Alcohol and tobacco worse than pot, and yet they spend billions prohibiting the pot while these two are freely available!

Saturday March 24, 2007

Alcohol and tobacco are more dangerous than illegal drugs like marijuana or ecstasy, according to a new classification of drugs published in The Lancet medical journal yesterday.

The table, drawn up by a group of leading British scientists, ranked heroin, cocaine, barbiturates and street methadone as the most harmful drugs, closely followed by alcohol in fifth place.

Tobacco was assessed to be the 9th most dangerous drug behind ketamine in 6th, benzodiazepines, which are prescription tranquillizers, and amphetamines.

Cannabis was said to be the 11th most harmful. LSD was ranked 14th and ecstasy 18th among the 20 drugs classified.

And yet our stupid governments, following the lead of the US government, spend billions of dollars fighting pot use, while drugs worse than that, like alcohol and tobacco are freely available. In the prohibition era in the US, they spent billions trying to stop people drinking. Not only did it backfire and alcohold was freely available the prohibition turned into a joke, but it also caused lots of unnecessary pain, and created huge criminal gangs that their sole purpose and sustenance was providing alcohol for the population.

Most people know how to use drugs in moderation not to harm themselves. Banning any drug is like banning knives in kitchens because a few people don't know how to use them and harm themselves or others. There are people in high places who use cocaine on a regular basis without harming their careers or life or families, and yet there are people in the street that are alcoholics and damage their lives and ruin their families. The rational way to deal with drugs is not banning them. Banning drugs just creates crime and corruption resulting from the crime. The solution is educating people how to deal with the drugs and how to use them in moderation.