Marijuana... The most useful and economical cash crop!
 

Now I know this will sound like another pot legalization plea... and to some extent it is. But just read through this, and keep an open mind:

http://www.illuminati-news.com/marijuana-conspiracy.htm

Now the paragraph at the end, while including some true facts, kind of takes some of the seriousness out of the article.

But considering the facts this presents, can anyone really debate that Hemp might not be the bad thing it's been labeled as? If we could make cheaper, less chemically driven paper and cloth, not to metion BIODEGRADABLE PLASTICS!! How can we really label cannibis as a harmful substance? Any one who knows a stoner knows that they are, in general, completely harmless.

What I liked about this article, was that it didnt primarily tote the stereotypical effects of marijuana use as bullshit (which they are, I'm going to graduate with a 4 yr degree from a somewhat recognized engineering university, with around a 3.3 probably, and smoke daily at school), but goes through the economic reasons as well. Your thoughts?

EDIT: I'll admit that it comes from a conspiracy theory site. And while that may damage credibility, there are some interesting point in other articles from the site as well. Open minds is all I'm asking.

But, the rest is all true I'm sure :rolleyes: . The history of drug criminalization in this country is pretty well documented and doesn't need a conspiracy theory to make sense

An open mind does not need to be accepting of all possible but unproven claims. Extraordinary claims require extraordinary evidence.

Preaching to the choir. MJ is far less dangerous than alcohol, cigaretts, the credit system, and MTV. I would vote to legalize pot. Besides the obvious reasons, there are frankly many uses, as illustrated above, for the crop and it could help the agriculture business in the US a great deal. While pot is not harmless (addiction, memory loss, cardiovascular problems, anxiety, hallucinations, risk of cancer), it is hardly the dangerous drug it is made out to be... If marijuana is a gateway drug, so is tylonol. I don't know about a conspiracy to hide the truth behind the wonders of hemp products, but I can see that the substance has been treated poorly for a while now.

So true man, I know lots of kids who flunked out of school because of excessive tylenol use. While I don't buy the 'gateway' drug theory all that much, I think people more likely to try harder drugs will start with MJ, but those who are not will not be lead to them BY MJ, thats a pretty silly anology.

Marijuana is only a gateway drug because it is illegal (which means if tylonol were illegal, it could very well be a gateway drug...who knows?). What do you think he statisctics are between people who drop out because of marijuana vs. alcohol? While I can't really make any decent arguments over why alcohol is illegal (besides the fact that making it illegal fails), the fact is that there are much more dangerous substances with a lot less value that are perfectly legal for responsible adults.

Maybe a better comparison would be Codine, Robitussin, or another drug that can have a noticable effect on perception. Bottome line: marijuana is really only bad because it's illegal.

Hey guys, haha, I realize the writer of the article is quite probably insane. But they do throw a lot of facts out there I didn't know. Such as the total versitility of the hemp plant. I knew it was used to make cloth and paper, but I didnt know the quality, and yeild comparisons and such.

As far as gateway drugs, I think Ustwo and willravel summed it up pretty well.

Lol perhaps it would get a better response as a whole if I pared down the article?

And by the way... I will attest to the asthma positive effect, when smoked in moderation. Heavy smoking will make it slightly worse, but light to moderate smoking will open my chest up quite a bit.

And being a dopey teenager, sleeping 5-6 hours a day more than normal and losing the drive to do more than smoke pot and sleep isn't harmful at all, right?

For me, cough syrup was my gateway drug. I hadn't even TRIED or thought about trying weed when I was downing coughsyrup in order to get a high. And even then, I haven't done any hardcore drugs to this day. Gateway drugs, my ass. Marijuana should definitely be legalised.

That only happens if used in excess- and it's not addictive. Frankly, that "doped up teenager" stereotype is totally overdone in movies and the media.

I am allergic to pot and therefore can not smoke it due to migraines and nausea. However, I have seen several friends do the puff puff pass, and they werent dopey at all. More relaxed yes, just as intelligent and they definately didnt "get stupid". Others were consuming alcohol... THEY got stupid and dopey. I could care less if pot were legal. I would still be allergic, but the pot smokers I have come across dont force it on you, they just smoke their joint and keep on goin.

