What is the logic behind being ok with alcohol and tobacco and not with marijuana?

[CalMeacham]

Is it anything more than an accident of history? Alcohol has a long history in western culture. Pot doesn’t.

That’s not true – cannabis has as long a history as alcohol. It’s been around since before people – it wasn’t invented in the 1960s, or the 1920s. But it wasn’t as widely used as alcohol, which could make a difference.

I’ve read that it wasn’t the fabric makers, but the paper makers, especially Heast, who undertook to criminalize hemp. It’s in The Big Book of Conspiracies, and it’s about as believable as any other conspiracy theory. I understand that much of this has been debunked, but I haven’t looked into it myself.

Still, you have to wonder about why marijuana has such a stigma. as the advocates say, you never hear about anyone killing others in a pot-induced rage. You can say that you wouldn’t want your doctor/policveman/heavy equipment operator doing his job under its influence, but we don’t want them doing it druck on alcohol, either.
And I suspect that smoking weed has a lot of health risks associated with it that we simply don’t know enough about yet – sucking smoke directly into your lungs, no matter what it’s from, seems to me an invitation to some sort of disorder if you do it long enough.

[tomndebb]

That’s not true – cannabis has as long a history as alcohol. It’s been around since before people –

However, it has not been around in the culture or literature of the mix of peoples who created mainstream U.S. culture for very long. There are no references to pot in Livy or Ovid or Aristotle or Plato, no toking songs recorded in Beowulf or the Nibelungenlied or in Mallory. And the few claims by some people to insert it into either the bible or Egyptian stories are, at best, strained and, even if true, certainly never made it down to our culture.

Cannabis only entered the U.S. consciousness from the locations South of our coast and border, brought in by people that the good, white, Northern European dominant culture considered inferior (at best).

[II_Gyan_II]

@CalMeacham

That’s not true – cannabis has as long a history as alcohol. It’s been around since before people – it wasn’t invented in the 1960s, or the 1920s. But it wasn’t as widely used as alcohol, which could make a difference.

In addition to what tomndebb said, you can read a nice account here.
“Wasn’t as widely used” is an understatement.

Here’s a quote from the 1972 Report of the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse

More than anything else, the visibility of marihuana use by a segment of our population previously unfamiliar with the drug is what stirred public anxiety and thrust marihuana into the problem area. Marihuana usage in the United States has been with us for a very long period of time, dating back to the beginning of the century. For decades its use was mainly confined to the underprivileged socioeconomic groups in our cities and to certain insulated social groups, such as jazz musicians and artists. As long as use remained confined to these groups and had a negligible impact on the dominant social order, the vast majority of Americans remained unconcerned. From the other side, the insulated marihuana user was in no position to demand careful public or legislative scrutiny.

And, here’s a quote from a THE FORBIDDEN FRUIT AND THE TREE OF KNOWLEDGE: AN INQUIRY INTO THE LEGAL HISTORY OF AMERICAN MARIJUANA PROHIBITION from a 1970 Virginia Law review

Throughout the 1920’s marijuana use was confined primarily to the Mexican-American community; however, by the late 20’s use of this drug had spread to many of the larger cities and had become quite popular among some elements in the Black ghettoes .45 jazz musicians, dancers and others found the drug a cheap and readily available euphoriant.46

Nevertheless, use still remained slight even in 1934. Commissioner Anslinger himself asserted in 1937: “Ten years ago we only heard about it [marijuana] throughout the Southwest . . . . *t has only become a national menace in the last 3 years.” 47 Still another commentator has written:

Only in the 1920's was there any significant usage even by the Mexican-American communities in border cities, and only in the mid and late 1920's did Negro, jazz musicians and "degenerate" bohemian sub-cultures start smoking marijuana. Even the most lurid Journalists did not claim marijuana "seeped" into society at large until the 1930's and usually the mid-30's.48

As late as 1928, the arrest of one Harlem youth for possession of a small amount of marijuana was news." Thus, we conclude that the number of users was still small, although it may have begun to grow around 1935, and that these users were still concentrated regionally in the West and Southwest and socioeconomically within the lower class Mexican-American and Black communities.

