The smell of weed.

[Centurion07]

Probably based on a sample size of 0 and in reality just reflects his own prejudices.

[AW111]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Like I said no one hits just one substance as a substance user.

A weed smoker never touches cocaine and vice versa?

Ontop of that they'll touch alcohol as well at points.

Any substance user (I'm not classing substance user as alcohol) uses other chemicals also.

Also you smoke weed?

At somepoint you are over the permitted drive limit.

If you smoke three days ago it'll still be in your system. So that smoke on a Fri night with your middle class friends and a bump on Monday morning or pulled on a Sunday night coming back from somewhere and drugs wiped? It'll be the same ban as drink drive.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz on Saturday 9th October 12:20

I know quite a few middle-aged weed smokers who don't touch other drugs, apart from non-excessive drinking.

They also have normal jobs, houses, etc. You just don't see them, because they don't stand out.

[AW111]

NMNeil said:

I'm in New Mexico, where it's legal to grow 12 plants per household for your own consumption.
As for growing it, I dug 12 holes each about a foot deep, put in some plants I had started from seed that were about 8" tall and filled around them with store bought potting soil. Spread a handful of cheap tomato fertilizer on top of the soil and watered. We don't get much rain here so I gave them a drink of well water every 2 weeks or so. No need for any sort of insect spray as I have plenty of praying mantis and tarantulas which have a voracious appetite for bugs. Left them alone until the lower leaves began to turn yellow and the first amber trichromes showed, then chopped and dried them.
That's about as basic as you can get.

I used to live in a very small town on the NSW south coast, surrounded by a lot of forest.
Many people had a plant or two out in the bush, or in a corner of their property - it grows like topsy in a warm climate, as you found.

The police didn't seem to take much notice, as long as people weren't growing commercial quantities for sale.

[spookly]

hucumber said:

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Like I said no one hits just one substance as a substance user.

A weed smoker never touches cocaine and vice versa?

Ontop of that they'll touch alcohol as well at points.

Any substance user (I'm not classing substance user as alcohol) uses other chemicals also.

Also you smoke weed?

At somepoint you are over the permitted drive limit.

If you smoke three days ago it'll still be in your system. So that smoke on a Fri night with your middle class friends and a bump on Monday morning or pulled on a Sunday night coming back from somewhere and drugs wiped? It'll be the same ban as drink drive.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz on Saturday 9th October 12:20

I bet you're fun at parties

Exactly what I was thinking.
Sounds like Ned Flanders.

[AW111]

spookly said:

Exactly what I was thinking.
Sounds like Ned Flanders.

Less tolerant.
Ned Flanders just keeps seeing good in everybody, no matter what they do.


More ignorant.
The blanket statement that "no substance abuser sticks to just one drug" is just plain rubbish.

[NMNeil]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Like I said no one hits just one substance as a substance user.

A weed smoker never touches cocaine and vice versa?

Ontop of that they'll touch alcohol as well at points.

Any substance user (I'm not classing substance user as alcohol) uses other chemicals also.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz on Saturday 9th October 12:20

Using that flawed logic it means that anyone who drinks alcohol, which is a potent central nervous system depressant, will later on start using barbiturates, which are a more potent central nervous system depressant.

[NMNeil]

donkmeister said:

When you think of how much industrial hemp was (and still is) grown in this country out in big fields with basic fertiliser and sunlight, that doesn't surprise me - aren't they meant to be pretty hardy plants? Success probably depends more on who your neighbours are; I don't like the smell but TBH I couldn't give a toss if someone was growing a couple of plants for their own use at home, I'd rather see a couple of shrubs in their garden than the fluorescent glow of special lamps from their windows when I'm enjoying some night-time darkness in the garden.

You know it's gone mainstream when you can attend classes for growing and other aspects of the cannabis industry.
https://news.unm.edu/news/unm-launches-cannabis-ed...

[SilverShamrock]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Like I said no one hits just one substance as a substance user.

A weed smoker never touches cocaine and vice versa?

Ontop of that they'll touch alcohol as well at points.

Any substance user (I'm not classing substance user as alcohol) uses other chemicals also.

Also you smoke weed?

At somepoint you are over the permitted drive limit.

If you smoke three days ago it'll still be in your system. So that smoke on a Fri night with your middle class friends and a bump on Monday morning or pulled on a Sunday night coming back from somewhere and drugs wiped? It'll be the same ban as drink drive.

Edited by Hugo Stiglitz on Saturday 9th October 12:20

You have no clue.

[Hugo Stiglitz]

Sorry.

