Marijuana

[celticdb15]

What are some of the opinions members of castefootball have on the popular "drug"? Medical marijuana has proven to have benefits in treatment for cancer and aids patients. Prop 19 almost passed in California to legalize the drug on the state level. Towns in California and Colorado have passed city laws legalizing the drug. In Dane County, Wisconsin you cannot pick up a drug charge for marijuana unless you have over 28 grams on you, which is a lot of bud. Will it be a matter of time before the drug is leglaized nationwide?? I'm a younger member here and I want to see feedback from you guys regarding this subject..

 

[celticdb15]

Here's a good article exploring some of the pros and cons



<DIV =title>Top 10 Pros and Cons
<DIV =subtitle>Should marijuana be a medical option?

The PRO and CON statements below give a five minute introduction to the debate on medical marijuana.
(Read more information about our one star /files/mj%20images/gstar.gif to five star /files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gifTheoreticalExpertise System.)
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1. 
   <LI>Physician Perspectives on Marijuana's Medical Use </LI>
   <LI>Medical Organizations' Opinions </LI>
   <LI>US Government Officials' Views </LI>
   <LI>Health Risks of Smoked Marijuana </LI>
   <LI>Treating AIDS with Marijuana </LI>

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<TD width="50%" align=left>

1. 
   <LI>Marijuana use for the Terminally Ill </LI>
   <LI>Marijuana vs. Marinol </LI>
   <LI>Addictiveness of Marijuana </LI>
   <LI>"Gateway" Effect </LI>
   <LI>Medical Marijuana Debate and Its Effect on Youth Drug Use </LI>

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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 50%; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="48%" align=middle>PRO Medical Marijuana</TD>
<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 50%; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="48%" align=middle>CON Medical Marijuana</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=1></A>1. Physician Perspectives on Marijuana's Medical Use</TD></TR>
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"The evidence is overwhelming that marijuana can relieve certain types of pain, nausea, vomiting and other symptoms caused by such illnesses as multiple sclerosis, cancer and AIDS -- or by the harsh drugs sometimes used to treat them. And it can do so with remarkable safety. Indeed, marijuana is less toxic than many of the drugs that physicians prescribe every day."


<DIV align=right>-- Joycelyn Elders, MD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Former US Surgeon General
Editorial, Providence Journal
Mar. 26, 2004</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"Although I understand many believe marijuana is the most effective drug in combating their medical ailments, I would caution against this assumption due to the lack of consistent, repeatable scientific data available to prove marijuana's medical benefits.


Based on current evidence, I believe that marijuana is a dangerous drug and that there are less dangerous medicines offering the same relief from pain and other medical symptoms."


<DIV align=right>-- Bill Frist, MD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Former US Senator (R-TN)
Correspondence to ProCon.org
Oct. 20, 2003 </TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=2></A>2. Medical Organizations' Opinions</TD></TR>
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"ACP urges review of marijuana's status as a schedule I controlled substance and its reclassification into a more appropriate schedule, given the scientific evidence regarding marijuana's safety and efficacy in some clinical conditions...

ACP strongly supports exemption from federal criminal prosecution; civil liability; or professional sanctioning, such as loss of licensure or credentialing, for physicians who prescribe or dispense medical marijuana in accordance with state law. Similarly, ACP strongly urges protection from criminal or civil penalties for patients who use medical marijuana as permitted under state laws."
<DIV align=right>-- American College of Physicians /files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
"Supporting Research into the Therapeutic Role of Marijuana," acponline.org
Feb. 15, 2008</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"In an effort to determine whether marijuana, or drugs derived from marijuana, might be effective as a glaucoma treatment, the National Eye Institute (NEI) supported research studies beginning in 1978... However, none of these studies demonstrated that marijuana -- or any of its components -- could lower IOP [intraocular pressure] as effectively as drugs already on the market. In addition, some potentially serious side effects were noted, including an increased heart rate and a decrease in blood pressure in studies using smoked marijuana.

The identification of side effects from smoked marijuana, coupled with the emergence of highly effective FDA-approved medications for glaucoma treatment, may have led to diminished interest in this research area."




