Facts

There have been many myths perpetuated about cannabis and its users, so we’ll do our best to help clear the smoke and present the facts.

Is cannabis addictive?

No. Unlike alcohol and tobacco, which are physically addictive, cannabis is not. It is true that it can be psychologically addictive but so can eating chocolate, playing videogames or virtually anything for that matter.

Is cannabis deadly?

No, no one has ever died from using cannabis alone. There is no known toxic amount of THC, the main psychoactive compound in cannabis. Here’s a chart of the typical deaths per year for each drug:

Tobacco…………………………………………..340,000 - 395,000
Alcohol (excluding crime/accidents)………….125,000+
Drug Overdose (prescription)………………….24,000 - 27,000
Drug Overdose (illegal)…………………………3,800 - 5,200
Cannabis…………………………………………0

*Source: U.S. Government Bureau of Mortality Statistics, 1987

The DEA’s own Administrative Law Judge, Francis J. Young, was even quoted as saying, “Marijuana, in its natural form, is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man.”

Is cannabis a gateway drug?

If there is any reason to believe it’s a gateway drug then it’s because of its illegality. Since it’s not regulated like alcohol and tobacco you have to deal with dealers who will likely have other, harder drugs, thus making it much easier to obtain them. Also, they have decriminalized marijuana in Holland and found that hard drug use, such as cocaine and heroin, has declined dramatically. The whole gateway myth is just that - a myth.

Does cannabis kill motivation?

Here we have yet another scare tactic used by those who wish to keep cannabis illegal. Are there cannabis users who don’t have much motivation? Well sure, just as there are those who have never used it and lack motivation. There has never been any basis behind the claim that cannabis is somehow responsible for this “amotivational syndrome.” There are plenty of people who have used cannabis that have also been highly productive. Barack Obama, one of the most motivated people around today, has admitted to using cannabis frequently. Carl Sagan, one of the smartest and most accomplished people in our history, was an avid marijuana user. These are just two of the many examples that make this theory fall apart.

Does cannabis cause brain damage?

There is a famous study in which Dr. Robert Heath strapped 4 rhesus monkeys into a chair and pumped the equivalent of 63 joints, in five minutes, through gas masks while losing no smoke. So, basically he was suffocating the monkeys - of course that’s going to produce brain damage. The sad thing is the federal government still parrots the results of this extremely flawed study.

The most recent study was done by Dr. William Slikker at the National Center for Toxicological Research in Arkansas. 64 rhesus monkeys were studied, while half were strapped with masks inhaling 4-5 joints per day for a year and the other half were controls. They found that the marijuana caused behavioral changes while under the influence but did not cause brain damage.

“while behavioral and neuroendocrinal effects are observed during marijuana smoke exposure in the monkey, residual neuropathological and neurochemical effects of marijuana exposure were not observed seven months after the year-long marijuana smoke regimen.”

Isn’t smoking unhealthy?

While it’s true that smoking anything is not particularly healthy, smoking cannabis is still much safer than cigarettes. A recent study done by Donald Tashkin (a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for over 30-years) at the University of California showed that even heavy marijuana smoking was not shown to increase your risk for lung cancer. Not only that but it also indicated a protective effect, most likely due to the THC, which has been shown multiple times to combat cancers.

You can totally negate any negative effects of smoking by using a vaporizer or cooking with cannabis as well.