Legalization of Marijuana

[RedAkston]

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[AYSM]

Over the years on numerous discussion forums both liberal and conservative I've found the wacky tobaccy topic is one that crosses the political divide

my position has been the same for about half a century in my endeavor to rid the planet of the evil weed

whenever I find it

I burn it...

Now, considering that I have also been an environmentalist for as many years...

for your health and safety

I filter the smoke through my lungs

The "war on drugs" is bs...back in the 60's when we imported pot from Mexico it came compressed into "bricks"...each weighing a kilo...2.2 lbs

On the other hand we also got supply from Nam...bought it by the pound delivered in large trash bags...no need to compress when you have military transport at your disposal...also handy for importing tartratedexamphetimine sp? 2 ml vials labeled "product of France"...oh yeah...really god AFghan opium/hash complete with government stamp of quality

Marijuana is a wonder drug, seriously...the government FDA holds the patent on the benefits of cannabinoids in neuroprotection...go figure
a drug they claim has no medical benefits...those known to cultures long before America was a wet dream.

A friend of our's who has since passed, was adamantly against mj...I took her into my grown room where she discovered a couple of things

the plant is quite beautiful but more importantly as I showed her the difference in the leaves between indica and sativa she exclaimed, "Oh, there's different types?"

at that point I said yeah and you've got a rather harsh opinion about something in which you don't have a ****ing clue.

How many can explain the different effects of THC and CBD???
I prefer the latter because it does a better job relieving my problems with pain, PTSD and COPD...not to mention a good attitude adjustment.

As to the gateway drug argument...that's bs too...the only reason it might lead to other drugs is because you had to go to a drug dealer to obtain it...I'd bet there's a very low percentage of people who get medical marijuana and then walk out of the dispensary and then go look up a heroin dealer...hell, with what they are doing with prices...prolly get a better deal from the heroin dealer on your pot if it is in his inventory

Btw...not only did I spend a short bit of time as a drug dealer...I went on to spend time as a drug counselor at a juvenile probation camp

You can't get someone to stop unless they want to...granted we were dealing more with serious drugs and not potheads...I've had first hand experience with many

many lifetimes ago

I welcome anyone starting a tread to further this debate.

eace

 

[Southern Dad]

Legalization of marijuana. I look at marijuana as that escape that some losers need to get away from their miserable lives. Personally, I think we should legalize all drugs. Let the losers thin themselves out. Why should we care what someone smoke, snorts, eats, or shoots up? It’s their body.

A couple hurdles are presented with legalization. The first is that we need to have a reliable, inexpensive, and readily available test for current level of impairment for THC. How high is too high to drive, fly, operate machinery? The next will be the need to establish those standards. Law enforcement will need to know this.

What about employers? I can’t think of any profession where I’d not care if the person providing it was baked. Some are obvious. I wouldn’t want to fly with a pilot who just smoked a bowl but what about the mechanic installing the brakes on the new car? Stopping is highly overrated. What about the cook at Kentucky Fried Chicken? Salmonella anyone? Want to go into court with a stone attorney defending your freedom?

In a nutshell, I support legalizing all drugs because the current prohibition on drugs isn’t working. If it were legal, it could be sold in the stores, where it could be taxed. Our prison beds wouldn’t be full of scofflaws that wanted to get high.

 

[shagg]

Why should it be legal? Sure, that would be the question asked by the authoritarian, because people only have those rights they are given, those rights their dictator suffers them to have. But alas, we threw those shackles off long ago here in America. The question should instead be "Why should it be illegal?" Here, prohibitions are not put in place without good reason, with few exceptions. The most glaring exception is Marijuana. Criminalized for reasons known to be false for ~50 years now, for some reason the federal government has always resisted reforming Marijuana laws, to the point that Obama basically called off enforcement on the consumer level without changing the laws! And never, in all this time, have they given justification for this restriction of personal freedom. Nor have they, until very recently, allowed any unbiased research to be done. Somehow, the question "Why should it be illegal?" was never answered, and yet still it remains illegal. Why should it be legal? Because this is America and there is insufficient reason to restrict this personal freedom, that's why.

What does this accomplish, this "we won't legalize it but we won't enforce the laws" attitude? It encourages a thriving black market. The risk, which was already low, drops lower. No sales tax, licensing, inspections, tax IDs, etc. What fool wouldn't start selling weed in high school? A time in your life when you know the records will be sealed when you turn 18, and the courts are reluctant to send kids to jail over weed. The Marijuana itself is unregulated, subject to questionable growing/drying/storing methods, possibly exposed to various mold or fungi, etc. The strength of the Marijuana you buy is uncertain until you smoke it. This is the harm Prohibition causes: it encourages and lowers the risk of the black market, provides a source of illicit income, and poses a small routine risk to the consumer in the form of unregulated consumables.

