18 of 26

Serious

Write now Article Tools

I know those who have smoked and I know those who smoke. I smoked myself. And I would never turn around and tell someone not to do something that they enjoy doing. When people talk of how harmless pot is they do so by referring to it in relation to various other drugs which are perceived to be stronger. OK, so smaller amounts of these other drugs work quicker, it does not mean because they affect you in a more expedient manner that pot fails to affect you in just as extreme a way.

When ingested pot is a more intense high than when smoked. It is now often mixed or prepared with other things which alter the way it behaves in your body. We do not entirely understand how any specific drugs works - we understand that they attach to certain cell-receptors and that they produce certain reactions within the body, but we do not understand all of them.

Cannabis psychosis, if you explore the definition of it is extremely close to schizophrenia. It is a psycho-mimetic drug - it takes whatever is in you and it amplifies it. But it also gifts you with feelings that are not yours - the elation, the giddiness, the paranoia. I know someone who ate lumps of it on a regular basis for an extended period of time and eventually they had a psychotic break - now I am not saying conclusively that pot caused this - but it is almost definite that it stripped some of the covering from those neural wires and allowed them to spark and touch each other in ways that they would not have done before. They changed my friend's brain chemistry and the potentialities that were always there were given more chance to emerge.

I see the mood swings and the shortness of temper in dope smokers. I know people who have eye problems because of it - it altered the pressure around the eyeball. How is your short-term memory Mr Dope Smoker? And if it is not addictive as they say why do you smoke so much? Why is the day a little bit easier for you if you have a toke on a joint? No, of course, that does not sound like addiction. Like I said, I'd never tell someone not to smoke, but I might point out the casualties that i have witnessed; the casualties that even they themselves have seen if they care to admit it. If they stop to look at themselves. Put a dope smoker in a room full of people that won't and hear them click into defensive mode when no one will obey joint etiquette and pass it around. Nope, it's not addictive, is it? If coffee is addictive, if anything you regularly do to alter you body chemistry is addictive, how can cannabis not be? Oh, because it isn't a drug; it's a herb, that's right.

Learn more about this author, Paul Grimsley.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Is smoking pot benign or a serious health hazard??
We want to hear your view. Write now!