Claims of harmlessness dominate our culture about marijuana. Some are true, but others are an attempt to sugarcoat its harmful effects. As soon as the words “harmful effects” are typed, the eye-rolling begins–here we go with another buzzkiller on a soapbox.
No, no soapbox today. It’s not about killing that buzz or preventing anyone from experimenting. It’s about knowing what you’re doing when you’re doing it. Recreational use of marijuana does cause negative effects on the body and mind, create temporary limitations for the user, and damage the body in the long term.
Paranoia is a widely-debated effect that, while sometimes called a myth, has been spoofed in popular culture for a long time. In the 1999 movie Dick. President Nixon (Dan Hedaya) develops paranoia after unknowingly eating marijuana-laced cookies. Fiction emulates reality. I’ll end the debate right now: it is real. I saw it with my impressionable pre-teen eyes.
I have two older brothers, both of whom cared more in the early 1980s about partying than finishing high school. The garage became the local “burnout hangout.” They drank beer and sometimes smoked weed. Their friend, Bryan, liked marijuana as much as he did beer. Over time I observed his demeanor change… He always had energy to burn, but this was different. He became hyper, unable to think logically, and easily upset–no longer the fun-loving, hedonistic, likable goofball.
My brothers left, and the garage was actually used to store a car again. One day Bryan came over. He was 24 by then. Besides stopping by to “look me up” since I’d just turned 18 and was now legal (yeah, um, no), he talked about how well he’d been since he’d stopped smoking marijuana. He said the paranoia got so bad he thought strangers were after him, and he distrusted those close to him. He realized marijuana was the cause and quit. After some time he felt more like himself. He seemed more like the old Bryan, without that negative intensity that enveloped him in years past.
Something Bryan said that day, “I saw a cop pass me by while I was out on delivery, and I was sure he was after me,” is something I remember word-for-word years later. His recreational use became part of his life, like cigarettes were. “Out on delivery” meant working in a delivery truck–driving! Pot slowly became so everyday to him he thought he could operate a commercial vehicle stoned with no problem.
Stoned people cannot judge their level of impairment. This argument goes back to the early days of the marijuana criminalization (not decriminalization) argument, before the Controlled Substances Act (1970). For classic TV viewers, Dragnet aired an impactive episode called “The Big High” in 1967. A young couple who uses marijuana forgets about starting bathwater for their daughter. Sargent Bill Gannon (Harry Morgan) and the girl’s mother find her drowned in the bathtub. While the show was known for its actors’ dramatic overacting (Jack Webb as an anguished Sargent Joe Friday crushes the dealer-size marijuana bag in his hand), the episodes were based on real-life cases.
For anyone who’s observed people using marijuana, miscalculating impaired judgment isn’t exactly breaking news. The person staring at his reflection in the mirror for half an hour doesn’t know a half-hour has passed. So how can he say he’s fine to deal with things going on around him–like a fire started from a burning cigarette, a child needing medical care, or mundane stuff like helping your kid finish an important assignment that’s due tomorrow.
Long-term effects are up for less of a debate now. If you smoke marijuana and your kids follow your lead, outsmarting you may not be an issue. In Addiction Professional, Volume 12, Issue 3, the article argues that teenagers are at high risk to stunt development. “…the teenage brain is engaged in an active process to transform itself from a child brain to an adult brain, and marijuana use interferes with that process… All of this is very concerning given that 60% of high school seniors think marijuana is safe and 23% report use in the past month, more than the percentage who report alcohol or cigarette use… Does legalization increase or decrease these use patterns, both for teenagers and adults?” Considering that the laws for alcohol and marijuana would be similar, a decrease in recreational marijuana use would be unlikely.
One common misconception is that pot smoke isn’t harmful to your lungs. People proudly speak about quitting smoking, but they’re only talking about no longer smoking cigarettes. They’ve forgotten that it’s bad to suck smoke into their lungs, period. According to the American Journal of Respiratory and Critical Care Medicine, Volume 195, Number 3, marijuana causes several things to happen to the lungs. “Smoking marijuana can also cause large air sacs, called bullae, to develop in the lung… Bullae can cause you to be short of breath and may rupture… Air leaking from a ruptured bullae causes a collapsed lung; a potentially life-threatening condition…” It also says smoking marijuana can make existing respiratory conditions worse. It can cause an asthma attack or worsen symptoms of lung disease. Also, “marijuana smoke may increase your risk of lung cancer. Marijuana smoke contains over 450 unique chemicals including many cancer-causing chemicals (carcinogens) similar to tobacco smoke.”
It took 40 years and a bazillion studies for the tobacco industry to begrudgingly admit cigarettes are harmful. The effects marijuana has on body and mind are not studied as much as tobacco and other drugs have been. We should be cautious to believe that all is fine until we hear 100% otherwise.
-Midwest Moderation
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