-----------------------------
                   P  A  R  T      T  H  R  E  E
                   -----------------------------

-----------------------------------------------------------------------
The next question would normally be ``Why is it _still_ not
legal,'' but since we have uncovered an understanding of the
history, it is time to take a little detour.  Politicians
love to tell us that marijuana must remain illegal for our
own good.  In the next section we will examine some of the
so-called facts about marijuana so that you can decide for
yourselves whether you agree or not.  Is marijuana
prohibition there to protect the people, or is it just the
result of decades of refusal to admit our
mistakes?
-----------------------------------------------------------------------



             DOES IT?  DOESN'T IT?  IS IT TRUE THAT?




1) Doesn't marijuana stay in your fat cells and keep you
   high for months?

    No.  The part of marijuana that gets you high is called
    `Delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol.'  Most people just call this
    THC, but this is confusing: your body will change
    Delta-9-THC into more inert molecules known as
    `metabolites,' which don't get you high.  Unfortunately,
    these chemicals also have the word `tetrahydrocannabinol' in
    them and they are also called THC -- so many people think
    that the metabolites get you high.  Anti-drug pamphlets say
    that THC gets stored in your fat cells and then leaks out
    later like one of those `time release capsules' advertised
    on television.  They say it can keep you high all day or
    even longer.  This is not true, marijuana only keeps you
    high for a few hours, and it is not right to think that a
    person who fails a drug test is always high on drugs,
    either.

    Two of these metabolites are called
    `11-hydroxy-tetrahydrocannabinol' and
    `11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol' but we will
    call them 11-OH-THC and 11-nor instead.  These are the
    chemicals which stay in your fatty cells.  There is almost
    no Delta-9-THC left over a few hours after smoking
    marijuana, and scientific studies which measure the effects
    of marijuana agree with this fact.





2) But ... isn't today's marijuana much more potent than it
   was in the Sixties?  
   (Or, more often ... Marijuana is 10 times more powerful than 
   it was in the Sixties!)

    GOOD!  Actually, this is not true, but if it were, it
    would mean that marijuana is safer to smoke today than it
    was in the Sixties.  (More potent cannabis means less
    smoking means less lung damage.)  People who use this
    statistic just plain do not know what they are talking
    about.  Sometimes they will even claim that marijuana is now
    twenty to thirty times stronger, which is physically
    impossible because it would have to be *over* 100%
    Delta-9-THC.  The truth is, marijuana has not really changed
    potency all that much, if at all, in the last several
    hundred years.  Growing potent cannabis is an ancient art
    which has not improved in centuries, despite all our modern
    technology.  Before marijuana was even made illegal, drug
    stores sold tinctures of cannabis which were over 40% THC.
    
    Even so, the point is moot because marijuana smokers engage
    in something called `auto-titration.'  This basically means
    smoking until they are satisfied and then stopping, so it
    does not really matter if the marijuana is more potent
    because they will smoke less of it.  Marijuana is not like
    pre-moistened towelettes or snow-cones.  There is nothing
    forcing marijuana smokers to smoke an entire joint.
    
    Experienced marijuana users are accustomed to smoking
    marijuana from many different suppliers, and they know that
    if they smoke a whole joint of very potent bud they will get
    `TOO STONED'.  Since being `too stoned' is a rather
    unpleasant experience, smokers quickly learn to take their
    time and `test the waters' when they do not know how strong
    their marijuana is.





3a) Doesn't Marijuana cause brain damage?

    The short answer: No.

    The long answer: The reason why you ask this is because you
    probably heard or read somewhere that marijuana damages
    brain cells, or makes you stupid.  These claims are untrue.
    
    The first one -- marijuana kills brain cells -- is based on
    research done during the second Reefer Madness Movement.  A
    study attempted to show that marijuana smoking damaged brain
    structures in monkeys.  However, the study was poorly
    performed and it was severely criticized by a medical review
    board.  Studies done afterwards failed to show any brain
    damage, in fact a very recent study on Rhesus monkeys used
    technology so sensitive that scientists could actually see
    the effect of learning on brain cells, and it found no
    damage.
    
