good grades. When he doesn't smoke before school, he sits there, he's uninterested and doesn't do a damn thing. It helps him to focus on his work and he's even nicer when he's high.
Josh - He constantly wants to get high, he's really gross and he steals from family and friends to support this 'habit'.
Jacob - He dropped out of school when he was in middle school because the teachers couldn't teach, and he was always correcting them on their facts. He's now 20, has a job, his own house, smokes all the time and is seriously the smartest person that I know, if I ever have a question about something, he's the first I run to, and he ALWAYS shows you where he gets his facts.

I've honestly seen more good things come from people smoking weed, then bad things. I personally don't think weed itself is addicting, I think it's the feeling that weed gives you. I'm not going to say that I've never smoked it before, because I have on a few different occasions, and all it did was make me a little tired, and I laughed at a couple stupid things. But I don't smoke regularly. I'm eighteen and can count on two hand how many times in my life I've smoked over the last four years. Most of the people I know who smoke, do it to relax, relieve stress, or focus on things such as their studies.
Lastly, I think it's a lot better then drinking or prescription drugs. My grandfather was an alcoholic for most of my life and was never around because he'd rather drink, then be with our family. My dad is addicted to prescription drugs and he's really moody and treats me and my sister horribly, among other things.

Marijuana really isn't as bad as everyone thinks, just so long as you get it from someone you trust who doesn't lace it.

The fact that public school systems force this deplorable point of view upon extremely susceptible children and teens is horrible. Just this past week we had 'Drug Awareness Week'. I immediately stood up in class and asked why the schools and the government has to be involved in this. It is personal choice alone. My teacher immediately shot back with, "It's dangerous to your health!" And in response I said that marijuana wasn't as bad as it seems and that people should be able to make their own decisions, but seemingly aren't viewed smart enough by the government. My teacher told the class what I was saying was lies. It's not unfortunately.

I appreciate you writing this very, very, very much.
And as for people that have some doubts, Marijuana has been proven to show absolutely no signs of PHYSICAL addiction, like Heroin or Opiates might.

I'm not here to judge anyone on simply the basis that they do or do not smoke pot. I have smoked pot before and I do not get hangovers and I can think just as well right after coming down from a high as I can when I am completely sober. While I understand that it is a 'gateway' drug, I still continue because it is [i]my[/i] choice. No one else has the right to dictate what I do in my free time. I do not come from a generically 'bad' background. I fully respect the law for not legalizing it because, for some reason, I foresee irreversible bad events occuring if it were done. While I also do not agree with using man-made drugs, I do go on the principal 'if it grows in the ground, it's probably okay' as taught by my father who is also a user.

The basis for my comment was only to thank you for writing this. Some of your facts could be straightened out, but I do very much believe that smoking Marijuana is not harmful if only you watch your doses and known where your weed is coming from.

All the best,
Mariah

im so happy;
pot is the shit.
:]

Well...I'm not saying I'm against all of you people but I know this
42 year old man who has been smoking since he was 12
and he is smarter than anyone I know.
I smoke pot and I love every fucking second of it.
I do not get bad hangovers and I can think straight.
I do it every day and I don't mind if I don't.
I'm CAN control myself when I'm stoned.
But you know...whatever.

... Okay... marijauna is addicting... or can be if you take to much over a long period of time... And not every where is like that, actually where I live we are taught that it can be used medically. Also here in my state it is not illegal to have marijuana. You can not sell it, grow it,or give it to others but if you have it... like you find it, it is legal for u to use it...

I personally have never been desperate or bored enough to use drugs to amuse myself. :P My attitude is, okay, you're old enough to make your own decisions. But you're going to reap the benefits and/or consequences of every decision you make, so you'd better weigh them carefully. If you choose to do drugs, yippee skippy for you. But if you choose to do them and end up in the slammer for them, then you have no one to blame but yourself.

I agree that pot isn't dangerous in the sense that it's going to kill you or anything like that, but it annoys me when people preach that you can't get addicted to it, because that's bullshit. You can't get PHYSICALLY addicted to it in the sense that you'll go through withdrawals and become ill without it, but I know plenty of people who are psychologically addicted to it. You can get a psychological addiction to anything.

and I'm pretty sure opium and heroin aren't the same. similar, but different. I've never done heroin, but I've done Oxy which is suppossed to be really similar, and have also done opium, and there was little comparison.

