BS: Legalize Pot?

Subject: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: dianavan
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 10:16 PM

For years, Canadians have been calling for the legalization of marijuana. The govt. even tried growing medicinal marijuana in underground bunkers but it was declared 'bunk'. But now, amazingly enough, the Fraser Institute (a right wing think tank) has come out in favour of legalization. I can't believe it. Whats this all about?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Amos
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 10:25 PM

Some damned hippy put on a tie.

A

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Amergin
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 11:03 PM

sounds good to me....it never should have been illegal...now if they keep tight control of it and make money off it...like here in the states we have state ran liquor stores...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 10 Jun 04 - 11:33 PM

cough...

oh, excuse me...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sorcha
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 12:06 AM

I only wish......

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 01:37 AM

@hy has it been illegal?

Easy - the government knew early on that ANYBODY can grow pot. You legalize it, and I'm planting a shit load in my back yard. It is indigenous in all 50 states, including Alaska, so I assume it'll grow in the ground just about anywhere in Canada.

It's easy to grow and easy to process.

On the other hand, alcohol takes work and frankly talent if you want the good stuff.

People would grow so much pot that the government wouldn't make any tax money on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 03:26 AM

Amos, you are SO funny!!!!! (And might be right!)..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: el ted
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 03:58 AM

Goodness! I never knew pots were illegal! I must get the servants to empty the kitchen straight away. Does this law apply to earthenware too?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 04:17 AM

(From The Sun Newspaper)....


Police to let England
fans smoke dope


From NICK PARKER in Portugal

ENGLAND fans will be allowed to smoke dope before Sunday's crunch clash with France — to keep them calm.

Cops in Lisbon plan to crack down on drunk supporters while turning a blind eye to those spotted puffing on a spliff.

Pot-smoking fans have been assured they will not be arrested, cautioned — or even have their drugs confiscated.

Last night experts said the Portuguese police's "Here We Blow" policy would reduce chances of a punch-up between rival fans.

Alan Buffry of the Legalise Cannabis Alliance said: "If people are drinking they lose control, if they smoke cannabis they don't.

"Alcohol makes fans fight. But cannabis smokers will be shaking hands and singing along together."

Dutch police used a similar policy in Euro 2000 and England's hooligan element were too stoned to fight.

A Lisbon police spokeswoman said: "If people cause a problem through drugs and become a menace then police will take action. But when this doesn't happen why should the police be the ones making the fuss?"

More than 600 officers will be on duty for England's opening group game at Lisbon's Stadium of Light.

Fans who seem to be drunk may be breath-tested and refused entry.




(We knew this was a good idea for a long time...but were just too stoned to mention it...xx..e)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 04:37 AM

So let me get this right, you want to encourage the younger generation to come into the folk arena and ALSO take drugs. I am amazed, do you openly encourage this within your homes, you are loosing the plot, or are you all born again hippies - grow up

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 04:46 AM

Ah GUEST. There you go, getting all upset...

Yup, I'm an aging hippy. Yup, I'd encourage young people to eat a little pot sprinkled over a nice spagetti marinara rather than any other drug out there, especially alcohol and cigarettes. If they feel they need to experiment and then go to a football game...or for that matter a folk session, I'd rather them a little stoned and mellow than a whole lot drunk and fighting angry.

All grown up and still of the same (sound) mind about pot..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Parent
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 05:01 AM

Always the same pathetic excuses for pot smoking.
It is the thin end of the wedge. If you don't think so try and explain that to parents who have a child that has died from heroin, especially when they tell you that the child started experimenting with pot.

Grow up and act responsibly

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Ellenpoly
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 05:14 AM

If you are indeed that parent, I have nothing but sympathy for you. But the fact that some people go from one drug to another is more symptomatic of an addictive personality than it is a condemnation of one relatively harmless drug.

Many children experiment, that's the fact. I maintain that if pot were legalized that child would not have to be buying it from the same source that might be providing other more harmful drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 06:21 AM

Nobody starts with pot. We start with ice cream and lemonade and cola and move on to coffee, and perhaps tobacco and then maybe beer or wine, then perhaps pot...

Mormons draw the line there between lemonade and cola, Muslims draw it between tobacco and beer. Other people draw it between wine and pot, yet others between pot and...

Sensible people stick to a reasonable selection of substances which they've found suit them, and leave the others alone. I'd cut out the cola as well as the coke, avoid smoking, more especially tobacco, and run a mile from anything involving needles. But I don't see any value in having the law enforce my particular tastes rather than anyone else's.

Quite why this has all has got tied up with left-right issues puzzles me. Basically, it's an issue where the division is between authoritarian/libertarian, both of whom come in left wing and right wing varieties.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 07:27 AM

Apart from GUEST 'Parent', how many of the Yea-Sayers on this thread have children with a hard-drug habit? Hands up please.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 07:56 AM

I can see GUEST Parent's point but teenagers nowadays know what the dangers are surrounding drugs, and if they don't, it's not hard to find them out. There has been alot of T.V and radio advertising and loads of magazine articles over the last few years about the dangers and effects hard drugs can have on you. And if they don't know what they are being offered...the simple rule is to not take it!

However, back to the question in hand...yes..!!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 07:59 AM

Sweetfia - which question? There are two in hand at the moment.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:15 AM

Ok, my answer to wether we should legalise weed is ...yes.

The answer the other question...here's a clue...i'm not old enough to be a parent with a child old enough to take drugs!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:16 AM

Ah! Why am I not surprised?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: el ted
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:17 AM

Me neither, and I'm her dad johnny!! She is 17 next week on the 18th.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:19 AM

Nobbut a lass Ted! I'll be kind to her :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:20 AM

Hey, i'm tougher than i look...just ask s6k!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:22 AM

Tough I can do wi'out! I've got Mrs. Johnny to contend with, and they don't come any tougher!
Cheers M'Dear, :0)
Johnny

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: el ted
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:24 AM

You shouldn't know what it is Sophia. I will have to stop your pocket money!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:25 AM

Good, i'm glad to hear the wife is keeping the husband in check...and not the other way round...good on'ye Mrs Johnny!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:28 AM

I would love to voice my opinion on what you have just said Dad, but some may find the language offensive...so I will refain, for now.

Anyway, I make my own money, I have two jobs!!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:34 AM

Go for it girl! Sounds as though El Ted can afford to retire.
J :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: el ted
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:41 AM

I have two daughters, so that's my pension plan sorted!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:42 AM

Cheers Johnny!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Guest #2
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 08:57 AM

Ellenpolly
I always enjoy your posts and would agree with you on this one if I hadn't seen my oldest son nearly kill himself (suicide) after "only" smoking pot 24/7 for about a year and a half during college.I suppose you can say the same about alcohol but the assumption that pot is totally harmless to all of us is a dangerous illusion.

As an addendum, my son is 2 years down the road, doing fine and we're all living happily ever after, but I wouldn't wish that hell on anybody.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 09:08 AM

Sorry to hear about that Guest.

I once made my best friend choose between me and taking pills (E's) after i rang her up one moring after she's taken some(she'd been drinking too)...the come down was so bad she could hardly string a sentence together, she was so disorientated she stayed in bed all day...we're are still best friends today, thankfully.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 09:23 AM

In terms of the actual danger they cause and are capable of causing, far stronger cases can be made for criminalizing alcohol and tobacco. Hey, waitaminute, didn't we already try that? Yes we did, and look what happened. Prohibition spawned the growth of organized crime in America, and we are still fighting it. And it never stopped people from imbibing. And how many of our musical icons have smoked pot? Would the world be better off if they had gone to jail for it?

