http://www.cnn.com/2002/WORLD/americ...pot/index.html
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Amsterdam will not be pleased *cracks knuckles*
I still don't see why it's illegal in the first place, Cheech and Chong are like american idols. Even the british guy can't knock em.
On a slightly more serious note, hope this passes, would do a lot for the legalization process here in America. Oddly enough, I have never toked a fattie bowl once in my life, but it's ridiculous that I can get plastered every night and do more damage to myself through drinking than I would do through smoking twice as much pot. Freakah!
I think the number one question you have to ask when talking about the whole weed issue is: why is tobacco and alcohol legal, and marijuana not.
If anyone can actually win that argument, fine, never legalize it. Problem is, I don't think it is a winnable argument that the first two are better than the third. So simple common sense dictates that either you legalize all three, or make them ALL illegal.
This is one of my big hobby horses, because I think the prohibition of marijuana is one of the most illogical and stupid things prevalent in our societies. And also cause I enjoy it myself, from time to time.
And I can guarantee that I have commited WAY more stupid/potentially dangerous acts while drunk than while stoned, as I am sure has anyone else that do or has done both.
It's just so amusing the number of myths out there, and how the people against legalization trot them out every GD time. I remember about 3 years back my mom gave me a book entitled "DRUGS (it was like 2 inch lettering) What your Kids Should Know!" It was so chock full of absolute garbage that it was laughable. Every now and then it would italicize or bold a certain passage or sentence that was of particular importance, and those were just outrageous
The bottom line is, the more you smoke pot, the lazier you get
People who continue to smoke marijuana become, essentially, dumber and dumber as time passes
You can become addicted to pot, the very first time you smoke it
It's good for the environment too!
Hemp is a key crop in helping to remedy some of the problems that continue to damage our planet.
Hemp is the world's primary biomass producer, growing ten tons/acre in approximately 4 months. It can produce 4 times the amount of paper/acre than 20-year-old trees can, and will grow in various climatic zones. Hemp can also be used to produce charcoal, gas or methanol oil -- among many other things.
By using hemp pulp for the production of paper, we could curtail deforestation and produce stronger, more environmentally sound paper products for less than 1/2 the price of wood pulp paper. The process only uses 14-25% as much sulphur-based acids as used in paper produced from wood pulp. The problem of dioxin (a by-product of chlorine that has been shown to cause breast-cancer) contamination of our rivers and lakes could be reversed since chlorine bleach is not used to bleach hemp pulp.
I could go on but you get the idea. The greatest barrier to hemp production has been the ban on commercial cultivation. However, Canada relaxed their farming restrictions about a decade ago. Maybe we'll do the same in the states. ;)
The Marijuana Tax Act of 1936 should be repealed imo.
Drinking will always be more fun than smoking pot
That is so completely true Tilea. I don't think it's even possible to play chicken in go-carts while high with any real sense of danger present. But while drunk, the oppurtunities are nearly endless. However, I suppose this means I really can't make fun of canadians anymore. Go Canucks =\
The very fact that you talk about legalizing marijuana because smoking or drinking is legal, is a rationalization. The fact is, all 3 can addict you, all three can ruin your life, and all 3 can ruin the lives of others around you.
If you ask me, they should all be illegal.
The Hemp paper thing sounds decent tho, I'd like to save some trees.
Have to remeber that marijuana has been known to push some people on to more addictive and dangerous drugs, like heroin and such.
Not that I don't agree with you guys on alot of points, I just think thats the main point separating pot from smoking and drinking. ^ ^
Actually that premise has been proven to be false. In fact, when pot was criminalized in 1936 more people turned to other illegal substances like heroin. The same can be said for the prohibition of alcohol and is, in fact, one of the reasons alcohol was again legalized.Quote:
Originally posted by Abyori
Have to remeber that marijuana has been known to push some people on to more addictive and dangerous drugs, like heroin and such.
Personally, I'd like to see more money put into drug treatment and rehabilitation rather than see people who smoke pot treated like criminals. I'm in favor of decriminalization.
