any reasons why marijuana should still be illegal?

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shrox
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01 Aug 2012, 8:18 pm

Ascagne wrote:
Shrox, I didn't speak of medical use of marijuana for the very simple reason that it is a very different question, which is not a problem (not at a general level anyway) :wink: . But understand that it feels a little awkward to read your message after what I wrote about my cousin... :? But I'm sure you hadn't at all in mind that when you wrote it :wink: .
Let's keep in mind the differences between the different kind of uses.


Did you know they had to add a bitter taste to Sterno to keep people from drinking it? People are odd in many ways...I've only used it to heat a can of beans and keep warm during a winter power outage.



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01 Aug 2012, 10:06 pm

Ascagne wrote:
Shrox, I didn't speak of medical use of marijuana for the very simple reason that it is a very different question, which is not a problem (not at a general level anyway) :wink: . But understand that it feels a little awkward to read your message after what I wrote about my cousin... :? But I'm sure you hadn't at all in mind that when you wrote it :wink: .
Let's keep in mind the differences between the different kind of uses.
So even though alcohol is worse for someone than marijuana we should keep it illegal?


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01 Aug 2012, 10:12 pm

I don't think it should be illegal but I can think of reasons why it is, very few of them to do with protecting us.
All boils down to money and regulation.



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01 Aug 2012, 10:33 pm

Ascagne wrote:
...but I've a relative who tried once in a depression, and it has given him schizophrenia and it was devastating (I feel very sorry for him) for him and for his family...


Actually, I'm gonna have to correct you there. The studies done on the link between schizophrenia and marijuana have only ever been able to find a correlation at best. There is no established physiological mechanism of action on how this would occur, and there aren't enough studies done on marijuana to really help the scientific community really establish it one way or another because it's illegal and hard to do meaningful research on for that very reason.

The reality is, your relative was probably already a schizophrenic time bomb waiting to happen, and the marijuana was just one of many triggers waiting to set it off.



Ascagne
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01 Aug 2012, 11:12 pm

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The reality is, your relative was probably already a schizophrenic time bomb waiting to happen, and the marijuana was just one of many triggers waiting to set it off.


According to what I've read, it's pretty clear that consuming this kind of psychotropic substances is not "just one of many triggers", given the effects, it is one of the main things that make the situation get awful and a latent possibility of schizophrenia to crack. "Time bomb waiting to happen" ? No. Having traits, of course. Once the two meet... Aïe. I can be wrong, of course, but that seems more logical to me. It doesn't change the fact that this is the worst situation possible, don't you think, a fragile person, in a time of crisis, taking a product with potential destroying effects ?

Here in France, the scientific consensus seems to be, if I'm not wrong, that the cannabis can be dangerous. The corresponding stance used in official political medical discourse (up to today, we'll see if that changes under the Socialists) is prevention so that people don't take it. Most specialists agree, as well as the Academy of Medicine. If some things that we can read is true - the fact that the consequences of tobacco and alcohol are in French society more deadly and more preoccupying as of now - they all stress the fact that this is in no way an excuse to consider it as non-dangerous and to trivialize it, notably because of the circumstances of its use by young people, very often in conjunction with other substances (for instance those quoted beforehand). I'm reading testimonials right now : a patient who says that the trivialization about cannabis made him think he could without risks take it the hard way, with very bad consequences for him. Of course, it's not as spectacular as other products, which are clearly malevolent. If there is a dependence, even when the health of the person is not very badly affected, it remains a dependence, and of the strong kind nonetheless : another person after 15 years of use decides (through help of course) to stop so as to become free again. This dependence is considered as an ilness. But according to the author, about schizophrenia, the apparition of schizophrenia in a person who would be more prone to have it (because of fragility, personality, a preexisting personality disorder), could never happen if he doesn't take cannabis, which seems logical to me. The statistics I can see in another report show that there are yet much more risks of having psychotic disorders when you're a consumer of that substance (with a long use). Hence the bigger danger for some kind of personalities. According to this author it can 1/ provoke dependence, which is always considered as nocuous by the specialists 2 / provoke health problems 3 / have a bad influence on life, social problems 4 / prove very dangerous for some people or people in certain situations. However, he is not at all an "extremist" about cannabis ; he doesn't say "it will kill you", "prevent you from having babies" or I don't know. :wink: The other report clearly shows that the amount of young that have taken marijuana who fail at school, repeat the year, have memory problems, is really significant. It shows they're many potential risks, that are obviously and happily (else in what state society would be ?) not as radical as some say, but that do exist in many cases ; moreover, there are details on the worst cases. Prudence, caution, and sympathy have always led me to think that it was important to think of the worst cases possible when you think about something, so I'm more on the side of those who have suffered and suffer than of the one of those who want to legitimate (out of medical control) the use of the substance.