I've professionally dealt with drugs and drink offences and have experience of professional people picking up weed for the first time (some since university) as an occasional habit that turns into a nightly smoke.

I can also tell you alot about the current intox devices with some surprises but that I won't put on a forum.

[Derek Smith]

There is little in the way of research with regards the long-term addictive qualities of cannabis smoking. It would appear that both ‘sides’ are afraid of what they might discover. The only one of any note that I’ve seen was one run by the American military on post-Vietnam veterans, the idea being that they were concerned with regards care. It would appear that drug abuse was common in ground troops.

They noted that after a period, about 5 years, but memory fades, the degree of drug abuse among veterans was identical to that of their demographic who had not been in the forces. Not only that, the degree of use during their service seemed to have no effect on how quickly they returned to the norm.

As it didn’t give the politically correct result, the report was later hidden, but it had become quite well known in the early 80s. The American unit that deals with drugs said that the research was flawed as there were too few participants in the test. This might be right, although it ran into hundreds, but, if so, why put the lid on it?

Everything is anecdotal until there is research.

I'm with those who suggest that social environment is more of a factor than any addictive qualities of cannabis. But all I've got in a bit of experience dealing with youngsters who start to use it.

[Centurion07]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Sorry.

I've professionally dealt with drugs and drink offences and have experience of professional people picking up weed for the first time (some since university) as an occasional habit that turns into a nightly smoke.

Which doesn't equate to this in any way:

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Like I said no one hits just one substance as a substance user.

[InitialDave]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Also you smoke weed?

At somepoint you are over the permitted drive limit.

If you smoke three days ago it'll still be in your system. So that smoke on a Fri night with your middle class friends and a bump on Monday morning or pulled on a Sunday night coming back from somewhere and drugs wiped? It'll be the same ban as drink drive.

If correct, that's not an argument against drug use. It's an argument that our methods for dealing with drug use are not fit for purpose, and result in people being punished unjustly.

[Jonny Wishbone]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Sorry.

I've professionally dealt with drugs and drink offences and have experience of professional people picking up weed for the first time (some since university) as an occasional habit that turns into a nightly smoke.

I can also tell you alot about the current intox devices with some surprises but that I won't put on a forum.

As has been pointed out upthread, the bit in bold could be said, even more emphatically, about alcohol, which in a previous post you arbitrarily discounted for the purposes of discussing substance abuse. Whilst it’s an opinion, the notion that alcohol is far more harmful than weed is backed up by plenty of research. It also stands up to a brief thought experiment.

How many weed smokers end up in A&E on a Saturday night and is it close to the 50% that occurs with drinkers in some busy casualty departments? How many ganga enthusiasts litter the streets of most provincial towns every weekend covering the pavements in vomit and making them places to avoid for everybody else? How many pot tokers engage in casual or domestic violence? I believe one of the police officers on this thread has attested to the vast differential in the proportion of violent offences committed by those under the influence of alcohol versus weed, which is obviously infamous for chilling people out. Does blazing blunts directly cause 8000 deaths a year like booze? You argue that cannabis is a gateway drug (it might be though it’s arguable that tobacco might be the gateway drug for cannabis, which is also rather hypocritically legal) but how many people who dabble in drugs start off with something other than alcohol? I’d wager it’s a minority. I could go on.

A bloke upthread has suggested these comparisons are an argument for increasing restrictions on alcohol rather than easing up on weed and I have sympathy for this perspective. The issue is that most people who would seek to stop decent, average people from rolling up a carrot will do so whilst happily chugging a bottle of wine with their evening meal and it’s nonsense.

[DaveE87]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

stuff

How many as a percentage go from a one-off smoke to a nightly smoke? How many go from one drink to a nightly drink? Some people abuse substances, but not all. Your level of ignorance is up there with saying all drinkers will take other drugs (such as cocaine or amphetamines), or all drinkers will drink drive.

Cannabis brings people in to contact with other drugs purely because of the type of some people that sell it, purely for profit. The "skunk" that is available is comparable to moonshine - only available in such high strength due to prohibition. Some of us would prefer low or nil THC (comparable to beer and other low or non-alcoholic drinks). Your views are likely skewed purely because of the type of characters you come in to contact with - they would be scrotes whether they smoke cannabis or not.

[mdw]

I made a mistake in tumble drying a wet coat belonging to one of the refugees we fostered, it was quite a stench opening the door!! We knew he smoked it as he had complained to his social worker that we did not give him enough pocket money to cut it with tobaco so had to smoke it neat.

