It may not be the opposite of morbid but the comparison I have here of cannabis vs. alcohol in the media could be described as outrageous.
By outrageous I am referring to the absolute absence of any serious consequences for users or those around them in the media.
This post was my attempt to provide a balance to the previous one which was essentially a survey of the last 3 months in the media as far as articles related to the negative effects of alcohol go. And what a tale of woe it was.
So the same criteria applied, and I went about this investigation in the same way. With markedly different results.
That’s not to say there wasn’t anything to raise an eyebrow at though. The results of the search on ABC News Online for cannabis over the last three months went as follows, chronologically from April 3rd 2011.
Doctor links bong use to tuberculosis – April 3rd I will save a comment on this one until after the list. This is interesting.
Police bust Sunshine Coast drug syndicates – April 3rd 6 drug labs and 500 cannabis plants found/seized
Kronic allegedly found in raid on deli – June 22nd Police ‘raid’ a deli and alledgedly find SYNTHETIC, and now illegal, cannabis.
Kronic ban risks black market boom – June 23rd Australian Drug Law Reform Foundation president Alex Wodak says more evidence is needed to prove drugs like Kronic are harmful. “What will happen is that people who don’t care how old people are when they buy it will sell it” says Robbie Swan from the National Adult Retail and Entertainment Association.
Man caught with 72kg of cannabis – June 30th Man found with 72kg in car, 50kg and $10 000 at home
Nationwide kronic ban ‘completely ludicrous’ – 7th July Store owners outraged at 12 hours notice given to take formerly legal Kronic off shelves.
SO….there is a comparison to be made between the two drugs, alcohol and cannabis, right there. Go to the previous post if you haven’t read it and compare for yourself.
But we are left with a few loose ends here. I’ll start with the tuberculosis article.
Here is a link to the ‘supposed link paper’. Firstly let me ask a few questions, namely;
– Do 3 cases of an airborne infection equate to evidence of a causal link between an activity and a disease?
– If a doctor were to put forward 3 cases of improved patient health after using medical cannabis as evidence of a link between cannabis use and medicinal benefit would it be newsworthy, or even acknowledged?
– Since when is a record of an isolated occurrence of an infection classed as research capable of establishing a clear link to anything?
I will provide a link of my own regarding causes of TB, and let you see anything in there of interest, particularly in relation to alcohol. I’ll leave that one alone now.
Next is the Kronic issue. Now this link can give you an idea of what Kronic is, I just want to point out what it is not.
IT IS NOT CANNABIS, IT IS NOT NATURALLY OCCURING. It is essentially a synthetic designer drug that is an attempt to artificially mimic cannabis-like effects on the body.
So take out the TB ‘link’ story, along with the designer drug stories and what are we left with?
2 SEIZURES OF DRUGS. That’s it.
No violence, death or negative impacts on social, mental and physical health, unless you count 3 cases of TB that just happened to occur in regular cannabis smokers who were probably sharing a bong together on numerous occasions. A tenuous link in my opinion.
Or maybe there are but they aren’t being reported? I DOUBT IT.
So then which one is safer readers, according to our media? Alcohol or cannabis?
Please post a comment, criticism or a reflection on this post below.
Well, we know which one is safer.
But the big question is. Who gives the politicians the largest donations?
If the cannabis law reform movement could somehow manage to donate millions and millions and millions of dollars to the influential majority political parties, I’m sure we’d have our cannabis law reforms passed quick smart.
It’s all about money, and who funds the politicians.
In my opinion, just because the alcohol and pharmaceutical industries are ‘legal’ industries’, I believe they both belong under the same banner of ‘organised crime’.
The amount of unsafe drugs that these two industries are permitted to push on our society is absolutely criminal.
There are so many needless deaths directly related to unsafe medications and alcohol. However, these industries due to their overwhelming power and bottomless pockets of money are allowed to continue to sell their drugs openly through mainstream business’s i.e.: hotels and bottleshops and through our trusted GP’s with unsafe medications.
How can the alcohol industry get away with selling and pushing alcoholic drinks directly marketed at our youth, with these new sweet tasting alcoholic beverages that are now on the market? Answer – political donations. If anyone can come up with a more reasonable explanation, I’d love to hear it.
At least one thing has changed. When I was a teenager, there were cigarettes in beautiful flowery packets, with little flowers along the cigarette, and these were directly marketed to the female youth of my generation. We were encouraged to smoke by the tobacco industry and the media. So, at least one thing has changed.
As I’ve said in previous posts.
Times are a changing.
Cheers
Deb Robinson
I wonder if everyone does know which drug is safer. I think it is easy to assume most people know the pros and cons of alcohol use, but I would wager very few actually know alcohol is extremely carcinogenic. Ask around, I could be wrong. I hope I am.
The acceptability of alcohol in society is long ingrained even though it is painfully clear to just about everyone that alcohol causes huge problems across the board, “average Joe” still sees nothing wrong with having a few drinks. The road toll, public and domestic violence and sexual abuse, not to mention liver damage, brain damage and cancers all seem to be acceptable to society. Well at least acceptable enough that there are no calls for alcohol to be banned.
Yet society has been so “programmed” against cannabis that it deems users criminals and growers and dealers worthy of time in jail. The police will tell you all about the dangers of “cannabis psychosis” but will quite happily ignore a person smoking tobacco which is the number 1 deadly drug today.
Debi has it right, it’s all about money and the corruption of politicians who keep cannabis off the agenda. Having looked into this issue in great depth over the last few years I am becoming more and more outraged at the ignorance in society and the ready acceptance of all the lies that have been perpetuated through the media.
Great Work! Keep it going my friend,
Matt Riley
I have often wondered about the mass acceptance of the risks involved with alcohol use in our culture.
It seems to me Australians have this belief that we are somehow stoic in our understanding that we are able to, and regularly do, partake in a life-threatening recreational drug, as if this is something we can wear like a badge of honour.
Alcohol can easily kill you. Put two bottles of vodka in the hands of a 18 year old and give them an hour and they could EASILY be dead. Where is the honour in that? That possibility scares the crap out of me, but not as much as the fact that SO many teens have near death experiences with alcohol. That is a given, but talk to older generations about legalising a safer substance, one that it is IMPOSSIBLE to fatally overdose on, and the same old propaganda-informed arguments against cannabis emerge.
I quit drinking last year, and seriously people give me the weirdest looks when I turn up to ‘happy hour’ with my bottle of soda water. Plus I didn’t realise how pathetic people become after a few drinks – if only they realised how stupid they become.
However, whenever there’s stoners around – and I haven’t smoked cannabis since last year either – but when I have met smokers on the road, they are so enlightening and I have to drag myself home from their conversations. Cannabis definitely stimulates the mind, I’m positive about that.
It’s been so educational for me to be straight these last 9 months, and to see the different way the different drugs effect people.
If only alcohol was the illegal drug, our society wouldn’t be so screwed up.
cheers
I work in a major public hospital in Melbourne and you should see the number of people – mostly young – coming in to hospital with fractures from football and rugby tackles. Yet banning sport would be unthinkable. It’s all programming. I wish you good luck but frankly I’m not optimistic.
No doubt football can be dangerous, but players consent to the risks when they walk on the field. On the other hand no one would willingly consent to being king hit whilst out at the club. Neither would they as far as alcohol related road fatalities, foetal alcohol syndrome, domestic violence etc.
The biggest problems with alcohol are that its use not only harms the user, due to it being a carcinogen, but chances are quite high that those around the user are going to be harmed too. As such the football analogy doesn’t quite fit, although there is a strong media representation of football players being run amok drunks though.
Thanks for your comment.