Should weed be legalized? - Page 48

On September 05 2012 01:56 NadaSound wrote:


Another 10+ year toker here. I would just like to apologize for being such a slow and unproductive drain on society. I mean, what am I doing with my life? Here I am going to school to become an astrophysicist, god I'm so lazy and stupid. Maybe I should stop smoking pot and stop being inspired by the world around me and booz up more so can be "socially engaged" as I talk shit in my drunken meaningless ramblings.

Here is list of things I like to do when I am high: Tend to my yard, garden and bonsai's, pull out my telescope and do some stargazing, lay in my hammock and watch squires hunt for pears from my pear tree, swim, hike, play with legos (the only time I ever do that now of days), study in the late hours of the night after studying sober all day, and of course game out.

Here is a list of things I like to do when I am drunk: listen to live music, hang out with my friends, watch hockey, and of course game out. (lol, much short list)

The bottom line is that none of these things are beneficial to society, they only benefit me as an individual and allow me to enjoy more out of life. Just like I don't go to work or school drunk, I also don't go to work or school high. It is a matter of responsibility not drug use. A person has to know the appropriate time to use drugs. Inappropriate use of drugs is not the fault of the drug but the person using them. And since each person is different broad generalizations of such users is in its self inappropriate.

On September 04 2012 22:50 Grumbels wrote:
How do all of you feel about the illegality of psychedelic mushrooms?

On September 05 2012 03:38 Rassy wrote:
"And since each person is different broad generalizations of such users is in its self inappropriate."

Well, if we want to make a law for weed, making it legal or illegal we are bound to generalise,
We can not make a law for every individual person, we make 1 law for all people together, so it makes sense to look at the effects weed has on an average person and imo weed is more dangerous for the average young person then alcohol, not because it is more damaging (severe alcoholic is way more damaging) but because it is alot easier to go along the gliding scale wich turns you into a full time stoner.
weed is a great drug and thats why its so dangerous to become a problematic user, life sucks but once you smoke a joint you dont care annymore about annything and are just happy

Do kinda agree with other points you said,
Basicly nothing should be forbidden (as long as it does not hurt other people) and people should be responsable enough to decide for themselves but this is a bit to idealistic for me to be practical.
Also i know there are manny exceptions and people who function verry well while still smoking all day , maybe they even function better and get better ideas because of it,but thoose people are a tiny minority.

On September 05 2012 00:49 Sroobz wrote:


Well, maybe it's because I'm using a portable one (MFLB). I'm sure the vapes that people have in their homes (volcano, wallcharged box ones, etc) produce little to no smell because they vape to a perfect temp. But no one uses those types of vapes outside...

On September 05 2012 02:38 Lann555 wrote:
And just to add to the actual topic:

There can be no logical argument for the criminalization of cannabis in a society that allows garbage like tobacco to be sold on every street-corner. The way I see it there are two positions that make sense:

-criminalize all drugs
-legalize cannabis

On September 05 2012 05:05 TALegion wrote:

Im pro-legalization and I disagree with that. Tobacco and alcohol aren't legal because no one thinks that they're wrong, it's just that it's far too late to do anything about it. If it were possible to make them illegal without the side effects of black markets and organized crime, it would be done immediately.
While you and I know that marijuana is not even on the same scale of danger as tobacco and alcohol, it is still thought of as being on the plane. Thinking of it from someone else's perspective, it would be like if alcohol was illegal and we were arguing for whether it should be legal.

Even if they're barely even comparable in terms of actual side effects and dangers, some people believe in a straight-edge morality that doesn't want any drugs being legal at all. I'd say that comprises about 15% of all anti-legalization advocates. The other 85%, who likely live some level of unhealthy lifestyles, are just ignorant hypocrites.

On September 05 2012 05:05 TALegion wrote:

Im pro-legalization and I disagree with that. Tobacco and alcohol aren't legal because no one thinks that they're wrong, it's just that it's far too late to do anything about it. If it were possible to make them illegal without the side effects of black markets and organized crime, it would be done immediately.
While you and I know that marijuana is not even on the same scale of danger as tobacco and alcohol, it is still thought of as being on the plane. Thinking of it from someone else's perspective, it would be like if alcohol was illegal and we were arguing for whether it should be legal.

Even if they're barely even comparable in terms of actual side effects and dangers, some people believe in a straight-edge morality that doesn't want any drugs being legal at all. I'd say that comprises about 15% of all anti-legalization advocates. Those other 85%, who likely live some level of unhealthy lifestyles, are just ignorant hypocrites :/

On September 05 2012 05:27 Grumbels wrote:

These debates are often weird, with pro-legalization advocates arguing about how alcohol and tobacco are dangerous substances causing much harm to society. I have personally witnessed a lot of people get harmed to some degree by these two drugs and I feel like the progressive argument about 'freedom of choice' glosses over such issues way too comfortably. For instance, my brother would get drunk pretty often and for like an entire year he was always angry at everyone and I know his frequent drinking added to his bad moods. This when he was 17 or so. He also started smoking, something he's quite regretful about four years later.

