Bill Baka wrote :
Chilla wrote:
Bill Baka wrote:
Because, *moron* alcohol is more damaging,

Correct.

drunk drivers kill more than any other group,
(of substance users)
Correct.

and even lighting a cigarette takes attention away from driving.

That's a stretch, and contra the momentary diversion of attention when
lighting up is the fact that nicotine *enhances* attention:
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2003/01/030114072413.htm

Mobile phone use is a far more attention-diverting hazard for drivers.

All stimulants and depressants are damaging, it's just how much you take
that's the issue.

It's somewhat more complicated than that, though dose-dependence of
harm is part of the picture.

Amen. I took a whole box of No-Doze 100% caffeine back in 1969 to drive
from L.A. to Sacramento, then San Jose, then back to L. A. by which time I
was ready to die. And yet it is legal in coffee.

. . . and in No-Doz ;~)

Actually, most all stimulants used for maintaining wakefulness take
their toll on users, though some modern 'atypical' stimulants such as
modafinil and related drugs have a minimum of bad cumulative and
after-effects.

Neither of these are more damaging than the other

Untrue. Chronic usage of alcohol is far more damaging to many more
organs than any harm resulting from cannabis

They do damage to different parts of the body is all.

Also untrue. There is no part of the body that chronic or acute
high-dosage consumption of alcohol does not damage.

This is not so for cannabis, and most of the damage associated with
cannabis usage derives from the method of ingestion, i.e., from
inhalation of the vapors of burning leaves ('weed') or of compressed
'resins' (hashish)--just as the damage from nicotine consumption also
derives from smoking the 'legal weed'

Both are addictive, although you can overdose if you eat cannabis.

That's not true (no oral cannabis fatality has ever been documented)
and your omission of the fact that it is really not all that difficult
to ingest a lethal does of alcohol to die is rather telling of bias.

I have never had someone tell me about an LD/50 for cannabis, I don't think
you can physically eat that many brownies.

You can not.
Let's get technical here, okay?

The relevant factor is what is called the 'safety ratio,' which is an
expression of how many multiples of the dosage needed for intoxication
must be administered to cause death.

For alcohol it is 10 (1/10th the amount needed to kill you will get you
soused)

For heroin it is 6 (and intravenous usage common by addicts makes for
greater likelihood of overdosage of heroin users as of drinkers,
particularly as alcohol enters the bloodstream rapidly from the
stomach, so except for binge drinkers, adolescent (of any age)
'challenge' drinkers, and suicidal drinkers, acute death from alcohol
is a far less frequent outcome than among users of heroin)

For delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), marihuana's primary
psychoactive molecule, the safety ratio is 1000. One thousand.

It is *possible* to intravenously administer that much purified THC,
but getting one's hands on that amount outside one of the few research
facilities that even have any in stock would need some very good 'home
chemistry' and *quite* a large amount of cannabis to work with.

Forget about trying to eat sufficient brownies to die from ;~)

But don't believe me. Read this peer-reviewed paper, published a few
years ago in "Addiction," (http://www.addictionjournal.org/):

http://web.cgu.edu/faculty/gabler/toxicity%20Addiction%20offprint.pdf

Saying alcohol OR weed is harmless is foolish, we're adults we can hurt
ourselves as much as we want to... as long as it's legal to do so. Weed
isn't legal.

Actually, in many nations, consumption and possession of small amounts
of 'weed' has been decriminalized.

In over a dozen States in the 'Land of the Free' marihuana is legal
with a prescription:
http://medicalmarijuana.procon.org/v...ourceID=000881

Charles, your IP appears to be in New South Wales.
Marihuana's illegal there, but it's my understanding that less than
30gm of the leaf is not indictable. Am I wrong?

Weed isn't legal simply due to the efforts of one William Randolph Hearst.
He did it to sell newspapers as far back as 1914.
Do some history.

It's not simply because of Hearst, though he certainly was a major
contributor to marihuana prohibition in the U.S.

some history:
http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/...juana-illegal/

Cheers,
-maxwell