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Drug dealers won't mind either way but legalizing it means they can market their product openly so they might prefer it legal.
Ehh, I'm not so sure about that. The price of cannabis would drop tremendously if it were to be outright legalized. As it stands now, prohibition has made Marijuana the #1 Cash Crop in the country and prices can be fetched at over $4,000 per pound. It's no wonder that more and more farmers are turning to cannabis, as the next most profitable crop (thanks to Government involvement) is corn which fetches about $0.10 per pound. California and The US have ironically been the trendsetters in this high quality high price weed revolution, and it's showing no signs on slowing down one bit.
But in reality, anyone can grow the plant. Cannabis is very hearty and can produce hundreds of seeds with each plant. It was meant to be grown all over the US, as our wise forfathers instructed us to do. Washington and Jefferson would be shocked if they realized The US had since waged a decades long war against the plant and allowed a ginormous black market to form that charges people $20 per gram on something that was once so common and widely used. The corruption and collusion behind the prohibition of Marijuana is sickening.
What's worse-the products we now use instead of hemp are inferior and destroying the environment.
"Getting high" has always been only one relatively insignificant aspect of this plant when you realize that it produces the strongest fiber in the World, is chock full of omega 3 fatty acids perfect for human diet, can produce stronger and longer lasting paper/lumber without deforestation, produces more biomass than any plant that can be grown in the US and of course had hundreds of medicinal properties including having been proven recently to stop cancer cell growth.
I have to agree with Dr. Gupta, I feel like I to have been misled...
Lies and propaganda are intended to mislead.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Don Draper
with so many people smoking weed at one point in their lives, we as a nation have two options, to criminalize them all and throw them in jail or legalize it.
I cannot in good conscience support laws criminalizing throwing someone in jail for consuming a plant.
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Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
You'd be surprised how many have done it at some point in their lives.
Laws should be enforced. Legalizing crime is a dumb idea.
Yep. Remind us again how prohibition of alcohol worked? Oh yeah!!! It didn't!
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Originally Posted by Roaddog
There are way more important issues in this country than getting high.
Sure there are. But don't you find it silly that a plant that was used and consumed for industrial, and recreational purposes for thousands of years was banned, because special interest groups got all butt hurt and whined to the government, because they were afraid of losing money!!! Sorry, free market!!! Find a way to compete, or find a new hobby!
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Originally Posted by evilnewbie
I don't disagree that there are important issues but it seems to me the government has deliberately misled us for decades and doing nothing is more tragic... I think the president should use executive order to suspend any criminalization of marijuana... That will take less effort and require minimal time to do... Criminalization of marijuana is wrong when the only reason is you don't like it...
Given that Obama has no problem with issuing executive orders, this is one I could actually get behind. The lies and propaganda behind prohibition of cannabis have ruined the lives of too many people, and I find it to be quite immoral to criminalize someone for a non-violent offense such as possession of a GOD given plant!
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Originally Posted by gizmo980
Driving is legal, so is drinking... what's NOT legal is doing these things irresponsibly (to the point where it endangers other lives), and the same should go for all drugs. Sorry, but your analogy is a fail!
And like Don said above, maybe in your crowd most people have driven drunk, but that doesn't apply to all of us. I've never driven drunk, nor have most of the people I know.
I'm not gonna lie. I did my fair share of getting behind the wheel when I was younger, when I probably shouldn't have done so. However; I crack a beer these days, I ain't leaving the house, unless someone else is driving. It's not worth the hassle, and well it's called being older, and more mature.
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Originally Posted by gizmo980
Tell that to the people whose lives have been ruined over a bag of weed... like my friend who's facing FIVE years in prison, over something that would have been a mere infraction (or fully legal) one state over. Yes, we do have "bigger" issues in this country - but that doesn't make this one issue insignificant to those it affects.
Perhaps once we've reached full blown legalization maybe your friend and others who are in a similar situation will receive a full pardon.
