The war on drugs ..

Nothing man does is ever going to be perfect, but I can tell you what is never going to help, giving up and burrying our heads in the sand to the problem of drugs will not make the problem go away.

I don't want to take the time to go back and look, but I am pretty sure you said if your friends were around, the drugs were around, clearly showing they did not display the same self-control you profess to have.

I understand your need to display your chosen drug in the best light possible, but clearly any illegal drug user would say the same things for "their" drug.


And I notice you have still refused to comment on the other big reason to keep pot illegal, the undiagnosed mental illness running around trying to get by with self-medicating and possibly making themselves much, much worse.

People need help dealing with stress, not finding new ways to escape reality and ignore the real problem.

 

So your making the deduction that since my friends have pot they must be bad, untrustworthy people?

Which is where I start to protest certain peoples misconceptions and the habit of lumping all illegal drugs into one categorization. That of "Illegal drugs". Fact is, all illegal drugs aren't dangerous. Thankfully the law distinguishes between the two. That is why cocaine, heroin and meth are classified as "dangerous substances" under the code of law. Slapping the possessor with a felony possession of a dangerous substance for these drugs.

Marijuana is not dangerous. Therefor we should not throw people in prison for possessing marijuana when there are no contributing factors involved that endanger others.

Wait? What?

So because some people are stupid and have serious mental illnesses and they think pot cures them, we should make marijuana illegal for everybody?

That makes no sense. Some crazy bastards think that wearing a tin foil hat helps them. Laws against aluminum, perhaps?

Marijuana isn't going to make a mental illness worse. There is no reliable data to support this. It may not help, but it isn't going to hurt.

I can't believe that you think pot should be illegal because some people are too stupid, or crazy, to understand when they're really really sick.

Many people just don't have the proper coping mechanisms to deal with life. So therefor, life is the real problem for them. No amount of serotonin reuptake inhibitors will help. No amount of counseling will help. Often, marijuana can help. Often times not. People are all different. I get the nagging feeling from you that you believe that all people are exactly the same. We are as diverse mentally as we are physically.

 

Alaska has the most leaneant marijuana laws. Also for medical use.

Whats your state like?

Alaska - NORML

 

If their life is about drug use all the time, yes, they are bad, there is more to life than getting stoned, or at least there should be.

!00% possibility that your friends will always have drugs on them?

They cannot come over just to hang out? Watch a football game or play cards? They always do drugs?

Nice tirade but you have not one piece of proof that pot is 100% safe for use and that is the problem.

There is proof of severe mental and physical problems like the earlier mental retarding pot causes we talked about and you admitted to at least in a short term way. Yes, I believe people needing mental help are causing more harm by refusing to get the assistance they need to live life without chemical dependance.

Everyone has the ability to get better but it requires the person to actively "want" to get better but as long as they have the crutch to feel better in short bursts, they won't get the long term help they desperately need.


What I can't believe is you here saying some people are trapped in depression or other mental illness and we should just ignore the harm being caused by their failure to get the proper help.



Let me give you an example you may be able to understand. Many people get ill and need to take antibiotics to kill infections. There are cases where people "feel" better and do not finish their antibiotics. Even though they "feel" better, the infection is still in their body and it is not completely killed off and can make a comeback where this time, it will take more powerful antibiotics to fight it off.


The same is true with those who self-medicate to get relief from mental problems. They take their drug and "feel" better but the infection is growing inside them, making them need the relief of their drugs more and more to the point they make excuses in their own minds to use drugs every day. It is incredible how the mind will justify anything to get the "fix" they need.



Recreational drugs are all the same from a moral perspective if not a legal one. Escaping reality because that reality is difficult to deal with is not the answer no matter what drug you choose to use.

Now, do I see pot as less damaging compared to other drugs like cocain?

No, why?

Because people like you make excuses to use it thinking it is harmless and that makes it more wide spread. This again goes to dumbing down of America, we are stupid enough, we don't need more ways to keep us stupid.


Ever wonder why the average pot smoker works low end jobs? They tend to work construction or fast food, anything where the level of mental exercise is at the lowest, you find pot smokers, if that is, you can pry them out of their mother's basement to get a job in the first place.

 

Indiana - NORML

I love the catch 22 tax stamp laws. Additional fines and penalties for not paying tax on a substance to which there is no way to pay said tax. Gimme a friggin break.

