Questions on Decriminalization/Legalization movement

[emilynghiem]

Casual pot use causes brain abnormalities in the young: study

Any comments or corroboration on this study or related ones?
[MENTION=41527]Pogo[/MENTION] [MENTION=35995]KevinWestern[/MENTION]

I think I did come across that the other day, thanks for sharing. Isn't legal marijuana going to be restricted to just adult use?

I'm pretty sure alcohol/caffiene/nicotine causes harm when consumed by young people too, you know?

Well the tobacco industry was sued for their misinformation campaigns tied to deceptive trade practices in lacing cigarettes with more addictive substances.
And MADD has pursued alcohol companies for misleading or fraudulent claims in their ads.

Are the pro marijuana campaigners going to be held responsible for pushing the concept that pot poses no risks?

If we haven't solved this problem with alcohol and tobacco, being pushed for profit regardless of consequences to health that the public has to pay for, are we going to repeat the same mistakes with pot?

I agree it is strange that the push for accountability was not established for alcohol and tobacco IN ADVANCE as with pot; I think there must be some karmic reason, that out of this reform movement and the connection with research on medicinal benefits, the same research could be expanded to do more than just address the pot issue. I find the same strange inconsistency with the prochoice arguments for abortion that are not being applied to free choices of health care in general. So I think there is some other karma involved that explains the public or political bias, and is compelling resolution to "deeper issues" than just the pot or health care. There is some other process going on here, or it doesn't make sense why people legalize one thing and demonize another.

A good friend of mine pointed this out with the prochoice/abortion issue vs. legalization/drugs issue, but I did not agree; however, I do get what he was saying when you compare the prochoice/abortion issue with free choice/health care debate.

So I can just imagine that is the equivalent of what he was saying about legalization of drugs.

I believe these debates serve to expose political biases in beliefs -- not that they can be resolved by arguing and trying to prove or disprove points, which I don't think is the issue.

The real issue I see is whether people accept financial and legal responsibility for the consequences, and what we are willing to dump on the public or taxpayers regardless.

Very disturbing, and I hope the resulting dissonance leads to a common understanding, if we can find the leaders committed to separating funding if people would rather pay for abuses or costs of having certain freedoms and liberties, or crafting a common agreement how to prevent the abuses, but not keep the status quo which nobody seems secure with.

I spoke with Dean Becker of the Drug Truth Network and Drug Policy Forum Texas, and asked about two points of focus: A. uniting with the church ministries on promoting spiritual healing (and medical research studies to prove it is universally effective and not restricted by faith or religion) to end abuse and addiction related to drugs, crimes, and other ills whether physical mental criminal or social B. uniting with health care reform to propose changing policies on drug criminalization and capital punishment to invest in medical programs and health care assistance that would cut costs of both crime and care to cover more people without the need for additional mandates fines or taxes.

I think if we ensure that the key concerns are addressed more effectively, then the issue of either legal or illegal drugs, or the issue of mandatory or voluntary insurance WILL NOT BE AN ISSUE. If we solve root problems anyway, there won't be a debate on the side issues. Those things will take care of themselves. Instead of approaching this backwards, by messing with the symptoms and fighting over regulations, we need to address the root causes and reduce the costs and problems there. By the time we agree what we are dealing with and the best way to correct or cure it, of course we can figure out the rest.

If the math doesn't add up, and people won't even look at the figures, something is wrong with how the problem and variables are set up. We need to go back to the very beginning, and find out where we made different assumptions and went on different paths in our conclusions. That is just the path of logic. Something is WAY OFF if people push to keep legalizing abortion while penalizing free choice of health care; and if we can resolve that, then the issue of legalizing or decriminalizing drugs falls in the middle of that spectrum and should be resolved with the same solution to the other conflicts of political bias in policy.

I think there is a golden opportunity here to address and resolve a multitude of issues.
Greater good can come out of all the suffering these conflicts have caused.

 

[KevinWestern]

Cannabis is not a drug, nor is it addictive. It is deliberately mischaracterized by the DEA.

Simple answer: government needs to stop lying about it.

Cannabis I a psychoactive drug. PERIOD.

Even casual pot smoking can have deleterious effects on one's brain... and pot is a gateway drug. Now, with that said, so is alcohol, on all levels. Pot should at the very least be decriminalized.

As I mentioned, if someone wants to ban marijuana AND alcohol - I can respect that. It's consistent, non-contradictory logic. However if one was to say ban marijuana but keep alcohol legal, then I would call him/her out on a double standard.

