latimes.com — The Olympic champion's use of pot is far from a novelty in the sports world and leads to a discussion of whether it is much ado about nothing. And so suddenly here's marijuana -- yep, marijuana -- hogging itself another heyday, bolting into the spotlight, all but sashaying back into dialogue and shouting, "Hey, I'm still here."
Feb 8, 2009 View in Crawl 4
viking0895Feb 9, 2009
"Marijuana contains over 1000 chemicals" what in the hell type of weed is that!!!?
Closed AccountFeb 9, 2009
@bababoosh"There are mounds of evidence to contradict you."I've got news for you, I've produced mounds of evidence. I'm the only one here who has produced many articles from reliable sources proving how bad marijuana is for you. The only evidence against me are from people who claim to smoke pot and feel fine. I feel sorry for people like you that live in such denial when faced with the truth.Marijuana can change your brain, raise your risk for a heart attack, linked to testicular cancer, linked to mental illness, and it's a gateway drug. It's illegal for good reason.
Closed AccountFeb 9, 2009
I got to meet him once. Totally low key guy, very nice, didn't seem like the sort of person I'd want the cops arresting for weed after I heard what it did for him. It's quite a compelling story, and the guy is totally believable IMO.The drug has different effects on different people depending on illness. Why, you'd almost want to call it "medicine" instead of calling it illegal, and see whether "recreational" stereotypical-stoner-teenage use goes up or down. Pity there aren't more people like him (something Obama could probably fix with the stroke of a pen, since Bush ruined it for all but the seven or so folks who'd gotten it that way!).Oh, and I saw the weed the govt. grows for them. It's crap. With armed guards and university conditions, the f**king US government can't grow a f**king weed as competently as the average stoned-but-motivated hippie. I s**t you not.
bri719Feb 9, 2009
now that he's lost his endorsement contract with Kellogg's, he can go ahead and appear on that box of Weedies.
atxchappyFeb 10, 2009
There are quite a few good studies out there about Marijuana. One even showed that it might help with Alzheimer's. Unfortunately most of the studies don't get the follow-up they really need. The U.S. government controls the supply of Marijuana for studies in the U.S. and doesn't allow a lot of research. Especially if they might show potential good (<a class="user" href="http://www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/medmarijuana/38300prs20090112.html).">http://www.aclu.org/drugpolicy/medmarijuana/38300p ...</a> That's why most of the studies that show potential good are done in Australia and Europe. And, you are absolutely right about cigarettes. But, I always think of an interview I saw with a Harvard professor about that. He said the problems with cigarettes started show up in 10 or 20 years. Marijuana has been pretty popular since the 1960's. That's 40 years so the problems with Marijuana should have shown up by now. I know that's not really scientific. But, it always made sense to me.As far as it's legality is concerned. I'm not really all the concerned about the good or bad that it does. I know it can do harm and I know it can do good. The biggest issue for me about the legal issue is that the prohibition of Marijuana seems to cause a lot more harm than the drug ever could. We spend billions of dollars, lock up over 800,000 people a year, the militarization of our police forces, and give up so many of our civil liberties to eradicate it. But, the biggest reason is all the botched raids (<a class="user" href="http://www.cato.org/raidmap/)">http://www.cato.org/raidmap/)</a> the police do to enforce a prohibition on a plant that doesn't seem all that harmful relative to things such as alcohol or cigarettes.
avianeddyFeb 11, 2009
Rock and a hard place for him, unfortunatelyI'm sure he knows it's not really a "drug," but society will just not support him on this one.
diggimatorAug 2, 2009
It's funny that we still need a discussion about this. Marijuana has been used for thousands upon thousands of years. Zero fatalities. We're not going to find anything the next day that'll merit the long running ban.