Smoking 350 joints a week can cause health problems!!!

[Sharla]

No ones promoting drug use, I don't even smoke weed anymore. All I'm saying is a have a lot more faith in Harvard researchers with no obvious agenda than I do in what the government tells me.
I don't think the point of the study was to encourage people to smoke pot, the point was to examine if there are medical benefits in the components of marijuana; benefits that have not been available to people suffering from serious, often fatal, illnesses because of some stupid government agenda. The things that the government "allows" us to have, like cigs are booze, are infinitely more harmful that marijuana.
How is someone a lemming for putting stock in documented research?

I won't deny that marijuana is less harmful then other substances. If I have to have a choice between who is coming down the highway at me, a guy who just smoked 4 joints, and a dude who just polished off a 40 of Jack Daniels, well, the choice should be obvious.

Also, I do believe that in certain circumstances, that it has medicinal purposes...and I have even tried to get an older person I know with an acute case of MS to consider it. For it's pain relief and ability to increase appetite.

What I am suggesting is that we don't believe all studies, because they are from Harvard, or MIT, or Oxford etc.. Many studies are in fact agenda driven.

To suggest it may be used as preventative for cancer is worrisome to me. There are enough snake oil salesmen making money off of the fears of cancer and it's victims in this world as it is.

I plan on being a doctor one day. If I have any brains left from being smacked around in boxing, that is.

But if several reputable studies indicate that certain compounds found in marijuana may be helpful in cancer treatment/prevention, it certainly deserves to be looked into and further studied.

I think you're both right. Scientific studies will not neccessarily be wrong. However, even if i have faith in the majority of researchers you do have to look at the people who take their results and choose to interpret them in a particular way. People will cling onto the medicinal properties reported as a reason to use it which could be bad.

As with most things the dose which is best probably would need to be specified to suit the individual based on things like body weight and condition and I wouldn't be suprised if they're not still working that out.

I don't like the idea of smoking at all - pity the world was too addicted to cigarettes to ban them by the time the health problems were well known to the general public.

I don't know that alcohol is worse than marijuana since particular types of alcohol like red wine are also good for you in moderation thanks to it's antioxidants. A couple of glasses of the right type of alcohol occasionally could be considered healthy. It's still a case of dose and the form you choose to take it in as with everything.

I do think each to their own. The energy drink I'm guzzling at the moment to stay awake to get through my uni work is probably pretty bad for me so even though I guess i try to be fairly pedantic about my health few of us are perfect!