New: One more time - should ganja be legalized?

[franksterr]

THE HARMFUL EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA


Photo credits: Alamy

The immediate effects of taking marijuana include rapid heart beat, disorientation, lack of physical coordination, often followed by depression or sleepiness. Some users suffer panic attacks or anxiety.
But the problem does not end there. According to scientific studies, the active ingredient in cannabis, THC, remains in the body for weeks or longer.
Marijuana smoke contains 50% to 70% more cancer-causing substances than tobacco smoke. One major research study reported that a single cannabis joint could cause as much damage to the lungs as up to five regular cigarettes smoked one after another. Long-time joint smokers often suffer from bronchitis, an inflammation of the respiratory tract.
The drug can affect more than your physical health. Studies in Australia in 2008 linked years of heavy marijuana use to brain abnormalities. This is backed up by earlier research on the long-term effects of marijuana, which indicate changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term abuse of other major drugs. And a number of studies have shown a connection between continued marijuana use and psychosis.


Marijuana changes the structure of sperm cells, deforming them. Thus even small amounts of marijuana can cause temporary sterility in men. Marijuana use can upset a woman’s menstrual cycle.
Studies show that the mental functions of people who have smoked a lot of marijuana tend to be diminished. The THC in cannabis disrupts nerve cells in the brain affecting memory.
Cannabis is one of the few drugs which causes abnormal cell division which leads to severe hereditary defects. A pregnant woman who regularly smokes marijuana or hashish may give birth prematurely to an undersized, underweight baby. Over the last ten years, many children of marijuana users have been born with reduced initiative and lessened abilities to concentrate and pursue life goals. Studies also suggest that prenatal (before birth) use of the drug may result in birth defects, mental abnormalities and increased risk of leukemia1 in children.

SHORT-TERM EFFECTS

• Sensory distortion
• Panic
• Anxiety
• Poor coordination of movement
• Lowered reaction time
• After an initial “up,” the user feels sleepy or depressed
• Increased heartbeat (and risk of heart attack)

LONG-TERM EFFECTS OF MARIJUANA

• Reduced resistance to common illnesses (colds, bronchitis, etc.)
• Suppression of the immune system
• Growth disorders
• Increase of abnormally structured cells in the body
• Reduction of male sex hormones
• Rapid destruction of lung fibers and lesions (injuries) to the brain could be permanent
• Reduced sexual capacity
• Study difficulties: reduced ability to learn and retain information
• Apathy, drowsiness, lack of motivation
• Personality and mood changes
• Inability to understand things clearly

Lots more here:

http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/marijuana/the-harmful-effects.html

LEGALIZE IT

Nearly everything we consume has both good and bad effects on us.....what is important is whether or not the good outweighs the bad


Process Sugar is worst in every way than Marijuana yet it is legal, sugar is responsible for at least 180,000. deaths per annum.....CHECK THAT OUT.

While I dispel another myth below

A provider of free online auto insurance quotes says it has conducted a study that concludes marijuana uses are safer drivers.
Manhattan-based 4AutoInsuranceQuote.com says its study “seeks to dispel the thought that ‘driving while stoned’ is dangerous.”
“What law enforcement agencies and insurers do not understand is that driving while high is actually a safe activity,” says James Shaffer, chief executive officer of the national auto-quote provider, in a statement.
Marijuana users may get into fewer accidents than other drivers, says the study, which looked at data on accidents, traffic violations and insurance prices. The only significant effect of smoking marijuana may be slower driving.
“Marijuana users often say that when they are high, they feel like they are driving 80 mph but actually are only going 30 mph,” says Shaffer. The opposite is true for drunk drivers, he adds. There are less traffic fatalities and fewer accidents in states where medical marijuana use is legal, Shaffer’s company concludes.
“This is what makes alcohol dangerous behind the wheel and marijuana safe,” Shaffer says.
Shaffer says marijuana users could see lower insurance rates if smoking the drug and driving was accepted. In the meantime, he says, “the key to safer driving is to use marijuana, but do it under wraps.”
The study by 4AutoInsuranceQuotes.org references other studies, including one done in 1983 by the National Highway Transportation Safety Administration that found marijuana smokers to be slower drivers, the online quote service says.

