Are there any benefits to smoking weed?

What stuff have you seen or heard that really sucks?

Weed has benefits note the spelling to people with cancer.

With everyone else, it makes them think it has benefits.

I have been smoking weed for about 11 years. The benefits of weed are that it gets you stoned. Thats it.

There are people who say “it cleans your lungs” and “it helps athsma” and “its the best painkiller in the world”, but i have never seen a single peer review study to back any of it up.

I have however seen papers that show that it kills brain cells, that it increases your chances of cancer, and that it can turn you in to a paranoid nutcase.

The fact is, there are lies on both sides. The anti-drug people put out propaganda saying it turns you in to a murderer and a prostitute, the pro-weed people put out propaganda saying its good for you, and among the lies and bullshit, the truth gets lost.

To clear up any contradictions in my statement or questions that it may raise, I think it should be legal because I have a right to put anything I want in my own body. Regardless of the damage it does.

EDIT: If you have athsma and smoke a joint, chances are you are going to have an athsma attack like you have never had before. Breathing in smoke, bits of dust and little bits of tobacco and/or ash will not help athsma.

I can tell you from personal experience from years ago that it did not help my asthma at all, only made it worse!

My sister says it relieves the symptoms of PTS

Deliberately filling your lungs with any sort of smoke on a regular basis is a bad idea. If I were planning on getting any benefit from pot—say If I had a medical condition it reportedly helps with, I would cook with it instead of smoking it. The only advantage I know of aside from the high and medical uses is, if you get caught, you get free room and board for a time.

@YARNLADY What’s PTS?

My close friend who is HIV positive, as well as having Hodgkin’s lymphoma and previously having bone cancer as a child, pretty much needs weed to alleviate his pain, anxiety and number of other problems he has – including not wanting to eat anything because he can’t taste or enjoy food (he is still going through chemo). I don’t know much technical stuff or studies, but it makes a noticeable difference in him for the better.

Having done a metanalysis for a paper last year…

Depends how you smoke it. I’d recommend looking into a vaporizer. Burning it does make it more like to cause cancer rather than fight it. It can make you more paranoid, depending on the variety and cannabinoids, also how the product is maintained/stored etc.

It does have strong effects as a pain killer, appetite inducer etc. But it’s much better in combination with painkillers, modulating their effects than alone. It also seems to work as an antiemetic. Other pharmaceutical effects are being looked into to.

In any case, I don’t condone irresponsible use for recreation, or burning the stuff in order to smoke it. Make some cookies, although ingesting it has more psychoactive effects—or get a vaporizer.

Certain strands are really wonderful if you’re suffering from a low libido and an unhappy partner.

It helps fibromyalgia, nausea….
there are other medical conditions besides cancer that can be treated.

Post traumatic syndrome

Yes, there are benefits. There are also detriments.

What have you been smoking? OK, all puns aside the biggest benefit is making those who inhale believe it helps, it just gets the mind to do the work and attributed it to the weed.

Yes, @YARNLADY is right, it does help with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder. Some strains help a lot, some strains create flashbacks. And this is why MMJ should be legal, and there should be dispensaries, so that people can find the weed that will help them and get rid of the stuff that won’t, instead of being at the mercy of “whatever my dealer had” and constantly risking their wellbeing.

Does coming face to face with the horrific monster of truth count as a benefit? If so, weed benefits my life to the point of madness. That is why I cannot smoke it, or have anything to do with it whatsoever. It’s just too truthful.

Awesome answer real eyes.
I also believe that weed has both benefits and problems. As it is a mild hallucinogen it can help people escape the ‘rat race’ and get in touch with how they truly feel but Alcohol also has its similarities. Escapism is good on occasion but living your life stoned is as pathetic as living as an alcoholic in my opinion. I consider a weekly drink and a bi-monthly toke a good balance between reality ignorance and fantasy.

Everything in moderation… anything.

My whole family don’t like smoking weed,but I think that weed has both benefits and problems,
and the problems would be more than benefits

The benefits are well documented and well bragged about by stoners and the ailing alike, all across the world. The immediate benefit is a sensation of less gravity pushing down on the body and mind…. a slight release of pressure, and an easing of tension.

