The public gets it
by digby
… on marijuana and sugar anyway:
Americans believe sugar is more harmful than marijuana, according to a Wall Street Journal/NBC News poll released Wednesday.
When asked which substance had the most detrimental effect on health — tobacco, alcohol, sugar or marijuana — only eight percent identified marijuana.
Fifteen percent responded that sugar was the most harmful, however, while 49 percent said tobacco was the worst and 24 percent said alcohol was the most harmful.
Americans increasingly support legalizing marijuana use. In October 2013, a Gallup poll found that 58 percent of Americans said the drug should be legal, up from 50 percent in 2011 and only 12 percent in 1969.
I try not to proselytize about diets and food because everybody’s got their own ideas about what’s healthy and I think there are a lot of different ways to get there. But I don’t think there’s anyone with any sense who thinks that eating all the sugar we eat in this culture is healthy. I gave it up completely a few years back and feel a lot better for it. But everyone could benefit from cutting back.
Now weed … again, don’t want to proselytize. But let’s just say that I’ve known a whole bunch of people who smoked pot to varying degrees of habituation and they’re all ok. Some even became millionaires. It’s not totally benign but it’s waaaay down the list of things we should be worried about.
This is the kind of issue that hits people in their own lives. It’s isn’t complicated or abstract. They get it. It’s the industries, the pleasure haters and the cowardly politicians who don’t.
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