Do a lot of people in CO smoke pot? Should MJ be legal? (Denver: loan, airplane)

[McGowdog]

Originally Posted by unoriginalusername

So ... should I be worried?

Welcome to City-Data, unoriginal.

I see smoking weed as a change in states of consciousness, just like the way folks like I have done with the consumption of alcohol. I don't know about y'all, but for me... drinking booze is a very strong drug/food with very strong results. Understanding that there are a majority of folks who can handle their booze, perhaps the same is the case for some folks who can handle their weed.

But I'm going to refer to a book that speaks to the wives of alcoholics. Please be patient. Perhaps some of this will apply to your situation;

Originally Posted by AA 1st edition, no longer in copywrite

We meet these conditions every day. An alcoholic who cannot meet them, still has an alcoholic mind; there is something the matter with his spiritual status. His only chance for sobriety would be some place like the Greenland Ice Cap, and even there an Eskimo might turn up with a bottle of scotch and ruin everything! Ask any woman who has sent her husband to distant places on the theory he would escape the alcohol problem.

Now, Bob is probably right that those who need to imbibe on the weed are losers, whether the stuff be legal... which it is not... or illegal... which it is. If you need to smoke weed to change your consciousness, there's something wrong with you. If you do it for medical purposes, fine. I'm not even going there. But to just smoke weed to feel better, been there, done that, and it's a ripoff. The first high is the best and they drop off subsequently thereafter. Why? IDK... but I think it has to do with the brain and how your body is designed to fend off the attack. You go from high to stoned in short order. That's been my experience anyway. Besides, for me, smoking weed has always led me back to drinking booze. There's got to be a sufficient substitute to booze and drugs, and I've found it. I need neither.

But... who am I to judge those who don't believe me or refuse to believe me, or must just find their own way? Go ahead and smoke your weed, legal or not... and perhaps one day come to your own conclusion. If you can handle your weed and not become addicted to it, hats off to ya. You're not like I was.

[CALIFRE]

Users are losers.

C'mon Bob, Lighten up. A very generalized opinion, wouldn't you say?

It's a life choice, not a Lifestyle.

[DurangoJoe]

Describing an entire group of people in one broad swath as losers based upon their choice to smoke weed is presumptuous at best. It shows the posters lack of knowledge of the subject hence their willingness to just dismiss everyone as a "loser". It is estimated that there are 30M regular weed smokers in the USA, that's 10% of the population. 95M people have at least tried it in their lifetime. Colorado is not even in the top 5 states in terms of prevalence of use. Here is a surprising map based upon May 2010 data.

A reasonable person would never consider alcohol users & tobacco smokers as losers in spite of the fact that there are high directly attributable death rates tied to the use of both of those substances, while there are 0 (that's zero) that are directly attributable to weed use.

Weed is not for everyone and nobody ever claimed that it is. The vast majority of users are however responsible citizens who maintain jobs, families, and pay their taxes.

[DentalFloss]

Originally Posted by Bob from down south

Users are losers. Always have been, always will be, despite overblown protestations to the contrary.

Really? I smoke weed. I am a well respected individual in my profession, and I'm going places. I know another gentleman who smokes weed who owns a $50M+ company. I know another who is a major film producer. Yet another who's an advertising big-wig.

I could go on and on, but I don't seen belaboring the point.

[SaxnFlutman]

I'm honestly puzzled, after all these years, that there is still the amount of misinformation, lies, and crazy myths about marijuana. If folks would just do even a little research, and there is a mountain of information out there, they would see how ridiculous & harmful to society, this PROHIBITION truly is. Just ask the 50,000+ dead Mexican citizens, in the last few years, exactly how reckless, costly, & truly tragic this misguided policy has been....

If you look back at our own history, and see how the negative effects of the first Prohibition drove even those who were most ardently for it, to want it repealed, you could see the parallel to today's mess. Although, it's even more senseless today, as pot has never directly killed anyone, whereas tens of thousands of us die yearly from booze & cigarettes...

For those of you who believe pot is a "killer weed", please peruse this website, of the organization made up primarily of thousands of veteran law enforcement officers, judges, DAs, etc,
LEAP | Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

Or here, where the quite conservative intellectual, William F. Buckley, Jr., wrote a quite rational, logical essay on why he'd decided that our war on drugs needed to end.

http://old.nationalreview.com/12feb96/drug.html


And even the arch-conservative former congressman & federal prosecutor, Bob Barr, agrees:

| The Barr Code

[DurangoJoe]

And the momentum continues to grow......

Poll: Wide majority of Americans now favor legalizing pot | The Colorado Independent

[wawa1992]

Marijuana needs to be legalized. It was outlawed in 1937 because of the efforts of Harry Anslinger, who had poor moral character and used lies and propaganda to make his point. Anslinger died in 1975.

It was made a Schedule I drug in 1970 by Richard Nixon, who later was, in effect, impeached for the Watergate scandal and was a statist with poor moral character.

The people who originally outlawed marijuana have been proven to have had compromised moral character and had to build their case on "sand." But somehow the prohibition has lasted 75 years (or 42 based on your definition). The prohibition of alcohol, a much more harmful drug, only lasted 14 years.

[Bob from down south]

Originally Posted by wawa1992

Marijuana needs to be legalized. It was outlawed in 1937 because of the efforts of Harry Anslinger, who had poor moral character and used lies and propaganda to make his point. Anslinger died in 1975.

It was made a Schedule I drug in 1970 by Richard Nixon, who later was, in effect, impeached for the Watergate scandal and was a statist with poor moral character.

The people who originally outlawed marijuana have been proven to have had compromised moral character and had to build their case on "sand." But somehow the prohibition has lasted 75 years (or 42 based on your definition). The prohibition of alcohol, a much more harmful drug, only lasted 14 years.

It was made a schedule I substance not *by* Nixon, but during his presidency. He had no personal part in that decision. Implying a connection between him, Watergate, and the illegality of marijuana is pretty goofy. Best to put the hash pipe down long before you start typing.

But in that same light:

It was smoked (but not inhaled...right) by Bill Clinton, who was a statist with poor moral character who was later impeached for lying about getting orally serviced in the oval office by a starry-eyed intern in a blue dress.

It doesn't prove anything here, but it's fun anytime I get the opportunity to shine a light on Clinton's "legacy"...

Oh, I should also mention here that the post-mortem tox screen on the perpetrator in the Florida face-chewing indicent showed only one drug in his system. You guessed it, Delta-9 tetrahydrocannabinol, that active agent in marijuana, this supposedly harmless drug. Or how about the Arizona woman who put her baby in a car seat on top of the car and then drove off, dumping said child right into the middle of a busy intersection?? What was she doing immediately before this incident? You guessed it, she was smoking marijuana with a group of friends.

[CosmicWizard]

^^^^^^ Well Bob, that may or may not be true, but you failed to mention the innumerable fatal car accidents casued by drivers who were under the influence of alcohol....a perfectly legal substance. Yet you seem to be totally OK with the legality of alcohol, even though it has been implicated in thousands of deaths. In other posts you write extensively about your objections to government interference, yet in the case of MJ you throw your support to the government, even though it restricts a person right to choose. Seems like you want to have it both ways...as long as you approve.

[snofarmer]

He wasn't impeached.
They tried, but failed.
I don't recall Al Gore being the president.
Best to put the hash pipe down long before you start typing.
or not.

Originally Posted by Bob from down south

It was smoked (but not inhaled...right) by Bill Clinton, who was a statist with poor moral character who was later impeached for lying about getting orally serviced in the oval office by a starry-eyed intern in a blue dress.

.