Marijuana

[Dreamstalker]

I support legalization as well. I'd rather deal with a stoner than a drunk (have you ever really seen a stoner get violent?).

Been there, done that, it's interesting but not so much I'd want to get addicted (I have better things to do usually).

I was mildly stoned when coding my C++ final project...I swear the code seemed to make much more sense to me.

I agree about the legalization, but I think the legal age should be 25: right about when your brain gets done developing. This stuff pretty much stops your mental and emotional development dead, not to mention it can pretty much ruin your memory centers.

Yup. Someone I know (we've been in a relationship on and off) used fairly heavily before he dropped out of college, and now can't even complete a required class for his job. As far as mental/emotional development...well, I'm not sure exactly what happened there. His logic when it comes to certain life lessons does tend to be (in addition to wrong) way off-center.

There is a certain genetic marker that increases the incidence of schizophrenic breaks if people who have this marker use pot. I'm not sure how this would be handled though...

[Puckishone]

http://www.wrongdiagnosis.com/a/alco...ts-country.htm suggests that there's an alcoholism factor in Western Europe, Canada, and the US...suggests that 5.5% of the entire population is suffering to one degree or other from alcoholism.

(emphasis and editing mine)

That 5.5% sounds sneakingly like the right side of the bell curve to me. Take a sample of 100,000 people and most of them fall into the mean (the big arching area of the curve). But there are always those who settle into the far-left and far-right ends, and it doesn't disprove that, for the majority, the effects of Substance X (be it alcohol, pot, aspirin, Red Dye #5) aren't addictive/fatal/whatever. In every population there are the average, and there are the deviations from that, all along a continuum. To say that 5% of people will become addicted (physically, I presume) to anything is a pretty safe bet, scientifically speaking, and proves nothing.

That said, I think that until the ban on real scientific research on real marijuana in the US is lifted, there won't be enough good science to prove one side or the other. Personally, I am in the pro-legalization camp for many of the reasons already stated by others, but largely because I believe that adult citizens shouldn't be told what they can or cannot put into their body at their own risk.

[squall]

Marijuana is illegal because of the militant morality messages spread in the late 19th century around most of the world from a variety of religious and social groups. And they weren't necessarily made illegal because it was bad for the health, but because they were "wicked" and "sinful". How alcohol and tobacco escaped this, I believe, was that they were they were the most popular drugs of choice, the cheapest, and the cornerstone to every economy. The countries simply couldn't live without the the tax revenue, and in religious circles, alcohol(wine) was considered almost sacred. So the reason it remains illegal is because of its name and reputation, a reputation that began from a demonization campaign, somehow later justified by its mild, and highly exagerrated side effects. The name "marijuana" became a negative stigma, so no popular politicians are willing to put their career on the line to promote legalization.

I don't smoke it because it is illegal, but I've tried it. Anybody who does smoke it needs to know how to flex their constitutional muscle and refuse to submit to VOLUNTARY searches. The thing that most people don't realize is that if you get stopped for a traffic violation and the cop wants to search your vehicle, you have the right to say no. Just don't be stupid enough to have it where they can see it or smell it. They cannot search your house unless with a warrant, or if you invite them in. If they walk in without a warrant, tell them to march their ass back out. I have refused a search before, not because I had something to hide, but because I was going to work and it was inconvenient.

[Rubystars]

All drugs should be legal. Belladonna is completely legal and it's one of the worst drugs people can take. Why is that?

I'm a conservative person but part of conservatism is not wanting the government in people's business. Legalizing drugs would eliminate a lot of gang violence, free up prison space, and ensure that the drugs people did buy were more pure and less expensive. The latter would help people not to die from them as often and would lessen the need for addicts to steal to feed their addictions.

[squall]

Ummmm no.....that's not the message I was trying to make. There is not a single country on this Earth that does not ban the use of certain drugs.

While I am conservative and don't like the government trying to nanny me on the uses of marijuana, there are plenty of reasons why laws against OTHER illegal drugs are a VERY NECESSARY evil.

