The ‘war on drugs’ has cost more lives, cost more money, and destroyed more businesses than anything else. Prohibition does not work, never has, never will. Cigarette smuggling is now a major business in New York.
Decriminalize it, tax it, license it, use the proceeds for treatment. It will fund treatment, get the gangs out of the drug business.
The ‘war on drugs’ has cost more lives, cost more money, and destroyed more businesses than anything else. Prohibition does not work, never has, never will. Cigarette smuggling is now a major business in New York.
Decriminalize it, tax it, license it, use the proceeds for treatment. It will fund treatment, get the gangs out of the drug business.
The ‘war on drugs’ has cost more lives, cost more money, and destroyed more businesses than anything else. Prohibition does not work, never has, never will. Cigarette smuggling is now a major business in New York.
Decriminalize it, tax it, license it, use the proceeds for treatment. It will fund treatment, get the gangs out of the drug business.
They’re going to try again in 2017 to get weed legalized in Florida by a constitutional amendment.
I’ve said from the beginning that the constitutional amendment process is the wrong avenue for pot legalization, but these idiots keep trying because the legislature won’t hear it despite legalizing “Charlotte’s Web” and other non-hallucinogenic forms of cannabis.
If anyone tells you that they want it legalized for “medicinal purposes,” they’re liars.
We’re on a dark path that’ll eventually be overturned. It’ll take a bit, but it’ll happen. Sadly, society has to have the bad done before it can be stopped.
If you inhale it, you are damaging your lung tissue.
Just look at the black tar that accumulates on the inhaled end of a joint.
Pot smokers on track for lung/breathing pathologies.
The young ones will just get 3D printed new lungs and keep on toking.
Frankly, I don’t care if some idiot wants to ruin his or her life smoking pot.
I DO care that the ever-expanding police state continues to use marijuana as an excuse to destroy the Constitution.
Pretty weak sauce in that article, if you ask me.
For example, the first thing in the list - who thinks that today’s weed is weak? Everyone knows that it’s actually very strong now compared to the “ditch weed” often available in the 60s or 70s, although there was also some very good stuff around back then, I’ve read. Actually, it’s the drug warriors who always trot out how potent today’s weed is as an argument against it, while I’ve never heard anyone claim that today’s weed is weak. Rum is a lot stronger than beer, too, but I don’t necessarily get any drunker from rum than beer.
And on the alcohol-pot comparison, it’s true that while alcohol can be consumed without intoxication, even relatively small amounts (like one beer or glass of wine) do have an effect on the mind and body. Some people consume pot in very tiny quantities, too, for a mild calming effect. As to the health effects of chronic use (i.e. addiction/alcoholism), alcohol is far, far worse.
Myth #5’s answer sounds like the perfect argument by nanny-staters for government intervention into all aspects of our private lives. People do many, many things that might (might) cause some “private self-damage that always leaks out into the public sphere”.
And actually, the whole article has a puritanical feel about it - many, many people enjoy occasionally getting intoxicated on one substance or another, and yet still lead productive lives. It’s called having fun (in our opinions), not a sign of some deep emotional or psychological problem.
Big Government is the answer to everything for some people.
Just think of all the money the feds can make with federal forfeiture laws if they decided to raid every “legal” pot store in the states that have “legalized” it.
Ping for your intrest!
The article complains about “half-truths and outright lies against common sense”, by using half-truths and outright lies that go against common sense.
(Myth 1: Marijuana’s potency today is meek and mild)
This is the *first* time I have ever seen someone argue that marijuana today is weaker than it was. So put this down to a “straw man” argument. Illegal marijuana is sold based on its potency, so that would be like a car salesmen offering to sell you a car that “isn’t as good as cars they used to make.”
(Myth 2: Marijuana is harmless and even good for your otherwise healthy body)
Some 483 compounds are unique to Cannabis.
