Marijuana law reform?

[Terryw]

Wow. I have been watching this debate for years and was convinced that I would never see the law changed. But all of a sudden there is a dramatic upswing in interest and desire to change the law. Not because it is the right thing to do, as I firmly believe, but because it will lessen the rampant violence on the Mexican border and create an astounding 14 billion dollar boost to the California economy. How ironic if it is the current economic woes that allows us to correct this horrible miscarriage of justice. Check out the stories here:

http://norml.org/

[utahcarver]

Though I cannot say that I'm completely in favor of legalization of marijuana usage, for a myriad of reasons which are mainly related to the 'corporatizing' of weed, I am and always have been in favor of decriminalizing personal usage. I 'have a friend' who claims temporary relief from chronic sciatica by using marijuana in a responsible manner. This 'friend' has been able to minimize usage of other prescribed pain medications which are both costly and harmful to the human body. It has allowed this 'friend' to keep working full-time and provide for his family.

It is so baffling to me that the US government is still so bent out of shape over a plant that is harder to eradicate than governmental interference in most American's lives.

Mark

[Terryw]

It is so baffling to me that the US government is still so bent out of shape over a plant that is harder to eradicate than governmental interference in most American's lives.

Mark

Aint that the truth. I have known many people with similar experience as your friend. It was a big part of why I started to wonder about why pot was illegal to begin with. It is fascinating to me that in contradiction to the government's own studies showing it to be in the greatest interest of the publics good, in other words it does more harm than good for it to be illegal, they continue to keep it iggegal.

For example:

In 1972, a Congressionally created commission called the National Commission on Marihuana and Drug Abuse, whose members were appointed by then-President Richard Nixon, completed one of the most comprehensive reviews ever undertaken regarding marijuana and public policy. Their report, "Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding," proclaimed that "from what is now known about the effects of marihuana, its use at the present level does not constitute a major threat to public health," and recommended Congress and state legislatures decriminalize the use and casual distribution of marijuana for personal use.

Since then, researchers have conducted thousands of studies regarding marijuana’s health impacts. None of these have revealed any findings dramatically different from those described by Nixon’s 1972 Commission.

How bizzare is that? Nixon specifically went looking for negative effects, and instead his own commission came back and said legalize it.

[Petrol]

I guess I am alone...

I can not understand how so many folks who are anti-smoking can be pro-pot

[bobdea]

I guess I am alone...

I can not understand how so many folks who are anti-smoking can be pro-pot

they are ****ing stupid. Same goes for the alcohol should be banned but not weed ass holes.

smoking anything is bad for you, what is fairly safe when burned can become a carcinogen.

Tobacco is bad news, so is weed. but if you do either where it harms no one else. let it go. tax the hell out of it like tobacco is. Tabacco does cost public health systems huge sums of money and is now taxed accordingly in most states. that's fine and fair.

Like I said, tax the hell out of it.

I hate the stuff, just don't like smoking it. Does not mean because I don't like it no one has legitimate use.

I do drink sometimes, some people like to get high.

I think most drugs should be decriminalized, see the William Buckley argument <object width="425" height="344"><param name="movie" value="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNw2r-qmopI&hl=en&fs=1"></param><param name="allowFullScreen" value="true"></param><param name="allowscriptaccess" value="always"></param><embed src="http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lNw2r-qmopI&hl=en&fs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowscriptaccess="always" allowfullscreen="true" width="425" height="344"></embed></object>

if most drugs were made legal, the drug cartels would be put out overnight. Mexico might look better if the drug war was ended.

[xxguitarist]

One small point, how does a cop test for the amount of THC in someone's body on the side of the road?

[Gecko]

One small point, how does a cop test for the amount of THC in someone's body on the side of the road?

all they need to do is test for impairment which is surprisingly easy...

[bobdea]

all they need to do is test for impairment which is surprisingly easy...

and easy to stick someone that's sober with BS OUI

already been happening in MA since the weed is decrimed

[Gecko]

and easy to stick someone that's sober with BS OUI

already been happening in MA since the weed is decrimed

sure but the same happens with cough syrup if an officer has a hard-on. However someone OUI of weed is as impaired driving as someone who has been drinking....neither should be on the road

[D-Sub]

However someone OUI of weed is as impaired driving as someone who has been drinking

sheer nonsense.

decriminalize ALL drugs for personal use. Screw taxes. We're taxed enough already. Come on, Bob...what's your deal lately?

[KingCrimson]

Can't say I'd mind if they left it illegal. Had enough friends turn into complete dumbasses because of the stuff.

The big problem at my school is Ecstacy now..

[D-Sub]

Can't say I'd mind if they left it illegal. Had enough friends turn into complete dumbasses because of the stuff.

Interesting

it was illegal, which didn't stop your friends who turned into complete dumbasses (my guess is they probably already were, or would have become anyway) so...it being illegal solved nothing in your example

PLUS, literally thousands of people jailed for NOTHING. No victim, no damages, no NOTHING...and because a few of your friends (who again...apparently received no benefit from the law) screwed up, everyone should be punished?

please, youngster...THINK.

