AV>Not surprisingly, you didn't relate any of your literature citations
AV>to the issue we are discussing -- the addictiveness of marijuana.
I've told you several times to go look it up in the official manual of
mental health in this nation, the DSM IV.
AV>What you have demonstrated is that mental health is in a sorry state
AV>if there are mental health workers who have blind-spots like yours.
We still have those who cling to old fashioned ideas such as those
spouted by Freud and Skinner in a day when brain imaging is being used
for a definitive diagnosis by those who really give a damn.
AV>The familiar literary character who comes to mind in this regard is
AV>nurse Ratched from Ken Kesey's _One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest_.
AV>Unfortunately, these purported professionals refuse to leave their
AV>own problems at home, but go to work inflicting them on others.
Exactly. Discovered some of them when I was a student nurse back in
D.C., those who could easily be mistaken for patients at the time. The
only outward difference that the students could see was that they ate
in the employee cafeteria which was strictly off limits to all patients
at the time.
AV>Considering what you have claimed above to be the breadth of what you
AV>are willing to consider in evaluating herbs and treatments, I am
AV>surprised at your conclusions regarding cannabis, which are
AV>contrary to the knowledge and evidence of "the ages" and of
AV>contemporary research.  The record on marijuana encompasses 5,000
AV>years of human experience.  It is used daily by enormous numbers of
AV>people throughout the world.  Estimates suggest that from twenty
AV>million to fifty million Americans routinely, albeit illegally,
AV>use marijuana without the benefit of direct medical supervision
AV>and without any problems.  Contrary to your representations, the
AV>"age old" and contemporary evidence is that marijuana is not
AV>addictive and debilitating for everyone, or most, or many.
If you call being unable to get out of bed until afternoon a joy and a
delight, being wigged out to the point where it is impossible to think,
and producing children with mild birth defects no problem, than I guess
one could say that.
On the other hand, if you consider that going to jail for the use of an
illegal substance, not being able to keep up with the rest of the folks
in matters such as holding a job or maintaining a decent relationship,
then I can relate to that.
If you also consider that the use of pot masks the worst symptoms of
alcoholism in the early and middle stages of the disease then drops the
person abruptly into the chronic phase with a very severe physical
reaction, then I can also relate to that.
As well as those I have talked to who made their first admit to a mental
hospital by the age of 21 after multiple drug use.
SOME FOLKS DO NOT GET ANY REAL BENEFIT FROM POT USE!
And if you had even a fraction of real knowledge about this noxious weed
instead of the hype put out by potheads, you would know that.
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