Absolutely marijuana can be harmful.
You get intoxicated, you stand the risk of doing something stupid and maiming/embarrassing yourself. And even responsible marijuana use will, over time, damage your nerves' myelin. Heavy users are known to suffer from memory problems.
Will it kill you directly? No, it's got a very high lethal dose:effective dose ratio. But it still has its risks.

The rank stupidity of these people counters their own claim.

"basically an herb"? Didn't we hear this recently in regards to pepper spray? Come on people.

A bullshit font sounds like a good idea. Then we'd know what is truth and what is bullshit more easily.

Plants can't be drugs? Who believes this?

No one tell these people that oxygen can get you high. Their world will explode.

@5: Seriously. Huge numbers drugs are plant derived. Heroin comes from poppies. Plant! Cocaine comes from coca leaves. Plant! Aspirin comes from willows. Plant! Penicillin comes from...a fungus, but close enough. Where do these people think we get drugs from?

@6: you mean after they accidentally cause a spark in their new oxygen chamber?

@7 And, of course, so does alcohol.

@7: Fungus is not "close enough" to plants. Archaeplastids are bikonts, while fungi and metazoans are unikonts (opisthokonts, in fact).

@10: I know. It was intended as humor.

"We can't legalize pot- it's too harmless!"

Pot heads are their own worst enemies.

Has anyone considered that laws are written on paper, which is plant-derived, and are therefore ineffective and harmless?

tl;dr, white people problems, um... fuck the police?

Is there any way we can just legalize marijuana for everyone *except* these numbskulls? ;)

@13 is correct.

Massive Grow Op Restaurant Fire for the Unintentional Win/Whine Of The Day!

Good lord. Alcohol is plant-based, and naturally occurring in many instances. And by their own definitions, pot is "medicine" but "not a drug", which makes no sense.

Of course pot can be harmful. In young people in particular, it can cause or exacerbate all kinds of psychological damage, increasing isolation, paranoia, depression, etc. Don't tell me this isn't true, BECAUSE IT HAPPENED TO ME. Does it happen to everybody? No, of course not. That's not the same thing at all as saying it "isn't a drug".

Pot needs to be NORMALIZED, not completely liberated. It's a drug AND a recreational substance; it should be treated like other drugs and other recreational substances. The state has a powerful interest in regulating these things just as it does in regulating automobiles, stockyards, or banks.

This kind of stoner idiocy is evidence of its own untruth, as these people are blatantly being harmed by their favorite herb: it's made them stupid.

So a kid who flunks out of high school because he'd rather sit around and smoke all day isn't a problem? A young adult neglecting work, family and friends in favor of being high all the time is not a problem? An adult living a meager hand-to-mouth existence because feeding the pot habit is more important than taking charge of his life is not a problem? These are just examples I've seen in my own life, among many more examples of successful recreational marijuana usage, but still...

Sure, it's not the same thing as drunkenly plowing a car into someone, or teetering on the verge of death after a heroin overdose, but it is still substance abuse. It's still elevating pot consumption above all of life's other pursuits.

Like breating in burning vegetation is ever going to be 100% good for you.

I hate people who do not bother to research the drugs they choose to use. It has been clearly shown to be both physically and psychologically addictive to many people. It increases estrogen levels, which in men can lead to Gynecomastia (man boobs).

It has also been shown to lower reaction time, and can lead to temporary short term memory loss. Addicted users who stop smoking often suffer surprisingly deep depression as a withdrawal symptom.

As far as drugs go, it is basically as benign as you can get, but come on people; let's be realistic and truthful at least.

Best thing about legalisation: Never hearing the words, "It's just a plant, maaaaaaaaaaaaaaan," ever again, and never again having subsequently to dig a shallow grave* with canonical True Friends.

There's a basic category error here: the notion that only harmless things should be allowed.

We allow people to fuck themselves up (and sometimes others) badly in the course of mountain climbing, martial arts practice (R.i.P. my knees), being in love, religion,..., yet none of those things should be banned through the use of State power.