Marijuana Tax Stamp Laws And Penalties - NORML

In reference to the War on Drugs, we must decide if the ends justify the means. Especially when it has become apparent that there is no end. When voters are allowed to choose whether they want marijuana decriminalized, the voters choose "YES". Most states would never put it out there like that.

Alaska and Colorado have both done this, and we see the result. What adds stupidity to the process is the federal government nosing in on sovereign states rights to set their own marijuana laws.

 

Paige: Let us deal first with the issue of legalization of drugs. How do you see America changing for the better under that system?

Friedman: I see America with half the number of prisons, half the number of prisoners, ten thousand fewer homicides a year, inner cities in which there's a chance for these poor people to live without being afraid for their lives, citizens who might be respectable who are now addicts not being subject to becoming criminals in order to get their drug, being able to get drugs for which they're sure of the quality. You know, the same thing happened under prohibition of alcohol as is happening now.

Under prohibition of alcohol, deaths from alcohol poisoning, from poisoning by things that were mixed in with the bootleg alcohol, went up sharply. Similarly, under drug prohibition, deaths from overdose, from adulterations, from adulterated substances have gone up.

Paige: How would legalization adversely affect America, in your view?

Friedman: The one adverse effect that legalization might have is that there very likely would be more people taking drugs. That's not by any means clear. But, if you legalized, you destroy the black market, the price of drugs would go down drastically. And as an economist, lower prices tend to generate more demand. However, there are some very strong qualifications to be made to that.

The effect of criminalization, of making drugs criminal, is to drive people from mild drugs to strong drugs.

Paige: In what way?

Friedman: Marijuana is a very heavy, bulky substance and, therefore, it's relatively easy to interdict. The warriors on drugs have been more successful interdicting marijuana than, let's say, cocaine. So, marijuana prices have gone up, they've become harder to get. There's been an incentive to grow more potent marijuana and people have been driven from marijuana to heroin, or cocaine, or crack.


Now suppose you legalized. Under current circumstances, a mother who is a crack addict and is carrying a baby is afraid to go the prenatal treatment because she turned herself into a criminal, she's subject to being thrown in jail. Under legalized drugs, that inhibition would be off. And, you know, even crack addicts, mothers, have a feeling of responsi- bility to their children.

And I have no doubt that under those circumstances, it would be possible to have a much more effective system of prenatal care, a much more effective system of trying to persuade people who are on drugs not to have children or to go off drugs while they have children.

Prohibition was repealed in 1933 when I was 21 years old, so was a teenager during most of Prohibition. Alcohol was readily available. Bootlegging was common. Any idea that alcohol prohibition was keeping people from drinking was absurd. There were speakeasies all over the place. But more than that. We had this spectacle of Al Capone, of the hijackings, of the gang wars...

Anybody with two eyes could see that this was a bad deal, that you were doing more harm than good. In addition, I became an economist. And as an economist, I came to recognize the importance of markets and of free choice and of consumer sovereignty and came to discover the harm that was done when you interfered with them. The laws against drugs were passed in 1914, but there was no very great enforcement of it.

Friedman: You have statistically reported figures in the books on the amount of alcohol consumed. That went up sharply right after Prohibition, but that was "illegal" alcohol consumption. If you take, as I have done, the chart of alcohol consumption before and after Prohibition, alcohol consumption after Prohibition came back roughly to where it was before, and, over the course of the period since then, if anything, alcohol con- sumption has been going down not in absolute terms, but relative to the population and relative to the growth of income.

The Dutch, in Holland, do not prosecute soft drugs, like marijuana, and they would prefer not to prosecute hard drugs, but they feel impelled by the international obligations they've entered into, and consumption of marijuana by young people has gone down. And, equally more interesting, the average age of the users of hard drugs has gone up, which means they're not getting any more new recruits.

So, the evidence is very mixed. But I have to admit that the one negative feature of legalizing drugs is that there might be some additional drug habbits. However, I want to qualify that in still another way.

The Child who's shot in a slum in a pass-by-shooting, in a random shooting, is an innocent victim in every respect of the term. The person who decides to take drugs for himself is not an innocent victim. He has chosen himself to be a victim. And I must say I have very much less sympathy for him. I do not think it is moral to impose such heavy costs on other people to protect people from their own choices.

Paige: For us to understand the real root of those beliefs, how about if we just talk a minute about free market economic perspective, and how you see the proper role of government in its dealings with the individual.

