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What is Freedom to You

TameasDust	Date: November 24, 2005 @ 12:40 AM well...?
zedsalt	Date: November 24, 2005 @ 10:54 AM A few things come to mind: being able to have and express any opinion I want without fear of "legal" reprisal; being able to put together a large number of like-minded, well-behaved people in a public place; being able to imbibe in a mind-altering substance that has been shown to actually increase average life span, rather than severely shorten it... You know where would be a good place to try these things? The United States of America.
celtaidd	Date: November 24, 2005 @ 1:13 PM And most of Europe
K3VIN	Date: November 24, 2005 @ 1:15 PM whats this mind altering drug that expands life time?
K3VIN	Date: November 24, 2005 @ 1:16 PM canada also
zedsalt	Date: November 25, 2005 @ 10:35 AM There have been only two long-term general health effects studies done on hemp smoking that were funded by the U.S. government. Both found a significant increase in average life span in those who smoked hemp and used prescription medicines and a remarkable increase in those who smoked hemp but avoided prescription meds. Live longer, live better WITHOUT inflated excise taxes and/or medicinal fees? Not here! Never again!
chrismacmanus	Date: November 25, 2005 @ 12:27 PM I'd be a bit skeptical about that, think I'd have to see the actual report before I could believe it. What meds were the people taking amd was their underlying illness a cause of their shortened lifespan, was there a control population that just took medications and a control group that used neither?
K3VIN	Date: November 25, 2005 @ 12:51 PM smoking nething is bad for ur health really if it burns up and is absorbed into ur lungs unless its something magical
chrismacmanus	Date: November 25, 2005 @ 2:08 PM ^^^
azhazhellfire	Date: November 25, 2005 @ 7:43 PM i think they must have mistook smoking hemp for drinking water.
zedsalt	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 11:11 AM The subjects were all "chronic" hemp smokers, some who used over-the-counter medications and whatever prescriptions written for them over the decades they were involved in the study, and some who...since long before the study had started...avoided legal drugs. It would be a Lie of Omission if I didn't mention that this included tobacco and alcohol. I would also be remiss if I didn't point out that the closest thing these studies had to a control group...the general population...involved a healthy share of hemp smokers (pun intended). When one considers the help related to the harm, inhaling superheated air is worse for you than inhaling hemp smoke. Take away the heat...and obviously, rolling papers...and that gap widens. That's the reason you always see statistics about known carcinogens "in an average marijuana cigarette"- take away the glue, and you get rid of 14 of the 27; take away the paper, and you avoid the rest. The most recent rumor campaign that I'm aware of mentions carcinogens in the "aromatics" of hemp, but I've yet to come across anyone who could provide documentation.
zedsalt	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 11:14 AM Funny how I started with Free Speech and the Right to Peaceably Assemble, and the main topic of discussion became weed.
mattbanx	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 11:21 AM We could all get high but I would'nt bank on the politicians getting high with us. They would want their brain cells. Maybe they have an extra chromozone and we would be just right.
mattbanx	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 11:35 AM We live in a drug fuled society. Meth labs have been built out of pills from pharmacies. I think pot should be legal. But people walking around on meth and crack, no. There can't be freedom with people so free to flip out. Drugs place people in bondage. But I am a cigarette smoker and a drinker, so I'm in bondage to drugs. Pot was originally outlawed for business purposes and not moral. I think pot would be legal now if the people campagning for it did'nt try to claim it was so good medically. Hell, medical experts say that about alchohol occasionally. The legalization of pot I think could be argued better on the grounds of entertainment, like alchohol. Lining up to those hemp bars in coffee shops. That would go good with java.
shadowself	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 11:38 AM goes good with many things.
DamnedInEter...	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 11:39 AM to me it's something that doesn't exist...for most ppl.