<DIV align=right>-- National Eye Institute /files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
"Glaucoma and Marijuana Use,"nei.nih.gov
Mar. 17, 2009</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=3></A>3. US Government Officials' Views</TD></TR>
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"The evidence in this record [9-6-88 ruling] clearly shows that marijuana has been accepted as capable of relieving the distress of great numbers of very ill people, and doing so with safety under medical supervision. It would be unreasonable, arbitrary and capricious for DEA to continue to stand between those sufferers and the benefits of this substance in light of the evidence in this record."


<DIV align=right>-- Judge Francis L. Young/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
DEA Administrative Law Judge
Administrative ruling on Petition to Reschedule Marijuana
Sep. 1988</TD>
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"Smoked marijuana damages the brain, heart, lungs, and immune system. It impairs learning and interferes with memory, perception, and judgment. Smoked marijuana contains cancer-causing compounds and has been implicated in a high percentage of automobile crashes and workplace accidents."


<DIV align=right>-- John Walters/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Director, Office of National Drug Control Policy
Syndicated editorial
Mar. 2002</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=4></A>4. Health Risks of Smoked Marijuana</TD></TR>
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"[T]here is very little evidence that smoking marijuana as a means of taking it represents a significant health risk.


Although cannabis has been smoked widely in Western countries for more than four decades, there have been no reported cases of lung cancer or emphysema attributed to marijuana.


I suspect that a day's breathing in any city with poor air quality poses more of a threat than inhaling a day's dose -- which for many ailments is just a portion of a joint -- of marijuana."


<DIV align=right>-- Lester Grinspoon, MD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Emeritus Professor of Psychiatry
Harvard Medical School
"Puffing Is the Best Medicine,"
Los Angeles Times
May 5, 2006 </TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"3-4 Cannabis cigarettes a day are associated with the same evidence of acute and chronic bronchitis and the same degree of damage to the bronchial mucosa as 20 or more tobacco cigarettes a day.


Cannabis smoking is likely to weaken the immune system. Infections of the lung are due to a combination of smoking-related damage to the cells lining the bronchial passage and impairment of the principal immune cells in the small air sacs caused by cannabis."


<DIV align=right>-- British Lung Foundation/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
"Smoking Gun: The Impact of Cannabis Smoking on Respiratory Health,"
a publicly disseminated report
Nov. 2002</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=5></A>5. Treating AIDS with Marijuana</TD></TR>
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"Patients receiving cannabinoids [smoked marijuana and marijuana pills] had improved immune function compared with those receiving placebo. They also gained about 4 pounds more on average than those patients receiving placebo."
<DIV align=right>-- Donald Abrams, MD, et al. /files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
"Short-Term Effects of Cannabinoids in Patients with HIV-1 Infection,"
Annals of Internal Medicine
Aug. 19, 2003</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"The most compelling concerns regarding marijuana smoking in HIV/AIDS patients are the possible effects of marijuana on immunity.

Reports of opportunistic fungal and bacterial pneumonia in AIDS patients who used marijuana suggest that marijuana smoking either suppresses the immune system or exposes patients to an added burden of pathogens.

In summary, patients with preexisting immune deficits due to AIDS should be expected to be vulnerable to serious harm caused by smoking marijuana."

<DIV align=right>-- Institute of Medicine Report/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base
Mar. 1999</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=6></A>6. Marijuana For the Terminally Ill</TD></TR>
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"Consumer Reports believes that, for patients with advanced AIDS and terminal cancer, the apparent benefits some derive from smoking marijuana outweigh any substantiated or even suspected risks.


In the same spirit the FDA uses to hasten the approval of cancer drugs, federal laws should be relaxed in favor of states' rights to allow physicians to administer marijuana to their patients on a caring and compassionate basis."



<DIV align=right>-- Consumer Reports/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Editorial
May 1997</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"[T]he use of marijuana [for the terminally ill] can no longer be considered a therapeutic intervention but one of several procedures used to ease the ebbing of life of the terminally ill.


But for this purpose doctors should prescribe antiemetic and analgesic therapies of proven efficacy, rather than marijuana smoking.


This therapeutic course is not based on bureaucratic absolutism, political correctness, or reflexive ideology - but on scientific knowledge and the humane practice of medicine."



