On September 03 2012 00:09 mynameisgreat11 wrote: 1 - Total deaths from Cannabis overdose: 0
2 - Total deaths caused from alcohol, tobacco, and prescription drugs: hundreds of thousands per year.
3 - Marijuana's current status as illegal does not prevent anyone from smoking it who cares to. Depending on what poll you look at, 40-60 percent of the US population under the age of 21 has smoked at least once, and about 10-15 percent smoke regularly. We've all heard anecdotal evidence that high school age children often have a harder time acquiring beer than marijuana.
4 - Hundreds of thousands of Americans suffer from disease for which marijuana can provide some relief, but are denied access.
5 - Marijuana laws typically prosecute marijuana users on a similar level to users of cocaine, heroin, and meth.
6 - Many professionals are marijuana users. The stereotype of a lazy fuck-up exists for smokers and non-smokers alike. Some notable smokers include Bill Gates, Rick Steves, Pablo Picasso, Steve Jobs, Carl Sagan, Stephen Jay Gould, Francis Crick, Andrew Weil, Kary Mullis, Oliver Sacks, Richard Feynman, and the list goes on and on if you care to look.
7 - If marijuana was legalized, the gateway drug argument would be rendered moot. It would separate its black market dealings from other drugs such as heroin and cocaine. It would be controlled and regulated, and would not lead to harder drugs any more than alcohol or tobacco would.
8 - Studies have shown that marijuana use does not negatively impact your brain, but it is a moot point when discussing legality. Alcohol is 100% proven to damage your brain, liver, and many other systems in your body, and yet it remains legal. Cannabis' negative physical side effects are at the worst controversial, and at best hardly existent. This is not a basis for prohibition.
I'm shamelessly quoting my own post. I feel like I raised good points here. Does anybody disagree with them?
I like how all the people who say no to legalizing ignore posts like this. It SHOULD be legalized. No denying it...
On September 03 2012 00:42 KentHenry wrote: I think it should be decriminalized but not legal. Like if you're caught driving under the influence.
Having driven "under the influence" of marijuana countless hundreds of times, trust me when I say that it's way, way safer than driving drunk. In fact, for me it's safer than driving sober because I'm not in a hurry and I don't get road rage when I'm high.
This is pretty brave to do in Korea. (assuming that´s your actual location)
Marijuana has been a part of human history for thousands of years. It was banned in the 1920s amidst a flurry of racist propaganda and is enforced today due to the huge amounts of money its illegal status makes the pharmaceutical and private prison industries. If marijuana were legalized many of the anti-nausea, anti-depressive, and anti-anxiety drugs which huge pharmaceutical companies charge patients $50 a week for could be replaced with a plant easily grown in one's own backyard, and the amount of people in prison would drastically decrease.
The United States imprisons more people than any other country in the world. 1% of our population is in prison. Roughly half of these are due to drug offenses, and the majority of those are simple marijuana possession cases. Countless lives are ruined because of this outdated law, which is enforced only to line the pockets of Big Pharma and those in the private prison industry.
Of course I don't want marijuana to end up in the hands of children. Last I checked, alcohol is illegal to possess for those under the age of 21. Legalizing and regulating marijuana would actually make it easier to keep away from kids, as I don't believe drug dealers are checking IDs.
I could go on and on, but I'll end with some science.
I think the discussion of the specific word barbarism has become needlessly semantic. Everything looks better when you compare it to genocide.
However, I think the war on drugs has had direct negative impacts that are very significant.
-Drug sales fund cartels that actually do kill people. The war on drugs is not a figure of speech if you go south of the border: it is a military conflict between governments and well-funded paramilitary cartels. -Blacks and Latinos are disproportionately arrested and convicted for drug/mj related crimes. More blacks are in prison than in college. This is obviously not a simple problem that has a simple solution, but legalizing mj would undeniably help.
