"Which is a big if.

There is a huge incentive to find some, ANY justification to continue the war on drugs. There is little incentive to simply tell the truth."

I do not think that the alternative to fact-ignoring drugwarfarers are fact-ignoring cannabispropagandist.

Cannabis is less bad than alcohol, so politicians need to get the f.ck off our lawn. There is NO need for us to prove that it it is healthy to state that it should be legal.

Most people here agree that it should not be sold to minors except for medical treatments. What would you suggest?

And do you REALLY believe that smoking 5 grams a day as a 13 year old over years won't effect their brains in an unwanted physical way?

What does it matter if it is bad for young people if used too often? It still is less dangerous than alcohol, so the prohibition of cannabis can not be justified scientfically.

I find those studies extremely plausible, but I challenge the conclusion of the mass media and right wing nutjobs who use them as an argument against the legalisation. It is no problem if people start heavy smoking at 21 or 24 except for a relative slim chance to get cancer (if smoked instead of heated) or get a mental illness caused by the weed if the person has a precondition.

But drinking heavily does much more to the brain and the body than weed. There is IMHO no need to prove that it is good for the user. Those studies should only have consequences for the legal age (18, better 21) to buy weed as a recreational drug. Better be safe than sorry.

Why should I? This would mean to fall for the propaganda of people like you. Marijuana is not healthy when someone is not ill. And misusing it is dangerous. Just like everything else in the world is when someone misuses it. If you drink enough water, you die. If you eat to much the effects are unhealthy.

But the point is that we want to decide for ourselves what we do with our lives. Even if it is not healthy. Nobody forces you or us to smoke weed. When people harm themselves it should not be he governments business. Period.

There is no need to proof that playing computer games for months without much of a break for sleeping and eating is unhealthy in order to demand that playing computer games should not be banned and punishable by long prison terms. The war on drugs was bad in Germany, but in the US you lost any proportions.

A lot of people here try to state that marijuana is harmless because they believe the mainstream propaganda that doing bad things to yourself and thus damaging the economy a tiny bit for being a slightly less productive member of society is a criminal activity.

I do not think so. Especially if smoking weed has similar or much less negative effects as alcohol which is legal I do not think I need to deny the negative effects of heavy abuse of that substance in order to demand the legalisation.

Simple as that.

I am not talking about the usage of different drugs. Just marijuana. But beginning at a very young age younger than 18 or even 16, for a reasonable long time, repeatedly and in high quantities.

But again: Alcohol consumption on this level would be much worse. So despite what those puritan extremists tell us: The effects on the brain are no valid reason against the legalisation of drugs.

It just suggests that the other extreme point of view, that it has no negative effect on the brain of a human on any age whatsoever and that there should not be any regulation against the selling to minors for recreational purposes is wrong, nothing more.

This does not disprove parent:

Her mental health is decreasing by her illness, marijuhana helps. The negative effects on the brain by the drug are a mild side effect and should be minimalised by controlled quality of the drug and controlled consumption.

This is not "heavy use on a daily basis" to get high and increasing the taken amount to get the same high because the brain quickly gets used to it. It is used as a medicine, not as a mostly recreational activity.

The fact that the positive effects may outweigh the reducable negative effects does not mean that they do not exist.

E.g. chemo is sometimes bad for the brain and the rest of your body. Being dead or growing a brain tumor outweighs those effects many times, but it does not nullify them.

No. I know one in Hamburg. Those effects are real. And what is the big deal with other drugs? You could live longer as a heroin junkie than as an alcohol addict if given pharmacy-grade quality. You get more addicted to heroin than to alcohol. But the actual effects on your body are smaller.

In my opinion, the government should regulate drugs - all of them. And allow many now illegal drugs, except of course for the really bad ones like crystal meth or crocodile. But who would use them if alternatives are available at a reasonable price?

Prohibition is a bad idea. Getting stoned everyday while being 14 on the other hand is just as stupid. In Germany, you get adult at 18, except for some felonies were you may get a discount until 21.

When the government is holding you responsible for our actions, it should not interfere with self inflicted harm. No censoring of media were nobody was actually harmed. No punishments for possessing things that help you inflict harm on yourself.

But I expect the state to prohibit the selling of the really bad stuff and the selling of drugs to minors.

I am a foreigner. I do not believe in "doing adult crime, doing adult time" like it is the case in the US. But at 21, when people are old enough to take responibility for their actions, the state should leave us to our recreational activities of our choice.

I am against the criminalisation of the possession of drugs. But selling drugs to minors is another story.

I've actually red some of those studies, but did not find cc ones. I wrote what I understand of those studies in the hope scientists came up with some citations here. It's easier to get to the sources if you actually bought the scientific papers, you know.

What is so bad in preventing minors from heavy use? It is not challenged that the brain needs some time to recover from a stoned weekend. And by time I do not mean a day.

Hammering the brain every day when you are supposed to get good marks and learn something is a good idea, because?

I am pro legalization, but I would not allow my kids to get stoned on a regular basis before they turned 21 and I suggest /.ers to do the same. I am a terrible person, I know.

And you know: Visiting some of those clinics, were they help those kids is indeed possible. Watch for yourself. And I am not talking about those poor guys that got their psychological illness caused by marihuana. For some, the funny voices you could hear when really stoned do not go away...

