Marijuana not so bad

Let us do a little thought experiment. We shall assume that the prohibition of marijuana is a wise initiative. (I do not believe this to be the case, but that is beside the point for now.) If this is so, and we really believe that the government is merely trying to protect us from inherently harmful substances, it seems unbelievable that alcohol is still legal. Never mind, for the moment, that the effort to eradicate alcohol - known officially as Prohibition - proved to be a dismal failure. Any rational mind (i.e., a mind as yet unperverted by decades of official drug propaganda) could identify alcohol as a much more insidious drug than marijuana. From this, one should infer that if alcohol is legal, then there is no reason that marijuana should not be legal.

For one, alcohol causes many more deaths. Although an exact count of alcohol-related deaths is very hard to obtain, it is the general consensus that the raw numbers are large. One study estimates the annual total at about 115,000 (http://www.geocities.com/freerusty/deaths.html). For comparative purposes consider that aspirin and similar painkillers lead to approximately 7,000 or so deaths per year. Then remember that there is not one published account of someone overdosing on marijuana. This alone should lead to a reversal (or at least reappraisal) of current prohibitionist legislation.

In addition, alcohol is a much more addictive substance than marijuana. There is no scientific evidence that I have come across indicating that marijuana is physically addictive (i.e., there is no physical withdrawal from marijuana). Alcohol, however, is one of the most physically addictive substances on earth. Withdrawal from alcohol is not just discomforting - it is deadly. I once read that if you put twenty heroin addicts and twenty alcoholics in a room and came back in a week, you would find twenty very angry heroin addicts and nineteen dead alcoholics. Ouch.

It is also much more probable that one would overdose from alcohol. Alcohol poisoning (and the many consequent deaths) is almost routine in emergency rooms throughout the country. On the other hand, there has never been a documented case of overdose from marijuana, and research on lab rats has estimated that a lethal dose would require about 40,000 times the amount of THC it takes to get high (Lester Grispoon's book "Marijuana Reconsidered," page 227).

Furthermore, alcohol is much more likely to be associated with other crimes than is marijuana. Not only does alcohol lead to many more traffic fatalities, but it is also correlated with other sorts of crime as well. Consider that 37 percent of state inmates and 20 percent of federal inmates reported being under the influence of alcohol at the time of their offense, according to Join Together Online. This same report also showed that alcohol plays a larger role in assault, murder and sexual assault than illicit drugs (of all sorts). Marijuana is more likely to make someone stare at cartoons or eat lots of Hostess Ding Dongs than it is to lead one to a life of crime. The same cannot be said for alcohol.

The argument that alcohol is different from an illegal drug like marijuana is the equivalent of saying that the legal drug is better than the alternative because the government approves of its use. Based on the government's current practices, this is less than reassuring. If this nation's drug policy made any sense whatsoever, then certainly alcohol would be illegal as long as marijuana is. But as all informed observers know, there is really little logic (moral or scientific) behind the so-called war on drugs.

And then there is the whole other question of tobacco - which kills more people each year than alcohol, all other drugs and homicide combined. The powers-that-be should either be consistently idiotic (i.e., ban alcohol and tobacco as well as weed) or be consistent with the central premise behind this country's foundation - allow individuals to make their own decisions regarding marijuana just as they do with alcohol or tobacco.

Chris Planer is a 2nd year MBA student studying Marketing. He can be reached for comment, criticism, or correspondence at planer_1@cob.osu.edu.