Posted on 08/01/2007 6:18:22 AM PDT by PreciousLiberty
“Not everyone who smokes cigarettes gets lung cancer either.
If you could find enough people who smoked only pot like cigarettes for the number of years that people smoke cigarettes before they get lung cancer, then that might be a valid comparison.
Problem is, the results are likely to be skewed because of the number of people who smoke pot AND cigarettes; and finding ONLY pot smokers who smoke that heavily is probably going to be difficult.”
Not really...pot smoking among whites was extremely rare before what, about 1964. One could easily compare lung cancer statistics before and after. There would be other issues to consider, like pollution levels, but it’d be an interesting study to try.
Show me where I called anybody any names.
“Is this just something you think might happen, or is there some evidence of this?”
As I told another poster, I meant more would start eating it percentage wise compared with now, not that more would eat it than smoke it (sorry I wasn’t clear).
I think it would happen just because enough folks are health conscious and concerned about smoking anything these days that they’d eat it instead if they could afford it.
“Show me where I called anybody any names.”
I was pointing out that there are, in fact, real zealots in the world and plenty of them seem to be involved in the War on Some Drugs...as was mysterio, I presume.
Yes, quite so. I abhor the Nanny State mentality, regardless of its particular angle. Individual freedom comes with individual responsibility. People who have undeservedly fallen on hard times and need a bit of temporary assistance to get back on their feet have my sympathy and I'm willing to have some of my tax money go into such a fund to cover where private charity falls short. But I don't wish to support anyone's blatant stupidity, any more than I expect someone else to fund mine.
I'm responsible enough to avoid most excesses and stupid behavior, at least now that I'm older. Nobody picked up for me when I was younger and more foolish (other than my parents up to a point), and I wouldn't have wanted anyone else to do so.
Taking the long view, it does humankind no good, whether genetic or spiritual, to waste the energies and resources of the responsible people, to support the stupidity of those who should have to face the consequences of their own choices and actions.
I am a moderate drinker, preferring wine or beer. My doctor tells me a drink or two of red wine is good for my circulatory system and can actually reduce my cholesterol. Alcohol can be a disaster to some people, but to most it is not our dope. I think alcohol has a special place in most cultures (except Islam), and for that reason is hard to compare with MJ. I suppose medically, MJ and alcohol are closer than for example coke or smack, still, do not like being around MJ while smoked.
“I am a moderate drinker, preferring wine or beer. My doctor tells me a drink or two of red wine is good for my circulatory system and can actually reduce my cholesterol. Alcohol can be a disaster to some people, but to most it is not our dope. I think alcohol has a special place in most cultures (except Islam), and for that reason is hard to compare with MJ. I suppose medically, MJ and alcohol are closer than for example coke or smack, still, do not like being around MJ while smoked.”
Fair enough. For the record, I support your right to not inhale the smoke if you don’t want to. For instance, I wouldn’t support allowing it to be smoked at sporting events, except perhaps in the ‘sparking lots’. If single hits are held correctly, not much smoke escapes (or so I understand;).
“Cannabis interferes with testosterone and men develop breasts and their virility is decreased significantly. I just sit around and wait for their women to get frustrated.”
That effect varies widely with dosage and other factors, apparently. Alcohol consumption in large quantities is similar, and also causes loss of pubic hair.
No, a human being can never be property, since property can be bought and sold and humans cannot not be bought and sold.
The logical conclusion to viewing your body as your property is slavery. Let's not go backwards in history.
Body property rights is not the best way to argue for drug legalization.
No, a human being can never be property, since property can be bought and sold and humans cannot not be bought and sold.
The logical conclusion to viewing your body as your property is slavery. Let's not go backwards in history.
Body property rights is not the best way to argue for drug legalization.
All I know is, pot stinks.
A human being can never be the property of someone else (i.e., slavery), but likewise, doesn't that mean a human being retains sovereignty over himself, or herself? And as that means that one has full and unlimited control over herself or himself, does that not, in essence, make one's body one's property?
If your body is not your own property, whose property is it? Since we're talking about secular things, "God" does not count as an answer.
You posted: If your body is not your own property, whose property is it? Since we’re talking about secular things, “God” does not count as an answer.