If you haven't done any harder drugs then it wasn't a gateway drug at all. If you went from cough syrup to looking for heroine that would be a gateway drug.

Tell it to the high school kid I caught behind my office last month. With the 1970's hair back in style he looked like he was directly out of 'Fast Times at Ridgemont High'.

Anyways reguardless if MJ should be legal or not, I think that wasn't the point of this thread as this argument has been done to death already. The point was is it a giant conspiracy.

I thought hemp couldn't be used to produce drugs? It didn't have the THC or something.

I wouldn't be surprized if the tabacco companies wanted MJ to be kept off the market. Unless they were the ones who were the ones selling it.

I think it should be available from a doctor/pharmacist with a perscription. And they would be able to monitor the usage levels and make sure everything is ok. They could also help them get off the drug if they wanted.

By all means, let's relegalize. Let's just engineer it to remove all THC from the leaves and buds. It's an easily grown crop with a number of legal uses, but it's an illegal drug in most of the world. THC-free hemp is a very useful product. Opium poppies are very pretty, but there's a good reason why you can't buy them for a boquet.

I wasn't talking stereotypes. I was talking about what happened to (former, now) friends of mine. Anyone who says it has no adverse effect is lying to themselves.

He just had to put that in the first sentence, didn't he? I'm all for legalization of marijuana, but what I'm not for is crazy ass potheads declaring nonsense. This is absolutely false, and elta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) has ben shown again and again to impair healthy serotonin activity in the short and long term areas of the brain.

A quick search of marijuana returns thousands of links:

And these aren't joe schomes:

Yes, there was quite a bit of of alterior motives for making marijuana illegal. But to say that it has no long term potential effect is patently false and kills the author's credibility.

I OWN the movie Hemp Revolution, and I'll gladly share it with anyone who wants it. It details for almost 2 hours the potential benefits of hemp in every industry from textiles to fuel. And that's great. But that doesn't mean that marijuana is the miracle drug that never hurts you.

Well that and the alien bit :rolleyes:

Haha yea that alien bit... The dude is whacked.

Just a little bit of personal anecdote for those that claim pot destroys lives. Like I said, I pay 40 thousand dollars a year for attending my engineering school. A good quarter of those students, selected mostly from the top 10% of high school students in america, smokes dope.

Yes they look like hippies, but they perform just as well in school as the non-users. Actually, they tend to freak out, and have stree breakdowns much less often. Something not all together uncommon at an engineering school.

Personally, I have seen no adverse effects, short or long term, in my schooling. Keep in mind... Those doped up idiot stoners... Well, how can you honestly tell, if smoking pot makes them like that, or if those kinds of people smoke pot? I tend toward the latter.

Same thing with depression.

Moreover, I have an internship for the summer, who drug test. I quit for the test, passed, and once I got here found that pot is way to expensive in this area to justify my spending my hard earned money on it. No regrets. No withdrawls. Here I am 3 months free of any drugs. I don't, personally, notice a real differance in learning either.

Hell, I got an A in a 400 level Heat Transfer class last semester... I smoked daily, even went to half the classes high, and blew off most of the homework. Studied plenty, but still...

I challenge most of you non-smokers to get an A in that class.

Not the point really. My mental abilities are far superior to most peoples as well. I'm sure I could do accademic work high that many people could never do. That doesn't mean being high wouldn't slow me down, it just means I'd be able to overcome the handicap.

Hell I drank like a fish in college and did just fine. I set the curve in a 800 person biology class full of future doctors all trying to get A's without going to class more than five times (3 of which were exams). I'd never go to class drunk, but because of my drinking I'd miss almost all of my morning classes. At my highest level of drinking I also set the curve in a bio-chem course taught by the hardest professor in the department which included saturday classes (which I never once attended).

Then I grew up a bit, stayed sober (I was never an alcoholic I just liked to party and feel good while relaxing, sound familiar?), went to all my classes, and did about 50% better in my work.

