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[Drygioni]

http://news.independent.co.uk/uk/health_medical/article1207619.ece

So, according to this scientific report, legal drugs such as smoking and alcohol are apparently more dangerous than Class A/B drugs such as LSD, Ecstasty, and (this is a big one) Cannabis. Among other things. Take a look!

I found it pretty interesting. While I expected some of this (LSD not really very dangerous by comparison, heroin still definitely a bad thing), ranking everyday things like alcohol and tobacco above such social stigmas as weed and E's make it seem like we've either been hoodwinked by governments about drugs, or the scientists were off their collective rocker.

Maybe they did a little too much 'research' into the drugs. Zing.

Some of it does make sense, though. The danger of a drug is obviously also judged on how it affects non-users, and it's safe to say that alcohol and smoking are far worse on society (second hand smoke, cancer, drunk driving, aggressiveness etc.) than cannabis is. Maybe. Who knows? I ain't a man of science or any recreational substances.

Hopefully this won't spark any arguments, though it doesn't seem as if it will.

[Roger]

This "tobacco-and-alcohol-are-as-dangerous-as-illegal-drugs-or-even-more" argument is tricky because it easily backfires when some people counter-argument with something like "OK then, let's outlaw everything altogether!" I don't smoke and rarely drink, but I wouldn't like another prohibition.

[theauthors]

plus: how is this credible? to rank the danger of a drug on a ternary scale is pretty arbitrary, and they dont even provide a methodology for the rankings. add to this that the source is called THE INDEPENDENT, and that the caption pretty much identifies this report as one of extreme danger to the government, and you can pretty safely distance yourself from any claims as to its science

this is amusing though
11: Cannabis (Class C)
...
NO. OF UK DEATHS IN 2004: 16

[KeithHernandez]

yea, I don't know, but I know I have done probably as many drugs as anybody on this board and I can tell you that marijuana is not bad at all.  I am also a daily smoker and pretty regular drinker though.  Anyways, cocaine and heroin based drugs should probably remain illegal with hell of reforms over what punishment you get for possessing those, while pretty much everything else should be legal.  That is just like my opinion though.  Oh, yeah, no meth either.


Edit:  Cocaine is a horrible drug and I basically became an instant addict.  Would do it again today though if someone put it in front of me.  Thanks to this struggle I never did heroin or anything.  Luckily, because I am sure I would have gotten hooked on that real easy.

Edit 2:  Basically I am addicted to cannibus as well.  In the last 5 years I have gone less than 30 days without smoking.  If you are going to lean on a substance though, cannibus is safer than coffee or cigarettes I am pretty sure, and definatley safer than alcohol.

[Drygioni]

plus: how is this credible?

I've got the paper in front of me now, and it gives slightly more detail; the study was conducted by medical experts in the employ of the Government. Governments, of course, never lie. On the source issue, I'd doubt the Independent would publish this solely to embarrass Mr Blair, as it is at times sickingly pro-Labour.

I think I'm going to need explaining on why Cannabis (Class C)/UK Deaths: 16 is funny. Am I missing something?

[misterqueue]

I think I'm going to need explaining on why Cannabis (Class C)/UK Deaths: 16 is funny. Am I missing something?

It's funny because one cannot see how in the hell 16 people died from toking up I'd imagine.

[AugustWest]

It's funny because a dead Englishman is always funny.  Ha Ha!  Dead Englishman!  That gets me every time.

[KeithHernandez]

It's funny because one cannot see how in the hell 16 people died from toking up I'd imagine.

Plus, if someone dies because of Cannibus somehow, you can always be like "Well, one less idiot in the world."  which is a good thing.

[Roger]

I guess those are the sort of people the Darwin Awards are intended for.

[Drygioni]

I gotta admit, if the people who had died through cannabism had died in silly ways it would add a note of hilarity. Maybe swallowing the roll up or something.

I was going to post about the Darwin awards but they had already been Rogered.

Nevermind, I found something relevant!

(2006, Adelaide, Australia) In the suburbs of Adelaide, "the undisputed cannabis capital of Australia", sleeping residents were awakened by a resounding explosion. A smoking hole was found in a neighbor's backyard, still reeking of the pungent odor of marijuana. Police found the remains of a man at the bottom of the hole.

They learned that the deceased had setup a hidden hydroponic system in a large water tank buried in his backyard. He used a CO2 generator -- a small flame from a butane gas bottle -- to improve plant growth. On this particular evening, the man had climbed down into his garden paradise, only to find that the flame had gone out. Without knowing how many days the gas had been leaking into his, er, bomb, he re-lit the flame.

Oops.

[KeithHernandez]

Say what you will about marijuana, but to call its odor pungent is ridiculous.

[misterqueue]

Say what you will about marijuana, but to call its odor pungent is ridiculous.

Yeah.. I can't tell you how often I've smelled tar and thought "Damn.. where are all the rastafarians here in this parking lot?"

[theinevitable]

so, um, I was under the impression that it was impossible to die from an OD of cannabis-- that to achieve the level which would be death-dealing like Juno, you would have to straight-up inject it in massive quantities.

so is this deaths like "I got really stoned and fell on a knife?"

[jough]

You can still get lung cancer from cannibis smoke.

[Lister]

I've also heard of ecstasy "burning out" seratonin receptors in heavy users' brains, which won't kill you directly, but seratonin is a pretty rad thing to have.  If your brain can't process it any more, that completely sucks for you.  It is like you get depression all the time.

Of course, this is mostly anecdotal evidence, as I haven't kept up with my friends from college who used ecstasy/cannabis all the time.  I graduated and they didn't and then we kind of lost track.  They certainly did have good times on drugs, though, and I got to tell them what they had done the next day.  Win-win!

I'll bet that if LSD/e was produced legally and subjected to the same standards other drugs are held to, they could be safer than, say, alcohol (though I wouldn't want to share the road with them either).  Amsterdam pretty much has managed to survive without outlawing cannabis.  Like everything else, it's usually not a problem until it becomes abuse.

And to paraphrase Bill Hicks, if you manage to kill yourself while on marijuana, we didn't need you anyway.