    But this was Reefer Madness II, and the prohibitionists were
    looking around for anything they could find to keep the
    marijuana legalization movement in check, so this study was
    widely used in anti-marijuana propaganda.  It was recanted
    later.
    
    (To this day, the radical anti-drug groups, like P.R.I.D.E.
    and Dr.  Gabriel Nahas, still use it -- In fact, America's
    most popular drug education program, Drug Abuse Resistance
    Education, claims that marijuana ``can impair memory
    perception & judgement by destroying brain cells.''  When
    police and teachers read this and believe it, our job gets
    really tough, since it takes a long time to explain to
    children how Ms. Jones and Officer Bob were wrong.)
    
    The truth is, no study has ever demonstrated cellular
    damage, stupidity, mental impairment, or insanity brought on
    specifically by marijuana use -- even heavy marijuana use.
    This is not to say that it cannot be abused, however.





3b) If it doesn't kill brain cells, how does it get you `high'?

    Killing brain cells is not a pre-requisite for getting
    `high.'  Marijuana contains a chemical which substitutes for
    a natural brain chemical, with a few differences.  This
    chemical touches special `buttons' on brain cells called
    `receptors.'  Essentially, marijuana `tickles' brain cells.
    The legal drug alcohol also tickles brain cells, but it will
    damage and kill them by producing toxins (poisons) and
    sometimes mini-seizures.  Also, some drugs will wear out the
    buttons which they push, but marijuana does not.





4) Don't people die from smoking pot?

    Nobody has ever overdosed.  For any given substance,
    there are bound to be some people who have allergic
    reactions.  With marijuana this is extremely rare, but it
    could happen with anything from apples to pop-tarts.  Not
    one death has ever been directly linked to marijuana itself.
    In contrast, many legal drugs cause hundreds to hundreds of
    thousands of deaths per year, foremost among them are
    alcohol, nicotine, valium, aspirin, and caffiene.  The
    biggest danger with marijuana is that it is illegal, and
    someone may mix it with another drug like PCP.
    
    Marijuana is so safe that it would be almost impossible to
    overdose on it.  Doctors determine how safe a drug is by
    measuring how much it takes to kill a person (they call this
    the LD50) and comparing it to the amount of the drug which
    is usually taken (ED50).  This makes marijuana hundreds of
    times safer than alcohol, tobacco, or caffiene.  According
    to a DEA Judge ``marijuana is the safest therapeutically
    active substance known to mankind.''
    




5) I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term memory impairment?

    The effect of marijuana on memory is its most dramatic
    and the easiest to notice.  Many inexperienced marijuana
    users find that they have very strange, sudden and
    unexpected memory lapses.  These usually take the form of
    completely forgetting what you were talking about when you
    were right in the middle of saying something important.
    However, these symptoms only occur while a person is `high'.
    They do not carry over or become permanent, and examinations
    of extremely heavy users has not shown any memory or
    thinking problems.  More experienced marijuana users seem to
    be able to remember about as well as they do when they are
    not `high.'

    Studies which have claimed to show short-term memory
    impairment have not stood up to scrutiny and have not been
    duplicated.  Newer studies show that marijuana does not
    impair simple, real-world memory processes.  Marijuana does
    slow reaction time slightly, and this effect has sometimes
    been misconstrued as a memory problem.  To put things in
    perspective, one group of researchers made a control group
    hold their breath, like marijuana smokers do.  Marijuana
    itself only produced about twice as many effects on test
    scores as breath holding.  Many people use marijuana to
    study.  Other people cannot, for some reason, use marijuana
    and do anything that involves deep thought.  Nobody knows
    what makes the difference.




6a) Is marijuana going to make my boyfriend go psycho?
    
