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I live in red state south Carolina, and I don't smoke anything. However, I will most certainly vote to legalize marijuana if it ever makes it to the ballots. Lots of people are smoking it anyways, I mean people of all stripes and political backgrounds do it. Then you can put a hurt on the weed drug dealing business around here.
I’m a conservative that doesn’t fall lock step into Republican ideas. I fully support legalization of marijuana.
I’ve never found it to be dangerous. Some classmates and I did quite a bit of research on it back in college and found nothing that would indicate it was even as dangerous as alcohol.
You're pretty liberal...especially by my standards.
May I ask your reasoning behind the stance?
I'm actually pretty conservative on certain things. This is one of them. I would actually call myself "statist" rather than "liberal" (or "conservative").
Several years ago there was a referendum in Washington state, where I lived, to legalize marijuana. I think I voted in favor of it. I later regretted it (I know somebody else who did, too). One reason was, about 9 months before I moved here to KC, there were some people who moved into the townhouse behind me who ... let's just say they were some of the most vile people I have ever seen. There were about 4 of them, they were from Hawaii, were all in their 20's, were covered with tattoos, and every hour or two, one or more of them would step out into their back patio to smoke. These were townhouses with very small yards, so when they went out there they were only maybe 20 feet or so from the back of my own townhouse. So every hour or two I would have to listen to them cough up a storm while smoking and "hawk looeys" and spit it out, and in the warm weather I could not leave my back window open because their cigarette smoke would waft up into my window, and there is nothing I can't stand more than cigarette smoke. They would also smoke pot once in a while, which I also had to smell, and I wished I had an excuse to call the cops on them, but since pot was legal (and of course cigarettes) I had no pretense to call the cops on them, which I would have LOVED to have had, since I suspect they were probably doing other drugs as well.
Occasionally I would talk to them, and they were OK if you did so, and one time I asked them if they could please smoke in their front yard instead, and they kinda objected but gave it a whirl for maybe a week or two, but then went back to smoking in their back yard.
I have no idea how they made money to pay for their mortgage, as far as I could tell they did not work.
Anyway, that experience taught me that sometimes you need to have something illegal that's used widely because the people using it could very well be doing something worse.
But it's more than that ... just seeing how much drugs screw people up makes me realize that society should frown upon behaviors that screw people up. While pot isn't as bad as other drugs, it's just the principle of the thing. If pot should be legal, why not meth? And heroin? Where does it end?
Alcohol should be the only legal intoxicating "drug" in my book. I would even love to see cigarettes and vaping banned.
Your lungs are supposed to be used for breathing in air in order to circulate oxygen into your blood. Once you start using them for other purposes, you're starting to screw with your body.
A Democrat Congress could have introduced a bill to completely decriminalize, passed it in both houses and sent it to a Democrat president to sign in 2009-2010.
Why didn't they?
because they don't want pot legalized. How many Dems running for Pres are proposing nationwide pot legalization and recreational sales?
Dems are big hypocrites on this issue too. Another issue libs have selective memory
Most GOP voters either support legalized weed or don't care either way. Politicians from both sides who are against it tend to be old. It's more generational than party based, although old hippies who lean left are more likely to support legalization than old establishment dems or reps will. And as that one atheist guy who lives in the heart of Bible country and really needs to move for his own sanity's sake will very enthusiastically remind us, evangelicals tend to be against legalization as well.
Because most conservatives are authoritarian despot-wannabes who are utterly obsessed with making sure nobody, nowhere, ever gets away with doing anything they disapprove of.
Alcohol rots your brain and even kills you and drunks tend to be losers but we still allow them their substance of choice, so unless you are also supporting bringing back prohibition I don't really see where you have a leg to stand on here.
If one wants to boil down world-views down, the "pot thing" is very indicative.
That's a MASSIVE difference...and even allows for Republican softening on the issue over the last number of years.
It's a telling issue for a number of reasons. Historically, pot use became well known when the hippies and the counterculture made it mainstream. This was "radical left".
The reasoning of liberals was simple and has never really changed. Freedom of the mind. Freedom of the body. Freedom of thought. Freedom to be different and think different. Why should people with guns and handcuffs take people away for an herb????
THIS is exactly what "my type" thought 45+ years ago (full disclosure...I don't like the stuff, but did in my late teens).
A liberal like myself never wavered on the issue. Never lied to our children or told anyone else what to do.
Meanwhile, the War on Drugs was making tens of millions of Americans, even many of the "best ones', bow before The Judge.
Now it is 2018. Conservatives and Republicans chant that they believe in freedom and keeping government out of things it should not be involved in. But that's simply a talking point...since entering the womb, your brain, your bedroom, etc. has been their business for a LONG time.
Without beating around the Bush or saying "but I'm not that way...I believe", can some conservatives here explain why the majority of their peers are so far behind on issues like this? I'm not talking some small loud off-the-wall segment here, but the mainstream of the Right.
Sure, they will capitulate on the issue because, in the end, I don't think they hold a moral stance on it. It was a good way to keep hippies, people of color and other populations running scared...and also a good way to fund the LE expansions.
Thoughtful opinions welcome.
It appears liberals have a different view on what Freedom means. We use the classic definition of logic, reason, progression, science, justice, equality, human rights, etc. to look at it. IMHO, Conservatives tend to define freedom otherwise. Shouting "fire" in a crowded movie house is one of them (their take on free speech). Having as many killing instruments as desired is another. Giving corporations the right to pollute more and make more profits....seems another definition of freedom on the right.
In many ways it's the same battle we fought growing up in the 60's.....that is, Power to the People (all) and We are all in this together vs. Power to large authoritarian structures (Police, Church, Corporations).
I made your quote bold above where I think that you nailed it. The WW 2 and the Korea generation never forgave the boomers for "shirking" our duty in Vietnam by protesting the war vigorously. Marijuana is symbolic of the boomer generation much the same as the Tom Collins mixed drink is symbolic of the older generations. I believe that they became resentful of everything associated with our generation and that includes pot.
Last edited by Ibginnie; 02-20-2019 at 08:00 AM..
Reason: edited quoted post
I can't say that I know all the dangers of pot smoking but unless someone could show me why it shouldn't be legalized, I don't see the harm in it and I must say that I am quite surprised when I read news articles of someone being arrested for possessing it.
I do know a man who smoked for 35+years who says he knows it messed up his brain. I know someone else who did and seems okay. I know of people who say they have used it to medicate themselves.
If they don't drive under the influence, I just don't see the harm. Maybe someone who knows more about the dangers of pot can enlighten me?
Because that trash on the side of the highway isn't going to pick itself up.
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