Thank you for the clarification. I also think that the Right has lost it's way and am curious to see what would happen if it went back to its roots.

You people with kids: would you want for your children to smoke pot? Would you smoke pot with them? Why/not?

My uncle used to smoke pot with his son, my cousin, who I used to hang out with and thought was a pretty cool kid. He and his dad used to get high together and play chess among other things. My uncle, an anesthesiologist, used to think he was so cool and progressive like that. In my opinion as my cousin got older he lost trust and respect for his dad because his dad, in doing drugs with him, lost the moral authority and guidance that children look for in their parents. After he lost respect for his dad he started stealing things from him (stereo components, money, etc) and getting more and more into trouble. One could say the kid was just a bad kid, but Im not so sure. He always struck me as an intelligent and sensitive kid. I think the dynamic of introducing drugs into family relationships is not a good thing. Long story short, after many drug-related incidents my cousin is now in a mental institution for life.

I've had some experience with pot myself. In the long run, I think drugs make life harder not easier.

I think the same argument can be made for a parent who allows their child to drink and in order to seem cool drinks with his or her kid. My biggest issue is with people (not directed at you powerclown) who use arguments against legalizing pot that are equally valid for arguing for alcohol prohibition yet are fine with alcohol remaining a legal, controlled intoxicant.

If marijuana were legalized, it would undergo the same regulation as alcohol. Yes there would be abuses, but arguing that it would be abused is a poor argument as plenty of legal substances are abused. I just haven't heard a valid reason yet why it should remain illegal.

geez powerclown. that's an unfortuate story---and i can see from it how you'd assume that pot was at the center how things went--and maybe it was---but it also seems like there had to be other factors at play.

i've had to watch as friends of mine spun into addiction and came by steps unravelled--the worst of that was inevitably cocaine, typically cooked down one way or another. all the symptoms you describe in your cousin i saw happening amongst these folk, directly (in that i watched it happening) or indirectly (at a remove, as it happened to someone i knew)...

i don't see weed as a gateway drug to anything else--again this for many years, knowing tons of people, thinking about them as a sample. but there are folk for whom pot is a real problem, just as there are folk for whom alcohol or almost anything else is a problem. does this have to do with pot itself? in a way, sure. but it also has to do with myriad other factors: timing, where you happen to be at in your life, what you are looking for, what you feel you lack, level of self-discipline...
is it the case that pot causes problems for enough people that it is Problematic and should remain illegal?
i don't see it.

aside: it's interesting that the op is framed as making a linkage collapse of newspapers-->reconsidering pot legislation. i thought it was going to head in an entirely different direction--like print is disappearing, no need for sustained attention, so why not?

i think the origin of pot laws comes more from some puritanical pathology, the idea that you have to confront the grimness that is your dour protestant life head on and reserve any alterations in that grimness for pleading with this god character to swoop down and fix stuff. it's as if the states is 17th century salem and everywhere in power are cotton mather replicants.

The financial problems of the print media is what got me thinking about ways they could save money. Since hemp paper is cheaper, making pot legal to grow for that reason would make sense and also be ironic since they are part of the reason it became illegal along with the Mormons and their religious conservative ideals.

We can go round and round on whether it should be legal or not and I enjoy hearing people's views on this because they come from personal places. But, I'm also curious if people think legalizing pot would help our economy. Putting aside your opinions on whether it should be legalized or not, could the country be aided with the taxation of pot and save money now being spent on pot possession/trafficking/intoxication charges?

whats the obsession with taxing everything? why must people think that congress should have the power and authority to tax a naturally occurring plant?

To answer your question with a question because I'm curious: What are alternatives to the government making money?

Since as it stands that the government taxes things to make money, it makes sense that if pot were legalized it would be taxed the same as cigarettes and alcohol.

I don't know if it's so much an obsession as it is a financial decision. Money is the reason pot is illegal and money will be what legalizes it. Since the government is the body that will decide its fate (federally speaking) then it stands that it will be a monetary decision. If the government believes they can make more money legalizing it than they spend prohibiting it, the tide might turn.

At least, that's what I think.

Just because one thinks that pot should be legal does not necessarily mean that one advocates using it. I'm sure not everyone who is for legal booze and tobacco advocates drinking and smoking.