 

[MikeK]

Casual pot use causes brain abnormalities in the young: study

Any comments or corroboration on this study or related ones?
[MENTION=41527]Pogo[/MENTION] [MENTION=35995]KevinWestern[/MENTION]

This isn't news. Any drug that affects neurochemistry, including alcohol, can have a damaging effect on an undeveloped brain.

 

[nodoginnafight]

Legalize it.
No excuse not to

 

[Soggy in NOLA]

Cannabis is not a drug, nor is it addictive. It is deliberately mischaracterized by the DEA.

Simple answer: government needs to stop lying about it.

Cannabis I a psychoactive drug. PERIOD.

Even casual pot smoking can have deleterious effects on one's brain... and pot is a gateway drug. Now, with that said, so is alcohol, on all levels. Pot should at the very least be decriminalized.

As I mentioned, if someone wants to ban marijuana AND alcohol - I can respect that. It's consistent, non-contradictory logic. However if one was to say ban marijuana but keep alcohol legal, then I would call him/her out on a double standard.

Well, I have to agree.... we spend waaaaaayyyy too much time and energy locking up potheads.

 

[joejonbob]

What ever the outcome, I am sure it can be handled by the 20 billion dollars the fed currently spends in the "war on drugs" through the militarization of agencies, and local law enforcement. If the "war on drugs" is no longer being fought, than the armies that the 20 billion support will no longer be needed.

 

[emilynghiem]

What ever the outcome, I am sure it can be handled by the 20 billion dollars the fed currently spends in the "war on drugs" through the militarization of agencies, and local law enforcement. If the "war on drugs" is no longer being fought, than the armies that the 20 billion support will no longer be needed.

Why not refocus the Libertarian movement to reform and reinvest these misspent taxes
to pay for health care reforms, invest in medical programs, training and service facilities, and outreach to more people INSTEAD of pushing ACA mandates and other contested regulations?

Why fight two separate battles?

Why not organize one solution, and show where the costs saved could
cover health programs instead of being wasted on excessive measures
disproportionate to the abuses being prosecuted.

If we agree on common focus, to invest in cost effective programs for curing the causes criminal abuses and addictions that COST MORE in public health and public resources, why not reform that at the same time as address health care? So we solve multiple problems at the same time?

 

[Anonymous1776]

What ever the outcome, I am sure it can be handled by the 20 billion dollars the fed currently spends in the "war on drugs" through the militarization of agencies, and local law enforcement. If the "war on drugs" is no longer being fought, than the armies that the 20 billion support will no longer be needed.

Why not refocus the Libertarian movement to reform and reinvest these misspent taxes
to pay for health care reforms, invest in medical programs, training and service facilities, and outreach to more people INSTEAD of pushing ACA mandates and other contested regulations?

While I would rather spend tax dollars on treatment and prevention than on prosecution and incarceration, I think the best solution would be to return the tax money to the people who earned it. Then, if someone needed treatment, they could better afford it, and those who don't need treatment, wouldn't need to pay for those who do.

I'm all for eliminating the war on drugs, but it shouldn't be at the expense of other liberties. We needn't exchange one freedom for another.

 

[MikeK]

What ever the outcome, I am sure it can be handled by the 20 billion dollars the fed currently spends in the "war on drugs" through the militarization of agencies, and local law enforcement. If the "war on drugs" is no longer being fought, than the armies that the 20 billion support will no longer be needed.

Why not refocus the Libertarian movement to reform and reinvest these misspent taxes
to pay for health care reforms, invest in medical programs, training and service facilities, and outreach to more people INSTEAD of pushing ACA mandates and other contested regulations?

Why fight two separate battles?

Why not organize one solution, and show where the costs saved could
cover health programs instead of being wasted on excessive measures
disproportionate to the abuses being prosecuted.

If we agree on common focus, to invest in cost effective programs for curing the causes criminal abuses and addictions that COST MORE in public health and public resources, why not reform that at the same time as address health care? So we solve multiple problems at the same time?

Years of costly and painful experience have clearly shown that emphasis on force (law enforcement) as a means of discouraging drug misuse simply does not work. What does work, as evidenced by the phenomenal success of the anti-cigarette smoking effort, is a well-planned public education program which is based on truthful facts -- not Reefer Madness-type nonsense.

I started smoking cigarettes at age fifteen (in 1951) when advertisements like the following were everywhere:

Almost everyone I knew back then smoked. For young men like me, smoking cigarettes was macho. For young girls, like the one I started smoking to impress, it implied sophistication. So I got hooked and smoked cigarettes for thirty-five years -- until the CDC started telling us, and showing us, the truth via advertisements like this one:

Those ads got my attention. So I managed to reduce consumption but my thirty-five year addiction to cigarettes was tenacious. After some prodding by my wife I attended an anti-smoking seminar at Queens College, NY, where the lecturer, a pulmonologist, concluded his very convincing talk by uncovering the pair of laboratory jars on a table. One jar contained the bisected lungs of a thirty year-old non-smoker who was killed in an auto accident. The other jar contained the bisected lungs of a thirty-two year-old cigarette smoker.

The sight of those shriveling, grossly discolored smoker's lungs had a profound effect. All attendees were given photos of those lungs. Those photos helped me to completely quit smoking cigarettes within twelve days. They also were very effective at convincing our three girls to not consider smoking.

The addiction to nicotine is significantly more tenacious (while not as intense) as the addiction to heroin, but public education has substantially reduced cigarette-smoking in America. As mentioned earlier, when I started smoking almost everyone I knew (except my mother) smoked. Today I know only one person who smokes. And this dramatic effect has been achieved without arresting a single individual or enforcement of any laws except those pertaining to minors.

 

[ABikerSailor]

Casual pot use causes brain abnormalities in the young: study

Any comments or corroboration on this study or related ones?
[MENTION=41527]Pogo[/MENTION] [MENTION=35995]KevinWestern[/MENTION]

You're right.............any kind of substance that affects brain chemistry before the brain is fully formed can result in abnormalities, or even defects.

Why do you think that the drinking age is 21?

The human brain continues to develop from birth until you're about 17 or 20. Alcohol (as in drinking beer, which quite a lot of teenagers do) can affect the brain as well.

Why else do you think that many pot advocates are pushing for the restrictions on cannabis to be the same as what is dictated by alcohol sales?

You're right................if it's legal, some kids are going to get their hands on it, but hey.........if it's sold LEGALLY in stores UNDER THE SAME RESTRICTIONS AS ALCOHOL, then it's going to be a bit harder for the kids to get their hands on it.

Drug dealers don't have age restrictions.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Don't be silly Harry. Normal body functions essential to staying alive are not "options".

I'm just saying that by accommodating this bullshit idea of "mental addiction" we feed and enable this myth that the ignorant like TheNutHouse wander around murmuring. People watch TV every night; they don't have to, but it qualifies just as much as this "mental addiction" idea. But take the TV away and there are no withdrawal symptoms; there's only an interruption in routine. So what? Routines get interrupted all the time, nothing wrong with that. Let's not melt down and pretend that watching TV, or Friday night pizza , or whatever it is, constitutes "addiction". It doesn't.

Comparing simple routines with, say, a heroin addict whose supply is interrupted and has genuine withdrawal changes, just cheapens the latter.

Totally and completely agree. I don't hear anyone calling for "TV" to be illegal, despite the fact that millions of people waste millions of precious hours watching mind melting reality TV shows that add absolutely NOTHING of value to the society at large. I would go out and say that 95% of what's on TV is not beneficial to the viewer, and that the 5% that is can easily be found elsewhere - directly - like on the internet.

But people like Katz and Thanatos - I believe - are extremely inconsistent and are willing to say that it's "your choice" if you want to waste away in front of a TV screen while at the same time say "it's not your choice" if you want to smoke pot.

I just want consistency, that's all. Is that way too much to ask for, dammit, lol??

If you don't want recreational drugs to be legal, then push to ban alcohol in addition to pot. Don't pick and choose. Justice isn't a pick and choose affair and only functions properly if the logic we apply to it is consistent, rational, and predictable.

Hi KW
I can think of lots of constructive ways TV can be used to counteract the ill effects of TV,
like promoting positive media outreach, public education, literacy and participation.

I am still trying to find a way that pot can be used constructively that can't ALSO be done safer or more effectively in other ways.

At this point, I believe the political focus, organization and push for reform and research can be used for good.

If all people who want to legalize pot were willing to set up their own health care exchanges to pay for all the research and consequences of brain abnormalities or damage,
maybe the plusses would be greater than the minusses; I think the issue is which people are willing to pay for the costs of the experiment or studies on that, similar to how many people are definitely opposed to paying for the cost of criminalization.

I think the main problem is, like with the ACA, we don't agree who should pay which costs of keeping the system as is or the cost of transition, reform or experimenting with changes.

I would be happy to pay into a system that covers all people who go through spiritual healing, reduce all causes and costs to a minimum, with all participants agreeing to help everyone else in the group to cut all costs and invest in only what is most effective and sustainable.

I would like to know what is the best way to separate out these systems so people can pay for what they believe in, including the costs of consequences, and not impose on people who would rather pay for other systems or standards, even if it costs them more.

How can we separate these out and quit imposing the costs and consequences on others?
That is the challenge I would like to propose to Party leaders and members; to take the enrollment concept used for ACA and adapt it to separate systems and funds by Party
under terms and regulations or deregulations that the members agree to be legally and financially responsible for without imposing any related costs or consequences on others.

The best way is to make everyone pay for themselves. Get government out of the business of forcing everyone to buy everyone else's healthcare.

Then you can do your spiritual healing thing and I don't gotta worry about it.

Then I can smoke my bong all day and if I fuck my lungs up, you don't gotta worry about it.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

What ever the outcome, I am sure it can be handled by the 20 billion dollars the fed currently spends in the "war on drugs" through the militarization of agencies, and local law enforcement. If the "war on drugs" is no longer being fought, than the armies that the 20 billion support will no longer be needed.

Why not refocus the Libertarian movement to reform and reinvest these misspent taxes
to pay for health care reforms, invest in medical programs, training and service facilities, and outreach to more people INSTEAD of pushing ACA mandates and other contested regulations?

Why fight two separate battles?

Why not organize one solution, and show where the costs saved could
cover health programs instead of being wasted on excessive measures
disproportionate to the abuses being prosecuted.

If we agree on common focus, to invest in cost effective programs for curing the causes criminal abuses and addictions that COST MORE in public health and public resources, why not reform that at the same time as address health care? So we solve multiple problems at the same time?

There's a hardcore flaw in the basis of your solution here.

No libertarian wants the government to hang onto 20 billion in tax revenue (i.e. money it extracted from the people who earned it) that they don't even need and reinvest it into some other leftist moral initiative.

The whole idea of most libertarians is that the government should STOP forcing us to be financially subjugated to your morality.

What you're describing would totally disqualify someone as a libertarian. If they thought the government should keep extorting that 20 billion out of the taxpayers when it didn't need it, that desire would be statist and collectivist in nature, the polar opposite of libertarian philosophy.

If people are causing the public to have to pay for their bad health, the libertarian solution would -not- be figuring out how to best force people to pay for other people to stop using drugs. The libertarian solution would be to stop forcing people to pay for other peoples' healthcare costs.

I'm sure to a statist collectivist moralist humanist that sounds harsh, and I'm not for people dying in the streets. I'm just less for the government telling everyone which morals they have to spend their money on, no matter how fiercely I agree with the particular moral being presented.

 

[thanatos144]

Libertarian is just a liberal that says he/she doesn't like taxes.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

Libertarian is just a liberal that says he/she doesn't like taxes.

Although you seem to have meant that condescendingly, you're actually right on.

Libertarians tend to be socially very liberal. It's a live and let live philosophy with minimal government involvement all-around. This includes social issues -and- fiscal issues.

Libertarians believe the government should stay out of their bodies and bedrooms -as well- as their wallets.

Here's the flip side for you. A conservative is just a collectivist who doesn't like taxes.

 

[Pogo]

What ever the outcome, I am sure it can be handled by the 20 billion dollars the fed currently spends in the "war on drugs" through the militarization of agencies, and local law enforcement. If the "war on drugs" is no longer being fought, than the armies that the 20 billion support will no longer be needed.

Why not refocus the Libertarian movement to reform and reinvest these misspent taxes
to pay for health care reforms, invest in medical programs, training and service facilities, and outreach to more people INSTEAD of pushing ACA mandates and other contested regulations?

Why fight two separate battles?

Why not organize one solution, and show where the costs saved could
cover health programs instead of being wasted on excessive measures
disproportionate to the abuses being prosecuted.

If we agree on common focus, to invest in cost effective programs for curing the causes criminal abuses and addictions that COST MORE in public health and public resources, why not reform that at the same time as address health care? So we solve multiple problems at the same time?

Years of costly and painful experience have clearly shown that emphasis on force (law enforcement) as a means of discouraging drug misuse simply does not work. What does work, as evidenced by the phenomenal success of the anti-cigarette smoking effort, is a well-planned public education program which is based on truthful facts -- not Reefer Madness-type nonsense.

I started smoking cigarettes at age fifteen (in 1951) when advertisements like the following were everywhere:

Almost everyone I knew back then smoked. For young men like me, smoking cigarettes was macho. For young girls, like the one I started smoking to impress, it implied sophistication. So I got hooked and smoked cigarettes for thirty-five years -- until the CDC started telling us, and showing us, the truth via advertisements like this one:

Those ads got my attention. So I managed to reduce consumption but my thirty-five year addiction to cigarettes was tenacious. After some prodding by my wife I attended an anti-smoking seminar at Queens College, NY, where the lecturer, a pulmonologist, concluded his very convincing talk by uncovering the pair of laboratory jars on a table. One jar contained the bisected lungs of a thirty year-old non-smoker who was killed in an auto accident. The other jar contained the bisected lungs of a thirty-two year-old cigarette smoker.

The sight of those shriveling, grossly discolored smoker's lungs had a profound effect. All attendees were given photos of those lungs. Those photos helped me to completely quit smoking cigarettes within twelve days. They also were very effective at convincing our three girls to not consider smoking.

The addiction to nicotine is significantly more tenacious (while not as intense) as the addiction to heroin, but public education has substantially reduced cigarette-smoking in America. As mentioned earlier, when I started smoking almost everyone I knew (except my mother) smoked. Today I know only one person who smokes. And this dramatic effect has been achieved without arresting a single individual or enforcement of any laws except those pertaining to minors.

Excellent illustration of a "Liberal" approach that works. You don't effect change by throwing legislation at it; you change public perceptions.

This is exactly what I keep saying about guns.

 

[Pogo]

Cannabis is not a drug, nor is it addictive. It is deliberately mischaracterized by the DEA.

Simple answer: government needs to stop lying about it.

Cannabis I a psychoactive drug. PERIOD.

No it not. PERIOD.
We did this waaaay back. We even used verbs.

Even casual pot smoking can have deleterious effects on one's brain... and pot is a gateway drug.

Bolshoi and Double Bolshoi. Disproven since the Anslinger daze.

Now, with that said, so is alcohol, on all levels.

Alcohol is a "gateway drug"? To what?

Pot should at the very least be decriminalized.

Finally. Blind squirrel finds a nut.

 

[MikeK]

The best way is to make everyone pay for themselves. Get government out of the business of forcing everyone to buy everyone else's healthcare.

Then you can do your spiritual healing thing and I don't gotta worry about it.

Then I can smoke my bong all day and if I fuck my lungs up, you don't gotta worry about it.

If things don't work out according to plan and somehow you end up sick and broke or close to it, I'll bet you will quietly suffer and die rather than ask for gratis medical care.

Right?

 

[thanatos144]

The best way is to make everyone pay for themselves. Get government out of the business of forcing everyone to buy everyone else's healthcare.

Then you can do your spiritual healing thing and I don't gotta worry about it.

Then I can smoke my bong all day and if I fuck my lungs up, you don't gotta worry about it.

If things don't work out according to plan and somehow you end up sick and broke or close to it, I'll bet you will quietly suffer and die rather than ask for gratis medical care.

Right?

Oh I see so you think I shouldn't use the very things I PAY FOR because I think they are a waste???? That's 7ust plain stupid.

 

[FA_Q2]

The best way is to make everyone pay for themselves. Get government out of the business of forcing everyone to buy everyone else's healthcare.

Then you can do your spiritual healing thing and I don't gotta worry about it.

Then I can smoke my bong all day and if I fuck my lungs up, you don't gotta worry about it.

If things don't work out according to plan and somehow you end up sick and broke or close to it, I'll bet you will quietly suffer and die rather than ask for gratis medical care.

Right?

The beauty of taxing the sale of the product in question.

I know I am seeing stars here because the tax revenues from pot sales will just get put into general funds and blown on politicians asshattery but I have no problem with taxing a product like pot and then using those revenues to fund public awareness and treatment.

 

[Not2BSubjugated]

The best way is to make everyone pay for themselves. Get government out of the business of forcing everyone to buy everyone else's healthcare.

Then you can do your spiritual healing thing and I don't gotta worry about it.

Then I can smoke my bong all day and if I fuck my lungs up, you don't gotta worry about it.

If things don't work out according to plan and somehow you end up sick and broke or close to it, I'll bet you will quietly suffer and die rather than ask for gratis medical care.

Right?

Kinda. I certainly won't ask you for help, or the government. Way too much pride for that.

I'll go to friends and family. People that I've voluntarily helped out in times of trouble when necessary, who tend to voluntarily kick me back the same treatment when appropriate.

I won't ask people who have no reason to care for me, and I won't ask the government to force you to do it.