Your Drugs Are No Holier Than Mine

[Da Skinna]

Okay, so today I got into a little argument with my boss at work. No, this time I didn't tell him how to do his job, but I did tell him he's being very ignorant in his belief that marijuana is worse than alcohol.

So... is alcohol any better than marijuana? Would we be better off as a race if marijuana and alcohol's roles in our modern societies were reversed, with alcohol being the illegal substance while weed being the commonly accepted poison?

I mean, we all choose our poisons, so my point to him was, "hey, your drugs, and alcohol very much is a drug, is no holier than mine!"

Which he simply cannot accept, his views are very narrow and limited on the subject, granted, but the attitude, it's the attitude that bothered me. He was so cocksure he knew for certain that alcohol was the better of the two. Not even the lesser of two evils, but simply "good" rather than sharing the same arena as other drugs.

I countered that marijuana is only put on the same level as other, harder drugs only because it shares the same culture, the same illegality, and hence the same circles of users.

History has shown that prohibition simply does not work. So instead of drawing a line between what harms society and what has the littlest effect, we have decided that hey, this one exception can be made. Alcohol can be made legal, and subsequently very profitable.

I am in search of the truth here, and my belief is that ignorance of the realities can only lead to the perpetuation of lies that promote a kind of idealism, that inevitably, invariably, will work to hurt more than help.

We cannot scare ourselves into proper form, we can only guide ourselves and others into a form that works for us individually, the real challenge is in deciding which works for us as a whole. Lies simply do not. Scare tactics simply will not work.

Scare tactics in itself is a slippery slope, does anyone agree?





So... drugs are what they are, if it works for us, fine, if it doesn't, learn some self-control and take responsibility. But please don't blind yourself with something you take as fact and apply it so forcefully that all other voices are drowned. Please don't trip us up when we are trying to gain our footing on this slippery slope and reach the top, the pinnacle, where the ugliest of truths are laid bare, where the truths are given and we are left with deciding for ourselves what the best truth is, what the best truth for ourselves happens to be. Don't trip progression because you feel you are right.

[boofhead]

Alcohol is far worse in almost every respect. Look at the death tolls from accidents and fighting, the health-toll it can take on some, the broken families and traumatized children for those who take it too far. Look at the social effects when you get gatherings of alcoholics in certain areas.

While pot isn't without its own harmful effects, I think a person would have to be dreaming to think marijuana is the worse of the two. You don't see many stoned fights.

Some people just have this idea: legal = good; illegal = bad. That's about it, I think, at the end of the day. And while of course it's advisable to obey the law, sodomy and lots of other things used to be illegal also. Now most people wouldn't care either way.

The ACT (a territory) in Australia has decriminalized it altogether - I think SA did something along those lines also, where you can grow 2 plants on your own property for personal use only. Even in NSW they find a little bit on someone they'll just give you a caution and tell you to piss off.

Things are changing.

(I don't think Flower Power in the 60s helped it's perception at all - bloody hippie loons )

[Da Skinna]

Alcohol is far worse in almost every respect. Look at the death tolls from accidents and fighting, the health-toll it can take on some, the broken families and traumatized children for those who take it too far. Look at the social effects when you get gatherings of alcoholics in certain areas.

While pot isn't without its own harmful effects, I think a person would have to be dreaming to think marijuana is the worse of the two. You don't see many stoned fights.

Some people just have this idea: legal = good; illegal = bad. That's about it, I think, at the end of the day. And while of course it's advisable to obey the law, sodomy and lots of other things used to be illegal also. Now most people wouldn't care either way.

The ACT (a territory) in Australia has decriminalized it altogether - I think SA did something along those lines also, where you can grow 2 plants on your own property for personal use only. Even in NSW they find a little bit on someone they'll just give you a caution and tell you to piss off.

Things are changing.

(I don't think Flower Power in the 60s helped it's perception at all - bloody hippie loons )

All too true.

Except the changing part, that's actually quite hopeful. Our newer generations, and those leading them, I hope are realistic enough to understand the triviality and futility in keeping this drug (marijuana) illegal and criminalized.

Your signature is funny like that.

[Mother Yoda]

Depends what your qualification for 'worse' is. Both are incredibly dangerous when abused.

QFT

Alcohol is far worse in almost every respect. Look at the death tolls from accidents and fighting, the health-toll it can take on some, the broken families and traumatized children for those who take it too far. Look at the social effects when you get gatherings of alcoholics in certain areas.

