Which Is WORSE For Your Health: Marijuana Or Alcohol?

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  • Kel Varnsen
    Kel Varnsen Posts: 1,952
    PJ_Soul wrote:
    Plus, I've never heard of anyone having to go to the hospital or dying because they smoked too much pot. That alone is definitive proof of what is worse for you health.

    I am not sure I can accept that. I mean how is it possible that pretty much every other type of smoke entering your lungs is bad for your health yet pot smoke isn't.

    Plus it is worth noting I think that alcohol has saved countless lives. I mean back in the days before people understood the need for clean drinking water people who drank beer or wine has a much better chance of surviving things like cholera outbreaks. It was actually to the point where it was discovered that cholera was carried in contaminated water since in London there was an outbreak centered around a public water pump and a disproportional amount of people who weren't getting sick happened to work at a local brewery.
  • MotoDC
    MotoDC Posts: 947
    Drowned Out wrote:
    Fair enough.
    With minimal consumption, MJ is probably the most harmful...then potatoes, then wine.
    With extreme consumption, intent on OD'ing....your wine test subject would die first...then the potato guy...the MJ guy would probably fall asleep with a helluva headache.
    No arguments here. Though I'm going to have to circle back and read the article you linked to understand this poison potato deal. :D
  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    funny stuff guess which "peers" are experimenting/drinking first? :lol:

    http://www.livescience.com/16020-parent ... drive.html

    "The home is a really important source for these kids," said Maldonado-Molina. "(Parents) may not perceive their drinking as negative, but it influences what is acceptable behavior."

    The example is set from young on and even can dictate their own parenting skills
    for the following generation. It's a cycle that could be broken
    but many people are too selfish or too addicted or in too much denial
    to give up the pleasure substances....
    they may not be harmful to the adult when used in moderation but
    we see that is definitely not always the case and the effects on children can be and are
    harmful to their future decisions.
  • brianlux
    brianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,662
    pandora wrote:
    funny stuff guess which "peers" are experimenting/drinking first? :lol:

    http://www.livescience.com/16020-parent ... drive.html

    "The home is a really important source for these kids," said Maldonado-Molina. "(Parents) may not perceive their drinking as negative, but it influences what is acceptable behavior."

    The example is set from young on and even can dictate their own parenting skills
    for the following generation. It's a cycle that could be broken
    but many people are too selfish or too addicted or in too much denial
    to give up the pleasure substances....
    they may not be harmful to the adult when used in moderation but
    we see that is definitely not always the case and the effects on children can be and are
    harmful to their future decisions.

    So if we combine this article with the one Drowned Out posted plus your assertion that kids pick up on the things their parents do, assuming all three are correct, we would come up with this conclusion: If you're going to smoke pot or drink around your kids it's better to smoke pot because when they learn that from you they will be less dangerous drivers than if they learn to drink and drive, thus, marijuana is less dangerous under these conditions than alcohol.

    Just an exercise in logic.
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni

  • Jeanwah
    Jeanwah Posts: 6,363
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.
  • MotoDC
    MotoDC Posts: 947
    Jeanwah wrote:
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.
    With all due respect, an individual's personal experience isn't really conclusive evidence of anything. That's why we have the studies in the first place.
    brianlux wrote:
    That really about wraps it up and says it all, Jeanwah. I'm surprised to see so much discussion around something that seems so abvious- especially among those of us with personal experience with both substances- not to mention the studies, statistics etc. that are out there to confirm this belief.
    Except that it doesn't, as I already pointed out above. The problem is that the question is unanswerable without more parameters. In moderation (1-2 glasses of wine a day, for example), it's hardly a "no-brainer" that pot is less dangerous. I'd imagine it would be quite easy to argue the opposite, in fact, considering the health benefits of wine.
  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    brianlux wrote:
    pandora wrote:
    funny stuff guess which "peers" are experimenting/drinking first? :lol:

    http://www.livescience.com/16020-parent ... drive.html

    "The home is a really important source for these kids," said Maldonado-Molina. "(Parents) may not perceive their drinking as negative, but it influences what is acceptable behavior."

    The example is set from young on and even can dictate their own parenting skills
    for the following generation. It's a cycle that could be broken
    but many people are too selfish or too addicted or in too much denial
    to give up the pleasure substances....
    they may not be harmful to the adult when used in moderation but
    we see that is definitely not always the case and the effects on children can be and are
    harmful to their future decisions.

    So if we combine this article with the one Drowned Out posted plus your assertion that kids pick up on the things their parents do, assuming all three are correct, we would come up with this conclusion: If you're going to smoke pot or drink around your kids it's better to smoke pot because when they learn that from you they will be less dangerous drivers than if they learn to drink and drive, thus, marijuana is less dangerous under these conditions than alcohol.

