This is Not Your Father's Marijuana

The Birmingham News ran a three page propaganda spew on Sunday Dec. 30, that I somehow missed. I have reposted some parts of it below in order to tear it apart as it relates to marijuana. I am so sick of these damn lies, these twisted 'government studies' that always seem to support whatever propaganda the government is currently feeding to the masses on drugs, drug use and drug addiction. I'll be writing an LTE later today.

Pot of today can't compare to that of 60's

Sunday, December 30, 2007
DAVE PARKS
News staff writer

The percentage of school children who say they've taken illegal drugs has dropped 24 percent since 2001, according to a recent national survey.

(WRONG! While drug czar Walters crows about declines in the past five years, they were still at about the same level as 1991 and not that far different from 1975. The peak year for teen drug use was 1979.)

The statistic - as reported in the annual Monitoring the Future survey of 50,000 students from more than 400 schools nationwide - appears to show that kids are paying attention to warnings about drug and alcohol abuse.

But the survey, which was taken in 2006, also showed that 21 percent of eighth-graders, 36 percent of 10th-graders, and 48 percent of 12th-graders have at some time during their lives used an illicit drug, often marijuana or alcohol. And the survey showed a troubling increase in young people abusing prescription sedatives, tranquilizers and narcotics.

(Hey, at least they aren't smoking evil reefer right? Great job government!!! Demonize the one natural plant that can't possibly kill your kids or anyone else and constantly advertise to kids the nifty little pharmaceutical drugs that will kill them. They're ok right? They came from a pharmacy after all.)

Beth Gregory, vice president of clinical services at Behavioral Health Systems Inc. of Birmingham, a company that manages mental health and drug abuse services for businesses nationwide, has extensive experience in addiction issues. Here is her expert opinion on teenage drug and alcohol abuse:

What about the new study?

Some things really jumped out at me. Alcohol and pot have always been the primary drugs of abuse with early adolescents. Those have also been referred to as gateway drugs - that is as kids start using them, they become introduced to other drugs.

The issue that most parents aren't aware of is that pot today is not what it was in the 1960s. Our treatment providers are finding that parents will argue with them that they're not even concerned about it just being pot and alcohol, that pot is no big deal.

Pot today is five to six times stronger than it was in the '60s and'70s, and increasingly we're finding that pot is laced with formaldehyde, with cocaine and with crushed pills. An adolescent who is smoking pot really doesn't know what he's inhaling into his system.

(Increased strength and adulterated product are both a direct result of prohibition. Back during alcohol prohibition people went from drinking beer and wine to drinking whiskey. Why? Because whiskey was more concentrated, stronger and easier to smuggle. Whenever something is driven underground that is what happens. Adulterated products laced with formaldehyde, speed or pills is also a direct result of prohibition. Harking back again to alcohol prohibition...does anyone remember bathtub gin and rot-gut whiskey that would kill people or make them go blind? With no market or safety regulations in place anyone can put anything in marijuana. If it were available through a safe supply and violators could be brought before a court of law then these things wouldn't happen. Prohibition causes 99.9% of all bad things associated with drug use.)

Haven't we learned some things about the physiology of the brain that should make people more cautious about marijuana?

Yes. PET scans of the brain have shown there really is a reduction in the mass of the brain, in the gray matter, with continued, even low-level use, of pot over time. We find that the earlier adolescents start smoking pot, the less they mature emotionally. It just sort of arrests their emotional development. It's preventing them from developing all the brain synapses that lead to a higher level of moral development.

(NONSENSE: Pot does not kill your brian cells, or shrink your brain, or make you infertile, or make you grow hairy palms or any of that scary, utter nonsense that the government tells you it will. I started smoking pot at 12 years old. It has not affected me in any of the ways this article claims it will. Further, there have been studies that suggest marijuana is actually good for the brain and promotes new brain cell growth. That makes sense to me. When I compare people who have been long-time alcoholics or used harder drugs to people that have used only marijuana it is easy to see that the marijuana smoker is not the one who has damaged their gray matter.)

This new report shows that drug use is down among kids. What would you attribute that to?

(Again: Drug use is NOT down among kids. It has not changed much from 1991 and peaked in 1979. Marijuana use is down....but has been replaced with OxyContin, Vicodin, cough syrup, paint huffing....but hey least it ain't pot right?)

E-mail: dparks@bhamnews.com

There is more of this trash if you care to read it here.

I'd like to ask my readers to write a letter to the editor of the Birmingham News. You can send them to epage@bhamnews.com