Alcohol makes you stupider than marijuana does -- and meaner.

I once read about an assault at an apartment that was raided, and the cops said that the occupants were smoking marijuana. That may be true, but the source of the assault was not likely marijuana. From my experience, and the experience of countless others, marijuana is a drug that turns you inward, making you think about who you are and why you exist and how you're connected to all these other people in the room and in your life, etc. And to the cosmos.

It also makes you hungry. Gives you "the munchies".

Not exactly the impetus to violence, right? I can honestly say that I've never known anyone high from marijuana who perpetrated any violence on another human or who commited any crime. When you're under the influence of the "weed", you're pretty much locked into your own mind, and the minds of those around you. You're feeling "one with the universe", and the last
thing you're thinking about is assaulting anyone.

Alcohol, on the other hand, does tend to un-leash anti-social behavior. You've no doubt heard of bar fights. But have you ever heard of a pot party fight? I don't even want to think about it: all those stoned souls winging at shadows, lost in the beauty of the arm movement itself, totally forgetting what they were trying to hit. Marijuana doesn't make you want to attack someone, but alcohol can, and cocaine and meth and heroin, too.

The difference is that marijuana is not addictive, while the others are. If I run out of weed, I'm bummed. But I'm not going to knock over a 7-11 for money to buy more. On the other hand, if I run out of booze or meth or coke, I very well might take a gun into that 7-11, and maybe shoot the clerk for good measure. I'm out of my mind. On marijuana, I'm very much IN my mind, and I'm not about to do something as desperate and un-me as robbery and murder.

Marijuana is a spice, something that makes thinking more enjoyable. Alcohol is a mind-changer and is that much more dangerous. A DUI is a serious matter: you could kill someone because your reflexes are impaired. A "driving under the influence of weed" is serious, too, as you might think you're flying in the clouds instead of motoring down the Interstate. Neither drug should be ingested when you're going to be driving a car.

But sitting on the front porch on a summer afternoon with friends, or around a campfire under a starry sky, I'd pick marijuana over alcohol any time.

If it were just f*cking legal.