AbortiveMind	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 12:57 PM It's something we'll probably never have...
snotjello	Date: November 26, 2005 @ 5:15 PM The ability to mind my own business and expect others to mind theirs; to not be interfered with unless I'm interfering.
zedsalt	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 11:44 AM Love the "Reefer Madness"-style jokes about politicians not smoking pot, brain cell and chromosomal damage, Matt...I mean, you WERE joking, right? I think it's important to continue emphasizing ALL the benenefits of decriminalization and even legalization...health, social, economic, etc....even when one's predominant personal interest is personal use as an intoxicant. History is full of examples of people doing the right things for the wrong reasons. "...try to claim it was so good medically" is misleading language. Empirical evidence is the biggest difference between the decrim/legalization and prohibition camps. The former gives me actual studies I can refer to and come to my own conclusions; the latter urges me to accept "common knowledge" that is contrary to fact. Actual empirical evidence of significant harm done by hemp smoking is a research Holy Grail. As one former leader of the world scientific community put it, the group which uncovers such evidence would "receive personal wealth and fame that would only be bested by those who design the Perpetual Motion Machine". The U.S. government learned their lesson when they enlisted the help Francis Young, a man respected both as a judge and physician, who concluded "Hemp is possibly the safest therapeutic substance known to Man."
chrismacmanus	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 12:56 PM I'm not against the legalisation of marijuana, but am against people who go on about there being no associated heath risks. There are always going to be health ricks when taking bioactive substances, and there are correlations between cannabinoids (including hemp extracts) and increased carcinogenesis: Tashkin DP. (2005) 'Smoked marijuana as a cause of lung injury.' Monaldi Arch Chest Dis. 633-100. [Review]. Sheweita SA. (2003) 'Narcotic drugs change the expression of cytochrome P450 2E1 and 2C6 and other activities of carcinogen-metabolizing enzymes in the liver of male mice.' Toxicology. 191:133-42. Sarafian TA, Kouyoumjian S, Tashkin D, Roth MD. (2002)'Synergistic cytotoxicity of Delta(9)-tetrahydrocannabinol and butylated hydroxyanisole.' Toxicol Lett. 133:171-9. Tashkin DP, Baldwin GC, Sarafian T, Dubinett S, Roth MD. (2002) 'Respiratory and immunologic consequences of marijuana smoking.' J Clin Pharmacol. 42:71S-81S. [Review]. There really is plenty more out there also (non-governmentally funded and peer reviewed by the scientific community) that indicates the carcinogenic effects of smoking marijuana, and there other problems associated with long term marijuana use such as a decrease in sperm motility and function and an increase in toxic psychosis and other chronic psychoses. All I'm saying is that it's easy to present it as a harmless wonderdrug, but that's clearly not the case... everything in moderation folks
snotjello	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 1:23 PM I don't smoke anything. The very idea is absurd to me, so I really haven't been that interested in the debate about the effects on one's health. Do what you will to yourself; more cake for me. It does seem to me, however--on a very "if it walks and talks like a duck" level--that inhaling smoke of any kind is a relatively strange choice to make. If it makes you cough, it's probably not good for you.
snotjello	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 1:25 PM ...but I'm all for your freedom to do what isn't good for you, as long as you're your only target.
K3VIN	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 1:35 PM smoking weed is so bad for you... especially the outdoor farm ones... they spray them with pesticides etc that cant be really washed off because they are absorbed so bugs dont get on them, this is the primary reason for heating it up when u orally take it.. so the chemicals are taken away but not all are, now some will say well smoking is heat therefor bye bye chemicals but ur inhaling that nasty shit, and even if you grow it on ur own ur still at risk with the seeds but its not as high, so unless u get a clean plant which is still unhealthy its very unhealthy..
mattbanx	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 3:05 PM As I said, pot should be looked at as a choice and not a health issue. Maybe my pun about the politicians was off center. But I know people are not going to have it for the benefits as much as they just want to get high. Clearly, any drug can be good or bad, depending on the user. Personally, from growing up, I did'nt appreciate as a kid the adults lying about smoking pot being so terrible. Especially where it is clogging up our prison system with harmless people that just want to get high while the violent drug criminals are getting plea bargained out. There is definate hype associated with pot. And it is all so the court systems and politicians can make more money. Although I don't believe the way most people use pot is not good for them, either is alchohol. If pot was legalized on the basis of choice, like alchohol, then what benefit or high people want from it need not even be an issue.