If the government is going to tax pot then it had better be very small. It is hard to compete with free. I'm sure there would be a lot of money saved if they lower the spending on drug enforcement. I suspect those currently getting funds will resist any cuts though. Maybe they will use the argument that they must continue to prosecute those growing their own and avoiding the new taxes. I wonder if the feds had their budget cut when alcohol was finally legalized?

I say ban alcohol, tobacco and drugs. I see no reason to use any of these. There are no beneficial effects from the consumption of these products. The red wine good for your heart argument? Bullshit. Eat Grapes. Need alcohol or pot as a social lubricant? Figure out why you want to be fake and not have people see you as you really are. If you don't like yourself as you are, and need to escape reality with drugs or alcohol, then you need to adjust yourself. (I am not talking about scientology).
As far as medicinal marijuana, that is fine. Doesn't mean it should be legal for everyone. My mom snorted prescribed cocaine for her broken nose as a teacher because of cocaines' anesthetic effects. I have been taking amphetamines (adderall)the past few months to try to help control my ADD. It has some beneficial effect. I don't self prescribe, I did get checked for heart rate and blood pressure to help correct the dosage.
Obviously we are not going to get alcohol banned, because too many people consume it. I do find it funny how several people have said that they no longer smoke pot. Maybe because the benefits do not outweigh the problems? How many people also slow their alcohol consumption down as they get older? Maybe if people reached some higher level of maturity before being exposed to drugs or drink, then they would never perceive the need for it on any level.
As far as not driving high, is there a way to measure objectively when a person is clear to drive safely? There are standards for BAC (whether you agree with them or not), but what is a safe level of THC measurement or whatever to determine your capacity? How long would it take to really clear out of someone's system?
One last thing, I did read somewhere years ago that 40% of all violent crimes occur under the influence of alcohol. Sounds pretty likely to me. Bar fights, domestic violence, liquid courage, all that shit. Just watch a couple of episodes of Cops to see the effects of alcohol and other drugs.

First, I like that you said alcohol, tobacco, and pot should be banned. It shows you are consistent. I think it should be all or none also. Of course, I'm on the all should be legal side of the fence. But I can see your point of view. Using any substance as a crutch is not the way to go, but if a person wants to have a drink or a smoke every once in awhile, who are we to judge. I am all for giving people choices, not dictating their lives.

Next is your section on prescription drugs. Those things scare the holy bejeezus out of me. The side effects of the majority of those drugs are often worse than the original ailment. I honestly believe that pot is safer than a majority of pharmaceutical drugs.

Next, I can't answer for other people who don't smoke anymore, but my reason for not smoking is because I don't know people to buy it from anymore. If I had access to it, I would partake every once in awhile. Obviously, young people partake in drugs and alcohol in excess because it is new, but once the novelty wears off the usage generally drops. This can be said about a lot of things though. However, unlike alcohol, I believe that pot is not a highly addictive substance. That might need fact checked.

For some reason alcohol is more socially acceptable than pot. Legalizing it would create more drug addicts, but who knows if the good (controlling/profiting from distribution, less crowded prisons perhaps, more attention spent on drug addiction treatment perhaps, less criminal activity perhaps) outweighs the bad (more drug addicts and the ramifications thereof).

That is an interesting point. For some reason, alcohol enjoys a more positive reputation than pot. I never really considered why that is. I wonder if it's because of places like bars where it was more of a social intoxicant and pot was done more in the home, in private? I'm just guessing if that's true.

Good point, though.

Where do you get the notion that legalizing it would create more drug addicts? There's no data to support it and more data to refute it.
As previously mentioned (here, I think), drugs of a stronger and more addictive nature are introduced to people many times by pushers. Those that are predisposed to addictive personality disorders will seek those out.
While withdrawal from long time regualr pot use is not pleasant, it can be compared to the withdrawal one experiences from cigarettes, ie; emotional agitation, bodily sensations, cravings and the like.

It's really quite simple: Eliminate the illegality of pot and you will eliminate the majority of its associated crime, including cartel violence, territory conflicts, robbery (many break-ins occur to get either the proceeds from the pot sales or the pot itself). You then decrease the numbers of imprisoned in our country's jails. This week's Parade magazine addresses this very issue. We are overcrowding our prison system with people who did nothing but sell or possess weed. Even decriminalizing it would go a long way to reduce so many things taxpayers support-court systems would cease being overburdened, jails wouldn't be bursting at the seams and cops would have more time and resources to truly protect and serve. It's really a no-brainer.

