Posted on 12/02/2018 11:29:00 AM PST by Simon Green
I was making a statement of fact, not expressing an opinion.
Regardless of whether I support the practice or not, it is a fact that there are many costs that the taxpayers end up paying because of drug abusers. Welfare, prison, rehab, and medical expenses are all costs incurred by taxpayers for drug abusers. That is the reality that we live with right now.
Someone smoking their brain into mush has ZERO impact on you.
Actually, that is not true even if they (somehow) were held responsible for all of the monetary costs of their addictions that taxpayers currently are paying. I suppose one could argue that being accosted by drug addicts begging for money to feed their addictions does not "really" affect the person being accosted (other than annoying that person). However, what about the drug addicts who rob, mug, and steal to get the money to feed their addictions? None of those are victimless crimes. What about the drug addicts who become violent as a result of their addictions? That very much has an effect on other people. And so on.
“If The government’s no.1 job is to protect the general population, then why stop at drugs? The laudable reasons behind banning drugs can also be applied to red meat, soda, candy, ammunition, and so on.”
My only thing against pot is if it is a gateway drug, and also after years of getting folks to quit tobacco states are now encouraging them to smoke pot without knowing long term health risks. In response to the quote about, isn’t that exactly what the Democrats are shooting for?
“The government’s no.1 job is to protect the general population”
Silly me, I thought the purpose of government was to protect our God given rights.
You want to own a business that requires having tricks & drivers? Something like a florist? Or a caterer?
Cannot get drivers if they all ae using pot. Won’t pass mandatory rug tests.
So? Even healthy people with healthy diets die of heart attacks. And what does this have to do with the huge costs of drug abuse, anyway?
The active component of Cannabis has not done damage to a single cell in any human body.
Actually, the deleterious effects of the active component, by which I assume you mean tetrahydrocannabinol (THC), are quite well documented, and more data is being added all the time. Here is a nice review that shows that THC has a number of effects on the brain, some of which persist after abstinence: The neuropsychopharmacology of cannabis: A review of human imaging studies. Some of the effects of THC on brain structures include atrophy, which means that brain tissues are literally dying as a result of THC exposure. Hmm, not good. And effects on brain structure tend to manifest themselves as behavioral abnormalities. Hmm, not good at all.
If we are supposedly making these laws to save people from themselves and stop being a burden, HOW is ordering mountains of unhealthy food/drink legal?
Why on earth should I care about how much food another person eats? Are grotesquely obese people committing crimes to pay for their next feast? I'm pretty sure they or their enablers are paying for their food, they don't have the ability to commit crimes to support their food habits, and they aren't becoming violent as a result of their consumption... so their impact on my life is zero.
The theoretical toxic dose of cannabis determined in petri dishes and lab animals is beyond what any human can ever consume or even afford to buy.
Actually, if you are eating marijuana or vaping the THC oil, you can very easily ingest the LD50 of THC. If you are smoking it, the chance of ingesting an LD50 is far lower. In addition, many synthetic cannabinoids have much lower LD50s, meaning that they are more toxic than THC. The LD50 of THC is ~15 grams in an adult human.
Anyway, stop trying to validate your own pot use by pointing fingers at people who simply make bad lifestyle choices or making bogus comparisons to FDA approved drugs. The "I know you are but what am I" attitude does not change the fact that there are serious long-term effects of marijuana use, and they affect a lot of people other than the pot-head.
Almost all of our food is GMO, and has been for millennia. Humans have been tinkering with the genomes of food organisms ever since we developed agriculture. And I kind of expect chemicals in meat. Since everything is made of chemicals, the only way one can avoid chemicals is by subjecting oneself to pure vacuum--which probably would not be a pleasant experience at all.
Good point.
You probably wouldn't want to have employees who are using mind-altering substances if your business involves handling any kind of hazardous material or equipment, either.
“What are you talking about? People die extremely early deaths EVERY FEW MINUTES from heart attacks and strokes directly caused by their eating habits. They also frequently become vegetables and need society to literally spoon feed them and turn their overweight bodies. VEGETABLES. Such a thing will not happen at such an age to an otherwise healthy person even if they consume cannabis daily!”
Are you still in middle school?
I can name three people that I knew that died early from heart attacks,never smoked,normal weight and very fit——one in his 30s,the other 2 in their 40s.
Right, and people that never touched a drug in their lives also get brain damage and dementia.
All is comparison of the magnitude of the direct link.
The link to becoming a vegetable from abusing food, engaging in lazy activity and becoming obese are MANY MAGNITUDES greater than any studies links to damage from cannabis.
NO twin studies have ever shown minor differences even when abusing cannabis. Such tiny links on generic sample studies can be easily faked by whoever is running the study.
All while It is 100% documented that if you overfeed a twin animal that it is more prone to stroke, heart attack and shorter life.
It is 100% documented that if you feed a twin animal alcohol and various legal drugs they will get guaranteed irreversible damage from even one overdose.
