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Marijuana Vs. Alcohol: Which Is Worse For You? · Stuff You Should Know

0:00
Speaker 1: Hey, everybody, we are going back on the road and
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1:28
Speaker 1: Welcome to Stuff you Should Know from House Stuff Works
1:32
Speaker 1: dot com. Hey, and welcome to the podcast. I'm Josh
1:41
Speaker 1: Clark with Charles W. Chuck Bryant and Jerry Roland. And
1:47
Speaker 1: this is stuff you should know because you put the
1:49
Speaker 1: three of us together, roll us up in the paper,
1:54
Speaker 1: add a match to the mix, you've got one great podcast.
1:59
Speaker 1: Or throw us all in a sniffed ter okay, swirl
2:05
Speaker 1: us around and then we're a an appartif that's nice?
2:13
Speaker 1: And why not just why why decide? Why choose one
2:18
Speaker 1: over the other, right, because then we would kill each
2:21
Speaker 1: other in a car. Yeah, we would, we would. Well,
2:25
Speaker 1: let's start. Let's start legitimately here, Chuck, first of all,
2:28
Speaker 1: how are you great? Good? Okay, I am too, But
2:31
Speaker 1: let's start even more legitimately than that. Let's get in
2:34
Speaker 1: the way back machine. Okay, I live in this thing.
2:38
Speaker 1: Emily kicked me out, so I've been I've been living
2:40
Speaker 1: in the way back machine for a few weeks. Now.
2:42
Speaker 1: It's with your dog, just one of them. Though she
2:44
Speaker 1: only gave me one of the dogs. It's kind of
2:47
Speaker 1: gave me in here, you know. It is um Okay, Well,
2:50
Speaker 1: we're in Chuck's repurposed way back sheet and we're just
2:54
Speaker 1: going just for a second, Chuck, we're going back to
2:56
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, and we're going to go to New
3:00
Speaker 1: York City and we're going to buy a New Yorker magazine. Okay,
3:09
Speaker 1: now we can go back to two thous eighteen. Okay,
3:15
Speaker 1: and we're gonna flip open this New Yorker magazine. Oh look, Chuck,
3:19
Speaker 1: it's an interview with then President Barack Obama. Do you
3:23
Speaker 1: remember him? Do so? In two thousand fourteen, Obama gave
3:27
Speaker 1: this interview to New Yorker, and he really kind of
3:30
Speaker 1: created a bit of a stir. I mean, since he
3:33
Speaker 1: first ran in two thousand and eight, everybody knew he
3:35
Speaker 1: smoked pot. There are pictures of it. Like he never
3:38
Speaker 1: he never denied it. He admitted a smoking pot. But
3:41
Speaker 1: this interview in two thousand fourteen really just changed things
3:43
Speaker 1: because in it, Obama said that he did not believe
3:48
Speaker 1: that his pot smoking was anything really worse than his
3:53
Speaker 1: his bad cigarette habit, and that he he doesn't think
3:58
Speaker 1: he didn't think that it was more dangerous an alcohol,
4:01
Speaker 1: which is really saying something because I mean, like you know,
4:05
Speaker 1: as teenagers have been saying for decades and decades now,
4:08
Speaker 1: it's crazy that something like alcohol can be bought like
4:12
Speaker 1: at any corner store, at drug stores in some states
4:17
Speaker 1: stores and and that like you can drink it as
4:20
Speaker 1: long as you're twenty one and get in your car
4:21
Speaker 1: and drive up to a certain limit. But pod is
4:24
Speaker 1: totally illegal in most states. Still, um, and Obama was
4:29
Speaker 1: saying kind of throwing down the gauntlet, saying, you know,
4:32
Speaker 1: I don't in a very roundabout way, he was saying,
4:34
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't know that that's necessarily right, that
4:38
Speaker 1: pots should be illegal and you should be able to
4:40
Speaker 1: buy alcohol anywhere because pot's not as bad as booze, yeah,
4:43
Speaker 1: which was man, times have really changed in our you know,
4:49
Speaker 1: in the past like twenty years, because I remember when
4:52
Speaker 1: Clinton it was such a scandal that he had inhaled
4:56
Speaker 1: and he didn't inhale. Well he the thing came out
5:01
Speaker 1: and he said, well I tried to and I couldn't
5:04
Speaker 1: and a liar, Well, who knows that may have been true.
5:08
Speaker 1: I just think my reaction was, well, that just means
5:11
Speaker 1: you're super lame. You don't know what you're doing, Bill Um.
5:17
Speaker 1: But it was just such a scandal. And then I mean,
5:20
Speaker 1: here we are now where you know, state after state
5:25
Speaker 1: is is legalizing recreational marijuana. Yeah, which, yeah, is really
5:30
Speaker 1: interesting to see that change happen, not even like medicinal
5:33
Speaker 1: marijuana anymore. That was like the Gateway legislation. Now it's like,
5:37
Speaker 1: straight up, you want to smoke pot to get high
5:40
Speaker 1: just for fun, you can do that. And let's see, Chuck.
5:43
Speaker 1: So it started with Washington and um Colorado, right, I
5:49
Speaker 1: think were they the first two. They were back in
5:51
Speaker 1: two thousand fourteen, and just since two thousand fourteen, you've
5:54
Speaker 1: now got Oregon, California, Vermont, Washington, d C. Nevada, Massachusetts, Maine, Alaska,
6:03
Speaker 1: and Washington State. Yeah, it was the state so nice.
6:09
Speaker 1: I said it twice. Or maybe they just super like
6:13
Speaker 1: like when you you reaffirm your wedding vowels, maybe they
6:18
Speaker 1: doubled down a few as Leonard and said this is
6:20
Speaker 1: so great, we just want to like legalize it again.
6:24
Speaker 1: I think they did do that in Washington. We were
6:26
Speaker 1: there recently for live shows, and I can tell you
6:29
Speaker 1: they definitely renewed their vows with pots. Yeah, we were
6:33
Speaker 1: in San Francisco. Uh, Colorado, or we're gonna be in
6:36
Speaker 1: Colorado and then Washington and Oregon. So and we're going
6:40
Speaker 1: to Massachusetts. Uh, we just need to hit Nevada and
6:45
Speaker 1: we're going to d c yah, Nevada, Maine in Alaska
6:49
Speaker 1: and it will be the stuff you should know up
6:51
Speaker 1: in Smoke Tour. We need T shirts for that one.
6:54
Speaker 1: Not that we would ever do that, no, no, but
6:56
Speaker 1: we could still make T shirts that suggest it. Yeah,
6:59
Speaker 1: and my any joke on stage in San Francisco, we
7:02
Speaker 1: were there literally the weekend that the first recreational pot
7:05
Speaker 1: shops opened, and the joke was San Francisco day after
7:10
Speaker 1: exactly like San Francisco was the day before that killed
7:17
Speaker 1: They loved it. So the upshide of all of this
7:20
Speaker 1: is that with all these states like legalizing marijuana, the
7:25
Speaker 1: comparison between pot and alcohol has kind of become less
7:30
Speaker 1: of a like a stoner conversation, like it's actually a
7:35
Speaker 1: legitimate academic discussion. Nowadays, there's a lot of different things
7:39
Speaker 1: that come into play. Before it was kind of like, well,
7:42
Speaker 1: ultimately it doesn't matter because Uncle Sam, well actually Tricky
7:46
Speaker 1: Dick says that it's illegal. So it's illegal, So it
7:49
Speaker 1: doesn't really matter if it's worse for you or not.
