Pot vs. Alcohol

I generally agree with this as far as recreational use of anything goes. At the very least, de-criminalization seems like a good financial idea, given the amount of money spent prosecuting and holding drug offenders, and if you go so far as to legalize, regulate, and tax the fuck out of drugs, you are even creating revenue. There are a significant number of people who would much rather get weed legally if at all possible.

Aside from my own beliefs about personal freedom and all that shit, cannabinoids have been shown to have medicinal benefits that are recognized and under research by many highly respected and important medical institutions. They consider it to be under review, I suppose. Any medical professional will tell you that smoking weed is bad for you, mostly because smoking anything is bad for you. smoke contains tar, inhaling it is a bad idea. There are negative effects of THC, especially if you happen to have a predisposition for certain psychological or cardiac disorders, but in many cases they are not significant, and certainly do not outweigh the benefits. A good example of this would be many forms of cancer. If a doctor tells you that you are most likely going to die in 2 months, and another one tells you that cannabinoid treatment has a chance to help, you should, by all means, be allowed to try it. You really don't have much to lose.

Also, there exist synthetic cannabinoids that are legal and in use, however, none have been found as effective as what you get straight from the source.

Another interesting note is that THC is not necessarily the most effective cannabinoid for medicinal use. There are others that do not, in fact, get a person high, but can be used in treatment.

In any case, when it comes to straight up marijuana v. ethanol, medically, ethanol is probably more physically damaging, however it is also a matter of amounts used. A person who smokes a oz of weed a week over many years will probably do more harm to their body than a person who drinks one glass of wine a day. So the assessment that alcohol is more damaging is only fair in comparable amounts.

I don't particularly care if people smoke pot but I do judge them as being dumber than I would if they didn't. This might not be the case if said person only smoked pot like once a month or something but in my experience this is not usually the case. It's like knowing someone drinks heavily every few days, you know that they aren't making smart decisions. As someone with asthma I also note that smoking pot is still putting smoke in your body and a bad idea for them and more importantly for me. Also the smell of pot makes me rather nauseous. It's kinda difficult have a good impression of someone if their mere presence makes you want to leave the room.

This is the post I elided, because I deemed it too harsh:




I'd like to add, however, it makes little to no sense at all to bring "culture" into play. Culture can, and must change according to the times we live in. Something being cultural heritage does not magically make it right (cf. satī!).




They'll also tell you it's bad for you because of the long-term neurological effects.

If you get drunk you hop into your car, drive off and get into an accident where someone is going to get hurt. If your stoned you sit in front of a stop sign for a few hours waiting for it to turn green.

You can eliminate all the problems of of smoking by using a vaporizer, just saying. The neurological damage will still be there, but your lungs wouldn't be filled with smoke.

I gotta say I'm on the side that weed should be legalized in limited amounts, meaning that as long as you posses under a certain amount you're (legally) alright. Just like anything if you abuse marijuana in large amounts you're going to harm yourself and, potentially, others.

While I've never had any hard feelings toward weed smokers/"users" it wasn't until recently that I ever thought that I'd be one of them. With my health the way it is now I've started to "consume" weed. For the last couple of months I've used a weed spray that I just spray onto my arm, it's not very strong but it helps to settle my stomach, relax me, and helps with my headaches. In terms of smoking it... I may have to try it eventually but with my asthma I'm not looking forward to it, however since I have to deal with my father's cigars every day I don't see it making it that much worse. And if it does I'll either have to try using a vaporizer or some other way of consuming it.

As far as alcohol goes, as long as it's consumed in moderation, it can improve people's health. Despite that, I can't see myself drinking much of it even once I am 21. I'm not waiting to start drinking because of the laws as much as I am to make sure I don't impact my health in some way.

o rly?

Quoting the abstract:



For more information kindly consult Corder R, Douthwaite JA, Lees DM, et al. Endothelin-1 synthesis reduced by red wine. Nature 2001; 414:863–864, as summarized by this popular-media article.

Hypocritical of you to assume all drinkers will hop into a car, and all stoners will just sit around, uh?

1. Not good, but still better than alcohol.

2. Alcohol. Drunks still have some sort of ability to get to a car door. Not sure if being stoned is any better, but obviously alcohol seems to leave people the ability to enter vehicles.

3. I'd say legalized. Maybe it'll get more people off of alcohol. And like loller said:



Will weed be better? Don't know. Hard to say since one's illegal and the other's legalized, so saying alcohol is more widespread and has a more adverse effect isn't really sensible.