<DIV align=right>-- Gabriel Nahas, MD, PhD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Editorial, Wall Street Journal
Mar. 1997</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=7></A>7. Marijuana vs. Marinol</TD></TR>
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"There are really no other medications that have the same mechanisms of action as marijuana. Dronabinol (Marinol) is available by prescription in capsules, but has the distinct disadvantage of containing only synthetic delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) which is only one of many therapeutically beneficial cannabinoids in the natural plant."


<DIV align=right>-- Gregory T. Carter, MD /files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Co-director, MDA/ALS Center,
University of Washington Medical Center
Muscular Dystrophy Association
website article
Oct. 2003</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"Marinol differs from the crude plant marijuana because it consists of one pure, well-studied, FDA-approved pharmaceutical in stable known dosages. Marijuana is an unstable mixture of over 400 chemicals including many toxic psychoactive chemicals which are largely unstudied and appear in uncontrolled strengths."


<DIV align=right>-- California Narcotics Officers Association/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Official policy statement "The Use of Marijuana as a Medicine"
Oct. 31, 2005</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=8></A>8. Addictiveness of Marijuana</TD></TR>
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"For some users, perhaps as many as 10 per cent, cannabis leads to psychological dependence, but there is scant evidence that it carries a risk of true addiction. Unlike cigarette smokers, most users do not take the drug on a daily basis, and usually abandon it in their twenties or thirties.


Unlike for nicotine, alcohol and hard drugs, there is no clearly defined withdrawal syndrome, the hallmark of true addiction, when use is stopped."



<DIV align=right>-- Colin Blakemore, PhD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Chair, Dept. of Physiology, University of Oxford (U.K.), and
Leslie Iversen, PhD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Professor of Pharmacology, Oxford University
Editorial, The Times (U.K.)
Aug. 6, 2001</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"This study validated several specific effects of marijuana abstinence in heavy marijuana users, and showed they were reliable and clinically significant.


These withdrawal effects appear similar in type and magnitude to those observed in studies of nicotine withdrawal [...]


Craving for marijuana, decreased appetite, sleep difficulty, and weight loss reliably changed across the smoking and abstinence phases. Aggression, anger, irritability, restlessness, and strange dreams increased significantly during one abstinence phase, but not the other."


<DIV align=right>--Alan J. Budney, PhD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif et al.
Professor, University of Arkansas Center for Addiction Research
"Marijuana Abstinence Effects in Marijuana Smokers Maintained in Their Home Environment"
Archives of General Psychiatry
Oct. 2001</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=9></A>9. "Gateway" Effect</TD></TR>
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"We've shown that the marijuana gateway effect is not the best explanation for the link between marijuana use and the use of harder drugs.


An alternative, simpler and more compelling explanation accounts for the pattern of drug use you see in this country, without resort to any gateway effects. While the gateway theory has enjoyed popular acceptance, scientists have always had their doubts. Our study shows that these doubts are justified.[...]

The people who are predisposed to use drugs and have the opportunity to use drugs are more likely than others to use both marijuana and harder drugs. Marijuana typically comes first because it is more available."


<DIV align=right>-- Andrew Morral, PhD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Researcher, Rand Corporation
Press release discussing his study published in the U.K. journal Addiction
Dec. 2, 2002</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"A new federal report released today concludes the younger children are when they first use marijuana, the more likely they are to use cocaine and heroin and become dependent on drugs as adults.[...]


Increases in the likelihood of cocaine and heroin use and drug dependence are also apparent for those who initiate use of marijuana at any later age"


<DIV align=right>--US Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA)/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
SAMHSA press release on their report;
"Initiation of Marijuana Use: Trends, Patterns and Implications"
Aug. 28, 2002</TD></TR>
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<TD style="TEXT-ALIGN: center; WIDTH: 99%; : #eaecd3; VERTICAL-ALIGN: top" vAlign=top width="2%" colSpan=3 align=middle><A name=10></A>10. Medical Marijuana Debate and Its Affect on Youth Drug Use</TD></TR>
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"While it is not possible with existing data to determine conclusively that state medical marijuana laws caused the documented declines in adolescent marijuana use, the overwhelming downward trend strongly suggests that the effect of state medical marijuana laws on teen marijuana use has been either neutral or positive, discouraging youthful experimentation with the drug."


