The Marijuana Debate
- Thread starter TLDR20
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Field sobriety tests, test motor skill impairment, such as a diabetic who has not taken his insulin, a boxer after a sparring session or me after a WOD when I have not had enough to drink. They are a far cry from a breathalyzer style test, that shows actual blood alcohol levels. @pardus I stand corrected. According to the article you linked to, there is a time when the blood levels can be high enough to show immediate use and intoxication. It did not, however, say if a field blood test was available. My question stands.
Reed
From USA Today:
From WPTV:
Referencing my earlier post, it's not Colorado who's been using the roadside swab test, it was LA. From the Southern California Public Radio website:
Does this even remotely answer your question?
5 nanograms of THC in the bloodstream is easy to achieve based on what could be stored in the fat. It has nothing to do with actually being currently under the influence. According to the article the @pardus posted 110 to 140 nonograms show actual recent use and intoxication. The swab test only shows use, not level. Field sobriety tests do not show level or even use. They are all stop gaps. I'm willing to bet that accurate forms of testing current THC intoxication in the field are in the works since more states may start to decriminalize the use of Marijuana.
Reed
If you had read the entire articles, it addresses the issues of how differently amount X, in this case 5 nanograms, affects different users, as well as how long term use can establish a tolerance.
Here's a question: If someone has used pot within the last three hours, would you or would you not look for a way to test for intoxication? Would you, or would you not be suspicious that the person is high, in the same way that if you could smell beer, you would wonder if the person had an alcohol buzz (not necessarily piss drunk, just a buzz)?
My opinion is that if you can test for proof of recent consumption, then I would couple that with a roadside sobriety test to demonstrate impaired ability or a lack thereof. No matter where your body stores the marijuana (i.e. fat soluble vs water soluble), the presence of certain metabolites can indicate recent ingestion of the particular substance. It's the same way that urine tests looked for the recent use of spice. While it is not actual THC, it is a cannabinoid, and certain metabolites will be present if you have recently used the drug.
Someone who's going into insulin shock is not going to have the metabolites present that would indicate recent ingestion of THC. That's going to come down to excellent training, and officers who find themselves in such a situation using their brains. Situational awareness.
Stop using big words! I have a headache. Not saying the stop gaps can't work, I'm just wondering if a foolproof field test to determine actual current level of intoxication, such as we have with BAC is coming. There is no argument here, why is everyone trying to argue? Ugh.
Reed
Reed
While BAC is a good indicator of how much alcohol is in the bloodstream, the level of intoxication for a certain amount is different for different people. A skinny waif of a girl who doesn't drink but twice a year and blows a 0.08 is going to feel it a lot more than a 6' tall, 250lb functioning alcoholic who blows a 0.08; hell, he could be showing signs of withdrawals. It's the same with pot, and those who build up a tolerance. Five nanograms is going to affect people differently. Establish proof that they ingested, measure amounts vs. exhibited level of impairment. Use judgment until a precedent has been set.
I don't think of it as an argument, rather a spirited debate amongst peers.
It was in reference to the overall harmfulness of mj.
I don't want to parphrase @JBS , so adjust if I am off here- you were trying to establish the overall harm of mj, and were using the info you had on harm to adolescents as some sort of support to that claim. I inferred you meant to say, "If we legalize mj, adolescents will be at greater risk because they will have more access, and here are the studies to show that it is, in fact, harmful."
Adolescent usage shouldn't enter into the discussion. We're talking about legalizing it for adults, not selling it at Walmart next to the Doritos. I don't think it unreasonable to believe that similar safeguards/ restrictions in place for alcohol or tobacco will also apply to mj. As for kids getting their grubby paws on the drug, no one uses that argument to consider banning alcohol or tobacco, but curiously they use it to ban guns or place greater restrictions on firearms.
If we're talking about second hand smoke, again...why doesn't that argument apply to tobacco?
We can't go down one path without going down the other.
