Cannabis or Alcohol?

What do you think is the pro's and con's? Having nursed people with HIV, and built joint's(Splif's) for them, I have no problem with the calming and pain reducing effects of canabis. I have also worked in Casualty and seen the waste of resources spend on alcohol related accidents. What is your opinion?

I work for a guy with MS and he has a prescribed cannabis spray which really helps him. It's a good drug for pain. It can cause problems in young people I've heard but nothing like the problems of alcohol. People get aggresive with drink but cannabis relaxes you which is why people use it. As for it leading to stronger drugs I think that is not the cannabis but the user. I've used it on and off for twenty years and never touched anything else. I also stopped drinking a few years ago and certainly dont miss the hang-overs!

Yes.
The UK drugs policy is complete hypocrisy. Alcohol & tobacco illegal. Cannabis & mushrooms not.
History tells us that prohibision doesn't work.
The high level of drug related crime tells us that prohibision doesn't work.

If it was up to me, I would licence drugs across the board.
Users would have to apply for a licence to take controlled substances.
For "hard" drugs, strict conditions can be imposed on the licence, eg tracking their bank account so you know if they're robbing to fund it. & medical monitoring.
Most drug related deaths occur BECAUSE drugs are illegal, whatshername, Leah Bates?, died from ignorance because she couldn't get her drugs in a packet with instructions.
Overdoses mostly occur due to an unexpectedly pure batch.
Etc.

both please.

Cannabis defintely, providing you eat it; as all smoking is harmful.

Cannabis. Alcohol kills

i think there is good argument for medicinal marjuna, and alcohol can also provide some rlief , but its effects are short-lived and can become destructive

The world needs people like you! Joint building nurses..brilliant! How do I apply for one? I think cancer cases will boom because of the prolific use of cannabis amongst the populous. Just like liver problems, domestic violence & alcohol related deseases increased, as alcohol became more widely available....both bad really!

Cannabis all the way

Cannabis is better than alcohol. Nodody gets stoned and beats their wife.

I'd love to see everyone sober as the judge then stoned off there head's.if everyone is calm on the leave's good for them i would hate to see a piss head then a pot head.piss head's are very violent and dangerous they have no control they are easy to set off to kick off in a pub.but one's smoking the weed are less hassel but don't fancy standin' in a room where smoke smell's gonna have you feeling light on your feet.weed give's you a lift in your step.
mostly accident's are of drink driving not pot smoker's.the drunk are in casulty most of the time and they have killed at least 2 or 4 at the most here or worse still a drunk driver kills a bus load too.
stay stoned and not pissed.

Well its a quandary that Geoff Lloyd has been researching on his radio show in a nightly section called 'Drunk v Stoned'. (11pm)

His results are very educational.

I suggest you check out the link below and listen to his findings.

I honestly believe that Marijuana should be legal and I don't even like to smoke it myself. I actually think that there is a lot more damage to be done from other legal substances (alcohol, Nicotine, Prescriptions, etc.)

Don't get me wrong. I don't believe Cannibis to be "healthy" or right for everyone, that's why I don't do it myself. But I don't see it being something that is harmful to our society as a whole.

both are dangerous, sometimes the side affects of alcohol are more obvious and financially draining to the nhs but cannabis in the same way is draining on the resources of the police trying to catch the dealers. cannabis can also ruin your life...ok so your not likely to be in a car crash unless your driving out for munchies and are driving too slow because it brings on a whitey, but it can lead to mental health problems in later life and paranoia.

the answer is moderation and legalising cannabis so that it at least pays for itself in taxation.

i wouldn't use it myself and I'm in pain every day, but if it was to help others then go for it. Alcohol is why most people end up in casualty in the first place, that is a waste of resources in it's self.

