Someone with greater insight into the way of the world than I will ever achieve once said, “All things in moderation and moderation in all things.” They had a great point. Feel free to enjoy the many fruits of life, but don’t enjoy them too much. Don’t become an addict or some sort of silly hippie or daft neocon and make damn sure you don’t end up a sniveling emo-kid.

Sadly, human nature is incongruous with this idea. We all have parts of our personalities that make us susceptible to addiction in it’s many forms. It’s the same reason we have huge problems with meth or obesity or alcoholism. Lays Potato Chips once dared us, “We bet you can’t eat just one,” and we heartily accepted. Now, we’re the tubbiest nation on the planet.

Some of these addictions are fabricated out of whole cloth, though. I just read an article that is a prime example. A study has been conducted by our government on marijuana. Yes, marijuana. Ganja. Weed. Herb. Bud. Scourge of couches, boon of take-out pizza places, gateway drug to shitty television. The government, though it usually likes it’s citizenry to be as docile and compliant as possible, keeps pushing back against a widely available drug that does just that. And; surprise, surprise, they’ve found that it’s very bad for our health…but with some conditions.

The study points out that marijuana use my increase your risk of stroke and heart attack, a shocking statement, to be sure. But, if you put down that bong and read past the headline into the meat of the story, you’ll quickly see that it’s little more than a smokescreen.

“Chronic marijuana use is not only causing people to get high, it’s actually causing long-term adverse effects in patients who use too much of the drug,” Cadet, whose study is in the journal Molecular Psychiatry, said in a telephone interview. “Chronic marijuana abuse is not so benign.”

The marijuana users in the study averaged smoking 78 to 350 marijuana cigarettes per week, based on self-reported drug history, the researchers said.

78 to 350 joints a week? At the high end, that equates to more than a 2 1/2 pack a day smoking habit! Who the hell are these people? Assuming that not everyone reading this smokes marijuana, and admitting that I have, on occasion, toked a bit in the past, let me point out that that number is CRAZY! If the government thinks that this is the average that a “chronic” (hehe, chronic…) marijuana user smokes in a given week, no wonder they assume that it’s a blight on society.

I have friends (this isn’t a cover, I really do have friends, honest) who are avowed potheads. They have held a myriad of part-time food service jobs over the course of their uneventful lives and spend most of their time not at work parked firmly on their couch, joint in one hand, clicker in the other. When I brought this number up to one of them, who has been smoking for the better part of 20 years, he sputtered out a cloud of acrid smoke, looked me in the eye and said, “Seriously, dude? That’s just in-f*@#ing-sane. I’ve never smoked that much. Well, actually, there was this one time…”

Needless to say, his story involved a jam band, a group of friends with nature-friendly nicknames and a broken-down VW bus. All of it, he swears, true. I’ll take him at his word.

That’s a governmental study that I’m sure college students and shiftless layabouts everywhere were stumbling all over themselves to get in line to be a test subject. The sheer amount of guys bearing a striking resemblance to Jeff Lebowski was, I’m sure, overwhelming. But, even for those subjects chosen, with their obvious expertise on the subject, it was probably the most high they had ever been. Minutes seemed like hours, hours seemed like days and days probably seemed like bathing in a pool of Jerry Garcia’s guitar riffs and patchouli.

Of course smoking that amount of pot is bad for you. I imagine smoking that many cigarettes, a legal drug, is also pretty damn bad for you. If you were to eat or drink or inhale 78 to 350 of anything, save spaghetti or M&M’s, in a week, it’s bound to be bad for you in some way or another, even if it’s a freaking carrot or tomatoes(especially tomatoes). Hell, if you drink too much water in a short amount of time, you can get high. If you drink too much, you can die. Marijuana Policy Project spokesperson, David Mirken, puts it rather well-

“We’re talking about people who are stoned all the time. We’re talking about the marijuana equivalent of the guy in the alley clutching a bottle of cheap wine. If you do anything to that level of excess, it might well have some untoward effects, whether it’s marijuana or wine or broccoli. Even if you take this finding at face value, it’s not at all clear that it has any relevance to the real world because there is still no data showing higher rates of mortality among marijuana smokers. If this was a significant cause of cardiovascular disease, where are the bodies?”

Moderation in all things and all things in moderation, remember?