BS: Legalize Pot?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 02:45 PM

Chocolate is a drug...

coffee is a drug

booze is a drug

And doing drugs is human nature...

I don't care how many laws you make against them, yer NOT gonna stop people... as Americas laughable "War On Drugs" has proven...

It seems stupid to me that pot is illegal when alcohol and tobacco are all too readily available... alcohol is MUCH worse for ya than pot...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 02:52 PM

How many people are killed directly or indirectly by alcohol use/abuse? How many by tobacco? How many people are killed by automobiles? By using kitchen knives? By walking across the street? Motorcycling? Flying? Skateboarding? Riding horses? Eating bad sushi? How many people are killed by voting Republican? (More than you think!) How many people are killed by making ill-considered fashion choices, whether they are straight OR gay?!!

We simply cannot legislate everything that someone is emotionally affected by. Hell, there might even be enough support for banning folk music! Lord knows that our ranks are dwindling. How few of us must there be that we couldn't mount a sufficient defense against such an initiative?

As I said above, we are going to lose some people to various endeavors, regardless of what we do. No one gets out alive. It is just a matter of how long it takes you, and what is your downfall.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 02:57 PM

I used it for years and loved it.

I wish I had all the money back though that I wasted on it.

I've stopped for a long time now and am quite glad of it. I will tell you first hand that it is addicting, more pyscholoically, but somewhat physically.

Any of you who think it either enhances your music, makes sex better, makes food tastier, gives you great cosmic insight, are really living a lie. i did have an excuse for using it for many things at one time. Life is so much better without it including all of the above.

I hope they legalize it, charge $500 an ounce for it and use the money to feed some hungry people. Your dark lungs are worth that to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,#2
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 03:24 PM

Geez clinton
If we are gonna stop having laws because they aren't 100% effective in achieving their intent, then lets make everything legal. Murder,theft, assult, child porn,discrimination. It all continues in spite of legislation, but thats hardly a good reason to legitamize any of it.
If you'd have asked me 5 yrs ago I'd have said sure, lets make it legal and get buzzed tonight.Having seen how it tore apart my family since then, I can't in good conscience endorse expanding the possibility of that kind of experience to even more families, and thats what legalization would do.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 03:38 PM

if 100% efficiency was even half the issue...

The war on drugs has done NOTHING but cost tax-payers BILLIONS of dollars putting petty little weekend recreationalists in jail for getting high.... If American was serious, like the word WAR seems to imply, they'd try to stop it at the source... Given all the money spent, and all the jail sentences handed out, drug use is ever growing...

So really ANY efficiency would be nice.... Except that I KNOW the 'powers' are not really INTERESTED in stopping drug use... if the average joe-lunch-box ever sobered up enough to see how badly he was taking it up the back-side there'd be a revolution....

It's like anti drinking-and-driving 'campaigns'... what a joke... Technology has existed for a LONG time (pretty much concurrent with whats-his-face inventing the seat belt) that more or less attached a breathalyser to the starter switch of a car... if you 'blow over' your car automatically locks out the starter for an hour or more... These are only now just starting to see the light of day, and then only on the cars of repeat and repeat offenders... IF your 'leaders' were serious about stopping drinking and driving then there'd be a law saying that ALL cars had to have them!

But your leaders aren't serious... that much is obvious...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: open mike
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 03:40 PM

It does have scientifically proven positive effects for medical uses.
Cancer, MS, glaucoma, chronic pain, AIDS, epilepsy, arthritis and other conditions are made better and/or more bearable by marijuana.
medical marijuana discussion site 10 states in the U.S. have medical use provisions.
National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws
And as a result of unfair sentencing laws, Judges who would choose to
give shorter sentences to productive citizens, are not allowed to make
this choice to to mandatory minimum sentence laws. This does more damage to society than help, as it removes hard-working people from the job market, and often forces thier dependant families to become dependant on government help programs, where as they were contributing to the economy as citizens. Families Against Mandatory Minimums
Willie Nelson claims that Pot saved his life. He used to smoke a pack
of cigarettes or more every day and drink whiskey, but gave these up
when he discovered marijuana. He claims he would not be here today if
he had continued in his previous habits.
Bird Food often contains hemp seeds as this encourages singing.
Jack Herer's book The Emperor Wears No Clothes has been a cult
classic for over 30 years.
http://www.onlinepot.org/grow/jackherer.htm

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 03:52 PM

Clearly, there are some raw emotions being expressed, here. However, emotions don't make for good laws. The negative effects of criminalization cannot be afforded, and there are no gains that can be attributed to that approach, other than assuaging some emotional needs.