    Marijuana does not `cause' psychosis.  Psychotic people
    can smoke marijuana and have an episode, but there is
    nothing in marijuana that actually initiates or increases
    these episodes.  Of course, if any mentally ill person is
    given marijuana for the first time or without their
    knowledge, they might get scared and `freak.'  Persons who
    suffer from severe psychological disorders often use
    marijuana as a way of coping.  Because of this, some
    researchers have assumed that marijuana is the cause of
    these problems, when it is actually a symptom.  If you have
    heard that marijuana makes people go crazy, this is probably
    why.
    




6b) Don't users of marijuana withdraw from society?

    To some extent, yes.  That's probably just because they
    are afraid of being arrested, though.  The same situation
    exists with socially maladjusted persons as does with the
    mentally ill.  Emotionally troubled individuals find
    marijuana to be soothing, and so they tend to use it more
    than your average person.  Treatment specialists see this,
    and assume that the marijuana is causing the problem.  This
    is a mistake which hurts the patient, because their doctors
    will pay less attention to their actual needs, and
    concentrate on ending their drug habit.  Sometimes the
    cannabis is even helping them to recover.  Cannabis can be
    abused, and it can make these situations worse, but
    psychologists should approach marijuana use with an open
    mind or they risk hurting their patient.
    
    Marijuana itself does not make normal people anti-social.
    In fact, a large psychological study of teenagers found that
    casual marijuana users are more well adjusted than `drug
    free' people.  This would be very amusing, but it is a
    serious problem.  There are children who have emotional
    problems which keep them from participating in healthy,
    explorative behavior.  They need psychological help but
    instead they are skipped over.  Marijuana users who do not
    need help are having treatment forced on them, and in the
    mean-time marijuana takes the blame for the personality
    characteristics and problems of the people who like to use
    it improperly.
    




7) Is it true that marijuana makes you lazy and unmotivated?

    Not if you are a responsible adult, it doesn't.  Ask the
    U.S. Army.  They did a study and showed no effect.  If this
    were true, why would many Eastern cultures, and Jamaicans,
    use marijuana to help them work harder?  `Amotivational
    syndrome' started as a media myth based on the racial
    stereotype of a lazy Mexican borracho.  The prohibitionists
    claimed that marijuana made people worthless and sluggish.
    Since then, however, it has been scientifically researched,
    and a symptom resembling amotivational syndrome has actually
    been found.  However, it only occurs in adolescent teenagers
    -- adults are not affected.
    
    When a person reaches adolescence, their willingness to work
    usually increases, but this does not happen for teenagers
    using marijuana regularly -- even just on the weekends.  The
    actual studies involved monkeys, not humans, and the results
    are not verified, but older studies which tried to show
    `amotivational syndrome' usually only suceeded when they
    studied adolescents.  Adults are not effected.
    
    The symptoms are not permanent, and motivation returns to
    normal levels several months after marijuana smoking stops.
    However, a small number of people may be unusually sensitive
    to this effect.  One of the monkeys in the experiment was
    severely amotivated and did not recover.  Doctors will need
    to study this more before they know why.
    




8) Isn't marijuana a gateway drug?  
   Doesn't it lead to use of harder drugs?

    This is totally untrue.  In fact, researchers are looking
    into using marijuana to help crack addicts to quit.  There
    are 40 million people in this country (U.S.) who have smoked
    marijuana for a period of their lives -- why aren't there
    tens of millions of heroin users, then?  In Amsterdam, both
    marijuana use and heroin use went *down* after marijuana was
    decriminalized -- even though there was a short rise in
    cannabis use right after decriminalization.  Unlike
    addictive drugs, marijuana causes almost no tolerance.  Some
    people even report a reverse tolerance.  That is, the longer
    they have used the less marijuana they need to get `high.'
    So users of marijuana do not usually get bored and `look for
    something more powerful'.  If anything, marijuana keeps
    people from doing harder drugs.
    
    The idea that using marijuana will lead you to use heroin or
    speed is called the `gateway theory' or the `stepping stone
    hypothesis.'  It has been a favorite trick of the anti-drug
    propaganda artists, because it casts marijuana as something
    insidious with hidden dangers and pitfalls.  There have
    never been any real statistics to back this idea up, but
    somehow it was the single biggest thing which the newspapers
    yelled about during Reefer Madness II.  (Perhaps this was
    because the CIA was looking for someone to blame for the
    increase in heroin use after Viet Nam.)
    