<DIV align=right>-- Mitch Earleywine, PhD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Associate Professor of Psychology, State University of New York at Albany
Karen O'Keefe, Esq./files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Attorney &amp; Legislative Analyst, Marijuana Policy Project
Report, "Marijuana Use by Young People:
The Impact of State Medical Marijuana Laws"
Sep. 2005











</TD>
<TD vAlign=top align=left>


"By characterizing the use of illegal drugs as quasi-legal, state-sanctioned, Saturday afternoon fun, legalizers destabilize the societal norm that drug use is dangerous. They undercut the goals of stopping the initiation of drug use to prevent addiction.... Children entering drug abuse treatment routinely report that they heard that 'pot is medicine' and, therefore, believed it to be good for them."


<DIV align=right>-- Andrea Barthwell, MD/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif/files/mj%20images/gstar.gif
Former Deputy Director, White House Office of National Drug Control Policy (ONDCP)
Chicago Tribune editorial
</TD></TR></T></TABLE>

 

[DixieDestroyer]

Here's my position...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eshAB-a219Y


Edited by: DixieDestroyer

 

[whiteCB]

LEGALIZE IT!! There's no way in a sane society that a PLANT never in the course of human history killed anyone can be illegal. However, the tides are a changing and state by state it will become legal. Just like we saw with how gambling which started off only legal in Nevada spread slowly but surely across the country to more and more states. The matter is not when will marijuana be legal but WHEN will marijuana be legal. I'd say 2012 is a good bet. Probably 50/50. I see California, Colorado, and maybe Washington putting it up for a vote. The problem is the "stoner" vote is absent. If every single person who smoked weed became politically active say by joining NORML or the marijuana policy project; us tokers would be just as powerful as the NRA. Do not kid yourselves fellows. Around 5-10% of the country dabbles in the green; that's over 20 million people! I know a sh*t ton of friends and acquaintances that smoke the reefer. I have what you would call "weedar" its kind of like "gaydar" but I have the ability to sniff out smokers. lol

 

[jaxvid]

This weekend was the 'Hash Bash' in Ann Arbor Mi, one of the biggest holidays on the pot calendar. It is very nearly legal in Michigan since it is now legal for medical use which means anyone can grow it to use it.

I would think soon it will be completely legal for personal use. However I thought it was going to be legal 20 years ago. Never underestimate the power of the drug warriors to continue their war. Even here in Michigan the federal government still raids pot users despite the state laws making it legal. Until the states grow a set of balls and tell the feds to f-off, the federal anti-drug complex will continue to treat it as an illegal substance.

 

[Colonel_Reb]

Every time I have students write research papers, I always get a handful of almost identical papers that advocate the legalization of marijuana use.

 

[Wolfman82]

Alcohol is way worse. Its not even close. It always blows me away how some guy with a fat beer belly who couldnt bust a grape will talk bad about a pothead. As if because beer is legal hes got some kind of moral highground. Drunk idiots ruin the lives of everyone around them. At the same time they call potheads hippies. Its insanity.

 

[Don Wassall]

Marijuana has always been viewed as a threat by the fedgov because ofthe many positive attributes of hemp, which cannot be easily controlled (and taxed) by the omnipresent state in the "land of the free."

What's interesting to observe is the extreme changes in the system's propaganda regarding weed over time. In the 1930s there was the "Reefer Madness" era of laugh-out-loud, hysterically anti-weed movies. During the early to late '70s, weed was unofficially legal in many localities because of the influence of the late '60s Cultural Marxist-supported counterculture. But as the '60s radicals (predominantly Jewish) aged and began taking power from their more conservative (predominantly Jewish) elders, they proved to be far more hypocritical and anti-freedom than those they were supposedly rebelling against, and open weed use was smashed, just as virtually all other unapproved forms of thinking and acting have been. In colleges in the '70s there used to be late night showings of "Reefer Madness" and similar crusading propaganda from the '30s, at which the attendees would get properly stoned and laugh their asses off. But now, in the "much more sophisticated" 21st century, the hysterical anti-marijuana propaganda has returned, just as crude and laughable if not more so in many cases, as that from the '30s.

