Marijuana

[Gaius Scribonius Curio]

Personally, I've never taken any recreational drugs, or smoked. My view is, fairly obviously that Drugs=nicht so gut!!!!

Despite that I feel that if the circumstances Bananabob is describing are accurate, then it would make sense to legalise it and strictly control it.

[Crazed Rabbit]

I've never smoked pot and never want to. But I'm pro-decriminalization of it and a major de-escalation of the drug war. The government has killed too many innocent people, imprisoned other innocent (as in, they didn't have drugs) people, robbed other people. It's a cancer on our civil rights and it must be excised, the departments closed, the agents fired, the tactics abandoned.

CR

[seireikhaan]

I've never smoked pot and never want to. But I'm pro-decriminalization of it and a major de-escalation of the drug war. The government has killed too many innocent people, imprisoned other innocent (as in, they didn't have drugs) people, robbed other people. It's a cancer on our civil rights and it must be excised, the departments closed, the agents fired, the tactics abandoned.

CR

Amen, brother.

[Crazed Rabbit]

Some examples of what our government might consider 'collateral damage' in the war on drugs:
http://reason.com/blog/show/126284.html
http://reason.tv/video/show/403.html
An ex-Atlanta cop testifies that they lie through their teeth all the time in the drug war to get warrants and the like:
http://www.ajc.com/news/content/metr...ge_tab_newstab

If the danger of widespread drug use is increased theft and other robbery for money, the war on drugs certainly hasn't slowed that, but they have added the danger of cops busting in and killing you. And should you survive, they'll drag you to hell and back in court just to be stubborn SOBs.

And of course, the huge expenditures required.

CR

[Divinus Arma]

Having been on both sides of this issue: Cannabis user and law breaker as a younger man; Cannabis persecutor and Law Enforcement later, I think I also have an informed opinion.

Legalize it. Regulate it. Tax it.

Substitute criminalization with rehabilitation and education.

[ajaxfetish]

Legalize it. Regulate it. Tax it.

Substitute criminalization with rehabilitation and education.

Precisely what needs to be done. It's a shame our politicians don't seem willing to accept this.

Ajax

[Fragony]

Regulating and taxing it is a bit hard to sell on an international level, and it will kick up the price, won't solve illegal growing. Close an eye when it suits you.

[Adrian II]

Legalize it, regulate it, then forget about it because it's no big deal any more.

[CountArach]

If someone wants to do that to themselves why should I care?

[Raz]

I've seen what it can do, not to the extreme side of the spectrum, but I've seen first and second-hand. I used it when I was quite young, early teens... luckily I stopped before it really took hold, but my older bro introduced me to it, and it's only been until recently that he's stopped. Some of his mates however keep going, one has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, another with severe depression... my bro, well the use of cannabis lead him to the mixing it with tobacco, which lead him onto casual smoking when he was just 15/16. He now drinks and smokes daily... he did not finish his education... he works as a removalist and that's if he wants to go to work at all... at one point, he was extremely abusive to my mother... chairs thrown around etc.

I am, therefore, slightly against.

[Adrian II]

I've seen what it can do, not to the extreme side of the spectrum, but I've seen first and second-hand. I used it when I was quite young, early teens... luckily I stopped before it really took hold, but my older bro introduced me to it, and it's only been until recently that he's stopped. Some of his mates however keep going, one has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, another with severe depression... my bro, well the use of cannabis lead him to the mixing it with tobacco, which lead him onto casual smoking when he was just 15/16. He now drinks and smokes daily... he did not finish his education... he works as a removalist and that's if he wants to go to work at all... at one point, he was extremely abusive to my mother... chairs thrown around etc.

I could tell you a similar story about youth and irresponsible driving. No reason to ban cars or outlaw driving, is it?

[Mooks]

I've seen what it can do, not to the extreme side of the spectrum, but I've seen first and second-hand. I used it when I was quite young, early teens... luckily I stopped before it really took hold, but my older bro introduced me to it, and it's only been until recently that he's stopped. Some of his mates however keep going, one has been diagnosed with schizophrenia, another with severe depression... my bro, well the use of cannabis lead him to the mixing it with tobacco, which lead him onto casual smoking when he was just 15/16. He now drinks and smokes daily... he did not finish his education... he works as a removalist and that's if he wants to go to work at all... at one point, he was extremely abusive to my mother... chairs thrown around etc.

I am, therefore, slightly against.

Is it posible those wouldve happened anyway?

To the OP; The cops themselves dont want marijuana legalized. They want their paycheck, and with marijuana legalized they wont have as much stuff to do. Some of them will get laid off.

