Marichiko smokes cigarettes

[Rock Steady]

Originally Posted by lumberjim

... i resent it. ...

That is the point. You say a little thing, and some else assumes all kinds of knee-jerk stuff about it. And then you are there defending youself.

I believe you when you say you work honestly. And, I thought your "blood on my hands" comment was hysterical when I read it. I was trying to say that it's easy to bash any of us, including you and me. We all live in glass houses, especially when we don't have the whole story all neat and in one place.

[Undertoad]

That's not the point. The point is that if one barely survives CO poisoning, knowing how CO binds to your hemoglobins and prevents them from carry oxygen to your brain, continuing to smoke afterwards and thus carry on the slow damage would indicate a previously undocumented level of dumbassedness.

[Rock Steady]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That's not the point. The point is that if one barely survives CO poisoning, knowing how CO binds to your hemoglobins and prevents them from carry oxygen to your brain, continuing to smoke afterwards and thus carry on the slow damage would indicate a previously undocumented level of dumbassedness.

You may be intellectually right. I just don't know, and i presume correctness.

But, the point is that real people go thru real rehab. And the rehab centers ENABLE TOBACCO. I think it is wrong. But, That is what is really happening on the ground floor, on the streets, whatever. That is my experience. I don't smoke tobacco.

I was mad that my MJ was banned and their tobacoo was OK.

It is soooo not surprising that a CO dependent would a smoker. Shit, after enough AA meetings I would have become a tabacoo smoker too for the first time in my life at 50 yo old.

[lumberjim]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

That's not the point. The point is that if one barely survives CO poisoning, knowing how CO binds to your hemoglobins and prevents them from carry oxygen to your brain, continuing to smoke afterwards and thus carry on the slow damage would indicate a previously undocumented level of dumbassedness.

she probably forgot about that

[Undertoad]

There's no such thing as CO dependency. Carbon monoxide is merely a poison. Your body would prefer to have none of it. There's no rehab issue here, get this rehab issue out of it.

[Rock Steady]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

There's no such thing as CO dependency. Carbon monoxide is merely a poison. Your body would prefer to have none of it. There's no rehab issue here, get this rehab issue out of it.

Again, I have to admit to ignorance.

What I am saying is that people with CO dependency to thru these Rehab programs that Enable Tobacco. And that is wrong. Are you at all with me?

Self Appointed, Court Order, or whatever. The system ENABLES tobacco. It is fucking wrong, but that is what people really go thru. People go thru IRL programs. And that is what programs do.

Please ask more questions if you are at all confused about In-Real-Life programs.

LOL! How funny! Yup, cigarettes contain CO. I'm not dependent on CO, however. I like a little nicotine high now and then. I smoke a couple of packs a week for a total of $8.00/week. Yes, beleive or not, American Spirits are only $4.00/pack - OK, $4.10/pack here in Colorado.

I find it amusing that two heavy dopers want to jump my case about my two pack a week cigarette habit. Pot kills more brain cells than ever cigarettes do, and it does a worse number on the lungs, as well.

You boys need to get a life!

[Rock Steady]

[quote=marichiko]... Pot kills more brain cells than ever cigarettes do, ... /QUOTE]

OK, Mari, now I pull my guns from my holsters... I go with the Herd Mentality here. Any weak brain cells that die, make the herd stronger. Ra!!!!!!!!!!!!

LOL! My comments weren't directed at you, rather LJ and UT who are pretty well known to be heavy smokers of non tobacco products. I actually have no problem with people who like to relax every now and then with a little MJ. A number of my friends are into it. I just think its funny that two heavy pot smokers should jump my case about cigarette smoking when pot is just as damaging. Yeah, let only the strongest brain cells survive!

[Undertoad]

Originally Posted by Rock Steady

What I am saying is that people with CO dependency to thru these Rehab programs that Enable Tobacco. And that is wrong. Are you at all with me?

Well no, partly because that first sentence needs to be put out of its misery.

But um what's all this on the other thread? Your defense here is gender- rather than logic-based huh? Girls stick up for each other! And they are all victims! Victimhood is what it's all about, because girls are weak and rather defenseless, as we know, and mean men attack them and that's just wrong by default.

We're all in rehab now, and everything is about rehab. Play that victim card hard, even when it's about someone not in rehab! Everything is about recovery, even if you are making yourself sicker and need more rehab by doing it.

BTW Mar, weed does not kill brain cells at all. It temporarily overwhelms anandamide receptors by mimicking a chemical in the neocortex. I urge anyone who takes a drug, recreational, pharmaceutical or whatever, to fully understand how it works before taking it.

