_swag-ology_

bluntess:

fidelity-and-fortitude:

lightslowflameshigh:

Before you roll your eyes and think about how stupid this is going to be, I urge you to keep an open mind.

Try to forget what your fourth grade teacher told you during DARE. Try to forget what Officer McGhee told you at the middle school drug assembly. Stop thinking about what you’ve been told by people with no basis for their claims, and pretend you’re learning about this for the first time. Here is a list of common, misguided arguments made against marijuana use by misinformed people, compiled and answered by me, with help from past scientific studies, statistics, and personal experience.

“Potheads say it’s good for you because it’s natural, but [insert harmful plant here] is natural and definitely not good for you.”

First of all, the “pothead” argument is not that it’s good BECAUSE it’s natural. Marijuana has lots of benefits, ranging from relieving nausea/vomiting, restoring a lost appetite, preventing blindness in glaucoma patients by regulating eye pressure, stopping the spasms caused by Multiple Sclerosis, helping to prevent Alzheimer’s by thwarting inflammation caused by microglia cells, and reducing the size of cancerous tumors in people with the type of brain cancer, glioblastoma multiforme, among MANY others. The fact that it is natural is an added bonus; it’s something you can enjoy while knowing that it’s just a plant.

“But heroin and cocaine come from plants too!”

Yes, exactly, “come from” being the operative phrase here. Heroin and cocaine and other plant-derived drugs have to go through myriad chemical processes in order to get to a usable drug form. Marijuana grows just like any other plant, no additional chemicals involved.

“Well marijuana has over 400 chemicals IN it!”

You know what else has hundreds, and often THOUSANDS of chemicals in it? Pretty much every plant in the world, because all living things are full of chemicals. Humans included.

“It makes you stupid/kills brain cells/destroys your short term memory.”

None of the above are true. People got the idea of it killing brain cells from a study done in 1980 where structural changes in the hippocampus were found in TWO MONKEYS, but this experiment was later heavily criticized for its poor structure. Later studies were done on the same breed of monkey, and even seven months after an entire year’s worth of exposure to the equivalent of 5 joints a day, there were no changes in brain structure, cell size, cell number, or synaptic configuration. Essentially, marijuana causes short-term memory loss only WHILE high.

“It’s a gateway drug.”

This one is simple. Marijuana is the most widely used/accessible drug around. Of COURSE people who are going to try other drugs will have most likely smoked marijuana first. But it doesn’t mean that everyone who smokes is going to turn to other drugs, and most users of hard drugs started with alcohol and tobacco [usually before the legal age] before ever smoking marijuana. The biggest logical fallacy here is people not understanding that correlation ≠ causation.

I have never in my life pressured someone to smoke or made fun of them for not doing it, and neither have any of my stoner friends. It is 100% a personal choice, but I want you to respect my choice to smoke the same way I respect your choice not to.

Here are some great sources to learn more about the myths that are perpetuated, and the economic benefits of marijuana [as well as the amount being thrown away by the war on drugs]:

http://healthland.time.com/2010/10/29/marijuna-as-a-gateway-drug-the-myth-that-will-not-die/

http://www.economist.com/node/13237193

http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/view.answers.php?questionID=000235

http://www.abovetheignorance.org/

http://stopthedrugwar.org/

Even if you personally have no interest in smoking, I also suggest you try to learn a little more about the societal misconceptions [e.g. stoners are lazy/burnouts/losers/idiots who don’t want to do anything with their lives, etc.] about marijuana. Talk to a friend who smokes. Talk to an acquaintance who smokes. Talk to someone who used to smoke but doesn’t anymore, or talk to someone who has never smoked but is thinking about it.

What I really mean is, talk to people about it. Don’t take what you’ve been spoon-fed your whole life and believe it without knowing any of the science behind it, and without knowing what marijuana has done to improve life in some way or another for someone you care about. Don’t make assumptions, question everything, and learn.

In regards to the part about killing brain cells and the monkeys, the original study found that giving the monkeys marijuana killed their brain cells, but they wouldn’t tell anyone how the study was being conducted. Later, when they finally released the information, it was found that they were strapping gas masks on the monkeys and pumping the equivalent of 63 joints through them, without additional oxygen, for 5 mins at a time, over a period of 6 months. Of course the monkeys started dying and had a loss of brain cells, but it wasn’t from the marijuana itself, rather that the monkeys were essentially being suffocated. Fuck the government.

Let it be known.

(via lysergiic)