http://www.propertycasualty360.com/2012/04/09/study-weed-smokers-are-slower-safer-drivers

Pot smokers get into fewer deadly car crashes than beer drinkers, a recent study (.pdf file) finds, although its authors say the conclusion shouldn't be seen as encouragement to smoke marijuana and drive.
Your car insurance company certainly isn't cutting stoners a break.
The study found that in the 16 states where medical marijuana is legal, there has been a drop of nearly 9% in traffic deaths since the laws took effect and a 5% drop in beer sales. Marijuana and alcohol are substitutes for each other, the researchers found, with fewer people drinking alcohol in states with medicinal marijuana. Pot use, however, increases.
"Use of marijuana, in general, increases in states that have medical marijuana laws," says D. Mark Anderson, an assistant professor of economics at Montana State University and co-author of the study with Daniel Rees, an economics professor at the University of Colorado, Denver

http://money.msn.com/insurance/stoned-drivers-safer-than-drunks-carinsurance.aspx

[franksterr]

All this misleading crapola....where does one start

FYI, this is the offical position of the White House.

Marijuana

Marijuana and other illicit drugs are addictice and unsafe especially for use by young people. As officials with the National Institute on Drug Abuse state, drug addiction is a progressive disease and the earlier one starts, the more likely are the chances of developing a substance use disorder.
Marijuana contains chemicals that can change how the brain works. And the science, though still evolving in terms of long-term consequences of marijuana use, is clear: marijuana use is associated with addiction, respiratory and mental illness, poor motor performance, and cognitive impairment, among other negative effects. This is especially troubling since research suggests one-in-11 people who ever used marijuana will become dependent on it; this risk rises to one-in-six when use begins in adolescence. In 2009, marijuana was involved in 376,000 emergency department visits nationwide.

Sugar and alcohol is both more addictive and unsafe.
Everything you ingest changes how the brain work.
Some science support Marijuana as beneficial in many ways that you are now saying it is not......
Doctors kill more than 200,000 nationwide per annum

According to the 2010 Monitoring the Future study, levels of current marijuana use among 8^th, 10^th, and 12^thgraders are the highest they have been in seven years. In 2010, daily marijuana use increased significantly compared to 2009 among all three grades surveyed - among high-school seniors, daily use rose from 5.2 percent in 2009 to 6.1 percent in 2010.

Long term studies state that children who smoke Marijuana do better.

Confusing messages about marijuana use that are being conveyed by proponents of “medical” marijuana perpetuate the false notion that marijuana use is harmless. These messages ignore the very real negative consequences associated with marijuana use and dependence. Given that 1 in 6 adolescents who initiate use of marijuana are at risk of developing an addiction to the drug at some time in their life, we owe it to them to make sure they understand and the people in their lives who care about them understand the real risks associated with its use.

Partically the entire human race is addicted to process sugar, and suffer it known debilitating diseases

Medical Approval Process

Marijuana itself is not an approved medicine under the Food and Drug Administration’s (FDA) scientific review process. Yet 16 states and the District of Columbia have permitted marijuana to be sold as “medicine” for various conditions. Although, some of the individual, orally-administered components of the cannabis plant (Dronabinol and Nabilone are two such drugs available today) have medical value, smoking marijuana is an inefficient and harmful method for delivering the constituent elements that have or may have medicinal value. The FDA process for approving medicine remains the only scientific and legally recognized procedure for bringing safe and effective medications to the American public. To date, the FDA has not found smoked marijuana to be either safe or effective medicine for any condition.

Crap!!!!! the FDA has approved thousand of unsafe drugs that go on to kill and maim millions.

No major medical association has come out in favor of smoked marijuana for widespread medical use. Further, public health organizations including the American Cancer Society, American Glaucoma Foundation, National Pain Foundation, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, and other medical societies, do not support smoked “medical” marijuana. The American Medical Association has called for more research on the subject, with the caveat that this “should not be viewed as an endorsement of state-based medical cannabis programs, the legalization of marijuana, or that scientific evidence on the therapeutic use of cannabis meets the current standards for a prescription drug product.”

