With all the Drug threads . . . I was wondering Which ones do you feel should be legal? which ones should be illegal? How should they be regulated? Rocket River
mar1juana should be legalized, sold like cigarettes in liquor stores to individuals over 21, and should be taxed. That's one way our grandchildren won't have to pay for the fiscal insanity of the current administration.
Couldn't agree more. I mainly base my arguements around economic interests. If mar1juana was legal: It would be Kentucky's largest cash crop. Most state laws, including Kentucky's make no distinction between mar1juana and industrial hemp. Yet, while one gets users high, the other promises to strengthen the economic base for many rural families and help the environment for all. Hemp, a crop of myriad uses, represents a viable alternative to tobacco for family farms. Hemp paper will preserve forests from vast clear-cut logging. Hemp clothing will spare soil the petrochemical supplements demanded by other fiber crops. For Appalachia, hemp offers a sustainable direction that promises a variety of light manufacturing for small communities. 60,000 individuals are behind bars for mar1juana offenses at a cost to taxpayers of $1.2 billion per year. Taxpayers annually spend between $7.5 billion and $10 billion arresting and prosecuting individuals for mar1juana violations. Almost 90 percent of these arrests are for mar1juana possession only. The state of California saved nearly $1 billion dollars from 1976 to 1985 by decriminalizing the personal possession of one ounce of mar1juana, according to a study of the state justice department budget. According to editors of the prestigious Lancet British medical journal: "The smoking of cannabis, even long-term, is not harmful to health. ... It would be reasonable to judge cannabis as less of a threat ... than alcohol or tobacco." The National Academy of Sciences further found, "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of mar1juana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs." Government studies conclude that mar1juana decriminalization has had virtually no effect on either mar1juana use or beliefs and related attitudes about mar1juana among American young people in those states that have enacted such a policy. mar1juana use remains consistent despite a high level of enforcement, and there is no detectable relationship between changes in enforcement and levels of mar1juana use over time. - Source: NORML.org
I believe that we should start with mar1juana, but that we should continue to study the best mechanisms to regulate other drugs as well. For example, the Swiss have a prescription heroin trial going (detailed in another recent thread about heroin) in which heroin addicts are prescribed heroin by doctors. In this trial, the users have reduced their criminal behavior to nearly nil, their employability and employment have shot up dramatically, and they have become responsible taxpayers again. In addition, many of them go on to wean themselves from heroin and many others go on to methadone programs. Cocaine usage should also be studied more closely, though there are some pretty compelling arguments for legalizing it as well. First and foremost, cocaine is the biggest profit maker for the drug cartels and other criminal organizations because cocaine has become accepted in many circles to the point that it is a status symbol for many people. With the massive profits to be made, criminal organizations are more than happy to provide access. In addition, regulation would change the delivery method for most people. Instead of smoking or snorting, most cocaine usage would be limited to mixtures of wine and cocaine (do a Google search for Vin Mariani) or other beverages (like the original Coca-Cola). With these as the primary delivery methods and a lack of prohibition, cocaine deaths would dwindle to nearly nil. All that being said, I think we need to make a start with the drugs that we are already sure have very few long-term effects (mar1juana, MDMA, and other so-called "soft drugs") to see how the black market reacts to losing its "gateway drugs" (which are a gateway because only drug dealers provide them). The black market would almost certainly continue on because of the massive profits in cocaine and heroin, but usage would probably begin to dwindle as fewer kids would be exposed at an early age.
well just to make it debatable, even though I think you should either ban alcohol or legalize MJ, is there an argument that has ground saying that weed, if sold in stores to people over 21, will destroy productivity of our country if legalized? i can just see people taking their weed breaks instead of during their cigarrette breaks. on top of that, so many kids back in high school smoke without having any problem getting packs, for the minors in my college, they do this thing called "bumfishing" where they pay a bum extra to buy them alcohol. where I can see an improvement in snack sales, i can see my beloved NBA crashing to the ground. "Mo Taylor, can you describe your complete lack of enthusiasm on the court, even after winning the sixth man award last year?" "F**K it, I quit, I'm rich, i have enough to buy a small apartment, a lifetime of krispy kream and smoke up for the rest of my life. and im taking cato with me." "are you serio..." "oh yeah, im also taking sheed, odom, laetner and the blazers." think about it, this could be the worst thing to professional sports ever, the only ones left will be guys like duncan, yao, the white jazz, and the few kids that have yet to turn 21. they would have to shrink the league and only the fundamentalists would stay in the sport...come to think of it, this may be the best thing for the sport, EVER. but seriously, lets just say, because of the ease and use of maryjane, and its effectiveness over alcohol, do you think it will be a hard bludgeouned bat towards american productivity? especially towards our growing prodigies in our fine universities? even if you make packs $50 each, I can see it either selling on the streets for less (like roll your own tobacco), or being bought by our rich elite and reducing their productivity to that of the french.
