[Beej]

If it's possible to have 1 beer, rather than 6
............
Fundamentally, the only reason marijuana is illegal is that several powerful industries successfully lobbied the government to prohibit it in an effort to protect their profits.

But it's not...
............
What is that based upon? I think it underestimates how deeply conservative people, particularly parents, are about such things. Think about all the stuff that gets banned or proposed to get banned, often due to flocks of worried parents.

I can see how big drug companies help to hold the status quo, but I think the fears of "reefer madness" predate big drug companies. Didn't it align with silliness like alcohol prohibition and a generally socially conservative push to get government into our lives in the early 20th century?

 

[Macfury]

I think the arguments that "Marihuana" was demonized to prevent the hemp indistry from challenging other established concerns have merit. There's a Popeye cartoon from the 1930s in which he consumes "loco weed" instead of spinach and there's no real stigma attached to it. A 1916 silent film "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" features Douglas Fairbanks as Coke Ennyday, a comic detective who solves crimes entirely through the use of recreational drugs.

 

[MasterBlaster]

.

 

[Beej]

I think the arguments that "Marihuana" was demonized to prevent the hemp indistry from challenging other established concerns have merit. There's a Popeye cartoon from the 1930s in which he consumes "loco weed" instead of spinach and there's no real stigma attached to it. A 1916 silent film "The Mystery of the Leaping Fish" features Douglas Fairbanks as Coke Ennyday, a comic detective who solves crimes entirely through the use of recreational drugs.

That's fair, but what is the timeline from the substance being banned to it, essentially, being pushed out of publicly polite society?

Also, "Fundamentally, the only reason" is quite an expansive conclusion versus, "was demonized to prevent", which does not set aside other reasons for the silliness or assign a heirarchy.

Unfounded fear and superstition, as seen with, "gingerism" is fully capable of staying alive on a shoestring budget. Heck, looking at some past ehmac threads, it is alive and well on the wild, wild net as well!

 

[BigDL]

I wonder is this a good waste of our Budget Surplus. The Law and Order Crowd think yes. :-( Gotta thump them kids. Keep em under our thumb.

Booze and weed are as good and as bad as you want them to be. Nobody is going change anybody's mind on what's good and bad.

Tobacco is a legal scourge and gate way drug that leads to other addictions. It also destroys the health of citizens.

Tobacco and alcohol are in too many portfolios of the "Vested Interests." No Government especially the elected Cons' "New Government" will bite that hand.

Just put Marijuana in portfolios and see the LOC change their tune on what's good and bad. tptptptp

 

[bryanc]

Also, "Fundamentally, the only reason" is quite an expansive conclusion

Okay, I was probably overstepping there, but industrial lobbying played a big role in marijuana prohibition, long before any research was done to determine if there was any real danger to individuals or society. Indeed, now that some research is being done, we're finding very little and conflicting evidence regarding its dangers, and some circumstances where it can be beneficial.

And, without diminishing my support for legalization, I should add that I'm fully aware of the fact that there are plenty of individuals who've messed up their lives with pot. But that's obviously true of alcohol, gambling, bad relationships, poor driving, bad diets, and religions too. I simply don't think it's the government's job to legislate how adults run their lives.

Finally, the notion that decriminalization somehow equals promotion is ludicrous. I can't even formulate an argument against this position because it it so preposterous to begin with.

Cheers

 

[Ravenclaw]

But it's not...
............
What is that based upon? I think it underestimates how deeply conservative people, particularly parents, are about such things. Think about all the stuff that gets banned or proposed to get banned, often due to flocks of worried parents.

This is so true. We worry about our kids. It's one thing to have thoughts on their prospective substance abuse when they are still in the cradle, but as they become teenagers our worries become more real. Last month we dropped off our first child, just eighteen, at a large university residence. It was an enlightening experience, although I don't consider myself naive or extremely conservative: some parents actually left tubs of alcohol for their fledglings to help them with the first weeks of partying. As I left on the Sunday evening following move in, I casually noted to my offspring that MJ was heavy in the air--emanating from a residence window of a building next to his. In the days that followed, the MJ smokers were evicted, but the drinkers continue to party, leaving their mark and pungent odors in public spaces shared by all. Cardboard is used as a visual aid to assist anyone wanting to avoid the human regurgitated land mine.

Thanks

 

[Elric]

Tell that one to my brother who just tore his family apart due to his pot use. Couldn't hold down a job, always high and was growing it in his basement with two kids living in the house. Fortunately now he is seeking the help he needs. Newsflash: Pot can rip apart families.

Newsflash: there is a HUGE difference between smoking on occassion and growing it in your basement.

I don't know your brother, but I can guarantee you that smoking pot didn't make him lose his jobs, or his family. At least not solely. There would be other huge factors involved I'm sure.

 

[JumboJones]

Newsflash: there is a HUGE difference between smoking on occassion and growing it in your basement.

Of course never said there wasn't, but addiction knows no bounds. Cutting out the middle man is a lot cheaper when you have an addiction.

I don't know your brother, but I can guarantee you that smoking pot didn't make him lose his jobs, or his family. At least not solely. There would be other huge factors involved I'm sure.

Sure he has had his emotional problems and looked to pot for an escape same with any addict. But I guarantee that it was the fact he was stoned on the job/home and how it affected his attitude was how he lost everything.

Are you saying that the majority of pot smokers don't have other problems, and don't get high to escape those problems?

 

[martman]

Are you saying that the majority of pot smokers don't have other problems, and don't get high to escape those problems?