I know nothing about how pot would effect me. I just don't like smoking and have no desire to smoke anything so trying it was never even an issue for me. I have no idea if it would be good to legalize it or not, its not a big issue for me and I don't really care, but saying there are no negative effects is a bit silly.

I'm glad that you at least deigned it was anecdotal evidence. Once again, that does not in the least support the idea that marijuana does you no harm. Anecdotal evidence is almost always useless. For as many as you have, I have as many contrary. That proves nothing. Neurochemists doing longitudinal studies on hundreds of smokers and non-smokers alike? For years? Repeatedly? Now you're getting somewhere. And they disagree.

Like Ustwo said - just beacuse you can overcome the effects of marijuana does not mean it does not affect you.

Ok, I can attest to "early marijuana use causes anxiety later in life"

I started smoking pot when I was about 10, continued untill I got pregnant with my son when I was 20. I was always laid back-no worrys mon. My motto was Hakuna Matatta. I am not going to sit here and say my bulb's the brightest, cause it's certainly not, but in school I was classified as "gifted". Even with daily pot smoking before, during, and after school. However, I was your typical underachiever.


Now, after I had my son I tried to smoke pot a few times, and the paranoia/ anxiety I experienced was horrific. I had always heard that smoking pot caused anxiety, but I never believed it untill then. I don't know if having a child permanently changed my body chemistry, but pot is a no-go for me.
The anxiety also isn't just when I tried to smoke pot either, it's now a constant in my life. At first I just thought that it was new mother nerve syndrome, but my son is quite older know and it's still there. Perhaps it is because I started smoking pot at such an early age?


With that said, I still believe that marijuana should be legalized, at the very least decriminalized, and would make an excellent cash crop. How bout giving some farm subsidies to hemp growers.

Actually, you can. Dried poppy pods are frequently used in crafts and boquets, but users crush the pods and boil them into tea. There's a thriving market in bulk dried poppy pods--ostensibly for crafting, but sold in supsiciously large quantities from websites that tend to have very precise shipping estimates prominently displayed. Estimated delivery date matters a lot when you're a junkie. A little googling turns up a whole seedy world of this stuff. Eg: http://www.geocities.com/Athens/5534/howto.html

/threadjack

Very rarely do I find myself agreeing with Ustwo... But in the case of him throwing a Carl Sagan quote, I find myself nodding in agreement. And this thread demands a more comprehensive response from me, but I am in a hurry out the door.

So this spot reserved for a future post

I WORK in a rehab facility for teenagers. You would have a hard time convincing me that pot does not function as a gateway drug for the majority of these teens or that it isn't harmful for young and developing minds. While most of them have other factors that led to addiction/interest in drugs outside of introduction to marijuana, that's where they started when they got into drugs. If you're older and know the risks it's not going to be a gateway drug for you, but anyone under the age of 16 is opening a door that might lead to other doors.

I'm in support of legalization, but I think it needs to be regulated--though look at how regulating tobacco has kept it out of the hands of minors (yeah right).

And yes, hemp is a wonderful thing--but yes, we could make a GMO hemp that has no THC. I think I would much rather see that first.

I often wonder if pot's status as a gateway drug is something of a self-fulfilling prophecy. Everyone talks about it and there's enough questions about how bad it really is for people that it's more readily available than "hard core" drugs so people who are naturally disposed to trying drugs go for it first to see if they like having an altered experience. And, finding that they do, they then go on to other stuff.

Of illegal drugs, pot is the most available, least expensive, least risky and least stigmatized. If you're interested in drug use in general, of course it's going to be your first choice. We've made it an obvious and easy first choice. I think the fact that people start with marjuana on their way to coke, LSD, heroin, etc. speaks much more to how we have framed the drug issue and much less to some property inherent to marjuana.

That said, there's not much question it's harmful, though it's certainly not any more harmful than alcohol or tobacco, and probably less so. You'd be hard pressed to convince me that if alcohol and tobacco are legal that pot should be illegal. Of course, I think everything should be legal and we should make a fortune off regulating and taxing the stuff.