[Raz]

It was more or less in response to CA's post, he wouldn't care if someone went and used cannabis, I'd care on the other hand - because I've seen what potential it has. It was my brother doing it, it affected him greatly, he would've been a much better, and probably more successful person if he'd never mingled with drugs like marijuana.

[PershsNhpios]

Here endeth Civilisation and Enlightenment.

(Natural Enlightenment anyway - good luck on your quest for Running Bull - stoners.)

[CountArach]

It was more or less in response to CA's post, he wouldn't care if someone went and used cannabis, I'd care on the other hand - because I've seen what potential it has. It was my brother doing it, it affected him greatly, he would've been a much better, and probably more successful person if he'd never mingled with drugs like marijuana.

I'm not saying that it can't have negative side effects. Denying that would be stupid. On the other hand, as with alcohol it is a matter of self responsibility and morality - the government is there to legislate neither of those.

[PBI]

Every afternoon when I cycle home from work I am forced to pass through several acrid, foul-smelling clouds of weed smoke emanating from nearby groups of teenagers. And this is in the UK, a country where smoking weed is supposed to be illegal.

I personally would never touch weed. I have seen firsthand what an appalling condition Schizophrenia is and have no intention of doing anything which might increase my risk of it. Also, there is a very noticeable divide amongst my old school friends; almost all of those who spent a lot of time in school getting stoned still live with their parents doing dead-end jobs, whereas most of us who didn't touch the stuff are actually making something of our lives.

As a wishy-washy lefty liberal, I would tend to side with the legalization argument. Though I regard smoking weed to be a very unwise thing to do I certainly wouldn't say I have the right to force people not to do it. My concern, however, is that unless you smoke it in a vacuum-sealed room you really can't avoid forcing other people to smoke it too. I suspect that if it were legalized the number of people lighting up alongside my route home from work would only increase. So I think it could really only be legalized if it were accompanied by a strict ban on smoking it in public. Therefore I would like to cast my vote firmly for "Gah!" since although I am I suppose slightly for, it wouldn't say that it doesn't affect me.

[rory_20_uk]

I find the small of weef far more pleasant than the smell of tobacco. I have also found people on weed to be in general placid.

I've worked as a doctor for a number of years. I've seen so many people with trauma where elcohol was involved be it fights, stabbings, falls, RTAs etc etc... How many from weed? Not one.

Legalise does not equal it's a good idea. Keeping illegal does not stop people doing it.

Divinus Arma Summed it up nicely. By making it legal the government gains from the tax, can aim police time at more sensible targets (e.g. stopping fights from alcohol at the weekends) and if sold legallsy can ensure that impurities are kept to a minimum.

[macsen rufus]

I've always thought drugs should be treated as a health issue, not a moral one. Society clearly has no problem per se with intoxicants, just has a strange selection of favoured ones. If we quit all the moralising (from both sides in the debate) then a lot of BS information can be washed away.

Although it may account for 90+% of usage, smoking is not the only way to take cannabis, and most of the health impact comes from smoking - standing alongside a garden bonfire can be pretty bad for you, too. Pointless trying to distinguish between one set of smoke and another - it's all bad for you, in one way or another. That's the major health message - smoke inhalation!

So, yeah, likewise as a survivor of the 70s etc etc, I'd still go for legalisation, though I don't hold to some of the fanciful views I had as a teenager. It didn't stop me reaching university and getting a degree...

Spoiler Alert, click show to read: 

... in Pharmacy, dig the irony

... but it did interfere with my education once, well almost. I was having a pre-exam toke in the woods with fellow students, then we got lost... half-an-hour of staggering through brambles totally lost we finally got back just as everyone was piling into the exam hall. Still, we all passed with flying colours, but we could so easily have missed the exam

The biggest winner from prohibition is the same today as it ever was: organised crime gangs.

As for today's varieties, I'm not keen on skunk - so I quit once I realised it was doing my head in. I only wish it was as easy to stop the nicotine habit, as that really is horribly addictive.

[Beirut]

The biggest winner from prohibition is the same today as it ever was: organised crime gangs.

Here in Quebec, the aforementioned North American capital of pot growing, the biker gangs, mostly the Hells Angels, make dump trucks full of cash from grow ops. They use that cash to buy cops and friends in high places, and they pretty much do as they wish.

If it was legalised and taxed, at least the money would go to the government and not to the biker gangs to finance street wars, human smuggling for the sex trade, and the logistical requirements of trafficking truly dangerous drugs.

Marijuana is a plant that any nimrod could grow in his toilet bowl, much less a tended garden. To make a plant illegal is the divine height of assininity.