Yes, addiction is a terrible problem but drug addiction in itself should not be a criminal issue. Putting someone in jail doesn't solve their problem with addiction. And the fact is why should someone who smokes pot go to jail while someone who drinks vodka or smokes tobacco doesn't? Why does the state see fit to regulate some addictive substances and not others?
Bah... tobacco... weed... alcohol... Hell they ALL haven't got SHIT on EQ... Look at how ridiculously addicted we all are/have been/will be/were addicted to EQ. This is more of a jest, but is slightly true... Its too easy to worry about addiction, you can become addicted to anything, some actually have a physical dependance factor, while others are merely mental. As far as I know, weed is not biologically addicting, but more mental based. Alcohol and Tobacco on the other hand can form true physical addictions.
Illegality breeds a lot of the reason for wanting to smoke weed in the first place. Its a cool thing to do and you get joy out of it. I can remember in highschool, smoking weed with people because they were and doing it because that was what they did for fun. I never really enjoyed smoking that much or drinking for that matter, unless girls were involded, then I loved it. Point being, it wasn't the alcohol or weed I wanted, it was to be around the girls. Anyway... I think it should be legalized, I think we'd see a drop off in use of Marijuana, whats fun about getting a drug over the counter? Aren't pill abuse issues the big thing anymore anyway? Kids popping rittalin or what not? I don't know anymore, I'm 22 and I'm old now, but I know that I hardly drink and never smoke anymore. Lifting and swimming are more enjoyable to me, hell more relaxing too.
In closing, I think it should be legalized, dumb fucks will get addicted regardless, its all about self moderation. But hey, I say we have enough people in this world, lets thin the herd.
The simple answer to all of the questions is money.
The tobacco and alcohol industries are so entrenched in the US economy that it is not financially practical for them to be made illegal. We have in our country's history a PRIME example of what happens when you criminalize a given product. The price goes up, organized crime gets involved in sale/production, and violent crime surrounding the product goes way up. Hello prohibition. It's funny that after all these years we still haven't learned our lessons about this..
The tobacco industry also has a captive audience. Why should they want competition or change?
But taking away the purely monetary concerns.. If you converted the entire tobacco industry over to hemp/marijuana, the impact on the environment would be HUGE. Tobacco so badly depletes the soil it grows in that if you don't rotate crops every single year, the soil gets burned out and NOTHING will grow there. Hemp on the other hand is VERY gentle on the soil, grows anywhere, can be easily mulched over to restock the soil, and so on and so on..
Add to this the calming effects of pot on the human psyche.. I've never seen anyone get into a fight when high. You're just too relaxed.. Alcohol isn't called Liquid Courage for nothing.
Personally.. I'd legalize it.. tax it.. put it under the same rules and regulations as any other mind altering substance.
Why illegalize drinking just because it has the potential to ruin my life, Maegwin? I have a drivers license, I could get into an accident and completely end my life. or someone elses... but you can't just make driving a car illegal either.
The laws in place to force people to drink/smoke responsibly just need to be made more stiff. You can't go taking fun away from people.
Why Alcohol isnt going to ever be illegal.
Think really hard about this if youre a parent, or ask youre parents...90% of us were conceived while our parents were
drunk/had been drinking. You could make a argument that alcohol plays a determing factor in as many new lifes being created as it does in ending life.
Okay, sweet, some discussion! I love arguing! First I will clarify, when I state “we” or “our country”, or basically don’t explicitly state what location I am talking about, I just mean North America in general. Both countries right now have very similar demographics, laws, and ideas pertaining to drugs in general, weed in specific.
This is going to be extremely long (I just finished writing and am adding this to warn you), so most people prolly won’t even read it. Oh well I guess J. However, I welcome people to question my beliefs or what I have said, I think it’s entertaining to debate stuff like this.
Also, forgive me if I ramble, it's been years since I wrote a real essay, none of this is proof read, nor was there any real structure to it.
