I smoke weed myself too, and I'm all for legalisation. When it comes to drugs I want people to have honest and objective information.
I don't like it when people spread anti-weed propogande, but I don't like it either when people try to make weed look good and only show the statistics that are in favour

Weed isn't healthy, period.
Sure it's physically not that toxic, and mentally not THAT harmful espeically if you do it only once in a while.
But a psychoactive substance like THC does alter our mind and throws our natural balance off to some degree.
The human mind is not meant to be under a constant or frequent influence of THC.

Anyone who smokes a lot of weed and claims it does not affect them negatively in any way is fooling himself.
It's understandable though since the changes are very subtle at first and come gradual, one usually just takes it for granted and thinks it's just who they are and never think about it thus never asociate it with weed.
But weed definitely works as a catalyst for many of our negative tendencies.
In the long run it does increase lack of motivation, apathetic, less social, more insecure/paranoia.
It also affects your cognitive functions, thought processes become more choatic, frequently losing train of thought, short term memory gets worse.
Also weed can worsen or trigger already latent mental illnesses.

And although weed is not physically addicted, one can become addicted to weed. All addictions are mental, even those of physically addicting drugs.
With most physical addicting drugs you only experience physical withdrawal for a few days, sometimes weeks.
Yet a lot of addicts start using drugs or drinking again even long after the physical withdrawal symptoms have ceased. It's the mental attachments to the feeling that makes them do it again.

Weed isn't healthy period? Can you support that with credible studies and the testimonies of the world's leading health experts as I did in the above comment?

All you've said is based off of personal experience and delusions and assumptions. It has no scientific grounding.

The only "latent" mental illness that can be triggered by marijuana is schizophrenia with children ALREADY genetically predisposed to get the disease.

None of the negative cognitive effects such as short term memory impairment persists after 6 months of abstinence. Even in heavy users.

It does not decrease motivation. That's a correlational error. Assuming correlation implies causation is a logical fallacy. (to put in laymen's terms, people who ALREADY lack motivation are more likely to get involved in drugs [all drugs, not just marijuana] there is no psychopharmological properties in the drug that decrease motivation)

This last point is just plain ignorant. A physical addiction means that physical symptoms occur when the drug is witholded such as severe nausea and stomach pain. Weed is less addictive than coffee, treats over 200 medical conditions and is still illegal... It's habit forming sure, but so is high calorie food.

Long story short: weed does not generally contribute to a persons mental well being, on the contrary.

Although many of the things I previously mentioned are not a direct result from use of THC,
anything you use that changes your state of mind also alters your judgment, feelings, and ways of perceiving things.
Every choice you make is influenced by your thoughts and feelings. Every thought you have is limited by what you're able to perceive at that time.
When someone is high he doesn't feel and think exactly the same way as when he is sober.
Everything you did made you the person who you are today. Everything you do will make who you will become.
If you're high a lot it becomes part of who you are.
If someone would smoke weed daily for 20 years he would turn out to be a different person than if he wouldn't have smoked at all.

All I'm saying is that weed does have an impact on someones life, whether for the good or for the bad is debatable but I've never seen or heard about someone who gained something with it.
And on the other hand I do see and hear about a lot of people who's life it does influence on a negative way.
These aren't just my words, I know a LOT of stoners. I hang around with a lot of stoners and all my best friends used to be stoners or are still stoners. I used to smoke daily for a couple of years too. And most of them will admit it's not good for them, but they just don't care.
Some of my best friends even admit to being addicted, they said they could see how it affects them in a bad way and announced they wanted to stop many many times. Occasionally they manage to not smoke or smoke very little for a short while but they always relapse and still smoke to this day. (2 of them used to do a lot of hard-drugs and have been able to quit all the hard-drugs yet not weed)

Cheech and Chong made millions off of people like you. They're very intelligent but used societies perception of marijuana users to make tons of money.

The reason you hear negative stories is the confirmation bias. It's a psychological concept, go research it.

There are tons of people who are incredibly successful that use marijuana. Comedians, Actors, Musicians, Realtors (yes even realtors) and much more. You are basing all of your beliefs off of YOUR perception and YOUR personal experience... and not off of science.

I'm not saying you can't be succesful or you can't be a good or happy person.
I'm just saying that people are better off without.

And my experience on the subject isn't confirmation bias at all, quite on the contrary.
I was a huge fan of all kinds of drugs and still am to some degree.
I used to defend drugs all the time and honestly believed in their potential.
I've always been interested in the many aspects of drugs and gathered as much information as possible about them.
I used to read many researches and articles particularly those that were in favour of the drug.

I didn't want to believe they have a negative psychological influence, and I still don't want to believe they do.
I wish it wasn't so, but when reality keeps getting shoved in your face it becomes hard to ignore after a while.

