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Austin Buben

Alcohol, Tobacco Worse Than Illegal Drugs? - CBS News - 0 views

www.cbsnews.com/...main2604653.shtml

alcohol tobacco marijuana

shared by Austin Buben on 26 Sep 11 - No Cached
    • Austin Buben
      Austin Buben on 26 Sep 11
       
      Austin Found this First
  • New "landmark" research finds that alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than some illegal drugs like marijuana or Ecstasy and should be classified as such in legal systems, according to a new British study.
  • The Lancet magazine, Professor David Nutt of Britain's Bristol University and colleagues proposed a new framework for the classification of harmful substances, based on the actual risks posed to society. Their ranking listed alcohol and tobacco among the top 10 most dangerous substances.
  • ...11 more annotations...
  • "The current drug system is ill thought-out and arbitrary,"
  • "The exclusion of alcohol and tobacco from the Misuse of Drugs Act is, from a scientific perspective, arbitrary,"
  • Tobacco causes 40 percent of all hospital illnesses, while alcohol is blamed for more than half of all visits to hospital emergency rooms.
  • The substances also harm society in other ways, damaging families and occupying police services.
  • Nutt hopes that the research will provoke debate within the UK and beyond about how drugs — including socially acceptable drugs such as alcohol — should be regulated. While different countries use different markers to classify dangerous drugs, none use a system like the one proposed by Nutt's study, which he hopes could serve as a framework for international authorities
  • "The rankings also suggest the need for better regulation of the more harmful drugs that are currently legal, i.e. tobacco and alcohol,"
  • "All drugs are dangerous," he said. "Even the ones people know and love and use every day."
  • Nutt and colleagues used three factors to determine the harm associated with any drug: the physical harm to the user, the drug's potential for addiction, and the impact on society of drug use. The researchers asked two groups of experts — psychiatrists specializing in addiction and legal or police officials with scientific or medical expertise — to assign scores to 20 different drugs, including heroin, cocaine, Ecstasy, amphetamines, and LSD.
  • Heroin and cocaine were ranked most dangerous, followed by barbiturates and street methadone. Alcohol was the fifth-most harmful drug and tobacco the ninth most harmful. Cannabis came in 11th, and near the bottom of the list was Ecstasy.
  • According to existing British and U.S. drug policy, alcohol and tobacco are legal, while cannabis and Ecstasy are both illegal. Previous reports, including a study from a parliamentary committee last year, have questioned the scientific rationale for Britain's drug classification system.
    • Austin Buben
      Austin Buben on 26 Sep 11
       
      Alcohol and tobacco, two legal substances in the U.S. and the U.K. are more harmful than marijuana.
Shana Thomas

The Clear Benefits of Decriminalizing Marijuana - 3 views

davidkretzmann.com/...s-of-decriminalizing-marijuana

marijuana

shared by Shana Thomas on 23 Sep 11 - No Cached
  • The Justice Policy Institute argues that locking up drug offenders is an ineffective and inefficient way to address drug abuse
  • With 2,310,984 people being held in local, state, and federal prisons in 2008, the “number of people in prison is nearly 5 times what it was 30 years ago, despite crime rates being at historic lows
  • drug possession is the sole reason 83% of those arrested for drug offenses are charged with a crime and thrown into prison.
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  • Marijuana Policy Project found that between 1995 and 2008 nearly 9.5 million individuals had been arrested due to connections with marijuana (whether it is cultivation, possession, or distribution).
  • Ongoing scientific research has shown tobacco and alcohol to be more addictive, harmful, and socially costly than marijuana.
  • As we have explored, marijuana is proven to be a less dangerous substance than tobacco and alcohol. Not only is it less dangerous in terms of its addictive properties and physical harm to people, it has critical cannabinoid chemicals that may relieve pain and aid the recovery of certain illnesses.
  • Marijuana is essentially in the same situation today that alcohol was in during Prohibition. Government law prevents marijuana from being sold in a legal manner, but it by no means eliminates the suppl
  • Rather than being produced and distributed peacefully through free trade, the marijuana market is limited only to the black market. This artificial legal limitation of the supply raises the p
  • of marijuana to extraordinary heights, thus attracting suppliers to enter the black market.
  • ome argue that criminalizing marijuana is a more harmful endeavor than the impact of the plant itself on society. The Marijuana Policy Project describes the situation: Because of marijuana prohibition, America’s largest cash crop is grown exclusively by unregulated criminals, often in environmentally damaging locations such as national parks and wilderness areas. Such problems are virtually unknown with legal, regulated crops such as tobacco or wine grapes (“Marijuana Prohibition Facts”).
  • Given that marijuana is less harmful to the human body than alcohol and tobacco, it makes little sense to continue the current policy of cannabis prohibition (particularly when you consider the detrimental results of alcohol prohibition).
  • Shana Thomas on 23 Sep 11
     
