The Widening Divisions

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MSimon
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by MSimon »

paperburn1 wrote:I will try and find it again, was from the CDC
Overall, the median death rate due to alcohol-related causes was about 28.5 per 100,000 people, after adjusting for the age of victims.
http://www.latimes.com/science/sciencen ... story.html

Better source
http://www.medscape.com/viewarticle/822014
This is what I found:

3 per 100,000 for pot users
91 per 100,000 for alcohol
On June 17, 1997, the Office of Applied Studies of SAMHSA said there have been no recorded deaths from an overdose of marijuana.

http://www.procon.org/view.background-r ... rceID=1494

With the usual caveats --> metabolites - if urine analysis was the method used - can show up for weeks after use. Long after the high is gone. Blood tests are the only reliable indicator. And only those that are strictly THC sensitive.

You will also note that a number of the "drug deaths" are prohibition related. Lack of sterile eqpt and substances (HIV, hepatitus, etc.). Lack of known purity (some overdoses).
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

MSimon wrote:This is what I found:
3 per 100,000 for pot users
91 per 100,000 for alcohol
On June 17, 1997, the Office of Applied Studies of SAMHSA said there have been no recorded deaths from an overdose of marijuana.
And of course the heavy-weight champ in all this is always legal tobacco:

Tobacco

# of Deaths: 400,000

Estimated Deaths per
100,000 Users: 656

Two people have a bad reaction to pot and that justifies 700K a year of mostly minority males being arrested/charged/convicted/jailed; but the alkies and smokers, their fine.
williatw wrote:Do heavy pot smokers get emphysema or (lung cancer)?
Upon reflection...judging from your low pot fatality figures I would guess pot smokers probably don't get emphysema nearly as much; unlike a cigarette smoker, you don't "chain smoke" pot; even if the user presumably inhales more deeply, their overall consumption most likely is much lower (of pot vs cigs) especially probably the more potent variety around now.

Stubby
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by Stubby »

Looking at the death rates is good and all
Shouldn't you also include illnesses generated by these same substances for the whole picture?
Everything is bullshit unless proven otherwise. -A.C. Beddoe

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

Stubby wrote:Looking at the death rates is good and all
Shouldn't you also include illnesses generated by these same substances for the whole picture?
How about this:



Marijuana Smoking Not Associated With Airway Cancers, COPD, Emphysema, Or Other Tobacco-Related Pulmonary Complications

Image
Pulmonary complications associated with the regular smoking of cannabis are “relatively small” and far lower than those associated with tobacco smoking, according to a recent review published in the June edition of the scientific journal Annals of the American Thoracic Society.

The paper – authored by Donald P. Tashkin, MD, emeritus professor of medicine and medical director of the Pulmonary Function Laboratory at the David Geffen School of Medicine at University of California, Los Angeles – is “the most comprehensive and authoritative review of the subject ever published,” according to an accompanying commentary. Donald Tashkin conducted US-government sponsored studies of marijuana and lung function for over 30 years.

His review finds that although smoking cannabis may be associated with symptoms of chronic bronchitis, studies do not substantiate claims that it is positively associated with the development of lung cancer, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD), emphysema, or bullous lung disease.

“[H]abitual use of marijuana alone does not appear to lead to significant abnormalities in lung function,” Tashkin writes. “[F]indings from a limited number of well-designed epidemiological studies do not suggest an increased risk of either lung or upper airway cancer from light or moderate use. … Overall, the risks of pulmonary complications of regular use of marijuana appear to be relatively small and far lower than those of tobacco smoking.”
Writing in an accompanying commentary, McGill University’s Dr. Mark Ware concludes: “Cannabis smoking is not equivalent to tobacco smoking in terms of respiratory risk. … [C]annabis smoking does not seem to increase risk of chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) or airway cancers. In fact, there is even a suggestion that at low doses cannabis may be protective for both conditions. …
http://www.thedailychronic.net/2013/244 ... lications/

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

I am willing to bet good quatloos that if a pot smoker hit as many joints as a cigarette smoker did during a day the results would be the same. I know on no pot smoker that smokes twenty joints in one day let alone 40 (2 packs a day)
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

MSimon
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by MSimon »

Another source from 2012: http://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20120103 ... g-problems

This from 2006
http://www.webmd.com/lung-cancer/news/2 ... ung-cancer

There is a later study that shows elevated (2X) lung cancer risk for HEAVY smokers. This may be an outlier since risk is not dose related. http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/23846283

The data on tobacco is unequivocal. About 20X the lung cancer risk. The more you smoke the higher the risk.
Engineering is the art of making what you want from what you can get at a profit.