While pot isn't without its own harmful effects, I think a person would have to be dreaming to think marijuana is the worse of the two. You don't see many stoned fights.

Some people just have this idea: legal = good; illegal = bad. That's about it, I think, at the end of the day. And while of course it's advisable to obey the law, sodomy and lots of other things used to be illegal also. Now most people wouldn't care either way.

The ACT (a territory) in Australia has decriminalized it altogether - I think SA did something along those lines also, where you can grow 2 plants on your own property for personal use only. Even in NSW they find a little bit on someone they'll just give you a caution and tell you to piss off.

Things are changing.

(I don't think Flower Power in the 60s helped it's perception at all - bloody hippie loons )

QFT

But also, knowing members in my family who were abusing ether one or both of these, achol is by far the worst drug out there. I daresay even more than hard narcotics. From this one medical magazine I have read, it says that about 2/3rds of the worlds several hundred dollars in health costs, is caused by acholism ALONE. Yes, that's right, 2/3rds of the worlds health cost due to drug abuse is caused by it. That said, pot is not by any means, harmless and does also have some very bad effects, like any drug that's abused.

[gaius valerius]

Holland ftw!

[removeduser_487563287433]

Depends what your qualification for 'worse' is. Both are incredibly dangerous when abused.

[Da Skinna]

Anything is dangerous when you abuse. That is what abuse is.

But I'm comparing two "evils" and seeing hypothetically which one would be better..

[Sebdeas]

Well alcohol can make you violent, marijuana can't.
I'm Dutch so we don't have the illegality, but there is still a bit of a taboo on the subject.
From the health point it's easier to get damaged from alcohol then marijuana.
But there isn't really a better one, alcohol is just more rooted in our society.

[Da Skinna]

I'm just waiting for people to say that our belief in alcohol being better than marijuana was just simply out of taboo and tradition! Something about that day... seems distant.

Reason 0. Faith in lies 1.

[boofhead]

Pot can send people with predispositions to mental illness off the deep end (even violent, but it's rare, and most likeley the illness not the influence of the smoke). It can hurt your lungs. It can make you paranoid. It can turn a person into a couch potato. It can influence short-term memory.

Alcohol can turn people without tolerance into lunatics. It effects every single organ in the body, especially the liver and brain. It can cause Korsikoff's (sp?), in which a person loses all ability to lay down memories from that point onwards (for life). It lowers inhibitions enough for some that violence, sexual assault etc can occur. Murders. People can come out of a blackout and find themselves in jail for the murder of a loved one.

Most people in prison are there for offenses relating to alcohol or hard-drugs. Those imprisoned for offenses relating to marijuana are the growers, suppliers, smugglers etc not the smokers. Smokers are a passive bunch in general (just reminded myself of the effect of opium on China ).

Grog is worse.

[mrmouth]

Pot can send people with predispositions to mental illness off the deep end (even violent, but it's rare, and most likeley the illness not the influence of the smoke). It can hurt your lungs. It can make you paranoid. It can turn a person into a couch potato. It can influence short-term memory.

All very valid points.

I have friends who have smoked since they were under the legal age to buy cigarettes(18). Some of them are in their early 30's now, and are hard working, mentally sound individuals, who choose to get high every day.

My mother is a counselor at an impatient drug rehab, and the only people who seem to have any problems with Marijuana, are people with chemical imbalances. It just makes their conditions worse, and can lead to mild paranoia and schizophrenia.

All in all, I don't think anyone in the world can honestly argue that Marijuana is more dangerous that alcohol. Ive seen alcohol literally destroy families. Our landlord is currently fighting his addiction. Hes been in and out of detox 3 times in the last 2 months. He lost his $30 an hour job, his wife left him, and its starting to affect his tenants way of life to the point we are thinking of leaving. One tenant already has.

The guy asked me to loan him $20 two days ago. He owns a building worth over a million.

Marijuana has been decriminalized in some states for over 5 years now, and in some counties for almost two decades. In Colorado you can carry up to an ounce, crime hasn't gone up there, nor have the numbers of traffic accidents. Doctors in California have been advertising medical Marijuana cards for $100 in local papers for years. The Crime rate hasn't gone up in these counties, nor have traffic accidents. These are the same cards that you can get high grade Marijuana from vending machines now, as well as the dozen or so coffee shops.

Grog is just Brit slang for booze.

[Da Skinna]

What's grog?

