Wouldn’t it be nice to wake up one day and find the world free of all the stupid things people say? I’ll be so happy! I mean, I’m just fed up of listening to people claiming the earth is flat, or the universe revolves around the earth, or the number 13 is unlucky. It’s just so tiring for me And the worst of all: weed leads you to other stronger drugs. Can you believe people still believe this nonsense? And it’s not just this one. There are many more idiotic notions about the plant.
With so much hype weed is getting, lately, and with so many people applying for an MMJ card, or even cannabis card renewal, we still have people who think marijuana is a dangerous and lethal drug. It’s just absurd!
Cannabis is helping people deal with so many physical and psychological conditions, like anxiety, chronic pain, insomnia, depression, etc. But we still have these stupid notions clouding the reputation of this amazing plant. And to be very frank, in this modern era, very few things have evoked this much idiocy as marijuana. It would have been totally understandable if we were living in the 1920s or something. But even in the 21st century, we believe these absurd ideas. And that too, when we know so much about it.
Today, we’ll be discussing a few of the stupidest things people still believe about our favorite plant- Marijuana.
Marijuana is Just like any other Fatal Drug
It was the year 1970 when marijuana was added to the list of schedule I drugs under the controlled substances act. This made it deemed equivalent to LDS and Heroin in terms of fatality. While in the 1970s, it could be forgiven considering it a stupid mistake, we still are dealing with the resistance of the federal government accepting the plant as non-dangerous. Even when we have a myriad of evidence suggesting the same.
Recently, in the year 2015 alone we saw more than 13,000 deaths which were due to heroin overdose. The number was six times more than in the year 2002. Meanwhile, we are still waiting for a death incident to happen because of a marijuana overdose. The fact that we haven’t seen a single death due to marijuana overdose in the entire plant history is due to the impossibility of this happening. However, the federal lawmakers are still sticking hard to their idiotic idea of the plant’s fatality.
Weed is a Gateway to Other Drugs
This is probably one of the most famous myths, and certainly the most harmful one, regarding cannabis. It basically suggests that once you are into using marijuana, it’s almost inevitable for you to end up becoming addicted to the most dangerous drugs out there. You’ll be craving for it every single second of every single minute. And you’ll be ready to even sell yourself for a single hit.
Now the thing here is that even a common person, with just a bit of common sense, can understand the difference between correlation and causation. Yes, there might be some heroin addicts who have consumed weed in the past. But they may have consumed alcohol too. So, why not blame alcohol then, instead of marijuana?
It’s been more than a couple of decades that this gateway theory was debunked. Yet here we are, still fighting with this absurd idea every now and then.
Marijuana is Very Addictive
This theory is just the extension of the previous ludicrous gateway theory. But let’s accept the fact here guys- people are addicted to cannabis, just as they are to cocaine, alcohol, junk food, shopping, etc. However, the only thing that is banned in the list is cocaine. Why not the others too?
Once again, science has come to the rescue. There are numerous studies out there pointing to the fact that marijuana, as compared to alcohol, nicotine and even caffeine, is much less addictive. In a study conducted in 2007, it was found that at least 40 percent of American adults have tried weed at least once. So, if it really is addictive, why do we have only around 4 to 9 percent of cannabis consumers who have a dependency on it? The studies have shown that there were more than one million people who were taking weed as a medicine in 2012.
Now, if we talk about the overall dependency of marijuana as compared to other drugs, not more than 9 percent of people are dependent on it. On the other hand, for alcohol, the number touches 15 percent, for cocaine 17 percent, for heroin 23 percent and for tobacco 32 percent.
Marijuana makes you Lazy
If you think a cannabis user just lies on the sofa, playing video games all day long, eating Cheetos, with no sensible job and life, you probably have watched a lot of movies. While you can certainly find some weed lovers who match the description above, not every cannabis user is like this.
You probably have heard about Barack Obama, George Soros, John Stewart and many of their likes admitting to consuming cannabis in the past. Snoop Dog, a legendary American rapper, has, in fact, a card membership of a weed fan club. And all of these, in my opinion, are quite successful in their fields. So, I think we should remove this term “lazy” from the cannabis dictionary, immediately.
Weed Makes you a Criminal
According to the reports by the FBI, in the year 2018, every 48 seconds a person was arrested due to marijuana in the country. This probably is proof enough that marijuana is bad.
Not really, actually. We should not forget that cannabis is still an illegal drug in many of the states. And therefore, a person can be arrested for even possessing it in the slightest amounts. Though there are some studies linking a higher crime rate to more cannabis use, there is much more research showing that there’s no causal relationship between cannabis and crime.