Was it some kinda of political hoo-ha criminalising cannabis? Duh!

As for a gateway drug, IMO as soon as you take the first step over the law to smoke pot your already half way there to doing others.

I don't think cannabis should be legalised anymore, i've heard too many stories of it fucking with peoples heads and i've seen many a friend succumb to addiction.

On a personal note cannabis never really affected me in overall mental faculties, it did when i was high but not as an overall effect. E on the otherhand, that completly and utterly fucked my head over.

What sensible smokers overall don't seem to grasp properly is that for every one of them there are a thousand idiots who don't have a fucking clue how to be sensible with drugs, or alcohol, or anything else. I include myself in that respect.

I've heard a lot more stories about alcohol than I have marijuana. How many times in the local news paper have we read about some teenagers plowing into a phone pole after doing shots or drinking beer? Compare that to how often we hear about the same thing happening to people who were just coming from a Phish concert. Marijuana isn't harmless, but making it illegal because it can do harm is not on par with our treatment of alcohol.

Let me put it this way: Alcohol was once made to be illegal. That failed because of non compliance. If we would have had the same result of the prohibition on marijuana, would they have legalized it again? I honestly don't know. All I know is I doubt anyone could make the argument that alcohol was less dangerous than marijuana.

Alcohol is much worse them Marijuana.

And for all the people talking about their friends who sit around and smoke pot all day..

ahem, those people would have been losers no matter what. If it wasn't pot it would have been beer, or pills, or EverQuest... Some people are just losers and it just so happens they choose to spend their time smoking pot.

The idea that smoking pot made them into losers... meh.

Pot will slow your reaction time and effect peripheral vision.
I'm not in favor of people driving while stoned.
The driver not being stoned once saved my life or at least caused us not to have been hit by a speeding car running a red light.

Right... So the fact that they didn't act this way before smoking, and when they stopped for a while acted like they did before, only to lose all motivation once picking it up again is just coincidental, right?

Marijuanna has its good effects and its bad. It's like alcohol- it's fun and healthy to drink every so often, but when it becomes a daily habit (whether it is physical or mental addiction) it becomes a bad and destructive thing. I have a friend who uses pot WAY too much, and because of it he is in his 6th or 7th year of college, and still 4 or 5 classes awat from getting his degree. Time that he could have spent studying... or actually GOING to class, he instead spent getting stoned in his garage.
I use pot occasionally with my friends and my girlfriend, but I don't let it get in the way of anything. I care about my classes, my girlfriend, my family, and my life enough to no abandom them for endless (eventually boring) euphoria.

I don't think i made one mention about alcohol, let alone it being more dangerous than pot:confused:

My point was about keep pot criminalised. I already know that alcohol is nasty stuff.

Hell I say legalize it.

The world needs ditch diggers too, and they are easier to manage if they are stoned happy. Of course getting them to show up to work can be a problem.

But by the same right shouldn't we re-criminalize alcohol? If a substance that can be dangerous and can modify one's mental state to the point where they have slow or different reactions to stimuli, and can be dangerous, should be outlawed and banned, then why stop at marijuana? What's the point of outlawing a substance that's kind of unsafe, but keep a very unsafe substance legal? I see these two topics as being fundamentally linked.

I'm not sure if alcohol should be legal or not, but at the end of the day people need to be responsible for their own actions. Some people make bad decisions with alcohol, but most make reasonable and safe decisions. Not everyone who drinks is an alcoholic. Likewise, if marijuana were legal, not all people who smoked would be potheads.

The problem with making alcohol illegal was the cultural acceptance of it. In most cultures that have come to the US, alcohol is a big part of ritual. Weddings, celebrations, even mass all had alcohol as a part of it. Banning alcohol was doomed to fail because of this.

MJ does not have this cultural link. One does not toast the bride and groom with a joint, one does not turn the blood of christ into weed, one does not celebrate a good harvest with a roach.

So perhaps MJ is less of a problem than alcohol (and I'm not so sure of that) that doesn't mean its use should be sanctioned or increased.

