Legalize pot? Sure......why NOT!?

obieone · March 2009

"Our first stop is in Bogota,
To check the Columbian fields,
The natives smile and pass along,
A sample of their yeilds"- 'Thailand Express', Rush

The reason I thought of that song, was because B-4 THIS post, my post count was.....

2112:eek::eek::eek:

timlitton · March 2009

Emotiva customer service all smokes pot. It's some reference quality ****.

Sorry.

I just saw some similarities in the threads.

Ricardo · March 2009

moe wrote: »

I've known judges,police,teachers,doctors,lawyers and just about any group you could name that have smoked weed either occasionally or for 30 some years.Most all raised families,sent the kids to college and were productive members of society.

And your point is? Pot is the solution to the economic crisis? Start smoking pot and your dreams will come true?

George Grand · March 2009

George, it was "The Fraternity of Man" from Easy Rider.

Little Feat. Kids.

moe · March 2009

Ricardo wrote: »

And your point is? Pot is the solution to the economic crisis? Start smoking pot and your dreams will come true?

I didn't know this thread addressed the "economy".The point is a bunch of redneck idiots have passed laws that make free people not free.The powers that be think they should determine whats best for the people,freedom is YOU determine whats best for YOU as long as you do no harm to others.And before you get off into all the harm that xyz does,just keep in mind all the damage every single thing you can think of has done.The fast food,the cars,booze,pills,religious wars/killing in the name of and the list is gigantic.Keep in mind I have nothing against many of these things but ALL have the potential to do harm to others,but they're legal.

It's all about money or politics,not freedom,I support everyones right to be free and happy.What's right for you may not be right for me and viseversa,but as long as you do not hurt others,more power to ya.

Ricardo · March 2009

Freedom? Move to another planet.

When is people going to stop blaming the goverments for everything?

Edit: almost forgot. 6,978

moe · March 2009

Ricardo wrote: »

Freedom? Move to another planet.

When is people going to stop blaming the goverments for everything?

Edit: almost forgot. 6,978

R,I was born on this planet,with what should be everyones right to freedom.If you can tell me one good thing the government does well I'll listen.

Ricardo · March 2009

In your previous post you said "as long as you do not hurt others". You are limiting freedom right there, and recognizing that we need someone or something to draw some lines. We cannot allow you or me to draw these lines because....well, "what's right for you may not be right for me".

6,979

bobman1235 · March 2009

messiah wrote: »

hmmm... or how many LEO occasionally smoke pot

it happens more than you might think:rolleyes:

Back in my pot-smoking days I bought pot from a cop once. Dead serious. It is everywhere, no matter how much FUD and doom and gloom everyone wants to throw around, people are resourceful and will always get what they want. Making it illegal has done NOTHING to curb pot smoking in this country, except cost taxpayers billions of dollars and to crowd jails with nonviolent criminals. Yes, pot may be bad in your mind, yes it has negative effects, but it is a non-violent offense that for the most part hurts only the user (smoking and driving is its own offense, just like drinking and driving is completely separate from drinking alone).

BrettT1 wrote: »

I think they'll either decriminalize or legalize in the next 15 - 20 years. Still too many folks against it, it would seem. :rolleyes:

Massachusetts decriminalized pot in the last election. Anything under an ounce is no longer a criminal offense (I think it's just a fine)

MSALLA · March 2009

The fact of the matter is, pot is much LESS dangerous then alcohol. But, alcohol is not thought of as a drug by the majority of the people not only in this country but around the world. If the current trend continues, pot will be legal in the distant future. Calif. is pretty close now as getting a permit for medical use is very easy. They have even stoped testing for it on drug tests for construction jobs.

Jstas · March 2009

comfortablycurt wrote: »

Here's an interesting link to a video with some clips from CNN. They did a poll recently asking whether or not marijuana should be legalized. The results of the poll were overwhelming. 95% said yes.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rLZ5mXroW_E

Online polls like that are completely bogus. All you gotta do is have one idealistic pothead like yourself find out about it and tell all your pothead friends and they bum rush the poll and skew results. I highly doubt that is indicative of the population.

Jstas · March 2009

comfortablycurt wrote: »

So, to all of the law officers on board here. I smoke pot. You can come arrest me if you want, but you'll be meeting my lawyer shortly there after...lol

Do you have alot of problems with law enforcement?

PhantomOG · March 2009

We live in a democracy. If pot was so wonderful, so safe, and so meaningful to the productive members of our society it would or will become legal. End of story.