@CalMeacham

And I suspect that smoking weed has a lot of health risks associated with it that we simply don’t know enough about yet – sucking smoke directly into your lungs, no matter what it’s from, seems to me an invitation to some sort of disorder if you do it long enough.

Of course, but this does not mean that you’re as likely to get major diseases.

[Psilocybe]

@Tomcat

Plus, even if it is smoked, the amount one smokes is a small percentage of a normal cigarette habit. Strong pot the size of a pea will get one high - one inhalation can do the trick, and when compared to how many times a cigarette smoker inhales it is ridiculously small. This is why I think the arguments focusing on the strength of pot these days fall flat. Stronger pot is a good thing - it takes less to work.

This is absolutely correct and one of my favorite facts. A pack-a-day cig smoker smokes about 140+ inhalations. Thats a LOT of tobacco. If you were to empty all those cigarettes, it would form a huge pile. Whereas, if you have good pot you can definately be high after one pipe hit. ONE! I can attest to this, as I do it everyday. If you follow the single-hit routine, it would take a pot smoker about 2-4 months to smoke what a cig smoker smokes in ONE DAY. Awesome. Not only does this save my lungs, I also find low-dose highs to be the best overall.

Say no to schwag.

[kanicbird]

@RumbleFeature

Incidents Involving Firearms- 29,000

I hate to break this to you, but that is the purpose of firearms, if we are lucky a good percentage of the 29,000 are bad people.

[alphaboi867]

@Giles

Marijuana is not completely harmless, so the “0 deaths” figure is probably too low. (It is rougher on the throat than tobacco is.)…

Most tobacco is smoked in the form of filtered cigarettes unlike marijuana. Also very few pot smokers smoke 20 or more joints a day.

[II_Gyan_II]

@kanicbird

I hate to break this to you, but that is the purpose of firearms, if we are lucky a good percentage of the 29,000 are bad people.

In the U.S. for 2001, there were 29,573 deaths from firearms, distributed as follows by mode of death: Suicide 16,869; Homicide 11,348; Accident 802; Legal Intervention 323; Undetermined 231.(CDC, 2004). I’ll leave it to the reader to guess how many of the homicides are of “bad people”.

[Alex_Dubinsky]

I think the reasons behind marijuana prohibition come from two forces:

One is the ignorant conservatives and liberals you honestly believe it to be very harmful and significantly worse than alcohol or tobacco. These people constitute probably the majority of those pushing for illigalization.

Second are the conservatives who oppose marijuana for ideological reasons. These spewed out all the propaganda that got all the ignorant people on their side. Their reasons may be several. Most immediately is the counterculture movement of the 60s and the belief that drugs (including marijuana in as big a role as anything else) actually influenced people to adopt those wild views. This I might not find all that factually incorrect. I do think regular use of marijuana may change the way a person will think (although primarily i think the mechanism is that hanging out with friends and being happy and carefree and not stressed out triggers the fortuned mode of human behavior that leads to liberal values… but I won’t get into this theory of sociology now). However, many undoubtedly also hold the more broad view that drugs and other seductions break apart society, lead people to abandon work, and will in one way or another destroy our civilization. With this I also agree to some extent. Drugs won’t end society now, as you’ve still got to work to live. But very soon, technology will solve that latter difficulty and civilization will come face-to-face with its doom as hedonism becomes a practical proposition. This, I believe, is why we’ll never meet any advanced alien civilizations. However, drugs are only a crude form by which this threat will be encountered, and things like virtual reality and more direct brain manipulation will prove more effective… will be better drugs than weed.

So basically, marijuana and antipressants are part of the slippery slope to the death of humanity. But whatever, why am i gonna stress about it, i get high every day. And who knows, maybe that’s what was meant to happen to us.

