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Researchers: Alcohol Health Risks Underestimated, Marijuana Relatively Safe

Posted by samzenpus on from the not-so-bad-after-all dept.

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.

22 of 398 comments (clear)

  1. FFS by fyngyrz · · Score: 5, Informative

    This is only news to those who have had their head in the ground, listening to fox news and government shills.

    --
    I've fallen off your lawn, and I can't get up.
    1. Re:FFS by sysrammer · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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
    2. Re:FFS by Dutchmaan · · Score: 4, Insightful

      There's a difference between physical danger and social effects.

    3. Re:FFS by 0123456789 · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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?

    4. Re:FFS by mwehle · · Score: 4, Insightful

      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
    5. Re:FFS by ShanghaiBill · · Score: 5, Insightful

      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.

    6. Re:FFS by gweihir · · Score: 4, Interesting

      Indeed. There are quite a few older heroin addicts that are productive member of society. They tend to have money and education, as the unregulated market is the main risk. These results just show that the "War on Drugs" is not something rational and does untold harm.

      --
      Most ACs are not even worth the keystrokes to insult them. Be generically insulted by this and ignored otherwise.
    7. Re:FFS by camg188 · · Score: 4, Funny

      Every single person that I know that drinks alcohol drank milk first.

      Milk. Not even once.

    8. Re:FFS by sfcat · · Score: 5, Informative

      I don't think so. In university some pharmacy or chemistry guys could scrounge pure ethanol. (98 or 99%.) Screwdrives with that were nasty.

      But nobody became addicted to that after 1 or 2 dozes, have they? Heroin, on the other hand, is so addictive, a decent percentage of humans get hooked after only a few dozes.

      If that was really the case then people who were given morphine drips in hospitals would have high rates of addiction after leaving the hospital. But this doesn't happen. People who get addicted to Opioids either are in constant, on-going pain (due to injury or other reason) or are purely recreational users who are likely responding to external stresses. Basically, the entire model of addiction you are using is wrong and the numbers on addiction bear this out quite clearly. And before you tell me about "soldier's sickness" after the Civil war, remember that most of those soldiers had on-going, serious pain management issues (due to missing limbs and poor quality surgery at the time). This is why our "war on drugs" has been such a monumental failure, our basic model of addiction is wrong and leads you to believe non-sense (like your post). Heroin is certainly addictive but addiction is a response to stress and pain, not a moral failing or a bio-chemical crutch. A better model is provided by the Rat Park research. Policy using this model as a basis will be much more effective if for no other reason than its a far more accurate model of how humans behave than the practically medieval way we deal with addiction right now.

      --
      "Those that start by burning books, will end by burning men."
    9. Re:FFS by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Informative

      The same journal has a study showing pot-smoking teens are 60% less likely to finish high school than ones who don't.

      I would suspect alcohol also has an undesirable effect on high school graduation rates.

    10. Re:FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 4, Informative

      Heroin is the same chemical formula as diamorphine which is widely administered intravenously in hospitals for severe pain management. There might be contamination in heroin sold on streets which could change its properties but other than that there is no reason to consider one more stronger than another.

    11. Re:FFS by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Informative

      Please account for the fact that the United Kingdom frequently prescribes diamorphine (heroin) in place of morphine. This is one of the "other opioids" being used for chronic medical conditions that you've mentioned, yet pain patients in the UK aren't facing significantly different addiction rates than those of other Western countries.

      Also, having in the past been addicted to various opioids for a number of years, morphine delivers a "pharmacologically intense pleasure signal" just fine. It may not have the rush of heroin, but the enduring high is essentially the same, given that heroin is primarily and rapidly metabolized into morphine, anyhow.

      I'll leave you with this Wikipedia quote: "However, this perception is not supported by the results of clinical studies comparing the physiological and subjective effects of injected heroin and morphine in individuals formerly addicted to opioids; these subjects showed no preference for one drug over the other. Equipotent injected doses had comparable action courses, with no difference in subjects' self-rated feelings of euphoria, ambition, nervousness, relaxation, drowsiness, or sleepiness."

  2. The facts are irrelevant! by fustakrakich · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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!”
  3. Not what it sounds like by pla · · Score: 5, Informative

    FWIW, TFA talks about the therapeutic index (LD50 vs effective dose) of these drugs, not their long-term effects.

    So no, this doesn't add more information to the "alcohol is good for you this week / alcohol is bad for you next week" debate. Just saying that we typically drink a significant fraction of the amount it would take to kill us.

    1. Re:Not what it sounds like by pla · · Score: 4, Insightful

      ...While no one has ever said "hold my beer and watch this!"

  4. Ratio..? by ichthus · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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
  5. Re:What that tells me by fustakrakich · · Score: 4, Interesting

    US soldiers are dying in the ongoing and perpetual Afghan Opium War to bring the finest kind to Russia/Europe/America. As the graph shows they were entirely successful. Here Bush's *Mission* was definitely accomplished, in spades! I don't know whether prohibition or legalization leads to more profit in these times. Prohibition definitely *creates jobs*. So the incentive to abolish it remains diminished.

    --
    “He’s not deformed, he’s just drunk!”
  6. Useless comparison by wbr1 · · Score: 4, Insightful
    I drink.. I used to smoke, and I used to smoke marijuana, but I wont bore you with anecdotal personal stories. TFA mainly looks at the ratio of LD50 compared to the effective dose. For alcohol, the LD50 is close to the dose many consume. Closer than the LD50 of THC is to the used dosage. By that measure, LSD is safer than asprin because the ration there is so far apart.

    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.
  7. Protip by allcoolnameswheretak · · Score: 5, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Protip by msobkow · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Somebody beat me to it. :)

      No matter what you do in life, you are going to die. There is no escaping that.

      So live a life of wonder, mystery, and enjoyment, rather than spending it fretting about exactly what might be the thing that kills you. Eat a bacon sandwich. Put cream in your coffee. Have a steak once in a while. Have a doughnut once a month. And by all means, have a glass of wine with your meal and spark a bowl of cannabis afterwards.

      --
      I do not fail; I succeed at finding out what does not work.
  8. Alcohol is better for you than water by viperidaenz · · Score: 5, Informative

    Woman drinks 30 - 40 glasses of water and dies. * http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pm...

    You're 'supposed' to drink 8 glasses a day. A 5x increase of water intake can lead to death.

    Women are 'supposed' to limit themselves to 2 standard drinks per day. Drinking 10 standard drinks does not result in death.

  9. Is it not true? by gatfirls · · Score: 4, Insightful

    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.