My personal view -- weed smoking should not be promoted, but neither should it be demonized. There is the potential for abuse, but that is true of caffeine, nicotine, alcohol, and other legal drugs. Marijuana is not a "gateway" drug to the hard stuff, and the constant portrayal of it as such shows just how hollow and fake the perpetual "War on Drugs" is. There are untold young, working and middle class White men who have been thrown in prison with hardcore criminals for using and/or selling small amounts of weed. This of course is the same system that also constantly tries to ensnare mostly young, working and middle class White men in DUI roadblocks in order to get more of them into this country's huge and constantly growing government/prison complex. Many lives are being destroyed by the Nanny State, which is in full, post-9/11 bloom, because of its ham-handed, dramatically overdoneresponses to victimless crimes such as marijuana use.

Weed smoking can result in clouded thinking and laziness and lack of ambition, among other negatives, and can and has led many a young person the wrong way in the crucial teenage developmental years, so I'm not advocating it. But in the current environment of rigid conformity, mindless super pseudo-patriotism, and totalitarianism, it can also bring about a degree of enlightenment in users, just as alcohol has temporary liberating qualitiessuch asrebelling and thinking outside the box. Those who abuseweed will tend to abuse something else if denied it. I'm against the entire "War on Drugs" charade by a government which seems to be permanently "at war" with an ever-growing number ofideas and countries. The use of weed should be a personal decision, not the government's.Edited by: Don Wassall

 

[Anak]

Here's my position...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eshAB-a219Y

I don't take dope! Hell no!

 

[Westside]

Everyone should be free to grow on their property. Selling it in huge quanties should be viewed the same as alcohol or beer(tax it). Everyone should be free to smoke it in their residences.

One should not be high will driving or be under its influence at work. Treat it in the same manner as booze.

 

[j41181]

Here's my position...

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eshAB-a219Y

I don't take dope! Hell no!

Me neither!

Smoking nicotine, and booze drinking lead to CANCER. Yet, those both have been LEGAL for well... ages and ages. So what's makes marijuana any different?

So I say LEGALIZE, consider it like regular smoking and drinking. People have a right to intoxicate themselves if they wish, just don't promote and say it's a good thing.

Heroin and Cocaine are way worse than Marijuana.

 

[C Darwin]

nixon clumped in marijuana in the 'narcotics' category to control hippies and blacks in the 70s. i fear that this is an attempt to make some room in the prisons for thought criminals like us. i often think of what could the motive be for the oligarchy to legalize pot?

 

[Freethinker]

Mr. Wassall hits the nail on the head with his post. It is clear as day that the "war on drugs" and the prison system are closely tied together. Another reason marijuana is illegal is the US government controls the flow of narcotics into the country through the CIA. The big banks then launder the money. Just research Iran Contra. Just look at the Vietnam War and the poppy fields (Heroin). Just look at the Afghan War where over 90% of the world's poppy is produced. Think this is all coincidence.

[TUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SBh_hzU-jdI[/TUBE]

[TUBE]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A_VlUej-Uu8&feature=related[/TUBE]

 

[whiteCB]

i often think of what could the motive be for the oligarchy to legalize pot?

It's very clear, at least to me, that the PTB (powers that be)are ready to legalize the ganja. Here's why. In the 30s when it was first outlawed it made sense to create a criminal element to it because the LOW numbers of people that smoked it would in no way ante up the tax money that would appease the PTB. They would in essence make more off the illegality of the drug than the legal status of the substance because no one (white america) was smoking it it. Now here we are in 2011 and Weed is literally everywhere. It's the country's #1 cash crop, its in every high school, and every race of people now smoke it. ITS A HUGE TAX MARKET!!! So now here we are 70+ years after prohibition began and the PTB can now make more money off selling it through the proper legal gov't tax channels than they can through the illegal market i.e. prisons, DEA, law enforcement, ect.

 

[Observer]

i often think of what could the motive be for the oligarchy to legalize pot?

It's very clear, at least to me, that the PTB (powers that be)are ready to legalize the ganja. Here's why. In the 30s when it was first outlawed it made sense to create a criminal element to it because the LOW numbers of people that smoked it would in no way ante up the tax money that would appease the PTB. They would in essence make more off the illegality of the drug than the legal status of the substance because no one (white america) was smoking it it. Now here we are in 2011 and Weed is literally everywhere. It's the country's #1 cash crop, its in every high school, and every race of people now smoke it. ITS A HUGE TAX MARKET!!! So now here we are 70+ years after prohibition began and the PTB can now make more money off selling it through the proper legal gov't tax channels than they can through the illegal market i.e. prisons, DEA, law enforcement, ect.

