Is there anyone left who thinks marijuana should be illegal?

[NotImpressed]

Yeah sure. Just like alcohol and cigs.

Do you honestly believe the drug dealers will all just close up shop? The only way the "drug war" will end is if the government sells pot cheaper than the cartels. Not gonna happen.

Actually it's very possible. Just look at California, they undercut street prices from 5$-10$ (or more), and not to mention people would chose going to a dispensary not just because it's safer but you actually have a good amount of choices, not just bud, but they sell edibles, candy, soda that all have THC in it.

That right there would take away the costumers from the streets and putting them into dispensaries. It's a win win, except for the dealer but he understands.

On a side note, how about we just make it 30-40$ an 1/8? That'll sure bring in costumers.

Gasp! But what will become of all those who want thrill of doing something taboo?Why would anyone walk down the street & buy from a dispensary when they could drive all the way across town & buy the good stuff in the black market at black market prices?Where's the fun in that?

 

[chanel]

Sarcasm noted; but teens won't be able to buy from a dispensary. It's much easier to get it in the HS bathroom.

 

[Montrovant]

Sarcasm noted; but teens won't be able to buy from a dispensary. It's much easier to get it in the HS bathroom.

Perhaps chanel, but unless you are suggesting that legalization will increase underage use, that doesn't seem a valid argument against it.

 

[chanel]

There is no doubt in my mind. Condone it; and everyone will indulge. Prob even me.

 

[Modbert]

Dude, can you imagine how paranoid he would get then?

I think it would be hilarious to watch, but I would want to stay completely straight in order to observe it.

Actually, he would probably become sane.

 

[Modbert]

Yeah sure. Just like alcohol and cigs.

Do you honestly believe the drug dealers will all just close up shop? The only way the "drug war" will end is if the government sells pot cheaper than the cartels. Not gonna happen.

Instead of randomly guessing, why don't you take a look at what other countries have done? Portugal and Netherlands would be a good start.

Harm reduction: Fighting drugs through jujitsu | The Economist

Faced with both a public health crisis and a public relations disaster, Portugal’s elected officials took a bold step. They decided to decriminalize the possession of all illicit drugs—from marijuana to heroin—but continue to impose criminal sanctions on distribution and trafficking. The goal: easing the burden on the nation’s criminal justice system and improving the people’s overall health by treating addiction as an illness, not a crime.But nearly a decade later, there’s evidence that Portugal’s great drug experiment not only didn’t blow up in its face; it may have actually worked. More addicts are in treatment. Drug use among youths has declined in recent years. Life in Casal Ventoso, Lisbon’s troubled neighborhood, has improved. And new research, published in the British Journal of Criminology, documents just how much things have changed in Portugal. Coauthors Caitlin Elizabeth Hughes and Alex Stevens report a 63 percent increase in the number of Portuguese drug users in treatment and, shortly after the reforms took hold, a 499 percent increase in the amount of drugs seized—indications, the authors argue, that police officers, freed up from focusing on small-time possession, have been able to target big-time traffickers while drug addicts, no longer in danger of going to prison, have been able to get the help they need.

This is a perfectly rational conservative perspective. And the fact is that Amsterdam's heroin-addict population has been stable or falling for two decades. That's even though, since 2002, the Dutch authorities have been doing something even more radical than Portugal's for heroin users: they've been giving them free heroin, as long as they show up to inject at government-run "safe injection points", under the eyes of police and health staff. Dutch drug researchers now say that the youth population "doesn't relate to hard drugs at all", and that there's no danger that Dutch kids reading the advice site will find heroin use attractive. They're more likely to find it pathetic.

 

[Modbert]

Never smoked in my life, nor do I have any plans to do so, but for all my friends who do:

 

[AVG-JOE]

There is no doubt in my mind. Condone it; and everyone will indulge. Prob even me.

You ARE over 21, right?

 

[chanel]

Ha ha. I've got enough vices.

 

[theDoctorisIn]

If I believed that, I'd be on board. But I think it's too late for that. "Unlicensed dealers" have, and will continue to have, control of the market. The govt. can't do jack about it now. How could they do better in the future? Esp. if the "war funding" is cut off.

