This is another article in a series that has suggested itself to me.
It began with Pot is not like tobacco - Please make a not ot it. Thanks. This installment focuses on how cannabis and smoking cannabis is superior to alcohol.
Tobacco is the most dangerous "legal" or "regulated" drug in America. Please grasp this before going forward. Legalization and regulation mean exactly the same thing in the context of this issue. Prohibited MEANS unregulated and subject to the forces of prohibition dynamics - The Black Market. Regulation means the end of the Black Market.
Unlike cannabis, alcohol is very dangerous. It is a poison that kills many people each year simply from overdose. It's called alcohol poisoning and it kills a few hundred people each year and an escalating number of college-aged people.
It is the third leading cause of death in America, at least in 2000: 1999-2004
The leading causes of death in 2000 were tobacco (435 000 deaths; 18.1% of total US deaths), poor diet and physical inactivity (400 000 deaths; 16.6%), and alcohol consumption (85 000 deaths; 3.5%). Other actual causes of death were microbial agents (75 000), toxic agents (55 000), motor vehicle crashes (43 000), incidents involving firearms (29 000), sexual behaviors (20 000), and illicit use of drugs (17 000).
"Illicit drugs" would be the real drugs - hard drugs - available on "the street". Cocaine, Crack, heroin, and whatever else is going around.
Note that cannabis isn't on this list. It doesn't kill people and has no lethal dose.
We are apparently spending $50 billion a year to try and save 17000 people from dying. Very commendable. Where's all that concern for the 360000 Americans who will die from tobacco-caused cancers and other diseases? Where's the multi-billion dollar effort to prevent deaths from alcohol?
I know some will want to point out "all the police do" to discourage drinking and driving. That's all they do is discourage it.
I always respected the DUI effort as a "good thing" and have subsequently learned that despite its noble appearance, its just another for-profit endeavor for the State, with all the huge fees and fines doled out to offenders. A budget builder and an excuse to violate the 4th amendment by setting up roadblocks in rural areas far from quick legal services. But I digress.
Alcohol is dangerous in part because it causes intoxication, loss of muscular coordination, blurry vision, impaired judgment, and can lead to difficulty standing, walking, and driving. It's known to be involved in a vast percentage of car accidents.
Everybody nows this though.And they really think it's "great" because despite all that you see trying to curtail "drinking and driving" there is no effort remotely similar to cannabis prohibition in place trying to make a meaningful dent in these potentially fatal issues.
But cannabis - non-fatal, non-explosive, non-flammable, not impairing motor skills - is the target of a $50 billion a year effort to wipe it out of the solar system.
There is nothing remotely similar directed towards alcohol or tobacco, which kill half a million Americans each year while pot kills NOBODY.
Stoned vs Drunk
Despite all the bullshit you hear, people drink alcohol to get a buzz. Anybody tells you different is pulling your leg or in denial. Drinking alcohol puts alcohol in your system, which is how people get intoxicated.
Period.
Ok...so your box of Inglenook wine is tasty. Or maybe your very expensive bottle of Gentleman Jack that you are saving for when Bush is finally out of office; your freshly brewed beer with the orange peels and organic sugar - it will cause your body to react to alcohol and that is known to be carved in stone. (X) amount of alcohol x your body mass/time = relative drunkenness.
People smoke pot to get high. I do. I am not a medical user. I smoke pot because I like it. I especially like that really good pot that we are supposed to be a-feared of because it's usually very tasty and 2 or 3 good "tokes" and I am as high as I like to be.
Pot doesn't mess with my motor skills or coordination. You have to understand and accept the following statement:
If being high was the same as being drunk you would never have heard a peep from me about pot.
.
Ever.
If pot got me drunk like alcohol, I'd not smoke it. I do not like being drunk and I really do not like being around people who are really drunk.
I am no moral Puritan - drunkenness is really very obnoxious and annoying. It reminds me of dealing with the mentally ill. (I work with the mentally ill and enjoy it, but I get paid. I don't tolerate it "off the clock". Boundaries.)
I have been drunk a few times - only a couple times have I been "really drunk". It was grossly unpleasant and I have no idea when the last time I got "really" drunk was. Probably cat-fishing with a cousin in Indiana in 1985. I remember stepping on my boombox and breaking the antenna off.
I also scratched my "Wall" album in 1980 due to drinking.
I am NOT a fan of alcohol. (I will drink an occasional shot of tequila with lime and sea salt. But only one or two, usually while camping or late at night at home.)
Buzzed vs "Stoned"
At the risk of too much hair-splitting, I am going to divide "high" into "buzzed" and "stoned".
Smoking a little pot and getting a little bit high is getting "buzzed". One is "high" and feeing the effects of smoking marijuana, but one is still totally able to do things. I get buzzed and mow the lawn and work on the yard or do housework. When I am buzzed I do not lose any motor coordination or suffer perceptual inconsistencies.
Once in awhile - and it hasn't happened for quite some time - I will sit with some friends and we will smoke up and get "Stoned". Very very high.
Laugh and giggle. Think great thoughts that disappear in the morning. Have a good time. We'll say things like "Dude...I am SO baked!" and we'll giggle.
I don't slur mt speech. I STILL do not lose motor coordination. I catch falling objects that I see out of the corner of my eye just like when I am not stoned. My guitar playing is unaffected. My gait is not impaired. My judgment isn't impaired.
Truthfully, I have had little time in the last couple years to really get "stoned to the bone". I have been too anxious from being under-employed and I am married and often busy. Little time to sit and burn up lots of weed and just sit around.
So, suffice it to say, I do not buy into the lies and propaganda about marijuana because I know the reality.
People who don't know the reality could be excused for their ignorance because they have been filled with lies and bullshit. The reason they can be blamed and called names like "dull-witted" or "dumb" is that they are believing the US Federal Government and numerous GOP-aligned private groups who are known to lie about everything.
If you think you were lied to about WMD's and torture, you should ASSUME you have been lied to about pot. The same exact people are doing the lying. You REALLY need to deal with this tiny fact.
Some folks JUST CAN'T wrap their minds around this: The US Federal Government has lied about marijuana since at least 1937. It never, ever stopped and in fact escalated in under Nixon. And Nixon officially made it part of the Republican Political Religion. Reagan and Bush 1 escalated that and the rhetoric.
Bill Clinton functioned as the Bestest Republican President Ever by arresting over 5 million Americans for marijuana touching during his otherwise "too liberal" administration. (Bill did their work beautifully for them and they still screwed him and called him "liberal". Let this be a lesson to our current appeasers.)
Republicans want you to believe bullshit and want to arrest you for touching marijuana. Democrats - pathetically - just go along for the ride, like a bunch of doofuses.
Summary: Pot good, Alcohol bad, Republicans even worse because Democrats help them so much.
In closing, let me say this: PLEASE don't go out and smoke pot because of what I have written here - that's not what this is about.
It's about getting sane people to understand that the cannabis plant has to be relegalized and the prohibition of it must be ended.
Make a note of it. Thanks!
__________________________
»
