Abolish the DEA.

[beefheart]

Yep, legalize it all in the name of Liberty.....:roll:

Massachusetts Towns Communities destroyed by heroin and opioid abuse
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...ssachusetts/FJksUU8hlYJN4Yl4mCKwkI/story.html

There's no Liberty without law and order

Hey Fenton, how many people have ever died from marijuana overdoses?

 

[Henrin]

Yep, legalize it all in the name of Liberty.....:roll:

Massachusetts Towns Communities destroyed by heroin and opioid abuse
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...ssachusetts/FJksUU8hlYJN4Yl4mCKwkI/story.html

There's no Liberty without law and order

That's not the basis of his argument.

And I quote:

"Vices are those acts by which a man harms himself or his property.

Crimes are those acts by which one man harms the person or property of another.

Vices are simply the errors which a man makes in his search after his own happiness. Unlike crimes, they imply no malice toward others, and no interference with their persons or property.

In vices, the very essence of crime — that is, the design to injure the person or property of another — is wanting.

It is a maxim of the law that there can be no crime without a criminal intent; that is, without the intent to invade the person or property of another. But no one ever practices a vice with any such criminal intent. He practices his vice for his own happiness solely, and not from any malice toward others." - Lysander Spooner

 

[TheGoverness]

hey fenton, how many people have ever died from marijuana overdoses?

Billions!

 

[Fenton]

LOL what? That's not a opinion. Alcohol IS worse.

Yes, Alcohol when ABUSED can be very destructive to the alcoholic and their familes and friends, but the average drinker is not a raging alcoholic

Lets compare the effects and consequences of marijuana and alcohol without exaggerating the effects of one substance to justify the legalization of the other

Alcohol is processed and broken down by the Liver relatively quickly and its effects wearing off by the next morning unless you over do it. Then you may have to contend with a hang over but your BAC has dropped substantially

Not Marijuana and especially not the newer highly potent forms of hydro. You get high that night and by the time you wake up there's a good chance your still impaired

Amd then there's the numerous studies Ive posted in these debates that get ignored out of hand by those who support legalization

Like this one for example
Experts: Pot Harms The Teenage Brain

 

[Fenton]

View attachment 67205645

First, if marijuana was legal on all 50 States the numbers for marijuana related deaths would shoot up expontially.

Next, if your standard for legalization is based on whether or not you can die from a overdose then you mist support the legalization of LSD

How many people have died from overdosing on acid ?

 

[Henrin]

First, if marijuana was legal on all 50 States the numbers for marijuana related deaths would shoot up expontially.

That's interesting. Why would that be the case? Plenty of people use right now and yet no one is dying. Why would people all of a sudden start dying if it was legal?

 

[beefheart]

First, if marijuana was legal on all 50 States the numbers for marijuana related deaths would shoot up expontially.

Next, if your standard for legalization is based on whether or not you can die from a overdose then you mist support the legalization of LSD

How many people have died from overdosing on acid ?

No, they wouldn't. You can't die from an overdose of marijuana.

And, then you make a terrible logical fallacy saying that I must support LSD.

Once again, your failure on this subject is laughable.

Officer Joe Friday and all his scary lies are dead, sorry you were left behind.

 

[JasperL]

here is my take and commonsense needs to be used. if someone is carrying
a single joint or something write them a fine and send them on their way.

Why fine them at all? Do we need to start issuing fines whenever we find someone carrying a beer, or drinking in a bar? Why not?

I appreciate that a fine is better than a criminal charge and jail sentence, but a fine perpetuates the same wrongheaded notion that getting high should be punished.

If they are carrying bags of the stuff then that is different. Black markets and cartels
are thriving in CO and everywhere else they have legalized it.

OK, but they were "thriving" before legalization as well since before legalization there was nothing BUT black markets and 'cartels' dealing in pot. The relevant question is whether legalization has reduced black market activity, and the related crimes such as violence linked to protecting markets, etc.

in fact there were about 5 CO dispensaries shut down for black market activities linked
to cartels. Illegal pot farms are causing major issues in CA and wrecking environmental hazards
all over the place.

