Physicians News Health news for doctors and patients.
There has been recent debate on the best way to proceed with legalizing medical marijuana, for which ailments, and in some states, for recreational use. But rarely does the discussion include the health effects of marijuana.
“Across the country there’s a legalization movement, but little to push research,” said Karen Rizzo, MD, of the Pennsylvania Medical Society. “From a clinical perspective, it’s like putting the cart before the horse.”
Earlier this year, the American Academy of Pediatrics issued a statement against the legalization of marijuana in response to recent laws in Washington state and Colorado permitting use of the drug.
“Making it more available to adults — even if restrictions are in place — will increase the access for teens,” said Dr. Seth Ammerman of the AAP Committee on Substance Abuse. “Just the campaigns to legalize marijuana can have the effect of persuading adolescents that marijuana is not dangerous, which can have a devastating impact on their lifelong health and development.”
But since it is legal in those states, and others are moving in that direction, it is more important than ever to understand marijuana’s effects on the body.
The medical team at Healthline.com has identified 18 different areas of the body most affected by marijuana use including:
- Respiratory System: “You’re also at increased risk of bronchitis and lung infections.”
- Central Nervous System: “In the hippocampus, THC changes the way you process information, so your judgment may be impaired.”
- Circulatory System: “Within minutes, your heart rate may increase by 20 to 50 beats per minute.”
- Immune System: Marijuana may make “you more vulnerable to illness.”
See the full graphic below.
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“It’s like putting the cart before the horse.” So, apparently this article has enough information about cannabis to list all these negative effects, like apparently it lowers your immune system (it doesn’t. Try googling Dr. Donald Tashkin’s study at UCLA of AIDS patients that use cannabis), but the jury’s still out on the benefits. Forget that it’s been around for thousands of years, but yet we still don’t have enough info. Better keep arresting users for a few more decades while we keep this gravy train rolling along.
This is just another prohibitionist hit piece, probably from an author or authors that stand to gain monetarily from the continued illegality of a PLANT!!!
No ones buying your BS anymore.
Withdrawal? Really? I’ll take cannabis withdrawl (whatever the hell that is) over caffeine withdrawal any day.
Politicians who continue to demonize Marijuana, Corrupt Law Enforcement Officials who prefer to ruin peoples lives over Marijuana possession rather than solve real crimes who fund their departments toys and salaries with monies acquired through Marijuana home raids, seizures and forfeitures, and so-called “Addiction Specialists” who make their income off of the judicial misfortunes of our citizens who choose marijuana, – Your actions go against The Will of The People and Your Days Are Numbered! Find new careers before you don’t have one.
The People have spoken! Get on-board with Marijuana Legalization Nationwide, or be left behind and find new careers. Your choice.
There is absolutely no doubt now that the majority of Americans want to completely legalize marijuana nationwide. Our numbers grow on a daily basis.
The prohibitionist view on marijuana is the viewpoint of a minority a very small and rapidly shrinking percentage of Americans. It is based upon decades of lies and propaganda.
Each and every tired old lie they have propagated has been thoroughly proven false by both science and society.
Their tired old rhetoric no longer holds any validity. The vast majority of Americans have seen through the sham of marijuana prohibition in this day and age. The number of prohibitionists left shrinks on a daily basis.
With their credibility shattered, and their not so hidden agendas visible to a much wiser public, what’s left for a marijuana prohibitionist to do?
Maybe, just come to terms with the fact that Marijuana Legalization Nationwide is an inevitable reality that’s approaching much sooner than prohibitionists think, and there is nothing they can do to stop it!
Legalize Nationwide!…and Support All Marijuana Legalization Efforts!
If I were you and worried so much about “saving all of us” adults from ourselves, well then, I’d begin with the deadliest drug, which causes more broken homes, domestic violence, and traffic fatalities than all other drugs, combined, which is alcohol.
Yet alcohol remains perfectly legal, widely accepted, endlessly advertised, even glorified as an All American pastime.
Why doesn’t the much more prevalent, more widely abused, use of alcohol concern you much more than marijuana which is a relatively benign drug when compared to all other ones?
Protesting the legality of booze should be your number one priority if you are truly so concerned about “saving us all” from ourselves.
In the prohibitionist’s world, anybody who consumes the slightest amount of marijuana responsibly in the privacy of their own homes are “stoners” and “dopers” that need to be incarcerated in order to to protect society.
In their world, any marijuana use equates to marijuana abuse, and it is their God given duty to worry about “saving us all” from the “evils” of marijuana use.
Who are they to tell us we can’t choose marijuana, the safer choice instead of alcohol for relaxation, after a long, hard day, in the privacy of our own homes?
People who use marijuana are smart, honest, hard working, educated, and successful people too, who “follow the law” also.(except for their marijuana consumption under it’s current prohibition of course) .
Not the stereotypical live at home losers prohibitionists make us out to be. We are doctors, lawyers, professors, movie stars, and politicians too.
Several Presidents of The United States themselves, along with Justin Trudeau, Bill Gates, and Carl Sagan have all confessed to their marijuana use. As have a long and extensive list of successful people throughout history at one point or other in their lives.
Although that doesn’t mean a dam thing to people who will make comments like “dopers” and “stoners” about anybody who uses the slightest amount of Marijuana although it is way safer than alcohol.
To these people any use equals abuse, and that is really ignorant and full of hypocrisy. While our society promotes, advertises, and even glorifies alcohol consumption like it’s an All American pastime.
There is nothing worse about relaxing with a little marijuana after a long hard day than having a drink or two of alcohol.
So come off those high horses of yours. Who are you to dictate to the rest of society that we can’t enjoy Marijuana, the safer choice over alcohol, in the privacy of our own homes?
We’ve worked real hard our whole lives to provide for our loved ones. We don’t appreciate prohibitionists trying to impose their will and morals upon us all.
Has a marijuana user ever forced you to use it? Probably not. So nobody has the right to force us not to either.
Don’t try to impose your morality and “clean living” upon all of us with Draconian Marijuana Laws, and we won’t think you’re such prohibitionist hypocrites.
Legalize Nationwide! Support Each and Every Marijuana Legalization Initiative!