Any dangers surrounding the use of pot can much more easily be dealt with with it being legal and not having to complicate the situation with the whole legal machinery issue. I don't mean for a second that overuse is not a potential problem. Overuse of ANYTHING is a problem. You can even overdose on water, but SOME water is necessary for life. And from the "fighting" scenario painted above and growing anecdotal evidence about various medical conditions, we can say that the use of some pot in some cases is actually *beneficial* to some people.

The furor that keeps pot illegal (at least in the US) is totally irrational, and countering it takes measures outside of logical argument and weighing of facts.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: s6k
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 09:27 AM

tougher than she looks??? omg.... thats a understatement.
i still recovering from some of the damage incurred.

legalize pots - of course, what would we eat off otherwise?

legalize pot - yes. then people dont have to go to dodgy drug dealers to get it. also = alcohol is the most dangerous drug around and kills more people than cocaine, etc, each year.

so a little pot can be good, but having it once every hour or something, that would be bad

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Parent
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 09:34 AM

Sweetfia, you are lucky to be blessed with the understanding of life that you obviously have for your tender years, unfortunately others out there are not so lucky and need constant help and guidance, your friend for example (well done)

Ellenpoly, I to have read some of your posts and am also surprised at your stance and flipant comment "I'd encourage young people to eat a little pot sprinkled over a nice spagetti marinara rather than any other drug out there"

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Amergin
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:01 AM

I have known many people who liked the hard drugs...I never touched them....I have known people sent to insane asylum because of those drugs....I have known people sent to the emergency room because of those drugs either oding or having the the unfortunate circumstance of getting on the wrong side of some one on hard drugs...i have even known some one murdered over drugs...but none of it was over pot....it was all over crank, cocaine (and crack), and heroin...

legalise pot and use the funds for healthcare...and for proper education and treatment against the harder drugs. Like i said the state can grow it's own...and sell it in state ran stores..while keeping a tight clamp on those attempting to grow it for other than personal use...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:05 AM

GUEST, Parent - I suspect we are kindred spirits. If you're a member posting as a guest in order to preserve your anonimity, feel free to PM me and I'll expand on that.

If not, let me say I share your views and with very good reasons. I'll be very interested to see how many responses I get to my earlier question, and what they are.
J :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:06 AM

At least if it were legal, we could stick a great big health warning on it.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: rhoda horse
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:10 AM

I am a Centaur from Greek Mythology and have no need for such simple earthly pursuits.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Bagpuss
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:14 AM

And a talking stuffed toy (baggy and a bit loose at the seams) who is friends with a banjo playing toad and some mice has no need of such substances.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 10:36 AM

GUEST (anonymous) - what good would that do? We put big health warnings on fag packets, as well as adverts on telly showing blocked-up arteries and people dying of lung cancer and emphysema, but the pillocks still practise their filthy, antisocial, suicidal habit.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 11:47 AM

I would like to get really clear with both Guest 2 and Guest Parent:

I was also a pot smoker in college. Fortunately, I do not have an addictive personality, and therefore never took any drug to excess, though I tried more than just grass.

I was also clinically depressed, and though I never attempted suicide, I certainly thought about it a lot. Ingesting pot did not make me more suicidal, but it certainly made me think more introvertedly. Can that in itself cause someone to kill themself? I seriously doubt it and I've been in therapy and studied depression for the past 35 years.

With what you have said about your poor son at college indicates to me that his depression and his marijuana intake were not proven to be directly connected, either medically or psychologically. Again, if the proof was out there, REAL proof, then it would have been in a lot of medical journals by now. It simply isn't.


I have also, by the way, never offered grass to a young person, and I doubt I ever would. The reason isn't that I have ever been afraid of what grass does to me, but I can't know what grass or any other drug will do for another. Therefore I would not want to be responsible for another person's ability or inability to handle it.

If I sounded flippant to you, well, I guess it was meant to be. But only because of what I feel is an unjust uproar mostly instigated by powerful folk in the Food and Drug Administration, along with the government that has a huge amount of taxpayers money tied up in their Drug Enforcement Agency, especially in other countries. It is not to their benefit to have their cash cows removed, which is exactly what would happen if marijuana were legalized.

Believe me, if this subject were either about smoking cigarettes (you notice that I talk about ingesting grass, not smoking, which has to my knowledge, never been connected with any kind of lung disease) or about drinking alcohol, my tone would be a heck of a lot more serious. I've seen the DIRECT result of those excesses both physically and mentally on dear (dead) friends.


This is a subject that I have had an intense argument with one of my dearest friends (and a fellow mudcatter). He has also had his own personal story as to why he despises marijuana, and again, I am deeply sorry for his pain. But to him, and to the both of you, I say again...

This is a herb which when used in moderation (as all things need to be) has not been proven to be harmful. From my own experience I agree. That there will be others, young and old, who will have a bad experience either because they were incapable of using this or any other drug for either physical or psychological reasons, can not be laid at the doorstep of pot.


PS-I'm very relieved that your son is now "clean and sober". I also hope he is or was in therapy to help him remain that way.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 12:29 PM

Ellenpoly, a lot of what you say is well-reasoned and well presented (can you sense the 'but' coming?), BUT is the fact that you personally used Cannabis without any ill effects and without feeling the need to move on to 'harder' drugs sufficient justification for unleashing it on the wider public? A great many drinkers and smokers practise their drinking and smoking for considerable periods without suffering any ill effects, but would you use that as an argument for encouraging the consumption of alcohol and tobacco? (Before I go any further, I'd also say that I would like to see greater controls on the use of alcohol and tobacco, both of which I regard as very dangerous substances).

I know the 'Elderly Hippy' element here on Mudcat will come out with teeth and claws bared (like I give a shit) when I say this but, as an ex-Youth Worker, and as the parent of a young man for whom cannabis, by his own admission, was the gateway drug to his amphetamine and, subsequently, heroin addiction, I firmly believe that greater control, not relaxation, is what's needed, together with a much tougher approach to the detection and prosecution of those who deal in all illegal drugs, cannabis included. The current move to liberalisation is an open admission by those in power that they've given up on the drugs issue, and on the misery of those caught up in it.

I asked my question about Yea-saying parents/druggie children deliberately and I'm not surprised that no-one has responded. Ask any parent of a young person who's addicted to illegal drugs what their view is of the relaxation of the cannabis laws and I can almost guarantee you what their answer will be. At the end of the day they know, by their experience, the sad truth and no amount of flippancy or intellectual argument will make it different.

I respect you and your views, you're perfectly entitled to believe whatever you wish, and I'm in agreement with you regard to the medicinal benefits of cannabis, but I'm afraid we have to differ otherwise.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 12:55 PM

"unleashing it on the wider public?"

Do you realize that most estimates figure that 40% of Americans have tried it already? And that's with the "War on drugs" that is going on. Exactly what do you consider the "wider pblic" to be?

Please.


If pot is a "gateway drug" why do so few choose to enter through that gate, and of those that do, few actually continue beyond experimenting.

You may think your "feelings" are valid, but you ignore scientific proof. How sad.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST, Reverend Jim
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 12:56 PM

You can rationalize anything. It's not called dope for nuthin. I think. What were we talking about?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 01:33 PM

Most opponents of drug use in general are loathe to concede that the best antidote to substance abuse (of legal AND illegal substances) is the love of friends and family, and treatment and education, if necessary. At the same time, we must accept that no one makes it out alive, and that whether it is drugs or whatever other problem, some people will fall off the bottom no matter what is done.

