Weed - should it be legal?

[i-need-a-martini]

Uruguay has just changed its legislation and is now the first country in the wrold to sanction the growing, selling and smoking of marijuana.

They have done it to put the illegal drug trade and drug traffikers out of business.

Personally I think it makes sense. If nicotine is legal than there is very little difference between the 2.

Your thoughts?

http://www.smh.com.au/world/uruguay-becomes-first-country-to-legalise-marijuana-trade-20131211-hv59x...

[colic2bullsgirlore]

I showed you mine..............now you show me yours

Comorbidity between cannabis use and psychosis: modelling some possible  relationships

Author: Louisa Degenhardt, Wayne Hall, Michael Lynskey

http://ndarc.med.unsw.edu.au/resource/comorbidity-between-cannabis-use-and-psychosis-modelling-some-...

One issue that has raised particular concern over the past few decades is the possibility that cannabis use may be a cause in some sense of psychotic disorders such as schizophrenia.

This concern has been raised by clinical research showing high proportions of persons with schizophrenia reporting regular cannabis use and meeting criteria for cannabis use disorders.

There has been considerable debate about the reasons for this association.

The aim of the present report was therefore to use mathematical modelling to predict what the impact would be of some of the possible relationships on the incidence and prevalence of psychosis, given trends in the prevalence of cannabis use that have occurred over the past several decades.

Specifically, the study modelled the prevalence of schizophrenia over the lifespan; modelled the prevalence of cannabis use over the life course in eight birth cohorts: 1940-1944, 1945-1949, 1950-1954, 1955-1959, 1960-1964, 1965-1969, 1970-1974, 1975-1979.

It also examined trends in the number of cases of schizophrenia that would be observed in these cohorts, given four different hypotheses about the relationship between cannabis use and schizophrenia,namely,

(a) that it is causal,

(b) that it precipitates the disorder among vulnerable persons,

(c) that it exacerbates the disorder,

and

(d) that persons with schizophrenia are more liable to develop regular cannabis use.

These predictions were compared with the published literature on the incidence and prevalence of schizophrenia over the past few decades to evaluate the plausibility of each of the hypotheses.

The prediction of the hypothesis that cannabis causes psychosis was not supported by the data on trends in the incidence of psychosis.

There was no evidence that there has been an increase in the incidence of psychosis over the past thirty years of the magnitude predicted by the hypothesis.

This suggests that cannabis use does not cause cases of psychosis that would not otherwise have occurred.

This approach has suggested that cannabis use is probably not causally related to psychosis in the strong sense of causing cases that would no otherwise have occurred.

Nonetheless, cannabis use may affect persons who are vulnerable to developing psychosis, or who have already developed the disorder.

Such persons may be advised of this possible relationship and counselled against using cannabis.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

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@9brumbies wrote:

There is a lot of difference between cigarettes and marijuana. Marijuana is mind altering increases the chance of becoming schizophrenic. Take a walk around any psychiatric unit and see the result of people who have taken marijuana and their incidence of paranoid schizophrenia.

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Same rider different horse

http://www.bipolarworld.net/Bipolar%20Disorder/Articles/art39.htm

NICOTINE
 

Nicotine can act either as a stimulant or a depressant depending on dose and history of use.

Today, scientists are researching nicotine receptors in the central nervous system.

The reason why many depressed people feel better after smoking a cigarette is that they are

correcting a chemical imbalance altered temporarily by nicotine.

The downside of nicotine is that it is extremely addictive, and appears to act chemically like hard drug addictions.

New synthetic drugs are being tested which seem to sidestep the negative effects of nicotine.

One drug in early human trials is showing promise as a very effective pain medication.

A handful of other drugs designed to target nicotine receptors are being tested in patients with Alzheimer’s and Parkinson’s disease. Studies have shown that the administration of nicotine can improve memory and attention in these patients.
 

http://schizophrenia.about.com/od/complications/f/schiz_smoke.htm

[colic2bullsgirlore]

Australia pot smokers have a very unique trait in that they (generally) mix Tobacco with their pot.

