WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use. World Health Organization.
"While cannabis impairs performance in laboratory and simulated driving settings, it is difficult to relate the magnitude of these impairments to an increased risk of being involved in motor vehicle accidents. Students of the effects of cannabis on on-road driving performance have found at most modest impairments (e.g. Sutton, 1983). Cannabis intoxicated persons drive more slowly perhaps because they are more aware of their level of psychomotor impairment than alcohol intoxicated drinkers who generally drive at faster speeds (Smiley, 1986)."
"A suspicion that chronic heavy cannabis use may cause gross structural brain damage was provoked by a single poorly controlled study using an outmoded method of investigation which reported that cannabis users had enlarged cerebral ventricles (Campbell et al, 1971). This finding was widely and uncritically publicised. Since then a number of better controlled studies using more sophisticated methods of investigation have consistently failed to demonstrate evidence of structural change in the brains of heavy, long term cannabis users (e.g. Co et al, 1977; Kuehnle et al, 1977). These negative results are consistent with the evidence that any cognitive effects of chronic cannabis use are subtle, and hence unlikely to be manifest as gross structural changes in the brain."
"Alcohol
The major risks of acute cannabis use show some parallels with the acute risks of alcohol intoxication. First, both drugs produce psychomotor and cognitive impairment, especially of memory and planning. The impairment produced by alcohol increases risks of various kinds of accident. It may also increase the likelihood of engaging in risky behaviour such as dangerous driving, and unsafe sexual practices. While cannabis intoxication increases the risks of casualties in hazardous situations, it remains to be determined to what extent it increases the likelihood of engaging in risky behaviour.
Alcohol and cannabis intoxication appear to differ in their relation to intentional rather than accidental casualties. Alcohol intoxication is strongly associated with aggressive and violent behaviour. The relationship is complex, and the nature and extent of drinking's causal effect remains controversial at the level of the individual drinker (Pernanen, 1991; Martin, 1993; Pohorecky, Brick and Milgram, 1993). But there is good causal evidence that changes in the level of alcohol consumption affect the incidence of violent crime, at least in some populations (Room, 1983; Lenke, 1990; Cook and Moore, 1993). There is also increasing evidence to indicate that alcohol may play a role in suicide (Edwards et al., forthcoming). There is little to suggest that causal relationship of cannabis use to aggression or violence, at least in present-day developed societies.
Second, there is good evidence that substantial doses of alcohol taken during pregnancy can produce a foetal alcohol syndrome. There is suggestive but far from conclusive evidence that cannabis can also adversely affect the development of the foetus when used during pregnancy. A clear equivalent for cannabis of the foetal alcohol syndrome has not been established.
Third, there is a major health risk of acute alcohol use that is not shared with cannabis. In large doses alcohol can cause death by asphyxiation, alcohol poisoning, cardiomyopathy and cardiac infarct. There are no recorded cases of overdose fatalities attributed to cannabis, and the estimated lethal dose for humans extrapolated from animal studies is so high that it cannot be achieved by recreational users."
These are just a few excerpts that I've found from the World Health Organization that I've used as sources before.
I do think that we should reap the medical benefits of opiates as well. In fact, I mentioned the use of morphine in my previous post. Morphine is a very addictive opiate that was abused for years before it was used as a medicinal aid.
Also, I am not a druggie. I just like to take the occasional toke. It is just like others that smoke cigarettes, except I don't chronically smoke marijuana, unlike the many who chronically smoke tobacco.
Finally, Brother_Percy, this is about cannabis (marijuana) use, not cannibalism (eating people).
--Koty
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