If you want to argue from a libertarian view then you are right, they should both be legal, but for a libertarian view to work then you would have to be a libertarian government. Meaning, we don't pay for your recovery, we don't give you welfare, we don't give a shit what you do but if you get in trouble then die in the streets starving, but try not to make a mess while you do so.

That argument is like saying we should ban cars because they kill so many people each year. They're a part of our lifestyle, realistically there is no chance that they can be taken away. Cannabis can stay illegial with less effort that it would take to criminalise alcohol, and without the riots.

The topics are linked, no doubt, but is in improper to start preaching one way or another about alcohol when the debate isn't about alcohol.

Wrong. Cars do not change inhabitions, make us sloppy, or have any real chemical effect on the brain. Cars are tools that are intended to use as transportation. Alcohol, while possibly having some nutritional value, is not intended as something functional in the same sense as an automobile. Most people drink for flavor, feeling, or some combination of the two (much like marijuana). Ingesting or inhaling THC is done so in order to relax and get stoned, like alcohol is often taken in to get relaxed or buzzed. In a discussion about the possible legalization of marijuana, one must mention similar topics for the use of comparison. That's why the debate includes alcohol.

well, thanks to this fucking internet connection, my long response is now gone, so i will paraphrase, so excuse the bluntness.:mad:

Its naive to say that cars do not have an effect on peoples minds and behaviour.

It is completly impractical to ban alcohol, whatever the medical benefits are. People will be forced to move to something else to enjoy themselves, and whos to say that won't be illegial too?

Cannabis and alcohol have significantly different effects, as you stated.

Cannabis is illegial already, banning alcohol failed miserably.

Think that about covers it, sorta.

Been there. Sorry for the inconvenience.
My naievety aside for the moment, are you suggesting that the effect of driving is copmparable to the effects of alcohol and marijuana? I beg to differ. Yes, driving can assist in the release of andorphins, adrenaline, and a slew of other chemicals as a response to stimuli, but alcohol and tetrahydrachloride are dumped into the blood stream directly, not as a result of the body releasing chemicals in response to external stumilation. Basically, it's apples (alcohol), oranges (thc), and fruit cake (driving). I see alcohol and thc as much more linked, espically if the question of legality is brought up, than either of the two and driving. Maybe I'm missing something.
Well in the world of 'ifs', we get to play with realuity, so let's try this:
What if alcohol had been made to be illegla dn the state had stuck to it's guns, and marijuana had never been abolished, and is still legal today? We'd probably have a lot of people drinking dangerous moonshine, and eventually moving on from alcohol to other illegal drugs. The difference between this hypothetical and the real world, is that people getting drunk and possibly not understanding the consequences - consequences that we understand because we are raised in a society where alcohol is legal and taugh along with other social norms - could lead to much worse problems than marijuana could ever lead to. Not going to college and staying at your job at Blockbuster isn't as bad as beating your wife or driving drunk.

Yes, people would move on to something else to enjoy themselves if alcohol were banned. I see this as you supporting my point. Legalize marijuana and you have less people who are willing to bend their legal morals to get high. Can you imagine something like cocaine being the first illegal drug you try instead of mj? That is a HUGE step. I suspect that people would be less willing to take that step if it were so much bigger.
That is true. I see the effects of marijuana as being less dangerous overall than the effects of alcohol. Both, in moderation, are harmless. In excess the resulyts are decidedly different.

I wasn't suggesting that driving was the same as drugs, just that it had an effect on the mind.

Your second point really boils down to failures in education systems more than anything else. I know signifcantly more bums due to cannabis than i know of wife beaters due to alcohol. Would you agree with me that someone who beats their wife already has some issues that the alcohol is only exasperating?

I also know of at least 3 idiots who went straight to coke or other class A's completly side stepping cannabis. They apparently think it will make them a bum. Like i said, not the smartest bunch.
Personally i think alot of kids smoke cannabis because of the fact it's illegal, just to push back against whatever they feel is pushing them. That was certainly the way for me. If you take away the illegality factor, what are kids going to be doing instead? I know its cliche to bitch about the children, but i think its a valid point.

