Yesterday’s News – February 23, 2015
because nobody’s ready for today yet
Last week the big news was “skunk” and how it was going to turn us all into “psychotics.” This week were starting off with some more positive findings. A new study published by Scientific Reports indicates that not only is cannabis much less dangerous than alcohol, alcohol may be far more dangerous than previously believed. By comparing the risk of death associated with an assortment of legal and illegal substances, researchers concluded that alcohol is actually deadlier than heroin and cocaine, and is about 114 times deadlier than cannabis.
The link to the report is here:
ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC4311234/
You can read Christopher Ingraham’s reaction, and his call to shift national attention away from cannabis prohibition toward more pressing public safety concerns, at The Washington Post:
Two separate bills were filed in the House of Representatives on Friday that would end federal cannabis prohibition and set up a regulatory framework for states that choose to legalize recreational sales. The Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol Act was introduced by Rep. Jared Polis (D-CO) and “would remove marijuana from the Controlled Substances Act’s schedules, transfer oversight of the substance from the Drug Enforcement Administration over to the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms, and Explosives, and regulate marijuana in a way similar to how alcohol is currently regulated.” The Marijuana Tax Revenue Act, a companion bill proposed by Rep. Earl Blumenauer (D-OR), would establish a “federal excise tax for regulated marijuana,” for recreational but not medical cannabis. Matt Ferner at the Huffington Post has more details:
huffingtonpost.com/2015/02/20/marijuana-legalization-congress_n_6722686.html