I'm pretty sure of the effects cannabis would have on me, but I even don't need to think about this to know that I would not take it. I'm not puritan about it, and if some want to use it, in private, that's their choice. The problem is there is an eventuality of risk and disaster, and that many young are in a certain way forced, feel compelled to smoke it (as they're to drink or to smoke in the general way) by peer pressure ; all that is reinforced by the trivialization of the matter, and the debate about legalization, although it differs from it, has links to that question. Furthermore, as I wrote before, at a certain point it's inevitable that eventually it's your viewpoint, your philosophy of the world, of life, and what you want for society and future generations that influence or determines definitely your opinion on such a controversial debate, where by the way the medical is intrinsically linked to the political, the philosophical, and so on. Thus, it is hard to answer, and objectivity, hum, is not really possible. They're pros and cons - as always. Countries that have legalized cannabis seem to ponder delegalization nowadays ; others think about the reverse. Eventually, it seems to me that both solutions are imperfect, of course ; how couldn't it be so, given the subject of the debate ? Because, of course, the situation in countries where it is illegal and where there is a traffic is all but glorious...



Last edited by Ascagne on 01 Aug 2012, 11:40 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Delphiki
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01 Aug 2012, 11:32 pm

Well there in France they have some...different views on autism too.


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Ascagne
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01 Aug 2012, 11:48 pm

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Well there in France they have some...different views on autism too.


That I will not deny, and I see what you want to mean, but I don't think it's very valid. It makes me think I haven't changed what happened in the last few years concerning the research on autism in France (but yes, there were still polemics about some methods the last time I checked, and there are problems with some "schools" of psychoanalysts also, if I remember well)... But concerning the search on cannabis and psychoactive drugs it seems to me after having vaguely read some things that there is less differences between the different research communities nowadays. However, the positions adopted by the searchers, the vulgarizators, the essayists and the politicians, when they tackle the subject, are not the same everywhere, of course.

I'm sure of one objective thing : whatever our personal feelings about the question, there are scientific results that show that there are particular and public health issues that contradict some ideas. Myself I'm at least sure that trivialization on this matter - I say the same for alcohol, tobacco, and psychoactive products - is wrong ; and I think that whatever one can think about the recreational use (which can derive to other things) of this product, caution and the observation of what specialists have proven, can lead to the same observation, or nearly the same. Where is my problem ? It lies in the fact that it seems to me that trivialization would quasi necessarily progress if legalization was applied... After that, where do we go, where do we stop ? I'm already not very OK with tobacco (it's so good that it is banned from many public spaces in France - sorry for the smokers, but after all, it's one of the very first avoidable causes of death in my country, so...) and people, specifically the one of my generation or the young, have such a problem with alcohol... My city has sadly been covered in national news because it has the woeful record of accidental drownings of young people in the river in a year... :? With alcohol there is a great deal of trivialization too...



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02 Aug 2012, 10:00 am

Ascagne wrote:
According to what I've read, it's pretty clear that consuming this kind of psychotropic substances is not "just one of many triggers", given the effects, it is one of the main things that make the situation get awful and a latent possibility of schizophrenia to crack. "Time bomb waiting to happen" ? No. Having traits, of course. Once the two meet... Aïe. I can be wrong, of course, but that seems more logical to me. It doesn't change the fact that this is the worst situation possible, don't you think, a fragile person, in a time of crisis, taking a product with potential destroying effects ?


What you've been reading...scientific articles and such? Cause the current state of scientific research on the matter, as far as I've been able to tell, is "Well there seems to be some kind of correlation, but we have no idea which direction it goes. Do people with psychosis/schizo/etc seek out drugs, or do drugs cause psychosis?" One look at the wikipedia page will show you just how undecided the scientific community currently is on the topic.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Long-term_ ... #Psychosis

Quote:
A recent study has shown that cannabidiol (a major constituent of cannabis) may be as effective as atypical antipsychotics in treating schizophrenia.