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Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
If you can't do the dime, don't commit the crime. Your friend is a criminal, and he is paying the price for his crimes. Don't' you find it funny that people commit crimes, and then they cry about the unfairness of the law when they get caught?
Not all laws (especially man-made laws) are just laws. You'll have to excuse me if I find it absolutely ridiculous and immoral that we criminalize someone for consuming a plant! I'd rather our time and resources be spent on actually going after real criminals such as those who commit heinous crimes like murder, rape, pedophilla, and armed robbery than someone who wants to smoke a doobie in the privacy of their own home!
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Originally Posted by steven_h
That has to be the dumbest thing I've read today.
Let's stop making stupid laws in the first place, so we can concentrate on enforcing the good ones. The original drug laws were concocted by crony capitalists who felt threatened by hemp. Hemp is a plant that could save our economy, but we choose to demonize it based on the fictitious writings of Randolph Hearst, and perpetuated by politicians who were in the pockets of Dupont and the Rockefellers. We fill corporate prisons with harmless victims of evil men.
It's a war on citizens to protect corporate greed.
Wake up already.
And now because those harmless victims who now have a criminal record for something non-violent like partaking in a natural plant, resort to desperate measures, because they can't find work, end up right back in jail for something worse. It's a vicious cycle that needs to be stopped! You hit the nail on the head with it being greed! FOLLOW THE MONEY!!!
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Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
All laws in the books need to ne enforced. It is quite simple.
Except when spme of those laws are immoral, flawed, and criminalize a large segment of the population who are minding their own business and not harming anyone else.
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Originally Posted by northnut
There is a difference between smoking pot & driving drunk. Surely you can see the difference. Drinking alcohol is legal, if you're 21 & over. Drinking & driving is not legal. Smoking pot should be legal. Smoking pot & driving should not be legal. See how this works?
Authoritarians only deal in absolutes. They can't open their mind and see things case by case, and they don't like others to do that either, because they fear they will lose control.
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Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
So we're supposed to legalize drugs and go with driving while high too? We have enough trouble with drinking. We don't need to legalize drugs. If people drank responsibly and handed over the keys, you might have an argument for legalizing drugs but we've already seen that free access does not lead to good decision making.
The fact is people don't need to get high. They don't need drugs. Legalizing them would only create more headaches as you gain more and more frequent users. Alcohol is bad enough. We don't need to add more legal drugs to the mix.
Perhaps. But I don't agree that legalization of cannabis will necessarily gain more users. And if it does? So f***n' what??!!! We already have a ton of legal highly toxic drugs that people are indulging on, with serious side-effects!!! Legalize cannabis, and you may actually cut down on that. And if people are still dumb enough to partake in highly addictive opiates, as well as other pills, or drink a bottle of cough syrup, then that is their own stupidity, and nature will take care of itself!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Obviously, you did not read my post. I didn't say they'd be legal. I said they'd be more of a problem than they are now. We'd have the same kinds of issues with legalized drugs we have with legalized alcohol. As things are, people try to hide drug use and that curtails activities in the open while on drugs.
There is no need to legalize drugs. People don't need drugs. That people use them anyway shows disregard for the law and for their own health as drugs, including alcohol mess with brain chemistry. There is no point to drug use. It does not benefit either the individual or society. The only people fighting for legalized drugs are users.
There is no reason for the government, you or anyone else to tell grown adults what they can or cannot consume.
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Originally Posted by Winter_Sucks
Criminalizing the use, sale, and cultivation of a plant is a dumb idea and defending the practice of keeping marijuana illegal is a dumb idea.
More and more people are seeing the light. Those who are continuing to defend keeping it illegal and are becoming a minority.
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Originally Posted by northnut
Uh, why not make alcohol illegal since we have such high rates of abuse & drunk driving? As for your statement that only users are fighting to legalize pot, wrong.
We already tried prohibition of alcochol. But of course we all know how well that worked out.
