any reasons why marijuana should still be illegal?

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Subotai
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02 May 2012, 9:35 pm

mcg wrote:
If weed were legal, corporations would put middle-class drug dealers out of business with their mass produced, logistically optimal weed.


lol take that ya damn hippies! :lol:


If it were legal people would probably be growing it at home and sharing with friends free of charge.


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Joker
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02 May 2012, 9:37 pm

Subotai wrote:
mcg wrote:
If weed were legal, corporations would put middle-class drug dealers out of business with their mass produced, logistically optimal weed.


lol take that ya damn hippies! :lol:


If it were legal people would probably be growing it at home and sharing with friends free of charge.


Id still charge them :twisted:



CSBurks
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03 May 2012, 12:36 am

Not really. I think all drugs should be legal.

Why should the government be able to tell someone what they can or can't put in their bodies.



Grebels
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03 May 2012, 3:44 am

CSBurks wrote:
Not really. I think all drugs should be legal.

Why should the government be able to tell someone what they can or can't put in their bodies.


Because the government has to pay the cleaning up bill, or should we say the tax payer. I see more than one person with amputated limbs due to injecting, or scratching at those wretched insects, in our small town. But the OP said Cannabis. I think the evidence is that it tends to be self destructive. I wonder how it works out in Holland?



edgewaters
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03 May 2012, 4:01 am

CSBurks wrote:
Not really. I think all drugs should be legal.

Why should the government be able to tell someone what they can or can't put in their bodies.


Because the government has a duty to maintain civil order. Hard, addictive drugs cause crime and destroy whole communities. Partially this is because they're illegal, but mostly it's just inherent because of the powerful addictions.

Marijuana is a threat to public order too - but only because it is illegal. It's not inherently worse than, say, alcohol (better, actually). It being illegal is just arbitrary.



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03 May 2012, 4:59 am

Not to derail but the hard-line distinction that most people seem to make, at least verbally if not intellectually, that defines pretty much any illicit substance besides weed as "hard" and "destructive" seems arbitrary as well and thoroughly unproductive.
There are many illegal drugs that are less toxic and potentially harmful than legal ones, there are many drugs that can be dangerous when misused but useful or enjoyable when used responsibly.
I am fully in favor of marijuana legalization but I don't understand why so many people who can see the rational argument for personal responsibility and choice vis-a-vis lack of largely unconstitutional government intervention when it comes to weed, but not for other recreational drugs.
Why should the government be able to pass laws that both imply and legislate that they know what is good for me better than I do and further, that I should not be allowed to make personal choices that conflict with their ideology when they effect no one but me?



edgewaters
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03 May 2012, 5:32 am

ChaunceyGardiner wrote:
Why should the government be able to pass laws that both imply and legislate that they know what is good for me better than I do and further, that I should not be allowed to make personal choices that conflict with their ideology when they effect no one but me?


The government doesn't give a damn whether you personally want to become, say, a heroin junkie. It has nothing really to do with them caring about you or wanted to micromanage your choices. It's not to protect you, it's to protect society. The effects of a large quantity of methamphetamine on, say, a town or urban neighbourhood isn't just a matter of opinion, and the damage is so extreme (relative to volume) it's not like you can just say they're all more or less the same and the distinctions are just arbitrary, because they aren't. The distinctions are quite real. There is no comparison between what happens when you have a "weed epidemic" and what happens when you have an epidemic of crack or something like that.



heavenlyabyss
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03 May 2012, 5:40 am

If weed were legalized, it would become so uncool so quickly. People would be like, "oh, that stuff is for lazy losers" and tokers would be beaten up at school for being so dorky.

Weed increases introspection, empathy, insight, the exact opposite of what society generally considers "cool." But because it's illegal now it's like oh boy, that is crazy. That guy is smoking weed! Lol. Nonsense. Weed subdues. It doesn't demonize.



CrazyCatLord
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03 May 2012, 6:01 am

Well, let's ask Harry J. Anslinger, the man who is responsible for the near-total global cannabis prohibition. I think this was his main argument against marijuana back in the day:

Image



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03 May 2012, 6:43 am

Grebels wrote:
CSBurks wrote:
Not really. I think all drugs should be legal.

Why should the government be able to tell someone what they can or can't put in their bodies.


Because the government has to pay the cleaning up bill, or should we say the tax payer. I see more than one person with amputated limbs due to injecting, or scratching at those wretched insects, in our small town. But the OP said Cannabis. I think the evidence is that it tends to be self destructive. I wonder how it works out in Holland?


There are far less drug users in Holland than in the USA. 42% of all U.S. citizens have smoked marijuana at some point. In the Netherlands it's only 20%, less than half. When it comes to hard drugs, Holland also looks better in comparison. Since cannabis has been decriminalized, the use of heroin and cocoaine has greatly decreased.

