SAFER's Blog
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Written by SAFER
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Monday, 12 October 2009 |
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A great op-ed by Redding, California resident Baran Galocy appeared this weekend in the city's local newspaper, the The Record Searchlight. It's a perfect example of the type of piece we hope you will write and submit to your local newspaper. And if it gets published, let us know, and we'll hype it here on our blog, just like this one!
A few choice excerpts:
May we please discuss marijuana, medical or otherwise, and alcohol in the same sentence? If I were to try to poison myself to death by consuming alcohol, I could easily do so. That was proved in our community last year. Were alcohol illegal and marijuana legal, perhaps we wouldn't have lost a minor to alcohol poisoning last year. No regular user has ever "poisoned" themselves with marijuana and no one has ever died as a direct result of having smoked it...
Domestic violence is fueled by the consumption of alcohol. Someone who just got high is inhabiting an entirely different mental construct than one who just drank. I have never met a violent "stoner," although I have met more than my fair share of obnoxious, violent drunks. Logic dictates that any drinker who is against legalizing marijuana is a world-class hypocrite...
The bottom line is that, like it or not, this is the end of an era... We are watching very bad law under deconstruction.
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Written by SAFER
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Thursday, 08 October 2009 |
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For Immediate Release
October 8, 2009
National Organization Calls on Lance Armstrong to Stop Promoting a Substance Far More Harmful and Cancer-Causing Than Marijuana -- ALCOHOL Group calls USA Cycling member's new Anheuser-Busch endorsement shocking in light of his personal battle with cancer, hypocritical in light of USA Swimming's treatment of Michael Phelps
"Michael Phelps was punished for using a substance that has never caused cancer; Lance Armstrong is making money promoting one that does"
DENVER -- A pro-marijuana organization is calling on superstar cyclist Lance Armstrong to end his new endorsement deal with beer giant Anheuser-Busch because it promotes the use of a substance far more harmful and cancer-causing than marijuana -- alcohol. Denver-based Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation (SAFER), which works to educate the public about the relative safety of marijuana compared to alcohol, says it is irresponsible of Armstrong to promote a substance that has been directly linked to several forms of cancer. The organization is also calling the USA Cycling team member's deal hypocritical, particularly in light of USA Swimming's treatment of team member Michael Phelps.
It has long been known that alcohol use contributes to various types of cancer, whereas the latest research on marijuana has concluded that it does not contribute to cancer. A recent study published in the journal, Cancer Epidemiology, found that consumption of beer boosted the odds of developing many kinds of cancer, including esophageal cancer, stomach cancer, rectal cancer, and lung cancer. It concluded that "moderate drinkers" (those who consume between one and six drinks per week) are 67% more likely to get stomach cancer, and "heavy beer drinkers" have a 53% increased risk of developing rectal cancer and are 46% times more likely to get lung cancer.
"Lance Armstrong should immediately end his endorsement deal with Anheuser-Busch and stop promoting a substance that has been conclusively linked to the development of several forms of cancer," said SAFER Executive Director Mason Tvert, coauthor of the recently released book, Marijuana Is Safer: So why are we driving people to drink?
"Michael Phelps was punished for using a substance that has never caused cancer," Tvert said. "Meanwhile, Lance Armstrong is making money promoting one that does. Why is it perfectly acceptable for a world-class athlete to endorse a substance that contributes to more than 33,000 American deaths each year according to the U.S. Centers for Disease Control, as well as hundreds of thousands of violent crimes and injuries? Yet a world-class athlete like Michael Phelps is ridiculed, punished, and forced to apologize for marijuana, the use of which contributes to ZERO deaths, and has never been linked to violent or reckless behavior.
"Perhaps it has something to do with the USA Olympic Committee's ties to Anheuser-Busch," Tvert said.
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SAFER (Safer Alternative For Enjoyable Recreation) is a Colorado-based non-profit organization dedicated to educating the the public about the relative safety of marijuana compared to alcohol. For more information visit http://www.SAFERchoice.org |
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Written by SAFER
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Thursday, 08 October 2009 |
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From our allies at the Marijuana Policy Project (MPP):  MPP's new Potentially Deadly Alcohol and Marijuana Quiz will let you test how much you know about the relative harms of these two substances. If you get a question wrong, the quiz will have you "take a shot" of alcohol. At the end, the quiz calculates your blood alcohol content based on the number of shots you had to take. Ace the quiz and you will be "stone cold sober." But if you flounder, you could wind up dead.
 Of course, we don’t recommend really taking shots while you play. We’re serious, though, about the need to educate people on this subject. So after you take the quiz, please spread the word. When you’re done, the quiz makes it easy for you to send an e-mail to friends or post a message on Facebook or Twitter. (The Twitter post will actually be personalized with your quiz result!)
If you can help us get hundreds of thousands of people to take the quiz, we can chip away at the image of marijuana as a "dangerous" drug – an image that has hindered the cause of reform for decades.
You can take the quiz here. Good luck! |
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Written by SAFER
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Monday, 05 October 2009 |
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Marijuana Is Safer coauthor and NORML Deputy Director Paul Armentano was featured on the Fox News Channel's "Freedom Watch" with
Judge Andrew Napolitano. Paul discussed some of the science surrounding
marijuana, the current administration's approach to the substance, and
of course the fact that marijuana is far safer than alcohol for the
user and for society.
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