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On June 17 2011 02:30 Barrin wrote:Show nested quote +On June 17 2011 02:00 GurZtly wrote:
Alcohol is legal... but why is weed illegal? I mean think, in the end, they are very similar drugs. Yeah i love my beer and i´m not a weed smoker, but it´s unfair in some kind, is´nt it? ... They're not very similar at all other than the fact they they are both mind-altering. How many people die because of alcohol every year? How many people die because of marijuana every year? How many people get diagnosed with serious long-term illnesses from alcohol every year? How many people get diagnosed with serious long-term illnesses from marijuana every year? How many families are ruined/scarred because of alcohol-influenced violence/abuse every year? How many families are ruined/scarred because of marijuana-influenced violence/abuse every year? How many babies are born with deformities because of alcohol every year? How many babies are born with deformities because of marijuana every year? I could keep going, but I shouldn't have to, because on every count alcohol is waaaaaay worse than marijuana. I shouldn't have to cite this because at this point it's actually common knowledge. One can argue that there are more alcohol-users than marijuana-users, and I guess that's probably true, but if you then take these same questions in terms of percentage of users, the story is pretty much the same. Show nested quote +On June 17 2011 02:29 DuckS wrote:On June 17 2011 02:00 GurZtly wrote:
Alcohol is legal... but why is weed illegal? I mean think, in the end, they are very similar drugs. Yeah i love my beer and i´m not a weed smoker, but it´s unfair in some kind, is´nt it? Also, how the hell is weed relevant ._. Because when compared to alcohol, the fact that it is illegal is utterly ridiculous. How the hell isn't it relevant? You're right. Alcohol should be even more illegal than marijuana! It's clearly much worse, so it wouldn't be fair if alcohol was legal. We must ban alcohol right now for the sake of justice. Poor little weed is suffering from prejudice and double standard, let's bring alcohol to make it some company ^^
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making it illegal would just make more people do it.. look at marijuana.
From a highschooler perspective, if alcohol and marijuana was legal, a lot more people wouldnt do it because it isn't anything "special"
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Frankly I like the use of alcohol as a Darwinian natural selection process. If people are dumb enough to do stuff drunk they're probably dumb enough to do similar things sober as well.
It must be terrible to lose someone in a drunk driving accident (both victim and perpetrator) or any other inebriated stupidity, but to claim that alcohol was the sole reason that people rioted in Vancouver is really quite ridiculous. They riot cause they're passionate. The same thing happened in Philadelphia when the Phillies won the world series a few years ago and alcohol was not the fuel of their fire so to speak.
I'm curious how many people avoid alcohol due to their age, bad experiences, choice or religion in this thread as the few people I've seen say they stay away from it might not be privy to an actual drinking culture that many college towns in America have created and many other countries of the world. Most times the drinking cultures actually promote economic advantages rather than be detrimental to the safety of others.
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Why cant you just ban alcohol at hockey games in vancouver and outlaw drunk driving. Your logic that alcohol leads to death is kind of idiotic.
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It's not my responsibility to keep idiots from being idiots. So no, I wouldn't.
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Hmm, overeating point, but how many of those deaths are these drunk people themselves? As long as they're counting the ones killing themselves I think the numbers are skewed. You should only count the death if it's not the person who is drunk
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A more practical approach would be to have cars only work when you are sober. Problem solved, no need to ban alcohol.
Wow... I... Wow. How practical is this? Take a breathalyzer to turn on your car? One of these things only costs 20 bucks...
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I'm curious, does anyone here feel sorry for anyone who kills or hurts themselvs while drunk? Accidental stuff, of course.
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There are electric one, and this system is in place in a few cars.
But what if you're a little bit drunk but you need your car to save someone's life ? What if such a system failed once ?
Not a good answer.
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OP you probably need to adjust your thread, since your question is more of a philosophical question than anything else. And people are interpreting it more as a call for prohibition.
Would I give up drinking if it meant less deaths. Well yes I would but it would depend how many deaths it would prevent. Drinking does have its advantages; a cold beer after a stressful day is pretty nice.
Also your statistics are going to be skewed somewhat. Alcohol-related traffic fatalities is somewhat generic. Does that mean a person had 1 beer, does it mean they were over the legal limit (which varies in different states), or does it mean they were hammered drunk?
But in contrast to your topic, I'd like to bring up my own:
According to the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), drowsiness or fatigue is the principal cause of up to 100,000 police-reported passenger vehicle crashes every year, killing at least 1,500 people and injuring 71,000.
As you can see thousands of people are affected by this. Would you be willing to give up driving while moderately tired, or driving during the night time, in order to save lives?
The point is, it's not alcohol that kills people it's irresponsibility while operating a 2ton vehicle.
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Engineering gave us atomic weapons and the ability to obliterate life on a hither-to-unforseen scale and the ability to cause untold suffering on others. It has also given us tremendous increases in standards of living, has elevated millions from poverty and has unquestionably improved every one of our lives.
