Healthy Living: Cannabis for the Holidays Makes Sense

very holiday season over
1000 people die due to drunk driving. These figures from the National Highway
Traffic Safety Administration are sobering to say the least. All the guilt-tripping
cajoling from Mothers Against Drunk Driving, the threats from law enforcement
and the opprobrium of society does not forestall these tragic deaths from
occurring each holiday season.

Alcohol and the holiday
season are synonymous. Whether at office parties, family get-togethers or a
myriad of other holiday celebrations culminating in New Year’s, alcohol is
derigueur. Consecrated in the Bible and other historic writings of Western
Civilization, alcohol’s use as a mood altering substance is encouraged through
advertising, Budweiser’s Clydesdales’ horse teams and the stamp of approval
given by our communities’ leaders regularly engaging in alcohol infused events
and celebrations.

It is the worst possible
choice that could have been made

Young adults are
particularly vulnerable to the ravages of alcohol. Compared to other age
groups, 21 to 24 year olds have the highest number of alcohol-impaired driving
fatalities with one-third of them due to alcohol consumption.

The next group with the
highest level of alcohol-impaired driving fatalities is 25-34, with almost 30
percent of their fatalities due to alcohol. As driver’s age, the percentage of
alcohol impaired driving decreases significantly due to a decrease in alcohol
consumption as people grow older.

The dangers to the
individual and the destructiveness of alcohol to our communities does not end
with traffic fatalities. Diseases related directly to alcohol such as
pancreatitis, cirrhosis of the liver and cancer result annually in over 1.5
million hospital admissions.

Society needs to understand
that humans like to party and when they party they like to ingest mood altering
substances. We have been doing this so long there is probably a genetic
component driving it. The horrors of alcohol prohibition have shown that the
drive to alter one’s mood is so pervasive, that people will not abstain from
its consumption even under threat of criminal prosecution.

Since it is unrealistic and
unnatural to expect humans to cease consuming mood altering substances, then it
is incumbent upon civilized society to offer effective alternatives to alcohol.
There are plenty of mood altering substances available ranging from opium to
methamphetamines. Although any of these substances would generally produce less
damage to the individual than alcohol, the problem with every one of them is
that they all have significant negative health consequences.

With absolutely none of the
negative health consequences of alcohol or any of the other mood altering
substances, cannabis is the only substance whose mood altering abilities are
strong enough to compete with alcohol. By preventing access to cannabis,
governments have blood on their hands – it is akin to genocide.

Multiple studies, like the 2011 report Medical Marijuana Laws,
Traffic Fatalities and Alcohol Consumption by Mark Anderson and
Daniel Rees, have documented that when cannabis consumption increases, alcohol
consumption decreases. No surprise there–good quality, potent cannabis is far
more fun to party with then alcohol. Plus there is the added advantage that the
next morning the user wakes up bright-eyed and bushy-tailed.

Far from discouraging cannabis
consumption, a rational approach to the problems caused by alcohol would include,
as a major component, not just making cannabis widely and easily available, but
a major health initiative to encourage people to use cannabis as their mood
altering substance of choice.

The anti-inflammatory
properties of cannabis principally benefit society’s older members for treating
and preventing cardiovascular disease and cancer. These are age-related
ailments. Young adults do not usually have cardiovascular disease and cancer.
The major benefit of cannabis for young adults is its psycho-active properties
that make it an effective and acceptable alternative to alcohol.

The mindless genuflection
of our world’s leaders to the perpetual quest by police for power and money
through enforcement of cannabis prohibition laws is directly responsible for the
deaths and other debilitating consequences that millions of young adults will
suffer from having to choose between alcohol and nothing.

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Fortunately, young adults in
California with a physician’s recommendation have the choice to use cannabis.
This holiday season make the right choice, the safer choice—choose cannabis.