Put my questions another way: How many lives have been saved or turned around from imprisoning pot smokers? What is the cost to society of the criminal/justice infrastructure that caused that to happen? Make it easier, and just figure the money costs and forget the social costs.

I'm sorry, but I have not heard a single good reason for keeping pot illegal, not one.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 03:57 PM

Clinton

Just curious, how do you really KNOW what the powers are interested in? Are you the brother of a "power?" Do you sleep with one?
Are you a Washington insider? related to Bob Novak? Have naked pictures of Kerry?

Or just another folksinger?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 04:01 PM

I can only call it how I see it... Seems to -me- they're not really interested in stopping the use of drugs...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 04:35 PM

Seems to me they may be somewhat interested in stopping the use of drugs, but not enough to become dictatorial about behaviours. Any poitician knows he has to balance the two and if he goes over the line in messing with personally-elected behaviors, his votes dry up. Well intended or no.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,petr
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 04:40 PM

well I thought the fact that it was the Fraser Institute a right wing think tank that suggested legalizing it, was curious.
The main reason is that in BC is a 4 billion $ industry (or acouple billion anyway) and thats a lot of potential tax income. COnsidering that a good chunk of a pack of cigarettes is tax Im sure theyre interested.
the only problem is that probably most of that pot is exported to the US and I dont see them going along with legalization for a while.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 05:09 PM

First, GEorgiansilver, your "Be Blessed" gets right up my nose, and I would prefer you to exclude me, at least, from the grand sweep of your patronage. Second, your case for criminalising pot has serious flaws.

McGrath has already pointed out the weakness of the "gateway" argument. You say the heroin victims you have seen all started on pot, whereas in truth they probably all started on milk. If there was anything in your argument, then you'd have to criminalise the supplying of milk.

Anyway, in all your experience with the police, did you never see someone murdered as a result of drugs racketeering? If not, try going on the beat in Nottingham, which is not too far for you to travel. Or you could go to some of the estates in north Dublin, or in Belfast, and see people who have been shot in knees and ankles, having first had all their limbs broken with hurley bats. All for crossing the drug barons.

For some people paracetamol is addictive. Taken in large quntities its effects are usually irreversible and usually fatal. So... ban paracetamol? One thing is quite clear: whatever the effects of pot (and there is much evidence that it is less harmful and less disruptive of society than alcohol) it is massively less addictive than nicotine. There is simply no logic in criminalising pot but not criminalising tobacco.

Millions of kids get addicted to cigarettes against their better judgment, through what they regard as nothing more than innocent experimenting. And if pot is a gateway drug, then nicotine is doubly so. How many people do any of you know who inhaled pot without first inhaling a cigarette?

Strolling Johnny, my daughter is 12, and I will certainly continue to discourage her, discreetly, from experimenting with fags. When she gets to an age for going into pubs, I would be more relaxed about her mixing a bit of marihuana into cup cakes than I would be about her getting drawn into the drinking binges that so many youngsters do get drawn into these days. Again, be in Nottingham any Friday night when the clubs close, and you will see exactly what alcohol can do to otherwise intelligent teenagers. It is not a pretty sight.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 05:43 PM

When I was an older teenager, pot had a THC percent of 4-6%. I understand that it gets as high as 20% these days. In my younger years, four or five people shared a joint. (I have never smoked grass and I never will, but a friend of mine did and he told me all about it.) So, when one once needed a joint to really get off, one now has but to take one toke and one is then changing spark plugs on Venus. If grass is legalized, it should be restricted to 18 and over, and people should not be allowed to drive under the influence. Should it be legalized? Good question.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:11 PM

"If grass is legalized, it should be restricted to 18 and over, and people should not be allowed to drive under the influence"

Absolutely!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: davidkiddnet
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:18 PM

Trouble with the ILLEGAL drugs was that he never knew what it REALLY was.
When it was REALLY only shoe polish - that's was just a drag.
But once when the supply dried up there was only that black goo the dealer said was hash oil. But it got him layed out flat like opium for a week - That week when he only ever got up to get stoked again.
Ironically it's lucky he didn't know that it was probably REALLY junk. For the end of that week he'd have been asking for H if he'd known. And lived that dramatic tragic life - and been REALLY dead years ago.
With the legal drug the doctor prescibes now at least he knows some of what that drug REALLY is.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:18 PM

I agree Brucie - it should be for 18 and over and of course all "under the influence" laws for alcohol should be extended to pot as well.