Don't want to wait? Move to the Netherlands. Don't let the door hit your **** on the way out.

CaligulaPolk · March 2009

Jstas · March 2009

MSALLA wrote: »

The fact of the matter is, pot is much LESS dangerous then alcohol.

Where is the proof of this statement?

It has been mentioned several times in this thread and no one has furnished any proof at all.

Knucklehead · March 2009

What would legalizing pot do for the economy? absolutley nothing...why would anybody pay big bucks for the crap when they could grow it themselves for minimal cost. That is why it would never become legal, there is no money in it. Curt, if you get arrested for possesion, sorry my friend but there is not much an attorney can do for you.....now try to get a GOOD job with that on your record. i personally would rather spend $500 bucks on some audio equipment than a retaining fee to an attorney, bail money,etc.........

CaligulaPolk · March 2009

pot is not only for smoking

can make it for many things, Id be rich guy if i could grow plants legally. also, wouldnt need use Fabreeze scent spray everyday, beautiful plant, smells good and produce more oxygen for us

TennesseeOutlaw · March 2009

Well Holland and Amsterdam r referenced quite often in this debate and I hate to do so; however, they just speak for themselves. After these countries reformed their drug laws crime plummeted. It also generated a healthy amount of revenue for the economy. Hell I know how much I pay for a good bag of pot n if the government was taxing and annexing it we may be able to pay off the national debt in less than a decade. My main reason for saying YES to the legalization/decriminalization of marijuana is the emptying of jails and prisons throughout the US. More the 75 % of inmates in the US are incarcerated for a drug offense. Of those, over 80% are for marijuana related charges. Everyday, VIOLENT criminals are givin shortened sentences and sometimes not even being incarcerated due to lack of space. U know to keep someone in jail for 30 years it costs American tax layers 1 million dollars. I can think of some better criminals to spend that amount if cash on. Let's get these non-violent pot smokers outta jail and make some room for some real criminals: rapists, murders, armed robbers, kidnappers, etc. Etc.

Face · March 2009

TennesseeOutlaw wrote: »

My main reason for saying YES to the legalization/decriminalization of marijuana is the emptying of jails and prisons throughout the US. More the 75 % of inmates in the US are incarcerated for a drug offense. Of those, over 80% are for marijuana related charges.

I would love to know where you found these statistics.

nooshinjohn · March 2009

you all seem to forget that the POPE smokes DOPE!!!:D:D:p

Systems · March 2009

Well one thing is for sure, all the pharmacy companies would probably go broke....

BrettT1 · March 2009

Jstas wrote: »

Where is the proof of this statement?

It has been mentioned several times in this thread and no one has furnished any proof at all.

http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html

I can't find any statistics on marijuana deaths, can you?

Edit: I did find this link interesting: https://dawninfo.samhsa.gov/pubs/mepubs/default.asp

bobman1235 · March 2009

PhantomOG wrote: »

Don't want to wait? Move to the Netherlands. Don't let the door hit your **** on the way out.

Awesome attitude.

All the talk about how bad or good it is, comparing it to alcohol, blah blah blah, is MEANINGLESS. Pot use is HUGELY widespread in this country, regardless of the law. Society has not collapsed, cats and dogs still hate each other, rain still falls down and not up.

For those who believe it should continue to be criminalized and illegal, I have questions :
- do you beleive that this will ever cause pot use to go away, or even significantly decline?
- if yes, based on what? 50 years of evidence points to the contrary, and billions if not trillions have been spent trying to irradicate this "scourge on society" that is pot use
- if NO, if you (right) do not think pot use will ever go away, what is the POINT in criminalizing it? It's costing taxpayers ridiculous amounts of money with ZERO net effect. People arrested for possession of pot are not USUALLY a danger to society (unless they're driving or doing something else that might cause harm to others), and yet they're being put in jail, costing society money, and no net positive comes out of it.

So I just ask what's the point of the laws? If they don't work, what's really the point of them? Is it all just about making those of you who so ardently demonize pot and its users feel better about yourselves? Do you enjoy throwing taxpayer money down the toilet?

And no, I don't smoke pot. I did a bit in college, haven't in years, so save your pothead derogatory comments for someone else.

Jstas · March 2009

BrettT1 wrote: »

http://www.alcoholalert.com/drunk-driving-statistics.html

I can't find any statistics on marijuana deaths, can you?

