Actually, it's more like having a few beers, but the idea of the federal government making a common plant illegal is ridiculous.
If people could grow their intoxicant in the back yard, Anheuser Busch would sell less beer...follow the money.
It probably boils down to money and power. There’s no logic that supports the current laws.
Ask a drug warrior to research the consumption habits of the founders sometime and then watch as the excuses flow.
I am not a drug fan. I am a truth fan.
Nobody is suggesting that I pay for “medicinal” Marlboros for the poor.
The morons who have supported the current drug laws are too stupid and dumb to see how they have boosted entrenching crime by sending drug users to prison and initiating them into lives of crime once they mingle with hardcore criminals there.
A natural substance with popular demand, when banned, will create an underground market that will fuel gangs and criminal organisation. The lessons from Prohibition have completely escaped these nitwits.
Wrong we have pity. But we do have contempt for pushers. And we recognize that jail time is a deterrent.
"t is difficult (impossible, actually) to understand the logic of making certain drugs illegal. Apart from legality, what is the difference between smoking a “joint” and having a beer? Further, doing a “line” of cocaine makes for an apt comparison with having a dry martini. Oh, the “gateway” routine? Well, weed may be a “gateway” drug but Budweiser and nicotine are the “gateways” to weed. Shall we continue this line of reasoning?? "
Marijuana causes bipolar and schitzophrenia is a big difference.
And yes, let's continue the reasoning. Are you going to allow drugs so addictive that one use virtually assures you are addicted? Or hard drugs like LSD and bath salts. Drugs that cause permanent brain damage?
If not, then we are just talking about where to draw the line. And if the line has to be drawn somewhere, then it seems to me that drawing the line after alcohol and tobacco is a pretty good place.
Society doesn’t need any more intoxicants.
The more the stigma of using intoxicants is removed, the more young people are going to be impacted by their mind dulling, motivation killing qualities.
Despite the howls of protest, the use of “recreational drugs” is a clear gateway to addictive “hard” drugs.
This isn’t some libertarian, individual “right”, as the impacts to society are long term and severe.
Look at the cultures that have tried the libertarian approach.
Sweden, Norway, The Netherlands.....
Contempt for ______________ blinds public to alternatives.
murder, rape, child molestation....
“Contempt for illegal drug use blinds American public to alternatives”.
Why not make the headline, “Contempt for law blinds drug users to alternatives”?
Really? I have known the entire spectrum of addicts. The only ones I have compassion for are those who have faced up to their demons and are trying to stay clean and sober.
I am fairly sure I am not the only one who looks at it this way.
When you start your rant with either dishonesty or stupidity it leads me to believe you don't know what you are talking about.
I am for legalizing all such drugs, under the following conditions:
- Any crime committed under the influence is punished with a torture penalty equal to three-fold the damage back to the perp (it’s biblical)—no “temporary insanity” defense allowed;
- The person, family, or friends of persons hurt can volunteer to provide the punishment;
- No governmental welfare, including medical help, can be provided to help or cure the person.
I think this would go a long way toward responsible drug use.
The law underlying the law is called the “social sanction”. These are the consensus agreements with most of the public, and they do differ based on where you live.
The closest the SCOTUS has ever come to recognizing the social sanction is when it threw up its hands when trying to create rules about pornography. It concluded that there couldn’t be a universally applied law in the US, that “local standards” would determine whether a given things was legal or illegal.
I mention this with respect to “unauthorized drugs”, because while *now* they are illegal, if they become legal, the social sanction will have to write the rules about their use.
For example, forbidden using drugs while driving, operating machinery, working with small children, carrying guns, or engaged with other things that need a clear head for safety reasons.
Importantly, social sanction rules cannot be easily ignored like the written law, because once a public agreement has been reached, just about everyone tries to enforce the sanction.
A clear example of this, again for example, is if someone donned a t-shirt that said “I like to molest children!”, before walking down a busy sidewalk. Even though what he was doing is legal, the social sanction would demand that people confront him about it. Even violently.
So the proper use of unauthorized drugs could only be done in the framework of what the public imagines.
I would have no problem with this IF I weren’t paying for it. If somebody wants to do drugs and die in a gutter that’s fine. However, as things go right now I have to pay for their treatment. I also pay for the food stamps that are sold for cash with which to buy the drugs. Eliminate all welfare- including Medicare, Medicaid, obamacare, Social Security, SNAP, WIC, etc.- and we’ll talk legalization of drugs. And I don’t care if you did pay into it, Medicare and SS are back door welfare programs.
I’d go along with free crack, meth, heroin, etc. for addicts if we could also send them to the vacated Gulags in Siberia. They could have all the drugs they want once there, but for anything else they might need to survive, will that would be up to them to scrape together.
The only legalization argument I that ever sways me a bit is just the potential of having one of the states (a worthless, Obama-voting blue state, of course) going for full legalization, and thus serve as a magnet for all the hippie dopehead filth to migrate to, leaving the rest of the country cleansed of them.
The argument against EVER legalizing it in my state is more practical. Because if I happen to walk to my local park, and see a group of zonked-out druggie scum, I’m very libel to start taking a baseball bat to their skulls. Which, could very conceivably lead to a few legal troubles for me. Hence, the practicality of keeping dope both illegal and meriting stiff sentences.
This article is ridiculous. Americans have “contempt for hard drug use”...
NO THEY DON’T. Look at this pathetic waste of space Glee star who killed himself with drugs, he’s venerated, adored.
I came to a compromising stand a year ago. I think drugs that are physically addictive (i.e heroin and coke) should be regulated by the feds, and other drugs like pot, LSD, ecstasy, should be left up to the states to decide what they want to do. If Colorado thinks their state is better now, then so be it. If Louisiana thinks their state is better off without stoners being vindicated by state law, then so be it. That should be up to the STATES.
As side notes.
The comparison to alcohol and tobacco I find to be fallacious. Tobacco does not intoxicate you or hinder your inhibitions in any way. It does not stop you from driving or performing any other task as you go about your daily functions, although it is incredibly unhealthy and I wouldn’t recommend it. Alcohol on the other hand, while potentially destructive, is not used typically to get wasted, but rather as a drink like any other that we might enjoy at Applebees or at a baseball game. People who do use alcohol to intoxicate themselves, beat their wives and such are recognized as societal nuisances. I’ve never seen anyone smoke a joint or do a line of coke without the intention of getting high.
I am also sick of this ‘medicinal’ crap. People who go to these medicinal marijuana clinics should cut the BS, and just admit they want to get high. Even Greg Gutfeld has called out this farce and he’s very pro-legalization.
All that being said, the drug war has cost a countless sum of money, and has drawn attention away from more serious crime.
I also find we’re hypocritical if we have kids being told homosexual sex is A-OK, but pot is bad, when clearly the former is by far more destructive to you.
I don’t make the “gateway” argument. Once you start smoking pot, you’re already way past the gate. Pot is in and of itself totally destructive.
Unlike someone who has a martini on the weekend, pot users are demonstrably impaired the rest of the week. Ever work with a pot smoker? Whatever their job, they suck at it. They’re slow of speech because they’re slow of thought. They literally stink, even if they bathe.
Reputable doctors recognize the “medical pot” argument is completely bogus. Pot for cancer is like giving a shot of whiskey to a gunshot victim — sure, if that’s all you got. But modern painkillers are 10,000 times more effective than pot.
Schizophrenia and pot are linked. That’s reason enough to ban it.
Pot is evil, evil, evil, and no decent society should permit it — just like no decent society permits suicide.