having medical knowledge yourself you know there are many side effects and medical (often psychological problems) developing from use of marijuana (often linked to THC) and it is only just coming to light the problems associated with use of canabis often leading to Korsakoffs psychosis being one of worst. Have you ever worked in a Korsakoffs unit? or even in drugs rehab? as you will see there is just as much spent here than on alcohol related which seems to get a lot more press

cannabis should be should be sold alongside tobacco and alcohol and taxed appropriatly - grown commercially with the by product's of HEMP used as a renewable resource for it's many many useful applications - im 100% certain that the main reason it isn't legalised is still the petro - chemical industry doesn't want the competition from hemp products and has nothing to do with its recreational or medicinal uses - the majority of health care proffessionals admit that cannabis is a low risk drug not a gateway drug, lack of cannabis is more likely to turn people to harder drugs as the "dealers" will say "hey i have this which is better and cheaper" and they offer crack cocaine or heroin as the alternative, heroin is currently afghanistans top export, wouldn't it be so much better for us if it was marijuanah and hemp instead, in response to people saying it causes mental illness this is a scare tactic used by a small minority of medical practitioners that are paid to suggest it, the proffesional ones state that the mental illness is there in the first place and it is highlighted and often controlled by marijuanah use not the other way round, go to badscience.com for that information and many other fake scientific claims made by "scientists" paid for an agreeing opinion on false data if you want an extreme example scientists refused to agree the world was round untill relatively recently in human history it was flat and they proved it.....

It is well known that Hemp was banned in America because of the adverse effect it was having on the cotton industry, but should cannabis now be legalised completely, considering the reason for its prohibition in the first place?

There seems to me to be a number of sides to the argument. On the plus side, it has proven medicinal properties, especially in the relief of Multiple Sclerosis. However, we are made to believe that smoking is harmful to our health. This, of course, is because of the tobacco that is used. Whether the oils in cannabis are as harmful as tobacco, I don鈥檛 know.

It is also claimed that soft drugs lead to harder drugs. This may be so, but cannabis wasn鈥檛 banned in America because it was a drug. There will always be people who take drugs out of preference. Nothing can be done about that, but by decriminalising drugs, or putting them in a lower classification, the market price for those drugs will go down, and as a consequence, crimes such as theft, burglary, muggings and so on, which a carried out to raise money for drugs should reduce in line with the lower drug cost. To go to the extreme and suggest that if drugs were totally decriminalised and could be bought by the bagful for a few pence like sweets, there would be no crime at all in respect of stealing for drug money. We all know that this will never happen though.

The point is, that by decriminalising cannabis so that using or supplying is no longer an offence, this would free up the Police and the Court鈥檚 time, being less of a burden on the taxpayer and the general economy and give the authorities more time and money which can then be spent on more important things.

What I鈥檓 leading up to, in a round about way, is that alcohol is both freely available and legal, and the authorities will agree that the majority of cases before the Courts involve alcohol consumption in some way. So why, when we all know that used more than 鈥榮ocially鈥?alcohol causes trouble and grief is it still legal, and cannabis, which doesn鈥檛, is not?

I may stand to be corrected here, but I do not believe that anyone has ever appeared before the Courts as a result of smoking a joint. (With the obvious exception of its illegality).

My question, therefore, is Alcohol versus Cannabis?

I鈥檒l leave you to make of the question what you will.
I've never heard of anyone ever dying from a pot overdose. There were three deaths of young people in my town last year from an alcohol OD. If there had ever been one, I'm sure it would have been trumpeted from the highest mountain top.
do feel that cannabis should be examined as an alternative medicine, as ought a number of other plants, taken under advise and controlled circumstances.

As to alcohol, it is not the consumption of alcohol which generally is the difficulty, rather the over consumption of it, or mixing it. Moderation is the key, or at least common sense.
Let's see Cannabis or Alcohol. . . .I can get pretty stupid on both . . .Hmmmm, Ok I'll have Cannabis . . . . . . . .No . . .Wait . . . .Can I have both?
believe that cannabis in small amounts is not particularly dangerous or even habit forming.
While I have never directly smoked the stuff myself, I have at times in the dim and distant past inhaled it secondhand . I do not smoke tobacco either.

I find tobacco smoke far more offensive than cannabis, probably because I am exposed to it more frequently.

I know and have known quite a few people who smoke the occasional spliff. All of them are good people that I am proud to call friends. Most of them also smoke tobacco. None of them does 'hard' drugs.