    why decriminalization is a good thing/ help promote stability and peace
  • Shana Thomas on 23 Sep 11
     
    found this article!
Austin Buben

BalancedPolitics.org - Legalization of Marijuana (Pros & Cons, Arguments For and Agains... - 1 views

www.balancedpolitics.org/marijuana_legalization.htm

marijuana legalization cons pros

shared by Austin Buben on 22 Sep 11 - Cached
    • Austin Buben
      Austin Buben on 22 Sep 11
       
      Austin Buben found this document first.
    • Austin Buben
      Austin Buben on 22 Sep 11
       
      Everything that I highlight is something that is a weak topic.
  • Some c
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  • are likely
  • could
  • could
  • could
  • harmfulness of marijuana are inconclusive and contradictory
  • Most doctors would agree that it's not very harmful if used in moderation
  • isn't abuse of almost any bad substance a problem
  • Most doctors believe that marijuana is no more addictive that alcohol or tobacco.
  • All illegal drugs are higher in price because the production, transportation, and sale of the drugs carry heavy risks.
  • chemotherapy
  • if someone in the drug trade screws you over, there's no police to call or lawyers to litigate. You must settle disputes yourself.
  • enormous amount of money is raised through government taxation of alcohol, cigarettes, and other "sins".
  • Austin Buben on 22 Sep 11
     
    This is a basic website that should help lead everyone in a general direction of what they should get started on and further research these subjects.
Austin Buben

Stem the violence, make marijuana legal - 0 views

www.azcentral.com/...20090314Valdez15-vip.html

decriminalization marijuana legalization mexico violence

shared by Austin Buben on 26 Sep 11 - Cached
    • Austin Buben
      Austin Buben on 26 Sep 11
       
      Austin Found this First
    • Austin Buben
      Austin Buben on 26 Sep 11
       
      This article basically tells how drug cartels would be hurt if marijuana is legalized.
  • Mexico's drug cartels would continue to be, in the words of the Justice Department's National Drug Threat Assessment for 2009, "the greatest drug-trafficking threat to the United States."
  • ...9 more annotations...
  • "Marijuana is the (Mexican cartels') cash crop, the cash cow," says Brittany Brown
  • Marijuana is cheap to grow and requires no processing. More than a million pounds of it was seized in Arizona in each of the past two years
  • First, Prohibition didn't work. • Second, even though alcohol sales are regulated, back-alley or school-yard sales of moonshine is not a billion-dollar problem. • Third, alcohol, like its addictive killer-cousin tobacco, is taxed, which helps cover its costs to society. Not so with marijuana
  • "People who smoke pot in the United States don't think they are connected to the cartels," Brown says. "Actually, they are very connected."
  • stead of paying taxes on their vice, pot smokers are enriching thugs and murderers
  • The DEA says cartels are "poly-drug organizations" that routinely smuggle cocaine, methamphetamine, heroin and precursor chemicals through our state. "(But) marijuana generates the most profit,
  • Legalizing marijuana would not stop pushers from selling other, more lethal poisons. But taking away their most profitable product would hurt criminal organizations that have grown richer, more powerful and better armed during the so-called war on drug
  • While U.S. drug users enrich the cartels, the U.S. government pours huge amounts of money into defeating them.
  • According to a report last fall from the Government Accountability Office, the United States has provided more than $6 billion to support Plan Colombia since fiscal 2000. The goal of reducing processing and distribution of illicit drugs (mostly cocaine) by 50 percent was not achieved
  • Austin Buben on 26 Sep 11
     
    Decriminalizing marijuana reduces the enormous cash flow to drug cartels fueling the drug wars in Mexico. 
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