Again, black markets in pot aren't new. And the "illegal" pot farms are already and still illegal, so how does this relate to legal pot and legal farms? Does allowing for legitimate growers to exist somehow increase the number and damage of illegal farms? I'd have to be convinced....

Home grows are causing a problem and break ins are on the increase.
in other places they saw the rate of DUI accident almost double.

I'd have to see the stats on that. The big problem with pot is that it shows up in your blood for potentially weeks, and studies that simply demonstrate that a higher share of those killed in an accident test positive for pot don't actually demonstrate that the driver was impaired by pot. Furthermore, in CO at least, driving deaths DROPPED following pot legalization.

sure it is harmless doesn't affect anyone else at all. something tells me that people
like this have smoked a bit too much.

I don't know of anyone who argues pot is harmless, or at least that getting high is harmless. The question is whether the laws against pot do more harm than good and whether it's the business of government to regulate our choices to get high.

 

[Ikari]

(CNN) — The Drug Enforcement Agency will announce Thursday that marijuana will remain a schedule 1 drug, which declares it has "no medical use or purpose," according to a U.S. official familiar with the decision.

The announcement is in response to recent petitions asking the agency to reconsider this designation for the benefit of such research. The DEA will allow more researchers access to the plant in an effort to encourage more study, the source. said.

Since 1968 the University of Mississippi has held the only license issued by the DEA to grow marijuana for research, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Now more universities will be permitted to grow the plant for research.

At least 25 states and the District of Columbia have approved the use of medical marijuana for conditions ranging from epilepsy to arthritis.

DEA fails to loosen restrictions on medical marijuana - CNN.com

Government doesn't really like giving up power, and they certainly want to maintain the monopoly on drug running. That's big business for them.

 

[blaxshep]

First, if marijuana was legal on all 50 States the numbers for marijuana related deaths would shoot up expontially.

Next, if your standard for legalization is based on whether or not you can die from a overdose then you mist support the legalization of LSD

How many people have died from overdosing on acid ?

0^50 = 0 expontially.

I do support the legalization of LSD.

 

[JasperL]

We are. Just not the selective application of Liberty and or doing away with laws just because you dislike them. Laws that apply to and protect everyone in the Community

The argument isn't that we don't like the laws, it's that they have failed, pot is cheap, easy to obtain, available to any HS kid with a cell phone and two friends, criminalizes a choice that should be left to individuals and do FAR, FAR more harm than good, wasting $billions on a war that will never be won.

Dont confuse Liberty with anarchy, they're not the same and stop confusing Libertarianism with Conservatism.

That's true enough. Much of conservatism is rooted in authoritarianism, the opposite of libertarianism. The ideologies overlap primarily when it comes to the interests of business.

The consequences of addiction and drug use dont start and stop at the addict. They extend out to family members, friends and to the community.

True, but the question is whether criminalizing drug use reduces or increases the consequences. It appears obvious to me it's the latter - that the consequences of addiction to pot at least are lessened by treating it as a public health issue instead of primarily a criminal issue.

If I or others who are against legalization live in that Community, then we get to have a say in the issue.

Sure, but what we're arguing here is the merits for or against a NATIONWIDE ban on the substance, with criminal penalties. There are lots of dry counties near me, and the drinkers have to drive to town to get a beer or bottle of bourbon. Not a problem with me.

 

[JasperL]

You know what's ridiculous ?
Your decision to support legalization based on a subjective comparison to something COMPLETELY different

How is it completely different? Using caps lock to assert it doesn't demonstrate their fundamental differences, so explain what those fundamental differences are. I'm at a loss.

When have we ever done that ? Legalization via subjective comparison ? Because your OPINION of alcohol being worse is just that, a opinion

It's not just an opinion. It's easy to find stats on the costs of alcohol abuse - they're orders of magnitude higher than for pot. Alcohol WITHDRAWAL is potentially life threatening, for goodness sake, not to mention chronic alcohol abuse, which is an obviously massive threat to a person's health. I've lived it, and see it weekly at least. We see a lot of people nowadays with opiate and meth addictions, but I can't recall anyone coming to a meeting with a primary addiction to pot, and there are essentially no stats on the health costs of pot addiction because they're too low to count.

