Consider the latest news article states:
Total marijuana demand tops ice cream.
What might this imply? Well to me it implies that people get a greater high from marijuana than they do from ice cream. The deeper and more important question to ask in my opinion is whether ice cream is actually more unhealthy than marijuana?
I will suggest now that ice cream is actually more unhealthy than marijuana. Ice cream if over consumed causes obesity. Ice cream is packed with sugar and some forms of ice cream even have the toxic high fructose corn syrup which is a processed sugar that the body has great difficulty dealing with. I would suggest that ice cream has a definite negative impact on human health as it also contains dairy which for some who are lactose intolerant can cause problems.
Because ice cream is a high calorie food it contributes to the epidemic of obesity. I will define it more precisely as the increasing body fat percentages in the US population over time. Body fat percentages are going up, health tends to decline as body fat to muscle ratio changes in favor of greater fat percentages to muscle. Now I must state the studies do not show that high body fat percentage specifically causes diseases like diabetes, heart disease, etc, but merely that there is a correlation. It has been shown though that body fat distribution in specific does seem to be a causal link for insulin resistance, which is heavily associated with development of type 2 diabetes.
A person can say that dairy has positive health benefits. In fact the analysis of studies suggest that it is the case that overall dairy is either neutral or healthy (it doesn't directly cause disease). At the same time a person can also say that cannabis (THC) has positive health benefits. Cannabis for example has been shown to slow the spread of cancer, to reduce glaucoma risk, to treat eating disorders. At the same time for most people who consume cannabis moderately there are no negative consequences. Excessive consumption of cannabis or consumption by individuals who have underlying susceptibility for mental illness, it can lead to negative health or psychological consequences.
Additionally, cannabis is shown not to be healthy for children because it could disrupt the brain development of the child. This doesn't seem to be the case with adults but more studies have to be conducted. Overall we can say that ice cream contributes to obesity (it has a lot of calories) with some people being more vulnerable to obesity than other people genetically while we can also say that cannabis impacts the brain with some people more vulnerable to the potentially negative impacts.
The reason I suggest ice cream is more unhealthy is for the most part while cannabis may cause some harm it doesn't seem to create diseases which are life threatening. I haven't heard of anyone dying of a heart attack from years of consuming cannabis but this can happen if a person consumes too much ice cream for too long. We do not usually heath of people developing cardiovascular diseases or cancer from smoking cannabis but the two main causes of death are cardiovascular disease and cancer.
Result so far is ice cream is more harmful to human health than cannabis. Of course someone can invent sugar free healthy ice cream or even blend cannabis oil into ice cream so these opinions are not set in stone. The assumptions here are to compare consuming standard ice cream (which contains processed sugar) and standard cannabis which recreational users typically intake. What are your thoughts and which would you say is more unhealthy?
Genetics play a major role in body fat distribution. Some people can also seemingly grow new fat cells while oter people become insulin resistant very quick.
Ice cream (and junk food in general) can be very addictive to some people. People have died from over eating.
Cannabis can be addictive to some people, but I don't see a lot of deaths directly caused by cannabis.
Moderate consumption of cannabis or ice cream seems to have no lasting negative impact on health. Over consumption on the other hand is what matters. This means anyone can eat a bowl of ice cream a few times a year or consume cannabis a few times a year. If someone does it a few times a day, for many years in a row, then it's likely to cause problems.
Genetics play a major role in body fat distribution. Some people can also seemingly grow new fat cells while oter people become insulin resistant very quick.
Ice cream (and junk food in general) can be very addictive to some people. People have died from over eating.
Cannabis can be addictive to some people, but I don't see a lot of deaths directly caused by cannabis.
Moderate consumption of cannabis or ice cream seems to have no lasting negative impact on health. Over consumption on the other hand is what matters. This means anyone can eat a bowl of ice cream a few times a year or consume cannabis a few times a year. If someone does it a few times a day, for many years in a row, then it's likely to cause problems.
References
- Thorning, T. K., Raben, A., Tholstrup, T., Soedamah-Muthu, S. S., Givens, I., & Astrup, A. (2016). Milk and dairy products: good or bad for human health? An assessment of the totality of scientific evidence. Food & nutrition research, 60(1), 32527.
- Hjorthoj, C., Albert, N., & Nordentoft, M. (2018). O9. 1. Cannabis And Other Substance Use Disorders Predict Conversion From Schizotypal Disorder To Schizophrenia. Schizophrenia Bulletin, 44(Suppl 1), S99.
- https://www.forbes.com/sites/mikeadams/2018/05/01/marijuana-gives-health-conscious-consumers-something-alcohol-cannot/#59caa17c630b
- https://abcnews.go.com/GMA/story?id=125912&page=1