Why do you think Marijuana is taboo and alcohol not?

@Shovelcut

I didn't include drunk driving and the likes because it is a well known thing. Although driving while under influence (while high) is also pretty bad.

You are right about the fact that there's various factors that varies depending on the circumstances but it's why I used the term threshold. That threshold vary from person to person but I don't think body weight and tolerance to alcohol (at least, in the sense of getting drunk or not from it) matter here. The liver is the organ that treat the alcohol and that tries to remove it from your body as you probably know. The size differential of a liver doesn't change much from a small to a tall to a big person and I don't think it would change at all from a thin to a fat person. Even though a small person will generally feel drunk from much less alcohol consumption than a tall and fat person, the liver of the big person will endure far more alcohol if both drink to the same level of drunkness (which is directly related to the alcohol percentage found in blood), assuming equal alcohol resistance.

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pneuma wrote:

In the US at least it was made illegal as a weapon against "hippies, blacks, hispanics, and other undesirables".

It perpetuated in this way, supported by blatant propaganda like Reefer Madness, fulfilling it's primary mission of removing liberal elements from society while also enriching the criminal system in a multitude of ways (primarily, prisons appreciate the slave labor which is explicitly legal in the 13th Amendment).

It's a dark stain on the country, but it looks like the end of prohibition is getting nigh as more and more states legalize it.

Well, that is how they kept drumming up support for it, demonizing the 'other'.
But it was made illegal in the 30's because hemp based products were going to directly compete against petroleum based products like diesel fuel and nylon rope. An oil executive got into a political position like secretary of state in the 30's, shortly after the patent of nylon and the patent of a bio diesel engine by ford designed to run on hemp oil, and made all hemp products illegal in the US. Like most problems in the world, this can be laid squarely at the feet of oil interests globally.


*edit: iirc the guy was either an executive of Dupont or a lobbyist for Dupont, major petroleum product finisher

Misinformation. It's really that simple.

Same thing happened during prohibition in the U.S. Most of that was propagated by religious zealots.

Marijuana will be legalized everywhere soon. Governments are starting to realize there is too much money in it. Capitalism always wins in the U.S. whether it is good or bad for the populous is irrelevant in most cases.


http://fortune.com/2016/12/13/colorado-billion-legal-marijuana-sales/
http://www.rollingstone.com/culture/news/colorado-may-pay-residents-over-excess-marijuana-revenue-20150130
http://www.coloradoan.com/story/sponsor-story/choice-organics/2017/04/06/cannabis-revenue-supports-colorado-health-education-programs/100122378/

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LostForm wrote:

But it was made illegal in the 30's

It was medical/prescription-only in the late 20s, then reinforced in 1930 due to the Marijuana Tax Act, which was the hemp-related thing.

The MTA was repealed in 1970 and was immediately replaced by the Controlled Substances Act under Nixon. This is where it got its "Schedule I" status that prevented even medical use, and at a time when the government was really tired of listening to hippies telling them to leave Vietnam. This is also when the law being used as a weapon became glaringly apparent.

Arrests for possession over time (1965-current)

This graph tells the tale the best.

https://fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/RL32725.pdf

Interesting white paper on hemp as an agricultural commodity.

Yes, so in 1937 it was the MTA. Which in part made growers of hemp apply for a permit from the government, which became strictly controlled beginning around the end of WW2, amazingly during the burgeoning of 'synthetic fibers' and other new fangled petroleum products discovered. The main player being nylon and leaded gas in 1925. And the main new product utilizing hemp being ford's bio diesel engine.


http://www.hempcar.org/ford.shtml

this source is claiming it was a ethanol based engine, other sources I saw before this one mentioned bio diesel. I am not sure if it would be pure ethanol as that would be very hot, as opposed to a mixed solution more like a diesel, but either way he designed it to run on plant, specifically hemp, based fuel.

Both are troublesome in high quantity's and if your constitution doesn't allow it.

What grinds my gears though is that tabaq get's these beautiful pictures on it nowadays of destroyed livers/lungs a mother breathing heavy tabaco air in a childs face(like wut?) while i can still buy alcohol in perfectly fine bottles and unreasonable quantity's.

Don't know, i just consider it hypocritical of society to create common awareness about one while fully indulging in the other while i consider both "harmful" in general if used improper.

Peace,

-Boem-

@Boem

The thing is that alcohol can only brings direct arm to the one that consume it whereas there's a lot of harm done with secondary smoke from cigarettes and the likes.