This Administration joins major medical societies in supporting increased research into marijuana’s many components, delivered in a safe (non-smoked) manner, in the hopes that they can be available for medical professionals to legally prescribe if proven safe and effective. The U.S. Federal Government is the single largest funder of research on marijuana in the world.
Furthermore, the Administration opposes drug legalization. Legalization threatens public health by increasing availability of drugs and undermining prevention activities. It also hinders recovery efforts and poses a significant health and safety risk to all Americans, especially our youth. Marijuana is a harmful drug and its use should be prevented and treated – not promoted. Outside the context of Federally approved research, the use and distribution of marijuana is prohibited in the United States.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/ondcp/marijuana

Please.....they just want to monitize marijuana as a pharmaceutical drug

[Tropicana]

Fransterr just saying studies or long term studies isn't going to cut it. What studies? Conducted by who and under what conditions?

[Emperah]

46461_439174106136961_1410602890_n.jpg

[Tropicana]

This simply is not true. Alcohol in moderation is harmless. Ganja can definitely trigger latant psychoses in some people even in moderate use. There have been nuff examples of this on the Psych. units at UCWI over the years.

[Tropicana]

Why would anybody want to mess around with it given this.

There’s been a lot of interest from the scientific community in the not-so-simple relationship between marijuana use and a person’s risk of psychosis. The connection is especially important to understand in young people, whose brains are still wiring themselves, a process that continues right up through one’s 20s. Some researchers have framed the issue as a chicken-or-egg conundrum, wondering whether pot smoking leads to psychosis or whether underlying psychosis makes one more likely to smoke pot. A new study set out to determine whether it’s one or the other – or both. And indeed the answer is that it seems to work both ways.

As the authors point out, some earlier research has suggested that people with underlying psychosis may be “self-medicating” by smoking pot in an effort to diminish symptoms or improve mood. But in fact more research suggests that marijuana use may tweak the brain – especially the developing brain – in significant and detrimental ways, which could ultimately lead to psychosis.

“We have focused mainly on temporal order; is it the chicken or the egg? As the study shows, it is a bidirectional relationship,” the study’s lead author Merel Griffith-Lendering, told Reuters Health.
In the new study, the authors followed over 2,100 Dutch teens, asking them questions about their mental health when they were 14, 16, and 19. The teens were quizzed about their pot use over the years and tested for “psychosis vulnerability,” which included questions about their social relationships and feelings of loneliness, attention, and thought problems (for example, “seeing things that other people do not see”). Variables like alcohol and tobacco use, as well as their parents’ mental health and families’ socioeconomic status, were removed so as not to influence the results.
The team discovered that in fact the marijuana-psychosis link worked both ways: Kids who at 16 smoked pot were more likely to have psychotic symptoms at 19, and kids who at 16 showed psychotic symptoms were more likely to smoke pot at 19.
So researchers conclude that the “self-medication” and the “damage” (that is, brain damage) hypotheses both hold water – and they both make sense intuitively. For example, the authors say that a person with psychotic symptoms might use marijuana to “improve their mood or to control one’s feelings, boredom, social motives, improving sleep, anxiety and agitation.” Of course, they do add that these individuals might just smoke pot for the same reasons that “normal” people do – “‘to get high’, relax and have fun.” On the flipside, pot smoking could also damage the developing brain, since the teen-age is a “particularly vulnerable period for the effects of cannabis.”
Earlier studies have even suggested that pot use is associated with an earlier onset of psychosis than nonusers (by almost three years), and that the one could actually cause the other. It’s important to point out that the current study doesn’t prove causation — it only suggests that marijuana use and psychosis are intimately connected, and that each may be a risk factor for the other. Prevention, the authors add, should focus on addressing subclinical psychosis symptoms in teenagers before they develop into clinical psychosis. And paying special attention to a patient’s use of marijuana (and other drugs) would be an important part of prevention, and perhaps treatment.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwalton/2012/12/26/the-marijuana-psychosis-connection-goes-both-ways-in-teens/

[franksterr]

Fransterr just saying studies or long term studies isn't going to cut it. What studies? Conducted by who and under what conditions?