So I pose the questions: How is imprisoning drug users more effective at limiting drug use than treatment, education, and caring? Additionally, what does society gain by limiting drug use?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Clinton Hammond
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 01:37 PM

Seems to me there are a lot of people here need to see the movie "Grass"

"This film explores the history of the American government's official policy on marijuana in the 20th century. Rising with nativist xenophobia with Mexican immigration and their taste for smoking marijuana, we see the establishment of a wrong headed federal drug policy as a crime issue as oppposed to a public health approach. Fuelled by prejudice, hysterical propaganda and political opportunism undeterred by voices of reason on the subject, we follow the story of a costly and futile crusade against a substance with questionable ill effects that has damaged basic civil liberites"

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 01:42 PM

But it's not just banned in the USA, just about everyone else bans it, excluding the Netherlands where it is restricted. Why did they ban it?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 01:49 PM

"Greater control" of a drug is in practice the opposite of prohibition. Ineffective efforts at total prohibition - and they are always ineffective - means that there is no control whatsoever. No control on purity, no control over the circumstances in which they are used, no control on the age at which they are used.

It just doesn't work. It's been given an awfully long time to see if somehow it might start to work. It's time to stop pretending, and try it another way.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Well, yeah.
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 01:52 PM

Yes. Choice on this matter should be legalized. Antisocial activity is what should be illegal. There is nothing antisocial about a person choosing in their own privacy or out in the open air to smoke pot. It doesn't hurt other people.

Antisocial activity is activity that hurts other people in some way, damages their property or impinges upon their freedom. Smoking pot does none of the above. Driving stoned might cause a problem...accordingly, don't prohibit the smoking of pot, prohibit driving under the influence. Same basic approach as with alcohol.

If you wish to protect people against themselves...then you would have to also outlaw laziness, willful ignorance, overeating, sleeping too much, staying up too late, being promiscuous, wasting valuable time doing valueless things, etc...

And it would be very silly, wouldn't it? And effectively unenforcable on a broad basis...just like the silly antimarijuana legislation is. You don't have the right to legally force other people to be like you, just because you think you are better than they are in some way.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 11 Jun 04 - 02:17 PM

The only reason that I can see..to show itself for legalising pot is that the life of the authorities might be made easier...and a few who have medical needs.
Perhaps the question to be asked here is who actually "needs" it and why?.
Having pursued a career..first in the Police Force, then Child Care, I have seen the results of the "gateway" drug...and you cannot convince me that it is not!!!!!!! leading people on to other things and ultimately addiction and death for some.
To those of you who are giving your views on here.....Have you actually seen a death due to heroin, cocaine or amphetamine....I have seen the horrific circumstances of all three, and on questioning friends/relatives..I find that the "victims" started on pot!!!!. I do not care what figures you can come up with which are published by whoever....figures can be fixed....some of you need to experience first hand the damage...then perhaps you could climb off your all-knowing soap boxes and face the reality of this sorry, selfish world we live in.
Strollin'johnny..glad to see there's someone on here talking sense.
Be Blessed.

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".

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 07:49 AM

Or maybe "no tern unstoned"?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 08:53 AM

One thing I should probably clarify here. I would be in favour of legalizing pot...IF it were done responsibly...but it wouldn't be!

Here's what I mean.

The responsible way to legalize pot would be to pass laws as follows:

You can legally grow and privately use your own pot on your own property...BUT...you can't sell it to the general public or market it through any licensed business whatsoever. Nor can you put it in a fancy package, advertise it, or give it any brand name.

You can use it, but you can't deal it.

This would put the power, and the decision back in the hands where it belongs, the hands of ordinary people.

The power is presently mostly in the hands of organized crime.

I know perfectly well that if pot were made legal the business community would leap joyfully at the opportunity to mass market it to the ordinary public, and that would undoubtedly have bad effects on society in a wider sense.

Do I think that this money-driven society would actually be responsible enough to enact such laws as I have described?????

No! I am sad to say that I don't think the politicians are that responsible. I think they would reward the highest bidder, by allowing big business to market the stuff. They always reward the highest bidder. That is the central sickness of this whole society. Money in the hand RIGHT NOW is seen as more important than life, health, Nature, or a viable future for mankind on this planet.

Therefore, given the prevailing idiocy of our society and our governments...I would not recommend totally legalizing pot at this time (sigh)...even though it's not very harmful to most people and helpful to some.

What I WOULD recommend is totally de-criminalizing personal use of pot (in private) and possession of small amounts of pot for personal use!!!! And I would de-criminalize growing small amounts of it on private property for personal use.

Simple.

What I would do, however, my stupid government is highly unlikely to ever do, because they are after money and power, not sanity and responsibility. They do not serve, they dominate, lie, and exploit.

- LH

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Leave No Tern Unstoned (Throw Rocks at Them)
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 09:53 AM

"leave on turn unstoned".

pdq must have been stoned on Pot. That is why people call it DOPE!

Just kidding pdq we all make typos!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 10:06 AM

Yeah, I always figured the name "dope" was perfect to describe those who used the stuff regularly. :-) I never in my life saw so much needless importance given to anything else as to dope by two diametrically opposite sets of people...

Dope-smokers and cops! They could've both spent their time more usefully on almost anything else whatsoever, I figure.

I think the whole situation is just ridiculous.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: pdq
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 10:41 AM

arr terns rHub-isdh?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 11:20 AM

Well, LittleHawk, I think you're right. The Fraser Institute is recommending legalization so that it can be taxed. Its just another idea for generating revenue so the laws would not be as open as you would wish. I agree - it should not be marketed. That way, personal use or growing it would be legal but it would still be illegal to sell it. There wouldn't be much of a market if they did that so it probably won't happen.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 11:20 AM

A tern is a bird. Why are people getting them stoned?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 11:26 AM

Good arguements overall. But with the sake of sounding repetitive, I used it for 20 years and have abandonded it for the last 10.

It's very over rated as an enhancement to life and is bad for your health.

And yes, it can lead to harder drugs. My pot smoking crowd (who thankfully like myself has grown up and out of it) did occassionally harbor the opportunity to try other things like coke and acid. Someone in pot smoking group will always be the one to do the introducing of other drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:18 PM

I agree with Martin. Not that I ever did stuff like that--smoke, etc. But if I did ever smoke, I haven't for over two decades now.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:29 PM

One more thing before I melt away into life. The person who offers hard drugs to either of my children will have great difficulty walking on two broken legs.

I live in a town that has a major methamphetamine problem. Problem is that the cops can't do a helluva lot about it. I was given a dirty look when I suggested that a few of us with baseball bats could help some wayward dealers see the error of their ways. Oh, well. When it comes to my kids, I will call the ambulance after the little talk.

And those who are about to tell me about the law: yeah, I've heard that one before.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:34 PM

Sorry. That sounds quite bad, and it's a little strong. I'll clarify. If the law can't protect my kids, I will. There. That's better.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Cruiser
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 12:40 PM

Martin Gibson:

Thanks for coming clean (in more ways than one!)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 01:57 PM

Martin -

You said, "And yes, it can lead to harder drugs. My pot smoking crowd (who thankfully like myself has grown up and out of it) did occassionally harbor the opportunity to try other things like coke and acid. Someone in pot smoking group will always be the one to do the introducing of other drugs."

Right. So the main problem is obviously (in my opinion) not the substance itself...the problem is the people you choose to hang out with while acquiring and taking the substance...and your own attitude toward things in general, which was my point.

Pot is not the problem. People's addictive attitude toward things is the problem. Some people are inclined toward substance abuse and abuse of their health and doing reckless things. Those people will find something else harmful to injest or do in the absence of pot...and they do. It's often something much more harmful than pot.

The important thing is not to allow it to be mass marketed. You cannot stop people from casually acquiring, growing, and using marijuana with ANY law, unless you wish to assign a cop to watch every single citizen 24 hours a day, which is not possible. Anyway, someone else would have to watch the cop! :-) Cops sometimes deal illegal drugs too.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 03:58 PM

Hasn't the UK decriminalized Pot?