The big problem at my school is Ecstacy now..

Which should also be decriminalized. Or...maybe we should just put everyone at your school in jail.

[KingCrimson]

D- Ecstacy, pot, alcohol, all those narcotics and stimulants @#$% you up. End of story.

When there are freshman girls asking teachers for advice because they missed their period and they don't know why except for those parties they don't remember because of E and booze, I think I see a problem. These are kids, and it's not as if ecstacy or booze should be made legal for us BUT it brings on the following point.

Let's say my mom comes home and pops some E or snorts some coke BOTH of which are undeniably detrimental to your health. What kind of example is she setting for me? To further this example, what if you were the product of some ecstacy charged sex? Or you were a crack baby?

In the same sense that you state that drugs should be legalized, I'm going to take the same hard stance and say they destroy society.

[Sinecure]

The big problem at my school is Ecstacy now..

When I was in college, that was still legal (at least for the first couple years). Fun drug, but I'd think that anything approaching regular/frequent use would beat the crud out of your body/brain.

I'm all for legalizing weed, but I can't say I feel the same way about coke/X/meth/heroin/etc.

I wonder the same thing about a sobriety test of some sort for weed. There must be a way to do it though. Pot's effects wear off over time, there must be a way to "measure" the concentration of whatever the affecting agent is. I tend to agree that a field sobriety test is ripe for abuse both by police and offenders' lawyers. On any given winter day, I often have enough injuries to make me unable to do stuff like stand on one leg and touch my nose.

Have there been studies of pot's effect on driving ability? Like they do where they give a reporter shots of alcohol then make him/her drive through a course of traffic cones in a parking lot? Heck, that would be fun. Go to a huge parking lot, set up some cones. Then do bong hits and try to drive the course. I'd volunteer. The alcohol ones are pretty stark. People start seeing effects pretty quick. I know stoners like to think their driving isn't as impacted by pot as by alcohol, but I'm not sure I buy that. Had a friend once get stopped on the Mass Pike for driving too slow! She was going like 35mph. Cop asked how fast she thought she was going - she assumed since she'd been stopped she must have been speeding - her answer was "I dunno, maybe 70?" I also think one builds a tolerance for pot much more so than for alcohol. Yes, regular drinkers get better at holding their booze and masking their inebriation, but I don't think they get 'better' at driving drunk. I do think that pot's effects become much less pronounced (given the same intake quantity) if you smoke regularly.

Either way, I think we could solve a whole $hit-ton of problems by legalizing and taxing pot - sorry D-Sub, there's no way it doesn't get taxed, too easy of a target. Its a sin tax, just like alcohol and tobacco. I just hope Philip Morris doesn't get the franchise on producing joints. Mass produced cigs suck, so would mass-produced doobies. Plus they'd put chemicals in them.

[Sinecure]

watch this Video...this guy gave up all his drugs and turned into an Angel

OK. That was cool. At first I was waiting for them to tell us he'd turned out to be a pedophile (how jaded have we become that we expect that sort of thing from Utube vids?), but that video made me smile, thanks.

[b0ardski]

All good points Sinecure.

I can't believe our government is creating criminals, wars, and hatred instead of revenue out of a plant that has medicinal and industrial uses. It's insane. It's not like some lowlife cooked it out of toxic chemicals in a dirty bathtub.

If I grow herbs in my garden and sell them at the farmers market or to friends why should I be arrested, incarcerrated, and be considered a criminal for the rest of my life???

[Terryw]

I guess I am alone...

I can not understand how so many folks who are anti-smoking can be pro-pot

Guess it depends on your agenda. I personally am a fan of the less interference in my personal life by the government, the better I like it. While I don't agree with laws against alcohol or cigarets, I can at least understand the argument based of deaths per year:

Annual American deaths by drugs per year:

TOBACCO ........................ 400,000

ALCOHOL ........................ 100,000

ALL LEGAL DRUGS .............20,000

ALL ILLEGAL DRUGS ..........15,000

CAFFEINE .........................2,000

ASPIRIN ...........................500

MARIJUANA ...................... 0

----------------------------------------

Source: United States government...

National Institute on Drug Abuse,

Bureau of Mortality Statistics

So why is marijuana illegal?

[Terryw]

D- Ecstacy, pot, alcohol, all those narcotics and stimulants @#$% you up. End of story.

Any thing can be abused. Hell, food all by itself if consumed in too large of quantities will cause you to become obese and lead to all kinds of diseases. Even water if consumed rapidly can lead to death as it did earlier this year at that contest where the woman died. I am surprised at your knee jerk reaction to drugs in general. The question is who should control our actions. I believe we as free individuals should have the right to make that decision. I do not expect a child or teenager to make that decision simply because they don't have the life experience to make it.

Many people are self destructive. We cannot simply remove all possible threats just because they might be used or abused. Should we eliminate all bridges so no one can commit suicide by jumping off of one? What about closing the Grand Canyon to any and all visitors, 100's of people jump to their death there. At some point you have to allow people to be responsible for their choices and action. Either we live in a free society, or we don't.

