Posted on 11/20/2020 8:12:52 AM PST by NobleFree
You are wrong. See #20
I call BS ... links?
That is wrong and pure leftist propaganda. It is a lie! Alcohol sales in this state have increased since legalization. Marijuana sales have EXPLODED especially among young people. Marijuana now outsells marijuana and tobacco combined. And it is causing huge problems especially with our vulnerable youth.
The street people that my crews and I used to attend to were mostly alcoholics when I started over 30 years ago. By the time that I retired the substance of choice had changed to marijuana and the numbers of “homeless” had gone through the roof. And the numbers of pot heads suffering from serious mental problems went through the roof as well. These people are far more difficult to deal with than the alcoholics ever were.
You are simply repeating leftist propaganda with no first hand knowledge of what has happened in states that have legalized marijuana.
It’s a great idea to remove the national prohibition on cannabis.
Let the states decide this issue, preferably at the ballot box!
Medical marijuana has been around a few years here in Florida & there is zero evidence of “great harm” being caused by it.
Seems you want to project the foolishness of Oregon onto the rest of the states.
“That is wrong and pure leftist propaganda. It is a lie!”
PROVE IT!!!
“My uncle drank himself into a diaper and a wheelchair. Should we ban alcohol?”
As you know, it’s been tried. The difference is that alcohol has very deep roots in the West through its connection with Christianity. Marijuana has a far more recent history.
The question is: How many legal drugs can a society tolerate and remain functional? Most societies have two. In our case, it’s cigarettes and alcohol. If we legalize marijuana, we would solve the problem of people doing jail time for weed, but we’d institutionalize other problems. I’m wary. The states are laboratories of democracy. See how it works out in a few places. One other poster here has already said that it’s a problem in his state where it’s legal.
I have lived through it since I was a young person and am still living through it currently. This place (Washington) looked the other way when it came to marijuana for the last 50 years. I did not support legalization for recreational purposes, but did not see how it would make much of a difference considering the level of consumption we already had. I was wrong... legalization of marijuana for recreational purposes caused usage to sky rocket to the point where legal marijuana currently has sales that exceed both alcohol and tobacco combined.
When our governor started our Covid lock-down 8 months ago... Most people's jobs were declared “nonessential” including most construction workers, most retail workers, most restaurant workers, most vehicle sales workers, and most of nearly every other profession. But anyone connected to the marijuana trade was declared to be “essential” immediately.
Why? The over $400,000,000 and exponentially growing taxes the State is currently collecting was one reason, but the state has also created a staggering number of new potheads. Many of these people keep themselves “high” all the time. How do I know? I have friends and family who fall into this category, and up until I retired I responded to potheads every day that I went to work. These are people with far more health and psych problems than others. The $400 million the state collects in taxes is a fools errand because the amount of money that the public spends catering to this addled bunch is far in excess of the whatever is collected. The funds are merely shifted around but the loss represented by these wasted lives and the breakdown in our society is incalculable.
Now Stickman we have conversed previously and I know that you have had personal struggles that you feel marijuana has alleviated. And I know many others including friends who moved to Florida in the last few years who have used marijuana as a “treatment” for both physical and psychological problems. My friends, like me and you and most others on this forum are older people and if it is giving them comfort in their “golden” years... and they manage to keep their addiction under control and are not driving around endangering others... more power to them.
Ironically, everyone that I know personally who uses marijuana for "medical purposes" had a long history of "recreational use" in the decades before it became the magical elixer for all that currently ails them. And given marijuana's known connection to both physical and psycological problems... one sometimes wonders if the ailments they are treating were not caused by the cure.
But this does not excuse the blight and huge cost for society that legalizing marijuana for recreational purposes causes everywhere that it is tried.
I gave you facts, figures and personal observations. If that doesn’t prove anything to you it shows just one thing. The sad truth is that you are a comedian living in your own pot fogged reality. As long as it makes you happy I could not really care less. It does not seem like the way that I would want to live my life, but I face my own challenges.
Name calling = symptom of a weak mind.
As you know, it’s been tried. The difference is that alcohol has very deep roots in the West through its connection with Christianity. Marijuana has a far more recent history.
That's a plausible theory ... but the evidence is that marijuana prohibition, like alcohol Prohibition, has the primary effect of enriching criminals as use of the prohibited substance continues. And marijuana's U.S. history goes back at least half a century - long enough for half of Americans to have tried it themselves and most of the rest to know people who have. This is probably why 68% of Americans support legalization.
The states are laboratories of democracy. See how it works out in a few places.
That's the proposal on the table - federal legalization means only an end to federal anti-marijuana laws, not a mandate to the states.
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