    The gateway theory of drug use is no longer generally
    accepted by the medical community.  Prohibitionists used to
    point at numbers which showed that a large percentage of the
    hard drug users `started with marijuana.'  They had it
    backwards -- many hard drug users also use marijuana.  There
    are two reasons for this.  One is that marijuana can be used
    to `take the edge off' the effects of some hard drugs.  The
    other is a recently discovered fact of adolescent psychology
    -- there is a personality type which uses drugs, basically
    because drugs are exciting and dangerous, a thrill.
    
    On sociological grounds, another sort of gateway theory has
    been argued which claims that marijuana is the source of the
    drug subculture and leads to other drugs through that
    culture.  By the same token this is untrue -- marijuana does
    not create the drug subculture, the drug subculture uses
    marijuana.  There are many marijuana users who are not a
    part of the subculture.
    
    This brings up another example of how marijuana legalization
    could actually reduce the use of illicit drugs.  Even though
    there is no magical `stepping stone' effect, people who
    choose to buy marijuana often buy from dealers who deal in
    many different illegal drugs.  This means that they have
    access to illegal drugs, and might decide to try them out.
    In this case it is the laws which lead to hard drug use.  If
    marijuana were legal, the drug markets would be separated,
    and less people would start using the illegal drugs.  Maybe
    this is why emergency room admissions for hard drugs have
    gone down in the states that decriminalized marijuana during
    the 70's.
    




9a) I don't want children (minors) to be able to smoke marijuana.  
    How can I stop this?

    Legalize it.  They can smoke it now; it is about as easy
    to get as alcohol.  There would be less marijuana being sold
    in schools, playgrounds, and street corners, though, if it
    was sold legally through pharmacies -- because the dealers
    would not be able to compete with the prices.  If you are a
    parent, the choice is really up to you: Do you want your
    children to sneak off with their friends and use marijuana
    which they bought off the street, or do you want to talk to
    them calmly and explain to them why they should wait until
    they are older?  Your children are not going to walk up to
    you and tell you that they use an illegal drug, but if it
    was not such a big deal they might give you a chance to
    explain your feelings.  Besides, would you rather children
    use speed, cocaine, and alcohol?
    
    Consider, also, that children have a natural urge to do
    things that they aren't supposed to.  It is called
    curiosity.  By making such a fuss over marijuana, you make
    it interesting (some call it the `forbidden fruit' factor.)
    This is made worse when children are lied to about drugs by
    teachers and police -- they lose respect for the school and
    the government.  In a lot of ways, it is the hysteria about
    drugs which causes the most harm.  When marijuana users do
    none of the horrible things they are supposed to, children
    may think that other more harmful drugs are OK, too.  Your
    children will not respect you unless you are calm and give
    good reasons for your rules.  The first step is for you, the
    parent, to learn the facts about drugs.





9b) Won't children be able to steal marijuana plants that
    people are growing?

    Well, if you are worried about them stealing the hemp
    plants from the paper-pulp farm down the road, you should
    know that the commercial grades of hemp do not contain much
    THC (the stuff that gets you high.)  If they were to smoke
    it, they would probably just get a headache.  Otherwise, it
    should be the responsibility of the grower to take measures
    to prevent this.  Most ``home-grown'' marijuana is
    cultivated indoors anyway.  If the children in your town
    have nothing better to do than go around stealing marijuana
    to smoke, your town needs to buy a library or something.





10a) Hey, don't you know that marijuana drops testosterone
     levels in teenage boys causing [various physical and
     developmental problems]?
 
    Marijuana does not turn young healthy boys into lanky,
    girlish looking wimps, no.  This scare tactic (call it
    homo-phobic if you will) was a common device used in early
    anti-drug literature.  It attempts to scare boys away from
    marijuana by telling them, essentially, that it will turn
    them into a girl.  Young men probably should not use
    marijuana heavily (see the section on amotivational
    syndrome), but the risks are not horrendous.
    
