Regarding the health risks of pot, I’m frankly not as concerned about those as I am about the risks to others from people who aren’t in full control of themselves. And I have enough personal experience with the substance to know that I don’t want high people driving, babysitting, or doing anything a drunk person shouldn’t. It drives me nuts when people say they’re better drivers or clearer thinkers when they smoke up. Again, I’m not saying prohibition is the answer, just that legalization advocates spread outrageous nonsense that’s far more dangerous to me personally than misinformation from their opponents.

One of the ways I help to ensure my safety is by not drinking or taking drugs. Ever. I don’t need some high moron ramming his pickup through my living room wall because his NORML buddies told him driving while high is less dangerous than driving drunk.

Smoking tobacco would be far less dangerous if it were far easier to quit and the fact that nicotine is a drug as physically addictive as heroin or cocaine makes smoking far more dangerous as a result. I’m no more an advocate of banning tobacco than I am of any other kind or prohibition, but people don’t smoke a pack or more a day because of the menthol. ;)

‘True, but I wish legalization advocates would be more honest about the dangers of drugs, especially pot.’

My approach to this argument is essentially libertarian. I believe the drug war to be a colossal economic failure that leads to large scale violations of otherwise law-abiding individual citizens’ rights and creates an artificial burden on the criminal justice system in the form of unnecessary prosecutions and incarcerations. I don’t believe in downplaying real health concerns.

As for the substantive nature of those health concerns, let us simply say there is great room for debate on the issue and neither side is entirely honest on the issue. The health risks of pot are greater than many advocates of legalization wish to admit and less than many on the other side of the debate would wish to admit.

As for the issue of intoxication, certain kinds of behaviors are unsafe while intoxicated. Regardless of how one became intoxicated.

Someone with a bad cold probably shouldn’t eat oysters just to be safe. ;)

Agreed.

This also shows the arbitrary nature of the regulatory framework we use to protect people from themselves.

Absolutely.

As I said, alcohol and nicotine are legal-but-regulated despite killing far more people.

Fatalities from nicotine poisoning are extremely rare. It’s smoking that’s far more dangerous than eating oysters.

Many prescription drugs are far more fitting of ’schedule one narcotic’ status than marijuana and LSD.

True, but I wish legalization advocates would be more honest about the dangers of drugs, especially pot. All I ever hear from the NORML crowd is how safe and healthy it is to smoke pot. The status quo in the War on Drugs is untenable, but that doesn’t mean weed is the risk-free panacea it’s held up as. And unlike the consumption of raw oysters, irresponsible pot smoking can and does endanger others. It can impair judgment and relax inhibitions just as much as alcohol. I’m not saying prohibition is the answer, just that we would all be safer if there were fewer people drinking and smoking pot to the point of intoxication.

There is a small number of people, from my own weak understanding of medical science (Ron Chusid would probably know this better than either of us, being an actual doctor), that are naturally more susceptible to the bacteria. They experience flu-like symptoms and can suffer more severe complications that require hospitalization, but most of them don’t die under normal circumstances, no.

It is worth noting that there are conditions that compromise the immune system that are more common than the ones listed. The common cold can badly compromise the immune system and lead to many opportunistic infections. This is why it is so hard to get over a cold. Someone with a bad cold probably shouldn’t eat oysters just to be safe. ;)

But I think existing regulation and better education about the reality of the problem is better suited to addressing the problem than a ban. Yes.

This also shows the arbitrary nature of the regulatory framework we use to protect people from themselves. As I said, alcohol and nicotine are legal-but-regulated despite killing far more people. Many prescription drugs are far more fitting of ‘schedule one narcotic’ status than marijuana and LSD. More people get e.coli from beef every year than get sick from oysters. Yet it is just alien to consider banning beef, no matter how aggressively the PETA crowd might want it to happen.

From what I’ve read, the people who die from this particular type of bacteria have compromised immune systems due to AIDS, cancer, diabetes, etc. Except for the rare cases in which people are not aware of their conditions, these deaths could be avoided if immunocompromised patients stayed away from raw oysters. Unfortunately, there’s a lot of misinformation out there. For example, many people think eating raw oysters with hot sauce or an alcoholic beverage will kill the bacteria. So I think stringent enforcement of food safety regulations and a renewed emphasis on menu labeling and patient education are necessary to eliminate this infection.

I think raw oysters are pretty disgusting, but then it’s a lot more unhealthy for me to eat deep-fried clams and scallops (which I love) than it is for someone to eat raw oysters. Yes, all oysters carry the bacteria, but only a relative handful of people are sensitive enough to the bacteria to get sick and even smaller percentage of them suffer serious health risks. The majority of oyster deaths are not due to the natural bacteria in oysters themselves, but because of poor food safety procedures in restaurants that lead to more ordinary forms of food poisoning… like storing the oysters for too long and serving spoiled oysters instead of fresh.

While I applaud the FDA doing its job properly, this is not such a case. This is a case of heavy-handed over-regulation that serves no purpose but to protect people from making bad personal choices. If they want to address a real problem, they should work on enforcing existing food safety regulations at ‘street level.’ I might even go so far as to call this bureaucratic laziness on the part of the FDA, selfishly trying to eliminate a need for proper procedure in this area.