Marijuana is a very complex *combination* of chemicals. *Some* of them are known to be harmful. But *some* of them are known to counteract some of the harmful ones, *and* provide protection against them and related harmful chemicals. It gets even more complicated because many of them become different chemicals when combusted. So eating marijuana and smoking it are likely very different in their effects on the body.
Chemistry and Analysis of Phytocannabinoids and Other Cannabis Constituents
http://www.medicinalgenomics.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/12/Chemical-constituents-of-cannabis.pdf
It should be noted that opponents of marijuana have long anticipated an epidemic of lung cancer among marijuana users, but it has never happened.
(Myth 3: “Marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol”)
Not a myth at all. According to the CDC:
“Excessive alcohol use led to approximately 88,000 deaths... each year in the United States from 2006 – 2010, shortening the lives of those who died by an average of 30 years.”
No recorded cases of overdose deaths from cannabis have been found in the US. Three outside of the US, two of which had serious underlying cardiac conditions, and one of which was a frequent user of cocaine and amphetamines. And the reason *why* their deaths were attributed to marijuana was that it was the only drug in their systems at the time of their death.
(Myth 4: Smoking or eating marijuana is a safe “delivery system” for medical purposes)
See rebuttal for “Myth 2” above)
(Myth 5: It’s my body, so I can do what I want with it without bothering anyone else)
This one is half and half. One of the loudest voices against marijuana is from “the business community” (think Chamber of Commerce), who complain that it (might) “lower productivity” among workers. I doubt many of us here would support what *they* want over our individual rights, in that they are pro-socialist internationalists, who favor abortion, Obamacare, gun control, and several other objectionable and un-American things.
But the argument against autonomy does have a valid point, and is a reasonable argument against marijuana use. That is, that marijuana makes you slow, unambitious, and somewhat stupid. It is self-evident, and even marijuana users can verify it. And it gives them a good rationale to discontinue their marijuana use.
I’ve never understood why anyone would suck SMOKE into their lungs on purpose!
One word: TAXES
Pot will be legal and heavily taxed in all fifty states. Bet on it.
A referendum recently legalized pot in my state and the local politicians are fairly salivating already over the prospect of additional revenue. Some have proposed county owned and operated pot stores to maximize that revenue. Apparently not satisfied with the taxes they propose to collect from growers and consumers (25% per oz per transfer at the county level), they want the profits too.
'Myth 3: “Marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol”.' The article doesn't address the claim under any common meaning of "dangerous" (such as, say, the likelihood of poisoning you: the fatal dose to effective dose ratio for alcohol is 10, but for marijuana it's over 1000 - it's 100 times harder to kill yourself from the proximate cause of ingesting too much marijuana).
Instead, the article talks about "the monetary costs to society", implies that legal marijuana would be used as often as alcohol, and states that legalizing alcohol was a "mistake". It also says that unlike alcohol, the purpose of using pot is always to get high - but that was true of alcohol when that drug was illegal, and alcohol is often used for that purpose today. And it laughably claims that "wine does not get a person inebriated" - I myself have been drunk on wine and known many other people to be.
'Myth 5: It’s my body, so I can do what I want with it without bothering anyone else.' The article's startling rebuttal is, "private behavior always seeps out into public." Ergo, there is no right to privacy in ANY respect, whether pot use or (say) sexual practice - a textbook case of an argument that proves too much.
Anyone who doubts marijuana use is unhealthy is an idiot. That said, I don’t give a damn what unhealthy things a person wants to do to themselves.
The real problem as an earlier poster mentions is the expansion of the police state, surveillance, and the ruining of young lives for relatively minor offenses. This is not to mention the enormous resources we dedicate to this prohibition, and the ridiculous and senseless loss of life that happens due to criminal, cartel, and gang influence in this business.
Simply another sign of the collapse of a corrupt, decrepit country. With a population stoned on drugs, it will make it even easier for other nations to overtake, invade and destroy America.
It’s already happening.
Asian countries realize this. Those using marijuana or other drugs face long prison sentences. Drug dealers are put to death.