I have Fuch's Syndrome. I know it has a funny name but similar to Glaucoma in that swelling in the eye causes me temporary blindness from time to time, I would like to determine if pot would help me.

Problem is, in the repressive regieme I live under, my family could lose the house, savings and child custody if the police had the excuse of finding pot here.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Cruiser
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 04:41 PM

Donuel,

Many of us, including me for certain, that do not want pot legalized for general use welcome marijuana as a legal drug for prescribed medicinal use only. It should be no different than codeine, morphine, etc.

Good luck,
Cruiser

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Donuel
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 06:34 PM

Wash DC passed a referendum for medical pot.
Problem is the Congressman from Georgia was able to hide/deny the results of the DC election for 2 years.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 07:25 PM

Donuel, I have some slight interest in this point as well, having had glaucoma most of my life. As you will see from the thread, I'm in favour of pot being treated much the same as other recreational drugs, but as I understand it, any clinical benefits have yet to be proven, and the potential side effects are not fully researched. (Apart from the obvious ones!)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 08:25 PM

You got the Washington, DC refer-endum all wrong, Donuel... Everyone knew the results but Wsahington D.C., like Iraq, is an occupied territory... Oh sure, they have a mayor and city council and can do some things but if the Congressional Review Board don't like what's going down they have the ultimate veto power... Yep, purdy screwed up system and if anyone is thinking democracy here, firget it... Won't find it in D.C.... Sho nuff won't...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 08:31 PM

The UK hasn't decriminalized pot - but it's being put into a lower classification, along with steroids, rather than with heroin. That means reduced penalties. And in practice the police in some parts of the country are turning a blind eye to its use in many circumstances.
Having small quantities for personal use won't mean you get arrested, they'll just confiscate it. (And smoke it off duty?)

The basis rationale for this is to stop wasting police time, and the pressure for the change has come largely from the police.

It's a typical British fudge - and since it'll still be illegal to sell it, with increased penalties, people are still going to have to rely on illegal sources, which will often mean dealers who will cheerfully supply hard drugs as well.

And growing your own is still seen as seriously criminal. Which is of course very helpful to dope dealers, because it keeps them in business.

..........

"...if anyone out there reading this thread has a child with a hard-drug habit, what drug would you say from experience was their initial entry-point into habitual drug abuse?"

On the basis of years as a social worker I'd say in almost all cases that would be glue, tobacco or alcohol.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: dianavan
Date: 13 Jun 04 - 10:59 PM

I certainly would not advocate the use of pot for students of any age. While working with the deaf community, I realized how devasting smoking pot was for them. Seems it messes with your visual memory which makes it difficult to communicate if you're deaf. So its definitely out as a study tool for young people. It also messes with you motivation which could be alright recreationally but again, no good for studying.

Most of the people I know think its best for people 20-40 as a recreational drug. Makes you slow down and take another look. Its probably preferrable to alcohol. After age 40 its not very desirable - as if you need something to slow you down at that point in your life!

As far as getting their hands on it, teen-agers would have the same access as they do for alcohol - not legally. Of course they might get it the same way they get alcohol in the beginning - from their parents ' liquor cabinet or from their friends.

Its good medicine for people with MS, glaucoma and AIDS. Also helps with migraines and asthma, I hear. Wouldn't it be great if people had access to affordable medicine? Its the pharmaceutal companies and the criminals that do not want it to be legalized. Everyone else is just afraid of losing control over others.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 05:10 AM

For Gods sake will you people listen and stop trying to defend your own self abuse with cannabis. People have DIED on the drugs trail, weather they started via alcohol or pot is irrelevant they have DIED. I will keep it short and understandable, not a long winded attempt to justify smoking pot, people (human beings) have DIED from drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 05:24 AM

You're right, GUEST, people HAVE died from drugs...let's take a quick look at which ones...


"Accidental death from prescription drugs, even when they are correctly given, is now the fourth leading cause of death in the U.S."


"Bad reactions to prescription and over-the-counter medicines kill more than 100,000 Americans and seriously injure an additional 2.1 million every year -- far more than most people realize, researchers say."


----------------------------------------------------------
Drug    Users          Deaths per Year         Deaths per 100,000
----------------------------------------------------------
Tobacco 60 million      390,000 (a)             650
alcohol 100 million    150,000 (b)             150
Heroin 500,000         400 (c)                80 (400)
Cocaine 5 million       200 (c)                4 (20)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 05:24 AM

Advocating that something should be lagalised does NOT mean that you necessarily consider it harmless. The question is whether you think that legalising it would in the end cause less harm than keeping it illegal. And for that, research from other countries that have begun the decriminalisation process, and from experiences with legalisin/banning other substances, should be the deciding factor.

I know canabis can be dangerous - it is linked with increases in mental ill health such as depression and psychosis, as well as with lung cancer. But I still think that it is illegal causes more problems - mainly that it is far more likely to lead onto harder more addictive drugs because that is what the dealer makes more money out of. If you didnt have to come into contact with these dealers, you would be less likely to end up on "the slippery slope". Given that so many people already use, or have used, canabis, I consider it unlikely that decriminalisation would lead to a large increase in people using it.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:08 AM

Again Ellenpoly trying to justify your self abuse

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Bagpuss
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:14 AM

That last guest was me (including all the typos and terrible grammar...)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 07:15 AM

Sttaw Legend, I was just trying to put things into perspective in my last posting.

I do not self-abuse any drug, including pot. It is extremely rare when I partake these days. Also, I don't smoke cigarettes, drink alcohol, nor take an abundance of caffein. If I did, I wouldn't have been posting here, as I would have known that my own situation would make me a poor advocate for being able to discuss this clearly and without undue emotions.

That I have been able to try different drugs in the past, and walk away from them was mentioned only to indicate that while some people are not so lucky, and get caught up into an escalating use and abuse of many substances, not all do, and not all follow a specific order of what they become dependent on.

The issues are many here. The approach to dealing with them will be on as many levels. I think there has been some good discussion here, and I imagine it will continue.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 07:26 AM

The real question is, why are so many other things that can be damngerous are allowed to be be grown and bought and sold quite openly? Spinach, for example. Or rhubarb.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sweetfia
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 08:52 AM

Peas!!!! Now those nasty things should be made illegal! I hate the person who thought it would be a good idea to eat them...i don't know how many thimes my mum tried to force them down my neck when i was younger.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 09:32 AM

Dianavan, you hit it on the nose when you wrote: "Its the pharmaceutal companies and the criminals that do not want it to be legalized. Everyone else is just afraid of losing control over others."

Precisely. They're afraid of losing control over others...or they are simply terrified of a drug that they probably have heard lurid tales about...tales which bear little resemblance to the truth.

Get serious, people. There are an enormous number of things which are legal...and still dangerous...and most of them are more dangerous than pot. What makes them dangerous is their misuse BY the user. Reckless, irresponsible, addictive people do dangerous things with substances. And they will do it with alchohol and tobacco and cocaine, ert....regardless of whether or not they have access to marijuana.

The vital thing to do in the case of marijuana is NOT to allow it to be mass marketed (legally or illegally) but it is completely asinine to go after and persecute the user for their own self-abuse!!!! AS I HAVE SAID again and again, but GUEST isn't listening, it seems.

Dear GUEST...who exactly is trying to "justify their own self-abuse", as you say? Not me. I detest the smell of marijuana, I pity the people who rely upon it daily to fill up their empty heads, and I do NOT use it!!!! Get off your self-righteous throne and smell the fresh air.

