On the eve of before Californians are set to go to the polls to vote on the history ballot initiative that will decide whether or not adults over the age of 21 should legally be allowed to consume and grow marijuana within the states borders, I came across this interesting article on webMD discussing the dangers of alcohol. The exact title of the article is “Experts: Alcohol more harmful than crack or heroin.”
As someone who recently become a teetotaler for health reasons, I found this study particularly interesting. It’s found that abusing alcohol is almost 3 times as harmful as cocaine or tobacco. It makes me wonder why we allow a drug as dangerous as alcohol to be consumed without judgement, yet other much less dangerous substances are demonized.
I was actually thinking about alcohol a lot this past weekend, as I ventured out to various halloween-related events and parties. Take Friday night, for example. I was at the Independent to see Lotus in San Francisco and during the set break a group of girls standing next to me were completely hammered. So much so, in fact, that one of the girls fell over and passed out on the floor. It took 3 of her friends to carry her out of the club and, I assume, left with her to take her home. That girl was done for the night.. and not only that, she was probably so hung over the next day that she didn’t get to do much on Saturday either.
I’m not saying that I condone the use of Marijuana, however, I can’t say that I’ve ever heard of a similar experience from someone smoking weed. I just don’t quite understand why there is such a double-standard when it comes to the health of Americans. If the government was really concerned about the health of its citizens, it’d not only take a look at the alcohol consumption in this country, but also at the food that it allows its citizens to consume.
That said, I’ll be curious to see what happens tomorrow and will be excited to see how people vote on this groundbreaking piece of legislation.

