Posted on 02/20/2002 6:08:45 AM PST by Magician
My first reaction is WHY NOT?
It’s a question of common sense.
Our marijuana laws do not work. They never have, and they never will.
Their stated goal being to rid society of the so-called affliction of marijuana use, the harsh reality is that since prohibition, usage rates have increased drastically.
Either we legalize it, and fast, or we get busy locking up millions of Canadians. With one out of three Canadians admitting to having tried marijuana, we may very well be locking up our best and brightest, not ruined by drugs, but ruined by the criminal sanctions that go with getting caught for what amounts to a common social practice. I can’t even begin to count how many elected officials admitted to having used it, yet everyday hundreds of average citizens are arrested for marijuana offences.
So, why are there so many users, and why is marijuana so easy to acquire?
In a strange twist, prohibition is to blame.
When a product is illegal, the profit margin skyrockets. Prohibition turns an agricultural product (a plant that’s very easy to grow) into a drug worth its weight in gold. Without prohibition, marijuana would cost pennies to produce. No wonder some adventurous modern day prospectors are setting up in their own back yards and basements to try and get in on the gold rush. Who could blame them? They aren’t hurting anyone, they’re making good money, and most of all customers are willing, grateful participants in the process.
We must come to grips with the fact that the demand for marijuana is never going away and find a better way of dealing with it. Imagine the billions of dollars spent on marijuana and enforcement going to more noble causes like health care and other social programs.
The general public understands this. Support for legalizing marijuana recently reached the much sought after 50%+1 majority. Recent polls show that 51% of Canadians support legalizing marijuana, a slim, but very real majority.
And with more and more advocates, the trend is just taking off. Several European countries like Belgium, Switzerland, Holland and Germany are successfully leading the way towards tolerance with legislation aimed at helping drugs users, not by treating them as criminals, but as human beings deserving of respect. There is no reason why Canada should lag behind. We should be on the cutting edge of this new international movement.
Now it is time to step onto the world stage and assert our sovereignty by legalizing marijuana once and for all. I would venture a friendly wager that the international community would stand by Canada on this issue. Our inevitable success would then make us a world leader in marijuana reform—an example for others to follow.
(I can hear it already): But marijuana is dangerous!
For the record, marijuana is NOT dangerous. It is no worse than coffee and much safer than alcohol. Marijuana is also much less addictive then cigarettes. Chronic use is rare as the majority do not smoke it everyday. Try that with tobacco!
What little risks that may be present with marijuana are no worse then any other risks deemed "morally acceptable". Should we ban music because, if played too loud it might hurt your hearing?
French fries and gravy are far more dangerous for our health then marijuana. Should we ban fast food and send overeaters to mandatory fitness camps?
Who are we, as a society to judge? What exactly are marijuana users guilty of? Who are they hurting? What have they done wrong?
To deny marijuana users the right to choose what they want to consume is nothing more than an arbitrary decision based on moral values, not public interest......
Legalization does not mean promoting use. It means providing medical care, support, education, quality standards and proper labeling. We then trust that responsible adults will make their own choices. This is what makes legalization healthy for our society. At least legalization would force retailers to be accountable for what they sell.
Under prohibition, the government has waived its responsibility for the well being of marijuana users, and is only responsible for their arrest and persecution.
This total disregard for their rights drives a wedge between them and the rest of society and breeds contempt for our legal institutions. If society does not tolerate pot smokers, how are pot smokers supposed to tolerate society? This does not make for a healthy social climate and even less a basis for sound policy.
If a policy so deeply flawed as prohibition not only fails to reach its goals, but actually makes the situation worse, it should be radically changed.
Prohibition is the problem, and legalization the solution.
In places where marijuana is tolerated use actually decreases.
Of course, don’t count on the politicians to have the courage to change the law—it’s not in their nature. Look instead to the Supreme Court. That is where most significant legal change comes from anyway. Gay rights and abortion issues were resolved there, and, some time this year our land’s highest court will also rule on the constitutionality of marijuana prohibition. I strongly urge government to make a wise decision and end this madness now. Millions of bright, productive, patriotic pot-smoking Canadians are counting on it.
Most sincerely, Marc-Boris St-Maurice Le Parti Marijuana
I believe I remember the FBI warning in July of attempts by Bin Laden to strike in America and in Israel. It was on the major news media. Reports state that the flight instructor who called in to report the 20th hijacker Moussani, who only wanted to fly, not land, had to call numerous times and finally screamed that a plane could be used as a weapon. FBI agents were afraid to read his computer files without a warrant or they would have discovered crop duster info and other incriminating evidence. Moussani was in custody in Mid-August and the 50-100 FBI agents (two bad guys) spent Labor Day weekend at the campground with their sniper rifles and camouflage, protecting American like you from the EVIL one.