How ironic, right?

Now, as for the last part, a depressed person is liable to do any number of things to worsen their situation, and we can't ban or control for them all, nor should we, just because a tiny fraction of the population might have problems with it. Your best bet is to keep depressed people away from the MANY MANY things in the world they could mess themselves up with.

Quote:
Here in France, the scientific consensus seems to be, if I'm not wrong, that the cannabis can be dangerous. The corresponding stance used in official political medical discourse (up to today, we'll see if that changes under the Socialists) is prevention so that people don't take it. Most specialists agree, as well as the Academy of Medicine.


All of those guys have a ton of scientifically and medically-certified opponents on the other side ready to tell them that they're wrong.

Quote:
If some things that we can read is true - the fact that the consequences of tobacco and alcohol are in French society more deadly and more preoccupying as of now - they all stress the fact that this is in no way an excuse to consider it as non-dangerous and to trivialize it.


If we're going to keep marijuana illegal, then I'll accept it, IF we make alcohol and tobacco illegal as well. Otherwise, it's just hypocrisy.

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...notably because of the circumstances of its use by young people, very often in conjunction with other substances (for instance those quoted beforehand). I'm reading testimonials right now : a patient who says that the trivialization about cannabis made him think he could without risks take it the hard way, with very bad consequences for him.


The solution here would be to not portray marijuana as trivial, but like alcohol, a potentially very dangerous drug that shouldn't be played around with. Who the hell is trying to "trivialize" marijuana? I have no idea what the pro-legalization people in France are doing, but I'm fairly certain the rest of the world isn't trying to "trivialize" a psychoactive substance. Dispel misinformation? Sure.

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Of course, it's not as spectacular as other products, which are clearly malevolent. If there is a dependence, even when the health of the person is not very badly affected, it remains a dependence, and of the strong kind nonetheless : another person after 15 years of use decides (through help of course) to stop so as to become free again. This dependence is considered as an ilness.


This same argument could be used to support the ban of alcohol. Do you think we should outlaw alcohol?

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But according to the author, about schizophrenia, the apparition of schizophrenia in a person who would be more prone to have it (because of fragility, personality, a preexisting personality disorder), could never happen if he doesn't take cannabis, which seems logical to me.


There are other papers reporting that it would be impossible for cannabis to exacerbate schizophrenia in someone who wasn't going to get it anyway. Read the wiki article.

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According to this author it can 1/ provoke dependence, which is always considered as nocuous by the specialists 2 / provoke health problems 3 / have a bad influence on life, social problems 4 / prove very dangerous for some people or people in certain situations.


You just described alcohol and tobacco perfectly. Time to ban them? Either ban all three, or make all three legal, imo. If we can accept the problems caused by alcohol and tobacco, then we can accept the disputably problematic marijuana.

Quote:
However, he is not at all an "extremist" about cannabis ; he doesn't say "it will kill you"....[snip]


I think it's good for governments to be cautious about this, but the reality is they're making decisions based off studies hand-selected to paint whatever point they want, when the actual science has failed to come to a general conclusion.

wikipedia wrote:
Both advocates and opponents of the drug are able to call upon multiple scientific studies supporting their respective positions. For instance, while cannabis has been correlated with the development of various mental disorders in multiple studies[which?], these studies differ widely as to whether cannabis use is the cause of the mental problems displayed in heavy users, whether the mental problems are augmented by cannabis use, or whether both the cannabis use and the mental problems are the effects of some other cause.


Fact. The science is undecided. It's just how it is. Governments LOVE to make it look like it's a one-sided debate, when it's not.



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02 Aug 2012, 10:09 am

Shau wrote:
Now, as for the last part, a depressed person is liable to do any number of things to worsen their situation, and we can't ban or control for them all, nor should we, just because a tiny fraction of the population might have problems with it. Your best bet is to keep depressed people away from the MANY MANY things in the world they could mess themselves up with.