Approximately 85% of people with schizophrenia smoke cigarettes, as opposed to approximately 23% of the

general adult population.

They also smoke two to three times more cigarettes than the average smoker and inhale more deeply.

Studies and personal reports show that smoking often reduces the symptoms of schizophrenia, and can also reduce some of the side effects of medication.

http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1046/j.1360-0443.2001.961116037.x/abstract

Alcohol, cannabis and tobacco use among Australians: a comparison of their associations with other drug use and use disorders, affective and anxiety disorders, and psychosis

Aim. To compare relationships between alcohol, cannabis and tobacco and indicators of mental health problems in the general population.

Method. A survey of a nationally representative sample of 10 641 Australian adults (the National Survey of Mental Health and Well-Being (NSMHWB)) provided data on alcohol, cannabis and tobacco use and mental health (DSM-IV anxiety disorders, affective disorders, other substance use disorders and screening positively for psychosis).

Findings. Alcohol showed a "J-shaped" relationship with DSM-IV affective and anxiety disorders: alcohol users had lower rates of these problems than non-users of alcohol, while those meeting criteria for alcohol dependence had the highest rates.

Tobacco and cannabis use were both associated with increased rates of all mental health problems examined.

However, after controlling for demographics, neuroticism and other drug use, cannabis was not associated with anxiety or affective disorders.

Alcohol dependence and tobacco use remained associated with both of these indicators of mental health.

All three types of drug use were associated with higher rates of other substance use problems, with cannabis

having the strongest association.

Conclusions. The use of alcohol, tobacco and cannabis are associated with different patterns of

co-morbidity in the general population.

[spotweldersfriend]

That trait-mixing tobacco with grass-took hold in the mid to late 70's when police stepped up their efforts and the price of cannabis skyrocketed.Funny thing though,they seemed to turn a blind eye to heroin.I wonder why?

[azureline**]

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@siggie-reported-by-alarmists wrote:

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@azureline** wrote:

Look up Sane Australia and some medical sites...... the evidence shows  it.

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Post the evidence.

The 2013 Harvard Medical School report disagrees.  Can you discredit them Az.

I have not been able to find reports from psychiatrist that state pot causes mental illness.

They state genetics cause mental illness.

As stated earlier, it correlates with mental illness, not causes it.

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For every link you can find to say I am mistaken, I can find one that supports my info.

Will I? No, not that interested. I no longer live near the psychotic nut who terrorised his family and involved us in it, which gave me an interest in it.

[acacia_pycnantha]

colic2bullsgirlore wrote . . The (Tasmanian poppy) plots are well off the road away from the eyes of passing motorists,

That's not what I saw when i drove from Devonport to Launceston in the early 1980's.

I was so astonished that I stopped the car at the side of the road, reached over the wire fence and picked a few seed capsules.

Just to be sure I wasn't hallucinating, you understand. 😉

[*crikey*mate*]

yep.

The more silly people in the world, the greater chance me and mine have of getting ahead and getting a job etc.

I once worked in a bit of a surfy kinda community. You could smell the dope just walking down the street.

Every morning on the wasy to work, you'd drive past the surf. If the surf was up, you knew not too many would turn up for work that day.

Had this one chef - he was brilliant, but woke up every morning to a billy or as joint, before his first coffee of the day, but every night before and straight after service before rack and stack, he'd head out the back door for a bucket billy.

he spent his life ripped, stoned or tripping.

He never promoted past Sous Chef. saw him a few years ago, he's 55 now, still a Sous Chef, but now he's in a bowls club making sandwiches, burgers and deep fried garbage for minimum wage.

[colic2bullsgirlore]

Yep, with you ^^^^^^^^^^^^ I see it every day the new addict scourge. Getting around in walking frames, eyes are

lifeless yet a smile still permeates their face.

Tottering off and to their guru and without question swallowing another pill... but that's OK the pill is legal...and legal things are good ..right,,,

and I guess there are some in that same crowd that see their "extra income" fading away. I can understand them

wanting to protect their extra income

.... How about you???

http://www.smh.com.au/national/seniors-selling-off-their-drugs-20121117-29jb1.html

PATIENTS being given powerful painkillers should be routinely drug tested to make sure they are not selling their drugs in the booming black market, doctors say.

