Ga Marijuana Law Reform Efforts (Washington: tax, professionals, statistics)

[toll_booth]

I just love the supporters of "limited government." They want "limited government" when it comes to public affairs, but when it comes to what adults do in their personal lives, then by golly, we must regulate it!

[atltechdude]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

I just love the supporters of "limited government." They want "limited government" when it comes to public affairs, but when it comes to what adults do in their personal lives, then by golly, we must regulate it!

Neither major party today is for limited government.

The Dems are generally for more freedom in moral decisions while the Reps are generally for more freedom in economic decisions, but neither is for limited government and they both haven't been for a long time.

[toll_booth]

Originally Posted by atltechdude

Neither major party today is for limited government.

The Dems are generally for more freedom in moral decisions while the Reps are generally for more freedom in economic decisions, but neither is for limited government and they both haven't been for a long time.

And I raise the question of whether "limited government" is a better idea than a "balanced government."

[joey86]

Home Page The Great Atlanta Pot Festival back!

[ATL_GUY]

Originally Posted by toll_booth

I just love the supporters of "limited government." They want "limited government" when it comes to public affairs, but when it comes to what adults do in their personal lives, then by golly, we must regulate it!

I thought I was the only one who thought that. What business is it what people choose to do and use? We sell alcohol and tobacco knowing full well what they do but people still use them. Of course there are too many who benefit from marijuana being illegal. No more money for courts from marijuana usage? We talking millions upon millions in court fines and this all because they "care" about health. When I went to court for a bogus traffic violation, most of the people being called in front of the judge before me where there for marijuana related cases. Everything from college boys to older men you wouldn't think even smoked. I have always said legalize it. It will eradicate the majority of our prison population but that's not what the profiteers want. Too much money to be made by it being illegal. Too much government money for law enforcement agencies and prisons are all business anyways. I wish it would change but I doubt it. It's still Gallery after all.

[south-to-west]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

That's a really good point, and I agree with you there.


Another good point. It raises interesting questions like how to temper what's reasonable with what's harmful. I mean, you could go all the way with it and just legalize everything since some people may use heroin or cocaine to relax. Then you could go the other way where you just ban everything, even things like chocolate that people enjoy. Instead, we have decided as a society that we're going to meet somewhere in the middle, and at its core this discussion is about which side of that middle marijuana should be on. Of course, there are extremists on both ends (recently demostrated by the banning of large soft drinks in New York!) but as a group we try to figure out what makes the most common sense.

I love marijuana legalization discussions. I'm not even against legalization, but I love reading arguments of pro legalization people. I have to hand it to them, they are super passionate. So much so that instead of making reasonable and tempered arguments, they just shoot for the moon and make all kinds of ridiculous proclomations like it's completely harmless and way less dangerous than cigarettes.

Obviously, potheads are not the same people who were on debate teams in high school. Marijuana has been scientifically proven to have more carcinogens that tobacco smoke, even AFTER all the evil tobacco companies add their chemicals to it. The only reason people don't typically get lung cancer from it is exposure. Cigarette smokers can smoke a pack a day or more, but nobody smokes 20 joints a day. On a puff by puff basis, though, marijuana smoke is more dangerous for you. On the whole, I know there are many strains of marijuana and I don't know if it's less dangerous if you use a nice bong and filter through water.

The argument for legalization is so what if it's dangerous, not that it's not dangerous.

That's why I love marijuana arguments. You also get to hear ridiculous conspiracy theories that the only reason it is illegal is so we can keep the prisons filled with people and have a supply of free labor???? LOL! That was said in this thread, but I've heard even more ridiculous things. I had one guy tell me, to my face, that marijuana smokers are a more persecuted group than Jews were during the Holocaust. A+ for passion, but F for logic.

I understand where this is coming from. For years just say no campaigns and Reefer Madness tried to tell us that pot will ruin your life, make you kill your parents, and put you in a mental institution. Once people figured out this wasn't exactly true, they started to question everything they were being told about drugs. Maybe it's all lies. Certainly, some of it was, but not all of it. It may not make you kill your parents, but you also can't expect to smoke it every day of your life and not eventually develop cancer or become unproductive.

The marijuana smoker I'd like to talk to is not the one who says this is what I do and it's harmless, so legalize it. I'd like to hear "I understand all the risks of smoking marijuana and looked at all the benefits of how it makes me feel and I have conducted a risk-reward analysis and concluded that I am going to smoke in reasonable amounts that provide some reward while minimizing the risks." That would be great. But these people, I guess, aren't the ones fighting for legalization, they are the ones who just smoke when they feel like it and aren't too terribly inconvenienced by having to go slightly around the law to get what they want.

