MARIJUANA VS. ALCOHOL: THE STRAIGHT-UP DOPE

A growing number of people in Vancouver believe marijuana laws are
antiquated and unfair. According to all the research, it seems their
complaints are not entirely unfounded.

We live in a country where social drinking, even involving minors, is
quite acceptable. In high school most dads allow teenagers to have a
beer at dinner or watching hockey. In university my parents loved my
tales of drunken debauchery. I told those stories and people thought
I was the life of the party. If I talked about pot, people would
probably cringe.

Pot is still taboo, but SFU economics professor Stephen Easton says
23 per cent of Canadians admit to having done it. According to Maple
Leaf Web, pot is the third most popular recreational drug after
alcohol and tobacco, and B.C. has the highest user rate of all the provinces.

The California Research Advisory Panel has stated that "[pot] is
responsible for less damage to society and the individual than are
alcohol and cigarettes." So what's the deal?

Most studies indicate that pot has few adverse affects. Long-term use
has been linked to bronchitis and lung disease. It affects perception
and motor performance, which could impair driving. But that seems to
be the extent of it.

Then there's alcohol, a totally legal yet far more harmful drug. The
Canadian Bureau of Justice Statistics finds that more violent crimes
are committed under the influence of alcohol than any other drug.

The Canadian Centre on Substance Abuse states that nearly half of all
car crash deaths involve alcohol. In the United States it's the
number one contributing factor in young deaths, and accounts for a
quarter of all youth hospital visits.

Pot on the other hand, was involved in less than two per cent of
drug-related visits to the hospital in 1994. And anyone who has hung
around with a giggling stoner knows that smoking marijuana decreases,
rather than increases, aggression.

In 2002, Stats Canada found that 600,000 Canadians were addicted to
alcohol. This is compared to studies collected by the Drug Policy
Alliance that indicate marijuana is non-addictive. It finds that when
it comes to crime, most pot smokers cause no other misdeed than the
possession of the pot itself.

And what about the belief that legalization will only encourage use?

In the Netherlands, people over 18 can legally buy and use cannabis.
Yet the adult usage rate is equivalent to the United States, and
among young people, rates are actually lower.

According to a 1994 study by California doctor Dale Gieringer, a
marijuana expert, the belief that pot kills brain cells came from a
flawed experiment by Dr. Robert Heath back in 1980.

In his experiment, Heath observed structural changes (not actual cell
death) in the brain cells of animals exposed to high doses of
marijuana smoke. This work was never replicated and has since been
discredited by all other studies.

I've never woken up hung-over after a night of smoking pot, and the
only regret it's ever caused me is a little post-brownie binge guilt.

It seems the only difference between a few pints and a few tokes is a
handful of unfounded presumptions and an outdated law.