OK...
Like it or not, feel it or not Weed DOES (undoubtably) affect your judgement, basicaly it has a numbing effect on the brain and slows reactions.
Alcohol also has a numbing effect on the brain and also slows your reactions, it's just as dangerous to drink and drive as it is to smoke weed and drive.
still in either case I believe there are limits. there is a certain amount of alcohol that you are allowed in your blood stream and still be allowed to drive, and I believe that there is a certain amount of THC that could also be in your blood stream without altering your reactions sufficiently enough to be a danger.
now that could be a half pint, or a half a spliff, but really you wouldn't drive after a heavy night drinking, an if you had any sense about you you wouldn't drive after a heavy nights smoking either!
but as I outlined above it is acceptable to drive whilst mildly under the influence of alcohol, since it doesn't alter you suficiently, and I know that it's still illegal, but there would be a measure of weed that wouldn't affect you sufficiently...
the problem comes in the fact that weed isn't sold in measured quantities, I mean with alcohol you can safely say 1pint of beer ~ 1 glass of wine ~ 1 measure of spirit in terms of alcohol.
but with weed you simply can't even say 1 spliff = 1 splif!
the "I'm a better driver when stoned", or "I concerntrait more when stoned" statement comes in the effect of not having consumed such an altering amount, but still knowing that you've consumed it, hence you try to concerntrait more. the same logic could be applied to drink, a lot of people who have a single drink try to concerntrait more, and by the same logic a usually careless driver would probably drive better when drunk because they try harder to avoid detection. (it's a mental effect of yourself rather than your drug of choice).
cigarettes contain a lot of chemicals because they have various preservatives added, Marijuana does not have these preservatives added so there are not as many added chemicals, there are however still chemicals in marijuana,
you wouldn't go out an smoke foxglove plants in excess, that'd kill you (because of the digitalis), same as you wouldn't smoke hemlock (cause again it'd kill you). it might be natural, but that doesn't stop it being dangerous.
Most spirits are literally just refined sweet juice that is fermented, distilled and aged... completly natural, but doesn't stop it being able to damage your health and/or kill you!
quoting lists of things that alcohol or pot does to your body is a little besides the point, we've already seem that in regulated small quantities either drug is *safe*, in terms of the fact that your body can and will recover from the abuse of either.
it's when you get to large quantities that it starts to go wrong.
to say that smoking five joints a week is simillar to smoking a pack of cigarettes a day (IMO) is a little misleading, I mean were those joints rolled with or without tabacco? besides which, (as the same post said) weed has increased in strength so a joint today is worth two or three joints of yester-year, smoking a joint (to yourself) will get you quite high, I think I'd say it's the same as getting reasonably drunk by yourself, (i.e drinking perhaps 8 pints of beer). if you drank 40 pints a week you would see significant damage, (that your body could not possibly recover from in the given time before the next 'dose'), the same as if you smoked a whole pack of cigarettes a week, or a handfull of joints a week.
Alcohol is a drug,
Weed is a drug.
either one, if used safely, *should* proove not to be too much of a disadvantage to your well being, but either used to excess will see you with addiction, (be it physical mental or both) brain damage and memory loss, doing crazy things and ultimatly dying earlier that if you never did either.
no one is safer than the other it just depends how you use either...
(hence I'm not voting cause they are both just as dangerous when used in simillar quantities).
now if the question was "who would you rather be in a room with, piss heads or pot heads?", well the pot heads would win every time if only cause the conversations are better!
last but not least, whoever said pot doesn't give you a hangover,
yes it does.
whoever said that drinking and smoking is ultimatly very bad for you, again, I beg to differ, but it really does depend on the individual.
