[ExI] medical marijuana

[Robert Picone]

On Wed, Jul 7, 2010 at 12:27 AM, BillK <pharos at gmail.com> wrote:

>
> DUIs are only part of the problem of alcohol abuse.
> Quote: There are over 20,000 alcohol-induced deaths in the United
> States each year, not including motor vehicle fatalities.
>
> See:
> <http://alcoholism.about.com/od/cost/The_Costs_of_Alcohol_Abuse.htm>
>
> Once cannabis becomes as widely abused as alcohol I would expect a
> similar level of damage to society. There are always unanticipated
> effects to major law changes such as this.
>
>
> BillK
>
>
Among those remaining causes of death, violence attributed to alcohol use
and alcohol poisoning are the top two.  To my knowledge, marijuana-induced
violence and cannabis overdoses aren't exactly large social dangers.

I find it hard to understand the viewpoint that marijuana is some marginal
substance that isn't abused, but could be if people were allowed access to
it which they don't have..  The laws don't exactly prevent anyone with an
intention of abusing cannabis from doing so, 42.4% of a statistical sample
of American adults self-reported marijuana use at some point in face-to-face
interview as of 2003.  Presuming that people are equally honest between
admitting to legal and illegal activities in in-person interviews, the laws
seem to be about 13% less effective than the laws against tobacco use in
France.

http://medicine.plosjournals.org/archive/1549-1676/5/7/pdf/10.1371_journal.pmed.0050141-L.pdf
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