    Anti-marijuana pamphlets used this claim often during Reefer
    Madness II, but the studies which are cited are mostly
    faulty or misinterpreted.  This is not to say that marijuana
    use does not affect childhood development at all, just that
    the effects are not as drastic as some people would like
    them to sound.  In fact they are pretty much unknown.
    




10b) Doesn't heavy marijuana use lower the sperm count in males?

    Not by much, (if at all) and this can be a good thing.
    It does not make you impotent or sterile.  (If it did --
    there would be no Rastafarians left!)  Give those testicles
    a rest, already!  Marijuana is certainly _not_ birth
    control, please don't let your lover tell you it is.
    
    Many people think that marijuana enhances their sex lives.
    It is not an aphrodisiac, that is, it does not make people
    want to have sex.  What it does do for some people is make
    everything more sensual -- it makes food taste better and
    feelings and emotions more vivid.





10c) I heard marijuana use by teenage girls may impair hormone
     production, menstrual cycles, and fertility.  Is this true?

    Also unproven and unfounded, but there is no data
    available to tell either way, (and it won't be coming from
    the U.S. -- current U.S.  laws prohibit research on women.)
    This is the female version of the boy's ``It'll turn you
    into a sissy'' tactic.  As far as anyone knows, it is only a
    scare tactic.





11) I forgot, does marijuana cause short-term memory impairment?

    Go away.





12) Isn't smoking marijuana worse for you than smoking cigarettes?
    
    There are many reasons why it is not.  You may have heard
    that ``one joint is equal to ten cigarrettes'' but this is
    exagerrated and misleading.  Marijuana does contain more tar
    than tobacco -- but low tar cigarettes cause just as much
    cancer, so what is that supposed to mean?  Scientists have
    shown that smoking any plant is bad for your lungs, because
    it increases the number of `lesions' in your small airways.
    This usually does not threaten your life, but there is a
    chance it will lead to infections.  Marijuana users who are
    worried about this can find less harmful ways of taking
    marijuana like eating or vaporizing.  (Be careful --
    marijuana is safe to eat -- but tobacco is not, you might
    overdose!)  Marijuana does not seem to cause cancer the way
    tobacco does, though.
    
    Here is a list of interesting facts about marijuana smoking
    and tobacco smoking:

    o   Marijuana smokers generally don't chain smoke, and 
        so they smoke less.  (Marijuana is not physically 
        addictive like tobacco.)  The more potent marijuana 
        is, the less a smoker will use at a time.

    o   Tobacco contains nicotine, and marijuana doesn't.
        Nicotine may harden the arteries and may be
        responsible for much of the heart disease caused by
        tobacco.  New research has found that it may also
        cause a lot of the cancer in tobacco smokers and
        people who live or work where tobacco is smoked.
        This is because it breaks down into a cancer causing
        chemical called `N Nitrosamine' when it is burned
        (and maybe even while it is inside the body as well.)
        
    o   Marijuana contains THC.  THC is a bronchial dilator,
        which means it works like a cough drop and opens up
        your lungs, which aids clearance of smoke and dirt.
        Nicotine does just the opposite; it makes your lungs
        bunch up and makes it harder to cough anything up.
        
    o   There are benefits from marijuana (besides bronchial
        dilation) that you don't get from tobacco.  Mainly,
        marijuana makes you relax, which improves your health
        and well-being.
        
    o   Scientists do not really know what it is that causes
        malignant lung cancer in tobacco.  Many think it may
        be a substance known as Lead 210.  Of course, there
        are many other theories as to what does cause cancer,
        but if this is true, it is easy to see why NO CASE OF
        LUNG CANCER RESULTING FROM MARIJUANA USE ALONE HAS
        EVER BEEN DOCUMENTED, because tobacco contains much
        more of this substance than marijuana.
        
    o   Marijuana laws make it harder to use marijuana
        without damaging your body.  Water-pipes are illegal
        in many states.  Filtered cigarettes, vaporizers, and
        inhalers have to be mass produced, which is hard to
        arrange `underground.'  People don't eat marijuana
        often because you need more to get as high that way,
        and it isn't cheap or easy to get (which is the
        reason why some people will stoop to smoking leaves.)
        This may sound funny to you -- but the more legal
        marijuana gets, the safer it is.

