My Own Independent Research On Marijuana Addiciton

[Stoniphi]

There is a significant difference between ingesting cannabis and smoking cannabis.

Burning any vegetable material, cannabis inclusive, converts a major portion of it to chemicals like benzene, anthracine, styrene, acetone and carbon monoxide. If you inhale a lot of cannabis smoke, you are uptaking those nasty chemicals along with the cannabinoids. The resultant high is a blend of the effects of this.

Many cannabis affectionados do not care for the pure cannabis high that they get from eating, drinking or inhaling the active ingredients in cannabis, while they very much enjoy the effects of smoking it. This because they have become accustomed to the chronic anoxia effect of the carbon monoxide and the stupefying effects of the solvents and plastics formed by burning cannabis at 1200 degrees F, the combustion temperature at the tip of a lit joint or in the bowl of a lit pipe.

There are many cannabis consumers that have purchased a vaporizer in order to get away from the toxins formed by burning cannabis only to find that they cannot make the switch to a healthier delivery system. This despite that it delivers most all of the active ingredients to the consumer rather than destroying more than half as with burning it.

They find that they are actually enjoying the smoke toxins as much - if not more - than the cannabis.

Something to consider.

 

[SomethingClever]

I've never heard that, StoniPhil. Yikes.
That might explain why I do not like edibles, but love smoking.
thanks for the buzzkill
nah, it's better to know the truth (if that's what you speak)
The D.A.R.E. program could use a lesson from you in objectivity.
Those chemicals that are created at 1200º sound harmful- but the numerous studies of long-term marijuana users suggests otherwise...

 

[Stoniphi]

Well....yes and no.

There are solid studies (some of which I posted up on the first page here) that indicate that cannabis usage is beneficial for some problems and does not cause other problems - like lung, mouth and throat cancer, say, or schizophrenia.

However, if you are inhaling the smoke, you are inhaling dirt and toxins. There is no getting around the fact that carbon monoxide is bad for you. If you smoke cannabis, you are aware that you cough up black carbon particle sludge afterwards. That stuff ain't good for your lungs. Things like COPD and emphysema are still potential hazards for the smoker. Considering the cheapness and ready availability of 'hot box' vaporizers like Vapor Brothers and the high efficiency of such as the Volcano, healthier alternatives to smoking are available for the cannabis affectionado that do not put him/her at a risk from the byproducts of combustion.

There is a big difference between drinking a glass of red wine and drinking mouthwash or rubbing alcohol. While they are all alcohol, the wine is beneficial but the others are not so much, despite that all 3 will get you stoned.

The active ingredients in cannabis can be beneficial, but the components of the burning vegetable material are not. Vaporizers operate at 400 degrees F, a red ember is 1200 degrees F. That hurt at the end of your tongue after burning one is burnt tongue from that heat. A vape won't do that as it works at lower temperatures.

As always, I strongly urge those who wish to or need to consume cannabis to do so in as safe and healthful a manner as possible. If you are a med card holder it is even more important for you to do so, as your health is already compromised. A cancer patient undergoing chemo and radiation who is suffering from constant projectile vomiting does not need to inhale smoke and get a good cough going as well to complicate the issue. Same for the asthma sufferer.

Besides being practical, this is just common sense, as I see it.

 

[Stoniphi]

Oh yeah - the D.A.R.E. program does not work, sadly.

Alternatively, I am a firm believer in teaching persons how to make good decisions/choices and then presenting them with the pertinent facts without muddying the waters with value judgements.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

3 months and that's what you call research? I'd think that there have been much longer studies done on this matter over and over again and again just to say the same thing to everyone.

I know a guy who had gotten high every night for at least ten years. Then his company shut down and he had to find a new job. He was worried about having to take a drug test so he stopped abruptly. Nobody noticed any ill effects and it took him seven or eight months to find his next job.

One of the things about marijuana is that THC doesn't flush out of your system very fast. That's why counselors warn you that it could show up in a drug test a month later, and one guy I know who was applying for medical insurance at his office and had to take a blood test was told by the nurse that the world record was two months. The point is that it dissipates so slowly that there's no "withdrawal" of the kind that many other drugs have. In fact if you put on weight while you're using pot some of the THC will be stored in your fat cells, and then when you decide to lose weight and burn off the fat, it will show up in your urine.