One of the worst anti-pot commercials that runs on U.S. TV is one where the young man is visiting his brother's roadside marker. The voice-over says the the kids got killed by his brother while driving while stoned. That has nothing to do with pot.

---------

That it is a gateway drug is stupid in so many way - especially this one: You say that people who do hard drugs start off with pot. Number one, that's not always true. Number two - it's certainly not true in countries where pot is not common.


Simple fact. Those that want to keep pot illegal are using only their emotions and probably like to control other people's lives. Stay the hell away from me and let me do what I want to my body in my own home. The fact that it is illegal forces some people to steal to afford their addictions. Make it legal and the price comes down, and a lot less people will steal to get it.

By the way - if you think I'm a pot-head, I am not. I haven't used pot sicne the early 1980s.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:19 PM

Good luck with that. Kids smoke tobacco at 10 and tobacco sellers are happy to supply it.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:40 PM

Prohibition laws are not enforcable. See history. Note that you can get drugs in any penitentiary in spite of the walls & guards.

Unenforcable laws lead to increased crime. See the history of the Great Experiment, which was resposible for the success of Al Capone, of Dutch Schultz (up till he got shot), et alia. They didn't want to see Prohibitiion repealed, and indeed repealing Prohibition did put that crowd out of the alcohol business, but no worry, it left their organizations in place.

And corruption increased; there was a lot of money floating around from bootleg alcohol, so 'respectable' bankers were money -laundering, judges and lawmakers and cops were taking bribe money. Just like it is with drugs now.

Unenforcable laws also lead to a general disrespect for law.

It is not possible to effectively prohibit drugs, weapons, or books as long as people want them, and you mess things up when you try.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:46 PM

True GUEST. And kids are also using illegal drugs at that age. Legality has never been the issue. If I want excellent grass that has nothing added, I'll grow it myself. Legality provides 1) quality assurance 2) THC content assurance. I don't think smokin' grass is something everyone should do--or be allowed to do. I would not under any circumstance respond to a fire or accident scene under the influence. However, the same would be true if I drank. If John or Jane Doe wants a few tokes before supper (Sara Lee, for example, or Barbeque Chips with Maple Walnut ice cream), how is that my business? Legalize it and tax it. It would help take some of the illegal drug trade away from the CIA and other organizations involved in criminal activities.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Well, yeah
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 07:04 PM

Lest any of you who are opposed (for your own good reasons) to legalizing marijuana might have misunderstood me...

I do NOT encourage ANYONE to smoke or use marijuana (or tobacco). I have never encouraged anyone to smoke pot or use it. But I am opposed to making its use illegal, because there is no practical justification for doing so, and it's counterproductive to enforce such laws.

I likewise do not encourage people to overeat, be lazy, be ignorant, or be self-destructive in any manner...but I would regard passing laws to govern their activities in regard to those problems to be asinine and unenforcable...as are the marijuana laws.

When younger, I lived among a peer group where virtually everyone (except me) smoked marijuana either casually or habitually. For the minority it was sort of casual, I'd say. For a few it was really habitual. Those few DID do themselves some harm (but probably a good deal less than with cigarettes and alcohol). The laws against the plant only further complicated the matter and helped absolutely no one, nor did those laws succeed in protecting anyone against their own basic weaknesses and tendencies. They were a hypocritical and needless complication in a society where 99.9% of the population is already addicted to various bad and perfectly legal habits.

Such anti-marijuana laws do not protect people, and they waste the valuable time of the police who might better be actually protecting people from real crime. Drug use is not a crime. Aggressive bad behaviour is a crime.

I repeat, I do not encourage anyone to smoke marijuana, but I think they have the right to make their own decision about it and not live in fear for having made that decision. It's their business, not the government's, whether they smoke marijuana, drink wine, smoke a cigarette or eat junk food. It's the government's business when they rob, do violence, drive drunk, smoke in someone else's air, commit fraud, etc.

It's nobody's business telling another adult whether or not they can grow or smoke a naturally occuring plant in the privacy of their own life.

You can't force people to be perfect, just because you want it that way. If you think you have a right to, well, that's just being a control freak...and that is your problem, not the other guy's.

One more time. If asked, I would advise anyone NOT to smoke marijuana...or cigarettes either. I don't smoke them. But I would not arrest him for doing so. It's his business to regulate his own life, not mine.

I believe in personal freedom, not domination. No set of laws you can dream up will EVER succeed in protecting people from their own self-indulgent tendencies. It's like trying to grab the wind and hold it down with your hands...utterly pointless. The wind blows where it will and there is nothing you can do about it. Accept it. You cannot force other people to be like you. They won't tolerate it.

