Why would alcohol be legal, while marijuana is illegal when alcohol is way worse?

Question

I'm not talking in terms of health, they both aren't good for you, just saying in terms of judgement and actions.

Answer 1

My opinion is that the feds haven't figured how to put taxes on it yet since it is easily home grown.

Answer 2

There are a number of reasons.

Alcohol is an integral part of Western culture. It is even part of the central Christian celebration (the Eucharist).

Marijuana on the other hand (e.g. hashish) is associated with the East and Islam. Islam is strictly against alcohol, just as Christian societies tend to be against cannabis (marijuana and hashish).

Alcohol makes people more extrovert, in both "positive" and "negative" ways: i.e. it gives people "permission" to be more affectionate than they normally are, and equally to be more aggressive than they normally are. Consequently it "oils the wheels of commerce" as the saying is. Furthermore, alcohol "compensates" people for the sense of non-fulfillment they normally experience in their daily working lives, since they spend most of their time doing stuff they would (normally) rather not be doing.

Cannabis on the other hand makes people more introverted. It does affect work-performance in a negative way, but does not bring out anything like the bad behavior that alcohol does.

For what it's worth, here is my recipe for the healing of a lot of our social ills:

Legalise recreational drugs, and simultaneously ban the advertising of ALL drugs including alcohol, tobacco and medicines.

But I won't hold my breath.

Answer 3

I think it`s because alcohol is more excepted by people than marijuana and the government can`t figure out how to tax it,if they could they would make a lot more money,than they do with alcohol

Answer 4

Leave it to a guy named redneck to be right on this one. The fact that the government can't figure out how to tax it is partly the reason why they keep it illegal. Another primary reason is that they fear the wide-spread mass enlightenment which would result from marijuana being consumed openly by larger and larger percentages of the population. But I think the primary reason is that it has always been politically useful for members of the economic elite to demonize the blessed herb. When marijuana was initially made illegal during the reefer madness hysteria of the 30's, the medicinal/hallucinogenic plant was just used as a distraction by people intent on removing industrial hemp from the economy--mainly, William Randolph Hearst, who owned great tracts of timber land and didn't want to compete with industrial hemp. He used his newspaper empire to plant sensationalized, racist stories all over the country about how just one puff of the demon weed--hell, how EVEN BEING IN THE SAME ROOM with marijuana--was making good white kids go bat-**** crazy and run off with gangs of Mexicans and blacks. Other major players in the war against the blessed herb and fiber plant were chemical corporations like the Dupont family. You see, industrial hemp has extremely long fibers and can be made into paper relatively easily. As anyone who has ever cut a log with a chainsaw can attest, wood has extremely short fibers--consequently, to get it to bind into paper it has to be treated with staggering amounts of toxic chemicals. If industrial hemp had remained legal in this country, the chemical companies would never have been able to pollute every ******* river in Western Maine and turn it into a cancer belt.

In more recent years it has been useful to keep marijuana illegal in order to maintain a permanent criminal class. Basically the only economic expansion in many rural parts of this country is the building of new prisons and the hiring of new guards from the local population. None of the representatives from a district heavily dependent on prisons as a primary source of employment are ever going to vote for any measures which would lower the number of people being sent to prison.

Actually, you are completely wrong about comparing the ill effects of marijuana to those of alcohol. Millions of Americans can testify first hand to a variety of specific medical benefits that marijuana has. The fact that it is smoked is not good, but if it were not forced onto the black market, people would be able to grow enough of their own to cook with it, thereby avoiding any consumption of smoke. While smoking anything is not ideal for your body, smoking pot most certainly is not anywhere near as bad for your body as either alcohol or tobacco, not to mention sugar or television, which are actually the two most abused drugs in this culture. I try to smoke marijuana at least a few times every single day and am in excellent condition. Although I am pushing middle-age, I still compete in a number of very vigorous sports at close to the same level I did as a varsity athlete and team captain in school. I know I would not be able to maintain the same level of conditioning if I used similar amounts of tobacco or alcohol.

Neither Starbuck or Beingagood1 have any idea what they are talking about. Alcoholics are far more destructive and dangerous to the rest of society than potheads are. Nobody is robbing stereos because they are that desperate for pot money, you square. Beingagood1, you pretty clearly have a very limited exposure (that you are aware of) to long-term marijuana users, and have absolutely no understanding whatsoever about its effect as a drug.

Answer 5

Okay, marijuana is illegal because it is a dangerous drug. The extreme high it affords is from your own energy reserves, so the more of it you do, the less of a life you will have. It's analogous to drinking your own blood for the protein -- very inefficient and inadvisable. The decline of the marijuana user is slow and gradual -- hard to perceive in a little time, but very obvious after a year or more. They're alive for much less time during the day.

Answer 6

ordinarily agreed. in actuality, maximum folk interior the U. S. might accept as true with you. i might only upload that alcohol replaced into unlawful for a on the same time as because of risky outcomes it has, yet people made a commonplace stink approximately it and Prohibition replaced into over-ridden. Alcohol has an prolonged history being area of the custom of the U. S.. on the time of the drug wars interior the 60's whilst weed replaced into turning out to be a great deal, it replaced into ordinarily young toddlers smoking.

Answer 7

let me tell you a story: I was in chicago playing in the Marine Corps Band when the police offered us to come to a party for the rest of the night. I was the bus driver that night and everyone there got more drunk than i had seen in my career as a Marine (and thats saying something). Afterwards the cheif of police, who was also drunk, offered to lead me back to the hotel in his car. That my friend is why alcohol is legal, so even cops can have a little fun. LOL

Answer 8

The tobacco lobby AND the alcohol lobby KNOW that if marijuana is ever legalized, the people they represent will lose at least half of their customers.

Answer 9

i suspect it's because if you were to take the devil in seed form, plant it, and then let it grow, it would end up as marijuana. ha ha, no really, pot is way worse, it is a gateway drug and any drug use brings lots of periphral crime, like robbery, theft and murder. With alcohol, it is only impaired driving (Which is blown way out of proportion) and a small amount of violence.

Answer 10

wine thins your blood and the government needs big tobacco to fund lots of its social programs