From what I understand and it may be hearsay . Marijuana was made illegal to satisfy the wishes of Me cousin Lloyd Tevis's Partner in crime Randolf Hearst . He owned Timber interests and wanted to replace hemp production with timber.

There are various explanations and perhaps they're all true and reinforced each other. In the Southwest the one we always heard from the old-timers was that nobody cared about marijuana when it was used by jazz musicians in New York. But when Mexican immigrants started using it in Colorado, cracking down on it was an easy way to persecute "them dam Messikins."

Seriously though there are a lot of people that smoke pot, however a "Recreational drug" as they call it, shouldn't be consumed when they are suppose to be working.

Obviously that depends on the type of "work." Anecdotal evidence indicates that marijuana suppresses left-brain activity. This gives the right hemisphere more freedom, so musicians and other artists claim to experience greater creativity when high. I've certainly witnessed enough performances to take the claim seriously. Engineers, computer programmers, attorneys and other people who have to be extremely logical all day have told me that a little ganja lets their creative side out of its cage so they can paint, write, etc., when they're off duty. Again, I've witnessed the results so I tend not to discount their assertions.

Obviously this only works on bright people. If your IQ is 98 it would not be a good idea to use a joint to knock off twenty points.

However, if you are inhaling the smoke, you are inhaling dirt and toxins. There is no getting around the fact that carbon monoxide is bad for you. If you smoke cannabis, you are aware that you cough up black carbon particle sludge afterwards. That stuff ain't good for your lungs. Things like COPD and emphysema are still potential hazards for the smoker. Considering the cheapness and ready availability of 'hot box' vaporizers like Vapor Brothers and the high efficiency of such as the Volcano, healthier alternatives to smoking are available for the cannabis affectionado that do not put him/her at a risk from the byproducts of combustion.

All the retired hippies of my generation have been using vaporizers since they became available. Before that they were just baking it into brownies or brewing tea or using other means to heat it and ingest it. (Raw dope apparently is as indigestible as any other raw leaf because all the ingredients you want are locked in cellulose.) Of course the big difference is that eating grass is very inefficient and an expensive way to do it, whereas the vaporizer is the most efficient and economical.

However, the reports I've read said that cannabis smoke is nowhere near as toxic as tobacco smoke. Turns out that the big danger in cigarettes is not the ash and other byproducts of burning, but the nicotine itself. A study in Jamaica tracked heavy pot smokers for decades (and heavy pot smokers are easy to find in Jamaica) and found that their incidence of lung cancer and other lung disease was almost indistinguishable from the control group.

Nonetheless it just doesn't seem like a very good idea to breathe smoke.

 

[quadraphonics]

One of the things about marijuana is that THC doesn't flush out of your system very fast. That's why counselors warn you that it could show up in a drug test a month later, and one guy I know who was applying for medical insurance at his office and had to take a blood test was told by the nurse that the world record was two months. The point is that it dissipates so slowly that there's no "withdrawal" of the kind that many other drugs have.

That last part doesn't follow - that there are detectable residual chemicals locked in your fat cells, doesn't mean that the pharmacological effects of the drug haven't long worn off. You do not stay high for an entire month, and the withdrawl symptoms (if any) occur when the effect wears off, not when the trace chemicals exit your fat cells. People can and do experience withdrawl symptoms with marijuana, although usually not the sorts of nasty things associated with cocaine or alcohol (alcohol withdrawl can be fatal, and should not be attempted outside of professional medical care).

Engineers, computer programmers, attorneys and other people who have to be extremely logical all day have told me that a little ganja lets their creative side out of its cage so they can paint, write, etc., when they're off duty. Again, I've witnessed the results so I tend not to discount their assertions.

I know plenty of engineers and computer programmers who use the stuff on-duty, for the same reason. Those jobs often require insight and creativity as much as logic and rigor.

(Raw dope apparently is as indigestible as any other raw leaf because all the ingredients you want are locked in cellulose.)

Nah, the psychoactive chemicals are all found on the surface in the trichomes. If you've much experience with vaporizers, you've surely observed that they can remove essentially all of the psychoactive materials without breaking down the cellulosic materials at all - such being exactly their point.