                   -------------------------

    It is pretty obvious to users that marijuana prohibition
    laws are not ``for their own good.''  In addition to the
    above, legal marijuana would be clean and free from
    adulturants.  Some people add other drugs to marijuana
    before they sell it.  Some people spray room freshener on it
    or soak in in chemicals like formaldehyde!  A lot of the
    marijuana is grown outdoors, where it may be sprayed with
    pesticides or contaminated with dangerous fungi.  If the
    government really cared about our health, they would form an
    agency which would make sure only quality marijuana was
    sold.  This would be cheaper than keeping it illegal, and it
    would keep people from getting hurt and going to the
    emergency room.




13) Don't children born to pot-smoking mothers suffer from
    ``Fetal Marijuana Syndrome?''

    If a fetal cannabis syndrome exists, cases are so rare
    that it cannot be demonstrated.  Many mothers use marijuana
    during pregnancy -- it controls the nausea called `morning
    sickness' and many say it actually increases the appetite
    and reduces stress.  This is especially important in less
    developed countries, where modern medical care is not as
    easily available, but even so, the benefits of responsible
    marijuana use may outweigh the risks even under modern
    medicine.
    
    Studies conducted in Jamiaca have shown that mothers who
    smoke marijuana have healthier children, but this may be due
    to the extra income generated by marijuana dealing and other
    factors.  It has been a common ploy in the War on Drugs to
    claim that marijuana, and especially cocaine, causes birth
    defects or behavior problems like alcohol does.  This scares
    caring mothers into thinking drugs are `evil.'  The claims
    are not based on valid scientific research -- many of them
    do not even consider the life-style or living conditions of
    the mothers before pointing at drugs with the blame.
    
    Obviously, pregnant mothers should not smoke as much pot as
    they possibly can.  If marijuana is abused, it may hurt the
    health of both mother and child.  Delta-9-THC does cross the
    placenta and enter the fetus.  Oddly, though, the marijuana
    metabolite, 11-nor-9-carboxy-delta-9-THC does not, and the
    fetus does not break delta-9-THC down into 11-nor like the
    mother's body does, so unborn children are not exposed to
    11-nor.  The third trimester is the time when the child is
    most vulnerable.  Parents should bear these facts in mind
    when they make decisions about using cannabis.





14) Doesn't marijuana cause a lot of automobile accidents?

    Not really.  The marijuana using public has the same or
    lower rate of automobile accidents as the general public.
    Studies of marijuana smoking while driving showed that it
    does affect reaction time, but not nearly as much as
    alcohol.  Also, those who drive `stoned' have been shown to
    be less foolish on the road (they demonstrate `increased
    risk aversion'.)  Recent studies have emphasized that
    alcohol is the major problem on our highways, and that
    illicit drugs do not even come close to being as dangerous.
    
    As funny as it may seem, you may be safer driving `stoned',
    as long as you aren't `totally blasted' and seeing things --
    but few users are irresponsible enough to drive in this
    state of mind, anyway.  Still, many people have reported
    making mistakes while driving because they were stoned.
    
    There are those who think that marijuana is a major problem
    on the streets, because of a newspaper article or news story
    which they have seen which said a large number of people who
    were killed in driving accidents tested postive for
    marijuana use.  For various reasons, these studies are not
    reliable:
    
    o   Some studies use drug tests which can only tell
        whether a person has used marijuana in the last
        month.
    
    o   Some studies were done near colleges or other areas
        where drinking, marijuana use, and accidents are all
        very high, and they did not correct for age or
        alcohol use.
    
    o   In many of the studies there were more stoned drivers
        killed -- but it was not their fault, and when the
        police ``culpability scores'' were factored in
        marijuana was not to blame for the accidents.