First of all, most of people's common beliefs on marijuana are completely false, in most respects. They are supported as fact however, by opponents of decriminalization, and ESPECIALLY police associations. Police associations are the absolute worst culprits of them all, they have been feeding us propaganda on weed since they originally outlawed it in the early part of the 1930’s. In Canada for example, 43% of all drug related offences are pot. Make it legal, there goes a whole shit load of cops jobs, more than likely. Of course they don’t want that to happen. Canadian police organizations last year spent roughly 500 million dollars on enforcement of drug laws in relation to marijuana, and I imagine the court costs are in the tens of millions. Couldn’t that money be better spent on treating people with real addictions?
And yes Maegwin, it IS a rationalization. I don’t see a problem with that, why should a law be irrational?
As far as addiction goes, you have obviously never smoked pot, or at the most have done it a handful of times. Pot is NOT addictive in a chemical sense. That is a scientific fallacy. There are NO discernable withdrawal effects of someone who smokes pot on a daily basis for even years, and is then forced to quit cold turkey. At the very most they may have trouble with their sleep cycle, because they have probably been using to regulate themselves in that respect. Christ, sounds an awful lot like caffeine, doesn’t it? Anyone calling for that one to be made illegal?
Yes, people can become addicted to pot, but not chemically. ANYTHING can be addictive to the right personality. I mean fuck, this is an EQ message board here, 95% of you have probably shown symptoms of withdrawal/addiction in relation to EQ. People can be addicted to chocolate, gambling, porn (LLCoolJ was!), sex, reading message boards (that’s me), whatever, it can be addictive. Is it up to the government and police organizations to determine what is a good addiction and what is a bad one? How and why would they do that? We don’t live in a police state do we?
In terms of ruining lives, marijuana is so far down the list of things that can do that, it’s actually a comical argument to even make. Look how many people are killed in alcohol related incidents, whether it be driving, doing some stupid stunt (some asshole just drowned last night driving his snowmobile across a fucking lake, yay him), or just getting into a fight and causing property or personal damage. Smoking kills thousands of people daily. Gambling completely fucks lives up (dunno if anyone else has heard of VLT’s, Video Lottery Terminals, but the things are essentially crack cocaine that you pay for one loonie at a time) beyond all recognition on a daily basis. Christ, big fans of pro sports neglect their families on a daily basis. People whip around in sports cars and rap themselves around telephone poles. The list goes on and on, and every last thing I mentioned above I can guarantee has a higher social impact than someone who smokes weed.
How can it ruin your life? I cannot think of a single person that has “ruined” their life because of weed. I have seen a lot of people do it with weed, but if it wasn’t gonna be weed, it was going to be another thing just as bad, if not worse. I smoke it on a pretty regular basis. I will go three months smoking it once a day before I go to sleep, then go a few months without it because I start to develop a resistance to it. I hardly consider my life ruined, and I hardly think I am seriously addicted to it. I am not stupid. A lot of the smartest people I knew back in engineering enjoyed it on a regular basis, it sure doesn’t seem to be damning them to a life of stupidity, mediocrity, or laziness.
Explain to me why tobacco, alcohol, weed, or any other thing that is “harmful” to you should be made illegal? Is it the government’s job to protect normal sane people from themselves? I thought we only did that for crazy people. There are TONS of things that are harmful to us that the government doesn’t regulate, and shouldn’t. If it harms other people, then hey, fine, maybe they should step in. The current status of pot and other soft drugs as illegal is the only thing that causes others to be harmed by it. I will explain why later (this is long, I know, bear with me!).
Abyori, the assertion that pot is a “gateway drug” is one of the favorite things pulled out of a policeman’s hat every time he has to talk about why pot is bad. And guess what, it is absolute horseshit. You know how they determined that? They went into a jail, took a survey, and discovered that a lot of people with heroin, cocaine, or speed problems just happened to also have done pot! Why, way to fucking go, you guys just found the problem! They also all breathe oxygen, walk upright, and have hair. Quickly, pull everyone’s lungs out, chop their legs off and shave them bald as a baby, because that shit is making everyone into drugged out zombies. You can’t just make such a huge leap of faith like that.
