POT SMOKERS ENDANGER YOU

"Medical marijuana grower gears up" (May 15, 2011) makes me wonder
how long you need to be in an oxygen deprived bubble why are our
filled with pot smoke before you are completely insane.

A pot-smoking loser with marijuana arrests in his past is now allowed
to grow pot for over 70 pot-smoking, card-carrying individuals with
everything from chapped lips to bald heads. It is time for sane
people to wake up and fight this "undercover" attempt to legalize
this dangerous drug.

The strength of today's pot is 10 to 30 times stronger than that
smoked by "pot heads" back in the early 1970s. Immediate physical
effects include faster heartbeat and pulse rate by 20 to 100 percent
and a 4.8-fold increase in the rate of heart attack.

M.J. smoke contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons
than tobacco smoke. Studies on mental effects show an impairment in
short-term memory, altered sense of time, and reduced ability to do
things which require concentration and coordination such as driving a
car. These skills are impaired for at least 4-6 hours after smoking one joint.

M.J. is especially harmful to the lungs because users inhale deeper
and hold it longer, causing much more damage than cigarette smoke,
which causes emphysema and cancer.

Got a hangnail? Get a medical marijuana card. Still have a hang nail
but no longer care because now you have the munchies, can chew the
hangnail and come down with cancer.

When marijuana is smoked, THC, its active ingredient, is absorbed by
most tissues in the body. The body chemically transforms the THC into
metabolites that can last for up to a week after smoking one joint.
Most of you, especially those smoking pot, will not remember that the
reason for the "so called need" for smoking dope originally was to
give those on cancer treatment an appetite, not to cure or stop pain.

Anyone with a medical marijuana card should have their driving
privileges revoked immediately, and doctors handing out these cards
should be barred. Prescription drugs are available and more effective
and less dangerous, to us and to the users.

Larry Crompton, Scio (May 15)