1. Your views on weed?

I personally don't use it, but I don't judge anyone who does. I'm friends with several people who do use it and I've been around while they use it to hang out. I've never seen any horrible side effects, basically they laugh at more stuff, forget things easier and want to have fun rather than work. It's a recreational drug that causes little to no harm.

2. Which do you think is truly worse (not just for a single person but society as a whole).

I believe alcohol is worse as it causes many deaths per year due to over ingestion, vehicular accidents, or from stupid actions. Marijuana causes less of a change of a state of mind than alcohol can, and I've yet to hear of a case wear someone got pot poisoning...

3. Legalized or not?

Yeah, go for it. It's the least harmful drug out there and can help bring in some money through sales and taxes. It's being used regardless of its illegality and it's relatively harmless, there should be no reason why it isn't legal when compared to cigarettes and alcohol.

Alcohol is alcohol... I think everyone knows what they should about it, and I can't say a lot.

However, I have written two college papers on Marijuana, and done many, many hours of research...
While I will not even attempt to claim I know all or even most of what there is to know about Marijuana and it's possible uses, what I can claim is I have found evidence leading to MUCH more good than bad.

However, personal views aside, ignoring benefits and disadvantages of either keeping it banned or legalizing it, allow me to ask the obvious:

Are current laws doing what they're supposed to?


According to a study by Jeffrey Miron, a Visiting Professor of Economics, the U.S. Government is spending $7.7 billion a year to keep Marijuana out of the lives of Americans.
In spite of that, Law enforcement arrest an estimated 800,000 people for ONLY marijuana related crimes- yearly.


Simply put: what we are doing now is not working. We are spending a mind blowing amount of money and ruining the lives of thousands of Americans, for what? What has pot done so badly that we MUST keep it banned?

Well,
Has ANYONE ever recorded a death directly related to the use of Marijuana?
No.
Does Marijuana provoke violence from an individual under it's influence?
No.
Does the use of Marijuana have serious health risks?
Aside from smoke damage to the lungs if you choose to use it that way, none I have found.

The list goes on... but I'm tired of defending Cannabis against myths, misguided information, and the lies that got it prohibited in the first place. The plant is one of, if not the, best crop in the world- even excluding it's medicinal use.

Even if you disagree and do not want the drug to be floating around easily... It already is. All I can say is I would much rather have it controlled by the government than the drug dealers.

I stand corrected, and I will openly admit that I haven't done much research into it myself so I'm happy to be corrected.

This should have been a poll.

I say weed is no good for you at all. I am not going to even answer all the questions, alcohol is bad for you, and so is weed, both can be addicting. The difference? Alcohol in small quantities has been proven to be good for you actually. Only in large quantities, and abused, can alcohol really ruin your life. Weed may seem harmless, but it slowly, and surely, is ruining your brain cells. Plus from what my friend told me when he stopped smoking was quote "ever since i stopped smoking weed I noticed I have had less headaches" swear to god, those were his exact words.

In all, alcohol is a better choice, so long as it is not abused. Weed is just a crock of bullshit. They say it is good for arthritis, but there is an old story, that says if you believe something is special, it IS special. I can sit here and chew on my fingers, if I think it will make them sharper, they just might get sharper.

nzephier, read the quote in the post above you. :P XD
But I still support alcohol because, really, I do not pretend to drink because of its ' beneficial' health effects... x)

Reasons to support alcohol:
It kills a quite a few persons, thus we have less retards on the world, the market and the state profit (namely the alcohol industry, the state through taxes and the funeral institution) and it helps with overpopulation, though not too much.

Sarcasm aside, in the end it is a question of who you want to protect. By not legalizing the stuff you protect the ones who are being scared off by the "illegal" part of acquiring weed, the ones who would like to try it but too mentally handicapped to acquire the drug or the ones who would become addicted by chance.

By legalizing it you would give the advantage to those who would use it just like a responsible user consumes alcohol, those who want it to lessen pain and you can take a pro active stance against illegal selling, make money from taxes and might even save hospitalization costs or similar because someone smoked something claimed to be weed.

**EDIT**

Sorry I must have lagged and it double posted.

This is the post I elided, because I deemed it too harsh:



Yes... and you do realize getting in a crash on a motorcycle can have neurological effects. Same with over the counter medicines. As well as landing on your neck while bouncing on a trampoline.

So I rule that reason pointless because there are things that have worse effects on the mind than weed.

Also for the last time I would like to point out that weed is not how the government and the media make it out to been. Weed is not like a drama show for recovering drug user's and it's the hardest thing in the world to kick. It's been proven multiple times that it is not addictive and has no addictive qualities. It's all upon the user and how they decide to control how much they use and when.