7:51
Speaker 1: It's way worse to be put into jail um than
7:55
Speaker 1: it is to to be tipsy off of alcohol and
7:57
Speaker 1: maybe risk curosis of the liver. Right, So that ended
8:01
Speaker 1: all conversations there. But as that, as that conversation under
8:04
Speaker 1: has kind of fallen away, the conversation has kind of
8:07
Speaker 1: opened up. So I guess what we're doing here today
8:10
Speaker 1: is doing the best we can at putting the conversation
8:13
Speaker 1: to rest, even though now that we've dived into it,
8:16
Speaker 1: we've seen that the conversation is very far from being
8:19
Speaker 1: put to rest. Yeah, and this one's gonna there are
8:22
Speaker 1: a lot of stats. It's very sad heavy episode, which
8:24
Speaker 1: is fun. But um, the first thing we should point
8:27
Speaker 1: out is that in terms of marijuana, because it was illegal,
8:30
Speaker 1: there's hasn't been a lot of funding throne at studies
8:33
Speaker 1: over the years because, like you said, it's like, why bother,
8:36
Speaker 1: it's illegal, We're not gonna put our resources towards studying it.
8:39
Speaker 1: Now they kind of have to. But the long and
8:41
Speaker 1: short of it is we we are still and will
8:44
Speaker 1: be for many years gathering data on what pot does
8:47
Speaker 1: to the body, how dangerous it is. But early results
8:53
Speaker 1: clearly indicate at least in the short term, and we're
8:56
Speaker 1: gonna run the gamut here, but in the short term,
8:58
Speaker 1: you can start a night out having fun, drinking and
9:03
Speaker 1: end up dead hours later just from the alcohol. Yeah
9:08
Speaker 1: I'm not saying by getting in a car or jumping
9:10
Speaker 1: off a building, like all those things can happen too,
9:13
Speaker 1: but you can drink yourself to death in hours. Yeah,
9:17
Speaker 1: they're they're so. The CDC put out like a very
9:20
Speaker 1: famous statistic now, um that said that every year in
9:24
Speaker 1: the United States, about eighty eight thousand people die from
9:27
Speaker 1: alcohol every year, and that's all alcohol related deaths like
9:31
Speaker 1: liver disease, car crashes all that, but about half of
9:37
Speaker 1: those are from binge drinking, which is drinking usually for
9:42
Speaker 1: men about five or more drinks, and for women, I
9:46
Speaker 1: think it's like three or more drinks within two hours
9:49
Speaker 1: or something like that, and then and then going on,
9:51
Speaker 1: and once you start to get to that point, you
9:54
Speaker 1: start to run an increasing risk of alcohol poisoning. Yeah,
9:58
Speaker 1: I mean it's your he cannot process alcohol fast enough
10:04
Speaker 1: like you can. You can drink past that amount, Like
10:06
Speaker 1: I said, such that, I mean you hear sad stories
10:09
Speaker 1: about the the kid in college who literally died from
10:14
Speaker 1: drinking one night. Yep. Uh. That cannot be said of marijuana. Um, well,
10:20
Speaker 1: it depends. Well, it doesn't depend, No, it does. I
10:24
Speaker 1: think it's literally impossible to consume as much marijuana as
10:28
Speaker 1: you would have to consume over a period of hours
10:30
Speaker 1: to die from it. Okay, yes, yes, absolutely, you're right.
10:33
Speaker 1: You're right, it doesn't depend. That's that's true. Like, and
10:36
Speaker 1: there's a lot of people who point to that statistic
10:39
Speaker 1: where they basically say thousand people die a year um
10:43
Speaker 1: from alcohol, zero people die a year from marijuana. That's
10:48
Speaker 1: not necessarily true. But if you're talking about overdosing, yes, yeah, absolutely, like,
10:53
Speaker 1: people don't overdose and die from marijuana. Many have tried. Sure,
10:59
Speaker 1: it's especially Cheech and chong, but they the the amount
11:04
Speaker 1: of th HC you would have to ingest is so
11:08
Speaker 1: um so much more than you could possibly take under
11:13
Speaker 1: normal circumstances that you're just not going to So like,
11:18
Speaker 1: what are the numbers here to figure this out? Well,
11:20
Speaker 1: your statman, I just want to set up that we
11:22
Speaker 1: used High Times as a source for this episode because
11:26
Speaker 1: we're like, okay, so how much how much th HC
11:29
Speaker 1: is in pot? And how much does that break down
11:31
Speaker 1: to depending on whether you smoke a bowl or smoke
11:33
Speaker 1: a joint or eat an edible And we said, well,
11:36
Speaker 1: who would know more than anyone else, And it turns
11:38
Speaker 1: out it's High Times. Yeah. So here's the thing with
11:42
Speaker 1: Pot two. It really varies according to who you are,
11:45
Speaker 1: how much you typically ingest, how strong the pot is.
11:49
Speaker 1: But are we gonna go with this? These numbers here
11:54
Speaker 1: th HC, which I think is fairly average these days,
11:59
Speaker 1: which is per high, but that's normal. It's a normal
12:02
Speaker 1: amount of I think, uh, you you that's about a
12:06
Speaker 1: hundred and eighty milligrams program of marijuana, right, And if
12:11
Speaker 1: people don't know. T HC is the the active ingredient
12:14
Speaker 1: that gets you high in the marijuana plant. Yeah, and
12:19
Speaker 1: what is the delta nine catra hydro cannab at all?
12:22
Speaker 1: Oh you just read the tattoo on your forum. It's misspelled,
12:27
Speaker 1: as you can see. I was wonder what that was. Uh.
12:29
Speaker 1: Here's the thing, though, You lose th HC when it's
12:31
Speaker 1: burned about uh And trust me, marijuana users have tried
12:36
Speaker 1: to lower that number um as much as possible for
12:40
Speaker 1: the and to some success, like supposedly with the vaporiors
12:43
Speaker 1: or you lose a lot less because you're not actually
12:45
Speaker 1: burning the THC. Right, Yeah, I mean they are all
12:48
Speaker 1: manner of ways to ingest marijuana now, um, partially because
12:52
Speaker 1: of I mean there always were, but partially because of
12:54
Speaker 1: this recreational um. And I always wondered what that would
12:59
Speaker 1: look like if it was legalized, because you know, I've
13:03
Speaker 1: been Amsterdam and stuff, and I thought, was it going
13:06
Speaker 1: to be like that where you have marijuana in jars
13:09
Speaker 1: and like a they call them bud tenders, which is
13:12
Speaker 1: so stupid, uh? Or I thought, well, no, it's America.
13:16
Speaker 1: I bet you anything. It's gonna be like a cigarette
13:17
Speaker 1: pack that's highly manufactured, but just joints, and it turns
13:22
Speaker 1: out it's uh, it's sort of not either. I mean
13:26
Speaker 1: it's it's very on the up and up. Like I've
13:30
Speaker 1: been into one of those stores just to look around,
13:32
Speaker 1: and it's, um, it's like visiting a any coffee or
13:36
Speaker 1: tea shop. You know, it's all very it's it's not
13:39
Speaker 1: just dudes with with a bag that they throw into
13:43
Speaker 1: another bag. You know, they pull it out of their stock.
13:48
Speaker 1: I guess, So, I guess it's my way of saying
13:50
Speaker 1: it's um. The recreational pot shops that I've seen have
13:52
Speaker 1: been very professional, and everything is very packaged and and
13:57
Speaker 1: it's just like any other commodity. So did you walk
14:00
Speaker 1: in and go are you? Are you the bud tender?