15) Aren't you afraid everyone will get hooked?

    Marijuana produces no withdrawal symptoms no matter how
    heavy it is used.  It is habit forming (psychologically
    addictive), but not physically addictive.  The majority of
    people who quit marijuana don't even have to think twice
    about it.  Comparing marijuana to addictive drugs is really
    quite silly.

    For a drug to be physically addictive, it must be
    reinforcing, produce withdrawal symptoms, and produce
    tolerance.  Marijuana is reinforcing, because it feels good,
    but it does not do the other two things.  Caffeine, nicotine
    and alcohol are all physically addictive.





16a) Is urine testing for marijuana use as a terms of
     employment a good idea?  
     I want to make sure my business is run safely.

    No!  Some of your most brilliant, hard working, and
    reliable employees are marijuana users.  When you drug test,
    you put all marijuana users in the same place as the abusers
    -- the unemployment line.  Drug testing is bad for business.
    (Not to mention it is an invasion of privacy.)  If a worker
    has a drug problem, you can tell by testing how well he does
    his job.  Firing *all* the drug users who work for you will
    hurt your business, costs money, and will get people very
    mad at you -- and for what?  There isn't even any hard
    evidence that marijuana users have more accidents or health
    problems.
    
    Your employees will probably resent being drug tested; drug
    testing allows an employer to govern the actions of an
    employee in his off time -- even when these actions do not
    effect his job performance.  (As told above, marijuana drug
    tests do not test whether a person is `high'.  They test
    whether or not they have used in the last few weeks.)
    Asking employees to urinate in a plastic cup every month is
    not a good way to make them feel like part of the business,
    or make friends, either.  There is growing concern about
    drug tests, sometimes because they misfire and accuse the
    wrong person, but mostly because they might be used to find
    out other confidential information about an employee.  Legal
    professionals are beginning to question whether they are
    even constitutional.





16b) Isn't all this worth the trouble, though, in order to
     reduce accident risks and health care costs?

    Everyone knows that marijuana users are bad employees,
    right?  Wrong -- or at least someone forgot to tell the
    millions of hard working marijuana smokers that.  Drug
    testing companies will hand you piles of statistics which
    they say prove marijuana use costs you money.  The truth is
    there are just as many studies which show that marijuana
    users are more successful, use less health care, and produce
    more than non-users.  Before you buy into workplace drug
    testing, make sure you get the other side of the story.
    
    In the 1980's, the Bush administration went to great lengths
    to promote drug testing.  In fact, George Bush estimated the
    cost of drug use at over 60 billion dollars a year, based on
    a study which supposedly showed that persons who had used
    marijuana at some time during their life were less
    successful.  The very same study could be used to show that
    current, heavy users of marijuana and other illegal drugs
    were actually more successful.  Something is a bit fishy
    here, and when you add to that the fact that several former
    heads of the DEA and former Drug Czars now own or work in
    the urinalysis industry, this whole scene begins to smell a
    bit funny.





17) Wouldn't it be best to just lock the users all up?

    How do you plan to pay for that?  Already, well over five
    percent of the people in this country (U.S) are in custody
    (including probation, parole, bail, etc.)  Murderers and
    rapists are being let out of our penatentiaries right now to
    make room for a few more `deadheads' -- there are about
    2,500 Grateful Dead fans in our federal prisons.
    Imprisoning one person for one year costs about $20,000.
    The United States leads the world in imprisonment -- at any
    one time, 425 people out of every 100,000 are behind bars.
    In the Federal Prison System, one fifth of the prisoners are
    drug offenders who have done nothing violent.  State laws
    are usually less strict, but state mandatory minumum
    sentences for drugs are getting more popular.
    
