Hey podcast listeners, don't forget our new book Think Like A Freak will be published on May 12th.

So if you think you need to set aside a little time on that day for some late reading,

maybe you want to go ahead and call and sick right now just to get it out of the way.

Let's begin with a thought experiment.

Imagine a fantasy world that's exactly as the world is today. Smartphones, cars, podcasts,

Jimmy Fallon at 11.35 pm, but two things are missing. Alcohol and marijuana. They don't exist yet.

Now, maybe hard to imagine that our civilization's gotten to this advanced stage without alcohol

in marijuana, but that's a different thought experiment. That's not what I want to talk about today.

What I want to talk about is this fantasy world. The one we have today without alcohol or marijuana,

and then tomorrow they're both discovered. What happens now? How are each of them used,

and perhaps more important, how are each of them regulated? If we were starting from scratch

with no cultural or legal baggage, with no preconceptions, how would we weigh the relative

benefits and especially the costs of marijuana versus alcohol? Alcohol, I'm not so sure about alcohol.

I wonder if alcohol was discovered today. I think people would be very concerned about the toxicity,

and I suspect alcohol would be banned within 10 years if it became available today.

If marijuana was discovered today, I think people would probably accept it.

From WNYC, this is Freakinomics Radio, the podcast that explores the hidden side of everything.

With your host, Stephen Dubner.

Human Kind loves alcohol.

Steve Levit is my Freakinomics friend and co-author. He's an economist at the University of Chicago.

We should just start by saying that. That it is amazing how widespread alcohol use is,

how much utility people get out of it, and we're going to focus on the negatives now,

...