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News :: Miscellaneous |
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Is Marijuana Harmful? |
Current rating: 0 |
by Joe Futrelle
Email: futrelle (nospam) shout.net (unverified!) |
14 May 2001
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The debate over medical marijuana is complex and will remain so even after the supreme court's ruling against it. But the political debate has clouded the scientific debate over the marijuana's effects and safety. |
The debate over medical marijuana is complex and will remain so even after the supreme court's ruling against it. But the political debate has clouded the scientific debate over the marijuana's effects and safety.
With the exception of isolated decriminalization efforts and the medical marijuana movement, the U.S. legal system treats marijuana as a dangerous drug, with harsh penalties for users, growers, and dealers.
Does it deserve this reputation? Marijuana's psychological effects have been generally found by scientific studies to be mild and reversible. It is no more addictive than peanut butter. [For my part, I must confess that PB is habit-forming, but I can happily report that there are no withdrawal symptoms other than resorting to alternative spreads.]
Smoking marijuana may very well cause cancer, but longitudinal studies are only just being able to be conducted on the baby-boomer users now reaching the age at which many cancers begin to develop. As a result, research linking marijuana smoke with cancer is not yet conclusive but there is every reason to believe that the carcinogens marijuana smoke is known to contain will soon be linked to various respiratory and oral cancers.
Follow the link to a thoroughly-researched article on this topic with a nice bibliography. |
See also:
http://www.360marijuana.com/marijuana/articles/032000.html
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