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Marijuana: Facts, Myths, and plain old Stupidity.

LogGrad98 said:
Speaking of not being valuing anyone's opinion but your own, you epitomized that in your response. My response was my opinion. My opinion that his opinion is no greater than anyone elses and had no more substance or validity than anything else posted in this thread. You summarily dismissed it. If an opinion is not immediately recognizable as being hyperbollically pro-weed it is not worth considering. Hypocritical much?.
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Not at all. There's a qualitative difference in our respective posts.

You've dismissed his motives and conclusions, more or less asserting that people who smoke and enjoy weed (for Dave Ballou) only talk about its other beneficial properties to hide the fact that they only smoke weed because they're immature and hedonistic. I was only dismissing your ignorance (how could you possibly know if what he's saying is true?), which is appropriate.

People have been consuming cannabis for thousands of years for various reasons. Like you, I appreciate many things when not under the influence of cannabis, but my appreciation of those things is fundamentally different when I am under the influence of cannabis. How could you possibly know what his (or my) experience is like? Is it not possible that many people consume cannabis for medicinal and/or other therapeutic reasons? Is it not possible that Sagan's expressed views on the subject are well thought out and, for him at least, true?
 
And, I have no problem admitting that I enjoy smoking weed. Enjoyment is reason enough to continue smoking (with appropriate qualifications, of course).

With that said, I see no reason why I should feel compelled to pretend that cannabis doesn't have other side effects/benefits. It does, and countless people over the age of 14 can attest to that fact.
 
Unless, of course, you were being sarcastic. In that case, disregard my dim-witted posts. I'm a gullible fool.
 
From yesterday's USA Today:

https://yourlife.usatoday.com/healt...ng-may-more-than-double-crash-risk/50774786/1

In their study, Li and his co-authors assessed information from nine prior studies in six countries looking at marijuana use and motor vehicle accidents.

The studies looked at different time frames, with some assessing marijuana use as little as one hour before driving and others looking at one year or more. According to one study cited, driving skills are acutely affected for three to four hours after use.

All but one study found a higher risk of crashes in drivers who use marijuana, and that study was a small one, conducted in Thailand, where marijuana use is relatively low.

Overall, the risk of a crash was almost 2.7 times higher among marijuana users than non-users, the authors found. And the response was dose-specific, the authors said. That is, the more marijuana smoked -- in terms of frequency and potency -- the greater the likelihood of a crash.
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No need to comment really, as most people (including me) concede that it's not a good idea to drive high. With that said, the following passage (the meaty part) is a bit worrisome:

Even as alcohol use has decreased over the past four decades, illicit use of non-alcoholic drugs, such as prescription medications and marijuana, has increased, said Li, a professor of epidemiology at Columbia University Mailman School of Public Health in New York City.

A large U.S. survey in 2009 estimated that more than 10 million people aged 12 and over had driven while under the influence of illicit drugs in the previous year. And testing has revealed that 28 percent of drivers who die from a crash and more than 11 percent of drivers in general test positive for drugs other than alcohol. Marijuana is the most commonly detected drug in drivers after alcohol.
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1. What is included in "drugs other than alcohol"? From the first paragraph, I'm guessing this would include prescription medications. With that said, given the pervasiveness of prescription drug use/abuse, 28% isn't necessarily a particularly high number. What percentage of the total driving population would test positive for "drugs other than alcohol"?

2. THC is fat-soluble, so, unlike in the case of alcohol and other "drugs" (I'm not sure about certain prescription medications), one can test positive for THC weeks after the effects of the drug have worn off.

3. Have these studies controlled for age? Young people tend to get in more accidents (whether under the influence or not). They also tend to consume cannabis at higher rates. You would expect, absent experimental controls, to find that those involved in accidents were more likely to test positive for THC than the general population, even if THC had no effect on driving skill.
 
colton said:
From yesterday's USA Today:

https://yourlife.usatoday.com/healt...ng-may-more-than-double-crash-risk/50774786/1
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Looks like another extremely biased article trying to slant the news in their favor. Some points...

"According to one study cited, driving skills are acutely affected for three to four hours after use."

What do the rest of the studies say? If we're citing multiple studies here (the article says the info is based on 9 studies), why are we limiting the info in the article to what only one of them said?

"All but one study found a higher risk of crashes in drivers who use marijuana, and that study was a small one, conducted in Thailand, where marijuana use is relatively low."

Ah, so there is actually evidence in the studies referenced in this article that marijuana driving is not more dangerous. But we can disregard that evidence because marijuana use is "relatively low" (whatever that means) in Thailand. Nice spin job. I guess since marijuana use in Utah is also "relatively low" marijuana driving is not more dangerous in Utah either.

"However, one expert cautioned against inferring too much from this study, which was not designed to capture cause and effect.
"We can't really say yet that marijuana increases the risk by two or three times," said Chuck Farmer, director of statistics at the Insurance Institute for Highway Safety in Arlington, Va. "Most of their studies pointed to a very strong bad effect of marijuana on driving, but there are other studies out there that actually go the other way."

