Lawmakers to introduce bill to legalize marijuana

[flintlock]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

It's a human rights issue. If a person doesn't have the right to treat ones own body and life as they see fit, they haven't even the most basic of human rights. I don't advocate for the use of drugs, just for the right to self determination.

I agree. People are being de-sensitized to the loss of self-determination. We've been giving up freedoms one by one over the last few decades. People don't even question it anymore. Thats the problem with letting little things slide. Eventually a lot of little things becomes a big problem.

[flintlock]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

I still think the war on drugs has become such a big "business" that it will be hard to overcome. Not only to you have people who sincerely are opposed to MJ use, but you have those who are wildly misinformed. (People like my mother who equate it with crack or crystal meth.) But you also have all the professionals involved. People whose livelihood is derived from MJ being illegal. The defense lawyers, the prosecutors, their legal staffs, judges, clerks, DEA agents, FBI, State and local drug police, companies that sell all the para-military equipment to law enforcement( whole catalogs of this stuff exist!) People who train the dogs. People who train the officers. Drug testing facilities. This is huge money I'm talking about here. Then you have the ability of local police to "seize" drug assets, which can be very lucrative. Then you have the dealers themselves, who have more political say in this than you'd think.

Only farther down the list is the actual concern for the people we are supposedly doing this for. Never mind the drug lords that are enriched by this, who then terrorize neighborhoods. Never mind the doors of innocents being kicked in by mistake. Never mind how this has led to the growth of law enforcement into absurd para military organizations. Never mind the innocent kids killed every weekend by stray bullets fired by some drug pushers fighting over territory. At least some dude isn't getting high. That would be horrible.

[c1ue]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

It's a human rights issue. If a person doesn't have the right to treat ones own body and life as they see fit, they haven't even the most basic of human rights. I don't advocate for the use of drugs, just for the right to self determination.

This is ludicrous.

Even in the US where there is no nationalized health care - the impact of overdoses, productivity losses leading to dependence on welfare, impaired function at work/driving, etc etc all are impacts beyond the individual.

Self determination ends when your fist arrives at my nose.

I am in favor of complete decriminalization of drugs ONLY if this is accompanied by two government programs, one to grow, make, and dispense said drugs for free (this will stop the violent behaviors of those trying to control a piece of the market) and the second to educate the citizenry on the dangers of drug use (same type of program we currently have to reduce smoking, which seems to be working).

Free drugs and education doesn't fix the problems noted above. It also brings the government into the role of drug dealer.

I don't think this is an optimal outcome.

Drug abuse can be eradicated - it is a question of societal will.

In China - opium abuse was curbed through a true "zero tolerance" policy: anyone using, holding, dealing, or in any way associating with opium was killed. But of course few governments have either the mandate or the will of Mao.

[yourfather]

Re: Lawmakers to introduce bill to legalize marijuana

ban tobacco, it kills more than booze and drugs

[DSpencer]

Re: Lawmakers to introduce bill to legalize marijuana

There is zero doubt in my mind that - while certainly there are some people who benefit from marijuana medically - the vast majority are simply using this as a fig leaf for recreational use.

Agreed.

There have been discussions on iTulip before on legalization; I have yet to see a counter to the point made that tobacco is fundamentally cheap but cigarettes are anything but.

Maybe I'm confused. Is your point that marijuana would still be expensive? There is one primary difference. Only the heaviest of marijuana users would ever consider smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes/joints per day. I'm guessing a typical user would smoke closer to one or less.

For that matter - just exactly how much difference is there between tobacco cigarette tar and marijuana joint tar?

What is the point? Is this a question of health effects? I've heard that marijuana is considered worse (maybe lack of a filter being used typically?). I still would refer back to the last point though.

[DSpencer]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

This is ludicrous.

Even in the US where there is no nationalized health care - the impact of overdoses, productivity losses leading to dependence on welfare, impaired function at work/driving, etc etc all are impacts beyond the individual.

Self determination ends when your fist arrives at my nose.

