Last updated : November 18, 2024
Oregon, Washington, Alaska, and Colorado allow recreational pot and nineteen states permit medicinal use in some form. Everyone is entitled to an opinion, but it appears a lot of folks pushing for across-the-board legalization haven’t done their homework, opting instead to believe myths over facts. Ignorance isn’t really bliss, and when you’re talking weed, mistaking myth for fact can have nasty consequences.
Let’s pull off those rose-colored glasses to take a cold, hard look at Ms. Mary Jane. We may find she’s not the harmless hippie chick she claims to be. Just ask the experts at the National Criminal Justice Reference Service.
Marijuana is harmless
The debunking starts right here, at ground zero. Whatever your definition of harmless happens to be, ours doesn’t include any substance proven to introduce some pretty significant problems—health, safety, learning, and social. Did you know, for example, that college students who use pot heavily can’t concentrate on or absorb information as well up to 24 hours after they last used? Or that ganja affects the brain much the same way as cocaine, heroine, and alcohol, disrupting everything from the flow of neurotransmitters to time perception and coordinated movement? While you’re aiming for that mellow high, weed might be steering you toward depression or a nice panic attack by way of increased anxiety. It raises blood pressure, can exaggerate mental health issues, make it dangerous to operative heavy machinery and vehicles, and cause your brain to shrink. Sounds wonderful, doesn’t it?
Marijuana isn’t addictive
Nice fantasy, but the facts are, as far back as 2002, some 4.3 million ganja users already exhibited behavior that meets the American Psychiatric Association’s criteria for dependence. These days, 1 in 11 adult users meet those criteria, which would include:
- needing more and more to get high and not getting the buzz if you stick to the same dose
- withdrawal symptoms—anxiety, irritability, insomnia, and aggression, for example
- using the drug despite unpleasant side effects
- dropping out—who needs friends, work, sports, etc.?
Because it doesn’t have the gripping effects of “hard drugs” like opiates, many people mistake that for the drug not being addictive. One use might not be enough for everyone to get hooked, but good luck rolling the dice. Like the munchies, most people find that one use turns into more and the mistaken belief that you can’t be addicted often leads to that very problem.
Marijuana isn’t a gateway drug
If that’s the case, how do you explain the fact that kids who play with Mary Jane are statistically more likely to try their luck with other drugs? That’s not something from an anti-marijuana group; it’s according to Rolling Stone Magazine! Once you’re dependent, forced to reach higher for the high, you can suddenly find yourself a short, slippery step away from looking for the boost in other, even more dangerous places. It’s often the easiest drug to find and for users, it’s not much of a leap once you’re already using one illegal drug to experiment with more.
Marijuana doesn’t cause cancer
Really? When the amount of tar and carbon monoxide inhaled with each puff is two to three times that of your average cigarette? Have enough long-term studies been done on a large enough sample size of the population that you’re willing to take the chance? Plus, you might want to consider the bronchitis and other respiratory issues we know marijuana users risk. Just because some people use it to combat symptoms of cancer treatments doesn’t mean it’s completely safe to smoke or ingest.
Marijuana can’t earn you a DUI
Au contraire, mon frère. As far as the law and science are concerned, your brain on pot is eerily similar to your brain on booze—less alert, less able to concentrate and make judgments, slower to react. Which is why traffic fatalities involving pot have gone way up in states like Colorado, for example, where weed is legal. Fatalities have risen some 40% in the Centennial State—and that figure would no doubt be considerably higher if testing were done in every case.
Bottom line, marijuana isn’t even close to benign. It wasn’t in the swinging 60s and is even less so now, seeing as how today’s weed is way stronger than it was back then. Stronger, as in the amount of active ingredient per dose doubled between 1993 and 2008. Thanks to selective breeders, it will grow even more powerful in the future.
Now that some of the wacky weed myths have been dispelled, what will you do with the information? Ignore the facts or explain them away if you wish, but it won’t change the truth.
