Scaremongering about cannabis on Crimecall right now

I Heart Internet wrote: »

Yeah, I've always said that I'm open to a discussion concerning legisaltion on illegal drugs to (try) and take the criminals out of it and make it safer.

But I think it's reckless and irresponsible not to advise people not to take any illegal drugs while they remain illegal (not to mention abusing the legal ones) due to the potential health impacts (short and long term) and the support of violent crime.

Campaign for legalisation of illegal drugs - knock yourself out, but don't encourage dangerous behaviour in the meantime.

Where has anyone encouraged dangerous drug use? We want to make it safer for people who do use and will use whether I or you tell them not to. I don't have children but if I was in your position id want as many safe guards for my children as possible. Do you think telling your children not to take drugs will actually stop them? Do you think all the people who take drugs do so because their parents forgot to tell them not to take drugs? Let's be realistic about this please. I'm glad though that you are open to debate on it. So many people won't even listen to an opposing view and would just rather ignore the issue.

Xeyn wrote: »

I think you'll find cognitive and motor inhibition is an immediate effect. I don't think it is me who is clutching at straws especially since I have displayed no bias or leanings to either side.
But if it makes you feel better...

Cognitive and motor inhibition isn't a dangerous affect unless you are driving. If you have a joint you don't lose the use or your limbs, matter fact you probably won't wanna walk anywhere and will just plonk your ass om the nearest couch. When you drink your cognitive and motor functions become far more Inhibited than on cannabis.

Xeyn wrote: »

I think you'll find cognitive and motor inhibition is an immediate effect. I don't think it is me who is clutching at straws especially since I have displayed no bias or leanings to either side.
But if it makes you feel better...

True, cognitive and motor inhibition are immediate effects but unless one drives then driving while impaired is not an issue.

For an immediate effect to be dangerous there would need to be some level of toxicity to the drug, or for the user to have an adverse reaction such as an allergy or blood pressure spike.

going back to what was said on the show basically, have there been any links found between cannabis and mental health

batistuta9 wrote: »

going back to what was said on the show basically, have there been any links found between cannabis and mental health

Many. It usually worsens pre existing diagnoses such as depression or schizophrenia amongst many others. However research seems to suggest that it rarely actually caused mental health issues.

kylith wrote: »

But 'driving' is not an effect of cannabis, so driving while under the influence cannot be a 'dangerous immediate effect'. You may as well say that 'flying a Boeing 747 while under the influence' is a dangerous immediate effect for all the relevance it has.

For something to be a 'dangerous immediate effect' it would have to actually be caused by ingesting cannabis.

That's not a logical comparison - it's the same as saying alcohol is dangerous when flying a plane under te influence of it. I specifically stated that there is no issue with toxicity. I also specifically stated it was cognitive impairment I was referring to.

Xeyn wrote: »

Incorrect. I know the difference between physiological addiction vs psychological addiction.

So are you claiming that he is physically addicted or psychologically dependant?

richy wrote: »

Cognitive and motor inhibition isn't a dangerous affect unless you are driving. If you have a joint you don't lose the use or your limbs, matter fact you probably won't wanna walk anywhere and will just plonk your ass om the nearest couch. When you drink your cognitive and motor functions become far more Inhibited than on cannabis.

I agree with you, however it cannot be discounted.
I would far prefer to see cannabis legalised and alcohol made illegal.

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/m/pubmed/22105404/?i=3&from=france%20cannabis%20driving

I remember reading the above study in France which showed cannabis as a significant relation to fatalities caused on the road whilst intoxicated.
As far as impaired function compared to alcohol - it's entirely dose related so I don't think you can say that in fairness only that alcohol causes far more deaths than cannabis.

Xeyn wrote: »

Again it shortsighted to suggest that cognitive inhibition has no effect on health. Immediate effects are not the same as toxicity. Cannabis has caused deaths due to cognitive inhibition mainly due to driving. To suggest otherwise is extremely disingenuous

Jesus Christ. Using but people could die if they drive while on it as an argument to keep it illegal is laughably ridiculous.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

It works for anyone who just says no.

It's reckless and irresponsible to deride abstaining from ingesting unknown and potentially lethal chemicals and suggesting that it's "unreasonable" to do so.

I'd advise anyone contemplating taking illegal drugs to not do so because of the potential health impacts and the very real support it lends to criminals (while they remain illegal). Telling people that they're fine and "just stay safe out there" is the type of "cheerleading for drug use" I was referrring to earlier.

I wouldn't recommend any one to take any drug whether it be alcohol cannibis, pills caffeine whatever. However, once again you can't expect just say no to work. Your saying we should just tell people not to use them while they are illegal but people will still take them and we need to be prepared for that.

catallus wrote: »

For all of the points made by both sides, I don't think any great policy changes are going to come about because of this or any other of the threads on the internet. It's just a bunch of opinions, and we all know opinions are like arseholes; so gaze in awe on the shocking glory of my chocolate starfish!

Smoking cannabis will mess your brain up; it is not scaremongering to suggest that legalisation will end up with more people being harmed by it.

For those who think that greater availability will decrease the amount of users or the harm done: ye are living in la-la-land.

That said, there is obviously a large swathe of people who are willing to dope themselves up and consequences be damned; the law is there to protect people from themselves.

Prohibition isn't perfect, but to blame the damage caused by illegal drugs on prohibition itself is a woefully blinkered point of view.

