[Scourge of God]

Allow me to start by saying yours is the first intelligent comment on this thread I've seen. You actually have worthwhile points. Not that they win the day, because they don't.

Taking drugs in the privacy of your own home doesn't require you to usurp the inaliable rights of another individual, through force of violence or threats.

OK. Where do you get the drugs, who supplies them? Who suffers when you are inebriated, with impaired physical and mental abilities? Answer: anyone around you suffers. Spouses, children, and total strangers are damaged by your inebriated behavior. Insurance premiums raise as health problems and accidents are caused by those impaired. You know, exactly like alcohol. Unending problems occur when people use inebriating substances.

You CAN'T commit rape or murder or theft, or kidnapping, etc etc etc, without violating the rights of another individual. It just can't be done. Thus, it's in the interest of the state to intervine in any case of rape, or murder, or any crime that usurps the rights of another individual, no matter where it occurs. It is NOT in the interest of the state to spend 10 billion dollars a year to put away some non-violent feb smoking a joint in the privacy of his own living room. Well, unless you have a cushy-Government job...

This is a good point. But there is no such thing as a totally victimless crime. No matter what you do in your own living room, you're still a link in the supply chain of criminals and those who don't care about the law. You're still impairing your mental and physical abilities. You are still a menace, more of a menace than you would be sober.

[JediGirl]

This is a good point. But there is no such thing as a totally victimless crime. No matter what you do in your own living room, you're still a link in the supply chain of criminals and those who don't care about the law. You're still impairing your mental and physical abilities. You are still a menace, more of a menace than you would be sober.

hm...I'm smoking a joint in the bedroom right now. I'm going to go to the store in a little bit. Watch the Simpsons, eat Chinese for dinner. Hm...I fail to see where I'm being a menace yet.

And were drugs legalised, there would be no chain of criminals to which you are a link.

[JediGirl]

OK. Where do you get the drugs, who supplies them? Who suffers when you are inebriated, with impaired physical and mental abilities? Answer: anyone around you suffers. Spouses, children, and total strangers are damaged by your inebriated behavior. Insurance premiums raise as health problems and accidents are caused by those impaired. You know, exactly like alcohol. Unending problems occur when people use inebriating substances.

If drugs were legalised, businesses. Who suffers when you kick back a bear? All these things happen when someone is on anti-depressants or ritalin.

[headsonpikes]

"You are still a menace..."

You have set the bar fraidy-cat low on what constitutes a menace, I reckon.

You're pretty much of a ribbon clerk, as they say.

BOO!

Did you wet yourself ?

[WyldKard]

OK. Where do you get the drugs, who supplies them? Who suffers when you are inebriated, with impaired physical and mental abilities? Answer: anyone around you suffers. Spouses, children, and total strangers are damaged by your inebriated behavior. Insurance premiums raise as health problems and accidents are caused by those impaired. You know, exactly like alcohol. Unending problems occur when people use inebriating substances.

Yes, but only if they go out and do stuff while inebriated. And those are seperate crimes that are justfully punished. You can be DUI, regardless of intoxication or not. You can kill someone, or murder someone, or rape someone, regardless of intoxication, legal or not. So why not continue to have harsh penalties on real crimes, crimes where one person violates the rights of another, no matter what the circumstances (within reason) and leave the actual act of consumption and possession re-legalized (cause every drug used to be legal, once). Unless you think we should once again criminalize alcohol (and look how well THAT worked), or prescription drugs, or Benadryl,or smoking, or fatty foods. All of these cause more death and lost productivity dollars than illicit drugs. However, you seem to be making the assumption that anyone who, say, smokes pot in their living room is immediately going to go out and commit a crime. I know that probably isn't what you meant, but that's exactly the sort of argument they tried to make in the early 20th Century. In the case of something "soft" like pot, the people who suffer the most are the ones whos life force is directly tied into the national supply of twinkies and doritos :)

You can't legislate morality with any great success. You can't expect most people to do something merely because there is a law for or against it. Morals and ethics begin at home. If parents don't want their kids using intoxicants, they need to teach their kids accordingly. Too many, and I mean WAY TOO MANY parents have no qualms letting the state raise their children for them. They have given up on taking personal responsibility. Most people in this country appear to have. Thats the thing about Socialism..it discourages personal responsibility.

It depends on how much of a Socialist you are going to be. Either you own your own body, or the State does. Which is it for you, then?

This is a good point. But there is no such thing as a totally victimless crime. No matter what you do in your own living room, you're still a link in the supply chain of criminals and those who don't care about the law. You're still impairing your mental and physical abilities. You are still a menace, more of a menace than you would be sober.

Those criminals only exist because of Prohibition. You'll notice all the criminals and gangs formed when Alcohol was criminalized, and you'll notice most of those guys disappeared when it was re-legalized. One idea is to treat marijuana like booze, and have some sort of "harm reduction" prescription for the "hard stuff". That would cut the legs out of a LOT of drug lords, who do NOT want any kind of legalization. They LIKE the Black Market.

Frankly, I am sick of having my taxes sucked out of me at virtual gunpoint, so that we can waste 10-20 billion dollars a year putting non-violent pot smokers in jail. Think of what we could do if we freed up those resources.

[Hemingway's Ghost]

Where do you get the drugs, who supplies them? Who suffers when you are inebriated, with impaired physical and mental abilities? Answer: anyone around you suffers. Spouses, children, and total strangers are damaged by your inebriated behavior.

"It takes a village."

[liberallarry]

But there is no such thing as a totally victimless crime

Ciminality is defined by the state. Aren't you saying that all laws are just? Perhaps that's just a logical quibble.

What most of us have been trying to tell you is that bad behavior is not synonymous with pot use. That's pretty simple. Are you saying you simply refuse to believe it? Or, if you do believe it, are you saying that bad behavior by some pot users justifies making criminals of the rest of us - or at least prohibiting us from enjoying it?

[laredo44]

No matter what you do in your own living room, you're still a link in the supply chain of criminals [not if I found it growing in my back yard] and those who don't care about the law. You're still impairing your mental and physical abilities.[I will accept your sincerity only if you agree that everything imparing mental and physical abilities be controlled by the government, including insufficient sleep, poor diet, not doing homework] You are still a menace, more of a menace than you would be sober.

You use the words of the tyrannt, of having to restrict liberty for my "better" interests. Do you really think you need to make my decsions for fear I'll make a mistake? If so, you've already made a far larger mistake: you've ceded your liberty, and you are willing to cede mine.

I'd really like to se your definition of liberty.

[jayef]

what if i grew the weed in my back yard? would you feel the same way? maybe we're close to some kind of agreement here.