A pro-pot group has aired an ad stating that marijuana is "less toxic" than alcohol, but a federal science agency has disputed this claim. The ad, which opens with smiling young adults hoisting their brew mugs, has drawn severe criticism from several anti-drug abuse organizations. The TV screen company, Grazie Media, pulled the ad after a few hours.
In response to an advertisement sponsored by the pro-pot group Marijuana Policy Project, which called marijuana “less toxic” than alcohol, the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) wrote in an e-mail to watchdog group PolitiFact: "Claiming that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol cannot be substantiated since each possess their own unique set of risks and consequences for a given individual." PolitiFact, which fact-checks claims made by politicians, pundits, and special interest groups, surmised the claim that marijuana is less toxic than alcohol was “mostly true,” citing numbers from the Centers for Disease Control’s (CDC) National Center for Health Statistics. According to the CDC, more than 41,000 deaths were tied to alcohol in 2010 (almost 16,000 attributed to alcoholic liver disease and more than 25,000 to alcohol-related accidents and homicides), while zero were reportedly linked to marijuana [emphasis added]. In addition, the CDC lists “1.2 million emergency room visits and 2.7 million physician office visits due to excessive drinking” on its website, as PolitiFact pointed out Thursday (August 15).
Source:
TheScientist
"I don’t see how this could be a more open-and-shut case," Mason Tvert, communications director for the Marijuana Policy Project, which produced the ad, told PolitiFact Florida in an email. "If you consume too much alcohol in a sitting or over the course of your life, you can die. If you consume too much (marijuana) in a sitting or over the course of your life, you do not die. What more could be needed to prove marijuana is ‘less toxic’ than alcohol?"
Source:
PolitiFact
The truth is obviously very hard to swallow for many, including some in the scientific community, since Marijuana has been so heavily demonized (without any scientific basis) for nearly a century now. But, the worm turns...