if you care about weed enough to fight for it's legalization then i think you need to find better priorities. considering how minimal its effects are, i think the stuff is way overhyped and think that it's more about a social subculture movement than it has to do with the drug itself.

that being said, any money spent in enforcing drug laws that apply to marijauna is a total waste of tax payer money. we should legalize weed, but that's just because the prohibition of marijauna is too expensive to enforce and the cultural impact of the drug is so minimal in the first place.

TheNecroswanson:
It's not history that keeps alchohol in stores, it's capitalism. Hence why it's so heavily taxed.

Um...didn't the Reds like their alcohol just as much as everyone else?

Also, on the US being a christian nation: If we are going to stick to our 'christian roots', then why not enforce the sabbath, stone heathens, gays, and disobedient children, and stop teaching non-scripture based science?

I'm all for the legalization of marijuana. It will take a decent burden off the government with cops not having to monitor the trafficking and sale of marijuana. Normal people won't have criminal records simply because they possessed marijuana at some time, and frankly, if someone wants to do something to their own body, why should it bother me? I probably wouldn't smoke if it was legal, but I don't feel the need to impose that stance on others.

TheNecroswanson:

Seriously? What are you, 12? Do you smoke less when you're eighteen? Has anyone you known who smokes suddenly stopped due to being eighteen? Me, personally, everytime I've seen someone turn 21, they only drink more. You can't tell me people do something less just because it's nolonger illegal for them to without showing some statistics.
-----
And just who's history are you talking about? America's? or the worlds? America was if anythgin founded on christianity, so our history would then be on the side of keeping it illegal, and with new ways to setralize water on the side of rebanning beer. It's not history that keeps alchohol in stores, it's capitalism. Hence why it's so heavily taxed.

If marijuana is legal the government would be able to standardize it and make it safer. Yes, more people would smoke it, but it could also be taxed for the government's benefit. Personally i don't think it should be legalized, but that's on pure principle, and backed up by nothing material.

Also, as for you second point, Capitalism has less than nothing to do with why alcohol is in stores. Alcohol is sold because it is delicious, and everyone (EVERYONE) in the free world drinks it, for a damn good reason. The people who mistreat it are stupid, and as such, irrelevant.

And i don't even know what you're talking about when referring to christianity (possibly owing to some spelling issues). The country WAS founded on Christianity. But who gives a shit? It doesn't matter anymore as it is the single most diverse nation in the world.

Somethingironic:
I compare Marijuana today like prohibition. Alcohol/Marijuana have only one purpose: pleasure. Thousands of people die in alcohol related accidents every year, virtually nobody dies of Marijuana related incidents.

EVERYONE DRINKS. Not that many toke. And seeing as pot is illegal, people are gunna be chillin in a basement, not at a bar that they have to drive home from later. Hence the stats.

And you should learn up on prohibition: It was instigated by religious movements, namely the Temperance movement, a reinstallation of Puritan values (beer is the devil? huh?) at the start of the 1900's. Nothing to do with health or. . . carriage accidents. However, as the majority of all drinks consumed were alcoholic, it was pretty much the dumbest law ever passed. Ever. Seriously.

Marijauana is kindof-sortof (alot) less popular, and was banned for completely different reasons, more economics-related than anything else.

To quote Daniel Tosh: "I think we should legalize marijuana just so potheads have nothing to talk about." -- I'm looking at you! Topic-Creator.

"Dude, wanna smoke some pot?"
"No."
"Why not?"
"Because i'm not in seventh grade and have things to do."

EDIT EDIT EDIT!!

john galt:

Um...didn't the Reds like their alcohol just as much as everyone else?

HA. that's a more precise way of putting it i guess.

BallPtPenTheif:
if you care about weed enough to fight for it's legalization then i think you need to find better priorities. considering how minimal its effects are, i think the stuff is way overhyped and think that it's more about a social subculture movement than it has to do with the drug itself.

that being said, any money spent in enforcing drug laws that apply to marijauna is a total waste of tax payer money. we should legalize weed, but that's just because the prohibition of marijauna is too expensive to enforce and the cultural impact of the drug is so minimal in the first place.

It's not just about taxpayer money; we also use up a large amount of police resources enforcing drug laws, resources that could be better used to catch violent criminals who actually cause problems.

I'm sorry, but this is madness.

JOE COOL:
I'm sorry, but this is madness.

Madness.... No... THIS IS- okay maybe it's a little crazy....

TheNecroswanson:

JOE COOL:
I'm sorry, but this is madness.

