Opinion: People have been arguing that weed is evil and alcohol is great or vice versa for years.It’s time to re-examine these claims.
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People have always warned about the dangers of smoking weed –– how it is a gateway drug and this awful habit to get into. As a child, I was never aware of the irony in front of me when the adults in my life would say that to me with a wine glass in their hands.
I was never told about how dangerous alcohol can be. It was just always something I was supposed to be aware of but not broadcast. Weed? The opposite. In the production of adulthood, weed was this villainous character that “most people” tried once and were scared straight. I was never given any facts to show me what was so scary. All I was “taught” was that if you smoke it, you will immediately get cancer and die.
So, one side is supported with blind acceptance, while the other is turned away for one aspect of itself. Does that seem fair?
When we remember how much easier it is to die from one night of drinking as opposed to one night of smoking, this dichotomy becomes especially problematic. I could go on and on about the historical racism that likely influences our opinions on the two drugs (yes, they’re both drugs), but instead, I want to try and change some of our opinions.
Yes, doing any drug will impact your body negatively. It’s a drug. That should be assumed. However, when we take into account that smoking cannabis has been proven to be less harmful than smoking cigarettes and that there are a multitude of different ways to ingest marijuana, I still don’t understand why there is a taboo culture surrounding weed but not alcohol.
The opinions of Gen Z are some of the most accurate in regard to this topic. Multiple UO students immediately answered the question by saying alcohol is worse. When it came to the long term, everyone viewed the long-term effects of drinking as a lot worse. Which, so far, is the correct answer.
The NIAAA estimates that 140,000 people die annually from alcohol consumption, making it the fourth leading preventable cause of death in this country.
Having said that, many students said that they did not partake in smoking for a multitude of reasons, while still drinking alcohol.
“For me, smoking in the past just gave me a lot of anxiety,” Samantha, a UO student, said.
“I prefer drinking because I do it less,” Gray Moran, another student, said while commenting on each drug’s pros and cons.
Both Samantha and Moran cited the casual daily use aspect of weed as a big reason for straying toward drinking. Weed has been destigmatized and that is where most of the fears seem to grow.
For many, the ambiguity of weed usage makes it a scarier drug than alcohol. However, I would argue that the dangers are obvious as with alcohol; if you drink every hour, you are labeled an alcoholic, while with weed, that just means you’re a stoner.
The reality is that if you consume eight drinks weekly as a woman or 15 if you are a man, that is technically excessive drinking. So, most college students end up falling in the category of excessive drinkers. That doesn’t mean alcohol dependent, It just means that a large amount of the student body consists of excessive drinkers.
Weed on the other hand, does not have the clarification surrounding it that alcohol does with how much is too much. In fact, if you google ‘how much weed is too much?’ you will just find different studies on what they think. There is no central authority on what is right and what is too much.
Not knowing your limits when it comes to weed consumption and having to place them on yourself is a valid fear when it comes to smoking. However, I can’t help but wonder how our nerves might have been calmed and perspectives shifted if weed had been our parents’ drug of choice instead of alcohol.