14:02
Speaker 1: I'm from I'm from Hotlanta. I'm doing a story for
14:06
Speaker 1: a podcast. So so okay. So, depending on how you
14:11
Speaker 1: ingest the pot, especially whether you're burning it or not,
14:15
Speaker 1: you're gonna lose some THHC. But if you burn it,
14:17
Speaker 1: you lose about So if you have a hundred and
14:21
Speaker 1: eighty milligram per gram th HC, it's suddenly down to
14:24
Speaker 1: what seventy two milligrams per gram, and if you're smoking
14:28
Speaker 1: a half a gram joint. Let's say you're even smoking
14:30
Speaker 1: a one gram joint and you're getting seventy two milligrams
14:35
Speaker 1: of th HC from that joint, you're still immensely shy.
14:40
Speaker 1: And on the level of orders of magnitude different um
14:46
Speaker 1: of how much it would take to overdose on on
14:48
Speaker 1: th HC. Yeah, I mean, I think the number in
14:51
Speaker 1: here is a minimum of like a hundred and fifty
14:54
Speaker 1: joints you would have to smoke by yourself over a
14:58
Speaker 1: very short period of time. Yeah, because so you're you're
15:00
Speaker 1: getting seventy two milligrams in that joint of th HC,
15:04
Speaker 1: but it would take something like at least fifteen grams
15:08
Speaker 1: of th HC to to overdose. So yes, you would
15:11
Speaker 1: have to smoke hundreds of joints and basically a day
15:17
Speaker 1: to start to build up enough th HC in your
15:19
Speaker 1: bloodstream that you overdose fatally. I'm trying to picture the study,
15:23
Speaker 1: like the being behind the one way glass and the
15:26
Speaker 1: guy p and like, well then he is this, and
15:28
Speaker 1: they're like and ten and he's like I can do
15:32
Speaker 1: it anymore. Like that's why you would not overdose. There's
15:35
Speaker 1: just no way. Yeah, for sure, I would imagine you'd
15:39
Speaker 1: fall asleep or get bored or forget what you were
15:41
Speaker 1: doing or whatever. I think it'd be more likely that
15:44
Speaker 1: you would have to eat like a triple layer cake
15:48
Speaker 1: made entirely of marijuana. So I'm glad you said that
15:52
Speaker 1: because that definitely edibles are different, and they're different in
15:56
Speaker 1: a couple of ways. One way they're different is that
15:59
Speaker 1: they don't burn. You're not burning the th HC, so
16:03
Speaker 1: you're not necessarily losing a bunch of it. Do You
16:07
Speaker 1: also can eat more of it than say you're smoking
16:11
Speaker 1: of it as far as th HC is concerned, So
16:14
Speaker 1: you can still you can definitely increase like how much, um,
16:19
Speaker 1: how much th HC you're getting by eating it rather
16:22
Speaker 1: than smoking it. But the other thing about edibles is
16:26
Speaker 1: that you actually your body does something differently with them,
16:30
Speaker 1: and that is that when you're smoking marijuana, you're introducing
16:35
Speaker 1: th HC and it's normal form from your lungs to
16:40
Speaker 1: your heart to your brain. Th HC can cross that
16:44
Speaker 1: blood brain barrier. But you know, it's not the greatest
16:47
Speaker 1: at it. It's kind of hit or miss, right when
16:50
Speaker 1: you ingest t HC where you eat it like an edible,
16:54
Speaker 1: it goes through your digestive system, and that th HC
16:57
Speaker 1: is metabolized. It's broken down into the um by the
17:00
Speaker 1: liver and then set into the bloodstream. Well, what what
17:04
Speaker 1: the metabolized version does is it's much better at crossing
17:07
Speaker 1: the blood brain barrier. So you get a much more
17:10
Speaker 1: powerful high from eating an edible, and you get a
17:14
Speaker 1: higher dose of th HC even though it's this THHC metabolite.
17:17
Speaker 1: So eating edibles is different, and it is possible that
17:20
Speaker 1: it would bring you closer, statistically speaking, increase your risk
17:25
Speaker 1: of of coming near a fatal dose of th HC.
17:28
Speaker 1: But again, still like that, the amount you would have
17:31
Speaker 1: to eat is ridiculously high. Yeah, And I think most
17:35
Speaker 1: of the cases of UM since recreational has been introduced,
17:39
Speaker 1: of oh my god, I have to go to the
17:41
Speaker 1: emergency room have been people that ate too too much pot. Yeah.
17:46
Speaker 1: And and also the other one of the other big
17:48
Speaker 1: problems with edibles, well there's two of them. One is
17:50
Speaker 1: that people eat too much because it takes like hours
17:54
Speaker 1: to kick in and they're like, oh, I'm not feel anything,
17:56
Speaker 1: let me have four more, yeah, which is a real
17:58
Speaker 1: problem with those things. And then set. And we also
18:00
Speaker 1: kids tend to get into edibles more than they you know,
18:03
Speaker 1: find your your pot and roll a joint, which is
18:07
Speaker 1: dangerous because they have lower body mass. And and I
18:09
Speaker 1: would I mean they're fatal dose or whatever could cause
18:13
Speaker 1: them health problems is much. It's a much lower threshold
18:17
Speaker 1: for a small kid, yeah for sure, which is you know, scary. Yeah,
18:21
Speaker 1: well yeah sure. Um. All right, well so we covered
18:25
Speaker 1: the O D aspect. Well do you want to take
18:27
Speaker 1: a break. All right, let's take a break. Let's try
18:31
Speaker 1: to decide. Let's take a break. We'll come right back
18:34
Speaker 1: after this. All right, all right, so we covered the
19:02
Speaker 1: O D thing. Like I said before the break, Um,
19:05
Speaker 1: I feel like that's settled. Now that's subtle law. So UM,
19:09
Speaker 1: here's the other thing alcohol is that the way it
19:11
Speaker 1: reacts and interacts with other drugs is significantly more different
19:16
Speaker 1: than marijuana. UM. Most people know this. But that's why
19:20
Speaker 1: they on your prescription bottles they say things like don't
19:23
Speaker 1: drink when you take this, because depending on what the
19:26
Speaker 1: drug is, UM, whether it's pain killers or um meds
19:31
Speaker 1: for your mental well being, UM, you can either end
19:35
Speaker 1: up having a higher dose of that or a lower
19:37
Speaker 1: dose depending on what it is how much you've had
19:40
Speaker 1: to drink. And that's always scary because we've seen all
19:44
Speaker 1: over the place people accidentally overdosing by combining prescription drugs
19:49
Speaker 1: and alcohol. Yeah, I mean, like if you get a
19:52
Speaker 1: lower dose in its medicine you really need, that's Yeah,
19:56
Speaker 1: it's just as bad. And it's it's because alcohol is
19:58
Speaker 1: either exciting all the enzymes in your liver and they
20:02
Speaker 1: metabolize the medicine faster than it's designed to be, so
20:06
Speaker 1: you get a big dose, or they hog all of
20:08
Speaker 1: the enzymes and the medicine just kind of passes through
20:11
Speaker 1: your liver unmetabolized and you don't get the dose you're
20:15
Speaker 1: looking for. Either way, it's not good for you. Yeah.
20:19
Speaker 1: And like this article that you put together points out,
20:21
Speaker 1: though it is you, we should mention that marijuana though,
20:24
Speaker 1: can impair your coordination. So there is a risk of
20:27
Speaker 1: you know, just literally getting hurt because you're uncoordinated. Um.