[Beestie]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

BTW Mar, weed does not kill brain cells at all. It temporarily overwhelms anandamide receptors by mimicking a chemical in the neocortex. I urge anyone who takes a drug, recreational, pharmaceutical or whatever, to fully understand how it works before taking it.

You saved me the trouble. Besides, folks who smoke pot tend to smoke somewhat less than 40 joints per week..

Long-Term Effects of Marijuana Use

Respiratory System Damage

Daily cough.
Chronic bronchitis.
More frequent chest colds.
Injured lung structures.
Pneumonia.
Increased risk of lung or oral cancer – Marijuana deposits in the lungs roughly five times as much tar as tobacco and contains nearly 50% more of the cancer-causing chemical benzopyrene than the average tobacco cigarette.
Immune System Damage

Causes damage to the cells and tissues that protect the body from disease.
Users are more likely to become ill.
Reproductive System Damage

Decreased sperm count.
Abnormal sperm cells.
Decreased production of estrogen.
Menstrual or ovulatory irregularities.
Danger During Pregnancy

May affect good functioning of the mother’s immune system.
Increased miscarriage rate.
Possible brain damage in the fetus.
Lower birth weight, which is associated with more health problems.
THC can be passed to a baby in breast milk, which can impair the infant's motor development (control of muscle movement).
Emotional Damage

Amotivational syndrome is the most common side effect of long-term marijuana use. Marijuana users:
Lose interest in setting and achieving goals.
Stop caring about things that used to be important to them.
Neglect school, work, chores, personal health, and their relationships.
It can take up to 2 years of abstinence to regain a normal motivation level.
More delinquent behavior and aggression
Intellectual Damage

Permanent damage to thinking and reasoning ability.
Difficulty sustaining attention.
Psychological Addiction

Increasing tolerance -- Users need increasing amounts of marijuana to feel its effects.
Many users develop compulsive drug craving and drug seeking.
Abusers continue to use marijuana despite negative consequences in their lives.

From famed shit purveyers, the New Scientist and that respected journal of scatology, Neurology:

Long-term users of marijuana gradually become worse at learning and remembering things, a new study suggests.

“It definitely fogs your brain,” says Lambros Messinis, who led the study at the University Hospital of Patras in Greece.

Messinis and colleagues tested the mental abilities of 20 long-term users who had taken marijuana heavily – smoking at least four joints a week – for an average of 15 years. Their brains were rustier than those of 20 short-term users – who had averaged seven years of use – and 24 controls who had used the drug sporadically or not at all.

Long-term users performed worse in tests to measure memory, learning ability and the capacity to recall information. Asked to recall lists of 15 words that they had seen earlier, for example, the long-term users averaged seven, compared with nine recalled by short-term users and 12 by controls.

“Long-term users found it very difficult to learn through new information given verbally,” says Messinis. “It’s not to do with lack of attention but more the encoding process of memory.” Separate tests to probe attention span found that long-term users were able to pick up information immediately, without trouble.

Initial ability
Although the study is retrospective – that is, the subjects were not tested on their cognitive abilities before they took up marijuana – the researchers are confident that the long-term users’ abilities were not significantly different from the other groups from the beginning. They used a standard test to estimate the long-term users’ original intellectual abilities.

Messinis gave subjects the tests at least 24 hours after they had last taken the drug, to make sure they were not still under the influence. “It wasn’t while they were high,” he says.

“Importantly, we don’t know if it’s reversible,” he says. To find out, he and his colleague plan to re-test the same subjects after abstinence periods of at least a month.

Nadia Solowij, at the University of Wollongong in Australia, says the new findings back previous work by her and colleagues, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association in 2002.

“The authors appear to have used the same rigorous criteria for inclusion in their study and confirm that the duration of cannabis use progressively impacts upon cognitive functions,” she told New Scientist.

Journal reference: Neurology (vol 66, p 737)

From the producers of shit at the National Traffic Safety Institute:

Effects: Pharmacological effects of marijuana vary with dose, route of administration, experience of user, vulnerability to psychoactive effects, and setting of use.

Psychological: At recreational doses, effects include relaxation, euphoria, relaxed inhibitions, sense of well-being, disorientation, altered time and space perception, lack of concentration, impaired learning and memory, alterations in thought formation and expression, drowsiness, sedation, mood changes such as panic reactions and paranoia, and a more vivid sense of taste, sight, smell, and hearing. Stronger doses intensify reactions and may cause fluctuating emotions, flights of fragmentary thoughts with disturbed associations, a dulling of attention despite an illusion of heightened insight, image distortion, and psychosis.

