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If drugs only affected the person taking them, I wouldn't care what they do. But they don't, it affects me to have stoned people in the community. I am not talking about pot, just about hard drugs like meth, coke, heroin. When people are on those they cannot work, or should not be working. How are they going to support themselves? It's either crime or welfare. Do you really want a bunch of stoned people hanging around the local park where kids are playing? Or driving cars?
How is it any different than alcohol? Plenty of people drink from the time they get up to the time they go to bed, they are out driving around, they go to work drunk, etc.
I just lost a good friend and his wife to a drunk driver this past year, plenty of people die every year due to alcohol, but its still 100% legal and can be bought 24/7 by anyone 21 and over.
Go talk to any ER doc or nurse, they will tell you alcohol is the number one substance that causes so many problems.
Most states have successfully sued tobacco companies and collected many millions from them. I call that a penalty. Access to cigarettes and most certainly the freedom to smoke them where you want is certainly more restrictive than in the 1960s.
I work with all the tobacco company territory reps and sales people in my job...the cigarette companies are doing VERY WELL right now financially!
If you want to call the fine a 'penalty', thats fine, but it didnt impact their profits too much!
I work with all the tobacco company territory reps and sales people in my job...the cigarette companies are doing VERY WELL right now financially!
That's kind of hard to believe given the price of cigarettes these days. One of the things that keeps me from going back to cigarette smoking is I just can't afford to do it anymore.
I can tell you from experience that, thanks to tolerance, you can use cannabis regularly and not get high, just as heavy longtime drinkers can have four or five drinks without showing any impairment while the same amount would make teetotaler vomit and maybe even pass out. I find that cannabis has a moderate sedative effect, but after 3+ years of using it daily I am still able to think clearly and function pretty well even when I'm under the influence. (I would never drive, though, even if I thought I could do so safely.)
Anyway, what's so terrible about getting high? Enjoying cannabis for its own sake, as long as it's done responsibly, is not a sin. It doesn't magically turn people into an immoral, hedonistic party animals like in the "Reefer Madness" propaganda.
In these times, everyone needs some relaxation and stress relief, and legal cannabis is a relatively risk-free way to get it. The stoner stereotype ls just that, a stereotype. Sure, there are people like that, and they seem to be more visible than the rest of us, but I believe that the majority of cannabis users are just normal people like everyone else.
The opium poppy is also a plant and has been used as a drug for centuries.
Yes, morphine is refined from the poppy plant and is used as a drug, but heroin is 3x more powerful and is extremely addictive. So is cocaine, which is the refined form of the coca plant.
I don't believe that opiates or cocaine are necessarily bad. They're useful for medical applications such as pain relief after surgery or numbing an external area for surgery. But used recreationally, they are dangerous, and they kill people. That's why they're illegal.
How is it any different than alcohol? Plenty of people drink from the time they get up to the time they go to bed, they are out driving around, they go to work drunk, etc.
I just lost a good friend and his wife to a drunk driver this past year, plenty of people die every year due to alcohol, but its still 100% legal and can be bought 24/7 by anyone 21 and over.
Go talk to any ER doc or nurse, they will tell you alcohol is the number one substance that causes so many problems.
Yeah but alcohol.....,
My younger brother died an alcoholic. And people have died from dope and also caused deaths driving by using dope.
If I was the DIC (dictator in charge) al intoxicants would be outlawed on penalty of immediate death.
One shot of 80 proof liquor and for some people (body weight is a factor) you are also legally impaired.
And as the previous poster posted, it depends also on what you are smoking just like not all alcohol consumption results in the same level impairment. But it is ridiculous to believe that there is no equivalency between consuming either drug. Just like drinking you can smoke weed in moderation without being totally stoned.
Not the way it works.
You have to drink more than your body can process in a certain timeframe to be impaired (laws vary by state).
I think the biggest reason that there's so much resistance to cannabis legalization is that the plant has a very strong stigma. Cannabis users are widely stereotyped as burnouts and deadbeats and people view legalization as enabling people's bad behavior. People cannot wrap their minds around the fact that there are people who partake who don't fit the stoner stereotype and actually lead successful, productive lives. Likewise on the medicinal side, the common narrative from conservatives is that if it really was a medicine then a pill could be made and there's no reason to legalize the plant. They simply refuse to listen to the testimonies of the people who have been helped by the plant. They also probably don't know that there is a THC pill called Marinol but it's not very effective medicinally compared to real cannabis. I also think marijuana still has not moved beyond its association with the 1960s counterculture and the anti-Vietnam movement. Many conservatives believe that was the point when the moral and societal decline of the USA began and that is a factor in their opposition to legalization.
However, if you roll back the stigma and look at the facts, its indisputable that cannabis is actually less dangerous and less harmful to society than alcohol (though I will say it's NOT 100% harmless). Cannabis however has a stigma and alcohol doesn't. A person can guzzle down a bottle of wine per night and most people won't think anything of it but if they smoke a joint, they'll be seen as a deadbeat addict who shouldn't have kids and shouldn't be hired for a job and who belongs in jail.
Does anybody think we, as a society, will ever move beyond the stigmatization of cannabis and its users?
Sure it will be. Moonshine is now a legla and ting to drink. And moonshine is nothing but something to get drunk by.
True. In 2019, The ONLY voice that matters in this country is that of the Christian Right, period.
But eventually, should our constitutional republic survive, cannabis will be legal. It may take 15-20 years but it will happen.
Just where in this country at the state or federal level is the Christian Right mattering a lot with their voice? It mattered a lot to the Christian Right to get the Oklahoma Constitution changed so the Ten Commandments could be displayed outside the Oklahoma Capitol. But voters soundly rejected their plan.
Also in Oklahoma, one of the far right Christian legislators won't be running for reelection, due to too much frustration over getting his bills passed and gave up. He complained that the Oklahoma Republican Legislature is too liberal. Actually, they're more worried with what the Chamber of Commerce lobby thinks than the Christian Right.
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