Posted on 03/08/2012 8:30:25 AM PST by AnTiw1
Of the many roles Pat Robertson has assumed over his five-decade-long career as an evangelical leader - including presidential candidate and provocative voice of the right wing - his newest guise may perhaps surprise his followers the most: marijuana legalization advocate.
"I really believe we should treat marijuana the way we treat beverage alcohol," Mr. Robertson said in an interview on Wednesday. "I've never used marijuana and I don't intend to, but it's just one of those things that I think: this war on drugs just hasn't succeeded."
(Excerpt) Read more at mobile.nytimes.com ...
The thing I hate most about drugs is that they cause folks
to write like morons without proper capitalization or punctuation.
Don’t you agree?
Here are the facts. The WOD has failed, it needs to be revisited.
Legalizing drugs IS NOT the way way a sane and sober society interested in promoting the general welfare of its people goes about such things.
Make all the high minded (no pun intended) poetic and philosophical arguments you can but in the end it boils down to a group of folks who want to smoke pot without worrying about the man, nor the consequences to society as a whole.
Just like criminals regularly undercut the price of legal alcohol?
and we just increase the number of psychotic people
The hefty increase in marijuana use over the last few decades has not been accompanied by a corresponding increase in psychosis. So much for that Chicken Little fable.
Or the problems of Internet addiction.
Or the problems of eating too many carbs (actually with their food pyramid, they actually encourage that, but that's another story).
Or the problems of not getting any exercise.
Or the problems of ....
We now also have all these kids born with mental problems for life from using pot and other things while the baby was in the womb.
All true of the drug alcohol. Is banning that drug the right answer?
The word I prefer is “Decriminalization”, that does not imply “Normalization”....in others words, you won’t get thrown in jail for using marijuana, but don’t expect to get a job or any government benefits if you do use.
If it feels good do it!
Which party pushes that thinking?
Care to tell us why?
I onder if the government would “allow” me..........
Don’t you see the basic fallacy in leaving this up to the government?
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I MIGHT see the basic fallacy if you rephrased that question in English.
I kid. I don’t answer to libertarians. I hate libertarians - morphing or otherwise. (re-adding tagline). And I also don’t answer to that just say no fool.
There are some people on this site that may someday be reached - that someday more be converted to Conservatism, but Just say no is a lost cause.
Since kids report that they can now get marijuana more easily than cigarettes or beer, it follows that the best way to restict their access to drugs is to make them legal for adults only (thus giving those who sell to adults a disincentive to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult market).
It isn't banned, but there certainly is today a stigma assigned to a person smoking or drinking while pregnant. You just don't see that anymore.
Nice smokescreen. How much you makin’ or takin’? Look up the definition of psychosis or go over to the daily kos because you’re out of your league here.
Really, dfw???
You want to equate drug usage with internet addiction, eating too may carbs, exercise...?
You know better than than.
Prostitution, like marijuana, should be a state issue, like it was at the time the of the Constitution.
Since you didn't use any qualifiers such as "employers of employees performing hazardous tasks - e.g., air traffic controllers," I take it that you truly do mean ALL employers should be allowed to require ALL of their employees to submit to drug testing, right?
In other words, you'd like to see employers be given carte blanche to extract body fluids from their employees, right? And to be able to fire them, even if the employees have only been using perfectly legal substances on their own time?
In other words: Employees = chattel.
That's a very strange opinion for someone with a regard for our Bill of Rights to hold!
Regards,
That's the thinking behind the War On Drugs - it hasn't had any demonstrable effect on drug use, it has enriched criminals with all the ills that entails, but its supporters feel good about having laws against bad acts (however futile and counterproductive).
If you don’t understand the word morphing, there are plenty of online dictionaries.
I can understand why you hate libertarians after your remark about what the government will allow. I would respond further, but the government won’t allow me.
Well you’re part way there,. you understand the WOD has failed.
Now for the other half, where you’re completely backwards. A SANE society let’s people take their own risks.
Make all the bad puns you want but in the end it boils down to are we a free society of not? Free societies allow people to take risks, even unreasonable risks. Free societies allow stupid behavior. It allows people to eat unhealthy food, read in dim light, not dress properly for the weather, drink and smoke dope. Once you decide the government gets to start dictating which “bad” behavior is and isn’t acceptable you open the door for all kinds of stupid tyranny like we’re getting now, with socialized medicine and governments outlawing fatty foods all for “our own good” because they “know best”. Screw them, it’s not their life, it’s not their call. If I want to eat transfats (which I do) it’s my business, not theirs, not yours. If I want to smoke dope (which I haven’t in decades) it’s my business, not theirs, not yours.
As long as people are keeping the risk to themselves it’s really nobody’s damn business. At least in a free society.
Stigmatization is the liberty-loving answer for those opposed to drug use; criminalization is the lazy way out.
Pat - the war on drugs doesn't limit itself to marijuana. If you legalize it, then what about the war on all the other drugs - do you think it will just go away? Legalizing marijuana would be just the beginning. Other illegal drugs would necessarily soon follow, otherwise the war on drugs would not go away and you wouldn't have accomplished anything.
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