New poll finds increasing support for regulated MJ

Actually, I would like to see it classified such that we CAN study it and find out what the long term effects are. Schedule I drugs cannot be studied in this country and MJ is in Schedule I.

 

Not according to every study that has been done on it since the 1800s. See the other thread for a listing of significant studies.

http://bbs.clutchcity.net/php3/showthread.php?s=&threadid=59520&perpage=30&pagenumber=1

Please tell me what makes you say this. Is it opinion, published study, what?

Did you see the information above that indicates that mar1juana is more easily acquired than alcohol?

I am not saying that more MJ is used, but I am saying that with tight controls, regulation, and education, we CAN keep it from kids. As much as you want to discount the numbers because Holland is smaller than the US, their rate of use is half or less for every illicit drug and that is not simply a coincidence.

We CAN reduce kids access to drugs if we take it seriously enough and admit that the current policy is flawed.

I am PROUD to have served as a catalyst for many, many people who have kicked drugs. I have spent nearly half of my life dealing with the drug war in one way or another and I cannot find one positive impact that it has had on our country. I have repeatedly challenged you to give me even one example of something good that prohibition is done for us and have been ignored. Do you concede the point?

It seems to me that your experiences with your daughter has colored your thinking. If you don't mind me asking, did she start on that path in childhood? This is the most common path and starts when the child talks to peers (the bad crowd you mentioned) and gets the impression that drugs are not a big deal. Eventually, they seek out mar1juana in the same way they seek out alcohol and since they can get cocaine and heroin from the same person, it becomes a painful lesson that can take your life.

I want to change this path and I know it can be done because I have seen it over and over through my life and career.

Actually, that article was to show you that there is a camp that discounts your studies as biased. I, ME, ANDY, KNOW to the core of my being that drugs are harmful and can be deadly, especially to children. By regulating the industry, we can do some REAL, long term studies of all kinds of users to give the doctors that dispense the stuff some hard ammunition to use with people who choose to buy this poison. Adults who are given the proper facts about what drugs do to a human body will choose not to use them. The key factor in that equation is reducing the level of access kids have to these drugs. We can do that with regulation, but with prohibition, there is always a black market.

And whether you know it or not, statistically you are likely to know eight to ten long term MJ users that you would never suspect.

I am only annoying you because you can't answer my questions.

Can you name one positive effect prohibition has had on our society?

Can you answer the charges that the drug war is racist?

What do you say to the fact that the drug war discriminates based on socio-economic status?

If you are in support of prohibition, are you willing to go to the next step to see if increased enforcement will work?

Are you willing to have drug dealers executed by the thousands like they are doing in Thailand right now?

Are you willing to give up the 4th Amendment completely?

I would not be nearly so hard on you if you would just answer some of these questions.

 

You must be the one using drugs if you believe this. Anyone in America who wants drugs can get them, and kids have easier access than many adults.

This is a legitimate question and you just slough it off like it doesn't matter. The drug war incarcerates black and brown people disproportionately. Why do you think that 86% of the people behind bars for drug offenses is black or hispanic?

Not round and round, the problems with prohibition just get piled higher and deeper.

So, you are perfectly OK with the fact that rich people aren't prosecuted, middle class whites get acquitted, and poor people get thrown in jail for something that people from every social level does?

You really are out of touch with reality. Do you understand how many of our rights we have given up over this issue? Are you actually willing to let the drug warriors tear up the constitution and the bill of rights in order to try to enforce this misguided policy?

If this is true then you are exactly like the Germans who gave their support to the Nazis in WWII.

Not ridiculous at all, really. Over 2000 people have been summarily executed without a trial since February. Are you saying that you would support such a policy in the States?

Apparently you don't have any intelligent response to this one. Why am I not surprised?

Sorry about that, it was bobreck who has the daughter that got tangled up in drugs. My tangle with drugs ended over a decade and a half ago, so you can't use that one.

 

I wouldn't exactly call this a positive effect given that in those battles between criminals, innocent people get caught in the middle.