And yes my point of view is based upon my direct experience, and inderect experience of a lot of people that are close to me.
But you can't argue with experience, because you can research and theorise all you want but in the end only actual experience will show what it really does.

Besides, you're mostly focusing on actual biological effect of weed. I'm mostly talking about the psycological effect of drugs and how it influences someone character and shapes it in the long run.
That's not something you can measure.

If you doubt me you should smoke weed daily for a couple of years and than all of a sudden completely stop smoking weed. You'll be surprised by the positive changes that come in the following weeks, months & years.

I guarantee you you'll be more clear, more focused, more energetic, more upbeat (to name just a few things)

I dare to put my life at stake for a bet that this is true for 99,9% of the people.

One day you'll realise what I mean, I think you're a pretty smart guy you should just use your common sense a bit more.

I don't think you'll ever understand what I mean. You'd have to open your mind to the fact that you're wrong and suffering from the confirmation bias. I love how you're trying to be condescending to someone who makes their living studying/researching/experimenting with stuff like this.

It's just a bit short-sighted and naive to think weed isn't harmful at all.
I think you don't really understand the cause and effect it has on the human mind.
You're underestimating it and look at it from a very shallow angle.

You should open your eyes a bit more.

I never once said it isn't harmful at all. I said all of it's harmful effects cease to exist after 6 months of abstinence. What don't you fucking understand?

I'm not "underestimating it". I'm speaking from research of it's effects on literally 10's of 1000's of people with fMRI BRAIN FUCKING SCANS...

You are speaking from "a bunch of people you know" who IN YOUR OPINION it had negative effects on. You are fucking stupid oh my fucking god.

MRI scans don't say a lot, they only show the structure of the brain the activities of certain area's.
It doesn't imply a lot.

You can't really measure how it affects someones personality because you don't have a comparison.
The only way to compare if two completely identical persons with completely identical lifes and identical history would be analyzed where one would smoke a lot of weed and one who wouldn't at all.

It's also very short-sighted to think the harmful affects just cease to exist after 6 months of abstinence.
For instance at the end of my smoking days my short term memory was like a sieve and it gradually got better again in the course of many months, years even. But the impact is still noticeable even today after 4 years of not or nearly not smoking.

Smoking weed a lot defintely affects someones personality, and personality is not something that just changes back again. Yes, the negative effects will wear off over time but one would have probably turned out better if he didn't smoke at all.

"You are speaking from "a bunch of people you know" who IN YOUR OPINION it had negative effects on."
Not "just a bunch of people", many people that are very close to me. And not "in my opinion", most of them have said approximately the same things I have.
It aren't just my words and experience, but from a lot of people. They're also usually the reliable and honest people.
Ofcourse there are also people who claim it's not bad for them,
but these tend to be the irresponsible people who don't really look after themselves and don't want to be bothered with things that confronts them with their way of life.

You still don't understand what I mean with cause and effect and the implications it has, you keep referring back to platonic, myopic conclusions drawn from simple researches.
But you're only seeing as far as the end of your nose. Something what a lot of so called "scientists" and "experts"tend to do.

Your'e being totally ridiculous and denying scientific fact. "MRI scans don't say a lot".... are you fucking joking... God I hope so.

I'd trust your analysis of yourself and your friends of their selves if you weren't so biased and had a background in statistics and research methodology but you obviously do not.

"Simple" researches? You don't even know WHICH research I'm referring to and what the hell makes you think they're "simple".

YOU are the one who is only seeing to the end of your nose. You need to broaden your representative sample to more than a few close friends who know jack shit about psychology and medicine.

How can you claim that people who say it's not bad for them are irresponsible? How the fuck can you assume that everyone who says that "tends" to be that way without any research backing up your claims. You really need to fix your understanding of credibility.

"How can you claim that people who say it's not bad for them are irresponsible?"
I don't. I should have formulated that better. I meant out of the people I know, not actually everyone on the world.

"You need to broaden your representative sample to more than a few close friends"
A few? The amount of people I know personally that smoke weed is a 3-digit number.

Anyway to cut this conversation short, science has not succeeded in fathoming the human mind. They aren't even scratching the surface. What can be measured is only limited.
It's not the substance itself that has the most effect but it's the state of mind.
That mind-altering substances influence people is obvious and not even debatable.
Whether it is in a good way or in a bad way is debatable however. I'm not claiming to have possesion of the truth. I'm not claiming it to be necessarily bad, but it sure does look that way.

Do you really think a mind-altering drug like weed has no negative impact in the long run?
Do you really think something as intricate and complex like our mind and ego that are designed to work perfectly fine without the aid of psycho-active substances are not effected in a negative way?