However, the reports I've read said that cannabis smoke is nowhere near as toxic as tobacco smoke.

I've only read that it's less carcinogenic, not that it's safer in general. Certain of the damage caused by smoking is simply due to the heating and dehydrating of the throat tissues - hot, dry air would be as bad as anything.

Turns out that the big danger in cigarettes is not the ash and other byproducts of burning, but the nicotine itself.

The nicotine is dangerous in that it's highly addictive, and so tends to cause you to want to do a lot of smoking, but it is not physically harmful as such (short of larger doses, which are indeed toxic, or in those who already have problematic blood pressure or poor circulation).

A study in Jamaica tracked heavy pot smokers for decades (and heavy pot smokers are easy to find in Jamaica) and found that their incidence of lung cancer and other lung disease was almost indistinguishable from the control group.

I'm told the differences really come down to the particulate size of the smoke. IIRC, the marijuana smoke doesn't have much of the very fine particulates that your lungs can't expell, whereas the tobacco smoke does. But, again, what I've seen only demonstrated the cannabis smoke wasn't carcinogenic - my recollection is that it's just as bad for stuff like emphysema and the like...

 

[Stoniphi]

Well, tobacco does have high levels of Polonium 210 (an incredibly toxic radioisotope) too, as a result of the farmers' use of high potency phosphate fertilizer. That comes from fossil shell beds and contains enough U - 235 and lead 210 to create the Polonium problem. It collects at the branches in the smokers' lungs. The FDA was considering forcing the makers to put on labels noting the polonium, but found so many other bad things in ciggies that they just went with the current warnings. (this from a recent Scientific American article)

Any burning vegetative matter produces those toxins I noted in the other post above, so they are all toxic to breathe.

Cannabis smoke does have some interesting properties that make it not so bad as tobacco smoke though, as it appears that cannabis smoke's cannabinoid content induces precancerous cells to commit apoptosis, which lowers the cannabis smokers chances of developing mouth, neck, lung and throat cancer from smoking cannabis. (I have the citation if needed, as usual)

The active ingredients are concentrated in the trichome gland heads, on the surface of the cola leaves and seed covers. They evaporate at 400 degrees F, but can be ingested at room temperatures. Eating cannabis is the only way to get ALL of the active ingredients in your body from a given sample, so the stone is greatest from eating it.

In fact, eating it is a great way to experience the 'hallucinogenic' aspect of cannabis.

 

[John99]

hmmmm...looks like some people have a love affair with their own drug of choice. Which is fine and far be it from me to lecture people but dont think smoking weed will not or cannot have serious health problems. The NORML propaganda being dispensed is a little comical, but i dont think that is right because people should know the truth and if they decide to do something anyway at least they know what they are in for. Smoking weed is not good for you...period. Are you better off never smoking it? yes you are definitely better off to never smoke weed. OTOH, there is no comparison to the harder drugs...robbing, committing other crimes, and a truck load of deviant perversions etc.

AFA the creative aspect, the greatest works of art, literature and possibly even music were done by people not under the influence of any drugs so that needs to be considered.

 

[John99]

Aslo, there are many aspects to addiction. You have you physical, your psychological and just the mere fact a person like doing something that is bad for them so they keep doing it. I knew a crack addict, who is probably dead now as i had seen him go on a binge for a few days and he was a skinny as a twig so if he kept it up then chances are he is dead by now. He told me the worst part about the drug and really any drug is that you are never going to forget the feeling, the taste and most people spend the rest of their addictions chasing those few first times and they end up broke or dead. He also told me the higher the high the harder the crash. Thoughts of suicide etc. are common but you dont have that with weed. Best thing is to never try a drug and you wont have these problems.

 

[Fraggle Rocker]

I know plenty of engineers and computer programmers who use the stuff on-duty, for the same reason. Those jobs often require insight and creativity as much as logic and rigor.

Back in the 1980s I knew a lawyer who had discovered that he performed much better in court when he was stoned, so he just made a regular practice of it. His clients loved him and it did wonders for his income.

Nah, the psychoactive chemicals are all found on the surface in the trichomes. If you've much experience with vaporizers, you've surely observed that they can remove essentially all of the psychoactive materials without breaking down the cellulosic materials at all - such being exactly their point.

