How many people are actually killed by drugs?

[BlueCat]

This has probably been posted many times before but I think it deserves a repeat.....

The number of drug deaths in the US in a typical year is as follows:

Tobacco kills about 390,000.
Alcohol kills about 80,000.
Sidestream smoke from tobacco kills about 50,000.
Cocaine kills about 2,200.
Heroin kills about 2,000.
Aspirin kills about 2,000.
Marijuana kills 0. There has never been a recorded death due to marijuana any time in US history.

All illegal drugs combined kill about 4,500 people per year, or about one percent of the number killed by alcohol and tobacco.
Tobacco kills more people each year than all of the people killed by all of the illegal drugs in the last century.
Source: NIDA Research Monographs

Which drug causes the greatest burden on our medical facilities?
Alcohol and tobacco are the clear leaders. Some authorities have estimated that up to forty percent of all hospital care in the United States is for conditions related to alcohol.

As a medical hazard, few drugs can compete with alcohol or tobacco on any scale. A study at Rockefeller University in 1967 concluded that "Tobacco is unquestionably more hazardous to the health than heroin."

How many millions of people will have to go to prison?


The following chart shows the growth of the US prison population since 1960. The US prison population was relatively stable from about 1926, when figures were first compiled, through 1970. After this point, the effects of Nixon's war against drugs, and later the Reagan and Bush war against drugs, produced a dramatic increase in the number of prisoners.



SAY YES TO WEED AND NO TO BUSH..

BlueCat Reviewed by BlueCat on 08-17-2005. How many people are actually killed by drugs? This has probably been posted many times before but I think it deserves a repeat..... The number of drug deaths in the US in a typical year is as follows: Tobacco kills about 390,000. Alcohol kills about 80,000. Sidestream smoke from tobacco kills about 50,000. Cocaine kills about 2,200. Heroin kills about 2,000. Aspirin kills about 2,000. Rating: 5

[andruejaysin]

So if I read this right then more people were killed (worldwide) on Sept. 11, 2001 by cigarettes than by terrorists?

[pisshead]

there are hundreds of things that you're more likely to be killed by than evil freedom hating muslims...if you believe they are the terrorists...

so let's give up the constitution and all of our rights so those freedom hating terrorists don't get us!

[weirdo79]

One thing I have to say to you Blue although I agree with you almost entirely in your statement one thing has always stuck in my craw about certain stats. The Tobacco ones, you ever notice theres an abnormal amount (apparently the number one killer in the world). Here's the part I dont understand (or perhaps I understand to well and this is only thinly veiled sarcasm....) How come when you go to the hospital with a "lung" problem (disease etc) The first questions asked when it comes to "what your exposed to" are always "do you smoke AND are you ever around anyone who does". Why not simply be less biased and ask "have you ever lived in a smog filled city....., Have you ever lived beside a factory that deposits carbon in the air....etc etc etc ad infinitum. There are millions of reasons why people get lung diseases, problem is if you have had even one exposure to tobacco it gets blamed. Not the thousands of tonnes of car exhaust in the atmosphere or that black crap filming over everything within 5 miles of a certain factory......Can you say "Scapegoat" . I'm not saying their blameless in anything (like marketing to children etc) but in all reality they're(tobacco companies) as bad as any other mass producer.....no more , no less....

Apparently smoking kills but pollution only kills when you live in a bubble and have never been exposed to tobacco....

[tokosan]

yeah, they instantly count anyone who has died of a lung-related illness and either A. smoked or B. had second-hand smoke. then immediately chalk it up to "omg he died of ciggaretted b/c he went to the bar and they blew smoke in his face"

I would imagine that almost all the numbers there and false or imbelished in some way. Exept the weed one of course

[BlueCat]

Hi weirdo...Maybe this will help make it a bit clearer...

Oxford University, cataloged the causes of cancer in the United States. They calculated that smoking accounted for more than 87 percent of all cancer deaths and that pollution was associated with about 2 percent of all cancers. The EPA agrees.

Lung cancer is the leading cause of cancer deaths in the United States, among both men and women. It claims more lives than colon, prostate and breast cancer combined. Since the mid-1990s, more than 150,000 Americans have died of the disease each year.