Melanie Dreher, who is the dean of nursing at Rush Medical Center in Chicago, did a study in Jamaica. It was actually published in the American Journal of Pediatrics in 1994, but now it’s re-circulating because of all the interest in the neuroprotective properties.
Basically, she studied women during their entire pregnancy, and then studied the babies about a year after birth. And what she studied was a group of women who did smoke cannabis during pregnancy and those who didn’t. She expected to see a difference in the babies as far as birth weight and neuro tests, but there was no difference whatsoever. The differences that the researchers did notice, that are unexplained and kind of curious are that the babies of the women who had smoked cannabis — and we’re talking about daily use during their pregnancy — socialized more quickly, made eye contact more quickly and were easier to engage.
We don’t know why this is so, but all the old saws of smoking during pregnancy will result in low birth weight did not show up — at least in the Jamaican study. In U.S. studies where we’ve seen a similar investigation, women have concurrently been abusing alcohol and other drugs as well

http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/marijuana-cannabis-use-in-pregnancy-dr-melanie-dreher/

Dr Melanie DreherWhen Dreher released solidly researched reports showing that children of ganja-using mothers were better adjusted than children born to non-using mothers, she encountered political and professional turbulence.
Dr. Melanie Dreher is one of a handful of scientists who have researched marijuana objectively and intelligently in the last three decades.
Dr Dreher is Dean of the University of Iowa's College of Nursing, and also holds the post of Associate Director for the University's Department of Nursing and Patient Services. She's a perpetual overachiever who earned honours degrees in nursing, anthropology and philosophy before being awarded a PhD in anthropology from prestigious Columbia University in 1977.
Although Dreher is a multi-faceted researcher and teacher whose expertise ranges from culture to child development to public health, she began early on to specialize in medical anthropology. After distinguishing herself as a field researcher in graduate school, Dreher was hand-picked by her professors to conduct a major study of marijuana use in Jamaica. Her doctoral dissertation was published as a book titled "Working Men and Ganja," which stands as one of the premier cross-cultural studies of chronic marijuana use.
Along with being a widely-published researcher, writer, and college administrator, Dreher is a professor or lecturer at several institutions, including the University of the West Indies. She recently served as president of the 120,000 member Sigma Theta Tau International Nursing Honour Society, has been an expert witness in a religious freedom case involving ganja use by the Ethiopian Zion Coptic Church, and is one of the most well-respected academicians in the world.


http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/1404.html

[franksterr]

[COLOR=#000000][FONT=Georgia]Why would anybody want to mess around with it given this.

Why would anybody want to mess around with it given this.


There’s been a lot of interest from the scientific community in the not-so-simple relationship between marijuana use and a person’s risk of psychosis. The connection is especially important to understand in young people, whose brains are still wiring themselves, a process that continues right up through one’s 20s. Some researchers have framed the issue as a chicken-or-egg conundrum, wondering whether pot smoking leads to psychosis or whether underlying psychosis makes one more likely to smoke pot. A new study set out to determine whether it’s one or the other – or both. And indeed the answer is that it seems to work both ways.



As the authors point out, some earlier research has suggested that people with underlying psychosis may be “self-medicating” by smoking pot in an effort to diminish symptoms or improve mood. But in fact more research suggests that marijuana use may tweak the brain – especially the developing brain – in significant and detrimental ways, which could ultimately lead to psychosis.

“We have focused mainly on temporal order; is it the chicken or the egg? As the study shows, it is a bidirectional relationship,” the study’s lead author Merel Griffith-Lendering, told Reuters Health.
In the new study, the authors followed over 2,100 Dutch teens, asking them questions about their mental health when they were 14, 16, and 19. The teens were quizzed about their pot use over the years and tested for “psychosis vulnerability,” which included questions about their social relationships and feelings of loneliness, attention, and thought problems (for example, “seeing things that other people do not see”). Variables like alcohol and tobacco use, as well as their parents’ mental health and families’ socioeconomic status, were removed so as not to influence the results.
The team discovered that in fact the marijuana-psychosis link worked both ways: Kids who at 16 smoked pot were more likely to have psychotic symptoms at 19, and kids who at 16 showed psychotic symptoms were more likely to smoke pot at 19.
So researchers conclude that the “self-medication” and the “damage” (that is, brain damage) hypotheses both hold water – and they both make sense intuitively. For example, the authors say that a person with psychotic symptoms might use marijuana to “improve their mood or to control one’s feelings, boredom, social motives, improving sleep, anxiety and agitation.” Of course, they do add that these individuals might just smoke pot for the same reasons that “normal” people do – “‘to get high’, relax and have fun.” On the flipside, pot smoking could also damage the developing brain, since the teen-age is a “particularly vulnerable period for the effects of cannabis.”
Earlier studies have even suggested that pot use is associated with an earlier onset of psychosis than nonusers (by almost three years), and that the one could actually cause the other. It’s important to point out that the current study doesn’t prove causation — it only suggests that marijuana use and psychosis are intimately connected, and that each may be a risk factor for the other. Prevention, the authors add, should focus on addressing subclinical psychosis symptoms in teenagers before they develop into clinical psychosis. And paying special attention to a patient’s use of marijuana (and other drugs) would be an important part of prevention, and perhaps treatment





