If you know me at all, you know that the senseless, expensive, misguided war on drugs is a bit of a hobby-horse of mine. Today I saw for the first time, and decided to look at what they say about marijuana.
Why pot?
Well, because it is (as streetdrugs say) the most widely used illegal substance in the world today, and because it s a (rated as dangerous as heroin, and more dangerous than cocaine). Also, because marijuana prohibition has a long political history having to do with disliking immigrants. No, really: go read (and its various disclaimers) on .
Before we go any further, here s another useful link to an article titled Now, to the
, sativa is only one of three species of the cannabis genus that qualify as sources of marijuana : sativa, indica and ruderalis.
The plant, cannabis sativa, contains chemicals called cannabinoids. THC (delta-9-tetrhydrocannabinol) is the cannabinoid believed to be responsible for the psychoactive effects of cannabis.
THC can be found in all parts of the cannabis plant, including hemp. This is why hemp is regulated carefully some hemp products such as clothing, rope, yarn, lotion and soap are legal products because they do not cause THC to enter the human body.
Would be nice if you d mentioned that the cannabinoids are also .
Not only that: in order to react to any chemical, we have to have a receptor for it, and we certainly do have cannabinoid receptors. Studies of whether we can take advantage of having these receptors by tickling them with THC seem to have promise in many areas of medicine, including treatments of and .
There are no FDA-approved medications that are smoked.
For one thing, smoking is generally a poor way to deliver medicine. It is difficult to administer safe, regulated dosages of medicines in smoked form. Secondly, the harmful chemicals and carcinogens that are byproducts of smoking create entirely new health problems.
There are four times the level of tar in a marijuana cigarette, for example, than in a tobacco cigarette.
True enough, about tar. Problems, though: (a) I have never heard of anyone smoking the equivalent of 20+ joints a day, whereas the pack-a-day cigarette habit is quite common; and (b) why doesn t anyone ever talk about in the mainstream ?
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