Marijuana works by
affecting the brain it’s a drug like
many others with different effects on
different people the active ingredient
is called tetrahydrocannabinol or THC
THC bonds to protein specific receptors
in the brain to produce a number of
results it can have a mild sedative
effect and it can also lower your
inhibitions marijuana can increase your
pulse lower your blood pressure and
increase your appetite it can also
interfere with short-term memory lower
your reaction time and make you unsteady
on your feet but so can lots of other
things that we like to eat drink or
smoke the real question is whether it’s
dangerous enough to be made illegal and
that’s where the screaming usually
starts there’s no evidence that
marijuana causes a physical dependency
like heroin does some argue though that
it can become psychologically addictive
some will argue that the smoke is
carcinogenic and causes lung cancer or
respiratory disease others argue that
regular use can affect the immune system
still more argue that increases the
chance of developing a psychotic illness
but as I have to point out lots of things in
life have both a benefit and a harm no
one should be under the illusion that
marijuana has no harms the question that
we should care about is how much harm is
there a marijuana and does that harm
outweigh the benefits so much that it
should be made illegal and now the
benefits there’s a growing body of
evidence that marijuana has use in many
medical conditions to improve quality of
life and you need only talk to one of
the gazillion marijuana users out there
to hear about its other benefits as well
moreover there are lots of things in the
world that can absolutely harm us that
are totally legal the two most obvious
choices are tobacco and
alcohol both of these substances are
regulated but legal in most of the world
they can provide us with a useful
benchmark against which we can compare
marijuana don’t blame the messenger I’m
just telling you what the science says
to the research two years ago a study
was published in the Journal of the
American Medical Association
investigating the effects of marijuana
and tobacco and pulmonary function
researchers followed a cohort of more
than 5,000 men and women over 20 years
they wanted to see how smoking tobacco
and marijuana affected lung health what
did they find
not surprisingly tobacco use had
significant negative effects on lung
function marijuana used though had none
no lung effects at all
they couldn’t even show that very high
use of marijuana was bad for lung
function although the study wasn’t
powered for that specific analysis their
conclusions and I quote from the Journal
of the American Medical Association
marijuana may have beneficial effects on
pain control appetite mood and
management of other chronic symptoms our
findings suggest that occasional use of
marijuana for these or other purposes
may not be associated with adverse
consequences on pulmonary function
tobacco totally does have adverse
consequences on pulmonary function
almost in the same week the CDC
published a report on binge drinking in
adults in the United States the results
were sort of shocking more than one in
six adults in the United States is a
binge drinker of alcohol those the do
binge drink do so on average more than
four times a month and when they do they
have about eight drinks on average more
than 28% of binge drinkers were young
adults 18 to 24 years old who had more
than nine drinks on average when binging
but elderly binge drinkers or those
older than 65 drank the most often about
five and a half times per month
excessive alcohol use accounted for an
estimated eighty thousand deaths in
every year of the study the estimated
economic cost of this damage was more
than two hundred and twenty three
billion dollars in 2006 along another
study was published in 1990 that
described a cohort of more than 45,000
Swedes that were followed for 15 years
there was no increase in mortality in
those who used marijuana after
controlling for other factors another
study was published in 1997
American Journal of Public Health that
followed more than 65,000 people in the
United States aged 15 to 49 years old
they found that marijuana use had no
effect at all and mortality and women
and no effect on non AIDS mortality in
men either so let’s review
tobacco adversely impacts lung function
and perfectly legal binge drinking of
alcohol common dangerous costly to
society also totally legal marijuana no
impact on lung function no impact on
mortality almost always illegal I’m not
arguing that marijuana should be sold in
the aisles of drug stores or
supermarkets but here and in many other
parts of the world you need a good
reason to make something illegal there
are lots of things that are dangerous
but regulated we don’t let kids buy
tobacco or alcohol totally makes sense
the same should apply to marijuana we
don’t let people drive under the
influence of alcohol totally make sense
the same should apply to marijuana which
has been shown to impaired drivers
significantly as well there was even a
meta-analysis published in the BMJ in
2011 confirming that and I believe the
results but it’s hard to continue to
make the argument that the freedom we
enjoy should cover tobacco and alcohol
get not extend in marijuana there’s
plenty of evidence that the former are
unhealthy and are consumed in our own
risk the evidence against marijuana is
thin