http://www.forbes.com/sites/alicegwa...ways-in-teens/

Please note their is a difference between use, abuse, and misuse.....
One drink of alcohol will not make you a drunkard but abusing alcohol will, and misusing alcohol can kill you.


Semantics......it could also be said that marijuana use delayed the onset of psychosis......





A compound found in marijuana can treat schizophrenia as effectively as
antipsychotic medications, with far fewer side effects, according to a
preliminary clinical trial.

Researchers led by Markus Leweke of the University of Cologne in Germany
studied 39 people with schizophrenia who were hospitalized for a psychotic
episode. Nineteen patients were treated with amisulpride, an antipsychotic
medication that is not approved in the U.S., but is comparable to other
medications that are.

The rest of the patients were given cannabidiol (CBD), a substance found in
marijuana that is thought to be responsible for some of its mellowing or
anxiety-reducing effects. Unlike the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, which
can produce psychotic reactions and may worsen schizophrenia, CBD has
antipsychotic effects, according to previous research in both animals and
humans.


Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2012/05/3...#ixzz2QB8HWw1g

[Tropicana]

Hello...it is the opposite:

Semantics......it could also be said that marijuana use delayed the onset of psychosis......

Please say this a lickle louder so everyone can hear you

the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, which
can produce psychotic reactions and may worsen schizophrenia

Tonx.

[franksterr]

Hello...it is the opposite:

Timing is unpredictable.
Unless there is a genetic disposition or a direct cause, such as is the case in alcohol induced psychosis, psychiatric professionals really have no idea what causes psychosis, much less have the ability to predict the onset of psychosis. If you cannot predict the onset then it stands to reason that you can't predict if the onset was any earlier than usual for any reason, much less because of one specific herb.

Marijuana may have preventative qualities.
Since there is no way to predict the potential age of the onset of psychosis, it's even possible that those who use cannabis may have actually held off the psychosis through the use of cannabis. After all, there is no evidence to the contrary. Psychotic features are actually common in several mental health disorders. It's no secret that stress levels often play a role in psychotic breaks. Since marijuana is often used as a stress reducer, it would not be impossible for it to help in the prevention of psychosis

http://voices.yahoo.com/psychiatric-study-marijuana-treatment-psychosis-7816436.html?cat=5

Please say this a lickle louder so everyone can hear you
the main ingredient in marijuana, THC, which
can produce psychotic reactions and may worsen schizophrenia

Tonx.

Is that loud enough for you....that is the reason you have different types of Marijuana some have more cannabidiol(healing properties) and less THC (mind expanding properties) - As I said there is use,misuse and abuse.

Now did you miss the opening sentence...
A compound found in marijuana can treat schizophrenia as effectively as
antipsychotic medications, with far fewer side effects, according to a
preliminary clinical trial.

[Tropicana]

Yes that's loud enough for me...thank you. Note the difference between can and may in your own bolding.

[franksterr]

Yes that's loud enough for me...thank you. Note the difference between can and may in your own bolding.

