I’ve been arguing with potheads about these issues for years. It’s POINTLESS. They’re POTHEADS.
Rational thinking is out of the picture.
I don’t need a study.
I have many friends who ruined their lives with hard drugs.
There wasn’t one of them who didn’t start off as a pothead.
“I’ve been arguing with potheads about these issues for years. It’s POINTLESS. They’re POTHEADS.
Rational thinking is out of the picture.”
—
No kidding. I actually had one tell me he’d been smoking pot for 20 years and he hadn’t become addicted in all those years. True story.
Everything is a gateway drug. The problem is with the souls of men, with their hearts and their minds. They’ll sniff glue, lick frogs and eat tide because our society has forgotten righteousness.
Agreed. I know almost no one whose life was made better by using marijuana - a small number of people with glaucoma, going through chemotherapy, or facing similar medical issues. No one I know who used pot for purely recreational purposes ended up better off because of their chosen form of relaxation.
The question is not whether pot is a good idea - it’s not. The question is whether we should prohibit that bad decision or in some manner legalize it (perhaps for 18+ or 21+). I have mixed feelings on that question. As a parent, I want my kids protected from easy opportunities to make that stupid a choice. As a conservative, I’m reluctant to restrict bad decisions by adults. We allow adults to vote for democrats or even socialists/communists (and there is no longer much difference). Why not let them do something far less harmful - like using pot or even heroin/Fentanyl?
I have a college degree, graduating early with honors in 3 years instead of 4, back in 1969.
I was an officer in the Air Force for 8 years.
I've had several successful careers in hospital administration, mortgage banking and commercial printing.
I own 3 homes from Arizona to South Carolina to Florida, all of them free and clear of debt.
I have an 800+ credit rating and am flush with liquid assets in my financial portfolio.
I am currently retired and raise beef cattle on my ranch in Florida.
I've been married for 44 years to a former Air Force officer and nurse practitioner.
I am healthy and active at age 71. I was a 10K and marathon road racer for 40 years. Now I walk an hour a day. I don't drink alcohol or smoke tobacco.
I've lived a very productive life, both personally and professionally.
But I've also been smoking pot daily for recreation since I was a freshman in college back in the 60s. It is a habit, not an addiction. If you stop smoking pot, there are no cravings, withdrawals or DT's like in alcohol and hard drug withdrawals. There is nothing.
People who smoke marijuana recreationally are not potheads, anymore than people who drink alcohol recreationally are liquor-heads. And it doesn't make them irrational, no matter how hard you want them to be.
There is no "gateway" that this study claims. People don't do harder drugs because they smoke pot. They do so because their personalities are predisposed to addictive and destructive behavior.
Time to dispense with the government's marijuana hysteria they've had since "Reefer Madness" was their propaganda film.
The whole concept of a gateway premiss is poppycock! People are going to do what they do because they choose to do it! Personal accountability is slowly being melted away from our society and replaced with one dimensional excuses. The end all be all of any particular causation is predicated on this or that.... This is complete nonsense!
Apparently the same circumstance obtains from the neoprohibitionist side as well.
Personally, I'm hesitant to take even aspirin unless I really have to, so it's no skin off my nose however things go with any of this, but I think we should be smart enough to look at both the negative consequences of 'drugs' being the root passphrase to the Constitution as well. From what I've seen prohibition has been worse for us and our rights than allowing folks to smoke pot would be.
Just like cold fusion, we've been trying for years to prove this, but still can't. Really, it is JUST around the corner.
Just like the flying car.
And the hoverboard.
And the quick charging battery.
Pot is dumb to smoke, but including it in the same category as heroin and cocaine only undermines any argument for its continued vilification. Even those two seriously harmful drugs *DO* have their legitimate uses, just like nicotine and alcohol do, and booze and tobacco are still legal aren't they? Despite the verifiable damage to which they contribute, correct?
I personally know several people that medical marijuana helps. Anecdotal or not, it's still rational to include this kind of information isn't it? You claim the *rational* ground when those posing your own argument openly admit they cannot prove anything they assert.