re: Replacing alcohol with Marijuana.

Replacing one negative with another negative doesn’t help in the grand scheme of things.

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It doesn’t help it’s just another means to high

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Not everything is equal

MJ is much less damaging to health and personal life than abusing alcohol

It's probably better than alcohol, but new studies seem to be coming out every month about the negative effects of long term cannibis use.

I'm sure this will be downvoted, but marijuana is just another way to cope and escape from things. Dealing with the underlying issues will be better for your health and finances.

I've seen these headlines quite a bit recently, but I choose not to read them because while I'm not conspiracy theory minded, in general, I wonder about the reliability of these "studies"...

Definitely don't wanna get off topic, but I always wonder how much of a role traditional pharmaceutical companies play in whatever the media is doing in regards to medical/recreational marijuana. The pharma industry in the US is enormous and their lobbying abilities are powerful. If they want to influence media to report negatively on marijuana, it's gonna happen to some degree.

But like I said, don't wanna get off topic.

With marijuana, I feel that it too often is assumed that it is "smoked" but there are many other ways to ingest marijuana. I have never thought the smoking of anything is healthy in any way, but edibles, topicals, or other methods of inhaling marijuana that aren't smoking are not saddled with the health risks that I think are mentioned in these recent "studies." The impact of smoking has to be separated from the impact of the marijuana itself.

TLDR: smoking anything is bad, marijuana itself.....hopefully it can become unscheduled so it can be eligible to receive more funding towards more research. Otherwise we will continue to be ignorant towards the truth regarding it's capabilities to be used to our benefit, or the other direction...it's capabilities to be used to our detriment, whichever the case may be. We need more intel on the topic.

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They're really just confirmation of the logic that altering your mental state/chemistry frequently will certainly have long term effects.

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but are they good long term effects or bad long term effects?

No one knows the answer to that yet, I guess. Until there is more legitimate research done on the effects of marijuana (pay attention to the research conducted in European nations where they are allowed to conduct his research) there will be no answers. I consider most reporting on marijuana health effects to be worthless "whataboutisms" put forth by journalists who have grown tired of writing about the benefits of eating whole eggs...OR....the dangers of eating whole eggs. This never-ending journalistic cycle, swinging violently back and forth like a mad pendulum between two extreme positions, switches every so often. The topics change but the tactics do not, and the general public always feels unsure of themselves. "Do I eat eggs or not?" Coffee? Yay or Nay?

What I mean to say is we are being manipulated, one must read between the lines.
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I'm sure this will be downvoted, but marijuana is just another way to cope and escape from things. Dealing with the underlying issues will be better for your health and finances.

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I upvoted (who cares, right?) because I agree with you on this point, for the most part, but I would ask: "Why not both?"

For example: Let's say I have severe anxiety issues, and I wish to do something about it. I have several treatment choices available to me. I can:
A) find someone who can prescribe drugs to write me a scrip for something to help with my anxiety
B)find a therapist to engage in some kind of talk therapy with
C)find some substance on my own(perhaps medical marijuana, maybe an herbal supplement from my grocery store or Amazon, etc)
D)assess my own situation, learn about dealing with anxiety, work to deal with my own problem using strategies that I've learned about that may treat my anxiety
Etc, etc.

There's almost always gonna be multiple options available to a person. I would use as many as I thought appropriate, but I would always want to use the option(s) where I took control of my own affairs and dealt with the foundational cause of any problems. Maybe I use a drug, supplement, substance, etc to deal with my problem, but I also do other things to solve the problem because my longer term goal is to actually solve the problem(at its core) and therefore not need to rely on any meds or substances at all. However, for some people, whether it be blood pressure, cholesterol, anxiety, whatever, taking medication for life may be the only solution for them and I wish there were less shame associated with lifelong use of medications when it's appropriate. "If ya need it, ya need it."

replacing an addiction with a different addiction is a pretty good strategy

now, you'd rather it be a healthier addiction (exercising, golfing, reading etc.) but it's absolutely a good strategy

I gotcha now. I just don't know that many potheads I guess. I live a pretty small life socially speaking and I live in a small town now.

I'm an critical care nurse and my interaction with people is mostly all while I'm at work, so when I run across people who admit to being daily smokers of marijuana they are always daily smokers of cigarettes too. Hardly anybody admits to drinking, they always try to downplay it, even when we know they're lying. They even lie when they know WE KNOW they're lying.

It's hard to know exactly what bad habit from what substance is causing some of these people to be so sick.

Last daily marijuana user I had as a patient was on death's door, so to speak, had an ejection fraction of 10%(heart muscle is incredibly weak and can't hardly pump any blood) but he was also a long time meth user on top of being the kind of guy who just never went to the doctor, ever, for anything....until he started passing out in his 50s from low blood pressure. I think his marijuana use was probably helpful, it may have provided some comfort to him in his final years, he had a pretty miserable life but to me, it was all his fault.