Good thing, too, as there are no "good" plants or drugs. We live in an absolutely amoral universe in which no substance is 'good' or 'evil' in itself, and the more powerful the use of the substance, the greater the chance that one can do great good or great evil with it.

(Of course, some things are much more usually used for good or for ill...when this is negative and marked enough, it's expectable to see laws attempting to restrict or to eliminate their use. So, yeah, implicit in pro-{pot legalisation} is the notion that it is not just easily used for ill, that it is entirely possible to use it to good purpose...and legal restrictions [age- and {heavy machinery}-related] should attempt to minimise the bad whilst retaining most of the good---they will fail, often, but one must try. But as in drugs, in Law, the dose makes the poison.)

*If you think I'm serious about that last, you need the Hodgman Literary Tone Detector.

Sadly I had a family member who recently died because of cannabis being poorly implemented during his cancer treatment. I am so ready for the gray market to go away.

it's splitting hairs. the psychoactive compounds are "drugs".

but cannibus isn't a "plant-based" or "plant-derived" drug. it is a plant product, like seeds or flowers.

and it's pretty close to it's natural state in terms of processing, unlike, say, hash. similar to opium versus heroin. or coca leaves versus cocaine.

If you have has a psychotic break for any reason (I've had one during a bipolar manic phase in my teens), marijuana will greatly increase the likelihood of another. My partner was told his pot use was fine by our doctor; I've been told by EVERY doctor worth their salt to avoid it at all costs.

It doesn't hurt that it's a migraine trigger for me as well and makes me puke. But, hell, legalize, regulate, and tax the hell out of it.

Speaking as a once enthusiastic and frequent--now very occasional--imbiber, and a long-time legalizer...man, I really hate stoners.

"Just" a plant? Botany grad students have been working on strengthening this sh*t since 1970. At this point, it isn't even the same drug it was then! One hit of the good stuff and I don't even know who I am anymore. Sure it's a plant, but it's also an ongoing science experiment.

Speaking of splitting hairs, smoking MJ singes some of the hairs when you vaporize.

Digitalis is herbal too, you stupid fucking hippies.

Dave's not here, man!

it can kill you if you are allergic to rag weeds (i.e. hay fever)

Can we legalize pot and ban stoners?

So that means American Spirits are not a drug either, just a plant! Hooray! Where's a lighter?

"...and it's pretty close to it's natural state in terms of processing, unlike, say, hash. similar to opium versus heroin. or coca leaves versus cocaine." Apologies if I'm failing a sarcasm detection roll here, @23, but last time I checked opium and coca were both still drugs.

Anyone see where I left my morning glory seeds? I gotta go drive my route.

Dom & Co., you are doing a great service by pointing out what morons these, um, morons are. The problem is that it's really hard to reason with a stoner. Pass the damn initiative already!

Pot seems to increase psychosis in young people, not just exacerbate pre-existing conditions, according to recent research. Also, it can cause ventricular tachycardia and that can kill you!! Super rare, but it's in the literature.

This just in: people say wacky things on Facebook. In other news, water is wet.

Wait, is this what they mean about people getting the vapors?!

know what drug has ZERO permanent side effects (for men)?

anabolic steroids (women can get a permanently enlarged clit/mini-dick from prolonged use, but that's it. also, roid rage is bs...but we gotta save baseball, so go congress, go.)

@40: You had better be trolling. Anabolic steroids can shrink your testimucles.

Uhhh, the origin of the word DRUG comes from the Dutch "droge" which means DRY. The original source of the word DRUG is from "dry" medicinal herbs..... seems someone didn't understand the Dutch and thought "droge" meant MEDICINE...;-D

Perhaps the far greater harm lies in intolerance and prohibition. Perhaps the harm in I 502 has to do with the absence of values and the presence of commercial greed and control. I 502 seems to be the epitome of the 1% elitism in business, law and power controls.... just a thought while ya argue over semantics and such like bullshit...;-D

@40

temporary. they bounce back like the little champs they are when you stop using the drug.

bruce lee took them most of his adult life (and no link between them and mysterious brain swelling or aneurisms either)

@44: You are forgetting the fact that they have been shown to permanantly alter and damage chromosomes.