Weed prohibition is a huge industry that exists because it has been successful at making money, not because of moral or social concerns; these are ex post facto arguments. Therefore, laws need to be reviewed: the legal status of weed should be based on modern, evidence based cases.
1. destroys the drug black market completely 2. everybody smokes good, natural stuff, not some shitty stuff you can get sick from or it can destroy your fucking lungs 3. profits for country 4. we should let people decide for themselves, we are not animals ffs.. everyone have their own mind and should use it, if you want to smoke, I dont give a shit, if you dont, i dont give a shit either. just to what you want
Why anything I put in my body is illegal I will never understand. Yes some harder drugs can make people do stupid things, so throw them in jail/punish for doing said stupid things not for doing the drug and using it as an excuse, If someone wants to fuck up their life/body its their(And their loved ones) business not the governments. Stop this retarded witch hunt that can never actually be won... You will NEVER I repeat NEVER wipe out drugs and their dealers, people that want to get high will always get high so stop spending billions of dollars trying to stop/control that. Instead less then even a fraction of that to let them do their shit safely and smartly without harming innocent people.
Side note: I'm not some strung out druggy preaching this because I want to get high legally, the only drug I have touched in the last 5 years is alcohol.
On September 03 2012 01:03 MapleFractal wrote: Legalize it , and then tax it. EZPZ look at all those Tax dollars made and saved!
I agree it should be like this(Just look at my previous post in this thread) but to say its EZPZ is just wrong
For them to legalize it, they would have to
1)Swallow their pride along with years upon years of bullshit propaganda they spread 2) Forfeit all the funding and jobs created to fight this 'war' 3) debrain wash the hundreds of thousands of people they convinced that weed is the devil/gateway drug/cause of violence etc.
So while it should/needs to be done, it will not be EZPZ and it will take some time.
On September 03 2012 00:42 KentHenry wrote: I think it should be decriminalized but not legal. Like if you're caught driving under the influence.
Having driven "under the influence" of marijuana countless hundreds of times, trust me when I say that it's way, way safer than driving drunk. In fact, for me it's safer than driving sober because I'm not in a hurry and I don't get road rage when I'm high.
This. Obviously I'm not proud of it, but I can say from A LOT of experience that drunk driving and high driving are not even in the same league. Drunk driving, you actually feel physically impaired. You must constantly pay attention and focus on going straight/not too fast/not too slow. High driving (unless you're DESTROYED) is pretty easy in comparison. Little physical effect aside from slightly lower reaction time. Really, the biggest concern for me when driving high is not getting distracted by conversations, music, etc.
Of course, i'm in no way advocating driving under the influence, but I unfortunately have quite a bit of first hand experience from younger years.
On September 03 2012 01:03 MapleFractal wrote: Legalize it , and then tax it. EZPZ look at all those Tax dollars made and saved!
I agree it should be like this(Just look at my previous post in this thread) but to say its EZPZ is just wrong
For them to legalize it, they would have to
1)Swallow their pride along with years upon years of bullshit propaganda they spread 2) Forfeit all the funding and jobs created to fight this 'war' 3) debrain wash the hundreds of thousands of people they convinced that weed is the devil/gateway drug/cause of violence etc.
So while it should/needs to be done, it will not be EZPZ and it will take some time.
This is extremely true. You can give all of the scientific evidence and arguments about human rights that you want, but politics is the hardest barrier to break.
1. I can't think of a politician since JFK that actually stood up, admitted they did something wrong, and accepted the blame. Imagine how hard it would be to apologize on behalf of 80 years of ignorant, corrupt politicians who have literally ruined the lives of hundreds of thousands, if not millions.
2. If weed were made legal, the amount of revenue lost would be enormous. Prisons would lose HUGE amounts of victims, cops would have lost an enormous source of arrests, and we would have to slash the number of cops/DEA agents/prison staff. Few want to change this, and the moral few who do would have to have enormous balls to stand up before the hundreds of millions of Americans and openly say that they want to free criminals and lay off cops. I can only imagine how anti-marijuana media would present this...