My point is that if you let them outlaw every single thing with potential for abuse and loose links to slightly “less than optimal health”, they can outlaw nearly everything. Fatty food, TV, movies, video games, comics, card games, etc. Some politicians are already talking about food/soda laws.
“if you are eating marijuana or vaping the THC oil, you can very easily ingest the LD50 of THC”
Easily? It would cost thousands and still be near impossible to consume unless you were actively trying to kill yourself. It has NEVER HAPPENED ONCE. While people die of obesity, alcohol and various legal drugs every few minutes!
If the point is protecting our safety and society, why are things that are far more dangerous and killing people daily legal for everyone? If someone is helped by medical meth/heroin, they can get it prescribed in all 50 states and paid for by taxpayers. If someone feels like abusing alcohol, they have the choice to do so even if is GUARANTEED to kill their liver and brain. If someone wants to become 500 lbs and GUARANTEED to die early, it's perfectly legal and nobody will stop you at barrel of a gun.
I don't use or abuse cannabis but know countless people out west whose lives were literally saved by it. And countless succesful people who simply use it like a beer after work. It is now clear to nearly everyone that cannabis prohibition is NOT about protecting us. It is about ensuring certain greedy people continue to make profits from their far more dangerous competing products...
Right. And some people also become forgetful and get dementia without touching a drug in their lives.
My point is it is 100% PROVEN obesity increases the risks of all cardiovascular disease and stroke many magnitudes more than any loose links showing any much smaller changes from cannabis.
All the same justifications for outlawing cannabis are far more applicable to overeating. To save people from themselves and not being a future burden on us, let us imprison these food junkies/dealers at barrel of a gun! Mandatory life sentence for selling a case of donuts! Rewards for reporting home cookers of unhealthy food! Mandatory jail rehab for fatties!
If you REALLY think about it, cannabis prohibition is even more absurd than banning unhealthy food/soda...
See my post 71
Libs make no sense.
I don’t want someone running my life for me.
Leave me alone.
If you don’t want to eat meat, fine, don’t eat it.
Don’t make me join you.
And I won’t try to force you to live like I want you to.
P.S.
Every year obesity costs the USA approximately $200 Billion every year in healthcare costs and lost productivity.
*DISEASES CAUSED BY REFINED SUGAR ARE ESTIMATED TO COST THE USA 1 TRILLION YEARLY*
It is preventable and a selfish choice by millions of obese and near-diabetic individuals to do this. Crippling themselves on our dime so they can eat snacks. How DARE they!
Tobacco costs $300 Billion and has no medical value.
Alcohol costs $240 Billion and has no medical value besides a solvent/cleaner.
Pot is not listed individually but the estimated annual cost to society of ALL illegal drugs combined is $190B. Including costs of crimes. Pot is a fraction of that compared to opiods and other hard drugs. Pot has known medical properties with standardized extracts approved by the FDA, Europe and Israel.
IF the laws are about safety and reducing impact on society, why are things that cause more damage several times over still legal?
Prohibition would also be more effective with alcohol and tobacco since they are not as easy to make as pot. Put a seed in dirt and a huge deal of pot is ready in 3 months. It grows everywhere on earth except for the icecaps.
Hell, you could probably outlaw sugar easier than you could outlaw pot!
You know, lets not hold back on protecting society from itself. We should ban everything potentially damaging and costly. What a safe and efficient world it could be...
Yeah, they are fooling themselves. It’s ok. I do it too: with turkey bacon which is a kosher animal. It’s still pretty good!
You really don’t get it, do you?
Marijuana and other drugs of abuse are not illegal because of the effects they have on the abusers. Who even cares about what the abusers do to themselves? They are illegal because of the cost to society of the abusers. The costs of abusers becoming unable to work and unable to support themselves, so they end up on welfare, begging in the streets, or committing crimes to pay for their next fix. The costs of sending them to rehab multiple times or sending them to prison. The cost to their victims that they kill or injure when they commit crimes to get the money to pay for their next fix, or when they simply attack people because the drugs have so addled their brains that they are driven to violence. These are enormous costs, and I dislike that I am paying them through taxes.
If drug abusers were as harmless as those who eat themselves up into the hundreds of pounds, and taxpayers weren’t having to pay for all of the collateral costs of drug abuse, few people would care about them drugging themselves into oblivion. But that is not the case.
If you are going to make claims like “It is 100% documented that...” you need to support them with reliable references from the medical literature.
I referenced a review of dozens of brain imaging studies that demonstrated many different effects of THC on several structures and functions of the brain; I even linked to the review so that you could read it for yourself. I found the review by doing a keyword search in the medical research database www.pubmed.gov; the database is public, and many of the references in the database link to openly available articles.
Author ends by advocating rationing of airline flights and steak. Smh.
“Tobacco costs $300 Billion and has no medical value.”
-
Where did you get that figure?
.
Loath, loathe, and now, loth. Sigh.....
Eating meat creates ‘social harm’?
What? These people are insane.
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