Madness.... No... THIS IS- okay maybe it's a little crazy....

The 300 reference I was going for, but at least you also get my point.

JOE COOL:
I'm sorry, but this is madness.

Umm, well, there's your premise, but your agrument seems to be fairly...well, vacant.

Mr Wednesday:

JOE COOL:
I'm sorry, but this is madness.

Umm, well, there's your premise, but your agrument seems to be fairly...well, vacant.

I did also have a reply on here saying no comment, but i'm sure the federal agents will be at this guys house oh say in 3...2...1...

Or something like that.

Something else to think about. If marijuana grows fast, and would only be used for recreation and some medicinal purposes, wouldn't that make it the perfect crop for ethanol? Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (bad pun, I'm sorry)

You know that's something that might have benefits of looking into. Seeing if we can't find out what makes marijuanna grow so quickly, then synthesise that factor and apply it to crops to see if it would help.

JOE COOL:

Mr Wednesday:

JOE COOL:
I'm sorry, but this is madness.

Umm, well, there's your premise, but your agrument seems to be fairly...well, vacant.

I did also have a reply on here saying no comment, but i'm sure the federal agents will be at this guys house oh say in 3...2...1...

Or something like that.

Hah, fair enough,

TheNecroswanson:

@Smokescreen: Calling my argument a fallacy without citing anything is in itsself a fallacy. It does you no good to state my argument is full of fear mongering if your counter argument is simply going to state mine is "dumb".
And just who's history are you talking about? America's? or the worlds? America was if anything founded on christianity, so our history would then be on the side of keeping it illegal, and with new ways to setralize water on the side of rebanning beer. It's not history that keeps alchohol in stores, it's capitalism. Hence why it's so heavily taxed.

OK, first I didn't call your argument a fallacy. I said it was the dumbest one I'd seen, "full of hyperbole, fearmongering, and ignorance." If it had been a fallacy then it would've involved incorrect reasoning, and there was no reason in your post.

And your new set of comments prove your ignorance. Let's say that I am talking American history; fine.

SeaCalMaster does a fine job demonstrating why you don't know what you're talking about. I don't feel the need to revisit that.

Just want everyone to know that you are spreading fear with your arguments, and don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That's the important part.

SeaCalMaster:

P.S. Do you really think the U.S. was founded by Christians? Most of the founding fathers were Deists, Agnostics, or Atheists. Please don't tell me you bought all that bullshit about the Mayflower Compact.

actually no they weren't since most of the signers of the constitution were freemasons, they believed in a god :)

and the mafia was around before prohibition, they just came to the front and center during that time

JOE COOL:
I'm sorry, but this is madness.

fine, i'll bite...

THIS IS MARIJAUNA!!!!

H0ncho:
Let me first say that I agree 100% with the OP, and want to add one more argument: The moral one.

Remember that we have supremacy over our own bodies. By extension, we must be allowed to do what we will with it (as long as we don't harm others, since that would harm their supremacy over their body). Obviously we must be allowed to smoke whatever we want - to say anything else is to say that we don't own our bodies, that someone else does, which is a despotic thing to say.

I also want to address this argument:

The difference is that I think the government is afraid that if the drug was legalized, people would get too carried away with it, leading to more widespread use than alcohol and thus damaging society.

This has not happened in the Netherlands. Also remember that there were absolutely non, nada, zip regulations on any kinds of drugs (including heroin, morphin, cocaine etc.) in the US prior to 1913. The founders likely grew marijuana plants. Yet the US handled this just fine. It was when drugs were illegalized that they became a problem.

Would that this were so. Government at several levels has more control over your body and actions than do you, even if your actions do not directly harm anyone else. I would however tentatively support legalization for this reason. I would like to point out however that the world was a much different place prior to 1913. Very few automobiles existed - thus little danger of DUI. No welfare system or socialized medicine existed - thus if you screwed up your life with drugs, your neighbors weren't taxed to support your deadbeat ass except in voluntary church tithes or donations, as charity. Children had no money - thus no incentive for drug dealers to get them hooked. The impact of a decision made in 1908 can be radically different for the same decision made in 2008.