It relieves stress, aids in sleep, takes away the tight feeling in the stomach, makes the body sink into where it is sitting, heightens sensations of nature and music, and it relieves ocular pressure as well.

Another benefit is the social aspect. I’ve met the most wonderful people and have had the most amazing adventures, in thanks partially to this great herb. Any great jamband in any great big city will have circles of kind people smoking the herb in between set breaks in the parking lots of their local tolerant taverns. I’ve shared joints and pipes at dawn and sunset, and at concerts and camping trips, with so many kinds type of good and interesting humans that I’ve come across. I always share my joint, and I’ve learned not to prejudge and that almost anyone I offer it to, will accept, if I’m at a place where music of a fun sort is being played. I learned this in the early 1990s, at a Jerry Garcia Show concert, the person seated next to met looked like she was 75 years old, and I was smoking a joint, and figured I should at least offer it, and her eyes lit up, she smiled, said yes, and we puffed.

The only psychological harm marijuana can cause, is demotivation in some people, especially people that are predisposed to being exhuasted. Some schizophrenics should not smoke it, but the theory it causes schizophrenia has been discredited.

The only physical damage marijuana can cause, is irritation to the large bronchial passageway and bronchitis, and related irritation.

As for cancer… this may sound unbelievable but the current state of research is indicating that those who smoke marijuana have lower incidences of lung cancer than those who do not smoke marijuana, by an insignificant margin. What that means, is basically the incidence of lung cancer in marijuana users and non users is the same. And if one were to nitpick, they’d find pot smokers actually have a LOWER incidence of lung cancer, when compared to a similar control group. That includes Marijuana Smokers Vs. Tobacco Smokers, Marijuana & Tobacco users Vs. Tobacco Only users, Marijuana & Tobacco users, vs. Nonsmokers, etc.

So Yes, it can cause Bronchitis. And No, it seems to not cause cancer at all.

How to avoid bronchitis? Either smoke it sparingly (less than a couple bowls a night), or use a marijuana vaporizer, which will vaporize the active ingredients in marijuana (THC, CBN, CBD) at the exact temperature needed to get you high, but without causing the flower material to burn or combust.

Marijuana also dries out the body a bit, so drinking water or juice is definitely important.

As for the uptime and downtime of the marijuana high, here are some charts on that.

As for weed helping asthma, yes it can. I’m not saying yes it will… because everyone can be different.

As for the papers someone above claimed to have seen about how marijuana ” kills brain cells, that it increases your chances of cancer, and that it can turn you in to a paranoid nutcase.”.... there’s no scientific papers on any of that, except for one single discredited British study on the “paranoid nutcase” thing, which came out about 5 years ago. Marijuana has never killed a brain cell in the history of its’ existence. These demonized ideas about marijuana come from government propaganda spread through TV commercials and websites like freevibe.com, not scientific studies.

And if I had an asthma attack, I know for myself and my friends and family, that smoking marijuana is far safer than doing nothing at all. If you have asthma medicine and it works, then keep using it. But if you have nothing, and need something… marijuana has worked for thousands of people to breathe again after having an attack.

The government propaganda that marijuana has “more cancer causing chemicals than tobacco” came from their interpretation of Dr. Donald Tashkin’s studies that found “more carcinogens in a joint than in a cigarette, but of the same kind”.

That is true, that is in the beginning of Dr. Tashkin’s studies, he found preliminary evidence that marijuana may be harmful because, when burned, it contained similar carcinogens to tobacco when burned. But by the time his study ended, he concluded that marijuana REDUCES lung cancer risk. And this is the VERY scientist that they based their entire propaganda on, in the 1990s. Dr. Tashkin discusses his study here.

The people who think marijuana is relatively dangerous, or worse, are uneducated, or have been mislead on this issue.

