Even for the a lot of the well accepted drugs for mental health issues if you ever look into the studies on effectiveness, it's kind of surprising how ineffective they are for a lot of people. I imagine pot is a lot like them, works for some people not for others, works for different issues in different people, etc. Causes more problems than it solves for some.

Heh. Every dope smoker I've ever known -- and I knew a ton of them in the 1970s, believe me -- was a real... dope. I swear, some of them were right out of "Pineapple Express" (especially the James Franco character). ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Yeah well I've known a lot of dope smokers who weren't. In fact, many who people like you would be shocked to learn smoked dope (e.g. one of my best friends who owns his own engineering firm). If you hang around with smart successful people you're bound to know a number like that.

If you hang around dopes, you're going to know a lot of dopey dope smokers.

Probably for every one of those successful dope smokers there are 50 or 100 unsuccessful ones, just from my long ago personal experience being around dope (from its production to its street sale to smokers... I had a couple of very entrepreneurial friends in high school ;-). So the question becomes one of utility. Do we tolerate dope on the premise that there are, obviously, some successful people who manage to smoke it regularly -- and just let the dopes who are doing it pretty much go their own way? Because it sure seems there are a lot more of them than there are the brainiac types. ;-)

There's more truth to this song than people care to admit (hahahahahaha!):

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

That's not really that surprising. My take from the article is that more research is required to establish medical benefits, if there are any. But I can see the difficulties in doing research (and securing funding for said research) on what is classified as an illegal narcotic.

I've personally seen the benefits for my friend with glioblastoma, but I think for some people the medical angle is just an excuse for recreational use.

However, i think recreational use should be legal in Canada. Can't wait until that happens.

During my time in the Navy, long ago, I worked for a couple of senior enlisted people who swore that any guy who parted their hair in the middle was a dope smoker (this was before the military instituted random drug screening). So tell me: do you part your hair in the middle, bro? ;-) ;-)

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

This pot smoking engineer agrees. Why would I want to hang out with "dopes"? Stupid people are annoying.

Maybe, maybe not. The question is does the dope smoking have anything to do with it?

Obviously excessive use of any pscyhotropic drug is probably not going to be good for success, but lots people seem to be able to use them recreationally without problems.

In my experience it's essentially like alcohol but without the hangover risk from over indulging and a more enjoyable high (it makes the experience of music better, stuff funnier, etc. which alcohol doesn't do for me).

Hair? What hair?

And why are you calling me bro, bro? :-)

(And no. Never parted my hair in the middle. When I had any)

I'm just having some fun in this thread is all, so don't take anything I'm saying here all that seriously. In truth I'm libertarian more than conservative anything (fiscally though... VERY conservative), so if folks want to do it -- responsibly -- and they're not hurting themselves or others in doing it, have at it.

I'll also confess that in my entire 57 years on this planet I've never tried dope even once. Nor cigarettes... though I did drink enough alcohol in the day to float an aircraft carrier, and it's that LEGAL drug that, to me, causes far more issues in society than dope has.

Eh, I just couldn't get past the skunk-like smell of dope, and I didn't like how it made people I knew, who did it, act the way they did. Invariably, they all tried mescaline and then other psychotropics and a few graduated to cocaine and then the really hard stuff. SHUDDER!! :-(

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

George Zimmerman, who built the billion dollar clothing retailing empire Men's Warehouse, says he smoked mj every day for the past 50 years.

There's smoking, and then there's smoking. I guarantee you Zimmerman didn't walk around in a haze of pot smoke, either.

The dope smokers I'm talking about, that I knew, really were like the James Franco character in "Pineapple Express." That, to me, is a completely unappealing lifestyle, but if it's one you want to live -- and you're not a drain on society while doing it -- knock yourself out, I guess.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

You are right about mental health drugs. For most of them they are only very slightly better than placebos.

And to the OP, the way the US has classified marijuana there is virtually no way to actually do a study of it. I suspect that it is mostly snake oil.

But that also doesn't mean it can't be legal. Tobacco has no use other than to slowly kill people and that has always been legal.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

Yup. How tobacco and alcohol became legal and dope didn't has always had me scratching my head (I do that a lot these days ;-). Sure, there's a tobacco lobby and an alcohol lobby, but that's not the only reason for why weed didn't make the cut, so to speak.

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"Politics is just show business for ugly people."

Okay, now that you guys have had your fun, the bigger issue here is that most of the support for medical usage lacks sufficient evidence and is based more on anecdotal evidence than any in depth science.

I don't give a shit about the whole smart pothead vs dumb pothead, that discussion is non sequitur.

Man, you need to listen to his “positive remix” version of that song ...

drn92

In the US you are asking for something that essentially can't be done.

https://www.popsci.com/...sts-study-pot#page-2

The government makes it virtually impossible to perform studies.

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I'm beginning to think that we are much more fucked than I thought.

I'm not in the US and I don't care what the US does as far as hobbling science, I'm Canadian, the study debunking medical pot is Canadian and Health Canada for that matter doesn't operate in lock step with US health regulators.