Prime Time cannabis discussion

delop

Did anyone watch that Discussion on cannabis on prime time lastnight

That Grainne Kenny from Europe against drugs made a show of her self, If she is the best and brightest they have I cant see what good they can do...

her comments 'you don't know about this because you have never raised babies' towards Fr Sean Cassin who does great work in the community, was shocking...

I kept thinking of the Simpsons ' Wont anyone think of the children!!'

seamus

What has cannabis got to do with babies? I missed the show.

I'm sure the same, "Gateway drug" and "Only helping the dealers" bull**** arguments were trotted out again.

Slow Motion

delop wrote:

Did anyone watch that Discussion on cannabis on prime time lastnight

That Grainne Kenny from Europe against drugs made a show of her self, If she is the best and brightest they have I cant see what good they can do...

her comments 'you don't know about this because you have never raised babies' towards Fr Sean Cassin who does great work in the community, was shocking...

I kept thinking of the Simpsons ' Wont anyone think of the children!!'

Didn't see it but I'm sure it was the same pointless circular debate, it's a gateway drug ! No it's not ! Yes it is ad infinitum !

delop

If you have realaudio installed you can watch it here http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/

The priest made some very measured comments, made sense, he claimed efforts to decrimalise it were not to benifit people who want to smoke but to give the revelant agencies an chance to help first before punishement

Duggy747

Why am I not suprised Ming is on it? He lives up the road from me, quite a nice chap, his woman is a nutter.

Dave!

Duggy747 wrote:

Why am I not suprised Ming is on it? He lives up the road from me, quite a nice chap, his woman is a nutter.

He was at a debate in UCD about drugs and started insulting 2 of the speakers about their weight. Completely unprovoked! Ended up getting booed and then started moaning for not getting longer to speak than the others.

Seemed like a bit of a c*nt to me, even if he did make some good points.

ScumLord

Damn, will have to watch it this evening at home.

I met Ming once in his home town, he seemed nice enough he put up my rantings even though I was twisted drunk. I did promise to buy 400 t-shirts off him though.

simu

Slow Motion wrote:

Didn't see it but I'm sure it was the same pointless circular debate, it's a gateway drug ! No it's not ! Yes it is ad infinitum !

Yes. Everyone just spews out their pre-prepared palaver. "Meryam" needs to be more incisive!

Orange69

delop wrote:

If you have realaudio installed you can watch it here http://www.rte.ie/news/primetime/

Why oh why are rte using realplayer?....when everyone else in the known universe is using flash video...

Rob_l

Orange69 wrote:

Why oh why are rte using realplayer?....when everyone else in the known universe is using flash video...

I like real player it works fine for me

DarkJager

If they can't come up with a better argument than "its a gateway drug", then its really time that they just shut the **** up.

Its not a gateway drug. Not everybody who smokes cannabis is going to run off and start taking Class A drugs.

ScumLord

Realplayer plays flash you mong!

Nothings ever going to change, smokers won't do anything to change it.

Orange69

ScumLord wrote:

Realplayer plays flash you mong!

And? I dont have realplayer installed.. you twat...

Duggy747

DarkJager wrote:

Its not a gateway drug. Not everybody who smokes cannabis is going to run off and start taking Class A drugs.

<_<

>_>

Nobody has a spare spoon and a lighter by any chance? A belt would be handy too!!

I once smoked with Ming and a bit of his personal stash, strong stuff, mind! Heh, sounds funny when you say it (I had a few joints with the County Cllr. ) We were talking shíte about the time he was on Don't Feed The Gondellas. Generally if you spew shíte about how bad smoke is for you AND you're remotely overweight he'll probably dig at ya for being so.

Dave!

Just finished watching it... Pretty good.

That woman was talking sh*te for the whole thing. Her arguments are more valid because the priest hasn't raised any kids :rolleyes: And she also said (about Ming), "one thing about cannabis users is they just keep going on and on and on...."

I've heard Fr Cassin on the radio before and thought he made alot of sense. Same again in this clip.

themole

I saw about half of the episode yesterday, and one of the main points they were talking about is the increased risk of metal disease caused by smoking cannabis.