Hold on a minute...I agreed with a lot of your post, but if someone is depressed and uses cannabis that does not automatically mean they have a problem with cannabis or that the cannabis is having a negative effect. I personally self medicate with it, and it makes my depression and anxiety noticeably less extreme of course it can only provide temporary relief its not a cure or anything but it certainly helps. Also that aside it seems there is research to suggest scientifically cannabis can be beneficial for depression so I don't know I would catagorize cannabis as something all depressed people should be kept away from.


Also just because I am bored how would keeping depressed people away from many many things that could potentially do them harm be enforced? that might be a bit of a slippery slope.


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02 Aug 2012, 10:18 am

Sweetleaf wrote:
Hold on a minute...I agreed with a lot of your post, but if someone is depressed and uses cannabis that does not automatically mean they have a problem with cannabis or that the cannabis is having a negative effect. I personally self medicate with it, and it makes my depression and anxiety noticeably less extreme of course it can only provide temporary relief its not a cure or anything but it certainly helps. Also that aside it seems there is research to suggest scientifically cannabis can be beneficial for depression so I don't know I would catagorize cannabis as something all depressed people should be kept away from.


I was sort of throwing him a bone there. IF marijuana were to be assumed to be "bad" for depressed people, then the solution isn't to ban MJ, but rather to deal with the depressed people personally. It would be like banning bridges because a depressed person might decide to jump off of one.

Quote:
Also just because I am bored how would keeping depressed people away from many many things that could potentially do them harm be enforced? that might be a bit of a slippery slope.


It would be impossible, which is pretty much my point. But if you REALLY wanted to go down that route, the solution wouldn't be to ban everything that could cause them problems, but rather to keep THEM away from the problem causers, although as you correctly implied, enforcing it is just not feasible.



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02 Aug 2012, 10:28 am

Shau wrote:
Sweetleaf wrote:
Hold on a minute...I agreed with a lot of your post, but if someone is depressed and uses cannabis that does not automatically mean they have a problem with cannabis or that the cannabis is having a negative effect. I personally self medicate with it, and it makes my depression and anxiety noticeably less extreme of course it can only provide temporary relief its not a cure or anything but it certainly helps. Also that aside it seems there is research to suggest scientifically cannabis can be beneficial for depression so I don't know I would catagorize cannabis as something all depressed people should be kept away from.


I was sort of throwing him a bone there. IF marijuana were to be assumed to be "bad" for depressed people, then the solution isn't to ban MJ, but rather to deal with the depressed people personally. It would be like banning bridges because a depressed person might decide to jump off of one.

Quote:
Also just because I am bored how would keeping depressed people away from many many things that could potentially do them harm be enforced? that might be a bit of a slippery slope.


It would be impossible, which is pretty much my point. But if you REALLY wanted to go down that route, the solution wouldn't be to ban everything that could cause them problems, but rather to keep THEM away from the problem causers, although as you correctly implied, enforcing it is just not feasible.


I see and yeah that approach would make more sense, hypothetically if cannabis was bad for depressed people it would make more sense to keep them away from it than to have it entirely illegal. However I of course am of the opinion marijuana is not bad for depression.


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02 Aug 2012, 12:18 pm

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and we can't ban or control for them all, nor should we, just because a tiny fraction of the population might have problems with it


As I said, I'm preoccupied with potential risk. Even though you're right, I think that there is a moral duty to consider the population at risk as an important element, not as a sideways thing. But here the question is not banning the product, but not trivializing it. I'm OK to say conceptually a tiny risk of disaster is not a valid reason to ban something that would have no real wrong effect on the majority (but I don't think that's the case here), but conversely the potential danger for some makes it morally wrong to trivialize the product.
The difference between a psychoactive drug and the other things a depessed people can resort to is that he can use it thinking it will make him feel better and become addicted and have all other kinds of problems.
Let's be clear : there are many avoidable risks in the world. There are already too much people who get hurt or die because of unavoidable things. A depressed person has already plenty of risks of falling because of things that are impossible or hard to control, so it's all the more sad when it happens with something he can control at the beginning.


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All of those guys have a ton of scientifically and medically-certified opponents on the other side ready to tell them that they're wrong.