Smoking cannabis excessively will cause you problems whether it be motivation, anxiety whatever. Greater availability has caused a decrease in users, holland is the perfect long term study. Places like Portugal and Colorado have had small increases in usage but het will happen at the start due to the novelty of it. Holland has the lowest usage rates of cannabis in Europe. Ireland has the second or third highest I believe. What we are doing is not working. Prohibition is far from perfect it has been absolutely disastrous. As someone else said prohibition has torn apart Latin America and turned North Americas police force into a semi military body. Driving around in APC's. It's an abject failure. So many ex presidents have come out in support of changing drug policy including bill Clinton and the ex mexican president as well as current Latin Americas leaders.

blackwhite wrote: »

It will save bog all on enforcement costs. There's still be thousands of illegal drugs, and the same gangs will still be using the same channels of distribution to bring them into the country. The drug squad isn't going to be disbanded because cannabis is off the list.
In the short term at least, I don't think that the net gain to the exchequer would be that much at all. Whatever body is responsible for the regulation will undoubtedly be unwieldy and inefficient (it'll be run by the Irish civil service after all!), and will eat up a nice chunk of any tax revenues.

In terms of more important issues - just as a sample I'd prefer to see our elected representatives continue to focus on restoring our economy back to a stable footing, on ensuring that we 1) continue to attract high quality employers into the country and 2) retain the ones that we already have; and also on trying to ensure that another property bubble doesn't take over.

Sorry it may not save guardi costs but it does free up their time to deal with more serious issues like heroin and violent crime etc. it will save lots of money in court fees, prison fees for people in jail for selling weed(86k per annum is the cost of imprisonment for a year). I hear of cannabis grow house raids every single say and I hear about cocaine and heroin seizures once every 2 or 3 weeks. Check out the journal online and you'll see countless cannabis seizures. It's a huge waste of time and an easy target for guards. I can't see why cannabis legalistiom can't work like a cannabis cafe system they have in holland except with legit growers selling to the cafés rather than the back door/black market method that is currently in holland.

Those issues are important issues but I can't see why they can't focus on this too. All it takes is to copy a model from another country. Shouldn't be that hard. It's literally a win win I'm my opinion. It's been proven that legalisation doesn't lead to some sort or country meltdowns the positives far far outweigh the negative so why put it off. It will save money, bring im income, create jobs and free up Garda time. People are always complaining of there not being enough guards on the beat.

richy wrote: »

First of all the reason there have been so little studies is because cannabis is a schedule 1 drug In the us where most research takes place. Schedule 1 means it has no medicinal value. It costs a lot do money to get the Dea to approve a study and they used only allow studies into the negative effects of cannabis. Cannabis use does not kill brain cells and does not affect long term memory only short term memory as far as we know. Yes there hasn't been much long term studies because of what I said above but there have been one or two 20+ year studies. For example in the 70s or 80s the federal gov approved a medicinal marijuania program and since then a couple of patients have been getting government grown cannabis. I have literally never gotten any information from one of these pro weed sites. I do follow some pages on facebook like drugs reform and awareness, transform and students for sensible drug policy. However these pages always link to reputable science journals and newspapers and never to any of those bull**** sites you see like openyourthirdeyedotcom and other similar conspiracy type sites. If you saw the study I posted about dr tashkins of UCLA study that was over a 20 year period and he himself said he was surprised by the results

You do seem like a very sensible poster so I am not going to dispute where you get your information. A lot of people on this thread are stating that cannabis has no deletrious effects in the long term as if it is a simple fact which it is not as there are studies that show long term cognitive depletion.
The short answer is we don't know yet.
There are many studies out there outside of the US so I don't think that should hold anyone back.
There are many many studies attempting to show more medicinal uses for canniboids so we will probably see more evidence to throw under the camp of the pro cannibis team soon enough. Whether that is to fully legalise or simply legalise it as a controlled substance remains to be seen.

Xeyn wrote: »

Many. It usually worsens pre existing diagnoses such as depression or schizophrenia amongst many others. However research seems to suggest that it rarely actually caused mental health issues.

So does alcohol and to an extent coffee shall we ban those too? just to make it fair.

richy wrote: »

Tobacco too is supposed to have a link with depression.

Getting up in the morning too. Simply put it would be safer, kept away from kids as much as booze and out of the hands of criminals if it was legal.
Right now its like the wild west. With taxation more research could be done in the mean time.

kneemos wrote: »

A psychiatric nurse once told me that half the people that came into the hospital was because of cannabis,quite surprised by it but there you go.

I don't really believe that at all. Half! Given all the psychiatric problems out there I don't think the amount of people using cannabis could amount to half of all hospital admissions. I think people are just associating any cannabis use with cause for any mental problems they encounter. If 15 years of being around people who've smoked I've not known one person to end up in hospital over cannabis use.

Aongus Von Bismarck wrote: »

The pro-weed lobby do themselves an awful disservice by trying to pretend that Marijuana is harmless, or better still, some wonder drug that cures all ails.

At no point in the post leading up to yours (and I's be surprised to find any afterwards) did anybody say cannabis is safe. The argument is always cannabis isn't nearly as dangerous as it's made out to be. That cannabis can be used just as responsibly as alcohol (probably more so because cannabis doesn't turn you into a complete ass like alcohol does). As far as I can see you're ignoring the counter argument and inserting your own irrational argument instead.

I Heart Internet wrote: »

But I think it's reckless and irresponsible not to advise people not to take any illegal drugs while they remain illegal (not to mention abusing the legal ones) due to the potential health impacts (short and long term) and the support of violent crime.

Campaign for legalisation of illegal drugs - knock yourself out, but don't encourage dangerous behaviour in the meantime.

As far as I can make out you're saying "discuss cannabis sure, just don't mention cannabis".

My opinion on cannabis comes from experience, that experience has been positive. So you want to censor out the good part and focus the argument on the negative effects that happen to a minority of people. It's a pretty insidious way to strangle the debate in your favour.