Clinical trails usually means it has pass can and may.......
A hemp compound has been shown to increase the effect of the endogenous cannabinoid anandamide in the human brain, thus reducing the delusions associated with psychotic diseases. Studies carried out by Prof. Markus Leweke from the Central Institute of Mental Health in Mannheim involving patients with acute schizophrenic attacks show that the plant compound is better tolerated than currently approved antipsychotic drugs.

http://www.bio-pro.de/standort/5_bioregionen/bioregion_rhein_neckar_dreieck/06049/index.html?lang=en&artikelid=/artikel/08158/index.html

[Tropicana]

Marijuana may be more damaging than thought

By Lisa Merolla

Marijuana smoke harms cells and DNA more than tobacco smoke does, while tobacco causes more intensive damage to chromosome structure, new research reports.
The study highlights the risks of marijuana, which are not as well known as those from smoking tobacco, said the authors, led by Rebecca Maertens a scientist with Canadian government research body Health Canada in Ottawa, Ontario. Their work is published in the August issue of the journal Chemical Research in Toxicology.
Genetic damage
“It is clear that this information does not support the misconception popular among youth that marijuana is safer than cigarettes,” said Gary Holub a spokesperson for Health Canada.
Like tobacco, marijuana has been associated with respiratory problems such as chronic bronchitis. But neither marijuana plant extracts nor THC, the main psychoactive component of marijuana, have been definitively linked to lung cancer.
Establishing the exact risks of smoking marijuana has been difficult, the experts said, because most study subjects have also smoked tobacco.
The new study exposed bacterial and animal cells in the laboratory to smoke condensates, which are mixtures produced by dissolving filtered smoke particles. The mixtures were prepared in two different ways, one representing damage from smoking directly, the other from passive smoking.
Cell death
The researchers found that marijuana smoke caused different types of genetic damage than tobacco smoke. Marijuana condensates were more likely to kill the cells or cause DNA damage. In contrast, tobacco condensates were more likely to change the structure of chromosomes within the cells.
Maertens’ team is continuing their cellular studies to determine the underlying reasons for these different responses. “Such work will help us better understand the potential health hazards of marijuana smoke exposure,” Holub said.
Wayne Hall, a public health professor and cannabis expert at the University of Queensland, in Australia, said the study confirms earlier evidence that marijuana smoke can produce mutations in genetic material.
However, the researchers did not show if those mutations are cancer causing, he said. “They do not enable us to estimate the magnitude of the risk.”
Jonathon Arnold, a pharmacologist at the University of Sydney who studies cannabis, added that the study will have a limited impact on the debate over marijuana use because it used cells, not human subjects.
However, he said the findings show that cannabis might be more damaging to the lungs than tobacco, but less likely to cause respiratory cancers. This could be because marijuana smoke is more likely to kill cells, he said. “As the cells are dead, they cannot progress to becoming cancerous through chromosomal damage.”
Arnold is the co-author of another marijuana study slated for publication in The British Journal of Pharmacology. It addresses the question of why ex-marijuana users sometimes test positive for the drug long after they stop using it.
Reintoxication
The study showed that stress or food deprivation – conditions that promote the breakdown of fat in the body – cause stored THC to re-emerge into the bloodstream. The researchers called this phenomenon “reintoxication.”
In their study, Arnold’s team treated rats with THC daily for 10 days. Two days later, one third of the rats were injected with a stress hormone (ACTH), while one third were food deprived for 24 hours. The other rats served as controls.
The ACTH-treated rats doubled their THC blood levels, which put them in a “range where a large proportion of humans show cognitive and motor impairment,” Arnold said. The food deprived rats showed a doubled level of THC-acid, a metabolite of THC.
Positive drug tests
If this phenomenon carries over into humans, stress and extreme weight loss could be the reason behind ex-marijuana users’ positive drug tests. “This reintoxication could theoretically lead to a cannabis flashback,” Arnold said.
Next, the researchers will conduct human studies to determine whether reintoxication can cause a psychoactive effect or functional impairment.
Those future studies will be important to prove this either way, said Wayne Hall, who was not involved in the research. “It remains to be seen whether these effects can be replicated in humans.”

http://www.cosmosmagazine.com/news/m...aging-thought/

[Tropicana]

BTW, Muta is also against recreational use of ganja:

Ganja is another case in mind. Them ban ganja and thing, and it illegal, and it don't help [to stop it].

That reminds me of something. You're known as a 'non-ganja smoker,' but you're not opposed to consuming the herb by eating it?

No, no, me eat it. Nothing no wrong with it. Me grow up in a society where me grandmother used to make tea with it. To me the worst thing you can do with herbs is smoke it. To me, the worst thing you can do to herb is smoke.

Just because of what it does to the body?

