Is marijuana intoxicating?

I think our initial intuition to this question says, "Yes, obviously," but there's something different about marijuana (and lsd and psilocybin for that matter). The difference is that marijuana is not toxic.

I think the initial intuition regarding the fifth precept is that we should refrain things that impair our facilities of mind. Now, there is literature which suggests that marijuana impairs short term memory, but maybe we're not seeing the effects of marijuana "intoxication" as they really are.

The main point that leads me to wonder that marijuana might not be intoxicating is that marijuana is not toxic. Drugs like alcohol, cocaine, and opiates are commonly used at doses which are about 10% of what is lethal. Those drugs have a poisonous property. Psychedelic drugs however, (with the exception of MDMA and synthetic psychedelic drugs) have virtually no toxicity.

submitted by /u/tremblingtruffle
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