1206: Smoke Weed Every Day

[Diglass]

The stats I presented on here are deaths due to ingestion, not how the drug was acquired.

You can find the same stats at drugwarfacts.org, or I can give you several other sites with stats that say virtually the same thing. I've written several papers, and often final papers on this subject, so I've done a little bit of research on it.

85,000 - 87,000 people die from ingesting alcohol every year in the US
0 people die from ingesting pot
around 400,000 die from ingesting tobacco products
and around 20,000 people die from ALL other illicit drugs combined (with the exception of prescription drug abuse, I do not believe that is included in these studies)

But still when you think about it, almost 4 times as many people die from drinking than using heroin, smoking crack/meth, doing coke....etc... It just doesn't make tons of sense.

Drug Facts And Statistics
Annual Causes of Death in the United States | Drug War Facts
Financial Cost of the War on Drugs: Where Is the Money Going to Keep Drugs off the Street?

How people get their drug(s) of choice is up to them. I don't know anyone who robs people to get their "fix" of weed. Generally stupid people do stupid things to get their drug, and stupid people do stupid things while on their drug of choice.

I know from my experiences, any time something really fucked up has happened involving multiple people those people were usually drunk or high on meth.

I've never been robbed or jumped from people who were stoned only on pot by itself. Even in New Orleans, San Francisco, Portland, Los Angeles. Then again I do not live in any of those cities, only visited some for longer than others.

I believe it is all in the individual. People can smoke responsibly, and still live responsible lives just as much as people can drink responsibly, and still live responsible lives. Anything in excess can fuck up your life, and anything that alters your reaction time while driving can kill others who are driving innocently and abiding the law.

and for the Christians out there who are vehemently opposed to pot I'd like to say God created pot, man created alcohol, who do you trust?

[Bucho]

Originally Posted by Diglass

But still when you think about it, almost 4 times as many people die from drinking than using heroin, smoking crack/meth, doing coke....etc... It just doesn't make tons of sense.

This stat seems pretty meaningless in an argument about which drugs are more dangerous than others though Diglass. You need to cite ratios of users to deaths, not simply numbers of deaths. Four times as many people die from alcohol than hard drugs, but how many more people are using alcohol than using hard drugs? I'd guess many, many more than four times as much, which would point to alcohol being less dangerous than hard drugs. Which, "when you think about it" actually would "make tons of sense."

For the record though, I'm pro-legalisation of weed.

[Diglass]

Originally Posted by Bucho

This stat seems pretty meaningless in an argument about which drugs are more dangerous than others though Diglass. You need to cite ratios of users to deaths, not simply numbers of deaths. Four times as many people die from alcohol than hard drugs, but how many more people are using alcohol than using hard drugs? I'd guess many, many more than four times as much, which would point to alcohol being less dangerous than hard drugs. Which, "when you think about it" actually would "make tons of sense."

For the record though, I'm pro-legalisation of weed.

Yeah I was kind of rambling at that part just thinking out loud, yet still the bulk of what I said I think makes sense to most people. These statistics may be shocking to some, but yes obviously more people do drink heavily than the amount of people who use illicit drugs heavily. I really shouldn't have brought illicit drugs into the conversation, because I also am only for pot being decriminalized at least to the same regulations, laws, and taxes as alcohol.

Also in our economy, and with our budget, we really should not have people with ONLY marijuana related offenses clogging up even small amounts of prisons in the U.S.