For it: At a minimum you would: 1. remove the street level criminality. You could have state stores for purchasing as they do in Utah with alcohol (oh my, did I just use Utah as an 'example' for something!). 2. become more credible in relation to anti-drug initiatives with our youth. Having alcohol and cigarettes legal, both definitively worse drugs - while criminalizing pot, crushes governmental, educational, and parental credibility when our youth discover that 'no, you don't go from smoking a joint to becoming a knife wielding crazy person, a crackhead, or a overdosed heroin user.' Additionally, this also provides MORE credibility when discussing 'harder' drugs like heroin and cocaine, which legitimately have massive proven addictiveness and ill health effects. 3. decrease non-violent, victimless related convictions and jail terms. Its crazy to put so many behind bars for actions that did not directly hurt anyone. And that would not ever hurt anyone except for the circumstances CREATED by the very laws that make them illegal (meaning if you argued they at a minimum increased money into the criminal underground). Certainly if you stole someone's tv to by a bag, you should get arrested, but with the resulting massive price deflation coming with legalization, no one would have to steal anything to buy. You rarely hear of people stealing to pay for a pack of smokes (well, at least you never did until damn smoke nazis like bloomberg started charging 8 bucks a pack! )... 4. save massive amounts of taxpayers money from anti-mar1juana initiatives. Personally, I hate paying for (as I'm sure we've all seen on CNN or whatever) for DEA agents to stand around huge campfires of weed getting high at my expense, while simultaneously driving up everyone else's weed prices because of decreased supply! Now tell me that's not ****ed up! 5. reallocate government resources to drugs proven to be harmful to users and that as a result of their addicitiveness might actually increase peripheral crimes and health costs, like heroin and cocaine/crack. The list goes, as eminem says, 'on & on da na na da na na,' but that's a good start. (must be a bad day, I praised Utah and used what little of eminem i know in the same post)
For it. I don't smoke, but I don't see the point of having it illegal. Btw, here are two more gateway drugs AB: alcohol and cigarettes. I don't buy the gateway theory at all. People who are in situations that cause them to want to use mind-altering drugs are going to use them. In addition, you could argue that the fact that a commonly used drug is illegal makes it easier to cross the line to more dangerous illegal drugs. Think about it: If pot wasn't illegal, do you really think that most pot users would be motivated enough to go out of their way to break the law? Cheech: You wanna go get some better drugs man? Chong: I don't know man. I'm feeling pretty good now man. Chong: Which way is the door anyway man?
Plain and simple. I've never heard of anyone dying from mar1juana, unlike alcohol related deaths, weather it be driving drunk, alcohol poisoning, or just liver failure after years of drinking. One kills, the other doesn't, case closed.
Legalize it. Since it's illegal at the moment, I'm forced to settle for smoking flavored tobacco out of my middle-eastern hookah pipe (nargileh). You can get high off both, but weed takes much less time and the effects linger much longer.
I am robo repbulican. I don't smoke weed. I think it should be legal. There are few arguments against it. Chance
I think I can give you an informed opinion on this. Yes...more people would smoke it if it were decriminalized/legalized... Why?...Take me for example.. I smoked it for years in my younger days. Why did I quit? Because it became damn hard to get a job with everyone testing for it. I like smoking it casually. Im not talking about smoking it all day long, I'm talking about getting home at night from work and smoking a bowl/joint to relax after a long day of work(just like people do now with alcohol). I guarantee that my posting would become much less belligerent and sarcastic when Im having a bad week (like this one) The effects of getting a buzz from pot is no worse than alcohol, matter of a fact, it's not as harsh on my body as alcohol. Also, people that are buzzed from pot are much less to be aggressive or violent than people that are drunk. This is not a scientific fact, but I can guarantee it's truthfullness from long exposure to people that do in fact get high. Gateway drug? This is one of the biggest misconceptions there are about pot. The only reason people that smoke pot may move up to harder drugs is because of the criminal element that goes with it being illegal. If you are around people that do pot AND harder drugs, they are more likely to introduce you to the harder stuff. If pot was legalized, it would be sold in stores and if you wanted to buy it, you would not be around the harder drug users that would encourage you to try for a better buzz by using harder stuuf like coke or X or stuff like that. If they were to legalize it and tax the stuffing out of it, even with the higher taxes(like on cigarettes) it would still be cheaper than getting it on the black market as it exists today, and the extra income would go to pay for the extra social services that most people seem to wish the government would provide.. As Peter Tosh says...."Legalize It"
I think this is a big difference between mar1juana and alcohol that nobody brings up. A 175-lb. man can have 4 drinks in ONE hour and still not be legally drunk. However, one joint and you are immediately intoxicated. You can have a couple of drinks at dinner, and not feel any effects. Perhaps the potency of mar1juana would be decreased as a result of legalization, I don't know. But if it were, what evidence is there that the demand for a stronger mind-altering substance that would provide similar effects to the previously stronger and illegal mar1juana would go away? Part of the appeal of mar1juana is that people like to be able to get high quickly. If the potency of the drug is lessened, why wouldn't people just find another way to get high quickly, be it legal or illegal? These are just questions I have. I'm for decriminalization, not legalization.