Reason numero uno: DRUGS KILL! Heroin, cocaine, crack, and xtc can cause immediate death to some people, death after much reputed use by others. Some people are not schooled in the proper dosage. THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT THAT KIND OF LIABILITY AND THERE IS NO REASON THEY SHOULD! Lawsuits would follow, and the government would lose. Pure drugs!? Don't you mean HEAVILY DILUTED drugs?! Dependence is a very dangerous problem, you cannot quell dependence with a pure or diluted amount, nothing short of lacing it with another drug to counteract dependence.

And you think drunk driving is a problem? Well what about high driving? Alcohol does not compare to an acid trip or a euphoria by any given means. The highways would become much more dangerous. So why would the government sponsor drugs that do that?

And you would have packs of raving junkies on the loose in the streets! Do you want to expose your family to that? Kids would no longer be safe walking to school! They wouldn't even be safe at school! Kids would become part of the drug culture, and all on the government's consciense.

There are many other drugs besides this that should remain illegal of course. Wee NEED drug laws, because as plenty of people who visit customerssuck.com know, there are alot of stupid people in the world. They don't know better what to put in their body. DRUGS LAWS=IDIOT CLAUSE. Believe it or not, some people need to be told not to use their hairdryer in the bath tub. There is not a single country on this Earth that does not ban the use of certain drugs.

Sounds like a liberal idea if you ask me. I can go on all day about this having been around the block several times.

[Rubystars]

Ummmm no.....that's not the message I was trying to make. There is not a single country on this Earth that does not ban the use of certain drugs.

Why does that mean that they should?

While I am conservative and don't like the government trying to nanny me on the uses of marijuana, there are plenty of reasons why laws against OTHER illegal drugs are a VERY NECESSARY evil.

Why would you want them to nanny you on other drugs? It's your choice whether to take them or not.

Reason numero uno: DRUGS KILL! Heroin, cocaine, crack, and xtc can cause immediate death to some people, death after much reputed use by others.

So do alcohol, tobacco, and many other quite legal drugs. Deadly Nightshade, anyone? http://www.herbalfire.com/belladonna.htm

It's worthy to consider whether more people die of them both directly and indirectly now than would die of them if they were made legal.

Some people are not schooled in the proper dosage. THE GOVERNMENT DOES NOT WANT THAT KIND OF LIABILITY AND THERE IS NO REASON THEY SHOULD!

If sold legally over the counter or by prescription, such drugs would come with proper dosage information on the labelling and inserts. It would also come with information on possible risks and side effects, as do current legal drugs.

Lawsuits would follow, and the government would lose.

Do people sue the government when they die of alcohol poisoning? Removing Prohibition was a good thing! The same thing that caused gangsters to operate during prohibition of alcohol is allowing them to operate now during an equally misguided prohibition of other drugs.

Pure drugs!? Don't you mean HEAVILY DILUTED drugs?! Dependence is a very dangerous problem, you cannot quell dependence with a pure or diluted amount, nothing short of lacing it with another drug to counteract dependence.

By pure I mean, if you bought ecstasy for example, you would be getting ecstasy, not DXM or something else sold as it. You would be buying the drug you were buying, and adulterants and additives, if present, would be regulated by the FDA and would be openly admitted to more often than not.

As for dependence, at least those with a dependence problem could openly go to doctors for help without fear of being reported for their drug use.

And you think drunk driving is a problem? Well what about high driving? Alcohol does not compare to an acid trip or a euphoria by any given means. The highways would become much more dangerous. So why would the government sponsor drugs that do that?

The government wouldn't be sponsoring it. They just wouldn't be banning ownership or use of such drugs. Abuse including public intoxication, high driving, etc. would still be illegal. What makes you think these things are not a problem today? Do the millions of illegal drug users never drive while high? Besides, the most common drug blamed for driving deaths is already a completely legal one and legal in most countries.

And you would have packs of raving junkies on the loose in the streets!
Do you want to expose your family to that? Kids would no longer be safe walking to school! They wouldn't even be safe at school! Kids would become part of the drug culture, and all on the government's consciense.

