Funny how it led right back to that, isn't it?
Or if you prefer Greek philosophers over Scottish philosophers.
Posted on 11/27/2017 12:47:57 PM PST by fwdude
This week marks the fifth anniversary of Colorado's legalization of the commercial marijuana trade, and the reviews aren't good.
An editorial in the Colorado Springs Gazette reports, "Five years of retail pot coincide with five years of a homelessness growth rate that ranks among the highest rates in the country. Directors of homeless shelters, and people who live on the streets, tell us homeless substance abusers migrate here for easy access to pot."
The paper says, "Five years of Big Marijuana ushered in a doubling in the number of drivers involved in fatal crashes who tested positive for marijuana, based on research by the pro-legalization Denver Post. Five years of commercial pot have been five years of more marijuana in schools than teachers and administrators ever feared."
(Excerpt) Read more at 1.cbn.com ...
I don’t think you can compare cellphones to pot, for example. Pot is a drug. And though soda has caffeine, a drug, in it, it’s generally not known to cause erratic driving, resulting in car accidents, or work accidents, decreased productivity, or any of the other side effects of pot.
And China now has an authoritarian society which also bans drugs.
There can never be any justification for criminalizing someone for merely possessing the wrong plant, chemical, liquid spirits, or medicine—in violation of the edicts of the State.
Once such laws can exist, there is no practical limit to State power. If someone chooses to pursue happiness by growing and or smoking one of God's own plants—and they do it without infringing on anyone else's rights—then it's Tyrannical, plain and simple, for the State to declare that person a criminal. It's the epitome of Statist thinking, and bears absolutely no resemblance to living in a Free country.
Authoritarians can attempt to rationalize that glaring contradiction all they want, but it will always remain precisely that—a shameful rationalization. And,of course, it opens the door to an arbitrary amount of Tyranny, as every group with a pet cause seeks to impose their vision of "law and order". Once tolerated, there is no end to the Tyranny which can exist—as we can all see examples of everywhere we look.
Once again, I'll stick with actual Freedom—without any of the authoritarian shortcuts coveted by nanny-staters. Preemptive law is arbitrary law. Once you can create law against people who are just living their lives—not infringing on anyone's rights—you've opened the door to Tyranny. Whether the Tyranny conveys any societal "benefits" or not, it's still Tyranny, and therefore illegitimate.
By the way, before you engage in the typical smears which authoritarians invariably employ—I don't smoke pot at all.
Let's take that foolishness to the logical result. Meth for everyone.
Go to Colorado restaurant and the hostess seating you, the bartender mixing your drinks, the waitress serving you and the cook in the kitchen are all high.
Every blasted one of them. Usually slow and generally nice people that have not a clue to prefrom adequate functions to have a decent dining experirience. Really sad nowadays. I am trying to understandhow the voters believed leegalizing marijuana thought they where improving life.
I believe it's doing both.
Yea, and better highways with more “potholes” filled.
lol!
It’s been legal in CA for a year. The retail shops won’t be open until 2018 though. So far, it hasn’t caused the state to break off and fall into the ocean.
We've already seen Bloomberg try to regulate the size of soft drinks in New York City.
I think it's quite possible to argue for the legality of something based on the irrational reasons it is criminalized.
Well said.
Note how the goalposts tend to move. Instead of acknowledging the hypocrisy—and even the unconstitutionality—of contraband law, the debate inevitably shifts to DUI/workplace problems/health impacts/"what about the children", etc.—complaints which are already associated with legal drugs like alcohol.
Alcohol is the worst drug on the face of the earth—worse than all other drugs combined, whether illegal or not. The only consistent position for a Prohibitionist would be to support re-criminalizing alcohol as well—which, let's remember, required the Constitution to be amended. We all know the situation that created—and the same factors still apply today.