You're missing the point, but i'm guessing that this is mainly due to the fact that you haven't been alive as long as pot has been 'prohibited'.

What i'm getting at is that somehow, people have been led to believe that the federal government has the power to prohibit you from planting, growing, harvesting, and smoking for your own personal usage, a naturally occurring plant. How is this?

Source

Pretty fucking stupid, eh?

I'm one of those who believe that pot is a gateway drug.

there's no data to support the idea that marijuana is a gateway drug.
statistical correlations still favor milk over marijuana--not all junkies have smoked pot, but all have had milk.

It is hard to imagine that sales of any product that is made more widely available would fall. Therefore any honest proponent of legalization should assume that drug-taking as a whole would rise.

it's hard to say, yes? if an activity is illegal, it stands to reason that there'd be not alot of data about the actual economy, but only about stuff like arrests and maybe another register about supply that the dea or local cops would know about---but even there, there are real problems of data sharing and compatibility.

i would think that california would be interesting to get actual data about. and i would think that while there might be a rise initially, in the short-to-medium run, you'd probably see levels of purchase level out. that's what i think would happen anyway.

as for usage rates and amounts, i don't know how you'd measure that in any context.

anyone care to point out to me where the constitution gives this power to congress?

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prohibiting the growth and consumption for personal uses of a naturally occurring weed is seriously stretching the definition of general welfare of the united states, don't you think?

do you see the personal growth and consumption of a weed as part of commerce among the several states without using the tortured definition given by the USSC?

how does allowing the growth and consumption of marijuana, for personal use, prevent the government from executing its foregoing powers?

That last one, by the way, is what Scalia used in the Raich opinion which pretty much gives congress the authority to tell you whether you can plant carrots, beans, or tomatoes in your garden.

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timalkin, you really believe that pot-consuming people would move to cocaine, or some other hard drug were pot to become legal?

there's got to be some crazed out cracked up cocaine frenzied Rastafarians in Jamaica then....

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I'd love to see where you got this from. I drink wine. So, by your theory, I should move on to hard liquor now. I have smoked pot and I rather enjoy it. Wish I could more often. I have NO desire to do any other drug, I don't know any pot smokers that have. And I didn't smoke weed because I smoked cigarettes-in fact, I was a casual non-inhaler of those back when I first toked.
You do realize that you just made the argument FOR legalizing pot, right? You also agreed, by making that statement, that it is pushers that look for the bigger cash that make the harder drugs more available because pot is so mild in comparison, cheap and anyone can grow it.
People who smoke weed aren't looking necessarily for anything more that what pot offers. People who smoke cigarettes aren't necessarily looking for more than what those offer.
Your views are out of touch with reality, Sir.

Fact is, this country is losing its declared 'War on Drugs" because it invests too much time, manpower and money "fighting" something that doesn't warrant the fight it's in.
We are stuffing potheads into prisons and political leaders then make decisions to release prisoners because of overcrowding. Here's an idea-don't put pot users and growers and sellers in prison. Don't want to legalize it? Fine, give them a desk ticket and send them home. The average grower/user isn't involved in violent crime, doesn't belong to any drug cartels that kill for territory rights yet can be and has been sentenced to time that rivals murderers if not drunk drivers.
Which is the most threatening to civility? Pothead, drunk driver or murderer?
According to our courts system, they're equal.

This argument was made pre-prohibition, yet it took an actual constitutional amendment to make it legal. So why does it only take the commerce clause now?

