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| Conservative Rob, reefer mad, Nicholson |
| 08.01.07 (4:09 pm) [edit] |
|
Conservative Rob, reefer mad, Nicholson "[Marijauna is] much stronger than it was years ago and, in some cases, marijuana may be laced with more dangerous chemicals," http://www.macleans.ca/canada/features/articl e.jsp?content=20070731_1319 51_5912&" title="http://www.macleans.ca/canada/features/articl e.jsp?content=20070731_1319 51_5912&" target="_blank"http://www.macleans.ca/canada...;page=1 Potent pot is more is more Drug Czar myth than reality. http://www.slate.com/id/2074151" title="http://www.slate.com/id/2074151" target="_blank"http://www.slate.com/id/20741... Only the Independent bought in and the Guardian took care of them. http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0" title="http://www.guardian.co.uk/drugs/Story/0" target="_blank"http://www.guardian.co.uk/dru...,,2041749,00.html Furthermore, even if one assumes that potent pot is a reality it is certainly nothing to be concerned about. Indeed, saying that potent pot is reason for keeping marijuana illegal is akin to saying that alcohol should be banned because gin has higher alcohol content than beer. It makes no sense. The pharmacological affects of consuming 1 “chemically supercharged” joint, as various US attorneys like to say, versus x number of “dad’s joints” would be no different if the amount of THC consumed is the same. As for consumption, just as people do not drink the same volume of gin as beer, the higher the THC level in pot the less people consume. Hence, ironically more potent pot may be a welcome development. After all, one of the most prominent health effect related to marijuana, if not the most, is that it is usually smoked. The more potent the pot, the less people have to smoke to achieve the same high. All that being said, if potency is the concern, then it should be legalized. As Martha Hall Findlay has noted, the only way to regulate the potency of pot is to legalize it. Moreover, so long as the drug is illegal, producers will seek to increase potency. The higher the potency the smaller the package the smaller the package the less likely they will get caught. As for marijuana being laced with “more dangerous chemicals”, I presume Nicholson means harder drugs and the only of preventing this is to legalize marijuana and regulate it. Conservative Rob, reefer mad, Nicholson "There is also evidence it may lead to experimentation with other drugs. It's not something we want to encourage." Sigh. There was a reason why gateway theory as reason for keeping marijuana illegal fell out of favor in the first place. There is no coherent explanation for why marijuana’s intrinsic properties would lead people to experiment with other drugs; the theory fell down for lack of an intelligible mechanism. Without this explanation doubt was cast on assertion that the relationship marijuana and other drug use was more than mere correlation.
The marijuana as gateway drug argument is not dead though. In recent years researchers have breathed new life into the theory, albeit with a sociological twist. According to the new version, it is not marijuana’s pharmacological properties that serve as a gateway, but rather marijuana’s illegal status. Specifically in the process of illegally procuring marijuana, users are introduced to the criminal elements with access to other illicit drugs and hence it is the forged black market relationship between dealer and buyer that serves as gateway. Ironically the gateway drug theory has been turned on its head and used as reason for legalizing the drug. The Canadian Senate employed the new and improved version of the gateway argument as a reason for legalizing the drug. |
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