The benefits of legalization are real and significant. The market already exists, from growers to distributors to consumers. Money wise, everybody but the black market entrepreneurs benefits. Real, legal jobs open, both in day to day growing operations and selling/installing/improving technology/equipment/real estate/infrastructure. The tax revenue.... One need only look at Colorado and the other legal states to see the benefits there. Some of the money would have to be used on education, regulation, and enforcement expenses, but the government makes out pretty good in the deal. More importantly though, it would provide some much needed credibility. As a teen, DARE was a joke. We listened to them tell us all drugs were equally bad. We tried weed, and it wasn't really that bad. "Were the rest of those drugs not really that bad too? Did they lie about everything? Now I'm curious......" This is the lens that all information received via those channels ends up being seen through, even though they were mostly right regarding every other drug. Most problems stemming from legalization involve people breaking the new laws and growing farm more than they're allowed, and/or transporting Marijuana from legal areas to illegal areas. To this, my response is: Enforcement needs to step up, understand their role in ending prohibition and embracing legalization, and do their job. If I'm allowed 6 plants and I grow 200 to sell on the black market, that's an enforcement problem, not a problem with legalization. And if Marijuana was legal in every state, there would be no illegal areas to transport it to.

One final thought: Colorado banned the sale or production of edibles in the form of childrens candy. Infused gummy bears and such are illegal, and I fully support this. No sane moral adult would want to see a child accidentally get high. Legalization obviously wouldn't mean total deregulation. Driving high, being high on the job, underage use ... These issue will come up, and they are not something we should just accept. But they will happen either way, prohibition has failed to prevent or even reduce these issues, and has done quite a bit of harm along the way.

 

[Flouncy Magoo]

Legalization of marijuana. I look at marijuana as that escape that some losers need to get away from their miserable lives.

I know plenty of weed smokers who are in no way "losers."

 

[SmokeAndMirrors]

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Unreservedly pro. The Drug War as a whole is a failure, but in the specific case of marijuana, there's not even any particularly logical reason for its prohibition.

I can clearly understand why something like heroin or meth has a rather complex set of considerations involved, and prohibition may be a tempting solution (though I still don't think it's necessarily the right one).

But I can't for the life of me understand why weed would fall into that camp.

Marijuana is not chemically addictive. It has no potential for lethality. It doesn't cause violent behavior (beyond that which are associated with cartels due to prohibition itself). Gateway theory has been soundly disproved over and over again. Someone who smokes pot is no more likely to progress to harder drugs than someone who drinks. Cigarettes and poverty are actually more correlated with hard drug use than either one of those. So... why?

In a measurement of risk, marijuana is clearly safer than alcohol, and rather debatable with cigarettes due to its high addiction potential -- both legal drugs, and ones which addict and kill millions of Americans every year.

There are people who abuse marijuana, there are risks that can occur due to said abuse, and it is not any safer to, say, operate a vehicle while high, than it is while drunk. No drug is "harmless." Anything that alters the brain has risks. On that note, we really need a better marijuana test that can detect recent use, not just use from any time this month, so that we can actually enforce punishments on people who drive while impaired.

But when taken as a whole, marijuana is certainly one of the safer drugs. I really can't see any logical reason for it to be banned. Hell, in a world where both alcohol and marijuana were legal, and I had a teenaged kid, I'd probably prefer for them to eat pot brownies over getting drunk. Less risk of winding up unconscious.

I've always found it sort of funny that people who probably drink on a semi-regular basis say stuff like people who get high on weekends are "losers looking for escape." It's just another drug, and you're still ****ed up when you're drunk just like you would be when you're baked. I'm sure people said the same thing about people like you during alcohol prohibition. And what's more, you're probably louder and more annoying than most stoners when you're drunk.

Messing with your brain a bit is a millenia-old human tradition. It's just something some people do for fun or bonding. It's not going away, it's not inherently bad, and we do ourselves no favors by pouring endless money into a fool's errand that doesn't even have a coherent reason why we pursue it.

Before anyone asks: no, I don't smoke pot. I don't like it, actually. I'm not a huge fan of drugs generally -- I'm an infrequent and light drinker. It's just that it's plain to see, given any reasonably significant analysis, that marijuana just isn't a dangerous drug.

 

[Harshaw]

Legalize all drugs, period. Regulate them, perhaps, but legalize. The problems associated with legalization are slight compared to the evils and excesses of the "drug war."