mattbanx	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 3:45 PM I add that the complete decriminalization of all drugs would be fatalistic. Liberalism can be an often necessary thing to help give choice to the oppressed, misunderstood, and for personal entertainment without the fear of the goverment intruding on us. Unfortunately, like religion, it can get abused to the point where it is infringing on others. Although there is a lot of hype associated with pot,the kids have gone to hell with the anything goes attitude - religion is gay mindset. Not that I'm religious, but I am not anti-religious either. If morality is having limits to certain personal behaviors, then I guess I am a moralist. I know people are having me pay with my hard earned money more for my personal pleasure of having a cigarette. I'm not flipping out on anyone having it. The priorities are definaely not straight. All I know is if I had it my way, the goverment whould move to a single tax system and let out all the non-violent criminals. That's what I would like to do if I got into politics. Which I never will.
sinai	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 5:00 PM Activism is dead, you can't compete with money...each election we forget and then get re-educated about that.
K3VIN	Date: November 27, 2005 @ 8:15 PM idk man it just seems like people are trying to make it seem the government is doing this as a conspiracy but in canada alot of over the counter drugs and prescription get banned if they arent healthy, idk man i think people are taking it too serious, its not healthy i smoke it and in canada u just get charged not arrested so whatever most of the time confiscated
mattbanx	Date: November 28, 2005 @ 5:28 AM Good facts here by the way about the studies and who did them. Good to have an informed culture on substances.
zedsalt	Date: November 28, 2005 @ 10:56 AM Yes, thanks for the heads-up on the latest Tashkin study. I have to admit that I'm hoping this will prove as easy to refute as the other research, but I always appreciate an opportunity to look into these things for myself.
chrismacmanus	Date: November 28, 2005 @ 11:04 AM Well, that's just a review, and the impact factor of the journal isn't the best, but some of its references are original studies. The Sheweita and Sarafian aren't too bad, but you'd need to be clued up on your molecular biology - any questions, I'd be glad to answer them as best I can or give an opinion on the experimental design
zedsalt	Date: November 29, 2005 @ 11:19 AM It's the methodology that irks me. Let's take the upper respiratory studies as an example. When researchers choose their samples by seeking out the harshest materials, burning them using the means that leaves the most of the substances that they think might be harmful (open dish, no-added-air-flow combustion to maximize the polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons), then concentrating them into a paste and adding known carcinogens as "adhesive elements", then coating the surface area of the upper respiratory tract with that paste...I mean, really, does that sound like "approximating regular use by the average smoker"? The interpretation of the results seems to show a definite bias, too. Did they honestly not consider it worth noting that none of the subjects of the study ended up with throat cancer? Forgive me if my next statement is inaccurate...I'm operating strictly from memory here...but in more than one of those studies, wasn't the stated conclusion that they DID actually result in cancer? With a small footnote that explained that by "cancer", they meant "cell changes" that other studies showed might be "potentially precancerous"?
chrismacmanus	Date: November 29, 2005 @ 2:46 PM The use of particulated extracts isn't as bad as it seems, the fact is that much of these particles have been shown to coat the upper respiratory tract when inhaled. The concentration of these extracts therefore has to correlate with pathological samples taken from animal/human specimens. Secondly the use of 'carcinogenic adhesives' also has to be used as a vehicle carrier as part of the control groups such that you have i) No particulate, no vheicle ii) No particulate + vehicle iii) Particulate (a third control may be added with particulate and no carrier vehicle, but in most cases this is null) This takes what is known as the vehicle effect out of the interpretation. The fact that cell changes occur is directly correlated with the development of cancer. Cancer is the deregulation of normal cellular funtion through disruption of the molecular machinery within the cells, which is what cell changes can mean. After all, if you go for a biopsy, the pathologist is going to look for cell changes - not only architecturally, but also look for molecular markers that demonstrate the change to a cancerous (or precancerous) phenotype. Many of the studies shown actually use the same methodology as have been used to show the carcinogenic effect of cigarette smoking, and there are very few people still not willing to believe that evidence. Basically, I think that K3VIN summed it up above where he said: 'smoking nething is bad for ur health really if it burns up and is absorbed into ur lungs unless its something magical'
chrismacmanus	Date: November 29, 2005 @ 3:14 PM I think that if you suggest that smoking ANYTHING is going to make you live longer you're burying your head in the sand. Marijuana certainly does have it's medicinal benefits, but it has to be weighed out against the adverse effects that it's going to have. There's other ways to getting active copmounds out of natural botanicals then lighing up a spliff and breathing smoke into your lungs - and chemical modifications of these natural products can even increase their delivery to the required site of action, increase transport into the cell and increase/decrease active life of that compound as necessary.
