Opinion on marijuana danger

[Rule]

Just an opinion poll.  Leave reasons for your opinion if you wish.  An example of inadvertant harm would be getting stoned, getting behind the wheel, and then getting into a car accident because of your impaired abilities.  Another example of harm would be getting into a physical fight with someone because of how smoking affected you (e.g. taken away your inhibitions).

[MyndFyre]

A note that the opinion of people who go to a forum about the potential likelihood of danger is in no way necessarily reflective of real life. 

[Rule]

Oh, I forgot to add.  If you vote "less than any of the above options," I would like you to show the sincerity of your opinion by having the courage to identify yourself.
It would be nice if you also shared your reasons, since you have picked a very extreme position.

[CrAz3D]

I beleive choosing any of those options would just be a completely random guess...so I won't pick just yet.

I do think that the risk of a societal(?) harm would be somewhat small, though.
Although, I'm not exactly sure as to how pot influences your brain.  As I hear from friends it just "enhances your senses", but from what I've seen it also limits some senses (while possibly enhancing others).

Anyone have any experience as to what it actually does do?

[Mephisto]

I beleive choosing any of those options would just be a completely random guess...so I won't pick just yet.

I do think that the risk of a societal(?) harm would be somewhat small, though.
Although, I'm not exactly sure as to how pot influences your brain.  As I hear from friends it just "enhances your senses", but from what I've seen it also limits some senses (while possibly enhancing others).

Anyone have any experience as to what it actually does do?

Makes you relaxed and chill, to put it in a nutshell.  Quite honestly, I drive better stoned than not, just me though...And it seems that way for a lot of my friends who smoke & drive (or no observable changes).

And just for another point to discuss:  I don't think you can strongly relate inadvertant dangers of marijuana as close to alcohol.  Personally, I have a much greater chance of getting into a fight or car accident drunk than high.

[Rule]

Keep in mind if you choose the last option you are claiming that if you smoke
pot 100,000 times, you don't think that even 1 of those times its influence will make you act in a way that might harm someone.

[Forged]

I really don't believe it affects you all that much.  In general, people are still capable of driving.  Maybe to a slightlly lesser degree than normal, but as long as it isn't rush hour stoned people should be fine.  I've never been in a fight stoned or seen stoned people fight at all for that matter.

[CrAz3D]

I don't think stoned people have the will power to fight...or doing anything but eat.

[Grok]

Heh, I just saw this poll.  Interesting, carrying it over to another thread.  Why not simply get the numbers I requested?
1) Look at DOJ statistics to find the number of times in a given year that a person high on marijuana was charged and convicted of a crime against another person.
2) Find a statistic estimating the number of marijuana joints smoked in the United States during any given year.

If its not a million to one ratio, I'd be a little more swayed towards your argument.

There's your opening!  Crack in the armor!  All you've got to do is show me it's 100:1 or something more harmful to society.

But since I think you're actually more in favor of reasons to regulate people than whether individuals are actually going to hurt someone, I don't think you'll bother to try.

[rabbit]

In my experience, I've seen a lot more harm than good come out of stoned people (I know).

[DeTaiLs]

MYTH: MARIJUANA USE IS A MAJOR CAUSE OF HIGHWAY ACCIDENTS. Like alcohol, marijuana impairs psychomotor function and decreases driving ability. If marijuana use increases, an increase in of traffic fatalities is inevitable.

FACT: There is no compelling evidence that marijuana contributes substantially to traffic accidents and fatalities. At some doses, marijuana affects perception and psychomotor performances- changes which could impair driving ability. However, in driving studies, marijuana produces little or no car-handling impairment- consistently less than produced by low moderate doses of alcohol and many legal medications. In contrast to alcohol, which tends to increase risky driving practices, marijuana tends to make subjects more cautious. Surveys of fatally injured drivers show that when THC is detected in the blood, alcohol is almost always detected as well. For some individuals, marijuana may play a role in bad driving. The overall rate of highway accidents appears not to be significantly affected by marijuana's widespread use in society.

This website had alot of good myths and the real facts of pot http://www.drugpolicy.org/marijuana/factsmyths/

[Rule]

The results of this poll are quite interesting, regardless of whether they have told us very much about the specific risks associated with marijuana use! 

Notice that the options go from 1/10 to 1/100 to 1/1000 then take
a big leap down to 1/100000.   