There would be a LOT more funding for the government in a regulate and tax setup anyway.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/racepris.htm

From item number 7

According to the federal Household Survey, "most illicit drug users are white. There were an estimated 9.9 million whites (72% of all users), 2.0 million blacks (15%), and 1.4 million hispanics (10%) who were current illicit drug users in 1998." And yet, blacks constitute 36.8% of those arrested for drug violations. African-Americans comprise almost 58% of those in state prisons for drug felonies; Hispanics account for 20.7%.

So, black and brown people account for almost 80% of the people in state jail for drug felonies despite being only 25% of all drug users. Sounds pretty racist in its application, don't you think?

That is your defense of prohibition? That it is better to be rich than poor? LOL

How much more money would you be willing to spend? You know, the states are in a budget crunch in part because of massive prison expenditures. Are you in favor of rolling back the tax cuts so that we can continue to build more prisons to accomodate even more nonviolent "criminals?"

I guess you don't care about that "cruel or unusual punishment" bit in the bill of rights, huh? As for life imprisonment, see the above question.

I am a law abiding citizen who doesn't have anything to fear from being searched, either, which still does not give the government the right to do it without probable cause.

I am not willing to give up any of the amendments as they were put there by the framers to guarantee that America would not turn into the kind of opressive regime that they had to endure.

Those that give up liberty for the sake of security deserve neither liberty nor security. - Ben Franklin

How can we call ourselves the land of the free when we have the highest per capita incarceration rate in the industrialized world?

How can you say that prohibition has made drugs hard to come by when (according to the Office of National Drug Control Policy) over half of our young people try an illicit drug before they leave high school?

 

What I am saying is that we need to have LONG-TERM studies that simply cannot be done with mar1juana in Schedule I. It can be studied to an extent but ANY study done today will have flaws because the drug is illegal to even study.

I posted that article sarcastically to show that there is not any empirical data that shows the long term effects. I know for a fact that drug use (any drug use) is dangerous and WILL have long term effects. That is why we have to regulate the industry so that we can reduce usage through demand reduction, education, and treatment.

 

OK, even if we use THAT number, it is 75%. Three quarters of the people in jail for drugs are black or brown.

This is a racist policy.

 

As a sarcastic retort to the "studies" posted by DaDakota. I don't think that study (or the ones DD posted) mean NOTHING, just that we could get better, more accurate data if it were regulated rather than prohibited.

Police forces have been going through military-like training and are using military tactics more and more over the past decade. Police kick down doors in the middle of the night dressed in black with masks on, carrying M-16s. That is about as military as it can get.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/military.htm

Item number 6

89% of police departments have paramilitary units, and 46% have been trained by active duty armed forces. The most common use of paramilitary units is serving drug-related search warrants (usually no-knock entries into private homes). Twenty percent (20%) of police departments use paramilitary units to patrol urban areas.

 

DD,

Since you tried to answer that last set of questions, lets see you take these on.

Do you think that the thousands of innocent people like Alberta Spruell (killed in a no-knock raid in NYC about a month ago) who die at the hands of drug warriors are justifiable?

Since you would be OK with increasing the level of pressure on drug users (from the last set of questions), would you be OK with:
Random searches?
Drug roadblocks?
Mandatory drug testing of all Americans?
Wiretapping without a warrant?

Since you have obviously never used an illicit substance, what makes you think you know ANYTHING about drugs or drug policy?

Would you be in favor of spending MORE than the $100 billion or more per year that we spend on the drug war? How much more?

 

Because the police are supposed to be "peace officers," not soldiers. The military is a kill-first outfit that is not in the business of leaving people alive. The police are supposed to arrest, not kill.

How can neighborhoods already at odds with police for the racist application of the drug war trust an outfit that is being trained to break into their houses to kill them?

 

Whatever. I am NOT a liberal, I have not voted Democrat in over a decade. I am MUCH more conservative than most of the people I encounter. This is another reason I argue this issue the way I do.

Republicans are supposed to be about states rights and small government. With those ideals, the drug war should be unconscionable to them.

I think the federal government should allow the states that think it is appropriate to enact the drug policy that the citizens and legislators think is proper for their communities. I think it is excreble that the DEA is raiding, arresting, and prosecuting deputized city agents in California for trying to enact state law (Proposition 215, the medical mar1juana act).

Guess you have decided to stop answering questions again, huh?