Attend to your own house, brother. If you're wise, you won't depend on marijuana, alcohol or tobacco to get you through your day...or any other mind-altering drug either. Leave your brother alone to tend to his house as best he knows how. You wouldn't like it if he told you "You've got to do it MY way." Leave people alone. Control yourself, and stop trying to control others!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 07:14 PM

Incidentally, what's left of my memory recalls a report done by the LeDain Commission (at the behest of Trudeau?). The study then cost 1.5 million dollars (that's 1 1/2) and the report recommended legalization (with some restrictions). Many people I knew had hopes then. The continued to smoke anyway. Some laws are simply impossible to enforce.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 07:42 PM

Peter K(Fionn).First of all Be Blessed..........
Your ideas of life are just another puffed up opinion as I tried to describe in my previous addition to the thread....
My case for criminalising Pot has no flaws as your own third paragraph points out!!!! Be Blessed again!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: mack/misophist
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 07:56 PM

On the whole, this is one of the most rational, well thought out BS threads I've ever seen. Good for you, people!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:35 PM

I believe in personal freedom, not domination. No set of laws you can dream up will EVER succeed in protecting people from their own self-indulgent tendencies. It's like trying to grab the wind and hold it down with your hands...utterly pointless. The wind blows where it will and there is nothing you can do about it. Accept it. You cannot force other people to be like you. They won't tolerate it.


AMen, Guest. Amen.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 09:12 PM

Well I found out why the Fraser Institute wants to legalize it.

The study says, "...the industry in B.C. alone is worth more than $7 billion a year, which would translate into $2 billion a year in tax revenues if the drug were legalized."

They also say that it would cut down on organized crime and that conviction rates are so low that it just isn't worth the money thats dumped into making it a criminal offense.

The problem is the American border. Most of the stuff grown up here is destined for the U.S. Even if it were grown here, legally, there would still be a problem getting it across the border.

I find it amazing that Canadians (in general) would rather live next door to a pot smoker than an alcoholic but that the demand is from the U.S. where pot is highly illegal and therefore more desirable. Maybe if it weren't taboo, the desire to imbibe would diminish. I think that its the illegality of pot that is most tempting for teen-agers.

I'm sure that it is an emotional issue for some of you but its obvious that the "war on drugs" shouldn't include pot. All it does is create a lucrative black market.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Clint Keller
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 09:33 PM

My aunt died from smoking tobacco. That's not my opinion: the death certificate says "tobacco addiction."

The smoke itself gave her emphysema and lung cancer, which spread to her stomach and elsewhere. The blood vessel constriction from the nicotine shut down the little veins in her retina so that she became legally blind and gave her some other circulatory problems. She had to have non-cosmetic plastic surgery on her legs to repair the damage done by the surgery on her arteries.

Toward the last of her life she couldn't see, couldn't eat, had to use a walker. and needed a caretaker. She had an inhaler and an oxygen tank, and she liked them because the cigarettes tasted so much better after she used them.

The tobacco worked as good on her as most hard drugs would have, I think.

Marijuana is helpful in some medical conditiions. It used to be paart of the pharmacopeia. Carl Sagan, of all people, thought it was helpful to the thought processes.

Why isn't tobacco banned and marijuana legal?

You can figure it out.

clint

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:11 PM

clint I'm so sorry to hear about your aunt.

My grandfather died young - before I was 2. I never had the chance to meet him. A decorated WW1 vet, he'd suffered with a heart condition all his life, caused by the mustard gas in the trenches where he'd spent a couple years as a teen.

So - why isn't war banned and pot legal? Does pot have a higher death toll than war - or tobacco - or even smog???

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:28 PM

Actually, why stop at pot? Why not remove all "victimless" crimes from the books? No, I'm not saying that we should encourage folks to do these things but we certainly have more pressing issues in our society than to messin' wid folks who ain't hurting noone but, perhaps, themselves...

Heck, if you got a Caddie of a shiny new SUV 'round this part of the country you can purdy much drive it at any speed or in any fashion you want. The cops won't bother you 'cause they know that if yer driving a new Caddie of SUV yer part of the priviledged class. The fact that yer a danged danger to others don't enter into the equation...

But now if you take a couple tokes then, man geeze o' pete, yer a dangeruos person to society???

Give this ol' hillbilly a break!

The only logic in this is the complete ill-logic...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Amos
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:35 PM

A major campaign in Congress to wipe from the books any crime for which a victim could not be individually identified and the damage somehow quantified would go a LONG way to stabilizing and clarifying our insane legal code.   A crime without a victim is no crime at all, and that should be simple enough for even a DC slide rule to count up.