Anyways, isn't what Boof had said pretty much sum up reasonably the difference. Everything about pot is actually exponentially more harmful in alcohol.

[JP226]

I have friends who have smoked since they were under the legal age to buy cigarettes(18). Some of them are in their early 30's now, and are hard working, mentally sound individuals, who choose to get high every day.

I hae a buddy that, betwn him and his fiance, smoke a bowl a day and went into college with a damn near 800 in math on the SAT, all honors etc, and took 7 years to graduate college.

Me on the other hand drinks damn near everyday and was failing out of highschool, manage to make it into college ended up suma cum laude with my undergrad and went to grad school for an advanced degree in economics.

The difference, I drank he smoke.

[Da Skinna]

I hae a buddy that, betwn him and his fiance, smoke a bowl a day and went into college with a damn near 800 in math on the SAT, all honors etc, and took 7 years to graduate college.

Me on the other hand drinks damn near everyday and was failing out of highschool, manage to make it into college ended up suma cum laude with my undergrad and went to grad school for an advanced degree in economics.

The difference, I drank he smoke.

You two are also different people as well... but yes, the difference is you drank and he smoked.

Like alcohol, marijuana has different effects on different people. Some can handle it, some can't. It's basically just another Survival of the Fittest schtick.

[Last Roman]

I hae a buddy that, betwn him and his fiance, smoke a bowl a day and went into college with a damn near 800 in math on the SAT, all honors etc, and took 7 years to graduate college.

Me on the other hand drinks damn near everyday and was failing out of highschool, manage to make it into college ended up suma cum laude with my undergrad and went to grad school for an advanced degree in economics.

The difference, I drank he smoke.

that hardly makes a good argument. I know plenty of people who don't smoke and are barely passing college when they skated through high school. I, on the other hand, who really did neither in high school (I can count on one hand how many times I drank in high school), but now smoke a lot (btw, a bowl a day is nothing) and not only am I a decent student (average gpa is 3.2 vs my high school average of 2.46), but actually try HARDER.

[Last Roman]

boof made my argument of when he stated the difference in deaths.

Alcohol, when abused, is far worse than marijuana abused.

[Erik]

My drug of choice is alcohol.

Not because it's healthy, not because it's safe, not because it's legal, not because it's cheap, but simply because I enjoy the effects it has on me more than the effects the other drugs I tested have on me.

But I won't force other people to make the same choice.
IMO all drugs should be legal because I think people must make their own mind up on how they want to live their own lives (even as drug addicts).

[gaius valerius]

It doesn't matter between alcohol and weed. As long as you use it with caution and don't get addicted it's all okay. Some weed from time to time, a nice glass of beer or wine, what's wrong with that?

Everything gets *****ed up when you start using it exessively, even softdrugs.

Btw, alcohol is perhaps the only harddrug that won't damage you if don't use it to much (in comparison with crack, heroine, coke, etc).

Oh yeah: and don't combine while going out

[gambit]

These are the kind of things that get me mad at the above the influence commercials I see on T.V. so much. They always say things like how easy a kid can get drugs (a recent one I saw is of a kid selling all these painkillers and stuff he gets from surgeries etc.) and how drugs make you seem different. Never actually finding proof that they are as bad for you as they claim or they'll destroy families.

The most dangerous thing I've seen from pot was once I was with my bro and his friend. We had smoked this huge white mans blunt and my bros friend almost stepped on a ps3 () We would've yelled at him but we were playing ps3.

One person tried to tell me pot was as (physically) addicting and dangerous as cigarettes, I laughed at him until he left. The way I see it, pot is as dangerous as eating McDonalds. You gotta do it in self-control knowing the possible dangers and just weighing it out.

Alcohol on the other hand, can and has destroyed families. abuse, murder, unwanted pregnancies, car accidents and in general really poor decisions are usually what happens. You don't really hear "hey everyone got piss-drunk and we decided to get our lives together and go to college!"

I suppose you wouldn't really hear this from someone stoned, but I think the stoned person would be more prone to listening to reason as opposed to the drunk one.

[gaius valerius]

I suppose you wouldn't really hear this from someone stoned, but I think the stoned person would be more prone to listening to reason as opposed to the drunk one.

If you're stoned I think you can concentrate better on certain things. Things get funny. But when you're drunk, you mostly talk crap in a way ppl don't understand you. And best of all, I never heard of smoking pot and having a hangover. I did sleep for 2 days the first time .

Responsibility and self-control are the key.