I don’t want to smoke it: I did when I was a kid (h.s. and college). But legalize it to defund the gangs, just as legalizing booze hurt the Mafia types.

MJ used to be legal in this country until we decided we needed a micro-managing nanny-state!

P.S. Will the only guy on this forum who thinks the War on Drugs is actually working, please stand up? (Hint: It is impossible to wage war on an inanimate object.)

Let’s go back to alcohol prohibition, not only was hard liquor preferable to beer due to transport, but it was less safe due to the black market status. People who are sold unsafe goods have no recourse under the law when prohibition criminalizes their very possession thus the bad hooch during alcohol prohibition that poisoned people just trying to have a cold one.

That drug abuse is more common among the impoverished, the unemployed; among the homeless and the mentally ill is not mere coincidence. Those who are wihtout the essentials of a decent life are in pain. People in pain look for relief wherever they can get it. Often the only succor they see is sold in small bags on the streets. If they succumb to the lure of drugs and then need help to control their cravings, the help is rarely there.

Even those who are fortunate enough to get into treatment programs find it almost impossible to stay in them, or to get on top of their drug dependencies. People without jobs, skills, intact families and money, or with untreated mental illness, are much less likely to succeed in treatment programs than others who are not so burdened. These are the root causes of the most intractable drug abuse in this nation.

Sociologist Elliot Currie makes the case that there are two distinct drug problems in America. One is drug abuse by the upper classes, those have jobs, money, opportunity. The other is among the poor.

The upper-class problem is self-limiting. People with much to gain from quitting or cutting down on drugs are usually able to do so, albeit with difficulty. The poor, who perceive no real alternative to drugs, are different. Their drug problems have been worsened by escalations in the drug war. If we are to have any hope of reversing the devastating effects of drug abuse among those enslaved by it, we must declare drug peace and return to our ideals of social justice.

I encourage those of you ardently against marijuana and other drug legalization to read what the dozens of American majors, judges, and policemen who have come out in support of drug legalization have to say. Don’t worry, some of them are not gay.

The most troublesome obstacle to legalization is cognitive. Legalization is counterintuitive. When presented with undesirable behavior of others, the natural reaction of human beings is to try to suppress it. Sometimes that works, but sometimes, as in drug prohibition, it has the opposite effect.

Drivers whose cars get in cornering skids have to be trained to reject their intuitions and steer into, rather than away from, the skid. Drivers whose brakes lock up and produce a braking skid have to be trained to ease up on the brake pedal rather than pressing even harder. These solutions, like drug legalization, are counterintuitive, but they work.

Here it is:

Marihuana: A Signal of Misunderstanding
http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/nc/ncmenu.htm

Let me quote the Final Comment:

“In this Chapter, we have carefully considered the spectrum of social and legal policy alternatives. On the basis of our findings, discussed in previous Chapters, we have concluded that society should seek to discourage use, while concentrating its attention on the prevention and treatment of heavy and very heavy use. The Commission feels that the criminalization of possession of marihuana for personal is socially self-defeating as a means of achieving this objective. We have attempted to balance individual freedom on one hand and the obligation of the state to consider the wider social good on the other. We believe our recommended scheme will permit society to exercise its control and influence in ways most useful and efficient, meanwhile reserving to the individual American his sense of privacy, his sense of individuality, and, within the context of ail interacting and interdependent society, his options to select his own life style, values, goals and opportunities.

The Commission sincerely hopes that the tone of cautious restraint sounded in this Report will be perpetuated in the debate which will follow it. For those who feel we have not proceeded far enough, we are reminded of Thomas Jefferson’s advice to George Washington that “Delay is preferable to error.” For those who argue we have gone too far, we note Roscoe Pound’s statement, “The law must be stable, but it must not stand still.”

We have carefully analyzed the interrelationship between marihuana the drug, marihuana use as a behavior, and marihuana as a social problem. Recognizing the extensive degree of misinformation about marihuana as a drug, we have tried to demythologize it. Viewing the use of marihuana in its wider social context, we have tried to desymbolize it.

Considering the range of social concerns in contemporary America, marihuana does not, in our considered judgment, rank very high. We would deemphasize marihuana as a problem.

The existing social and legal policy is out of proportion to the individual and social harm engendered by the use of the drug. To replace it, we have attempted to design a suitable social policy, which we believe is fair, cautious and attuned to the social realities of our time.”

When the report did not support Nixon’s position, he spiked it.

Does marijuana cause cancer?

May 2000
http://www.webmd.com/news/20000508/marijuana-unlikely-to-cause-cancer

May 2006
http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html

April 2007
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2007/04/070417193338.htm

December 2007
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,318526,00.html

So make the case and get the laws changed. In the meantime you are enabling that “dark underbelly” by your actions.
highhopes on March 25, 2008 at 1:13 PM

As I already said, you are enabling the same “dark underbelly” as you type on that keyboard, which was made in China [along with everything else].

If it isn’t the pot, something is making you stupid if you think that others wouldn’t find that objectionable.

We’re here to debate, not throw around childish insults. That’s for the kids at Daily Kos.

In the meantime you are enabling that “dark underbelly” by your actions

You are enabling that “dark underbelly” with your stupid laws. The black market for such drugs would not otherwise exist, but for people like you.