Friedman: The proper role of government is exactly what John Stuart Mill Said in the middle of the 19th century in "On Liberty." The proper role of government is to prevent other people from harming an individual. Govern- ment, he said, never has any right to interfere with an individual for that individual's own good.

The case for prohibiting drugs is exactly as strong and as weak as the case for prohibiting people from overeating. We all know that overeating causes more deaths than drugs do. If it's in principle OK for the government to say you must not consume drugs because they'll do you harm, why isn't it all right to say you must not eat too much because you'll do harm? Why isn't it all right to say you must not try to go in for skydiving because you're likely to die? Why isn't it all right to say, "Oh, skiing, that's no good, that's a very dangerous sport, you'll hurt yourself"? Where do you draw the line?

 

Your subjective opinion is exactly that, subjective. The status quo means jack and sh*t to many people. I am one of those people. This vision of all the millions of people in America being forced to march in lock-step is idiotic at best.

To be exact, I said 100% probability, meaning that if Dennis or Jim knock on my door, they probably gots the weed too. I usually tell them I have my daughter and I cannot come out and play today.

No, they don't always do drugs. They have to sleep sometime.

Would you really pay any mind to the dozens of links and studies I could post that say definitively, marijuana is 100% safe? I doubt it would be worth my time to research. Fact is, marijuana is "safe". Again, subjectivity comes into play. You will always be able to say, in your opinion, that marijuana is unsafe in one way or another. Marijuana is safer than that double cheeseburger you order at Burger King, I know that much.

***DISCLAIMER*** in children, it is unhealthy, as are many many legal things, substances, behaviors. "Mental retarding" is a wee touch strong of language to utilize, don't ya think?

Do we blame the pot or the person? People need to shoulder responsibility for ignoramus decisions. Not slide it down their back and blame the weed.

Stupidity is a right. Adults should not have their level of cognitive ability legislated to them when they are minding their own. What I don't need is some rich white asshole legislating to me the many ways for myself to conform to the ideal American facade.

Again, is this fact or just an opinion?

I met many a dozen "sober" losers in my days as a manager. Pot doesn't cause one to be burdened with only the prospect of a pedestrian job.

I cannot count the number of good ,Christian, sober 40 year old losers that I employed as 3rd shift stock clerks in my day. Funny that their salaried manager was a pothead, by default of the status quo, a loser in charge.

How did this happen? Am I that special, that much of an exception to the rule that I have achieved what only the top 2 percentile of pot smokers can achieve?

I own my own small business. My best buddy Jim owns a paint contract business as well. My other bro Dennis is a maintenance superintendent for a multiple complex apartment/condo property conglomeration in Bloomington. All with families, children, homes and a comfortable position in life. And somehow you expect me to take you propaganda driven outsiders perspective for something of value? I think not.

Fact is, when it comes to marijuana, you only know what the anti-drug pamphlets tell you.

Yes, I have met ALOT of pot smoking losers in my life. I have also met ALOT of sober losers. Drunk losers. coked out losers. Christian bible thumping losers.

 

You can't prove that.
If you are a white collar pot smoker it?s frowned upon to admit you?re breaking the law. So I would find it hard pressed to get an accurate assessment of the ones that do indulge when they go home.

 

I mean look at Clinton. " I tried it but never inhaled". Bull****!

 

I have to agree. Who is more likely to admit to smoking pot; A roofer or an accountant?

Blue collar folks tend to be a tad more forthcoming about things such as that.

**EDIT** Woooohooo 420 posts while posting about pot. I must be someones hero for that!!!

 

Minnesota, at least used to be, on par with Alaska as one of the most lenient in the union.. Prolly still is. Buddy got a 50$ fine for 3/4 of an ounce and a pocket full of pipes once... Cop took a one hitter box off me once and let me go. Same cop let me go 3 other times that year for various traffic violations. Going through a stop sign, speeding.. Nice guy.. Treat a cop with respect, many return the same.. Course, this was in the 80's and I was 17..Saw many a friend try to bullsh*t a cop and rue the day... Good thing I always told the truth..

 

Dude don't get caught with more than 100kg. 30 years in the pen!


Minnesota - NORML<------

 

I was pretty sure they had changed them.. I think those may be Alaska's too.. Isn't that a federal mandatory minimum?

10kg = 22 lbs... Hahahahaha.. I should be safe.. I like to smoke now and again.. and I'm 39, debt free, and went back to college to be a nurse after owning a business for 11 years and was accepted to one of the toughest programs to get into at any school in the entire country.. straight A's. I've smoked a lot of pot.. I think it made me smarter..


