Alcohol vs weed

[FlorianK]

btw for alcohol what kind of physical harm are we talking about? Killing brain cells? I am still not quite sure about this. My dad have had alcohol nearly everyday of his life, from the start of uni till now and he succeeded in uni, his phd and job. Also now he is still perfectly fit. I mean to really kill your brain you probably need to be totally off your face every single second of your life in order to make it noticeable.
In the same way my dad's frat-bros didn't got any damage from it and most of them are now leading department superintendent at volkswagen.

[no steez]

For example, LSD, which is widely abused, does not appear to be addictive. Animals will not self-administer hallucinogens, suggesting that they are not rewarding [44].

Animals are actually known to take hallucinogens, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkCS9ePWuLU
I know people who have taken LSD, they both said they would not take LSD everyday. They said it's more of an annual thing, the thought of tripping every day or every week did not appeal to them. They said the experience is so profound and spiritual that psychologically they didn't have the balls to take it often. But they did say the WOULD do it again ( does that classify as dependence?)

[FlorianK]

Animals are actually known to take hallucinogens, watch this video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MkCS9ePWuLU
I know people who have taken LSD, they both said they would not take LSD everyday. They said it's more of an annual thing, the thought of tripping every day or every week did not appeal to them. They said the experience is so profound and spiritual that psychologically they didn't have the balls to take it often. But they did say the WOULD do it again ( does that classify as dependence?)

OMG, I'm addicted to gummi bears , I shell go and see a psychologist

[no steez]

OMG, I'm addicted to gummi bears , I shell go and see a psychologist

\
lsd gummy bears?

[Professor Polonsky]

btw for alcohol what kind of physical harm are we talking about? Killing brain cells? I am still not quite sure about this. My dad have had alcohol nearly everyday of his life, from the start of uni till now and he succeeded in uni, his phd and job. Also now he is still perfectly fit. I mean to really kill your brain you probably need to be totally off your face every single second of your life in order to make it noticeable.
In the same way my dad's frat-bros didn't got any damage from it and most of them are now leading department superintendent at volken.

Alcohol's physical harm is not awful, but there is some.

The rating here is a subjective rating.

That's the problem with those studies - those things are usually very hard to measure. What we do know though is that alcohol and tobacco cause many, many deaths and much damage to society (British doctors' study, statistics regarding alcohol abuse in traffic accidents / assault / abuse cases). We don't have anything suggesting even near societal harm caused by illicit drugs - and most of it is related to the trade in them, rather than their actual use.

And then there's the big question of whether you even believe medical studies... I'm a big skeptic there.

[Mao]

That's the problem with those studies - those things are usually very hard to measure. What we do know though is that alcohol and tobacco cause many, many deaths and much damage to society (British doctors' study, statistics regarding alcohol abuse in traffic accidents / assault / abuse cases). We don't have anything suggesting even near societal harm caused by illicit drugs - and most of it is related to the trade in them, rather than their actual use.

The rebuttal for that is that for certain illicit drugs, there could be two reasons why we don't have evidence suggesting their societal harm:
(1) they don't actually cause any societal harm
OR
(2) they do cause societal harm, but they are controlled well enough that these harms are suppressed to a point where data is unobtainable.

The addiction data on heroin shows this effect somewhat, that heroin is so well controlled the sample sizes are tiny, and useful statistics cannot be obtained.

EDIT: I realise that this resembles the fallacy in Russell's teapot, but the point is neither claims can be made with certainty. If the goal is to change the status quo, the burden of proof is on the person lobbying for the change to show that (2) is unlikely. For the case of psychedelic drugs, it is not ridiculous to doubt (1) and favour (2).

While we see the death toll caused by alcohol and tobacco consumption, the relative proportion of death/harm to consumers is arguably tiny. I don't believe we have statistics to a satisfactory degree of accuracy which can show that should certain illicit drugs have a large %population uptake, they would cause less death/harm than alcohol and tobacco. I could be wrong though, I don't know enough about the literature in this area of research.

And then there's the big question of whether you even believe medical studies... I'm a big skeptic there.

You answered your own point here:

Sure, you can go skeptic about anything and get away with it, but it doesn't make for a very substantive discussion.

Anyways, the point I'm trying to make is that I (and many many others) have not seen enough evidence that argue illicit drugs are necessarily safer than alcohol/tobacco. You appear to be fully confident with this claim, but have not effectively substantiated it to convince the rest of us.

[Markkiieee]

Smoking > Alcohol > Weed

[mark_alec]

EDIT: I realise that this resembles the fallacy in Russell's teapot, but the point is neither claims can be made with certainty. If the goal is to change the status quo, the burden of proof is on the person lobbying for the change to show that (2) is unlikely. For the case of psychedelic drugs, it is not ridiculous to doubt (1) and favour (2).

Do you give any credence to the historical reasons various now illicit drugs were made illegal?

[Mao]

Do you give any credence to the historical reasons various now illicit drugs were made illegal?

Sure, I remember something about hemp and the paper industry at the time, but I don't know enough history about other drugs. However, surely historical wrongdoing is not grounds enough to legalise illicit drugs?

[Professor Polonsky]

I'll reply to most of Mao's post tomorrow (hopefully), but just one quick thing I wanted to address - the rest of it will require some more thought to fully explain how I feel about the science behind drugs and how it should affect policy et cetera.

In regards to me saying I'm a skeptic about medical studies - there is a good reason for that. Pharma companies are amongst the largest in the world, and they have a vested interest in the results of such research, the magnitude of which cannot be understated. We know that money corrupts, and how easy it is to manipulate the results of any empirical academic research. I'm not saying that all medical studies are crap, not at all, but I generally approach them with caution.

[mark_alec]

Sure, I remember something about hemp and the paper industry at the time, but I don't know enough history about other drugs. However, surely historical wrongdoing is not grounds enough to legalise illicit drugs?

I'd say if it was made illegal for the wrong reasons (racism against blacks and hispanics) that is a good reason to seriously re-evaluate the health/societal costs of it without any of the 'reefer madness' hysteria associated or the assumption that because it is currently illegal it is more harmful than legal drugs.

[Markkiieee]

Alcohol may be more dangerous but weed is illegal so I will still see weed being worse

[brenden]

Alcohol may be more dangerous but weed is illegal so I will still see weed being worse

This made me cry a little. (non-literally)

[Markkiieee]

This made me cry a little. (non-literally)

ok, why?

[Russ]

The general point about illicit drug X being less dangerous than alcohol and/or cigarettes (or <insert legal activity here>), so they should be legalized is one I really dislike. Drinking to excess, smoking a pack a day etc. are all bad for you. The issue of whether or not they should be legalized or unrestricted is completely separate to the issue of whether or not something else should be. I don't have an ideological objection to decriminalization per se, but in many cases I find the presentation of the drug as "safe" to be completely lacking. If there's a push to make weed legal to the general public (ie not as a medicinal form but as a product), it should contain evidence that there are no health risks.

I do take the point about historical prejudices being why they were originally made illegal, I just find it irrelevant to why they should be legalized now. The usual amusing anecdote about this is that there's a gigantic fight over medicinal marijuana, but we've been using heroin medicinally for years.

And then there's the big question of whether you even believe medical studies... I'm a big skeptic there.

Because conspiracy, right? All Big Pharma does is just make up the results of all the studies!

Well I have done research on it, not one single person has died of a recorded LSD overdose, yet countless people have died from alcohol poisoning.

That's not the point, the point was that graph is really just a nice picture rather than an actual thing.

ok, why?

It's a rather illogical statement