Regardless of whether or not it has health benefits (which I believe it does for those suffering from AIDS, Cancer, Glaucoma, and other ailments), even if it produced as much harm as cigarettes the harm cannot possibly outweigh the harm caused by the criminalization policy.

if some of you guys above really think that it has no benefits other than it gets you high and makes you giggly you’re sorely mistaken. i wont list studies or research or any of that bologna but i will say the same thing i said last time this question was asked and that is a personal testimony to the fact that weed is good for things other than just making you laugh and putting your heads in the clouds. my doctor prescribed me painkillers after i had food surgery. i took them for a day and a half and lost my appetite and couldn’t eat and then when i did i vomited everywhere. literally. out the window of the car. it was bad. i swore to not take them again because it was awful, so i just smoked weed whenever it started hurting again. it took the pain away just the same as the pills did, and it put me in a bit of a better mood. i would see a leaf blowing down the street (out the window of course since i was bed ridden) and laugh my head off. if that isn’t fantastic i don’t know what is.

and if you are misguided and misinformed and think its the devil maybe you should just try it.

Real short answer from me since I dont have a lot of time right now.

Before I started smoking weed I was an extremely aggressive and overall hateful person that could give two shits about the world around me. After I started smoking I started caring about all life in all forms no matter how big or small and gained a respect for it. Seeing how everything was interconnected. It also opened my mind up to seeing other peoples points of view when before I was dismissive. Im also a very easy going relaxed person now.

Id call that a hell of a benefit.

It also helps ease the pain from the 5 bulging disks in my back and pinched nerve as well as the bulging disk in my neck where opiates just fucked me up more.

@phoebusg i really think the paranoia thing is just a function of the fact that its illegal and you can get in trouble for it. Alcohol made me paranoid when I was underage. Now there is no issue with me being drunk thus no more paranoia.

it is beneficial? depend how you use it
i personally think weed has it own remedy regards to many illness, HIV,cancer,stress disorder etc. but in general nothing is good having carbon dioxide in your lungs, BUT people with athsma is totally different story. my uncle has chronic athsma his whole life. 61 year old now, still living. im not sure which type of athsma he has but he told me there are two common type out there that everyone gets acute(allergic reaction) and chronic(stress or exercise). i think he got the worst one. which is chronic but he told me through out he whole life he reply on the bump spray too much and he decide to use pot instead. he doesnt smoke weed like everyone else. he does not abuse it. he only takes one alittle hit once a while and he holds it in. he told me the people with athsma just have smaller tube in their lungs to breath and when and the attack comes it stinks. so he told me by taking a toke a day just helps him increases his capacity in his lungs. he laid off the spray for a while and been doing this practice-work out for a while now…as far as i can remember maybe 8 years?
and he also told me that hes been able to do more excising work then before.

again weed has its own remedy and it only depends on how u using it, just dont abuse it.

Relieves pain, stress.

It made me believe in god. But of course you shouldn’t abuse anything! For recreational purposes it’s a much better substance than alcohol, in my oppinion.

i do in fact have experience with smoking weed in the past and i can say that the only down side to ’‘smoking weed ’’ is that you have to smoke it.:) it’s only harmful to the lung because you have to inhale smoke to get the thc into your blood stream. this is why i say that its accually bad for athsma. but i have athsma myself and i can say that if you bake it into brownies or some cookies itl be ok but i rarely do that. even though i have athsma i don’t feel that weed ruins my lung too badly cause i go to the lung doctor regulairly and i still have a healthy lung volume of 8 liters.i find it also to be very helpful when it comes to learnig for tests because if you take just the right amount you will be able to concentrate better… at least that is what i have found.(i have A.D.D XD) personally i think that you also can’t get addicted to it cause i have had no problem not doing it for a half of a year and then on my birthday i smoked a nice blunt, was nice and stoned and everything was right with the world.
To it being better than alcohol… uh yeah of course i mean alcohol tastes bad,it destoyes soooo many more brain cells than the inhailing of smoke does, it can kill you, you can go into a coma from drinking alcohol, under the influence of alcohol you will do things that you will regret and in the mornig you always feel like you just died and then came back too life again. with weed it’s just smoke, feel good, you still can think perfectly and act perfectly and controlled too, regardless of the amount you take, but if you take too much you just fall asleep and when you wake up you feel like you were just up in heaven dancing with the angels and then were reborne.