chrismacmanus	Date: November 29, 2005 @ 3:15 PM God, I just reread the original post at the top.... oops, this thread's been hijacked. That's freedom for you
K3VIN	Date: November 29, 2005 @ 3:21 PM btw are we forgetting that a joint has on average 25x more tar then a ciggerette and joints are inhaled and kept in longer then ciggerettes allowing more bad shit to enter ur lungs.. smoking water bongs reduces some carcinogens but theirs still other crap in that stuff..
K3VIN	Date: November 29, 2005 @ 3:22 PM btw i think this the government is out to get us pot smokers isnt true!!
hantu	Date: November 29, 2005 @ 3:26 PM being able to take a shit whenever you feel the need
zedsalt	Date: November 30, 2005 @ 12:15 PM "The concentration of these extracts therefore has to correlate with pathological samples taken from animal/human specimens." Exactly. Arbitrarily setting that quantity to approximate long-term use just isn't good science. Neglecting to perform one's own study regarding the vehicle effect isn't necessarily irresponsible; these adhesives have been tested on a variety of membranes under a variety of conditions. I could easily accept the assumption that this effect falls within a certain quantitative range. Shouldn't a quantity within that range receive mention, at least? In the name of accuracy, shouldn't such a quantity be factored OUT of the summarized results of the study? On the topic of quantity, isn't it interesting how who's funding the research affects how many visible potentially precancerous cell changes are considered evidence of cancer vs. the same indicators which are not? "Lies, damn lies, and statistics" I ask your patience in allowing me to keep my belief that cancer is cancer, and visible potentially precancerous cell change is visible potentially precancerous cell change.
zedsalt	Date: November 30, 2005 @ 12:24 PM The most interesting part of K3VIN's "i think this the government is out to get us pot smokers isnt true" may be the word "smokers". All of the health effects that we've been discussing involve smoking, the least efficient means of getting the intoxicant effect of hemp. Products that are designed to lessen the health detriments...and don't serve the same purpose for legal products like tobacco...those products are illegal in the U.S. And his "a joint has on average 25x more tar then a ciggerette" is further proof that if the right people repeat the right lies often enough, people will begin to accept them as fact.
chrismacmanus	Date: November 30, 2005 @ 12:25 PM I think that that last statement is a bit naive and as I've said earlier trying to bury your head in the sand. Speaking as someone who has a PhD in Cell Biology and Cancer Research, you gain a greater understanding of the effects of the cumulative changes that are associated with the development of cancer and that a precancerous condition is indicitave of what's commonly know as EMT (epithelial to mesenchymal transition). If you were diagnosed with such precancerous lesions in a variety of organs, the fact is that you will develop cancer as your normal cellular physiology has been irrecersibly disrupted and is just waiting for the next opportunity for deregulation of the normal process. ...if the development of precancerous changes doesn't indicate the carcinogenic effect of something, then you're blinded by your own inability to face the facts.
kingo	Date: November 30, 2005 @ 12:34 PM Yeah, I'm kind of unclear about what all this health related talk in regards to pot has to do with freedom. Disregarding all of the good discussion that's gone on here relating to the health effects of pot smoking, that really has nothing to do with the legality of it. The fact that we aren't free to use it, while we are free to use other, similar products (alcohol, cigarettes, caffeine, whatever,) is still hypocritical to me.
chrismacmanus	Date: November 30, 2005 @ 12:45 PM I do agree with you there, I don't think it should be illegal - but I do think that it's crazy to refer to it as a 'mind-altering substance that has been shown to actually increase average life span' - a delusion perhaps after having smoked too much for too many years?
