Everyone knows marijuana is more harmful and addictive than tobacco and alcohol, yet we have all of these idiot stoners polluting society with their stupid dope and their liberal pro-drug propaganda.
I believe all non-smokers like me are against legalization because it will just make more people use it and decay our society further. All pot smokers deserve to be thrown in jail because they are a danger to themselves and others.
Alcohol is one of the most toxic drugs, and using just 10 times what one would use to get the desired effect can lead to death. Marijuana is one of – if not the – least toxic drugs, requiring thousands times the dose one would use to get the desired effect to lead to death. This “thousands times” is actually theoretical, since there has never been a recorded case of marijuana overdose.
The most toxic recreational drugs, such as GHB (gamma-hydroxybutyrate) and heroin, have a lethal dose less than 10 times their typical effective dose. The largest cluster of substances has a lethal dose that is 10 to 20 times the effective dose: These include cocaine, MDMA, which is extasy, and alcohol. A less toxic group of substances, requiring 20 to 80 times the effective dose to cause death, include Rohypnol, which are roofies, and mescaline (peyote cactus).
The least physiologically toxic substances, those requiring 100 to 1,000 times the effective dose to cause death, include psilocybin mushrooms and marijuana, when ingested. I've found no published cases in the English language that document deaths from smoked marijuana, so the actual lethal dose is a mystery. I've come to the conclusion that smoking marijuana is more risky than eating it, just because of the smoke itself, but is still safer than getting drunk.
Despite the health risks and social costs, consciousness-altering chemicals have been used for centuries in almost all cultures. So it would be unrealistic to expect that all types of recreational drug use will suddenly cease. Self-management of these substances is extremely difficult, yet modern Western societies have not, in general, developed positive, socially sanctioned rituals as a means of regulating the use of some of the less hazardous recreational drugs. I would argue that we need to do that.
