
Marijuana may be even safer than previously thought, researchers say - Libertatea
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/02/23/marijuana-may-be-even-safer-than-previously-thought-researchers-say/
======
Someone1234
I've never been a user, but I do support legalisation.

The reason I support it even though I myself wouldn't benefit is:

\- It is at least as safe as tobacco and alcohol. So even if we leave the
question of what is safer on the table, I think most people would agree based
on available evidence that it isn't LESS safe than those two, and they're
legal.

\- The "war on drugs" has been a disaster. It has actually hurt economic
growth, you have too many people in jail for trivial things, you leave a black
mark on their file almost indefinitely making them unable to get a [good] job,
you isolate them from society, you further push people into criminality, and
the benefits of it are not clear if you ignore moralist arguments.

\- We gain tax money from it being legal AND drug users aren't funding pretty
horrifying criminality in countries like Mexico and Columbia.

\- It has been shown to help with certain medical conditions (e.g. chronic
pain, PTSD, etc). And while much more research needs to be conducted, it might
be easier after legalisation as the permits needed are much easier to get.

However I will say my support for legalisation dropped quite a lot after
reading how lightly "weed" users take smoking and driving. A lot of them seem
to do it now and don't consider it a big deal, which I take a pretty dim view
of. Unfortunately there isn't a very reliable test to see if someone is under
the influence of anything other than alcohol.

People who drive under the influence of any mind altering substance (be it
alcohol or weed) should have their driving privileges taken away or for repeat
offenders they should literally go to jail for a period. It endangers their
lives and the lives of other people on or near the road.

~~~
madaxe_again
Agreed on the whole driving bit - but commensurately, whenever I'm in the US,
I am _astonished_ by how casually people drink and drive.

Don't think it's a stoner problem, more an inconsiderate dickhead/cultural
problem.

~~~
Someone1234
I agree. People are far too blasé about drinking and driving in the US. It
also seems like the punishment is often fairly light for the first few
offenses (e.g. a small ticket, no penalty points, or similar).

People from the US I've spoken to often claim this is because in some areas
not having a car is pretty unworkable due to a lack of public transport or
alternatives. So if driving was revoked then people could get "stranded" at
home (e.g. the nearer store is a 10 minute drive away on roads with no
sidewalk).

I think if they're unwilling to revoke people's driving, then waste a bunch of
their time. People car much more about their time than their money, just force
people to take a full day weekend class even on the first offense and make it
three weeks worth or more on the second attempt (you can fine them also).

~~~
ssharp
If you get a DUI, even for the first time, you're going to spend at least a
night in jail and rack up several thousand dollars in fines and attorney fees.
I don't think first time DUI's are a felony in most of the U.S., but you're
going to get points on your license and it's going to cost you long-term with
insurance as well. The penalties aren't damning, but I'm not sure I'd call
them "light" either. Many states also having shaming laws in place where you
have to get a different colored license plate on your car if you've gotten a
DUI.

You're right in that in that for most of the US, not having a vehicle is
crippling. Many first-time DUI offenders have their licenses suspended but are
allowed work privileges to avoid them losing their job.

Also, in my state, first-time offenders are often sentenced to either spend
three days in jail or take a weekend class, so at least in Ohio, they're doing
exactly what you're mentioning.

The only serious issue I see with making DUI laws somewhat more strict is
knowing whether or not you're too impaired to drive. Groups like Mothers
Against Drunk Driving have successfully lobbied to effectively force States to
reduce the blood/alcohol threshold that's often used to distinguish
impairment. I really have no idea how many drinks I can have within a given
time frame and still know I'm legally not considered drunk. I've heard enough
instances where people test right at, or slightly below, the threshold and get
arrested and they say they felt their driving wasn't impaired at all. So I am
left with no choice other than to arrange other transportation, or drink what
I feel is a limited enough to make me not impaired.

~~~
bri3d
DUI plates are an interesting idea, but they're only used in Ohio and
Minnesota - I had no idea they existed until I read your post!

------
trose
I can't help but feel that statistic they're using is a little disingenuous.
Yes cannabis has a ridiculously high lethal dose, more than you could ever
smoke or consume. You'd basically have to create a concentrate and inject it
directly or something.

I don't think you should be saying that cannabis is 114 times less deadly than
alcohol. There are other contributing factors that could cause harm. There
seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke for
example. I'm an avid user of cannabis but I dont think we need to go around
pretending like there are no side effects and its completely harmless.

~~~
DanBC
> There seems to be no research into carcinogenic qualities of cannabis smoke
> for example.

We know that cannabis smoke contains a bunch of the same carcinogens as
tobacco smoke. But tobacco smokers smoke a lot more than cannabis smokers; and
you don't have to smoke cannabis.

