shepj
Oracle of Hallucinogens
heyy guys, I got super pissed off after seeing some of the new fucking anti-pot ads, so I gave Above the Influence a little of my thoughts... If you like what I've sent them please shout out a comment at me. I will post their reply (assuming they can gather one).
"To whom it may concern,
so lately I have been paying attention to some of the marijuana related commercials between you guys and ONDCP. There are so many points that I could pick out between both of your biased portrayals of responsible marijuana users.
I have read your facts page, and found your sourcing to humor me. Here is the thing with your slanted information... it's easy to continue asking people questions until you get the answers that you desire in order to make sources; like the bullshit statistic you guys have pulled up regarding student's grades who have used marijuana within the passed year. Also, how can you claim that "Smoking marijuana also causes some changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term use of cocaine and heroin"? I thought we had finally educated ourselves to realize that marijuana is not neurotoxic? I suppose when you're so focused on reaming on a section of people for something they find recreational, and when you're so intent on making a substance look horrible to an uneducated society, that you've missed out on actually learning about the substance itself.
Marijuana, on the contrary to your beliefs, is actually known to be neuroprotective (hence the reason that medical marijuana states have started to include diseases such as alzheimers, no?). By the way, since you are so concerned with fooling your viewers with false sources, I figured I would show you a non-biased study from eight years ago stating that marijuana is neuroprotective (hence, not causing the effects of long term cocaine or heroin usage).
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4345
Another one of your myths (funny as I think your web designer accidentally placed it in the "mythbusters" section of your website), is that "one marijuana joint can deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one tobacco cigarette". Well, here is an excerpt from erowid (I think it's near the 15th paragraph on this link:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_health2.shtml)
"For example the Berkeley carcinogenic tar studies of the
late 1970's concluded that 'marijuana is one-and-a-half times as carcinogenic as tobacco.' This finding was based solely on the
tar content of cannabis leaves compared to that of tobacco, and
did not take radioactivity into consideration."
Well, I hate to break it to you, but here is reality:
1) "Most marijuana smokers smoke the bud, not the leaf, of the plant. The bud contains only 33% as much tar as tobacco."
Here is my problem with the view on marijuana vs. tobacco tar; even if marijuana did contain more tar than tobacco, the likeliness of even a seasoned marijuana user smoking as much material of a newbie cigarette smoker is not likely. For example, one cigarette weighs approximately one gram (give or take a little bit), but some smokers smoke up to three packs a day. Each pack of cigarettes contains 20 cigarettes (at one gram a piece), and three packs would be approximately 60 grams in a single day! I doubt a daily heavy marijuana smoker could smoke 60 grams in three months, not to mention an occasional smoker!
Now your site mentions that marijuana contains around 400 chemicals (I didn't know that, so I guess I did learn something new today), and I don't plan on arguing that smoking anything is safe. Let's take a look at how many additives are in cigarettes, well according to
"American Tobacco Company
Brown and Williamson
Liggett Group, Inc.
Philip Morris Inc.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company", there are 599 ADDITIVES, so I would imagine this excludes any chemicals naturally present in tobacco itself?
Now there are alternate routes of administration for marijuana, for instance, one could make butter from the marijuana and put it on food. There would be zero tar, and no forms of cancer present! One can also simply eat marijuana without cooking it, which also takes away any risk of cancer. Finally, marijuana can be vaporized (granted, I am sure one could vaporize tobacco that wasn't saturated with additives relatively safely) which also removed the risk of cancer!
Now my big problem is that there are very few campaigns (on TV anyways) that really show the risk of using tobacco! If you guys showed on the TV everyday that roughly 1,200 people die EACH DAY as a result of tobacco use. Please, how many people have died from the use of marijuana? I can't seem to find one documented death with marijuana as a suspected primary cause of death.
I have another statistic,
"Not one case of lung cancer has ever been successfully linked to marijuana use."
