Myths and
Facts
Myth: Today's marijuana
is more potent and more harmful than it was many years ago.
Fact: There is no medical evidence
that shows high-potency marijuana is more harmful than low-potency marijuana.
Marijuana is literally one of the least toxic substances known. High-potency
marijuana is actually preferable because less is of it consumed to obtain
the desired effect; thereby reducing the amount of smoke that enters the
lungs and lowering the risk of any respiratory health hazards. Claiming
that high-potency marijuana is more harmful than low-potency marijuana
is like claiming wine is more harmful than beer.
Myth: Smoking marijuana
can cause cancer and serious lung damage.
Fact: The chance of contracting cancer from smoking marijuana is minuscule.
Tobacco smokers typically smoke 20+ cigarettes every day for decades,
but virtually nobody smokes marijuana in the quantity and frequency required
to cause cancer. A 1997 UCLA study (see page 9) concluded that even prolonged
and heavy marijuana smoking causes no serious lung damage. Cancer risks
from common foods (meat, salt, dairy products) far exceed any cancer risk
posed by smoking marijuana. Respiratory health hazards and cancer risks
can be totally eliminated by ingesting marijuana in baked foods.
Myth: Marijuana contains
over 400 chemicals, thus proving that marijuana is dangerous.
Fact: Coffee contains 1,500 chemicals. Rat poison contains only 30
chemicals. Many vegetables contain cancer-causing chemicals. There is
no correlation between the number of chemicals a substance contains and
its toxicity. Prohibitionists often cite this misleading statistic to
make marijuana appear dangerous.
Myth: Marijuana is a gateway
drug--it leads to harder drugs.
Fact: The U.S. government's own statistics show that over 75 percent
of all Americans who use marijuana never use harder drugs. The gateway-drug
theory is derived by using blatantly-flawed logic. Using such blatantly-flawed
logic, alcohol should be considered the gateway drug because most cocaine
and heroin addicts began their drug use with beer or wine--not marijuana.
Myth: Marijuana is addicting.
Fact: Marijuana is not physically addicting. Medical studies rank marijuana
as less habit forming than caffeine. The legal drugs of tobacco (nicotine)
and alcohol can be as addicting as heroin or cocaine, but marijuana is
one of the least habit forming substances known.
Myth: Marijuana use impairs
learning ability.
Fact: A 1996 U.S. government study claims that heavy marijuana use
may impair learning ability. The key words are heavy use and may. This
claim is based on studying people who use marijuana daily--a sample that
represents less than 1 percent of all marijuana users. This study concluded:
1) Learning impairments cited were
subtle, minimal, and may be temporary. In other words, there is little
evidence that such learning impairments even exist.
2) Long-term memory was not affected
by heavy marijuana use.
3) Casual marijuana users showed no
signs of impaired learning.
4) Heavy alcohol use was cited as being
more detrimental to the thought and learning process than heavy marijuana
use.
Myth: Marijuana is a significant
cause of emergency room admissions.
Fact: The U.S. government reports that marijuana-related emergency
room episodes are increasing. The government counts an emergency room
admission as a marijuana-related episode if the word marijuana appears
anywhere in the medical record. If a patient tests positive for marijuana
because he/she used marijuana several days before the incident occurred,
if a drunk driver admits he/she also smoked some marijuana, or if anyone
involved in the incident merely possessed marijuana, the government counts
the emergency room admission as a "marijuana-related episode."
Less than 0.2% of all emergency room admissions are "marijuana related."
This so-called marijuana-causes-emergencies statistic was carefully crafted
by the government to make marijuana appear dangerous.
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