Everybody I know with a vaporizer dutifully follows the instructions and grinds their pot into powder in a coffee grinder. I remember in the 1960s people trying to eat raw marijuana and it had no effect at all.

yes you are definitely better off to never smoke weed.

I have a couple of friends in their 70s who would strongly disagree. They claim that it saved their lives.

OTOH, there is no comparison to the harder drugs...robbing, committing other crimes . . . .

You're committing the classic logic error of counting the second-order effects of drug prohibition as direct effects of the drugs themselves. The only reason that drug addicts commit crimes is that the shit-for-brains government moved a popular commodity onto the black market, where prices are enormously higher, and also because they get busted and lose their jobs so they're broke. The most dangerous drug ever invented is alcohol, and when's the last time you heard of a drunk going on a crime spree to buy booze? It's legal and affordable and they all have jobs!

. . . . and a truck load of deviant perversions etc.

Dude, you've been watching waaaay too much government propaganda!

AFA the creative aspect, the greatest works of art, literature and possibly even music were done by people not under the influence of any drugs so that needs to be considered.

And you know this how? Alcoholism is and always has been quite common among artistic people. So is tobacco: that mood-leveling effect that makes it so popular can be very helpful to an artist. Some of our most beloved artists have died from the effects of licit and/or illicit drugs, including Billie Holiday, Marilyn Monroe, Elvis Presley and Janis Joplin. Many more have managed to take the drugs and not die, just like most people. As far as I know, the entire reggae canon was composed and recorded under the influence of ganja.

Eating cannabis is the only way to get ALL of the active ingredients in your body from a given sample, so the stone is greatest from eating it. In fact, eating it is a great way to experience the 'hallucinogenic' aspect of cannabis.

I've heard my friends raving about how their new vaporizers make their pot budget go a lot further, but they liked it better when they could afford to cook it.

 

[davidoblad]

My personal input..

Hi Folks..

I can only speak for myself. I started out with Cross-Tops (whites). Great fun and I got an amazing amount of work done in very short order. Only used them on weekends so never became addicted. Then I tried LSD at a concert and several times after that. Never really like the stuff, was too weird watching plants walking all over the place etc.

Then got drafted to Vietnam and assigned a guard post away from the main action. Looked to fall in with some social group, I tried the Christians. Their collective IQ's made them very boring. I then tried the Pot Smokers. They were also very boring because all they wanted to do was kick back and listen to music. So I then tried the Beer Group. Forget that! Every night was at least 4 fights and easy access to weapons. Saw more guys get shot at that club (friendly fire?) than due to enemy fire. So finally that left the Heroin Group. That drug scared me but the guys were very bright and liked Chess, Cards and Conversation. Eventually I tried the stuff, so pure that nobody injected it. Just rolled it into a cigarette and smoked it. Wow.. incredible comfort. And no obvious side effects. Also was super cheap. Did that for over 6 months. When time approached to leave Vietnam, I decided to go cold turkey.. and that scared me. But my symptoms were no worse than a common mild flu over the following two weeks. I came home clean.

Next ten years.. got married and started a career. My wife became progressively ill, sort of like a permanent PMS but no bleeding. Doctors couldn't figure it out and we couldn't have kids. She was on some heavy pain meds for several years. The change occurred when we met some neighbors that offered us some pot one night. I didn't like the stoned feeling but my wife said it helped her far more than the pain meds. So we started smoking a pipe load every night. Very soon she got completely off the pain meds and stated feeling human again. For myself, I discovered pot to be something that was easily adjusted to. Meaning the uncomfortable stoned effect wore off after a few weeks of nightly usage and was replaced with a general feeling of well being and a new appreciation for comedy TV. Then I noticed something unexpected. I was suffering from stress prior to pot. I had regular bouts with Asthma. I had Psoriasis. I had Ulcers. I had Insomnia. I had a very high stress job. After doing pot for about a month, all these ailments disappeared. I felt great and my job performance improved. Life improved all around. This went on for the next ten years.

In 2003 my wife passed away from acute diabetes, she was almost blind by then, and I became very depressed. I stopped the pot then (no withdrawals) and haven't indulged in anything since. All my stress symptoms have returned. I'm thinking about medical pot, but it feels like I would be partying without her. Go Figure..