Almost every job has prohibitions against using alcohol on lunch (or other) breaks and it would be absolutely appropriate for companies to enforce such prohibition as they are paying the employee to be there. Which has been minimized in recent years due to the "We Card" programs and other programs designed to reduce availability to minors. Would it still happen? Probably, but there is a study that shows that kids find it easier to get illicit drugs these days than alcohol, because the black market does not care who it sells to. Hollands rate of teen drug use is HALF what we see here in the states and they attribute it to pot not being "forbidden fruit" anymore. Come on. These guys have enough money to have the best pot there is around them all the time. Anyone who wants to smoke pot these days can get it easily (including kids). Regulating the industry would not cause the pro sports world to come crashing down, much as you seem to think it would. There are millions of people in this country who smoke pot regularly and still get up every day, go to work, pay their taxes, and act as responsible members of society. You just don't see them or hear from them because they have WAY too much to lose by outing themselves. Puh-leaze. Let me reiterate that ANYONE IN AMERICA WHO WANTS IT CAN GET POT TODAY. We would not be not increasing availability, we would be decreasing availability to minors. As fewer minors smoke, eventually overall numbers of users would drop, just like in Holland.
Legalize pot, lower American productivity, lower sperm motility, reduced population, return to an agrairian barter society that emphasizes quality of life over materialism, Hmm, sounds good. But wait, unmotivated civil defenses, borders overun by hostile societies seeking our natural resources, forced into slavery, no TV Hmm, sounds bad. Best just leave things the way they are. Does anybody that smokes pot really have a hard time getting it?
I will answer your tongue in cheek arguements with some of my own. You think weed is hard to get now? What are you too lazy to walk to the park? How much would you normally pay for a dime bag, cuz it sure as hell ain't ten bucks any more. You really think that selling joints for a buck a piece is too much to pay. Make a joint as much a tall boy and regulate it the same way. Alcohol is legal AND addictive, yet we don't have masses of people showing up to work drunk. Ya drunk driving is an issue. I won't deny that, but despite the sad commercials, driving on weed is not going to go through the roof if it's legalized. Bottom line is, if you wanna smoke weed now you can get it pretty damn easily. The problem with it being illegal is that YOUR tax dollars are at work fighting a war on drugs that in the case of maryjane is over, MJ won. She kicked the cops ass. The victims are the people who are doing time for small possession, and they are twice as likely to be black. Weed enforcement is racist, plain and simple. People don't avoid smoking weed or quit because they are afraid of the law, unless they are in prison for possession, they quit or don't start for other reasons. It makes you lazy, don't lie it does! You know after your high all you wanted to do was crack open a box of twinkies and watch beavis and butthead. Why you think that show was on TV?
honestly, i do hope it gets legalized someday, im just bitter that its cost is inflated so much here and it would seriously impair my ability to get a job. at this point in my life, i just cant smoke it nor can i afford the risks or cost . I don't believe what i wrote earlier, but i was just throwing out some of the arguments i hear about it. I do think, though, if it gets legalized, there will be a "bouce" in overusage, as a lot of people who never wanted to try it because of its illegality, whether this will cause problems is another question. there will be a trendy period, no doubt, but it should flatten out like most trends eventually do.
I think we are on the same page on this one, and I figured you were playing devil's advocate back there. I wouldn't start back up again either, primarily because of my wife and family. I feel like going home on a Friday, having a joint and giggling yourself to sleep just after finishing up a package of cold ding dongs shouldn't be anybody elses business but your own. I'm just waiting for someone to run in this thread and say "it's wrong because it's illegal, durrrrr", call us all pothead law breakers, post a picture of a hippie, declare victory, and then disappear.
BTW: Congressman Dennis Kucinich, a 2004 Democratic presidential candidate, said Thursday that if elected he would issue an executive order supporting the use of medical mar1juana "as an act of compassion and expression of humanity." "If a doctor makes that determination, or the patient asks for it, I think it ought to be permitted," Kucinich said in a phone interview. "I've talked to too many people who have had family members suffering from terminal illness who feel it would provide them the most relief from pain and suffering." Kucinich is the only Democratic presidential candidate to come out so far in favor of legalizing the use of mar1juana for medicinal purposes. Such use is legal in California and seven other states, but federal law prohibits the use of mar1juana for any purpose.
It's wrong because it's illegal, you pothead law breakers, durrr. Expecting a hippie picture weren'tcha? But seriously, I think all drugs should be legalized. I don't think we should reroute the money that we are spending on the drug war to treatment programs either. You screw your life up with drugs, that's your fault, not mine. I also think we need to start rolling back some other laws, like arbitrary restrictions on what guns you can own, or how old someone has to be to be legal as a sexual partner.
From a philosophical standpoint, it is most consistent with my beliefs to say: All drugs legal for all adults who want to use them, all drugs with any potential harmfull effect illegal for all minors. I am willing to compromise a bit, but I would definitely err on the side of allowing vs. not. Adults make their own decisions. I think it could be an apporach for a person to submit a request that they be banned from substances for which they have an addiction, to ask for help beating their demon. All of these substances which are potentially harmfull, and as such should be out of the reach of children should be sold legally through pharmacies. I could even go as far as agreeing with the illegalisation of heroin, etc.. IOW, artifical drugs, under the rationalization that substances created by man might be ingested by man without the ingesotr being aware of the effects...but this is, I admit a compromise of my personel beliefs in individual liberty when it comes to issues which do harm to no one but themselves.
I don't see any difference between your hypothetical situation and the "3 martini" lunches we have today. And people who drink heavily after work are likely to be far more affected the next day... have their productivity affected, in other words, then those who smoke for relaxation after work. It really boils down to responsibility. If you are responsible, you won't do it at lunch. Smoke or drink. If you aren't, then you will do whatever you can to get that "buzz" that dulls your senses. And I would submit that smoking is far less harmful. But that's just my opinion.