Bingo. Too bad this is just a small blurb at the end of the article, similar to the really fast talking at the end of drug commercials or the fine print in a contract. If this was really supposed to be an unbiased article, it would have included the other side of the argument as well. Instead it just mentions at the end that there is another side to the argument. I guess that fools people into thinking it's a "fair and balanced" article.
 
Here is some good info:
https://data.opi.mt.gov/bills/2009/Minutes/Senate/Exhibits/jus16a17.pdf
a blurb
"The most meaningful recent study measuring driver "culpability" (i.e., who is at fault) in 3400 crashes over a 10-year period indicated that drivers with THC concentrations of less than five ng/mL in their blood have a crash risk no higher than that of drug-free users."

And if you want the other side of the argument (other side of the article posted by Colton):
https://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=7459

"A 2001 study evaluating the impact of marijuana intoxication on driving proficiency on city streets among sixteen subjects reported essentially no differences in subjects' driving performance after cannabis administration, concluding: "Performance as rated on the Driving Proficiency Scale did not differ between treatments. It was concluded that the effects of low doses of THC ... on higher-level driving skills as measured in the present study are minimal."[23] Similarly, a 1993 trial funded by the United States National Highway Traffic Association (NTHSA) evaluated subjects' driving performance after cannabis inhalation in high-density urban traffic. Investigators reported, "Marijuana ... did not significantly change mean driving performance."
 
LOL at bashing others sources as biased and then using pro-weed sites for your research. Hypocritical but not surprising.

But whatever that's expected.

Even one puff of a joint can put you above the limits in that study. And certainly smoking a whole joint on it's own will put you well above safe-driving limits (5 ng/nl in blood according to that study). So that study and I are on the same page in that smoking weed affects your driving.

So thanks for helping the cause there, Sport.:p
 
CONAN said:
LOL at bashing others sources as biased and then using pro-weed sites for your research. Hypocritical but not surprising.

But whatever that's expected.

Even one puff of a joint can put you above the limits in that study. And certainly smoking a whole joint on it's own will put you well above safe-driving limits (5 ng/nl in blood according to that study). So that study and I are on the same page in that smoking weed affects your driving.

So thanks for helping the cause there, Sport.:p
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How do you know how much THC will be in a person's blood from one puff (or a whole joint- which most pot smokers don't usually smoke anyway)? Do you have a study that documents this or are you just making crap up like usual?
 
SaltyDawg said:
How do you know how much THC will be in a person's blood from one puff (or a whole joint- which most pot smokers don't usually smoke anyway)? Do you have a study that documents this or are you just making crap up like usual?
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It's from the study you posted, Einstein.:D
 
CONAN said:
It's from the study you posted, Einstein.:D
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Where does it say one puff is enough to put a smoker over the limits in that study? I think you are making crap up again.

Just so we're clear, the five ng/mL limit in that study doesn't mean just because you aren't identical to a drug free user then you must be dangerous. It's not saying you are dangerous above that level, just that drivers at that level are the same as drug free drivers.

The top of page 4, right column, says:

"In blind ratings, police officers rated drivers with a BAC of 0.08% as more impaired than those who had taken moderate to high doses of cannabis, and driving instructors rated subjects with a BAC of 0.04% as impaired, whie those who had consumed a dose equivalent to 7 mg of THC were rated as unimpaired."


Bottom of page 6, left column:

"...suggests that a serum of THC concentration of 12-16 ng/ml may correspond to the same accident risk as a BAC of 0.05% [12]."

So even though it is saying 5 ng/ml is the same risk as drug free people, it is also saying significantly higher concentrations than that are not much more of a risk, and similar to legal alcohol limits.

Page 6, right column, talks about how much THC smoked translates into how much shows up in the blood. I don't see anywhere saying 1 puff puts you over the limit in the studies. It has too much for me to waste my time typing verbatim here, but I will post this excerpt:

"... a male weighing 70 kg and smoking a THC dose of 19 mg will, after 3 hours, present with a a serum concentration of 4.9 ng/ml..."

Not sure where you are seeing that 19 mg = 1 puff, but please point it out so I can understand where you are coming from. Or if you're just making crap up again, I guess it should have been expected.
 
LOL at posting a study and not even reading it. You posted it but now you want me to hold your hand and sift through it. Nice. You're lazy.

The point is that there is a level where smoking weed affects your driving in a bad way. We've said it all along in this thread and your study even says it.
 
CONAN said:
LOL at posting a study and not even reading it. You posted it but now you want me to hold your hand and sift through it. Nice. You're lazy.

The point is that there is a level where smoking weed affects your driving in a bad way. We've said it all along in this thread and your study even says it.
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I'm not asking you to hold my hand on anything. I'm asking you to stop making crap up and claiming it's true. I read the study and posted the relevant parts that debunk what you claimed.

Yes, I know there is a point where marijuana affects driving in a bad way. I have said that from the beginning. My point is that limit is so high most pot smokers don't normally hit it, and it is not a significant enough problem to justify keeping marijuana illegal. There is a point where too much of anything will affect driving in a bad way, it doesn't mean it should automatically be illegal.
 
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