Legalization of marijuana

[jmccaskill]

I don't see anything good coming from legalizing pot. MAYBE it will allow the police to better direct their efforts on more serious crime matters. That is about all I can think of that might be a benefit.

On the other side of the coin, I have seen to many lives totally screwed up by the use of pot. Straight A college classmates getting into it, losing all ambition to do anything other than smoke, flunk out and who knows where their life has ended up. Alcohol ruins lives too, but pot seems to start that downward spiral for people at much earlier ages. I have never known anyone that was a success in life that used pot, period. However I have known quite a few that THINK they were doing great while everyone around them could see how obviously screwed up their life was.

[hitch0403]

Amen JMMCAS!!!

I will do 1 better.....i have a son who smoked lots of weed and eventually started doing harder drugs and all i can say much consequence followed.......

Not very pleasant for parents.....its not like i wanna blame the whole thing on weed.....but i know this....IT DAM WELL CONTRIBUTED!!

[hitch0403]

And to give another illustration.......

How many people today do you think may have started playing a penny slot machine......and now are $1000s of dollars in debt??

[hawkeye3210]

THANK YOU! I am a very right winged conservative and I agree 100000% with what you are saying. Other drugs are legal even though millions die every year from them while this "drug," that has killed nobody, is illegal. It's crap.

Killed nobody? Please tell me you are joking. If you are going to go on the qualifier about overdosing, don't bother. It's a poor argument.

[Falconer02]

Just looking for who supports and who doesn't and reasoning as to why you feel how you do!

You have a plant that has been around and used for tens of thousands of years, and then suddenly 60+ years ago you have some rich white conservatives who don't want their profit margins in the paper industry to plummet, so they campaign against it using racism, pseudoscience, and general fearmongering to get it banned. It gets banned over stupid reasons, and till this day continues to ruin lives due to the unjust laws. Any simple research can show there are more pros than cons with pot. Quite frankly if you don't support the legalization of it politically, you're a blind sheep.

I don't see anything good coming from legalizing pot. MAYBE it will allow the police to better direct their efforts on more serious crime matters. That is about all I can think of that might be a benefit.

On the other side of the coin, I have seen to many lives totally screwed up by the use of pot. Straight A college classmates getting into it, losing all ambition to do anything other than smoke, flunk out and who knows where their life has ended up. Alcohol ruins lives too, but pot seems to start that downward spiral for people at much earlier ages. I have never known anyone that was a success in life that used pot, period. However I have known quite a few that THINK they were doing great while everyone around them could see how obviously screwed up their life was.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/03/11/its-no-toke-colorado-pulls-in-millions-in-marijuana-tax-revenue/

If the system were run 100% efficiently, you'd right about the cop thing. But that's actually a major reason it's still illegal. Profit margins for privately-owned prison systems. Why legalize something when you can make more money catching smokers and ruining people's lives? Portugal legalized pot, and within a few years they had to close a few jails.
This same thing happened to a friend of mine. He got caught buying and $15,000 later, he avoided a felony charge on his record. That's pretty screwed up, right?

I know plenty of users who one would deem successful. They're happily married, have good (but stressful) jobs, have kids, and are very social people. I (very occasionally) smoke it, and I'm doing very pretty well myself (60k/yr, hard job = why I'm not on FC as much anymore). I'm not saying the lazy stereotype does not exist- I've seen plenty of them. But I don't blame it on the drug. That's like blaming Doritos on a fat out-of-shape person with a poor diet. It's the person's lack of ambition and poor environment that causes him to pig out. Pot can be one reason why they're lazy, but blaming it on pot useage is mainly a scapegoat argument.

i have a son who smoked lots of weed and eventually started doing harder drugs and all i can say much consequence followed.......

Sorry to hear that. Case-by-case position though- you got dealt a bad hand. The vast majority of my friends who have smoked pot haven't done anything 'harder' than it. I'm more worried about their drinking habits.

How many people today do you think may have started playing a penny slot machine......and now are $1000s of dollars in debt

But slot machines are still legal despite the people with addictions to gambling. You don't ban something just because a handful of people are idiots with it. That makes for an irrational, unjust, and toothless society bent on putting padding over everything. The key point I'm trying to make in this whole post is it's an individuals responsibility to be responsible with such things. Alcohol is without a doubt much worse for someone, yet it has been legal for far longer. Am I justifying the use of it? Politically/legally? YES. Individually? Again, it's a case-by-case situation.

[mpeters69]

I want to comment on does marijuana lead to other dangerous drugs.I think we all know the answer to that is YES!!!I also realize it doesnt with ALL users of the weed.

If it caused 1 user to OVERDOSE on heroin....its ONE TOO MANY!!!

I personally know it can cause bronchitis too.I was an avid smoker of it in my late teens and coughed for over 3 months!!

Do we weigh the good it causes for some against the abuse of it?

