Well, one would assume that if marajuana was legalized commercially available, you’d see a standardization and increase in quality there, too.
No, I never said that it’s “natural” any drug must have substantial risks. I said that many more people are using alcohol and tobacco, so it’s natural that more people’s deaths would be related to them. In fact, my point was that you can’t derive the severity of risk just by looking at the number of fatalities. The number of fatalities is going to be higher if more people use a drug.
The risks of caffeine are significantly lower than marijuana, and yet people have died from caffeine overdoses. Does that mean we should ban caffeine and legalize marijuana? By your logic, it does.
First of all, post #16 did not say that there were no fatal overdoses from marijuana. Post #16 says “The CDC has characterized a few deaths as cannabis-induced and related.” And if you follow the link, the CDC has characterized deaths as being from “Acute Intoxication,” “Harmful Use,” and “Nondependent Abuse” of cannabis.
Second, who cares? There are plenty of reasons to prohibit something besides the number of fatal overdoses. And marijuana is obviously being prohibited for reasons other than the number of fatal overdoses it causes.
Now you’re just making things up.
“Most” merely implies what it means: “a majority.” I did not use the word inconsistent with its meaning. I did not inject some form of magical connotation that was inconsistent with its plain meaning. If you read something into the sentence that wasn’t there, I suggest you start reading more carefully.
Take another look at my quote. The numbers come from different years, but the 1 in 3 number comes from 2004. And while I think the difference between 55% and 67% is probably not that significant, the fact that you’re pestering me over whether 55% qualifies as “most,” the difference between those numbers may be relevant.
I’ll concede that within the confines of that one sentence, taken out of context, the proportion of all adults doesn’t matter.
But my larger point was that most adults don’t drink to get drunk (and that as a result, it’s easier to separate drinking and getting drunk than smoking and getting high). The group that decides whether something is prohibited is “all adults.” So within the larger argument, the proportion of all adults does matter.
First of all, what’s illegal is the level of impairment that comes with being overly intoxicated. Hence the use of the word “drunk.”
Second, you may be (very) slightly impaired from 1 or 2 drinks, but I doubt you’ve achieved an alteration of consciousness.
Third, the point is that people typically do not drink alcohol with the intent of becoming substantially impaired or altering their consciousness. They do (appear to) typically use marijuana with the intent of becoming substantially impaired.
[sigh] Can strong alcohol – even Everclear – get you drunk in one sip?
Once again, the point is that it’s easier to separate the casual use of alcohol from the casual use of marijuana.
Exactly what I said. Obviously, I’m not aware of any amount of cigs that can cause a person to become intoxicated. Which is probably why there’s no law prohibiting intoxication by cigarette.
Which is exactly my point. If what’s being outlawed is the altered consciousness, and the purpose of these drugs are to alter consciousness, then it makes sense to outlaw the drugs themselves, rather than merely outlaw their use to excess (because any use is to excess).
You want me to tell you how much alcohol, caffiene, or marijuana is too much? I have no idea. It depends on the drug and it depends on the person. However, the state of Texas defines public intoxication as follows:
The Texas DWI statute says you’re intoxicated when you have a blood alcohol content over 0.08, or when through the use of an alcoholic beverage, drug, controlled substance, or any combination thereof, you have lost the normal use of either your mental or physical faculties. So I’m going to go with that definition.
It’s true, but it’s not natural. Alcohol could cause fewer deaths despite higher use. It doesn’t. But this tangent is irrelevant to the larger point, so I’ll drop it.
The hypocrisy is over putative lower marijuana toxicity compared to alcohol and yet it being illegal. I have never advocated making caffeine (or alcohol) illegal.
The findings of fact in the DEA case does say that there are no recorded fatal overdoses. And from the ‘investigation’ link in #16:
*The other striking feature about the deaths attributed to marijuana is that none are described as being the result of poisoning or overdose.
…
After I extracted all the data for the cannabis deaths, I was able to decipher some, but not all of the codes I found. In addition, I discovered that the rules of which particular code was used for the underlying cause were apparently being violated for each of the deaths being blamed on marijuana use. The last entry in Part I is supposed to be entered as the underlying cause of death, and the additional data listed in Part II is specifically not supposed to be used as the underlying cause at all. However, I found that for the deaths blamed on marijuana, these rules were not followed.*.
In any case, here’s an editorial about cannabis and mortality in the British Medical Journal:
Colloquially, ‘most’ implies a decisive majority. From the thesaurus : “Much more than half”
The CDC cites “(Serdula, 2004)” as the source for the 1 in 3 number. Scroll down to see the title of the cited paper: “Serdula M, Brewer R, Gillespie C, Denny C, Mokdad A. Trends in alcohol use and binge drinking 1985-1999. Results of a multi-state survey. AM J Prev Med 2004; Apr, 26(4).”
But this is misleading since consciousness is altered before you reach ‘drunk’. You’re equivocating any ‘high’ to being ‘drunk’, but even cannabis produces levels of mild intoxication, a counterpart to the 2-3 drinks effect. Not all drugs have the ‘crack cocaine’ effect.
What’s your definition of altered consciousness?
“Substantially” impaired? Cite?
By your definition of “casual” and what constitutes altered consciousness. In the dictionary, casual is “Occurring at irregular or infrequent intervals”. Anyway, this point’s moot, see below.
But the laws are against intoxication in public because one might potentially endanger others, not the altering of consciousness itself.