I don't hate pot smokers. I hate bores who keep telling you the same ridiculous stories that you have been hearing for years--and which turn out to be false. No, Washington did not write letters talking about how wonderful smoking pot was. He grew hemp, but for rope, not for smoking.

I hate bores who keep insisting that marijuana has absolutely no risks to it--in spite of increasing evidence that it is a serious mental health hazard for young people.

I hate bores who keep insisting that legalizing marijuana would be a complete win--and refuse to admit that there are tradeoffs involved. There are certainly some benefits from legalizing it. There are some costs as well. Pretending otherwise is a sign of a fanatic.

He grew hemp, but for rope, not for smoking.

I can't remember which one, but one of the founding fathers wrote about separating the male from the female plants. There is only one reason to do this. Female hemp plants have a higher concentration of THC.

Ah I have it. It WAS Washington.

http://www.marijuanalibrary.org/7_presidents.html

Did the Founding Fathers of the United States of America smoke cannabis? Some researchers think so. Dr. Burke, president of the American Historical Reference Society and a consultant for the Smithsonian Institute, counted seven early presidents as cannabis smokers: George Washington, Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, James Monroe, Andrew Jackson, Zachary Taylor and Franklin Pierce. 41 "Early letters from our founding fathers refer to the pleasures of hemp smoking," said Burke. Pierce, Taylor and Jackson, all military men, smoked it with their troops. Cannabis was twice as popular among American soldiers in the Mexican War as in Vietnam: Pierce wrote to his family that it was "about the only good thing" about that war.

As to the trade offs - mostly good if significant numbers of people could be switched from alcohol to pot. In fact when it was legal doctors prescribed cannabis to alcoholics.

And ask police who they would rather deal with. People in an alcohol fueled rage or cannabis smokers?

Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?

And thank you Eric for the links!

The History Channel also documents this:

History: Secrets of the Founding Fathers

And then there is the effect of Pot on drivers:

NHTSA study:

Alcohol impaired performance relative to placebo but subjects did not perceive it. THC did not impair driving performance yet the subjects thought it had. These studies show that THC in single inhaled doses up to 300 g/kg has significant, yet not dramatic, dose-related impairing effects on driving performance.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/misc/driving/driving.htm

This may explain why pot smokers are safer drivers. They overcompensate for the effects of the drug. The alcohol users do not.

But that is an old study. There are newer ones.

According to clinical trial data published in the March issue of the Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, subjects tested both before and after smoking marijuana exhibited virtually identical driving skills in a battery of driving simulator tests. Researchers in the double-blind, placebo-controlled trial tested 85 subjects -- 50 men and 35 women -- on simulated driving performance. The subjects had to respond to simulations of various events associated with vehicle crash risk, such as deciding whether to stop or go through a changing traffic light, avoiding a driver entering an intersection illegally, and responding to the presence of emergency vehicles. Subjects were tested sober and again a half hour after having smoked a single medium-potency (2.9% THC) joint or a placebo.

The investigators found that the subjects' performance before and after getting stoned was virtually identical. "No differences were found during the baseline driving segment (and the) collision avoidance scenarios," the authors reported. Nor were there any differences between the way men and women responded.

Researchers did note one difference. "Participants receiving active marijuana decreased their speed more so than those receiving placebo cigarettes during (the) distracted section of the drive," they wrote. The authors speculated that the subjects may have slowed down to compensate for perceived impairment. "[N]o other changes in driving performance were found," researchers concluded.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2010/jun/04/marijuana_study_finds_minimal_ch

Here is a page with evidence (peer reviewed research FWIW) on pot myths:

http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/

Which is to say that the demonization of pot users bears no rational relationship to actual facts.

Both comments look like they were written by the same person.

Both of the four?

Clayton, you make a good point about biased pro-pot zealots. They remind me of a lot of single-issue activists. As to stoners, I find them generally boring to be around. But still, they are as a whole less irritating (and generally a lot less belligerent) than drunks.

Let me add that some of the pro-pot zealots are some of the most intolerant people I have ever seen on the 'net.

They hate drinkers, tobacco smokers, and conservatives.

Such folks should not prevent the rest of us from doing the right thing about pot while ignoring their intolerant prescriptions.

FWIW, I suspect that a major reason people hate drug users is that there's a basic human ecological niche for hatred, and there's a shortage of people whom it's still socially permissible to hate.

I would have to agree.