Marijuana: Safer than Peanuts

[TBF]

Full disclosure: I happened upon this on Facebook. So I don't have a link - but if someone can provide one that would be fabulous. Given our discussion on the subject I thought some might like to have the graphic.

[Javaman]

1. But can you spread it on toast? nt

[frylock]

2. short answer..

YES!

[Uncle Joe]

3. Yes but there is never enough toast. n/t

[Starry Messenger]

8. Zing! (nt)

[Danascot]

10. There are consequences ...

you get toasted ...

[yellowcanine]

19. Maybe not but you but peanut leaves are no fun to smoke either.

[TalkingDog]

4. Both are involved in the munchies!

n/t

[polichick]

5. If big pharma had a fake peanut to sell, peanuts would be illegal too!

[mopinko]

6. i see they didn't put tylenol.

don't know the numbers, but higher than aspirin, i am sure.

[TBF]

7. Good point - I bet you're right about that. nt

[Logical]

9. It causes about 500 a year! But 1000s of hospital visits!

[bemildred]

11. Acetaminophen Is Leading Cause of Acute Liver Failure

http://www.medpagetoday.com/Psychiatry/Depression/2233

[mopinko]

12. i gotta wonder about that aspirin number.

as your article points out, many tylenol deaths are suicides. gotta think the same goes for aspirin.

[bemildred]

18. It's an old article (2005).

A lot of acetominophen deaths are drug ODs, 'cause they mix it in with the opiates and opioids to discourage "abuse". Expecting addicts to be discouraged is a bit wrong-headed in my view. Straight up pills like Tramadol are harder to get.

They don't do that as much with aspirin, if they do it at all, so I think it's more likely aspirin deaths are intentional attempts to do away with themselves.

[rustydog]

13. Not one death attributed to driving higher than a ficking kite?

Not ONE DEATH attributed to Marijuana? Riggghhhhttt
Someone had to be higher than the proverbial kite while making this graphic!

[phleshdef]

20. The cause of death would be injuries substained from a vehicle crash, in that case.

Even when alcohol contributes to a crash, the cause of death is still the crash itself.

Its no different than if someone is driving while in an emotionally distressed state and that leads to a crash. You don't blame the cause of the distress for the death, you blame the driving accident.

[Uncle Joe]

21. A few years back a man ran a red light and clipped the front of my car just as I was starting

to accelerate through a green light, the cars on my left started to take off and then stopped but I didn't see him until the last split second as they were blocking my view.

He took off but the police caught him and I had several witnesses on the spot willing to testify on my behalf, some of them even followed him for a ways.

He told the police officer that he had a big fight with his girlfriend and that he was so angry, he just decided to run the red light.

If I had started through that green light sooner, he would have come through my side door and I probably wouldn't be here.

[Uncle Joe]

14. An Op-Ed from the world's most famous peanut farmer.

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/17/opinion/17carter.html?_r=2

Op-Ed Contributor
Call Off the Global Drug War
By JIMMY CARTER
Published: June 16, 2011

IN an extraordinary new initiative announced earlier this month, the Global Commission on Drug Policy has made some courageous and profoundly important recommendations in a report on how to bring more effective control over the illicit drug trade. The commission includes the former presidents or prime ministers of five countries, a former secretary general of the United Nations, human rights leaders, and business and government leaders, including Richard Branson, George P. Shultz and Paul A. Volcker.

The report describes the total failure of the present global antidrug effort, and in particular America’s “war on drugs,” which was declared 40 years ago today. It notes that the global consumption of opiates has increased 34.5 percent, cocaine 27 percent and cannabis 8.5 percent from 1998 to 2008. Its primary recommendations are to substitute treatment for imprisonment for people who use drugs but do no harm to others, and to concentrate more coordinated international effort on combating violent criminal organizations rather than nonviolent, low-level offenders.

These recommendations are compatible with United States drug policy from three decades ago. In a message to Congress in 1977, I said the country should decriminalize the possession of less than an ounce of marijuana, with a full program of treatment for addicts. I also cautioned against filling our prisons with young people who were no threat to society, and summarized by saying: “Penalties against possession of a drug should not be more damaging to an individual than the use of the drug itself.”

These ideas were widely accepted at the time. But in the 1980s President Ronald Reagan and Congress began to shift from balanced drug policies, including the treatment and rehabilitation of addicts, toward futile efforts to control drug imports from foreign countries.

(snip)

More on link.

Thanks for the thread, TBF.

[TBF]

16. You're welcome, Uncle Joe.

Would love to see Pres. Obama evolve on this issue in his second term. I worked in a treatment facility for awhile when I was young and saw the harshness of drugs like heroine, but this truly is not in the same category. I would regulate/tax it along the lines of alcohol/cigarettes.

[krispos42]

15. I think the number of homicides in the US is about 13,000.

That chart might be 10 or 15 years old.

[TBF]

17. I'd love to have a link for the chart -

no earthly clue where it's from as I snatched it off Facebook.