Now, of course you can do harm to others while under the influence of alcohol (duch a drunk driving and the likes) but you'll notice that there is a lot of awareness being raised to those.

Someone that drink is able to cause no harm to anyone else than himself (if the person drink too much). A smoker can't due to the very nature of secondary smoke being very harmful for anyone that breath it. It's especially true of parents that smoke in the house when they have children(s) (which is something that I've been exposed to for my whole life). Sometimes, I wonder how badly damaged my lungs are from this, despite having never smoked anything...

Smoking is increasingly a less-preferred way to consume THC (or, well, anything).

Vaporization is directly superior since it generates no ash (and all the cancer-causing free radicals that that entails) while keeping the same mannerisms.

Edibles/drinkables are almost certainly going to be the most common consumption method*. Fits easily in a relaxed setting, doesn't make a huge mess, doesn't require paraphernalia, and onsets slowly and evenly.

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We don't need to conflate the legality of a drug with the methods used to consume that drug. They're fully separable.

There is already a huge corpus of anti-secondhand-smoking legislation and guidelines due to cigarettes. Exposing kids to excessive secondhand smoke (of any source) is grounds for CPS to come knock on your door. We've done a good job culturally shifting (via "raised awareness") away from the practice.

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Bars wrote:

Also, I was merely saying pot is being presented in this extremely positive light in pop culture right now, and this isn't right.

Well, of all the recreational drugs it's by far the least dangerous if it's not abused.

And it's very likely that it's being presented in a positive way currently because we have more facts on the matter. It's nowhere near as bad of a drug as the "war on drugs" has made it out to be.

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morbo wrote:

Marijuana makes people sluggish, lazy, hallucinogenic, paranoid and dumb.

This is a half-truth. All you're doing is continuing to spread the misinformation that the "war on drugs" (or more-so the war on consciousness) has used as propaganda for decades.

Here's a little knowledge bomb.

There are 3 types of cannabis: Indica, Sativa and Ruderalis. The last is the least important to this discussion.
Indica or a hybrid that is compromised mostly of Indica is the type most street dealers sell. And it's the type that will make you sluggish and lazy. A pure indica strain will give you that "locked to the couch" feeling. A high you feel in your entire body.

Sativa or a hybrid that is compromised mostly of Sativa has quite the opposite effect on you. It's uplifting, invigorating and is perfect for social situations. You can function normally with this type. It provides a high you feel more in your head than in your body.

While cannabis may be labeled as a hallucinogen, you're not going to "see things". It more-so distorts your perception of time.

As for the claims of paranoia and making you dumb, it doesn't "make" you these things. It merely highlights these conditions if they already exist in the user. Sure everyone has a different chemical makeup in their brains, so some strains may highlight these issues more than others.

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faerwin wrote:

@Shovelcut

I didn't include drunk driving and the likes because it is a well known thing. Although driving while under influence (while high) is also pretty bad.

This statement is both correct and incorrect. There have been studies on this very subject and all have concluded that long-time cannabis users driving isn't impaired at all, while non-frequent users driving is akin to driving drunk.

And again, it depends on the strain that is consumed and the way that it's consumed.

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faerwin wrote:

Someone that drink is able to cause no harm to anyone else than himself (if the person drink too much).

That's just not true. A drunk person is more dangerous than someone high on cannabis. I've had the (mis?)fortune of working some extremely dangerous jobs in my life and I guarantee you that in a potentially dangerous situation I'd rather be working with someone that's high than with someone that is drunk. Granted being neither is the most desirable option.

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pneuma wrote:

Edibles/drinkables are almost certainly going to be the most common consumption method*. Fits easily in a relaxed setting, doesn't make a huge mess, doesn't require paraphernalia, and onsets slowly and evenly.

Sadly, edibles are the main reason people are hospitalized because of cannabis. It's hard to know how much you've taken and it's extremely easy to take too much because of it's slow onset. It's difficult to get a consistent potency from batch to batch due to the way the plant is matured, it's genetics and even the way it's cured.

You kind of quoted me out of context here.

What I meant by "drinking won't cause harm to others" is that outside of the possible actions caused by the person that's drunk, nothing negative can happen to others whereas with marijuana (and anything that's smoked), you'll have secondary smoke that's directly linked to all kind of negatives consequences for anyone that breath air that got contaminated with it.

In other words, marijuana cause harm even through inaction of the person that's consuming it.