Honestly, if states are so fired up (haha!) about legal weed and how that will impact society, let CO and WA act as test cases. In 2-3 years everyone will see those states as either cutting edge or ground zero for the apocalypse.
If we're talking about second hand smoke, again...why doesn't that argument apply to tobacco?
We can't go down one path without going down the other.
Honestly, if states are so fired up (haha!) about legal weed and how that will impact society, let CO and WA act as test cases. In 2-3 years everyone will see those states as either cutting edge or ground zero for the apocalypse.
Scotth
Verified Military
Back in early 2000's we had a study in Minnesota and it said that for high school kids, it was easier to buy a bag of weed then it was to buy a pack of cigs
It comes down to whether weed is anymore harmful then alcohol and whether the government should regulate it.
As a life long non-smoker of any kind and a life long drinker (at least from 15). I have seen the destruction caused by drinking and from general drug use.
Nobody is not using weed because it's outlawed or any more likely to use because it is legalize. Weed just doesn't have that stamigimation that other drugs have.
Drug use is a societal issue but at least IMHO collect what you can in sin taxes to support the cost of the issue because today we aren't collecting anything.
It comes down to whether weed is anymore harmful then alcohol and whether the government should regulate it.
As a life long non-smoker of any kind and a life long drinker (at least from 15). I have seen the destruction caused by drinking and from general drug use.
Nobody is not using weed because it's outlawed or any more likely to use because it is legalize. Weed just doesn't have that stamigimation that other drugs have.
Drug use is a societal issue but at least IMHO collect what you can in sin taxes to support the cost of the issue because today we aren't collecting anything.
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Don't worry about kids having more access to weed, worry about the doctors shoving ADHD medication down every kids throat. If I had a dollar for every kid that walked into my recruiting office, and checked 'yes' to ADHD medication....
I would rather any kid in America smoke weed than be blasted with the slew of prescription medications they currently are receiving.
I would rather any kid in America smoke weed than be blasted with the slew of prescription medications they currently are receiving.
Thought I pretty much explained it already.
Blood samples are not done in the field unless it's a forensic investigator or a CS tm collecting evidence at a scene, or someone, usually post mortem.
The diabetic condition is easy enough to validate, verify and confirm. As for it happening, yes it does. And not very often.
They are not "Stop gaps"
Until NIK, CMI or any other companies develop clinically proven and medically recognized instruments as an accepted "Standard", those procedures for showing "LEVEL OF IMPAIRMENT" have been in place for years, and will be until.......
Unless you've ever been trained and certified for impairment recognition, detection, testing, you would know there is no "Magic Bullet"
Go back and re-read my post.
There's your answer.
I'm posting the study more to support my claims that MJ damages the human brain, not necessarily as an argument for-or against legalization. In other words, I made the claim, and it was undercut as unfounded opinion. Well, much of the content of my post are opinion, but they are not misinformed. Marijuana as is most commonly consumed damages the brain. When, how, how much, at what age, all that is open to further study.
But this thread, and many thousands of conversations on the internet that I've briefly scanned over the years, and occasionally read all talk about marijuana from the post-stoner-age perspective that marijuana causes only mild, temporary euphoria (or something a few shades short of that), and that it's completely harmless- virtually free of side effects worth caring about, and that's total bunk. Fact is it harms the brain in exactly all the ways I said it does earlier in the thread, or at least there is solid clinical, peer-reviewed published evidence to support the claim that it does. I guess I'm just saddened that we even have to post studies verifying what I thought most of us all shared as an almost universally common high school "stoner kid" experience. Do we or do we not all remember 2 or 3 pot heads from our youth who served as a good example of why we shouldn't smoke weed?
It seems we have two schools of thought:
- A: Virtually harmless good fun, safer than alcohol, can't see a problem with it, "why do uptight (fill in the favorite hate-on-group-du-jour) always go after this drug?"
