is smoking weed bad? (2 Viewers)

[boris]

lol at the retards in this thread right now.

i'm going away, i'm coming back with answers aaah, aaah.

nah seriously, im gunna go away for an hour and compile a sweet response to these faggot arguments we're getting. AFTER I HAVE A FUCKING CIGARETTE NONE THE LESS.

 

[Atonofrash]

lol at the retards in this thread right now.

i'm going away, i'm coming back with answers aaah, aaah.

nah seriously, im gunna go away for an hour and compile a sweet response to these faggot arguments we're getting. AFTER I HAVE A FUCKING CIGARETTE NONE THE LESS.

oooh don't have a cigarette!

According to the NIDA, "People who abuse drugs are also likely to be cigarette smokers. More than two-thirds of drug abusers are regular tobacco smokers, a rate more than double that of the rest of the population."

 

[boris]

oooh don't have a cigarette!

nah they havent proved that smoking causes cancer, there is just a really big correlation between the two

According to the NIDA, "People who abuse drugs are also likely to be cigarette smokers. More than two-thirds of drug abusers are regular tobacco smokers, a rate more than double that of the rest of the population."

so thats why smoking has a bad reputation junkies ruin all my fun

 

[Graney]

AFTER I HAVE A FUCKING CIGARETTE NONE THE LESS.

You'll come back hooked on heroin.

 

[boris]

You'll come back hooked on heroin.

cunts, i cant find my lighter


in retrospect maybe i shouldnt have smoked those three joints when i was 16

 

[Graney]

nah they havent proved that smoking causes cancer, there is just a really big correlation between the two

Opponents, usually backed by the tobacco industry, argued (correctly) for many years that this type of study cannot prove causation, but the eventual results of cohort studies confirmed the causal link which the case-control studies suggested

 

[Riet]

Yeah but i've seen kids who have taken too much ecstasy and its not hard to imagine if they had taken a little more they theyd be in some serious trouble.

But then i guess you also have to take into account a lot of weed users smoke it pretty regularly, where most ecstasy users would be doing it weekly at most.

Depends if you're talking about MDMA or street ecstacy. It's pretty fucking hard to OD on actual MDMA. Overheating and stuff is the main cause of problems, but if you count that you have to count people doing stupid shit on weed too.

Edit: And "Pills" usually have adulterants in them.

 

[stazi]

Depends if you're talking about MDMA or street ecstacy. It's pretty fucking hard to OD on actual MDMA. Overheating and stuff is the main cause of problems, but if you count that you have to count people doing stupid shit on weed too.

Edit: And "Pills" usually have adulterants in them.

what? pills cause adultery?

so that's what made my mum cheat on my dad

 

[^CoSMic DoRiS^^]

I'd just like to point out that the ice cream analogy you guys were talking about before isn't really a good one to use for your argument because it's glaringly obvious that the hot weather is the culprit even without doing an experiment to prove it. As far as I am aware there is no such big obvious external/third factor that satisfactorily explains the correlation between marijuana and harder substance abuse, or marijuana and mental illness. Is there?

 

[boris]

Unrelated somewhat, but I found all of this in my travels.

Cannabis is sometimes said to be a gateway drug that increases the users’ probability of taking up hard drugs like amphetamine or heroin. The empirical basis for the hypothesis is the common finding that most hard drug users have started with less dangerous drugs first and that there seems to be a staircase from alcohol and solvents via cannabis and tablets to amphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

There are different causal pathways that might be the basis for a causal gateway effect in drug use (see eg., Stephen Pudney, 2003). The first is an addiction effect: use of soft drugs may create a psychological or physiological need for stronger narcotic experiences. The second is an access effect: obtaining and using soft drugs may bring the user into contact with hard-drug users or suppliers whom they would not otherwise have met. The third is a credibility effect: experience of the use of soft drugs with no obvious ill effects may appear to contradict negative publicity against the use of illicit drugs in general, so that advice against hard drugs becomes less persuasive. In addition there may be an adjustment cost effect: for some individuals consuming any illicit drug may cross a psychological threshold that makes it less costly to proceed into another drug stage.

Two recent tests of the hypothesis report that the gateway effect of cannabis is greatly reduced after taking unobserved heterogeneity into account, even to the point of not being statistically significant (Stephen Pudney, 2003, Jan C. van Ours, 2003). Other recent studies claim, on the other hand, that although the gateway effect is reduced when unobserved heterogeneity is taken account of, there is still a significant association (David M. Fergusson and L. John Horwood, 2000, David M. Fergusson et al., 2006). Hence, the core question of whether the observed sequential pattern of drug initiation is due to correlation or causality remains unresolved.

Our findings demonstrate, first of all, that the gateway effect is small in absolute terms, but larger in relative terms. The partial effects from a univariate hazard model, show that the gateway effect typically increases the probability of starting to use hard drugs by about 0.01 after controlling for the influence of other observable factors. However, since the hazard of hard drug use is very low, this small absolute increase represents more than a doubling of the relative hazard of hard drug use.

