Posted on 03/07/2015 1:12:44 PM PST by Ken H
For the first time, the General Social Survey -- a large, national survey conducted every two years and widely considered to represent the gold standard for public opinion research -- shows a majority of Americans favoring the legalization of marijuana.
In interviews conducted between March and October of last year -- when the legal marijuana markets in Colorado and Washington were ramping up -- researchers asked 1,687 respondents the following question: "Do you think the use of marijuana should be made legal or not?"
Fifty-two percent said pot should be legalized, 42 percent opposed it, and another 7 percent were undecided. Support is up 9 percentage points from 2012 the last time the survey was conducted.
(Excerpt) Read more at washingtonpost.com ...
Been reading your discourse with the local “stoners”.. (or worse)
Obama is punishment to America partly because these ones..
They forgot why it’s called “DOPE”...
Obama is punishment to America partly because these ones..
They forgot why it’s called “DOPE”...
I've been wondering if it is even worth my trouble. The Libertarians have been pushing their arguments for 50 years or more, and a lot of people have bought in to them. Everyone is full of a "Grass is always greener on the other side of the fence." mindset.
They never seriously contemplate what the world would look like if they got what they think they want, and I'm thinking this is going to be another one of those "learning things the hard way" lessons that occur frequently in history, but which subsequent generations always forget.
Yeah, Obama is emblematic of these people.
You say the thread is on marijuana and therefore you won’t address alcohol and it’s problems, YET you keep using the term drug addicts and the destructive results of drug addiction in this thread which is on marijuana, not drug addiction. Heroin or Crack Cocaine or Crystal Meth or Alcohol addicts are sometimes as you describe, but not users of cannabis.... that is of course why you use the term drug addicts and not marijuana users. What a bunch of distorted crap! You don’t want to have a honest discussion on cannabis that is fine stop wasting our time with your Strawmen replies.
Nor do you understand what chemical addiction is. You write a bunch of psycho babble when you know full well no one is chemically addicted to cannabis as they are to say heroin or alcohol.
You want to remain ignorant on the subject so be it, but soon the whole country will have some form of decriminalized cannabis use and it will be treated much like alcohol is commercially and legally. Medically we will benefit and the jackboots and profiteers of the WOD will lose their power you endorse.
Plenty of potheads are addicts and they get dumber every day
Some of them may be dumb but you clearly don’t understand what addiction is.
Does pawning everything you own for pot when the kids are hungry and the electric bill is 2 months past due count as a sign of addiction?
Maybe exDemMom and those like her can explain why Hemp has been outlawed these past 70 years when it is completely non-psychoactive. This thread is like having a discussion with people (a few) who live in fantasyland full time.
Big govt nannystate/Policestate so called conservatives are oxymorons (pun intended)! LOL
Oh save the bull for the gullible, I have been working with addicts for over 30 years. I think you must be referring to tobacco addicts. Do you advocate we criminalize and prohibit tobacco and alcohol? Because there have been cases of those addicted to tobacco and alcohol doing exactly as you describe.
Teens and even kids can get cannabis now easily, easier than they can get alcohol which is legally sold nationwide. The status quo which you fav doesn’t prevent teens from getting cannabis AND it makes them criminals ruining their lives in some cases. So save the “save the kids” ploy! If you really cared and wanted to help teens and kids regarding cannabis use you would be pro-decriminalization or pro-legalization. Legal regulated pot would make it harder for teens and kids to get and wouldn’t make them criminals.
It's been over a year since 'experts' issued a warning about cartels attacking CO pot shops. I bolded the last 2 sentences in the following article because it was an admission that legal pot does hurt the cartels, after all. That is Drug War heresy.
We have a double foot-shot =>
__________________________________________________________________
Colorado pot shops likely targets of cartels, say experts
JANUARY 10, 2014
As the smoke settles from the first week of legal marijuana sales in Colorado, experts are warning that sanctioned pot dealers could become targets for the very folks they put out of business.
Taking over a trade once ruled by drug cartels and turning it into an all-cash business could make pot shops prime targets for extortion, black-market competition and robbery. One veteran border narcotics agent told FoxNews.com Colorado's legal pot industry will find it hard to keep the criminals from horning in on a lucrative business they once controlled.
"Mexico is already in Colorado without the risks," the agent, who requested anonymity, said of the state's heavy pre-existing cartel presence. "Legal businesses will likely see a rise in extortion attempts while law enforcement will see a lot of backdoor deals being made."