Yet most of these deaths could have been prevented. That's because smoking accounts for about 85 percent to 90 percent of lung cancer cases.

http://www.mayoclinic.com/invoke.cfm?id=DS00038

http://www.lungusa.org/site/pp.asp?c=dvLUK9O0E&b=35427

[tokosan]

All this is a moot point of course, because pretty much all politicians (regardless of thier stance of legalization) lack the testicular fortitude to actually introduce legislation for that! Nooooooo, ya gotta please where the money comes from! The lobbyists!

Tell me, how much money does the largest marijuana lobbying group have? Probably not much, compared to others.... I will venture that guess....

Untill they start getting PAID, and i mean PAAAAIIIIDDD, nothing will be done about this crap system we live with today.

[BlueCat]

Here Tokosan maybe this will help you...

http://www.norml.org/index.cfm?Group_ID=3418

As of today, â?? Alaska, Arizona, California, Colorado, Hawaii, Maine, Nevada, Oregon, and Washington â?? have legalized the medicinal use of pot. Favorable legislation is pending here in Massachusetts (though itâ??s a long shot) as well as in Connecticut, Iowa, Minnesota, New Hampshire, New York, Rhode Island, Texas, and Vermont. A recent CNN poll found that 79 percent of Americans support the legalization of medicinal marijuana

Partial List of Organizations With Favorable Positions on Medical Marijuana

http://www.mpp.org/groups.html

representatives and senators from states that have legalized
the use of marijuana for medical purposes
Democratic US Congressman Barney Frank, along with Democrats Maurice Hinchey and Sam Farr, Congresswoman Linda Sanchez, Gov. Robert Ehrlich,Republicans Ron Paul (TX) and Dana Rohrbacher (CA) and Democrats Barney Frank (MA) and Sam Farr (CA), have reintroduced H.R. 2087, the States' Rights to Medical Marijuana Act.

National Chapters

Arizona | Arkansas | California | Colorado | District of Columbia | Florida | Georgia | Hawaii | Idaho | Illinois | Indiana | Iowa | Kansas | Kentucky | Maine | Maryland | Massachusetts | Michigan | Minnesota | Missouri | Montana | Nebraska | Nevada | New Hampshire | New Jersey | New Mexico | New York | North Carolina | North Dakota | Ohio | Oklahoma | Oregon | Pennsylvania | South Carolina | South Dakota | Tennessee | Texas | Vermont | Virginia | Washington | Wisconsin | Wyoming


tell me what are the laws in China about weed? What are the penalties for getting caught? At least we are trying instead of just wimping out and saying its moot and it will never happen.

[weirdo79]

Once again said tests were done with "were you exposed too..." (also both sites use the logical assumption that since there is chemicals in ciggarette's and more carcinogenic agents in said chemicals then say that one factory(ignoring the other 50 within a few miles) down the street that you have a higher chance of contracting the disease THUS a large number of people MUST have contracted it specifically from that source. (despite lack of physical evidence ie: Assumption and Supposition). Every other branch of research I've heard of requires more stringent results sorry(well except religious studies of course...).I know Health sources tend to fib a bit though , Think about how many of them still rail against Cannabis as a medicine.

Placebo's have over a 50% rate of success in curing almost anything.....When it comes to medicine take it with a grain of salt.

I deal with biopsy studies or at least those that prove beyond a reasonable doubt. I certainly would not convict a person based solely on circumstantial evidence. If theres a chance (even 80% according to an obscure formula...which doesnt test out mathematically) that he did it, but no physical evidence backed up by logical reasoning I'm not going to convict....

I'd try an experimental procedure to save myself , but I would never ask anyone to do so themselves...

Also blaming tobacco over pollution at such a wide margin considering exposure is farcical in the extreme. I'm no genius but I am a bio grad and it doesnt add up at all.

[BlueCat]

well I don't know what doesn't add up...if you want to take up for cancer sticks knock yourself out....Before my dad died he worked as an assistant pathologist for UTMB and I spent more days in the county morgue than I can count weighing lungs. There is a HUGE difference in a smokers lung and one that has been exposed to smog...
and age makes no difference you can always tell a smokers lung.

I'll go with the Mayo clinic study. I'm sorry but I hardly think the tobacco companies are poor scapegoats...

But whatever, dude...its your life smoke away. The post was in support of weed anyway, I really don't care about the rest.