Maybe. But the facts don't lie. You can orientate your conclusion so as to make your political point about a drug, but except if you deliberatly use wrong data, orientate the results or don't work in a scientific way, statistics don't lie, and those people don't use fake population of consummers or addicts.
As I wrote, when they're objective, they're cautious when it comes to conclusions about the general level of dangerosity of the product. But they don't even have to do it in order to us to evaluate this dangerosity. When I read the statistics, I don't get the impression that there is no problem with recreative use of cannabis and that the subject should be taken lightly. It's a matter of preoccupation, as alcohol and tobacco are.

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If we're going to keep marijuana illegal, then I'll accept it, IF we make alcohol and tobacco illegal as well. Otherwise, it's just hypocrisy.


You're very right when you say that there is hypocrisy in the matter (enormous industrial interests, cultural tendencies, etc.). Myself, I'd prefer them to be illegal as well, or at least with some kinds of alcohol controlled (France is never going to illegalize wine, it's impossible), and others banned. It's not my call, though.

Quote:
I have no idea what the pro-legalization people in France are doing, but I'm fairly certain the rest of the world isn't trying to "trivialize" a psychoactive substance. Dispel misinformation? Sure.


It's no longer "a big deal" in France for certain group of adults to see teenagers getting drunk, smoking, taking some drugs seen as "soft" (sometimes wrongly). Some are OK with, some don't care, some have a philosophy that indulges it... Sellers of alcohol are very prone not to check if they sell it to a underage, patrons at bars do not always have the decency to stop serving alcohol to already drunk persons. In France, there are many problems with alcohol and the young, for example.
Misinformation exists, of course, on both sides. Some people who would like legalization don't hide that they're not interested to know the implications for society and care about their use...
The problem is people can see that this is their liberty, but it can be a very selfish thing to assume, and it's not always true. Many young get drunk or smoke because of peer pressure, for example, which is not the same as chosing in all independence to use one of these products. There are of course many, many tragics accidents and deaths linked to these, but that's not the whole point of the story. Getting drunk, even when the only person in danger is the consummer, isn't without consequences for his entourage and society, that has to treat him at hospital, or in the sometimes massive makeshift field hospitals you can find near great parties and events. The consumption of alcohol can also have very practical and concrete indirect effects : some areas in my city, highly touristic, can be filled with dangerous bits of broken alcohol bottles left by the people who drank them there during the night... Etc. Etc.
Sorry for the deviation.

Quote:
the solution wouldn't be to ban everything that could cause them problems, but rather to keep THEM away from the problem causers, although as you correctly implied, enforcing it is just not feasible.


However, it's still better when you have less possibility to be confronted with what causes the problem. Which is not really a good argument in the direct debate of legalization, of course, because the fact it is illegal doesn't make most of the people who take it not take it, but as I said there can be some worry about the effects of legalization about the perception of the substance, and the way some people "use" that decision. But we enter in less solid ground, and this has moral, political and philosophical implications. As I said, I'm already not happy of the situation with tobacco and alcohol, so anyone can understand why I've doubts concerning cannabis... Hearing often from people whose lives have been sometimes broken by psychoactive drugs or alcohol, their intellectual capacities sometimes very highly limited, etc., must be one of the reasons. Otherwise, I'm not competent to determine the scientific aspect of the question ; however, even though it seems that a general conclusion is hard to make about cannabis, it seems to me that some statistics about it are eloquent - maybe for not all, but...



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02 Aug 2012, 12:44 pm

Ascagne wrote:
As I said, I'm preoccupied with potential risk. Even though you're right, I think that there is a moral duty to consider the population at risk as an important element, not as a sideways thing. But here the question is not banning the product, but not trivializing it. I'm OK to say conceptually a tiny risk of disaster is not a valid reason to ban something that would have no real wrong effect on the majority (but I don't think that's the case here), but conversely the potential danger for some makes it morally wrong to trivialize the product.
The difference between a psychoactive drug and the other things a depessed people can resort to is that he can use it thinking it will make him feel better and become addicted and have all other kinds of problems.
Let's be clear : there are many avoidable risks in the world. There are already too much people who get hurt or die because of unavoidable things. A depressed person has already plenty of risks of falling because of things that are impossible or hard to control, so it's all the more sad when it happens with something he can control at the beginning.


-Alright what gives you the impression Marijuana would have a real wrong effect on the majority?