Marijuana has some nasty affects for long term users, but no worse than most intoxicants, including alcohol. And I can say from seeing friends attempt to quit that it does indeed have physical withdrawal symptoms, but they are about like those experienced by a tobacco addict, not nearly as bad as for an alcohol addict. In fact of all the pot addicts I've known, including some very heavy smokers, I can't think of one who tried to quit and failed. I can't say that about alcoholics or tobacco smokers or chewers. I never tried it because I didn't like what it did to my friends who smoked it, but I can't say it ruined the life of anyone I know. It did ruin some lives while they were smoking, but not to the extent of alcohol or tobacco, which seem to me to have worse effects on the individual and probably on society as well.

Marijuana does have some excellent medicinal properties as well. Smoking marijuana allows chemo patients to hold down food better than anything, it's a good treatment for glaucoma, and it's a good analgesic for severe, chronic pain. I knew one girl who had an inoperable brain tumor, of a kind not responsive to chemo (it's actually a misplaced fetus her body absorbed in the womb, sort of a completely internal parasitic twin) and she said marijuana was the only thing that helped the chronic pain, dizziness, sporadic fainting and blindness (depending on what the tumor was pressing against at the moment), and fatigue - none of the very expensive drugs prescribed for her did a thing. I think prohibiting medical marijuana is about the dumbest and most cruel things our government has done.

Smokescreen:
Just want everyone to know that you are spreading fear with your arguments, and don't know what the fuck you're talking about. That's the important part.

And there you go, rather than creating real points you make personal attacks. Bravo, bravo. Just because I have a different view than you I must be a fearmonger and a moron. Good work.

I wouldn't mind seeing marijuana becoming legal in the US, but i fear that if it does, then it might become an industry like the tobacco industry where corrupt buisness leaders target kids and alter their products by adding chemicals that would make it addicting (or more addicting), and the government might make it only legal through those currupt companies (so you couldn't grow your own that doesn't contain anything extra).

I agree with you 100% here in England this bitch called Jaquilin Smith(who is my most hated person in the world, just look at her voting history to see why. but I feel odd saying that because it's also my mum's name) wants to reclassify it back to a class B so you always get arrested for possession of any amount, despite the experts are strongly advising her this is a bad move.

God bless Middle England, aye Zirn?

zirnitra:
I agree with you 100% here in England this bitch called Jaquilin Smith(who is my most hated person in the world, just look at her voting history to see why. but I feel odd saying that because it's also my mum's name) wants to reclassify it back to a class B so you always get arrested for possession of any amount, despite the experts are strongly advising her this is a bad move.

Zirn & Mr. Wed - Both you fine gents do realise that our corrupt & incompetent government is only making noises about re-classification to try & buy back the votes of the elderly which they lost over the years through their various cock-ups? Pension black hole, anyone?

I can't honestly imagine that any of them actually care for one second about the possible effects of smoking weed, since most of them did it in university anyway. It's all just so they can look "serious" & "professional" in the eyes of the electorate, which given their record over the last 11 years, is sorely needed if they want to make it to 12. -_^

BallPtPenTheif:
if you care about weed enough to fight for it's legalization then i think you need to find better priorities. considering how minimal its effects are, i think the stuff is way overhyped and think that it's more about a social subculture movement than it has to do with the drug itself.

that being said, any money spent in enforcing drug laws that apply to marijauna is a total waste of tax payer money. we should legalize weed, but that's just because the prohibition of marijauna is too expensive to enforce and the cultural impact of the drug is so minimal in the first place.

I concur.

I don't care for most forms of THC. I don't like to smoke, and am too lazy to make butter, or bother getting the correct stuff for that. I've ALWAYS bummed and have never bought (but do pay back). If there were a way to buy butter legally I might do that, but don't really care that much.

I'd rather we waste our money elsewhere, or use it positively, but I don't do more than talk.

As for drinking age... people tend to drink more for a year or 2 after they get to 21. After that they grow up. Most people I know drank in HS, but after 22 they stopped talking about drinking as if it were special (mostly).

AntiAntagonist:
As for drinking age... people tend to drink more for a year or 2 after they get to 21. After that they grow up. Most people I know drank in HS, but after 22 they stopped talking about drinking as if it were special (mostly).

I know I stopped drinking much after I turned eighteen (legal age then), but not because it lost its appeal once legal. It had more to do with me liking knowing where my pants are when I wake up, that and deciding that if I can't remember the fun everyone says I had then I didn't really have it.

werepossum:

AntiAntagonist:
As for drinking age... people tend to drink more for a year or 2 after they get to 21. After that they grow up. Most people I know drank in HS, but after 22 they stopped talking about drinking as if it were special (mostly).

I know I stopped drinking much after I turned eighteen (legal age then), but not because it lost its appeal once legal. It had more to do with me liking knowing where my pants are when I wake up, that and deciding that if I can't remember the fun everyone says I had then I didn't really have it.