20:31
Speaker 1: You may you may trip over your coffee table and
20:33
Speaker 1: fall into your couch or your papas on or your
20:37
Speaker 1: lava lamp. You know, you don't want to go head
20:39
Speaker 1: first into a lava lamp. No, that's bad. Um, I
20:43
Speaker 1: know we're making light, but seriously that that is a
20:45
Speaker 1: risk um or just you're you know, unprotected sex because
20:50
Speaker 1: your inhibitions are lowered. Although what the same can be
20:52
Speaker 1: said for alcohol. Yes, that's absolutely true, and I think
20:56
Speaker 1: this article does say it, it's just in a different spot.
20:59
Speaker 1: But yeah, your judgment can be impaired to which can
21:03
Speaker 1: lead to all manner of indirect effects which might seem like,
21:07
Speaker 1: you know, that doesn't count, but actually they very much
21:09
Speaker 1: do count because you wouldn't have otherwise made those decisions
21:12
Speaker 1: if you hadn't been drunk or stoned. They count for sure.
21:16
Speaker 1: So those are some of the short term health effects
21:20
Speaker 1: from drinking, you know, death, but there's um long term
21:24
Speaker 1: ones too that that come on. And this is where
21:28
Speaker 1: the uh that literature um or the lack of literature
21:33
Speaker 1: studying pot like really kind of comes into play. Because
21:36
Speaker 1: we've been studying alcohol and the effects of alcohol for
21:38
Speaker 1: so long now we have it pretty well licked that
21:41
Speaker 1: alcohol is really really bad for you if you drink heavily,
21:46
Speaker 1: but strangely kind of good for you if you drink
21:49
Speaker 1: in moderate amounts. With pot We just we just don't
21:53
Speaker 1: we don't know. There hasn't been enough study. And part
21:56
Speaker 1: of the problem, like you're saying, is it was illegal,
21:59
Speaker 1: and since it was illegal, it was kind of difficult
22:01
Speaker 1: to get your hands on study participants because they, you know,
22:07
Speaker 1: I didn't want to tell you that they smoked pot.
22:09
Speaker 1: Maybe have that go on any kind of permanent record
22:12
Speaker 1: or something. Yeah, I mean for alcohol, the obvious physical effects,
22:16
Speaker 1: it's stuff on your liver, and alcoholic liver disease is
22:19
Speaker 1: a real thing that can progress from early stages fibrosis
22:25
Speaker 1: to eventual liver cancer. UM. And they don't really know
22:29
Speaker 1: exactly the mechanism for why some people can drink heavily
22:36
Speaker 1: well into their old age and not have any liver
22:38
Speaker 1: damage UM or you know, maybe some liver damage but
22:41
Speaker 1: not die of liver cancer, and then other people are
22:44
Speaker 1: much higher risk. They don't fully get that. I mean,
22:47
Speaker 1: it's just gotta be genetics, right. Anytime that comes up
22:50
Speaker 1: and they're like, well, you know, we have no idea
22:52
Speaker 1: why these people are subject to it and other people aren't.
22:55
Speaker 1: It's always it's gotta be genetics. Like Keith Richards alive,
23:00
Speaker 1: No medical science will never explain that he should totally
23:04
Speaker 1: donate his body. Yeah, oh yeah, for sure. Um yeah,
23:09
Speaker 1: he really should. Actually it's like a legitimate jokey thing
23:12
Speaker 1: to say, but it's true. So um, so you've got
23:17
Speaker 1: alcohol messing with your liver um with pot, they're they're
23:22
Speaker 1: kind of like, okay, well, if you're a chronic pot user,
23:24
Speaker 1: what's what's the problem? Chronic pot user? Chronic chronic pot user.
23:33
Speaker 1: I think that's the way you would say it. So
23:35
Speaker 1: with with um, a chronic pot user, And it's defined differently,
23:38
Speaker 1: which I think is another thing that kind of makes
23:41
Speaker 1: the literature on the topic kind of difficult to study too,
23:45
Speaker 1: is people I don't think there's a universal this is
23:48
Speaker 1: what a chronic pot user is. I think each study
23:52
Speaker 1: defines it for itself. But for a long time, there
23:55
Speaker 1: was some literature that said that smoke pot lowers your
24:01
Speaker 1: sperm count, but almost all of those were from the
24:04
Speaker 1: seventies and eighties, and all these studies referred to pot
24:07
Speaker 1: as grass, so no one took them seriously at all, Right,
24:11
Speaker 1: But in two thousand and fifteen, there is a Danish
24:13
Speaker 1: study that that that really kind of updated the literature,
24:17
Speaker 1: and they found that there was a twenty eight percent
24:20
Speaker 1: decrease in sperm count among chronic pot smokers and they
24:24
Speaker 1: define chronics pot smokers is um men who smoked more
24:28
Speaker 1: than one joint a week, which is that's there's a
24:31
Speaker 1: lot of people who smoke pot smoke more than one
24:33
Speaker 1: joy in a week. Okay, Okay, so there there. They
24:37
Speaker 1: have found a decrease in sperm production. That's definitely a thing.
24:41
Speaker 1: All right, Well there's the the psychological and mental health
24:45
Speaker 1: issues at stake two. Um, and again, you know, not
24:49
Speaker 1: as much literature as we need, like this show ten
24:52
Speaker 1: years from that would be very different. I think I think,
24:55
Speaker 1: well we should revisit it ten years from now. I
24:57
Speaker 1: totally agree. Um. So yeah, even if we retire in
25:01
Speaker 1: five years, will come back ten years from now to
25:03
Speaker 1: do the marijuana one off special. It's like getting friends
25:08
Speaker 1: back together. That'd be cool. I get to be Rachel. Ah,
25:12
Speaker 1: you're always Rachel. I've got the haircut. So um, it's funny.
25:18
Speaker 1: The Omnibus podcast did an entire episode on the Rachel
25:24
Speaker 1: so with mental health issues. Um. For a long time,
25:26
Speaker 1: they weren't really sure whether teenagers who had mental health
25:31
Speaker 1: health issues smoked pot to deal with it or maybe, um,
25:35
Speaker 1: like something like bipolar doesn't really come on until your
25:38
Speaker 1: mid teens. Anyway, maybe pot could trigger that or depression
25:44
Speaker 1: or something if it is laying dormant inside of you.
25:47
Speaker 1: But recently they have done a little more studying and
25:50
Speaker 1: they do think that it can um in your earlier
25:54
Speaker 1: years exacerbate these mental health disorders. Yeah, if you are
26:00
Speaker 1: like predisposed, right, which is that's kind of a significant
26:04
Speaker 1: finding too, Although it makes sense intuitively because like when
26:09
Speaker 1: you are a teenager, your brain is still developing, and
26:14
Speaker 1: pot has been shown to to change your cognitive development,
26:18
Speaker 1: So it would make sense that if there's a a
26:20
Speaker 1: biological basis for some mental health issues like depression or
26:24
Speaker 1: bipolar schizophrenia, that it would it would stand a reason
26:29
Speaker 1: that pot could have some effect on that. And they
26:31
Speaker 1: finally have said, yes, we we generally can see that
26:35
Speaker 1: that pot probably makes mental health or predisposition of mental
26:40
Speaker 1: health issues worse in adolescence, which is is sad. And
26:44
Speaker 1: it's significant too because at least in the US, um
26:48
Speaker 1: pot use peaks among kids who are age eighteen and
26:54
Speaker 1: then it starts to taper off or tapers off fully
26:56
Speaker 1: by the mid twenties and most people. Yeah, so the
27:00
Speaker 1: the the majority of people who smoke pot in the
27:03
Speaker 1: US are teenagers, anyway, But these studies are starting to
27:06
Speaker 1: show that the last people who should be smoking pot
27:09
Speaker 1: are teenagers because it can affect their brain development make
27:13
Speaker 1: them less than sharp. Yeah, I wonder about those numbers.
