This is a suggestion. In our society we are constantly trying to rid the country of tobacco. If we are successful at this, wont we have to replace the tobacco crop with something else. This may sound farfetched but couldnt we put marijuana in those fields. We could then legitamize an already multi billion industry and maybe use the funding from the taxes on it to say maybe save the damn economy and education. I mean we have alcohol which is more dangerous than weed, why not have the weed too?
Note( I have to give some credit to my sociology professor, he was talking about this in class i just expanded it. )
Except that those who are opposed to tobacco would be opposed to marijuana, too. Personally, I think anybody who wants to smoke either one should be allowed to do so as long as s/he doesn’t endanger others, but this is not the current reasoning.
Note: I am not advocating the use of any illegal substance. I have been told (no cite, sorry) that MJ actually contains as much, if not more, stuff that’s harmful to one’s lungs than tobacco does. However, most MJ users don’t tend to consume 20 or so per day, whereas there are tobacco users who do that much and more.
The current midset is to disallow anything that’s in any degree dangerous for anyone. Heck, if the bicycle were invented today, it would never be permitted to be manufactured. Too inherently unstable, no protective chassis, etc.
I’m sure that those who wish to rid the world of tobacco would suggest growing soy beans instead. Not that there’s anything wrong with that.
I think the quality of MJ would suffer if a huge company replaced their tobacco crops with MJ crops. Mostly due to the fact that they couldn’t attend to all the plants to get the best quality. And would probably be the equivalent of 1960’s grade MJ, IMO. But I think that if it were made legal, most would just grow their own as it’s a very, very easy thing to do. It is a “weed” after all. And in the right environment, you can make some serious quality stuff. Most hardcore pot smokers know this, and would rather get their stash from a quality source, rather than having to smoke 10 a day to get the same effect.
Have you seen those scooters with the 2 cycle engines on them? Those these are being sold everywhere. If I had so much as a mini-bike in my yard, the cops would be all over my shit when I was 14 years old. Now you got these punks dippin’ around all over the place with these scooters. Not fair, I miss my mini-bike.
That doesn’t follow. I’m anti-tobacco (I don’t think it should be completely banned but I have zero problems with outlawing it in public, in bars, etc.) but I 100% support the legalization of marijuana.
So’d you favor their being on the same basis, legally. Personally, I have no problem with that, either.
Am I off base or accurate in what I’ve heard that aside from any psychological effects, the health risk is greater with MJ?
I don’t think this would work just from a yield perspective. Right now it takes x number of acres to grow y amount of tobacco to meet current demands. I don’t have any cites, but I’m sure you don’t have the same amount of demand for MJ as you do for tobacco.
Of course, all the tobacco farms could sell the real estate or use it for something else.
Insofar as health benefits are concerned, studies show that MJ contains more tar than tobacco, but that since people generally smoke less MJ than they do tobacco, overall they get less tar (Mmmmmm…less tar <homer.wav>). I’m not sure if I can post pro-MJ sites on the boards, but the information is out there.
IANAMod but I think it’s fine to post sites in favor of legalization as long as they don’t contain information on how to break prohibition laws (no diagrams for the best grow light set-up and such).
Then your best bet is to check out NORML.
Massive amounts of links for US, Canada, and abroad. Contains info about safety, and debates the issue from both sides, but obviously leans towards legalization. One thing I was impressed with is that they have links to anti-MJ sites. Now that’s ballsy.
Mods, if this is out of line, please delete this post.
Well, inhaling smoke–think about it–isn’t exactly the best thing you can do to your lungs, either way.
But the health risk, in general, is greater for a regular cigarette smoker than a regular pot smoker. As has been mentioned here, cannabis smoke has more carcinogens than tobacco smoke, but weed smokers smoke much less than tobacco smokers; but whereas long-term, heavy cigarette smokers often become afflicted with cancer, emphysema, etc., the worst physical condition I’ve ever heard of someone getting from smoking pot regularly is higher sensitivity to respiratory infections and asthma, particularly in susceptible individuals. As I understand it, most cigarettes have nasty stuff added in with the tobacco, whereas marijuana is generally just cannabis plant matter–so what we’re comparing here isn’t cannabis vs. tobacco but rather cannabis vs. cigarettes–there’s a subtle but very important difference. Again, the fact that the biggest pothead might toke up once or twice a day, versus the 20 or more times a day that some cigarette smokers reach, plays a factor as well.
I’d say that in most individuals it’s psychologically healthier to smoke marijuana regularly than to smoke tobacco regularly, because marijuana isn’t addictive (I’ve experienced “the jitters” sometimes, and I’ve heard of other people having the same thing, after suddenly quitting pot; but the pot jitters have nothing on the nicotine jitters–I have some friends who smoke cigarettes and are addicted, and I can tell you that there are a lot of things I’d rather be around than a smoker who hasn’t had their cigarette yet) and doesn’t lend itself to excess as much as tobacco does.
Not only to MJ smokers smoke less, they very often use a device known as a bong or water pipe. This filters out a portion of the nastiness we associate with taking smoke into the lungs and has a cooling effect as well. Another non carcogenic alternative is to eat it though the effect is different and tends to last longer. You also use much more eating as opposed to smoking.
Hmm. Haven’t been to Erowid lately, but when I was doing research for my term paper in English class last semester, I found a document there that happily informed me that the studies that found that MJ had more tars in it than tobacco were done on leaf, which is the part of the plant people don’t smoke. Bud actually has less tars in it than cigarettes, and anyway, it isn’t the tars in tobacco that cause lung cancer. It’s radiation.
Back with more later on this.