You pulled two hitches in the crotch? 
Posted on 01/15/2003 7:24:33 AM PST by MrLeRoy
If most parents knew there was a federally funded organization lying to their children about the effects of drug use, they would likely be appalled and seek to have the organization's funding removed. Yet the frightening truth is that such a group exists, operating under the family-friendly monicker, Partnership for a Drug Free America (PDFA). In its newest line of Public Service Announcements (PSAs), the group equates marijuana use with wrongful death, rape and even murder...crimes that sensible people realize marijuana usage alone would never lead to. Last year, the American public was misled into thinking that every joint they smoked contributed to international terrorism, and recently that using marijuana will almost certainly result in acts of domestic violence.
Lies. The "anti-drug."
PDFA's well-intentioned but inaccurate PSAs feature a variety of scenarios, each ending with someone dying, being raped or going to jail. In reality, only the latter is a likely consequence of using marijuana.
In one of the ads, two male teenagers smoke pot in what appears to be the home office of one of their fathers, and, as the two adolescents continue to smoke, they stumble across a handgun. To see if it's loaded, one of the teens promptly picks up the gun and shoots directly at his friend. The gun is, of course, loaded, and the guilty teen, totally under the "control" of the marijuana, never thought to check for bullets or point the gun anywhere except directly at his friend. The entire grisly scene is followed by the words "Marijuana: Harmless?"
If this television spot sounds totally implausible, even ridiculous, that's because it is, and the others are just like it. The ad would be better-aimed at parents who fail to lock up their handguns. The fact remains that people don't test to see if a gun is loaded by blindly pointing it at their best friend and squeezing the trigger, stoned or not. The ad's message is not simply that marijuana distorts perception and judgement, it is that if you smoke weed, you will be shot or perhaps shoot someone else. This is false.
All of these ads play on what I call a "worst case scenario" fear. The most horrible thing that can happen in any one of the given commercials always does, and, without fail, marijuana is to blame.
Another of the PSAs features a car full of young people at a fast food window smoking marijuana. The teens get their food, and as they are pulling out, a child on a bicycle pulls out in front of them from behind a corner, totally getting run over by the "negligent" driver in the process. If only the teens hadn't been smoking marijuana, the commercial implies, perhaps the little girl on the bicycle would have lived.
The fact that this child appears to be younger than 5 years old and riding a bike without parental supervision along a busy commercial fairway is never addressed. Again, the ad would better serve parents who let their children play in the street unattended. Anyone, regardless of age, who darts in front of a moving car is likely to get run over. Marijuana has nothing to do with it.
Perhaps most intriguing is the spot in which two teens, a male and a female, smoke marijuana at a party. After smoking a few bowls of weed from a pipe, the female begins to look comatose, and her male companion proceeds to rape her in front of all the people at the party. Not surprisingly, no one comes to her aid, and viewers are again asked "Marijuana: Harmless?"
Here, marijuana use leads to an impromptu rape at this poor woman's expense. Mark Tutssel, vice-chairman of Leo Burnett USA, PDFA's ad agency, said in a press release that the company's PSAs dealt with "everyday occurences." I would venture to say that none of the aforementioned scenarios occurs every day, if at all, and PDFA, which prides itself on truth, is willfully misleading the American public about the "dangers" of marijuana.
Here are the facts. The Marijuana Policy Project's Web site, www.mpp.org, lists that 11 of our 50 states consider marijuana to be a medicine and have decriminalized it. Of these states, California alone saves $100 million each year in reduced arrests, according to the group's Web site. Imagine what the extra money could do for California and how much might be saved if marijuana was legalized outright.
In fact, the Web site states that the government has been supplying American citizens with medicinal marijuana for more than 20 years. There is even a pill form of the drug, called Marinol, available only by prescription. So is marijuana the scourge of society and the corruptor of youth? The U.S. government doesn't seem to think so.
