[Donnah]

There's no tax on stupidity and that is frequent and incurs huge costs.

[Ylide]

Drkev:

So ban smoking in public places.  Second hand smoke is largely over-rated in danger (you're in WAY more danger from UV and background radiation), but yeah it sure is annoying.  Most pot smokers don't care if we can smoke a joint in a restaurant, but we'd sure like to be able to tie one on relaxing at home without having to worry about criminal records or dealing with black market types.  Cigarette smokers will get over it, too.  I can't see banning smoke in bars and clubs, but even when I was a smoker, I hated smelling smoke in restaurants.  

As far as tax money paying for smoker health care cost...you don't pay any tax at all on food in most places.  What about the costs of treating overweight people for heart disease?  Where does that money come from?  Oh that's right...smokers and fat people have health insurance as frequently as healthy people do.  

Tweener, that other approach you're looking for is to treat drug use as a social problem, not a criminal one.  Some of the drugs that are illegal are, for the most part, harmless when used infrequently and in small amount.  Some are highly addictive and destructive to the body, but putting someone in jail for using doesn't teach them anything other than where to get more drugs and how not to get caught.  Prison also has this nasty side effect of turning otherwise-decent folks who made a mistake or two into loser degenerate criminals.  A man will behave in the manner you treat him.  I'm not saying all criminals are innocent, many of the people in prison absolutely deserve to be there, but locking someone up who has otherwise committed no other crime?  Come on.  These people need help, not punishment.  I've known junkies.  I've had more than one friend develop a serious addiction problem.  Jail didn't do a damn thing except screw up their chances at ever being treated like a human being again.  What got them clean?  Compassion and support.  No one wants to be a junkie the rest of their life...no one CAN, the body can't take it.  Compassion, man.

Lets also not forget that the black market inflates prices to a degree that the IRS can only dream of.  If you remove the black market element from the drug trade, not only do you remove the criminal element from the distribution and manufacturing/growing of the substance, you also decrease the prices and decrease the health risks from impure products.  Most large gangs and other organized crime are supported by income from illegal drug trade.  This eliminates much of their resources.  Lower prices means not only are addicts going to be less likely to committ a crime to afford their habit, but drug users are less likely to use harder street drugs when safer, less damaging, less addicting drugs are available.  

Criminalization hurts society.  Drkev, you said you've studied sociology.  Why don't you dig up your old notes on social construction theory?  The costs of supporting a criminal justice system that punishes victimless offenders is far more than the cost of supporting the healthcare costs of supporting some of those people who develop health problems and don't have insurance.  




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[Ians Daddy]

Jay,

Very well put.

I don't want to sound like a conspiracy freak, but.... Don't you think that the government has weighed all of this? Doesn't it stand to reason that they may want to keep this element alive? It's been lining pockets for years. It's scare tactic propoganda and it keeps people locking their doors. It feeds the egos and bellies of law enforcement and judiciary systems. It makes the money flow. All the monkeys dance when the big boys start grinding out laws. Money, money, money.
It's actually a shameful thing. Have you ever seen the nightly news in Amsterdam? It's like a freakin' variety show. There's no crime. But, Amsterdam isn't the big scary power that the US is... The police nation. If we stay scared and confused, we keep spending.

Just a thought.

[Ylide]

Ians Daddy:  Yeah, before the big terrorist "threat", crime and drugs were the two main things used by the goverment to terrorize citizens into letting themselves be controlled.  Check out a book called Culture of Fear by Barry Glassner.  It talks about exactly that...how we let ourselves be terrified by goverment and media and how stupid it all is.  Intolerance, racism, injustice...all products of us allowing ourselves to be told what to do.  I don't know that the motivation is purely financial...I think 9/11 proved that fear can sometimes make people STOP spending,  but it is most certainly about control.  And control is what keeps the fat old white guys in power.

Have you ever heard the real reason cannabis was declared illegal?  It's because of Dupont's patented paper manufacturing process.  You know, the one that uses up real long-lived actual trees and creates nasty chemical byproducts.  Hemp paper was commonly used before that (our Consitution is written on it!) and is better quality and produces less chemical byproducts.  So Dupont lobbied his buddies in Philadelphia (I don't think DC was US capital at that point...this was the 1800s)  and let them know that hemp came from the same plant that the dirty Mexicans smoked that make them all crazy, thus it should be banned.  Of course, smokable marijuana plants and hemp plants are have completely different THC contents, but our gov't listened to their pals in industry and here we are.

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[tweener]

Jay,
Both of your posts are well put.  I'll have to check out the book Culture of Fear, as I agree with the idea and just have not put much thought into it before.  As you can see in many of my other posts, I believe most of the power in the world is dominated by money, and whatever happens does so to generate more money and/or power for someone.  Sometimes this is not bad and sometimes it is horrible.  It is rarely good always true.


----
John

[Ylide]

I just looked at the topic list and there were 420 views of this thread.  That's surely a sign that weed is good.  =)



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[Nikita]

quote:Originally posted by drkev

Quote "My body, my decision"

So should heroin be legalised then? Should cocaine be legal then? If it's your body hell you can do what you want to it.

