Legalize Pot

[Walsingham]

I agree with just about everything LadyCrimson said.

 

 

Separate from her statement I'd reiterate this is about comparative treatment of the issue. If alcohol and tobacco are legal then marijuana makes sense. Even if it is not freely legal, it should at the very least be available on prescription.

 

1. Ender, you're damn right that it ahs an effect in the short term. That's the point of taking it! :D It is not safe to be doing it while in a position of responsibility. Agree with you there.

 

2. The long term lung implications are complicated by the fact people mix dope with tobacco. Moreover, since it is illegal you have no idea how it has been grown or what it has been treated with. Legalisation could be accompanied by the use of non-tobacco based mixes treated with hashish oil, and hashish in consumables. Bear in mind teh latter would be the mode used in legal medical use.

 

3. I'd be interested in the studies you mention on long term motivational effects. I'm not saying anecdotal evidence can outweigh it, but all the same I know many very highly motivated users of marijuana. I might also point out that because of the short term effects lasting quite a long time high levels of marijuana use would not be entered into as a behaviour by people who didn't already have motivational issues.

 

4. Since the jury is still out on precisely how erectile functioning works I can't suggest a confounding factor. Marijuana and particularly very heavy marijuana use may lead to poor sperm counts etc, but again some very heavy users may be *ahem* losers to start with. Unfair? Possibly.

 

~

 

Compare this with the consequences of getting incapacitated with alcohol on a daily basis. You'll have all the above, plus cirhossis of the liver, and be dead in years. Should alcohol be illegal? No. It is up to each of us to choose not to go down teh road of chronic alcohol abuse.

[alanschu]

I think a thing about even if a marijuana joint has 3 times the tar, I don't know of any potheads that smoke 1-2 packs of marijuana a day

[EnderAndrew]

I've met potheads who smoke a good 4 times a day, and then hold the smoke in their lungs much longer than cigarette smoke, so you ingest much more of the tar and carcinogens.

[Commissar]

I've met potheads who smoke a good 4 times a day, and then hold the smoke in their lungs much longer than cigarette smoke, so you ingest much more of the tar and carcinogens.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

They're still not touching guys who blaze through a pack a day - like myself. Not even close.

[Cantousent]

A pack a day? Good God.

 

I've known folks who could smoke a pack a day and still run like hell all day long. I don't know how they did it, but they did.

 

When it comes to the personally harmful aspects of smoking marijuana, I think the case for criminalization becomes particularly shaky. After all, society accepts all sorts of things that are personally harmful. ...And that's how it should be! If we give in on marijuana, they might not come after computer gaming next, but Wals has a point when it comes to the slippery slope idea. Already we have some uptight swine-hearted wretches in the government, local, state, and fed, who seek to put punitive taxes on fast food. Wals is right, even if it isn't exactly the same thing, to cite the cases against software developers and publishers. I agree that we have to draw the line somewhere, but the line we have now doesn't make any sense.

 

No matter what, I don't want the government telling me that, for my sake, it's taking away my rights.

[alanschu]

Heh, in Jr. High our best marathon runner was a heavy smoker

[Walsingham]

A pack a day?  Good God.

 

I've known folks who could smoke a pack a day and still run like hell all day long.  I don't know how they did it, but they did.

 

When it comes to the personally harmful aspects of smoking marijuana, I think the case for criminalization becomes particularly shaky.  After all, society accepts all sorts of things that are personally harmful.  ...And that's how it should be!  If we give in on marijuana, they might not come after computer gaming next, but Wals has a point when it comes to the slippery slope idea.  Already we have some uptight swine-hearted wretches in the government, local, state, and fed, who seek to put punitive taxes on fast food.  Wals is right, even if it isn't exactly the same thing, to cite the cases against software developers and publishers.  I agree that we have to draw the line somewhere, but the line we have now doesn't make any sense.

 

No matter what, I don't want the government telling me that, for my sake, it's taking away my rights.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

 

*Draws his side-arm, brandishing it above his head, and shouts "Hell yeah!"*

[Commissar]

A pack a day?  Good God.

 

I've known folks who could smoke a pack a day and still run like hell all day long.  I don't know how they did it, but they did.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Your lungs adapt.

[metadigital]

Just stop, now I'm confused.  At any rate, does anyone want to live in a country where they look through your clothes for your insurance card before they actually try to save your life?

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I agree, you're confused.

 

Just to recap, someone (I believe it was Meta) said that seatbelt laws ought to be mandatory because if someone crashes and doesn't have insurance, the taxpayers are paying for his healthcare. I said that if you wanted to hold people accountable for their personal decisions, that's fine - ie, not give the guy without insurance health care - but that we shouldn't be regulating personal choice.

 

That's where all this came from. Once more, for the record, EMTs don't check to see if the guy who went through his windshield has insurance before they treat him.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

I have heard that it is not unlikely in some circumstances for an accident victim with unclear insurance status to be shipped to another hospital with "more capacity" (read: for those types of people).

 

Obviously it's not legal, but that don't mean it don't happen, especially in the land of New Orleans, and the home of the Religious Right (who are more interested in their own rights than the rights of the poor, JC would be turning in his grave, if he didn't up and scarper already) ...

I think that all drugs should be illigal. Even alcahol and tobaco and other legal drugs that are not used for medical reasons.

<{POST_SNAPBACK}>

But prohibition doesn't work, except on a scale of one.