    Our prisons and our courtrooms are so crowded that the
    American Bar Association's annual report on the state of the
    Justice System is basically one long plea for an end to drug
    laws that imprison users.  Even the Clinton Administration
    recognizes that locking people up is not the solution.  This
    is especially true for the people who actually have drug
    abuse problems -- they need treatment, not mistreatment.
    The Drug War put mandatory minimum jail sentences for drug
    crimes on the lawbooks.  If we do not take those laws (at
    least) back off, we will be in sorry shape come the end of
    the century.  A retroactive policy of marijuana legalization
    or decriminalization would go a long way in helping to solve
    this crisis.
    
    Also consider this -- Once a person gets put in jail, he
    becomes angry with the world.  He will probably be
    victimized while he is there, and most likely will learn
    criminal behaviors from hard-core violent offenders.  There
    is also a very good chance that he will have caught AIDS or
    tuberculosis by the time he gets let back out.  By locking
    up drug users, you are digging yourself a very big trench to
    fall in -- is it worth it?
    
    Besides, lots of these people don't deserve to be in jail.
    Why should they serve time just because they like to get
    `high' on marijuana?  Especially when someone can drink
    alcohol without being arrested...  what kind of law is that?
    You have to think about what kind of a world you are making
    for yourself before you act.  How are the police of the
    future going to treat the people?  How far are you willing
    to let the government go to get the drug users?  How many of
    your own rights will you sacrifice by trying to jail `the
    druggies'?





18) I heard that there are over 400 chemicals in marijuana...
    Wellllll...?
 
    True, but so what?  There are also over 400 chemicals in
    many foods, (including coffee, which contains over 800
    chemicals and many rat carcinogens) and we don't see police
    arresting people in McDonald's, or giving Driving while
    Eating citations.  Only THC is very psycho-active; a few
    other chemicals also have very small degrees of
    psycho-activity.  People who use marijuana do not get sick
    more, or die earlier, or lose their jobs (except to drug
    tests), or have mutant kids...  so what's your point?
    
    The fact that there are over 60 unique chemicals in
    cannabis, called `cannabinoids,' is something that
    scientists find very interesting.  Many of these
    cannabinoids may have valuable effects as medicine.  For
    example, `cannabinol' is a cannabinoid which can help people
    with insomnia.  Doctors think that this chemical is why most
    patients prefer to use marijuana rather than pure
    Delta-9-THC pills (called dronabinol) -- the cannabinol
    takes the edge off being `high' and calms the nerves.
    Another cannabinoid, `cannabidiolic acid', is a very
    effective anti-biotic, like pennicillin.  Many of these
    chemicals can be extracted from marijuana without any fancy
    laboratory equipment.
    




19) Doesn't that stuff mess up your immune system and make
    it easier for you catch colds?

    Marijuana (Delta-nine-THC) does have an `immunosuppressive 
    effect.'  It acts on certain cells in the liver, called 
    macrophages, in much the same way that it acts on brain 
    cells.  Instead of stimulating the cells, though, it shuts 
    them off.  This effect is temporary (just like the `high') 
    and goes away quickly; people who suffer from multiple 
    sclerosis may actually find this effect useful in fighting 
    the disease.

    Recent research has also found that marijuana metabolites
    are left over in the lungs for up to seven months after the
    smoking has stopped.  While they are there, the immune
    system of the lungs may be affected (but the macrophages do
    not get ``turned off'' like in the liver.)  The effects of
    smoking itself are probably worse than the effects of the
    THC, and last just as long.

    All this said, doctors still have not decided whether
    marijuana users are at risk for colds or not.  With the
    possible exception of bronchitis, there are no numbers which
    suggest that marijuana users catch more colds, but... this
    did not stop Carlton Turner, a United States Drug Czar, from
    saying many times in his public addresses that marijuana
    caused AIDS and homosexuality.  His claims were so ridiculus
    that the Washington Post and Newsweek Magazine made fun of
    him, and he was forced to resign.
    
    Today, AIDS patients use marijuana to treat their symptoms
    without any aparrent problems.  Some studies suggest that
    marijuana may actually stimulate certain forms of immunity.
    Researchers have tried to show major effects on the healthy
    human's immune system, but if marijuana does have any
    substantial effects, good or bad, they are either too 
    subtle or too small to notice.

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