27:17
Speaker 1: Do seem dubious to me? The eighteen of eighteen and
27:22
Speaker 1: taper off of mid twenty. Yeah, and I'm not just
27:24
Speaker 1: thinking of Willie Nelson. Here's the results. For sure. You
27:31
Speaker 1: have to wait him differently because he smokes a lot
27:33
Speaker 1: of pot. That's what I hear um with Pott obviously,
27:38
Speaker 1: although things are a little bit different these days with
27:40
Speaker 1: like you said, vaporizing and edibles and stuff like that.
27:43
Speaker 1: But in the olden days when everybody just smoked it, um,
27:48
Speaker 1: bronchitis obviously in just various um long air passage issues
27:54
Speaker 1: is sort of an obvious risk. Um. Although they are
27:58
Speaker 1: now thinking that the newest data says that marijuana smoke
28:03
Speaker 1: doesn't affect the body like tobacco smoke does, And they
28:06
Speaker 1: have no idea why now that this doesn't make sense
28:10
Speaker 1: to them, and they're like, well, they've started to wonder
28:13
Speaker 1: if pot has some sort of protective chemical in it.
28:18
Speaker 1: It's just kind of you know, it gives the lungs
28:20
Speaker 1: a glass of milk and tucks them in after after
28:23
Speaker 1: it's done being passed through there. Well, yeah, and it's
28:26
Speaker 1: also tough because to do studies, like a lot of
28:29
Speaker 1: times people may also smoke cigarettes, who smoke marijuana regularly, um,
28:35
Speaker 1: and again with the illegality, it's just it's kind of
28:38
Speaker 1: tough to get good data on this, and then chuck um.
28:43
Speaker 1: Pregnancy is another thing. You can kind of put pot
28:46
Speaker 1: in um alcohol head to head with pregnancy, and apparently
28:50
Speaker 1: neither one is particularly good, although the studies have are
28:55
Speaker 1: much clearer on alcohol being bad for pregnant women to
28:59
Speaker 1: drink than pot smoking. But there's again from the CDC,
29:04
Speaker 1: there's a pretty famous statistic that three point three million
29:08
Speaker 1: women are at risk in the US of exposing their
29:12
Speaker 1: baby to alcohol. And what they're saying the point is
29:15
Speaker 1: is that even if you um drink just in a
29:17
Speaker 1: few first few weeks of being pregnant UM, it can
29:21
Speaker 1: lead to what's called fetal alcohol spectrum disorders like cognitive, behavioral,
29:26
Speaker 1: physical development disorders from drinking alcohol while you're pregnant, even
29:31
Speaker 1: in the first few weeks. And so that three point
29:33
Speaker 1: three million women number, that's like binders full of women.
29:40
Speaker 1: It um It basically says that is the number of
29:42
Speaker 1: women in the US the CD estimates have stopped using
29:46
Speaker 1: birth control, but haven't stopped using haven't stopped drinking, So
29:51
Speaker 1: those two things could conceivably cross over for a couple
29:54
Speaker 1: of weeks and which could lead to fetal alcohol spectrum disorder.
29:58
Speaker 1: And they're saying like, despite you know what you hear that,
30:01
Speaker 1: you know a glass of wine isn't isn't bad for you?
30:04
Speaker 1: Or every once a while or something while you're pregnant.
30:06
Speaker 1: Apparently the literature combined says no, there's really no safe
30:10
Speaker 1: level of alcohol to drink while you're pregnant. Well, here's
30:13
Speaker 1: the deal is they don't fully know. Like it did
30:15
Speaker 1: some digging, because I know outside of the United States
30:18
Speaker 1: there's is generally a more relaxed attitude, at least in
30:21
Speaker 1: some countries. Um It says here that's uh. This is
30:25
Speaker 1: from an NPR article UH two thousand fifteen study found
30:29
Speaker 1: the alcohol consumption range from UH in Australia, New Zealand,
30:35
Speaker 1: Ireland and the UK. UH. Sometimes it was just like
30:40
Speaker 1: a glass of champagne at a special event. Sometimes it
30:43
Speaker 1: was a glass of wine, and UH once a night
30:47
Speaker 1: or once a week in the third trimester. Sometimes it
30:50
Speaker 1: was twenty ccs of golden grain injected into their neck um.
30:55
Speaker 1: So this one group did uh Luisa Zukolo, he's a
31:00
Speaker 1: health epidemiologist at Bristol, did a study recently and she
31:05
Speaker 1: found it consuming up to thirty two grams of alcohol
31:08
Speaker 1: per week two to three drinks was associated with a
31:12
Speaker 1: ten percent increase risk of preterm birth. Only. Um, but
31:18
Speaker 1: here's the deal is in America they basically say, listen,
31:23
Speaker 1: we don't know for sure the threshold of exactly when
31:26
Speaker 1: and how and at what point in the pregnancy these
31:29
Speaker 1: effects can occur, but we do know this, if you
31:33
Speaker 1: don't drink, you have a chance of not having a
31:37
Speaker 1: risk of fetal alcohol spectrum disorder. And why don't we
31:41
Speaker 1: all just air on the side of caution and wait
31:44
Speaker 1: for the nine months. Well, but that's like a ticklers
31:46
Speaker 1: situation for us dudes to be in chuck because you know,
31:51
Speaker 1: it's it's a that's a real drag. Just just be like,
31:54
Speaker 1: just don't drink for nine months. I'm gonna go have
31:57
Speaker 1: a beer, but you don't drink, Okay, So husband's quit
32:00
Speaker 1: drinking as a show of support or cut I think
32:03
Speaker 1: that's that is definitely what should be done. Yeah, I
32:06
Speaker 1: mean I think people should do what it works best
32:09
Speaker 1: for them. But um, sure, but if your wife is
32:11
Speaker 1: going to not if your wife or your sso is
32:13
Speaker 1: not going to drink um while she's pregnant, then you
32:18
Speaker 1: should not either. I hear your take on that, Okay,
32:22
Speaker 1: I just want to make sure. I'll say it again
32:23
Speaker 1: at the end, I'll circle back up. It might take
32:25
Speaker 1: his people should do it works best for them as
32:27
Speaker 1: a couple. Um. And I will also say this, when
32:31
Speaker 1: you adopt a kid, neither wanted, you have to stop drinking. Right.
32:35
Speaker 1: Problems solved, just throwing it out there. Um. With marijuana
32:39
Speaker 1: during pregnancy, uh, they don't know for sure, um, exactly
32:46
Speaker 1: how that can affect cognitive impairment, but they do think
32:51
Speaker 1: that they have found some uh cognitive impairment results from
32:55
Speaker 1: fetal exposure. Right. But again they don't have like thresholds. Um.