    Just an exercise in logic.
    Pot is illegal... many kids get into the system by smoking underage...
    every parents dream... wait nightmare.
    Probation, drug testing, weekend jail, loss of license...

    how about we just teach kids not to smoke and drink....
    novel idea :fp:

    If adults really cared about kids they would do this, set an example, set the very best
    example for their children.
  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    Jeanwah wrote:
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.
    The peers who are using first are those who learned at home.

    And who is not living it? I lived through it all...
    and then some!

    The farce is blaming your child's decisions on another child. Yes peer pressure is huge
    so empower your child.
  • brianlux
    brianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,662
    Jeanwah wrote:
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.

    Yeah, all kidding aside, it really is. I knew a girl who became a fifteen year old alcoholic because she was a PK (preacher's kid) whose parents never touched a drop and wanted to be cool around her friends. And I knew a kid who died in a car crash because he and a friend were drinking and driving and his mother was an absolute fundamentalist Christian teetotaler.
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni

  • Jeanwah
    Jeanwah Posts: 6,363
    pandora wrote:
    Pot is illegal... many kids get into the system by smoking underage...
    every parents dream... wait nightmare.
    Probation, drug testing, weekend jail, loss of license...

    how about we just teach kids not to smoke and drink....
    novel idea :fp:

    If adults really cared about kids they would do this, set an example, set the very best
    example for their children.

    You don't get it. Kids do what their friends do, not their parents. And pot being illegal is one of the stupidist laws out there. It's a natural plant.
    The peers who are using first are those who learned at home.

    This couldn't be more wrong. :roll:
  • Jeanwah
    Jeanwah Posts: 6,363
    brianlux wrote:
    Jeanwah wrote:
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.

    Yeah, all kidding aside, it really is. I knew a girl who became a fifteen year old alcoholic because she was a PK (preacher's kid) whose parents never touched a drop and wanted to be cool around her friends. And I knew a kid who died in a car crash because he and a friend were drinking and driving and his mother was an absolute fundamentalist Christian teetotaler.

    Well there ya go. Completely proves those claiming they "learn from their parents" wrong!
  • Jeanwah
    Jeanwah Posts: 6,363
    edited August 2012
    MotoDC wrote:
    Jeanwah wrote:
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.
    With all due respect, an individual's personal experience isn't really conclusive evidence of anything. That's why we have the studies in the first place.

    You're excusing real life experience to studies? Really, now?
    Post edited by Jeanwah on
  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    Jeanwah wrote:
    pandora wrote:
    Pot is illegal... many kids get into the system by smoking underage...
    every parents dream... wait nightmare.
    Probation, drug testing, weekend jail, loss of license...

    how about we just teach kids not to smoke and drink....
    novel idea :fp:

    If adults really cared about kids they would do this, set an example, set the very best
    example for their children.

    You don't get it. Kids do what their friends do, not their parents. And pot being illegal is one of the stupidist laws out there. It's a natural plant.
    The peers who are using first are those who learned at home.

    This couldn't be more wrong. :roll:
    Well doesn't matter if its stupid or not when your kid gets busted. :fp:
    Kids very much follow the example of their parents. If it is an accepted activity in the home
    it is carried away from the home and becomes an accepted behavior in their social
    life.

    The best thing parents can be is consistence and have foresight.
    Doing something illegal in the home like smoking pot sends a message not to respect laws.
    Sends the message a child can experiment. And what stops them from then trying other drugs?
    curiosity killed the cat.

    Kids are much more likely to have DUI's if their parents smoke and drink in the home.
    Studies prove this.

    Why take a risk like that with your child's life and future?

    Oh ... cause the parent likes to smoke pot and drink?
  • comebackgirl
    comebackgirl Posts: 9,885
    pandora wrote:
    Jeanwah wrote:
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.
    The peers who are using first are those who learned at home.

    And who is not living it? I lived through it all...
    and then some!

