BPG24 said:
S Fats
Marijuana can cause many of the thing that you say that alcohol does. Don't know why you think that it can't
I do agree with you about Alcohol being the worst, but that is mainly due to it being so easy for anyone to get. If Marijuana and other drugs were sold at the corner store, than their numbers would sky rocket too.
Marijuana is also physically addictive. Unless you are only talking about your average dry shwag. The higher the level of THC, the more addictive it is.
I have smoked for 35 years. I have never been in trouble with the police, nor have I ever had problems of any kind related to my recreational use of pot. I smoke roughly a joint and a half a week of hydroponically grown White Witch, Purple Haze, or Northern Lights (all of which are top shelf strains). Sometimes I go six months or more without smoking at all. I have never, not once, felt a physical need to smoke. Independent study after study have come to the conclusion that marijuana is not physically addictive.
If you had to choose between attending one of two large festivals where one was composed of drinkers doing shots and beers (no limit on quantity of alcohol ingested) or another composed of marijuana smokers (again no limits on quantity)...which do you think would be a safer option if you are trying to avoid violent behavior?
I have never felt a desire to kick anyone's ass, argue with anyone, or engage in any anti-social behavior after smoking a joint. I can't say the same for alcohol.
Here's a few things I pulled up for purposes of this discussion:
1. "Most teens who use alcohol, cigarettes and marijuana do so before they are 14. Among teens who have tried alcohol, tobacco or marijuana, the average age of first use is a little more than 12 for alcohol, 12? for cigarettes, and 13 years 11 months for marijuana."
Source: QEV Analytics, "National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse VIII: Teens and Parents" (New York, NY: National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University, August 2003), p. 2.
2. Even after controlling for other factors (e.g., age, gender, family structure, income, past month marijuana use, etc.), there is "a relationship between past month alcohol use and emotional and behavioral problems. The relationships were particularly strong among heavy and binge alcohol use and delinquent, aggressive, and criminal behaviors."
Source: Greenblatt, Janet C., US Department of Justice, Bureau of Justice Statistics, Patterns of Alcohol Use Among Adolescents and Associations with Emotional and Behavioral Problems (Washington, DC: US Department of Justice, March 2000), p. 9.
3. (2000): "The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435,000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400,000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85,000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75,000), toxic agents (55,000), motor vehicle crashes (43,000), incidents involving firearms (29,000), sexual behaviors (20,000), and illicit use of drugs (17,000)."
(Note: According to a correction published by the Journal on Jan. 19, 2005, "On page 1240, in Table 2, '400,000 (16.6)' deaths for 'poor diet and physical inactivity' in 2000 should be '365,000 (15.2).' A dagger symbol should be added to 'alcohol consumption' in the body of the table and a dagger footnote should be added with 'in 1990 data, deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in alcohol consumption deaths, but not in motor vehicle deaths. In 2000 data, 16,653 deaths from alcohol-related crashes are included in both alcohol consumption and motor vehicle death categories."
Source: Mokdad, Ali H., PhD, James S. Marks, MD, MPH, Donna F. Stroup, PhD, MSc, Julie L. Gerberding, MD, MPH, "Actual Causes of Death in the United States, 2000," Journal of the American Medical Association, March 10, 2004, Vol. 291, No. 10, pp. 1238, 1241.
Source: Journal of the American Medical Association, Jan. 19, 2005, Vol. 293, No. 3, p. 298.)
4. An exhaustive search of the literature finds no credible reports of deaths induced by marijuana. The US Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN) records instances of drug mentions in medical examiners' reports, and though marijuana is mentioned, it is usually in combination with alcohol or other drugs. Marijuana alone has not been shown to cause an overdose death.
Source: Drug Abuse Warning Network (DAWN), available on the web at
http://www.samhsa.gov/; also see Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A. Benson, Jr., "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999), available on the web at
http://www.nap.edu/html/marimed/; and US Department of Justice, Drug Enforcement Administration, "In the Matter of Marijuana Rescheduling Petition" (Docket #86-22), September 6, 1988, p. 57.
5. The World Health Organization released a study in March 1998 that states: "there are good reasons for saying that [the risks from cannabis] would be unlikely to seriously [compare to] the public health risks of alcohol and tobacco even if as many people used cannabis as now drink alcohol or smoke tobacco."
Source: Hall, W., Room, R. & Bondy, S., WHO Project on Health Implications of Cannabis Use: A Comparative Appraisal of the Health and Psychological Consequences of Alcohol, Cannabis, Nicotine and Opiate Use, August 28, 1995, (contained in original version, but deleted from official version) (Geneva, Switzerland: World Health Organization, March 1998).
Fats