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Originally Posted by evilnewbie
I don't use and never have used marijuana but that was based on evidence that has since been found inaccurate. The US government has been forestalling it because what "someone" thinks about it rather than base it on some coherent argument. For instance, gambling has been incredibly destructive on American families and so has alcohol but both are legal... in fact, if anything, gambling and alcohol have been more destructive to Americans than marijuana has ever been. I understand that you think getting "high" will lead to other activities but that is based on opinion and is likely circumstantial that one is associated with getting high and criminal activity rather than getting high leads to criminal activity... We shouldn't based laws on "what ifs" and "I don't approve of that"...
Shhhhh evilnewbie.... we wouldn't want people to use their brains and actually think things through now would we??? Nope. That would make the authoritarian types heads explode!!!
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Originally Posted by Memphis1979
No. Your logic avoids the point. How does an adult eating a marijuana brownie hurt the rest of society?
health? No one has ever overdosed on marijuana. Not so with alcohol, nicotine, sugar, and even water.
crime? Much like prohibition of alcohol, legalize it, and the crime ceases related to the prohibited item.
There is really no good reason to keep it illegal. Now you mention speeding and drunk driving.
Speeding and dui arent federal offenses are they?
Funny, those other substances are legal. I guess we should ban water too!
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Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Well, we tried that. The point is, one legal drug is bad enough. Look at all the problems we have with legalized alcohol and multiply by any more drugs you legalize.
I really don't get the point of drugs. We don't need them for the purpose of getting high. What a waste.
Alcohol is highly addictive, not to mention that excessive use can cause much more harm to your body than cannabis. Nevertheless I oppose prohibition, and if alcohol is legal, yet causes more harm to the body, than cannabis, which is less harmful, has no proof of being physically addictive, no documented proof of death by overdose, and has been used for thousands of years for industrial, medicinal, and as a relaxant, should also be legal!
Quote:
Originally Posted by northnut
I also find it interesting the charge of "intent to distribute". If I had a pretty large bag of pot & was slapped with a charge of intent to distribute, I'd be pretty po'd, I would never sell my own pot, that's for me to smoke.
I agree. No interest in selling.
Quote:
Originally Posted by northnut
Alcohol is so much more destructive than pot I can't even tell you. Yet alcohol is legal. I don't want to make alcohol illegal at all, I'm simply pointing this out. Maybe you don't get the point of drugs but that's your prerogative, others enjoy drugs. My friend smoked pot when he had cancer, it helped the pain. I don't have cancer, I simply like to smoke pot. That's my prerogative. Do I drive stoned? Hell no. I'm not hurting anyone.
Authoritarians are busy body types who like to restrict freedoms of others when they don't agree with them.
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Originally Posted by Loveshiscountry
Because a doctor signs off on a drug it's okay? Why does an adult need permission from someone to put something into their own body? Prescription drugs are the worst by far. Too many kids are hooked.
Big Pharma and Big Gubbermint knows best.
Quote:
Originally Posted by gizmo980
First of all, my friend is a woman... and when a crime's punishment is UNJUST and UNFAIR (rapists get less time in some cases), she has every right to complain. She has no problem owning up to her mistakes, but five years for a bag of weed?? C'mon, even you can't be clueless & jaded enough to agree that's a fitting punishment. The lawyers agree with her, too, which is why she will likely get it reduced to diversion classes. And for the record, she whined about this law long before she got caught. Why would you assume otherwise?
It's time to stop treating pot smokers like hardened criminals, no matter how much you hate the substance. Would you agree with the decision if our government made drinking alcohol punishable by 5 years in prison? I guess you'd just lay down and take it, since after all, the law is the law!
P.S. My friend lives in backwards Idaho, where they welcome the Aryan Brotherhood with open arms, but treat a harmless pot smoker like they tried to kill someone. She grew up here in CA, though, so got in the habit of assuming pot was no big deal. Guess again!
Indeed. And people are saying we have bigger fish to fry, yet rapists and pedophiles have smaller prison sentences than drug users!!!! Talk about hypocritical and having our priorities effed up!!!
Quote:
Originally Posted by Ivorytickler
Drug dealers won't mind either way but legalizing it means they can market their product openly so they might prefer it legal.