The reason I advocate not prosecuting users is because it simply causes more harm in society and does not address the problem in a workable or useful fashion. I advocate the law leaving the casual user alone, banning the public sale of the substance...and thereby preventing the following people from cashing in and addicting thousands of people...

a) criminals
b) the pharmaceutical industry
c) the government (who would love to tax the sale of legal marijuana and get more revenue...if it was legal to sell the stuff...therefore they flirt with the idea of legalizing it now and then)

Don't fucking accuse me of trying to justify my nonexistant self-abuse! I don't even drink coffee, for God's sake! Substance abuse is not my style.

Furthermore, someone who does use marijuana occasionally...and has never done any harm to anyone else because of it should not be harassed by you for doing so. Are you already perfect and totally free of all self-indulgent habits and addictive behaviours? I wonder.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 10:34 AM

Little Hawk, if you do not fall into the accused (your words) category why bother replying, my comment, from what you have said, was obviously not aimed at you. My main point is people DIE from drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 12:21 PM

I give up. What's the point in trying to debate, when experience is rubbished in favour of politically-correct, pseudo-intellectual, latter-day-hippy dogma, not to mention a fair helping of bullshit and wishful thinking? I'll stick to the music threads, you meet a saner class of people there. Bye y'all.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 12:35 PM

Strollin'Johnny

thanks for the very accurate description.

"politically-correct, pseudo-intellectual, latter-day-hippy dogma not mention a fair helping of bullshit and wishful thinking"

Absolutely perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 12:56 PM

Okay, GUEST, I recognize that your comment was not aimed at me. I think, though, that you are assuming too much in aiming it at Ellenpoly as well. As far as I know she's a pretty smart person with her own life well under control and she is notably addicted to only this: reading books. :-)

If a law is in fact unenforcable in the broad sense and cannot stop people from privately exercising free choice IN their own privacy...what use is it? I am in favour of a law restricting the SALE of marijuana and hash...just not a law attacking the user, that's all. The (heavy) user is not the problem, he/she is the recipient of the problem...otherwise known as "the victim".

I do not favour laws which target victims. Remember...they used to put poor people in jail for debt at one time (read Dicken's novels). Once in jail they, of course, were basically unable to get OUT of debt and they rotted there in total despair and usually died there. This was another case of a law which was attacking a social problem in entirely the wrong way.

I think that the reason you, GUEST, want the law to go after the victim of marijuana is because you are personally afraid of marijuana. I am not. It's not something that scares me in the least (having been around hundreds of casual users who were totally harmless people for years and years), but draconian laws and drug dealers both worry me considerably. They are both dangerous to ordinary people.

Do you understand my position on that? I'd like to know if you do.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 01:20 PM

I'll stick to the music threads, you meet a saner class of people there.

You meet much the same people. It's just that you don't get in such a towering rage when they don't agree with you, Strollin' Johnny.

And noone ever seems to advocate banning all music in the key of C#, for example, or sending people to jail because they use a non-standard tuning.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 03:07 PM

I think the key of C# should be banned.

And do not attempt to call it Db to get away with it!

You would, also if you played upright bass.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 03:29 PM

Whew! That means we can keep B double sharp.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 04:15 PM

No need to be shy, GUEST...

How 'bout you, Martin? Do you understand what I'm saying? Let's hear your thoughts.

And Strollin' Johnny...we are ALL speaking from direct experience of the matter we're discussing, not just you. For various reasons we have drawn different conclusions from that experience. I have no vested interest in defending marijuana use (and I don't defend it) but I do have a vested interest in defending people's jurisdiction over their own private lives when they are not hurting other people in the process.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 04:25 PM

Little Hawk

the victimless crime arguement is old and tired. If one ir irresponsible enough to do drugs, they are just as irresponsible enough to get behind the wheel of a car and do so. And of course they will. Same with booze. And they throw the book at you for driving under the influence, last I heard.

It's like prostitution. who really gets harmed? How about the people in the neighborhood who have to put up with hookers and streetwalkers and the used condoms in the alley?

Sorry, pal. There's always going to be victims.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 04:42 PM

Yeah, sure...but they already do that. :-) Despite the law. Besides, I would still be in favour of charging a person for the infraction of driving under the influence (of either dope or liquor)...because then he is a threat to other people...and the potential crime is no longer victimless.

So where do we disagree?

What I am saying is that the law should not have the right to invade people's homes and arrest them...for drinking a drink, growing a marijuana plant, smoking a cigarette, reading pornography, possessing an ounce for private use, or smoking a joint. The law has no business coming into someone's home like that, because that someone has not committed a crime against anyone and is not about to. If they're driving on a public road that's a whole different matter. They are then in a position to directly affect other people.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 05:05 PM

When a guy burns 2 doobs and leaves his house 15 minutes later thinking he's just fine and not smoking and driving, I still say there are victims.

Also, any of the the things that you mentioned really doesn't do much to enhance the society that we live in does it? Not to be preachy, but really, are any of the things you mentioned something that you would say is a good role model action for a kid to see?

Aren't we all victims if our society, our culture, is pulled down?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 05:36 PM

"Aren't we all victims if our society, our culture, is pulled down?"

True enough, and that is what the drug rackets tend to do - and prohibition is an absolutely central factor in keeping the drug rackets going.

Both drug rackets - the dealers and the drug enforcement people. It's called symbiosis, they need each other to survive.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:11 PM

Come on Martin - that's the stupidest argument. Don't blame the pot for that idiot driving, etc. when he's stoned. Many drugs do the same think.

When you bring up that kind of point, you remove ANY creditability you might have.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:12 PM

Agreed, Martin...all these practices you mentioned drag down society. However, I don't think that gives police the right to come into people's houses and arrest them...basically because they don't fit someone else's definition of "normality" or "acceptability". If they are actually threatening bodily harm to a partner or child, against their consent, and with violence or implied violence, THEN the police have the right to come in. Otherwise, I don't think they do.

Put it this way: In a society practicing strict legal temperance a policeman can come into your own home and arrest you for drinking one glass of wine or beer or just for having it in the house. Do you think that's right? I don't. The reason we don't think it's right is partly because we think it's "normal" to have alcoholic drinks around sometimes, but someone else might think it's not normal at all. That someone else could demand a law to allow the police to arrest people for the above situation.

Someone else could think it's not normal to pray in one's own house, or NOT to pray in one's own house, or to read certain banned books in one's own house, or any damned thing under the sun...because they thought it was unacceptable or abnormal to do so.

They have no right to force their version of normality on another person by the power of the law in the privacy of that other person's own home.

To millions of people it is "normal" to light up a joint in their own home. To me it isn't. I do not presume to bring the law down on them because they are a little different from me. You apparently do presume so. That appears to be the difference in our positions.

I agree that using drugs...pretty well all drugs...drags down society. You can't attack this sort of thing with punitive laws in my opinion...and you don't have the right to.

What will you do if other people start telling you what YOU can drink, smoke, eat, read, or do in the privacy of your own home, and it interferes with what to you is perfectly normal? What then?

Is your normality superior to other people's normality? Is it the "best" way or the "only" way to be normal? (rhetorical question :-))

I think not. I think there are a million ways to be normal, and at least half of them are quite arbitrary.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 06:51 PM

Sttaw Legend, it wouldn't be much of a debate if everyone on your side of the argument was stuck at your level of debate (as exemplified by your gratuitous comment about Ellenpolly).

Some effective points have been made here about the harm that can be done by pot, which have given me pause for thought. But no-one in my view has come close to explaining how the outlawing of its use and/or supply can help. Certainly not Strolling Johnny, who was wise to take himself out of this thread, since he is either unwilling or incapable of addressing the issues. I fear he was over-milking his family experience a little if he thought it entitled him to dismiss those of us who have dissenting views as politically correct latter-day hippies etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 09:05 PM

I am a politically-incorrect latter-day hippy. I think some people should NOT be allowed to smoke. Imagine Bush after a few tokes. Jaysus, he can't think too well at the best of times. "So, what DO I tell the people about weapons of tax deduction?"

