Posted on 01/16/2015 7:20:24 AM PST by posterchild
Thanks for explaining, I thought you were referring to the fall in prices.
Richard Nixon, is that you?
Once-Secret "Nixon Tapes" Show Why the U.S. Outlawed Pot
Lumping marijuana, homosexuality, Jews and Commies into one grand conspiracy, a paranoid Richard Nixon launched America's "war on pot" 30 years ago. Here are the tapes to prove it.
Thirty years ago the United States came to a critical juncture in the drug war. A Nixon-appointed presidential commission had recommended that marijuana use not be a criminal offense under state or federal law. But Nixon himself, based on his zealous personal preferences, overruled the commission's research and doomed marijuana to its current illegal status.
...
But in the end, the Shafer Commission issued a report that tried to correct the "extensive degree of misinformation," to "demythologize" and "desymbolize" marijuana. They reported finding that marijuana did not cause crime or aggression, lead to harder drug use or create significant biochemical, mental or physical abnormalities. They concluded: "Marihuana's relative potential for harm to the vast majority of individual users and its actual impact on society does not justify a social policy designed to seek out and firmly punish those who use it."
Nixon's private comments about marijuana showed he was the epitome of misinformation and prejudice. He believed marijuana led to hard drugs, despite the evidence to the contrary. He saw marijuana as tied to "radical demonstrators." He believed that "the Jews," especially "Jewish psychiatrists" were behind advocacy for legalization, asking advisor Bob Haldeman, "What the Christ is the matter with the Jews, Bob?" He made a bizarre distinction between marijuana and alcohol, saying people use marijuana "to get high" while "a person drinks to have fun."
He also saw marijuana as part of the culture war that was destroying the United States, and claimed that Communists were using it as a weapon. "Homosexuality, dope, immorality in general," Nixon fumed. "These are the enemies of strong societies. That's why the Communists and the left-wingers are pushing the stuff, they're trying to destroy us." His approach drug education was just as simplistic: "Enforce the law. You've got to scare them."
The category is "ever used". If you tried marijuana once, twice, three times -- you fall into that category. Trying marijuana once, twice, three times means nothing. It's a useless statistic.
Liberty: people I like doing what they enjoy. Libertinism: people I dislike doing what they enjoy.
The category is "ever used". If you tried marijuana once, twice, three times -- you fall into that category.
As you do if you used it regularly for several years but quit over a year ago.
It's a useless statistic.
Overstatement - although other stats would be more useful.
They are not even SLIGHTLY comparable. Alcohol consumption/acceptance throughout history is a million times more significant than was/is Marijuana usage. It is intellectually dishonest to even suggest a comparison between the two, but from long experience arguing with Libertarians, I have found that intellectual dishonesty appears to be a ubiquitous trait.
Perhaps another drug - opium - that enjoyed widespread use centuries ago would be more to your liking as an example?
If you want to talk about Opium, i'm perfectly ready to talk about Opium and the millions of people it has killed and the societies it has destroyed. We all know this "legalize marijuana" topic is just a stalking horse for overal and widespread legalization of all drugs.
Only in your world do I need to do that. Nobody else really cares what a Big Government advocate on a conservative message board thinks.
And as always, Libertarians trot out the "You are a "Big Government" advocate when you simply state that it is within the normal mandate of government to stop chemical weapons from infecting the population. I am not for "Big Government." I am for the exact amount necessary to do the job "Government" is supposed to do, and the primary thing that it is supposed to do is to maintain it's own existence and protect it's people from dangerous threats.
Any government which tolerates drugs will not be a government for very long. It will collapse with the rest of society as happened in China when drugs were legal there.
It will of course, be followed by a dictatorship (again as it happened in China) and all those "Freedoms" you people have been prattling about will be completely gone.
Please do. I am in awe of your powers of persuasion & debate tactics.
Well see there, you don't even know how this game works. It would take a fool indeed to think any rational argument or evidence would persuade, so that is obviously not the attempt here. The effort is to mock and ridicule stupid ideas until other non-Kool-aid drinking people can recognize the ideas as stupid and ridiculous.
We are playing "The Dozens" because I long ago realized that rational debate was an utter waste of time.
And ridiculous claims like this are exactly why people continue to tune out drug warriors.
No worries, they wouldn't listen to Cassandra either.
And we all know how much better China is now.
I will ask again. Have you ever smoked marijuana?
Have you smoked marijuana? How many times?
What makes you the expert on its effects?
The topic is not confined to Marijuana. Anyone of discernment is well aware that Marijuana is just the Camel's nose in the tent.
It is just like "gay rights." You open that door, and pretty soon you are being forced to bake "gay" wedding cakes.