- B (which is where I come from): Weed is bad for you, bad for the population of the United States, harms the brain, causes permanent memory loss, and overall reduction in what amounts to cognitive function. Permanent, irreversible, and probably directly proportional to the quantity of the drug consumed/used
- Marijuana May Disrupt Brain Development http://www.livescience.com/5298-marijuana-disrupt-brain-development.html (Summary: Journal of Psychiatric Research, led by Ashtari, New York State; 14 subjects (heavy marijuana users) and 14 controls; used brain imaging)
- Marijuana Use in Adolescents Causes Permanent Brain Abnormalities (Summary: Published in Neuropsychopharmacology, Led by Keller & Mullins Raver, University of Maryland School of Medicine; ""This study is an example of how the basic science research taking place in our state-of-the-art laboratories can impact human health and inform health policy," says E. Albert Reece, M.D., Ph.D., M.B.A., Vice President for Medical Affairs at the University of Maryland and John Z. and Akiko K. Bowers Distinguished Professor and Dean of the University of Maryland School of Medicine. "We are proud of this groundbreaking discovery and look forward to watching this research develop further. "http://www.livescience.com/5298-marijuana-disrupt-brain-development.html
- Marijuana Causes Drop in IQ ( Proceedings of National Academy of Sciences; "Recent reports show that fewer adolescents believe that regular cannabis use is harmful to health. Concomitantly, adolescents are initiating cannabis use at younger ages, and more adolescents are using cannabis on a daily basis. The purpose of the present study was to test the association between persistent cannabis use and neuropsychological decline and determine whether decline is concentrated among adolescent-onset cannabis users. Participants were members of the Dunedin Study, a prospective study of a birth cohort of 1,037 individuals followed from birth..."; http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/28/does-weekly-marijuana-use-by-teens-really-cause-a-drop-in-iq/
- Teens Who Smoke Pot Damage Their Brain (Northwestern University Feinberg School of Medicine in Chicago)http://www.nbcnews.com/health/teen-pot-use-could-hurt-brain-memory-new-research-suggests-2D11741988
- Marijuana Causes Brain Damage ( Dr. Marc Seal, from Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute ) http://www.news.com.au/national/marijuana-causes-brain-damage-study/story-fndo4eg9-1226446908221 (study included 92 people)
For every one study above that anyone cares to dismiss out-of-hand, I'm certain at this point I could post two or more legitimate University, or medical research group peer-reviewed studies to replace it, each one supporting the understanding that marijuana smoking causes brain damage.
Adolescent usage ABSOLUTELY should enter the discussion.
It's also a studied phenomenon that open public discussion of marijuana as though it is safe, good as medicine, etc. leads to greater use (per widespread, controlled polling across the country) among juveniles.
We don't watch Jonah Hill and Snoop and all these other popular comedians (if I sit here I could think of 50 others) and movie stars on the big screen passing a bottle of whiskey, do we? They aren't passing around a lighted Marlboro, are they? Most popular culture comedy flicks today feature youthful stars associating smoking marijuana and getting high as cool, harmless, etc., completely without consequence. Who watches those movies? A large percentage of those films are watched by adolescents.
Just as an example, take a look at Jonah Hill's awards (at least a dozen or more "Teen Choice Awards"):
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Jonah_Hill
The legalization of marijuana is not comparable to legalization of cigarettes, alcohol, or any other controlled substance, because these other substances presently do not have the backing of popular culture.
Cigarettes are definitely not "cool" anymore, but alcohol is glorified as much if not more than recreational marijuana use. I will use the popularity of the Hangover movies as exhibit A.
Seriously? That might be one of the most baseless comments I've seen in a while.
Who owns Ciroc?
Who owns Belvedere?
Who touts Ace of Spades?
Do these guys also reference weed in their songs? Yes. But saying one doesn't have the pop-culture backing that the other does is simply incorrect.
I can name one country song where a reference to MJ is made. Want to know how many I can name that reference alcohol?
As goon175 pointed out, movies are very much the same.
To be fair, I can name two: "I'll never smoke weed with Willie again" by Toby Keith, and "Sunday Morning Comin' Down" by Johnny Cash.
I was speaking personally. I guess I'm not as hip as I imagined...