Leading pain and addiction medicine experts say there is increasing evidence of doctors being scammed for large doses of prescription drugs, particularly addictive opioids such as OxyContin.

While addicts ''doctor shopping'' for prescriptions is well known, head of pain management at the Royal Adelaide Hospital Dr Penny Briscoe said there was now evidence of ''fossil pharming'' in Australia, where elderly people sell their medication to supplement their pensions.

She said an elderly palliative care patient recently admitted to selling his drugs to boost his income, raising the

prospect that more patients were doing so without doctors knowing.

http://www.theage.com.au/victoria/pensioners-selling-deadly-painkiller-to-addicts-20121018-27u1d.htm...

IT HAS become Albury-Wodonga's deadliest and most desired drug. But you won't find it being made in grubby warehouses or traded in shadowy alleyways.

Instead, it is handed over by pharmacists to pensioners for just a few dollars, and traded in a lucrative black market behind closed doors.

The painkilling patch fentanyl is called ''stickers'' by those in the drug-using community on the Victoria-New South Wales border

Albury grandmother Naomi Allwork, 45, was one of the first in Albury-Wodonga to die in a spate of overdoses between the middle of last year and this year.

A coroner found she died of ''fentanyl toxicity'', multiple drug ingestion and heart complications on June 29, 2011.

Her daughter, Bernadette Williams, has since spoken out about authorities' head-in-the-sand approach to the drug's abuse.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8T9Aa1V5oyo

Mummys little Helper

What a drag it is getting old.

"Things are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Mother needs something today to calm her down
And though she's not really ill
There's a little yellow pill
She goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper
And it helps her on her way, gets her through her busy day.

"Things are different today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
Cooking fresh food for a husband's just a drag
So she buys an instant cake and she buys a frozen steak
And goes running for the shelter of her mother's little helper
And to help her on her way, get her through her busy day.

Doctor, please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old.

"Men just aren't the same today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
They just don't appreciate that you get tired
They're so hard to satisfy. You can tranquilise your mind
So go running for the shelter of your mother's little helper
And four help you through the night, help to minimise your plight.

Doctor, please, some more of these
Outside the door, she took four more
What a drag it is getting old.

Life's just much too hard today,"
I hear ev'ry mother say
The pursuit of happiness just seems a bore
And if you take more of those, you will get an overdose
No more running for the shelter of a mother's little helper
They just helped you on your way through your busy dying day

Education not prohibitiion

[colic2bullsgirlore]

http://www.abc.net.au/local/stories/2013/05/02/3749999.htm

Research showing illicit drug users in the Northern Territory are increasingly turning towards the use of prescribed

morphine is raising concerns there is not enough moderation of the drug.

Unlike in other jurisdictions in Australia, the Northern Territory has a shortage of heroin and cocaine.

So instead of accessing these drugs, the majority of illicit drug users in the Territory are turning to morphine, a study by the Drug and Alcohol Research Centre has found.

Wagaman man, 'Greg' told ABC radio he has seen the rise of morphine addiction and its illegal trade between pensioners, the disabled and addicts around Darwin.

"This morphine addiction is horrible and the reason the pensioners who are supplying it is the cost of living - they need the $80 or $90 per tablet to survive," he said.

"Furthermore they crush the tablet up and inject it which is not a pleasant way of doing it - if manufacturers made it so you couldn't crush it up and inject it the problem would be solved."

Greg said a close friend of his is addicted to morphine and accesses it from pensioners.

"From what she's told me, morphine is the most horrible drug on earth and it's very hard to get off.

"The reason (people) use it is because you can buy a tablet for $80 to $90 and that's the cheapest high you can get in Darwin - you can't get heroin here or cocaine or other drugs so you're caught between $150 for manufacturer drugs or $80 to $90 for a pill.

"They're getting it from pensioners and the disabled who need them...but can probably do with a little bit less because they need the money to survive and pay the power bills so they sell a pill.