Cigarettes and alcohol are more dangerous than weed. Marijuana remains illegal because it is so easy to get. If it were legal, the government would not have a monopoly over it. That is the ONLY reason. Let's face it, the government doesn't give two shits about you. Its all about the money. Opium, the main ingredient in prescription pain killers, also happens to be the illegal drug HEROIN. But the government has control over the laboratories producing Vicodin. Hmmmm.
Yeah, hard drugs are dangerous. But whats wrong with a little bud now and then?

Okay, sweetheart, are you claiming that marijuana isn't harmful?

If it wasn't bad for your health, it wouldn't be ILLEGAL.
Shit, look at all the people cigarettes and alcohol kill in a year, but they're still sold at retailers; they're still available without having to go and purchase it from your 'dealer' in that dark alley down the street.

Sure, cigarettes are fuckers and they're only legal because the government makes a ton of money off of them every year. But, hey, they're not as bad as taking a drag on cannabis daily -- you heard me right, my dear friends; marijuana is worse than that godforsaken combination of tobacco, nicotine, arsenic (rat poooosion) and ammonia (haha, guess what, that's found in TOILET CLEANERS).

Studies show that smoking one joint is the equilvalent to 2.5 - 5 cigarettes. Sure, it doesn't cause emphysema, but how about the damage it does to your brain?

"Not surprisingly, marijuana intoxication can cause distorted perceptions, impaired coordination, difficulty in thinking and problem solving, and problems with learning and memory. Research has shown that marijuana’s adverse impact on learning and memory can last for days or weeks after the acute effects of the drug wear off. As a result, someone who smokes marijuana every day may be functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level all of the time." - NIDA (National Institute of Drug Abuse) Pleasant, isn't it? Not to mention the fact that cannabis can get addictive.

Sure, pot isn't as harmful as the more 'hardcore' drugs, but why the hell would you smoke/eat something that's worse than cigarettes? You might as well live your life eating super-sized big mac meals, but that's not even as bad. Getting fat is reversable, brain damage is not.

So, don't you dare try to insist that marijuana isn't "a killer", for it might not be as bad as speed or cocaine, but it sure can lead to other things.
My friend started smoking pot, and eventually moved on to heroin.

He was THIRTEEN. A seventh grader with track marks, it isn't pretty.

So, before you go staking claims, get your facts right. Drugs are illegal for a reason, don't question that.

Honestly, yeah, I agree with the other people, the statistics you have no source, but whatever. Bad or good, everyone is entitled to their own opinion. It's bad no matter what, considering it's called a "drug". But I had a bad experience on it.

One night, I smoked a whole blunt after two other girls gave up after one drag, cause they coughed like crazy, so much weed was packed into this thing. Normally, I'd be fine, just mad hungry and thinking deep thoughts, but the weed smelt like pinecones (idk how normal that is, normally it smells like skunk here.), and after I smoked the whole thing, I sat there for ten minutes, staring at the tv screen. I was just so wrapped up in my own thoughts, eventually everything started repeating itself. Things were echoing, and the beat of the rap music kept repeating over and over again. I was shaking like mad, felt like everything was shaking, I felt horrible and I wanted it all to stop. Everyone said I wasn't shaking, and they laughed and said I have never been high before (when I have, many times, yet they were the ones that barely inhaled anything.), and then I just sat there, felt like I was gonna puke, and everything kept shaking. I felt hot or cold, things started moving, and I thought I saw or heard things, but didn't Nothing I was saying made sense. I laid in someone's bed, tried to keep warm and stared at the carpetting, trying to focus on it. I saw weird shit moving. They tried telling me I kept thinking about it too much and shit, then tried lying saying I had nothing, when they were the ones that had nothing. My thoughts and words were messed up, yet I was thinking clearly, it was hard to explain. I kept shaking, and everything kept repeating over and over, everything was flashing, I felt like it was dejavu and I wanted it to end. 4 hours later, it ended, and the next morning I wake up just feeling horrible. And I told my friend that, and he said it coulda been laced easily with sherm if I was hallucinating like crazy and was shaking like that. My other friend said I smoked way too much.