As soon as you start rationalizing arbitrary law—which seeks to preemptively control behavior by criminalizing it in the total absence of infringing on anyone's rights—you've opened the floodgates to Tyranny, and nanny-state authoritarians of all stripes will take advantage of that, just like we can see everywhere we look. You can't hold a position like that—declaring things to be a crime which don't infringe on anyone's rights—and claim to be a "minimal government" conservative. The concepts are mutually exclusive.
Rocky Mountain PBS reports that an investigation in 2016 showed that "drug violations reported by Colorado's K-12 schools have increased 45 percent in the past four years, even as the combined number of all other violations has fallen."
The investigation found that drug violations by high school aged students had increased by 71 percent since legalization.
Colorado ranks first in the country for marijuana use among teens, according to the National Survey on Drug Use and Health.
The WeedWankers promised us that teen usage would go down once wreckcreational pot was legalized/regulated like alcohol. Their point was that legalized/regulated alcohol makes it hard for the weak teens to obtain alcohol, and the same will happen if we only legalized wreckreational pot
Like everything else in the pothead's life, the excerpt above shows yet another major fail on Team Pothead's part.
Of course, the potheads were blowin smoke with their canard. They need successive new generations of potheads, and the best way to achive it is to get 'em young. As their fellow social liberal teammates in the Gay Old Pothead establishmemt (The Neo-GOPe) like to say, if not by eight, then it's too late.
Funny how it led right back to that, isn't it?
Or if you prefer Greek philosophers over Scottish philosophers.
That same process will bring a quicker end to the fledgling pot industry when we use the same techniques: slam second hand smoke and de-glamorize the potheads.
Another thing that will make Team Pothead follow tobacco's path to oblivion is their self destructiveness and violent devotion to the drug. They already promote the destruction of self control and this will bring about the same thing to their movement, both at the individual and the Team Pothead level. Their inherent violence for the drug (especially when the pot abuser is sober) will make them do stupid self destructive things that will add to the backlash that is starting to rise against them.
Well, when you consider both the WeedWeakling's violent devotion to the drug and its contempt for self control, it makes perfect sense for them to flip out when confronted with an opinion that craps on their smelly-assed god the pot leaf.
Yep - policy tends to draw a certain type...
“Where ever mj is legalized, other drug use goes up.”
Another declarative statement with zero evidence to back it up.
“It’s a lie that people switch from other drugs to mj if mj is legalized.”
Fake news. It’s been proven in various studies that opioid use in states with medical marijuana programs.
https://drugabuse.com/legalizing-marijuana-decreases-fatal-opiate-overdoses/
http://ajph.aphapublications.org/doi/abs/10.2105/AJPH.2016.303426
http://dailycaller.com/2017/03/28/opioid-abuse-is-plummeting-in-states-with-legal-marijuana/
Excerpt: “Research released in February from the University of British Columbia and University of Victoria suggests patients suffering from chronic pain and mental health conditions will choose marijuana over their addictive prescription drugs when doctors give them a choice.”
So you were saying, little prohibitionist Jeremiah???
“Why would you expect a conservative state to legalize pot?”
Because it’s the right thing to do.
Because it’s the state’s right to do so.
Because the citizens of the state want it legal.
Opium is not cannabis.
China is not the USA.
‘Nuff said.
Bummer. Doubt we’ll live that long.
It is a very reliable axiom that whatever the Marxist left is for, conservatives can be reliably against to be right.
So why are some professing conservatives for drug legalization?
“So why are some professing conservatives for drug legalization?”
This conservative only speaks for himself. That said, I support the legalization of cannabis because Fedzilla IMO unconstitutionally criminalized cannabis.
As a medical marijuana patient here in Florida I believe cannabis has medicinal value & should be legally available for citizens who wish to use it under the care of their doctor.
Since I began using cannabis in 2015 to treat chronic depression & anxiety my quality of life has greatly improved (as has my wife’s—she doesn’t use cannabis but depression is very hard on the other spouse, I assure you), I’m so much more physically active—weather permitting I walk 1-2 miles everyday, I’m active in my Church life like never before & the quality of my work has greatly improved as well.
That’s why I support the full legalization of cannabis.
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