K3VIN	Date: November 30, 2005 @ 12:50 PM 15x more*
K3VIN	Date: November 30, 2005 @ 12:53 PM yea i agree with that too, i do not agree marijuana is healthy for you.. it might have some beneficial effects but then have bad ones too, like when u see those commercials for the latest pill that might fix one thing then you see possible side effects, diahrea*, dizzyness, heart problems, liver damage, etc etc. and in some rare cases death... makes you wonder..
zedsalt	Date: December 1, 2005 @ 11:27 AM Everyone and everything that has "potentially precancerous cell changes" has, or will develop, cancer? You're right; I was operating under the assumption that not only had there been a case where such visible changes had occurred in someone, somewhere, who didn't go on to a cancer diagnosis, but that NO ONE living in the era where such changes could be observed was likely to be 100% free of them. The idea that such changes exist solely in organisms which have or will develop cancer IS new information for me. Would you be kind enough to direct me to the empirical evidence? As you are likely to have noticed, I like to read the reports for myself, even though I'm a lowly, no-doctorate layman, prone to delusions that things like a couple studies involving mere thousands of people and less than a half-century each demonstrate a difference in average life span, simply because the subject groups had such a significant difference in average life span. I ask you to consider, though, that my inability to understand the findings might be a result of my lack of postgraduate work, rather than insanity brought on by brain damage. There IS good news for me if it IS the latter, though! Studies that we haven't specifically addressed here have been said to show healing in tissue that was previously thought lost, spontaneous repair in what is still considered by most irreparable! "Permanent damage" has been shown to be no more "permanent" than the "potentially precancerous" conditions we've discussed are merely "potential", apparently. Ah, it's so comforting to abandon the naivete that led me to think myself capable of interpreting the results of research. Now, I can go back to microwaving animals fats in plastic containers.
chrismacmanus	Date: December 1, 2005 @ 1:29 PM The 'non-permanance' and 'irreversibility' is usually due to intervention by surgical or medical means. There may also be the possibility in some cases that removal of the carcinogen may permit the cells to undergo physiological 'suicide' and to stop progressing towards a cancerous characteristic in a manner which will allow the tissue to reverse back to normal. This is contradictory to what you are suggesting: that the progression from normal to a precancerous pheonotype has no bearing as to whether or not you will get cancer. Chances are if you continue exposing those cells to the carcinogen, they will progress in a stepwise manner through various stages of benign neoplasia and then cancer. If you remove the carcinogen they might regress (although this is not a common occurence as the cells may have gone beyond a 'point of no return'). Again, I'm just shocked at the suggestion that you made about the drug that can prolong life, if I seem like a bit of a dick in this forum, it's because I really can't bring myself to suggest such an absurd suggestion - taking marijuana generally involves smoking it (a lot of the times with tobacco, without a filter and prolonging the time the smoke spends in your lungs) and if you don't believe this'll cause cancer, then you're as bad as the big tobacco lobbyists. That's what I (and others here seem to be) getting at.
zedsalt	Date: December 2, 2005 @ 11:59 AM I was referring to the brain tissue studies in which it was stated that, first, the subjects had a lack of mappable activity in an area of the brain after having hemp smoke forced into their lungs, which the researchers said was proof positive of cell death (the cells were said to have died, not become cancerous). They then went on to say that this damage was irreversible; other areas were likely to compensate somewhat, but activity would never return to those cells. Then in the denouement, they state that all mappable activity returned to the baseline set at the start of the study...making special mention of THE cells that were earlier referred to as dead, irreversibly damaged. In those subjects where the tissue was directly examined afterward (the more recent a study is, the less likely it is to involve such an examination), no damage was found. It's either miraculous or dishonest. I never assserted- or even intended to imply- that "...the progression from normal to a precancerous pheonotype has no bearing as to whether or not you will get cancer". I was questioning your statement that "...if the development of precancerous changes doesn't indicate the carcinogenic effect of something, then [I'm] blinded by [my] own inability to face the facts." And frankly, I'm not sure how you made the leap from "visible cell change" to the much smaller category of "precancerous lesions in a variety of organs". On a personal level, that sort of spin-doctoring, the narrow selection of facts that could support your contention(s) if viewed in the right light, the willful neglect of facts that don't...it all reads like propaganda. That's the closest thing to a "problem" that I have with our discourse here. Rest assured that I'm enjoying myself, and in way do I consider you a dick, or even a bit of a dick.
zedsalt	Date: December 2, 2005 @ 12:02 PM I meant, of course, "...in NO way do I consider you a dick..."
chrismacmanus	Date: December 2, 2005 @ 12:25 PM I think you might have been right the first time

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