Pubdate: Sat, 11 Jan 2014
Source: Victoria Times-Colonist (CN BC)
Copyright: 2014 Times Colonist
Contact: http://www2.canada.com/victoriatimescolonist/letters.html
Website: http://www.timescolonist.com/
Details: http://www.mapinc.org/media/481
Author: Ian Buckingham

POT NOT NECESSARILY SAFER THAN ALCOHOL

Re: "Would pot have meant a mellow celebration?" letter, Jan. 8.

The letter-writer muses about whether pot-smoking partiers would 
cause less trouble than alcohol-impaired citizens. In Jamaica in the 
early 1960s, I worked a few shifts in the Kingston Public Hospital 
Emergency ward and the answer is: not likely.

At that time, ganja (marijuana), although illegal, was readily 
available in Jamaica and relatively cheap to purchase. Labourers 
carried machetes much as a Canadian might carry a pocket knife. When 
a ganja-impaired man was angry, he often attacked another and 
inflicted horrible wounds. I remember one casualty who put up his 
forearm for protection and had the hand sliced off.

However, it is my experience that it is not so much the drug that is 
the problem as the type of individual that is impaired. Human 
behaviour is very complex. We are all subject to periods of fatigue, 
pain, jealousy and anger that induce us to say and do things we later 
regret. Under the influence of drugs, our forebrains suffer impaired judgment.

Alcohol not only impairs our judgment, but also impairs 
co-ordination. Drunks fighters are usually are impaired that they 
inflict little or no damage on each other. This is not so with the 
effects of cannabis. Marijuana-impaired individuals are not typically 
as physically disabled and can inflict more physical damage.

Generalizations lead to wrong conclusions; however, I would not 
support the theory that pot is safer than alcohol.

Dr. Ian Buckingham Victoria
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MAP posted-by: Jay Bergstrom