He killed my dog :'(

he was responsible for both hurricane katrina, and the terrible evacuation situation that happened during hurricane rita, in fact i believe he was on the one that set the bus full of old people on fire, WITH A CIGARETTE!!! dun dun duuuun.

"We've heard their words...but let's look at the facts: George W. Bush once molested my grandma, while John Kerry held her down with bags of money provided by gay French Jews. On November 2, tell George W. Bush and John Kerry you support freedom...by writing a check to "Americans for 527 Ads"!" - Samantha Bee's 527 ad

It's the smoke that causes the cancer, not the nicotine. Unless you're going to tell me marijuana doesn't have smoke, it (silly), it causes cancer.

Actually smoking mj does not cause cancer.



you can read the whole article here.
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html

I'm sure thoth will pipe in and poopoo it, but in the meantime, there it is.

You can cook with weed so sure you can avoid the cancer :p

I'm not really a proponent of either to be honest. I'd just as soon keep my lungs healthy and not go to rehab.

I wonder where in the hell Tashkin found heavy marijuana users that didn’t also smoke cigarettes. I’ve never met one, and I’ve met a lot. Granted, I've never met a smoker under 30 who doesn't, at least ocasionally, smoke pot either.



So… Marijuana is the cure for cancer!



Makes ya wonder who did the study on the chemicals in cigarette tar. How much you wanna bet if Tashkin did the same study concentrating on those chemicals, he’d find they don’t cause cancer?

Ya’d think the ionizing effect of the smoke alone would be enough to cause cancer, but I’m always very skeptical when we find something causes cancer, as it seems cancer researchers always find what they set out to find – (with the obvious exception of Tashkin here) and in some cases it’s suspicious with who funds the studies (as it was in this case). I mean, I think it’s more or less proven with cigarettes, and it makes sense from a layman’s perspective, but it wouldn’t surprise me if I went and did research and it turned out not so much so, or at the very least, it isn't caused by the chemicals we think it is.
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"It's just a habit, when I reach to the packet, for my last cigarette until the day breaks, and then my hand shakes, but it it's just driving me insane, when the smoke gets in my brain, I can't resist it!" - Nicotine Stain, Siouxsie
Thothie

I don't think he said marijuana is a cure for cancer, more accurrately he said smoking it kills off older weaker cells (potentionally doing other damage). That makes sense in a way, if THC is any form of toxin or cytotoxin it would kill off older weaker cells much like chemo and radiation therapy, and since it is introduced in the highest concentration directly to the lungs, I would say it is quite possible that THC could prevent the growth of cancerous cells. But also, keep in mind you are reading an add from a newspaper not a scientific journal. Case studies on a small scale are often not the most dependable source of accurate information, however a larger scale case study usually does yield more reliable results. This did appear to be a rather large case study.

I've heard many times in the past that marijuana does not cause lung cancer, of course yes that's a biased statement when it comes from someone who frequently smokes pot, but this case study would suggest that its not completely bunk.

Besides thoth, you're overly cynical. You always think the motive has to do with monetary gain.

I totally explained the Prohibition business, but nobody listened. ^^



Meh. The government's unification of foreign and domestic policy is nowhere near this intelligent, especially between administrations. We clearly favor domestic goods (i.e. domestic sources for ethanol), but the argument doesn't apply to marijuana. It grows effectively domestically, and we grow about half the consumed US supply. We could probably meet demand quite easily, especially marijuana grows on a lot of weird kinds of land.

I'd really argue it's an issue of inertia - things that are legal tend to stay legal, things that are illegal tend to stay illegal. Prohibition was the biggest exception in recenty history, and it was the aftershock that gave us the nascent war on drugs. Gotta put all those Prohibition officers to work doing SOMETHING.

Umm... I'm fairly certain all the prohibition officers retired.

...all our farmland is occupied and has been for a long time. You can't up and change what kinda crops you are going to grow without dislocating a lot of business, and with agriculture, that takes time, in addition to cash. In anycase, it's not about whether not we can grow the stuff, it's about the other countries being able to grow more of it, and faster, and cheaper, and sell it for more than anything else they have in abundance. You can't maintain your economic colonies, if you can't keep them poor.
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"Specifically, I'd like to debate whether cannabalism ought to be grounds for leniency in murders, since it's less wasteful." - Calvin
Thothie

Hilarious.



Not really accurate - a lot of marginal land is unused or underutilized, and marijuana grows quite well on many types of poor farmland. Heck, even illegal weed has given us a $15 billion industry.



As far as protectionism, there are plenty of ways to shield the US economy from imported marijuana without domestic bans, and many of those tricks could be done without breaking WTO regs. If the federal government were to legalize marijuana for medical use, but require that the growing conditions be strictly monitored and regulated, and further more, that the supply be directed through extraordinarily complex and irritating legal channels, we could effectively deny (through obfuscation) legal imports from abroad and quite possibly decrease illegal imports compared to their present volume. Because MJ does have proven negative effects when abused, this would be legal under WTO regs - and we can use the public morality clause too.

The reason marijuana remains illegal has a lot more to do with political inertia than anything else. Given some more time, most democratic-leaning states will probably legalize medical marijuana due to the "stoner special interest group" (especially if the stoners learn to vote more reliably), but a federal change in regs is unlikely.

I think you overestimate how organized the legislative branch is, especially in regards to trade laws (it'd be asking a hell of a lot of folk to do a 180), and underestimate the value of the executive branch's ability to dislocate and/or prop up individuals and indeed, entire militaries and governments, using the anti-drug campaign as justification when it chooses to (as well as, sometimes, its funding).

Plus the sheer unwillingness to give into those anti-establishment hippies. Rubbing it into the face of the hippies has become a full-time job for our government!
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"Money can't buy you happiness, but it does bring you a more pleasant form of misery." - Spike Milligan
Thothie

I don't disagree with you at all here. It's the disorganization that allows inertia to be such a powerful force in politics.



It's definitely a convenient way to engage in otherwise unpopular foreign policy, and I agree that it's unlikely that Presidential leadership will move to change the status quo. However, if Congress did manage to cripple the WoD, the Executive would just find another excuse. Really, in the end, it's the general ineffectiveness of Congress that leads to the inertia of US domestic policy.



There are some really annoying New Age hippies out there.

newspapers reporting science wrong? no way! I believe everything they say, no matter what. It's not like they aren't biased or get their facts wrong.

Fox News and Anonymous anyone?

Anyways, carrying over laws is OK. In fact, going through the penal code and fixing bad laws would 1) take way too much time and 2) is NOT their job. It would be amazing to see the government organized enough to pull off the stuff you're talking about, and heck they might have even done what you said. However, I find it more likely they were independent of each other or one caused the other. They do so much crap on a daily basis I'm not surprised there's not more coincidental policies.

Just goes to show how ineffective they can be. Fed probably is due for an overhaul someday. Either that or overhaul the average American to stop voting based on 30second soundbites.