Alcohol is like engineering. It's not intrinsically good or bad, its what people do with it that makes the difference.
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This thread is just too idealistic, banning alcohol isn't realistic and the societal cost of doing so would probably exceed the benefits that you're espousing.
I'm not going to get into the prohibition angle because it's been beaten to death but you have to look at the war on drugs that the US has been waging for the last 30-40 years and how ineffective it's been in curtailing drug use. Not only has the US spent hundreds of billions of dollars on this, they've imprisoned millions of victimless criminals, people that use drugs and sell drugs to consenting adults. When you consider that lower class people are the most likely to use drugs in the first place because of their poor position in life, imprisoning them pretty much guarantees that they won't be able to lift themselves out of it. The same thing would continue on if you banned alcohol, spending money on the enforcement of the laws and the imprisonment of alcohol users is just a stupid waste at a time when the US is floundering because of wasteful spending.
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As i don't dirve drunk i dont see why i would give it up.
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On June 17 2011 04:33 flavorless wrote:Show nested quote +
A more practical approach would be to have cars only work when you are sober. Problem solved, no need to ban alcohol.
Wow... I... Wow. How practical is this? Take a breathalyzer to turn on your car? One of these things only costs 20 bucks...
I've already seen similar things installed for previous drunk drivers. Not sure which program/country it was though. They do exist however.
Now personally, I would not give up drinking alcohol, if it meant less drunk drivers. This is because, I as an individual, am responsible while drinking, and don't do things like that. However, I've seen your response to that in the OP, so I'd like to make a counterargument. Drinking and driving, in my eyes, has less to do with alcohol consumption, and more to do with the bad judgement of individuals. What makes you think that banning alcohol would stop these same individuals who previously would have drank and driven, from carelessly killing innocents in other settings, again due to their predisposed bad judgement?
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If u drink and drive u cant handle alcohol, most people can handle it, if u continue to drink when u cant handle it u are an idiot. I dont restrict myself because of idiots.
Slightly Offtopic:
I wont give up drinking alcohol because i will never drive when im drunk, I won't stop playing starcraft to be more productive because i already do enough, i won't stop deltagliding because its dangerous, it is worth it, i wont stop to smoke a cigarr with drinks every year because its not healty, i wont give up any of the small things in life that make it good to live for a grey and meaningless super-safe life.
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Imagine the suicide rate, if you banned alcohol.
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Banning drugs is such a bad politic,It maybe sounds litlle bit wierd,but key to soluition is prevention not baning.In usa if you are drug user, you are like criminal and thats bad.Look at situation at Mexico they started war vs drugs and whats the result?drugs are still everyvere and thousands and thousands ppl died because of it.Iam not saying dont do anything vs drugs,But decriminalized drug users and do more for prevention is better than just arrest anyone who smokes pot or snurf coke.And thats pretty much same with alcohol.Its not alcohols fault that someone drinking and drive and the solution isnt ban alcohol.Solution is learn kids more about alcohol and prevent shit like that.If u ban something it doesnt mean people going to stop drinking it only mean black market with alcohol is going to grow.Iam for legalization of some lighter drugs like marihuana and cocaine,its long way and hard goal but its the right way.
Anyways sorry for my bad english this is pretty much everything I want to say.I hope its sounds clear,its pretty hard for me to express some things in english sometimes...
peace
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On June 16 2011 15:33 sCfO20 wrote:rofl Honestly, I don't give a damn about alcohol. But, it's not the alcohol that kill people, or make people do stupid shit. It's about you not having control over yourself. Smoke bud, this shit will never happen.
Hehe I was going to suggest bud as well, it never affected my driving at all. In fact I drove much safer o_O I for one wouldn't really care too much if alcohol was banned. I do drink most nights but I would probably start smoking again if alcohol were banned. However if alcohol were to be banned then crime rates would certainly go up due to it being a high demand on the black market. Because of this there really is no right answer :\ But the people who voted "no" to giving it up to save lives definitely picked the wrong answer.
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Prohibition, ahh the creator of real organized crime syndicates. Humans have laws for reasons, you break them you are held responsible if caught. Humans have to realize things dont make us break laws, its our self that choices to break laws. If a man.women is drunk/high and breaks a law its silly they blame it on the substances/circumstances they processed the information and acted on it.
If it becomes illegal, do you really think these problems, and substances will go away? The facts were when booze was illegal drinking went up, and when it was turned legal again drinking went down. You will get new old problems like bathtub gin with diluted chemicals in it that will kill you or make you very sick for them to make a bigger buck. Yes I have studied this in college was interesting. Although it helped out many poor family's down south so there children didn't have to work in coal mines, they could churn and run moonshine, Junior Johnson comes to mind he was pardoned by Ronald Reagan for his moonshine running, Ah yes the Dawn of the Nascar age! ( left Turn left turn left turn! )
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If we ban alcohol then we should ban cell phones too.
They cause accidents and fatalities due to people talking on cell phones and texting while driving.
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EPT