(also from Erowid).
Many anti-drug campaigns focus on marijuana and poor motor coordination along with it being dangerous to drive on (which I fully agree, people under the influence of any substance should not be driving). Here is the kicker, from any statistics I have read in my entire life for marijuana vs alcohol with driving, the drunk drivers never outscore the high drivers!
I do believe that marijuana can be mentally addictive, but then again, look at all the fatasses who still eat fast food when it's said that 3/5 Americans are either overweight or obese. But marijuana is not physically addictive, unlike tobacco.
Also, who the hell says that the potency (of marijuana) has increased over the passed 10, 20, or 30 years? Here is a quote from the scientific journal Addiction, researchers at the University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. They examined the potency of over 100,000 pot seizures from around the world. Here was the verdict:
"Claims made in the public domain about a 20- or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency and about the adverse mental health effects of cannabis contamination are not supported currently by the evidence."
(link -
http://blog.norml.org/2008/05/28/potent-pot-myths-exposed-again/).
If marijuana is so damn dangerous and addictive, then why is medical use of marijuana supported by the AMA (American Medical Association)?
So, I think that 13 states have found marijuana safe enough to decriminalize it, along with I believe 13 states to pass medical marijuana. And as of late, it seems that our current administration is in support of medical marijuana users.
Thu, 26 Feb 2009 - "U.S. Attorney General Says Justice Department Will No Longer Interfere With States’ Medical Pot Policies"
So how dangerous can it be if more states are trying to decriminalize and/or allow the medical use of marijuana?
Here is what it boils down to (for me personally), if anti-drug campaigns came out and told society the effects and the side effects instead of biased information, I wouldn't be writing you this e-mail; but it's almost as if you take advantage of the uneducated.. they want to believe what they see on TV, and since you guys seem to have a good reputation, they will not question what you tell them!
I hope you can take the time to respond to this e-mail, even if it is to tell me that my opinion is wrong, I would appreciate knowing that someone actually read this e-mail and took some thought to write back.
"To whom it may concern,
so lately I have been paying attention to some of the marijuana related commercials between you guys and ONDCP. There are so many points that I could pick out between both of your biased portrayals of responsible marijuana users.
I have read your facts page, and found your sourcing to humor me. Here is the thing with your slanted information... it's easy to continue asking people questions until you get the answers that you desire in order to make sources; like the bullshit statistic you guys have pulled up regarding student's grades who have used marijuana within the passed year. Also, how can you claim that "Smoking marijuana also causes some changes in the brain similar to those caused by long-term use of cocaine and heroin"? I thought we had finally educated ourselves to realize that marijuana is not neurotoxic? I suppose when you're so focused on reaming on a section of people for something they find recreational, and when you're so intent on making a substance look horrible to an uneducated society, that you've missed out on actually learning about the substance itself.
Marijuana, on the contrary to your beliefs, is actually known to be neuroprotective (hence the reason that medical marijuana states have started to include diseases such as alzheimers, no?). By the way, since you are so concerned with fooling your viewers with false sources, I figured I would show you a non-biased study from eight years ago stating that marijuana is neuroprotective (hence, not causing the effects of long term cocaine or heroin usage).
http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=4345
Another one of your myths (funny as I think your web designer accidentally placed it in the "mythbusters" section of your website), is that "one marijuana joint can deliver four times as much cancer-causing tar as one tobacco cigarette". Well, here is an excerpt from erowid (I think it's near the 15th paragraph on this link:
http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_health2.shtml)
"For example the Berkeley carcinogenic tar studies of the
late 1970's concluded that 'marijuana is one-and-a-half times as carcinogenic as tobacco.' This finding was based solely on the
tar content of cannabis leaves compared to that of tobacco, and
did not take radioactivity into consideration."
Well, I hate to break it to you, but here is reality:
1) "Most marijuana smokers smoke the bud, not the leaf, of the plant. The bud contains only 33% as much tar as tobacco."