I am not a lawyer, I'm a pharmacologist (future doctor). My job is to research and investigate the effects of drugs on people.

We live in a structured and organised society with rules and regulations. You don't like that then you go live on a desert Island.

"..provide treatment" You choose to pump that crap into your body so why shouldf the overstretched NHS have to pay for your treatment? When it is a known fact that Cannabis is 3 times more carcinogenic than tobacco and 4 times the amount of tar is deopsited on the lungs.

When Mrs Jones has to wait for her hip operation because Mr "I can do what I want to my body is in her hospital bed" then my point will be clear.

We have laws that prohibit dangerous activity for reasons. So should the following be legal?

Playing on railways?
Jumping off of buildings?
Running in traffic?
Cocaine?
Heroin?
Self Harming?

After all it's your body

Live long and Love life

Kevin Fisher

[Thorin]

quote:Originally posted by Donnah

I want marijuana legalized.  To penalize the sick who could benefit from its use because of others who abuse it makes no more sense than banning pharmaceuticals that are sold in the black market.

Who are "the sick who could benefit from its use"?  For every claim of a "medical use" for marijuana there is evidence that the risks outweigh the benefits.  The delivery system for marijuana, smoking, is very unhealthy.  We already have marinol which is based on THC, the active ingredient in marijuana that is available in a safer oral dosage.  The tired argument of a small number of people that have problems with nausea taking an oral medicine is like refusing chemotherapy for cancer because chemotherapy causes nausea.

Marinol has one other difference compared with marijuana -- you don't get high.  And that is why advocates of legalization want it.  It doesn't have anything to do with "medical use", only with getting high.

There is no medical need for marijuana.

[Limpet chicken]

Cannabis has improved the quality of my life greatly, I have Asperger's syndrome, but only mildly, I smoke the herb daily, and it has improved my ability, so long as I don't get totally stoned[]
to communicate with people, it makes me a lot more receptive to listem to other people, and helps making me a lot more sociable, if I blaze a couple of bowls of hash or skunk in my pipe before I meet friends.

Obviously, the effects are better if I only smoke a couple of bowls, as too much and I get so stoned I am impaired and all I can think of is stuffing my face[]

I also have Osgood Schlatters' disease, which causes severe knee pain, Smoking a little pot completely takes away any paid I have on flare ups, impairs me a lot less than if I took street opiates or kratom, and is a pleasurable way to take your medicine too[8]

Non omnis moriar, tenebris e lumen.

[Abraham Lincoln]

quote:Originally posted by Ylide

quote:  So should heroin be legalised then? Should cocaine be legal then? If it's your body hell you can do what you want to it.

  Yes, absolutely.  Make it all legal.  I think we've already proven that prohibition is largely ineffective.  Instead of dumping hundreds of billions of dollars putting these people into prison, how about we spend a fraction of that treating their addiction and god-forbid do some medical research into addiction and find an inexpensive solution.  What do you think costs the state more...a couple months in rehab or 10 years in the pokey?  Considering the average cost to house and feed a prisoner is greater than the median household income in this country, I think we both know the answer to that.  

You make a claim of having  an old woman that can't get her hip replacement surgery because some junkie is taking up a bed.  Denying someone medical treatment because of health issues caused by personal choice goes against everything medicine stands for.  If you truly have that attitude, I feel sorry for any patients you may have should you go into medical practice.  As I stated above, many of our choices in life result in poor health.  Maybe Mrs Jones needs a new hip because she's a big fat slob who couldn't watch what she ate her whole life and the strain of being heavy gave her arthritis.  Does that make her morally superior because her self-induced health issues were not caused by a substance that a few old religious white guys decided made people a little too happy?

Maybe the issue is not wether or not drugs should be illegal, but wether we as a nation have the ability develop a sensible health care plan.  Education and treatment do a lot more in the prevention of drug use than incarceration ever will.  If your goal is truly that of the welfare and health of your fellow man, drkev, perhaps you should take that into consideration.  



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Abraham Lincoln

[Abraham Lincoln]

I am a dyed-in-the-wool American Right Winger, and although I would certainly disagree vehemently with most of the political views of commenters in this forum, I must say this:

Marijuana should be legalized, with all but a few regulatory controls.  

If the government did this, we'd have a ****load more money to spend on getting the REAL demon drugs (cocaine, heroin, meth, et cetera) off of the streets.

It's ridiculous the way law enforcement goes after this little plant.

The medical benefits are also significant for some conditions.  

Of course, it should be illegal to drive while on it (it already is). The government should (heavily) tax commercial sales of it, advertising cannot be directed to minors, the 'smoking' age should be 18 years (BTW alcohol drinking age should be lowered back down to 18 too), cancer warning should appear on packages for commercial sale.

I agree with the commentor that pointed out the veiled agenda of the real reaons why it was made illegal - that the paper and textile industries saw it as a threat.  Paper and fabric made from hemp are far superior and longer-lasting than cotton.

Thank you,

American Right Wing lunatic

Abraham Lincoln

[Abraham Lincoln]

BTW the post listed right before mine, headed "orignally posted by ylide" was not posted by me I don't know how it got my name on it!

Abraham Lincoln