Posted on 11/28/2012 12:57:41 PM PST by Renfield
SEATTLE – In two weeks, adults in this state will no longer be arrested or incarcerated for something that nearly 30 million Americans did last year. For the first time since prohibition began 75 years ago, recreational marijuana use will be legal; the misery-inducing crusade to lock up thousands of ordinary people has at last been seen, by a majority of voters in this state and in Colorado, for what it is: a monumental failure.
That is, unless the Obama administration steps in with an injunction, as it has threatened to in the past, against common sense. For what stands between ending this absurd front in the dead-ender war on drugs and the status quo is the federal government. It could intervene, citing the supremacy of federal law that still classifies marijuana as a dangerous drug....
(Excerpt) Read more at opinionator.blogs.nytimes.com ...
Pot is a unique animal in regard to its effect on the population. The incentive to inhibit/prohibit its use resides in the generally negative effect it has on productivity and responsibility. Messy as it is, we've decided to treat some substances as more detrimental than others. It certainly stands as fact that of all the substances we imbibe, each has varying effects not only by nature of the substance, but also by nature of the individual who partakes.
I've partaken of this herb numerous times past, but always with the understanding I am violating the law, subjecting myself to conditions that may effect others negatively, and contributing to the manufacture/consumption of Twinkies.
Whatever we do in regard to this substance, there ought be curbs in place. We've probably done more harm than good in keeping it criminalized, but we could also do more harm than good if we drop any/all regulations. I appreciate the stand and remarks offered by those who in every other respect are conservative, yet cannot find it in their hearts to yield in the least when it comes to current federal policies and pot. If they could lighten up, however, they might find a healthy political coalescence that would serve as a stop-guard against communism, socialism, and the like.
If recreational pot use is legalized, parents can certainly still teach—and probably should teach—their children it is wrong to smoke pot.
The fact that there are regularly anti-pot prohibition threads at FR that don’t get pulled suggests to me that Jim Robinson is not quite as reactionary on the subject as you are.
Did you see this article? My solution to the problem down towards the end of the thread...
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2962365/posts
Marijuana Use Causes Brain Damage Confirmed
Medical Daily ^ | August 9, 2012 | Christine Hsu
Posted on Friday, November 23, 2012 7:07:00 AM by lbryce
Scientists have confirmed the long-held suspicion that frequent heavy marijuana use damages the brain’s memory and learning capacity.
“Our results suggest that long-term cannabis use is hazardous to white matter in the developing brain. This was especially true for those who had started in adolescence, as we know the brain is still developing during this time,” Lead researcher Dr. Marc Seal, from Melbourne’s Murdoch Children’s Research Institute said in a university release.
Scientists from MCRI, Melbourne University and Wollongong University compared MRI scans of the brain for 59 people who had been using marijuana for an average of 15 years to 33 healthy people who had never used the drug.
After measuring changes to the volume, strength and integrity of white matter in the brains of all participants, researchers found that long-term heavy cannabis users had disruptions in their white matter fibers.
The brain’s white matter is responsible for information passed between different areas of grey matter within the nervous system, and unlike grey matter, which are the brain’s thinking areas that peaks at age eight, white matter continues to develop as people age.
Seal and his team found that there was more than 80 percent reduction of white matter in the brains of users.
Additionally, researchers found that the average age of participants in the study started using cannabis when they were 16 years old, participants who started using the drug at a younger age like 10 or 11 had even more severe brain damage.
“This is the first study to demonstrate the age at which regular cannabis use begins is a key factor in determining the severity of the brain damage,” Seal said, according to AAP.
He explained that marijuana interferes with naturally occurring cannabinoid receptors in the brain and by introducing external cannabinoids into a person’s system it stops their white matter from maturing.
Researchers linked the significant changes in the white matter in the brain’s hippocampus and commissural fibers, suggesting that long-term marijuana use may lead to memory impairment and deficits in learning and concentration ability.
“These people can have trouble learning new things and they are going to have trouble remembering things,” Seal said.
“We don’t know if the changes are irreversible but we do know that these changes are quite significant,” he added.
Researchers said that the findings could not be explained by recreational drug and alcohol use. Researchers will monitor participants for the next two years to detect any further changes.
The latest findings add to results from previous smaller studies that showed that the brain’s memory center, the hippocampus, shrunk in heavy marijuana users.
Do you believe it is possible to be against the prohibition of pot because of loss of God given rights? That is the position of many on this thread. Abusing substances is a morality problem, not a law enforcement problem. Personal responsibility, as it were.....
