Posted on 09/05/2006 8:16:10 AM PDT by tang0r
It's worse than you think.
http://www.neo-neon.com/
So true. The only thing that can be done is to bust the traffickers, and make their wares as expensive as possible.
It at least gives kids a chance to get through school without smoking too much of it, as long as parents don't give them too much allowance.
Nothing says "living document" like "living document", and unlike the "I have a constitutional right to do drugs" red herring, there are people who actually do say that it's a living document, some honestly and outright and others try to sneak up on the idea but always to the same end.
Any other answer is fact. There is not ONE recorded death directly attributed to marijuana use. There are many recorded deaths due to alcohol poisoning. What will really fry your brain is that pharmacologically, LSD is safer than most legal drugs too.
As far as doing something stupid, that is possible with any drug. If you want to make the claim that marijuana causes more risky or stupid behavior than alcohol resulting in death, then please produce the stats. To be fair to alcohol, adjust for quantity consumed.
Could be once in the last year. What kind of police state would we have to have to catch one person smoking one joint once a year? Certainly you're not calling for that? Yet if we aren't arresting those 25 million Americans the law is BS?
Anyways, smoking pot is not illegal -- only possession, growing, and distribution. Since we're not breaking down doors doing random searches for marijuana, the 750,000 arrested each year are those who were dealing or carrying drugs in public.
We only arrest a very small fraction of people who break the speed limit, yet you wouldn't suggest that speed limits are BS. Or would you?
Your post #133 stated that it wasn't the government's business if people chose to get "all tore up at home". If people were only smoking pot at home, there wouldn't be 750,000 marijuana arrests each year. That was my point.
Then we have Dr. William Stewart Halsted, the father of American surgery, founding member of Johns Hopkins and talented multi-sport athelete. He was a cocaine addict, then a morphine addict throughout his brilliant career. He also smoked cigarettes.
Actually, my question would be "What in the Constitution gives the government the power to ban them?"
Marijuana, club drugs like Ecstasy, GHB, Rohypnol, and Ketamine, LSD, peyote, shrooms, nitrous and other inhalents, and amphetamines.
"What's the dividing line between "hard" drugs and "soft" drugs?"
Probably the degreee to which you can become addicted. But usually you have to ask, as you did, what people mean when they say "soft" drugs.
Quite frankly, I don't see how anyone can make a legalization case for marijuana and exclude the other drugs listed above. Marijuana, in my opinion, would be nothing more than a first step to the legalization of the others -- the same arguments could be (and probably would be) used.
Historically, mind altering drugs have been used in pagan religious ceremonies for eons. God, however, prohibited the use of such substances by those who want to worship him. For example:
Gal 5:19 Now the works of the flesh are manifest, which are these; adultery, fornication, uncleanness, lasciviousness,
Gal 5:20 Idolatry, witchcraft, hatred, variance, emulations, wrath, strife, seditions, heresies,
Gal 5:21 Envyings, murders, drunkenness, revellings, and such like: of the which I tell you before, as I have also told you in time past, that they which do such things shall not inherit the kingdom of God.
See the word in red? The word translated "witchcraft" is actually the greek word:
pharmakeia
Thayer Definition:
1) the use or the administering of drugs
2) poisoning
3) sorcery, magical arts, often found in connection with idolatry and fostered by it
4) metaphorically the deceptions and seductions of idolatry
This is of course where we derive our english word "pharmacy". Pagan practices have never had a place in God's kingdom.
Another way I know that this is true is that I used to smoke pot. At the time I smoked I didn't see anything wrong with it. In fact, for years after I stopped I longed to smoke it again. But of course that's the drug, and Satan, working. Once I became a Christian, it was very apparent exactly what marijuana is.
A counterfeit form of religious that doesn't require God. Ask yourself why most Godless liberals are all for legalizing and smoking dope and why all the legalization efforts are spearheaded by leftists.
I suspect you won't be satisfied with my answer. There is no definitive way to prove a spiritual matter other than the physical results it brings.
And I support an amendment, similar in wording to Section 2 of the 21st amendment, removing the power to regulate drugs from the federal government and turning that decision over to the states exclusively.
I wouldn't vote for it, of course*, but I would support that method of legalization. They did it for alcohol, they can do it for other drugs.
Keep in mind, Section 1 of the 21st amendment simply repealed the 18th. That brought everything back to where it was before Prohibition.