Here is my problem with the view on marijuana vs. tobacco tar; even if marijuana did contain more tar than tobacco, the likeliness of even a seasoned marijuana user smoking as much material of a newbie cigarette smoker is not likely. For example, one cigarette weighs approximately one gram (give or take a little bit), but some smokers smoke up to three packs a day. Each pack of cigarettes contains 20 cigarettes (at one gram a piece), and three packs would be approximately 60 grams in a single day! I doubt a daily heavy marijuana smoker could smoke 60 grams in three months, not to mention an occasional smoker!
Now your site mentions that marijuana contains around 400 chemicals (I didn't know that, so I guess I did learn something new today), and I don't plan on arguing that smoking anything is safe. Let's take a look at how many additives are in cigarettes, well according to
"American Tobacco Company
Brown and Williamson
Liggett Group, Inc.
Philip Morris Inc.
R.J. Reynolds Tobacco Company", there are 599 ADDITIVES, so I would imagine this excludes any chemicals naturally present in tobacco itself?
Now there are alternate routes of administration for marijuana, for instance, one could make butter from the marijuana and put it on food. There would be zero tar, and no forms of cancer present! One can also simply eat marijuana without cooking it, which also takes away any risk of cancer. Finally, marijuana can be vaporized (granted, I am sure one could vaporize tobacco that wasn't saturated with additives relatively safely) which also removed the risk of cancer!
Now my big problem is that there are very few campaigns (on TV anyways) that really show the risk of using tobacco! If you guys showed on the TV everyday that roughly 1,200 people die EACH DAY as a result of tobacco use. Please, how many people have died from the use of marijuana? I can't seem to find one documented death with marijuana as a suspected primary cause of death.
I have another statistic,
"Not one case of lung cancer has ever been successfully linked to marijuana use."
(also from Erowid).
Many anti-drug campaigns focus on marijuana and poor motor coordination along with it being dangerous to drive on (which I fully agree, people under the influence of any substance should not be driving). Here is the kicker, from any statistics I have read in my entire life for marijuana vs alcohol with driving, the drunk drivers never outscore the high drivers!
I do believe that marijuana can be mentally addictive, but then again, look at all the fatasses who still eat fast food when it's said that 3/5 Americans are either overweight or obese. But marijuana is not physically addictive, unlike tobacco.
Also, who the hell says that the potency (of marijuana) has increased over the passed 10, 20, or 30 years? Here is a quote from the scientific journal Addiction, researchers at the University of New South Wales, National Drug and Alcohol Research Centre. They examined the potency of over 100,000 pot seizures from around the world. Here was the verdict:
"Claims made in the public domain about a 20- or 30-fold increase in cannabis potency and about the adverse mental health effects of cannabis contamination are not supported currently by the evidence."
(link -
http://blog.norml.org/2008/05/28/potent-pot-myths-exposed-again/).
If marijuana is so damn dangerous and addictive, then why is medical use of marijuana supported by the AMA (American Medical Association)?
So, I think that 13 states have found marijuana safe enough to decriminalize it, along with I believe 13 states to pass medical marijuana. And as of late, it seems that our current administration is in support of medical marijuana users.
Thu, 26 Feb 2009 - "U.S. Attorney General Says Justice Department Will No Longer Interfere With States’ Medical Pot Policies"
So how dangerous can it be if more states are trying to decriminalize and/or allow the medical use of marijuana?
Here is what it boils down to (for me personally), if anti-drug campaigns came out and told society the effects and the side effects instead of biased information, I wouldn't be writing you this e-mail; but it's almost as if you take advantage of the uneducated.. they want to believe what they see on TV, and since you guys seem to have a good reputation, they will not question what you tell them!
I hope you can take the time to respond to this e-mail, even if it is to tell me that my opinion is wrong, I would appreciate knowing that someone actually read this e-mail and took some thought to write back.