 

[Zyphlin]

Moderator's Warning:

Please remember we are in "I do declare..." Do not respond to other peoples posts in this thread

 

[Hawkeye10]

This is a no brainer, we are in dark times headed for darker times, and we are already very sadistic. We need to mellow out, we need to do what we can to defuse the deep tendencies we have towards violence, and we desperately need people to become more aware and to think. Weed helps with all of that, for sure we should allow the medication to flow freely. This civilization is crashing make no mistake about that, technological society as it is currently designed is not working, which means what we have has to go, something that work must and will replace it. This is going to be a very traumatic process, hell it already is, so many people now are so messed up......come on.....you noticed right?????????

 

[American]

I'm trying to stay out of the debate, but I don't think this whole business will turn out like the stoners think it will, in the end.

 

[AYSM]

Lol Hawk, I just followed a link back...wtf?

I'm not even going to try to figure where that came from

puff puff pass

lighten up

 

[Angel]

Legalize all drugs. Control for quality.

 

[vegas giants]

You have 5,000 characters to state your opinion if you choose. The rules of this forum are found here.

Fully support it. We have it here in Nevada without significant problems

 

[Lord of Planar]

Weed has been decriminalized for as long as I can remember in Oregon, and recently it is legal. The good thing about what Oregon has done, is regulate it in a manner that there are still illegal sales. One problem with weed, like other underground products, is the addition of other chemicals to make the effects stronger and cheaper. Products sold in Oregon by legal vendors are tested and certificated, and regulated by the OLCC. The OLCC is the entity that regulates alcohol in Oregon. It would be nice not to have to regulate sales, but when illicit activity reaches levels that affect consumers, it is a necessary evil.

 

[joko104]

I do declare it should be legalized - with the same restrictions as alcohol.

1. In my opinion it is a safer drug than alcohol. People do not pass out outside in the winter and freeze to death being stoned. I know of no instance of anyone dying by ODing on marijuana and stoned people don't seem to get as violent as drunk people on average.

2. It is already legal in many states, which seems to make criminalizing it in other states rather absurd.

3. Legalizing it would end any foreign drug trafficking of it - and all the costs and harms of foreign drug trafficking.

4. "Land of the free" seems to apply here.

5. Importantly, it is now possible to quickly determine the THC level in a person's blood so no-driving-while-stoned criminality can be enforced, where before it could not.

6. Just how many millions more people do we want run thru the jail system and give criminal records to for it?

7. Even the US military dropped its "1 time only" usage rule to enlisting recently to instead have to be able to pass a drug test on it now - plus usage then illegal while in the military thereafter.

8. In my opinion, the only thing that makes it a 'gateway drug" to other hardcore drugs is marijuana being illegal and therefore putting the person into the illegal drug dealer's world.

Therefore, the only criminalization should 1.) importing it into the USA without an import license and 2.) similar to cigarettes and liquor selling it without the stamp tax affixed showing the "sin tax" was collected.

 

[joko104]

I do declare another reason to legalize marijuana - but regulate production and sales - is so that it is pure marijuana.

Around here - Florida - nearly all marijuana sold is laced with other unstated drugs. Most common is meth but also some of the even far more destructive and addictive drugs. This is to get the person addicted to the other drugs not even knowing that it is not the pot that makes the addiction. That does make marijuana a gateway drug for drug dealers to prey upon and potentially very health and mind destroying.

 

[American]

1. In my opinion it is a safer drug than alcohol. People do not pass out outside in the winter and freeze to death being stoned. I know of no instance of anyone dying by ODing on marijuana and stoned people don't seem to get as violent as drunk people on average.

Really? Can that even be compared?

 

[DH Kirkwood]

Legalize, tax, and regulate all drugs, or most types of drugs. While you can't make 'hard drugs' safe, you can ensure that the legal alternatives are safer than the illegal alternatives. Given how rampant drug use has become despite decades of feirce drug prohibition, I don't think it makes sense to keep even cocaine and aphetemines illegal on the grounds that it actually deters people from doing it. It would be far more effective, far less expensive, and far less bloodier if we were to treat drug addiction as a medical condition, instead of a crime.

The black market can't compete with the a legal market. If you want to neuter the cartels and dratically reduce American gang violence, then this is the best way to do it.

The tax revenue that would pour in as a result of legal drugs can be ued to bolster our education system, get us back on track in leading the world on the scientific frontier, and put people to work rebuilding and revamping our infrstructure.