Section 2 was added to remove the power to regulate alcohol from the federal government, a power they always had, and turn it over to the states and the states alone.
*Alcohol, today, is legal in every state. What if alcohol was legal in only half the states? Is that what we want for drugs?
They're not the same at all. In the bible, alcohol use is encouraged. However, drunkeness is prohibited. There is no such encouragement of mind altering drugs such as marijuana...in fact, as my previous post shows there is a prohibition against drug use by God.
I don't know much about GHB. Isn't Rohypnol the "date rape" drug known as "roofies", etc? I'd have my doubts about legalizaing that one.
Don't know much about Ketamine, either. Isn't it used as a horse tranquilizer?
Heavy ecstasy use has been implicated in causing long-term brain chemistry changes. Probably OK, like many things, when used in moderation.
The psychedelics, well they're mostly physically harmless, but the intense experiences have been known to rarely push some people over the edge into full-blown schizoid behavour. Probably OK but I'd recommend against it for people with a family or personal history of mental illness.
Nitrous is relatively harmless. Is it even illegal? Most other inhalants are legal substances being misused, usually by only the poorest and most desperate people. Can't stop people from killing their brains with gasoline fumes if that's what they want to do.
Now, amphetamines, I'm surprised you'd put them in this category. I would certainly consider them hard drugs, due to their high potential for abuse and addictive properties (mostly a psychological dependence based on the desire to "feel that good" again) and the nasty long-term health effects they seem to have on people.
Well, it is a living document if you're talking about the ability to change it via the amendment process. So maybe you shouldn't be so quick to criticize.
Now, if you mean "living document" in some other sense, you'd better get a whole lot more specific as to what you mean and who said it. 'Cause I never did.
> turn it over to the states and the states alone.
I would seriously not mind if drugs were legalized the way Utah legalized hard likker. Aroudn here there are some *seriously* drab and bureaucratic looking squat buildings that serve as the Utah Liquor Stores, the only place where you can legally purchase whiskey and such. Do the same for dope.
>> "What's the dividing line between "hard" drugs and "soft" drugs?"
> Probably the degreee to which you can become addicted.
The tobacco companies/farmers/dealers will be in for a surprise.
We only arrest a very small fraction of people who break the speed limit, yet you wouldn't suggest that speed limits are BS.
I've explained this to you before: Speed limits, stop signs and the like are intended for orderly traffic flow. Operating a motor vehicle poses a degree of risk to other drivers. Violating traffic laws is a non-consensual crime. Violating traffic laws poses a threat to other drivers -- the threat of initiating force and willful negligence toward the safety of other drivers and pedestrians. Drug possession doesn't pose a threat to anyone nor does drug dealing or private drug use. They are consensual crimes -- no threat of force or willful negligence toward the safety of other persons.
The Commerce Clause gives Congress the power to ban the interstate commerce of drugs. Whether or not Congress should ban drugs is another matter. The fact is they have the constitutional power to do so, so say the courts.
I would hope that you agree with that basic fact.
As to activity within each state, Congress does have the power, through the Necessary and Proper Clause, to enact legislation that is both necessary and proper to carry out their other powers -- in this case, an interstate ban. Without this, Congress could pass regulations but could not enforce them.
Congress has determined that in-state growing, possession, and distribution of marijuana has a substantial effect on their interstate regulatory efforts. Seems obvious. So they passed laws against that activity. The courts agreed.
My analogy is this. Congress regulates interstate flights (through the FAA). Altitudes, flight patterns, takeoffs and landings, radio frequencies -- all to facilitate the interstate commerce of cargo and passengers.
What about purely in-state, non-commercial flights? Should that be off-limits to Congress? Should private pilots be allowed to fly whenever and wherever they wish, as long as they promise to stay within the state?
The Necessary and Proper Clause gives Congress (the FAA) the power to regulate those in-state flights ONLY WHEN those flights have a substantial effect on the interstate commerce that Congress is constitutionally regulating. Makes sense, doesn't it?
Now, could air traffic be handled differently? Of course. Should air traffic be handled differently? Why? Just because someone is uncomfortable that the federal government is involved in purely intrastate matters?
Still, we have quite a list of "soft" drugs. And I say that if people were honest, using the same arguments they're making for marijuana, they'd have to support the legalization of these other drugs.
What percentage of voters want that? Certainly not many and less than those who just want marijuana legal.
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