Cartels, especially the Juarez and Sinaloa, who have a strong presence in Colorado, could not have been happy with the estimated $1 million in sales Jan. 1, the first day of legalized retail sales. In 2012 the Mexican Competitiveness Institute issued a report saying that Mexico’s cartels would lose as much as $1.425 billion if Colorado legalized marijuana.
The organization also predicted that drug trafficking revenues would fall 20 to 30 percent, and the Sinaloa cartel, which would be the most affected, would lose up to 50 percent. . .
That was from Fox News originally, btw. http://www.foxnews.com/us/2014/01/11/colorado-pot-shops-likely-targets-cartels-say-experts/
Irrelevant to your original point about crime being decreased by law. These crimes have victims and thus can be and are effectively fought - and can be expected to decrease with the decrease in the drug prices that motivate it.
Please look again at the area I bolded. When people are so addicted, they are unable to work and thus have no income. There is no particular reason to think that the prices of psychoactive drugs would drop with legality, and the price is irrelevant in any case. People who have no income and who are desperate to get their next fix will commit crimes to get $50 just as well as they'll commit crime to get $500.
There are also the collateral reasons for criminality among addicts, such as those addicts who become violent, or who crave the thrill of committing illegal acts.
The rate of crime would increase only if the number of addicts increased by more than the price dropped; this seems unlikely to say the least, since for the most addictive drugs there are few if any people who are deterred by the chance of arrest and conviction, but absent that chance would not be deterred by the inherent dangers of the drug.
Of course the number of addicts would increase if drugs were made legal--activities ALWAYS increase when they become legal. How many kids who said no to pushers previously because of the illegality of drugs will now say yes, and then find themselves trapped in the morass of addiction? There are a LOT of factors that go into trapping people into cycles of addiction, and it is really naive--bordering on propagandistic, even--to think that those factors will magically disappear with legality. In fact, we can expect most of those factors will multiply. There is also no reason to think that the illicit drug supply would magically increase enough to fill the demands of all the new addicts, either.
Pushers target kids, for a number of reasons. Why would you expect them to stop doing that if they no longer have to worry about being arrested for obtaining the drugs that they peddle to kids?
Also, the danger of drug use doesn't seem to be a deterrent. Drug pushers always tell people that drugs are a perfectly safe recreation when they give out free samples in order to get people hooked. Looking at the number of apparent users posting here who denying that there is any harmful effect of drug use, I have to conclude that the idea of safe drug use makes for a very strong narrative.
By the way, you really need to proofread/edit before you post. I actually can't quite figure out what you were trying to say after "since for the most," so I'm having to guess at what you really meant to say there.
I can't vouch for the Dow story - but there's an obvious answer to your question: only in the case of hemp did Dow have a good cover story, and they knew that every little bit of competition suppression helps.
The point is, that the Dow story makes as little sense as any of the stories out there. Your story about prohibitionists trying to scare people with Mexican black jazz musicians seducing white women makes no sense, either. Every one of those stories depends on some big conspiracy to make marijuana illegal, and, like all conspiracy theories, makes absolutely no sense when dissected logically. Those stories all have the "flavor" of being invented for the purpose of trying to obfuscate the real reasons that marijuana was criminalized in the first place. It's almost impossible to see any connection between the status of marijuana legality and Blacks, Mexicans, jazz musicians, and seducers--but I can't help but observe that Blacks, Mexicans, jazz musicians, and seducers all seem to exist to this day, long after marijuana was made illegal. Likewise with the story about Dow--if the *only* reason to lobby for the illegality of marijuana was to remove competition for its synthetic fibers, then why wouldn't Dow have also lobbied against legal cotton, flax, leather, wool, and all of the other natural textile materials that compete against synthetic textiles? Again, you have to dissect such stories logically--and if they can't stand up to logical analysis, you have to conclude that they were invented to manipulate emotions, not convey facts.
However, we do have evidence about the harmful effects of marijuana and other drugs. Now that we are conducting the societal experiment of pushing for drug legalization without any consideration of the likely consequences, it has become easier for researchers to study the effects of psychoactive drug use. And they are leaping on the opportunity. As a result, there are now thousands of studies documented in the medical literature about just about every aspect of marijuana use.