This is ridiculous. Alcohol is more dangerous than pot. Abusing pot heavily is still a bad idea because Paracelsus was right. The studies are out there. Find them for yourself. Why do some of us Nerds need to think only in yes and no? Sometimes it is just a bit more complex. I am not denying us the highs. I am just suggesting to be on the safe side with your kids - because I have (!) done my research and it sounds reasonable on more than one level. Let's leave it at that.

Yes. Those findings are not too clear. But on the other side, you could visit very heavy young users in clinics and watch those effects by yourself. Those guys really have problems they wouldn't if they smoked weed responsibly.

Paracelsus was no moron. German: Alle Ding' sind Gift, und nichts ohn' Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.
All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous. It may be impossible to use as much marijuhana as needed for dying on the poisonous effects of marihuana. But I would prevent minors from taking the risk of heavy marihuana abuse to find out what it REALLY does to the brain. Just like drinking alcohol on a regular basis, it may be a very bad idea for very young people that want to get a job were thinking may be neccessary.

What, like forever?

Just googled it. This is sick.

Why modded -1? This study supports other studies that came to similar conclusions:

Yes. Marijuhana-abuse by minors is a big problem. Not if done once, but an abuse, that does not affect grown ups (from 21 or better, 25 years on) very much has a devastating effect on their brains. The reason, as I understood it, is the rearranging of the whole brain structure while being juvenile. This rearrangement, as new scans showed, is much more fundamental than previously known. And smoking grass fucks that up big time. And it messes with the hormon levels. Those rearrangements possibly can not take place after the normal timeframe. If they were haltet or obfuscated by marihuana abuse, those youngsters have a permanent brain damage.

But: Abusing any brain affecting drug in that time will possibly do the same, so drinking alcohol instead of smoking is not an option. If I had children, I would insist on limiting marijuhana use to one time pet year, four times max until they are 21 (you are an adult at 18 here, so a bit of cooperation from the other side would be necessary. Any smoking of marihuana under the age of 16 would be completely out of the question.

Your war on drugs was one big mistake. But inform yourself before letting your kids use it limitless. If those studies are right, they suggest that using marihuana (esp. in a vaporizer) is indeed less dangerous than alcohol for the body. And does not effect grown ups as much as heavy drinking would. Even really heavy abuse does not make you significantly dumber, just a measurable bit and it is possible that the brain could recover, except for some problems with the short time memory, which MAY stay. But for youngsters that use marijuhana heavily, it may be that it really blows their mind away. But they would be DEAD if they drank as much, so demonizing pot is really dumb. Being dead means no brain functions whatsoever, so instead of being less stellar in school, they would rot...

But: It seems like the dangers to young people were underestimated.

That is why the Telekom announced the data caps for 2016. At VDSL sppeds the limit would be 200 gb. I sometimes exceed that limit already: Only the equivalent of 4 blurays as a cap? I don't think so. And 75 GB for the poor souls still depending on ADSL? Ridiculous.

So thanks to our good european overlords we get a heads up before someone is allowed to screw us over. I do not see the advantage here - except for the fact that the Telekom has competition - but rumor has it that vodafone will follow suit and cap bandwith.

Finland, finland, finland - the place I quite want to be ;-)

Internetconnectionwise, finland is one of the best countries to be in the northern hemisphere. And it shows...

Envy greetings from Germany ;)

Ok. You could do that. To me, cheap bandwith on my phone and unlimeted fast internet are essential, so I opted for o2. 3gb I could share over three sims for 23.50 EUR plus telephone, but usually that is only a few EUR.

And VDSL gets me 37 gb down and 10 up for 70 EUR including IPTV. Only VDSL with no cap, 50/10 - for the US guys here to drool about - costs about 30 EUR but is only available in major cities or certain areas.

The connection is way better than telekom VDSL because of their ridiculous peering to the US and youtube. It was unbelievable the two years I went back to them: Stuttering videos at "25 mbps" VDSL. Youtube, pr0n, downloads - it is unbelievable how bad they really are until you actually try another ISP that does not use the Telekom backbone. What use is a bandwith if you can use it for downloading stuff from the usenet at full speed but can not watch online videos with it or download stuff fast from the US?

+1 insightful, if I had modpoints

1. All the guys here are correct, you'll need to do it yourself to be absolutely shure.
2. Nevertheless, setting up a webmail- and IMAP-server might be a bit excessive just to be a bit more secure.

Look at posteo.de:

1GB for 1 EUR per month, up to 20 GB.
They claim that they can not relate your payment to the anonymously set up account. They are allowed to throw away any data not needed for doing the billing by German law, so they do that
Your ip in the emails is replaced by the generic ip of posteo, making it harder to trace you
They claim that they do not store any access-data
You could use calendar and contacts and opt in to encrypt that data on their server
The SSL-certificates are created via open source products and signed by a rather paranoid signing-center

As of now, they seem to be trustworthy and the situation in Germany is NOT yet as bad as it is in the US. Personally, I trust them.

As an off topic sidenote:
Disadvantage for you US guys: They are using only green energy, the bastards! Actually avoiding the good and beloved fossile and nuclear energy! Impossible! Germany is doomed, our economy is doomed, we are all going to die!

SCNR, but some comments on /. about alternative energies are... amusing, at least in my book as a German...