You hear of the good from blood transfusions...you dont hear the other sicknessess they cause.Its Gods law in the bible to abstain from blood.Yet man breaks HIS laws constantly.

Most of us know the reasons we smoke it and im sure 99% of it is recreational.

Eccl says it best....."Man has dominated himself to his own injury"

According to the JW site as to whether alcohol is prohibited (http://wol.jw.org/en/wol/d/r1/lp-e/2010002) couldn't the same be said for marijuana? After all if "he has given man “wine to make him happy, olive oil to make him cheerful, and bread to give him strength.” (Psalm 104:15, Today’s English Version)", wouldn't God have given man weed to make him happy as well (assuming that 99% of its use is indeed recreational)?

And as for its medicinal use, we already weigh the good that a medication causes over its abuse; it is the abuse of substances that is wrong, not the proper use of it. Other forms of medication are allowed by JW's, even though there is the potential for others to abuse it, or even if there are dangerous side-effects (again weighing the good over its harm in assuming that the treatment is not as bad as the untreated condition). I can somewhat understand why JW's believe that blood transfusions are wrong since the Bible explicitly states that blood consumption is wrong (although I do think there is a difference between consumption as in what vampires do vs. a blood transfusion, esp. if the blood is coming from the same individual (and therefore isn't affecting someone else's soul, since the justifications in the Bible against blood consumption have to do with the blood being where the soul exists) but that's besides the point). But since the Bible doesn't explicitly prohibit the use of marijuana, then from a medicinal standpoint its use shouldn't be prohibitive.

EDIT: And mpeters69 makes a good point that even though one particular religion may feel that something is wrong doesn't give that religion the right to trump the edicts of other religions in creating the laws of this free country (at least at the federal level, and you'd be hard-pressed to do similar things at even local levels). We don't have laws prohibiting pork consumption (Jews and Muslims), beef consumption (Hindus), blood transfusions (Jehovah Witnesses), the ability to seek out medical help (Christian Scientists), pornography (Many religions prohibit lewdness), or any of the other multitude of things that the various religions proscribe.

right. christianity has an obvious stranglehold over the United States government.

[mpeters69]

I don't see anything good coming from legalizing pot. MAYBE it will allow the police to better direct their efforts on more serious crime matters. That is about all I can think of that might be a benefit.

On the other side of the coin, I have seen to many lives totally screwed up by the use of pot. Straight A college classmates getting into it, losing all ambition to do anything other than smoke, flunk out and who knows where their life has ended up. Alcohol ruins lives too, but pot seems to start that downward spiral for people at much earlier ages. I have never known anyone that was a success in life that used pot, period. However I have known quite a few that THINK they were doing great while everyone around them could see how obviously screwed up their life was.

i've smoked throughout high school and got accepted into Ohio University's business college and honor's program. When i'm high off marijuana, I tend to even focus better and get more motivation to do my work.

[mpeters69]

Just looking for who supports and who doesn't and reasoning as to why you feel how you do!

You have a plant that has been around and used for tens of thousands of years, and then suddenly 60+ years ago you have some rich white conservatives who don't want their profit margins in the paper industry to plummet, so they campaign against it using racism, pseudoscience, and general fearmongering to get it banned. It gets banned over stupid reasons, and till this day continues to ruin lives due to the unjust laws. Any simple research can show there are more pros than cons with pot. Quite frankly if you don't support the legalization of it politically, you're a blind sheep.

I don't see anything good coming from legalizing pot. MAYBE it will allow the police to better direct their efforts on more serious crime matters. That is about all I can think of that might be a benefit.

On the other side of the coin, I have seen to many lives totally screwed up by the use of pot. Straight A college classmates getting into it, losing all ambition to do anything other than smoke, flunk out and who knows where their life has ended up. Alcohol ruins lives too, but pot seems to start that downward spiral for people at much earlier ages. I have never known anyone that was a success in life that used pot, period. However I have known quite a few that THINK they were doing great while everyone around them could see how obviously screwed up their life was.

http://www.forbes.com/sites/kellyphillipserb/2014/03/11/its-no-toke-colorado-pulls-in-millions-in-marijuana-tax-revenue/

If the system were run 100% efficiently, you'd right about the cop thing. But that's actually a major reason it's still illegal. Profit margins for privately-owned prison systems. Why legalize something when you can make more money catching smokers and ruining people's lives? Portugal legalized pot, and within a few years they had to close a few jails.
This same thing happened to a friend of mine. He got caught buying and $15,000 later, he avoided a felony charge on his record. That's pretty screwed up, right?

I know plenty of users who one would deem successful. They're happily married, have good (but stressful) jobs, have kids, and are very social people. I (very occasionally) smoke it, and I'm doing very pretty well myself (60k/yr, hard job = why I'm not on FC as much anymore). I'm not saying the lazy stereotype does not exist- I've seen plenty of them. But I don't blame it on the drug. That's like blaming Doritos on a fat out-of-shape person with a poor diet. It's the person's lack of ambition and poor environment that causes him to pig out. Pot can be one reason why they're lazy, but blaming it on pot useage is mainly a scapegoat argument.

i have a son who smoked lots of weed and eventually started doing harder drugs and all i can say much consequence followed.......