Might be worth looking into.

ScumLord

Orange69 wrote:

And? I dont have realplayer installed.. you twat...

That's not the point and you it.

ScumLord

themole wrote:

I saw about half of the episode yesterday, and one of the main points they were talking about is the increased risk of metal disease caused by smoking cannabis.

Might be worth looking into.

It only increases the risk for those people that have these conditions already it's like banning milk because some people are lactose intolerant.

eoin5

delop wrote:

That Grainne Kenny from Europe against drugs made a show of her self, If she is the best and brightest they have I cant see what good they can do...

Yea she did get a bit silly. In fairness the whole thing did though.

I think that these debates should have a more focused topic otherwise everytime drugs appear on the news its just going to be the same old argument thats been done to death. It should have kept the discussion to the new report about mental health and what it means instead of washing over the whole gateway drug/classification/law enforcement stuff with little or no connection to the new findings.

I'd love to see a proper "Alcohol vs Cannabis" discussion.

themole

ScumLord wrote:

It only increases the risk for those people that have these conditions already it's like banning milk because some people are lactose intolerant.

Thats not what was said last night. They said you have an increased risk of developing a mental illness.

How can you have an increased "risk" of developing a condition you already have?

Snake Plisken

Yep Fr Sean Cassin talked a lot of common sense about it. Grainne Kenny typical auld one talking ****e! Ming is the man go the dutch route! The Cop John O'Connor gave the usual police line.

Snake

Steez

themole wrote:

Thats not what was said last night. They said you have an increased risk of developing a mental illness.

How can you have an increased "risk" of developing a condition you already have?

Eg. If you already have a mild form of schizophrenia/depression (or whatnot), smoking cannabis will heighten the chances of it forming fully and coming out.

I know that's badly worded, but y'know what i'm saying, you've a higher chance of having a proper schizo/bi-polar/depression episode if you smoke. whereas if you didn't smoke, it might just stay hidden and not appear at all.

nobodythere

Of course it's a gateway drug.

If alcohol was sold by scummy ****ers who also sold other drugs, it would be a gateway drug also.

ScumLord

A small minority of the population will develop schizowhatsits from cannabis use. Your born with a brain that susceptible to it it won't just pop up out of the blue. Saying that everyone that smokes cannabis will turn Berty is just plain ****e. That could be way off though I'm half drunk trying to remember this stuff.

However! Abusing any drug can't be good for your head. If we can drink responsibly, a much more dangerous drug and we all know it. Why can't we use cannabis responsibly?

I know there are people out there that don't like drugs full stop. There are others that don't see the need to introduce a new recreational drug but their free to not take the drug and we should be free to enjoy it.

Tha Gopher

DarkJager wrote:

Its not a gateway drug. Not everybody who smokes cannabis is going to run off and start taking Class A drugs.

Oh come on, you know full well most regular smokers have at best occasionally branched out to the oul class A`s. Am i the only internet user who smokes and realises

a- it does lead you to other things

b- It actually is bad for your memory

c- Its addictive

bubonicus

Thc Ftw Tbh

faceman

regularly using cannabis aint a good thing.

bubonicus

faceman wrote:

regularly using cannabis aint a good thing.

Care to back that up with scientific proof, or is it your opinion?

bubonicus

Tha Gopher wrote:

Oh come on, you know full well most regular smokers have at best occasionally branched out to the oul class A`s. Am i the only internet user who smokes and realises

a- it does lead you to other things

b- It actually is bad for your memory

c- Its addictive

a - false, i did class A's before i did cannabis.

b - what where we, huh...

c - false, it's habit forming like coffee, but the addictiviness comes from mixing with tobacco.

faceman

bubonicus wrote:

Care to back that up with scientific proof, or is it your opinion?

Are you for real? You stoned at the moment?

KilbarrackBlows

Cannabis is fine
i really wish it was legalise it my mother has a MS (Multiple sclerosis)
and hash really helps her muscles relax as they tighten up alot
so when sometimes its hard to get and she panics because
she mite be able to find any cause its really the only thing around
that helps. So now i buy crap loads of hash to keep so she wont be stuck
for it if it becomes hard to get any which it happens alot.

