Posted on 11/25/2019 5:13:25 AM PST by urtax$@work
This is an excerpt for discussion purposes, see article for full story.
More and more Americans are reporting near-constant cannabis use, as legalization forges ahead.
The proliferation of retail boutiques in California did not really bother him, Evan told me, but the billboards did. Advertisements for delivery, advertisements promoting the substance for relaxation, for fun, for health. “Shop. It’s legal.” “Hello marijuana, goodbye hangover.” “It’s not a trigger,” he told me. “But it is in your face.”
When we spoke, he had been sober for a hard-fought seven weeks: seven weeks of sleepless nights, intermittent nausea, irritability, trouble focusing, and psychological turmoil.......
Public-health experts worry about the increasingly potent options available, and the striking number of constant users. “Cannabis is potentially a real public-health problem,” said Mark A. R. Kleiman, a professor of public policy at New York University. ......
For Keith Humphreys, a professor of psychiatry and behavioral sciences at Stanford University, the most compelling evidence of the deleterious effects comes from users themselves. “In large national surveys, about one in 10 people who smoke it say they have a lot of problems. They say things like, ‘I have trouble quitting. I think a lot about quitting and I can’t do it. I smoked more than I intended to. I neglect responsibilities.’ There are plenty of people who have problems with it, in terms of things like concentration, short-term memory, and motivation,” he said. “People will say, ‘Oh, that’s just you fuddy-duddy doctors.’ Actually, no. It’s millions of people who use the drug who say that it causes problems.”
Users or former users I spoke with described lost jobs, lost marriages, lost houses, lost money, lost time. Foreclosures and divorces. .....
(Excerpt) Read more at getpocket.com ...
And since alcohol dependency is several times more prevalent than marijuana dependency, if legality means no end to welfare then that goal is dead already.
I figured out the Libertarians a long time ago. You have no interest in ending the Welfare State. You all just want to party.
Your lack of substantive response to my points is duly noted.
A free society only works (or last) with a responsible citizenry.
Certainly - but there's no evidence for nor reason to believe that laws against irresponsible acts can make or keep a citizenry responsible.
I've always wondered if pot could have some such effect. My best friend's brother was a Vietnam vet, smoked lots of pot over there as well as after he got out of the service.
He went on to graduate from the University of Michigan. At about the age of 31 he began a downward slide into full blown schizophrenia, losing his wife, his home, his business, his friends.....living alone on a beach in northern Michigan, eventual hospitalization at the state mental hospital.........It was a horror story.
I remember during whichever legalization campaign locally they promised 1)No harmful effects and 2)They would fund addiction programs.
In hindsight I don't know if they were programs to treat addiction, or cause it.
I'm good with the so-called libertarian approach. You do what you want, you're on your own. Should you end up in a gutter, lay there until you get better, or die. Steal from me to support your habit, prepare to be 'resisted.'
I was 'blessed' to to grow up in a household with two addict parents. It's given me an unfailing BS meter, and I can tell you it's been pegged repeatedly on this thread.
Why would you F#$K with your body or mind like that? Life is an amazing event and ends too soon for most of us. Who has so much IQ they're willing to p!ss it away?
And I'm crazy for Jesus. I believe that encouraging others into loving and trusting Christ solves most of the problems we face and, staying on topic, discourages drug use when you like how you're brain is thinking and operating to fulfil your God given purpose.
I also believe that trying to stop others from doing what they want is often very ineffective (i.e. the war on drugs). So as much as I'd like to not have a society full of dope heads, I think the best way to solve it is to quit postponing the consequences of dumb choices. That's what welfare does -- masks the consequences of dumb choices my making others pay for them.
Excellent reply. Bumping that.
***
C.S. Lewis ...:
“Of all tyrannies, a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It would be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience.”
Wrong. They're directly tied. As a taxpayer and non-smoker, I recognize the destructive potential in weed. Privatizing the decision making and socializing the consequences is pure BS. Do what you want to do IF I'm not responsible for paying to have someone water and tend the vegetables.
Oh, hush! Nobody cares what a couple of degenerate stoners think.
I also believe that trying to stop others from doing what they want is often very ineffective (i.e. the war on drugs).
Amen to all that!
Wrong. They're directly tied.
From the fact that they're tied it does not follow that we ought to hold one liberty hostage to another.
You seem to care very much.
Chill. I’m playing with you.
“It’s very bad for you. People should not smoke pot. It’s too strong and destroys mental health.”
It’s all in the dose and the schedule. High dose, frequently or constantly is terrible. Expect incredible tolerance, constantly rising dosage and irreversible neurological and personality changes.
Alternatively, small or micro-doses*, spread out so there’s far more clear time than not, is not deleterious to the body or mind in any measurable way and can be therapeutic for certain conditions.
Moderation. Not a unique drug that way.
* I define micro-dose as less than half of the standard 10mg starting dose.
bttt
Apparently more people care about what we have to say than about what you have to say.
So go pee up a rope, Liberal.
L
Objection - assumes facts not in evidence: namely, that Lou has anything to say.
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