At 16:29 13/01/2004 -0800, you wrote:
Oh boy! Missed this.
Chris Reuss wrote:
Hi Ed,
> I guess I was speaking from personal experience.
Well, nobody claimed it is addictive from the first dose on. Alcohol and
tobacco isn't either, but if consumed regularly, addiction creeps in.
Also, as the "kick" begins to wear off, users tend to increase the dose,
and after that wears off too, to switch to stronger substances which are
even more harmful.
This does not occur with marijuana. If the smoker does not smoke for a day or 2 or 2 years, the "high" is the same as the first time he smoked. Also, with marijuana, you cannot exceed a certain level of high. You can, however, get a massive headache. The only time I have ever heard of anyone "hallucinating" on marijuana was when they missed a meal and were overly hungry (which means - no munchies - inconvenient times).
Many studies have also shown that there is no desire to switch to stronger substances for up to 95% of those who smoke. This would appear to be a normal situation for any population on the planet for anything that is ingested (plant or animal)(2.5% - no effect, 95% - the average effect, 2.5% - detrimental effect). So, assist those who are in the last 2.5 % but do not punish the other 97.5% for no logical reason.
Has anyone asked the researchers how much alcohol they consume per week and if they feel they are addicted to it.
The key is to nip these things in the bud. If you
were able to keep things under control, good for you -- but as the record
shows, others are not that lucky.
Who's records. The U.S.? I have known many people who experimented with other "intoxicants" and did not find them to be of interest (including crack and heroin) and never went back to them. The pleasantness, camaraderie, ability to retain functionality and clarity make marijuana a more acceptable high than even liquor.
Well said! There are a lot of myths about addiction. Tens of thousands of upper class (including the present young royalty) and middle-class people in London snort cocaine fairly regularly (such as week-ends) without addiction -- as in Hong Kong. The factual evidence for this is impossible to find, of course, but it is very clear from the grapevine. (For example, a personal friend of mine who was a lawyer in Hong Kong for many years tells me about very widespread use in Hong Kong by middle-class professionals. I have little doubt that it happens in all large cities.) Nicotine is far more addictive to the normal psychologically balanced person than *any* of the others. There will always be a drug for a segment of the population who can't manage to integrate themselves in the normal way. And there will always be something which will be made illegal so that big profits can be made and large numbers of people whose jobs depend on the persistence of the addiction. (Probably something like three-fifths of all crime would disappear if drugs were legalised and prices drop to free market prices. It would also make a huge saving in public spending of the welfare state.)
(Time and again, after a lifetime of reading newspapers, one comes to the conclusion that there are some businessmen of great [presently legitimate] wealth the origins of which are mysterious in the extreme. I can think of one outstanding example at the moment -- he's recently been made a Lord. A recent book about the mafia [the title and author of which I don't know -- but he spoke on BBC Radio 4 recently) opines that much of the mafia is organised by businessmen of great brilliance. It is far from being the crude Godfather-type family business that normally portrayed. When I lived in Coventry for the first 47 years of my life, very active in several different areas, I knew *everybody* of any formal importance in the city of 350,000 people -- in politics, business, academe, etc. I became aware, however, that there were some missing personages who were the real powers behind the scenes [although they didn't exercise it in any way that you could put your finger on]. Maybe three or four people -- no more. I *think* I met one of them once very briefly -- a woman in her 40s -- and she asked me one or two questions of such shrewdness that I became aware that there was deep intelligence there. She had a small scruffy office in the city whose business I could not identify. Her questions were actually saying to me: "Hudson, you may be a clever sod, but you've lost out. There's another world you know nothing about.". She also had a fabulous country house. She was probably mafia.)
Keith
Keith Hudson, Bath, England, <www.evolutionary-economics.org>
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