Ain't a-gonna happen this week, though.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bill D
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 11:12 PM

the addictive personality will find something to ingest or sniff or shoot up...(remember banana skins & Morning Glory seeds?)...Pot is a minor problem. You CANNOT ban & stop everything that might be abused by fools.

I don't care...leave it illegal if you want, but make the penalty a fine for being high in public...no more 40 years sentences for a guy selling a bag to a cop who entraps him!...Or make it legal IF you buy good stuff from the govt. with taxes added on...right after they ban tobacco!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: dianavan
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 11:49 PM

My guess is that if they would make it legal to grow and possess, it would take a big swipe out of organized crime. It won't do any good to try to tax it because its so easy to grow there would be no market.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: harpgirl
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 12:10 AM

"The addictive personality" is a pejorative, meaningless, and utterly useless term, in my view.

People attach to drugs, alcohol, running, or excessive shopping because this attachment is predictable to them and it provides what they can not find with other human beings.

When these attachments begin to fail to provide a haven from the pain of human attachments human beings may be brought back into engagement with one another. Love usually does this best. If only for oneself...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 01:57 AM

I repeat my question which, predictably, no-one has yet deigned to answer. It's in non-joined-up writing so that the pot-heads have a chance of understanding it:-

How many of the Yea-Sayers on this thread are the parent of a child with a hard-drug habit? Hands up please.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: dianavan
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 03:45 AM

If you don't see hands up maybe its because our kids don't do hard drugs.

I sympathize with anyone who has to endure the torment. It must be very painful.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 04:32 AM

If you believe your first sentence Dear Dianavan, you're guilty of crass self-deception. Just may be true in Alaska - that the right place? - but I assure you it's going on in lots of other parts of N. America, and it certainly feels as though it's endemic in the UK - and they don't have "Smack-Head" tattooed on their foreheads!.

Thanks for the sympathy Dianavan (genuinely, I mean it, thanks), but I spilled the beans about my boy as a warning to the dopes (what an appropriate word!) who think pot's like vegetarian Smarties (another appropriate word), not to get the sympathy vote. Not that I expect them to listen, none are so blind as they who will not see, or are so clever that they have to gainsay anything that highlights their own fallibility.

Thanks also Georgiansilver, like you I've seen first hand the eventual results of playing with the cannabis fire, and having it rage out of control. Maybe some of these people should experience sitting by the hospital bed of their son who's just been revived by the paramedics after a huge O/D, or watching helplessly while they go through the 'Rattle' of withdrawal, sweating, screaming, spewing yellow puke, convulsing. The only unpleasant thing they don't usually do is shit themselves, because they don't eat so there's no shit. And it all started with a 'harmless' spliff.

Have a happy life in La-La Land guys, must be nice there.

I'll ask the question no-one dares to answer one more time. How many of the Yea-Sayers on this thread are a parent of a child with a hard-drug habit?

Or I'll pose a different question which, hopefully, might draw a better response - if anyone out there reading this thread has a child with a hard-drug habit, what drug would you say from experience was their intial entry-point into habitual drug abuse?

Anybody want me to make a prediction?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 05:18 AM

Dianavan, I'm sorry, I was sitting here munching my Saturday Breakfast relaxing bacon sarnie and re-reading recent posts and I realised I'd mis-understood your first sentence. By 'Our children' I assumed, perhaps stupidly, that you meant 'The children of North America', and my first paragraph of my reply was therefore completely inappropriate. Sorry about that - must have been the adrenalin rush!

Incidentally, in the UK at the moment there's a big debate going on about the supply of alcohol - we have a big problem with alcohol abuse and its attendant problems of violence and anti-social behaviour, especially in town- and city-centres. You may know that the sale of alcohol is controlled here by 'licensing hours' which specify the number of hours in the day that licensed premises can sell it (pretty well all day up to 11 pm). The liberalisers are suggesting that drunkenness and loutish, violent behaviour can be prevented by removing the control offered by licensing hours - i.e. allow people to buy alcohol for longer, and they won't get drunk! Pretty radical eh? And pretty naive. The same kind of naivety that the 'legalise pot' brigade suffer from.

J :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 05:46 AM

Strollin Johnny, like dianavan I can really feel your pain through this thread.

Of course you're angry and trying to find the cause of what happened to your child. Of course it would be the best thing if you could find the culprit and give it the name of pot. I do understand this, but it must also be clear that you are coming from a highly emotional place, and would not perhaps be the best voice of disinterested reason.