And for me personaly
i smoked it alot in my teens growing up
it never lead me onto harder drugs
one of my friends tried to lead me onto harder drugs not the hash
i think the idiots who are against legalising cannabis who call it a gateway drug are idiots its not a gateway drug people are just thick and cave into peer preasure.

PS: smoken joints like a pack of smokes is retarded and turns you into a slowmo.

faceman

arguments that cannabis leads to harder drugs are often made by the un-educated. Its like saying playing violent video games leads to murder or watchin porn leads to rape. However thats not what the issue is

There has been a lot of research into the long term effects of regularly using cannabis which have been published.

Terry

KilbarrackBlows wrote:

Cannabis is fine
i really wish it was legalise it my mother has a MS (Multiple sclerosis)
and hash really helps her muscles relax as they tighten up alot
so when sometimes its hard to get and she panics because
she mite be able to find any cause its really the only thing around
that helps.

What does that tell you?

the_syco

Tha Gopher wrote:

Oh come on, you know full well most regular smokers have at best occasionally branched out to the oul class A`s. Am i the only internet user who smokes and realises

a- it does lead you to other things

b- It actually is bad for your memory

c- Its addictive

a - speaking from experience?
b - aye, if you smoke a lot of it, between the age of 15 to 25. after that, the effect is greatly lessened.
c - only if smoked with tabacco.

Timans

Terry wrote:

What does that tell you?

Exactly Terry.

Nail.On.Head.

Cannabis DOES cause Mental Illness, that's a fact. If you're willing to take the risk, go ahead. But that's exactly what it is, a risk.

bubonicus

faceman wrote:

Are you for real? You stoned at the moment?

lol, well do you?

Study Says
April 14, 2005 - Belmont, MA, USA

Belmont, MA: Heavy, long-term use of cannabis appears to have a negligible impact on cognition and memory, according to clinical trial data published in the current issue of the American Journal of Addictions.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School performed magnetic resonance imaging on the brains of 22 long-term cannabis users (reporting a mean of 20,100 lifetime episodes of smoking) and 26 controls (subjects with no history of cannabis use). Imaging displayed "no significant differences" between heavy cannabis smokers compared to controls.

"These findings are consistent with recent literature suggesting that cannabis use is not associated with structural changes within the brain as a whole or the hippocampus in particular," authors concluded.

For more information, please contact either Paul Armentano or Allen St. Pierre of NORML at (202) 483-5500. Full text of the study, "Lack of hippocampal volume change in long-term heavy cannabis users," appears in the January-February issue of the American Journal of Addictions.

Synopses of previous clinical trials on cannabis use & cognitive function are available at:: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6434

JC 2K3

Timans wrote:

Cannabis DOES cause Mental Illness, that's a fact. If you're willing to take the risk, go ahead. But that's exactly what it is, a risk.

No it doesn't. It's NOT a scientific fact I'm afraid.

I personally think that if you did the same studies on Alcohol you'd get similar results.

The main point to note is that despite a massive increase in cannabis smoking, the level of mental illness in Ireland has stayed pretty much the same.

All these studies show is that those with a predisposition to mental illness are more likely to use drugs such as cannabis - which is totally logical and understandable IMO.

ntlbell

the_syco wrote:

c - only if smoked with tabacco.

EH?

That's like saying only if smoked with heroin.

You're getting addicted to the nicotine in the tobacco it doesn't make cannabis addictive.

faceman

bubonicus wrote:

lol, well do you?

Study Says
April 14, 2005 - Belmont, MA, USA

Belmont, MA: Heavy, long-term use of cannabis appears to have a negligible impact on cognition and memory, according to clinical trial data published in the current issue of the American Journal of Addictions.

Researchers at Harvard Medical School performed magnetic resonance imaging on the brains of 22 long-term cannabis users (reporting a mean of 20,100 lifetime episodes of smoking) and 26 controls (subjects with no history of cannabis use). Imaging displayed "no significant differences" between heavy cannabis smokers compared to controls.

