marijuana, legal? Options

[*Kathleen*]

One joint has the same effect on your lungs than an entire pack of cigarettes does.... and it's a negative effect...

Cigarrettes are more addicting than pot. People die every year from cigarette smoking, but no one dies from smoking marijuana.

[ComradeRed]

After you are in jail, it is on your record forever. It will be basically impossible for you attend a good college, or get a decent job. Most people, after leaving jail, end up on government welfare, where we taxpayers pay their way for the rest of their lives. While in jail, they might learn to be violent criminals, and commit REAL crimes down the line, which further causes social harms and harms themselves as well. As nice in theory as it is, very few people manage to put their lives together after spending a long time in jail. On the other hand, a lot of people manage to put their lives together -- on their own -- after using marijuana. Some of them ended up being President of the United States (you know, if you abbreviate President Of The United States, you get POT US). Moreover, a lot of people are punished by civil asset forfeiture in addition to jail -- In other words, the government TAKES ALL YOUR PROPERTY AND DOESN'T HAVE TO GIVE YOU A LAWYER. It's almost imopssible to rebuild your life when you own nothing, are on the street, and have 10-year-jail sentence behind you. Even worse, many pot smokers are actually given LIFE sentences now. How do you put your life together when you are in jail for life? Look up the cases of Lonnie Lundy and Debbie Vineyard.

Plus, the ONLY way to enforce laws against drugs is to invade people's Constitutionally-guaranteed privacy. Drugs are a victimless crime, after all. In other crimes, you have a victim to report the crime. But there is no victim in drug abuse. So the only way to conduct a war on it is to vioalte people's rights -- which in the end causes more harm than drugs do. Remember, ALL drugs were legal up until the 1960s. In the 1920s, we tried to launch a war against one drug -- alcohol -- which ended in a bloody failure. Since the War on Drugs began in the late 60s, the poverty rate has jumped from 5% to 15%, the murder rate has doubled, and the rate of Americna in jail has climbed to 0.7% -- more than any other country, and most of the people in American jails have never harmed another human being. Drugs have been legal for 200 years -- and our country did fine. The War on Drugs is as Unconstitutional as it is Unamerican.

“Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man’s appetite by legislation and makes crimes out of things that are not crimes. A prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded.”
--President Abraham Lincoln

[MeanBastard]

Cigarrettes are more addicting than pot. People die every year from cigarette smoking, but no one dies from smoking marijuana.

Where do you hear that?

[ComradeRed]

It's a scientific fact -- even the government admits it. Even the official government drug propaganda says that marijuana will only slow your reaction time and make you not care about life. If marijauna could kill you, it makes sense that anti-drug ads would SAY that wouldn't it?


Notice the two peaks -- one is Prohibition, the other is the War on Drugs.

[*Kathleen*]

Where do you hear that?

Source: http://www.healthfinder.gov/news/newsstory.asp?docID=515211

Even so, evidence suggests smoking pot is much safer than smoking cigarettes, he says. "One of the reasons is that marijuana is not inherently as addictive as tobacco because it doesn't contain nicotine. Many more people get addicted to tobacco smoking than marijuana smoking."

In a Swedish study, researchers found no link between marijuana use among more than 45,000 male military conscripts, aged 18 to 20, and their death rates over the next 15 years. Another study of 65,171 men and women enrolled in the Kaiser Permanente health plan found that, with the exception of AIDS patients, marijuana users were not more likely than others to die over a 10-year period.

[MeanBastard]

The not dying part. I'm too lazy to read the article ><

[*Kathleen*]

You can't be lazy when you question someone else's statements.

[MeanBastard]

Well its not as likely. Not that flat out dont die due to marijuana smoking.

[*Kathleen*]

Okay, point me out a situation where someone died from smoking marijuana. Of course, there are people that die from getting in a car and driving under the influence of marijuana, but no one has died from only smoking it.

[ComradeRed]

They don't ... There has never been a respectable study done showing that people die from marijuana.

[MeanBastard]

Okay, point me out a situation where someone died from smoking marijuana. Of course, there are people that die from getting in a car and driving under the influence of marijuana, but no one has died from only smoking it.

Well, when I read your statement, my brain makes it as "Nobody dies from marijuana smoking or influence."

[*Kathleen*]

So fix your brain?

[ComradeRed]

Marijuana makes you more likely to engage in risky behavior like overeating and reaction-slowing, but it won't kill you if you just sit there and smoke it.

[*Kathleen*]

but it won't kill you if you just sit there and smoke it.

(Adding onto this) ...where as you can get lung cancer and die from cigarette smoking. So if cigarettes are more harmful, why are they legalized? Why not legalize marijuana? Besides, pot has a positive influence as well. Just ask doctors who'd like to give it to their patients to use.

[inlonelinessidie]

So if cigarettes are more harmful, why are they legalized? Why not legalize marijuana?

Because people can grow it in the privacy of their own home and the government cannot benefit from that. Greedy people

[ComradeRed]

Why are they greedy? Bad greed is when you want to TAKE things belonging to someone else. It's not wanting to KEEP things that you already own -- that's called pragmatism.

[*Kathleen*]

Because people can grow it in the privacy of their own home and the government cannot benefit from that. Greedy people

So are you going to stop people from planting their own vegetables or flowers in their backyard?

[inlonelinessidie]

Why are they greedy? Bad greed is when you want to TAKE things belonging to someone else. It's not wanting to KEEP things that you already own -- that's called pragmatism.

I was talking about the government y'all.

So are you going to stop people from planting their own vegetables or flowers in their backyard?

I was talking about the governmernment.


//EDIT: I'm so for legalizing it. Haven't you read my posts?

[*Kathleen*]

Oh haha. I read it the wrong way. I see what you mean now.

[ghjgfkgfk]

Yeah... let's all just get stoned off our asses and lose all common sense. That's smart.

did you read what i said?
not everyone does pot to be 'cool'.
it has different effects on different people.

[Mini]

any drug that can spread its effects on others without their permission should be illegal. i dont want to inhale mary jane or any type of smoke when im breathing! it goes against my unalienable rights of being a homosabian, the right to breath clean air and live.

[inlonelinessidie]

any drug that can spread its effects on others without their permission should be illegal. i dont want to inhale mary jane or any type of smoke when im breathing! it goes against my unalienable rights of being a homosabian, the right to breath clean air and live.

Heard of no smoking sections? Same rules would be applied.

[*Kathleen*]

any drug that can spread its effects on others without their permission should be illegal. i dont want to inhale mary jane or any type of smoke when im breathing!

So just beat them with a stick?

[Mini]

Heard of no smoking sections? Same rules would be applied.

Actually smoke particles can travel around the world in just 5 weeks if it can be caught in a jet stream. So basically if drugs were legal, it would become a habit for most people to start smoking everywhere causing more smoke build up in the air.

Right now you could be inhaling smoke molecules inside your lungs. Just think, smokers are increasing the chances of you getting lung cancer right now. Even with laws, the pollution is still increasing and smoking is just increasing the pollution causing the air to be toxic.

[inlonelinessidie]

So basically if drugs were legal, it would become a habit for most people to start smoking everywhere causing more smoke build up in the air.

Not true. That isn't the case with cigarettes otherwise most would be addicted to them. And by most I mean more then now. So how do you know it would be the case with pot?