Posted on 07/09/2007 7:21:35 PM PDT by Eric Blair 2084
WASHINGTON -- News that Al Gore's 24-year-old son, Al Gore III, was busted for pot and assorted prescription pills has unleashed a torrent of mirth in certain quarters.
Gore-phobes on the Internet apparently view the son's arrest and incarceration as comeuppance for the father's shortcomings. Especially rich was the fact that young Al was driving a Toyota Prius when he was pulled over for going 100 mph -- just as Papa Gore was set to preside over concerts during a 24-hour, seven-continent Live Earth celebration to raise awareness about global warming.
Whatever one may feel about the former vice president's environmental obsessions, his son's problems are no one's cause for celebration. The younger Gore's high-profile arrest does, however, offer Americans an opportunity to get real about drug prohibition, and especially about marijuana laws.
For the record, I have no interest in marijuana except as a public policy matter. My personal drug of choice is a heavenly elixir made from crushed grapes. But it is, alas, a drug.
Tasty, attractive and highly ritualized in our culture, wine and other alcoholic beverages are approved for responsible use despite the fact that alcoholism and attendant problems are a plague, while responsible use of a weed that, at worst, makes people boring and hungry, is criminal.
Pot smokers might revolt if they weren't so mellow.
Efforts over the past few decades to relax marijuana laws have been moderately successful. Twelve states have decriminalized marijuana, which usually means no prison or criminal record for first-time possession of small amounts for personal consumption. (Those states are: Alabama, California, Colorado, Maine, Minnesota, Mississippi, Nebraska, Nevada, New York, North Carolina, Ohio and Oregon.)
(Excerpt) Read more at realclearpolitics.com ...
The Madison Avenue ad agencies want to make you believe it can. If you say it often enough it's got to be true, right?
Alcohol is too strong. It’s hard on the body, the mind and it has lethal potential in the short and the long term. It makes my joints ache, my head hurt and impairs my motor skills.
Pot’s not dangerous.
Depends on what alcohol you are talking about. There have been places where the culture has had small amounts of wine with dinner and it was shown to be a benefit to health.
Biblically it is a well known purifier of food in the tummy.
It just takes common sense, eat with it, don’t drink a lot and use the alcohol modestly.
Recreational drugs on the other hand should just never get started.
Big Bamboo man.
You go to prisons and most all of the inmates smoke it, so if that is the kind of endorsement that you want, so be it.
Much of the violent crimes that have people in prison were done with pot mixed with alcohol or perhaps other recreational drugs.
“pot mixed with alcohol ‘
Actually, when you smoke pot, except for maybe a fine wine, you don’t want or need any alcohol at all. And since there is no hangover from pot, eventually users prefer it over alcohol.
In any case, no one ever died for an overdose of pot, while binge drinking kills people every day.
And now he is a paranoid psychopath with man boobs and a lisp. Coincidence? I think not.
I have always considered alcohol the king of drugs; it is highly addictive but not to all people. There is no way to know who will become an addict and who will not. (very sneaky) An overdose can kill you on the spot. Long term use can kill you. It deranges the mind in strong doses and causes people to do things they would never do otherwise. There are a number of other nasty dangerous drugs but nothing with a profile that sinister.
People may not have died from an overdose of pot, but a whole bunch have died from criminals that used pot mixed with other stuff before they committed the crime.
Pot is a mixing drug where lots of other stuff gets used by the idiots who often get into using it.
Probably why it had the gateway drug connection IMO.
Pretty much all of the violent criminals are great big pot users. They were mixers of it when they either killed or harmed others.
Bottom line is to never start to take the crap and avoid all the drama and destruction surrounding recreational drugs.
It’s a waste of good lives.
It’s not a way to go, is most certainly not the goal of conservative folks, but you can sure read some druggies at DU pushing the pot and other stuff if you wish.
Auntie Pinko over there loves the pot it seems along with all the other maggot infested hippies over there.
This is what I love about Free Republic. The comments are almost always better than the article posted. Fascinating thread. The Milton Friedman quotes are so dead on. Thanks for posting.
Because it's illegal and the same people who sell pot often sell other drugs. If you're already breaking the law it's easy to go the next step especially if you're young and dumb. Also, when you find out how benign pot is you begin to doubt the stated dangers of other drugs.
“People may not have died from an overdose of pot, but a whole bunch have died from criminals that used pot mixed with other stuff before they committed the crime.”
You make a good case for legalization and standardization. Thanks.
I have 20 studies to contradict your study from Ontario. You have 45 studies to contradict my 20. I’ll come up with 110 studies from grant junkies to contradict yours. We can keep going until either we run out of bandwith, everyone goes to sleep out of boredom, or 3 am whichever comes first.
This is nonsense coming from someone with no experience or knowledge of the subject. Misinformation is dangerous too.
It’s not a way to go, is most certainly not the goal of conservative folks, but you can sure read some druggies at DU pushing the pot and other stuff if you wish.
I don't and have not recommended taking any drugs but you just suggested that people use alcohol, recreationally, on this thread. The fact that you are familiar with posters on DU isn't surprising. I've never read more than two lines of that crap.
The failed war on some drugs should be defunded. There’s a liquor store on every corner.
my grandmother used to use it before it was made illegal for her migraine headaches. She was an RN, and it helped her continue her life without pain. When it was made illegal, she had to lie in bed for days to get over the horrendous migraine headaches she got pretty regularly.
Pot has been involved in lots of violent crime, so I don’t get your game.
I am simply trying to point out that pot (the gateway drug) is used now by most inmates and that many of the violent crimes were indeed done with pot involved in the mix of intoxication.
I would think as a conservative, you would not support foolish behavior like recreational drug use.
The only ones I know that seem to go for the drugs are some Democrats and of course some libertarians who are equally liberal.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.