Marijuana vs. cigarettes

I wanted to hear some opinions on the legalization of marijuana. I'd like to hear them in the context of why cigarettes are legal while marijuana is illegal.

I say that cigarettes are a ton more addictive as well as lethal and it's a bit hypocritical for marijuana to be illegal, but all viewpoints are welcome.

I guess I should throw it out there that my grandmother died because of her addiction to cigarettes, and I've not known one person to have a negative health side effect from marijuana (and I know plenty of weed smokers). I also smoke neither of them.

[bills217]

Cigarettes are legal because there are big cigarette companies that have highly-paid lawyers.

Not true of marijuana.

Yeah, I've heard that theory. I've also heard that marijuana is easy to grow on your own and therefore can't be taxed, whereas growing tobacco and being able to smoke it is a real capital intensive endeavor therefore normal people have to buy it and have it taxed.

[TomCollins]

Marijuana is a gateway drug, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

Most people that use drugs that I know began with alcohol and tobacco. I think it's safe to say that most drug users begin this way. It was that way for me. I never smoked cigarettes, but I have no doubt that I would never have tried any of the drugs I have if I never began drinking alcohol.

[theweatherman]

[ QUOTE ]
Marijuana is a gateway drug, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

[/ QUOTE ]

Thats such bull.

Yeah, it's complete bull. My guess is it's just a dumb rationalization to make a distinction between making a lethal drug (tobacco) legal while making a comparatively harmless drug (marijuana) illegal.

I wonder how many people have made the leap from not doing any drugs (tobacco and alcohol) to smoking weed. My guess is that the percentage of people that smoked cigarettes and/or drank alcohol before they moved on to weed is staggeringly high.

[Autocratic]

[ QUOTE ]
Marijuana is a gateway drug, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

[/ QUOTE ]

What a ridiculous statement. First of all, any evidence that marijuana is a gateway drug is established based on the fact that most harder drug users tried marijuana first. Of course that's true - but I'd bet that equal or higher percentages of hard drug users tried alcohol and/or cigarettes beforehand as well. The fact that the "gateway drug" argument is even used is a testament to how weak the case against marijuana is.

Here's a difference: radioactivity levels in tobacco are vastly higher, which of course makes cigarettes vastly more dangerous with regards to cancer than marijuana.

[kurto]

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Marijuana is a gateway drug, unlike alcohol and tobacco.

[/ QUOTE ]

Funny. That's so wrong. And, our own government's research has verified this.

matter of fact, Alcohol is by far, the big Gateway drug.

There are a myriad of reasons that pot is illegal in this country most of which have nothing to do with its effects. The two biggies were:
(1) it was actively campaigned against by... of all things, paper companies. Hemp was a major competitor for the production of paper (and other fiberous) products. Hemp produced 4x the amount of pulp as trees... so the companies invested in paper products were facing a market threat they couldn't compete with. (Namely, the DuPont organization)
(2) religious groups opposition.

A little excerpt of the history of its illegalization:
1937:
The year the federal government outlawed cannabis.

-- DuPont patents petrochemical manufacturing processes for making plastics, as well as pollution-heavy sulfate/sulfite processes for producing wood pulp. For the next 50 years, these processes are responsible for 80% of DuPont's industrial output.

--In its 1937 Annual Report, DuPont informs stockholders that the company anticipates "radical changes" from "the revenue raising power of government... converted into an instrument for forcing acceptance of sudden new ideas of industrial and social reorganization."

March 29, 1937: The U.S. Supreme Court unanimously upholds the National Firearms Act.

April 14, 1937: The Treasury Department secretly introduces its "marihuana tax bill" through the House Ways and Means Committee, bypassing more appropriate venues. Committee chairman Robert L. Doughton, a key Congressional ally of DuPont, rubber-stamps the bill.

Spring 1937: Congress holds hearings on the Marijuana Tax Act. Dr. James Woodward, representing the American Medical Association, testifies that the law could deny the world a potential medicine. Cannabis was already prescribed for dozens of common ailments, and medical researchers were just beginning to explore the therapeutic benefits of the numerous active ingredients in marijuana. Woodward said that AMA doctors were wholly unaware that the "killer weed from Mexico" was actually cannabis. "We cannot understand yet, Mr. Chairman, why this bill should have been prepared in secret for two years without any intimation, even to the profession, that it was being prepared," Woodward testifies. FBN commissioner Harry Anslinger and the Ways and Means Committee quickly denounce Woodward and the AMA, which already had an adversarial relationship with the Roosevelt administration.

December 1937: The Marijuana Tax Act is signed into law, initiating 60 years of cannabis prohibition and annihilating a multi-billion dollar industry. DuPont and other synthetic materials manufacturers reap vast profits by filling the void conveniently left by the criminalization of industrial hemp.

1937 - 1939: Under Harry Anslinger, the Federal Bureau of Narcotics prosecutes 3,000 doctors for "illegally" prescribing cannabis-derived medications. In 1939, the American Medical Association reached an agreement with Anslinger, and over the following decade, only three doctors are prosecuted.

February 1938: Popular Mechanics describes hemp as the "new billion dollar crop." The article was actually written in the spring of 1937, before cannabis was criminalized. Also in February 1938, Mechanical Engineering calls hemp "the most profitable and desirable crop that can be grown."


http://www.tlmp.org/history_of_marijuana.html

[jcx]

[ QUOTE ]
Yeah, I've heard that theory. I've also heard that marijuana is easy to grow on your own and therefore can't be taxed, whereas growing tobacco and being able to smoke it is a real capital intensive endeavor therefore normal people have to buy it and have it taxed.

[/ QUOTE ]

If pot was legal and available at 7-11 it could certainly be taxed. Most people would prefer to buy from a corporate supplier that used quality control methods rather than from a dude on a street corner selling God knows what.