'PARASITE' HARMLESS TO MANY MARIJUANA USERS

So here we go again. Another expert letting us know that "marijuana
serves as that first invisible parasite" that will grow and consume
your life and spread the disease to everyone around them.

Yes, to everyone, friends and foes.

"No one is immune to its negative caustic effects, whether directly or
indirectly." That's quite a statement. A statement which may be true
of addiction, but to make the leap that addiction stems from the use
of marijuana -- for everyone -- is pretty staggering.

Sometimes, I just want to stand up and scream "I just can't take it
anymore!" It gets pretty exhausting reading articles written by people
who have never smoked or ingested the "parasite" themselves and
cringing at the non-sequiturs that create a false argument implying
that there is a connection between premise and conclusion.

I should just smoke a couple of joints or drink three martinis and
make it all go away.

However, I choose not to do that. Why? Because that's not my chemical
makeup, my socioeconomic background or my choice to just say "screw it
all." I'm not in the population of folks who choose to solve their
problems that way. I'd rather scream. I'd rather write letters.

Beware of the danger of that first puff. It will
lead to dire consequences. And that means
everyone. How do we know? We know because the
author of "The Real Culprit: Marijuana or Meth"
states: "Anyone who has ever smoked marijuana can
tell you the physiological effects it evokes" --
paranoia, absence of mental and emotional
faculties, the compromise of intellectual thought
processes and the impossibility "to nurture relationships."

The author is articulate and her argument is presented well. However,
the point of view, comes from a foregone conclusion validated by the
fact that she sees the results of addiction every day in her line of
work.

Isn't that what's called "petitio principii"? Or, simply stated,
accepting for fact what is to be proven by argument.

My viewpoint comes from not working with the addicted, underprivileged
or abused but from working with average people, from all walks of
life; coupled with a graduate degree in psychology; and from the
benevolent qualities of the soothing puffs that helped me through
cancer treatment.

I believe that interacting with a broader bandwidth of people,
professionally and socially, than someone whose exposure to marijuana
comes from a singular segment of the population that is outside the
mainstream, holds more weight.

From my 40-plus years of professional and social observations,
marijuana, is not the evil precursor to the downfall of civilization
as we know it.

However, to be really sure, we need to determine the number of all
marijuana smokers and report statistically the number who fell into
addiction and the number that did not.

But isn't all of this verbiage really a subtopic to the controversy --
should we, as a society, assume responsibility for the behaviors of
the individual?

Specifically, should a government or its agencies be allowed to decide
what is right for every person based on facts assimilated from the
experiences of individuals of an identified subgroup. Smacks of apples
to oranges, doesn't it?

Ms. Nunnink-Deniz states a number of facts that are the result of
marijuana abuse. They are true. However, stating that marijuana should
be in the same category as methamphetamine and that it inevitably
leads to more horrific drugs and their abuse is not true.

To isolate the use of marijuana that leads to abuse can be applied to
most anything that "intoxicates."

Looking back to the time when that lonely bunch of grapes stayed on
the vine a little too long and someone came along and ate them and
reported that euphoric feeling, intoxication has been high on
civilization's list of feel-good things to do.

It's a big leap from the grape to the wino sitting on the curb and
drinking him/herself into oblivion. And, it's a big leap stating that
marijuana is an "invisible parasite" that leads to addiction, crime,
tax evasion, community deterioration, and God knows what else.

If that truly is the case, my God, then by all means let's burn the
vineyards, too.

Anything can become addictive. That first bite of cookie ... well,
that could lead to obesity! The first time a runner hits "the zone"
euphoria ... could lifelong injuries be far behind? The first-time
lovers "do it"... leads to sex addiction for some.

Learned folks, vilifying the object or action that leads to excess
seems a little lame to me. Isn't it personal responsibility and the
ability to make judgments that should be the controversy that needs to
be addressed? Shouldn't we be talking about the right of the average
individual to make choices without a government or police force making
it for them?

And worst of all, making the decisions based on the experiences of a
finite demographic of people who made the wrong ones.

The "collective familial structure as a society" used in this
framework sounds a little bit totalitarian to me and the possibility
of living in that kind of world is what makes me angry and makes me
write.