I live in San Francisco, where it's incredibly easy to get a "prescription" for weed, and once you do, you can buy it at any hundreds of "clubs". The prices are significantly cheaper at the clubs than on the street.

Why would you expect it to be any different than that?

 

[chanel]

Are there no illegal drug dealers in CA now? Have the Mexican cartels and drug gangs disappeared?

 

[Dr.Drock]

I'm assuming everyone who's pulling the health card gets their daily requirement of exercise and never eat fast food.

Not getting on a treadmill and a McDouble+fries are FAR worse for your health than marijuana. I can give endless links for that if you want.

 

[chesswarsnow]

Sorry bout that,


1. Potheads should move to Potland, northern Europe.
2. Where Pot is fun.
3. Not here.


Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

 

[Dr.Drock]

Sorry bout that,


1. Potheads should move to Potland, northern Europe.
2. Where Pot is fun.
3. Not here.


Regards,
SirJamesofTexas

I've never smoked weed in my life and marijuana being illegal is an embarassment to freedom and spending so much money on keeping it illegal is irresponsibly liberal.

To make the smoking of marijuana in the privacy of someone's home illegal is no less fascist than having gov't bureacrats force you to get on a treadmill everyday at your house.

 

[BlindBoo]

I am less of a danger on the road stoned than I am sober.

I'm sure you're gonna be very sorry when you kill someone through you're fucking outrageous behavior. Seriously.... if you drive stoned, I pray you kill yourself and not some innocent person. I hate (and I mean real, cold, hard, hate) people to drive impaired. You are the scum of society. People like you kill other people.

“Cannabis leads to a more cautious style of driving, [but] it has a negative impact on decision time and trajectory. [However,] this in itself does not mean that drivers under the influence of cannabis represent a traffic safety risk. … Cannabis alone, particularly in low doses, has little effect on the skills involved in automobile driving.”

REFERENCE: Canadian Senate Special Committee on Illegal Drugs. 2002. Cannabis: Summary Report: Our Position for a Canadian Public Policy. Ottawa. Chapter 8: Driving Under the Influence of Cannabis.

“This report has summarized available research on cannabis and driving.

… Evidence of impairment from the consumption of cannabis has been reported by studies using laboratory tests, driving simulators and on-road observation. ... Both simulation and road trials generally find that driving behavior shortly after consumption of larger doses of cannabis results in (i) a more cautious driving style; (ii) increased variability in lane position (and headway); and (iii) longer decision times. Whereas these results indicate a 'change' from normal conditions, they do not necessarily reflect 'impairment' in terms of performance effectiveness since few studies report increased accident risk.

REFERENCE: UK Department of Environment, Transport and the Regions (Road Safety Division). 2000. Cannabis and Driving: A Review of the Literature and Commentary. Crowthorne, Berks: TRL Limited.

 

[BlindBoo]

To the author of this thread: I'm one who thinks marijuana should be illegal. I think we need to at least try to keep the amount of drugs and drugged people who are circulating in society to a minimum. Marijuana addicts talk about their drug like it's a vitamin pill, but those of us who are thinking with our right minds know that it is just another drug, like tobacco, like alcohol, like heroin, just another poison that you want to minimize your exposure to. It's too bad we really can't afford to fight the drug war anymore, probably partly because we're spending so much money on wars overseas. However, giving up the fight is the wrong move I think. We already have enough trouble dealing with the problems that alcoholics and tobacco addicts create, why legalize another category of substance dependence?

There is no such thing as a Marijuana addict. Why do you care what someone else chooses to expose themselves too? It's all about freedom.

 

[BlindBoo]

Since it appears that many posters are too fucking stupid to undertake quite straightforward research, here's a starting point (and it's from the US.... Harvard... so they don't even have to cope with 'foreign' shit).... the article provides further links.... sadly, some of these are not from US sources. However, since Americans are genetically no different to the rest of the human race, even we should be able to cope with the facts about MJ.