People living in the 1800s weren't stupid--even without formal medical studies and fancy hi-tech equipment to look directly at brains, they could see the deleterious effects of addiction. That's the most logical explanation of their efforts to make drugs illegal then, and why I think that after we, as a society, see the widespread disability and the burden that large numbers of drug addicted youth place on society when the legal deterrent does not exist, this experiment with legalization will end.
I would prefer a rational discussion take place BEFORE this experiment with legalization occurs. Drug use/addiction is an extremely complex subject, and the legality of psychoactive drug use only impacts a small subset of factors. There is no reason to think that the other factors would magically disappear with legalization, and many reasons to think that they would increase. An *honest* discussion, without propaganda, really needs to happen.
Basic market economics says that as barriers to entry are lowered, competition will increase and prices will fall.
and the price is irrelevant in any case. People who have no income and who are desperate to get their next fix will commit crimes to get $50 just as well as they'll commit crime to get $500.
And $50 stolen is less crime than $500 stolen.
There are also the collateral reasons for criminality among addicts, such as those addicts who become violent,
Marijuana is sometimes used by violent people but doesn't make anyone violent (unlike alcohol).
or who crave the thrill of committing illegal acts.
Those people will do less of those acts that are legalized, and no more of those acts that remain illegal.
The rate of crime would increase only if the number of addicts increased by more than the price dropped; this seems unlikely to say the least, since for the most addictive drugs there are few if any people who are deterred by the chance of arrest and conviction, but absent that chance would not be deterred by the inherent dangers of the drug. [emphasis added]
I actually can't quite figure out what you were trying to say after "since for the most,"
Sorry the sentence structure was too complex for you; I'll break it down. The number of addicts would go up sharply only if legalization meant a sharp drop in the disincentives to use. But when we look at the disincentives for using the most addictive drugs, we see that the disincentives that are inherent in the drugs themselves substantially outweigh the marginal additional disincentives created by anti-drug laws. Therefore legalization won't mean a sharp drop in the disincentives to use, so there's no reason to expect the number of addicts to increase by more than the price drops.
Of course the number of addicts would increase if drugs were made legal--activities ALWAYS increase when they become legal.
Which part of "by more than" did you not understand?
There is also no reason to think that the illicit drug supply would magically increase enough to fill the demands of all the new addicts, either.
No "magic" required - just a legal regulated market at work.
Pushers target kids, for a number of reasons. Why would you expect them to stop doing that if they no longer have to worry about being arrested for obtaining the drugs that they peddle to kids?
Legal sellers will have the disincentive of risking their legal adult market - and illegal sellers will simply be driven out of the market, as witness the negligibility of any black market in selling alcohol to minors, who for decades have been reporting that they can get pot more easily than cigarettes or beer.
Also, the danger of drug use doesn't seem to be a deterrent. Drug pushers always tell people that drugs are a perfectly safe recreation
And legal sellers will not - another argument in favor of legalization.
Looking at the number of apparent users posting here who denying that there is any harmful effect of drug use
That numbers looks to be zero to me.
I can't vouch for the Dow story - but there's an obvious answer to your question: only in the case of hemp did Dow have a good cover story, and they knew that every little bit of competition suppression helps.
The point is, that the Dow story makes as little sense as any of the stories out there.
I just explained it.
Your story about prohibitionists trying to scare people with Mexican black jazz musicians seducing white women makes no sense, either. Every one of those stories depends on some big conspiracy to make marijuana illegal
No conspiracy - just government bureaucrats doing what conservatives know government bureaucrats regularly do: acting in their self-interest by inventing a problem as an excuse to get more power.
Blacks, Mexicans, jazz musicians, and seducers all seem to exist to this day, long after marijuana was made illegal.
But people aren't frightened by them as they used to be, so it's no longer effective demagogery.
Likewise with the story about Dow--if the *only* reason to lobby for the illegality of marijuana was to remove competition for its synthetic fibers, then why wouldn't Dow have also lobbied against legal cotton, flax, leather, wool, and all of the other natural textile materials that compete against synthetic textiles?
Already explained.
I would prefer a rational discussion take place BEFORE this experiment with legalization occurs.
That discussion has been going on for decades - and anti-pot hysteria has been losing, which is why re-legalization is finally happening.
Johann Hari, author of “Chasing the Scream”, talking about his experiences while trying to uncover the true victims of the war on drugs.
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