Posted on 11/05/2014 9:11:15 AM PST by right-wing agnostic
The 2014 election was a successful one for marijuana legalization. Referendum initiatives legalizing recreational marijuana passed in Alaska, Oregon, and the District of Columbia. Florida’s legalization amendment (which was limited to medical marijuana) failed, but only because victory required a 60% supermajority (it got just over 57% percent). A medical marijuana initiative did pass in the Pacific island territory of Guam.
Coming on the heels of the legalization of marijuana in Colorado and Washington in 2012, this is a further sign of pro-legalization momentum, and perhaps of dissatisfaction with the War on Drugs more generally – even among some conservatives.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
I don't think "poison" is the mot juste there ... but, yes, pot edibles caused those deaths - with a helping hand from the users being too foolish to find out a safe dosage - indicating that pot edibles need better regulation. Preventing these several deaths was certainly not worth the costs, monetary and other, of marijuana criminalization.
Psychotic murderers sure do love themselves some weed. Who knows if they were already sick, or if the pot made them that way?
Since very few pot users become psychotic murderers, it seems unlikely at best that "the pot made them that way."
I guess once marijuana is legal and not smuggled, its use will no longer be intemperate - sounds like an argument for legalization to me.
So there is such a thing as non-excessive indulgence, which is not intemperate. Thanks for clearing that up.
But it isn't ZERO, so it must therefore be a complete failure! Also you don't see any correlation between locking up people on "drug" charges and the reduction in violent crime, the decrease of which you have seemingly noticed?
Pray tell, where exactly did you get your 2% figure?
From a Libertarian nut i've been arguing with for six years. He claims it came from DrugLibrary.org (a pro-drug website) and he often cites it as proof that the drug interdiction effort is a failure. If you want a more recent source, look at the nut job "ConservingFreedom"'s comments up above. I think he mentioned another source for it.
I don't think the number is hiding from you. Google is your friend.
Drugs just as cheap & plentiful as they have been since the WOD was declared is not in any way, shape or form a "success".
I don't know how intelligent you are, or what is your education, but among people who understand complex issue, we realize that any dynamic system can achieve a balance that will not be true if you change one of the dynamics.
Crack rocks are $20.00. They cost that much because most of the crack addicts can't afford to pay more. Stealing and whoring will only get you so much money, and the dealers have to price the market at a point where they can sell their product.
The Supply Demand equation is balanced at the current level. It is *NOT* balanced if you try to increase usage. Your statement that drugs are freely available and cheap is a complete lack of understanding that this instantaneous value for both cannot be sustained if one or more of the components change.
Now suppose you try to increase usage? (let's say you are a dealer trying to increase profit.) How do you do it?
You hustle. You push. You try to hook people who have never tried it before. I don't know who you know, but I have known a lot of drug dealers, pimps and hookers in my life, and I assure you this is how this stuff works.
So what stops you from increasing your market? It's the F***ing cops, that's what.
What I am getting at is that you are offering a simplistic, low knowledge, low understanding of the overall issue that I would expect from an ignorant crack addict, but not from an actually intelligent and knowledgeable individual.
Your level of argument is little better than that of people who think the government can't run out of money because they own a printing press.
If my arguments aren't even within your range of comprehension, I am wasting my time making them.
After the Volstead Act was repealed, a number of states, especially in the South, maintained statewide alcohol prohibition. But in that period, bootlegging across state lines was common practice. Bill Clinton's father supposedly died while transporting liquor from Missouri, where it was legal, to Arkansas, where it was not. We see something similar today in places like New York, where cigarette smuggling to evade tax laws is prevalent. By mid-century, if not sooner, marijuana will likely be legal in all 50 states.
Wasn't referring to killing individual people, was referring to killing the society which is made up of such people. If you want to see what societal collapse looks like, just look at China around 1900.
“If you want to see what societal collapse looks like, just look at China around 1900.”
I see you keep talking about China, while claiming that any society which legalizes any drug (that is currently illegal) will be destroyed. Surely, if that claim is true, you must have countless other examples to offer. Why only cite China?
“It is intemperate to insist on using a product which must be snuck over the borders in defiance of a long standing law. Especially a product that you don’t need.”
Well, according to you, but that is not actually the standard definition of the word.
Post #55 -- It's the difference between strychnine and arsenic. One just kills you more slowly is all.
Strychnine and arsenic are to an individual as "drugs" are to a society. This is referred to as a "Metaphor." The term "You" is linked to the Strychnine and Arsenic.
You see, societies live a lot longer than individuals, and the effects of "poison" (another metaphor) will take longer than will an individual's life, so in an effort to get you to grasp the concept, I had to use an example that would work on an individual in the manner that "drugs" would work on a much longer time scale society.