Maybe they should consider the fact that the type of person willing to try weed is simply more likely to dabble in things that aren’t exactly great for them. Me personally? First drug I ever did was acid when I was 13. So I guess acid is actually the real gateway drug right? In truth I was just willing to try whatever seemed like fun, regardless of harm to myself (as long as it wasn’t very addictive, to this day I haven’t and won’t touch cocaine, and could never stick a needle in myself). That’s why people think pot is a gateway drug, just because the people who have done harder drugs have also done pot. It’s a stupid conclusion to make.
And lets pull out alcohol here, the true gateway drug. I can guarantee that 99.99% of the people who have done weed drank first, and were even probably drunk when they first tried weed, at a party or something. I guess that means alcohol is evil too, then. It is also a gateway to an infinite amount of stupidity, death, and sadness. It is the cause and solution to all the world’s problems (thanks Homer, a true piece of wisdom from the Simpsons). Hell, junior high was my real “gateway” into all the stupid shit I have done over the years, they should make that shit illegal too.
To this day, if you ask basically anyone who has actually studied pot scientifically, they will tell you without any question that pot is indeed not a gateway drug.
In terms of health issues related to pot, it is again nowhere near as harmful as either alcohol or tobacco. If you were to smoke a joint the same size as a cigarette, all by yourself, then yes, that particular instance of smoking weed would be worse for you. But even the most hardcore or pot smokers, maybe 1% of them, would smoke maybe 3-6 of those joints a day. It’s rare to find a smoker who smokes much less than 20 cigarettes a day, if not way the hell more. So that basically negates any serious pulmonary damage done by weed. It doesn’t have nearly as many carcinogens as tobacco does, it’s mainly tar, which is also made worse because there is no filtering generally (unless you are a really ambitious weed smoker!).
And again compared to alcohol, the long term effects of weed are totally benign. Look at all the horrific things that happen with long term alcoholism. None of them happen with weed essentially, none.
And one of the favorite arguments against weed is that it makes you dumber over time, the longer you smoke it. Problem is, again they used shitty methods to determine this. They took people who had been smoking weed consistently (and by that, I mean their consumption was measured in eighth’s a day, that’s 30-50 bucks a day of weed), gave them two days to sober up, and then had them take tests and compared the results to people who never smoke weed. Well yea, I am sure that if they have been smoking that much for that long, they are gonna need more than a few days to sober up.
Read this link for a halfway decent test of pot’s effect on people’s cognitive ability: http://www.newscientist.com/hottopic...ana/memory.jsp
And now the last item I want to get into regarding the prohibition of weed: how making it illegal is actually causing more damage than would be caused if it were legal and controlled, much like alcohol or tobacco.
Fact number one: it is extremely easy for any teenager in school to get weed, as well as numerous other drugs. In fact, it was actually way easier in junior high for me and my friends to get our hands on weed than either alcohol or tobacco. That right there should be a big fat ringing alarm bell that maybe there is something wrong with our current system.
Also, to get back to what I said earlier about how the only reason pot hurts people other than the users themselves (and only hurts the users marginally), is because it’s illegal. You know those commercials that were on in the states (I only ever saw one) that said how if you do/buy drugs, you are funding terrorists? That’s partially true I guess, although not really in relation to weed. Most money Americans spend on weed end up in BC or Alberta :D. BC grows something like 800 tonnes of weed a year, 70% of which ends up in the US eventually. Alberta isn’t too far behind either. So the money isn’t going to terrorists really. It actually goes to a lot of regular average people with grow ops in their basements (there was one estimate that one in four homes in the suburbs of Vancouver like Burnaby etc has a grow op in the basement, although that seems way too incredibly high). But of course, there are the middle men, and the drug dealers themselves.
