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Can someone give one good argument as to why pot should not be legalized? I can't think of anything, the potential benefits as I see them are:
1.) Reduced speeding on law enforce related to pot.
2.) Tax revenue from growers and retailers which currently pay no taxes. You could also add additional taxes to retail sales much like the sale of tobacco products.
3.) Reduce drug related crime.
4.) Reduced the number of dangerous individuals coming into the country to smuggle drugs.
Pot, like other forms of medicine should not be taken for fun.
And pot (like alcohol) does make people slow in the head, especially when you started young.
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THC affects the nerve cells in the part of the brain where memories are formed. This makes it hard for the user to recall recent events (such as what happened a few minutes ago). It is hard to learn while high - a working short-term memory is required for learning and performing tasks that call for more than one or two steps.
Among a group of long-time heavy marijuana users in Costa Rica, researchers found that the people had great trouble when asked to recall a short list of words (a standard test of memory). People in that study group also found it very hard to focus their attention on the tests given to them.
Source: Marijuana Brain Damage - How Does Marijuana Affect the Brain?
Can someone give one good argument as to why pot should not be legalized? I can't think of anything, the potential benefits as I see them are:
1.) Reduced speeding on law enforce related to pot.
2.) Tax revenue from growers and retailers which currently pay no taxes. You could also add additional taxes to retail sales much like the sale of tobacco products.
3.) Reduce drug related crime.
4.) Reduced the number of dangerous individuals coming into the country to smuggle drugs.
Um, alcohol is legal...and they still spend law enforcement money on it.
Pot, like other forms of medicine should not be taken for fun.
And pot (like alcohol) does make people slow in the head, especially when you started young.
Nowhere in my post did I suggest that pot didn't have health consequences. But so what? Eating too much fat will give you heart disease, eating too much sugar will give you diabetes, etc. Should we ban all of these things? We could put people in jail for eating ground beef with more than 5% fat!
There are numerous substances that if you take them in excess they will damage your body, yet they aren't banned. The fact that Marijuana when abused damages your body does not mean it should be banned, that applies to numerous things that you can find in your grocery store. When Marijuana is used moderately it does not have adverse health effects.
So, any good reasons to ban it?
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Originally Posted by TKramar
Um, alcohol is legal...and they still spend law enforcement money on it.
I said "reduce" not eliminate. It would reduce costs as the jails would not be filled with a bunch of people that were caught with marijuana yet committed no other crimes. You would no longer have to search for marijuana farmers in our national forests, etc. Billions would be saved and billions in taxes can be made by taking something that already happens in the mainstream were it can be regulated and taxed.
In the UK, the Independent was originally the leading voice arguing for decriminalisation of cannabis. They have now publically changed there opinion. Here is there apology and there are some accompanying articles that are also worth reading from this link.
Cannabis: An apology - Health News, Health & Wellbeing - The Independent (http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/health-and-wellbeing/health-news/cannabis-an-apology-440730.html - broken link)
For a while there has been a strong correlation between smoking dope and mental illness. But it was hard to figure out the causality. Were these folks mentally ill because they were smoking dope or were they smoking dope because they were mentally ill as a form of self medication?
In the UK the cannabis was mostly decriminalised and a lot more people started smoking dope. In effect its been a huge experiment performed on a lot of people. At the same time, the number of people who were being hospitalized for mental illness started exploding. Moreover those folks were smoking dope. So the causality is definitely looking like its dope that is causing the mental illness.
If you legalise dope, it will be cheaper and more people will have access to it. This should also mean a fairly large increase in the number of pysch patients intially. But in terms of public health campaigns, if its legal then you can sue the companies selling marijuana for the health effects like how the feds went after the cigarette companies in the tabacco settlement. Its also easier to demonise the industry as seeking to profit from harming others for profit. The public health anti-cigarette ads have been fairly successful at getting people to not smoke cigarettes. But legalising dope does mean that there is a certain group of people who will smoke dope who might not otherwise do if it was not legal and a certain percentage of that population will become mentally ill. So there are some tradeoffs there as well.
So while I disagree with you about the safety of marijuana, I still vacillate about the actual issue of legalization. In the short term I think its a bad idea that will cause a lot of extra people to become mentall ill. But in the long run, I think it might be a good idea.
Right now you have the hip hop stars blaming 'the man' and you have articles in high times saying that hemp was criminalised because the petrochemical industry didn't want competition from the wonder product hemp. If it was legal you could point out that the marijuana industry is as exploitive as the cigarette industry and shouldn't be trusted either.
Can someone give one good argument as to why pot should not be legalized? I can't think of anything, the potential benefits as I see them are:
1.) Reduced speeding on law enforce related to pot.
Reduced speeding? WTF?
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Originally Posted by Humanoid
2.) Tax revenue from growers and retailers which currently pay no taxes. You could also add additional taxes to retail sales much like the sale of tobacco products.
3.) Reduce drug related crime.
4.) Reduced the number of dangerous individuals coming into the country to smuggle drugs.
All of which would be negated by massive government and public spending in social services, medical services and legal services.
. At the same time, the number of people who were being hospitalized for mental illness started exploding. Moreover those folks were smoking dope. So the causality is definitely looking like its dope that is causing the mental illness.
This is just a correlation. There has been a general raise in mental illness over the years as new forms of mental issues are invented to sell pharmaceuticals...err....I mean discovered. This is just a correlation as mental illness among all groups has gone up.
Regardless, I really don't care if marijuana makes you stupid or may cause mental illness in some people. If someone wants to slowly kill themselves by smoking marijuana they should be able to, just as the obese should be allowed to eat themselves to death.
Also, if you legalize marijuana its in no sense clear you'll get more hardcore users. Additionally, how many people will move from alcohol to marijuana. These two substances are about equal in their negative side effects so if increases in marijuana use are meet with a decline in alcohol use then the over all effect on society would be neutral. Put another way, if you ban marijuana and enforce it heavily people will just move to alcohol.
Anyhow, there is a lot of money in illegal drugs. I can't help but think a lot of the opposition is funded by drug cartels.
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Originally Posted by Mircea
All of which would be negated by massive government and public spending in social services, medical services and legal services.
The government is already spending money on these things, the legalization of marijuana will not increase these costs. People that abuse pot will abuse it whether its illegal or not, if they can't get it one night they will just drink. You will never successfully ban marijuana, its too easy to grow with a pot and a lamp.
1. Saying you should legalize pot b/c other bad things are legal is not a very good argument. You see how many problems are already caused by the other bad things (smoking, alcohol, etc).
2. Legalizing it may send the wrong message to our kids...like it's ok to recreationally use strong mind-altering substances.
3. You can drink without getting drunk. No point in smoking out if you don't get high. And the lack of coordination/poor judgement lasts a lot longer than when you're drunk on alcohol.
Nope, but the difference between smoking pot and eating is that eating is a necessity and smoking pot ain't.
Besidez, in The Netherlands having pot is not illegal but smoking (including pot) in public areas is forbidden.
Is there a single reason pot should not be legalized?
Yes....drug,tobacco and beer/liquor companies and their investors would lose too much money when faced with the competition from a 'free' substance.
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Pot, like other forms of medicine should not be taken for fun.
Nope, but the difference between smoking pot and eating is that eating is a necessity and smoking pot ain't.
