Some of the dangers of Cannabis include..

[True Earthling]

50. OK I'll rephrase it...marijuana is not a safe drug

I did not mean to imply that only totally safe drugs should be approved or used. I used to smoke pot regularly about 40 yrs ago..I still do occasionally but I understand the risks. There is no way I would smoke it every day or even every week. I'm also aware that the THC content is several magnitudes higher today than when I was a regular pot smoker...what used to take a joint or 2 to get really stoned only takes 1 or 2 tokes now.

There's a statement in the article posted below that carries a lot of truth IMO...

"The perception that cannabis is a safe drug is a mistaken reaction to a past history of exaggeration of its health risks," Hall told Live Science.

If your going to ingest a mind altering drug I think it's your responsibility to know as much about how that drug effects your mind & body...good or bad. I would never take the word of a user as to the safety or the effects. There's lots of unbiased research studies and corroborated information out there. It's pretty easy to find.

Marijuana and Your Health: What 20 Years of Research Reveals

http://www.livescience.com/48171-marijuana-research-health-effects-review.html

In the review, author Wayne Hall, a professor and director of the Center for Youth Substance Abuse Research at the University of Queensland in Australia, examined scientific evidence on marijuana's health effects between 1993 and 2013.

He found that adolescents who use cannabis regularly are about twice as likely as their nonuser peers to drop out of school, as well as experience cognitive impairment and psychoses as adults. Moreover, studies have also linked regular cannabis use in adolescence with the use of other illicit drugs, according to the review, published today (Oct. 6) in the journal Addiction.

"The perception that cannabis is a safe drug is a mistaken reaction to a past history of exaggeration of its health risks," Hall told Live Science.

However, he added that marijuana "is not as harmful as other illicit drugs such as amphetamine, cocaine and heroin, with which it is classified under the law in many countries, including the USA."

The risks of using marijuana

Marijuana use carries some of the same risks as alcohol use, such as an increased risk of accidents, dependence and psychosis, he said.

It's likely that middle-age people who smoke marijuana regularly are at an increased risk of experiencing a heart attack, according to the report. However, the drug's "effects on respiratory function and respiratory cancer remain unclear, because most cannabis smokers have smoked or still smoke tobacco," Hall wrote in the review.

Regular cannabis users also double their risk of experiencing psychotic symptoms and disorders such as disordered thinking, hallucinations and delusions — from about seven in 1,000 cases among nonusers to 14 in 1,000 among regular marijuana users, the review said. And, in a study of more than 50,000 young men in Sweden, those who had used marijuana 10 or more times by age 18 were about two times more likely to be diagnosed with schizophrenia within the next 15 years than those who had not used the drug.

Critics argue that other variables besides marijuana use may be at work in the increased risk of mental health problems, and that it's possible that people with mental health problems are more likely to use marijuana to begin with, Hall wrote in the review.

However, other studies have since attempted to sort out the findings, he wrote, citing a 27-year follow-up of the Swedish cohort, in which researchers found "a dose–response relationship between frequency of cannabis use at age 18 and risk of schizophrenia during the whole follow-up period."

In the same study, the investigators estimated that 13 percent of schizophrenia cases diagnosed in the study "could be averted if all cannabis use had been prevented in the cohort," Hall reported.

As for the effects of cannabis use in pregnant women, the drug may slightly reduce the birth weight of the baby, according to the review.