Last month I wrote about a New Zealand study which found that marijuana use can harm your gums or even make your teeth fall out.
Recent studies have also found smoking pot exacerbates schizophrenia, and can bring on lung disease 20 years earlier than cigarette smokers.
The Baptist Press today also examines that New Zealand report and points out that marijuana smoke can contain twice the concentration of cancer-causing polyaromatic hydrocarbons.
Apparently, pot isn't the harmless drug many make it out to be.
Another Baptist Press article contains the testimony of a man for whom marijuana was a gateway drug leading to things much worse:
"I began listening to rock and roll music and smoking pot and drinking some," he recounted to Baptist Press. "That went on, and around 1986 or so when I got in high school, I really started drinking every day, smoking weed every day, taking pills three or four times a week. And also when I was in ninth grade I started using cocaine."
A couple of years after he graduated from high school, Drennon began intravenous drug use, and two years after that he started using heroin.
Not everyone who uses pot goes on to other things. I have a friend right now who has used marijuana for over 20 years and has never moved on to harder drugs. He is, however, struggling to break free from this addiction, having realized it's negative impact on his marriage and his relationship with God.
But in my experience, many if not most people who start using marijuana do graduate to drugs which take an even deadlier toll than the maladies outlined earlier in this post. And several of them have so lost their grip on reality that it's difficult to carry on a well-grounded conversation with them, much less a meaningful friendship.
Ironically, some advocate marijuana for medicinal use. When there are other painkillers available, some even using THC in another form, it seems odd that someone would advocate the use of marijuana for medical reasons, especially when there are such dangers involved with its use.
I suspect that most of this advocacy is just a cover to excuse and muddle efforts to stop general drug use. There have been a number of stories of abuse in California where they've tried legalizing pot; not just recreational "abuse" but abuse of the law, ostensibly for medical reasons, but for providing cover for regular drug abuse.
When some people can use a product that is otherwise illegal, or substances like hemp which look very much like marijuana are legalized, it makes it very difficult for the law enforcement community to keep a handle on things. And I think that's the whole idea behind the "medical marijuana" effort.
You hear of very few doctors supporting legalization of marijuana, but quite a few stereotypical potheads stumping for it. To me, that speaks volumes.
