Thanks!

Good link

A reduction in sperm count is neither suggestive of toxicity, nor is it necessarily even a negative thing..or long term/permanent. The biology of the human body is far more complicated than that.

Also, I was under the impression that actual surveys done showed no correlation between altered fertility/birth rate in frequent cannabis users vs non users. It does not seem like there is any hard evidence to prove there is a reduction in fertility among cannabis users.

maybe this will help shed more light on the potential toxicity of chronic MJ use;

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22194141

also

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1313532

also

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16237478

^^granted that particular one is an animal study, still worth noting

and

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih....pmc/articles/PMC1311802/

If that doesn't substantiate the basic point, I don't know what will

"In epidemiological surveys of marijuana users, no problems with fertility have emerged as important.

In 1974, researchers reported diminished testosterone, reduced sexual function and abnormal sperm cells in males identified as chronic marijuana users. 34 In a laboratory study, the same researchers reported an acute decrease in testosterone, but no chronic effect after nine weeks of smoking; they did not evaluate sperm volume or quality. 35 In other laboratory studies, researchers have been generally unable to replicate these findings, 36 although by administering very high THC doses - up to 20 cigarettes per day for 30 days - one study found a slight decrease in sperm concentrations. 37 In all studies, test results remained within normal ranges and probably would not have affected actual fertility."


http://www.erowid.org/pl...bis/cannabis_myth6.shtml

That does not sound conclusive of anything to me, other than the unlikeliness of even daily cannabis use effecting fertility.

Humans are not other animals..they are humans. The idea that you are trying to argue for cannabis toxicity in humans is just ridiculous concidering the medical literature out there basically always saying the opposite.

Those animal studies are likely done the same way they did them in the past(or are those same studies) where they expose animals to levels of cannabinoids that no human is going to be ingesting no matter how much they smoke..so to extrapolate anything from that in reguards to human use of cannabis is ridiculous and bordering on just lying.

..and some o0f those studies are over 20 years old and way outdated. The research on cannabinoids has gone a long way since then. If there was toxicity in real life human subjects you would be hearing about it. So far all I hear about it people getting better in hundreds of different cases with different diseases just from taking cannabis.

and one of those studies claims an increase in " non-lymphoblastic leukemia" yet in studies done in Jamaica with heavy cannabis smoking mothers there was not negative effects found on the children in real life.

..actually the only difference was actually a favorable trait among the infants of the smoking mothers..

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1957518

A lot of these "scientific" studies are done this way..

"It is now often claimed that marijuana use during pregnancy causes childhood leukemia. The basis for this claim is one study, in which . 5% of the mothers of leukemic children admitted to using marijuana prior to or during pregnancy. A "control group" of mothers with normal children was then created and questioned by telephone about previous drug use. Their reported .5 % marijuana use-rate was used to calculate a 10-fold greater risk of leukemia for children born to marijuana users. 46 Given national surveys showing marijuana prevalence rates of at least 10%, these "control group" mothers almost certainly under-reported their drug use to strangers on the telephone."

http://www.erowid.org/pl...bis/cannabis_myth7.shtml

I can tell you from personal experience that cannabis has a direct impact on bloodpressure and heart health, I use to lift weights and smoke weed, granted I was younger then and body was more able to cope and adapt.

The whole truth of it is, like I mentioned in the previous post on the second page, that the relative toxicity of the substance is often negligible in most cases due to the body's own capacity to counteract and heal itself.

I'm not here to preach for or against drug use, if I did that I would be a complete hippocrite, having used all kinds of dumb stuff for the past 14 years. All I'm saying is there is a certain truth to all of these substances, and some of them do have temporary negative effects, and some of them can cause lasting damage.

How many "potheads" do you personally know that are simply lazy and unmotivated, and all they want to do is "get high"? Nothing wrong with that, but just look at the nature of the expression, it's simply unproductive and not conducive to any kind of personal growth... i.e. couch potatoes. Of course there's the reciprocal aspect, guys like Bob Marley for example that smoke up and write a song. I think the fine balance of all this all comes when we use these substances in moderation for creative and productive means, or for means of personal conscious expression and expansion.

I can tell you for a fact that after 14 years of drug use, it has had a direct and negative impact on my health, I don't need a second opinion to varify it because I see it myself. On that same note tho, none of those physical damages are permanent, so at best it was temporary. Also here's a useful link on the miraculous self-healing capacities of the body discovered recently through epigenetics;
http://www.lifetrainings...is-running-you-life.html

and here's a song to hopefully drive the point home of the relatively damaging impact of chronic marijuana use for the average pothead (generally more common in the teenager demographic;

scuse the language, but its true and accurate to life

I don't care what anyone does or doesn't do, given my own personal prior decisions I have no right to tell anyone how they should handle their own health, but on that same note I can only suggest that people try to avoid making some of the same damaging mistakes in their life as I've made in my own; and the key to that is use with respect, and do so in moderation, and generally-speaking the integrity of overall health will be maintained with no problems

The amount of water you drink can also alter blood pressure..so can taking a bath. Not sure how that relates to anything related to toxicity? In terms of heart health, well here is a pretty exhaustive list of studies to go through.

http://www.calgarycmmc.com/heartdisease.htm

I know lots of people who are content to just sit at home and play Nintendo all day and they don't smoke any cannabis at all. I know other people who smoke cannabis all day long and work they're ass of 6 days a week..and those on both sides who do the opposite.