33:01
Speaker 1: I mean, I've heard some doctors say we would rather
33:06
Speaker 1: a mother smoke a little pot if she has a
33:09
Speaker 1: lot of anxiety or potentially depression during her pregnancy, then
33:14
Speaker 1: hopping on pills or having a drink. But again, that's
33:17
Speaker 1: not like some official doctor recommendation. It's very anecdotal. It's
33:22
Speaker 1: like an anonymous comment on from a doctor who will
33:25
Speaker 1: go on named so um. I also said that some
33:30
Speaker 1: some studies have found um, they have linked low birth
33:34
Speaker 1: weight to marijuana use, some pregnancy to So yeah, the
33:39
Speaker 1: upshot is is, what did you say the couples should
33:43
Speaker 1: do with what they think is best? Well, I mean
33:45
Speaker 1: that's my role. Your rule is everyone follow my role? Yeah, right,
33:49
Speaker 1: So there's there's also a big distinction between pot and
33:56
Speaker 1: drinking chuck when it comes to crime, to like a
33:58
Speaker 1: big one. This is probably dobably the clearest line of
34:01
Speaker 1: all and kind of funny. Yeah, well not funny, but
34:07
Speaker 1: the predicted result is a little amusing to me because
34:10
Speaker 1: they did find in two thousand fourteen that the average
34:14
Speaker 1: uh marijuana user, as far as partner violence intimate partner
34:18
Speaker 1: violence goes UM is actually lower overall than people who
34:24
Speaker 1: don't even drink or do drink. It's lower than everybody, right, right,
34:29
Speaker 1: So like, if you're just ignore me, a normal who
34:32
Speaker 1: doesn't drink, doesn't smoke, you're like a ned Flanders type.
34:36
Speaker 1: Statistically speaking, in the first nine years of marriage, you're
34:39
Speaker 1: more likely to commit violence against your partner than a
34:44
Speaker 1: person who smokes pot regularly. It's hilarious. It is funny,
34:49
Speaker 1: like you gotta look look at it a certain light
34:52
Speaker 1: and just kind of divorce yourself from the partner violence things.
34:56
Speaker 1: I mean nothing about that. It's funny. I just picture
34:58
Speaker 1: like the the stone person on the couch being like, well, no,
35:02
Speaker 1: of course, I'm not gonna get mad and hit you, right,
35:05
Speaker 1: why I ought to I forgot what I ought to do.
35:09
Speaker 1: So on the other end of the spectrum, alcohol is
35:13
Speaker 1: linked to a surprising an alarming amount of crime. The
35:19
Speaker 1: Partner of Justice says that alcohol is a factor in
35:23
Speaker 1: fort of the violent crime in the United States, and
35:28
Speaker 1: there was a survey of two million convicted offenders who
35:31
Speaker 1: were currently in jail at the time of the survey.
35:34
Speaker 1: Thirty seven percent said they were drinking at the time
35:36
Speaker 1: they committed their crime. So that for partner violence too,
35:40
Speaker 1: that's a bet it's way higher. Even it is that
35:42
Speaker 1: was the highest. One was men drinking, but also women
35:45
Speaker 1: drinking too, and they had a higher Those are believe
35:48
Speaker 1: are the two highest incidences of intimate partner violence in
35:51
Speaker 1: the first nine years of marriage. If the show Cops
35:54
Speaker 1: can anecdotally tell a tale is that of the home
35:58
Speaker 1: visits where the husband and wife are both bombed and
36:03
Speaker 1: pushing each other around. Is uh, that's kind of like
36:07
Speaker 1: every every episode of Cops. Basically, it's definitely got that one.
36:11
Speaker 1: I still watch that show me now, and then Emily
36:13
Speaker 1: gets so upset at me. It's on all the time still,
36:17
Speaker 1: it's like Golden Girls. Sometimes sometimes I'll catch a little
36:23
Speaker 1: bit of one and just remember, like, oh, I used
36:25
Speaker 1: to watch this in college and think it was a hoot,
36:27
Speaker 1: and then part of me is like so depressing. It's
36:30
Speaker 1: so depressing watching it that I can't even you know,
36:33
Speaker 1: watch for five minutes. Man, I was. I tweeted the
36:37
Speaker 1: other day that I used to think, um, humanity was
36:40
Speaker 1: on the whole like generally decent and good, and then
36:43
Speaker 1: I started watching a lot of forensic Files. Yeah I
36:47
Speaker 1: should watch that. I don't think you should. Man, it
36:50
Speaker 1: really will kind of change the way you look at
36:52
Speaker 1: people that people do some really bad stuff. Yeah, it's
36:57
Speaker 1: really really depressing. He's kind of losing a measure of
37:00
Speaker 1: faith in humanity because the way that the show presents
37:04
Speaker 1: it too is still like a matter of fact, this happened,
37:07
Speaker 1: and you know, this person picked up a rock and
37:11
Speaker 1: beat there their friend over the head and then took
37:14
Speaker 1: their five dollars. You know, stuff like that. Do you
37:18
Speaker 1: want to take a break, We said, okay, let's take
37:21
Speaker 1: a break and we'll we'll talk about driving while intoxicated
37:25
Speaker 1: right after this. All right, we're back. Um, here's the
37:54
Speaker 1: deal with driving drunken stoned? Um four. Sure you shouldn't
38:01
Speaker 1: be doing either. We're not endorsing either one. But the
38:04
Speaker 1: statistics and studies roundly say that when you were drinking,
38:08
Speaker 1: you are way more likely to be like, I can
38:12
Speaker 1: take this curve, it's eighty Uh, I'm fine to drive.
38:17
Speaker 1: And people that are stone that are like, I need
38:20
Speaker 1: to be super careful because I'm a little high right now,
38:23
Speaker 1: and I'm going to be extra careful and drive even
38:26
Speaker 1: slower than I should. Yeah, Like that is what the
38:29
Speaker 1: studies show. Yeah, the in the differences are so pronounced
38:32
Speaker 1: that you can look at fatal accident statistics and see
38:37
Speaker 1: that in some in some areas, the legalization of pot
38:43
Speaker 1: has actually brought the number of traffic deaths down in
38:48
Speaker 1: those states. And they think that the reason why is
38:51
Speaker 1: because people are drinking less and smoking pot more, and
38:56
Speaker 1: that when you smoke pot, you are something of a
39:00
Speaker 1: You're not a safer driver necessarily, although some studies show
39:04
Speaker 1: that you actually are safer than than people who aren't impaired.
39:07
Speaker 1: That's that's pretty rare. But you're a safer impaired driver,
39:11
Speaker 1: for sure. But I think you've said something very very true.
39:15
Speaker 1: You shouldn't be driving stoned or drunk. It's just because
39:19
Speaker 1: you're you're taking your own life in your hands, you're
39:22
Speaker 1: also taking the lives of everybody else out on the
39:24
Speaker 1: road on your hands, and shame on you for that. Yeah,
39:27
Speaker 1: but I found it very interesting that some of these
39:29
Speaker 1: studies like roundly say that a person um stoned is
39:33
Speaker 1: way more likely to say, hey, you know what, I'm stoned,
39:37
Speaker 1: uh and I need to be super careful, and a
39:39
Speaker 1: person drinking will say, I'm fine, give me the keys,
39:42
Speaker 1: I'm fine. Yeah, no, for sure, for sure. So like
39:44
Speaker 1: that's there's two different ways that being impaired and driving
39:48
Speaker 1: affect you, whether you're stoned and whether you're um drunk.
