Recent Studies on Pot and Brain Damage Need to be Given “Sober” Attention

Archdiocese of Washington ^ | 5/1/2014 | Msgr. Charles Pope

[markomalley]

Msgr Pope ping

[Pontiac]

It involved a glazed look, a shuffling gait, and a lethargic attitude

Sounds like me when I am rolling off of Midnight Shift.

[Berlin_Freeper]

Try vitamin B12.

[bait4719]

Rookies

[dowcaet]

Sounds more like a Democrat.

[livius]

So why would you want to get that way as recreation?

Good article. What I don’t understand is why the powers that be have used every effort to condemn and criminalize tobacco smoking, supposedly because of its health effects, and yet are enthusiastically pushing pot smoking.

I also don’t understand why entire agencies and police units spend their time trying to catch vendors selling alcohol to people under 21...while a couple of weeks ago, Colorado permitted pot smokers of any and all ages to lie around all over a main square and puff away.

The government must benefit in a big way from people smoking dope. Could it be the word “dope”...hmmm, makes you easier to control, less demanding, less energetic, dumber...

[soycd]

The stone has been cast.

[sphinx]

I tend to agree with Msgr. Pope. As a thought experiment, suppose we assumed a different attitude towards widespread testing, and routinely screened people as they applied for public assistance. What do you suppose we would find? Now suppose the testing methodology was quick, easy, reliable, and non-invasive, and we deployed it at, say, the voting booth, to disqualify people who were under the influence at the time of voting. What do you think would be the effect on the electorate?

A little birdie is whispering in my ear that we would disqualify 5.7% of the Republicans, and 42.8% of the democrats. Just made up numbers for discussion ....

The number I have seen in print over the years is that 85% of the homeless are substance abusers (and most of the remainder have some other identifiable psychiatric problem). A similar percentage of those arrested for street crimes have drugs in their systems. I very much suspect that if we tested the long-term welfare population, we would find the same tendency, possibly at lower, but still significant, levels. And while the definitional issues are trickier, I suspect that the political correlates would be substantial.

Are there people who use pot regularly and manage their lives competently? Of course. I am acquainted with a couple of them: recreational users from their college days 40 years ago who are otherwise perfectly constructive human beings, except for being democrats. But we're talking averages here. If you had to be drug and alcohol free to vote, the electorate would look very different. And if we prohibited vote harvesting among the dysfunctional elements of society, there wouldn't be much of a democratic party left in places like DC. Take drugs out of the picture, and a lot of want we used to call the counterculture would change.

I'll circle back to welfare because it is the great enabler. Drugs of abuse, first and foremost alcohol, have always been available. But serious abusers were socially ostracized, became unemployable, and tended not to live long unless long-suffering families supported them. Not so today.

[AndyJackson]

I am not certain that putting users in jail is the answer. But the legalization push that is rampaging through this country is yet another example of bad judgment.

Well, actually he is certain but won't admit his own damn bad judgment. Jailing dopers has been an abject failure as a social policy.

[exDemMom]

Why do you think Democrats “think” the way they do?

Their brains are addled by drugs!

[AndyJackson]

my personal experience with pot smokers. It ain’t cool or pretty. They just look glazed, stoned, unmotivated, and “dulled out.”

Try a bar at 1AM.

[exDemMom]

I’ve been bringing up the brain damage and carcinogenicity of marijuana every time the subject comes up. Unfortunately, there is a lot of urban legend about the safety of pot. A lot of people who really believe those legends tend to dismiss any kind of bad information about pot as some sort of conspiracy.

[I want the USA back]

So many states are “legalizing” pot. This is a guaranteed way to put the public into a stupor and take its mind off the way the government is ruining their lives.

[NYer]

Ping!

[OldPossum]

The stone has been cast.

I like that; I presume that it is a variation on "the die has been cast."

[Pearls Before Swine]

Everything is bad in excess. I wonder if any comparative studies have been done on the brains of Islamists versus more relaxed types. I’d suspect abnormalities in the portions of the limbic system involved with rage.

[Mrs. Don-o]

"Well, actually he is certain but won't admit his own damn bad judgment. Jailing dopers has been an abject failure as a social policy"

Andy: "His own damn bad judgment"? This is a remarkably offensive way to mischaracterize a man who agrees with you that jailing is a dubious way to deal with dopers. Why the hostility?

[cloudmountain]

My read is that the legislators have convinced each other that the mantra of the 60's, drugs, sex and rock n' roll, are all good things all the time.

I remember the rhetoric condemning alcohol and extolling pot. NOTHING wrong with pot. Those morons didn't convince me because I saw the effects pot had on folks.
It turned them into morons, albeit fairly happy morons.

[cloudmountain]

I’ve been bringing up the brain damage and carcinogenicity of marijuana every time the subject comes up. Unfortunately, there is a lot of urban legend about the safety of pot. A lot of people who really believe those legends tend to dismiss any kind of bad information about pot as some sort of conspiracy.

Were you around in the 60's? The entire health industry spoke about the bad effects of pot. Those doctors were called "uptight"--the final BAD remark about anyone.
Lol. Boy, am I dating myself.