# Why is alcohol use so socially acceptable (required), and pot evil. **URL:** \ **Category:** In My Humble Opinion\ **Created:** [November 22, 2008, 5:11pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005 "2008-11-22T17:11:13Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 5
**Author:** ![levdrakon](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/49beb7/32.png) [@levdrakon](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/levdrakon)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/81 "2008-11-24T04:58:10Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > No. Honestly I don’t. Do you mean for the smoke, or the substance itself. > I quit tobacco some years ago. I’ve seen people who were allergic to seeing smoke from down the street. > I’m becoming cynical about some (many?) people’s allergies. Yeah, the smoke. Most people I know probably wouldn’t care what was in the smoke. Just the fact you’re polluting their air with molecules is enough to get the victim-offended-judgmental response going. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/82 "2008-11-24T05:13:17Z")
> [@trupa](#): > > The point is that, although many people regrettably use ethanol as a legally available drug, that is not the reason why most alcoholic drinks are made, withe possible exception of cheap watery beer and stuff like everclear and redbird. Alcoholic drinks are made to be appreciated like chocolate, or steak, or smoked salmon, and to be consumed in low enough quantities to avoid getting drunk. Oh please. Alcoholic beverages are made for their alcoholic effect. People drink them for their alcoholic effect. Granted there are “connoisseurs” of wine and other expensive beverages, just as there are of certain fine cigars. This in no way makes this the intended purpose of alcoholic beverages or tobacco products. And I would argue that while refinery may have produced something interesting to taste, the original point of the refinery historically was not to make something inherently enjoyable, but rather to decrease the amount it was unpleasant to partake in certain things in order to get one’s buzz on. While the alcoholic content may make some of the more subtle flavors more detectable, it does not make them more enjoyable. This may make for a fun game for wine enthusiasts playing at super sniffing, but it doesn’t enhance the actual flavor of the beverage, except on the most abstract of levels. And avoiding getting drunk in no way negates the intoxicating intentions of the person drinking. Drinking one drink still will give a calming effect or even a nice buzz to those not used to drinking larger quantities. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 6:48am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/83 "2008-11-24T06:48:54Z")
The effects of alcohol are a long and controllable sliding scale. I can detect and enjoy the resulting feelings from a single glass of red wine - while still being well-within legally-defined sobriety. Now obviously one could continue on alcohol’s scale runing all the way to drunk, thrashed, and literally drop-dead drunk (that’s one thing marijuana can hold over alcohol). Marijuana’s effects are spread over a much shorter sliding scale. On the low end perhaps you have “I didn’t quite get feel anything”, then high, then stoned. It’s like you didn’t achieve a high, did, or REALLY did. There’s no room on that scale for sober connoisseurship. Marijuana is a light switch drug - off, on, or 150 watt. Alcohol is comparatively a dimmer switch - and loads of people just enjoy the dimmest of lighting. ---
**Author:** ![JThunder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/e95f7d/32.png) [@JThunder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/JThunder)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 6:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/84 "2008-11-24T06:58:11Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Oh please. Alcoholic beverages are made for their alcoholic effect. People drink them for their alcoholic effect.. Balderdash. I can enjoy an occasional fruit wine, and yet I despite drunkenness. At no point in my life did I ever drink for the purpose of feeling intoxicated. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 7:11am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/85 "2008-11-24T07:11:17Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Balderdash. We also would have accepted “horsefeathers”. ---
**Author:** ![jackdavinci](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/jackdavinci/32/3259_2.png) [@jackdavinci](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jackdavinci)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 9:21am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/86 "2008-11-24T09:21:35Z")
> [@JThunder](#): > > Balderdash. I can enjoy an occasional fruit wine, and yet I despite drunkenness. At no point in my life did I ever drink for the purpose of feeling intoxicated. Again, intoxication is not drunkeness. Getting a slight buzz is still drinking for effect. And those numbers of truly “just for the taste of it” drinkers are the exception and a minority. ---