[Evil_Captor]

The poltical angle can’t be overlooked. Now that elections are so very close, Republicans and conservatives can gain an edge just by seeing that more of them pot smokin’ Demmie libs are behind bars where they belong! Remember the Florida election, where they used the felons list as a political tool? You’re fucking naive if you think the Pubbies haven’t taken that success to heart. Pot will be illegal as long as Pubbies and conservatives have anything to say about it, and not for ideological reasons.

[BluePitbull]

@tomndebb

I do not see this as conservative vs liberal (except as it has been shaped by the politics of the Right over the last few years). Initially it was simply that marijuana was used by “other” people (with dark skins) and the mythology surrounding it got into the political mainstream.

I do not believe that any current conservative who opposes decriminalizing marijuana does so for racist reasons. (And there are many conservatives who do support decriminalization.) However, between its “traditional” negative connotations and the fact that it was embraced by the counterculture (Left) in the 1960s, it now tends to be seen as a conservative position, regardless (not because) of its early racist origins.

I wonder about this. Didn’t the Europeans smoke weed too? And I never did understand the racial arguement. Why would it matter if dark skin folks smoke it?

[Der_Trihs]

@BluePitbull

And I never did understand the racial arguement. Why would it matter if dark skin folks smoke it?

IIRC the arguement was that black people smoked weed and ran amok, raping and killing. :rolleyes:

[tomndebb]

@BluePitbull

I wonder about this. Didn’t the Europeans smoke weed too? And I never did understand the racial arguement. Why would it matter if dark skin folks smoke it?

Smoking appears to have been introduced to Europe only with the introduction of tobacco in the 17th century. (I am sure that some Europeans had to have been aware of the existence of hookahs, but I have never seen any evidence that the practice was imported to Europe prior to the nineteenth century.)

If Europeans were smoking (or even eating or drinking) the products of marijuana prior to the nineteenth century, why does it not appear in literature anywhere?
[ Anecdote alert! ]
Interestingly, during the break-up of Yugoslavia (in a print article I have been unable to find on-line), an older author discussing the ways in which ethnic tensions had been exacerbated recalled his youth (prior to WWII) in which he talked about the Christian teens introducing their Muslim friends to alcohol while the Muslim kids shared their cannabis with the Christians–a practice that generally ended with the onset of adulthood. His point was that many of the ethnic tensions of the 1990s were manufactured, but I noticed that in the mixed culture with participation from Christians (with a European culture) and Muslims (with an Asian culture) the two groups tended to stick with their cultural drugs of choice once they grew up.
[ /Anecdote ]

The racial argument was two-fold: 1) those dark people are going to threaten our lives and (women) kinfolk if we allow them to get high on this stuff; 2) those dark people are going to corrupt our pure white children, luring them to indulge the same dangerous drugs.

[alphaboi867]

@Der Trihs

IIRC the arguement was that black people smoked weed and ran amok, raping and killing. :rolleyes:

Also it was feared that white women who smoked marijuana would become so deranged that they’d have sex with black men.

[gonzomax]

@Captain Amazing

I can set up a still in my back yard too. And, considering that I live in Northern Virginia, I can probably grow tobacco in my back yard. So, I don’t know that that’s a good distinction.

Does that mean you could actually make a cigarette.Whats involved. Would it be useful. Just curious.

[Age_Quod_Agis]

@RumbleFeature

Now many conservative I have known were of the belief that the first 3 on that list were god given rights, while the last was nothing less than social devinancy.

Well, the conservatives you know are correct that the 3rd is a God-given right. But that’s according to the Constitution.

Guns are legal because they serve an important purpose in our society (facilitate self-defense, including defense from the government). The number of deaths related to guns is an unfortunate consequence of their legality, but the framers of the Constitution (or rather, the folks who approved the Bill of Rights) apparently felt that guns served an important enough purpose that we should accept the bad in order to guarantee the good.