If you want a drug that has no ill effects on the body per se, look no farther to heroin. The reason people get so fucked on heroin is not a physical effect of the drug, but rather because they neglect eating, sleeping, health care, etc. Also of course there are the inherent dangers of intravenous drug use.

If you manage to avoid all those pitfalls, you will suffer no physical problems, aside from the realities of being addicted to a substance. Pure heroin has no detrimental effect on the body outside of making you addicted.

@45: Wikipedia says it also causes constipation.

@45

yeah...also, the lack of purity in street opiates can be an issue. with h, it's more about the harmful side effects of not having it.

it can cause some permanent liver and intestinal issues, though.

you got anything on the chromosome stuff? i'd be interested to read it.

@45 - uhhh, other than risk of overdose. Therapeutic dose vs lethal dose is a pretty narrow window. Also nausea.

@47-48:
I should have clarified I was only talking about pure heroin, in non-lethal doses. I would consider both of those to be one of the inherent dangers of intravenous drugs I mentioned above.

Regarding steroid abuse and chromosomal damage, I am very limited to what I can access at my office, but I think this should be a decent start:

http://www.aensionline.com/aeb/2007/39-4…

Very dry and academic, tried to find a more reader friendly study but was unsuccessful. Basically, it shows that anabolic steroids have a genotoxic and cytotoxic effect on the certain chromosomes studied.

It should also be noted that almost every drug stunts growth and both physical and mental development in young children, which has not really been discussed here. In teenagers and developing children, marijuana has been proven to shrink and stunt areas of the brain associated with social learning and development.

According to some sources, cannabis tis the safest therapeautically active substance know to man,,,,, too much opiate will kill ya dead, dude..... same with coca.. too much and ya die but rave on mofo, cause ya know, ya know....

@22, you mean that cannabis did not save the life of the patient as had been expected? Please explain what you mean....

@48

twice the number of people die each year from aspirin than do heroin overdose. the window might be a little wider than you've been lead to believe .

the nausea comes and goes quickly, and it's not a permanent side effect.

(most people i've known who OD'd did so immediately after a forced period of sobriety. not thinking about their tolerance having gone down, they do it up like old times...oops)

One of my biggest pet-peeves is when pretend-activists damage the movement they claim to support in the name of appearing "more radical than thou."

Radical is great when it's valid, guys, but it doesn't automatically make you a truer devotee to a cause. We don't need radical forms of drug legalization anymore than we need radical forms of fire safety protocol.

Less narcissistic obsession with image; more pragmatic focus on what is or isn't a good idea.

@52: "twice the number of people die each year from aspirin than do heroin overdose"
Bullshit.
In 2007, about 2000 people died from accidental overdoses where heroin was the main culprit. (source) It's hard to find information about aspirin poisoning (probably because it's SO FUCKING RELATIVELY RARE), but in 2005, there were 20 fatalities attributed solely to aspirin poisoning. (source, go to page 819)
TWENTY IS NOT TWICE AS MANY AS TWO THOUSAND.
You are making shit up, malcomxy, and it's not earning you any credibility, trust, or goodwill. Please fuck off.

Oh Venomlash, Malcomxy was being such a good boy today, and now you went and knocked down his sand castle. Even if you are clearly correct.

Batten down the hatches Sloggers, I smell another shitstorm coming.

46 FTW.

In any activist movement there is going to be a range of views and understanding and involvement by different persons. The "its a plant so it can't possible harm you" view, while clearly incorrect and should not be put forward as credible view of proponets of marijuana use, these guys are still on the right side, imo. They should not be made to be alienated, perhaps gently persuaded with accuate research and information. It comes down to better education of the general public including those in the pro and con camps, and looking at the information with an open mind.