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Marijuana Use Is Outpacing Cigarette Use For the First Time (npr.org) 133

Posted by BeauHD from the times-they-are-a-changin' dept.
An anonymous reader quotes a report from NPR: More people in the U.S. are now smoking marijuana than cigarettes, according to a Gallup poll. Cigarette use has been trending downward during the past decades, with only 11% of Americans saying they smoke them in a poll conducted July 5 to 26, compared to 45% in the mid-1950s. Sixteen percent of Americans say they smoke marijuana, with 48% saying they have tried it at some point in their lives. In 1969, only 4% of Americans said they smoked marijuana.

Attitudes around both substances have also shifted dramatically. In 2019, 83% of Americans said they thought cigarettes were "very harmful" to smokers, while 14% said they are "somewhat harmful." Nine out of 10 adults said in 2013 that smoking causes cancer, while 91% of smokers surveyed in 2015 said they wish they never started. Meanwhile, 53% of people said in a July poll they think marijuana has positive effects on those who use it. "Still, alcohol is the most popular substance, and has remained consistent for a while," notes NPR. "Sixty-seven percent of Americans in the most recent poll said they are drinkers, compared to 63% in 1939. About a third totally abstain from alcohol."

Worth pointing out: This poll is especially notable considering marijuana is still a federally illegal drug in the United States. As of April 2021, only seventeen states and the District of Columbia have legalized small amounts of marijuana for adult recreational use. Overall, 43% of U.S. adults live in a jurisdiction that has legalized the recreational use of the drug at the local level.
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Marijuana Use Is Outpacing Cigarette Use For the First Time More

Marijuana Use Is Outpacing Cigarette Use For the First Time

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  • Not a surprise (Score:4, Insightful)

    by Pascal Sartoretti ( 454385 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @05:31PM (#62837653)
    I see good reasons to smoke marijuana. I don't see any to smoke cigarettes (I smoke neither).

    Besides, most marijuana are enjoying it, while most cigarette smokers I know would prefer to quit if they could.
    • Cigarettes used to be considered and advertised as "healthy" and people "enjoyed" them.

      • Says a lot about our advertising laws.

      • Re:the only safe thing to inhale is air (Score:5, Insightful)

        by fatwilbur ( 1098563 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @06:14PM (#62837783)
        And the only safe way to live out each day is by climbing inside a plastic bubble. Life is meant to be lived, and every activity we do carries some level of risk, which we must accept if we want to live a fulfilling life. I don’t see a single person worldwide advocating how fun and rewarding avoiding risks is.

        So it comes down to evaluating risks and what amount one will accept - which you also need to accept is different for everyone. The things about drugs such as marijuana is that the true risk is very low and the reward can be very high (more later). Most people’s holdup is because their knowledge of risk is very poor, due to growing up with a DARE program that lumped drugs such as marijuana in the same bucket as heroin, which is mind-blowingly retarded.

        I grew up in the same DARE generation, and only through taking risk did I learn some things I were taught (and which “everyone believed”) were completely false. Not only that, and I know this sounds nuts to those not in the know, butI consider my (responsible) usage of various recreational drugs through my life to be one of the greatest things I’ve ever had the pleasure of doing. I wouldn’t change it for anything, and true enough, as many proponents will claim, I can only say it’s grown my mind with more intelligence, insight, and understanding than almost anything else. I don’t think you’re a complete person if you’ve never tried some of these things. I think I can sum up why it is so intellectually rewarding too - drugs offer an immediate and drastic shift in perspective of the world you know, which otherwise I haven’t found a way to effect. Maybe through years of meditation no one is willling to do. They have shown me that knowledge, truth, and facts aren’t the epitome of intelligence. They are important (I am a mathematician), but are simply things we know and you can read and memorize. True genius is achieved by layering perspective on top of cold hard facts, which many educated people don’t understand.

        • Re:the only safe thing to inhale is air (Score:5, Insightful)

          by garyisabusyguy ( 732330 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @07:04PM (#62837927)

          Sure, just remember two simple rules

          1. Methamphetamine will make you feel invincible, but will soon own you
          2. Never use opiates, just don't start it is a fucking train wreck

          imo, one of the biggest failures of the US attempts to suppress drug use, is that they gave control over the two items above to the Medical Doctors and Pharma companies, who prescribed with abandon and lied about their dangerous nature

          • There you go proposing the plastic bubble again!

