What They're Smoking

The Marijuana Policy Project notes an interesting finding from the 2003 Youth Risk Behavior Survey, the results of which were released last month: The share of teenagers who reported smoking pot in the previous month (22.4 percent) was slightly larger than the share who reported smoking cigarettes (21.9 percent). MPP calls this "striking evidence that prohibition does not work better than regulation at preventing teen substance use."

Comments

[jc]

In NYC, isn't pot cheaper than Marlboros now?

[Mark S.]

Today, while driving back from an assignment, I listened to one of our local Rush Limbaugh-wannabes (he even gets to sit in for Rush when he's in drug treament---err, I mean on vacation) read a Chicago Sun Times piece on the various points where Moore either get's it wrong or is misleading. This was followed by the usual rant about how anyone who questioned the sainted President Dubbya is in league with Iraqi insurgents who lop off the heads of U.S. hostages. While listening to the article and comments, I came to the following conclusion: Political debate is dead.

In the U.S., politics have degenerated to the point where we don't even try to convince one another that our beliefs or policies are the correct course of action. Instead, we do everything to tar, feather, lambast, impune, and attack. Ad hominem sound bites ("My opponent is a amoral, terrorist-sympahizing, liberal!" "Oh yeah? Well, you're a hate-mongering, jingoistic, right-winger!") and preaching to the choir have replaced reasoned debate.

Give me a reason to vote FOR you rather than against you. Tell me why your policies are superior to your oppenents, and do so without doom-and-gloom scenarios about how one side or the other will ruin America.

This is not to say that neither side doesn't have stupid, unconstitutional, or just plan immoral beliefs. However, I would like to see PROOF that Dubbya is crypto-fascist who wants Haliburton to run the world, or PROOF that Kerry would sell the country down the river to Bin Ladin, Hussain, or the "Gay Agenda." While you're at it, make that objective proof. No left wing AV club geeks, or right wing schlock radio hosts please. If you can't provide such proof, then shut the fuck up.

[Mark S.]

Whoops! Somehow the last post ended up on the wrong thread. Sorry!

[Alex Carnevale]

Not that I disagree with the sentiment, but don't you think the pleasure-giving effects of marijuana, if destigmatized by regulation as opposed to prohibition, might result in more use than cigarettes, which are pleasurable only if your relationship to masochism is a positive one? Just a thought.

[Mo]

Alex,
You may not like smokes, but believe it or not, smokers do enjoy more about smoking than the scratchy throat, smoke inhalation and the lovely bouquet (no, it's not only due to addiction either). Though I do think part of it is that it is far less of a social stigma to smoke tobacco of the wacky sort than the legal.

[Larry]

Alex, alcohol also gives pleasure, but most users manage to use it responsibly. Marijuana would probably be even less subject to misuse (i.e addiction) and many people who would misuse pot are already pot smokers, despite prohibition. For a substance as safe as marijuana, it seems like rates of misuse are of more concern than rates of use.

Marijuana, although illegal, has already been destigmatized to some extent. When I was a kid, Johnny Carson would joke with Ed McMahon about his drinking. Today, Jay Leno jokes with Kevin Eubanks about his (alleged) pot use. And as the CDC survey about tobacco cigarettes and pot clearly shows, stigmatizing and reducing the use of a mind-altering substance can be done very effectively without resorting to prohibition.

I'd also like to point out to jc that for many users, pot is cheaper than tobacco because a lot of marijuana smokers use only a small amount of pot while many tobacco users might smoke several packs per week.

[titus]

It has nothing to do with prohibition.

Pot is more fun, That's all.

[Evan Williams]

I agree with Larry's last statement. The study determined whether or not they had used weed or cigs in the past month. It didn't, as far as I can tell, determine how much they used. Somehow I doubt that the 22.4% who smoked weed did so as much as the 21.9% who smoked cigs smoked theirs.

[Amy Phillips]

Since pot smokers inhale far less smoke than tobacco smokers, I think it's time for us to start pressuring the American Cancer Society to come out in favor of legalization. The more people we can convince to give up cigarettes for weed, the less lung cancer we'll see, right?

Of course, this is the same group that championed legislation making it illegal for cigarette producers to tell consumers about the relative safety risks of different types of cigarettes, so I won't hold my breath, so to speak.