FAQ #4: Marijuana is harmless, right?

QUESTION: Isn’t marijuana harmless to the user?

ANSWER: No.  Despite the Marijuana Policy Project’s claims that marijuana is harmless, it’s harmful both physically and psychologically.

Marijuana causes the same heart and lung problems as cigarette smoking. Actually, worse, because pot-smokers inhale deeply and never use filters.  The smoking-related diseases, lung cancer, heart attacks, emphysema, all can be caused by smoking marijuana as well. That is why the country’s leading medical organizations do not approve or recommend any drug that is smoked—a fact the Marijuana Policy Project ignores.

Marijuana use decreases short-term memory, concentration, coordination, and ability to solve problems. It also causes loss of motivation. These problems hit adolescents the hardest, and teens who smoke marijuana regularly get worse grades, are less likely to finish school and earn less money as adults.

Marijuana use often causes panic attacks and chronic anxiety, and can cause paranoia. These are serious psychiatric problems.

Marijuana use affects a driver’s concentration, perception, coordination, and reaction time, causing increased risk of accidents.  Montana checks for marijuana in the bloodstream of drivers involved in fatal accidents, and found that fatal accidents caused by pot-smoking drivers increased by 25 percent when their medical marijuana law went into effect.  So much for harmless!

The harmful effects of marijuana are even greater for seriously ill people, the very people the Marijuana Policy Project claims need it!  Smoking pot damages the immune system, leaving immune-suppressed patients more vulnerable to infection. This is particularly bad for AIDS and cancer patients.  With respect to multiple sclerosis, the National MS Society stated that “coordination, cognition (thinking and memory) and other functions affected by MS could be worsened” by marijuana.

The National Multiple Sclerosis Society, the American Cancer Society and the American Glaucoma Society do not support medical marijuana, and they represent the very diseases medical marijuana is supposed to help. It makes sense listen to the medical professionals who care about our health instead of the Marijuana Policy Project, whose real agenda is to legalize marijuana.

Also, marijuana is an addictive drug. About 6-10 percent of regular users get addicted. People addicted to pot have the same problems as people addicted to any other drug—relationship break-ups and divorce, trouble keeping jobs, and increased violence and aggression.

Marijuana is definitely not harmless.