    The farce is blaming your child's decisions on another child. Yes peer pressure is huge
    so empower your child.
    In fairness,the article researched the likelihood of drinking and driving as adults, not who starts using first. That being said, kids that grow up in a home in which both patents are alcoholics are more likely to start drinking at a younger age. The parents will absolutely have some influence when it comes to shaping kids' attitudes about alcohol and drugs. Peers can provide either a protective or motivating factor when it comes to using and are likely to have more influence when it comes to normalizing use/non-use. It's complicated though. So many factors go into it. A kid whose parents drink, but who excels in school or sports and whose friends don't use may never pick up. As i discussed in 2 personal examples, the opposite can be true. If there is true addiction in a family, the kids will be I
    Impacted whether or not they ever see the parents drink or use.
    tumblr_mg4nc33pIX1s1mie8o1_400.gif

    "I need your strength for me to be strong...I need your love to feel loved"
  • brianlux
    brianlux Moving through All Kinds of Terrain. Posts: 43,662
    Getting back to the OP, here's an interesting article about the effects of alcohol and marijuana on the developing brain:

    http://phys.org/news157280425.html

    Developing Brains: Alcohol Worse than Marijuana

    PhysOrg.com) -- It appears that when it comes to teen brain development, parents should be more worried about alcohol abuse than marijuana abuse. Two recent studies have been published showing that alcohol -- a legal substance (though not legal for teens in the U.S.) -- is considered more dangerous than marijuana, which is illegal in many countries.

    One study has been published in the U.S., in the journal Clinical EEG and neuroscience: official journal of the EEG and Clinical Neuroscience Society (ENCS), and shows that alcohol has a stronger effect on teen brain development than marijuana. The other is a study published in the Lancet, offering the results of substance classification by a number of U.K. professionals, purporting that alcohol is more dangerous than marijuana to individuals and to society. The U.S. study was undertaken by Squeglia, Jacobus and Tapert in a San Diego State University/University of California San Diego joint doctoral program. The study looks at teen brain development for its uniqueness, as well as for the effects that substance abuse has on the brain during this time. Because alcohol and marijuana are commonly used by high school students, it is little surprise that the study is interested in the brain abnormalities stemming from abuse of these substances. When the brain abnormalities were measured -- seen in terms of brain functioning and structure, cognitive tasks and quality of white matter -- it appeared as though alcohol had a great effect than marijuana. Heavy drinking was defined 20 drinks per month, and the abnormalities were detectable. In heavy marijuana users, abnormalities existed, but not to the same degree as those seen in alcohol abusers. Findings from the U.S. study, showing that alcohol use in teens causes more irregular brain function than marijuana, would seem to square with efforts in the U.K. to encourage new drug classification. In the Lancet, David Nutt at Bristol University, along with his colleagues, asked psychologists and scientifically or medically trained police to rank different substances according to how harmful they are. The study purports that experts rank alcohol (and tobacco) as more harmful than marijuana. In a list of 20 substances, alcohol came in at number five, tobacco came in at number nine, and marijuana/cannabis came in at number eleven. These studies are likely to add fuel to movements in both the U.S. and the U.K. to re-classify marijuana. Supporters of fewer restrictions on marijuana will undoubtedly point to scientific studies that show we already legalize less dangerous substances.
    "It's a sad and beautiful world"
    -Roberto Benigni

  • Drowned Out
    Drowned Out Posts: 6,056
    pandora wrote:
    how about we just teach kids not to smoke and drink....
    novel idea :fp:

    If adults really cared about kids they would do this, set an example, set the very best
    example for their children.

    Ya, because we know how well preaching abstinence works with teens. :roll:
    Tell us pandora, do you practise what you preach? Were you always bone sober thru all of your years as a parent? If not, do you still care about your kids? or was that just your typical half-assed, inflammatory cheapshot?
    pandora wrote:
    And who is not living it? I lived through it all...
    and then some!
    This doesn't sound like consistence (sic) and foresight to me....


    jeanwah - I agree with what you're saying - there is absolutely a personal aspect to this. Some of the info I posted, ironically, demonstrates how unreliable studies on MJ can be. It affects people completely differently depending on a list of factors. I think people deserve a little more credit than they're being given in determining what's best for them as ways to maintain their physical and mental health, relax, enjoy themselves, what's best for their kid, what their kids observe and how they interpret their parents' actions. Yes there are bad parents out there. But some people have trouble trying to keep separate their critical thinking process from their 'brain on drugs' conditioning/messiah complex.
    But our friend went from the typical appeal to pathos, to using logos to reinforce questionable ethos, so I replied in kind (with the studies) ;) It can also be risky to reply from a personal standpoint, in a public forum, when there are personal, career, and legal ramifications to implying oneself...finding someone else to make your point can help in that regard.
    I think we're kinda pissing in the wind trying to point fingers about who or what is to 'blame' when someone forms an addiction. Parents and home life are definitely factors, but there are a million others.....we might as well cut to the chase and discuss free will vs determinism.
  • MotoDC
    MotoDC Posts: 947
    Jeanwah wrote:
    MotoDC wrote:
    Jeanwah wrote:
    I have to say that referring to internet links for info on this topic, when some of us are living it every day is quite the farce.