The description you gave;

"experience sitting by the hospital bed of their son who's just been revived by the paramedics after a huge O/D, or watching helplessly while they go through the 'Rattle' of withdrawal, sweating, screaming, spewing yellow puke, convulsing. The only unpleasant thing they don't usually do is shit themselves, because they don't eat so there's no shit.

..is not the description of a person on marijuana, and that's the point. The "harmless spliff" you mentioned is still just that. The need to connect it is because you need to have an explanation for what is the sad end product of your son's self-destructive behavior.

There are no other hands going up here for others who have experienced first-hand what you went through, and for that I'm deeply grateful. No on would wish this on another soul, and no one would wish you to feel the torment of seeing your dear child suffering.

But for the same reason that there are vengeful people all around the world who have in some way been hurt by circumstances, whether it be war, or drugs, or some other tragedy in their lives, and live with the anger of not being able to change what has happened; to be able to get beyond the pain and back to a clear and unemotional detachment about this subject may never be possible for you.

In the end, we make our choices in life, and we live (or die early) with them. Again, I can only say for me, and all those I personally know or have talked with about this, the fault lies not in the herb, but in ourselves.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 07:44 AM

Ellenpoly, thanks for your sentiments - you're so right in that it is the hardest thing to see your flesh and blood suffer in this way, but in your defence of Cannabis as a harmless substance you are wrong, wrong, wrong, and I can assure you that, if you were in my position, you would curse it and those misguided fools who defend it, just as I do.

It's nothing to do with simply 'picking on' Cannabis as a convenient handle on which to hang the blame (I blame myself, but that's another, private, story). The pot-heads can deny until they're blue in the face, but it won't alter the truth - hard-drug abusers seldom start with the hard drugs, they seldom start with alcohol, they almost always start on the stuff that's held out to them as harmless fun, Cannabis. I've had a lot of experience with these people as a Youth-Worker, I've watched their careers in drugs start with pot and slowly (or sometimes unbelievably quickly) move to other substances.

Why do you feel that my anger (which isn't actually anger, more a deep all-consuming sadness) prevents me from seeing what's right in front of my face? The fact that I've witnessed the dreadful things that users of this 'harmless substance' can and do progress to makes it far easier for me to see the truth than those who have never been through it. I'm not blinded by the irrational love affair you people have with Cannabis, I see it for what it is - a wolf in sheep's clothing for which there's no other reason for its consumption other than to disturb one's brain activity (yes, it does that for medicinal purposes too, and I'd accept its use when prescribed by a doctor for a medical condition).

If you've been a Cannabis-user (in the non-medical sense) and you got away with it, didn't get hooked in to 'harder' stuff, I'm glad for you - you were lucky. But some, too many, don't.

John

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 09:51 AM

John, I'd just like to suggest that you stop blaming yourself for your child's decisions. Once people have passed the "age of reason" (usually around age 7) they do think for themselves. If parents know they've done everything in their power to steer their child in the right direction, and that child insists on harming themselves anyway, it's not because of the parent. I think it's because that young person needs to learn some very important lessons about the behavior in question.

And some people just can't take someone elses's word - especially a parent's - for anything. They seem to need to learn things "the hard way", unfortunately. If your child is like this, there's nothing you can do about it except love him anyway and GO EASY ON YOURSELF!

And this reminds me of something I heard from a spiritual healer down in Atlanta last fall ...

"If it contains blame, shame or judgement, it's not yet the Truth"

I like it so much I use it as an affirmation whenever I find myself filled with negative thoughts about myself or anyone else. It really brings me relief, mentally and emotionally.


People attach to drugs, alcohol, running, or excessive shopping because this attachment is predictable to them and it provides what they can not find with other human beings.

When these attachments begin to fail to provide a haven from the pain of human attachments human beings may be brought back into engagement with one another. Love usually does this best. If only for oneself...

harpgirl, according to my own personal experience, you are absolutely right. Except that the Love that "cured" me did not come from another human being. I don't think there's a human being on the planet that could have given me the kind of unconditional love I needed at that point in my life!

It came from within, from my own spiritual Self, as I was trying out a new spiritual exercise for the first time. That experience was awesome - I'd never known such a warm all-encompassing Love in all my life! It seemed to eradicate all desire to get high, I just didn't need it anymore.