Especially youth culture is very vulnerable to the lure of XTC raves, passing out drunk at parties - or smoking marijuana with friends. I hated all of that so much when I was young. Class mates literally asked me if there was something wrong with me when I said I wasn't interested in drinking and it was one of the reasons why I kind of lost touch with them and didn't have too many friends. I will honestly say that more than anything else, I think the main problem with teenagers these days is alcohol, it's so incredibly pervasive and is often almost the single factor they base their social activities on. Yet teenagers drinking, smoking pot, using xtc is not at all good for their development, so they're making decisions at a young age they will end up regretting in a dozen years.

And of course, there are more issues with drug culture than just 'kids these days'. I read an article about how opium wrecked many communities it was introduced to and was a severe social problem for centuries. Opium isn't quite as dangerous as heroin, but it's close, and I would say that the loss of freedom in prohibiting opium use is a small price to pay for eliminating it as a problem, especially if you're a smaller rural community. Or how about if we could make a wish and people could no longer use methamphetamine or cocaine in a recreational manner? Obviously it's not so easy, because enforcing bans comes with its own set of challenges. Those might be significant enough to make it futile as a policy, but it does not invalidate the concept of eliminating drugs. I'm very much against the drug war, but from what I read a substance like LSD is quite difficult to acquire these days after the authorities mopped up one of the big labs, so there's nothing to say that prohibition could not work in concept for at least some of the substances.

I should say that I've never tried marijuana, because the proper way to buy it in the Netherlands is to visit a coffee shop, which is a type of place I don't like to associate myself with because of the weird smell and the lower class of people that tend to hang around there and besides, I don't like the idea of smoking. But if anyone wants to argue that sale of it should be legalized I hope the reasoning is more advanced than the personal freedom argument. It should be shown that marijuana does not by its nature trap users into addiction, victimize bystanders who have to put up with pot smokers, not cause substantial adverse health effects and that there will be ways to prevent teenagers from freely accessing it. I think it can be done for marijuana, it does seem like one of the less harmful substances and I wish it was legalized, but it's not so easy as to just scream about the evil government telling you what to do.

"There are 100,000 total marijuana smokers in the US, and most are Negroes, Hispanics, Filipinos and entertainers. Their Satanic music, jazz and swing, result from marijuana usage. This marijuana causes white women to seek sexual relations with Negroes, entertainers and any others."

http://vitals.nbcnews.com/_news/2012/08/27/13509508-teen-pot-use-linked-to-decline-in-iq?lite

Roughly 5 percent of the participants started using marijuana as teenagers. Those who smoked marijuana at least four times a week and used marijuana throughout their life saw their IQ drop an average of 8 points, the equivalent of going from an A to a B student. The drop was not explained by other drug use, years of education, schizophrenia or using marijuana in the day before the test.

People who eventually quit smoking pot still had lower IQs than they did at the start of the study.
Interestingly, people who picked up the habit as adults had no IQ drop, suggesting that marijuana may not be as harmful to the mature brain.

It's not clear why pot is bad for teen brains.

One possibility is that teenagers are more vulnerable to marijuana's effects on brain chemistry, said Susan Tapert, a neuropsychologist at the University of California, San Diego, who was not involved in the study.

During adolescence, neural connections are pruned in the hippocampus and the prefrontal cortex, critical regions for learning, memory and planning, Tapert said.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/48804363/ns/health-health_care/t/teens-who-smoke-pot-can-damage-memory-intelligence/#.UEZiSNZlTIZ

Researchers from Britain and the United States found that persistent and dependent use of cannabis before the age of 18 may have a so-called neurotoxic effect, but heavy pot use after 18 appears to be less damaging to the brain.

Terrie Moffitt, a psychology and neuroscience professor at King's College London's Institute of Psychiatry, said the scope and length of the study, which involved more than 1,000 people followed up over 40 years, gave its findings added weight.

"It's such a special study that I'm fairly confident cannabis is safe for over-18 brains, but risky for under-18 brains," she said.

Before the age of 18, the brain is still being organized and remodeled to become more efficient and may be more vulnerable to damage from drugs, she added.

The researchers also found that people who started using cannabis in adolescence and continued for years afterwards showed an average decline in Intelligence Quotient (IQ) test scores of 8 points between the age of 13 and 38.

"Study subjects who didn't take up pot until they were adults with fully-formed brains did not show similar mental declines," Moffitt said.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2012/08/22/yale-study-alcohols-gateway-effect-much-larger-than-marijuanas/

A Yale study published Tuesday in the Journal of Adolescent Health found that people who used alcohol or tobacco in their youth are almost twice as likely to abuse prescription opiate drugs than those who only used marijuana.

“If you take [our findings] and apply them to a school health setting, we believe that you are going to get the best bang for your buck by focusing on alcohol,” study co-author Adam E. Barry told Raw Story. Public health officials have been making similar efforts with tobacco, saying they’re encouraged by the success of educational ad campaigns that show the true health effects experienced by many life-long smokers.

Yale researchers reached a similar conclusion, saying: “Prevention efforts targeting early substance abuse may help to curb the abuse of prescription opioids.”

On September 05 2012 07:19 FrigolitH wrote:
Of course it shouldn't be legalized, that's just bizarre. Then again, I don't think any drug should be legal (including alcohol and tobacco).