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

paperburn1 wrote:I am willing to bet good quatloos that if a pot smoker hit as many joints as a cigarette smoker did during a day the results would be the same. I know on no pot smoker that smokes twenty joints in one day let alone 40 (2 packs a day)
From MSimon's 1st link:

The heaviest marijuana users in the study had smoked more than 22,000 joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 and 22,000 joints.

While two-pack-a-day or more cigarette smokers were found to have a 20-fold increase in lung cancer risk, no elevation in risk was seen for even the very heaviest marijuana smokers.

The more tobacco a person smoked, the greater their risk of developing lung cancer and other cancers of the head and neck. But people who smoked more marijuana were not at increased risk compared with people who smoked less and people who didn’t smoke at all.
Studies suggest that marijuana smoke contains 50% higher concentrations of chemicals linked to lung cancer than cigarette smoke. Marijuana smokers also tend to inhale deeper than cigarette smokers and hold the inhaled smoke in their lungs longer.

So why isn’t smoking marijuana as dangerous as smoking cigarettes in terms of cancer risk?


The answer isn’t clear, but the experts say it might have something to do with tetrahydrocannabinol, or THC, which is a chemical found in marijuana smoke.

Cellular studies and even some studies in animal models suggest that THC has antitumor properties, either by encouraging the death of genetically damaged cells that can become cancerous or by restricting the development of the blood supply that feeds tumors, Tashkin tells WebMD

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

experts assume, that line kills me.
More likely it the fact that all the chemicals (over 120) used to process tobacco.
But once again 7300 cigarettes a year is just a pack a day and with pot again I state I bet no pot user (on average) it toking up more than one an hour 16 hours a day.

You guys forget the paraquat scare of the 70s for pot used.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

paperburn1
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by paperburn1 »

we have been down this road before, i don't know why i keep arguing it.
I am not a nuclear physicist, but play one on the internet.

Diogenes
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by Diogenes »

MSimon wrote:
Deaths caused by Alcohol are way up over what they were in 1932.
But the murder rate declined by 50% at the end of prohibition. And of course with criminal income cut back corruption declined some.



So what if it did? Was the murder rate during prohibition anything like 70,000 people per year?



The question is whether we are better off or worse off since prohibition was repealed, and I've asked for an objective analysis. I'm thinking that more total deaths ought to be in the negative column.


MSimon wrote: And the really important question: do most people think it is worth trying again? NO.

What has never made sense to me is why the Right is so avid for price supports for criminals.


Now see, this is an example of a dishonest argument. Nobody is in favor of price supports for criminals. That may be the inadvertent consequence of their position, but it is completely dishonest to portray it as their intent.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by Diogenes »

MSimon wrote:
But maybe in a way you are correct. America in its early days had a libertarian tone to its politics.


You keep saying this, but that is completely untrue. Nothing in the early days of America resembles modern Libertarian philosophy. Sodomy was a death penalty offense. Margaret Sanger was thrown in Jail for Indecent exposure. Sex outside of marriage was a criminal offense.



You keep coming back to the availability of drugs and the lack of laws or regulations regarding them, but this was the result of the vast majority of people being unfamiliar with them and seeing no danger. Once drugs had become sufficiently widespread for an undeniable record of disaster to be associated with them, people took steps to regulate and ban them.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by Diogenes »

paperburn1 wrote:A good example would be the old guard democrats of the early 1900s, they were racist bigots to the 9 degree.
when LBJ made steps to open the party to the African origin american then that's when the party started to take strides to equality for all men. He realized this step was necessary change to embrace if is political party was to survive the decade.


You do not have a sufficiently cynical view of LBJ or on what he did and why.


Image


LBJ was a blatant racist from a place and at a time as when such opinions were popular. He didn't launch his "Great Society" because he had any love for black people, he did it in a cynical effort to grab that voting block to keep his party in power.


