I've already seen what the end of one "prohibition" for a narcotic drug did in History.
I don't think ending another one is going to benefit anyone except the dope peddlers.
Posted on 03/20/2015 10:51:48 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom
Worrying about teen drinking and drug use has kept many a parent up at night. With marijuana becoming increasingly available and legal in some parts of the country, the question has taken on new urgency: If teens are going to experiment, which is safer, booze or pot?
"The first answer always has to be neither," Dr. Aaron Carroll, a professor of pediatrics at Indiana University School of Medicine, told CBS News. But then he acknowledges they're not exactly equivalent -- and he considers alcohol much more dangerous.
Carroll wrote a provocative piece for the New York Times exploring what's known about the risks of these two popular but easily abused substances. And while doesn't advocate underage users trying either one, he says it's clear that overall, alcohol causes a lot more harm.
"After going through all the data and looking at which is more dangerous in almost any metric you would pick, pot really looks like it's safer than alcohol," he said. "So I guess if I had to choose, that would be the answer."
Though many people associate drugs with crime, Carroll notes that most of the criminal activity tied to marijuana has to do with illegal distribution, not violence committed by people who smoke it.
"On the other hand, the number of crimes that are committed that have some sort of alcohol component related to them are massive -- hundreds of thousands a year, if not more," he said. "It's far worse than what's going on with pot."
Violent assaults, in particular, are often fueled by alcohol. In contrast, Carroll says research shows rates of interpersonal or domestic violence are actually "lower in people who smoke marijuana than people that don't."
Also tipping the scales against drinking is the fact that 1,800 college students die each year from alcohol-related accidents and almost 600,000 are injured while under the influence of alcohol, according to the National Institutes of Health.
A study published last year, looking at data from more than 7,400 U.S. high school seniors who said they had used alcohol or marijuana at least once, found drinking alcohol was associated with more unsafe driving, damage to relationships with friends and romantic partners, and regret about actions while under the influence of alcohol, especially among females.
"We always worry about pot as a gateway drug," Carroll said, "but research shows us that about 9 percent of people who experiment with pot will become dependent or abuse it. The percent that later become dependent or abuse alcohol is greater than 20 percent. So more people who use alcohol are actually going to have a problem with it later in life."
Why is alcohol more socially accepted, despite all the evidence stacking up against it? Carroll thinks that's an accident of history -- because it's been around and legal for a longer period of time. "It's hard to argue from data or from actual science that that's the way it should be," he said.
"We have to have a conversation. There are risks and benefits, and in moderation everything is fine."
To say "Alcohol is bad", therefore we should have Marijuana, is exactly a tu quoque.
You are attempting to use the ill consequences of one drug, to justify the usage of another. Tu quoque literally means "You also. "
And before that, alcohol and tobacco.
Tu quoque.
No, to rebut a claimed distinction is not a tu quoque.
To say "Alcohol is bad", therefore we should have Marijuana
That's not what was said - are you hallucinating?
Off-duty police in fatal wrong-way crash had left strip club
Off duty cops driving wrong way on highway. You figure booze or weed ? I'm betting booze, the official government sanctioned Unsafe and Insane drug of choice. Drunk driver coming to your town soon !
I'm just noting a relationship between certain ethnic groups with high levels of violence and high levels of mj use.
Pot-causes-violence is just one possible explanation for that relationship - and that explanation is ruled out by the research I cited.
I've already seen what the end of one "prohibition" for a narcotic drug did in History.
I don't think ending another one is going to benefit anyone except the dope peddlers.
And see here? Another example. "Alcohol is bad, therefore we should allow marijuana."
Tu quoque.
They didn't bother to show up. I could buy weed or LSD in class. Buying alcohol was a real chore.
Irrelevant. The structure of a normal brain is well-defined, and so knowing what normal brains should look like is sufficient for interpreting the results without specifically including a non-smoking group. If you go to the doctor and receive a diagnosis of a broken bone, do you question the diagnosis because the doctor did not compare your x-rays to control x-rays? Or do you accept the diagnosis because you know the doctor has already been trained on what bones should look like?
Furthermore, that study shows a dose-response result. And that study did not happen in a vacuum--it corroborates the results of a series of previous studies, including animal studies (which tend to be more stringent and thus give higher quality data than human studies).
I’m thinking the cops were driving. I’ve never seen booze, or pot for that matter, drive. Blaming alcohol or pot for a crash is like blaming a gun for a mass shooting. We are better than that.
Hey, dummy! When you legalize pot those idiots are going to be out on the streets causing death and mayhem right along with the drunks because diving impaired is driving impaired!
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LOL.
so you believe that folks who have already demonstrated their disdain for the law by purchasing and using pot are suddenly strict observers of the law when it comes to driving under the influence?
That is simply too funny.
Precisely. That's the basic conservative principle.
Yes, it's like blaming anesthesia for losing consciousness. People could really stay awake if they wanted to.
Blaming alcohol or pot for a crash is like blaming a gun for a mass shooting. We are better than that.
Because we all know that guns cause chemical interactions in people's brains thereby causing them to go psychotic. That's why we have 100 million gun owners running amok every day.
I believe the Chinese once executed people for trafficking in tobacco. But tobacco is not marijuana, as marijuana is not opium. Frankly, I’m more concerned with the damage government will do with its’ new-found tax revenue.
I believe his point is that USAGE WILL INCREASE, and USERS WILL INCREASE.
People who do not now use pot will commence to using pot.
Precisely. That's the basic conservative principle.
Fine. I'll give you a dose of anesthesia and you can "decide" to stay awake.
Now if you see the absurdity of that idea, then perhaps you can see why we think it is absurd to believe people on drugs can decide anything in their right mind.
Your surmise that the results were implicitly compared to normal brains is not supported by any text in the paper.
Furthermore, that study shows a dose-response result.
No, it says regular smokers had less grey matter than occasional smokers - period.
And that study did not happen in a vacuum--it corroborates the results of a series of previous studies, including animal studies (which tend to be more stringent and thus give higher quality data than human studies).
There is no evidence on the table that any of those studies showed that marijuana causes brain damage with even light usage, as you claimed.
“Do you know any people who can use crack or opium with no bad effects?”
Yes, I’ve known people who used all hard substances occasionally for decades. They simply didn’t let it run their lives.
Just because some people have trouble controlling themselves, doesn’t mean we should ban things for the entire human race. Should we ban junk food, video games and TV because many people destroy their lives with them?
NO. Allowing things that might be dangerous is one of the fundamentals of a free society. The WOD began the slippery slope of controlling EVERY THING we do.
You can choose freedom and accept that some fools will kill themselves OR you can choose the nannystate and walk around with a throat implant that calls the government if you eat too many donuts (it’s already being developed).
So, in a comparison of people who had already had a first psychotic episode, they found no differences. This can be interpreted to mean that pot causes brain damage that is identical to the brain damage seen when something else causes the psychosis.
Psychosis seems to be a genetic condition, meaning that it disrupts normal gene expression. Marijuana disrupts gene expression due to its action on the cannabinoid receptors. Expression of genes at the cellular level translates to physical characteristics at the organismal level, and disruption of gene expression whether because of genetics or environment manifests the same way.
The short story is that a one-time observation of psychotic brains regardless of the cause of psychosis only shows that they look the same. The study tells nothing about gene expression or genetic variants.
People not under the influence can decide to use drugs; at most you've argued for regulation to limit overuse - something that can be accomplished only in a legal market.
You’ve convinced me. I now favor jailing people for the possession of alcohol.
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