Science only says so much, you neglect the psychological impact of being high constant.

1. My point exactly.

2. I doubt that highly.

3. Yes, I do think it has no negative impact in the long run IF taken in moderation. JUST AS basically everything else in the world. It has been shown to stimulate brain cell growth, relieve stress and anxiety, and improve the priming process involved in creativity. The oldest living woman (125 years old) claims (since we're relying on personal testimony) that her health can be attributed to smoking pot daily.

4. Psychological impact is something that can be measured. Your understanding of psychology is the same of the psychologists from the 70's-80's. We understand MUCH more about how genetics and biology effect personality and character traits.

I think you'll be more humble in the future when you start to realise how little we actually know.
There's always more to learn, many things haven't been researched yet.

Back in the 1800's when cocaine first came on the market it was called a miracle drug and used for pretty much anything. If you had a stomach ache, if you were nervous, if you were lethargic, if you needed energy, if you had tuberculosis, if you had asthma, all sorts of things. It was going to cure what you had. And this was how it was advertised, too. Not only by marketers who made these drinks, but by major pharmaceutical houses.
Because cocaine was "proven" to work for all of these.

Just like you're claiming a lot of things that are "proven"

Yes but you're acting like the biological influence on psychological behavior from medicine is some unheard of witchcraft and it's far from it. I think you're being far too humble.

Marijuana has been in use for over 1,000 years. It's been studied for almost as long. If it were as bad as cocaine we would have found out by now. These "studies" TODAY are not like the "studies" back then. "PROOF" demans actual research that is reviewed by countless other researchers.

You're denying observable fact. Sorry.

You remind me of myself when I was younger, I used to say the exact same things about weed.

I think you'll understand me after a bit more experience.

lol that's cute. I'm over halfway to earning a Ph.D. in medical psychology, but ok.

Not to hate or anything, but you accuse him of making statements without proof, can you prove that you are actually getting your doctorate?

Not without disclosing personal information on the internet. Aside from my education every single fact that I've provided has had a credible source beside it.

I know a lot of people who smoke a lot of weed and every single one of them would be better without.
In fact I liked them better before they used to smoke so much.
I see the same pattern emerging in everyone that smokes a lot of weed.

Although the changes might be minor, they're never in a positive way.

This is just your personal opinion. Just because you don't like someone's changes doesn't mean their negative. What you said has not scientific basis.

With negative I mean those sympoms I mentioned in previous comment (#131)
I don't think people consider those symptoms as something positive or neutral, I think we can all agree on that.

It's just just an observation I made, I've got nothing to gain with convincing people that weed is bad.
In fact, I always did the opposite, but you can't argue with experience.
It's more reliable than some numbers taken out of context from so called biased experts and their sponsered researches.

That would make sense if marijuana in it's natural form were patentable. Think about what you just said. If a University or Scientific Journal had some sort of sponsorship wouldn't it be in SUPPORT of the pharmaceutical industry rather than against it.......

You guys are thumbing me down but no one has refuted what I said. Why would the pharmaceutical industry pay someone to support a medicine that would put them out of business? Marijuana, according to Francis Young, DEA Judge, is more therapeutic and safe in it's natural form, and therefore not patentable.

You can't patent a weed.

Glad to read this since the main candidate to the french election (even if he sucks, but let's not talk about politics) is thinking about legalizing it.
Scientific studies about that kind of things are always interesting.

Thinking about quitting smoking, and I'd like to use some of that stuff as a way to get my lungs back to an healthier state (combined with some sport of course) .

My mistake, it's not really about legalizing it, it's about decriminalizing it. But yeah, doesn't change anything of what I said :3

Yea, trust the obscure chinese university.

Marijuana doesn't have physical addictiveness, it has mental. It has effects on the personality of the individual. You ever known someone to quit pot? Becomes stressed and it reflects on his personality.

Inhaling any kind of smoke has a negative effect on the lungs. Smoke is basically burnt particles in the air.

For every 1000 asprin taken, there is maybe 1 joint smoked, that statistic requires a base number.

Certain medical conditions have been known to be exasperated by smoking pot, it has been known to cause increase epileptic seizures, severe depression and anxiety when off of it, negatively impacts vertigo, and can cause longer damage from the dulling of pain effects of ignoring an injury... i.e. back pain then thinking you can move a refridgerator cause it isn't hurting due to the pain dulling.

Almost everything is natural, its just harvested and processed. Salvia is natural and can cause halucinations, Peyote is also natural, and even asprin when eaten directly from plants.

A lethal dose of salt is 100 grams for an average human adult... everything and anything can have a lethal dose. Of course, the THC content in joints based on plant type is completely different. THC just has a less negative effect on the body, but can severely effect the brain in ways we haven't fully understood yet including inducing a temporary psychosis that has a long lasting effect.

