Posted on 08/21/2014 2:13:56 PM PDT by Kaslin
WASHINGTON -- Turning once again to what the sociologists call "coping mechanisms": There is marijuana and then there is alcohol. They are increasingly the civilized options.
Consider alcohol. Consider a suave scotch and soda. One does not sit down to a scotch and soda to get blitzed, unless one is a veritable drunk. One sits down and sips a scotch and soda while conversing with friends. Perhaps one reads a book. One enjoys the scotch for the taste. With scotch there are scores of different tastes. One drinks a single malt. One drinks a blend. The same is true with bourbon and all manner of alcoholic drinks. One imbibes for the taste, then for the refreshment, finally for the relaxed feeling it imparts. Very, very finally, some drinkers drink a scotch and soda to get blitzed and drop out. Maybe the pathetico drinks to pass out or to throw up. A true alcoholic is a sad spectacle. A drunk is a person who has ruined many a good drink.
Consider the increasingly civilized option, marijuana. One smokes a joint to get stoned and steadily to dropout. Is that really civilized? I have never heard of a connoisseur savoring a joint for the taste. One smokes it for the effect. One takes it in a brownie or cookie for an even more immediate effect -- sometimes a deadly effect. Colorado, which has legalized recreational marijuana, has already reported at least two casualties and many more hospitalizations. Possibly the marijuana smoker becomes more convivial at first, but mainly one becomes steadily more isolated, more alone. Is this really civilized? A pot party, as opposed to a cocktail party, can be a pretty gray affair. With contemporary marijuana, the tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) rate, that is to say the psychoactive ingredient in the drug, is about 15 percent higher than it was in the 1960s or 1970s. The increased level of THC makes the drug at least five times more powerful and brings with it increased medical problems. This little known fact hints at how widespread our ignorance of marijuana really is during the current debate about marijuana, or I should say the current non-debate?
Recent polls indicate increased tolerance for a drug that until recently was considered malum prohibitum across the nation. In January, a CNN/ORC International study found 55 percent of Americans favoring legalization of marijuana. Most consider it harmless. I would not be surprised if they adjudged it less harmful than scotch and soda. Yet, in a very instructive piece in the Wall Street Journal, former drug czar William J. Bennett and attorney Robert A. White wrote that "while almost all the science and research is going on one direction -- pointing out the dangers of marijuana use -- public opinion seems to be going in favor of broad legalization." In sum, the studies show that in teenagers and young adults regular use of marijuana -- which means about once a week -- leads to cognitive decline, poor attention and memory, and a decline in IQ of about six points -- and our young people's IQ rates are low enough already. This mental impairment seems to last for years. One study found that teenagers who smoked marijuana daily developed abnormal brain structure. Moreover, there are psychiatrists who for years have argued that extended use of marijuana was linked to psychosis and to permanent brain damage.
Possibly these findings might bear on Michael Brown's erratic behavior in Ferguson, Missouri before his tragic death. We know that the 6' 4," 292-pound teenager was at least on marijuana. We know that 10 minutes before he was shot, he robbed a liquor store of cheap cigars. And, at least some of us know, that those Swisher Sweet cigars are used as a conduit for ingesting a mixture of PCP and marijuana. My guess is that Brown's senseless death was brought on by what the psychiatrists mentioned in the above paragraph have referred to as psychosis and permanent brain injury.
Yet, marijuana, despite these findings is increasingly considered the civilized alternative to moderate use of alcohol. How can this be? How can a country that has recently driven out tobacco -- whose problems most people were well aware of -- suddenly legalize a drug found to be so dangerous by modern science? Lung disease is terrible, but mental health disorders are arguably worse and they occur across a wide range of human behavior.
My answer is weariness. We have been fighting marijuana and other drug use for years, and it seems to me the country is fatigued with throwing up the same arguments. They are valid arguments, but many fellow citizens, especially the young, are tired of them. Another way of saying it is that Americans have become bored by the subject. So, as Colorado goes so goes America, and recent events in Ferguson, Missouri may just be just a harbinger.
Yeah? Wanna tell me where exactly I’m wrong?
Oh, I do! Strictly for humanitarian reasons, of course.
Suave??? Really?
Heaven forbid!!!
Scotch and soda is a heinous barbarism!