You are funding gangs and illegal activities

In a marketplace that you created, subjecting otherwise innocent people like Ciannaky to the dangers of associating with such lowlifes.

‘You’ are the problem. ‘You’ are precipitating the erosioni of society. You

Ciannaky on March 25, 2008 at 11:49 AM

So make the case and get the laws changed. In the meantime you are enabling that “dark underbelly” by your actions. You are funding gangs and illegal activities. You are tearing at the fabric of society. If it isn’t the pot, something is making you stupid if you think that others wouldn’t find that objectionable.

deesine on March 25, 2008 at 10:51 AM

Throwing out stupid talking points and making snide aspersions is not “debating.” You just want an echo chamber for your faulty and superficial ideas. Or did I miss where you did anything but tell me that I am wrong?

The researchers interviewed 79 lung cancer patients and sought to identify the main risk factors for the disease, such as smoking, family history and occupation. The patients were questioned about alcohol and cannabis consumption.

“While our study covers a relatively small group, it shows clearly that long-term cannabis smoking increases lung cancer risk,” wrote Beaseley.

They call that science? Al Gore must have blessed it.

Tell me highhopes why should I be denied a 100% natural pain reliever and be forced to shell out outrageous money to drug companies for products that are inferior and far more dangerous than the one I can grow in my sunny window? I will suffer from my pain until the day I die and those of you self-righteous hatemongers would gladly allow me to suffer rather than get the crap out of your ears and learn something about a perfectly innocuous plant.

Ciannaky on March 25, 2008 at 11:49 AM

I’m not a fan of doctors lately. My Doc’s recommendation for a cough suppressant (Mucinex) caused more harm to me then the original illness. My secretary has a cold. Her doctor prescribed antibiotics. WTF? I go in for lower GI issues, and he pushes Nexium on me b/c I get the occasional acid indigestion. Didn’t take it, because I know a glass of warm water usually helps me. Now, there’s an example of a natural cure not recommended by the doctor. I know it doesn’t compare but research shows there is no link between marijuana use and cancers of the lung, neck, throat or mouth.
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2006/05/060526083353.htm

What are you afraid of?

But you pot heads are part of a sub-culture that isn’t so nice a place and isn’t something that should be encouraged by making it simpler for you to get stoned.

highhopes on March 25, 2008 at 10:49 AM

And how are you acquainted with this sub-culture? It’s obvious that you and most others merely fear what you don’t know or understand. Moreover, who are you to tell anyone what they can and cannot put in their own bodies? I thought this was a conservative blog! Oh, and BTW, you might as well burn all that music that has enhanced your lives over the years b/c all those artists were certainly high on something.

Some of you may be the weekend druggie who just gets high but there is a dark underbelly to your pot usage that includes smuggling, human exploitation, gangs, and all sorts of other social ills that can’t be rolled up into the “it’s just pot” position.

highhopes on March 25, 2008 at 10:49 AM

It’s stunning that you type this on your keyboard which (along with everything else) could have been made inside that wonderful bastion of human rights: China.

there is a dark underbelly to your pot usage that includes smuggling, human exploitation, gangs, and all sorts of other social ills that can’t be rolled up into the “it’s just pot” position.

A dark underbelly that is created by prohibition, it is those in your position that fund these gangsters and their nefarious activities by giving them a product by which they can make themselves filthy rich. I said it before, why do you think Capone and Escobar were for prohibition; because they had a product that a large number of people wanted and were being denied. It was no accident that prohibition witnessed an 78% increase in crime during the period. If you made aspirin illegal some South American drug lord would capitalize on it and hundreds if not thousands would die over it.

Furthermore, you don’t like being called names while you sit there and sanctimoniously call us users pot-heads and such. Tell me highhopes why should I be denied a 100% natural pain reliever and be forced to shell out outrageous money to drug companies for products that are inferior and far more dangerous than the one I can grow in my sunny window? I will suffer from my pain until the day I die and those of you self-righteous hatemongers would gladly allow me to suffer rather than get the crap out of your ears and learn something about a perfectly innocuous plant.

One of the companies I work for now had me take a drug test before I started, another had me up the limits on my car insurance. A company who takes certain measures before, during, or after the hiring process is only protecting themselves from potential liability. Most of them couldn’t care less if you smoke or not- unless something happened. Most of the managers at my old job (different field) were potheads, including upper management. When someone fell and tried to sue, when someone damaged company equipment, when someone injured or caused loss to another person, then the pee cups came out.

If you don’t smoke, fine. If you do smoke, fine. I don’t care either way. Marijuana is not a gateway drug because smoking that makes you move on to other things. Someone who is going to become addicted to something is going to start somewhere and end up somewhere worse no matter what it is; they will look for something to become addicted to because of something missing somewhere else in their life, not because they look at a joint and see it pointing somewhere. I go to raves, too, and have some of the best techno/trance music. But I’ve never done ecstasy, even though that music is supposedly a gateway to dropping tabs. Want a hair sample? Explain that one.

It’s fine to sneer at those of us against legalization and call us all sorts of names.

You are the one calling people names. Why are you here?