"If you hang around John Stokes Square and around Nightcliff you can see the symptoms and the people who are actually suffering - dribbling noses and quite incoherent."

Director of the National Drug Research Institute, Professor Steve Allsop, said availability was driving the trend towards prescribed drug use.

"In the Northern Territory there is a shortage of heroin so we're seeing people turning to prescribed opioids," he said.

"We've seen an increase in prescribed opioids because we have an aging population and there's a very valid use for these substances for managing pain, but unfortunately some people either manufacture symptoms and go to the doctor, drugs might stolen or they might take from people to who there were prescribed."

He said the number of deaths resulting from prescribed opioids is rising, and more needs to be done to prevent the trend growing.

"They are legitimate and important medicines but we need to have strategies

to reduce their misuse."

Education not prohibition

[colic2bullsgirlore]

http://www.smh.com.au/technology/technology-news/police-follow-the-silk-road-to-online-drug-marketpl...

But Nigel Phair, a former policeman turned computer security consultant who has just secured funding from the National Drug Law Enforcement Research Fund to look into the online drugs trade, says police need to make huge changes if they are to make a dent in the problem.

The Carnegie Mellon University's computer security professor, Nicolas Christin, spent more than six months on daily analysis of Silk Road for a research paper. He found use of the site had been growing and total revenue for its more than 500 sellers was about $US1.9 million ($1.8 million) a month - and $US143,000 a month went to the site's operators as commission.

Christin estimates Silk Road has up to 150,000 customers who bought 24,422 items from February 3 and July 24 this year. Cannabis is the most popular item.

Despite the anonymity of the service and the lack of legal recourse if you get ripped off, Christin found that for 96.5 per cent of items buyers gave a 5 out of 5 feedback rating.

The site seems to be increasingly popular with Australians, according to Monica Barratt, a research fellow at the National Drug Research Institute, who says it highlights the futility of law enforcement.

''Drug use and the demand for drug use isn't changing, so if for some reason Silk Road is suppressed or removed, there will just be another supply channel pop up,'' she says.

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This IMO is where the trust in prohibitiion and lack of drug education has led society.

An agreeance with prohibtion is only increasing the problem and ensuring the pockets of those that prey on the

vulnerable and uneducated are extremely well lined.

How can anybody expect  illicit drug addicts in general to "dob themselves in". Most do not think they have a problem

and hide the problem away like their illicit drugs for fear of legal repercussion

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http://silkroaddrugs.org/silkroad-drugs-complete-step-by-step-guide/

Here an overview on Silk Road anonymous marketplace. I just want to make it clear again that this is only meant for educational purposes, I am only showing you how to get there and to be safe but I don’t recommend you buy or sell anything illegal, including drugs, as you can face criminal prosecution or harm your body. If you would like to be up to date with the latest news and anything Silk Road related then just follow me on twitter via the “Follow” button on the right of the screen.

I have covered the reasoning to why I recommend certain tools and software in my previous articles so I won’t go into them in this post although I will have a link to them if you would like to know more about it. Please note that it is best to try to find the Silk Road through your computer, it is not advisable to do so from your tablet or phone as they are a lot less secure as all mobile data is extremely vulnerable. If you would like to see a full list of tools to help you be safer then click here to go to my tools page or use the menu at the top of the screen.

Just before i go into further detail i just want to offer this number to call if you or someone you know are taking too many drugs or drinking too much booze and you are not sure about how to stop. Give them a call and they may be able to help you get into a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program. You should never feel ashamed to ask, just give them a call and get on the road to recovery.

edited to australian numbers and links

131114 Lifeline

Reachout link below

http://au.reachout.com/Tough-Times/Somethings-not-right/Addiction?gclid=CL2X7Mq1sLsCFUJZpQodu0sA1A

Addiction

Addiction comes in lots of different forms and it’s not just drugs.

Addiction just means that you can’t stop doing something even if you badly want to stop.

It’s like you have no control over it. While it takes work, you can manage and fight your addictions and the best way to do that is with the right help.

See someone sooner rather than later, and use the info here to point you in the right direction to get on top of it.