Last I checked neurogenesis of any form is literal mind expansion.

Check again, please, because the brain is quite a bit more than the "mind": there are all these neuronal groups dedicated to controlling things like hormonal production, blood pressure and the like that take no part in our conscience of ourselves, ability to predict the environment or other higher-order functions.

And don't bother pulling out the DEA's favorite old studies where they asphyxiated primates to cause mental damage and happened to use marijuana smoke to do it. I've shown a benefit and the default is that the substance is harmless so the net ESTABLISHED result is that the substance is beneficial.

The did that? I didn't know. But once again, I have never asserted that marihuana harms the brain, only that the "mind expansion" argument needs proofs. And I have hardly seen any yet.

Regarding memory, there is evidence that there is a temporary decrease in short term memory capacity on marijuana use but the said impairment is completely reverted upon stopping use. So that does not qualify as long term damage.

That may be true, but since we are discussing "mind expansion" I would follow from your argument that no, marihuana doesn't actually help mind expansion.

Anything you come up with is going to be from addiction clinics which are essentially just profit mills who make serious money pretending marijuana has significant addiction potential. Anything coming from them on the topic is equivalent to listening to the tobacco lobby on the health effects of tobacco. It is biased garbage. More than 30% of the population uses marijuana and addiction research indicates a 30% addiction rate but I've yet to meet a marijuana addict. I have met people who went for treatment for other things who admitted they smoke marijuana and got a checkmark for marijuana addiction on the sheet. I've also known teens whose parents discovered they smoked and admitted them who similarly were listed as marijuana addicts.

I'm not coming up with anything, mind you. If you re-read, I'm using the references you so kindly provided.

I work at a technology firm. I am surrounded by people who mostly have genius level IQ's on a daily basis. Programmers, engineers, scientists, and people in the aerospace industry. Their incidence of smoking marijuana is far far higher than that 30% of the general population. I think I know three guys professionally who don't smoke and dozens if not hundreds who do. There certainly is no evidence of impairment there.

You see no evidence of impairment, which may be true, but it is not the point we are arguing. We are arguing whether marihuana "expands your mind" or not. My experience (basically as anecdotical as yours at your technology firm) doesn't lead me to consider marihuana something that makes people think better (for some values of "better"). Yours leads you to consider that it doesn't make people think worse. At most, both our experiences together might be evidence that it does nothing one way or the other. But for the memory issue you mentioned, of course.

I'm not saying marijuana is harmless. I don't know of much of anything that is. But it is fairly benign as most things go if used in moderation and there is no especially compelling evidence that it damages your brain.

I'm not saying marihuana is harmful either. I'm saying it is not beneficial, as far as I can tell. And, like everything else, in its right dose it can be harmless. But pot smokers don't get marihuana in medically tested doses, as far as I know, so their "moderated level" is actually unknown.

Implying nothing. I'm not denying that cannabinoids induce neurogenesis in other parts of the brain because I know of no studies about it. But this study only concludes effects in the hippocampus and memory-unrelated behaviors. Thus it is insufficient evidence for any kind of "mind expansion", which is what we are talking about.

That's an interesting point. The people I talk about started smoking pot quite soon.

As I answered before, that study only shows ansiolytic and anti-depressive effects related to the hippocampal neurogenesis induced by marihuana consumption. No evidence of effects on memory or the neocortex is shown. Sorry, but that study, while interesting, has almost nothing to do with "mind expansion".

Actually, I didn't expect to be modded up. As you say, I'm talking about my experience. That said, the people I talk about are all over the spectrum, so few if any fit the "moron burnout" term: several have university careers, for example. If you are going to accuse me of jumping to conclusions (which you did), at least take care of not doing the same.

While we are at it, the NIH study talks about neurogenesis in the hippocampus, which can be a good thing, but I don't remember the hippocampus being related to the neocortex besides its memory function. But the study doesn't research memory effects, but anxiolitic and anti-depressive ones. Since there is no mention of marihuana's effects on memory and the neo-cortex I can only conclude that this study doesn't show anything about mind expansion.

Please don't put words in my mouth. I didn't establish any causality about marihuana being nocive, I just said I hadn't seen any evidence of the mind expansion asserted by the AC I answered to. I didn't say anything about other psychedelic drugs either.

I would talk about your being paranoid, but you might consider it another attack on your beloved plants (anxiety attacks and paranoia having occurred some times after consuming marihuana -perhaps not directly related-), so I will let you have your fun with them and keep waiting for evidence of mind expansion.

I don't know what kind of expansion you are talking about. After years of watching pot smokers I can't actually say their minds have expanded at all. Some of them seem to have lost a bit of functionality, actually.

I can only hope that good shit happens to you on the other days of the week too, and that the attitude conducive to freedom and liberty has something to do with it as well. Otherwise, you live quite a pitiful life.

And _that_ is why "Guide to the Bible" is a referenced compilation of specialists' works instead of original work ;)

About the I Kings reference... do you have any evidence about the different measures or are you just applying "common sense"?

I suggest you read Asimov's "Guide to the Bible" which, as it itself states, is not original research but a collection of the data Bible researchers have put together through the years.

Because they can't. If they could, do you really have such a high opinion of them to think that they wouldn't?

It doesn't really matter. Think what you will, taxes are needed. We may discuss the amount, but not the fact.

So it is ok if I put some Tippex on your ink and write something else? It's the same issue.

No, "my own" is the hard disk, as it is. Changing it isn't different than overwriting my printed papers with anything else (even if using Tippex).

Data is not property, that's true. But the magnetic fields on my physical magnetic media are. If you want me to change them you'd better have a good reason... or a judge ordering me to.

My point is, did the drone actually enter the property? They state it was still over public land. If that's true, there is no basis for the "sneaking into" argument. Could they still be prosecuted por other reasons? Perhaps, but that's not what I'm asking about.