"These findings are consistent with recent literature suggesting that cannabis use is not associated with structural changes within the brain as a whole or the hippocampus in particular," authors concluded.

For more information, please contact either Paul Armentano or Allen St. Pierre of NORML at (202) 483-5500. Full text of the study, "Lack of hippocampal volume change in long-term heavy cannabis users," appears in the January-February issue of the American Journal of Addictions.

Synopses of previous clinical trials on cannabis use & cognitive function are available at:: http://norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=6434

tell you what, if you can explain what this means, i will then engage in a scientific discussion on it.

bubonicus

faceman wrote:

tell you what, if you can explain what this means, i will then engage in a scientific discussion on it.

Well my understanding is that this directly disagrees with the theory that cannabis affects the memory and cognitive processes by somehow destroying the neural pathways.

It has long been believed that long term heavy cannabis use had an effect on the brain similar to that of long term alcohol use. This only shows that cannabis doesn't have an effect due to physical changes. Changes in thought processes are not being measured.


But this is a thread about prime time. So if you want a scietific disussion about the long term effects of cannabis use, you better make a new thread.

Timans

JC 2K3 wrote:

No it doesn't. It's NOT a scientific fact I'm afraid.

I personally think that if you did the same studies on Alcohol you'd get similar results.

The main point to note is that despite a massive increase in cannabis smoking, the level of mental illness in Ireland has stayed pretty much the same.

All these studies show is that those with a predisposition to mental illness are more likely to use drugs such as cannabis - which is totally logical and understandable IMO.

And how does one know if they have a predisposition to Mental Illness before smoking Cannabis?

Dave!

Timans wrote:

And how does one know if they have a predisposition to Mental Illness before smoking Cannabis?

Family history? Ask a doctor about the symptoms of mental disorders

faceman

bubonicus wrote:

Well my understanding is that this directly disagrees with the theory that cannabis affects the memory and cognitive processes by somehow destroying the neural pathways.

It has long been believed that long term heavy cannabis use had an effect on the brain similar to that of long term alcohol use. This only shows that cannabis doesn't have an effect due to physical changes. Changes in thought processes are not being measured.


But this is a thread about prime time. So if you want a scietific disussion about the long term effects of cannabis use, you better make a new thread.

first of all, i dont want to discuss the scientific ins and outs of it, in fact im sick of it.

secondly, you need to read all the published studies and read the conditions of each study to understand the outcome. You also need to know who sponsored the research etc too. Being qualified to understand what you're reading also helps.

i could also show you scientific studies that show that passive smoking has zero effect on non smokers.

ntlbell

Timans wrote:

And how does one know if they have a predisposition to Mental Illness before smoking Cannabis?

the same way they find out before they have a cup of tea?

bubonicus

faceman wrote:

first of all, i dont want to discuss the scientific ins and outs of it, in fact im sick of it.

secondly, you need to read all the published studies and read the conditions of each study to understand the outcome. You also need to know who sponsored the research etc too. Being qualified to understand what you're reading also helps.

i could also show you scientific studies that show that passive smoking has zero effect on non smokers.

Well you asked and then you tell me I'm not qualified to know what I'm reading and then tell me most if not all studies and research is biased to who funded it.

You are right of course , but I gave you a qualified study. You came back with you can't be arsed.

Now tell me who is stoned

Timans

DaveMcG wrote:

Family history? Ask a doctor about the symptoms of mental disorders

Ah of course, so, you're at a party, you're 16 and there is a group passing around a joint. Do you honestly that that a guy in that position is going to say "No, I will go to a doctor to check if I have a pre-disposition to Mental Illness" Nope. It's not going to happen. One, the huge majority of people aren't educated about Cannabis and a lot of that is due to users saying how harmless it is.

Also, in a lot of cases, "symptons" of mental illness are subjective. Is OCD a mental illness? Some people have it severely, can only turn light switches on after pressing them 5 times etc. Is that a pre-disposition or is it an active mental illness? Even though they can lead a perfectly normal and happy life.

