How does marijuana effect people?

Answer 1

Cannabis has little effect on someones health. About the only negative effect cannabis has is when you smoke it, it can be harmful to your lungs. But other than that it can also have positive effects on peoples health which is why it is now being used medically. It is used to stimulate someone to eat as well as a variety of other uses.

The largest study of the health effects of marijuana to date was done by Kaiser Permanente. They studied the health records of 65,000 patients over a number of years. They found no significant differences between the health histories of those who smoked pot versus those who did not smoke marijuana.

Marijuana and Mortality Every major government commission report on marijuana from around the world over the last 100 years has concluded that marijuana prohibition was based on racism, ignorance, and nonsense. They all said the marijuana laws should have been repealed long ago because they do more harm than good.They all said that marijuana is not a significant threat to health.

Major Studies of Drugs and Drug Policy.

Answer 2

Marijuana contains chemicals called cannabinoids. The two most famous cannabinoids are Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and Cannabidiol (CBD). The cannabinoids enter the brain and effects kick in about 10 or 15 seconds after taking the first hit of marijuana smoke. Cannabinoid receptors in the brain are stimulated and there is a significant increase in Alpha waves in the brain. Alpha waves are thought to be directly related to creativity and abstract thought. The brain is affected in areas involving pleasure, time perception and motor skills. Contrary to popular belief, marijuana is not addictive, physically harmful, mentally harmful, or a gateway drug. Genuine, unbiased,scientific research and studies show that marijuana is no more physically addictive than caffiene. However, marijuana can be emotionally addictive. This means that is one were to be upset or depressed while using marijuana, that peerson could become addicted. This addiction is not serious. Unlike other drugs marijuana's withdrawl symptoms are not severe. Withdrawl symptoms include moderate irritabillity and mild anxiety. Marijuana is not physically harmful. The only physical harm from marijuana use is mild upper respiratory irritation. This irritation is due to carbon. Since Marjuana is organic, this means it contains carbon. The carbon irritates the lungs. Moderate coughing and increased phlegm production are normally the result of this irritation. These problems are only temporary. Marijuana is not mentally harmful. The idea that marijuana kills brain cells came from a poorly conducted, biased experiment in the 1950's, during the second Reefer Madness movement. Several monkey were forced to inhale very large amounts of marijuana smoke for several minutes at a time, through gasmasks. The resulting brain damage to these monkeys was due to carbon monoxide poisoning and oxygen deprivation. These monkey were breathing marijuana smoke and only marijuana smoke, they did not get oxygen. This incorrect, misleading information was given anti-marijuana campaigns. These campaigns took particular liking to this idea because it was supposedly scientifically proven and they knew that no average American citizen would be able to accurately test if they had suddenly become stupid because they smoked a joint. Also marijuana use does not lead to cancer. Rather, ithe cannabiods prevent cancer developement and destroy cancer and tumor cells without touching the healthy cells. Here is a personal note of mine. I have a friend named Elisabeth who once had breast cancer. She was perscribed medical marijuana. She no longer has Breast cancer. She did not go through kemotherapy or anything but smoke marijuana. I personally believe marijuana is the cure to cancer. I would not believe this no matter what anyone told me, but I have seen it cure. Marijuana is not a gateway drug. Very few marijuana smokers move on to hard drugs, even though most hard drug users started with marijuana. To say that marijuana leads to hard drugs is like saying "look at all these rapists. they all started with kissing. Case closed, kissing is the problem." Most people are satisfied with marijuana so they don't try other drugs. I hope this answers your question.

Answer 3

This remains an issue of great controversy throughout the world, marijuana being an illegal drug in many countries but legal in others like the Netherlands. But there is political campaigning to decriminalize it in some jurisdictions where it is currently illegal including some US States. But to answer your question I am afraid to tell you all facts do seem to indicate smoking marijuana DOES harm your health,but I think I really need to answer this question in great detail to explain precisely why I state that as fact, when so many are misguidingly seeking to contend it is not as harmfil as alcohol and does have medical benefits and other such propoganda.