This, ladies and gentlemen, is almost word for word the exact position of the government and the USSC in cases called Wickard v. Filburn and Gonzalez v. Raich. This is also the foundation that can allow the US congress to determine whether you can grow corn or tomatoes in a garden, petunias or daisies in your front yard. Now, It might just be me, but I'm pretty damned sure that the framers of the constitution did not believe they were giving that authority and power to the federal government. Do any of YOU here believe that's what the framers wrote when they made the commerce clause?

timalkin, didn't someone here earlier say that you were a libertarian?

i know the convention of a pub discussion militates against information being introduced...but this seems a good moment to break that rule.

there is a ton of money being made as a function of these draconian laws, including the absurd marijuana laws--but i don't believe that folk are looking in the right place to see where it's happening, who benefits from it. money is not made so much from the prohibitions--that is from what is prohibited---money, and a shitload of it, is made from the *fact* of prohibitions. it's made by those lovely people in what we call the prison-industrial complex, in political shorthand.

this gives a nice compact overview, tho it is 4 pages long:

The Phoenix > News Features > Freedom watch: Jailhouse bloc

the debate's been barking up the wrong tree.

this is part of our problem also. When the government can make money on making criminals out of it's citizens (with little or no resistance) why should they stop?

I started cigarettes after pot, and that is anecdotal, but no more than your "many people who smoke marijuana started smoking cigarettes first."
From the other MJ users I know: I'm French, so, smoking cigarettes is pretty much something that a lot of French people do, whether they smoke or not.
But in terms of the Americans I've befriended that did MJ, they often hated tobacco, couldn't even stand it in a spliff(Europeans often use tobacco to consume cannabis, for one of two reasons: to save money by rolling something not made entirely of cannabis, or because in Europe hash is the only form of cannabis available, and is not really smokable by itself).
The fact is, cigarettes and MJ have nothing to do with each other. You could argue that cigarettes are impairing, or have psychoactive effects, but you'd really be pushing it, ask any smoker.

Do you drink at all? I ask because you seem to distinguish alcohol from other drugs, while it is as much of a drug as the next thing. Why would alcohol be any less of a "gateway drug" than marijuana?

timalkin, all you're doing is repeating phrases and talking points from people who are morally apposed to drug use - most of which, by the way, have never tried the substances they campaign against so passionately. You're completely ignoring the points and arguments given to you by actual people who partake in recreational drug use. Have you noticed how a lot of these accounts are similar? There's no group feeding these people phrases and talking points, these are all true accounts. After enough trials, anecdotal evidence can be regarded as factual evidence.

I know people who smoke and are "unproductive" - though they have a job, they spend their free time in the clouds, not really doing much. Who are you to say that this is wrong? So they don't live their lives to their full potentials. That's none of your concern, or anyone else's really. I know people who do the same with alcohol, with video games, with web browsing, with TV. It's no one's business but their own what they do in their free time to relax, so long as it doesn't harm anyone.

I also know people who are very intelligent, going to school full time and busting their asses. Some use drugs, some don't - some for fun, some for relaxation. I know people who are stressed by things that I can't even begin to comprehend - MJ helps them cope, and damn it, if there's anything out there that will help a person when they're down without extreme adverse health effects, then fuck it, why not? What's the harm?

Then there are other people who are incapable of connecting with others and opening up. You can call this social anxiety, depression, or just plain awkwardness. These are the kinds of things that can be treated with real powerful psychotropic drugs that can kill the user if the dosage is wrong; for some people (e.g., yours truly), these things can be treated with MJ, which is a relatively mild effect and impossible to die from.

You've asked for ways that recreational drug use can be beneficial to society. You've been given answers time and time again, but you've skimmed passed them all.

As for the impaired driving argument, it really is laughable. DUI is illegal, period. This doesn't stop people from DUI. Truth is, it never will, because there will always be irresponsible people around. That being said, I'd drive with someone who's high over someone who's drunk any day of the week. Though both are irresponsible beyond words, people who equate the two are simply ignorant of the effects. That's the real crime, if you ask me.

And the gateway argument? Ridiculous. People who want to try, or are very curious about the powerful narcotics (e.g., cocaine, meth, heroin, etc.) are going to try them, regardless of their previous experiences. Additionally, there is enough information out there for anyone with half a brain to understand that the powerful narcotics are the only drugs that can really ruin someone's life from the inside out. Generalities are worthless when describing human actions. I know people who enjoy hallucinogens, but won't touch MJ or narcotics. How does the gateway argument account for this?

..

wait... so it's okay when it's done by a pharmaceutical company manufactures it and makes money of it.

so if they made a THC pill, and the FDA approved it, it's totally fine :)

:thumbsup:

Yea, the stories do, because that statement is directly from the rampant propaganda of the 40's-60's. Hardcore addicts may have started using pot, but pot users don't always go to hardcore drugs, so it became the perfect catchphrase and it is old time believers of those kinds of overblown statements that keep nonviolent recreational tokers going to prison.