Is it fair to say you are also in favor of banning alcohol, tobacco and firearms? This line of thinking is ludicrous. What would propose next? Mandatory exercise programs? Government meal planning to make sure nobody eats too much or the wrong foods? Maybe cars should be outlawed as well since they could potentially hit you.

The line at the end explains it quite nicely in fact. The solution isn't to cut off people's hands to make sure they can't punch you. The solution is to not have you pay for other people's welfare.

[snakela]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

Is it fair to say you are also in favor of banning alcohol, tobacco and firearms?

Eh, why not? Everything else that is fun seems to be. Rename the BATF to "fun police" and let them use broad juristiction to confuse and hassle people into being scared to do anything. It has worked out that way for "assault" rifles. I just heard from my local (arms) dealer that a shotgun I was interested in are all on a ship the ATF won't let unload because their interpretation of the rules has changed.

However, unlike whiskey, beer or cured tobacco I could just plant my own weed and pull a bud off when I'm ready to consume it. Thats why, even if legalized, MJ would bring in no tax revenue. The stuff grows everywhere if allowed and there is no processing or aging required. Ever go for a walk by the woods near a college campus? The damn things grow from the discarded seeds like dandilions. Its called "weed" for a reason.

[c1ue]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

Maybe I'm confused. Is your point that marijuana would still be expensive? There is one primary difference. Only the heaviest of marijuana users would ever consider smoking a pack of 20 cigarettes/joints per day. I'm guessing a typical user would smoke closer to one or less.

Not from what I've seen.

And while tobacco cigarettes may give you lung cancer, marijuana appears to make average joes really, really stupid.

Is it fair to say you are also in favor of banning alcohol, tobacco and firearms? This line of thinking is ludicrous. What would propose next? Mandatory exercise programs? Government meal planning to make sure nobody eats too much or the wrong foods? Maybe cars should be outlawed as well since they could potentially hit you.

This line of thinking is exactly what is going on in the system today.

MADD, cigarette taxes, alcohol taxes, etc etc.

My personal view is that Americans are being turned into pansies by bureaucrats and demagogues.

This trend isn't going to be turned around by legalization of drugs - soft or hard.

The line at the end explains it quite nicely in fact. The solution isn't to cut off people's hands to make sure they can't punch you. The solution is to not have you pay for other people's welfare.

Sure, why don't you run on that platform - ending Social Security, welfare, the FDA, the EPA, Federal Transit revenues/payments - and see just how far you get.

Modern society is interwoven - and therefore tradeoffs of individual liberties will occur.

Attempting to return to some Paul Bunyan swinging an axe in the wilderness, rugged individualist, my land my rules type situation is pure fantasy.

As I've said before - if you want that, there are plenty of countries you can have it: Mexico, Somalia, Afghanistan, etc etc.

And that's in large part why those places are the way they are.

[DSpencer]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

Not from what I've seen.

Hahaha, smoking 20 joints a day? Maybe that's how they roll in San Francisco. Pun fully intended.

I'm from Ohio and have only been to SF once. And I suppose it lived up to its reputation. We were pulling up to dinner one night and a group of people were having car trouble down the street. They asked if we could come give them a jump and so we did. Once their car was running, they were very appreciative and offered multiple times if they could give us some weed as a sign of their thanks. They seemed quite surprised that we turned them down.

Earlier in the day a flamboyantly gay couple had us take their picture by the ocean. I couldn't help but laugh inside at these events taking place so close together. Even when I lived in Columbus with lots of students and a very large gay population these events happening on the same day would be almost unheard of.

[Jam]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

This is ludicrous.

Even in the US where there is no nationalized health care - the impact of overdoses, productivity losses leading to dependence on welfare, impaired function at work/driving, etc etc all are impacts beyond the individual.

Self determination ends when your fist arrives at my nose.



Free drugs and education doesn't fix the problems noted above. It also brings the government into the role of drug dealer.

I don't think this is an optimal outcome.

Drug abuse can be eradicated - it is a question of societal will.

In China - opium abuse was curbed through a true "zero tolerance" policy: anyone using, holding, dealing, or in any way associating with opium was killed. But of course few governments have either the mandate or the will of Mao.

