Tobacco vs. Marijuana

By Douglas V. Gibbs

The liberal left Democrats, for the most part, and an incredibly strong selection of libertarians, would have you believe that tobacco is bad smoke, and marijuana is good smoke. While tobacco, they say, kills millions upon millions of poor, miserable victims, marijuana is not only good for you, but that marijuana is even something that should be elevated to the level of being medicinal.

I am aware of the alleged benefits of marijuana. I know about its properties that are supposed to soothe the stomach, and ease the pain of something like cancer. Great. If that's the case, then allow it to be used for those purposes, but under the same kind of safety measures used in regards to, say, morphine.

New cigarette warning labels have been unveiled that depict the dangers of smoking with horrifying images of corpses, rotting and cancer ridden body parts, and rotten teeth. Smoke from cigarettes, we are told to believe, is as dangerous as any other poison out there, and any kind of contact with cigarette smoke immediately makes you a candidate for a painful, slow, miserable death.

As a smoker for 21 years, before I quit in 2005, I was well aware of the possible dangers. I also knew that my grandfather smoked from the age of fourteen like a speeding locomotive in an old western reel to reel, and he made it well into his eighties before he wrote the closing chapter of his bucket list. The warning labels, the movies, the ads on television, and the hysteria put forth by the statists of government did not persuade me to quite smoking. The promise of a slow and painful death coupled with the difficulty to breath was not enough to scare me to quit smoking. And, honestly, I was not a smoker because I was addicted to Nicotine. The fact is, I simply enjoyed smoking. It was nice to sometimes just stand out on the deck, look at the trees, listen to the creek and the birds as the cool breeze raked across the rising hairs on my arms, and have a relaxing smoke.

In December of 2005 I was going to go under the knife to repair a hole in my abdominal muscle - one of the reasons, by the way, that I quit running, playing basketball, and participating in other health oriented activities (yes, I did all those things as a smoker). A couple months before the surgery I was advised that as a smoker I had an increased risk of death under anesthesia. It would be in my best interest, they told me, to quit smoking for at least the time period approaching the operation.

In early November I smoked my last cigarette. I smoked it all the way down to the butt, and I made sure I thoroughly enjoyed each puff. After I finished the cigarette, I was determined to just quit cold turkey, and be done with it.

Two weeks later a friend of mine lit up around me and I asked him for one. He at first protested, not wishing to be the one that got me started up again. Nonetheless, he handed me the cigarette, and I blazed it up.

The cigarette did not taste bad, or good. It literally did nothing for me. Smoking that final cigarette was a complete waste of my time and efforts. From that point on, I never craved another cigarette again.

Atta-boy, Doug. I was congratulated for my feat, told I wouldn't regret it, and expected to join the anti-smoking effort.

Isn't that amazing? The promise of an emphysema, cancer, and slow death from cigarettes was not enough to make me quit smoking. But death on an operating table while I slept soundly during a surgery was enough to make me quit for good.

I have no problem with smokers, and I think they are being singled out unfairly. Government is trying to forcefully change their behavior by jacking up tobacco taxes, and launching campaign after campaign of propaganda against the smokers.

Yet, these same people that hate tobacco so much are often the very same folks pushing for a legalization of marijuana. Their reasoning ranges all the way from health reasons, to the erroneous belief that legalizing marijuana will kill the drug cartel problems... at least regarding marijuana.

We are told constantly about the dangers of putting the poisons from only one cigarette into your lungs, and the incredible benefits of putting the other cigarette into your lungs. Never mind the studies that indicate that smoking marijuana kills brain cells, or studies like a recent one that claims there is a suspected link between marijuana, schizophrenia, and other psychotic disorders.

This disconnect, or these strange contradictions, is not because the promoters of legalizing marijuana somehow have solid evidence that tobacco kills and marijuana doesn't. It is all driven by their own desires. Statism wishes to control, therefore your tobacco use must be regulated. But a drugged populace is easier to control, so marijuana is the good drug. Besides, when looking at numbers, how many liberal Democrats and liberatarians are pot smokers compared to conservatives?

It's just a matter of pushing for what they like and want, regardless of the truth.

-- Political Pistachio Conservative News and Commentary

FDA reveals bigger, graphic warning labels for cigarette packages - CNN

Suspected link between marijuana and schizophrenia, psychotic disorders - Examiner