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I am not sure a body is property at all (until it is dead). Does it have to be property? It is made up of substances, but the concept of property infers ownership, as well as the ability to transfer that ownership, if desired. In this country you can’t sell persons, including their bodies, not even your own.
What persons have are rights, or freedoms. There are much more articulate people than I on this site who can better explain what rights are, and what are not rights.
It’s nobody’s property, because a human being cannot be property. Property is something that can be bought and sold, title or ownership of property can change hands and be disputed in a court.
Defining humans as property, even self-owned propety harms the concept of property rights and opens a can of philosophical worms that redefines the natural rights debates.
This is why it’s a bad idea to argue for drug legalisation on the basis of property rights in one’s own body. Property can be bought, sold, confiscated, legislated, regulated, etc.
Do not confuse one’s right to life and liberty with property rights, they are distinct and seperate rights and should not be conflated. Sovereign rights over oneself are liberty rights, not property rights.
A property right is a lesser right than liberty. There is no such thing as a property right in a human being that does not logically extend to slavery, because if something can be owned as property, it can also be sold as property.
Liberty rights can not be bought or sold, so don’t sell yourself down the river and reinstitute slavery in an attempt to legalize drugs.
There are other and better ways to argue for it. The fastest method to drug legalization would be to institute the FAIR tax. Once congress is unable to enhance revenues through income tax tinkering, they will quickly turn to sin taxes on legalized drugs the same way they did to alcohol when the depression reduced income tax revenues so precipitously.
What, then, is the word to describe the right, or the ability, to express sovereignty? Is the individual sovereign over himself?
Is the individual sovereign over himself?
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That, I think, is the true question. At first blush I might say yes, an individual is sovereign over himself. But is that really true? What does it mean to be sovereign over oneself? I can’t simply decide, for example, to start walking everywhere on my hands. I can develop the skill, perhaps, but I can’t simply “decree” it to be so. There are many examples like this.
Modern society makes it difficult to be sovereign over oneself. Few of us raise our own food, build our own shelter, make our own clothes. We rely on others to do that. We learn other skills, and sell those skills to those whose skills or products we desire. Is that sovereignty? Maybe.
If I am sovereign over my body, can I not cause it to harm your body? Why not? If not, is that a restriction over my sovereignty? Who decides when I am overstepping my sovereignty? Where can I go? What can I do when I get there? Is persuasion, or fraud in convincing others to assert their sovereignty in a way I feel is best ok? Who decides if it is not? How can others decide this for anyone but themselves?
I think none, or very few, of us are sovereign anymore, in any true sense. We rely upon others for many things. Others rely upon us. Do we really even want to be sovereign in the truest sense? I suggest that we neither are, nor really desire to be, sovereign, unless we can also assert that sovereignty over others, or to protect property we now decide belongs to us, however acquired.
A liberty right is a right to do as one pleases precisely because one is not under an obligation, grounded in others’ rights, to refrain from so acting.
One does not have a liberty right to steal because it violates someone’s property rights.
The question to ask is what rights of others are being protected by prohibiting the smoking of dope and can those rights be protected by lesser prohibitions, i.e. driving under the influence laws?
If laws and justice are about balancing the rights and claims of individuals equally before the law, then drug prohibition is wrong on basic philosophical grounds that liberties should only be proscribed when they violate the rights of others.
Course, that’s not reality based thinking, since the drug war is about increasing the power of the collective at the expense of the individual, so there is a lot of misinformation and scaremongering going on to frighten the sheeple into acceptance.
If people were executed promptly for driving under the influence there would be very little of it and a great deal more commerce for cab companies.
The truth is most people are willing to trade the liberties of others for what they perceive as safety. Thus they have neither (I’m sure I’m paraphrasing some founding father there).
Nevertheless, I am unwilling to throw the baby out with the bathwater. Humans do not have a property right in themselves (this is the basic assumption of abortion advocates). Abortion is wrong because a woman’s liberty right to be sovereign over herself conflicts with the baby’s right to life. A right to life should trump a liberty right to act as one pleases, even if a fetus is an unwelcome tenant.
Arguing that drug taking is a property right to do as one pleases with ones body puts you in the same camp as slavers and abortionists. I don’t wish to be in the same philosophical swamp with them.
An interesting post. Thank you very much for your thoughts.
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