Most common misconceptions about Cannabis

There’s been a lot of hate thrown at marijuana’s doorstep for a very long time. Mainstream media worldwide have been spreading biased news, wrapped in a veil of fear and negativity. People are finally waking up and starting to realize that there are actually no monsters hiding under the bed when it comes to legalizing this plant for both medicinal and recreational use, especially with ‘’everyone uses it anyway’’ reputation it has been enjoying lately.

People have been fighting an uphill battle against propaganda, misinformation, ignorance,and fear. Because it’s so helpful, accessible and easy to grow, marijuana has always been pushed aside as something evil and wrong, with no actual proof. If legalized completely like in states such as California it would surely win the race against alcohol, tobacco and coffee companies and that’s why it has been stigmatized publically to prevent just that.

Here are just a few of the most common misconceptions people usually have when they talk about cannabis.

It’s addictive

This is true in a sense that anything can be addictive, in other words, people can find almost anything they put in their bodies addictive eventually. Same rules can apply to marijuana because no substance is immune to abuse.

Some statistics have shown that around 9{f836da2089c4f6ac041f592a32b2c3a6b29da20f6bd03832a46b7a74d907c6fd} of regular users suffer from addiction, and actually deal with some more severe withdrawal symptoms, but the rest of the crowd has absolutely no problem putting the bong down.

Addiction, as present as it is, can’t compete with that of alcohol, tobacco or coffee might cause, there are no negative withdrawal effects like a headache, shaking and nervousness.

What’s worth noting is that some people recovering from serious opiate addictions tend to use cannabis to ease the horrible withdrawal side effects.

Gateway drug

This is probably the most common misconception people have. The plant itself does not make you want to use heroin, in the same sense as chocolate or ice cream wouldn’t. It’s the lifestyle, circumstances and your type of personality that might lead you astray, and weed is just there.

There is no link to be made between cannabis and hard drug users, even though people who use harder drugs have probably used cannabis before, and those numbers are not as big as a number of regular weed users. If anything, alcohol, which is completely legal in 2018, can also be considered a gateway drug with the same merits.

Overdose and death

It is just impossible to take a lethal dose of cannabis in a short period of time and die from it. Terminal does require you intake around 15000 pounds within a period of 10 minutes more or less, which is simply not doable.

Ironically you can overdose on regular prescription medication and it is exactly medicinal marijuana people turn to when battling severe opiate and drug addiction. People treated for methamphetamine misuse are prescribed marijuana as well.

We can conclude that this misconception is completely untrue because cannabis helps fight addiction and even addiction caused by legally prescribed pharmaceutical drugs that might actually cause death.

Lung cancer

There hasn’t been any firm evidence that cannabis smoke directly causes a development of lung cancer. On the contrary, benefits it has on an overall health picture can be sufficient to say that it actually has a positive effect.

People who like to smoke marijuana do not smoke it for the sake of smoking as they would normally do with cigarettes, thereby they significantly reduce the amount of smoke intake when compared to commercial tobacco. Marijuana smoke does not affect lungs the same way tobacco does, because it does not contain chemical substances which tobacco companies use to ‘’enhance’’ their product.

If you still feel at unease there are other, ‘’safer’’ ways you can consume marijuana, like edible cookies for example.

Cannabis leads to aggression and crime

This is one of those things you hear on the news and you instantly classify cannabis as something very wrong and bad. It is true that crime is committed when buying or selling in countries where it’s illegal and of course the criminal underground is involved, but that’s a completely different topic and has nothing to do with the plant itself and effects it has on people.

Cannabis as a medicine is used for relaxation and rest, and this very fact is the proof that it does not make people aggressive and willing to commit a crime. Currently there are different legal substances that cause more serious societal problems rather than weed, but fortunately, that attitude will fade eventually.