The War on Drugs messages are part of what makes drugs so appealing (a sort of forbidden fruit). Also the false information that's been given out regarding marijuana in particular has caused many people to disregard true information regarding the risks of other drugs, such as the ability of some drugs over time such as ecstasy or cocaine to eliminate your ability to feel pleasure, or of hallucinogens to cause flashbacks or lasting visual problems. If such information was included with every package, those using them would at least be aware of the risks as well as the supposed benefits.

What I don't like being exposed to are street gangs that are active in the illegal drug trade, and 'sex offenders' living in my neighborhood and many others closeby when they should be in prison, because the prisons are filled with non-violent drug offenders.

There are many other drugs besides this that should remain illegal of course. Wee NEED drug laws, because as plenty of people who visit customerssuck.com know, there are alot of stupid people in the world. They don't know better what to put in their body. DRUGS LAWS=IDIOT CLAUSE. Believe it or not, some people need to be told not to use their hairdryer in the bath tub. There is not a single country on this Earth that does not ban the use of certain drugs.

Some of the people that act that way may already be on illegal drugs. Making them legal won't make people who wouldn't take them anyway take them, it will just make the use more transparent, and we can focus more on helping addicts openly.

Sounds like a liberal idea if you ask me. I can go on all day about this having been around the block several times.

I don't think it's liberal, because liberals are definitely in favor of a nanny state as far as things like this go, and it may not be conservative either. I think the best way to describe it is 'Libertarian'.

While I don't agree with Libertarians on some things, I do agree on this issue.

Some of the commonly 'legal' drugs (but not legal in all areas) include Belladonna (a factor in the Manson murders),
http://www.erowid.org/plants/bellado...onna_law.shtml

Salvia divinorum
http://www.erowid.org/plants/salvia/salvia_law.shtml

Datura
http://www.erowid.org/plants/datura/datura_law.shtml

Syrian Rue
http://www.erowid.org/plants/syrian_..._rue_law.shtml

Amanita Mushrooms
http://www.erowid.org/plants/amanita...itas_law.shtml

and many others.

[squall]

Belladonna....belladona...belladona! Is that all you can say is belladona this and belladona that? What has belladona done to you? Maybe it should be illegal, I don't know much about it. Wouldn't you want it to be harder for people to obtain said drug if it has impacted you personally so much?

If speeding were legal, the deaths from speeding would rise. Lives are saved from speeding laws, sure people still break them. Figures show that traffic fatalities are reduced when the speed limit drops only 5-10 mph. Drugs laws...same thing. The whole point is to make them harder to obtain, and send a message to would be distributors. I don't care how much you tell me they are still easy to obtain from joe shmoe on the street, it would make it much easier to get if they were legal. Might as well drop the age limit for alcohol since "kids are going to do them anyway" huh? Might as well drop the drunk driving laws since they "aren't successful" and people do it anyway. Same as making drugs legal....since "people are going to do them anyway", right? Not if I have anything to say about it.....whether it is voting or protesting.

For example, "can I bum a hit of acid" might be as common place as "can I bum a cigarette", or "a stick of gum". And you see nothing wrong with that?

I am not a fan of obsessive quoting or picking apart other people's posts...but alcohol and cigarettes cause many deaths...my grandfather and grandmother died of lung cancer and ehphysema. I got an uncle nearly on his deathbed for alcohol abuse...I am more aware about the dangers associated with these drugs than some people. Unfortunately, they are beyond measurable control in their widespread use.

But drugs like heroin, cocaine, crack....have very high abuse potential. Everybody knows a junkie pays little attention to dosage, especially as their resistance rises. These people will rob their own mother, kill their own mother for just one hit. Use would be more widespread and rampant, it will run unchecked, despite doctor's orders or pharmacy labels. Have you seen what meth addicts look like? And besides, a certain dose of a drug can have different affects from person to person.

People under the influence of drugs are more likely to participate in illegal behavior. CRIME WOULD RISE! Theft, burglary, rape, murder...you bet. I'd wager my life's wages on that. And they are not rampant enough to be as big a failure as the prohibition of alcohol back in the 1920s and 1930s. I'll bet that 80-90 percent of Washington politicians had wine and champagne on their table...President Harding had it and served it to his guests.