          • Sure, just remember two simple rules

            1. Methamphetamine will make you feel invincible, but will soon own you
            2. Never use opiates, just don't start it is a fucking train wreck

            I believe it was George Carlin who said, "Don't use anything powdered."

        • I was always very skeptical of the DARE "education" my kids got. My personal experience is that I have memories of my parent letting me get drunk when probably about 12 or 13.

          I never let alcohol get out of control in my life.

          • My personal experience is that I have memories of my parent letting me get drunk when probably about 12 or 13.
            Happened to me as well on Christmas around that age.

            Instead of telling me: stop, or it makes you sick. He let me get vomiting ... no idea what lesson he thought he was teaching me by that. At that time I did not know anything about alcohol, except if they drank wine/beer, they did not let me and told me: "na, nothing for you, you are to young, alcohol is for adults". How the funk should I have known

        • DARE T-Shirt I once saw (pretty sure it was bootlegged): DARE - I Turned in my parents and all I got was this lousy T-Shirt!

        • Both drugs belong into the same bucket.

          There is no question about that. Actually all drugs only belong into two overlapping buckets: recreational and medical purpose. That includes coffee on both side - as it does Heroine.

          The health problem with drugs is only one and one single one: are they legally obtainable, are they a substitute for a non legal drug?

          See below, for "use versus abuse/addiction and consumption"

          As soon as something is illegal, you have:
          * price explosion
          * problems in acquisition
          * crime to ga

          • I think it's worth making a distinction between psycho-social and medical risks. More as a collection of spectrums than distinct groups, but it's useful to information to have. I could totally get behind an actually well-informed evaluation and publication of the risks of common drugs.

            Psycho-socially *anything* can be addictive, from heroin to video games to stamp collecting, but it might be interesting to publish accurate information on usage versus destructive addiction rates to help inform people as to

        • Life is meant to be lived, and every activity we do carries some level of risk, which we must accept if we want to live a fulfilling life.

          I absolutely agree. But what in god's name does this have to do with smoking? It doesn't feel good, doesn't look good, doesn't smell good, it negatively effects that entire life you could live by reducing your stamina and draining your wallet,...

          One thing you're missing in your "everything is risk" debate is the topic of "reward". Downhill mountain biking is hugely risky, but it's incredibly rewarding to do, exhilarating. What is the reward for smoking cigarettes? One could argue that 50 years ago it made y

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by bjwest ( 14070 )

        Cigarettes used to be considered and advertised as "healthy" and people "enjoyed" them.

        I know they're not healthy, but I smoked because I enjoyed it. I quit back in 2011 because they're so bad for you and the cost was just too much after all the fees and taxes after the government lawsuits.

      • More people in the U.S. are now smoking marijuana than cigarettes, according to a Gallup poll.

        You don't need a Gallup poll to tell you that, all you need to do is look at the state of US politics.

    • Re:Not a surprise (Score:5, Insightful)

      by gweihir ( 88907 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @06:34PM (#62837835)

      Cigarettes have been optimized for maximum addictiveness. That worked nicely. The scum that did this never had to pay for all the massive damage and death they caused and got to keep the profits. Reminds me of some others.

      • Actually nicotine is the "drug" with the highest know potential for addictiveness.

        You smoke a few days in a row, and you "physically addicted".

        There is no other drug having that effect.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by gweihir ( 88907 )

          Actually nicotine is the "drug" with the highest know potential for addictiveness.

          You smoke a few days in a row, and you "physically addicted".

          There is no other drug having that effect.

          Well, nicotine is very high on that scale. But I would expect there are synthetic drugs that score even higher by now.

    • Re: (Score:3, Insightful)

      by labnet ( 457441 )

      The people I know who smoked marijuana regularly turned into real dullards. Poor memory, slow reactions.
      Might be OK for occasional use, but heavy users become less productive.

      • Better than alcohol. Alcohol "culture" can fuck right off. Only people just call it "culture" in most places. So you tell me, which is worse.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by nagora ( 177841 )

        The people I know who smoked marijuana regularly turned into real dullards. Poor memory, slow reactions.
        Might be OK for occasional use, but heavy users become less productive.

        That's my experience too. Long term regular users seem to struggle to remember their own names and become very dependant.