~~~
spacemanmatt
Do we really know that? I mean, it stands to reason that combustion produces
carcinogens, but cannabis is not tobacco. I think this is one of the basic
assertions that must be validated by quantitative analysis.

~~~
anigbrowl
Cannabis is thought to have an anti-carcinogenic effect, which is neat, but
you'd still be at risk for emphysema and other kinds of lung diseases just
from the physical impact of the smoke. Edible cannabis seems a lot safer in
that respect but of course it's harder to gauge the dose, it's longer-lasting
due to the different metabolic pathway, and it doesn't have the instant
gratification of smoking. On the up side you won't have to worry about toting
an oxygen cylinder around.

~~~
Raphmedia
Vaporization.

~~~
anigbrowl
I was going to include that but I don't really know whether or not it's safer
- inhaling cleaner but hotter vapor also strikes me as potentially
problematic.

~~~
Raphmedia
It is safer. When you vaporize, you (hopefully) only vaporize the molecules
that you want. The machine should be set at a temperature that is low enough
to vaporize only the THC and CBD. No carbon, no icky tar, no lighter fluid. It
is even better if you can vaporize an extract.

You begin with the plant, extract the molecules that you want, and then
vaporize said extract. Filter this vaporization through water since the
molecules that you want aren't water soluble. This also cools down the
vapours.

It is a lot safer than blindly setting a plant on fire.

The downside is that you will pay a premium in order to get quality medicinal
extracts and you will need to invest money ($500+) in order to get a decent
vaporizer.

Source: I am no expert, but I have family members that use cannabis as a legal
medication.

------
discardorama
While I agree that the headline is click-baity, and the stats are a bit
suspect, I _still_ want to see headlines like these in the mainstream press,
because it raises questions about why MJ is classified as a Schedule-I drug
after all?

I'm not a smoker (maybe once or twice a year, at most?). But the blatant lying
by the government (that MJ has _no medicinal value and is more dangerous than
meth_ ), which flies in the face of science, _and_ the governments prohibition
on research, really bothers me. Are we a theocracy? Shouldn't we let science
inform our decisions??

Edit: gah! I meant Schedule-I, not Schedule-III ! Edited.

~~~
mycroft-holmes
Unless I'm mistaken, marijuana is a Schedule I drug.

[https://www.google.com/search?q=schedule+1+drugs&ie=utf-8&oe...](https://www.google.com/search?q=schedule+1+drugs&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8)

~~~
masklinn
You're correct, schedule I is "high potential for abuse, no accepted medical
use and unsafe to use even under medical supervision".

Schedule III would be "less potential for abuse than I and II, accepted
medical use, abuse may lead to high psychological dependence or low to
moderate physical dependence"

(Schedule II is for high abuse potential and severe physical or psychological
dependence drugs which nonetheless have accepted medical use e.g. cocaine,
amphetamines, morphine).

A problematic side effect of I is that being allowed to study them is
extremely difficult, so getting enough data to move a drug from schedule I to
schedule II is near-impossible.

~~~
shawabawa3
> schedule I is "high potential for abuse, no accepted medical use and unsafe
> to use even under medical supervision"

I think even the most vocal marijuana opponents would agree schedule 1
classification is insane. Stricter control than cocaine? Really?

~~~
mycroft-holmes
Yet it's legal to smoke, with a license, at our nation's capital.

~~~
ska
I don't think anyone, regardless of their own take on the issues, would argue
that current drug policy in the U.S. is internally consistent.

~~~
mycroft-holmes
True. I wasn't necessarily trying to imply that anybody does. It was more to
illustrate that we live in one of _those_ countries now. In most of the US,
you could get thrown into jail but it's fine as long as you're where all the
politicians are.

~~~
discardorama
> but it's fine as long as you're where all the politicians are.

Though, to be fair: the DC MJ laws were changed by the voters of DC, despite
threats from Republicans to repeal that law. The Congress did not vote itself
a puff-puff-pass law.

Also: you cannot toke up in the federal areas of DC (a large chunk of DC is
under the feds, including national parks and monuments), despite what the DC
law says.

------
madaxe_again
Decided to feed the rage centres of my brain and read the most replied to
comments in the article.

Apparently every joint smoked causes four pregnancies. By this math, everyone
please, give me a pat on the back, I've repopulated a small city. I suppose my
lowered testosterone and enhanced aggression have made me super-virile, and
I'm causing parthenogenesis all over without trying.

Thing is, I don't know how you can even begin to argue against that level of
stupid. Scientific fact and rational discourse don't work.

You may as well try to convince a lamp post of the validity of deontological
ethics.