(Similarly, alcohol was once prohibited by the Constitution, although that Amendment was later repealed.)

So it’s unfair to compare the deaths related to guns to the deaths related to marijuana because they serve different purposes. If you’re merely arguing that things should be legal or illegal based on the number of deaths related to their use, then why aren’t cars on your list? Or fatty foods?

Marijuana, alcohol, and tobacco all have similar purposes – recreation, so their comparison is more apt. However, there are still significant differences that make a straight comparison difficult. For example, the number of people that use alcohol and tobacco are significantly higher than the number of people that use marijuana. Because of that, the number of deaths related to alcohol and tobacco are naturally going to be higher.

Plus, your numbers aren’t comparing apples to apples. For example, your number of alcohol-related deaths apparently includes people who get drunk and then drive off a cliff. But your marijuana number doesn’t include people who get high and then drive off a cliff. That’s not a fair comparison.

While I support the legalizaton of marijuana, I think the arguments in favor of its criminalization are being given short shrift here. Yes, there’s the conservative position in favor of “do what’s worked in the past.” But there are also issues related to the severity and effects of the drug.

People generally smoke marijuana to get high, which is considered a state of altered consciousness. On the other hand, studies apparently show that most American drinkers do not have more than 1 or 2 drinks in a week (I’m going on memory here). Thus, it seems reasonable to conclude that they’re not drinking to get drunk. Legislation allows people to have a few drinks, but does not allow them to have so many drinks that they’re drunk in public. So what’s actually legal is the use of alcohol and cigs in amounts moderate enough to not alter your consciousness.

How do you square the casual or social use of alcohol and cigs with marijuana, from which one puff can make you high? In such a circumstance, there’s no such thing as a casual or social user of marijuana.

Plus, there are certainly adverse medical effects from marijuana. For example.

In addition, marijuana is considered a gateway drug, meaning that it can lead to the use of other, more dangerous drugs. (I don’t know if that’s true, but it does appear to be an argument.)

Plus, there’s the unfortunate fact that all marijuana users right now are criminals. So it has an unfortunate association with the criminal elements of our society.

[II_Gyan_II]

@Age Quod Agis

For example, the number of people that use alcohol and tobacco are significantly higher than the number of people that use marijuana. Because of that, the number of deaths related to alcohol and tobacco are naturally going to be higher.

Why ‘naturally’? They are indeed higher but that’s because these drugs have risks. There’s no prima facie reason that drug A must cause more deaths than drug B simply because more people use it.

Plus, your numbers aren’t comparing apples to apples. For example, your number of alcohol-related deaths apparently includes people who get drunk and then drive off a cliff. But your marijuana number doesn’t include people who get high and then drive off a cliff. That’s not a fair comparison.

Alcohol still loses, when you compare direct deaths due to poisoning(overdose): average of 317 annually.

On the other hand, studies apparently show that most American drinkers do not have more than 1 or 2 drinks in a week (I’m going on memory here).

According to the 2003 NSDUH, of the 50.4% of Americans who had alcohol in the 30 days prior to the survey, nearly half (44.8%) had 5 or more drinks on atleast one day. A majority, but not strong enough to characterize as “most”. Also, this assumes that one needs 5 drinks to get drunk. Persons of relatively low bodyweight & those consuming harder drinks will probably get drunk on lesser number of drinks. Furthermore, this use of language highlights the integration of alcohol in Western culture viz. you’re only intoxicated if you’re “drunk”. Drunkenness is a state when the degree of intoxication shifts from subtle & selective to apparent & pervasive. Alcohol isn’t a social “lubricant” because it excites one’s tastebuds.

So what’s actually legal is the use of alcohol and cigs in amounts moderate enough to not alter your consciousness.

In public. And you haven’t made for the case for cigarette “intoxication” being illegal in public. Cite?

How do you square the casual or social use of alcohol and cigs with marijuana, from which one puff can make you high? In such a circumstance, there’s no such thing as a casual or social user of marijuana.