I hear you. I never really was a drinker though, MJ was always my thing. I started using it at roughly 18. It eventually got old, took some time though because I was 29 when I stopped. and I'm 32 now. :)

making marijuana would give people freedom over their own bodies, and that is something the government really dont want, atleast not in sweden, where the government recently voted yes on a proposition to be able to listen on All digital traffic, meaning Telephones, emails, faxes etc...with such recklessness for people private life and freedom, there's no way the government here could give us control over our own bodies and let us do with it as we wish.

My oppinion is this: Marijuana should be legalized, so that it can be better regulated, and better quality, plus it wouldnt make our prisons overcrowded with people who arent criminal.

As long as people using Marijuana dont mess with me, its fine, its their bodies, let them use it if they want to, and i've used Marijuana myself, its good, its a natural herb thats good for you, it relieves stress and paranoia etc..atleast it did that to me.

BallPtPenTheif:

that being said, any money spent in enforcing drug laws that apply to marijauna is a total waste of tax payer money. we should legalize weed, but that's just because the prohibition of marijauna is too expensive to enforce and the cultural impact of the drug is so minimal in the first place.

Precisely, I don't want my tax dollars going to something as pointless as this while the local school system is having to reconsider bus service for students. Hell, recently in Florida, a young woman was killed after trying to clear her record from an earlier drug charge. The police sent a 23 year old woman with no training to buy drugs and a gun from two dealers. It's insane that this is what taxes are paying for when we've got much more serious priorities than tracking down small time thugs, especially if we're going to do it in such an irresponsible and ham-handed manner.

Article source:
http://www2.tbo.com/content/2008/may/13/na-police-defend-informants-use/

In Massachusetts it may be legal to carry less than an ounce on a person. There would no longer be a criminal charge (at that amount), but there would be a fine of $100 (so long there was no intention to sell). I find it amusing and almost logical.

There are some who still do not want the legislation to pass. However there are also those who know that smaller communities may take advantage of the idea since it will be a way to accrue some revenue (which makes sense, but isn't perfect).

The vote is in November.

In the United States there are a crapload of people in jail for somthing to do with marijauna and at the same time Rapists,Murderers and other people who did bad crimes are geting let out of jail early because jails are geting full. Geeee I wonder what would happen if Marijuana was legalized. Also our own government did some studys in the 60's 70's regarding Marijuana and the studys concluded that the drug had no serious harful effects (although this was in the time when docters could smoke cigerets in their offices).

Funny story, 10 years ago my uncle was living in Seattle in a apartment with a friend and two stoners lived below them and they were nice. My uncle was training for a Ironman (a bigass triathalon) and so he he had one of those thing that hold a bike inplace while petaling so he could train for the bike portion. He would get up early to train at like 5 or 6 in the morning and this bike holder made a weired humming sound when it was being used. One day the stoners go up to my uncle and his friend and say "dude did you hear the spaceship land on the roof this morning"? Apparently they thought that the humming sound was a spaceship landing on the roof of the building each morning(this was a three story appartment).

crimson5pheonix:
Something else to think about. If marijuana grows fast, and would only be used for recreation and some medicinal purposes, wouldn't that make it the perfect crop for ethanol? Put that in your pipe and smoke it! (bad pun, I'm sorry)

That right there is one of the big reasons our government wants to keep it banned. Why on earth would they promote something that would take money away from oil companies?

Anyways, why do people seem to think it has to be one way or another? I say legalize it, but keep the dosage controlled by pharmacies and such, so that no one person can own more then *blank* amount of pot at a time. Keep tabs on it in special rooms at bars or other recreational places. Hell, create new buildings altogether for a place to hang out and smoke pot, include beds and food to limit people driving while high, offering up new jobs in the process.

At the very least, legalize hemp. Hemp CANNOT get you high, and it's great for clothing, rope, and fuel. But like I said before, the whole fuel thing is one of the big reasons it's illegal in the first place.

I'm gonna say what I'm gonna say, and I'm only gonna say it once...

FUCK the legalization of marijauna and its supporters.

Just because you disagree with something being illegal doesn't mean you can push to get it legalized. Weed is illegal for very good reasons, arguing that weed is harmless is beyond asinine. Arguing that it's no better or worse than cigs or booze is a valid point, but that doesn't mean we should legalize one bad thing because something else bad IS legal, it means booze and cigs should be illegal too.