I graduated high school with about a solid 1.9 gpa.. after having to retake phy ed to graduate because I refused to square dance.. Hahahaha


My cumulative college GPA from now and my college in the early 90's is well over 3.5 ... Hmmmmmmm... It was definetely the pot...

 

Yeah I don't think you could smoke that much in a life time.

 

Wouldn't mind giving it a whirl...

 

The status quo also includes things like murder being illegal, society sets rules, sure we should stand up to try and get change where we believe it is needed and I respect your right to do so, my only point in this reguard is breaking the laws just because you don't like them is wrong.

Like my mother always said, there is a right way and a wrong way to do everything.

But this is my point, if their only recreation choice is getting stoned, this says a lot about them.

You mean like the study I posted proving a link to suppressed learning with those who smoke pot?

I will admit there is science on both sides of the issue, but the point is we cannot say pot is "safe".

Mental ability is suppressed by those who smoke pot, the effects have been shown in some studies to last everal months "after" the person stops smoking pot, I believe Mental retarding is a fair classification.

When parents allow kids to get guns and the kid kills himself or the neighbor child, do we just say it is the parent's fault, or the child's fault or do we also have laws designed to keep guns out of the hands of children "before" they accidently kill someone?

The point is prevention, children, even as old as 25 year olds (in my opinion) are not mature enough to make a decision this critical to their future. As responsible adults, it is our responsibility to try and protect our kids. That is not to say we are always going to do a good job, but doing and failing is better then just giving up on our kids.

Right, is this what people have turned to?

The right to be stupid?

This is now the montra of society?

Maybe I am old, maybe I am out of touch with modern thinking, but I'll be darned if I will ever accept this concept for America. We should not bo so proud of being stupid.

Fact, please see next comment for clarification.

And yet, every example you give is construction/maintenance workers. I love being right.

Now, don't get me wrong, we need construction workers, we cannot survive without these trade workers, but my point is that the average pot smoker is working these low end jobs and this cannot be by chance.

As I keep saying, there are always exceptions to every rule, but even you, the most responsible drug user I know, is a construction worker.


By the way, if your good at painting, your not really a painter, any idiot knows the true talent is the prep, especially the caulking, so I call all good painters good caulkers, it makes for a good laugh.

 

Some of the greatest advancements in civil rights in America came from people willing to break the law.

I'm glad you mentioned this, actually. Me and my friends are far far more active than many non-smokers. The nation of obese lazy sloths. We all belong to a 4-wheel club. Monroe County 4X4 Club

I have posted some pics of myself with the club on this very board. We march for many miles hunting small and big game every fall and winter. We fish and even prospect for gold for endless hours in the summer.

Marijuana is not our only recreation choice. It is simply part of our culture, a terribly misunderstood culture full of ignorant stereotypes. Such as the typical lazy unemployed pothead sitting on his/her ass all day smoking out of a bong and playing video games.

I feel safe in saying that the typical pothead probably gets out more than the typical CSI watching fat ass American.

Like I said, the use of the word "safe" is going to be mired in semantics. The only danger that one could cite is some disputable short term memory loss. Actually, the least safe thing, and most harmful to society, about marijuana, is the jail time.

Guns don't kill people. People kill people. Just like with pot; Pot doesn't hurt people, people hurt themselves with pot (When they act like jackasses and smoke it all day long, every day. Or try to stave off severe clinical depression by staying high all day. Misuse doesn't suggest an item/substance is bad. I could smoke rat poison to get high. If this trend were to catch on, should we blame the rat poison or the idiots that are smoking it?

An individuals rights should not be infringed because of faulty thinking. When marijuana was first outlawed, it was only due to outrageous propaganda and extraordinary lies. Politics and money had more to do with the prohibition of marijuana than any real danger. The DuPont Corporation feared marijuana, they spearheaded the prohibition of hemp/marijuana. It is a litany of absurd things like this that led to, and keep, marijuana being illegal.

I was citing people that I have close relationships with. Google around a bit and you'll see many white collar people talking about smoking weed.

You are being extremely short cited.

If and when you have time, some pertinent reading;

White Collar Drugs - Professional People Fuel the Drug Trade

MetroActive Features | Marijuana in San Francisco

I'd bet my left testicle that you meet, and have met, countless professionals that secretly smoke weed. You would never guess it. As they say, "It takes one to know one". And they sure as sh*t ain't telling your square ass about it (No offense, but you are kinda square bro).

