Skeptic Project

I'm against alcohol and pot, but I also don't buy the argument that pot remains illegal because of a lack of benefit. I've already mentioned the many uses of hemp; and what about the benefit of keeping a large group of morons at home eating cheetos than running around drunk and belligerent?

"Huge, if you measure in economic terms--booze has been big business since human civilization began."

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As would pot as all the money currently goes to black markets (aside from those allowed to grow medical marijuana in some states). These dealers and growers dont want it legal either, it would take away their thriving business.

It would also be healthier, since right now who knows what the conditions it was grown in. Btw its not like there's no country in the world that allows pot to be legal, certain European countries seem to do just fine...

I remember when they allowed 24hour pubs in the UK, everyone said it would lead to all kinds of trouble and it didn't. People said smoking not allowed inside food establishments anymore would destroy business' and it hasn't. Im sure some people think that making pot legal would destroy society, Im not sure why... people that smoke it would still smoke it and we would be able to tax it. We would also be able to control the conditions it was grown so safer to consume and you could educate people about it rather than blanketly saying you cant do any of it or stupidly suggesting that if you smoke a few joints you're probably getting schizophrenia.

No one has died from smoking weed as far as I know, no one goes out and beats up a stranger and Im sure someone has crashed their car while high but does anyone really think that number is MORE than car crashes while the person was drunk? Excess weed consumption is of course bad, but then so is excess alcohol consumption.

Alcohol, if you take a step back, is clearly far worse for society than cannabis.

There's a pretty big pot culture in California. I would say pot is potentially more perspective-shifting and creativity-inducing than alcohol. It's psychoactive, while alcohol is just a neuronal inhibitor.

The question is, why exactly was alcohol re-legalized after prohibition while pot was not? Both had a black market. Was the alcohol black market more viscous because there was more demand? Because alcohol is more addictive? Because it makes people more violent? Or something else?

There is absolutely no reason for me to believe that the marijuana industry would not be on par with the alcohol industry in terms of economic influence if both were allowed to be manufactured on the same industrial scale.

That presumes that there's enough demand for marijuana to absorb production of it on an industrial scale. I don't think there is. It also presumes that the only reason demand for marijuana is less than that for alcohol is because marijuana is illegal. I don't think that's right either.

How many people want alcohol, and how badly? A lot of people. Some want it really really badly, others like to have it around, while others don't like it at all for various reasons. We saw during Prohibition that enough people wanted alcohol badly enough to defy the law in huge numbers. That's strong demand.

How many people want marijuana, and how badly? A substantially fewer number, I think. A very small number want it really badly, and that small number want it badly enough to defy the laws against it. Probably in the middle are people, like me, who wouldn't mind it if it was around, but don't want it badly enough to break the law to get it.

Equating demand for alcohol with demand for marijuana means that you think that category of people in the middle, who wouldn't mind it but would use it if it was legal, is so large that it equals or offsets, at the very least, the amount of people who want alcohol badly enough to break the law to get it. Marijuana just isn't that popular. I think the reasons for that are cultural, not legal.

So far, the only uses I've seen for alcohol are for taste, euphoria, and as an agent.

Marijuana's uses are for euphoria and as an industrial resource (for clothing, paper, etc)

I'm struggling to see why Marijuana is so far behind alcohol in utility that it's not worth making legal.

DONT CHANGE THE SUBJECT!~

Muertos is wrong and I win!

I'm only right until happy hour starts. After that I don't care. *looks at watch*

Yeah, I didn't read anything again:

But I did see a thing about alcohol in history, and I must say, alcohol was big in Europe (wine and beer) because drinking the water often meant shitting yourself to death shortly after, as still happens in Africa. Even after Europeans came to the New World they still brewed beer and so forth, despite the fact the water was mostly OK to drink. Alcohol is ingrained in culture primarily for this reason. They just didn't figure out, when it came to beer, it was boiling that killed the bacteria, if they had, I imagine there'd be less of an alcohol culture for western society.

But I don't do drink or smoke marijuana, or anything else, and I never have, and have no plans at all to. I'm a fucking boyscout (not literally).

Frankly, I don't give a shit like Muertos.

I don't think you can OD on Marijuana but you sure can on alcohol.

This is just hearsay perpetuated by high school students, but it says you'd pass out before being able to OD on Marijuana.

Is there any validity to this claim?

I think one study said pot use increases the chance of developing schizophrenia in at-risk persons, if that's what you mean Matt

And no, no one to my knowledge has ever ODed on pot. I read once that if you tried to OD on pot by eating it, you'd die from overeating first.

I wish pot was lethal.

I wouldn't complain.

btw pot was the greatest experience of my life.