Physiological: The most frequent effects include increased heart rate, reddening of the eyes, dry mouth and throat, increased appetite, and vasodilatation.

Side Effect Profile: Fatigue, paranoia, possible psychosis, memory problems, depersonalization, mood alterations, urinary retention, constipation, decreased motor coordination, lethargy, slurred speech, and dizziness. Impaired health including lung damage, behavioral changes, and reproductive, cardiovascular and immunological effects have been associated with regular marijuana use. Regular and chronic marijuana smokers may have many of the same respiratory problems that tobacco smokers have (daily cough and phlegm, symptoms of chronic bronchitis), as the amount of tar inhaled and the level of carbon monoxide absorbed by marijuana smokers is 3 to 5 times greater than among tobacco smokers. Smoking marijuana while shooting up cocaine has the potential to cause severe increases in heart rate and blood pressure.

Duration of Effects: Effects from smoking cannabis products are felt within minutes and reach their peak in 10-30 minutes. Typical marijuana smokers experience a high that lasts approximately 2 hours. Most behavioral and physiological effects return to baseline levels within 3-5 hours after drug use, although some investigators have demonstrated residual effects in specific behaviors up to 24 hours, such as complex divided attention tasks. Psychomotor impairment can persist after the perceived high has dissipated. In long term users, even after periods of abstinence, selective attention (ability to filter out irrelevant information) has been shown to be adversely affected with increasing duration of use, and speed of information processing has been shown to be impaired with increasing frequency of use. Dronabinol has an onset of 30-60 minutes, peak effects occur at 2-4 hours, and it can stimulate the appetite for up to 24 hours.

Tolerance, Dependence and Withdrawal Effect: Tolerance may develop to some pharmacological effects of dronabinol. Tolerance to many of the effects of marijuana may develop rapidly after only a few doses, but also disappears rapidly. Marijuana is addicting as it causes compulsive drug craving, seeking, and use, even in the face of negative health and social consequences. Additionally, animal studies suggests marijuana causes physical dependence. A withdrawal syndrome is commonly seen in chronic marijuana users following abrupt discontinuation. Symptoms include restlessness, irritability, mild agitation, hyperactivity, insomnia, nausea, cramping, decreased appetite, sweating, and increased dreaming...


Performance Effects: The short term effects of marijuana use include problems with memory and learning, distorted perception, difficultly in thinking and problem-solving, and loss of coordination. Heavy users may have increased difficulty sustaining attention, shifting attention to meet the demands of changes in the environment, and in registering, processing and using information. In general, laboratory performance studies indicate that sensory functions are not highly impaired, but perceptual functions are significantly affected. The ability to concentrate and maintain attention are decreased during marijuana use, and impairment of hand-eye coordination is dose-related over a wide range of dosages.Impairment in retention time and tracking, subjective sleepiness, distortion of time and distance, vigilance, and loss of coordination in divided attention tasks have been reported. Note however, that subjects can often “pull themselves together” to concentrate on simple tasks for brief periods of time. Significant performance impairments are usually observed for at least 1-2 hours following marijuana use, and residual effects have been reported up to 24 hours.

Effects on Driving: Epidemiology data from road traffic arrests and fatalities indicate that after alcohol, marijuana is the most frequently detected psychoactive substance among driving populations. Marijuana has been shown to impair performance on driving simulator tasks and on open and closed driving courses for up to approximately 3 hours. Decreased car handling performance, increased reaction times, impaired time and distance estimation, inability to maintain headway, lateral travel, subjective sleepiness, motor incoordination, and impaired sustained vigilance have all been reported. Some drivers may actually be able to improve performance for brief periods by overcompensating for self-perceived impairment. The greater the demands placed on the driver, however, the more critical the likely impairment. Marijuana may particularly impair monotonous and prolonged driving. Decision times to evaluate situations and determine appropriate responses increase. Mixing alcohol and marijuana may dramatically produce effects greater than either drug on its own.

[Rock Steady]

Originally Posted by Undertoad

There's no such thing as CO dependency. Carbon monoxide is merely a poison. Your body would prefer to have none of it. There's no rehab issue here, get this rehab issue out of it.

I'm sorry, I thought you meant cocaine poisioning. So, the Rehab Program issue may not apply in this individual case. I have a foggy brain and poor memory.