Yes people would move onto something else if alcohol was banned, but what would that be exactly is the problem. cannabis and having a fun night out arn't two things that often go together.

I agree. Let's legalize it and let patients who need it for pain relief get it cheap.

I'd rather deal with a stoner than a drunk ANY DAY! :lol:

Ya know, what it really comes down to for me, is that I don't believe the government should have the privledge, nor the right, to tell me what I can and can't do on my spare time. If it kills of seretonin production, and I'm ok with that, who is some asshole in a suite to tell me I can't do it?

Also, most of those bums, and losers who smoke pot all the time, do a whole hell of a lot more drugs than just pot. They're usually potheads, drunks, coke addicts and the list goes on.

You, and they, can't blame all they're considerable problems on marijuana. Anectodal or not, there is plenty of evidence of secure, happy, productive people that smoke pot.

Hell, I have an Uncle who practically runs a section of Grand Central station, making well over 6 figures, has retired, and come back to work 2 or 3 times, and he smokes pot. Cmon people, take responsibility for your actions, don't blame it on a substance.

basically what it all comes down to. Some think we should force "responsibility" on everyone. Some don't.

Good way to put it. Im obviously in the dont category. It's my life, no one else owns it, I will do what ever the fuck I want with it.

HA HA. You just described my college roomate, Matt. That dude just smoked all day long! Hell, he even smoked all night long. One time I was up late doing a paper, and I notice about every hour or so he'd wake up, pick up his pipe, take a puff or two and go back to bed.

Seemed like a waste, but I personally have never tried it. What's it like to sleep high? :lol:


True, but they sure do peer pressure you into it. Sadly I had to give in. Actually, I did enjoy it. I was able to relax and the whole time I just laughed my loud, bolsterious laugh. Ha ha! I laughed so hard I made my best friend laugh hard, and all I've heard him do is chuckle.

It was a pretty cool experience. I would vote to legalize it.

Oh yeah... my dad says he used to smoke pot (kid of the 60's) but when he did he'd get really depressed and start crying. This happen to any of you?

I would say I'm not terribly surprised. In my expirience, it can enhance certain moods. Though anger isn't one of them. I gotta say, it's actually helped me SOLVE problems in my life before. I would find something out, get all wigged out about it, so that I was thinking totally negetively about the problem, and not the solution...

Go some a bowl, calm down, reapproach the problem in an opimistic light, and stumble across a solution. I would have come to the solution anyway, smoking just helped me calm down enough faster, in order to think things through.

Haha, the laughter aspect... Eh, that goes away once you've smoked for a while.

i don't have a problem with people who smoke it and if they want to, that's their prerogative (sp?), but i can't stand how all those people are talking about how legalizing it would solve our economic issues...

what pot dealer do you know is going to pony up tax money and just be honest about how much they sold when filing taxes? ok, so youre 7-11 has it for sale and because it has to be taxed, is less likely to be quality weed or is more expensive, which then leads them back to their pot dealer, who isn't going to file any 1040's claiming weed sales...

That's just one side of the equation economically. Have any idea how much tax payer money goes each year to find, prosecute, and incarcerate pot sellers and users? It's insane. The US spends a shit load of money trying to force people to live the way a select group of people have decided they should. Land of the free, home of the brave my ass.

I'm with ya krwlz! Hemp could help heal our economy and our way of life. It's too bad the people with the wealth and power are to greedy to do the right thing.

I don't think it's pot dealers that will spur this change, but rather the end users of marijuana. For my part, I'd rather buy a regulated, taxed product that's easier to get. Everyone else I know who smokes says the same. If it were legalized, we would do it legally. Few people choose the black market if there is a reasonable legal alternative, especially since the black market comes with many associated costs (beyond just money). Could it cost more? Sure. But I doubt it.

Of course, the dealers I've met are generally smokers too, and in favor of legalization.

As Tully already mentioned, there are lots of other costs to keeping marijuana illegal.

I would vote to legalize it.