-Also what a about a depressed person who smokes marijuana to relieve their symptoms and benefits from doing so? I mean there is research that indicates cannabis can be used to treat depression, some people who self medicate with it know this. It certainly would not help everyone with depression since some people find the effects unpleasant....but then anti-depressants that help some people can negatively effect others. I mean cannabis might provide that depressed individual enough relief from their symptoms they don't resort to regular opiate use, excessive alcohol use or suicide for instance.


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02 Aug 2012, 12:56 pm

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-Alright what gives you the impression Marijuana would have a real wrong effect on the majority?


The interpretation of scientific facts, which raises concerns. I haven't said it would have a "real wrong effect on the majority". But when I see, in a study about a population of young persons who has consumed (and many of them of course also drank, or smoke), that 80% of them have memory problems, 70% problems at school, etc., I have concerns, of course. It doesn't mean all the statistics are of this kind, and that everybody is concerned by risks or the same kind of risks, but that is enough for me. It is sufficient that there are at least on some levels and for a representative portion of the population risks involved, for me to think that there is a problem with it, even though it doesn't mean it's not a problem to all who use it : that is my "public standpoint". Privately, I would be a bit more radical, because I'm as you can have read more interested in the future of the worst cases (and their eventual repetition) than in the fact many use it with pleasure... Of course we could say there is hypocrisy in the two opposing positions : the one who thinks about the fact it is seen as good for many, but hurt sometimes enormously a few, and the one who thinks it's more important that it hurts the few, than that it pleases the many... This is one of the greatest problems with the question of alcohol, tobacco and other things like that, of course, but at varying levels. For example, if it were up to me, no more cigarettes. Of course, it's not possible politically in my country (and in many many others). It's already hard to struggle against this, legalizing another product would not be very welcome...

Quote:
Also what a about a depressed person who smokes marijuana to relieve their symptoms and benefits from doing so?


Medical (and controlled) use is a different question than general legalization, I think.



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02 Aug 2012, 7:16 pm

Ascagne wrote:
The interpretation of scientific facts, which raises concerns. I haven't said it would have a "real wrong effect on the majority". But when I see, in a study about a population of young persons who has consumed (and many of them of course also drank, or smoke), that 80% of them have memory problems, 70% problems at school, etc.,
Oh yes, the children.

Cigars and Alcohol are legal. But they are still illegal to minors. It is still illegal to sell it to minors.

So, when someone says 'legalize pot' it is not incompatible with letting it stay illegal to minors.


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02 Aug 2012, 7:34 pm

Ascagne wrote:
Quote:
-Alright what gives you the impression Marijuana would have a real wrong effect on the majority?


The interpretation of scientific facts, which raises concerns. I haven't said it would have a "real wrong effect on the majority". But when I see, in a study about a population of young persons who has consumed (and many of them of course also drank, or smoke), that 80% of them have memory problems, 70% problems at school, etc., I have concerns, of course. It doesn't mean all the statistics are of this kind, and that everybody is concerned by risks or the same kind of risks, but that is enough for me. It is sufficient that there are at least on some levels and for a representative portion of the population risks involved, for me to think that there is a problem with it, even though it doesn't mean it's not a problem to all who use it : that is my "public standpoint". Privately, I would be a bit more radical, because I'm as you can have read more interested in the future of the worst cases (and their eventual repetition) than in the fact many use it with pleasure... Of course we could say there is hypocrisy in the two opposing positions : the one who thinks about the fact it is seen as good for many, but hurt sometimes enormously a few, and the one who thinks it's more important that it hurts the few, than that it pleases the many... This is one of the greatest problems with the question of alcohol, tobacco and other things like that, of course, but at varying levels. For example, if it were up to me, no more cigarettes. Of course, it's not possible politically in my country (and in many many others). It's already hard to struggle against this, legalizing another product would not be very welcome...

Well how does having it illegal help anything, criminalizing people who do choose to smoke it does not seem to be a very good approach...I mean I think it should be treated as a health issue not a criminal issue. That way if it does cause problems for someone they can have help without stigma rather then being considered a criminal for smoking a plant.

Quote:
Also what a about a depressed person who smokes marijuana to relieve their symptoms and benefits from doing so?


Medical (and controlled) use is a different question than general legalization, I think.


Well sort of I suppose, but I support both ideas.


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