Do you drink? Beer on weekends, maybe a martini or two at parties?

..

Yeah, alcoholics drive at 80 thinking they are doing 20, while potheads drive at 20 thinking they are doing 80. but no one has answered when it is safe for a pot smoker to be behind the wheel.

My wife was given hydrocodone recently for neck pain. She couldn't stand the spacy feeling on being on it. I know some people use it for recreational effects, but I don't like feeling altered.

Who are you answering?
No one is advocating abusing anything. Toking weed isn't abuse unless it interferes with daily living and that caveat could be used with anything.
You can repeat your fallacies over and over, that doesn't make them any more true, just makes you believe them more.
At this point, I think you're just making outlandish claims just to get a rise out of people. Ain't workin....


Do you drive a modded PT? I swear you're the same guy....lol

Timalkin, you seem to put a lot of faith in doctors. Do you honestly believe that if a doctor prescribes something it is healthy? Have you read or listened to the side effects of numerous legal prescription drugs? They are far more dangerous than pot. Of course, I don't see how this goes with the discussion. Unless you want to go this way with it. Marijuana doesn't have many strange, fatal side effects like other man-made prescriptions do. Therefore, mj should be allowed to be sold OTC, which in turn would make it legal.


You have your opinion that people should not partake in mind altering substances. That is fine. Everyone is entitled to their opinion. But this is a stand-still argument with people standing on the opposite side of the fence.

RB: Are you saying that there is more money made enforcing the prohibition of pot than would be made through taxing it? I was under the impression that the criminal circuit was overloaded and costing money. It seems that taxing pot would save money because even though the people busted for having pot are paying heavy fines, they are costing tax payers in court costs and paperwork. (I admit that I didn't read the compact 4-page article because since this is a pub discussion I want an overview. I could easily go on my own and research, but I do enough of that at work and enjoy discussing ideas with people over reading articles.) So I'm trying to get the gist of what you are saying.

Anyone who supports drug prohibition inevitably has even bigger skeletons in their own closet or other vices that are just as potentially bad. Guns, drugs, sex, pick your poison. Nobody is a saint, everybody's got something. I just think it's so funny how you can't legally own marijuana, possibly the safest drug known to man, in this country, but if you want an assault rifle and bags of ammo, well we'll just hand those out to anyone over 18 who has the cash at Wal-Mart. I was just at a gun range today, 5 mins and a drivers license and you've got a gun in your hand and you're shooting. Why dont we just do the same thing with drugs, require some sort of 1 hour instructional course and give responsible people a license to use. If you demonstrate that you're not responsible, you lose the privilege. I don't support extreme gun control OR prohibition for largely the same reasons: yes they can be dangerous but this was supposed to be a free country and they can both be used responsibly without causing any harm to anyone.

An attitude indicative of a society that once used to assume people were responsible, reduced to one making people prove they are responsible. why?

Because too many people have proven they aren't responsible? Sadly, the idiots spoil it for the rest of us.

nah, but Franklin did ;)


edit: as for the gateway argument, i know three people that started using meth first. ass backwards aye?

shesus---what i'm saying is that there is ALOT of money made from/through the prison-industrial system in the states.
to get your head around it, you need to get your head around how this prison-industrial complex is defined--it's more than prison buildings for example.
i put up the article because it has the virtue of running through the component parts in a quick and accessible way, and does it more efficiently than i could have.

so in this case, it's better to read the article.

after all, i've found myself sitting in pubs reading a newspaper before, haven't you? regularly at the map room back in the day.
and had we been sitting in, say, the map room and i had the article at hand, i would have slid it over at the same point.
there are lots of ways to be in a pub. just saying.

Marijuana Legalization Bills Introduced In Massachusetts

let's try looking at this from a different perspective, shall we?

How many people got angry or upset when you started having to show your ID and sign for cold/sinus/allergy products that contain pseudoephedrine?



in this country alone, we have 300 million people. Given the percentage of people that violate and abuse the laws, is it really 'that many'? or are we not giving ourselves enough credit?

dk---i don't mean to be obtuse, but i have no idea where you're heading with your question. could you make it clearer please?