It’s actually quite surprising the Hells Angels haven’t smartened the fuck up and started to lobby our governments to ensure that weed stays illegal, as it is probably their number one source of income above anything else (I could be wrong). The second weed becomes a legal controlled substance, the Hells Angels instantly lose probably tens to hundreds of millions of dollars. In effect, we are actually funding various gangs by keeping it illegal. How the hell does that make sense?
It is almost sheer profit for them, the actual costs of growing weed are so tiny it’s ridiculous. Hell, it’s a fucking weed! Instead of those massive profits going to some Vietnamese guy that just stabbed his cousin to death (Edmonton has a pretty large gang problem, there are drive by’s and fire bombings relatively often, some jackass with an assault rifle was shot dead by some other jackass with a handgun a month or two ago) to buy himself a bigger turbo charger on his Civic, why not tax the shit out of it when it’s legal? All those untold billions of dollars can happily be funneled into federal programs, whether it just go into their standard coffers, or set aside to fund actual real useful meaningful programs to get people help, whether they are woefully addicted to weed, alcohol, or harder drugs.
Another myth is that if it’s legalized, it will suddenly cause everyone to start smoking it, and use will sky rocket. The other side of the coin is that by making it illegal, we are somehow reducing its use and prevalence in society. Facts topple both of those arguments.
Use went down in Holland when they decriminalized it. They did studies and were shocked to discover that. They still have found no real explanation, although the anti-drug crusaders claim that the reason went down is because everyone just moved on to harder and more potent drugs. They haven’t been able to prove that, and I have my doubts that it has even a shred of truth. Personally I think it’s bizarre that use went down as well, and I have no real explanation of why. However I am not surprised that use didn’t actually go up.
And it’s funny that, even though pot has been illegal for over 70 years in North America, it’s use continues to climb higher and higher, although after the 70’s it did take a brief hit in popularity as everyone started to snort nose candy. But over the past 15-20 years its use has again been rising, especially in teenagers. Nothing anyone has ever done has actually lessened its use, nothing. It’s pointless to continue trying, people are going to keep doing it no matter what. If you can’t stop the demand for it, there will always be someone ready to supply it, so again it’s pointless to even bust people who traffic in it.
Taken the above, why in god’s name do we still make it illegal? It hurts society in general to have it illegal. Why should some young person by saddled with a criminal record for potentially the rest of their lives, because they got caught with a few grams by an officer having a bad day. A friend of mine is narrowly escaping being thrown in jail for “possession with intent to traffic” for being caught with about 5 grams (40 bucks CDN roughly) of weed in his back pocket at a music festival, of all places. They are dropping the charges to simply possession, so he will just have to donate money and do volunteer work and they will do whatever it’s called where you don’t end up with a record (I am a lawyer, you can tell yes?).
Our current laws are stupid and pointless, and serve no benefit to anyone other than Police worried about their jobs, and the people who profit in trafficking it. It’s time they were changed.
LOL, final count, just under 2600 words.
BTW, I like Burnem's rationalization of why alcohol will never be illegal: because people fuck drunk. Nice :D
That sounds like a line that should be in the movie Half baked lolQuote:
It's good for the environment too!
But I think hte biggest thnig is that Gov'mt could not make any money of it. Money is the key. Any one can grow their own plant at the house. Other people can mass produce itt and sell it on the streets versus "comercializing it.
Just think if Joe and his family grew a few acers of hydro. An ounce of Hydro cost about $200 (or more)They would make so much money its sad. While the Gov'mt would make $0
lol it all comes down to the money lol
I think that's partially a myth... making beer or wine in your basement isn't particularily difficult either (although I admit that it isn't as easy), yet boot legging isn't really all that big of a problem.
And at least if some mom and pop operation is doing it, the money isn't being siphoned off by a gang or what have you.
And mark my words, decriminalization isn't very far off in Canada. We have a Prime Minister on his way out within the next 18 months, who is very conscious of the "Legacy" he would leave behind. Every decision he makes over the next year and a half is consciously made to better his position in the history books, and I personally think that this is one issue he and his advisors will view as a positive decision to make.