Sorry to hear that. Case-by-case position though- you got dealt a bad hand. The vast majority of my friends who have smoked pot haven't done anything 'harder' than it. I'm more worried about their drinking habits.

How many people today do you think may have started playing a penny slot machine......and now are $1000s of dollars in debt

But slot machines are still legal despite the people with addictions to gambling. You don't ban something just because a handful of people are idiots with it. That makes for an irrational, unjust, and toothless society bent on putting padding over everything. The key point I'm trying to make in this whole post is it's an individuals responsibility to be responsible with such things. Alcohol is without a doubt much worse for someone, yet it has been legal for far longer. Am I justifying the use of it? Politically/legally? YES. Individually? Again, it's a case-by-case situation.

Thanks for the detailed reply. I definitely agree that there are many more pros to legalizing than cons. With the tax money Colorado is going to be raking in, I believe more states will soon follow suit.

[lvstephanie]

THANK YOU! I am a very right winged conservative and I agree 100000% with what you are saying. Other drugs are legal even though millions die every year from them while this "drug," that has killed nobody, is illegal. It's crap.

Killed nobody? Please tell me you are joking. If you are going to go on the qualifier about overdosing, don't bother. It's a poor argument.

Do you have an example of when pot actually killed someone, all by itself? And when someone says that it hasn't killed anyone, they are NOT talking about getting into a car accident while DUI; after all it is the car accident and not the marijuana that killed the person (although being high was a contributing factor that caused the accident). No one would dispute that it is reckless and dangerous to drive while high, and that a DUI may lead to a person's death.

The issue is whether marijuana itself should be legal, and so one way to look at this is to look at other legal, recreational drugs like alcohol. Since we don't outright ban alcohol consumption even though a DUI from being drunk might kill someone, a similar argument can be made for marijuana... Instead of outright banning it, we could make it legal and yet regulate its usage such that it is still illegal to drive while being high. However the case is made even stronger for its legalization if you consider the physiological effects that marijuana has vs. that of other legal substances (this is where considering the OD effect is important -- and I cannot see why this is a bad argument since this is the exact criteria that pharmacologists / toxicologists use to decide whether a possible medication would be worthwhile to investigate further). Alcohol all by itself can kill a person either by OD'ing on it or even its long-term effects causing cirrhosis of the liver. Nicotine has an immediate danger of having someone OD on it (although it isn't as easy as alcohol toxicity, esp. considering that a person would more likely be exposed to lethal doses via ingestion rather than inhalation), and long-term usage may lead to cancer, heart disease, etc. THC, again being difficult to OD on has little potential of death in the short-term, and also has few long-term effects that may lead to a person's death (most effects of long-term use is due to changes in brain chemistry). Thus to argue against the legalization of marijuana based on its lethality is ridiculous since by itself it is much less lethal than other legal substances, and if you include the cases when being high was a contributing factor to the death, then again you can look at laws that regulate alcohol consumption to minimize those types of deaths.

[hawkeye3210]

The overdose argument is poor because you are not actually arguing against the law. People overdosing isn't the reason why it became illegal, which makes the overdose argument a strawman. You're also employing selective logic if want to make the case that it is harmless and no one has been killed based on no one overdosing.

[hitch0403]

Who are we fooling here anyway whether weed is illegal or NOT!!

In this world its still going to run rampant no matter who supports it or not.As much as i am against it if there was an instance where it helped someone medically id say BRAVO!!!

But i also think the long term effect from it does more harm than good!!

[mpeters69]

The overdose argument is poor because you are not actually arguing against the law. People overdosing isn't the reason why it became illegal, which makes the overdose argument a strawman. You're also employing selective logic if want to make the case that it is harmless and no one has been killed based on no one overdosing.

then what is the reason why it was made illegal?

[lgemini]

I do not smoke marijuana, but I think it should be legalized.  It will help our economy and put people to work.

[mpeters69]

I do not smoke marijuana, but I think it should be legalized.  It will help our economy and put people to work.

Very valid argument, lots of economical sense in it

[Falconer02]

The overdose argument is poor because you are not actually arguing against the law. People overdosing isn't the reason why it became illegal, which makes the overdose argument a strawman. You're also employing selective logic if want to make the case that it is harmless and no one has been killed based on no one overdosing.

then what is the reason why it was made illegal?

Political and business corruption mostly. Racism and ignorance played a roll too. A quick google search can easily answer this question, but it's mind boggling why we haven't legalized it yet considering the stupid reasons of why it was made illegal in the first place.

http://www.drugwarrant.com/articles/why-is-marijuana-illegal/