Airline pilots--hey man, you ever see this thing before? Wonder what it does?

Surgeons--hey man, you ever see this thing before? Wonder what it does?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Blackcatter
Date: 14 Jun 04 - 10:30 PM

Hey Brucie,

You should see the list of legal drugs that commercial pilots cannot use within a certain amount of time prior to flying. A close friend just retired from being a captain for Delta. part of the requirements are no Benydril-like drugs for 36 hours prior to flying. Aspirin and the like are about the only meds they can fly with.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 12:01 AM

Oh, if we could only pass another 150,000 criminal laws that would make everything totally safe and wonderful for the "good, respectable people" in society...................................................................................NOT!

Life will never be easy for those who like to decide and control the lifestyles and private moral practices of others. Nor will they ever find enough laws or cops to manage it.

Bloody good thing too! Stalin and Hitler and Mao all gave it a really good shot in their time. I don't need another Stalin, Hitler or Mao to make me feel "safe" when I go to bed at night.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 04:08 AM

Little Hawk,
Point accepted should not have aimed my comment at Ellenpoly (but I do think she is big enough to stick up for herself). As far as being afraid, I am concerned about any drug in the whole drug cycle that may eventually leads to death. I do understand and agree with your position on drug dealers.

Strollin Johnny,
I don't believe you will ever give up.

Peter K (Fionn),
I do hope you are never in a position to be "over-milking family experience" you self appointed prick.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ellenpoly
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 04:29 AM

GUEST, I am of course big enough to stand up for myself as I believe I've been doing here, but I'm also grateful for others who have underlined that if one resorts to attacking the poster just because they don't agree with what has been said, the discussion at hand gets lost in the crossfire.

Everyone is entitled to his/her opinion. That is assuredly the pleasure of Mudcat, whether above or below the line. We share what we know, what we feel, and what we wish to learn, and for that and the people I'm growing to know via this site, I'm grateful.

As in so many discussions here, we are not likely to change too many opinions, but if we can stay open to the possiblility that each person has something to share that may be of worth, if in only sometimes to increase our acknowledgment of our differences then we are often ahead of the game.

..xx..e

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 05:35 AM

Presumably, those people here who are choosing to "slag off" others who have an opinion, are pot smokers or drug takers themselves....Is there anyone on this thread who does not smoke pot that feels it should be legalised??????.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 05:43 AM

Incidentally...to those of you who think that you should be able to flout the laws of the land in your own homes...where does it stop???? If you beat your partner up in the house, should that also be allowed?..or sexually abuse your own children?...where does keeping the laws of the land begin and end?????. Just as people break the law by possessing or using drugs, some do both those things mentioned....should they also be legalised because some people enjoy doing them????

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 05:51 AM

GUEST - correct, though perhaps not in the way you mean! I will never give up on my son. I never gave up, either, on the poor, misguided, malinfluenced little buggers that I used to deal with on a professional basis, whose lives had been wrecked by the 'It's only a bit of harmelss pot' brigade, lying and leading them on. I even attended a couple of their funerals, and a 21-year old's funeral can be a tough experience.

McGrath - 'Towering rage'? No, I reserve my rage for those who are worthy of it, and a few SOBs with bad dress sense and no understanding of the value of a decent haircut don't fall into that category. :0) (LOL) But anger? Yes, I get mad about some of the drivel I've read on here but, as my regular opponent, Dianavan, told me recently, anger can be a good emotion (thanks Dianavan, I know exactly where you were coming from!). In my book it's better to feel anger than nothing at all. And is Towering Rage any worse than the Towering Arrogance, or Towering Stupidity I see in some of the other posts here and elsewhere in the BS section? Don't answer that - you'll be talking to The Hand.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 06:14 AM

"strict legal temperance"

"Temperance" means drinking (or whatever) in moderation. It doesn't mean total abstention. "A sensible level" was how the Government publicity about drinking put it - I found that most of the time I'm rather under the defined level, but during the festival season I get u[p to it from time to time.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 06:27 AM

"Presumably, those people here who are choosing to "slag off" others who have an opinion, are pot smokers or drug takers themselves...."

I'm pretty sure that most of the slagging-off of people with a different opinion has come from the prohibitionists. But either way it's a wrongheaded thing to do. The point of this kind of discussion isn't to try to change other people's minds, it's to try to understand why it is that well-meaning people see things very differently.

I don't think I know anyone who isn't some kind of drug taker. Tea, coffee, chocolate... All have measurable psychoactive effects, and all have actually at some time been illegal in some places.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 08:08 AM

The Hand here again - McGrath, I was just beginning to agree with your first paragraph when it was spoiled by glancing at the second one - which is a red herring I'm afraid. You're right about tea, coffee and chocolate. However, the difference between those three and pot is in the reason for using them, which in the case of pot is to become intoxicated. I personally consume very moderate quantities of tea, coffee and (gasp) chocolate for the sole reason that I enjoy the taste - do you know anyone who smokes cannabis simply and solely because they enjoy the taste? Of course you don't! And, conversely, I've never met a tea, coffee or chocolate consumer whose use of those commodities is for the sole purpose of intoxication, they'd have palpitations or migraine long before they achieved that Nirvana! (LOL)

So, a red herring? Of course it is - you've attempted to gain some sort of advantage here by comparing a horse with a dromedary, the last refuge of a scoundrel (albeit a likeable one!) who secretly knows, deep in their hearts, that they're arguing in defence of something which common sense (and Christ knows, there's been little enough of that from the Yea-Sayers) tells them is indefensible, but whose desire to appear to the world as a clever, deep-thinking radical prevents them from admitting it.

And in case you're planning to drag up 'medicinal purposes' - I'm already a supporter of the argument for Cannabis on prescription for bona-fide medical use.

And now, you'll be glad to know, The Hand's up again, absolutely, completely, finally. Bye.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 09:02 AM

Different drugs have different effects, and we dop use them for the effects as well as for the taste. Plenty of time I've had a cup of coffee to wake me up. Having a cup of tea to steady yourself in a crisis is a pretty general practice in England. People have chocolate to cheer yourself up, and that's not just the sugar.

The point is, caffeine (in tea and coffee) and theobromine (in choicolate) are drugs, as are nicotine and alcohol. They just happen (in our society at this time) to be legal.

When I have an alcoholic drink, it's not to get drunk, it's because I enjoy the taste, and I find it gives a mild degree of euphoria and exhileration. That's how many people use cannabis. Obviously in both cases some people do use it to get totally smashed or stoned. Silly, and potentially dangerious, much more so in the case of alcohol.

Obviously there are drugs with much more dramatic and dangerous effects. But when people go on about "drugs" as if they were all the same, it's nonsense. Horses and dromedaries have a lot in common, they just aren't quite the same. But just because someone didn't like horses they wouldn't be entitled to declare all mammals are the spawn of the devil.

The bottom line for me is this: the harmful effects of trying to enforce laws against cannabis are much greater than the harmful effects of relaxing these. And that is not exactly an extreme position. In fact it seems to be the general view of governments and law enforcement agencies across Europe.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 09:03 AM

Strollin Johnny saidi, "And in case you're planning to drag up 'medicinal purposes' - I'm already a supporter of the argument for Cannabis on prescription for bona-fide medical use."

Your logic escapes my wizened little brain's ability to understand it, Strollin' Johnny. Even a person using marijuana for "medical" purposes could be on the road to ruin in heroin/cocaine land. Why is this not a contradiction?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 09:28 AM

Georgian Silver - You asked: "Is there anyone on this thread who does not smoke pot that feels it should be legalised??????."