Again, trying to help you follow along, "Strychnine" is a metaphor for "Opium" (or other hard drugs) and "Arsenic" is a metaphor for marijuana. (because arsenic takes longer to kill an individual, in the manner that slower drugs such as marijuana will take longer to kill a society.)
I do hope this effort has made it easier to grasp this complex concept known as a "metaphor." I also hope you understand that you can't mix the terms in one with the terms in the other, because that simply destroys the meaning of it.
If you're one of those people that understands those complex issues, that means you know exactly what you're doing when you try to use creative semantics to subvert the original intent of the Constitution.
“Do you know any people on drugs? Do you know people who have died from drugs? Do you know people who have gone to prison over drugs?”
Yes, yes, and yes.
“I have. Interfering with this industry is in fact the best effort to minimize the damage rather than exacerbate it.”
I don’t agree, since that “interference” doesn’t seem to accomplish anything to lessen the damage. You’ve simply driven the industry underground, put criminals in charge of it, and placed it outside the bounds of any type of regulation, oversight, or liability. You haven’t actually stopped people from using the drugs, or killing themselves, though you may stop them temporarily while you warehouse them in prison, I suppose.
You constantly assert lies and nonsense, and I will not indulge you in it. With Cocaine Cola gaining in popularity, you have to be some sort of special class idiot to believe that drug usage was declining.
I think i've just about had enough dealing with your silly crap. I'm going to go find something better to do for awhile. Maybe tomorrow i'll feel like wading into this stagnant pool of stupidity again.
2) Pot is especially bad for adolescents.
3) Pot can be consumed with alcohol—consider singer Justin Bieber arrested after racing his Ferrari down residential Miami Beach streets under the influence of both pot and beer.
4) There is NO smoke that is healthy for you. Read the FR report from yesterday that had the VA withhold surgery from a smoker! This is all panning-out like the post-war days when "Use of tobacco is soothing to the soul".
:-(
Yes...that is and will forever be my stated belief I have never come into contact with a reliable stoner, period, full stop!
Not an underground bunker genius, but a world where everyone that is employed there is drug tested as an agreed upon condition of employment, because IT SAVES LIVES!!! And 100% of my neighbors work in similar professions — We live in extremely safe and reliable neighborhood.
Go to the pot shops...no thanks, I’d rather get a root canal.
Will you also now apply that same principle to the figures showing declining opiate use in late-19th-century America?
With Cocaine Cola
Cocaine is not an opiate.
gaining in popularity, you have to be some sort of special class idiot to believe that drug usage was declining.
It was addiction that was declining - my bad; as I've previously posted to you: 'The DEA says, "In 1880 [...] there were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S. [...] By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict." (http://web.archive.org/web/20110529221013/http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm) 400,000 in a population of 50M is one in 125 - ergo, between 1880 and 1900 addiction declined.' - http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/3175168/posts?page=210#210
Till someone presents an argument that there are better figures, I guess you will by your own words above have no choice but to use what is available.
Not all employers test, and not all jobs involve the possibility of causing death.
Yes...in my world it in fact does!!!
Dismissed!
What's your point - should we ban everything that can be consumed with alcohol?
Yes...in my world it in fact does!!!
Maybe some day you'll pay a visit to the world the rest of us live in.
Just curious - what color is the sky in your world? (It's blue where the rest of us live.)
From a Libertarian nut i've been arguing with for six years. He claims it came from DrugLibrary.org (a pro-drug website) and he often cites it as proof that the drug interdiction effort is a failure. If you want a more recent source, look at the nut job "ConservingFreedom"'s comments up above. I think he mentioned another source for it.
I don't think the number is hiding from you. Google is your friend.
Wonderful debate skills! You repeatedly cite a statistic. Then when asked where it comes from, you hem & haw & say it comes from some dude you argue with.
Guess what? When you cite a stat, the burden is on you to back it up. But, I expect no less from a nanny-stater with horrible logic.
And, by the way, Google quickly & easily reveals your made-up statistic is, once again, hogwash.
>>>>Drugs just as cheap & plentiful as they have been since the WOD was declared is not in any way, shape or form a "success".
I don't know how intelligent you are blah, blah, blah
If my arguments aren't even within your range of comprehension, I am wasting my time making them.
Oh, I comprehend them fine. It's not my fault if you present terrible analogies (opium & marijuana will both kill you), cite made-up stats (2%), have no idea the USA PATRIOT Act applies to criminal actions as well as ant-terrorism, and actively root for Big Government to shred the 4th Amendment to solve a problem it has, for four decades, achieved zero success regarding.
But you go right ahead and keep flailing away.
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