Marijuana is in the news all the time it seems. Several states have legalized it for recreational purposes as well as medicinal. Better yet, governments have been taxing it so it may be here to stay!
Several things bother me about it. First, I am old enough to remember the debates going on when the first surgeon general’s report came out and cigarette packages were labeled as hazardous to one’s health. Almost timidly, as if they were not 100% sure yet. And because of a strong tobacco industry lobby too that fought the battle for years.
The tobacco industry eventually lost the lawsuits and paid dearly for its false claims. But it took a while and was very expensive to prosecute. I’m not sure if the public paid for this fight or not as it ate up a lot of court time. And I’ll bet the taxpayers paid a ton for the research.
Now the marijuana folks say marijuana is not dangerous top our health, at least not as bad as cigarettes. They may be right; I don’t know but I have seen some reports on the internet that it is a health hazard. Kind of like the first tobacco oral reports we got 60 years ago. I’d bet we are already paying for a lot of research on marijuana.
I also don’t know for sure if it is a pathway drug to other more harmful drugs like heroin or crack cocaine. Many say it is, and others say it isn’t. We’ll see. But I do know a lot of addicts have also used marijuana along with lots of other drugs. They seem to go hand in hand.
My thoughts are that anything inhaled into one’s lungs other than clean air (and medical inhalers) can be dangerous to the lungs. If that is not the case, why do we worry about clean air?
If you want to smoke it I won’t criticize you. I just hope we don’t have another debacle.
I wonder if I’ll live long enough to see another lawsuit.