When dealing with tough issues such as drug use, one must take the good with the bad. Marijuana can arguably be said to cure more than it causes, and its medicinal qualities cannot be ignored. Could there be negative effects of using marijuana? Sure, but to think that smoking pot will almost certainly lead to accidental death, rape, or murder, you would have to be, well, high.
Cannabis Linked to Depression, Schizophrenia
LONDON (Reuters) –
Smoking cannabis increases the odds of suffering from depression and schizophrenia, doctors said on Friday.
The occasional joint may not be harmful, but people who start using cannabis in their teens have a higher risk of later being diagnosed with a psychiatric disorder and the severity of the illness is linked to the length of exposure to the drug.
"Very young adolescents who use cannabis have an increased risk for developing schizoprehenia as adults and the most at risk are the youngest users," Dr Louise Arseneault, of Kings College in London, told Reuters.
Doctors do not understand how cannabis increases the risk of schizophrenia and depression but they suspect it affects the dopamine system in the brain which is associated with pleasure.
It is thought the drug can trigger the onset or relapse of schizophrenia in people predisposed to the illness and may also exacerbate the symptoms.
In a study of 1,037 people born in New Zealand between 1972-73, Arseneault found that those who began using cannabis as teens were four times more likely to suffer from psychiatric problems as adults than adolescents who did not use the drug.
"The earlier you start, the more vulnerable you are," she said.
Her findings, which are reported in The British Medical Journal, are supported by two other studies in the magazine which found similar results.
Researchers at the Murdoch Children's Research Institute in Victoria, Australia found that teenage girls who frequently used the drug were more likely to suffer from depression and anxiety than other adolescents.
Another study of more than 50,000 Swedish enlisted men showed the use of cannabis increased the risk of schizophrenia by 30 percent.
"These results indicate a potentially serious risk to the mental health of people who use cannabis, particularly in the presence of other risk factors for schizophrenia," Stanley Zammit of the University of Wales College of Medicine in Cardiff who worked on the Swedish study, said in the report.
Schizophrenia is the most common form of severe mental illness. The cause of the disorder, which is characterized by unusual behavior, delusions and hallucinations is unknown but scientists say it affects chemicals in the brain.
It usually begins in the late teens and early 20s.
"The link between cannabis and psychosis is well established, and recent studies have found a link between marijuana and depression," Joseph Rey and Christopher Tennant, of the University of Sydney in Australia, said in a commentary in the journal.
I already rebutted this in http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/821802/posts?page=57#57, to which you did not reply; rather dishonest of you to repost it.
You pulled two hitches in the crotch?
by ROSIE MESTEL, Los Angeles Times [11/22/00]
Excerpts: MENTALLY ILL TWICE AS LIKELY TO BE SMOKERS, STUDY FINDS; TOBACCO: SPECIAL PROGRAMS MAY BE NEEDED TO ENCOURAGE PATIENTS TO QUIT, GIVEN THEIR ISOLATION AND TENDENCY TO USE NICOTINE TO FIGHT DEPRESSION, EXPERTS SAY.
Nearly half of all cigarettes purchased in the United States are smoked by people who suffer from mental illnesses, according to Harvard Medical School research.
Mentally ill people are roughly twice as likely to smoke cigarettes as those without mental illnesses, according to the research, published in today's Journal of the American Medical Assn. Not only does the habit put them at greater risk for serious ailments such as heart disease and lung cancer, but in some cases it can interfere with the effectiveness of medications to treat their disorders.
Nice find, Wolfie! By UKCajun's logic, this proves that cigarettes cause mental illness.
Reminds me of an item from a book of flubbed headlines:
SELF-ABUSE IS NUMBER-ONE KILLER
That's right! We all know that "Pot makes you a better driver," right? That's stoner logic for you.
A cretin who goes by "Hacksaw" insists that I am doing just that.
Given the fact that California faces a 35 BILLION dollar "shortfall", don't look for a refund.
I'm not so sure. Go to Costco or someother store and try to buy more than one package of cold pills and the drug warriors will show up at your door.
But you think they should get a pass because it was marijuana?
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