Smoking in no form is good for your body. A man cannot inhale smoke. I don't see it.

It also makes it a more casual thing. It removes it from what it could be as a sacrament.

Yea, when I just start to sight Rasta, man never used to smoke spliff. Is chalice me see man bun. Man sit dung round a group or a community and start to praise, read psalms and bun chalice. See, every little minute a man take up a spliff. Spliff to me come like a habit rather than a ritual. Is a habit. Man come in a habit now where him haffe have a lickle spliff. When Rastafari was saying that it a ritual, Rastafari use the herbs as a sacrament. But now, Rastafari use the herbs as a habit. And sometimes, a whole heap a Rasta, when them cyaan get the herbs him use cigarette and him use Beadie, all these lickle tings dat is takin de place of ganja now. So one wonders what this smoking is all about really.

So what do you think about chalice smoking? Does that have a proper role still?

That's what I'm saying. I a say, the role of the ganja was in the chalice. It wasn't in the Rizzla paper. The role of the ganja was in chalice. Rizzla is a lickle hippy ting, where a mon roll up a lickle joint when him feel a habit fe smoke. Him don't have no semblance of rituals in it. For instance now, you see some mon roll up, him take tobacco and put inna de spliff. What is that all about? That is not a ritual. That is a habit. That don't have nothing fe do with Rastafari sitting and praising Jah and opening him meditation to a higher heights. It has something fe do with him have a bad habit. And the bad habit him don't want to smoke cigarette, him smoke ganja. When him can't get the ganja him used beadie or anything else.

http://incolor.inetnebr.com/cvanpelt/muta3.html

[Wahalla]

Muta has a point it is now a habit rather than a rictual...And I knew rastas who in the late sixtes licked out against smoking of weed... Cannabis got into rasta from the early indian locksmen who used it... And now this is not acknowledged...

Cannabis is has analgesic properties and when ingested as smoke it is a much more effective delivery system..I suffered from blinding migraines as a prepubucent (every monday) and can confirm that exposure to cannabis brought near instant relief. Guess them days we never had aspirin ..Hem I was a child I learnt bush medicine alot I have forgotten now.... Cannabis was respected by old people, it was considered holy like godbirds and dead and wake...u need a strong mind to handle it..

I had a great grandfather a cartman who practice terrapanning and part of the ritual was exposure to cannabis smoke as it slowed the swelling of the brain prior drilling in to release the pressure.. But then he was arrested and imprisoned by the good christian who accused him of obeah... and i forgot the fact that it slowed teh effects of diabetics...

my understanding is that cannabis does not cause psychotic issues it assasibates it... Bit like the warning at the end of Yanki drug advert. It is beneficial but it has side effects . ( as per a typical yanki drug advert u may suffer from nose, bleeds, dizzines, headaches, constipation, deaorhea, fluid retention, frequent urination, weight gain, weight loss ).. U need a strong mind to handle it was what I was taught...

Since u have never used it I suggested that u are not able to adjudge its effects, from all intents and purposed it seemd to have different effect on different people and different delivery system... The fact that cannabis illegal is one of the stupidist law. But then

I dont want to legalize it, if it happened its current economic benefit to the Jamaican rural economy would be lost and there will be dire social impacts...I know alot of school fees that are paid because of weed....alot of flour bought because of the price associated with it. alot of fishermen use it to provide enhanced night vision...But let us make poor people poorer.....To me the fact that weed is illegal is an attempt by the middle class to control the recreation and wealth of the poor and it is all based on a lie.. An attempt by the Christians to impose itself as one thinks laterally and more clearly under mild exposure... The fact of the matter that it is a throw back to the rascist policies of turn of the century south Africa....

Growing the stuff requites dedication and care.. it is extremely hard to produce good weed, but it brings a reasonable return on effort.. the risk of police finding it is mitigated by gungu and or multiple sites..
by the way I dislike the smell of the stuff burning.. its clawing sickly sweet smell....

It was legal in my fathers life time...Early chrisitans used it in their rituals and jews used it to heal and anoint their kings .. the assyrians, the Sythians, Indians... naw blame that damn Eqyptian delegate and yanki rascism towards the so called brown people...incendetally they blamed "yardies" and mexican, Hindoos for introducing it...!!!

21 countries have decriminalised the stuff....