Yes! Me. Where have you been? I have stated over and over again in this thread that I do not smoke pot, I have always thought it was a stupid thing to do (even when virtually my entire young peer group and all my friends were doing it in the '70's), I do not recommend that anyone do it, and I AM in favour of a certain form of legalization of it, as follows:

1. Make it legal to privately possess small amounts, to use those small amounts in the privacy of your own home, and to grow marijuana plants in small amounts in your own home for the purpose of personal use if you want to. (This is what millions of people already do and will continue doing no matter what laws you pass, and most of them do not suffer any major damage from so doing. More importantly, it's THEIR business, not the government's, if they do.)

2. Make it illegal to sell pot publicly or to mass market in any way. Make it illegal to deal. Make it illegal to put in a fancy package under any brand name. Make it illegal to advertise on any media.

3. Make it illegal to smoke or use in a public place, such as: restaurant, office, street, etc.

4. Establish a government regulated supply of clean, unadulterated pot for specific medicinal purpose (such as treating glaucoma), dispensed on a doctor's prescription).

What I am suggesting would address several important issues.

It would prevent mass marketing of the substance, which is the thing that creates large numbers of addicts. (examples: cigarettes, alcohol, tobacco, and all illegal drugs...legal drugs mass market openly, illegal ones mass market clandestinely).

It would remove the incentive to mass market (big profits to the seller!).

It would assist people who have medical needs that can be helped through the use of pot.

It would protect the ordinary public from undue harassment by cops who are wasting their time trying to protect people from themselves! The government has no business trying to protect me or you from ourselves. That is our job, not the government's.

Dear GeorgianSilver, I am not a drug user. I do not get high on any drug, I do not smoke, I drink so little and so seldom that if most people were like me the breweries and distilleries would all go bankrupt very quickly, I don't drink coffee, I take no prescription drugs at all, and I have been like that all my life. I also believe deeply in God, as I know you do, and I see a spiritual purpose being played out in every human situation.

I detest draconian governments which intrude in a dictatorial fashion into people's private lives, and I disapprove of self-righteous people who, like the scribes and pharisess in the New Testament, walk around in their cloak of dour conventionality trying to scare people and force everyone else to live according to their overweening will and misplaced sense of moral superiority.

Marijuana in itself is no threat to society and never was. The mass marketing of marijuana is a threat to society. That mass marketing will continue as long as there is BIG MONEY to be made by so doing...and there will be as long as the drug is illegal...or legal to market. I have suggested exactly how to cut this thing off at the marketing source, and at the same time leave ordinary little people alone in their ordinary little lives to make their own decisions about how to live in private.

You see, if he who really wants pot in a big way can grow his own...without fear of arrest...then you have totally eliminated the criminal AND the legal mass marketer! And you have thereby eliminated 98% of the pot problem...because the guy who really wants pot in a big way will always seek it out anyway. Far better if he can grow his own, rather than go to a criminal for it.

The politicians will not do this, though, because they do not serve the public, they serve the highest bidder!

And right now that is the crime syndicates, behind the scenes...but if pot were legalized for the purposes of marketing, it would be the cigarette companies (legal drug dealers of the worst sort) who would push it...and then you'd REALLY have a pot-smoking epidemic on your hands, brother! It would be advertised conspicuously and consumed conspicuously by all the little consumer sheep who watch TV every day.

I don't do that either, not anymore. I gave up on TV by around 1985, and I haven't looked back. The benefits have been considerable. (TV is another common addiction that wastes people's lives, in my opinion.) I read books and play music instead.

I don't fit your definition of a legalization of pot supporter. Not in the least.

You have to pay attention to the details in a matter like this...not just say, "Oh, that stuff is bad for people! Let's make it illegal and that will solve the problem." It has NOT solved the problem, it has enlarged the problem.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 10:33 AM

I agree with Georgiansilver, Blackcatter and my arguement is far from stupid. Doing something illegal while someone is not watching in your home is just plain flaunting the law.

Pot and it's cancer causing carcinagins (sp?) like cigarettes and alcohol seriously help contribute to the high cost of health care, something we all end up paying for.

I also said it should be legalized, heavily taxed, and the revenue used to feed hungry people.

If this happens, please feel free to smoke your lungs black.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 11:26 AM

Martin, you said: "Doing something illegal while someone is not watching in your home is just plain flaunting the law."

Uh-huh. And we all do that...sometime, somewhere...in some way that we consider minor and not terribly significant. We exceed the speed limit. We park in a no-parking spot. We fail to entirely accurately report our income taxes. We litter. We fail to report something else. We fail to obey some little statute somewhere, because it's momentarily inconvenient or we don't have the time or...whatever.... Find me a person who has never just plain flouted the law and I'll find you a three-headed Venusian dragon. Police flout the law. Politicians, judges, and priests flout the law. The law is an ass, Martin, an inflexible bunch of imperfect BS created by some bureaucrats in an office somewhere to try to manage an infinitely complicated and ever-changing social situation...but it's certainly better than NO law! :-) I'll vouch for that. It is not, however, infallible, and neither are we, and no one should expect us to be.

Like you, Martin, I'm against all that cancer-causing smoke, whether it be tobacco or pot. I'm also against stupid people going to bars, getting plastered, acting rowdy, and reeling out at 1 AM and creating noise on the street and acting like idiots. I'm against people eating junk food, getting overweight, and dying 20 years too soon of a heart attack. I'm against most rap music and most music videos. I'm against the crap music on commercial radio. I'm against the marketing of bimbos like Britney Spears. I'm against aggressive drivers who show no regard to anyone else on the road and won't let people into traffic. I'm against selfishness, boorishness, and gross laziness. I'm against people sitting around in smelly old undershirts all day, drinking beer, and watching football while ignoring their long-suffering wives and children. I'm against workaholism...which has killed way more people and ruined more lives than pot ever will.

But I do not propose enacting laws prohibiting people from personally engaging in all of the above activities for the simple reason that such laws would be basically unworkable and counterproductive, AND the suppression of people's right to use their own free will and judgement over their own lives...as are the laws persecuting marijuana users.

My way of dealing with all those things I listed above is simple. I don't do them.

I leave other people alone to work out their own life-maturing process in their own fashion. If they want to be idiots I can live with it. The World will always contain a fair number of idiots.

That's called: "live and let live" It ain't always easy, but it's better than the alternative, believe me. The alternative is a police state with enforced conformity at the point of a gun.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 11:28 AM

It's evident from reading through the posts on this thread that unfortunately, most people still don't understand why pot and other recreational drugs such as opium were criminalized in the first place. It's amazing to me that the general public still accepts the propoganda that these laws were created for health/social welfare reasons, presumably with the best interests of the population at heart!

This is simply not so. Lawmakers (ie the gov'ts of Canada and the US) never did, do not now and most likely never will have the best interests of the common people at heart. That is not why they were created, and it is NOT their purpose!

The purpose of the gov't and all it's supporting laws is simple - to protect, promote and serve the economic and political interests of the white ruling classes who designed and maintain them. Plain and simple.

Back in the 1920's, the intent of the ruling classes (ie the white, wealthy, 99% male and politically powerful law-makers) was simply to exert legal power and control over what they saw as "problem populations" - specifically the Orientals, blacks, natives, Hispanics and poorer whites - by criminalizing their drug(s) of choice. These populations had been using natural, cheap and easy to grow plants like opium and marijuana for recreation and relaxation for millenia.

And harming no one.

Europeans had long preferred alcohol, and had been reaping huge profits from the manufacture and sale of their deadly, debilitating and poisonous drug of choice for centuries. In fact, they still are!