This is a drug thread but now the War on Drugs is part of the War on Terror and interchangeable at the will of the administration. Bin Laden supposedly has 300 million and didn't need Americans weed money to plan or carry out these attacks. You cannot tell 75 percent of the republic that the 25 percent who bought marijuana in the last five years, financed the deaths of 3000 of their countrymen in NY and Washington.
The California club raids and the new methods (military helicopters and checkpoints) used in the recent raid on a Missouri town and the Rainbow Farm fiasco show that we are well down the slippery slope.
United we stand, Divided we fall
PS. What is really motivating your excessive postings on these marijuana threads? Are you vested in the drug war?
You are amoral in your absense of values.
One of my values is honesty. It is dishonest to tell reality distorting lies to innocent young children. You consider that absent of values? You consider that an amoral view?
The highest moral, human an individual right is the right to self-defense and survival. The best way to ensure that individual rights are protected is to have a constitution or amendment to the constitution and courts based on the following:
Principle One: No person, group of persons, or government may initiate force, threat of force, or fraud against any individual.
Principle Two: Force may be morally and legally used only in self-defense against those who violate Principle One.
Principle Three: No exceptions shall be allowed for Principle One and Two.
And this:
All jurors shall be informed that they have the option of jury nullification.
Principle One is first a law. For every instance that a person has force initiated against them there is a loss to that person. Only the person/victim knows the true value of their loss. The law underlying Principle One is as true as physics law.
All a person need be concerned with is whether he or she has been the victim and who violated Principle One. Then prove that to a jury. Thus the ultimate purpose of the jury is to decide if harm has been done to the person claiming to be a victim and to what extent the person has been harmed. All jurors will be informed that they have the option of jury nullification. Objective law; The Point Law
* * *
Thank goodness your views are only considered to be on the fringe of society.
You loath honesty and think it should be kept on the fringe of society?
I do agree with you though on the point that the terrorism attack has connected up with the so-called drug war since they found terror supported by illegal drugs. The busts at the border and by boat or air have been much greater than ever as suppliers are desperate to get in here.
You posted the same exact stuff elsewhere. You must be getting real tired. Off to bed with you.
Yes, and in fact it was to you that I posted it on the other thread: #420 Both posts were in response to you "attacking" my views, principles and morals.
You must be getting real tired. Off to bed with you.
Where'd you go? You must be getting real tired. Went to bed, right? That's what I thought.
Your last post was at 2/21/02 1:15 AM pacific, on Santa Barbara Libertarians help win Boy Scout discrimination fight
Havn't read much have you, simpleton...
Roger Q. Mills (US SENATOR, TX) made a speech against prohibition in 1887, including the following passionate passage, which was quoted again and again during the debate in Congress (December 1918):
"Prohibition was introduced as a fraud; it has been nursed as a fraud. It is wrapped in the livery of Heaven, but it comes to serve the devil. It comes to regulate by law our appetites and our daily lives. It comes to tear down liberty and build up fanaticism, hypocrisy, and intolerance. It comes to confiscate by legislative decree the property of many of our fellow citizens. It comes to send spies, detectives, and informers into our homes; to have us arrested and carried before courts and condemned to fines and imprisonments. It comes to dissipate the sunlight of happiness, peace, and prosperity in which we are now living and to fill our land with alienations, estrangements, and bitterness. It comes to bring us evil --- only evil --- and that continually. Let us rise in our might as one and overwhelm it with such indignation that we shall never hear of it again as long as grass grows and water runs."
since they found terror supported by illegal drugs
If you dig around a bit, you'll find that this "conclusion" was reached at an advertising agency. Not, of course, that you care, or that it will make a difference in your knuckle dragging. Continue on, serf...Hep two three four I'm a nazi from before...
Really, then who am I.
LOL! It is funny watching you Libertarians play your little paranoid games.
LOL! What are you some kind of Libertarian Inspector Javert(from Les Miserables)?
You beat me to it. To me VA's JBT statement ranks #1 in absolute stupidity and statism followed by CJ's right to happiness.
I've got plenty. Go ahead, Gramps. I'm all ears.
I stepped in something just the other day. Although it did NOT sound good...
Are you 100% sure you're not high right now?
Quite not. By quoting the part of the Constitution that allows the federal government to set up and administer the District of Columbia as evidence that the Federal government has "authority over some things over the state," you've proved yourself a constitutional moron.You come to this forum---specifically this thread and other drug-related ones---and present yourself as the uber conservative, the final moral authority, and the sacred arbiter of good and evil. Yet you have NO IDEA how our government operates. Another clanging gong for the pro-W.o.D. side has been exposed as a minor-league thinker . . .
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