He was motivated by the passage of the 24th amendment which granted non-taxpayers the right to vote. In 1963, Black people voted Republican. LBJ deliberately set out to change that. This is what he said after the passage of the 24th amendment. (Ratified January of 1964)


“These Negroes, they’re getting pretty uppity these days and that’s a problem for us since they’ve got something now they never had before, the political pull to back up their uppityness. Now we’ve got to do something about this, we’ve got to give them a little something, just enough to quiet them down, not enough to make a difference.”—LBJ



And another quote at a different time.

“I’ll have those n*ggers voting Democratic for the next 200 years.” —Lyndon B. Johnson to two governors on Air Force One


Quotes from this book.

http://www.amazon.com/Inside-White-Hous ... 1433244985



LBJ was an arrogant and vile man. His legacy is one of disaster, as are the legacies of most Democrat Presidents.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by Diogenes »

williatw wrote:
Diogenes wrote:
MSimon wrote:So the demise of alcohol prohibition has left things worse off?

Now that *IS* an interesting question. I'm thinking that in terms of body count, we are way worse off. Deaths caused by Alcohol are way up over what they were in 1932. It occurs to me that since you regard yourself as an expert on this issue, how about you take the contrary position for a moment and give us an objective analysis as to whether we are better off or worse off as a nation since Alcohol was re-legalized.
Interesting point...maybe we should substitute alcohol (legal or otherwise) for something with a much lower body count:

Alcohol Has Killed Thousands Of People Since This Morning. Pot Use Has Killed Zero Since Forever.


Well first of all, I have no trust whatsoever in that statistic you advanced, especially not coming from the Huffington Post. Secondly, it's not a question of trading. If we could trade alcohol deaths for pot deaths, we would be far ahead, but that is not going to happen. The reality is we will keep all the deaths from Alcohol, and we will add to that deaths caused by pot usage. (Not to mention other deaths indirectly caused by opening that Pandora's box.)
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

Diogenes
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by Diogenes »

williatw wrote:
Uhh...that would not be a death directly caused by marijuna use; i.e. death by overdose (or something like Liver cirrhosis as in the case of alcohol); those would be examples of two indirect (tied to) use. A better argument for your side would be what about marijuana deaths caused by say emphysema? Do heavy pot smokers get emphysema or (lung cancer)?


People killed in drunk driving crashes are also indirect deaths, but they constitute a large chunk of people killed because of alcohol.


You can't ignore deaths caused indirectly by marijuana usage. Were it not being used, those deaths would not have occurred.
‘What all the wise men promised has not happened, and what all the damned fools said would happen has come to pass.’
— Lord Melbourne —

williatw
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Re: The Widening Divisions

Post by williatw »

Diogenes wrote:Well first of all, I have no trust whatsoever in that statistic you advanced, especially not coming from the Huffington Post. Secondly, it's not a question of trading. If we could trade alcohol deaths for pot deaths, we would be far ahead, but that is not going to happen. The reality is we will keep all the deaths from Alcohol, and we will add to that deaths caused by pot usage. (Not to mention other deaths indirectly caused by opening that Pandora's box.)
Many other sources (including ones cited here) confirm much lower deaths from pot vs alcohol (to say nothing of the still reigning heavy-weight champ tobacco). So it’s not like we’re trusting the "Huffington post" per see. Whether the death toll (of legalizing pot) would more be substitution (lower) or additive (higher) the jury is still out. However the large decline in traffic fatalities in Colorado accompanying the increase in said fatalities drivers' testing positive for pot would strongly suggest substitution is occurring. Unquestionably if people substituted smoking tobacco far less and pot more, emphysema and lung cancer would very likely decline.
Diogenes wrote:People killed in drunk driving crashes are also indirect deaths, but they constitute a large chunk of people killed because of alcohol.
You can't ignore deaths caused indirectly by marijuana usage. Were it not being used, those deaths would not have occurred.
You can include all the deaths if you like; it won't help your side of the argument much:
3 per 100,000 for pot users
91 per 100,000 for alcohol
Alcohol deaths trump pot deaths by easily and order of magnitude plus, not even close. And of course you would have to include the deaths caused by the WOD; drug wars in Mexico & Latin America, carnage on American streets; 800K a year of mostly minority males arrested/convicted/jailed, resulting lives destroyed, mostly for pot possession.

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