DARE To Read About Marijuana

[Ganjarden]

Local pot advocate Mason Tvert is daring officers to read his book.

The publisher of Tvert's 2009 release, "Marijuana is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?", is distributing free copies of the pro-marijuana book this week at a Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) conference in Cincinnati.

DARE officers and instructors at the training conference are being encouraged to read the book and then take its message back to students that marijuana is safer than alcohol Ń a message that has propelled Tvert into local and national stardom for his efforts to legalize marijuana.

Tvert is encouraging DARE officers and instructors to "dare to admit that marijuana is safer than alcohol."

"For years DARE has been sending a very dangerous message that alcohol is a perfectly acceptable and enjoyable form of intoxication for adults, yet marijuana is just too harmful and should never be allowed as an alternative," said Tvert. "DARE conference attendees will surely be encouraged to continue spreading this misguided and potentially dangerous message, so we decided to offer them a comprehensive, fact-based examination of these two substances that they can take home and share with their students."

For his part, Sgt. Brian Saupe, state coordinator for the Colorado Association of DARE Officers, said yesterday from Cincinnati where he is attending the conference that marijuana can be a deadly drug when used with alcohol.

"One fact that really illustrates against what they're saying, and that's that marijuana prevents nausea, and there's numerous cases where college kids who are binge drinking have smoked marijuana, and it prevents the nausea, so when they overdrink, they don't vomit up the excess alcohol, and then they die," he told the Denver Daily News by phone. "So, right there, I can tell you that marijuana is a danger, and particularly when it comes to partying Ń they party heavy at college, they're smoking marijuana and they're drinking in excess Ń the anti-nausea effects of the THC prevents their body from purging the excess alcohol."

Tvert fired back, arguing that he does not know of a single documented case of an alcohol-related death being attributed to marijuana use. The U.S. Centers for Disease Control and Prevention attribute more than 30,000 deaths per year to alcohol use, whereas they do not list a single death attributable to marijuana, he said.

"Officer Saupe makes the case that marijuana is safer than alcohol far better than I ever could," quipped Tvert. "Since he understands that alcohol can kill someone in one sitting, I trust he agrees that college students would be safer using marijuana instead."

Saupe said that if he is handed a copy of Tvert's book, he would read it for "informational" reasons.

As executive director of Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), Tvert compelled Denver voters to legalize the simple possession of marijuana in 2005.

When police continued to arrest people for the possession of one ounce or less of marijuana, Tvert convinced voters in 2007 to make the police department promise to make marijuana their "lowest law enforcement priority."

His book Ń co-written by fellow pot experts Paul Armentano, deputy director of The National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, and Steve Fox, director of state campaigns for the Marijuana Policy Project Ń uses research and scientific evidence to compare and contrast the relative harms of both marijuana and alcohol.

In August 2009, the book made its way to No. 14 on Amazon.com's top 100 bestsellers, making "Marijuana is Safer" the all-time top-selling marijuana-related book on Amazon.com.

The pro-pot community is also concerned that DARE America Chairman Skip Miller recently released an op-ed to the San Jose Mercury News opposing a marijuana legalization initiative facing California voters this November. He claimed that marijuana "mushes up your brain," "lowers inhibitions," and "makes users engage in risky behavior."

Tvert is also concerned that the DARE America Web site highlights the "Official Parents Guide" by DARE founding director Glenn Levant, which describes social drinking as "an acceptable and pleasurable activity for millions of Americans."

"It relaxes you, curbs stress, and chases away inhibitions É" continues the description.

Marijuana advocates take great offense to this description.

"If lives weren't at risk this would almost be comical," said Tvert.


NewsHawk: Ganjarden: 420 MAGAZINE
Source: Denver Daily News
Author: Peter Marcus
Contact: Denver Daily News
Copyright: 2010 Denver Daily News
Website: DARE to read about marijuana

 

[Lemon Paradise]

“One fact that really illustrates against what they’re saying, and that’s that marijuana prevents nausea, and there’s numerous cases where college kids who are binge drinking have smoked marijuana, and it prevents the nausea, so when they overdrink, they don’t vomit up the excess alcohol, and then they die,” he told the Denver Daily News by phone. “So, right there, I can tell you that marijuana is a danger, and particularly when it comes to partying Ń they party heavy at college, they’re smoking marijuana and they’re drinking in excess Ń the anti-nausea effects of the THC prevents their body from purging the excess alcohol.”

really? what total BS,, if you were that tanked that you were goona puke,, smoking would not stop that.. what a croc

“mushes up your brain,” “lowers inhibitions,” and “makes users engage in risky behavior.”

sounds like alcohol,,, not weed,, what BS.

 

[MedicalNeed]

Study: Marijuana May Protect Against Alcohol Brain Damage
Source: Study: Marijuana May Protect Against Alcohol Brain Damage // Current


The study suggests that not only is marijuana safer than alcohol, it may actually protect against some of the damage that booze causes.

( WASHINGTON, D.C.) - A study just published online by the journal Neurotoxicology and Teratology suggests that marijuana may protect the brain from some of the damage caused by binge drinking.

The study, by researchers at the University of California San Diego, used a type of high-tech scan called diffusion tensor imaging to compare microscopic changes in brain white matter.

The subjects were students aged 16-to-19, divided into three groups: binge drinkers (defined as having five or more drinks at one sitting for boys or four or more for girls), binge drinkers who also smoked marijuana, and a control group who had very little or no experience with either alcohol or drugs.

As expected, the binge-drinking-only group showed evidence of white matter damage in eight regions examined, as demonstrated by lower fractional anisotropy (FA) scores. But in a finding the researchers describe as "unexpected," the binge-drinking/marijuana group had lower FA scores than the controls in only three of eight regions, and in seven regions the binge-drinking/marijuana group had higher scores -- indicating less damage -- than the binge drinkers who did not use marijuana.

Brain white matter tracts were "more coherent in adolescents who binge drink and use marijuana than in adolescents who report only binge drinking," the researchers wrote.

"It is possible that marijuana may have some neuroprotective properties in mitigating alcohol-related oxidative stress or excitotoxic cell death," as has already been shown in lab and animal studies.

"This study suggests that not only is marijuana safer than alcohol, it may actually protect against some of the damage that booze causes," said Steve Fox, Marijuana Policy Project director of state campaigns and co-author of the new book, "Marijuana Is Safer: So Why Are We Driving People to Drink?" (which hit number 14 on the Amazon.com bestseller list). "It's far better for teens not to drink or smoke marijuana, but our nation's leaders send a dangerous message by defending laws that encourage the use of alcohol over marijuana."

REFERENCE: Jacobus, J. et al. "White matter integrity in adolescents with histories of marijuana use and binge drinking." Neurotoxicology and Teratology. dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.ntt.2009.07.006

Source: MarijuanaPolicy.org, the largest marijuana policy reform organization in the United States. MPP believes that the best way to minimize the harm associated with marijuana is to regulate marijuana in a manner similar to alcohol.

 

[Lemon Paradise]

wow,, great post.. +reps

 

[Steve McStoferson]

great article, thanks for posting this