THE MEDICAL DANGERS OF MARIJUANA USE

MENTAL HEALTH, BRAIN FUNCTION, AND MEMORY

It has been suggested that marijuana is at the root of many mental disorders, including acute toxic psychosis, panic attacks (one of the very conditions it is being used experimentally to treat), flashbacks, delusions, depersonalization, hallucinations, paranoia, depression, and uncontrollable aggressiveness. Marijuana has long been known to trigger attacks of mental illness, such as bipolar (manic-depressive) psychosis and schizophrenia. This connection with mental illness should make health care providers for terminally ill patients and the patients themselves, who may already be suffering from some form of clinical depression, weigh very carefully the pros and cons of adopting a therapeutic course of marijuana.

In the short term, marijuana use impairs perception, judgment, thinking, memory, and learning; memory defects may persist six weeks after last use. Mental disorders connected with marijuana use merit their own category in the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM) IV, published by the American Psychiatric Association. These include Cannabis Intoxication (consisting of impaired motor coordination, anxiety, impaired judgment, sensation of slowed time, social withdrawal, and often includes perceptual disturbances; Cannabis Intoxication Delirium (memory deficit, disorientation); Cannabis Induced Psychotic Disorder, Delusions; Cannabis Induced Psychotic Disorder, Hallucinations; and Cannabis Induced Anxiety Disorder.

Looks like you've been cajoled by propaganda into you an unwaivering position on the matter. Not one single link on that page worked. But I'm gonna quit asking.

 

[BlindBoo]

Adolescents and young adults who are heavy users of marijuana are more likely than non-users to have disrupted brain development, according to a new study. Pediatric researchers found abnormalities in areas of the brain that interconnect brain regions involved in memory, attention, decision-making, language and executive functioning skills. The findings are of particular concern because adolescence is a crucial period for brain development and maturation.

Heavy Marijuana Use May Damage Developing Brain In Teens, Young Adults

The legalization of marijuana will be the nail in the coffin of public education. It's on life support right now.

As I said earlier, an NZ study found that young people were 300% more likely to develop mental problems. 300%!! I am dumbfounded that some people think that's 'harmless'. I can only assume that these people are stoners.... denial, it ain't just de river in Egypt.

The study in the provided link is simply not a scientific study, and it was on 14 children mostlywith no controls. Nobody is advocating for heavy marijuana use for adolesent. But with that said I think legalized it would be easier to restict children's access. Yes of course they will still get their hands on it, but it is in every school across the nation now.

 

[rikules]

I'm assuming everyone who's pulling the health card gets their daily requirement of exercise and never eat fast food.

Not getting on a treadmill and a McDouble+fries are FAR worse for your health than marijuana. I can give endless links for that if you want.

the deranged and hypocritical people (mostly conservatives) who believe that pot should be illegal (and pot smokers criminalized and have their lives ruined) tend to be the same people who denounce as POLITICALLY CORRECT and "an attack on freedom" any attempt to minimize the problems of tobacco, alcohol and fatty foods....

those 3 vices are FAR MORE DELITERIOUS to ones health than pot....

but the insane anti-potters don't care about THOSE problems...


just pot....

for all that they claim (falsely) that pot leads to mental disorders/illnesses
the truth is these anti-potters exhibit FAR MORE mental problems than pot smokers...

their insane yammering against pot while steadfastly defending alcohol, tobacco and fatty foods is....insane.....

cal girl is more deranged than any pot smoker I've ever met

 

[BlindBoo]

The drug war will end when licensed dealers begin selling weed for what it's worth plus a reasonable tax.

I already pay (financially) for idiots who can't take responsibility for their actions. I pay for their problems with alcohol, I pay for their obesity... in short, I pay for other people's inability to take personal responsibility. Even more importantly, we - as a society - pay far too much.... every time an innocent person is killed by someone whose judgement is impaired with every DUI. Art 15 may think it's very amusing to risk killing innocent people through his own selfish, arrogant... and frankly criminal behavior... I don't. I've paid already. I will not pay that price again. I will, however, happily support life without parole for people like Art who kill people. In fact, I'd give them the DP... and I'd happily press the damned button to end their miserable lives.

The miserable one here is you.

Smoke a Joint and DIE!!!!!!



Scarcasm off:

Really must suck to live with that kind of hatred toward your fellow citizens.