I mean, I love this contribution to the literature, I’m glad people are talking about the toxicity and danger of alcohol, and I think it only makes sense to evaluate all recreational substances using similar criteria. So I critique out of love.
So first let me explain the graph. It’s showing the ratio between an effective dose and a lethal dose. That is somewhat related to how likely you are to kill yourself by trying to take an effective dose, but it misses the other half of the equation: how people control their dose! It also completely disregards long term health and societal effects of using.
Alcohol can be super dangerous if you pass out with a stomach full of hard liquor or if you stick it up your butt or inject it. Most people are somewhat careful about the first thing and just don’t do the others.
Taken orally, our bodies are naturally pretty good at managing that toxicity line. How does that work? If you get close to the toxic dose of alcohol, you puke and stop wanting to drink. It’s really that simple. The nauseating side effects of alcohol hit right away, so this is pretty effective.
With all those other drugs, either the delivery method is inhalation (so the puke reflex won’t help) or in the case of MDMA, there is no immediate puke response to an overdose. Either way, this way of measuring safety does make a lot more sense for those other drugs.
Not so for alcohol, because of the giant, vomitous elephant in the room.
Couldn’t the alcohol merchant go and advertise “Alcohol is 114 times less likely to give you lung cancer” and then weed proponents can argue that “Weed is 114 times less likely to destroy your liver” and so on.
Lethal dose is such an unintersting metric compared to long term effects, at least to me. The days of drinking a full bottle of southern comfort are somewhat gone for me.
I mean completely inaccurate sensationalistic reporting of science that borders on malfeasance.
Nowhere in the paper does it say that cannabis is 114x less deadly than alcohol. It sure as heck doesn’t show that heroin is safer than alcohol. Hell, the whole thing is written up with so many caveats including one that there is so much error in the input data that it should not be considered anything but preliminary.
I mean for goodness sakes, they extrapolated the drug dose-response curves/typical doses of illicit drugs based on their LD50.
“Its still the same a drunk driving if you smoke or use it and then operate a car. Hopefully laws will be passed that includes a test for cannabis use while driving under the influence.”
I’m for legalization of cannabis, but your comment points out a big problem. I’m unaware of any chemical test (possibly short of a blood draw) that can determine if you are stoned right now…
While I’d love to agree with you on this, there are some drugs that have such a great chance of making you super addicted and ruining your life (read: meth), that they should be prohibited because the users will never understand the “your own risk” aspects.
Another aspect of how people get hooked onto drugs is that they almost never think about the long-term consequences of their actions. This is also why prison doesn’t work, when under the right stressors (sometimes any stressors) people won’t think of the long-term, only the short. Drugs, especially the “hard drugs”, are usually used to escape a pain, or used in a situation that is purely in the moment (for example a party) and the person doesn’t have a thought out of that moment.
I also remember a friend who told me she went for a drive on acid. It started snowing. Her exact words: “Remember that scene in Star Wars when they shift into hyperdrive?”
According to one review of the literature: “The risk of all drug-positive drivers compared to drug-free drivers is similar to drivers with a blood alcohol concentration of 0.05%. The risk is also similar to drivers above age 60 compared to younger drivers [around age 35].”
^and that’s all drug-positive drivers, not just the ones smoking weed.
So, to fix your incorrect talking point for you: It’s not at all the same as drunk driving, in fact it’s roughly as dangerous as driving after drinking to the legal limit or being under 35 or over 60 while driving.
See the lovely old lady in her 60’s classic she drives only on Sundays? You should fear her like you seem to fear stoned drivers… and don’t for a second compare stoned drivers to drunk drivers, unless you want further factual corrections to your ignorant opinion.
While I agree with you that many drugs are not 'good", and indeed detrimental, I think the War on Drugs and everything else is even worse.
I don’t think anyone is having much trouble getting drugs in this country. Perhaps with laxer laws people would stick to the tamer stuff. Or if it were legal you would have entities that would work on altering the more dangerous drugs to make them have the same effects the user wants, with out as severe of side effects.
I would also use the taxes on them to fund rehab clinics and educational programs.
But at this point I see the War on Drug results in two very bad things - violent crime, and the erosion of civil liberties in the pursuit of stopping drug users.
The article suggests that people with “low” THC levels are fine. I’m not here to villify weed, but cars and other heavy machinery on any intoxicant are a bad idea. Thats why I’m a fan of uber, cabs, public transportation, and good old fashioned walking.
None of which means it’s remotely okay to drive stoned, however. A stoned driver is less dangerous than a drunk driver, but they’re still an irresponsible fuck.
Data suggests that smoking weed and driving is less dangerous than either drinking to the legal limit or drinking anything at all. I refuse to let weed smokers be treated worse than people consuming alcohol when data shows their choice to be objectively more dangerous, yet somehow allowed to continue and to be considered as acceptable. We also have to put up with old people who apparently pose as much risk.
Why driving is better:
You can’t blaze one in any of those places (except walking)
damn auto correct.
