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Researchers: Alcohol Health Risks Underestimated, Marijuana Relatively Safe
schwit1 writes Compared to other recreational drugs — including alcohol — marijuana may be even safer than previously thought. And researchers may be systematically underestimating risks associated with alcohol use. They found that at the level of individual use, alcohol was the deadliest substance (abstract), followed by heroin and cocaine.
This headline is based on a comparison of a recreational dose versus a lethal dose, not a study of long term health effects.
We've known this for many years. It doesn't matter in a dogmatic political system that profits from human suffering.
“He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
Heroin isn't all that bad as long as it's medical quality and administered professionally.
I imagine the same thing can be said for alcohol.
sr
"I'd rather have a bottle in front of me than a frontal lobotomy"
His ignorance covered the whole earth like a blanket, and there was hardly a hole in it anywhere. - Mark Twain
Ratio between toxic dose and typical human intake? That's their scale. Pretty meaningless. Yeah, put water on that scale, and I'd bet it would be somewhere down around heroin's risk.
sig: sauer
For every one of these research papers, there is another one citing the dangers of the drug. The same journal has a study showing pot-smoking teens are 60% less likely to finish high school than ones who don't. You can't cherry pick your science by headlines. The proper argument for legalizing should be freedom, not safety.
Alcohol is good for your health! Alcohol is bad for your health! Smoking is good for your health (says the 1940s doctor)! Smoking is bad for your health! Marijuana is bad for your health! Marijuana is good for your health! The only guarantee is that next year what is good will be bad and what is bad will be good.
There's a difference between physical danger and social effects.
Causation is hard to identify in your example though: does smoking pot encourage teens to drop out; or are the teens that are on track to drop out, more likely to smoke pot?
Yes alcohol has long term health effects, so does any other substance. Eating has long term health effects. The real measurements are immediate risk, long term risk, and gain from consumption.
This addresses none of those in a useful fashion.
Silence is a state of mime.
There's a difference between physical danger and social effects.
Glad to see someone making this point. The article cited is about the relative lethal dose of various drugs. Discussion of the risks/benefits of marijuana use do not generally include a debate around the risk that someone will smoke to the point of death, unlike discussion of campus alcohol consumption, which must take into account frat and other alcohol poisoning deaths. Actual deaths, though, are not the most significant social effect of widespread alcohol or pot consumption.
Wir sind geboren, um frei zu sein - Rio Reiser
There's a difference between physical danger and social effects.
It is important to note that this study ONLY looks at the physical danger of the drug itself. I don't think it surprises even the most ardent opponent of weed that people very, very rarely die from THC overdose. That is NOT the reason they oppose it. The only meaningful comparison is when you include the "social effects", such as deaths from intoxicated driving, and also the economic cost of alcoholism, apathetic potheads, etc. But the argument that "weed is not as bad as alcohol" really isn't a convincing argument for legalization. Instead you need to compare the costs and benefits of legalized dope, with the costs and benefits of dope prohibition. I think that Colorado and Washington make a pretty clear case for legalization.
I think the anti-drug warriors are more interested in the money that are to be made from "fighting" drugs and locking people up.
Do whatever you enjoy in life. Drink, smoke, eat meat, take drugs. Don't listen to the alarmists, everything is bad for you. Instead, learn to enjoy in moderation, at the right moments.
Just don't let it become a habit. There is no savor in habits, only self contempt and other bad things, like addiction.
Pointing out that MJ is relatively safe (from accidental overdose) after decades of propaganda showing it to be a "dangerous" drug and comparing it to other "dangerous" drugs is a pretty important message.
Especially when you drop alcohol underneath the really nasty stuff.
It's making a really valid point. You put alcohol abuse up against MJ and the others for long term health affects you will probably see smoking climb the chart and fight alcohol for top run while MJ stays the same.
...While no one has ever said "hold my beer and watch this!"
It's not a recent trend. It's been the biggest argument for decades. Alcohol kills people. Alcohol turns regular people into assholes. Weed? Waaaaay more benign.
The only comparison that should be made is, does the guy smoking/drinking "X" impede on your personal rights. If the answer is no there shouldn't even be a law on the subject. Alcohol and drug prohibition do not work because they are trying to protect people from themselves. Prohibition actually makes the problem far worse by not only increasing the desire to do them, but putting crime networks behind the highly lucrative trade and sale.
Prohibition has failed twice now, it doesn't work and you'd do well to acknowledge that fact. You'd also do well to get off the Nanny state bandwagon.
Your arguments are invalid. You are incorrectly equating heroin to morphine. Heroin is both a stronger opioid and more short-acting, making it more addictive. Morphine and other opioids used for chronic medical conditions are not addictive in the same sense because the brain does not receive a pharmacologically intense pleasure signal, which is the basis of addiction. (They do cause physical dependence, which results effectively in addiction.)