And knowing you're family history isn't always fool proof either. You may not be on contact with one parents who has the gene and you'll never know.

Therefore, it IS a risk to take Cannabis. If you're willing to take the risk, by all means, go ahead.

johnnyskeleton

It seems to me that if the only medical side effect of an illegal drug (or any illegal act for that matter) was that it caused increased flatulence or increased hair growth, people would still use these ridiculous medical issues as a reason to justify the drug (or whatever) being illegal.

So whether it increases the chances of a latent mental defect becoming a patent one, or memory loss, or cancer is a red herring in this debate. Some people will always be against it unless/until it becomes legal, in which case over a long period of time they will come to accept it.

Statistics that show that decriminalisation does not impact/reduces the number of drug users, or studies that show that it has no substantial medical effect make no difference. There will always be people who join "Europe against drugs" etc because they have been told that drugs are bad and don't care about any other view.

cocoa

agrees heartily with bubonicus

too many people just assume it'll fúck you up and aren't concerned with actual studies, they'd just like to keep their predjudices instead...

vapourised cannabis FTW, no smoking => no ill-effects *

*there hasn't in fact been enough studies on users of vapourised cannabis to conclusively proove this, but no ill-effects so far and all previous ill-effects were inherently associated with smoking...

ntlbell

Timans wrote:

Therefore, it IS a risk to take Cannabis. If you're willing to take the risk, by all means, go ahead.

There is a risk to eating peanuts, taken a disprin, walking out your front door, the list is endless and pointless and has no relevance, there is nothing supoorting the fact that smoking cannabis leads to mental health problems.

common sense must kick in at some stage.

Dave!

Timans wrote:

Ah of course, so, you're at a party, you're 16 and there is a group passing around a joint. Do you honestly that that a guy in that position is going to say "No, I will go to a doctor to check if I have a pre-disposition to Mental Illness" Nope. It's not going to happen. One, the huge majority of people aren't educated about Cannabis and a lot of that is due to users saying how harmless it is.

No, how about: you don't take marijuana at the party. You do some research and find out if there's a history of mental problems in your family. If there's any doubt, then don't take it. It's not up to me to educate people; if they're smart, then they'll do it themselves, by READING, and not by listening to stoners' ramblings.

Timans wrote:

Also, in a lot of cases, "symptons" of mental illness are subjective. Is OCD a mental illness? Some people have it severely, can only turn light switches on after pressing them 5 times etc. Is that a pre-disposition or is it an active mental illness? Even though they can lead a perfectly normal and happy life.

Sounds like it's AT LEAST a sign that you should not take marijuana, but sounds more like an active illness. I am not a doctor, but I suspect that if that person asked a doctor should they take marijuana, the doctor would say no. Doesn't seem too complicated to me! If there's any doubt, then don't take it.

Timans wrote:

And knowing you're family history isn't always fool proof either. You may not be on contact with one parents who has the gene and you'll never know.

That's true, so here's a crazy idea: don't take marijuana!

Timans wrote:

Therefore, it IS a risk to take Cannabis. If you're willing to take the risk, by all means, go ahead.

I'm sure that there is a risk, but if someone's willing to accept the risks, then like alcohol and most other recreational drugs, I agree -- go ahead. No problemo.

JC 2K3

Timans wrote:

Ah of course, so, you're at a party, you're 16 and there is a group passing around a joint. Do you honestly that that a guy in that position is going to say "No, I will go to a doctor to check if I have a pre-disposition to Mental Illness" Nope. It's not going to happen. One, the huge majority of people aren't educated about Cannabis and a lot of that is due to users saying how harmless it is.

Well, misinformation about cannabis comes from both sides. Believing what one side says unquestionably is stupid.

Legalise it, inform people of the risks and precautions to take for decreased risk and keep it away from minors.

Timans wrote:

Therefore, it IS a risk to take Cannabis. If you're willing to take the risk, by all means, go ahead.

It's not disputed that it's a risk.

But it'd be much less of a risk if the government provided factual information on its use and regulated it.