      • Did they start before or after they hit 25? Seems it's quite desasterous if the brain is still in development. I don't do marihuana but many of my high school friends did and it didn't help indeed...

    • This has been my experience as well. Every smoker I've ever met has told me "Don't start, it's a disgusting habit". You know it's a shit drug when the people that do it hate it and acknowledge that it's bad.

      • People wouldn't smoke if they didn't enjoy it. But that doesn't change the fact that it's a disgusting habit that's hard to quit. I smoked for around a decade, and it was both enjoyable and disgusting.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Kisai ( 213879 )

      Nobody should be smoking, ANYTHING.

      This doesn't need to be a law, this just needs to be a culturally relevant thing. Treat smoking, be it weed or tobacco, the same way alcohol and gambling(including gacha/lootbox) is treated. Push sin-taxes on things that are harmful, push the taxes directly onto the manufacturer, and then you do three things:
      a) use the revenue from taxing these to deal with the consequences of it, quit-smoking programs, AAA programs, gambling addiction help
      b) use the revenue to support hea

  • Oh no! Think of the CHILDREN!!! (Score:5, Interesting)

    by rsilvergun ( 571051 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @05:38PM (#62837661)
    I keep seeing these stories and they keep being reported without context because it's politically advantageous to keep marijuana illegal for a certain political party and economically advantageous for a certain pharmaceutical industry.

    Cigarette smoking is way down because we don't allow marketing to children anymore and there's no reason to do it besides being addicted. It was being replaced by vape, and that's what most people who get hooked before they're old enough to know better are on, further reducing the numbers.

    Meanwhile Marijuana use isn't necessarily increasing, but if you self report you no longer have to fear jail time. It's similar to how homosexuality rates shot up after the Stonewall riots or how the number of left handed people shot up after their 3rd grade teachers stopped calling them Satan.

    This is some mighty find "journalism" here Lou.
    • Or marijuana use causes homsexuality and lefthande satanism.

      Didn't think of that did you, huh?

    • it's politically advantageous to keep marijuana illegal for a certain political party

      How is it politically advantageous? Neither party has gained or lost in states where pot is legal. It has made no difference.

      economically advantageous for a certain pharmaceutical industry.

      That makes little sense. If drugs are legal, the profits will go to the pharmas instead of Mexican cartels. Big pharma will be the big winner from legalization.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by skam240 ( 789197 )

        That makes little sense. If drugs are legal, the profits will go to the pharmas instead of Mexican cartels. Big pharma will be the big winner from legalization.

        Big Pharma are companies with nation wide operations and thus have nothing to do with selling pot.

        • Big Pharma are companies with nation wide operations and thus have nothing to do with selling pot.

          Anyone can grow pot. But when heroin, cocaine, and meth are legalized, they will be produced by pharmaceutical companies.

          • Do you need a big chemical works to produce opium? Many ordinary people in shitty desert hellholes seem able to produce it.

            • Don't forget the other two. Coca leaves are typically processed into cocaine in makeshift labs in shitty jungle hellholes, and meth in makeshift labs in shitty trailer park hellholes. In no case is the chemistry particularly complex. You just have to be willing to lose the occasional lab and/or lab minion to fire, explosion, or poisoning.

          • Re: (Score:2)

            by skam240 ( 789197 )

            Sure but selling it is the issue. No multistate financial institution will touch any money they would make off their sales and good luck to them using said money out of the state it was earned in.

            Maybe you havent ever been in a pot dispensary but in every single one you will be using some janky within state network to process any purchase you make with a card because of this very problem. The one near my house apparently has to round purchases up to the nearest $10's place and then gives you cash back as ch

            • Eaze used to take real credit cards as payment back in the "you need a medical recommendation" days. Hell, they used to be so on top of it, getting pot delivered was faster than pizza. That changed at some point during the trump years though. And now they're playing the same shenanigans with customers having to choose between cash, or using a whole string of high-surcharge, fly-by-night payment processors, some of which are debit (not credit) card only, and at least one of which wanted routing and accoun

      • And why the Republican party started it. The architects of the American drug War felt guilty and spilled the beans a long time ago. We now know as a matter of historical fact that the drug war and in particular the criminalization of marijuana were specifically political Acts intended to help the American right wing. This is also why you lose your voting rights when convicted of a crime and why it's virtually impossible to get them back.