I smoke pot now and then, but I won't delude myself into believing the negative effects of it also.

1. Yes I will trust a study that was published in a peer reviewed journal. If a whole community of scientists think it's valid enough to publish, so do I.

2. It's not addictive, it's habit forming. Just like high calorie foods. Is McDonald's illegal? Does it have any health benefits? Marijuana does have health benefits and is illegal. Logic.

3. That's my point, smoke is bad for your lungs, marijuana is not.

4. There are over 50 million active marijuana smokers in the US alone. You have no source for your for ever 1000 aspirin there is 1 joint smoked and the "base number" claim is false.

5. It has not increased epileptic seizures. Numerous fMRI studies have shown that it has reduced seizure symptoms in both people with epilepsy and Multiple Sclerosis. When off of it it does not CAUSE severe depression and anxiety, it simply means that the marijuana is no longer treating these symptoms so they are returning. The thing about the back pain can be said for any pharmaceutical pain killer, which are responsible for much more addiction and death than marijuana. Point invalid.

6. Almost everything is natural? No pharmaceutical drug is natural, otherwise it would not be able to be patented.

7. The long term "psychosis" effect is another false claim. NONE of the negative side effects of marijuana are present within 6 months of abstinence, even in heavy users, contrasting to alcohol which negative effects last for years.

Learn something about research and statistical methodology before arguing further.

(1) Peer reviewed is just another way of saying that a bunch of people who have similar opinions agrees with it rather than dissenting facts to prove it otherwise. There are peer reviewed journals that also discuss the negative facilitates of marijuana.

(2) Never debated its illegality, frankly don't care. I believe all drugs should be legal regardless of its effect. Addictions typically have a physical reaction when off the drug. Marijuana has been known to cause physical and mental reactions from getting off of it.

(3) Last I checked the most common method of delivery of THC was inhalation.

(4) Where did you get the number 50 million? If someone smokes one joint when they were 15, does that mean they are apart of that number? My point was that there are no exact numbers and I say 1000 for every 1 joint smoked because aspirin is used more often worldwide even in countries where marijuana is severely restricted than marijuana.

(5) So then you agree that MRI studies have shown that marijuana has a physical effect on the brain. Epileptic seizures are in some cases induced by stress on the body, when off marijuana it leads to an increase in stress and an increase in seizures... of course unless you are going to spend the rest of your life high all the time.

(6) Yes almost everything is natural, it can be found in nature. Otherwise it wouldn't exist. Oh did you know there is a marijuana pill that is patented?

(7) Long term psychosis effects have been known to happen although not as severe as other drugs, the fact is marijuana has an effect on personality just not as strongly as other forms of drugs. There has been known negative side effects of marijuana INCLUDING depression, anxiety and panic attacks. Refusing they exist is delusional. They might not be as prominent as the negative effects of cocaine or other harder drugs, but they do exist to a lesser extent.

Statistical methodology shouldn't be used. Its just Statistics.

1. No. Peer Reviewed means that a community of scientists verify the credibility of the research being done by examining their research methodology. The very purpose of peer reviewed scientific journals is to try and dissent facts. Nice try though.

2. None that last for more than 6 months, as opposed to alcohol, which is legal, and has not medical benefits. You would propose that all drugs be made illegal but you've never suffered a serious illness that could benefit from said drugs so your opinion is biased and uninformed.

3. Are you implying that that somehow means marijuana causes cancer. Just because more people smoke it doesn't change the fact that the SMOKE is what causes the cancer, not the marijuana.

4. No, look up the definition of active. I got my number from a documentary produced in collaboration with over 100 studies and 20 leading health experts. Your number is a random guess.

5. Yes I do agree, It's a positive effect though. If you need medicine to prevent seizures then yes, why not be high all the time? It's not dose dependent and has no serious negative effects. It can be taken in the form of a capsule with no exposure to smoke. What's your point.

6. No, there have been marijuana compounds that have been extracted and synthesized and then patented. Marijuana in it's natural form cannot legally be patented. You're really making yourself look stupid now lol.

7. Again, this is an empty claim with no credible source to back it up. I don't need to address it any further.

You're just throwing bullshit assumptions and flat out lies out there.

Research and Statistical Methodology IS Statistics. It's how they are found accurately. Are you literally retarded?

No i'm high and got bored with /b/ and just started pulling shit out of my ass.

Wow, you just trolled the shit out of me and I fell for it.

There is one thing Ive learned about this site discussing certain things. Everyone is a 15-19 year old pot smoker who thinks they know everything.

I'm actually in school for Medical Psychology working towards my Ph.D.

Xia Zhang is the guy carrying out the research, the university was in Canada!