Comments by "Bruce Tucker" (@brucetucker4847) on "Why Does a Destructive Drug Like Alcohol Get a Pass?" video.

That's mostly because alcohol is used five times as much as all other (psychoactive) drugs combined. If 70% of the population were abusing opioids, you'd see a million deaths a year in the US from them. As it is we're seeing about 80,000 a year. I've lost more friends to opioids than car crashes, guns, alcohol, and cigarettes combined. Granted, few other drugs are that lethal, but barbiturates are probably still more lethal and just as addictive as alcohol.
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A lot of it is just that alcohol has been deeply embedded in our culture for 10,000 years or more and tobacco and pot have not. They were drinking beer at Gobekli Tepe. You couldn't remove it from society if you tried - and we did try, and it was a disaster. How do you tell people a drug is evil and mortally dangerous when a third of the people on the planet belong to a religion in which consuming that drug is part of its most sacred rituals? As for pot vs. cigarettes, cigarettes (though not pipes or cigars) are worse for your long-term health but I think you understate the risks of pot. For one thing, it impairs your functioning; maybe not as much as alcohol, but you wouldn't want your airline pilot or brain surgeon to be high while doing their job, and even driving stoned can be much riskier (most potheads are in denial about this). And there's the risk of psychological addiction: I've never known anyone whose lifestyle changed as a result of smoking cigarettes, but I've known plenty of stoners who centered their life around pot, especially their social lives, to the point that all they ever wanted to do was sit around and do bong hits and watch bad TV or listen to music. And I've known people who have lost their jobs over smoking pot (because they couldn't muster the self-discipline to show up at work sober) but no one loses their job over cigarettes - why would they?
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