Question Freak Why do you feel that potency would be decreaced with legalization? Potency is a function of the THC level of the plant, the only way to decrease potency in a bag/joint would be to mix it with something that doesnt have the THC content inherent in it... It has been shown that pot grown in an controlled indoor setting is actually stronger than most of the stuff grown naturally.
Legalize it. Tax it. Control it. It would be a huge tax revenue stream. Fewer wasted Millions on the "War on Drugs" It would lessen the burden on our judicial system. It would decrease the prison population which in itself is a tax burden. It's not worse for you than booze. It's no more of a gateway drug than Tabacco or Booze. Major - It's already illegal and they can't control it. I haven't smoked in years and I bet I could get you a quarter bag in half an hour if I tried.
If it becomes legal, the government will want a few corporations to manufacture it under their watchful eye. But who would be crazy enough to manufacture it after what's happened with the cigarette companies?
I don't know, that's just something I've heard. Maybe less potent isn't an accurate description. Maybe it would just become more diluted (although that sounds like the same thing). You know, less pot per joint or something. Or mix in some other junk with it before you sell it. You know, wasn't alcohol a lot more dangerous before it was legalized? Like the moonshine on the Dukes of Hazzard. I don't know, I'm kinda talking out of my ass here. Drugs are not something I spend a lot of time thinking about.
I have many family memebers in law enforcement and to be perfectly honest, a strong majority (maybe 4 to 1) of them are for leagalization. The argument of alcohol vs. mar1juana always arises and you really have to look at how each effect the system. The problem with what the people for leagalization in gov't is that most of them want companies to take over and start distributing it so they can control it. Once that happens you will have a problem much like the one you have with tabacco, these companies will begin adding many things to the mar1juana and health issues will likely come about from them.
You are a funny man. Most people don't smoke a whole joint, anymore than they would drink a liter of Jack.
There are health benefits with both, in moderation, right? Maybe not at the same time. Fox is reporting that alcohol thins the blood therefore cuts down on heart attacks. I don't drink, but it's time for a brew.
i know very little about mar1juana...most of what i have learned has been on this message board, actually! i'm torn on this issue, though. i kinda feel like major does...i don't know what will happen with the genie is out of the bottle...and once he's out, you can't put him back in.
And yet they are still intoxicated. Your post is irrelevant and just further proved my point that you can get stoned quicker and with less effort with pot. Yeah, hilarious.
When I quit a few years back, It only took smoking half the joint, or a small bowl out of my pipe to get a pleasant buzz that would do it for me for a couple of hours. Whereas a liter of Jack would have me worshipping the porcelian(sp?) god... Horns...there is a difference between pot and tobacco.. Pot tastes just fine on it's own without the artificial enhancements that tobacco needs to be palatable. Tobacco manufacturers add chemicals to cigarettes to smooth out the taste and enable them to last longer on the shelf without growing stale. Pot would not need most of those...imo..
Understood, but there are substances that mfgs could add to it that are less expensive, that would not alter the flavor thus increasing the profits. That is what I am trying to get across.
I'm sorry, I still don't understand why they would add anything if they don't need to. Are you referring to adding more leafy product so they can sell more product from less raw materials? I'm not tryin to be difficult, but as a user of cigarettes and an ex-user of pot, I'm just tryin to understand what you mean so I can make an informed decision about the pros and cons.