Just my personal experience for what it's worth.

Best to all from Dave :^)

 

[Search & Destroy]

Thanks davidoblad for the post. One of the nice things about herb is the social group that accompanies it. Traveling the world I've been able to make friends with locals in nearly every city I've been to right away through grass. I see it as the fastest most direct way to meeting new interesting people. While other travelers are stuck on their lonely planet I'm on the grass ticket, placing myself in situations that most people only can dream of.

And likewise, I've gone cold turkey after years of use with no withdrawal symptoms.

 

[Stoniphi]

Welcome to the site Dave. We are glad to have you here with us.

What we call "survivor guilt" is a very common problem for survivors like you. It would be of benefit to you to get past that, and I will bet dollars to donuts that your wife would agree with me on that.

 

[Echo3Romeo]

^^ Yeah, that. And welcome aboard.

 

[SomethingClever]

hey folks. one week sober, I have some key differences to report:

-huge increase in enthusiasm for life
-tenfold increase in confidence
-much quicker minded
-no binge eating, no sugar cravings
-feel alert upon waking up in the morning
-clear eyed (and hence, much more attractive in the mirror )

not smoking weed, at least for me, is the difference between being a boy and being a man. I feel like a completely different person.

I can't guarantee these same results for everyone, because brain chemistry is so complex and varies from person to person.

for me, marijuana acts as a numbing agent. but while it numbs me to pain and loneliness, it numbs me to the best things in life as well. and if life is extraordinary, why go through it half asleep?

 

[chimpkin]

for me, marijuana acts as a numbing agent. but while it numbs me to pain and loneliness, it numbs me to the best things in life as well. and if life is extraordinary, why go through it half asleep?

I believe that's what most regular substance users who quit report.
Pain passes, loneliness is cured by people.

 

[Stoniphi]

The first blood pressure med the doc put me on did that. It was like knocking back a couple of shots of Captain Morgan before breakfast every day. Since it was a script side effect, I enjoyed it for a couple of months...until I got the constant cough side effect. Then he put me on Avapro, an angiotension receptor agonist and sodium diuretic. No more breakfast buzz, it was replaced by a frequent need to pee for a couple of hours every morning. Kinda sucks in comparison.

Oh yeah, and the copay went from $5/month to $50/month. Does keep my blood pressure around 105/65 though.

EDIT: Pain I live with, reminds me I am alive, the daily run produces enough endorphins to dull the edge on it. I don't get lonely, have many friends and acquaintances, a family and the most wonderful Yellow Labrador Retriever in the whole wide world. Being Buddhist helps with a lot of this stuff too.

 

[Echo3Romeo]

EDIT: Pain I live with, reminds me I am alive, the daily run produces enough endorphins to dull the edge on it.

Turns out it's more likely to be endocannabinoids than endorphins doing that:

In a groundbreaking 2003 experiment, scientists at the Georgia Institute of Technology found that 50 minutes of hard running on a treadmill or riding a stationary bicycle significantly increased blood levels of endocannabinoid molecules in a group of college students. The endocannabinoid system was first mapped some years before that, when scientists set out to determine just how cannabis, a k a marijuana, acts upon the body. They found that a widespread group of receptors, clustered in the brain but also found elsewhere in the body, allow the active ingredient in marijuana to bind to the nervous system and set off reactions that reduce pain and anxiety and produce a floaty, free-form sense of well-being. Even more intriguing, the researchers found that with the right stimuli, the body creates its own cannabinoids (the endocannabinoids). These cannabinoids are composed of molecules known as lipids, which are small enough to cross the blood-brain barrier, so cannabinoids found in the blood after exercise could be affecting the brain.

http://well.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/02/16/phys-ed-what-really-causes-runners-high/

 

[Stoniphi]

Intriguing article, the logic seems sound. I will be most entertained to see how it follows through. Thanks for sharing that.

 

[visceral_instinct]

I've no desire to put crap in my brain, but I fail to see why it should be illegal.

I find it fairly hypocritical that alcohol is legal when it seems to be, behaviourally anyway, more harmful. I've never met a dope smoker who started fights, drove at Mach 2 and caused crashes, or screamed abuse at random young people in the park. If you're going to make something illegal at least base that on the actual level of harm it can do.