The relative gateway effect is substantial, however, as the hazard of taking up hard drugs almost doubles after the person has initiated cannabis use. For the second group – the “normal youths” - use of cannabis makes little difference to the hazard of using hard drugs.

After developing such a model, based on a bivariate discrete time hazard model with shared frailty, the conclusion from the empirical findings is that the gateway effect of cannabis is statistically significant although small in magnitude for a small sub-group of “troubled youths”. Nevertheless, within this group the risk of taking up hard drugs almost doubles after the initiation of cannabis. For most youths, however, there doesn’t seem to be a significant or large gateway effect.

Is cannabis a gateway to hard drugs? Hans Olav Melberg* Anne Line Bretteville-Jensen** Andrew M. Jones***

Mounting evidence suggests that for adolescents, the co-occurrence of substance abuse (SA) and mental health (MH) problems is the norm, not the exception. In fact, 43% of youth receiving mental health services have a co-occurring disorder substance use disorder (CMHS, 2000) and 26% of adolescents using drugs in the last year received mental health services (SAMSHA, 2002).

Psychiatric Syndromes in Adolescents with Marijuana Abuse and Dependency in Outpatient Treatment. By: Diamond, Guy; Panichelli-Mindel, Susan M.; Shera, David; Dennis, Mike; Tims, Frank; Ungemack, Jane. Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse, 2006, Vol. 15 Issue 4, p37-54,

 

[stazi]

there seems to be a staircase from alcohol and solvents via cannabis and tablets to amphetamine, cocaine and heroin.

,lol so alcohol is the actual gateway drug. still your article doesn't prove that either alcohol or marijuana actually CAUSE the user to try harder drugs such as heroin.

There is a massive correlation between salary and cocaine use. Does that mean that having more money CAUSES people to use cocaine? I'm going to try and be poor now guyz.

As for the last article, obviously drug abuse can lead to mental health problems. Mental health problems can also lead to drug abuse.

 

[stazi]

I'd just like to point out that the ice cream analogy you guys were talking about before isn't really a good one to use for your argument because it's glaringly obvious that the hot weather is the culprit even without doing an experiment to prove it. As far as I am aware there is no such big obvious external/third factor that satisfactorily explains the correlation between marijuana and harder substance abuse, or marijuana and mental illness. Is there?

the third factor could be any of:
-People who try harder drugs already have the intention to do so, and simply want something freely available to try before moving on. This sounds like the gateway effect, but is actually not as marijuana doesn't CAUSE hard drug use, but hard drug use causes marijuana uses.
-A large % of the population will experiment with marijuana. Obviously a large % of the population who do hard drugs will also have experimented with marijuana
-Hereditary factors
-In the absence of marijuana, people would have progressed to hard drugs through other means


The alcohol conundrum still exists regardless of all the other explanations, too.

 

[HalcyonSky]

The gateway theory is a joke, for me its your personality type that will determine what drugs you do and what ones you wont

 

[stazi]

as well as the people around you, and your environment.

for instance, if all your friends are dropkicks, you can fall into that hole and start hanging out with them, try the same drugs as them, suck the same penises as them, and so on.

similarly, if you're getting no money, are depressed about that, live in some rundown closet with a broken toilet and turn to drugs to cope; you may be quite likely to take harder drugs such as crack or heroin, which have high addiction rates and relatively low costs. .

 

[Graney]

As far as I am aware there is no such big obvious external/third factor that satisfactorily explains the correlation between marijuana and harder substance abuse, or marijuana and mental illness. Is there?

The big obvious external/third factor, would be the complex set of reasons people take up using marijuana in the first place.

The same thing that causes marijuana use, be that personality, environment etc... huge range of things could possibly be causes for the correlation between mental illness, harder substance use.

Things like personality and environment are hard to measure, and there is probably multiple causes for the correlation.

Why wouldn't users of harder substances have used marijuana first? This doesn't mean it causes harder substance use.

The correlation may be the other way round. People with mental illness may well be more inclined to use marijuana.

 

[stazi]

being cool leads to marijuana usage. people who are cool in school try marijuana.

therefore being cool leads to death.

 

[Riet]

# any substance that adulterates (lessens the purity or effectiveness of a substance); "it is necessary to remove the adulterants before use"
# adulterating: making impure or corrupt by adding extraneous materials; "the adulterating effect of extraneous materials"
# An unintended ingredient in a medicinal product (herb, supplement, or prescription drug).

 

[stazi]

stop ruining my jokes, riet

 

[Riet]

Food causes a feeling of pleasure and relaxation upon it's consumption, it's also extremely addictive. If a food user doesn't get a hit they will feel withdrawl symptoms such as nausea, pain and lethargy after less than a day. It's also well known that 100% of drug users eat food. Food is clearly a gateway drug.

Edit: Well I guess meth addicts and crack fiends don't eat, but they have all tried food, they probably started from a very young age.

 

[Nat3skiz]

Hahaha no stazi

Marijuana itself does not (as far as most studies are concerned) cause lung cancer. Infact the opposite.

what you mean by the opposite.