As opposed to non pot smokers?
I'll say it loud and clear. The majority do not have any more problems than their non smoking counterparts. I challenge you to provide evidence to the contrary.
Oh that's right. You don't believe in evidence. You just continue to make these pronouncements with nothing to back them up but anecdotal stories about your family. This is the same kind of BS we see from the likes of the Republican and Conservative parties. Our pot laws are based on lies and these lies convince our young that the whole of the discourse is BS, making them more likely to think all drug information being given to them is similarly false.

 

[SINC]

Any way you cut it, pot is a mind altering substance and should remain illegal. It is the gateway to major addictions of much harder drugs.

 

[ArtistSeries]

Any way you cut it, pot is a mind altering substance and should remain illegal. It is the gateway to major addictions of much harder drugs.

So is alcohol... yet you seem well acquainted with that and not decrying a ban on alcohol.

Do you know for sure that it's a gateway?
Is beer a gateway to Vodka?

 

[groovetube]

Any way you cut it, pot is a mind altering substance and should remain illegal. It is the gateway to major addictions of much harder drugs.

that's the oldest one in the book. You have to come up with something people will actually believe. What a bunch of crap.

The sad thing is now we have a government spending millions and millions of dollars on a strategy that has never worked before EVER, and despite the pleas of many doctors snubbing their nose at strategies that actually do.

So one bunch of 18 years olds go out and plastered, and the other ends up with criminal records. Beautiful.

And people clap their hands about this?

What's next...

 

[bryanc]

Any way you cut it, pot is a mind altering substance and should remain illegal. It is the gateway to major addictions of much harder drugs.

Oxygen is a mind-altering substance. So is sugar. Or, if you want to restrict it to chemicals that alter the activity of neurotransmitters, then consider caffeine, chocolate, and hot peppers.

I will, however, agree with your point about it being a gateway drug. Several of the graduate students I know who started smoking pot as an approach to dealing with stress, research problems, and scientific writing (all of which, incidentally, were dramatically improved by some good 'BC-Bud') did take up smoking tobacco. This, in fact, is my major reason for avoiding it personally. My mom is a tobacco smoker and I've watched her trying to quit. I definitely don't want to wind up in that situation. But occasional marijuana use doesn't worry me a bit.

Obviously, heavy marijuana use, like heavy drinking, is a serious problem, and, if we were to legalize it, it's a problem that would probably get worse. However, compared to the problems we cause by prohibiting it, that seems a small price to pay.

Cheers

 

[ArtistSeries]

The sad thing is now we have a government spending millions and millions of dollars on a strategy that has never worked before EVER, and despite the pleas of many doctors snubbing their nose at strategies that actually do..

Well, it will help with those pesky hospital waiting times.... wait, that was the promise they choose to ignore...

 

[SINC]

One thing about threads like this one, it makes the potheads readily identifiable.

 

[JumboJones]

As opposed to non pot smokers?
I'll say it loud and clear. The majority do not have any more problems than their non smoking counterparts. I challenge you to provide evidence to the contrary.
Oh that's right. You don't believe in evidence. You just continue to make these pronouncements with nothing to back them up but anecdotal stories about your family. This is the same kind of BS we see from the likes of the Republican and Conservative parties. Our pot laws are based on lies and these lies convince our young that the whole of the discourse is BS, making them more likely to think all drug information being given to them is similarly false.

Right, evidence. A family member down in the gutter isn't good enough for you. You need statistics to make you sleep at night, please show me your evidence to prove that my brother is the anomaly and that pot is harmless and doesn't ruin lives.

 

[JumboJones]

So is alcohol... yet you seem well acquainted with that and not decrying a ban on alcohol.

Do you know for sure that it's a gateway?
Is beer a gateway to Vodka?

Then why not take up that cause? Fight for a ban on alcohol. The reasoning that alcohol is worse than pot is asinine, fight to ban them both.

 

[SINC]

Mostly everyone I know over 20 smokes weed in moderation. The sad part is the kids these days skip it entirely because they don't want to ask around, it never gets offered to them. They instead have people pushing crystal meth and percs in their faces.

No one I know over 40 smokes marijuana in any amount, and I know a lot of people. It is not only uncommon, it is unheard of in our circle of friends.

I haven't seen anyone use weed socially since I caught a couple of cub reporters stinking up the men's room at a paper back in the early 80s.

That is unless you count the drunks at concerts lately, who stink up the joint (pardon the pun) when most in attendance just wish they weren't even there.

 

[martman]

Right, evidence. A family member down in the gutter isn't good enough for you. You need statistics to make you sleep at night, please show me your evidence to prove that my brother is the anomaly and that pot is harmless and doesn't ruin lives.

I read the statement I'm about to make a lot in this forum.

Correlation doesn't equal causation.

He could have (and with far more ease and success) messed up his life with heroin, cocaine or alcohol. Very few people mess up the way your brother did on pot.You see far more alcoholics sleeping in the gutter than you do pot heads.Drug addiction is a MEDICAL problem. Failure to recognize this fact is why we continue to support a failed proven counterproductive anti-drug strategy. The sad part of all this is that a fiscal conservative like yourself can't see the pointless and colossal waste of capital and resources the "war on drugs" really is. You don't like welfare but you want to see people locked up for a medical condition they have. When will law and order types get it through their thick heads? JAIL IS THE MOST EXPENSIVE FORM OF WELFARE THERE IS! If you want to stop waste, stop incarcerating non-violent people. I have yet to see a study showing an increase in drug use where it has been decriminalized so why play this losers game of ruining sick people's lives with indictable offense convictions? This is a huge drag on the economy and NO ONE seems to be capable of producing any data to back up the war on drugs as a strategy worth keeping (meaning actually reduces drug use and \ or availability).