39:53
Speaker 1: And what tends to happen is if you're drunk and
39:56
Speaker 1: you're you're driving, you typically act more impulsive, lee more aggressively,
40:01
Speaker 1: more recklessly, which are three things that really go poorly
40:05
Speaker 1: with driving. So you're going to tailgate more, you're gonna
40:09
Speaker 1: pass people more, you're going to speed more. Um, you're
40:13
Speaker 1: going to just be an aggressive driver, but also one
40:16
Speaker 1: whose reaction times are not as good as they are
40:19
Speaker 1: normally right when you're stoned. However, the general idea among
40:25
Speaker 1: scientists who are just beginning to study the stuff over
40:27
Speaker 1: the last few years is that you tend to overestimate
40:32
Speaker 1: how impaired you are. Where you smoke some pot, you
40:36
Speaker 1: feel stoned. Now you've gotten behind the wheeled car, and
40:39
Speaker 1: you're a little freaked out, to be frank, You're worried
40:42
Speaker 1: that you're going to get pulled over, that you're going
40:44
Speaker 1: to cause a wreck, and so you're actually overcompensating for
40:48
Speaker 1: your impairment because you're overestimating the amount of impairment you have,
40:52
Speaker 1: and so you're going to drive slower, like much slower sometimes.
40:57
Speaker 1: The one dude in the article said that the joke
40:59
Speaker 1: is each and Chong driving twenty on the expressway. Yeah,
41:02
Speaker 1: there's the study that just is hilarious to me that
41:06
Speaker 1: that in driving simulators, these these people who were conducting
41:10
Speaker 1: the study had to remind the stone drivers to keep
41:13
Speaker 1: up to the speed limit, like they kept dropping below
41:16
Speaker 1: the speed limit. They also tend to give more distance
41:20
Speaker 1: between the next car and their car, even when compared
41:23
Speaker 1: to nonimpaired drivers. Yeah, and the one thing, uh that
41:27
Speaker 1: I found remarkable was that when they did the UM
41:31
Speaker 1: simulated experiments, people under the influence of marijuana performed worse
41:38
Speaker 1: than they did in the real driving experiment. So, in
41:41
Speaker 1: other words, in the room with a simulator, they might
41:43
Speaker 1: have goofed up some, but when they actually got behind
41:45
Speaker 1: the wheel, they again turned on some switch that was like,
41:49
Speaker 1: all right, gotta be super careful, right, So interesting. Yeah,
41:52
Speaker 1: and and even more to the point, you they if
41:55
Speaker 1: you take the individual things that driving were wires like coordination,
42:02
Speaker 1: paying attention, reaction time. If you test those things individually
42:06
Speaker 1: outside of the context of driving, people who smoke pot
42:09
Speaker 1: routinely do worse UM on those things. But again, yeah,
42:12
Speaker 1: when they get behind the wheel, it's like it's serious
42:16
Speaker 1: time for for people who smoke pot. That So the
42:21
Speaker 1: thing about that, though, is that the studies find that
42:24
Speaker 1: that's true up to a certain point, that when you
42:27
Speaker 1: pass a certain level of impairment, then all of a sudden,
42:31
Speaker 1: your chances of being responsible for a fatal accident go
42:36
Speaker 1: up dramatically. And what they found is that that that
42:40
Speaker 1: point correlates possibly to um a a th HC content
42:45
Speaker 1: in your blood of about five parts per billion or
42:49
Speaker 1: five nano Graham's per leader, Yes, which is very it's
42:54
Speaker 1: a very controversial number. It's a controversial amount well, and
42:57
Speaker 1: it's um at this point, like a breathalyzer. We did
43:01
Speaker 1: a show on breathalyzers. It was Boy, that was a
43:03
Speaker 1: tough one. Yeah, I remember how complicated those things are. Yeah,
43:07
Speaker 1: that was very technical and tough. But there's like a
43:10
Speaker 1: magical crystal involved in them. But with a breathalyzer, like
43:14
Speaker 1: you can tell when someone is literally drunk at that moment.
43:18
Speaker 1: Um With with marijuana, you're doing blood and urine tests
43:23
Speaker 1: that shows that you have marijuana in your system. If
43:27
Speaker 1: you are a heavy marijuana user, you could be stone
43:30
Speaker 1: cold sober and show marijuana in your system. So they
43:33
Speaker 1: don't really have a full proof way of testing like
43:38
Speaker 1: pulling someone off the street but from behind the wheel
43:40
Speaker 1: of a car and seeing if they were stoned at
43:43
Speaker 1: that moment. So the and that's one of the reasons
43:45
Speaker 1: why some states are starting to adopt that five parts
43:48
Speaker 1: per billion threshold because apparently studies find that if you're
43:53
Speaker 1: a regular smoker and you've got a bunch of THHC
43:56
Speaker 1: in your body that's accumulated, but you haven't smoked, we
44:00
Speaker 1: lee you're not gonna be over five parts per billion, okay.
44:06
Speaker 1: And then the other one is that that that statistic
44:09
Speaker 1: that says that your chances of being in a fatal
44:12
Speaker 1: crash increased dramatically at five over five parts per billion.
44:16
Speaker 1: So that's why some states are adopting it, but some
44:19
Speaker 1: other studies, especially once out of Europe, are like, WHOA,
44:22
Speaker 1: that is way too high a limit. It should be
44:25
Speaker 1: more like one part per billion um. I think they're
44:28
Speaker 1: trying to land on the right number. They definitely are.
44:30
Speaker 1: I think Sweden is adopting a one part per billion
44:34
Speaker 1: um limit, and they're apparently famous for being really strict
44:39
Speaker 1: about impaired driving, so they kind of set the trend
44:42
Speaker 1: on the one end of the spectrum, whereas the US
44:45
Speaker 1: kind of edges towards the other end of the spectrum.
44:48
Speaker 1: Like with blood alcohol content, I think the legal limit
44:51
Speaker 1: in most states is point oh eight percent, which is
44:55
Speaker 1: about I think for like a hundred and eighty pound man,
44:59
Speaker 1: that like three or four drinks in an hour, and
45:03
Speaker 1: I mean three or four drinks in an hour and
45:05
Speaker 1: getting behind a car that is a lot that you're
45:08
Speaker 1: not driving very well. It's like an arbitrarily high number
45:11
Speaker 1: if you really think about it. Part of the other
45:14
Speaker 1: problem too with testing for whether somebody is impaired UM
45:18
Speaker 1: by pot or reach some sort of some limit or threshold,
45:23
Speaker 1: is that there's no UM there's no real reliable way
45:28
Speaker 1: for testing it on the side of the road, including
45:30
Speaker 1: that roadside UM field sobriety test. They make you stand
45:34
Speaker 1: on one foot and make you um walk, heal the
45:37
Speaker 1: toe and then turn around. And I think there's a
45:40
Speaker 1: third part to it too, and that's actually really good
45:43
Speaker 1: at catching drunk people. It catches like percent of people
45:45
Speaker 1: who are drunk at the time, but it only catches
45:48
Speaker 1: like thirty percent of people who are stoned. So the
45:51
Speaker 1: cops are starting to come up against this, these new
45:55
Speaker 1: laws where you're allowed to smoke pot, but how much
45:57
Speaker 1: is too much to get behind the wheel of a car,
45:59
Speaker 1: And there's a real guidance and they don't really have
46:01
Speaker 1: any way of testing. And again, like you said, in
46:04
Speaker 1: ten years, all of this will be resolved. But UM
46:08
Speaker 1: for the time being. It's kind of like the Wild
46:10
Speaker 1: West as far as driving while impaired by pot legislation
46:14
Speaker 1: is concerned. Yeah. I got pulled over coming home from
46:17
Speaker 1: college to Atlanta one time. Uh, only time I've ever
46:21
Speaker 1: had like a field sobriety test done on me, and
46:24
Speaker 1: he flat out asked me, He's like, Mr Bryant, have
46:26
Speaker 1: you been smoking marijuana? After he put me through it,
46:28
Speaker 1: because he did the thing where you follow the finger
46:32
Speaker 1: with your eyeballs. Yeah, that's the third part. And I
46:35
Speaker 1: think it's supposed I'm not sure what's supposed to happen,
46:37
Speaker 1: like your eyeball twitches or something once it reaches the edge.
