cathylynn wrote:
teenagers who smoke pot frequently have a higher risk of becoming schizophrenic.
Especially if there's schizophrenia in the family.
I'd definitely advise against teenagers smoking pot. Adults doing it I'm more or less ambivalent about, though if there's a history of schizophrenia in the family, I'd strongly suggest staying away from it.
cathylynn wrote:
chronic pot use saps motivation and can cause paranoia, both of which i saw in my ex-fiance.
Chronic use of anything not specifically healthy is generally a bad idea. And indeed paranoia is a common side-effect, especially with heavy use, so that's something to watch out for. Motivation-wise, it varies from person to person. Some people lose motivation, while others lose creative inhibition and get more creative where they'd otherwise be too critical of their own work to get going with something. Of course, results of creating while not thinking entirely clearly may vary as well.
cathylynn wrote:
pot is more likely to cause lung cancer than cigarettes.
More likely? According to what studies? Smoke is smoke (and any kind of smoke in large amounts can cause cancer and other problems), but there's a lot of stuff in cigarettes (such as tar) that adds extra harmfulness, so I'm not so sure about pot being
more likely than cigarettes to cause lung cancer. Not saying it definitely isn't so, but I've never heard that from any reliable source. Last I heard, the scientific consensus was leaning toward cigarettes being a bit higher on the cancer side of things, though I don't know what the methods of the studies or their sample sizes were, and I'm not sure if there was a separation between different forms of cancer.
cathylynn wrote:
but it's not harmless.
This is true. It's less harmful than a lot of things, but it's not harmless. There are ways of minimizing some of the risks (cancer risk goes down significantly with vaporization, for example), but there are always going to be risks involved with the use of something that messes with brain chemistry in any way.
But my point of view is that marijuana is only a "big deal" if alcohol is as well. To me, personally, they're both things I stay away from, but I've seen booze cause a lot more problems (and make people a lot harder to be around) than weed, so I'd sooner worry about someone drinking alcohol than someone inhaling marijuana, generally speaking.
Can we just establish that he's NOT smoking pot because it's A RUMOR.
23 Oct 2012, 2:09 am