I would say I'm pro legalization, but that would kind of be a lie. I'm not really pro legalization, or pro illegalization, I just don't care because I don't have a dog in the fight. Either way, it's not going to affect me in the least. I am, however, pro truth, which is why it's more fun to argue with the legalization crows and their ridiculous arguments. Remember when they used to try to tell us it should be legal just because of all the wonderful uses of hemp?

I enjoy smoking marijuana regularly and I am an accomplished young professional with a graduate degree from Georgia Tech. Most of the regular marijuana smokers that I know are also accomplished professionals - many of whom earn six-figure salaries, so I believe your claim of some sort of achievement gap between smokers and nonsmokers to be false.

I also find your claim of most pro-legalization being whacko conspiracy theorists to be a little out of bounds. Most marijuana smokers I know are like me - we work hard and we are physically active. We are also active in our communities and perform our civic duties - i.e. vote. It's because of these reasons that legalization laws were passed in Colorado and Washington and it will be because of these reasons that more legalization or decriminalization measures will pass in more states.

Is marijuana without risks? No. Do I personally believe it to be safer than alcohol or tobacco? Absolutely and that belief is based on facts.

[tijlover]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Common sense?

Let someone else deal with the growing pains, learn from what happened there, and then proceed with your own better prepared rollout.

You can't possibly think that the legalization of a drug is giong to be without consequence. I'd like to know what those consequences are and be prepared to address those consequences before moving ahead.

One potential conseqence: one prison guard might lose his job!

A criminal defense attorney might make $1000 less a year!

Alcohol sales might take a slight dip!

A police officer might have to find other ways of puffing up his ego!

And?

[erick295]

Originally Posted by ATLTJL

Common sense?

Let someone else deal with the growing pains, learn from what happened there, and then proceed with your own better prepared rollout.

You can't possibly think that the legalization of a drug is giong to be without consequence. I'd like to know what those consequences are and be prepared to address those consequences before moving ahead.

Well, it was used legally for at least 5000 years leading up to the 1900's, so that seems like a pretty good sample. I guess we could watch Washington and Colorado for a few months too... amazingly they do still seem to be functioning.

[brownhornet]

Can someone please show me these "studies" showing that marijuana has more carcinogens than cigarette smoke? Because i'm wondering, I can think of thousands and thousands of people that die every year from smoking cigarettes but I can't even think of ONE person that's been reported to die from smoking marijuana. Not to mention that you can vaporize marijuana and avoid the smoke altogether. Anyone that believes that "study" is a moron. The carcinogens of composition between the two arent the same for one, and tobacco causes 400,000 deaths yearly in the US alone.

Tobacco has dramatic negative consequences for those who smoke it. In addition to its high addiction potential [1], tobacco is causally associated with over 400,000 deaths yearly in the United States, and has a significant negative effect on health in general [2]. More specifically, over 140,000 lung-related deaths in 2001 were attributed to tobacco smoke [3]. Comparable consequences would naturally be expected from cannabis smoking since the burning of plant material in the form of cigarettes generates a large variety of compounds that possess numerous biological activities [4].

While cannabis smoke has been implicated in respiratory dysfunction, including the conversion of respiratory cells to what appears to be a pre-cancerous state [5], it has not been causally linked with tobacco related cancers [6] such as lung, colon or rectal cancers. Recently, Hashibe et al [7] carried out an epidemiological analysis of marijuana smoking and cancer. A connection between marijuana smoking and lung or colorectal cancer was not observed. These conclusions are reinforced by the recent work of Tashkin and coworkers [8] who were unable to demonstrate a cannabis smoke and lung cancer link, despite clearly demonstrating cannabis smoke-induced cellular damage.

Furthermore, compounds found in cannabis have been shown to kill numerous cancer types including: lung cancer [9], breast and prostate [10], leukemia and lymphoma [11], glioma [12], skin cancer [13], and pheochromocytoma [14]. The effects of cannabinoids are complex and sometimes contradicting, often exhibiting biphasic responses. For example, in contrast to the tumor killing properties mentioned above, low doses of THC may stimulate the growth of lung cancer cells in vitro [15].

Cannabis and tobacco smoke are not equally carcinogenic

And still, there are no linked cases between marijuana and cancer, not even one. And a question for ATLTJL, do you even know when marijuana was made illegal in the US in the first place? It had nothing to do with how "harmful" it was. It was the simple result of a man running a smear campaign against it to ruin the hemp industry. Blaming "violence and driving people insane" on marijuana even though there were never any cases linked to it. Even then, there was a side agenda.

[AnsleyPark]

Originally Posted by south-to-west

I enjoy smoking marijuana regularly and I am an accomplished young professional with a graduate degree from Georgia Tech.

Ah, hah! If you weren't a marijuana smoker you may have graduated from Stanford!