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Per CDC - 480,000 deaths annually from cigarettes, leading cause for preventable death
Per NIH - 88,000 alcohol related deaths in 2013
Per research, the worst I could find was that marijuana "could cause" up to 30,000 deaths per year, citing same effects as cigarettes.
Billions of government dollars are spent fighting the war on marijuana, and revenue lost not legalizing also in the billions.
With the tax dollars received from cigarette sales, very little is used towards programs to prevent tobacco use.
The government spends upwards of a million purchasing alcohol. The government does spend billions on substance abuse programs annually which includes alcohol and the "harder" drugs.
I'm egging on the marijuana detractors to spin their story to make marijuana as bad as alcohol or cigarettes for any reason. In my mind, there is no debate. Marijuana is the only one of the three that has medicinal qualities, and the only one grown naturally (herb). And now that states are starting to legalize marijuana, for the sake of this debate legality need not be discussed.
Don't forget all the homicides every year due to the War on Drugs, the huge prison population we keep because of it (https://www.bop.gov/about/statistics...e_offenses.jsp), and all the issues we've managed to cause in Mexico and South America. Also don't forget all the no knock warrants, the asset forfeitures, and other civil rights infringements we put up with.
IMHO the cure is far, far worse than the disease. That's assuming the cure is even accomplishing anything.
I mean, I can't see a single good thing for American society that comes from alcohol (and plenty of bad things like drunken assaults, drunken rapes, drunken driving, drunken domestic violence, etc) ... yet I'd be 100% against bringing back Prohibition.
You can eat MJ which debunks the same as tobacco myth. I've been doing it all week
I dont think the smoking thing is a myth. I just have a hard time imagining that lighting something on freaking fire,and breathing it can be healthy. I highly recommend you keep eating it instead.
Vaping (e-cigs) is getting huge. As a non smoker who grew up around smokers, I'm totally for e-cigs and the FDA should just butt out.
Any time a new substance is invented to eat, drink, or smoke, they have to try to ban it. Vaping gives off mostly water vapor. Let them use it on planes and in restaurants and quit trying to regulate every g-d--m thing.
As for pot--meh. Let it be legal. It's not physically harmful but it can mess with your short term memory and overuse has other deleterious effects. If you use it in moderation, probably not a problem. If you abuse it, it's your funeral and leave me out of it.
Drunk driving is one of the worst things because so many victims are innocent. It causes more than half of all traffic deaths. For that particular case I would lock the bastards up and throw away the key, like they do in Sweden. Apart from that... We should be more like Europe, where the kids grow up having a glass of wine with dinner and they don't have the need to binge drink when they turn 18.
Last edited by blisterpeanuts; 11-23-2015 at 05:07 AM..
After reading several medically oriented articles on this topic, it seems that the main problem would be that if you allow unregulated use by adults you provide more opportunity for youth to get hold of these. When youth get hold of these the effects on their bodies and mental development produce permanent damage.
Vaping (e-cigs) is getting huge. As a non smoker who grew up around smokers, I'm totally for e-cigs and the FDA should just butt out.
Any time a new substance is invented to eat, drink, or smoke, they have to try to ban it. Vaping gives off mostly water vapor. Let them use it on planes and in restaurants and quit trying to regulate every g-d--m thing.
As for pot--meh. Let it be legal. It's not physically harmful but it can mess with your short term memory and overuse has other deleterious effects. If you use it in moderation, probably not a problem. If you abuse it, it's your funeral and leave me out of it.
Drunk driving is one of the worst things because so many victims are innocent. It causes more than half of all traffic deaths. For that particular case I would lock the bastards up and throw away the key, like they do in Sweden. Apart from that... We should be more like Europe, where the kids grow up having a glass of wine with dinner and they don't have the need to binge drink when they turn 18.
Eh, it really depends on which country we're talking about in that region of the world. Some are actually worse than we are here in the states, though some do much better: WHO alcohol consumption league table
For example, do the NIH numbers include all the cancers associated with alcohol consumption?
You say, 'He died of bladder cancer.' Ok. He will be filed in the bladder cancer death group. But we now know that bladder cancer can be caused/linked to alcohol consumption.
The detriment to society also cannot only be counted in how many people die. What about lost productivity? How much are the ER bills of all the drunks or potheads that come in with adverse effects? (And btw, before you try to sing your song about how nothing bad happens with marijuana just bc nothing's happened to you and your reefer buddies, let me tell you that 13 years and 70,000+ patients under my belt tell me a very different story.)
How about lost work productivity from stupid smoke breaks?
It's not just a numbers game as played out by the op.
I think the more important question is...potential medicinal qualities aside, why do so many people feel they have alter their minds? What's broken inside them? Why can't they have a good time without being high/sloshed/buzzed?
For example, do the NIH numbers include all the cancers associated with alcohol consumption?
You say, 'He died of bladder cancer.' Ok. He will be filed in the bladder cancer death group. But we now know that bladder cancer can be caused/linked to alcohol consumption.
The detriment to society also cannot only be counted in how many people die. What about lost productivity? How much are the ER bills of all the drunks or potheads that come in with adverse effects? (And btw, before you try to sing your song about how nothing bad happens with marijuana just bc nothing's happened to you and your reefer buddies, let me tell you that 13 years and 70,000+ patients under my belt tell me a very different story.)
How about lost work productivity from stupid smoke breaks?
In my experience in the corporate world, smoke breaks largely correlated with non-smoke breaks. The non-smokers would wander out to the lounge and see what was on the television or head over to chat around someone's cubicle, while the smokers would head to the smoking room (this was back in the 1990s and earlier) or outside (after smoking was banned indoors at the corporation where I worked). And a few years later (around 2005) smoking was banned entirely on the campus, and since it was over a quarter-mile walk to get off campus (and then getting off campus entailed crossing either a freeway or a major thoroughfare) then there simply was little on-site smoking. There was some for awhile (you can tell - smokers stink, especially right after sucking down a heater post-haste in their car with the windows rolled up and hoping security doesn't drive by right then) but it didn't last long. So if a business wants to clamp down on smoking, it can. This also benefits the business in the employee insurance they provide - insurers will give deals for businesses that refuse to enable smoking, knowing that it will lead to decreased cigarette consumption by that businesses employees and thus fewer health problems the insurer might have to cover.
But on the topic of costs you can also factor in all the costs of making and keeping something illegal - the costs of employing the police and the prosecutors and the judges and the incarcerators who will enforce the laws. Those are substantial costs.
Whether or not using alcohol or tobacco or marijuana is good for an individual is a different question that whether or illegalization offers a net benefit to society.
Quote:
I think the more important question is...potential medicinal qualities aside, why do so many people feel they have alter their minds? What's broken inside them? Why can't they have a good time without being high/sloshed/buzzed?
Address this question instead.
Address it in your own thread instead of hijacking this one.
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