Source: http://www.time.com/time/health/article ... 97,00.html

Another positive effect of the Dutch drug policy: The USA spends an annual $81 per citizen on law enforcement, the Netherlands only $27. And, although this is only partially attributable to drug use and prohibition, the per capita homicide rate in the USA is 8 in a population of 100,000. In Holland, it's 1.8 per 100k.

Source: http://norml.org.nz/downloads/dutchfactsheet.pdf

I believe that the key to the lower drug usage figures in the Netherlands is the legal (or rather, decriminalized) sale of cannabis products to adults only, which has driven the street dealers out of business. Whereas in the U.S., 12 year old kids can easily buy weed behind the school yard. As the above-linked Time article mentions, more than 20% of American kids have tried marijuana by age 15, and nearly 3% of those have tried cocaine as well.

The only negative effect of the Dutch drug policy is drug tourism. While it doesn't lead to higher crime rates (other than misdemeanors) and has many positive commercial effects, people in larger cities and border towns feel understandably bothered by the large number of stoned tourists that are floating and giggling through their streets 24/7. But that's the doing of Holland's European neighbors who criminalize cannabis sale (not because we want to, but because Uncle Sam and Uncle Anslinger told us to).



sage_gerard
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03 May 2012, 7:08 am

I'm waiting for marijuana to become legal so that potheads will shut the hell up.

Sorry. Its not that I oppose pro-weed legislation. I'm just tired of wannabe rebels yammering on and on about it. It makes me wonder how addictive the stuff really is.

I would argue people do not need it. Save some time and money. Minimizzzze, man.


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CrazyCatLord
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03 May 2012, 7:23 am

sage_gerard wrote:
I'm waiting for marijuana to become legal so that potheads will shut the hell up.

Sorry, but I'm tired of wannabe rebels yammering on and on about it. I don't tell people what to do, but I would argue people do not need the stuff. I don't have anything against pot itself. I just think life without smoking grass is not that horrible. Minimizzzze, man.


Potheads like Carl Sagan? :) I'm glad that he was a very prolific speaker and writer while he was alive (he wrote about marijuana and advocated its legalization under the pseudonym "Mr. X").

But I agree that life without cannabis is not that horrible. I haven't smoked any in 5 years, and before that point I went without weed for 13 years. The only reason I gave it another go was an article about the beneficial effect of cannabis on Crohn's disease, but it turned out that it didn't help (on the contrary). I'd nonetheless like to see it legalized, because drug prohibition is both futile and harmful imho. I'm also a gay marriage advocate even though I have no plans to marry a man :)



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03 May 2012, 8:37 am

Some people in here really love their fascism.



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03 May 2012, 8:46 am

sage_gerard wrote:
I'm waiting for marijuana to become legal so that potheads will shut the hell up.

Sorry. Its not that I oppose pro-weed legislation. I'm just tired of wannabe rebels yammering on and on about it. It makes me wonder how addictive the stuff really is.

I would argue people do not need it. Save some time and money. Minimizzzze, man.


So being of the opinion marijuana shouldn't be illegal makes one a wannabe rebel? alright then, but either way its not as though people who smoke marijuana will have nothing else to talk about. Its not like cannabis users constantly discuss legalizing marijuana and nothing else.


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03 May 2012, 8:49 am

ChaunceyGardiner wrote:
Not to derail but the hard-line distinction that most people seem to make, at least verbally if not intellectually, that defines pretty much any illicit substance besides weed as "hard" and "destructive" seems arbitrary as well and thoroughly unproductive.
There are many illegal drugs that are less toxic and potentially harmful than legal ones, there are many drugs that can be dangerous when misused but useful or enjoyable when used responsibly.
I am fully in favor of marijuana legalization but I don't understand why so many people who can see the rational argument for personal responsibility and choice vis-a-vis lack of largely unconstitutional government intervention when it comes to weed, but not for other recreational drugs.
Why should the government be able to pass laws that both imply and legislate that they know what is good for me better than I do and further, that I should not be allowed to make personal choices that conflict with their ideology when they effect no one but me?


Yeah it doesn't make much sense to me.....I mean even with the more dangerous drugs I don't think it should be a 'crime' to use them. Honestly I like what they did in Portugal I think they basically decriminalized drugs and approach addiction as more of a health issue, apparently statistically if anything drug abuse has gone down. Even so I do recommend being careful with drugs in general....but treating it as a crime is the wrong approach in my opinion.


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03 May 2012, 8:54 am

CrazyCatLord wrote:
Well, let's ask Harry J. Anslinger, the man who is responsible for the near-total global cannabis prohibition. I think this was his main argument against marijuana back in the day:

Image


Yeah pretty much, how embarrasing :oops: :lol:


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