Legalizing marijuana is a good start now that 'Reefer Madness' style paranoa is starting to go the way of the dinosaurs. There's no sound, logical arguement for keeping it illegal. It's no more habit-forming than Sub-Way, there are no known cases of people overdosing on it, and while some might cite risks like increased heart-rate and carcinogens, there are several seemingly benign things that will do the former (such as coffee and exercise) and carinogens aren't a good arguement when studies have shown that it's actually more likely to reduce risk for cancer, rather than raise it, and that's not even considering all the various methods of consuming it.

I used to be on the other side of this issue. I grew up with 90's PSAs and the D.A.R.E. program. I know how counter-intuitive a pro-drug stance can be, and it wasn't easy for me to change my mind on this issue.

 

[late]

Really? Can that even be compared?

Of course, google it.

 

[Casper]

I'm trying to stay out of the debate, but I don't think this whole business will turn out like the stoners think it will, in the end.

In the end, less than ten years, it will be legal in all 50 States, count on it. No State will stand by when they can be making big bucks through taxes, especially when the majority have no problem with it being legal.

 

[FreedomFromAll]

I do declare another reason to legalize marijuana - but regulate production and sales - is so that it is pure marijuana.

Around here - Florida - nearly all marijuana sold is laced with other unstated drugs. Most common is meth but also some of the even far more destructive and addictive drugs. This is to get the person addicted to the other drugs not even knowing that it is not the pot that makes the addiction. That does make marijuana a gateway drug for drug dealers to prey upon and potentially very health and mind destroying.

That makes no logical sense. Its like the old drug pusher propaganda of the 70's. And given that those other drugs cost more and it would be easier to just produce good bud, I call BS on your claim.

 

[Lord of Planar]

Legalize weed in the 50 states, and it's one less reason for people to help illegals cross the border. It is a fact that some are granted help in passage by packing illegal drugs into the USA.

 

[Zyphlin]

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[oneworld2]

Some points in no particular order of importance


My view is that prohibition never works and only makes villains rich. So , the arguments for me go something like this


First of all the financial/resources costs used to try to maintain a state of prohibition are enormous/monstrous

To prohibit this drug costs a country vast amounts of money , ties up valuable police time/resources ( that could be better spent ) and fills the jails leading to a double financial whammy. The people in prison through drug related crime , imo , must account for a pretty large percentage of the total prison population

The war , if we are to call it that , against Cannabis/Marijuana use is unwinnable and imo constitutes an unjust intrusion on the rights of people to pick their own poison.......which most people do ,be it alcohol , Cigarettes , Burger and chips

If the state was to actually take over production and distribution of it the profits could be used to fund social projects that would benefit everyone. Just think that the cost of prosecuting a war of prohibition would be saved and added to the profits to be made from state sales. The sum would be astronomical and would constitute a new revenue source completely

The police that were involved in that futile prohibition effort could actually be redeployed into such things as child abuse ,domestic abuse , street crimes etc etc again benefiting an enormous amount of ordinary folk just going about their business/living their lives

As someone who up until recent years was a long term and regular pot smoker there are issues around the benefits of regulation. Because Marijuana is grown for strength /THC levels it can and will imo present society with another nasty bill not to mention millions of people with psychological issues precisely because of this. There are two main chemicals present , the THC is the one that gets people high and the other one , whose name I have forgotten , that suppresses the paranoia associated with high levels of THC. This is no minor point. In fact it's crucial. Thus regulated state grown Cannabis could be made so as to balance the chemical effects and stop possible long term psychological damage. Nobody drinks a beer not knowing if it is 4% alcohol of 90 % alcohol and that's down to it being legal and regulated

The fact that alcohol is legal despite the violence it engenders in many people and the subsequent crimes that result from that and Cannabis is illegal but has nothing like that sort of effect on people I find staggering tbh

To summerize

A Prohibition never works and takes money from society and places it in the pockets of villains

B It is completely futile and is using up vast resources that would be well better used to the benefit of all but villains

C The funds state production and distribution would bring in , coupled with the none cost of prohibition are astronomical

D If those resources and funds were used for social benefit our societies could be a whole, whole lot better off imo

E Regulation and control actually helps users themselves and will ward off the impending psychological problems that will dog users and cost the broader society in the long run

E People pick their own poisons all of the time so why should drug users be denied that choice ?

More broadly I would roll this out to include other drugs too for a whole host of reasons but that's maybe for another time

 

[Bum]

You have 5,000 characters to state your opinion if you choose. The rules of this forum are found here.

Legalize it..I don't really care that much; but do it at the Federal level, and place restrictions who can use it......flying a commercial aircraft? Nope..not for you.