    This could be said for any topic actually. Like I said before, parenting is not the issue here. It's about peer pressure.
    With all due respect, an individual's personal experience isn't really conclusive evidence of anything. That's why we have the studies in the first place.

    You're excusing real life experience to studies? Really, now?
    Real-life experiences aren't invalid, but they are tainted by many factors. The primary one being an incredibly small sample size (often just one, the individual experiencing it). There are myriad factors that could impact not only your actual personal experience, but your perception (and thus memory) of it. Studies attempt to control for those factors and use large sample sizes to make outliers more identifiable, among other reasons. For example, Jeanwah, how do you know your experience isn't the outlier? Even if you've seen 3 friends go through the experience in the same way, that still doesn't prove a pattern.
  • PJ_Soul
    PJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 50,667
    Kel Varnsen wrote:
    PJ_Soul wrote:
    Plus, I've never heard of anyone having to go to the hospital or dying because they smoked too much pot. That alone is definitive proof of what is worse for you health.

    I am not sure I can accept that. I mean how is it possible that pretty much every other type of smoke entering your lungs is bad for your health yet pot smoke isn't.

    Plus it is worth noting I think that alcohol has saved countless lives. I mean back in the days before people understood the need for clean drinking water people who drank beer or wine has a much better chance of surviving things like cholera outbreaks. It was actually to the point where it was discovered that cholera was carried in contaminated water since in London there was an outbreak centered around a public water pump and a disproportional amount of people who weren't getting sick happened to work at a local brewery.
    I meant OD'ing. Not long term affects... although I think it's a very safe assumption that drinking causes more damage to the liver than smoking pot does to the lungs. The think about pot is that you don't have to inhale very much to get high, where as you have to drink quite a bit to get drunk. Pot heads who don't smoke cigarettes don't actually inhale all that much smoke, and what smoke they do inhale don't contain all those delicious carcinogens that cigarettes have. I doubt there have been very many pot smokers who don't smoke cigarettes who have died of lung cancer.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata
  • pandora
    pandora Posts: 21,855
    Effects on the Heart

    Within a few minutes after smoking marijuana, the heart begins beating more rapidly and the blood pressure drops. Marijuana can cause the heart beat to increase by 20 to 50 beats per minute, and can increase even more if other drugs are used at the same time.
    Because of the lower blood pressure and higher heart rate, researchers found that users' risk for a heart attack is four times higher within the first hour after smoking marijuana, compared to their general risk of heart attack when not smoking.

    Effects on the Lungs

    Smoking marijuana, even infrequently, can cause burning and stinging of the mouth and throat, and cause heavy coughing. Scientists have found that regular marijuana smokers can experience the same respiratory problems as tobacco smokers do, including:
    Daily cough and phlegm production
    More frequent acute chest illnesses
    Increased risk of lung infections
    Obstructed airways
    Most marijuana smokers consume a lot less cannabis than cigarette smokers consume tobacco, however the harmful effects of smoking marijuana should not be ignored. Marijuana contains more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke and because marijuana smokers typically inhale deeper and hold the smoke in their lungs longer than tobacco smokers, their lungs are exposed to those carcinogenic properties longer, when smoking.
    What About Cancer?

    Although one study found that marijuana smokers were three times more likely to develop cancer of the head or neck than non-smokers, that study could not be confirmed by further analysis.
    Because marijuana smoke contains three times the amount of tar found in tobacco smoke and 50 percent more carcinogens, it would seem logical to deduce that there is an increased risk of lung cancer for marijuana smokers. However, researchers have not been able to definitively prove such a link because their studies have not been able to adjust for tobacco smoking and other factors that might also increase the risk.

    Studies linking marijuana smoking to lung cancer have also been limited by selection bias and small sample size. For example, the participants in those studies may have been too young to have developed lung cancer yet. Even though researchers have yet to "prove" a link between smoking pot and lung cancer, regular smokers may want to consider the risk.

    Other Health Effects

    Research indicates that THC impairs the body's immune system from fighting disease, which can cause a wide variety of health problems. One study found that marijuana actually inhibited the disease-preventing actions of key immune cells. Another study found that THC increased the risk of developing bacterial infections and tumors.

    http://alcoholism.about.com/od/pot/a/effects.-Lya.htm
  • PJ_Soul
    PJ_Soul Vancouver, BC Posts: 50,667
    God, it is just so STUPID to continue with anti-pot attitudes. :fp: Legalizing could do so much more good for society, while keeping it illegal does loads of harm. And it's solely this attitude that Pandora expresses, also held by a bunch of mentally constipated politicians that continues these problems. I find it really ridiculous.
    With all its sham, drudgery, and broken dreams, it is still a beautiful world. Be careful. Strive to be happy. ~ Desiderata

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