~~~
rprospero
That does make for some interesting math. For instance, there's about four
million children born each year, so that gives us an upper bound of about a
million joints consumed. The penal system seems to regard about thirty grams
as the unit of scale, so the total mass would be 30 Mg. According to their own
website, the DEA seems to seize about an average of 400 Mg of marijuana a
year.

So we now have a lower bound on production (400 Mg) and an upper bound on
consumption (30 Mg). Clearly, production has greatly exceeded demand, in
violation of basic micro-economics. Thus, the statement there are four
children born for every joint smoked is one of the greatest refutations of
capitalism you can imagine. Everyone who believes it should be issued a free
Che Guevara t-shirt to show their disdain for free market enterprise.
Similarly, anyone who supports the war on drugs should preferentially hire
jobs candidates wearing Che Guevara t-shirts in order to avoid hiring those
pot heads.

------
guelo
As a programmer I'm very protective of my higher level brain functions.
Marijuana's effects on short term memory are especially concerning to me. Do
any of you long term smokers feels like it has affected your programming
skills for the worse or better?

~~~
jMyles
Everyone's mileage varies - you'll find no shortage of people who lament the
long term effects (although abstinence for even a month or so seems to cause
complete reversal).

For my part, smoking cannabis is great for me, especially for programming. I
find both that I feel more focused and that I am more capable of juggling
multiple tasks. The "listener" in me comes alive, and I'm better able to
empathize with the author who, three years ago, wrote the class from which I'm
inheriting for a slightly different use case.

Sometimes I spend the morning under coffee's spell, writing really great
tests, to then get as high as I want and spend the afternoon making them pass,
with the aesthetic sensibilities from some high-quality indica powering me
through ensuring that my code is readable, reusable, and maintainable. Even if
I get a little too high, I always know that the tests I wrote will keep me
tethered to a more grounded demeanor.

However, the effect of the herb that I most treasure is that just a little bit
of weed tells me what I so often forget: that I need to get up and go for a
walk to get some real thinking done.

Sometimes the reefer also tells me other things about my habits: I've had too
much coffee. I was too hard on a colleague or friend earlier. I need to stop
fussing and just merge that pull request.

After smoking fairly consistently for 13 years, I seem to be blessed by having
no negative effects of which I am aware. I think it's just a great plant and
part of a healthy, whole-food-and-drugs lifestyle.

~~~
zwieback
just curious - were you high when you wrote this?

~~~
jMyles
No I wasn't, but while writing it, I came to desire it, and so now, as I write
this, I am! :-)

------
JoshMilo
It's legal here in WA and we haven't had a problem with it being "unsafe".
These articles kind of remind me about articles on coffee/wine. One day
they're bad for the heart, the next day they boost heart health. I think these
types of articles are why we have those anti-vaccine people.

------
existencebox
I may not be doing the article justice, but it seems a bit misleading how this
is presented. The title reads almost like "science clickbait" and there's a
lot of talk about "safe" and "lower risk" but the study seems to only have
actually computed lethal dose. This is an almost entirely useless statistic
from my perspective, and by presenting it as justification for any sort of
"safeness" seems almost deceptive. They do nod to this with a small section on
the other impacts of use, but it seems heavily deemphisized when compared with
the core message.

Here's hoping I'm just reading this wrong and looking for the worst possible
interpretation; I just worry that when presented without an even hand that
these sorts of statements will only impede the goal of more reasonable drug
policy and culture.

~~~
ertdfgcb
Wether you're right or not, I've noticed that a common clickbait title
strategy is to make sure that the title is _technically_ correct. In this
case, a higher ld50 would mean weed is "safer" in the sense that it's harder
to overdose. But it's already nearly impossible to OD on weed so that doesn't
really mean much, and it certainly isn't what the title implies. This way,
when you read it and the article is different than the title it almost feels
like your fault for interpreting the title in the wrong manner instead of
theirs for push an article about something few people care about.

------
MBlume
Cannabis has a ridiculously high LD50, everyone knows that. When I think "is
cannabis safe" I'm not wondering if I'm one day going to smoke _so much weed_
that I keel over dead, I'm wondering if habitual marijuana use would lower my
IQ/damage my lungs/etc.

~~~
Synaesthesia
Vaporizing is healthier than smoking, or consuming it orally. It won't reduce
your IQ, that's never been proven. The effects of cannabis are varied. Memory
is affected, the degree to which it is affected can vary greatly and depends
on the dosage, your tolerance and context. This is while on the drug.

Once your are sober, your memory functions pretty normally and isn't affected
much by occasional use.

------
LordKano
I don't smoke but I don't care if you do.

Because of my field of work, I am subject to drug testing and I like my job so
I don't partake but it really doesn't matter to me if someone else wants to.

It doesn't make any sense to me to spend billions of dollars every year to try
to stop people from obtaining and ingesting a plant.

Even if it were a deadly poison, it still wouldn't make sense to me.

For example, if drinking Hemlock infused tea were to became fashionable and
people were dropping left, right and center from it, I would still think it's
absurd to spend billions of dollars to stop consenting adults from doing so.

Since it makes no sense in that case, I have not heard a convincing argument
for prohibition of a much less harmful (and often helpful) plant.