[g3org3y]

Hugo Stiglitz said:

Sorry.

I've professionally dealt with drugs and drink offences and have experience of professional people picking up weed for the first time (some since university) as an occasional habit that turns into a nightly smoke.

I can also tell you alot about the current intox devices with some surprises but that I won't put on a forum.

Watch this and come back to the thread.



FYI re Prof Nutt who is being interviewed:

FYI said:

David Nutt is Chair of our Scientific Committee and currently the Edmund J Safra Professor of Neuropsychopharmacology and Head of the Neuropsychopharmacology Unit in the Centre for Academic Psychiatry in the Division of Brain Sciences, Dept of Medicine, Hammersmith Hospital, Imperial College London. He is also visiting professor at the Open University in the UK and Maastricht University in the Netherlands. He currently is the founder Chair of DrugScience and has held many leadership positions in both the UK and European academic scientific and clinical organisations. These include presidencies of the European Brain Council, the British Neuroscience Association, the British Association of Psychopharmacology and the European College of Neuropsychopharmacology as well as Chair of the UK Advisory Council on the Misuse of Drugs. He is a Fellow of the Royal Colleges of Physicians, of Psychiatrists and of the Academy of Medical Sciences. He is also the UK Director of the European Certificate and Masters in Affective Disorders courses and a member of the International Centre for Science in Drug Policy. David has edited the Journal of Psychopharmacology for over twenty five years and acts as the psychiatry drugs advisor to the British National Formulary. He has published over 500 original research papers and a similar number of reviews and books chapters, eight government reports on drugs and 31 books, including one for the general public, ‘Drugs Without the Hot Air’, which won the Transmission book prize in 2014 for Communication of Ideas.

So, he has a fair idea about drugs and their harms.

[Volvolover]

Having worked in Prisons for a number of years (as a uniformed keyholder access all areas) my view is that weed is destroying more (young)lives than alcohol.
We didn’t have a secure medical unit full of alcoholics with psychosis put it that way

[Centurion07]

Volvolover said:

Having worked in Prisons for a number of years (as a uniformed keyholder access all areas) my view is that weed is destroying more (young)lives than alcohol.
We didn’t have a secure medical unit full of alcoholics with psychosis put it that way

So aside from your anecdotal evidence, what is the other real-world evidence that backs this up...?

I've not worked in prisons or in hospitals, but I don't think it would take me too long on google to come up with some facts and figures that totally contradict your point of view.

[Volvolover]

Centurion07 said:

Volvolover said:

Having worked in Prisons for a number of years (as a uniformed keyholder access all areas) my view is that weed is destroying more (young)lives than alcohol.
We didn’t have a secure medical unit full of alcoholics with psychosis put it that way

So aside from your anecdotal evidence, what is the other real-world evidence that backs this up...?

I've not worked in prisons or in hospitals, but I don't think it would take me too long on google to come up with some facts and figures that totally contradict your point of view.

We had plenty of facts and figures relating to the inmates and their health and habits, as does the secure mental hospitals up the road. If you don’t think there’s any problems with using weed that’s your view. Having been exposed to what I have seen and the data that went along with it I’m happy with my view.

I’m not sure what is more ‘real world’ evidence though than hundreds of young men locked up because of actions taken by them which they blame on their mental health and they have documented mental problems linked to drug psychosis from long term opiate use?

[Centurion07]

Volvolover said:

Centurion07 said:

Volvolover said:

Having worked in Prisons for a number of years (as a uniformed keyholder access all areas) my view is that weed is destroying more (young)lives than alcohol.
We didn’t have a secure medical unit full of alcoholics with psychosis put it that way

So aside from your anecdotal evidence, what is the other real-world evidence that backs this up...?

I've not worked in prisons or in hospitals, but I don't think it would take me too long on google to come up with some facts and figures that totally contradict your point of view.

We had plenty of facts and figures relating to the inmates and their health and habits, as does the secure mental hospitals up the road. If you don’t think there’s any problems with using weed that’s your view. Having been exposed to what I have seen and the data that went along with it I’m happy with my view.

I’m not sure what is more ‘real world’ evidence though than hundreds of young men locked up because of actions taken by them which they blame on their mental health and they have documented mental problems linked to drug psychosis from long term opiate use?

1. I didn't say there were no problems with smoking weed.

2. You said weed causes more issues than alcohol but are now saying it's down to long-term opiate use...?


So your secure medical unit was actually full of opiate users, not weed smokers?

I suggest you take a look at the video g3org3y posted.

Edited by Centurion07 on Sunday 10th October 18:29