Didn't upset me at all. I don't get mad at stuff like that; I know I'm doing nothing wrong, signing the page takes 5 seconds, and it's designed to help prevent abuse. Hardly a sacrifice

Legalize all drugs. Make stiff penalities for anyone driving under the influence, or selling to a minor. What people do in the privacy of their own homes is their business. (unless you hear domestic vilolence or know animals are being abused)

not after you spend 30 minutes looking up and down the cold aisle while you're absolutely miserable and just wanted to get your cold meds and get out having to interact with the least amount of human beings as possible.

Continuing with that same "sacrifice" who is to say that a large family purchase is "abuse"? or not?

I'm sorry it's quite a sacrifice. If that's the case because of a few, who is to say that it won't be because of RU486 one day? or some other future drug?

when I can go to Canada, Mexico and many other countries and get prescription strength meds without and prescription.

both Sun Tzu and Cynthetiq get a +1 here.

*mutters something about this being uh-mer-uh-kuh, damnit*

when congress makes a law that 'tightens' up controls on a certain substance, people look at it as a GREAT thing that our beloved government is doing something to make our lives better, but nobody ( and I really mean nobody) bothers to look at why are we letting a government abuse it's authority to make us feel like we're being protected.

Congress uses the commerce clause to make federal laws that they otherwise wouldn't have the constitutional authority to make. Most people don't give a damn about this overreach of authority because they have decided that the states governments are inadequate to deal with some crisis or another. The real truth to this is that most people are quite willing to scrap the constitution altogether in order to let the government make any laws that those particular people feel necessary to make society more 'orderly' or lawful.

The laws that now mandate people to show an ID and sign for purchasing medicines that contain the component pseudoephedrine are based on the commerce clause, that same clause that allows congress to make marijuana illegal.

many times in several posts about legalizing marijuana, i've tried to point out to people the absurdity of congressional power grabbing using the commerce clause and either people are too wary of restricting the federal governments power to make feel good laws, or they just really don't care about the constitution and would rather let the government make shit up on the fly.

---------- Post added at 09:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 09:13 PM ----------

case in point right here. Derwood doesn't feel affected by taking a few extra seconds to register his name in a federal database to show he's purchased a now controlled substance because a very small percentage figured out how to use a chemical in those cold products to make an illicit drug. So as long as he doesn't FEEL affected, he's willing to let congress do what they want.

Correct. I'm not doing anything wrong, they're not harassing me, so I personally don't care. It doesn't weigh on my mind.

Especially when in the past few months guns have caused more mass shootings in the US than before, and MJ remains mostly harmless.
One beneficial use: relaxation, tim. Some people have stress, pain, and need to relieve it, and most can't take a vacation to a sunny beach. What the hell is wrong with someone sitting on their porch and smoking a fatty, kicking back and watching TV, or play a video game?
What's the difference between doing that and enjoyable a couple beers?
You're being inconsistent, and aren't budging one bit. Where does this irrational fear of marijuana come from?

well, dk, there are a few issues that are mashed together in your post--maybe i'll get back to them later on (it's a nice day and i want to go outside and play for a while)...but i'll say it's obvious you haven't lived in france, where the question of identity registration and papers is much different than it is here--you end up having to use your identification papers for alot more things, alot more routinely, than you do in the states. when i first moved there, i found it really intrusive--but because i had not experienced that before.

on the other hand, i was in france to study left political culture, and found that in many ways france is more free than the united states because of its political culture--this even as power is much more centralized in the state.

and i don't recall anyone arguing: the state can regulate marijuana traffic yay!
i recall people describing it as a simple and easy way to integrate marijuana into the run of other, legal beverages--so into the systems that already exist. none of which existed in anything like the present form in 1788. they just didn't.

but it is still a nice day outside.

something about this set me on edge, but I couldn't quite figure it out until just now.

You say that the entire population must pay the price for the irresponsible or criminal acts of a few, but I call BS on your premise. You do not apply that same standard to the government or police.....why not?