The most convincing reason for concluding that smoking marujuana has the potential to cause serious harm to anybody's well being is the large numbers of very experienced and knowledgeable people who have changed their mind. For example a highly regarded left wing national newspaper here in the UK called "The Independent" which is one of the three newspapers considered "highest quality" in the UK and read daily by many millions - during the latter part of the 20th century and the first 7 years of the 21st century campaigned vigorously to try to persuade public opinion and the UK and other world governments to decriminalize marijuana claiming essentially that smoking marijuana was far less harmful than drinking alcohol or ordinary tobacco smoking, and there were very many proven beneficial medical effects from smoking it.

BUT....on March 8th 2007 the London Independent totally changed its opinion and published "CANNABIS AN APOLOGY", stating unequivocally it admitted to being guilty of getting it all wrong during all those years. The newspaper's journalists referred to new data that asserted marijuana in its skunk' form, is "FAR MORE DANGEROUS" than LSD or cocaine or heroin is according to a wealth of research findings.

Among the wealth of evidence the Independent cited was from Robin Murray, professor of psychiatry at London's Institute of Psychiatry, who stated in his estimation, "at least 25,000 of the 250,000 schizophrenics in the UK would have avoided the affliction had they not smoked cannabis", and the newspaper identified various people who, along with itself had hitherto strongly campaigned for the decriminalization of pot, but now accept due to more recent medical data, that key elements of their decriminalization arguments were very badly flawed.Many Statesmen and Politicians have also changed their mind. For example, UK Prime Minister David Cameron also used to favour decriminalizing cannabis smoking when in opposition. He too has changed his mind on studying all the research evidence and his coalition government is now introducing stricter laws about marijuana.

But this data expressed by the UK's top minds is just confirmation of data from other studies such as like the 2005 study on other side of the world at New Zealand's University of Otago which revealed that "marujuana smoking can increase the risk of a mental illness by 50%". In Canada former Canadian Prime Ministers Jean Chretien and Paul Martin, the Liberal Party also pushed for many years to have marijuana legalized in Canada but they too changed their mind after reviewing all the evidence of its harmful effects on our brains etc. etc.

So what are the physical and mental health facts that have changed so many minds. The major proven mental health side effect resulting from you smoking marijuana is proneness to anxiety and panic attacks. A study in India verified that a very high proportion of psychiatric patients who took marijuana suffered from hallucinations, amnesia, and paranoia. Other research from USA and elsewhere has consistently revealed use of marijuana causes damage to your respiratory system giving many people such symptoms as a daily cough, chronic bronchitis, more frequent chest colds, injury to your lung structures, pneumonia and increased risk of lung or oral cancer.

There is evidence from Europe that the known harmful effects of tobacco smoking are made far worse by smoking marijuana with measurements of patients lungs showing marijuana smoking deposits of four times as much tar as ordinary tobacco smoking, and contains nearly 50% more of the cancer causing chemical benzopyrene than the average tobacco cigarette.

Evidence from other mental health professionals in various countries regarding brain damage indicate that as well as observed links between marijuana use and developing schizophrenia, less consistent associations have been reported between cannabis use and depression, anxiety, suicidal thoughts among adolescents, and personality disturbances!

Several studies have found marijuana use damages your immune system by causing damage to your cells and tissues that protect you from disease.

Perhaps even more worrying for young people wanting to start a family is studies by the University of Washington ADIA in US indicate heavy use of marijuana leads to decreased fertility potential both in males and females. In women the evidence from ADIA suggests that smoking marijuana may disrupt her menstrual cycle while in males, smoking marijuana has been proved to decrease both his sperm quality and testosterone levels studies indicating hydrocannabinol, which is a psychoactive ingredient in marijuana, passes from a mother to a developing fetus through the placenta . The consequence of that is the fetus growth may be harmed or killed by any amount of marijuana that is taken in by the pregnant female, and that is in addition to proven fact that any form of smoking does disrupt the supply of oxygen and nutrients to the fetus, which can also result in restrictions in the growth of the fetus.

There is controversy in research as to whether use of cannabis and alcohol together really increases likelihood of you becoming addicted to "harder" drugs like cocaine and heroin. On that issue, different studies having supposedly found varying degrees of correlation between cannabis and use of and other drugs. Some doubters of this link contend this so-called "gateway effect," should really be blamed on the illegality of the drug rather than the drug itself, claiming the grouping of marijuana with harder drugs in law in many jurisdictions is really the reason users of marijuana move on to those harder drugs.

