Alcohol vs weed

[Markkiieee]

It's just how I was taught...

[brenden]

It's just how I was taught...

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean anything personal by it. It's just, why should the law be a factor on the morality of an act? Particularly if something legal is more dangerous. Law doesn't have too much value in that equation.

[Professor Polonsky]

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.

Why? I have consistently argued that criminalisation of certain substances does a lot more bad than good, without even going into just how risky it is. Any behaviour has some level of risk associated with it, including walking down the street. The question should be is there more benefit than harm by making something illegal, rather than does this thing cause any harm (and if yes, criminalise).

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

Not exclusively, I'm sure there are some non-biased medical studies out there.

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.

[Markkiieee]

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean anything personal by it. It's just, why should the law be a factor on the morality of an act? Particularly if something legal is more dangerous. Law doesn't have too much value in that equation.

that's ok

But under-age drinking is also illegal


edit: accidently a word

[JellyDonut]

Why should weed be shown to have absolutely 'no health risks' before its retailed?

ok, why?

cuz its a deference to authority and not an actual reasoning against

[Professor Polonsky]

Uhm. Maybe not.

[brenden]

It is that more dumb people start smoking weed. However it doesn't mean that it makes you dumb.

Lol... I don't think low intelligence is the big factor here. Perhaps low-socioeconomic areas are more prone to both drug use and worse education, but I think 'less intelligent people smoke' needs a lot more thought put into it.

[pi]

It is that more dumb people start smoking weed. However it doesn't mean that it makes you dumb.

what

[BubbleWrapMan]

cuz its a deference to authority and not an actual reasoning against

Yeah, sorry, I didn't mean anything personal by it. It's just, why should the law be a factor on the morality of an act? Particularly if something legal is more dangerous. Law doesn't have too much value in that equation.

I think it plays a part if you don't want to break the law. This is a thing.

[brenden]

Perhaps on whether that person would prefer to perform x act or y, but I think morality is pretty isolated from the law. Or, moral reasoning is superficial if the law is a big factor.

[JellyDonut]

There was a study where they found kids that smoked weed showed an average drop in iq over time but we already know that mind altering substances can fuck with developing brains so it isn't really surprising

I was gonna say something else to marquee but I fell asleep and forgot and I ain't even mad

[BubbleWrapMan]

The morality of it is negligible, since it shouldn't have a huge impact on one's everyday life if weed is illegal. If it does, then the problem isn't with the law.

That said, I don't particularly agree with tobacco and alcohol being legal as opposed to weed, but it's very low on my list of things to give a shit about. I care about people more than most things, and especially more than smoking or drinking. The legality of these things is just a bonus/inconvenience rather than anything profound. I would worry if it were the only way I could have fun.

[brenden]

it's very low on my list of things to give a shit about

This.

[Mao]

Mao edit: I did some pruning. More shenanigans will invite the lock.

[slothpomba]

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.

Fantastic point, it's one of the things that annoy me most when this issue comes up. It's also based on the assumption that the person you're debating wouldn't instantly ban alcohol or cigarettes if they had the power or somehow accept them as a standard.

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 don't know about *no* health risks. Walking out of your house is inherently risky, riding a bicycle is risky, etc. I think its more about the quality of evidence (which is lacking for things like marijuana), we have a strong degree of evidence that taking x carries an acceptable risk (obviously foreshadowing the discussion about what counts as acceptable).

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Shame it's not a particularly scientifically valid graph then -.-

I think it's reasonably accurate, whats your beef with it?

Stop quoting that graph. It has no scientific basis.

I'm not sure if this is connected to the confidence interval but if it isn't, i'd like to hear why for this.

The statistics don't give a confidence interval anywhere near the range required to compare the actual harm of alcohol and weed. See: Re: Alcohol vs weed

Science isn't a democracy, we need a consensus but we don't need 5000 experts to sit around and say something is the truth to make it so. I agree 8 to 16 is tiny but what if the 8 to 16 are the leading experts in the field? Looking at it in a much wider context, not just this study, from my knowledge of pharmacology, i would say it is reasonably accurate on a relative basis.