People say this all the time, but nobody has any proof. Yes, it's likely that the most widely available illegal drug is the one that most people will try first, and people who use recreational drugs will most likely have tried the most common one first. Correlation is not causation.
It's a law that doesn't do anything. Most meth is produced outside the country and imported. As domestic production has decreased, imports increased, and that's where the violence comes in.

not to mention that this law was introduced with great public fanfare about how this would put meth labs out of commission, but does anyone realize just how much damned cold/allergy medicine a person would have to buy to realistically produce enough meth to warrant building a lab? regulating how much pseudophedrine a person can buy in one month to avoid running a meth lab is only feeding the federal bureaucracy.

I think the statistic is that it takes 100 Sudafed pills to make one "dose" of meth, which I think they define as 50mg

A lot of states are currently facing some tough decisions about making major cuts to state services--education, healthcare, state parks, roads, utilities, police and other emergency services. It think the tide is turning gradually towards a position where taxpayers would rather rather not be paying to house marijuana users and growers in state prisons. Yes, the prison system is enormously profitable, supporters of that system need to be reminded that it is in every way a socialist entity and they are paying for it.

It's also becoming very clear that the illegal drug industry is incredibly profitable for organized crime in South and Central America. Mexican drug cartels are now a seriously threatening the overthrow of that country's government. The funding for the cartels is payed for largely by U.S. citizens.

When it is decriminalized, states can issue licenses for growing and dispensing, and tax the sale of marijuana. California made 12-15 million dollars from taxing the sale of marijuana in 2007, that's a lot of teachers, cops, park facilities, or whatever. This was during a period of heavy prosecution from the federal government.

Since Obama has taken office there has been a continuation of arresting and persecuting state-licensed marijuana distributors in California. I believe this is a political move by people within the DEA to force the issue on the administration.

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my that's a big brush stroke you use.... many of the people I bought pot from were in fact drug dealers. They all had jobs. Why? Because the IRS thinks it rather funny that you aren't "gainfully employed" and yet still have all this cash to spend.

Many of them held regular blue or white collar jobs and had families and mortgages.

And seeking professional help? Please... they just prescribe meds that do the same things, just the money goes to the pharmaceutical company instead of some guy who grew pot in his house/backyard.

timalkin: I'm kind of curious what in the world happened to you that this issue is so personal. I've known a lot of people who are staunchly against legalization, but no one who gets so angry and speaks with such vitriol. More than half of your posts since the beginning of this year (20/35) have been in this thread over the past few weeks. In fact, it's been almost a month since you've posted anywhere else, yet you post in this thread over and over again, using hateful language and refusing to engage in discussion or even consider that those people who disagree with you are possibly more than "pieces of shit."

There must be some highly personal story here, because it's the only reasonable explanation I can think of.

What about the money we lose by paying for their incarceration? While it is true that the "corrections" field is still a growing source of jobs, those jobs will forever be entirely taxpayer funded. If marijuana growers and sellers become licensed, and their sales are taxed, they will in fact be giving back to the system.
And you would be wrong in that belief. As I pointed out in the post above yours California made a statistically significant amount of money from taxing the sale of marijuana in 2007.
Alcohol is by far the most abused drug in the U.S. Most people use alcohol to relax, unwind, and function socially without becoming alcoholics. We've tried prohibiting the sale of alcohol in the past and ended up creating a situation very similar what currently exists with marijuana.

The vast majority of marijuana users have a life, a job, and aren't actually pieces of shit. There have been federal judges who were daily users, top athletes, scholars, you name it.

Record-setting Olympic gold medal winners ;)

seen this on TV last night:

Everyone I've known who sold drugs had a legitimate job, even if not a 9-5.
Tobacco companies will be the ones producing and selling it for tax revenue. Mass production makes it cheap, they make a profit, the government gets a cut from taxes, and I'd be willing to bet that after that it could still be sold to smokers for less than they're paying now.
So you never smoke or drink? How about coffee?

I agree 100%

Everyone who has commented in this thread should watch The Union, The business behind getting high.

Link to Torrent: h/ttp://isohunt.com/download/77381109/the+union.torrent

For a balanced perspective, also check out Reefer Madness. Reefer Madness is a true reflection of the effects of cannabis. :orly:

i didnt think The Union was out yet. awesome.

+1 on the reefer madness. you know, ever sense i started smoking pot ive switched over to heroin and killed my family. not to mention all those crazy nights wailing away on the piano. ahh, those crazy teenage years.