 

Being as I am talking about what can be proven, and you can only talk about what "might" be, we have come to a point where we are beating a dead horse.

The "provable" facts show at the least, very high concern for the mental retardation caused by smoking pot, both short term and long term, in some cases the harm can last months.

I pointed out you and all your friends are construction workers but you want to point out two or three news stories about arrests, who cares about arrests, to be honest I will openly admit here that the simple folks tend to be better at breaking the law and not getting busted then the "white collar" crowd.

Most pot smokers don't get busted, most users are in jobs like construction where thinking power is not the most important aspect of their day. You can try to ague but your a walking/talking example of the facts.


Pot as a recreational drug is not "needed" in society. I can see some medical uses, but we have enough problems with the one legal drug we have.

Making pot or any other drug legal will not remove any crime, in fact it will greatly increase crime because the number of addicted people will increase by a factor of 20 at the least.

Legal or not, an abuser of drugs cannot support a drug habbit unless they are independantly wealthy so they will need to find ways to pay for their severe addiction.

We have covered all the bases I believe so unless someone can offer a new direction to consider, this discussion has run it's course.


Jhony, I don't think your a bad person, I believe that for a drug addict, your as good as it gets, I agree that pot is possibly the most gently addiction anyone can get, but I satill see no value to society for recreational drugs, and only harm such as mental illness not getting proper treatment. I know you feel "your" drug is good and other drugs are bad, but I see all mind altering substances as bad for society.


I'm sorry, but as a parent, I really have no other choice but to try and make a world with as few traps as possible. No, I don't think we are doing as good a job as we could, my idea of removing all money would stop all illegal drug trade but it will take time to make that happen. We could also close all borders with the military and inspect "everything" to partly stop the drug trade. There is more we can do, but the important thing is to never give up on our kids or our comunities.

Peace brother.

 

Agreed. Unless someone has a different angle they'd like to press. I think we know where we both stand.

I would get high on life but I can't keep it lit long enough to smoke it.

Believe it or not, it doesn't bother me when you call me a drug addict. I suppose, by all applicable definitions, I am. Although, I will say that I was once what I consider to be a drug addict. Many many years ago when I would take any pill, powder or suppository that any idiot told me would get me high. Back long ago when I had no responsibilities nor cares, I would spend 80% of my paychecks on drugs. The first thing I would think of when I woke up was drugs. If I didn't have any drugs, or was running low, my priority was getting more drugs.

I guess perspective is key. After some of the things I have seen and done, smoking a little grass is so completely insignificant to me within the realm of what comprises a true "drug addict".

This is the only thing I am going to bother contending. Marijuana is so widely accessible and cheap, that people do not have to try to obtain it. In short, if you want pot, you can get it. Therefor the number of additional "addicts" would be utterly minimal. Legalization would end 98% of all marijuana related crime. As it is, the only crimes related to marijuana are possession, distribution and cultivation. Legalization would mean that people would no longer sell it (Minus the largest marijuana related crime). Possessing wouldn't be illegal anymore (Minus number 2 greatest pot crime). And cultivation would be GREATLY diminished, if not altogether obsolete or legal (Minus #3).

With prohibition we enable countless thousands of miniature Al Capones.

All I can say to that is, some of the most driven and successful people I have met are also some of the most uptight, stressed out and miserable people I have ever met.

Under achievement is under rated.

Back at 'cha. Make love, not war and all that jazz.

 

TJ you might not see the need for recreational drugs but probably 80% of the worlds population dose. It's not going away anytime soon.

Like Jhony, I did all kinds of drugs in my younger days. It was the norm back then were I'm from. I'm not proud of it but it is what it is. I used my God given will power to quit them.

The first step to the war on drugs would be to realize that making marijuana federally legal would save the taxpayers money. Your doing nothing more than putting people in jail for self indulgents and your paying for it.
Money used on enforcement and incarceration alone can help to fight the war on drugs that do have an adverse effect on society. Like Crack, meth and the opiates.

If marijuana were federally legal I would grow it for my own consumption and mind my own business. I would probably buy it commercially if I had to but would rather grow it.
I don't buy pot because I have a friend that grows his own for his own consumption. He gives it to me but even that's illegal. Who are we hurting?