Do you support marijuana legalization in California? (school, university)

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by chessgeek

Yes. It will create more revenue and now law enforcement and courts can re-focus priorities and resources on far more harmful crimes.

Hopefully.

[shooting4life]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

Honestly, I think it's scary. The potheads I know, all of whom have "legal" prescriptions, are in my opinion, drug addicts. Are they disgusting people who can't fit into society? Not at all. But anyone who needs a drug daily, is someone who is vulnerable as far as being an addicted person.

Do you feel the same way about coffee?

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by expatCA

I absolutely agree about alcohol, but that has nothing to do with marijuana.

I was pointing out your words: " Brain Shrinkage? Debunked" were inaccurate. It is possible the shrinkage is genetic and it is possible it is not, so no debunking, just questioning.

But as I pointed out your questioning is, at best, selective. You decided to question the person who actually provided citations that the link with brain shrinkage is more than dubious. Where is your "questioning" of the person who made the original assertion without ANY support of ANY kind?

It seems your "just questioning" is a flag waving of bias and cherry picking to me. Because I certainly see no basis to expect anyone to debunk something that was only ever established by wanton assertion and retreat.

[expatCA]

Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo

But as I pointed out your questioning is, at best, selective. You decided to question the person who actually provided citations that the link with brain shrinkage is more than dubious. Where is your "questioning" of the person who made the original assertion without ANY support of ANY kind?

It seems your "just questioning" is a flag waving of bias and cherry picking to me. Because I certainly see no basis to expect anyone to debunk something that was only ever established by wanton assertion and retreat.

The person who made claims with no evidence is not worth answering.

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Originally Posted by shooting4life

Do you feel the same way about coffee?

Coffee is equal to marijuana and alcohol now? The justifications just keep getting sillier.

[NativeOrange]

Originally Posted by NoMoreSnowForMe

Coffee is equal to marijuana and alcohol now? The justifications just keep getting sillier.

But you didn't really state any substantial negative for why you feel that way. Caffeine is still a drug, albeit with a much, much milder "buzz", so your same statement could have read:

"Are they disgusting people who can't fit into society? Not at all. But anyone who needs caffeine daily, is someone who is vulnerable as far as being an addicted person."

Where do we draw the line?

[NoMoreSnowForMe]

Originally Posted by NativeOrange

But you didn't really state any substantial negative for why you feel that way. Caffeine is still a drug, albeit with a much, much milder "buzz", so your same statement could have read:

"Are they disgusting people who can't fit into society? Not at all. But anyone who needs caffeine daily, is someone who is vulnerable as far as being an addicted person."

Where do we draw the line?

You jumped over it a long time ago. Look behind you.

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by expatCA

The person who made claims with no evidence is not worth answering.

There is that bias speaking again. Actually quite the opposite is true. The person making the original claim that something exists is the one who should be providing the evidence. Not the people who stand up to doubt their assertions.

But when you WANT the assertion to be true it is natural to act like you do, by attacking the doubted (who did cite something) rather than the claimant (who citing NOTHING). You bias and agenda merely drools out of the post and you bring nothing to the table.

IF the claim that "brain shrinkage" is to stand up we need to establish EXACTLY what shrinks, how and for how long. WHY it does so. WHAT LEVEL of the drug is required to cause it. And much more. Fleet offered NONE of this. Just an opinion cherry picked out of the letter pages of some media outlet.

We are all entitled to our own opinions, not our own facts.

[Fleet]

Originally Posted by Nozzferrahhtoo

Errrr you did not post ANY? You appear to have three posts on this entire thread, assuming the search function is working, and not one of them contains ANY studies posted by you?

Neither is a good source of an overall view of use of a single drug. Remember addiction therapists are a self-selecting data point. That is to say: They only see the problem cases. So extrapolating from their experience.... whether they do it themselves or you do it vicariously on their behalf....... is an erroneous approach.

On what basis do you assert that? It just sounds like random doomsaying to me. Yet there are many data points suggesting this is not true at all. Take, just as one random example, the recent book "The better angels of our nature" which undertook a global look at crime levels, especially violent crime. It actually finds that such things are on the decline, not increase.

So what do you even MEAN when you say society is on the decline? Just that it is moving away from the kind of things YOU want for it maybe?

I note the writer of this "letter" is much like YOU in that YOU also like saying "scientific findings" without actually citing any of them. WHAT scientific findings do you mean and what EXACTLY do you mean by "brain shrinkage" would be my questions. For example do you know there is "brain shrinkage" in women during pregnancy?

How can we "forget" something that has not been presented? You would want to present it first before worrying about us forgetting it.

I did not expect you to accept or agree with what the therapist wrote. I am not surprised.

As for society on the decline, I can give a few examples... single parents, children born out-of-wedlock, violence/shootings at schools, widespread drug use (in some cases being glamorized).

[Nozzferrahhtoo]

Originally Posted by Fleet

I did not expect you to accept or agree with what the therapist wrote. I am not surprised.

It has nothing to do with who I agree with. YOU said you posted studies. It is there in black and white you claiming to have done so. But you did not. I am merely trying to understand why you lied. Especially given the truth is right there in black and white that shows it is a lie. I do not understand why you would do this.

What you posted was an OPINION from a news paper. Nothing more. The person writing the opinion CLAIMED to be a therapist but we can not verify that. And even if the person WAS a therapist so what? The strength of a claim is based on the evidence for the claim, not on WHO made it. The opinion of one single therapist is worthless.

And as I said not only is it worthless, it is statistically dubious given that someone working with problem cases will be blinkered in that they only see the problem cases. Their experience is what we call "self selecting". People using the drug moderately and without problem are not the kind of people who seek out a therapist. So a therapist would not see such people.

So not only is anecdote NOT evidence, offering a BY DEFINITION skewed anecdote is even worse.

Originally Posted by Fleet

As for society on the decline, I can give a few examples... single parents, children born out-of-wedlock, violence/shootings at schools, widespread drug use (in some cases being glamorized).

And what nonsense examples that are.

Firstly: Single parents have been around a LONG time. So that is an ongoing issue, not an issue of decline.

Secondly: MANY couples do not get married. So what? What has the marital status of Childrens guardians or parents got to do with anything? I have two kids with my partner. We are not married. Do you think my children are somehow magically worse off for this?

Third: Violence and shootings in schools are also an ongoing, not decline, issue. But as I said the statistics on violent crime AS A WHOLE are down. Read, as I suggested, the book "Better angels of our nature" to see a comprehensive and indepth review of those statistics. What IS true however is the violent crimes that ARE happening are more devastating. But that is not because society is on the decline, but the technological capability of such attackers to cause larger damage is on the rise. Automatic weaponry and the like has advanced and is easier to obtain.

Fourth: Again drug use is on an ongoing not decline issue. I see no citations or statistics from you to show it to be a worsening issue. Further merely saying "wide spread drug use" says nothing. There is nothing, per se, wrong with drug use and the majority of users of many drugs do so moderately and without problems. So it is not merely "drug use" you need to cite when showing society declining. It has to be statistics specifically on PROBLEMATIC drug use.

So really, you got nothing here.