Hmmm.... due to all of the regulations of tobacco and alcohol it's much harder for kids to get a hold of those substances than it was when I was growing up. Not so with things like cannabis or other substances, because quite simply, drug dealers don't ID. Legalization of cannabis would go a long way in making it harder for those under 21 to get a hold of it. It wouldn't be the end all be all, but the same laws with alcohol should apply to cannabis.
Yes, read the post I was replying to, and read with comprehension. The point I was making was that it is a dumb idea to suggest we should lagalize pot just because many people have tried it. It is same as saying we should lagalize DUI because many have done it.
Whether you like it or not, it is a crime. People who know this, and use drugs anyway have no respect for the law.
At one time we had laws that OK'd slavery! At one time we had laws that restricted the rights of black people to vote. When Rosa Parks stood up to social injustice and refused to move to the back of the bus in protest, and since it was a crime for doing so, she was arrested! So I guess that she had no respect for the law either, huh? Again, just because it's a law does not make it a just or moral law.
Furthermore, wasn't Jesus and his followers killed, because they were considered criminals against the state, because of their beliefs? How about the forefathers of this country who rebelled against the king? They were considered criminals too. Sometimes you have to protest bulls**** laws and call a spade a spade!
with so many people smoking weed at one point in their lives, we as a nation have two options, to criminalize them all and throw them in jail or legalize it.
Quote:
Originally Posted by Finn_Jarber
Yes, read the post I was replying to, and read with comprehension. The point I was making was that it is a dumb idea to suggest we should lagalize pot just because many people have tried it. It is same as saying we should lagalize DUI because many have done it.
This was the post yiu were replying to. He is talking about federal offenses, you were talking about state.
You realize why a federal law is overstepping, and why a state law isn't, correct?
tennessee could make alcohol illegal today, in this state. Perfectly legal.
Not all laws are created equal. So start talking about equal law
Ehh, I'm not so sure about that. The price of cannabis would drop tremendously if it were to be outright legalized. As it stands now, prohibition has made Marijuana the #1 Cash Crop in the country and prices can be fetched at over $4,000 per pound. It's no wonder that more and more farmers are turning to cannabis, as the next most profitable crop (thanks to Government involvement) is corn which fetches about $0.10 per pound. California and The US have ironically been the trendsetters in this high quality high price weed revolution, and it's showing no signs on slowing down one bit.
But in reality, anyone can grow the plant. Cannabis is very hearty and can produce hundreds of seeds with each plant. It was meant to be grown all over the US, as our wise forfathers instructed us to do. Washington and Jefferson would be shocked if they realized The US had since waged a decades long war against the plant and allowed a ginormous black market to form that charges people $20 per gram on something that was once so common and widely used.
What's worse-the products we now use instead of hemp are inferior and destroying the environement.
"Getting high" has always been only one relatively insignificant aspect of this plant when you realize that it produces the strongest fiber in the World, is chock full of omega 3 fatty acids perfect for human diet, can produce stronger and longer lasting paper/lumber without deforestation, produces more biomass than any plant that can be grown in the US and of course had hundreds of medicinal properties including having been proven recently to stop cancer cell growth.
Well posted. I couldn't rep you, as I have to spread it around, but the pros for immediately repealing it's prohibition outweigh the cons by a mile. Oooooh, someone might actually get a little buzz off of the stuff for a couple hours, get the munchies, watch something funny on tv and laugh, or listen to good music! Wow, those sure are qualities of a hardened criminal, aren't they???......
His argument was simple: we should lagalize pot, because so many people have tried it. Quit adding to it.
But you compared it to state laws. We have, on multiple occassions overturned federal law and amendments due to people ignoring the law and doing it anyway.
comparing marijuana federal laws to state laws in a logical argument is not only illogical, but invalidates your argument
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The lies and propaganda behind prohibition of cannabis have ruined the lives of too many people, and I find it to be quite immoral to criminalize someone for a non-violent offense such as possession of a GOD given plant!
