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Forums - General - Legalizing marijuana

Jackson50 on 10 November 2008
bardicverse said:Humor me a moment and entertain this hypothetical theory: What if drugs were not available. Not around anywhere? Would people desperately go out of their way to find them? Let's say that drug dealers were made as "kill on sight" targets for police, and wiped out all the dealers and terrified people to even take such a risk. How far would you go to find a place to buy weed, shroom,s coke, etc? Would it be worth traveling for hours just to get a stack of goods of questionable quality? Or would you just save up your money and take a trip to someplace like Amsterdam, get your freak on, and then come home satisfied?

Legalization promotes availability. Availability promotes advertising, and advertising brings customers. For as many people who know how to find drugs, how many people are out there that might be willing or curious to try drugs, but just didn't want to go to a shady back alley to buy them, or more simply - didn't even know where or how to go about getting them? If its legal, it can be peddled even out of a store.

But I will entertain your thought on legalization. What age do you make the legal age of purchase/use? 21 like alcohol? or 18 like tobacco?

As I discuss it more, I tend to think that maybe full, outright legalization is actually a great solution, for ALL drugs, no matter how dangerous/lethal. Leave it readily accessible to teenagers, and let them have a blast. A good chunk might die, but it will thin out the population. Survival of the fittest/smartest. Makes sense to me. Hmm, you've actually opened my eyes on the matter on a whole new direction - not drugs as the bane of society, but as a filter for humanity. We could thin out the kids who had bad parenting, the easily impressionable, the followers. Hmmm...thats not such a bad idea at all.

I find it ironic that you ask me to humor a hypothetical situation that is indeed laughable. That laughable hypothetical is in no way comparable to our current methods of deterrence. Anyways, I have no idea how many people desire to purchase drugs and how many are deterred by our prohibition laws. I believe a study of the prohibition of alcohol is wise when discussing this matter. What our nation witnessed with the prohibition of alcohol was an increase in the consumption of alcohol after the passage of the 18th Amendment. We also witnessed with the prohibition of alcohol, as we are now witnessing with the prohibition of drugs, an addition of dangerous additives that made the substance infinitely more lethal.

Now, I have only begun to address the many grievances with drug prohibition. The prohibition of drugs creates dangerous drug cartels and gangs that have marred our inner cities with violence and flooded our streets with drugs. Tell me, whom do you trust more to provide drugs…someone licensed and regulated by the government or the Bloods, Aryan Brotherhood, and Mexican Mafia? I am too tired to continue this exposition, but it is self-evident that drug prohibition is a failed policy.

 



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akuma587 on 11 November 2008
bardicverse said:

Agreed. If you check the post above yours, I actually found some good use out of what you are suggesting.

 

As for alcohol vs drugs, maybe its a moderation factor? You can have a few beers and be ok, but is there such a thing as a "little bit of coke" and being ok? I don't know. I started drinking at 14, have learned from overdrinking NOT to overdrink anymore, and now only drink socially and stop before I get anything more than a buzz, so I can keep other people in check.

 

I definitely agree that the "hardcore" drugs are way more addictive than alcohol.  I am not advocating that drugs for which there is a great deal of chemical and sociological evidence that they are dangerous should be legalized.  Really one of the reasons alcohol is so bad is it causes so much violence and so many deaths.  Pretty much all domestic violence cases arise from alcohol.

And moderation is absolutely key with alcohol, as with just about anything.  And moderation is definitely more difficult to exercise with heroin or cocaine.  But the same is definitely not true for marijuana. 

I mean I don't really expect all these drugs to be legalized overnight, but when you get down to it most of the classical arguments for why marijuana should be illegal are just plain wrong, and making marijuana illegal has actually been counterproductive economically, sociologically, and in terms of crime prevention.

 



We had two bags of grass, seventy-five pellets of mescaline, five sheets of high-powered blotter acid, a salt shaker half full of cocaine, a whole galaxy of multi-colored uppers, downers, screamers, laughers…Also a quart of tequila, a quart of rum, a case of beer, a pint of raw ether and two dozen amyls.  The only thing that really worried me was the ether.  There is nothing in the world more helpless and irresponsible and depraved than a man in the depths of an ether binge. –Raoul Duke

It is hard to shed anything but crocodile tears over White House speechwriter Patrick Buchanan's tragic analysis of the Nixon debacle. "It's like Sisyphus," he said. "We rolled the rock all the way up the mountain...and it rolled right back down on us...."  Neither Sisyphus nor the commander of the Light Brigade nor Pat Buchanan had the time or any real inclination to question what they were doing...a martyr, to the bitter end, to a "flawed" cause and a narrow, atavistic concept of conservative politics that has done more damage to itself and the country in less than six years than its liberal enemies could have done in two or three decades. -Hunter S. Thompson

The Ghost of RubangB on 11 November 2008

I guess I haven't made this clear in this thread yet: I am for legalizing ALL drugs, including cocaine and heroin, and the really freaky ones that aren't even invented yet. I think ALL drugs should be regulated and taxed (you can't do them at school, you can't give them to kids, you can't do them and then drive, and if it involves smoke you can't do them inside public buildings).

I'll tell my kids the truth about drugs and how bad most of them are, but I'll also tell my kids about drug laws and how backwards and harmful all of them are. I'll let my kids read about any drug they want, and the history of the drug laws. I think most people who try drugs try them before they're 18, so I'll help my kids learn everything they can before they make any decisions. I'm not gonna tell them not to do drugs or that I never did, and I'm not gonna encourage experimentation (but I will expect it). I'll trust my kids and do my best to get them to trust me and talk to me about this kind of stuff so they don't get hurt.

