The direct and 100% PROVEN “cost to society” from all these legal things dwarfs the theoretical cost of some loose links found in imaging studies of handpicked individuals who claim they used cannabis. Nobody is having heart attacks, losing their liver and having strokes at age 40 from just pot. The magnitude and directness of the damage of these deadly legal things is miles above anything that is even remotely correlated to cannabis. Even if ALL the risks in the studies are calculated absolutely correctly, cannabis is STILL proven to be far less dangerous than all these things we can legally abuse.
Alcohol, tobacco and Rx drugs cost society 300% that of ALL illegal drugs combined. Ok, so lets ban all drugs and alcohol! Prohibition will work this time!
Oh wait. People abusing refined sugar costs us more than ALL drugs and alcohol combined. Ban sugar too!
Hey now. How much does people watching TV or reading FR “cost us”? Being sedentary is FAR more correlated to stroke and dimentia than pot ever will be. Time to put ankle monitors on everyone and make sure they’re not sitting around too much! Its the lazy bums’ fault they got sick and I’m not paying their medical bills!
Any other “costs” that we can cut?
https://www.drugabuse.gov/related-topics/trends-statistics
Once again, you are making dubious comparisons and trying to claim that obesity incurs equivalent costs to *other people* as drug abuse.
Consuming sugar does not make people violent. People do not steal, rob, or assault other people to get the money to buy their next sugar fix. Obese people do not physically or verbally abuse other people as a result of eating a candy bar. FUrthermore, sugar happens to be one of the groups of macronutrients that is necessary for life, and sugar provides the fuel that keeps your body functioning. Sugar is only bad if you consume it disproportionately from the other necessary macronutrients. Let me reiterate: obesity affects only the obese person. Until their weight gets up into hundreds of pounds, they still work. They still support themselves. They have health insurance. They are not burdens on society the way drug addicts are.
Also, your comparison of FDA approved and prescribed drugs to illicit drugs is bizarre. Can you actually name an approved, properly prescribed, and correctly used drug whose effects are more damaging than the brain damage and behavior deficits which result from illicit drug abuse?
BTW, I happen to be a subject matter expert in this area. I work in medical research, where I currently oversee neurology research. I point this out because you seem to be new around here and are unfamiliar with my posting style. So quit trying to snow me with red herring claims.