 

[JasperL]

Yep, legalize it all in the name of Liberty.....:roll:

Massachusetts Towns Communities destroyed by heroin and opioid abuse
https://www.bostonglobe.com/metro/2...ssachusetts/FJksUU8hlYJN4Yl4mCKwkI/story.html

There's no Liberty without law and order

We're discussing pot - pulls story on something entirely different.

But you've inadvertently made a good point - a great deal of opioid abuse starts with legal painkillers marketed by drug companies, which for years studiously ignored their own data showing MASSIVE abuses of prescription pain killers in various communities. Why would they care? Every pain killer abuser means lots and lots of profits for them. Great story here: 'You want a description of hell?' OxyContin's 12-hour problem #InvestigatingOxy - Los Angeles Times

 

[ludin]

Why fine them at all? Do we need to start issuing fines whenever we find someone carrying a beer, or drinking in a bar? Why not?

Yes you can be depending on what you are doing.

I appreciate that a fine is better than a criminal charge and jail sentence, but a fine perpetuates the same wrongheaded notion that getting high should be punished.

I see no problem with drugs being illegal.

OK, but they were "thriving" before legalization as well since before legalization there was nothing BUT black markets and 'cartels' dealing in pot. The relevant question is whether legalization has reduced black market activity, and the related crimes such as violence linked to protecting markets, etc.

So far it hasn't if anything it has increased.

Again, black markets in pot aren't new. And the "illegal" pot farms are already and still illegal, so how does this relate to legal pot and legal farms? Does allowing for legitimate growers to exist somehow increase the number and damage of illegal farms? I'd have to be convinced....

They are growing in number. Nothing convinces drug advocates of anything.

I'd have to see the stats on that. The big problem with pot is that it shows up in your blood for potentially weeks, and studies that simply demonstrate that a higher share of those killed in an accident test positive for pot don't actually demonstrate that the driver was impaired by pot. Furthermore, in CO at least, driving deaths DROPPED following pot legalization.

Marijuana-related fatal car accidents surge in Washington state after legalization - Washington Times
Study finds 100 percent increase in fatal pot-related crashes in Colorado - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com

I don't know of anyone who argues pot is harmless, or at least that getting high is harmless. The question is whether the laws against pot do more harm than good and whether it's the business of government to regulate our choices to get high.

people argue this all the time.

 

[JasperL]

Yes you can be depending on what you are doing.

OK, fine, treat pot like alcohol and I'm good.

I see no problem with drugs being illegal.

Why? Specifically what good can you point to coming from the War on Pot? It's cheap, easily available, widely used. What has the 'war' accomplished except lined the pockets of a bunch of drug warriors, prisons, etc.

So far it hasn't if anything it has increased.

Black market has increased with legalization? Please show your work.

They are growing in number. Nothing convinces drug advocates of anything.

Assertions backed by nothing don't convince many people, so you got any evidence to cite?

Marijuana-related fatal car accidents surge in Washington state after legalization - Washington Times
Study finds 100 percent increase in fatal pot-related crashes in Colorado - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com

As I said, testing positive for pot is NOT an indication pot was a cause. From your own link:

The marijuana industry is questioning the report, as the data does not indicate whether pot was a cause for the accidents.

"(Testing positive for marijuana) could mean you smoked marijuana 3 weeks ago. It does not mean you were impaired at the spot," said Michael Elliott, executive director of the Marijuana Industry Group. "And that's what this report is really failing to distinguish."

Do you have any data that pot legalization has increased the number of traffic deaths? I provided a link and graph showing that they've gone DOWN, not up, or the exact opposite of what you're positing. The theory is instead of drinking, people are using pot, and pot users are less likely to drive, and some evidence shows that drivers impaired by pot do far better than those who drive drunk, although both are clearly dangerous and should be punished severely.

But, if you've got data, show it....

people argue this all the time.

