from Hacker News

It’s Time for a New Discussion of Marijuana’s Risks

by haZard_OS on 5/14/18, 9:44 PM with 22 comments

• by mc32 on 5/14/18, 11:29 PM

  It’s fair to say that if we think smoke in general is deleterious to respiratory health and many chemical compounds found in different kinds of smoke are known carcinogens that marijuana is not exempt from those troublesome characteristics.

  Given its potential harm as well as benefits in health, it’s worthwhile that people in general as well as proponents for liberalization, myself included, know more about all its effects. We as a population would be better served if there were a middle ground between it’s and evil gateway drug and it’s a cure to many ailments and should not be regulated.

• by scarface74 on 5/14/18, 11:30 PM

  Whatever the risks of marijuana are, they pale in comparison of the harm done by the "War on Drugs" aka the "War on Poor People and Minorities". Anything that takes power away from the criminal "justice" system to lock up people for non violent offenses, I'm all for it.

• by maxander on 5/15/18, 1:02 AM

  HNers interested in this topic are liable to be interested in SlateStarCodex's treatment of it: http://slatestarcodex.com/2014/01/05/marijuana-much-more-tha... .

  tl;dr; according to the author's "Irresponsible Utilitarian Analysis," the statistically dominant factor in whether widely-legalized marijuana would be a net benefit or harm to society is its impact on driving. Since cars are, for most of us, the most dangerous thing in our lives, this probably makes a decent amount of sense.