Edit: I did find this link interesting: https://dawninfo.samhsa.gov/pubs/mepubs/default.asp

Yeah, that's all well and good but none of that offers any comparison to the idea that "pot is much LESS dangerous than alcohol".

That keeps getting batted around and not only do I think it is false because of the lack of evidence, let alone studies done on the differences but it also smacks of rationalization by the pro-pot side of the argument.

If that really is the case, and I suspect it is, then the simple argument "pot is much LESS dangerous than alcohol" is committing multiple fallacies to distract the argument from the original question of legalizing pot. Just for edification, those fallacies are "Red Herring" "Burden of Proof" and "Poisoning the Well". You can find descriptions here: http://www.nizkor.org/features/fallacies/

It's flawed logic and serves only to distract the argument from the original premise.

Also, the logic that pot isn't nearly as bad as alcohol implies that the arguer does in fact believe that pot is bad. That alone causes a fallacy through the circular logic involved because, two wrongs don't make a right. Pot is bad but pot is not as bad as alcohol does not follow logic because ultimately pot is still bad.

On top of that, most of the arguments presented by the pro-pot side so far have been false dilemmas, appeals to popularity and appeals to common practice. Essentially, what that means is that just because people are doing it doesn't make it right. The ultimate shutdown to that flawed argument is that currently it's illegal. Does that mean legality is the determining factor of right and wrong? Morally, not necessarily. Legally, yes. What it does mean though is that maybe the laws and reasoning behind the laws need to be revisited. That is not, however, a basis for any of the arguments made so far even though the original premise of "Should pot be legalized?" has approached the idea that the laws should be revisited. However, no one has argued to that point. The arguments have just been Ad Hominem attacks and the appeals mentioned above.

Now, somebody tell where the studies are that are based on this flawed logic and I'll gladly read them and reform my opinion or decided to keep it. Or, keep throwing fallacies my way and I'll keep hitting them out of the park. I enjoy it. It allows me to flex my brain on logic problems and piss people off at the same time. Two of my favorite past times!

BTW, BrettT1, nothing against you, I understand you are trying to provide some help. In actuality, only the first few sentences are meant in response to you.

MikeC78 · March 2009

I've seen the affects from people who claimed they didn't even inhale pot. End of story, keep it illegal.:)

Jstas · March 2009

bobman1235 wrote: »

People arrested for possession of pot are not USUALLY a danger to society

So I just ask what's the point of the laws? If they don't work, what's really the point of them? Is it all just about making those of you who so ardently demonize pot and its users feel better about yourselves? Do you enjoy throwing taxpayer money down the toilet?

The problem with "not USUALLY a danger to society" is that when you leave the law open to interpretation by an enforcement officer, you are leaving it up to the officer to make the decision on how dangerous that person is or isn't. They therefore make the law and that puts them above the law...which they aren't. They enforce the law and they themselves are subject to the law also.

The point of the law is to provide a guideline that dictates what is acceptable and unacceptable behavior within the society. The law has the point of providing an outline for maintaining order. Whether the law is just or not does not define its usefulness or point. That is why laws are amended, repealed or appealed. Sometimes we get it wrong.

Legalizing pot might save money in the situation we are in now. However, are you willing to take the risk that having a whole new addictive product on the market for legal consumption that needs to be controlled won't outstrip the cost of marijuana law enforcement?

You scream about cost, it cost tax payers money and so on and so forth. Guess what? Legalizing it will also cost tax payers money because to control a substance that is addictive costs money. Yeah, you can tax it out the wazoo but you know what happens then? People who don't want to pay that much? They just go to the underground and get it tax free and, yeah, you guessed it, illegally. Maybe you remember hearing about a little thing called Prohibition and what a moonshiner and a revenuer is? It happened to alcohol, don't think it won't happen to pot.

The problem there is that now, not only are you paying for the controlled, legal stuff, but you're also paying for the control and policing of the illegal stuff. Cause the drug cartels are not going to pay U.S. Government taxes and they can still make a disgusting profit while under cutting the taxed stuff to make their product more attractive due to cost considerations. Yeah, you can get the cost of controlling the legal stuff through tax revenue but when you are undercut by an illegal product, you lose revenue to fund the controlling bodies and the money has to come from somewhere. Tax payers will still be losing money on it.

PhantomOG · March 2009

bobman1235 wrote: »

Awesome attitude.

