Opinion
Equal points for alcohol and marijuana
By Will Kaback ’20
September 29, 2016
Tags opinion
Starting fall semester, Hamilton College announced changes to its disciplinary points system, which included a reduction in the number of points assigned for underage drinking and marijuana use. Possession of alcohol under the age of 21 was dropped to one from two points, while “marijuana use or possession” was lowered from three to six points to two. The one- point difference between alcohol and marijuana may seem benign at first but it reflects a general trend of stigmatization and willful ignorance of the relative effects of each substance. To inherently characterize marijuana as more serious or “wrong” by assigning it more points than alcohol is to turn a blind eye to scientific knowledge concerning the drug, especially as it compares to the dangers and effects of alcohol. Plain and simple, marijuana and alcohol should be weighed equally in the points system.
First, the dangers of using alcohol are far greater than marijua- na. Let’s look at it on the national level. In his article, “Alcohol or Marijuana? A Pediatrician Faces the Question,” Aaron E. Carroll cites a National Council on Alcohol and Drug Dependence report that states, “Alcohol use is a factor in 40 percent of all violent crimes in the United States, including 37 percent of rapes and 27 percent of aggravated assaults.” Marijuana, on the other hand, has never been linked to any sort of comparable violence. In fact, the only criminal activity ever associated with the drug is illegal distribution.
What about driving under the influence? Of course, it’s never a good idea to drive when impaired by any substance, but multiple studies have shown that driving under the influence of alcoho lincreases the odds of being in a fatal crash by 2,220 percent, compared to just 83 percent for marijuana. In 2013, a study at Columbia University revealed that detectable levels of THC in the blood had no impact on the risk of getting in an acci- dent. With alcohol, having a BAC of 0.05 mg/100ml increased the risk of a crash by 575 percent, even though the legal limit is 0.08. Even in moderate amounts, alcohol was found to be remarkably dangerous, while marijuana had no impact at all.
Alcohol was the main culprit in 80,000 deaths in 2010. It has well-established ties to liver can- cer, youth delinquency and addic- tion, all while acting as an enabling factor for violence, sexual assault andabuse.There is no evidence that marijuana has ever directly caused a death. While alcohol poisoning and alcoholism are common factors in mortality, it is impossible to overdose on marijuana and it is not physically addictive. Recent studies suggest that there is also no link to lung cancer from consuming cannabis. The American Journal of Public Health reported in their study of 65,000 people that marijuana use had no impact on mortality rates. The same cannot be said for alcohol. In sum, when talking about health and safety risks, alcohol clearly takes the cake, while marijuana has little to no impact.
In general, we know that alcohol has many more harmful effects than marijuana. But how do the relative consequences of each manifest themselves at college? It turns out that the discrepancy between alco- hol and marijuana widens in this environment.Onacollegecampus, alcohol is directly tied to sexual as- sault, violence and addiction. Car- roll says that “in 1995 alone, college students reported more than 460,000 alcohol-related incidents of violence in the United States. ”Most damningly, he says that the number of instances mental and physical dating abuse on college campuses increased on “drinking days,” while men who primarily used marijuana were the least likely of any group to commitany sort of partner violence. If Hamilton College really wants to curb the rate of sexual assault and abuseon campus, it should focus on alcohol abuse and not marijuana.
In the most alarming section of his article, Carroll lays out the literal path of destruction wrought by alcohol in college, writing, “Every year more than 1,800 college students die from alcohol-related accidents. About 600,000 are in- jured while under alcohol’s influ- ence, almost 700,000 are assaulted, and almost 100,000 are sexually assaulted. About 400,000 have unprotected sex, and 100,000 are too drunk to know if they consented.” He doesn’t even attempt to compare these numbers to marijuana, saying only that the drug “is not even in the same league.” Injury, assault, unprotected sex and death form a pretty basic group of what theHamiltoncommunityseeksto prevent. Yet our current system penalizes the substance that has theleastinfluenceonthesefactors harsher than the one that enables them the most. Once again, this is a symptom of outdated thinking or willful blindness to the facts.
The easiest argument for why marijuana should carry a harsher penalty than alcohol is that it is uniformly illegal in New York state, while alcohol can be consumed by those twenty-one and up. However, closer examinations of the legal penalties for each of- fense reveal that both underage drinking and marijuana use are treated nearly identically. In New York, the punishments for posses- sion or consumption of alcohol under twenty-one range from fines to alcohol awareness programs to community service. Compare that to marijuana, where possession of under twenty-five grams brings, at worst,finesandcommunityservice. The only notable difference in the law for each substance is that pos- sessionofovertwenty-fivegramsof marijuana brings harsher penalties, but such quantities would not be considered a recreational amount.
The most important observation drawn from each law is that neither carries any possibility of jail time for first or second time offenders.Yes, marijuana is illegal for people of every age in New York, but underage drinking is just as illegal, and carries the same sanc- tions. If recreational marijuana use and underage drinking are viewed equally in the eyes of the law, Ham- ilton should not label one more severely than the other in its own disciplinary system.
It may seem like I am laying out an argument solely against alcohol, perhaps even suggesting it should be assigned more points thanmarijuanainsteadofweighting them equally. However, despite the overwhelming examples of alcohol enabling acts like violence and rape, in general, and especially at college, I seek to use this information to show how backwards it is that Hamilton College sees marijuana as more detrimental. In all cases mentioned, it had either no impact or a beneficial impact on a specific issue.Incontrast, alcohol was found to sizably increase the risk of illegal activity beyond underage drinking. Its largest impact could be found on the issues colleges seek to combat the most—sexual assault, partner abuse, driving under the influence and other miscellaneous injury or even death. To return to Carroll’s characterization, marijuana is not even in the same league as alcohol.
Furthermore, I would argue that marijuana, when utilized prop- erly, actually carries a wide variety of positive uses, from pain relief, to healing, to the treatment of debilitating diseases. Stigmatizing the drug in the way that the College has only perpetrates an obsolete status quo dating back to the “War on Drugs” that finds marijuana still listed as a Schedule I drug—alongside hero- in and LSD—by the DEA. Such groups of thought only inhibit ra- tional and realistic thinking.
Noneofthisistosaymarijuana is harmless or shouldn’t carry any penalty at all. Again, I merely ask thatHamilton’sadministrationgive thought to the plethora of facts and statistics that show marijuana to be wholly less detrimental than alco- hol and reflect this information in the points system. If we are truly committed to student safety and promoting educated decisions, we will makethisnecessarychangefor the betterment of all.