The only way that I would sponsor the use of any of these drugs is for medicinal uses....there aren't any for many of these illegal drugs. Marijuana probably has the strongest case for legalization due to medicinal uses.

Yes countries need drug laws, they are a neccessary evil...the idea that we don't need them is anarchist. Anarchists have no moral compass.

[Rubystars]

I listed the legal drugs that are available now including Belladonna because many of them, especially that one, are just as powerful and deadly as the 'illegal' ones. That one was a focus for me because it's possibly the strongest hallucinogen available, completely dissolving reality, and was a factor in the famous Manson family murders.

Why should something like that be legal but many other drugs that only harm the user should be illegal?

There was a time in this country where all drugs were legal, and there was substantially less crime then than there is now.

The Netherlands makes a distinction between 'hard' drugs, like meth, and 'soft' drugs. Maybe there can be a case made for some 'hard' drugs to be off limits, but people will still be cooking them up and selling them.

Transparency allows for better control anyway, and if people can get it more cheaply and of more reliable quality from pharmaceutical companies, then they're much less likely to buy it from some street thug.

[squall]

Hard drugs MUST STAY ILLEGAL! The whole point is to make them harder to get ahold of. It is not highly successful sometimes, but better than the alternative. I'd rather live with the devil I know than to face a future I don't know.

People back 200 years ago were not as knowledgable about what could get them high, therefore experimentation was not advisable to amateurs. People centuries ago didn't spend all day trying to get high as much as they do now, it wasn't widespread. Crime statistics back in years past weren't very reliable because often times there was nobody to report it to within a day's wagon drive. The advent of speedy commerce has given us a wide availability of drugs. More sprawling urban areas, better technology, life becomes easier, but with an easier life comes new evils to replace the hardships lost. Knowledge increases, but knowledge is not always a strength.

The whole point is to make them harder to get. Sure, people will still do it, just like people will never stop driving drunk, or soliciting children online for sex even though dateline keeps busting suckers left and right. That does not mean the drugs should be legal, or that drunk driving should be legal, or child sex legal. Prevention is always the best means, ALWAYS. We do it every day we strap our children and ourselves down with seat belts.

So maybe those psychedelics should be illegal. Talk to your congressmen, it is the "we the people's" responsibility to change the laws. Maybe the use isn't a very widespread danger, no accurate studies or statistics. They must have been overlooked or ignored to remain legal as long as they have.

[Dreamstalker]

Transparency allows for better control anyway, and if people can get it more cheaply and of more reliable quality from pharmaceutical companies, then they're much less likely to buy it from some street thug.

Exactly.

The whole point is to make them harder to get. Sure, people will still do it,

Hard drugs, yes. I vote for legalization of pot in the sense that if it is legal/regulated, the criminal element hopefully vanishes (no more lethal additives and people know what they're getting) and our prisons get a break from the smalltime drug offenders which means those that should be locked up are. I might not go so far as to give full control to the pharm companies, but possibly a handful of independent growers in each region.

just like people will never stop driving drunk, or soliciting children online for sex even though dateline keeps busting suckers left and right.

The burden there is on the parents to teach kids good internet habits such as not blabbing their private info everywhere (if the kids aren't smart enough to figure that out on their own). Kid gave out his/her home address online? Well, who should have taught them not to?

Prevention is always the best means, ALWAYS.

If prevention is the best means, how come abstinence education/DARE/any number of just-say-no approaches have failed?

Abstinence education (and DARE, although abstinence was the first program to earn this comparison) is like, to quote my dad, giving a 16-year-old the keys to a Ferrari and saying "See this? You can't drive it". Not going to work, and in the long run it will cause much more harm than it claims to prevent.

Most of what I remember from DARE is "drugs are bad, mmkay?" I passed that course because I was smart enough to sit there and learn what was expected; I learned the real scoop on various types of drugs later by reading and talking with my parents.