It appears that it is all a question of cost to society. What is more costly: (1) maintaining the present law enforcement; (2) legalizing, regulating, and properly taxing given substance; or, perhaps, (3) instituting a draconian zero-tolerance policy. Prohibition (seems to have) demonstrated that the societal cost of banning alcohol was considerably higher than option (2) above. Given the exorbitant cost, not only monetary, of the WoD, maybe it is time to try something else here?

[radon]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

This is ludicrous.

I'm glad I didn't live in Mao's China. Is it the drug or law enforcement that ruins more lives?


"Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded."
Abraham Lincoln - Speech, 18 Dec. 1840, to Illinois House of Representatives

[Ghent12]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

This is ludicrous.

Even in the US where there is no nationalized health care - the impact of overdoses, productivity losses leading to dependence on welfare, impaired function at work/driving, etc etc all are impacts beyond the individual.

Self determination ends when your fist arrives at my nose.

c1ue, you need to re-read your last sentence in the quote above several times. I don't think you've let it fully sink in. Self-determination ends when your first arrives at my nose--TRUE. The only thing you list in the examples that is relevant is the impaired function at driving, and possibly the impaired function at work if it involves the safe operation of large machinery.

Losses of productivity and dependence on welfare and other such highly-indirect aspects cannot be considered as appropriate excuses to end self-determination. If that were true, then you couldn't ever throw out any food, because the added demand increases the price I have to pay; nor could you ever go to the doctor for anything that wasn't life-threatening because you take up the valuable time of the doctor from helping me out, and etc.

Self determination ends when your fist arrives at my nose; it does not end when your actions have the slightest perceptible consequence on others.

[don]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

A new Obama administration memo approves federal prosecution of anyone in the business of growing or supplying marijuana for medical patients even if they are complying with state law, a contradiction, advocacy groups say, of President Obama's pledge to let states set their own policies.

Obama had promised as a presidential candidate, and reaffirmed soon after taking office, that his administration would take a hands-off approach to medical marijuana and let states chart their own course.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/articl...#ixzz1Qzjz00Jv

[Starving Steve]

Re: It's a human rights issue.

c1ue, you need to re-read your last sentence in the quote above several times. I don't think you've let it fully sink in. Self-determination ends when your first arrives at my nose--TRUE. The only thing you list in the examples that is relevant is the impaired function at driving, and possibly the impaired function at work if it involves the safe operation of large machinery.

Losses of productivity and dependence on welfare and other such highly-indirect aspects cannot be considered as appropriate excuses to end self-determination. If that were true, then you couldn't ever throw out any food, because the added demand increases the price I have to pay; nor could you ever go to the doctor for anything that wasn't life-threatening because you take up the valuable time of the doctor from helping me out, and etc.

Self determination ends when your fist arrives at my nose; it does not end when your actions have the slightest perceptible consequence on others.

Some of the gifts that marijuana has given the West Coast, from British Columbia southward all the way down to Baja California: zombies who can't reason because reasoning would involve focus and mental discipline which they lack; racketeers; gangsters including the Hell's Angels, los nortenos, los surenos; drug dealers; killings; arson and mysterious lightening-strikes; assaults; gun-toting; drive-by shootings; terrorism; widespread fear in the general population; corruption in the governments; connexions to organized crime including the mafia in Mexico and including connexions to radical Islamists; laziness; hedonism; and a focus on marijuana, illegal drugs, intoxication, racketeering, money laundering, and nothing else.

When you talk about: duty, honour, honesty, integrity, saving, investing, producing, exporting, inventing, planning, scrimping, discipline, sobriety, and self-sacrifice; you are really speaking in a language that is totally foreign to this pot-head bunch on the West Coast.

[Jay]

Re: Lawmakers to introduce bill to legalize marijuana

For that matter - just exactly how much difference is there between tobacco cigarette tar and marijuana joint tar?

Smoking cigarettes clearly increases your risk for lung cancer among many other deleterious things that it increases your risk for. The link between marijuana and lung cancer is MUCH weaker, if it is even there at all. Marijuana use does increase your risk for other types of cancer, but in general is not nearly the health risk that smoking tobacco is. Most physicians don't even know this.