**Author:** ![bengangmo](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/50afbb/32.png) [@bengangmo](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/bengangmo)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 10:13am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/87 "2008-11-24T10:13:34Z")
> [@mhendo](#): > > Perhaps because your simple presence allows four or five of your friends to drink themselves comatose—spending tens or hundreds of dollars in the process—without worrying about how they’re going to get home? > > I’ve worked in bars on three continents, and have never known a bar owner or manager to insist that the designated driver have a (soft) drink in hand. You are correct that bars are places of business, and that their function is to sell drinks. Which is precisely why owners and managers know how to weigh up the value to their bottom line of four or five people drinking to their hearts’ content, accompanied by a single non-drinker. Not to mention that no bar wants to become known as “oh that place where the drunk driver was before he killed the family with quintuplets” …without exception all the bars I know are very responsible about discouraging drink driving ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 10:29am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/88 "2008-11-24T10:29:18Z")
> [@Crocodiles\_And\_Boulevards](#): > > Not to mention potheads are incredibly fucking annoying. Their jokes are _not_ funny. Some think they’ve been possessed by Confucius while they’re high and spout the most incredible inanities. They’re the ultimate wallflowers at a party, oh, and that reminds me. Apparently the only pot smokers you’ve been around were 16 years old and trying it for the third time. > [@](#): > > Being drunk equates (right or wrong) more fun for the entire party, so to speak. Being drunk means being fun to the other _drunk people_ at the party, you mean. I’ve gone to bars sober. It is one of the least enjoyable experiences on the planet, and drunk people are annoying as hell. At least your stoned philosopher caricature isn’t going to try to pick a fight with me! > [@](#): > > At most parties I’ve been to, the smokers are secluded in a bedroom/bathroom/porch away from everyone else. > [@](#): > > Oh, and that stuff _stinks_, too. If you don’t understand the connection between these two quotes, I really don’t know what to say. > [@](#): > > And while I’m fine with them and never complain, in this post it was very easy to take my own minor annoyances and magnify them into an actual anti-pot-in-social-situations platform. So everything you just wrote is a load of crap? Gotcha. ETA: It’s also worth noting that in the past 15 years, I’ve been stoned around teachers, students, co-workers, supervisors, relatives, _police officers_, and none of them noticed. Everyone always knew when I was drunk, though. ---
**Author:** ![Sailboat](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/sailboat/32/461_2.png) [@Sailboat](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Sailboat)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 2:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/89 "2008-11-24T14:20:43Z")
Well, for one thing, marijuana inflicts damage on everyone around you via passive smoke. That makes it morally unacceptable; that’s not always the same thing as socially unacceptable, but seems to be so in this case. ---
**Author:** ![Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/a4c791/32.png) [@Frustrated\_Wonderer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Frustrated_Wonderer)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 2:39pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/90 "2008-11-24T14:39:35Z")
People often forget that there are others ways of gettting high without smoking. You can eat Brownies, have THC in various types of beverages, and if you want to minimize smoking harm you can use a vaproizer, which is almost harmless for the lungs. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 3:18pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/91 "2008-11-24T15:18:16Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > Marijuana’s effects are spread over a much shorter sliding scale. On the low end perhaps you have “I didn’t quite get feel anything”, then high, then stoned. It’s like you didn’t achieve a high, did, or REALLY did. There’s no room on that scale for sober connoisseurship. I dispute that claim. In my (considerable) experience, there are various degrees of being stoned. The effects of marijuana are rather subtle, and it takes a bit of experience to truly be aware of these degrees, so it wouldn’t surprise me that a naive user would think it’s all or nothing. And, unlike alcohol, different strains provide different types of highs. “Sativa” strains are considered to have more of a mental high, while “Indica” strains have a more heavy body effect. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:26pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/92 "2008-11-24T16:26:14Z")
> [@Blalron](#): > > I dispute that claim. In my (considerable) experience, there are various degrees of being stoned. The effects of marijuana are rather subtle, and it takes a bit of experience to truly be aware of these degrees, so it wouldn’t surprise me that a naive user would think it’s all or nothing. > > And, unlike alcohol, different strains provide different types of highs. “Sativa” strains are considered to have more of a mental high, while “Indica” strains have a more heavy body effect. Oh come on. I know exactly what you’re talking about, but it’s largely just stoner rhetoric. It’s no different from people who claim they get drunk one way on whiskey and another on beer. It’s immaterial. For the purposes of the discussion, you’re still just high and/or intoxicated. ---
