Posted on 02/25/2015 11:28:41 AM PST by Wolfie
Marijuana is much safer than alcohol or tobacco, according to a new study
Marijuana is roughly 114 times less deadly than alcohol, according to recent findings published in the journal Scientific Reports. Of the seven drugs included in the study, alcohol was the deadliest at an individual level, followed by heroin, cocaine, tobacco, ecstasy, methamphetamines, and marijuana. Previous studies consistently ranked marijuana as the safest recreational drug, but it was not known that the discrepancy was this large.
The researchers determined the mortality risk by comparing a lethal dose of each substance with the amount typically used. Not only was marijuana the lowest of the drugs tested, but there was such a gap between its lethal and typical doses that they classified it as the only "low mortality risk" drug tested. All others were classified as "medium" or "high."
These findings contradict the efforts of law enforcement agencies around the country which, despite pockets of decriminalization (and in some cases, legalization), typically focus heavily on marijuana-related arrests. The authors suggest that, based on the results, these agencies would benefit from shifting priorities away from illicit drugs and placing them instead on keeping things like alcohol and tobacco in check. In fact, the researchers believe marijuana to be so low-risk that they suggest a broad, regulated legalization of it in the paper.
Attempts to compare the danger of particular drugs have been few and far between. It wasn't until the last decade that studies were done to classify the risk of drug abuse in a qualitative and quantitative manner, according to the authors. (They cite attempts at indexing the toxicity or ranking the harm of certain drugs as examples.) Before that, they claim, the risk assessment of drug abuse was instead based heavily on anecdotal evidence, which often meant that policy decisions were largely based on educated guesses.
The researchers clarified that the study does not suggest that moderate alcohol consumption poses a higher risk than regular heroin use. Environmental conditions, like dirty needles or unregulated supplies, contribute to the overall harm caused by using a drug like heroin. Instead, this study was specifically done to measure the deadliness of the substances themselves.
“Marijuana is roughly 114 times less deadly than alcohol”
I’m just wondering what a “time” is in this context. How did they arrive at a “time”? What constitutes a “time”?
Falling into a lake full of piranhas is safer than falling into a sea of hungry sharks or falling off a 500 ft ledge onto a solid rock surface. Its still not a good idea to do it.
“global warming”
tsk — “climate change”
(trying to get used to it before the FCC starts fining people)
LOL! “The Verge” of what? What’s the Journal of Scientific Reports?
...
It’s an open access journal with what seems to be a fairly good reputation, but it looks like someone sneaked one past them this time. Using deadliness as a criteria is a sneaky tactic used by Libertarians.
Depends how you define “safe”. Marijuana is not deadly in and of itself, true. It is mind altering, however, even in small quantities. Alcohol, if abused, is much worse, but is only mind altering in large quantities. Tobacco is not a mind altering substance and is completely harmless in the short-term, but is probably worse for your overall health than marijuana in the long run if abused. That said, if I had a choice for my child tonight to smoke a cigarette, drink a beer, or smoke a joint, the joint would be last on the list.
The greatest fear the Democrats have is that there will be too many people on this planet. Smoking marijuana reduces the sex drive. The Democrats love marijuana.
I remember a “stoner” I knew in college. He couldn’t figure out which shoelace to tie 1st. This was in the morning before he started toking. Always had Dorito breath.
“Tobacco and Alcohol worse than meth? Really? Anything worse than heroin? Really?”
The tobacco numbers are probably skewed, because there are no really reliable studies on what the lethal doses are of nicotine itself for humans. Alcohol, though, is a drug that is very easy to overdose on, and that is what this study measures, not long-term effects.
I have had no luck in finding out who actually did the study.
It’s meaningless without that information.
.
this “study” comes from bizarro land
It isn’t so easy to overdose on alcohol. Your body will reject it (vomit) or you will pass out before that limit is reached unless you are binging on a dare/initiation with so called ‘friends’.
All this means is that the dangers of dying from an overdose from a single usage event is less than with the other drugs tested.
That is not the same thing as being safer for regular use. Of course, it also does not mean that it is NOT safer.
It looks to me like the media "spin" on the results of this study might be more dangerous than any of the drugs used in the research.
It was not a survey it was a study, and it is clear you did not read the research criteria very carefully.
They’re not saying it is flat out deadlier, just that the typical user is more likely to overdose on alcohol rather than heroin. They look at the lethal dosage, versus the typical amount consumed, and they found the ratio is higher for alcohol. That doesn’t seem far-fetched to me a all, since people drink to get drunk, and it doesn’t take much to get from drunk to organ failure.
It’s a hell of a lot easier ingest a fatal overdose of alcohol than it is a fatal dose of marijuana.
When you get that figured out let me know. I’m trying to take it one more step. I know many people that drink alcohol that don’t smoke pot but I don’t know anyone that smokes pot that doesn’t drink alcohol, well maybe one (guy destroyed his liver but I think still smokes). So would the pot smoking make the drinking less deadly or will the drinking make the pot smoking more deadly..geez this is complicated.
Very, very dangerous for teens.
Apparently more people eat their tobacco cigarettes when a police officer is walking up to a car than eat their marijuana cigarettes.
Clearly it isn’t one time consumption. Cumulative effect has to be a part of their ‘statistic’.
it’s in the actual study which is a link within the article.
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