Alcohol and Marijuana Use: Are They on Ethical Par?

I’ve seen a growing resort to a tu quoque type argument by the proponents of recreational marijuana use.  Something close to the following is usually how the argument goes:  If drinking alcohol for recreational purposes is permissible, so too should the use of recreational marijuana be permissible.

Those that reject the tu quoque typically reply with two sorts of responses:  (a) Alcohol does not provide an immediate high and can be used in moderation without producing a high at all; while marijuana cannot do this, and (b) marijuana has worse health effects than alcohol.  Both of these responses need to be adequately supported and both are fine ways to argue if they are so supported.

But I want to explore a different method of defeating the tu quoque, a method that I take to be more persuasive.  

Alcohol is or can be put to use in a good drink.  It’s an essential ingredient to achieving both a kick to the drink as well as a desirable warmth to it.  It’s nourishing and can be relished for its aesthetic qualities.  It often possesses a vast sophistication in its production.  As G.K. Chesterton remarked, “It is quite a mistake to suppose that, when a man desires an alcoholic drink, he necessarily desires alcohol.” This fact about alcohol is attenuated by the following example: There’s nothing odd about a friend asking whether we would want juice, a soft drink, or wine.  Alcohol can be consumed primarily as just a good drink with its potential intoxicating effects being unnecessary to its consumption, both in terms of the intent of the consumer as well as in terms of the actual usage not necessarily producing intoxication.

But wait.  The marijuana proponent can retort:  There’s an established connoisseurship regarding the production of cannabis.  People mix it with brownies, cultivate certain strains, comment on its taste, and so on. Does this not show the fruitlessness of the prior paragraph’s line of reasoning? To show that the answer to this question is a negative, consider the following thought-experiment:

Imagine a device called the “Hedonator.”  Pushing the button on this device sends signals to the brain that produce an emotional high.  That’s the purpose of the device.  Now imagine that the producers of this device begin to manufacture it in aesthetically pleasing wood boxes, they package it with detail and beauty and they give it a pleasant aroma. Now imagine that the Hedonator fails to produce the high upon a press of the button.  The user of this device would feel disappointed, as if it were not working. For it’s the purpose of the Hedonator to produce the high.  The secondary aesthetical details are just incidental to the device.

Marijuana use, I think, is clearly an analogue of the Hedonator.  

By contrast, the use of alcohol does not parallel the Hedonator.  It hydrates and it tastes good, and when these are achieved, the consumer is not disappointed (if he is using alcohol licitly).  The consumer can affirm the goodness of the alcohol upon immediate consumption without waiting for an intoxicating effect.  It’d be a bit jarring for the consumer of alcohol to complain that they ‘didn’t feel anything yet’ upon drinking, while we'd find it perfectly natural for a marijuana user to make this comment upon ingesting impotent weed.  This fact reveals the intent in a typical type of use of alcohol versus the intent to ingest marijuana.  

So the reason people use marijuana is in pursuit of an illicit high, while the typical reason people consume alcohol is in pursuit of an appreciation of alcohol’s tastes and aesthetic qualities.  Of course, if a person uses alcohol in a manner similar to the Hedonator, in pursuit of drunkenness, then they are using it illicitly.  

Most of this is just a straight adaptation from Miravalle’s excellent book “How to Feel Good and How Not To."