I think all drugs should be legal at age 18, including alcohol. There is no reason to have people be adults for 3 years with one random illegal substance with a bonus age that legalizes it. Alcohol should be legal at 18 like cigarettes, porn, and guns. I also think heroin and cocaine should be legal at 18. If every drug is legal, there is no gateway drug into a life of drugs. All drugs would be as clean as they can possibly be, and you could obtain them without clogging our prisons and wasting the time of our police officers and courts (and tax dollars). You could also tax the drugs like cigarettes and booze. The money saved from having fewer prisons and the money collected through drug taxes would be more than enough to pay for any needed rehab clinics.

If you take away drug laws, gangs have no way of making money. The reason gangs kill each other (and innocent passersby) over their turf is because they can sell drugs on that turf. If they can't make money off drugs, the whole point of owning turf becomes pointless. Then gangs would just be fighting over places to hang out, which makes them sound like a youth group.



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Moongoddess256 on 11 November 2008

ooo ooo I learned why the drinking age is 21 in political science class! So once upon a time there was this group called MADD and what happened is they pushed the federal gov't to make the drinking age 21. But thats not in the federal governments power to do! So what they did was threaten the states that if they didn't change the age to 21+ then they would cut highway funds by 10% per year.

And thats the story of how a small minority made the federal government intervene in what should be a state issue!

Also, I still think heroin and coke can stay illegal. Those really aren't things that should be readily available for people to try out.



[2:08:58 am] Moongoddess256: being asian makes you naturally good at ddr
[2:09:22 am] gnizmo: its a weird genetic thing
[2:09:30 am] gnizmo: goes back to hunting giant crabs in feudal Japan

Jackson50 on 11 November 2008
Moongoddess256 said:
ooo ooo I learned why the drinking age is 21 in political science class! So once upon a time there was this group called MADD and what happened is they pushed the federal gov't to make the drinking age 21. But thats not in the federal governments power to do! So what they did was threaten the states that if they didn't change the age to 21+ then they would cut highway funds by 10% per year.

And thats the story of how a small minority made the federal government intervene in what should be a state issue!

Also, I still think heroin and coke can stay illegal. Those really aren't things that should be readily available for people to try out.

That was challenged in federal court, and the Supreme Court ruled that it was constitutional. This case was known as South Dakota v. Dole, and the ruling was most unfortunate.

 



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Moongoddess256 on 11 November 2008

Of course it was ruled constitutional, the gov't wouldn't want to give up its loopholes now would it?



[2:08:58 am] Moongoddess256: being asian makes you naturally good at ddr
[2:09:22 am] gnizmo: its a weird genetic thing
[2:09:30 am] gnizmo: goes back to hunting giant crabs in feudal Japan

Dinomax on 11 November 2008

My only advice for Marijuana is don't over do it. Pretty much like everything is.



Kasz216 on 11 November 2008
TheRealMafoo said:
Everstar said:
Jackson50 said:
There are a couple of reasons why tobacco is not prohibited and marijuana is. One, tobacco is an important agricultural product in the US-especially the Southern states. The US produces the 4th largest amount of tobacco in the world. If you propose the prohibition of tobacco, you will have alienated large segment of the nation. No politician is willing to accept the risk. Second, marijuana is perceived to have a stronger psychoactive effect than tobacco.
Do I agree with the prohibition of marijuana? No, I believe it should be legalized and regulated.

 

 What dose that mean?

 

It means you can get high off of pot, but not cigarettes.

And that's the reason they are illegal. In the bible, it's a sin to put your mind in a state where you are not in control. When the Christian's got a hold of government, they made sure all the sinful stuff was made illegal. Same with Alcohol for a time.

The odd thing is they realized how much worse it was to have alcohol illegal so they reversed it, but are too stupid to see the same applies to all drugs.

You know I just read the bible last week and i don't remember that.  Is that one of those weird ones after the Gospels?

 



Kasz216 on 11 November 2008
The Ghost of RubangB said:
kabhold said:
Commando said:
1. Smoking tobacco actually CAN deoxodize the brain which can cause laziness, and in addition to the fact it is a stimulant with a bigger spike than marijuana, the withdrawl symptoms are a lot harder and can cause even more laziness.

2. You ever see fat chain-smokers? There are a lot of laziness to be found in that bunch.

1. Use common sense. The short term effect of tobacco is nothing compared to the long term effect of weed on the brain. U know it, I know it.

2. I live in america. i see fat people everywhere I look.

All the trashiest/laziest people I've ever known smoke weed. I doubt that's a coincidence

Actually it is a coincidence.  Carl Sagan smoked a ton of weed and even said it inspired some of his works.  Carl Sagan was neither trashy nor lazy.

Actually current research does suggest that regular marijuana use does lower activity in the area of your brain that takes care of planning long term plans and going through with them.

Likely do to it restricting bloodflow in the brain.

Not that i care nor think it should be illegal.  People should be able to stunt their long term planning abilties as much as they want.

Though I like RuBang would legalize even the crazy drugs.

I don't believe something should be witheld or taken from people just because they are more likely to fuck up their lives. 

The government isn't anyones mother.  People should be able to do whatever they want so long as it doesn't directly harm another person.

Even if there are no positives... and only negatives i'd be for it.  Peoples rights are more important then the bottom line.



Kasz216 on 11 November 2008
Moongoddess256 said:
There is so such thing as smoking a little weed and being ok though.

I'm pretty sure theres almost no one out there trying to legalize cocaine.

Trying... no.

If I was made dictator or something though and what i said went....


For the record too.... I do no drugs.  The only thing I'm addicted to is Caffine.

I've tried drugs, i thought they were expensive and lame, and got way more satisfaction out of things like videogames and have had at least two friends who had their entire lives derailed because of drug addiction.

So i've got almost as much reason as anybody to want them illegal.