Why is marijuana illegal if cigars, cigarettes and alcohol cause more deaths per year?

Laners

Good question. I don't know why it hasn't been made legal and available for public consumption. The government could rake in millions of dollars every year by collecting the tax that they most assuredly would tack on to on marijuana sales. Once again, you may blame the right wing conservatives for smothering any attempts to legalize it. (Although I think you can still get it in Los Angeles at an authorized "pot shop" with a doctor's prescription.) By the way, a LA Times reporter performed an experiment - went to a clinic, complained up some kind of back pain, the doc prescribed pot, he walked in to a "pot shop," showed them his prescription, and had a choice of a number of different strains. It was soooooooooo easy.

What I find fascinating is that the gov't wants us to believe that they want to outlaw cigarettes because they have been proven to lead to big time health problems - the extreme being death. BUT it will never happen because how would they ever make up for the enormous revenues they collect on cigarette sales? (What's even more hypocritical is that the fed gov't SUBSIDIZES the U.S. tobacco industry.)

fangtaiyang

When alcohol is involved in an accident it is publisized. When marijuana is involved, it may or may not ne listed as an accident involving illegal drugs. It is much easier to test for and to determine the cause and effect relationship with alcohol and accidents than it is with marijuana. Marijuana smoking has been found to be no safer than tobacco for smoking.

Dan

It's illegal because back some time ago, cotton farmers lobbied for it to be so. Hemp was a competing market. Even George Washington grew it.
Because of the stigma, it is now often a stepping stone to more dangerous drugs... although it is argued that were the stigma taken away, that effect would be diminished.
BTW, I don't smoke it so I'm not advocating it's use.

Modest

While I personally don't necessarily think marijuana should be illegal, your argument is not a fair comparison. What you don't know is how the fact that it is illegal is impacting its rate of use. If it weren't illegal, whose to say it wouldn't start to cause just as many deaths because of how much more popular it might become?

As for marijuana never killing anyone, that is a popular statistic to pull out, but it's a load crap. Marijuana itself might not cause deaths, but people who are high on marijuana do stupid stuff that gets them killed on a regular basis. Anyone who smokes weed should know you don't exactly have the best judgment when your high, just like you don't have the best judgement when you are drunk. If a drunk guy gets in to an accident and dies, you can say the alcohol didn't kill him, the accident did, but we all know it was the alcohol that caused the accident.

David S

Because the government can't put a tax on Marijuana.
Stupid *** government.

starrjan2874

good question. i believe it has something to do with controlling society and stopping counter culture from influencing general society in the 1920's... that and the government can't get taxes from a naturally grown indigenous plant if they can't control it. i think it should be legal.

jdubs

because you touch yourself at night

NeilsB

Because government made marijuana illegal to encourage smoking in order to collect taxes.

You should not connect legality with adverse health effects.

Automobile accidents kill far more people each year then diseases that have an association to tobacco.

Excess consumption of anything will hasten death, but I doubt that you would like to prohibit all of the items that could contribute to the processing of dying.

Fatty foods are a major contributor to early death.

So if you want decriminalized marijuana seek that and do not tie it with a reduction to personal choice.

I hold with Dr. Milton Friedman (tziv). The government ought to permit citizen to freely choose how they spend their money and take risks. The government can and should via its duty to educate to fully, and graphically instruct everyone of the dangers, risks, and consequences of such behavior. I would also tied the individuals cost of their personal medical insurance/care to their life style choices.

cant tax canabis so the gov dont make any money blad. but there is no records of death by weed because its illegal so they dont monitor it mann

dude

politics

Rainbow LJ

tax

sky

really i think it is cause u can grow it at home and it would be hard 4 a business 2 control people makin it at home

or

i think it is if u r smokin it the people around u can get high 2 even if they dont want 2

Chappy

because weed doesnt just **** up your lungs, it can **** up ur mind and dont say it doesnt cuz everyone i met who smokes pot all the time seem pretty stupid. there have been recorded deaths from weed, but its overshadowed because those people also smoke cigs at the same time, so they blame the cigs

Wolfmoon

That would be because marijuana is illegal so the stats about it are hard to come by. If it were legal all sorts of info would come out.

zombierocker94

because america is stupid. and u touch yourslef.

Daphne L

It is because it is illegal that lowers the consumption rate world wide. If it were made legal like cigarettes and alcohol, consumer rate would be unstoppable. Then we'll see how many over users emerge, and how many of them will die.

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Doc Holiday

Marijuana was declared illegal in the U.S. in 1938 under the Narcotics law of that year. That law was passed as a deterrent to what was the equivalent of an epidemic of opiate addictions in the U.S. The use of marijuana inevitably leads to the use of more potent and the "harder" drugs. And that is why it is illegal.
1. Alcohol does not cause accidents- people do! by driving after they have been drinking and that is illegal.
2. Certain cigars are illegal in the U.S. it is illegal to import the best cigar there is into this country.
3. Prohibition did not work for alcohol nor would it for cigarettes.
4. The government has already invaded too much into our freedoms as it is. Don't get me started on how we no longer live in a free society- how cops do you see when drive to the resturant? I see at least 4 in a 20 minute drive! I remember when one would go week maybe months and not see any law enforcement! And the crime rate was much lower!

äººé¢ç£å¿ƒ

The government don't care whether it kills you or not, they care about how you behave when your on it, it wont kill you itll make you depressed and youll waste money on medication for your mental illness, and it will make you steal when you can't fund you habit.

$$Pap3r Boi$$ (NOH WOW????)

it doesnt really matter to me they are all bad and do damage to the body so idc

Meilien

Simple. Because booze and tobbaco are too hard to ban because they have become institutionalized and are now a part of the system (Lobbies, taxes and so on).

~amber

i know, right? there are so many negative reactions from alcohol and cigarrettes but you cannot legally hit a bong to keep this world a little mellow. what gives? this counrty is so *** backwards.

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