you tell me, you brought up the drugs item it response to a comment . .so do you now concede that making something illegal doesn't have a relevant effect on it's availability or the number of people who will still procure it. ie. Making abortion illegal will have little to no effect on the number of abortions performed and that the only difference it will make is the fact that it will increase the number of deaths .. remember in a botched abortion both the female and fetus die. sure it might make some pro-lifers feel more moral, but does feeling more moral really justify more deaths?
You are asking that question to me. I have pro-life beliefs, and I believe that fetuses are persons. And here's my response. http://christiananswers.net/q-sum/q-life003.html
That is fine, if you are content to support laws that increase deaths go for it .. personally I would rather support measures that decrease deaths and work towards reducing unintended pregnancies and therefore abortions. I find it strange that anyone would support measures that do little or nothing to stop the very thing they are fighting against, to me that is a head in the sand methodology .. ignoring the facts to further a personal agenda.
Simply resorting to a fallacy of composition for your Cause is not very inspiring of any confidence in your sincerity regarding that Cause; use of marijuana is not the same as addiction. furthermore, marijuana is not physically addictive. some people prefer to use pot wisely merely due to a Tradition of respect for Religion, and, not only that, but that we should handle our drugs better than our drugs handle us in modern times.
Take it up with the following then - http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/drugfacts/nationwide-trends
From your link: So, not 4% but 4 million, about a third, still not a credible figure for number of Americans addicted to pot, particularly when it is not believed to be very addictive. "Dependence or abuse" is an interesting phrase. Sounds to me like something a government bureaucracy would come up with. I wonder just what it means?
Yep, ok my mistake on that .. 4.2 million. As far as I am aware Dependence or dependent means "unable to do without" and abuse means "to use (something) to bad effect or for a bad purpose", and also from NIDA is the following; Is marijuana addictive? - http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/marijuana-abuse/marijuana-addictive References - http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/marijuana-abuse/references 1. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration, Office of Applied Studies. Results from the 2010 National Survey on Drug Use and Health: Summary of National Findings. HHS Pub. No. (SMA) 11–4658, Rockville, MD: SAMHSA, 2011. 10. Anthony, J.; Warner, L.A.; and Kessler, R.C. Comparative epidemiology of dependence on tobacco, alcohol, controlled substances, and inhalants: Basic findings from the National Comorbidity Survey. Exp Clin Psychopharmacol 2:244–268, 1994. 11.Hall, W.; and Degenhardt, L. Adverse health effects of non-medical cannabis use. Lancet 374:1383–1391, 2009. 12. Hall, W. The adverse health effects of cannabis use: What are they, and what are their implications for policy? Int J of Drug Policy 20:458–466, 2009 13. Lynskey, M.T.; Heath, A.C.; Bucholz, K.K.; Slutske, W.S.; Madden, P.A.; Nelson, E.C.; Statham, D.J.; and Martin, N.G. Escalation of drug use in early-onset cannabis users vs. co-twin controls. JAMA 289(4):427–433, 2003. 14. Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration. Office of Applied Studies. Treatment Episode Data Set (TEDS) Highlights—2009: National Admissions to Substance Abuse Treatment Services. Office of Applied Studies, DASIS Series: S-45, DHHS Publication No. SMA 09–4360, Rockville, MD, 2008 So I would conclude that long-term marijuana use can lead to addiction.
OK, so now we have 4.2 million, or about 1.4% who either can't get along without pot, or who use it to bad effect or for a bad purpose. Those figures may or may not be accurate, but they are plausible certainly.
I don't feel like getting into an in-depth discussion about this here, since this thread is about abortion, and I don't want to derail this topic. However, what I was saying is that marijuana is psychologically addictive, not physically addictive. I believe that it's immoral for people to use drugs outside of medical purposes, however, I don't believe that marijuana has a physical addiction.
Nope. Psychological changes come from a mental desire to have something. For example, some people are psychologically addicted to video games, food, sex, shopping, etc.
So you are saying then that psychological items materialize out of thin air, that there is no mechanism to create them .. you do know how absurd that is don't you? Every thought, every emotion, every desire is based around physical actions and reactions within your brain .. do you know how a thought becomes a thought and how you remember it, because that is what desires are, they are thoughts? You cannot desire something without knowing what it is and how it effects you, that requires thoughts and memories, your thoughts and memories are the product of electrical and chemical interactions and reactions ergo they are physical.
Sometimes, chemical dependency and addiction are used interchangeably. A person can become "addicted" to anything from sex to chocolate. It is only possible to become chemically dependent on, well, chemicals. Cocaine has been shown to be highly "addictive" in the sense that people become chemically dependent on it. Ditto nicotine and a lot of the prescription meds. People do not generally become chemically dependent on pot. They do get to like the effects to the point that they don't want to give it up, and so are called "addicted." There is a big difference between such an addiction and a chemical dependence.
got it .. however regardless of the way we define it, the desire to keep smoking it is a physical thing .. although we don't really know how the brain stores memories we do have a pretty good idea on how it creates them .. desires, wants etc are types of memory.
Cannabis addiction is similar to a shopping addiction or a sex addiction or a food addiction. Pot is not addictive in the same sense that cocaine is addictive. Cocaine withdrawals have very strong cravings and psychological symptoms.