All laws involve morality. It is immoral to murder, steal, assault, rape, slander, extort, etc etc.
Pretending that laws have nothing to do with morality is specious and irrational.
As a teenager and young man, I smoked, grew and sold copious amounts of marijuana. I first smoked weed at age 12 on a public school bus in 1972. I had no idea that first time I got high that I was preparing to go down a long road of chronic use, numerous LSD, mushroom, and mescaline trips, shooting crank and heroin, and serious alcohol abuse, culminating in me facing prison at age 27. I cried out to God in a jail cell, put my trust in Him, and have a life today I never dreamed of, clean since October 20, 1986. That being said, marijuana is a gateway drug. My conservative logic tells me that it should be legislated on a state by state basis, but my heart tells me it’s a slippery slope. My concern is will it end with marijuana, or is cocaine or heroin next?
Is, perhaps not, but as conservatives we value the wisdom of the dead: William F. Buckley, Jr.
Sorry, but the arguable father of the modern American conservative movement objected to the prohibition on marijuana, wrote an article against the prohibition in National Review in 2004, and is known to have at least sampled the stuff on his yacht while outside U.S. territorial waters.
BZZZZZZ! Sorry. Wrong Answer.
Buckley was no conservative. A true conservative is a SoCon.
That leaves Bill Buckley out.
Crimes we need law enforcement to punish are those like you listed, all covered in God's Law known as the Ten Commandments. We are discussing a law concerning consenting adults buying, selling and using a product. A product soon to be legal here in Colorado.
Crimes requiring law enforcment also require a victim. For example, if a person driving under the influence harms another person or property, punishment is required. Some innocent got victimized. Growing, preparing and smoking pot in one's home victimizes nobody.
People growing pot in closets, or Mexican drug cartels. Colorado decided which we prefer. Any who do not like it are free to ski and camp in other states. The grand experiment of these United States...
Tom Tancredo, who is a SoCon.
People that smoke pot everyday tell me that it is not addictive. They should know.
So your “challenge” is really a version of the no true Scotsman fallacy? The moment one names a conservative who supports legalization of marijuana, you declare “he’s no true conservative: true conservatives oppose marijuana legalization”.
The challenge was to name a conservative, not a conservative in Responsibility2nd’s crabbed, narrow redefinition of the movement, who supported marijuana legalization, and I and many other posters did so.
Tom Tancredo, who is a SoCon.
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
He also is a has-been. While I admired many of Tancredo’s past policies, he is done politically. I doubt he will ever hold a state or national office again. Especially as a Republican.
He may have been credible at one time. But no more.
I said “credible” conservative.
Buckley - being dead - might make for a credible democrat, but he is certainly not relevant to today. I’ll even go as far as to posit that if Buckley were alive today, he would have supported Obama.
See post 94. Jack Chance came up with a good posibility with Tom Tancredo. But we can all agree that he is ancient history.
But then again... What with the GOP history of nominating old has-beens like McCain and Romney for president - they just might resurrect Tancredo in ‘16.
Whaddya think? Either Tom or Jeb Bush.
(puke)
>>>Pretending that laws have nothing to do with morality is specious and irrational.<<<
Thanks for pointing that out.
That “you can’t legislate morality” is one of the silliest sophistries one can utter, and yet it is heard again and again.
Virtually every law of any consequence is intended to advance “morality,” or somebody’s idea of it anyway.
Enough with the Hamlet. Do you support the Tenth Amendment on this issue or not?
You’re welcomed to posit anything you want as the conclusion to a contra-factual premise. But I find the notion that credibility, or for that matter relevancy, is dependent on whether the person is alive or dead curious to say the least.
I regard Edmund Burke, Lord Acton, Russell Kirk and WFB, Jr. to be credible conservatives as the forebearers of our movement, their having shuffled off this mortal coil notwithstanding. And it is an odd position for an American conservative to take that being dead makes one irrelevant: that sounds very much like the argument the Obamaites give for dismissing the Founding Fathers and ignoring the Constitution.
What they really mean is “don’t take away my porn/dope/prostitutes”. Or maybe they just parrot the LP talking points without considering what they mean. Which of course points to the “don’t take away my dope”.....
You didn’t read my link to my solution. Tsk tsk. You should.
Here’s the link:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/2962365/posts
And there’s more to morality and laws than in the 10 Commandments. Just because a specific is not mentioned in the 10 Commandments doesn’t mean “free rein”. Necrophilia, bestiality, incest, pedophilia, assault, bribery, blackmail, mail fraud - just to name a few - are not mentioned therein. Are they all a-okay?
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