Whatever, I guess people argue pretty much anything including that there are UFOs and Obama will soon start rounding up gun owners and putting them in FEMA camps. The point is the legitimate argument for pot legalization isn't that using ANY drug is "harmless" but whether the War on Drugs is effective, accomplishes any meaningful goal, does more harm than good, etc.

 

[Binary_Digit]

I see no problem with drugs being illegal.

That's just ignorant. Prohibition causes 10x more problems for society than drug addiction ever did. The evidence is everywhere if you just take your head out of the sand and look around.

Alcohol prohibition was such a monumental disaster that they passed a Constitutional Amendment to undo a Constitutional Amendment. Yet some people still parade around the idea of prohibiting other drugs as if the results could be any different. They haven't been. Alcohol prohibition gave us Al Capone, and drug prohibition gave us Pablo Escobar. When's the last time you saw Exxon and Shell stations shooting at each other over the right to sell beer on a certain street corner? You've never seen that because the industry has not been handed over to a bunch of back alley thugs. Your prohibitionist policies have made the drug problem worse and the streets less safe. Congrats.

Drugs are bad, prohibition is worse. There is simply no valid argument against that fact.

 

[Mr Person]

First, if marijuana was legal on all 50 States the numbers for marijuana related deaths would shoot up expontially.

You do realize what happens when you multiply things by zero, yes?

 

[Thoreau72]

I enjoy how we have drugs on the market that have side effects such as kidney damage, cancer, and death, and yet, marijuana is illegal.

If the DEA were to admit that the Emperor Wears No Clothes, one logical conclusion might be there would be no need for the DEA. This simply provides bureaucratic job security.

 

[ludin]

That's just ignorant. Prohibition causes 10x more problems for society than drug addiction ever did. The evidence is everywhere if you just take your head out of the sand and look around.

Yes it is pretty ignorant to ignore all the devastation and other problems that drugs bring to neighborhoods, families, and communities.

Alcohol prohibition was such a monumental disaster that they passed a Constitutional Amendment to undo a Constitutional Amendment. Yet some people still parade around the idea of prohibiting other drugs as if the results could be any different. They haven't been. Alcohol prohibition gave us Al Capone, and drug prohibition gave us Pablo Escobar. When's the last time you saw Exxon and Shell stations shooting at each other over the right to sell beer on a certain street corner? You've never seen that because the industry has not been handed over to a bunch of back alley thugs. Your prohibitionist policies have made the drug problem worse and the streets less safe. Congrats.

Drugs are bad, prohibition is worse. There is simply no valid argument against that fact.

stating your opinion as fact is a fallacy.
The fact is that drugs are illegal because they do way more harm than alcohol does. don't
believe me then go walk any drug invested neighborhood and look at how prosperous it is.

 

[Casper]

(CNN) — The Drug Enforcement Agency will announce Thursday that marijuana will remain a schedule 1 drug, which declares it has "no medical use or purpose," according to a U.S. official familiar with the decision.

The announcement is in response to recent petitions asking the agency to reconsider this designation for the benefit of such research. The DEA will allow more researchers access to the plant in an effort to encourage more study, the source. said.

Since 1968 the University of Mississippi has held the only license issued by the DEA to grow marijuana for research, which is funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse. Now more universities will be permitted to grow the plant for research.

At least 25 states and the District of Columbia have approved the use of medical marijuana for conditions ranging from epilepsy to arthritis.

DEA fails to loosen restrictions on medical marijuana - CNN.com

I agree, time for the DEA to be closed, if they are going to ignore science and the will of the people they have outlived their usefulness.

 

[Mr Person]

stating your opinion as fact is a fallacy.

Good rule!

The fact is that drugs are illegal because they do way more harm than alcohol does. .