        I'm really sorry if this makes you uncomfortable but the real world

        • And why the Republican party started it.

          Actually, the Democrats started it in the 1930s, and the Republicans strengthened the ban in the 1970s so they could demonize hippies.

          But that was half a century ago. How does the Republican Party benefit today by keeping pot illegal? Do you think that only Democrats use pot?

      • That makes little sense. If drugs are legal, the profits will go to the pharmas instead of Mexican cartels. Big pharma will be the big winner from legalization.

        Every person who uses MJ to relieve stress or anxiety is a lost Xanax prescription.

    • I keep seeing these stories and they keep being reported without context because it's politically advantageous to keep marijuana illegal for a certain political party...

      Speaking of context, marijuana prohibition has gone on for almost 100 years now. Please, tell me more as to how any political party finds a political advantage in legality, because a fucking century of locking innocent citizens up says otherwise.

      • But I noticed you immediately jumped on this because you know exactly what I'm talking about and who's to blame.

        Like I told the other guy I'm really sorry that the real world makes you uncomfortable but being uncomfortable with the real world doesn't make the real world any less real. And it's not healthy to live in a fantasy world.

        • Re: (Score:2)

          by piojo ( 995934 )

          What the hell kind of comment is this? You didn't engage with what the other person said, just pretended to mind read instead. You must not know how offensive that is. (Or worse--you do. But I won't pretend to diagnose your mental state.)

        • But I noticed you immediately jumped on this because you know exactly what I'm talking about and who's to blame.

          Uh, no. I asked you who is to blame because you made a claim that it is politically advantageous to a "certain" political party.

          Every political party has held power over the last century. Cannabis remains illegal because both parties find an advantage in keeping it that way.

          As if the infamous member of the Choom Gang failing to legalize it doesn't speak loudly enough.

  • Is it just me? (Score:3, Insightful)

    by argStyopa ( 232550 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @05:45PM (#62837683) Journal

    It's funny that we spend decades punishing the cigarette companies for promoting a toxic and filthy habit...only to turn around and have roughly half the body politic delightfully support smoking just another dried weed.

    So is smoking good for you or bad for you?

    #followthescience, no?

    • There are ways to use marijuana that don't have the negative effects of igniting/smoking/inhaling anything. I didn't read the FA, but does it distinguish use as only smoking, or include other ways?

    • So is smoking good for you or bad for you?

      There is a simple test, does the smoke irritate your breathing pattern or make you want to cough? Your body can usually tell you what it thinks of your actions.

      • That's your body detecting particles up to a certain threshold size. And there is strong evidence linking marijuana smoking to chronic bronchitis just like cigarette smoking. And increased traffic accidents over cigarette smoking, which I hope is obvious. Cancer risk seems much smaller from the limited studies performed so far. I'm not a doctor, but generally I recommend against inhaling anything except clean fresh air. But if someone is going to do it anyways, there are choices they can make to minimize th

        • There's one key difference to keep in mind when comparing long-term health risks of cigarettes to marijuana: pretty much nobody is smoking 20 joints a day, every day.

          • Let's see how long Snoop Dogg lives for.

            I predict 150

          • There's one key difference to keep in mind when comparing long-term health risks of cigarettes to marijuana: pretty much nobody is smoking 20 joints a day, every day.

            Speak for yourself, lightweight!

            (j/k)

            But you are absolutely right.

          • So. There is this guy. His name is Snoop Dogg....

            --
            I got the Rolly on my arm and I'm pouring Chandon
            And I roll the best weed cause I got it going on. -- Snoop Dogg

    • Someone has never heard of edibles.

      • Nor of gently vaporizing nearly pure drug. We inhale all kinds of medication and with proper testing and certification we can be sure it’s not harmful in any meaningful way. Burning material and inhaling the ash and myriad of random compounds including tars is not healthy or good even if it is cannabis. Even if the cancer risk is lower than tobacco you can still get COPD.

    • While it needs more study to be sure I don't believe there has been shown a causal lnk between smoking marijuana versus tobacco. That could be down to a number of reasons: people generally don't smoke as much marijuana per day as they could cigarettes, marijunana tends to be "pure" compared to mass manufactured cigarettes, marijuana is often today vaped or smoked with a bong or eaten.