~~~
mod
Well, the most-touted argument that I experience is, in a nutshell, that the
danger of marijuana that people care about is the danger to others (driving
impairment).

Nobody seems to care that alcohol is legal.

Honestly, though, I don't encounter any die-hard anti-marijuana people
anymore. Most people don't care. I don't, either. My father says he doesn't,
but says he'll vote against it anyway. Go figure.

------
techmarketerguy
The real kicker is that even the slim chance of "unwanted mental health
effects" could be reduced without removing the substance's pain and
inflammation-relieving properties, if the US Gov't would simply allow the
plant to be researched for pharmaceutical purposes.

~~~
hga
_Suspected_ "unwanted mental health effects" include full blow permanent
schizophrenia. (Emphasis on suspected, for we know there's a lot of mental
illness self-medication with psychoactive drugs starting with alcohol.) That
strikes me as making it very hard to do ethical research of the sort you're
positing.

~~~
anigbrowl
That's a reasonable point, but marijuana use is already prevalent enough that
you could probably recruit a statistically significant number of existing
users with little difficulty and track the incidence of mental ill-health vs.
a control population.

~~~
hga
Per my other comment in this sub-thread, my concern there is that the
experimental group will still be getting whatever it is that's bad, and in the
context of "unwanted _permanent_ mental health effects" of _recreational_ use
the experiment would be unethical.

On the other hand, with the recent state-wide decriminalizations we're
"conducting" a rather while uncontrolled experiment right now that ought to be
able to yield better data on the biggest concerns, although that sort of
epidemiological research is really, _really_ hard, and few are unbiased.

------
crystaln
The graph chosen here, the ratio of a toxic does to a typical dose, is a poor
proxy for actual risk. For instance, cocaine has a relatively high risk of
causing heart problems at "non-toxic" doses. GHB has a low ratio of deadly to
recreational (though not so low that it's unmanageable,) yet is one of the
safest recreational drugs.

This is similar to the British health leader's announcement that MDMA was
safer than alcohol, entirely based on how much likely someone was to die, as
opposed to other potential negative effects like neurotoxicity.

I'm a support of full drug legalization, and agree that most drugs are far
less harmful when taken properly than alcohol. It would be great to see less
obtuse statistical analysis of risk.

------
yellowapple
I'm not sure if that's a particularly good graph; I can't get my brain to
_not_ think "Hey, look at how big cannabis is on that scale; it's obviously
the most dangerous!". I can't even find where in that article it's specified
what those numbers actually mean. The only thing I have is an assertion by the
graph that a higher number equals lower risk, which seems backwards; a _lower_
number equaling a lower risk would be less nonsensical.

------
cowsandmilk
Don't see what is surprising in this article. I don't know anyone who claims
you can easily consume enough marijuana to kill yourself. On the other hand,
alcohol poisoning resulting in death is a well-known phenomenon.

When people discuss the "dangers of marijuana", they aren't saying you will
take a lethal dose. More typically, there are either claims of impacts on the
brain, or claims that it is a gateway to potentially lethal drugs like cocaine
or heroin.

~~~
fnordfnordfnord
>When people discuss the "dangers of marijuana", they aren't saying you will
take a lethal dose. More typically, there are either claims of impacts on the
brain, or claims that it is a gateway to potentially lethal drugs like cocaine
or heroin.

It's long past time for those people to support their speculation.

------
makmanalp
Look, I'm all for legalization and all that, but the study measures the ratio
between toxic dose and typical intake. We knew this already, I thought. This
isn't the be all end all because you can get harmful effects without reaching
toxic levels. You can get lung cancer from smoking. You can have psychiatric
issues arise etc. etc.

This is a very narrow study which shows a promising result but it's not saying
"marijuana is completely safe now".

------
flockonus
"researchers" change their mind every single week. Gotta love how media
present science.

------
legulere
> the risk of death associated with the use of a variety of commonly-used
> substances.

But just looking at risk of death isn't enough. I'm pro legislation, but I
think downplaying risks does harm.

------
pdh
The chart is quite misleading, and by the introductory statement Meth may be
even safer than previously thought.

------
nope_
Insert your smoke weed everyday comment

~~~
hga
Echoing flockonus' comment, to replace the "drink everyday" thing, unless
you're a woman of age 68 or older, if my vague memory of the recent closer
look at the data is correct.