Answer 4

ORIGINAL ANSWER: "it is very very bad (naughty) you can very badley harm yourslef , please do not try this at home thankyou"

NEW ANSWER: This answer is laughable. Next time use Wikipedia instead of Answers.com if this is the type of response that is commonly given. In fact, from Wikipedia:

"The psychoactive effects of cannabis, known as a "high", are subjective and can vary based on the individual and the method of use. Some effects may include an altered state of consciousness, euphoria, feelings of well-being, relaxation or stress reduction, increased appreciation of humor, music or art, joviality, metacognition and introspection, enhanced recollection (episodic memory), increased sensuality, increased awareness of sensation, increased libido, creative or philosophical thinking, disruption of linear memory or thought, nostalgia, and paranoia or anxiety."

Marijuana has many medical benefits as well, which can be researched through google. It it used to treat patients who have afflictions such as multiple sclerosis, cancer, HIV/AIDS, chronic pain, chronic nausea, seizures, cachexia, diabetes, glaucoma, kidney problems, blood pressure issues, depression, persistent pain, cerebral palsy, shingles, Arthritis, and insomnia (the list goes on). All use medical marijuana to alleviate their symptoms and praise the drug as being better than the prescriptions they were told to take by doctors.

It has been used to treat children with autism (lowering required medicines significantly and improving quality of life) and is beneficial not only to pregnant women but also their forming children. Cannabis may boost the effectiveness of treatments to inhibit the growth of brain cancer cells and increase the number of brain cancer cells that die off.

Cannabis is an inherently "safe drug" which does not lead to cancer, infertility, brain damage or mental illness.

The 30-day test showed that children of ganja-using mothers were superior to children of non-ganja mothers in two ways: the children had better organization and modulation of sleeping and waking, and they were less prone to stress-related anxiety. ...Dreher found that marijuana was being used in a cultural and medical context, as a way to relieve morning sickness or nausea, prevent depression and fatigue, and improve appetites. Her team observed both the mothers who used marijuana and their infants; they reported that there were no signs of birth defects or of behavioral problems in the marijuana-exposed children either during the month after birth or even several years after.

Although no positive or negative neurobehavioral effects of prenatal exposure were found at 3 days of life using the Brazelton examination, there were significant differences between the exposed and non-exposed neonates at the end of the first month.

Comparing the two groups, the neonates of mothers who used marijuana showed better physiological stability at 1 month and required less examiner facilitation to reach an organized state and become available for social stimulation.

The results of the comparison of neonates of the heavy-marijuana-using mothers and those of the non-using mothers were even more striking…

* The heavily exposed neonates were more socially responsive and were more autonomically stable at 30 days than their matched counterparts.

* quality of their alertness was higher;

* their motor and autonomic systems were more robust;

* they were less irritable;

* they were less likely to demonstrate any imbalance of tone;

* they needed less examiner facilitation to become organized;

* they had better self-regulation;

* judged to be more rewarding for caregivers than the neonates of non-using mothers at 1 month of age"

The list goes on. Benefits and effects are wide and varied. Many feel none of the few negative side effects such as paranoia. Unlike pharmaceutical medicines, there is zero risk of death from marijuana consumption. It does not damage your memory and in fact, tests with rats have shown to improve it. And yes, it has many recreational benefits - but remember, that's illegal in some places, so check your local laws first.

SOURCES:

http://patients4medicalmarijuana.wordpress.com/2009/12/20/marijuana-cannabis-use-in-pregnancy-dr-melanie-dreher/

http://www.mapinc.org/drugnews/v00.n1578.a06.html

http://www.naturalnews.com/024765_drugs_DEA_prescription.html

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/science-news/3485163/Marijuana-may-improve-memory-and-help-fight-Alzheimers.html

http://www.newswise.com/articles/view/560083/?sc=swhr;xy=10002647

http://scienceblog.com/cms/study-says-marijuana-no-gateway-drug-12116.html

Answer 5

There are very few long term effects of cannabis. Say that you smoke marijuana for 5 years, 3-5 times a week. If you then stop for a week, the biggest problem you'd have would be as a result of the smoke you've inhaled. Inhaling smoke from the cannabisplant can lead to chronic bronchitis and perhaps even airway infections and cancer, though no evidence has deemed the latter two conclusive.

Answer 6

The main effects are hungry, drowsy and happy. It relaxes you and often gives you the feeling that "everything is wonderful and interesting".

Answer 7

positively. c: