The Legalization Debate

Ok, let's kick it off. I'm sure that there are intelligent folk both sides of the spectrum that could contribute to the fray. Perhaps we could debate this in the manner of good folk and share some knowledge? I'll keep my .02 until it gets started but I'm in favor of legalization/de-criminalizing.

 

I think i speak for the better part of the members here by saying that we are against the legalization of any drugs, and in fact want to see many more banned....
Seriously, you came to the wrong place if you want a full-spectrum of opinions...

 

I realize that many may contribute from the mouth of a bong and thus be only creative flavor, but, let the stoners have their say. Fess up. Take the bull by the horns, Ladies and gentleman, this is the opportunity to vindicate yourselves.

 

I've never done drugs in my life. But I don't think the government should be able to tell you what to do with marijuana, which is natural. Besides, people do drugs anyway, all they are doing is making drugs harder to get and more expensive, and getting people in jail for stupid things.

The best thing to do with drugs would be to make them legal but heavily tax them, well best for the government. I don't know, it's like 4:00 a.m here.

Am I right in asking if you live in bum-fucked Egypt?

 

A on bfe, yes. Come on people, let loose some knowledge......

 

Me---pot smoker, LSD user, post-cocaine, heroin, other misc, drug user.

My opinion--- no legilization...... reason...lack of responsibility in the GENERAL mass of tody's youth.

Rebuttle?

 

I am only for decriminalization. I don't think it should be sold in Safeway, Albertson's, etc. by mega-corps who don't understand anything about the tribe. Plus, I used to live in Humboldt/Mendocino Co. where close to 90% of the economy comes from cannibas. If you legalize it, all these good rural hippy folk will lose their livelyhood .
The United States is banned by international treaties from legalizing marijuana. Therefore, we need a system like in Amsterdam, where it is quasi-legal, taxed, not advertised, and significate portions of the tax-revenue go towards drug education and rehabilitation.

 

ditto

 

I don't recommend marijuana legalisation. By comparing it to cigarettes and alcohol, our morgues are already full of victims of tobacco and alcohol. Why do we need a third legal drug added to the mix? Marijuana smokers scream until they're blue in the face that it's never killed anybody, while writing off as coincidence that regular marijuana smokers get lung cancer almost as often as their nicotine-addicted counterparts. Or that marijuana shows up in the blood of those who cause fatal traffic accidents almost as often as alcohol. The over-all death rate is relatively low precisely because marijuana usage is relatively low, but that will change fast if we put marijuana into corner stores.Tobacco will kill roughly half of America's five-million-odd cigarette smokers alive today. Big Tobacco kills more Americans every year than the 42,000 that died in all six years of World War II combined, and recruits thousands more kids every week. Tobacco was legalised before we knew its deadly effects. Do we really want to risk similar numbers for marijuana?

 

I'll only debate this for so long by myself before I lose interest. C'mon, all you stoner family, come out and play. (where's that dragon and the trippin?).

 

What!?!?!?!!?

 

Yes, it's easier to get illegal weed than legal alcohol. Making it legal puts dealers in legitimate circumstances (a store) where they can card. Ever heard of a dealer that cards his buyers? Neither have I.

Anyways, I have to be at work in 20 minutes, so I'll be back later to add more on this subject. For now: prohibition is a miserable failure of law and should not be allowed to continue a day longer.

 

Rebuttal:

Pah. If you can't use drugs responsibly, that's your own problem. I don't trust myself to handle drugs properly, so I don't do them. If some of the kids I know go out and buy pot (which they would) and misused in/had negative consequences, then I would laugh. You are supposed to watch out for yourself, survival of the fittest, etc.

Most of todays youth is stupid. We could use that to weed them out. Or put them in an incredibly dangerouse and complicated maze and let the ones who come out live, while naplaming the rest of the maze.

What do you mean lack of resbonsibility? So far as I can tell, you can't die from smoking pot.

 

ya i dont think anyone has ever o.d on weed. i dont think its possible. personaly i say let people smoke pot.i think the pigs should not tell us not to do things but just say dont do it like they do for smoking and alcohol. if anything i think alcohol should be banned cuz that shit in my opinion is much worse for you than pot.i think that for legilization,you should be able to do it in you own home or somewhere that dosent hurt others and should be able to carry a certian amount with you.

 

I'm 51% for legalisation of Marijuana but honestly feel it won't happen for a long time in the UK, and when the UK allows it USA will follow, but it will not happen the other way around, IMO, but I don't want to get into that debate.

Thankfully, Amsterdam is only several hundred miles away from me and I'm a frequent visitor. I'm happy to just fly over 2 or 3 times a year for a smoke and pleased to return after a hedonistic bout of pot smoking to normality of the UK. It suits me fine, but I do feel for you Yanks having to travel so far to A'dam to see it all in action.

 

The following is pulled from http://www.erowid.org/plants/cannabis/cannabis_info14.shtml #6 (i recommend you all read it)

"6. Legal marijuana would cause carnage on the highways

Although marijuana, when used to intoxication, does impair
performance in a manner similar to alcohol, actual studies of the
effect of marijuana on the automobile accident rate suggest that it
poses LESS of a hazard than alcohol. When a random sample of fatal
accident victims was studied, it was initially found that marijuana
was associated with RELATIVELY as many accidents as alcohol. In
other words, the number of accident victims intoxicated on
marijuana relative to the number of marijuana users in society gave
a ratio similar to that for accident victims intoxicated on alcohol
relative to the total number of alcohol users. However, a closer
examination of the victims revealed that around 85% of the people
intoxicated on marijuana WERE ALSO INTOXICATED ON ALCOHOL. For
people only intoxicated on marijuana, the rate was much lower than
for alcohol alone. This finding has been supported by other
research using completely different methods. For example, an
economic analysis of the effects of decriminalization on marijuana
usage found that states that had reduced penalties for marijuana
possession experienced a rise in marijuana use and a decline in
alcohol use with the result that fatal highway accidents decreased.
This would suggest that, far from causing "carnage", legal
marijuana might actually save lives."

and the sources:
"6) For a survey of studies relating to cannabis and highway
accidents see "Marijuana, Driving and Accident Safety", by
Dale Gieringer, Journal of Psychoactive Drugs, ibid. The
effect of decriminalization on highway accidents is analyzed
in "Do Youths Substitute Alcohol and Marijuana? Some
Econometric Evidence" by Frank J. Chaloupka and Adit
Laixuthai, Nov. 1992, University of Illinois at Chicago."

These are a better worded version of my exact feelings. There's no way that criminalization is doing anything useful to stop people from smoking weed. If it were legal kids living at home would still need to hide it from their parents, so about the same number of teens would smoke. Also, if it were legal, the people out of the house that would smoke probably already do, because the risk of actually getting arrested is relatively low as long as you aren't crazy...

Another important fact to note about the difference between cannabis and the other two substances you compared it to (alcohol and nocotine) is cannabis' low potential for addiction. The real danger in cigarettes isn't that they're so good that people smoke 3 packs a day, it's because they're addicted as shit. The sam goes for alcohol, alcohol is a physically addictive substance whether people admit it or not. Cannabis' only addiction potential is for a psycological addiction (the way people are "addicted" to taping their fingers on a counter or are "addicted" to checking their e-mail.) Just like anything else in the world that one may become psycologically addicted to (which is just about everyting) doing too much of it would pose a risk, but the government has no right to control what behaviors anyone engages in that doesn't hurt anyone else. Ever.

 

^ Potheads 1 nonsmokers 0

I say legalize it. People shouldn't worry about who's smoking it, just as long as its being smoked responsibley!

 

more people are in jails and prisons for non-violent drug offenses than for rape, murder, aggravated assault and robbery combined. This is a fact that can be verefied on the NIDA website.

America is the leading jailer in the world with over 2,000,000 people imprisoned, over 700,000 for dope, the vast majority of those for pot. Since nobody has ever died from pot, (aspirin kills 6,000 per year), it is sheer lunacy and facism telling adults in a free society that they don't have the right to relax with pot.

You folks who have never tried pot but support jailing people are bigget fascists than the other folks who have tried it and feel that way. It's none of your business what I use to relax in the privacy of my own body. You are neither hip nor hippie.

Bugger off, and pick on somebody who is harming society. How many pot smokers have created a hassle for you in your life? Hippiecrits.

I suppose you think people like me with MS or other debilitating diseases also don't deserve the right to toke? Armchair generals and judges should toke up themselvfes or take a little blue chillpill

Peace, TD

 

go to our website for the facts: http://www.hempfest.org

we bring 170,000 people each year....zero arrests. you do the math

 

I am all for de-criminalizing people who smoke marijuana. It makes no sence what so ever to put innocent people in jail every year for doing something that is as harmless as cannabis. I've never heard of anyone going on a insane killing rampage under the influence of pot...

It really makes no sence to me why alchohal is legal, in which people's judgement gets really impaired where they could get someone hurt, go drunk driving and crash their car, or die of alchohal poisoning, and cannabis is illegal...