46:40
Speaker 1: I think it bounces up and down while it's going
46:43
Speaker 1: left or right. Okay, well I'm not sure. All I
46:45
Speaker 1: know is he told me, you know, keep your head
46:47
Speaker 1: forward and follow with your eyes. And I turned my
46:49
Speaker 1: head and followed his finger, and I was just I
46:52
Speaker 1: was nothing. I was sober as a judge, and I
46:54
Speaker 1: was just nervous because I've never been pulled over on
46:57
Speaker 1: the side of the road and told to walk a line.
47:00
Speaker 1: And he finally just asked me, I was like, no,
47:02
Speaker 1: like nineteen, I was just scared yea, And eventually he
47:05
Speaker 1: was like, all right, getting your VW beetle and drive home.
47:08
Speaker 1: Did you did you take the tack of um crying
47:11
Speaker 1: to get out of the ticket? No, I cried on
47:13
Speaker 1: the inside, okay, which you know I don't think you noticed.
47:18
Speaker 1: This is interesting that I've never you know, that's the
47:20
Speaker 1: only time in my life I've ever been pulled over
47:23
Speaker 1: and given that test. And it was even if you're sober,
47:25
Speaker 1: it's a little nerve wracking, sure, yeah it was. It's
47:28
Speaker 1: it's like that white coat syndrome where your blood pressure
47:31
Speaker 1: goes up at the doctor's office because you're anxious for
47:33
Speaker 1: being at the doctor's office. I know, I remember going
47:35
Speaker 1: like in my brain, he alto he al too right.
47:39
Speaker 1: I was like, wait a minute, this this is no problem.
47:43
Speaker 1: My balance is never a good officer when of that
47:46
Speaker 1: ever works or asofer, it's always fun to throw that in,
47:51
Speaker 1: but be totally sober. Just go ahead and sit in
47:53
Speaker 1: the back of that police car after one. Has you
47:56
Speaker 1: got anything else? No, I mean we should point out that,
47:58
Speaker 1: you know, another a factor with drinking and driving is
48:02
Speaker 1: you know, you drink at a bar a lot of times,
48:06
Speaker 1: whereas they think predominantly if you're smoking pot, you're probably
48:09
Speaker 1: in your home, so you're not driving. Um. There are
48:13
Speaker 1: all sorts of other factors that that go into these big,
48:17
Speaker 1: big statistical studies. But we're we're just at the the
48:21
Speaker 1: eve weird mere babies as a country when it comes
48:24
Speaker 1: to marijuana legislation and study. Yeah, be interested to see
48:28
Speaker 1: where it goes. I'll see in ten years. Yeah, I'll
48:30
Speaker 1: see intent man. Okay, Well, in the meantime, Uh, you
48:35
Speaker 1: can look up well, there's not this article on house
48:38
Speaker 1: to works. You can just look at pop versus alcohol
48:40
Speaker 1: and it'll bring up a lot of great stuff. We
48:43
Speaker 1: worked off of some stuff from Popular Science, from Slate,
48:47
Speaker 1: from actually there's a house stuff works article now I
48:49
Speaker 1: think about it, Live Science, High Times. Some good resources
48:54
Speaker 1: out there. Just hit them up Willie Nelson dot com. Yeah. Uh.
48:58
Speaker 1: And in the meantime, since Chuck said Willie Nelson, it's
49:01
Speaker 1: time for listener mail. Um, this is overlap of podcasts.
49:07
Speaker 1: I don't think i've read this one yet. Hey guys,
49:10
Speaker 1: my name is Neil. I enjoy listening to stuff you
49:12
Speaker 1: should know and stuff you missed in history class, and
49:15
Speaker 1: roller skating and long walks on the beach. Sometimes I've
49:18
Speaker 1: heard the same subject get Daylight on both of your programs,
49:21
Speaker 1: though very recently, you guys did a Mary Celeste episode,
49:25
Speaker 1: and if I recall, Holly and Tracey did the same
49:27
Speaker 1: story not too long ago. UM Josh mentioned a chuck
49:30
Speaker 1: about the woman who painted miniature crime scenes, and so
49:33
Speaker 1: did they. My question is whether or not we ever
49:37
Speaker 1: swapped notes on subjects a cross reference eats cross reference
49:41
Speaker 1: each other's work. UM, where there might be overlap, it
49:45
Speaker 1: could be nice even set up different situations where each
49:48
Speaker 1: podcast looks at the same subject to a different angle. Anyway,
49:52
Speaker 1: it might be a good thing to introduce to the
49:54
Speaker 1: other podcasts to someone who's not listening to it. Keep
49:58
Speaker 1: up the good work. That from Neil in Washington, d C. Neil,
50:02
Speaker 1: I think we've answered this years ago, but we well,
50:06
Speaker 1: I was about to say, we try not to overlap,
50:08
Speaker 1: but no one really pays much attention internally in it.
50:11
Speaker 1: It just happens sometimes. And the only time it's ever
50:14
Speaker 1: been like shoot is when it's literally within like a
50:17
Speaker 1: few weeks of each other. Then we might have wished
50:20
Speaker 1: we would have timed it differently, But we always feel
50:22
Speaker 1: like all the different shows bring different things to the table,
50:26
Speaker 1: and so it's really not a big deal. But we
50:28
Speaker 1: definitely don't check with each other or share notes or anything.
50:31
Speaker 1: We're all on our own little bubbles. Yeah. But also,
50:34
Speaker 1: I mean, if we are aware that one of the
50:36
Speaker 1: other podcasts has already done something like that doesn't preclude
50:40
Speaker 1: us from doing it ourselves, and we would probably mention
50:42
Speaker 1: it if we were aware of it, like go check
50:44
Speaker 1: out their version of it two, because it's always so
50:46
Speaker 1: different enough that it's usually worth listening to both, you know,
50:50
Speaker 1: I agreed. Okay, Well, if you want to get in
50:52
Speaker 1: touch of this, you can tweet to us. There's an
50:55
Speaker 1: official Stuff you Should Know one called s Y s
50:57
Speaker 1: K podcast. I've got my own called josh um Clark.
51:01
Speaker 1: I also have a website called are You Serious Clark
51:03
Speaker 1: dot com. Uh Chuck is on Facebook at Charles W.
51:07
Speaker 1: Chuck Bryant. It's Facebook dot com slash Charles W. Chuck Bryant.
51:10
Speaker 1: You can also hit him up on Facebook dot com
51:13
Speaker 1: slash Stuff you Should Know. You can send all of us,
51:15
Speaker 1: including Jerry and email to Stuff Podcasts at how Stuff
51:18
Speaker 1: Works dot com and has always joined us at our
51:20
Speaker 1: home on the web. Stuff you Should Know dot com
51:27
Speaker 1: for more on this and thousands of other topics. Is
51:30
Speaker 1: it how stuff Works? Dot com