And another reason to legalize it is that the weed creates a malleable, easily-manipulated, mush-brained, and soft population. But, of course, such factors on a large scale are not exactly desirable, either. So, probably a massive regulatory apparatus will be in place to tweak the money vs. malleable aspects under the guise of medical and health. Expect a Bernanke of weed regulation.Edited by: Observer

 

[space hillbilly]

I hate to be a "killjoy" But there's little good in marijuana. Growing up deep in the southern appalachian mountains back in the 80's Marijuana was all but legal. I could buy a trash bag full of the best for no more than $200, i had friends that smoked it every day and some maybe once a week. And some [like me] who had no use for pot at all. Now today almost all my friends that smoked marijuana are only in their mid-40s and are facing life threatening health problems.
Mostly heart trouble and arteriosclarosis [hardening of the artaries]. But my friends that didn't smoke it are mostly in good health. We eat the same food, drank the same water. Only the pot separated us....

 

[Menelik]

Here's my position...

Lets be real frank here. I have a beer (or two) usually several times a week after work to relax. No one smokes a joint to relax. They smoke to get effed up. And while weed might not be as addictive as cocaine or the other hard drugs, it fuels a criminal enterprise. Take a gander at this film from a major dope peddling gang and tell me what YOU think. Be warned; itsnot for the faint of heart:

http://www.liveleak.com/view?i=fe8_1294288669

 

[Freethinker]

This ties in to the marijuana discussion. As I said earlier, our government is tied into the drug trade. If you decriminalize marijuana, you defund the violent drug cartels as well as our criminal government that makes money off the black market. To make matters worse, they bust people for possessing and/or selling small amounts of weed to populate the ever growing prison system (slave labor).

Mexican Drug Lord Trafficked Cocaine for US Government

 

[celticdb15]

I agree marijuana is harmless compared tocrack cocaine,heroineand meth.I would even put over the counter prescriptions such as xanax and oxicodon(basically pill form of heroine) as more dangerous.Most people use marijuana as a recreation drug. Which means they do it to have fun or to relax. If marijuana was legal in the U.S. we would cut the cartels business in half. Besides half of the sh*t the cartels import is very low quality bud.

 

[Menelik]

Besides half of the sh*t the cartels import is very low quality bud.

Spoken like a true doper.

 

[chris371]

Considering the huge amounts of people killed by drunk driving, drunk fighting, drunk unprotected sex every year, i find it sort of ridiculous to point weed out as "dangerous".

 

[jaxvid]

Considering the huge amounts of people killed by drunk driving, drunk fighting, drunk unprotected sex every year, i find it sort of ridiculous to point weed out as "dangerous".

I think the high THC pot in use today can seriously impair driving skills. Not to the point of someone who is sh*t faced drunk, but still significantly. We're not talking Cheech and Chong days here with mild buzzes and the munchies, the stuff out there now can knock you on your ass. That ain't good behind the wheel, especially when it's typically young and minorities that are stoned, not the best of drivers even in normal situations.

I just don't think the path to convincing people that marijuana should be legalized gains anything by bringing up how it will make the roads safer. Stick with "in the safety of ones own house".

 

[chris371]

Youre right, a death by a drunken driver isnt anywhere near as harmful as a death caused by an weed intoxicated driver. Weed deaths are so much more dangerous, as they cause death, as opposed to drink driving deaths. Therefore it is entirely logical to ban one recreational drug but not the other.

 

[jaxvid]

Youre right, a death by a drunken driver isnt anywhere near as harmful as a death caused by an weed intoxicated driver. Weed deaths are so much more dangerous, as they cause death, as opposed to drink driving deaths. Therefore it is entirely logical to ban one recreational drug but not the other.

I think you missed my f'in point entirely.

 

[Vanilla_Sky]

I was for marijuana legalization for quite some time on the basis it would end cartel violence by providing weed for American potheads legally on our soil. But if we were to begin growing weed at home, that would negatively effect the cartel's drug business and force them to move up north where they will continue violent bloodshed on American soil.