Why is alcohol legal if it's much more harmful than marijuana?

3volver@lemmy.world to No Stupid Questions@lemmy.world – 276 points –
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It's also easier to make than cannabis. Alcohol will ferment in nature, you literally don't have to do anything to make (crappy) alcohol. Good luck banning that, we tried once, went even worse than the war on drugs.

Marijuana grows in nature and you just need to dry it out and light it on fire.

But you need a very specific plant, dry-it, and burn-it. Just let some fruit ripe and you'll get alcohol. The ability to digest alcohol (rather than being poisoned) is one of the evolutionary advantage of some "great apes" including humans. It's pretty great because it give us access to more food. Look how fruits into alcohol (wine, cider and more) is a great way to preserve them for the winter

Don't bother answering here, the THC crowd is downvoting everyone who says alcohol is easier to make. It feels like reddit to be honest.

You can literally just grow a cannabis plant in your house right now. Buy a seed and let it grow. If you wanted to make alcohol it would be much more involved.

You buy some fruits (or grow them in the garden) and ferment them… how is that more involved than growing a canabis plant and dry it?

And hope there's enough THC in there, because pollination basically ruins the THC content.

Fertilization does not kill THC. Nobody wants to buy weed full of seeds. Seeds have weight. It's similar to BBQ rubs. Take out the salt and see what they weigh. Salt is heavy and cheap.

Kinda. IIRC, if it is fertilized it doesn't really work as a drug.

Works fine as a drug if fertilized..

To quote afroman:

So roll, roll, roll my joint, pick out the seeds and stems

Feelin' high as hell, flyin' through Palmdale, skatin' on Dayton rims

Back in the day most weed came with seeds. Doesn't really change the THC content, just means you gotta pick them out before hand, hence sinsemilla, which is preferable, because it has denser buds, and no seeds.

It's also easier to make than cannabis.

You are aware that Cannabis is a plant, and therefore naturally occurring, yes? It was literally on the planet for hundreds of millions of years before modern homosapiens.

To make marijuana, you need to dry the flowers of unpollinated female cannabis plants. It takes some effort and time to grow them like this. To make alcohol, you squash a bunch of overripe fruit, put it in a semi closed container and forget about it for a week or two. There are even video's of animals in the wild eating overripe fruit and getting wasted from it. So yeah, it is easier to make.

I have personally grown, sold, and been around commercial Cannabis cultivation my entire adult life. We are gonna have to agree to disagree on this one.

Fine by me. But please show me a clip of wild animals getting high from THC found in nature to prove your point, here's the drunk animals.

The only people using the rotton fruit method in their daily lives are in prison.

Not all animals have the same type of endocannabinoid receptors as homosapiens. However, plenty of animals choose to consume Cannabis plants in nature where they are available, and have not been eradicated. I fail to see what any of this has to do with your initial point though. The process of drying Cannabis is not what "activates" THC. That process is called decarboxylation. I'm not aware of any animals that can get stoned simply by eating Cannabis before it has gone through the process of decarboxylation through heating. However, your initial statement was that Cannabis needed to go through some kind of specific process for it to produce THC in the same way that fruit must go through fermentation to produce alcohol. This is simply not the case. The process of selective breeding is what has increased the THC content of Cannabis, but even wild Cannabis plants contain a myriad of different cannabinoid compounds.

That was not the initial statement. The initial statement is that alcohol is easier to make than marijuana.

Which still makes no fucking sense considering that you do not "make" Cannabis. It is naturally occurring plant-life. There is an ADDITIONAL chemical process that is necessary to turn fruit into alcohol. While that fermentation process can occur without human intervention, it is still an additional process, which is not fundamentally necessary for Cannabis to be intoxicating...

Last point, and yes it is nitpicky. Marijuana is really a pejorative piece of terminology, and is not taxinomically accurate.

Ah, you're going for the technically correct. So, how does it work out for you, smoking fresh cannabis flowers? Also, fermenting sugars is not a chemical process, but a biological process (just being nitpicky).

The main reason you would not smoke undried Cannabis is because it is hard to ignite. It certainly can be done though. Generally I would suggest using a vaporizer for fresh Cannabis though. The other reason is that the drying process causes the further oxidation of the trichome heads which increases the ratio of CBN to THC leading to a more balanced effect.

fermenting sugars is not a chemical process, but a biological process

If you're going to be pedantic, at least be accurate. It certainly is a chemical process. That process is facilitated by biological organisms, and would therefore more aptly be called a biochemical process I suppose. Anyways, as riveting as this exchange has been, I think I've made my points effectively. Hopefully I have been able to shed some light on some layman's Cannabis science for you. If you have any further questions feel free to ask. Always happy to help educate 👍

You know what, you're right, it is time to end this discussion. Have a nice weekend and don't smoke too much weed, or drink too much alcohol.

Ironically I do neither anymore, but thank you. You as well!

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