[Orda Khan]

Well said Beirut.
Consider all the other 'nasties' that we are taking into our systems, like vehicle emissions, certain chemicals and substances that we are assured will do us no harm, food additives, etc, etc. It would be an exceptionally talented individual who could avoid all harmful substances. We live in a fairly poisonous world these days and the best authorities can do is make a plant illegal
I still do not accept this schizophrenia myth, behind most of those stories there are many other underlying circumstances that get conveniently forgotten in the quest to 'prove' the harm done by the new threat

......Orda

[Ronin]

Legalize it. Regulate it. Tax it.

Substitute criminalization with rehabilitation and education.

totally agreed.

I´m straight edge myself so I see no point in it, and would never touch the stuff....but people should be able to do those choices for themselfs.

are there risks in the abuse of this substance? surely, but the same is true for tobacco and alcohol and those are legal so shy shouldn´t this be too?

[drone]

Same here. Wouldn't touch it myself, but it's pointless to waste the resources on something so relatively harmless. Legalize it and tax it. No smoking in public though, brownies don't get into my lungs.

[ELITEofWARMANGINGERYBREADMEN88]

I belive if you don't bann everything, then it won't work. THey allow Smoking and Drinking, but no Marijuana and such? I won't touch that crap myself, but you know, let people decide if they like to smoke it or not. Just Legalize it.

[atheotes]

Totally agree with all those who say "legalize and tax"... dont see it being too different than tobacco or alcohol... benefits of legalizing seem to far outweigh the potential harms...and prohibition isnt working anyway...

[Divinus Arma]

Just to refute the argument against taxation and regulation:

Some seem to have said "You can't regulate/tax it because then people will buy it illegally."

In response, I would say that if it were regulated and thus certified by government regulators as consumer-safe, more people would buy advertized commercially-produced marijuana than they would black-market marijuana.

The reasons for this are numerous and I rely on my education as an MBA to offer credibility to my argument:

(1) A legal business can generate signficant economies of scale, introducing massive cost-savings into the production process while still retaining high quality. This cost savings would then be passed onto the consumer in the form of lower-prices.

(2) Differentiation and cost leadership strategies would be employed by various new entrants to this new industry, resulting in an unparalleled selection of brands/tastes/effects/prices. The consumer would have amazing buying power in choosing from the bazillion brands that would appear. We would see everything from Bud-light to Stone Arrogant Bastard Weed. Prices would range from Taxes+minimal mark up to Taxes+high mark up.

(3) The availability of legal marijuana and the regulation of production for sale would inevitably discourage the supply of black-market marijuana, making it difficult to even find criminal pot.

Lastly, to provide a suitable comparison to illustrate my point, consider the alcohol and tobacco industries. Both are legal intoxicants and neither has developed a significant black market in the United States, despite massive regulation and exorbinant taxation.



On a second point,

Morality aside, the legalization of marijuana would have significant consequences to society. The merits of these changes, for better or for worse, are certainly open to debate.

Regardless, there is one fact that I will maintain as irrefutable:

The legalization of marijuana will completely eradicate crime related to the manufacture and distribution of the product, domestically within the country of legalization. The impetus for illegal production, i.e. consumer demand, will evaporate for the reasons that I have listed above in this post. Marijuana drug dealers would cease to exist domestically.

And as a former law enforcement officer, I can say that would be a very good thing.

[Goofball]

What's with all this talk of schizophrenia?

I'm trying to figure out exactly what it has to do with smoking pot?

Or do we just have some Reefer Madness believers in here?

[Sasaki Kojiro]

What's with all this talk of schizophrenia?

I'm trying to figure out exactly what it has to do with smoking pot?

Or do we just have some Reefer Madness believers in here?

People who are already at risk for it (runs in the family) have that risk increased by smoking pot.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

Legal, but taxed and very strictly controlled, and illegal to smoke in a public place, I could live with. In fact, that's probably the best solution.

I'm just saying that there's no way it's good for you.

Add to this that there should be an education program on the potential harmfulness of marijuana (where there isn't one already).

[rory_20_uk]

Add to this that there should be an education program on the potential harmfulness of marijuana (where there isn't one already).

And I hope alcohol and cigarettes.

But don't be surprised if many can't be bothered to worry about events when they are older when they are interested in having a laugh today.

Daemonising substances fails to work as many will either be taking the substance or know those that are. If the "education" and what they see don't tally they'll dismiss it.

[Evil_Maniac From Mars]

And I hope alcohol and cigarettes.

Of course. Responsibility should be encouraged.