News Do you support legalisation of marijuana?

[Civilized]

I'm saying crime just tend to happen when your inhibitions are lowered... which happens when you decide to take drugs.

This is a very weak argument for prohibition.

What evidence do you have that people are more likely to commit crimes under the influence of marijuana?

Does this conclusion of yours also apply to medical marijuana users who have obtained permission from their doctor and their state to use marijuana legally? Are these people more likely to commit crimes as well?

If the answer to my above question is "no", then you agree that there is no induced criminality that is inherently attributable to cannabis use. If the answer to the above is "yes", and you think that AIDs/Cancer patients, people with uncurable pain, seizures, depression, nausea, etc are more likely to commit crimes because of smoking their medical marijuana, then I would contend that you have been brainwashed by the government initiatives under the "war on drugs label" because their is no factual basis for such a position.

The song Imagine always bugged me too... Our political views are probably quite similar if you take drugs out of the equation.

If you think that prohibition of drugs is compatible with the general philosophy of the song 'Imagine' by John Lennon, then either you are critically misinformed about drugs, misunderstood the song, or possibly both.

Safer drugs? That's like saying "safer cigarettes".

No, it is not very similar. Drugs like meth and crack are extremely damaging and dangerous at all times. Cocaine is moderately damaging and quite dangerous as a street drug, heroin is inherently not damaging but is extremely dangerous as a street drug, and marijuana is inherently not damaging but is moderately dangerous as a street drug.

The differences in the dangers of various recreational drugs are by all statistical measures (functional impairment tests, LD50, etc) several orders of magnitude wider than the statistical difference between the worse drug store tobacco with most noxious additives and the conneseur no-additive natural tobacco sold in specialty shops.

It would be hard for anyone to debate that ALL drugs become significantly safer when used in a legal and controlled setting. No one has ever died due to a chemical overdose of marijuana, and I challenge you to find any documented case of increased risk of lung cancer attributable to marijuana alone with no tobacco involved. This idea that people become mentally out of control when under the influence of cannabis is an insulting stereotype based on anecdotal reports of immature users. I have already mentioned Carl Sagan, I will also mention Harvard biologist Stephen Jay Gould who used medical marijuana for cancer for over a decade while still publishing books and doing important work. Before beginning this treatment Gould was concerned about the mental effects of daily cannabis use, but after giving it a try he found that it did not inhibit his ability to do work (and certainly did not make him more likely to commit crimes, that is insulting). Then there is Feynman, the nobel prize winning physicist who like to smoke marijuana later in his career, who stayed sharp till the end in the eyes of everyone who knew him, and who certainly did not become more criminal due to his recreational use.

 

[Al68]

'Rights' are a social/legal fiction.

'Can' and 'cannot' is more realistic. The majority can institute laws that say you are not allowed to smoke marijuana. The majority can attempt to enforce those laws. Any abstract notion of the 'right' to do something is irrelevant.

It's certainly not irrelevant to me, as I am a strong believer in natural rights.

The concept of natural rights was the foundation of the Enlightenment and classical liberal philosophy, as well as the American Revolution. And many people have killed and died for this "social/legal fiction" as you call it.

But you do make a good point, the same one made by Ben Franklin in his famous quote, "Force s$$ts on reason's back." A society with some people willing to defend their natural rights, and others desiring to infringe on them by force, will never live in peace.

Do you expect the ones who want nothing more than to be left alone to be the ones to just surrender to oppression? Or is it more practical to expect that we can only live in peace when the oppressors lose power, give up, or die?

 

[Al68]

How do you enforce people not driving high?! Nothing short of a blood test would show that you had drugs in your system at the time, and it is therefore completely unenforceable.

I guess you've never heard of a sobriety test?

 

[Al68]

A hundred years ago, I could walk into a pharmacy and buy...

Um, how old are you?

 

[Evo]

I guess you've never heard of a sobriety test?

Sobriety tests are after the fact. It's when you are caught.

I've been a passenger in cars driven by people high on pot as they stradled the raised esplande, ripping their muffler off, as they drive over curbs and up into yards, enter a one way street going the wrong and weave into uncoming trafic.

 

[jgens]

Um, how old are you?

Not that I'm defending Camilus or his position but he is correct that heroin was legal in the United States about 100 years ago. There were even advertisements proclaiming its "health benefits."

 

[Evo]

There is just too much misinformation and overly speculative posts to be moderated. This thread is going in circles and is not productive. Closed.