And what makes me the expert? Apart from the experience I have had with numerous and sundry drug addicts and specifically pot-heads, I have been arguing about and researching this topic for the last seven years with a psychotic pot-head loon on another website. Again, just like "gay marriage" they will simply NOT SHUT UP ABOUT IT!
If they would just keep this stuff in the closet I could probably tolerate it, but it is this constant "in your face" advocacy that has simply made me sick of putting up with them.
Thanks for outing yourself, troll. I remain confident in "non-Kool-aid drinking" FReepers that they are more reachable by rational debate than by mockery and ridicule.
protect it's people from dangerous threats.
You've drunk the Kool-Aid of government's consistent excuse for its power grabs.
This is quite a hoot coming from someone who breathlessly proclaims marijuana causes all its users to lose the ability to exercise free will and/or turns them into serial killers.
I actually like when you post to WOD threads because you do far more harm to your cause than good.
So, in all seriousness, please keep posting away.
And here you are lying again. Once again you trot out this LIE and try to get by with it again.
This is a total and complete misstatement of the truth and it is part and parcel of the continuous stream of lies which Libertarians always trot out to justify their delusions.
There were no laws against drug use because there was very little and highly isolated usage during this period of history. It's like saying there wasn't any cybercrime back then so we don't need laws against cybercrime now.
It was the Civil war that introduced the US to large quantities of drugs and large quantities of addicts, the consequences of which kept getting worse until they finally had to pass laws against drugs.
You are ignorant. Every person I know who is currently a pot head gets a government check paid for out of all of our pockets. They are to a man, worthless parasites whom the rest of us must feed and clothe.
These do not include the people whom I have known in the past who graduated beyond pot into crack, meth, and heroin. Several of them have died, and two in particular that I had known left behind infant children who won't have a mother to raise them.
Do you think these children were harmed because their mothers couldn't leave the drugs alone? I think so, and if you don't, I don't give a rat's @$$.
How about you go check out the REAL drug world and then get back with me. Okay?
All of Europe is going through a sickness right now and so are we, though not as serious as theirs is yet. We are getting there though. If "ConservingFreedom" gets his way, we'll get there a little faster though.
Are you a certificated drug counselor? As you probably know, anecdotal evidence is not scientific evidence. Correlation is not the same as causation. Just because the losers you encountered used drugs doesn't mean that all drug users are losers. For example, James Garner (the actor) smoked marijuana for almost his entire life, yet no one would call him a loser.
Have you publish the findings of your 'research' in any scientific journals for peer review?
But, you still haven't answered my question. Have you smoked marijuana?
What is your experience with the REAL drug world?
Are you a certificated drug counselor?
And here you are lying again. [...] There were no laws against drug use
So no lie.
It's like saying there wasn't any cybercrime back then so we don't need laws against cybercrime now.
'Medicinal preparations of cannabis became available in American pharmacies in the 1850s following an introduction to its use in Western medicine by William O'Shaughnessy a decade earlier in 1839.[4] [...] As early as 1853, recreational cannabis was listed as a "fashionable narcotic".[9] By the 1880s, oriental-style hashish parlors were flourishing alongside opium dens, to the point that one could be found in every major city on the east coast. It was estimated there were around 500 such establishments in New York City alone.[10] An article in Harper’s Magazine (1883), attributed to Harry Hubbell Kane, describes a hashish-house in New York frequented by a large clientele, including males and females of "the better classes," and further talks about parlors in Boston, Philadelphia and Chicago.[4]' - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legal_history_of_cannabis_in_the_United_States
the consequences of which kept getting worse
The available evidence says the opposite: "In 1880 [...] there were over 400,000 opium addicts in the U.S. [...] By 1900, about one American in 200 was either a cocaine or opium addict." (http://web.archive.org/web/20110529221013/http://www.justice.gov/dea/demand/speakout/06so.htm) 400,000 in a population of 50M is one in 125 - ergo, between 1880 and 1900 addiction declined.
Every person that I know works, INCLUDING the MJ users. Maybe you should consider changing your sphere of friends or associates. The genie is out of the bottle... and it ain’t going back in yee old lamp. Personally, I enjoy a vaporizer, followed by tincture, then edibles... and lastly smoke. I think you might be an arm chair quarterback. ???
People who smoke this crap are going to smoke it, legal or not. Prohibition does not work, it never has and it never will. It's just a tool used against us to degrade our rights to privacy and free will. And no, I do not nor have I ever done drugs. I don't even drink alcohol.
One of the effects of marijuana on people who use it is to induce a highly emotional, defensive reaction when others criticize the drug. Something about the marijuana high opens up a real sore spot, and the marijuana user spends much of their time guarding it from any criticism. It’s kind of weird, doesn’t happen with other drugs.
Another effect of marijuana is amotivational syndrome. It’s very sad to see 40 year olds living on Mom’s couch.
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.