Things that make you go Hmmm

[Touch Of Death]

I think the original post shows one thing and one thing only - Statistics can be produced to support any point you want.

You need to remember that yes 13 people died playing high school football. However, what portion of these were attributed to poor and\or incorrect use of safety equipment and pre-existing medical conditions?
How many of these deaths were actually due to the fact that they were playing football and how many were due to other factors??

There is one thing that is true. Sport is good for you. Perhaps there are things that could make sport, and in this case High School Footbaly, safer but no one can argue that children that participate in sport are not healthier than those who don't.

The pot comments i believe are also incorrect. It does not take into account the number of people who have died from lung cancer caused by smoking (in this case pot). It does not take into account the number of people who develop schizophrenia as a result of pot use and either end up in a mental hospital for the rest of their lives or end up commiting suicide.

All drugs have side effect - even the pain killers we commonly use. The difference between controlled drugs (that you get at a chemist etc) and those that are currently illegal (pot, coke, ice etc) is that the side effects of the illegal ones are extremely harmful to the human body and also cause behaviour that is harmful to others or to the user.

At the end of the day the original post is just a use of statistics to prove a point. Any high school student would be able to do such manipulation. Plus 70% of statistics are made up anyway - 45% of people know that!!

While I believe Pot can make a schizophrenic more schizophrenic, I'm not sure it cause life long schizophrenia. On the other hand a boderline case will get worse; I have no doubt.
Sean

 

[TheOriginalName]

While I believe Pot can make a schizophrenic more schizophrenic, I'm not sure it cause life long schizophrenia. On the other hand a boderline case will get worse; I have no doubt.
Sean

I'm not sure what the medical world says regarding this - and i'm sure there is some debate all i can do is tell you what my experience is.
My ex-wife's cousin developed schizophrenia approximately 6 months after starting to use pot. There was no family history of any type of mental illness - thus my conclusion is that it caused the development of the condition. That is not to say that he was not suseptable to developing it anyway but it given the family history i would say that he would not have developed it if it had not been for the drugs.
Unfortunately his condition led to him taking his own life at the age of 21.

 

[Gordon Nore]

Now I have never been an advocate in the legalization of marijuana and this article does not make me change my mind but I have to admit it is something to think we need to re-evaluate High-school sport for safety reasons

I think passage as quoted creates a false dichotomy between risks of high school football v marijuana use. Note, my emphasis below...

If the risks of smoking marijuana are coldly compared to those of playing high-school football, parents should be less concerned about pot smoking. Death by marijuana overdose has never been reported, while 13 teen players died of football related injuries in 2006 alone

I was only able to find the the first few paragraphs for free viewing on the Psychology Today, but I see the author's comments about marijuana v football as part of an argument about our ability to assess risks. She writes...

Still, uncertainty unbalances us, pitching us into anxiety and producing an array of cognitive distortions. Even minor dilemmas like deciding whether to get a cell phone (brain cancer vs. dying on the road because you can't call for help?) can be intolerable for some people. And though emotions are themselves critical to making rational decisions, they were designed for a world in which dangers took the form of predators, not pollutants. Our emotions push us to make snap judgments that once were sensible—but may not be anymore.

The way I see it, she's talking about our perception of immediate risks, not long-term risks. I think most parents would be pleased to report that their children are participating in organized sports rather than toking up -- that seems quite reasonable. As a number of people have pointed out, the odds are pretty long against getting killed in a high school football game. Similarly, just because someone lights up a joint doesn't mean that they're going to drop dead any time soon. It's an emotional response.

Now, as far as the marijuana discussion goes...

The gateway effect theory of marijuana has been debated for decades, as Telner pointed out. The thinking is that the young marijuana user, seeing no negative effects from smoking up, raises the stakes to more addictive and dangerous drugs. The same can be said of alcohol or nicotine addiction. Many of the dangers associated with using these substances don't manifest themselves for years. AA is full of people who blacked out and puked on their first drunk and kept coming back for more.

I think the gateway effect makes more sense when one broadens the list of substances to include not only marijuana, but also alcohol and tobacco, perhaps caffeine as well.

Then we get to the question of legality. I think many people see decriminalization (or full legalization) of marijuana as tacit approval of its use. Personally, I don't. I don't think the public health and well-being is served by having different castes of addiction. I honestly believe the money would be better spent treating drug abuse as a health issue and not a criminal justice issue.

 

[tellner]

We can certainly say that alcohol and tobacco are more physically addictive and that they are, without a doubt, much more physically harmful than hemp. The "gateway drug" theory is shaky and largely rests on the fact that hemp is currently illegal. To buy hemp one often enters into contact with criminals who sell other illegal substances. More contact means more chance of consumption. If it were decriminalized or legalized that would be less true.

Even if the fact were established there's an alternative explanation that doesn't make the prohibitionists look terribly good.

In the "Just Say No" system of education where all illegal drugs are treated equally there is a lot of scaremongering about hemp. A lot of it is, if not actually a pack of lies, deliberately misleading. When kids find out that hemp is not what they had been told they are more likely to disregard the warnings about other more dangerous substances. It might encourage experimentation with other drugs precisely because it is illegal and lumped in with them.

 

[Xue Sheng]

I think passage as quoted creates a false dichotomy between risks of high school football v marijuana use. Note, my emphasis below...



I was only able to find the the first few paragraphs for free viewing on the Psychology Today, but I see the author's comments about marijuana v football as part of an argument about our ability to assess risks. She writes...

Thank you and I do appreciate it but I really don’t care one bit about the marijuana bit and at this point wish I never included it.

 

[Gordon Nore]

We can certainly say that alcohol and tobacco are more physically addictive and that they are, without a doubt, much more physically harmful than hemp. The "gateway drug" theory is shaky and largely rests on the fact that hemp is currently illegal. To buy hemp one often enters into contact with criminals who sell other illegal substances. More contact means more chance of consumption. If it were decriminalized or legalized that would be less true.

Even if the fact were established there's an alternative explanation that doesn't make the prohibitionists look terribly good.

In the "Just Say No" system of education where all illegal drugs are treated equally there is a lot of scaremongering about hemp. A lot of it is, if not actually a pack of lies, deliberately misleading. When kids find out that hemp is not what they had been told they are more likely to disregard the warnings about other more dangerous substances. It might encourage experimentation with other drugs precisely because it is illegal and lumped in with them.

I agree absolutely, Tellner.

Xue Sheng, sorry for taking the thread further astray.

 

[Touch Of Death]

I'm not sure what the medical world says regarding this - and i'm sure there is some debate all i can do is tell you what my experience is.
My ex-wife's cousin developed schizophrenia approximately 6 months after starting to use pot. There was no family history of any type of mental illness - thus my conclusion is that it caused the development of the condition. That is not to say that he was not suseptable to developing it anyway but it given the family history i would say that he would not have developed it if it had not been for the drugs.
Unfortunately his condition led to him taking his own life at the age of 21.

This is anecdotal evididence so it is inductive reasoning to assume from this case that Pot caused anything. And, late teens and twenties are the most common time for someone to come down with the illness; so, its really a toss up.
Sean