Hah, I read the entire thing Homer, I am addicted to message boards as well =\
That test where you mentioned the guy who smoked an 8th a day for years being given a couple days to sober up and then take a test, repeat that with the guy who had been having that same 40-50 spent in alcohol per day. But you probably couldn't use years for that, because his liver would have to be replaced after drinking that much alcohol. So, it could technically be argued that alcohol is far more dangerous and damaging to the body (like.. shitloads more. A single person consuming that much alcohol in one day would get alcohol poisoning, easy) but also cheaper. This would explain why the usage decreased in Holland after it was legalized, it was no longer "breakin the law!" as it were, so the cool factor of tokin a bowl during your lunch break at school would be negated and replaced with a much cheaper addiction. Nothing would change, alcoholism wouldn't be on the rise, yet consumption of marijauna would decrease.
It's honestly a pretty simple equation. Stuff that is illegal and gets you some form of altered mental state will have high consumption regardless of price, especially if it is addictive. Legal substances that give you some form of altered mental state and are priced relatively high will not be purchased as readily as the cheaper fix. It's simply not quite as rebellious in most cases if it's legal, especially if it's expensive. You don't see kids sippin Crystal (I don't know how it's spelled, the expensive champagne shit) on their lunch breaks do ya? They sneak in the cheap ass vodka and a sixpack of Bud.
Damn, legal at 16 too, that makes it even less attractive to your average youth. It would probably get pushed to 18 or so here in the states, because we are kinda backwards =/
I like to debate as well, but can't write a very long one right now....so I'll just say this:
"Things that aren't exactly great for them" ?Quote:
Maybe they should consider the fact that the type of person willing to try weed is simply more likely to dabble in things that aren’t exactly great for them.
Give me one BENEFIT to yourself, physically, of smoking marijauna? And no, I won't accept "It makes me feel good", because thats just a temporary feeling, something that as you said yourself, you become tolerant too. I'm talking about cold, hard, benefit...something like "It has increased my ability to retain what I read by 20%"...thats just an example.
And if something isn't beneficial to you, it stands to reason that it is BAD for you. Maybe not today, maybe not tomorrow...but in the long run you will be worse off.
Oh yeah, I work for a software company that does lots of government contracting. We're basically required to have security clearances, which can be damn near impossible to get if you chronically smoke/drink or what have you. Unless you lie on your application which will cause you to get denied for you application anyways, so kinda defeats the purpose.
Some other thoughts...
I find that the argument that drinking is a GOOD thing because it has been helping people have sex is LUDICROUS. While you may have been joking, I don't think it's a laughing matter... Drinking is probably the leading cause of rape, sexual assault, spousal abuse and more. Those aren't things to laugh about.
And if drinking is legal, and it has an age limit, but yet kids still go around doing it Illegaly because they are too young, an they go around getting themselves killed because of drunk driving, stupid dares or whatever....you could argue that kids will still abuse marijuana before they are of age.
And like, not to be sterotypical or anything but....anyone I've ever met that smokes pot on a regular basis has been a total loser, burn out, basket case, lazy sob...not generally good values that companies look for in the work place.
People need to grow up and start taking responsibility for their actions, hding behind rationalizations about why marijuana is good for you will only do you more damage than it will good to your life, career, or family.
This is the only thing you've said that I might argue with, Eomer :pQuote:
Originally posted by Eomer
We don’t live in a police state do we
Also a couple of points on things that are "bad" for us that the gov. doesn't deem worthy of regulation, while illegal drugs need to be regulated in order to "protect us." hmmm well how about our crappy food regulation? If you knew how lax those laws are and how much disgusting crap can "legally" be in your food you would probably be sick.
The lack of environmental protection and the fact that a playground for children can be built on top of a paved over toxic site should also make you reconsider that "the government protects us by regulating substances that harm us argument."
And as to the "you are funding terrorism by buying drugs argument" um and gasoline (which is THE biggest reason for our wars in the middle east) doesn't? Yeah right... Terrorists don't care about those oil fields. :rolleyes:
:D
V-