Do you think marijuana is harmless, potentially helpful to some people or a harmful drug to many?

Similar questions: marijuana harmless potentially helpful people harmful drug.

Not harmless, but no more harmful than any other pastime, and potentially helpful to some people. I wouldn’t go so far as calling it "harmless". Inhaling any kind of smoke has negative health effects, although marijuana can be consumed other ways.

When you’re stoned, your reaction time is lowered (no driving, please), your memory is hobbled, and your judgment may be altered. There are also some psychological effects from regular use that last after the immediate effects have worn off, although they’re gone within a few weeks or months of cessation. But you can come up with a similar list of cons for almost anything that people find enjoyable, from sex to alcohol to skiing and video games.

The existence of negative effects doesn’t necessarily mean that the act should be outlawed, or even discouraged. It just means you have to weigh the negatives against the positives, and even if the positive is only "it keeps me from being bored and makes music more enjoyable", that might be enough for you. I might decide on my own that football isn’t fun enough to be worth the risk of breaking my ankle, but I’m not going to tell someone else not to play football if he likes it, because fun is subjective.

Furthermore, the risk of addiction to pot is comparable to the risk of addiction to exercise or shopping: it can become a strong habit, but it’s still not something your body physically craves like alcohol or nicotine. As for helping people, it’s easy to find cases of people finding that pot helps them maintain their appetite and prevent nausea during chemotherapy (even better than THC pills, which have harsh side effects and are difficult to dose properly), or relieve pain that would otherwise require a more expensive, more addictive drug. If it helps people, I think it should be allowed for their medical use.

Surely we’re not so backwards that we have to ban a useful medicine just because some people enjoy taking it. Sources: opinion .

WOW, that's a toughie! That's so difficult to answer because it's situational. Objectively, you could talk about the documented side effects, like these: From nida.nih.gov/Infofacts/marijuana.html: "Marijuana abuse also has the potential to promote cancer of the lungs and other parts of the respiratory tract because it contains irritants and carcinogens9,11.In fact, marijuana smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke12.

It also induces high levels of an enzyme that converts certain hydrocarbons into their carcinogenic form—levels that may accelerate the changes that ultimately produce malignant cells13. Marijuana users usually inhale more deeply and hold their breath longer than tobacco smokers do, which increases the lungs' exposure to carcinogenic smoke. These facts suggest that, puff for puff, smoking marijuana may be more harmful to the lungs than smoking tobacco. " This is a pretty long page of negative impacts.

You could probably shrug many of them off since the page is clearly biased against marijuana, but I think it's a pretty overwhelming list to shrug the whole thing off. Then again, things come in all sorts of packages, and this is a good example. There are those who clearly benefit from marijuana use (medicinal), which says something important right away - we don't exactly fight for "medicinal" use of crack cocaine.

I'm conflicted on this one. I'd never use it myself because I'm a minimal-intervention guy. I won't even take aspirin unless it's REALLY serious.

I have TERRIBLE allergies but I refuse to take remedies for them, I just live with it. But I also think it's wrong to dictate to others what they should do. I like beer, wine, and especially hard cider.

You could argue about the supposed benefits to the heart of red wine, but I don't think I've heard anybody argue that hard cider was good for you. =) As long as you're not harming anybody else, I'm reluctant to shake a finger at other peoples' vices. You could argue that marijuana smokers do harm the people around them in various ways (withdrawing from relationships, stealing money to support the habit, etc. ), but those are implied threats that are found in almost any vice.As long as alcohol and tobacco are legal, I can't see tut-tutting somebody else's choice of vice.

Absolutely Like so many things in this world, the drug itself is not harmful. It is how it is used or abused that can make it potentially harmful. I think it is a shame that a drug that has been found to have useful effects for people with sertain conditions is withheld, mostly because of a bad reputation.

There are many stronger and easier to abuse drugs prescribed regularly, or even sold over the counter! Not to mention other legal drugs such as alcohol, nicotine, caffeine and more that people use and abuse on a daily basis. I am not an advocate of making marijuana as easy to buy as a pack of cigarettes or a 40 ouncer but I am opposed to witholding it from people who could potentially benefit from its use.As a mind altering, substance I do not want to see it sold in gas stations and party stores because, as I mentioned, there are already too many harmful products out there.

Like all things there are health drawbacks but for some the pain relief properties are very effective. So far it seems to be only psychologically addictive, not to say that this is not significantly, but physical dependency is a much worse situation. As far as legal opinion I feel that it should be legalized.

This is a victimless crime as long as it is used in a responsible manner. Individuals should be held responsible for their behavior, not controlled. Drawacks: query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=... Sources: opinion .

NO IT IS NOT BENIGN All drugs affect all people in different ways ,for different reasons. So , for the first part it is not harmless depending on the user,for the second part it could be helpful to some as it is a drug but this sword has a double edge and can cut both ways,and for the third part it is harmfull until it is available legally under the approval of a physician . If one is not altered by one afliction or another they should not need psychoactives just for the heck of it Sources: MY opinion- stay within your own right mind if you don't need to alter it .

I cant really gove you an answer,but what I can give you is a way to a solution, that is you have to find the anglde that you relate to or peaks your interest. A good paper is one that people get drawn into because it reaches them ln some way.As for me WW11 to me, I think of the holocaust and the effect it had on the survivors, their families and those who stood by and did nothing until it was too late.