But that experience won't stop me. Maybe for awhile, but next time I have to cut myself off instead of smoking my problems away (I broke up with an ex not too long ago).
Just limit yourself, be happy, don't force other people to believe in what you think. If you feel it's bad, good for you, don't do it, just don't complain on here if people say otherwise. Same with pro-marijuana believers.

Never mind that fact that marijuana can lead to permanent brain damage and paralysis and make you schizophrenic or psychotic, disorders which are in fact IRREVERSIBLE... as long as you feel good it's okay.

Note the sarcasm. I can't believe people are so stupid when it comes to this.

Safe pain relief can come in many forms, simply legalized marijuana is not necessary.

Someone very close to me died from an overdose of heroine.
In my opinion drugs in any form are evil.

More than 50% of my friends smoke marijuana on a day-to-day or every-couple-of-days basis. My cousin gets fucked up real bad when he does it (he does it in copious amounts). My friend Dylan can't think straight anymore - he's only 16.

I do not think that marijuana should be legalized except for medicinal purposes; because sometimes those people, that really IS all that can help it.

Before you judge, YES I HAVE gotten high off of marijuana, so I can write all this from experience.

While being high was nice, I could not think, my mind went nuts when it saw flashing lights (this was at a concert, mind you), and I was high for six hours because of the constant inhalation of other people's smoke as well.

Afterwords - the next morning in school - I could not think, it felt like I had a hangover from Hell, I almost passed out numerous times, and it really screwed with my mind.

Marijuana may not be one of the most harmful drugs, but they would not call it a drug for no reason, now would they? While cocaine, heroin, LSD, shrooms, crack, etc. are much more harmful, marijuana is a gateway drug that can lead to the usage of these.

While I fully understand that you may support marijuana, you must look at the other side of the coin - the against side. Think about the lifelong effects it can have on you, your mind, your body, and the people around you who have to see you doing it.

And please do a little research and show some sources, because while you may not get direct death of marijuana, there is always what you do when high. And also, marijuana can be addictive.

Kudos to Kurtni Ramone and just_call_me_dookie (I'm very sorry about your family. Even though my apology will not do anything, sometimes its nice to hear).

I completely agree with Kurtni Ramone, absolutely 100%. Especially the part about how just because something isn't the ultimate evil doesn't mean it's okay.

The attitude that teachers always give is "don't do it" or the "Just Say No" slogan, and to be honest I've found that that doesn't work. I would say that 75% of all of my friends have tried drugs, probably over that percentage. I don't come from a deprived background, and neither do most people I know, so the belief that drugs are only for "poor" people (as I'm often told) is completely wrong.
We've all been taught to never, ever to do drugs, and that increases a lot of people's curiosity. When my parents tell me NOT to smoke, I do it, but now my dad has said "have one occasionally" I don't do it anymore. It's the same with alcohol.
But being taught not to do drugs because "they all kill" has pushed both myself and a lot of other people to trying them.
I like weed. I've never had a bad experience (apart from inhaling too much smoke and coughing so much I was nearly sick) and I've done it a lot of times, and would do it again. However, I'm determined not to progress onto harder drugs. I've seen my friends stuck in heroin addiction and it's not something I would wish on anybody. As Wishh. said, "we just assume all drugs are bad because they drilled it into our brains at a young age", and in all honesty, they're not. I wouldn't go as far to say that drugs such as weed and LSD are good for you, but they don't kill. A large number of people in society take soft drugs. Have you ever heard of poppers? They're a legal substance that is illegal to inhale, and a lot of people often do poppers. They're legally sold in gay bars as a muscle relaxant.
Not everybody who takes drugs is vermin, and we need to expel this view from society.

I agree. You have made some good points. But obviously some drungs are extreamly harmful and some are not. Some barely even effect. I think the teachers should teach kids which ones are the most harmful and which are not. We just assume all drugs are bad because the drilled it into our brians at a young age.

I think if someone wants to take drugs. Why stop them? It's their choice.