I love what you've said. Love rules!! :-)


I'm sure that it is an emotional issue for some of you but its obvious that the "war on drugs" shouldn't include pot. All it does is create a lucrative black market.

dianavan, I couldn't agree more.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 10:21 AM

Glue. Gas(oline) or what the British call petrol. Alcohol. Cafeine. Nicotine. Money. Power. Abused prescription drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 10:37 AM

Our guidline for what is legal and what is not should be whether something harms another, and not the emotional aspect of the act. Driving stoned should be illegal, just as driving under the influence of alcohol is. Driving under the influence of distraction of reading, putting on makeup, eating a super-size, disciplining children, or talking on cell phones should also, because they endanger others.

Smoking pot, while it may cause collateral suffering in those who care about the smoker is not an action that demands a legal sanction. Operating the remote control stoned, ordering two pizzas for everyone in the room, or laughing insanely at something that is most definitely not funny are not examples of things society needs to be protected from.

Laws against pot have proven to be ineffectual and more support for the organized crime infrastructure than they have been at actually stopping pot smoking. How does society benefit from those laws? Is someone with a pot "problem" better off facing jail time *in addition* to having a substnance problem? Why can't society strike a balance and accept that people sometimes like to be intoxicated, that it is enjoyable, and that most of its members can imbibe ocassionally without the social fabric coming apart? I think it is less economic, although it IS that, than it is puritanical, although it is hard to understand in that regard how booze is legal. And don't forget, either that many sexual acts that involve neither minors nor coerced participants are also illegal.

The arguments against legalization here have all been emotional, not a good foundation for laws.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 11:00 AM

Johhny...if cannabis didn't exist at all, hard drug users would still find and use hard drugs. The reason that cannabis sometimes leads to hard drugs IS because cannabis, like hard drugs, is illegal...and that results in it being pushed by the same criminals who push hard drugs.

If you make it legal, the criminals are no longer in the picture, and the cannabis user does not encounter them, and is far less likely to be OFFERED the hard drugs.

It's that simple.

Cannabis doesn't lead to hard drugs...contact with criminal dealers leads to hard drugs. The important thing in life is your own attituded and who you hang out with...bad company leads to bad results.

Cannabis in itself is not the cause of the problem. Illegality of cannabis is the cause of the problem. If it were not illegal, it would be considered no more remarkable in people's lives than tea or coffee, in my opinion...and drinking too much coffee DOES badly damage some people's health. I gave up coffee 10 years ago, and it was the hardest struggle I ever had to quit something in my life. The benefits to my health were considerable.

I don't smoke anything, I barely drink at all, I take no drug except the very occasional aspirin for a headache, I avoid caffeine drinks, I look 15 to 20 years younger than most people my age, I don't appear to have any substance-related addictions, but I am in favour of legalizing the use of marijuana and I regard the argument that it "leads to hard drugs" as totally spurious and misguided, given what I have personally witnessed between the late 60's and now...during which I had the opportunity to witness thousands of people who casually or regularly used: cannabis, tobacco, alcohol, caffeine drink, and various other common drugs.

Hanging around drug dealers and hard drug users is what leads to hard drugs!

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 11:08 AM

John,

First of all I don't have kids so let me say "no" to that question.

Secondly, like Ellen, I'm very sorry about what had happened. And no one truly understands that kind of hell until they go through it.

Thirdly you are right, in the western world, the vast majority of of heroin and cocaine uses "start" with pot. But that still doesn't mean that pot should continue to be illegal. It is truly a tiny percent of pot users that go on to be addicted to "hard" drugs.

There are people who:

never tried pot.
tried it once or a few times and stopped.
used it occasionally for a few years and stopped.
used it regularly for a few years and stopped.
used it regularly for years - maybe they haven't stopped.
used it and also tried heroin or cocaine once or a few times and stopped.
used it and also tried heroin or cocaine for a few years and stopped.
used it and also used heroin or cocaine at a level that would be considered to be addiction.

Each of the above levels decreases in size from hundreds of millions down to thousands. And that doesn't include people who abuse illegal drugs like amphetamines and barbituates, because a great deal of those users do not "start" with pot.

Also, heroin use in other parts of the world has little connection with pot. So thousands of people do not "need" pot to be willing to use other drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 11:14 AM

I don't suppose others will have been confused (witness Dianavan's point: "...if they would make it legal to grow and possess, it would take a big swipe out of organised crime"), but for Georgiansilver's benefit I will just re-explain the third paragraph of my earlier post. I was pointing out that the criminalisation of drugs has very unpleasant consequences, exactly as prohibition did in an earlier age. He should know this from his police experience.

Maybe Strolling Johnny has let emotion cloud his judgment, but he seems to have confused the issue of criminalisation with the issue of drugs abuse. There is no inconsistency in opposing the first and wanting to discourage the second. They are separate issues, as his own family experience demonstrates. For the fact is that his son got himself into a mess even though what he claims to have been the so-called gateway drug was criminalised.