**Author:** ![drastic\_quench](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/e36b37/32.png) [@drastic\_quench](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/drastic_quench)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:27pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/93 "2008-11-24T16:27:43Z")
> [@jackdavinci](#): > > Again, intoxication is not drunkeness. Getting a slight buzz is still drinking for effect. And those numbers of truly “just for the taste of it” drinkers are the exception and a minority. That’d be pretty damning if you could cite any reliable source for this assertion. ---
**Author:** ![neutron\_star](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/n/51bf81/32.png) [@neutron\_star](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/neutron_star)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/94 "2008-11-24T16:34:01Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > Marijuana’s effects are spread over a much shorter sliding scale. On the low end perhaps you have “I didn’t quite get feel anything”, then high, then stoned. It’s like you didn’t achieve a high, did, or REALLY did. There’s no room on that scale for sober connoisseurship. Welp, that’s it, you guys who have been running the Cannabis Cup for the past twenty years. Forums user **drastic\_quench** has determined that your entire event is a sham. Better just pack it in and give up. :rolleyes: > [@](#): > > Marijuana is a light switch drug - off, on, or 150 watt. If this is true, then how come pot smokers don’t just take one toke and stop? By your logic, joints and blunts shouldn’t exist. And even if it was true, _what the hell would it matter_? I’m so sick of people proclaiming that those who enjoy altered states of consciousness must be somehow (though nobody can figure out exactly how) immoral for their preference. ---
**Author:** ![HMS\_Irruncible](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hms_irruncible/32/7394_2.png) [@HMS\_Irruncible](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/HMS_Irruncible)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/95 "2008-11-24T16:51:42Z")
I think the reasons are complicated and many-faceted, but here are what I see as the 2 big things: 1. For whatever reasons, pot (and certain other drugs) have acquired a lower-class stigma among adults. People claim not to be class-conscious, but middle-class and upper-class people find fewer things more distressing than to suddenly find themselves among people of a conspicuously lower social class. 2. Drinking alcohol is, overall, a more social experience than smoking pot. I don’t mean this in the obvious sense, because people can and do get together and drink alcohol or smoke pot in a group. I mean that when drinking alcohol, people tend to gradually get drunk together in a group, enjoy interactive conversation, be aware of one another’s intake, etc. It also helps that it’s often a food-centric activity, which increases its social aspect. When smoking pot, a strong buzz comes on very rapidly, you can’t be certain about your neighbor’s headspace, people get lost in space quickly… physically you may be together but mentally you can get pretty disjointed. Personally, these issues are no problem for me, but I think the public at large finds them too frightening. People avoid or discourage things that are perceived as lower-class or asocial. In fact the class thing is the major reason drugs were originally outlawed… for years people were getting addicted to cocaine, heroin, etc… then there were scares about the Mexicans and Chinese, and suddenly their drugs are outlawed as ways to control those ethnicities. ---
**Author:** ![dmatsch](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/3be4f8/32.png) [@dmatsch](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/dmatsch)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/96 "2008-11-24T17:05:33Z")
> [@Shayna](#): > > Sorry, but you’re just wrong. Not only is it possible to drink and not get tipsy, let alone drunk, most people who drink do so without getting drunk all the time. I don’t get the least bit buzzed with a single beer or a glass or two of wine with dinner. That’s why there’s a **legal limit** to how much alcohol can be in your bloodstream and still allow you to operate a motor vehicle. > > On the other hand, one cannot smoke a joint without getting high, if not totally stoned. At least not unless it’s your first time trying it. Most of the time you can’t even take two or three _hits_ without getting high. > > The comparison between alcohol and pot is nonsensical and absurd. Umm… I disagree. My alcohol tolerance is way low. I get buzzed off of one beer/one glass of wine. A mixed drink really gets me buzzed. I can smoke a whole bowl/joint and be pleasantly relaxed, and more coherent for conversation with my friends than I could be drunk. I would never attempt a drive home on a few drinks, however pot is a different story. I don’t like the buzz alcohol gives you, and I won’t get started on hangovers, because I’ll win the argument. Your argument doesn’t have legs. ---