[rahmota]

Well i have to say that the best thing that ever happened for the drug cartels and the gangs and other crimnal elements was the war on drugs. their profits have risen, their motivation to become violent has become common. If the government where to legalize and yet control acces to the drugs in the manner of holland then the drug cartels (the columbian style one not the merck style ones) would loose a great deal of their profits and reason for existing.

In the same way that prohibition led to the creation of people like al capone and the rest of the organized crime syndacates of the 20s and 30s. Unless you are willing to wage and actual war on drugs the same way we are waging a war on terrorism you are never going to win the war on drugs. People will do so no mater what. Be it because they see it as somethign rebellious and cool, or because of whatever other reason they can come up with.

A legal controlled access to cocaine or other "HARD" drugs would actually probably cause a decrease in usage thanks to its "coolness" and "rebel gangsta" reputation going down.

Also the deaths from drug usage would be reduced bcause with the government controlling access, sale and creation of said drugs then you would be sure of getting said drug and not whatever billy methhead cooked up in his basement and is passing off as meth or heroin or whatever.

I'm with Rubystars on this one.

[squall]

If prevention is the best means, how come abstinence education/DARE/any number of just-say-no approaches have failed?

There is no proof of a total failure. There are no laws regarding abstinence in similar age groups except in theologist countries. Drug use since the 1980s is less widespread, and I believe it is because awareness has been increased.

I simply refuse to believe that making a drug widely available would in any way decrease the use. I don't care how much you dilute cocaine or meth, it will always be dangerous and addictive. It creates the need for more. They create unpredictable behavior and the user loses their inhibitions.....and to those of you that say alcohol does the same thing...SHUT UP already! Cocaine and meth are a in a whole different ballpark! They foster violent crime, make people do things they would not normally do. So the argument that they hurt only the user is ludicrous!

Legality of drugs will open the floodgates for new users. Marijuana I can understand because it has a bad stigma attached to it and alot of really biased studies against it. In reality, it is less harmful than alcohol or cigarettes and probably shouldn't be illegal.

PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS TRY TO BREAK THE LAW BECAUSE IT IS THE COOL THING TO DO! That does not mean we have throw the law off the books. Theft will always be one of the most common crimes, that does not mean we legalize theft.

History has shown that when a gang loses its source of income, they find a new one. When prohibition was lifted, most gangs turned to protection rackets, gambling, and prostitution.

The war on drugs is a never-ending war, but as soon as we admit defeat, we lose our society and there will be no innocence. The Iraq war is just pointless any way you slice it, we had no good reason to go in there and now we're just wasting lives.

[Rubystars]

At the very least, it seems like we could stop bothering people who only deal in softer drugs. I'd much rather see the sex offenders in my neighborhood behind bars than someone who sells pot.

Cocaine and Meth are nothing like alcohol, that's true, but does making them illegal stop their use?

[AFPheonix]

I don't care to see drugs that have really no redeemable purpose legalized.
The line of argument with belladonna is flawed, simply because it also has not only homeopathic properties, but also is used in modern medicine. Atropine is distilled from it, and can be used for dilation and as a decongestant.

Cocaine has also historically had medicinal purposes as well. It used to be used a while ago to stop nose bleeds My mom used to use it for her patients waaay back in the day. I imagine they have other things that aren't quite as titillating in their drug cabinets now.

[Dreamstalker]

There is no proof of a total failure. There are no laws regarding abstinence in similar age groups except in theologist countries.

The abstinenence thing was just an example of something well-intentioned that can go very wrong. What about abstinence education in some schools here?

PEOPLE WILL ALWAYS TRY TO BREAK THE LAW BECAUSE IT IS THE COOL THING TO DO! That does not mean we have throw the law off the books.

Legalizing or at the very least regulating pot would get the small-time "hoods" out of the prisons and make sure that the truly violent offenders get locked up where they belong. It would remove a large part of the "cool factor" of breaking the law.

The war on drugs is a never-ending war, but as soon as we admit defeat, we lose our society and there will be no innocence.[/QUOTE]
Call me cynical, but as far as I'm concerned, that loss of innocence has already happened.

The harder drugs can kill. Pot doesn't (except when unscrupulous dealers spike it with PCP or other badness, and legalization would prevent this).