评论
打印
Here's something most people don't know about marijuana.
告诉大家一个大多数人不知道的有关大麻的事儿。
Officially the U.S. federal government classifies it as a Schedule 1 drug.
美国联邦政府官方对大麻的定性是一级毒品。
That is the strictest classification they have, period. Full stop.
一级也是他们所有定性中的最高级别。是没有任何商量的余地的。
That means the government thinks marijuana is more dangerous than Schedule 2 drugs like cocaine or meth.
这就意味着，美国政府认为大麻比可卡因、冰毒这些二级毒品还要危险。
It means they think marijuana is on the same plane as heroin.
意味着他们觉得大麻和海洛因是同样危险的毒品。
About 3,000 people died from heroin overdoses in 2010.
2010年约有3000人死于海洛因吸食过量。
You know how many people died directly of overdosing on marijuana?
但你知道有多少人是直接死于吸食大麻过量的吗？
Zero.
零个。
And I don't mean zero in 2010, I mean zero in basically recorded human history.
我说的不是2010年这一年，而是人类有史以来的整个历史。
Which isn't to say that smoking hay bales worth of pot is a good idea.
但这并不等于说抽大捆大捆的大麻就是个好主意。
It's not.
并不是。
But notice what I did there.
不过，大家请留意我刚刚那个图表。
You hear that all the time.
大家总是会听到这句话。
That's what we in the media business call the "to be sure" paragraph.
这句话就是我们搞媒体的人所说的“诚然”表。
It's the paragraph where we cover our asses.
就是我们拿来给自己开脱的表。
Almost everyone says that.
几乎所有人都是这么说的。
Even the people who think legalizing marijuana is a great idea don't say it's a good thing.
即便是觉得将大麻合法化是个好主意的人都不会觉得那么抽大麻是件好事。
The argument for legalizing pot isn't that pot is good, but that the war on pot is bad.
大麻合法化的争论焦点并不是大麻是好东西，而是大麻引发的争论是不好的事情。
But there is a way in which legal pot could be a huge public health win.
不过，我们还是有办法让合法大麻成为公共卫生领域的巨大成就的。
I mean one of the biggest public health wins we've had in decades, saving huge numbers of lives.
我的意思是，让它成为几十年来我们所取得的最大的公共卫生成绩之一，成为能拯救无数人性命的成就。
Let's go back to that drug schedule.
我们还是来看刚才那张有关毒品的图表吧。
There is one drug you won't see on there,
有一种毒品你在图上是看不到的，
even though it is a hell lot more dangerous than pot or even cocaine.
尽管它是比大麻，甚至是可卡因都要危险得多的东西。
That's alcohol.
它就是酒精。
The thing about alcohol is it's really bad for you, lethally bad for you.
酒精的问题就在于它对我们真的很不好，而且是要命的那种不好。
I don't want to be a hypocrite here.
我并不想睁眼说瞎话。
I enjoy a drink.
我也喜欢喝点儿小酒。
But the evidence on this, you cannot run away from it.
但有关酒精的危害的证据，我们也不能视而不见。
The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention say there are 88,000 deaths each year attributable to alcohol.
疾控中心表示，美国每年有8.8万人死于酒精。
About 25,000 of them are just direct overdoses.
其中，只有大约2.5万人是自己喝多了丢了性命的。
The numbers here are really amazing.
这个数字真的很吓人。
A Columbia University study found that being drunk increases the risk of a fatal accident 13-fold.
哥伦比亚大学的一项研究发现，醉酒会使致命事故的风险增加12倍。
Pot, by contrast, increases the risk by less than 2-fold.
相比之下，大麻增加的风险才不到1倍。
Then there's all the other nasty stuff alcohol leads to.
除此之外，酒精还会引发其他各种各样让人恶心的事情。
It's a big contributor to violence, to crime, to addiction.
比如，酒精是暴力、犯罪和成瘾背后的一大黑手。
It breaks up families.
酒精还拆散了无数的家庭。
It gives people cancer.
比如它会让人得癌症。
It gives them liver failure.
会让人肝功能衰竭等等等等。
People forget this, but prohibition -- we laugh at it now, but it was happening for a reason.
大家可能都已经把这事儿给忘了，但禁酒令，虽然现在已经成了我们的笑柄了，但它也是有存在的理由的。
People drank more then and it was a scourge.
当时的人喝酒是喝得比较厉害的，但这也变成了一种灾难。
So this is the question with legal pot:
那么，大麻合法化就面临着这样一个问题：
Would people use it as a replacement or a complement to alcohol.
人们是会将大麻用作酒精的替代品呢？还是会将其用作酒精的补充？
If it's a replacement, it's a huge deal.
如果用作补充的话，那可就玩儿大了。
Marijuana is a lot safer to use than alcohol.
因为大麻吸食起来比饮酒安全得多。
People don't die from it.
大家并不会直接死于吸大麻。
They rarely kill others while on it.
而且，吸大麻的人也很少会去杀人。
More marijuana and less alcohol means fewer deaths from intoxication, fewer drunk driving fatalities, less crime, less violence.
多吸食大麻少喝酒就意味着醉酒造成的死亡人数会减少，酒驾死亡人数会减少，犯罪会减少，暴力也会减少。
But if marijuana complements alcohol rather than replacing it, then it's a problem.
但如果大麻被当成了酒精的补充而非替代品，那就有问题了。
If it makes people for whatever reason, drink more,
因为它会让人喝更多的酒，且不管是因为什么原因，
then legalizing pot might actually make our alcohol problem worse.
这么一来，大麻合法化就可能进一步加剧人们的酗酒问题。
Now I'm going to say something that kind of sucks: we actually don't know the answer here.
接下来，我要说一句比较没出息的话：其实我们还没有找到这个问题的答案。
There is encouraging early evidence.
虽然已经有初步的证据，而且是比较鼓舞人心的证据了。
In a survey of Canadian medical marijuana users, 41% said they replace alcohol with marijuana.
对加拿大医用大麻使用者的调查显示，41%的人表示他们会用大麻代替酒精。
Another survey of California medical marijuana users found they drank less than the national average.
针对加州医用大麻使用者的调查也发现，他们的饮酒量是低于全国平均水平的。
But those are medical marijuana users.
问题是，这些调查对象都是医用大麻使用者。
They might be different from the general population.
他们和普通人群之间可能还是有一定差异的。
People using marijuana for fun might have a very different relationship to alcohol than people using marijuana because they're sick.
为了消遣吸食大麻的人与酒精和因为生病吸食大麻的人与酒精可能是截然不同的两种关系。
But this isn't just something we can study, something that we can affect, that we can change.
问题是，这个问题并不是我们能拿来研究，能影响，能改变的事情。
Since we know that a lot of people want to use some kind of mind-altering substance,
因为我们知道很多人都想用能改变思想的东西来改变大家，
we could arrange public policy to push them towards the safer one.
那我们就能够左右公共政策，推动它们朝更安全的方向发展。
But right now, we can't because the federal government, against all the evidence,
但这一次我们不能了，因为联邦政府无视种种证据，
thinks that marijuana is an incredibly, insanely dangerous substance with absolutely no redeeming value under any circumstance.
依然坚持认为大麻是一种极其，无比危险的东西，是无论如何都没有补偿价值的东西。
What do they smoke?
他们抽的是什么？