Johnny should face the simple (and I would have thought unarguable) fact that many people experiment with pot, or for that matter use it regularly long-term, without ever going where his son went. And for people like his son - ie those who, for whatever reason, need protection or support - the outlawing of cannabis is of no help.

Johnny's family experience is obviously an unhappy one, but it is no basis on which to frame laws that affect everyone. In a few days' time a pal will be staying who has smoked pot regularly for at least 35 years. It has caused him no problems and he has caused no-one else any problems in all those years. Face it Johnny: criminalising him or his suppliers doesn't help your son one bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 01:12 PM

People use drugs, hard or otherwise, because they take them for granted (due to the fact that their peer group sees it that way) and they want to fit in with their peers. And they want to fill an inner psychological emptiness. They also often use drugs because they grow up seeing their parents doing it (legally or otherwise). If they want to rebel against their parents, they will simply use a DIFFERENT drug, that's all. Addicted parents raise addicted children, in many cases. 99.9% of the public IS addicted to some substance.

When you make those drugs illegal you (1) harm and harass the victims (the users) and (2) provide the criminals (the dealers) with a tremendously lucrative trade which they will pursue vigorously. The major dealers command big financial power in society...accordingly they will cleverly lobby politicians to KEEP the illegal drugs illegal because it is to their benefit.

They are unwittingly assisted in the meantime by morally concerned people in the ordinary public who think that a law against a drug will stop people from using it! It won't, as has been amply demonstrated over and over again.

The law should never persecute the user, but should go to the source (in the case of hard drugs). In the case of marijuana the law should allow people to grow it and use it privately, but not mass market it as, for example, cigarettes are mass marketed. In other words, no brand names, no packaging, no licensed businesses, no advertising...just allow private individuals to grow it and use it privately if they want to (any fool can do it, I assure you...it's so easy)...OR....provide it through a regulated governmental agency for good medicinal purposes (of which there are several).

No fancy packaging...plain transparent baggie...no brand names...no advertising...no mass marketing.

The criminal element would not be able to push it any more. The big business community would not be able to legally push it, like they do cigarettes. The ordinary people who already choose to use it anyway would continue to do so without legal harassment. The police would have more time for stuff that actually matters.

Many police officers would oppose my ideas as set out above. Why? Because, like other people, they are creatures of habit. Many would support my ideas too. Depends on how mentally flexible they are, that's all. It's not easy to break old mental habits.

I don't smoke marijuana. Why would I? It smells bad and I don't like inhaling smoke in the first place. Plus, the "high" doesn't impress me. I leave other people alone to make their own decisions, and I appreciate it when they leave me alone to make mine. I don't need cops or laws to protect me from marijuana, nor does anybody else. What people need is a stable home life, a sense of purpose, some self-esteem, and a good grasp on reality. The long arm of the law is not going to give it to them.

The law can't make people good or wise...it can only restrain those who have totally lost control of their moral and ethical behaviour towards others. It should restrict its activities to doing that and otherwise leave people alone.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 03:22 PM

Well I was dragged away from the screen, and Little Hawk posted some real common sense before I got chance to submit my earlier message - otherwise I would have referred to it, ar at least tried to avoid being repetitive. Good one, Goerge (LK. Likewise Blackcatter.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 04:19 PM

Well, the thing is, wether it's illegal or legal people will still smoke/eat weed for years to come.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Cruiser
Date: 12 Jun 04 - 05:27 PM

NO!

I would do away with tobacco and alcohol but we all know that could never happen. I just don't understand why adults want to put those harmful substances in their bodies.

(I drank and smoked some as a kid...how could I have been so stupid! I never did drugs...even as a kid I was smarter than that).

If you smoke anything, drink alcohol to excess, overeat, and especially do "drugs" you are stupid. Your stupidity costs the taxpayers and I do not want to pay for your self indulgence. Exert a little self control and think of the consequences of your actions on yourself, your family, and society.

Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,.gargoyle
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:30 AM

It would NOT be a good idea to legalize pot.

Those that "need" it can already get (it) or better for free.

Those that recreate with it....can grow their own....if it is important enough to them.

Sincerely.
Gargeoyl

The economy distribution system works weel as it is.....why try to "fix" it......(Worst phrase from a government agent, "Hi....I'm from the federal government....and I'm here to help."

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: pdq
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:52 AM

As the ornithologist said, as he tossed pot leaves to the nesting sea birds: "leave on turn unstoned".