d that marijuana was associated with relatively as many accidents as alcohol. However, a closer examination revealed that around 85% of the people intoxicated on marijuana were also intoxicated on alcohol. For people only intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than for alcohol alone. This evidence, has also been supported by other research using several completely different methods.To try and explain feeling stoned to someone who has never been there is very difficult. A survey in 1971 of 100 volunteers who were regular marijuana smokers produced the following results as to what being stoned actually is. Many users notice a greater sense of sound, increased hunger (eating a whole week's food in one night), thirst, dry mouth, feelings of increased empathy, and a feeling that time has slowed down. The majority of subjects experienced no ill-effects, slept well and awoke calm and clear headed after the acute effects had passed. A small number of users reported negative feelings of anxiety. The feelings you experience are also influenced by the amount of marijuana you take, its potency, the environment you are in and your emotional state before getting stoned. It is probably impossible to describe exactly what it is, but the above survey is a fair report of what happens to you when you get stoned.The myth "There is more than a thousand chemicals in marijuana smoke" is true, but misleading. The August 31, 1990 issue of the magazine Science notes that of the more than 800 damaging chemicals present in coffee, only twenty-one have actually been tested on animals and sixteen of these cause cancer in rodents. Yet coffee remains legal and is generally considered fairly safe.The dominant fear about marijuana in the 20th century has been that its effects were somehow similar to the dangerously addictive effects of opiates such as morphine and heroin. Scientists feared that , like opiates, it had an extremely high potential for abuse a...