Now while I tend to agree that drugs in general should be legal, I don't think the American public is even close to ready for that. We can argue the relative merits of drugs and their possible consequences. But that is another argument. I am a proponent for marijuana because it is one of the least harmful of all the drugs out there. Study after study has shown this. That is not just my opinion, that is the result of serious studies undertaken by our own government. My larger concern is more to do with what having marijuana illegal does to our society. Last year over 800,000 people were arrested for marijuana. Of those arrested, 89% were for possession only. They were not hurting any one. They were not stealing. They were not murdering. All they wanted to do was get high. The damage to these peoples lives was not due to pot, but due to the ridiculous application of an outdated racist law based on lies and deciet. No one dies from overdoes of pot. But last year 6,290 people were killed or executed by the Mexican drug cartels protecting their business. 75% of their money comes from marijuana. We could pull their teeth in a minute by the stroke of a pen. When a law harms more people than it protects, it needs to be removed. That does not mean that drugs are wonderful, it is just that the consequences of the laws cause too much human damage. Far more than the drugs themselvs have ever done.

Oh by the way there have even been multiple studies that show marijuana to have cancer fighting potial. That is something worth fighting for, isn't it?

[Gecko]

not to mention the pressure reduction for Glaucoma and Preglaucoma patients get from use....much less painful than the drops my father has to use now and that I will have to use in a decade or so....even my dad 30 year naval officer, straight arrow, staunch right of center 76 year old man is looking at what it might do for him medicinally. When I joked about us both being eligible for a prescription under california law, he commented that it would be funny to fight back with my tobacco smoking, but gets nauseous at the smell of chronic, mother

[spil]

I personally do not smoke, but I think it should be decriminalized and/or regulated. One argument for regulation is that it is harder for minors to get. Today, ask any teenager, and it is easier to get marijuana than alcohol. Instead of getting a fake ID or paying an adult who might screw you over, chances are some one knows a dealer, and no having to worry about going to a store that might lose its liquor license for selling to minors. If marijuana is legalized and regulated for adults, dealers will have to stop selling (marijuana) to kids, because it will no longer be profitable to sell their small crop from their closet/basement to the small demographic (minors), when a large part of their previous customers (adults) are shopping at the local pharmacy.

A counter argument to this is that if marijuana is legalized and the dealers stop dealing marijuana to kids, will the kids get into hard drugs that aren't regulated?

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[Steve Prokopiw]

substantial arguments against legalization.I've always found it ironic that the far right who are all about 'rights' and minimal government are so transparent with their agenda of using government to protect their interests and opress and persecute those who do not live and act exactly the same as they do. Tobacco is big business so the conservative right protect it even though it directly kills 400,000 people a year in this 'God fearing' country alone.Alcohol,besides poisoning and killing 100,000 a year, ruins hundreds of thousands of families(ruined mine growing up) but it's big business too.But pot,it's got to be evil because, well,the government said so.Anything evil about pot that the feds' refer madness agenda puts forth is meant to protect another industry,the war on drugs.We all know how well that's working.In a country with 7,000,000 people in prison at a cost of over $35,000 per year per prisoner it makes even less sense to brand pot smokers as criminals.

As for being anti-cigarette and pro-pot;cigarette smokers as a group are among the most inconsiderate,littering,acrid smelling,stinky clothes,houses and cars,butts tossing in the gutter,in the river,out the window,smoke blowing in your face,forest fire starting people out there.Although there are some considerate smokers,I've only known a few who were discrete or even gave a sh#t how it affects everyone around them.Usually they just resent having to stand out in the cold.Even the smell of pot does not linger nearly as long as cigarette smoke or stay in clothing or hair or upholstery after multiple washings.On top of all that,cigarettes are formulated to be extremely addictive.No comparison.

[KingCrimson]

French fries don't make you stupid. However, I'm sure you've heard the term "E-tard" in reference to ecstacy users.

Furthermore, in my opinion, debating this is rather pointless, as proponents of the legalization won't be swung by the opposition and vice versa.

[bobdea]

and once again someone made a uninformed reference about E

MDMA, when fairly pure is pretty safe compared to even alcohol.

I've seen people put down massive amount of pills tested for purity and come out fine. More importantly mdma does not kill too many people alone, even then it's from dehydration usually.

As far as e tards go, I've seen studies that say there's not really too much damage done from mdma.

ohh looky, the first link in a google search http://tinyurl.com/djkctz

[Transistor Rhythm]

It's the fake pills that are really dangerous. But you wouldn't know because they look the same and most people can not get to tested pills, let alone get to medical quality pills.

[Steve Prokopiw]

French fries don't make you stupid. However, I'm sure you've heard the term "E-tard" in reference to ecstacy users.

Furthermore, in my opinion, debating this is rather pointless, as proponents of the legalization won't be swung by the opposition and vice versa.

A huge and frightening percentage the American public qualify as obese.A habit of eating french fries contributes to that alarming rate and also the diseases that cause death earlier than without obesity.

Now that's stupid.