**Author:** ![Blalron](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/35a633/32.png) [@Blalron](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Blalron)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 5:46pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/97 "2008-11-24T17:46:22Z")
> [@drastic\_quench](#): > > Oh come on. I know exactly what you’re talking about, but it’s largely just stoner rhetoric. It’s no different from people who claim they get drunk one way on whiskey and another on beer. It’s immaterial. For the purposes of the discussion, you’re still just high and/or intoxicated. Incorrect. There is more to marijuana than THC. It may be the main active ingredient, but there are several other related compounds called cannabinoids that modulate the marijuana high. CBD (cannabidiol), for example, has been shown by some studies to reduce the anxiety associated with THC use. That’s actually one of the factors that made the scientific community so resistant initially to medical cannabis. Scientists like to isolate specific compounds and test them. But marijuana is a blend of many different psychoactive chemicals, and this blend can vary from strain to strain and even amongst different plants of the same strain. The “Sativex” brand oral cannabis spray has been approved for medical use in Canada (and also appearing to be heading towards approval in the U.S), and it got approved precisely because it’s based off of a cloned strain, so every single bottle has exactly the same mixture of cannabinoids and thus delivers consistant results. Alcoholic beverages, on the other hand, all have one active psychoative ingrediant: Alcohol. As far as I have been able to tell, alcoholic beverages don’t have any other psychoactive ingrediants. Whiskey and beer contain chemicals called congeners which make one more prone to headaches, but it doesn’t really modulate ones experience of being drunk. ---
**Author:** ![Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/h/e9bcb4/32.png) [@Hazle\_Weatherfield](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hazle_Weatherfield)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 8:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/98 "2008-11-24T20:17:00Z")
> [@neutron\_star](#): > > Apparently the only pot smokers you’ve been around were 16 years old and trying it for the third time. > > Being drunk means being fun to the other _drunk people_ at the party, you mean. I’ve gone to bars sober. It is one of the least enjoyable experiences on the planet, and drunk people are annoying as hell. At least your stoned philosopher caricature isn’t going to try to pick a fight with me! > If you don’t understand the connection between these two quotes, I really don’t know what to say. > > So everything you just wrote is a load of crap? Gotcha. > > ETA: It’s also worth noting that in the past 15 years, I’ve been stoned around teachers, students, co-workers, supervisors, relatives, _police officers_, and none of them noticed. Everyone always knew when I was drunk, though. Are you sure no one noticed? My husband’s daughter and her boyfriend were spending the night with us. The next morning he went out for about 5 minutes to walk the dog. I couldn’t tell he was stoned by the way he was acting, but I could smell it on him a mile away. It was insane. I mean, I believe that they couldn’t tell by how your were acting, but how did you get rid of the smell? ---
**Author:** ![Fiddle\_Peghead](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/fiddle_peghead/32/3506_2.png) [@Fiddle\_Peghead](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Fiddle_Peghead)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 8:45pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/99 "2008-11-24T20:45:06Z")
> [@mangeorge](#): > > Why does practically everyone try so hard to get you to have something, _anything_, in a glass. I have no idea what you are talking about. All of my friends either drink, or smoke weed, or both, and none of us give a fuck about what the other’s chosen form of recreation is. Of course, if you go to a party where there are people you don’t know, I can see this might happen. As for me, I just don’t go to, or quickly leave, those sorts of parties. ---
**Author:** ![Freudian\_Slit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/5daacb/32.png) [@Freudian\_Slit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Freudian_Slit)\ **Post date:** [November 24, 2008, 9:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005/100 "2008-11-24T21:17:00Z")
> [@Lamia](#): > > The only people I’ve known who seemed REALLY bothered by my not drinking were people with drinking problems themselves, but I can see how an ordinary moderate drinker might feel a little uncomfortable just because they were having something you weren’t having. But that’s the sort of thing people should keep to themselves. Your friends should have ordered the drink if that’s what she wanted or not ordered it if she just couldn’t stand to, but either way she shouldn’t have expressed any annoyance to you. Yeah, that was my thinking. Other than that, I’ve never really had anyone “pressure” me in terms of drinking. (Well, I did have one friend who asked that we not socialize in bars after he realized he had a serious drinking problem.) Maybe it is a fear of being judged, who knows. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005.md?page=4) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/why-is-alcohol-use-so-socially-acceptable-required-and-pot-evil/474005.md?page=6)