      Now smoking anything combustible is bad for your lungs, that much we know but there probably should be large controlled stud

    • One of the things that became clear once marijuana became legalized is the massive variety of ways that it can be consumed, and the difference in the effects of such. While many people still smoke flowers, there are huge numbers of people that prefer smoking oils or consuming it. I prefer not to inhale the cancerous particles, and so I smoke oils. This allows me to control quite precisely the amount I consume, and it never causes me discomfort (I mean, if you choose to completely fill your lungs with oil

    • None of it's good for you, but trying to make people live a healthy lifestyle by criminalizing bad habits and turning our cities in to war zones is bad for *everybody*. At least if you choose to put poison in your body, the damage is limited to you, unless you drive while intoxicated. We still need to police that, but for me personally the opposition to prohibition was never a "weed is good" advocacy. It was a "prohibition is foolish and we really should have learned our lessons by now" advocacy.

      We don't

      • The whole reason much of it is poison is because it’s illegal. Fentanyl contamination has killed tens of thousands and wouldn’t have killed anyone if it was legal and regulated. If someone has a drug addiction problem it is a medical issue, not a criminal issue and should be treated as such. This includes it being legal so the taxes can be used for treatment, cartels can get fucked with nothing to sell, and to stop clogging the prison system and ruining the economy for everyone with so many u
    • Oh, they'll find out soon enough.

    • So is smoking good for you or bad for you?

      No one said smoking anything is good for you. THC does however contain chemicals that can have some form of benefit in some circumstances. There's no need to actually *smoke* it though.

      Marijuana is a plant, mix it into some cookies. All the medical benefits, all the fun of a drug high, and none of the fucking-up your lungs.

    • So is smoking good for you or bad for you?

      Is jumping into a pool good for you or bad for you? Is the pool full or empty? Is walking across a highway good for you or bad for you? Is the highway busy or quiet? Is smoking good or bad for you? Is it cannabis or tobacco?

      UCLA did a study that showed smoking cannabis decreases cancer risk, they believed that the cause was that the resinous smoke is not only easy to cough up, but other stuff can stick to it and be expelled from the lungs. The increased sputum production means you have more opportunities t

  • At the beaches, parking lots, nor walking paths.

    I say good job, they're policing their own garbage. Even if it means smoking to get the concentrated residue, instead throwing the non-biodegradable filters whereever.

    I've said it since I was a teenager in the 70s, and I say it now as a retired old fart. Fuck you cigarette smokers, you pollute my lungs with your secondhand smoke and pollute my environment with your butts. At least weed smokers save their butts, knowing they have concentrated the stuff

    • Re:Not seeing any Marijuana butts on the ground (Score:4, Insightful)

      by jacks smirking reven ( 909048 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @06:27PM (#62837825)

      Bit of a survivorship bias, most anyone smoking a joint is just using paper or a simple cardboard filter, cigarettes use cellulose for filters so they stick around longer.

      Also only the highest of the high can knock down 20+ joints in a day.

      • Also only the highest of the high can knock down 20+ joints in a day.

        Which is a meaningless statement for any addictive substance over a period of time.

        Both seller and consumer are caught in a spiral of increasing use due to gratification, it's not about character as the alcohol gene in Russians clearly proves.

        And we know the social, health and financial consequences of addiction whether it's gambling, drinking, smoking, sugar or glue sniffing; it's destructive and deceptive.

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by skam240 ( 789197 )

      ...instead throwing the non-biodegradable filters whereever.

      I hate to spoil what you've got going on hear but I've never seen a joint with a filter. I've seen plenty of joints with crutches though but those are usually just made out of cardboard and are only there so you can smoke the entire joint without burning your fingers. So basically joint butts are completely biodegradable.

      I still wouldnt litter them though.

    • I occasionally see a roach on the ground, but so what? It's harmless. It has a little bit of concentrated tar, that's nothing. Cigarette butts have concentrated nicotine which can kill animals. If one has a "filter" in a joint it's usually just a bit of paper, which readily biodegrades. Not so with a cigarette filter, 95% of which are made with cellulose acetate.

    • Bit of trivia regarding pollution... One cigarette butt contaminates 1000 liter of (river/lake) water to the point of being unfit for fish...