I was reading the The Revolution: A manifesto, and in there Ron Paul came to the story about how it was banned. He even quoted people. But basically goes on to say that it is Unconstitutional to ban any substance.

They would have banned liquor, but instead they decided to tax it, and if you are caught making it, you will get charged with tax evasion.

when they taxed it, the bootleggers basically disappeared.

imagine if we do that to hemp. The black market of selling on the streets and locking up for hemp will be cleaned out.

it just makes utter sense to me.

first things first, if it took a constitutional amendment to prohibit the manufacture or possession of a substance (alcohol) and another one to repeal that amendment, how can the government now ban a naturally occurring plant without one?

secondly, the black market would exist only so long as the taxation is not prohibitive or excessive.

Hemp is not the same thing as Marijuana.

Yet the US doesn't (or didn't? I really don't know anymore) make any distinction between the two. The US is so freaking uptight about this issue you can't even make such items as non-psychoactive herbal tea out of hemp. Comes from a plant in the cannabis family.

Pot bad, 50 cal. good... welcome to the "States."

---------- Post added at 05:04 PM ---------- Previous post was at 04:46 PM ----------


Imagine if you took what we spend on LEO to find and harass drug users and put it into treatment programs or health care and education. People who have addictions- alcohol, meth and other powders, pot, whatever could be dealt with in a clinical setting rather then warehoused in a correctional one. People who don't have addiction issues could be left alone, just like social drinkers are now. I'd bet you could do that and still fund some health care and education programs, non-substance or substance related wouldn't matter.

Seriously prohibition didn't work for shit with booze and it isn't working with other substances either. All we're doing is keeping a paramilitary industry and several gangs employed fighting each other and among themselves.

i guess it can go either way you look at it, i mean death row isn't really death row anymore, we just house serial killers and such, so in that sense, don't we spend lots of money on forensics and trials on those as well? should we discontinue prosecuting serial killers as well?

i know it's comparing apples to oranges, but it's all about a broken legal system. there are many other wasteful items our government blows cash on that can be saved without thinking marijuana is the holiest of holy cash cows

everyone here puts up valid points, but unfortunately, we are a small group, many out there merely want to legalize it so they can smoke more, they really could care less about the economy

that and stories like such: US man stuffs cat in marijuana pipe

don't help in stating that marijuana smoke doesn't alter the thought process

just my 2 cents

Cool, thread from the dead, hadn't read this one.
I think, as a drug, cannabis is much safer than alcohol. Unless you're a thug who also smokes weed all day, you're not gonna start a fight on weed. I can't say the same thing on alcohol, and while I love getting shitfaced with my friends every once in a while, some of them have become mean drunks a few times, and I've seen plenty of fights start when people got drunk. Hell, I did a lot of stupid shit that could have gotten me arrested while drunk.
But smoking up with a few pals, and playing video games, watching a movie, listening to a good album, or going out for a nice walk outside is great, and safe. I don't think people should be allowed drive on any mind altering substance, though, since pot does slow down your reaction time, but having been in a car trip where the driver was stoned most of the time, and driving perfectly safely, I would say it's less dangerous than driving drunk.

oh, im a HORRIBLE driver when im stoned, but thats just me.

pot is great, i actually prefer it over alcohol. i've never woken up after smoking all day long and went "boy, i sure made an ass out of myself last night."

you nailed that thug thing, biznatch. i have no idea how they manage to be so stoned and yet so violent.
the only thing i want to do while im high is eat a twinky and walk around the woods with my .22. perhaps play my guitar or watch some tv.

of coarse it alters the thought process, thats why (or part of the reason) people do it. same with alcohol, pcp, or whatever.

if you felt the same after smoking some weed, then why smoke weed.

If weed is illegal, then liquor, tobacco, and caffeine should certainly be illegal.

The original article has some fairly insane bits in it, but many of the initial facts are accurate.

Hemp, in both its intoxicating and its non-intoxicating forms were made illegal because of an industrial conspiracy, funded by the pharmaceutical industry, the liquor industry, the logging/paper industry, the oil companies, and the cotton industry. The fear-mongering propaganda used to incite support for the criminalization of cannabis was both entirely inaccurate and profoundly racist.

