What’s More Dangerous: Marijuana or Alcohol? (Rebroadcast)

Freakonomics Radio

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Documentary, Society & Culture

4.6 • 32K Ratings

🗓️ 25 December 2014

⏱️ 25 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

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Summary

Imagine that both substances were undiscovered until today. How would we think about their relative risks?

Transcript

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0:00.0	Hello, podcast listener.
0:06.6	Time of year being what it is, we are often gushed off, of course, skiing.
0:11.5	Or maybe Martinique tanning.
0:14.4	Hard to keep track, you know.
0:15.8	In any case, this week we are re-broadcasting one of our most popular episodes of the past
0:20.6	year, the past ever, actually.
0:23.2	Hope you enjoy.
0:24.2	Let's begin with a thought experiment.
0:38.0	Imagine a fantasy world that's exactly as the world is today.
0:41.6	Smartphones, cars, podcasts, Jimmy Fallon at 11.35 pm, but two things are missing.
0:48.8	Alcohol and marijuana.
0:50.4	They don't exist yet.
0:51.7	Now, maybe hard to imagine that our civilization's gotten to this advanced stage without alcohol
0:56.3	and marijuana, but that's a different thought experiment.
0:58.7	That's not what I want to talk about today.
1:00.5	What I want to talk about is this fantasy world, the one we have today without alcohol or
1:05.7	marijuana, and then tomorrow, they're both discovered.
1:11.7	What happens now?
1:12.8	How are each of them used and perhaps more important?
1:16.6	How are each of them regulated?
1:18.5	If we were starting from scratch with no cultural or legal baggage, with no preconceptions,
1:26.1	how would we weigh the relative benefits and especially the costs of marijuana versus alcohol?
	...

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