Many have gone California sober [0] - moving away from alcohol to cannabis and psychedlics as a way to be more healthy and sustainable
[0] https://www.addictionresource.net/blog/california-sober/
[0] https://www.addictionresource.net/blog/california-sober/
Neither are 'healthy' in any sense of the word.
Brain damage from pot is mostly reversible, though. Damage from alcohol less so.
In either case, Dosis sola facit venenum (only the dose makes the poison).
So a person who used to be a heavy drinker before, would be better off, with a occasional smoke. A heavy pot smoker, with the occasional beer. And the wors of both worlds, is to combine both in excess.
I've seen more lives around me hampered by marijuana than by alcohol, despite having a very large amount of heavy drinkers in my circles.
However as far as actual physical health (rather then mental or social) I believe cannabis to be far less detrimental.
It might demotivate a person but it doesn't flat out kill them.
Apart from the effects on the brain, there is also the weight issue when drinking both beer and wine.
It's amazing to me how much difference just 6-7 kg less weight makes.
> Prof Nutt told the BBC: "Overall, alcohol is the most harmful drug because it's so widely used.
Another way to measure is the therapuetic index. It's the ratio of the lethal dose divided by the effective dose. It's about 10 for ethanol and 30,000 for cannabis. Larger is safer.
This means drinking ~10 times as much as your usual amount of alcohol has a 50% chance of killing you. For cannabis you would need to consume ~30,000 times as much (which is probably not even physically possible).
That’s a pretty pointless indicator. By that measure marijuana is better for you than water.
I have read of people dying from consuming too much water.
I have not read that of cannabis.
Still, good point I'll keep that in mind.
[1]https://www.msn.com/en-us/health/medical/what-you-should-kno...
In contrast, every regular marijuana user I've known long enough to form a judgement about their habit is very inoffensive to the people around them. It doesn't seem to bleed out into their work and emotional lives as much.
The evidence doesn't support marijuana being more dangerous than alcohol. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drug_harmfulness#/media/File:D... Alcohol is moderately more habit forming, and several orders of magnitude more dangerous.
But in general if I would have to chooss between a heavy pot smoker and a heavy drinker as roommate, I probably would "prefer" the average marijuanna user
I'll say this for cannabis: it can slow my mind down a bit when I otherwise am thinking about the 500 things that are worrying me in my life, and it allows me to sit down and watch a movie when I sometimes find it very hard to get the focus to do so. Self-medicating? Sure. Will I overdose on it or suddenly act with appalling bravado, risk-taking and sometimes anger? No. It makes me want to eat junk food.
Alcohol, I believe, is much more dangerous (when used to get to the point of drunken-ness on a regular basis) for your body and behavior.
I don't like the appeal of "stoner" culture either, and I think that like any vice or substance, it can have a negative effect on abusers. Our experiences must be different.