Scotch (or any other worthwhile aged liquor) should be consumed neat.
All else is rank heresy.
Cheech looks like he’s having more fun ...
If he hasn’t heard of anyone savoring a joint for the taste then he’s clearly stayed very far away from drug culture. Yes there is actually good tasting weed out there, and no people who smoke it to steadily drop out. Most smoke it just like drinkers drink, a couple of hours of unwinding and back to harsh cruel reality in the morning.
I remember when we were stationed at Fort Riley, KS (1972-77) we lived of post and my husband and our neighbors were sitting all together outside smoking grass. I walked by them onetime and the stench of that weed hit my nose right away. Naturally I went right back in the house.
The gin is there to make the tonic water taste less foul.
The tonic water is there to help prevent malaria ... although most modern tonic water is too weak to be of any therapeutic use.
Not necessarily. Yeah the buzz is nice, but much like how we don’t eat army rations unless we have to taste matters. I have a large quantity of scotches (and tequilas... and beers... yeah I like booze) and pick between them for taste. And sometimes I just don’t pick, I have learned when the desire is purely buzz just looking at all that wonderful booze can be quite relaxing.
Englishmen, I suspect.
Of course dear ol Don doesn’t just smoke cigs ;)
True. I’ve seen him smoke other things. :-)
Good point. It's a false and skewed comparison.
R. Emmett was a "young fogey" years ago, putting on an act that smoking fine cigars and drinking scotch made him a sophisticate and truly cultured and wise beyond his years. Now that he's legitimately an old fogey he can't give up the act. I don't think he's that interested in the world outside his own little bubble.
Two deaths? Yikes! Meanwhile 10,000 people a year are killed in alcohol-related car crashes in the United States. Another 30,000 people, mostly alcoholics, die from cirrhosis of the liver. Tens of thousands more die from various other alcohol related illnesses.
I'm the last thing from a teetotaler, but this article is absurd. People who claim that marijuana is harmless are deluding themselves. But alcohol is one of the leading killers in the United States -- and to pretend that the social costs are only on the margins reflects complete delusion.
You can legally get any tobacco product you want anywhere in the US. You can get legal pot in a handful of stores in CO and WA.
Just about every paragraph in this article contains an epic fail.
The author does not know what he is talking about.
Drop out. From what? There are millions of hard working marijuana smokers who don't want to drop out of anything except perhaps the taxpayer rolls.
Civilized? What is civilized about lying in the gutter in your own vomit, or beating the crap out of your wife & kids.
Regarding taste, there are a multitude of tasty marijuana flavors. That smokers would just as soon smoke ditch weed is ludicrous.
Brownies & cookies take longer for effect than a joint. When smoking, the THC goes directly from the lungs to the blood, whereas eating it takes a while to get through the digestive system. Which method is physiologically quicker? Smoking, by a wide margin. Wrong again, mister author.
This fool can spout all the marijuana myths he wants, but the plain fact is, in a sobriety test, a marijuana smoker will be awake & active long after a boozer is out cold & unable to even speak his own name. Marijuana doesn't cause staggering or double vision. Marijuana does not make people hyper-aggressive like alcohol does. If you drink enough it will kill you. There has never been a recorded death from marijuana consumption. Scientists estimate it would take 40,000 joints to kill you, an impossibility to smoke. A quart of booze will kill most people.
How's that after taste & breath the next morning? How about that head? Can you function properly after a night's drinking? Nope. Are you a little clumsy & muddle headed? Yep. Marijuana causes no hangover, no disorientation the morning after. One will be as sober as a preacher the next morning after a night out toking. Truth is, after a night of drinking until cross-eyed, a few tokes of a joint will stop the nausea, stop the spinning head, uncross the eyes, & slow you down considerably if you have to drive home. I know this from personal experience. Works good.
This guy is so wrong about marijuana that it is irresponsible for him to talk about the subject. I suggest he & his bottle sit alone in his den & pass out.
Snicker :-)
Totally agree a good single malt neat lying in bed reading and i sleep like a baby. Sadly i know lots of folks who buy expensive scotch and drown it with ice water soda...and slam em back...why???
What an amazing load of crap this article is.
There’s no “danger” in eating a cookie. You could eat loads of them and never OD. Do you get your talking points from DARE?
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