While their opinions on how risky marijuana is wildly vary, half the people here recognize that under the influence of marijuana someone is at least very slightly more likely to cause harm to another than otherwise.  Absolutely no-one from the other half wants to concede that marijuana, a drug that people spend a fair bit of money on that chemically alters our mind and affects our decisions, has even an incredibly small chance in leading to harm of some sort.  If someone had chosen the second to last option they would basically be saying that the effects of marijuana that could lead to harm are negligable!  But that wasn't good enough!  Every single one of them had to be extreme and go for less!  Every single one of them decided that if someone smoked weekly for 1923 years, that the influence of marijuana would never lead him to cause harm (of any sort!) to anyone else. 

Conclusion:  Either someone believed that marijuana had some non-negligable risk associated with it and voted accordingly, or they were in complete denial and decided that rather than choosing an option that would suggest marijuana has a negligable risk associated with it, they would rather go for less!  It's possible that some of those people who chose the last option acknowledged that marijuana use had a risk associated with it and legitimately thought that this risk was less than 1/100000.  It just doesn't seem like a mere coincidence that absolutely no-one would vote for the second to last option!  There was no compromise! 

The drug has made you people irrationally defensive!

If you believe that there is a non-negligable probability that marijuana influence will lead to harm, less than 1/1000 is not a reasonable choice.  If you think it is unlikely marijuana influence will lead to harm, 1/100000 is a reasonable choice!  Let's hear why no-one chose it!

The poll could read:
How likely is someone to (in)advertantly cause harm to another due to the influence of marijuana?

Somewhat likely: 4 people 
Unlikely: 4 people
Quite unlikely: 2 people
So unlikely that it shouldn't really be considered.  Comparable to risks like crossing a street: 0 people
I'm in denial: 7 people

I think this speaks more for how dangerous marijuana can be and how it can affect one's thinking than if an overwhelming majority had voted for the first three options.

[iago]

Makes you relaxed and chill, to put it in a nutshell.  Quite honestly, I drive better stoned than not, just me though...And it seems that way for a lot of my friends who smoke & drive (or no observable changes).

And just for another point to discuss:  I don't think you can strongly relate inadvertant dangers of marijuana as close to alcohol.  Personally, I have a much greater chance of getting into a fight or car accident drunk than high.

That doesn't sound like the state of somebody who is a safe driver.  One of the keys to driving, I've found, is to be "alert".  If somebody does something stupid on the road (I don't know about where you live, but I know it happens all the time here), I have to be able to react quickly or risk grave injury.  If you're "chilled" or "stoned", I doubt you'll be able to react as fast, and there is an increased chance of being injured. 

It may be true that YOU drive more safely, but that doesn't mean that the entire driving experience will be safer. 

[warz]

When I first started smoking awhile back I could barely handle it. I wouldn't let myself drive while being high. The first time I drove while high I was honestly scared, haha (it was in San Antonio if that makes it seem any more scary). I felt like I was always swaying off the road, or like the road was rounded or something. I don't know - I was high. I really wasn't swaying, and I was driving fine - I know this because I was driving with other friends in the car to go chill at the Alamo.

Now, after being in college for two years and smoking on a semi-regular basis (a lot on the weekend, and maybe once or twice throughout the week) I feel that I can drive stoned as well as I can sober. The munchies are just a phase. I rarely smoke then get the urge to drive and grub somewhere.

Honestly, after smoking I've picked up skateboarding, guitar, wake boarding and some other things I really didn't care to do until I figured they'd be fun while high. I've even gone to class high - it's not that difficult, except for the fact that I really don't remember what the fuck we talked about in class.

All in all I only think smoking would get me into an accident maybe 1 out of a 1,000 times driving. I'm that confident in my abilities to drive. Now, fighting might be different. I would have much better chances of getting into a fight while high. That only stems, though, from the fact that here at texas tech univ. fraternities/sororities make up for like 35-40% of the student body. I'm in one of the larger fraternities, and we just won the greek blanket in intramurals which is the biggest thing amongst the fraternities. I see fights quite often stemming from this stuff. So, there's much better chances that one day I'll be cruisin around, stoned out of my mind, jammin to some sweet tunes and then find myself in a fight.

I voted for the 1/1000 choice because it seems to make the most sense.

Edit: Actually, I didn't even vote. The damned poll is locked.

[Arta]

I don't agree with your analysis. You assume that people are interpreting your poll exactly as you meant it to be. I saw that poll and just saw the options "very likely", "quite likely", "likely", "unlikely" and "very unlikely". By that interpretation, I think it makes complete sense that most people chose the last option, myself included.

I know many people who smoke marijuana every day. I have never observed any harm coming to anyone as a result of their activities. I can say with complete certainty that alcohol causes vastly more harm than marijuana.