That video..well.. ..Okay. Doesn't do much for me and the message just sounds like that of a person with a confused head full of propaganda resorting to stereotypes..hardly reality.

here's another fairly exhaustive list to go through:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21321675
^^human study btw
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/21462790
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14672250
and
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/7354011
and the list goes on and on

I absolutely hear you on this point, it has tons of beneficial applications as well and it really does depend on the person as to how it's used.


It sounds like me and you live in two different worlds brother, I grew up smoking pot with all the high school kids, and I've seen this cognitive function dissonance effect in more than just "a handful" of people, so I can't say I'm the one that's confused here. No offense, but true story is true, I would refer you back to the studies I posted in this very post for varification

http://www.lifetrainings...is-running-you-life.html

This is an example of a bad link, the very first line "It's now a proven fact" reeks of pseudoscience. No references or solid backing whatsoever.

The rest of this discussion has been very good. Intelligent well thought out arguments with good relevant sources.

Hehe I wanted to give brokenChild a break because I feel like I've been picking on him a bit much, but I'm gonna throw my head into this ring.

We need to keep in mind that up until recently most of the studies on cannabis in the United States have been looking very hard for negative effects, and their findings are pretty weak frequently being displaced by more recent evidence.

It appears in all these studies the main negative effects have to do with inhaling combusted material and has little to do with the plant itself:
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/22194141
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/1313532
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih....pmc/articles/PMC1311802/

And the animal study admits freely that acute toxicity is basically non-existent and that its very difficult to extrapolate this animal data to humans.
http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/16237478

In the end, sure there are dangers inherent in anything, but cannabis and psychedelics are some of the most remarkably safe compounds that exist, physiologically speaking. You do way more harm to your physical organism and neurological systems eating all the processed food that lines the shelves of every grocery and convenience store than you can possibly do with entheogenic medicines.

Here are a few studies outlining the effects of high fructose corn syrup, one of the most popular food additives, to illustrate this point.
http://ajcn.nutrition.org/content/79/5/774.short
http://ajph.aphapublicat...10.2105/AJPH.2005.083782
https://www.sciencedirec...i/S0091305710000614?np=y

Great discussion guys, let's keep it going

"http://www.calgarycmmc.com/heartdisease.htm"

^that link you posted above is claiming negative cognitive effects due to cannabis use..which seems to sort of contradict the current understanding, which even Fox news seems to endorse, which is that cannabis actually helps the brain heal from brain damage, rather than cause it.

http://www.foxnews.com/h...ay-prevent-brain-damage/

and again..animal studies are not human studies and often are untruthful due to excessively unnatural dosing being used.

In the end, if you abuse something that is your problem. Eating too much sugar is not good for you either. Trying to prove something is toxic by pointing out what maybe(but often even then usually not conclusive) could happen when you overload the system with more than anyone would ever intake is sort of silly and defeats the purpose of the classification.

Ain't that the truth However, it also does deserve the considerate mention that certain etheogens can absolutely cause psychological harm; excessive doses of both mushrooms and DMT have been shown to lead to traumatic and decoherent experiences, even mentioned in this very forum (even the post by jamie about his rough aya venture here and there)

The thing is most, if not all of us, have had these rough experiences from time to time, but for me at least I can say for sure that every bad experience I've had was simply due to personal negligence; out of the 25-30 mushroom/LSD trips I've only had two terrible near-death ones, in one I ate too many for my size at the time (by the way they weren't cubensis, tho I dunno what strain, purple stems mostly, dried out) and the second one I ended up overindulging in other substances, alcohol and pot mainly, along with the mushrooms, and almost died from alcohol poisoning. Those two trips aside tho, due to personal ignorance, on the whole I can confirm from personal experience that mushrooms are beneficial and fun if taken in the right dosage and set/setting...

The key that I was trying to contribute is to learn from the bad and rough experiences, they're generally due to excessive dosage or personal negligence, both of which can be avoided. If we avoid both, then we minimize the risk as much as possible, which leads to a much more satisfying and beneficial experience on the whole

both are true, it depends on the context; too much of a good thing can be a bad thing

my belief is you are worse off if you don't ingest psychoactive plants ever(which no one does). They play an epigenetic role in our own development IMO and science seems to support this. How you use them is up to you.

^^Love the weed porn


I can certainly see the value of this point of view, the thing is these substances do provide a certain insight which is otherwise unavailable without them. I don't think they're essential to conscious development as a whole, but I can agree with you that it's a luxury with obvious benefits

For what it's worth, out of all the various drugs I've ever tried, ayahuasca alone has given me volumes of revelations in a much shorter period of time than all the other drugs combined.... but then again maybe it was just a cumulative effort of the whole journey. In either case let the good times roll

Thanks for posting that video. Watched it drinking my morning coffee and now I feel invincible.

And thanks brokenChild for having the humility to backtrack and bend to the rules here - no one likes rules, but they are what keep us from getting unruly. I hope you didn't feel ganged up on, but people here take this place seriously and only want everyone to share in equal exchanges and avoid the pitfalls of disputing beliefs. Our standards are high with regards to sources and backing up claims, but it is those standards that make this a place people want to hang around.

Cheers,

JBArk

That is an excellent video, very inspirational and has been one of my favorites for a long time. Doesn't change the fact that link posted above is an example of a bad link and violates the attitude we hold here about quality of information.

I still don't understand exactly what your mission is here? You say yourself these tools are quite safe when used responsibly and respectfully, so why are you on some kind of evangelical mission to convince us how bad these things are? We can pick and choose the studies that support our claims all day, doesn't change the fact you are preaching misinformation at a very experienced and knowledgeable choir.

I guess the coffee hadn't kicked in when I watched the video and I ignored its context. Had I realized it was confrontational, I might not have written that earlier post...

brokenChild?

JBArk