So, if a drug makes you high, then one can’t be a casual user of it? What’s your definition of ‘casual’?

As for social, if you mean how it is used, then prevalent pattern of cannabis use is social, i.e. with others.

[Age_Quod_Agis]

@II Gyan II

Why ‘naturally’? They are indeed higher but that’s because these drugs have risks. There’s no prima facie reason that drug A must cause more deaths than drug B simply because more people use it.

Sorry if I’ve been unclear. It’s a question of math. If both drug A and drug B carry the same risk of death (for whatever reason), and more people use drug A than drug B, then drug A is going to be responsible for more fatalities.

Let me see if I can lay it out a bit more. Let’s say drug A and drug B both end up killing 10% of the people that use them. And let’s say 1 million people use drug A, and 1,000 people use drug B. Under those circumstances, drug A would result in 100,000 deaths, while drug B would result in 100 deaths. However, the fact that drug A resulted in more deaths is not because drug A is more risky than drug B. It’s just that more people use drug A.

Alcohol still loses, when you compare direct deaths due to poisoning(overdose): average of 317 annually.

There are still a number of problems with this. First, I think the number of deaths due to tobacco overdose is zero. Second, as I said, we don’t know the number of deaths due to marijuana use. The OP seems to have excluded marijuana use as a factor in any death that it may have caused. So we don’t have any numbers to compare it to.

According to the 2003 NSDUH, of the 50.4% of Americans who had alcohol in the 30 days prior to the survey, nearly half (44.8%) had 5 or more drinks on atleast one day. A majority, but not strong enough to characterize as “most”. Also, this assumes that one needs 5 drinks to get drunk. Persons of relatively low bodyweight & those consuming harder drinks will probably get drunk on lesser number of drinks. Furthermore, this use of language highlights the integration of alcohol in Western culture viz. you’re only intoxicated if you’re “drunk”. Drunkenness is a state when the degree of intoxication shifts from subtle & selective to apparent & pervasive. Alcohol isn’t a social “lubricant” because it excites one’s tastebuds.

First of all, “most” means “the greatest in number.” So unless you think there’s a proportion larger than 55%, I submit that my use of the word “most” was perfectly fine.

Plus, there’s some dispute as to the numbers. From the CDC:

In 2002, 54.9% of U.S adults (18 years and older) reported drinking at least one drink in the past month. The prevalence of past-month alcohol consumption was higher for men (62.4%) than for women (47.9%) (SAMSHA, NSDUH, 2002).

Binge drinking is generally defined as having 5 or more drinks on one occasion, meaning in a row or within a short period of time (Naimi, 2003). However, among women, binge drinking is often defined as having 4 or more drinks on one occasion (NIAAA, 2004) (Wechsler, 1998). This lower cut-point is used for women because women are generally of smaller stature than men, and absorb and metabolize alcohol differently than men.

About 1 in 3 adult drinkers in the United States report past-month binge drinking, and this ratio has changed very little since the mid-1980s (Serdula, 2004).

I first said 1 or 2 drinks at a time. That was wrong. I should have said “fewer than 4 or 5.” Obviously, that’s a fairly large difference, but as I said, I was going on memory, and the number of drinks necessary to get drunk does not invalidate my point.

Second, a little more than half of the American population have had a drink in the past month. About a third of those have had more than 4 or 5 drinks. So we’re actually talking about 1/3rd of 1/2, or 15%. Since my point was that most people don’t drink to get drunk, I think those numbers support my point.

Third, it’s true that quite a few people require fewer than 5 drinks to get “drunk.” However, there are also quite a few people that require more than 5 drinks to get drunk. The 4 or 5 number was established as an estimate of the average necessary to get drunk.

Fourth, your point about there being varying levels of intoxication is exactly my point. Over the course of 1 to 5 drinks (on average), people can go from not perceptibly impaired to noticably intoxicated. Meanwhile, folks here are talking about one puff highs. And when the thing being regulated is a high level of impairment, then it makes sense to prohibit the drug that immediately causes impairment.

