Pregnant pot smokers can damage kids' brains

[RainDog]

119. A person with a compulsive or addictive personality

Is going to switch from one thing or another. A lot of recovering alcoholics that I know are addicted to running now. They just switch the focus.

If you look at such issues in terms of harm reduction, it IS better for the alcoholic to switch to running, because running increases dopamine levels, plus improves overall fitness.

If you look at marijuana in terms of harm reduction, it IS better for the alcoholic to switch to marijuana because alcohol can kill you, but marijuana cannot - i.e. there is no lethal dose possible unless someone finds a way to consume a third of his or her body weight at one time. The research put this at 1500 lbs of marijuana within a 15 minute period.

In terms of physiological addiction, the figure for marijuana is 9%, but the figure is skewed because it includes people who choose to go to rehab rather than jail. Yet many of these people were not using for a one month period before entering rehab. That is not the behavior of someone physically addicted to a substance.

Alcohol use is tied to domestic violence. Marijuana is not. Alcohol is tied to an increase in fatal traffic accidents. And increase (or switch) to cannabis is not.

I would be happy to talk about real risks.

But this study isn't one of them.

I think anyone with a family history of schizo-affective disorder should avoid cannabis. (At the same time, research is now ongoing that is testing CBD as treatment for schizophrenia. The THC is the potential problem, it seems.)

I don't think teenagers should use cannabis, just as I don't think they should use alcohol. We don't need to reinvent the wheel on that one - we already discourage teen alcohol use.

The dishonesty regarding this issue has resided, for the most part, on the prohibitionists' side. They need to stop lying. Because of this 80 year history of lies, however, any study that supports them is treated as a "boy who cried wolf" moment - i.e. they've lied for so long and so often that people assume they are lying whenever they speak on this issue.