Really? I'd say its the American attitude. As I said, we live in a democratic society. If the large majority of the US population wants it legalized, there is nothing that the rest of people can do to stop it. We have a system in place for change to happen, unfortunately, it doesn't just happen by whining about it. I feel if its important enough people will do what's necessary for the change to happen. Alot of places are moving in that direction. If you think the US sucks, move someplace else.

As to your questions, unfortunately, we also live in a somewhat socialistic society. Guess what happens to all the high-school/college dropouts that realized in a smoke filled epiphany that the best thing they could do with the rest of their lives is smoke pot and listen to music all day? They get government cheese and medical care paid for by the rest of the folks who actually contribute to society. There is no way to know for sure that legalizing pot would actually cost everyone less money.

Hell, I want government interaction in my life as small as possible. But I'm not stupid to the fact regardless of how many laws we abolish, Uncle Sam will always have his dirty little hands in my wallet. Until we get rid of all the safety nets we've propped up for people, I think its probably cheaper in the end to also have a set of laws that tries to reduce the amount of MY money the losers in society get to piss away.

Yeah yeah yeah, I'm sure there's a million casual pot smoking judges, doctors and rocket scientists out there. But I'm willing to bet for every one of those there are about 1000 others who casually smoke pot while getting most of their living expenses paid for by the taxpayers.

bobman1235 · March 2009

Jstas wrote: »

The problem with "not USUALLY a danger to society" is that when you leave teh law open to interpretation by an enforcement officer, you are leaving it up to the officer to make the decision on how dangerous that person is or isn't. They therefore make the law and that puts them above the law...which they aren't. They enforce the law and they themselves are subject to the law also.

Well I was more going with the idea that prohibiting dangerous actions while under the influence is what should be illegal, rather than the substance itself. Someone sitting in his home, smoking pot, who doesn't have children in his home, is not a danger to anyone but himself, just as someone who decides to get drunk is not a danger to anyone but himself. I'm not comparing alcohol or pot or saying which is WORSE or BETTER, but they are both relatively mild drugs. I don't want to live in a lawless society, and I believe that anything someone does that will cause a negative effect on others should be regulated. The problem is that I do not believe, and have not seen conclusive studies to the fact, that pot inherently causes danger to others. METH inherently causes danger to others; it's hugely addictive and can cause violent behavior. Pot, for the most part, does not seem to do this. It's nearly impossible to prove causality in crime statistics so I doubt we'll ever have a conclusive way to prove this, so I guess it's just an intellectual excercise to say so.

Legalizing pot might save money in the situation we are in now. However, are you willing to take the risk that having a whole new addictive product on the market for legal consumption that needs to be controlled won't outstrip the cost of marijuana law enforcement?

I don't necessarily advocate an all-or-nothing approach. I think what Massachusetts has done is a great approach - decriminalizing small amounts. It means an individual who is not dealing and just has a small amount of drug for personal use is not put through the prison system for a non-violent offense.

you scream about cost, it cost tax payers money and so on and so forth. Guess what? Legalizing it will also cost tax payers money because to control a substance that is addictive costs money. Yeah, you can tax it out the wazoo but you know what happens then? People who don't want to pay that much? They just go to the underground and get it tax free and, yeah, you guessed it, illegally. Maybe you remember hearing about a little thing called Prohibition and what a moonshiner and a revenuer is? It happened to alcohol, don't think it won't happen to pot.

Hold on now. Prohibition made alcohol illegal, and once it was illegal, I think it drew a great parallel to what the pot market is right now : a very large number of people did not agree with the law, and went through illegal means to obtain it. Moonshiners popped up to fulfill a desire, illegal or not, which analogous to pot growers and importers. Just like revenuers are more or less analogous to the modern DEA. Prohibition was later repealed, and alcohol nowadays is regulated and HEAVILY taxed and in most states, but how much moonshining is done? People are willing to pay a premium to avoid going through illegal channels. Why should it be any different with marijuana?

Prohibition is pretty much an exact model for what this SEEMS like. A bunch of people with some kind of moral high horse decided alcohol was evil, and outlawed it. The people said "eff that, we want our booze" and did anything and everything to get it. The gov't eventually realized they were wasting their time and could never properly keep booze outlawed, and Prohibition was repealed. Many could argue that society has been negatively affected, but it has still progressed and moved on despite the presence of alcohol. The only difference with pot is that the government just does not want to accept that it's just wasting its time, and pot is EVERYWHERE.

Legalize pot? Sure......why NOT!?

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