Marijuana - Good or Bad? Moved Topic!!

[Aractus]

In my experience, THC itself is not physically addictive like nicotine. I would like to quit smoking cigarettes, but I have an addiction.

Nicotine is very addictive, this is true, but alcohol and thc are also addictive and some people become addicted.

THC being a depressant doesn't mean it causes depression.

Depressants relax muscles, decrease cognitive function, motor skills, etc. As alcohol is also a depressant, they can be dangerous when combined with alcohol. Alcohol though is also a source of energy, whereas THC is not.

Alcohol or cigarettes are never prescribed really.

Cigarettes used to be prescribed before it was known just how addictive nicotine is.

As far as THC showing up in feces and/or urine. Well, water is a necessity to life, yet they both appear in feces and water.

Water is a solvent, the solvent is needed to pass the solutes in the urine; and the purpose of the kidneys is not to produce urine, but to maintain blood pressure, blood volume and electrolyte and nutrient balance. Thus if you have high blood pressure, more water needs to be removed to lower it in the urine. If you have low blood pressure indicating that you're dehydrated, more water will be retained.

THC is fat soluble (which is why so little of it gets absorbed in the lungs), and to my knowledge it is not metabolised by any cells or broken down by any enzymes present in the human body. What this means is that it circulates in your blood, freely enters fat cells since they're fat permeable, has trouble leaving fat cells (since it's water impermeable), and then ultimately has to be filtered by the kidneys into your urine for removal. This process is very slow competitively speaking, which is why thc both builds up in your fat cells over time (when marijuana is smoked regularly), and why it remains present in the blood in a testable amount for a very long time. Thus it can have prolonged negative effects on cognition and muscle control.

Alcohol, although not technically a carbohydrate is close enough to one that the rules of carbohydrates generally apply to it: it has to be metabolised by the liver, which both uses it for energy and to convert it to glucose so other cells can use the energy. It will not be filtered by the kidneys, just as they don't filter carbohydrates (sucrose, fructose, lactose, glucose, etc) unless of course you have a disease state (e.g. diabetes).