3. As of now, this is a lot more of a problem than it appears. Seniors, the most indoctrinated and stubborn of all, are also MUCH more likely to vote than the younger generations. So, the senior opinion is an extremely powerful. Luckily, over time it becomes less of a problem. It sounds quite dark, but in 30-40 years, the average public of weed will be ENORMOUSLY different. I don't want to sound evil, but if you're pro-legalization, their deaths should be quite pleasing to you.
Having alcohol being legal an marijuana being illegal is just complete non-sense. And we all know what happens if you prohibit alcohol... Just legalize marijuana. I hope it would turn people into marijuana instead of alcohol. How many time have you heard about a totally backed up man beating his wife are getting involve into a fight ? Because for alcohol, we hear that on a regular basis.
When you see marijuana's history and the reasons why it has been made illegal, you'll realise it was just to protect some company's profit and not to protect the citizens.
All the argument I've heard about people saying while we should keep it illegal are usually extremely naive and uneducated opinions. There are a lot of good sources of information in this thread, I hope some people will pay attention to it.
On September 02 2012 11:17 Coriolis wrote: Tbh I think people are too fucking stupid to handle drugs of pretty much any kind. Unfortunately once it becomes legal making something illegal doesn't do any good (ex: prohibition), and sure plenty of people can smoke it illegally but they at least have to go through some effort.
But I'm in the minority and all the arguments favor legal weed (tax money, government shouldn't control what people do, etc) but I still think the majority is too stupid to handle weed. Hell they can't even handle alcohol.
Well, the majority kids are ALREADY smoking weed. Besides, why would alcohol be easier to handle? It's easier to get a dependency on than marijuana and easier to damage your body with.
Actually no, while I don't like people presenting weed as a miracle medecine with only benefits, an excess of alcohol is far more damaging than marijuana.
Ooops.. big typos in my original post
Sorry, I didnt mean to post this, i meant to edit my original comment :s
This thread favors weed, there should be an even amount of evidence for both sides of the argument. If you tell everyone all these facts you naturally will persuade them that weed is good for you. If you gave equal evidence for both sides you then would make this thread fair I believe this thread should be closed as it isn't fair to both sides of the argument.
Don't legalize it. I can tell from experience that its a such a bad drug man. If you smoke alot every day for years... trust me Your memory will become like a goldfish and youll be so lazy. All the people and media that try to convince people that weed isnt that bad obviously never ever used alot for quite some time. Recent 40 year study proofed for the first time that weed really damage your brains. I rather see it being forbidden in my country.
On September 03 2012 02:14 Rainmansc wrote: Don't legalize it. I can tell from experience that its a such a bad drug man. If you smoke alot every day for years... trust me Your memory will become like a goldfish and youll be so lazy. All the people and media that try to convince people that weed isnt that bad obviously never ever used alot for quite some time. Recent 40 year study proofed for the first time that weed really damage your brains. I rather see it being forbidden in my country.
If you smoke a lot every day....I wonder what would happen if you drank beer a lot every day, for 40 years. In fact, if you stay on the computer a lot every day for 40 years you'd have some bad health problems as well. Still doesn't mean the government should protect us from ourselves. I don't even know of anyone that smokes a lot every day. At most they smoke once a month during the summer, not during school year.
On September 03 2012 02:14 Rainmansc wrote: Don't legalize it. I can tell from experience that its a such a bad drug man. If you smoke alot every day for years... trust me Your memory will become like a goldfish and youll be so lazy. All the people and media that try to convince people that weed isnt that bad obviously never ever used alot for quite some time. Recent 40 year study proofed for the first time that weed really damage your brains. I rather see it being forbidden in my country.
alcohol damages your brain and fucks up your liver and other parts of you, should it be illegal also?
Maybe you were just lazy and had a bad memory anyways, how do you even go about "proving" that weed fucked your memory or made you lazy?
EPT
