Impossible to ping everyone who’s said this on this thread so I’ll address this to the OP implying “all”:
This opinion piece doesn’t advocate getting rid of MJ in favor of opioids, or the reverse. I’ve read it twice to be sure.
It’s saying that since we are relaxing laws about MJ we shouldn’t restrict them for opioids. So if anything it’s saying the reverse of those who feel the author is saying MJ should be restricted like opioids. So IOW the author seems to be advocating both should be unrestricted or at least not as restricted as now.
Also the author is saying they (opiods) should in fact *not* be restricted, or at least as unrestricted as MJ is becoming. So all those on this thread suffering with chronic pain who apparently need opiods to manage it shouldn’t feel threatened by this piece either.
IOW, seems like a lot of arguing going on on this thread for nothing.
I think it is more that the author is making any sort of equivalency between them. Marijuana should be treated like booze- legal but with the obvious and logical restrictions (driving, etc.).
Opioids are an issue not of recreation but of medication.
Although some, such as myself, would say ‘legalize it; if some losers die it’s still worth it for people in extreme pain to be able to get relief’, there is more of a societal framework for at least treating them as medicine, although they should be a medicine readily available to anyone in pain.
So my objections to the article are really calling for a division of question- STOP treating cannabis as anything other than recreational *AND* get the damned idiots who think that other humans should have to suffer pain named and shamed and revealed as the despicable ‘humans’ they are.