Just Plain Old Cannabis

2009.05.03

So, the arguments about the good and the bad effects of cannabis are going to rage on for many years to come. The questions will always be back and forth on both sides, like a ping pong game on steroids – is marijuana addictive, is it bad for you – if it is so bad then why is it being used in medical applications, and so on, and so on.

Why, then are all the questions now rising to a fever pitch, when before, people would only laugh them off as another attempt by the establishment to stop the damned Hippies from just having fun.

Well, during the seventies, weed really caught on, and it began to spread like wildfire. Now, cannabis is the biggest export drug in the world – so much so, that in Morocco, where cannabis’s use is ruining the arable land because the soil is being destroyed, there seems to be a bit of a reverse trend starting.

The old arguments that were usually laughed off by chronic users are now being looked at in a more serious light, and, up to a while ago, nobody knew why. This was not just another series of studies that studied the studies, this was a wave of studies that were done with the chronic users who had come in to addiction centers and wanted treatment – these were people who had been using for years and wanted help.

It couldn’t be fathomed for a long time, until these same users were asked why they were coming in now, and didn’t before – what had changed? It turns out that the problem was what was being sold on the street. This stuff was more potent – this was not what they were used to from the seventies, this stuff had a kick, and it made the users crave more, and they seemed powerless to help it.

What was also discovered was that the pot they were smoking wasn’t just the innocent cannabis they were used to – this stuff was being cut with hallucinogens, and it was that addition that was causing the addiction.

The body would shut down when into withdrawal, something that had never happened before, and the users found that they had to smoke a whole lot more to get back that lost feeling, but when they did it was different. Even the ones who got out of rehab found that they were relapsing back to the old habits and they were having a very tough time trying to stay off it.
Because of this, the attitude toward marijuana has changed. It has even been revealed in the study of teens in grades 8, 10, and 12, that the use of cannabis has dropped 20%, because they didn’t like the feeling they got after using it. So, is it just plain old cannabis anymore? Before you consider getting into it, you should find out for yourself what the reality of the situation is. Remember, education beats ignorance every time.