MJ should be legal in all its forms. I have no problem with giving it mild regulation and taxing it. But it should be legal. Hemp is a wonder crop, and weed is at worst no more dangerous a drug than alcohol, and at best probably much safer.

Why not keep it simple - legalize it and tax it. It would cut down on the numbers in jail. Just as w/alcohol people who want to smoke a bit of weed will so. This is supposed to be the land of the free. I don't care about your drug of choice - booze, weed - it's your choice. You get stupid, you pay the price.

A drunk , a acid head and a stoner come to a locked door. A sign on the door says" this door will open at 9am"
The drunk says " lets bash it open"
the acid head says " lets float through the key hole"
the stoner says " lets just wait till 9am......"


just saying.:rolleyes:

i have smoked weed for 5 years now starting late high school. to say weed is a gateway drug is to say addiction is universal, which would be to say that alcohol or food is a gateway drug.

the addiction to drugs of a person who started out on weed is habitual. that is to say the habit of smoking led to a new lifestyle, new friends. the subject wont stop not because they are chemically addicted but because they know no other way of amusing/occupying them self. if this is true it is the behavior which needs to be checked rather than the substances.

behavior which i suspect was learned before the first joint was smoked. almost all of the people i know who have ever smoked weed smoked tobacco first. try and find someone calling nicotine a gateway drug.

That's the unfortunate thing about weed being illegal. If you're in NY and decide you'd like some weed, you'll more or less end up needing to do business with these thug types; sometimes you won't, or there will be a middle man.
But yeah, going up to a seedy bronx neighborhood, sitting around on a stoop, waiting for a call back is not what I'd call pleasant. Cops know those block are flooded with narcotics, so they circle around, both in blue and whites and unmarked vehicles.
My friend (or rather, a dude I met while trying to make a purchase) got busted once by a plainclothes cop who looked like your average 30 year old guy from the Bronx, just stepped out of a grey minivan, and cuffed him against the wall.
They don't need to be paying all these cops to risk their lives so they can infiltrate the underground, get in touch with seedy people, and people who are downright violent thugs. Since I'm white, and don't dress with a definite urban style, I don't get much trust either, and have been asked if I was a cop. It feels uncomfortable, but since I have nothing to hide it's OK. But I wouldn't wanna do this as a job, betraying people you befriend.
If they legalized and taxed pot, it'd take a huge amount of business away from these gangs and operations, possibly eliminating a massive part of the problem.
Actually, my friend showed me an operation going on in Manhattan. They have a guy at "dispatch". He has dudes on bikes in all areas of Manhattan, who wear backpacks full of sealed cases of MJ.
They go to people apartments when they get dispatched, and show them the stuff, sell it, bike to the next client. Unbelievable. I would assume such a thing has at least 30 guys at any given hour of the day, possibly many more, out on their bikes, all under an organized system. Invisible to the naked eye, but something truly huge, with an economy independent of the stock market, the tax system, or any regulation.
USA: Cash in on this. You're stupid if you don't. The people clearly want weed, and if Phelps does it, who says you have to be an underachiever if you smoke it from time to time?

Agreed. Oh, and Phelps should be the poster child for marijuana legalization.

I'd agree with this. I've mostly experienced very happy and relaxed moods, but there was one time that I overreacted to something my friend said and got sad for a bit. I don't remember what it was, just that it was something silly to get upset over.

I've never had it interfere greatly with my life. The time I was most high, I was still able to make myself food and help my friend with her chemistry homework. Would I have done my own work? I can't say, which is why I don't smoke when I have a test or homework to do.

But this is anecdotal evidence, and therefore not representative of the norm, right? :p

"Make the most you can of the Indian Hemp seed and sow it everywhere,"
--George Washington to his gardener, 1794.

http://theculturalevolution.com/1234.jpg

I eat hemp seed every morning in my shake. Full of essential fatty acids. I also own a few articles of clothing and such made from hemp. Very powerful plant. Grows a wee bit faster than trees and can do pretty much everything a tree can, and more!