In public. And you haven’t made for the case for cigarette “intoxication” being illegal in public. Cite?

I’m not aware of any such phenomenon as 'cigarette intoxication." Cite?

So, if a drug makes you high, then one can’t be a casual user of it? What’s your definition of ‘casual’?

My definition: “Not causing an altered consciousness.”

[Captain_Amazing]

@gonzomax

Does that mean you could actually make a cigarette.Whats involved. Would it be useful. Just curious.

Sure. You know, they did make cigars and cigarettes by hand before mechanical production. You grow tobacco, dry and cure the leaves, and then pulverize them and roll them. Here’s a webpage talking about cigarette manufacture:

http://www.lsc.org/tobacco/manufacturing/manufacture_process.html

It probably won’t be a good as store bought tobacco, just like moonshine isn’t as good as store bought alcohol, but you could do it.

[OneCentStamp]

@Captain Amazing

Sure. You know, they did make cigars and cigarettes by hand before mechanical production. You grow tobacco, dry and cure the leaves, and then pulverize them and roll them. Here’s a webpage talking about cigarette manufacture:

http://www.lsc.org/tobacco/manufacturing/manufacture_process.html

It probably won’t be a good as store bought tobacco, just like moonshine isn’t as good as store bought alcohol, but you could do it.

And just like homegrown weed isn’t usually as good as a bag of good old sticky bud from Mexico, or really potent hydro from Canada…dude, what were we talking about just now?

[II_Gyan_II]

@Age Quod Agis

It’s a question of math.

It’s not a question of math. You said that it was ‘natural’ as if it’s given that any drug must have substantial risks. Caffeine is used regularly by even more people than tobacco, yet it doesn’t cause more deaths than tobacco.

Second, as I said, we don’t know the number of deaths due to marijuana use.

There are NO documented fatal overdoses, as opposed to the (avg) 317 annual alcohol overdose deaths. See post #16.

First of all, “most” means “the greatest in number.” So unless you think there’s a proportion larger than 55%, I submit that my use of the word “most” was perfectly fine.

The connotation is used to indicate a strong majority. The number is close to 50%. ‘Most’ is a misplaced emphasis.

Since my point was that most people don’t drink to get drunk, I think those numbers support my point.

a)your numbers are from 2002; mine are from 2003 so no actual inconsistency there.

b)your original statement was “most American drinkers do not have more than 1 or 2 drinks in a week”. (my emphasis). So the proportion of all adults doesn’t matter.

As for your point, see below.

Fourth, your point about there being varying levels of intoxication is exactly my point.

It’s not. You’re arguing that most people don’t drink to get “drunk”, but drunk isn’t the threshold to indicate alteration of consciousness, only that it’s the state where the intoxication becomes unavoidably apparent.

Meanwhile, folks here are talking about one puff highs.

Strong pot can get you high in one puff just like 190 proof alcohol (Everclear) can get you drunk really quick. But that’s not the average pot out there.

And when the thing being regulated is a high level of impairment, then it makes sense to prohibit the drug that immediately causes impairment.

a)only strong pot does this

b)the nature of the impairment must be taken into consideration. Pot’s effect is pretty mild, unless you smoke a lot. People titrate their consumption depending on the ‘effect’ they’re aiming for.

I’m not aware of any such phenomenon as 'cigarette intoxication."

You said: “So what’s actually legal is the use of alcohol and cigs in amounts moderate enough to not alter your consciousness.”. What did you mean?

My definition: “Not causing an altered consciousness.”

a)This does not even make sense. The purpose of a psychotropic drug is to alter consciousness. So as per you, there’s no such thing as casual drug use? The dictionary definition of casual is “Occurring at irregular or infrequent intervals”.

b)what’s the threshold for “altered consciousness”? Alcohol and even caffeine qualify, if any alteration is counted.