:shock:

Not only did you just state your opinion as if it were a fact, your opinion is completely wrong. This is more for others' benefit than yours:


1. Harry Anslinger was put in charge of the Dept. of Prohibition in 1929 and once prohibition ended, he was in charge of a useless government bureaucracy. He had not previously said that cannibis was a problem. He in fact said "there is no more absurd fallacy" than that it makes people violent. But once prohibition ended, he started claiming that marijuana turns people into "a wild beast" in "a delerious rage", etc. He wrote to 30 leading scientists at the time and asked them if it was dangerous and if there should be a ban. 29 said no and no. He then trumpeted the one dissenting scientist to the public and also suggested that Victor Licata murdered his family because he was stoned. (In fact, he played a part in forcing Mexico to ban it by convincing the U.S. to cut all supply of legal painkillers to Mexico until they played ball). That was beginning #1

2. Americans were familiar with cannibis because it was included in tons of tinctures and medicines available at the time. But, around the time of the Mexican revolution, Mexicans who used something they referred to as "marijuana". The media/Americans/politicians had already decided to fight the influx of Mexcians, so they included their use of this "marihuana" in the list of their allegedly "dangerous behaviors". All this was designed to turn public animosity against the newcomers. In the same way that SF had earlier outlawed opium so that they could arrest and deport Chinese immigrants, El Paso decided to outlaw marihuana and use it to arrest/deport Mexicans.

3. #2 also merged with an effort to target black people, in that politicians began to allege that marijuana caused black people to become violent and rape white women (black men raping white women being the oldest racist bogeyman).



You are either lying or completely ignorant of what the actual facts are.



Read the first 10-30 links: https://www.google.com/search?q=why+marijuana+was+made+illegal&ie=utf-8&oe=utf-8

 

[Mr Person]

Similarly BS was seen at the rise of the crack epidemic. Politicians scare-mongered, claiming that crack cocaine was super duper dangerous and should be treated much more harshly than powder cocaine. This was passed off as fact when it was contradicted by medical science. So federal law would penalize an amount of crack-cocaine the same as 100 times that amount in powder form.

But they're roughly equal in dangerousness when you add it all up. For example, crack-cocaine is more addictive given the rapid delivery and come down, but powder cocaine is more dangerous to one's health because an individual can ingest far more at once, and if they sufficiently stuff their nose, they can end up OD'ing when they didn't intend to. Crack has to be taken hit by hit with the lungs, so the risk of accidentally taking more than one intended is far lower.

 

[Tanngrisnir]

Marijuana-related fatal car accidents surge in Washington state after legalization - Washington Times
Study finds 100 percent increase in fatal pot-related crashes in Colorado - 7NEWS Denver TheDenverChannel.com

Laughable and pathetic to it's core. Those have been debunked countless times here, and yet the True Believers keep reposting them.

MJ-related does not equate to MJ-caused or MJ-influenced.

Your desperation is almost palpable.

 

[Tanngrisnir]

stating your opinion as fact is a fallacy.
The fact is that drugs are illegal because they do way more harm than alcohol does. don't
believe me then go walk any drug invested neighborhood and look at how prosperous it is.

LOL! You just stated your opinion as fact.

Way to pwn yourself. Own the fail.

 

[Binary_Digit]

Yes it is pretty ignorant to ignore all the devastation and other problems that drugs bring to neighborhoods, families, and communities.

stating your opinion as fact is a fallacy.
The fact is that drugs are illegal because they do way more harm than alcohol does. don't
believe me then go walk any drug invested neighborhood and look at how prosperous it is.

First, alcohol is a drug just like all the others. For some reason we have this notion that they're somehow different and thus should be treated differently, but medically and scientifically they're really not. An alcoholic can be every bit as devastating to the user and people around him/her as a meth head, perhaps even more. But we learned almost 100 years ago that even more bad things happen when you prohibit alcohol. Yet we turned around and prohibited a bunch of other drugs instead, somehow thinking the results would be different. They haven't been.

Prohibition is the root cause of almost all the "devastation and other problems" drugs bring to neighborhoods. Ever stop to wonder why there's almost never any devastation when you and your neighbors drink beer at a backyard BBQ? What makes you think it'd be so much different if they could buy MJ or even cocaine at the liquor store instead of beer? Drug cartels shoot each other up because the drugs they sell are illegal. Liquor stores don't shoot each other up because the drugs they sell are not illegal.

Society should encourage people not to use drugs, which includes alcohol. But addiction to drugs is inherently a medical problem, not a criminal problem. So it should be handled by doctors and medical professionals, not the police (unless they're committing other crimes of course).