There is evidence that cannabis helps MS sufferers, one of my friends mentioned above is a sufferer. The weed helps him get by. I can see no real objection to its use by such as him.

The damage that tobacco smoking does is well understood. Thousands die every year from illnesses that it causes. Yet tobacco is considered legal and acceptable.

Alocohol has similar issues. In moderation it can be good for you. A glass of red wine a day is considered very healthful. In excess it wrecks lives and health.

In the UK very significant revenue is garnered by the government through taxation of tobacco and alcohol. Regretably there is a growing trade in smuggling low cost booze & cigarettes from mainland Europe, with users being only to willing to buy their fix from crooks cheaper than retail.

I see no real difference in allowing cannabis to be sold in an open market by honest people to the retailing of alcohol and tobacco.

I believe that the illicit trade in cannabis shores up the trade in herioin and crack. The drug dealers use the infrastructure that it creates and supports to further their disgusting aims.

Lets take the cannabis market away from the crooks and put it in open trade.

Yesterday morning on the Radio 4 'Today' programme, an interview with a drug dealer in Liverpool was aired.

The guy said that he did not care about the damage the crack he sold was causing and that the crime that the users committed to obtain money to buy drugs from him was not his business. It was 'their' problem. All he cared about was the 拢250,000 he makes a year selling the stuff.

I wanted to reach through the car radio to rip his guts out!

Cannabis all the way.

If cannabis drinks were served in pubs there would be a very relaxed and happy atmosphere with little to no aggression, fights at kick out time would become a thing of the past. You could go out have far to many drinks but still feel fine in the morning, maybe a little fuzzy head and have a slightly larger appetite than normal.

Not only does cannabis have a whole host of health/pain relieve benefits but the plant itself can be used to make newspapers, cloth and many other things.

All in all cannabis rocks and should be accepted into main stream life.

cannabis is ment to be good for pain, i no alot off ppl who have ms use it,but its illegal it has been proven that it can lead to other hard drugs, i prefer alcohol a glass of red wine is ment 2 be good 4 u x

Normal fermented alcohol in liquid form up to o about 6% does not seem too bad for ordinary folks. It is probably a personal favourite for westerners over cannabis.

Distilled alcohol or distilled (the process is probably different) cannabis probably cause problems to just about anybody in large quantities. I do not know the local habits but a brandy or two before sleeptime, or a sniff of cannabinol seems roughly comparable.

The cognitive effects may differ though. Drunks can be loud. Alcohol may dumb down the sensory perceptions. Hashish smokers are rarely loud. Sensory perception may be altered in a certain way amongst exponents? Over to others on this one ....
Not my favourite.

Alcohol is hard drug (at least in the spirit form). The assassins use cannabis. Wife beaters may choose alcohol as their drug of preference, e.g. Stella. If they change over to cannabis they do not stop beating their wife ?

Alcohol, any illegal drugs are brought in illegally and often crimes such asmugging old ladies help fund the habits of scrubbers who have no jobs, people say cannabis is not as harmfull as alcohol but the old saying in moderation comes into play, you can drink sensibley but you cant go out get illegal drugs and get high sensibley. It starts with cannabis and goes onto stronger things, people who say it is not are druggie scum who have no respect for laws or social standing. (for the record I very rarelly drink, X-mas lunch and birthday meals).

To the person who said the cannabis leads to other drugs, and cannabis users are druggie scum, you are WRONG.
I have used cannabis regularly for the past 14years and do not take any other drugs- not even cigarettes or alcohol.
You need an education if you think old ladies are mugged by cannabis users.
In inner cities most of the people admitted to A+E at the weekend are there because of alcohol.

Also intoxication means to be under the influence of a toxic(poisonous) substance. why do you think the term intoxicated is used to describe someone under the influence of alcohol and not used to describe someone who has been smoking cannabis?

I think that alcohol has wrecked more lives than cannabis for a start, due to addiction.
It may be argued that smoking cannabis leads to people using harder drugs, but then, the same could be said about smoking cigarettes as most drug users start to smoke cigarettes even before cannabis.
Alcohol can change even the nicest person into a devil and how many fights have broken out due to alcohol compared with cannabis?