  • You Mean Nixon and John Ehrlichman Lied? (Score:5, Informative)

    by BrendaEM ( 871664 ) on Tuesday August 30, 2022 @06:51PM (#62837875) Homepage
    The world didn't exactly come to an end as they predicted. "The Nixon campaign in 1968, and the Nixon White House after that, had two enemies: the antiwar left and black people. You understand what I'm saying? We knew we couldn't make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news. Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did. —John Ehrlichman, to Dan Baum[47][48][49] for Harper's Magazine[50] in 1994, about President Richard Nixon's war on drugs, declared in 1971.[51]"

    • Re: (Score:2, Informative)

      by iggymanz ( 596061 )

      Smoking any plant is bad for your health. In the case of canibis use of three times a week or more, testable decline of cognitive functions occurs that lingers for weeks even after abstinence.

      https://www.nature.com/article... [nature.com]

      So, I see no problem with stigmatizing potheads including goddamned hippies.

      • Oh, nobody ever claimed that it improved cognitive function in normal people.

        But it can be a god-send for people who have extreme anxiety and other various forms of debilitating psychological and psychiatric conditions that would otherwise cripple them. For many people, a bit of pot can help a person get through the day rather than curling into a ball in a dark room. For these people, a bit of cognitive impairment is FAR outweighed by the ability to exist in a state that doesn’t represent existen

        • Don't forget insomnia. I've been an insomniac for better than 25 years now. I've tried, with various degrees of success, everything from Ambien to Xanax on the prescription side, and everything from Benadryl to vodka on the self-medicating side. Some worked, but none worked reliably. And most had next-morning side effects ranging from annoying to actively painful.

          Not so with pot. One pull from an indica vape, and I'm knocked-the-fuck-out. Sometimes I'm still so keyed up that it does takes a while, or

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by iamacat ( 583406 )

      So the answer is obviously to harass rednecks by regulating tobacco out of existence?

  • ...in 2021. That's the excess produced, not the total. Over 15 million ounces. There are only 31 million adults in Canada.

    https://financialpost.com/cann... [financialpost.com]

    "Irrational Exuberance" on the part of the industry indeed.

    • That's 425,000 kgs or 425 tonnes or about 0.037g per person per day. I'm guessing that 31 million Canadian adults don't all smoke marijuana.
  • So a growing number of jobless people sitting around with nothing better to do than answer polls are smoking pot. I am glad we have surveys to confirm such surprising trends!

  • The real tragedy is our kids becoming ginormous fat asses, eating junk food, and then not even being able to remember it.

  • Interesting findings in New Zealand says marijuana cancer risk increases 8% each year of usage, tobacco 7% per year. Hey it's not me saying it, it's the researchers:

    https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/p... [nih.gov]

    • If the numbers of smokers declined 50%, then this is a huge win for public health. The downside is governments in .au and .nz are addicted to tobacco tax, and anyway you cut it, less dollars flowing to taxation coffers. Then we have high numbers of weed quitters - they try it and stop - another revenue disaster. So these countries will oppose any form of legalization. Also smokers often are big drinkers and gamblers as well (also taxed). Looks like legalization is a big winner!

  • Nicotine is the more addictive of the two is it not? Not sure which one is better at lung cancer though.

  • Tobacco users are maligned, taxed and regulated from all ends, while states protect pot users and dealers in violation of federal law. Personally I have no desire to ban either, nor do I have a vested interest either way. Only share a cigar when guests who like these are over and smoked a few joints as a cultural experience in Amsterdam. Can take it or leave it basically. But there is a definite tradeoff. Tobacco doesn't make one an unsafe driver, fuel drug gangs or cause teenagers to develop schizophrenia.

    • Tobacco doesn't make one an unsafe driver, fuel drug gangs or cause teenagers to develop schizophrenia.

      Nor does Cannabis. A slight correlation has been shown between cannabis and schizophrenia, but no causation has been demonstrated. Drug gangs are fueled by the war on drugs, not by drugs, period. Studies have shown that cannabis does not increase accident rates; while there is a small but measurable effect on reaction times, cannabis users tend to be in less of a hurry and also notably less aggressive.

      I can be friends with pot or tobacco users, but I have absolutely no respect for hypocrites who are trying to effectively ban tobacco while promoting pot.

      The two are dramatically different things, they differ in basically every way but combustibility. Being dif

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