It's interesting to note that while the users of opium in it's natural form were criminalized - ie the poor Orientals who flocked to the west coast of North America in droves in the late 1800's and early 20th century, taking precious jobs away from the whites - wealthier whites and their doctors who could afford the expensive and deadly derivatives of opium - heroin, morphine, laudenum etc - were not.

NO wonder! There's big bucks to be made from the manufacture and sale of deadly, addictive opium derivatives! But what profit could be made from poorer people who preferred growing and and harvesting poppies or hemp in their own backyards (instead of buying alcohol like their white neighbours) to change their state of consciousness?

Absolutely none.

To quote from A Sociology of Crime by Peter Elgin, PhD and professor of sociology/criminology at WLU, the following factors led to the Canadian Opium Act of 1908 and culminated in the Opium and Narcotic Drug Act of 1929:

(1) the racial conflict between 'whites' and 'orientals', (2) the status conflict between the high-status medical profession and its clients using narcotics for therapeutic purposes and the low-status users, particularly Chinese, using opium for pleasure and (3) the prevailing cultural beliefs and values about drugs and their link with sexual promiscuity and 'race-mixing'.

The racism of the time was expressed in such claims as 'they [Asiatics] make the country of no value for the surplus population of Great Britain', uttered by Mr Duncan Ross of Vancouver (House of Commons Debates 1907-1908) and 'whatever their motive, the traffic [in drugs] always comes with the Oriental, and ... one would, therefore be justified in assuming that it was their desire to injure the bright-browed races of the world'.

The criminalization was shaped by the differential power arising from status differences of different groups of users and producers of opium. Thus, while physicians created addicts among their often middle-class and maternal clientele by prescribing medicines containing opiates for a variety of complaints, neither they nor their practice was considered criminal ... Similarly, producers of the drugs alcohol and tobacco were often British, of high status and contributed useful taxes; their activities were not proscribed ...

... The 'solution' to the marijuana 'problem' is not the prevention of it's use but a changing of the attitudes towards it. If the cultivation, distribution and sale of cannabis were legalized, one would do away with a lot of devaint activity. One would have put and end to the need to smuggle the drug and also the illegalities involved in the use of the profits from the trade.

Whether marijuana is harmful is a complicated question, and whether it is more so than other drugs (tobacco and alcohol) is debatable. As to the suggestion that 'soft' drugs lead to the use of 'hard' drugs, this too might be contested. If it is the case that that they do, then part of the reason may be that it is in someone's economic interests to move people from 'soft' to 'hard' drug use, together with the fact that because of its illegality, the marijuana trade and the 'hard drug' trade are tied up with one another."

Little Hawk made some great points here, but I think Donuel said it best ...

Problem is, in the repressive regieme I live under, my family could lose the house, savings and child custody if the police had the excuse of finding pot here.

That's the purpose of criminalizing marijuana - it's an excuse for dominating and 'busting' people identified as 'problems' by the powers that be.

Some things just never change.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 12:06 PM

Couldn't agree more, daylia. What we have here is a privileged wealthy elite, busily engaged for the last many centuries in addicting people to tremedously pernicious drugs (alcohol and tobacco) for enormous profit, while demonizing and marginaling those people and substances which stood outside the controlling financial circles of power of the ruling clique.

And that's about all there is to it. Gross hypocrisy and profit-taking, masquerading as morality.

Just like the scribes and pharisees in the New Testament. Gross hypocrisy and profit-taking, masquerading as godliness and morality.

Not much has changed.

The modern police, mostly unwittingly, serve this beast, just as the Roman guards served it 2,000 years ago. And for what? For money and power...but mainly for money.

I suggest the one thing that they will never do: legalize marijuana in a way which doesn't make money for any established special interest group but provides it to ordinary people for free...by the sweat of their own hands. That is the one great SACRILEGE in this society of bought-out liars and dupes...that anything should be freely available. If they could control all the air, we would have to pay them even to breathe.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 12:39 PM

Daylia and Little Hawk

Your arguements have degenerated into complete and total bullshit.

Live and let live? How about a lesson in right and wrong?

Go elect officials who see it your way. C'mon, you can do it! Put YOUR money where your mouth is. Change the laws the democratic way instead of pissing and whining on an old hippie forum. Go start the groundswell of popularity. Society is completely fucked up on this and everything else, right?

Your arguements were used 20-35 years ago. Obviously no one is listening, no matter how many smoke outs are staged, no matter all of the efforts of NORML if they even still exist. No one ever hears of them any more. I used to have the same arguements. Why don't you focus all of your energy by trying to be a happy person instead of being the great saviors of the underclass?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 12:59 PM

"flaunting the law".

Flaunt: Wave proudly; display oneself por one's finery; show off, parade.

I think you probably mean "flouting the law"

Flout: mock, insult, express contempt for; scoff at.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 01:22 PM

I may do just that, Martin, but then you wouldn't have the joy of talking to my anymore cos I wouldn't be here. :-) Why don't YOU stop wasting your time pissing and moaning about my and daylia's opinions and do something useful with it instead?

I already have a solution to the problem. I don't smoke dope. I didn't even do it back when you DID, so who's the dummy? I do put my money where my mouth is...into things I believe in. I am happy most of the time. I discuss this issue because I figure it's still worth discussing, and because I find it interesting and challenging. I may get bored enough with it eventually that I won't bother anymore, of course.

Martin, you are a conventional thinker, that's all, and I'm not. It's as simple as that. You believe in the prevailing system. I don't. I think it's largely insane, corrupt, and arbitrary, but I manage to live inside it without much trouble because I have basically good judgement as to how to do that. (It's actually quite easy.) I have already stated many times that in terms of right and wrong (meaning helpful and harmful) I believe people are better off not to smoke marijuana...or cigarettes either. I don't. As for people who do, I do not presume to control their private lives...I only ask that they don't smoke in a public place where I end up breathing it along with them.

It isn't really a question of right and wrong, Martin, that motivates people regarding such laws...it's a question of thinking they have the sole right to control others' concepts of right and wrong behaviour. In the case of private drug use...they don't.

George

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 01:47 PM

Do you really want a lesson in "right and wrong", Martin? Well it's too hot for any more gardening right now so ok, here goes ...

"Right and wrong" are

(1) value judgments, not to be confused with facts or truths,

(2) highly subjective,

(3) culturally determined - reflecting the prejudices and biases of the environment in which they were learned,

(4) notoriously fickle,

(5) concepts of perennially use for propogandists of any persuasion - for church, state or any other agents of social exploitation, manipulation and control,   

(6) very thankfully subject to the laws of evolution and change, just like everything else in Nature.


Can't think of any more offhand, but I'd just like to say that I am a very happy person, right now. I'm creating a yard full of wildflowers around my house (cuz nothing else grows very well here) ... and this year quite literally lo and behold all that fancy manoevering with the lawnmower to avoid the "weeds" I like is paying off! Everything is comin up daisies! They've just started blooming over the last couple days, and I'm looking out at this veritable ocean of white and gold endazzlement gently rippling in the breeze ... and I just saw an absolultely gorgeous HUGE yellow and black butterfly of a species I've never encountered before. I'm SO EXCITED!

Now, THAT'S food for JOY around here!   Gonna get out the ole guitar and celebrate ... thanks for the opportunity to share my garden with you.

And I won't think about how my gov't dictates what kind of wildwood weeds or flowering tops I can and cannot grow around here either ... cuz that might spoil it ...

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 02:10 PM

Real right and wrong are centrally about stuff like cruelty and compassion, and I'd dispute that they are in fact highly subjective. Insofar as these kind of things are culturally determined, I'd see them as providing the standard by which the culture in question is to be measured.

Stuff like which drugs a culture adopts and which it outlaws are pretty arbitrary, and have very little to do with morality.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,*daylia*
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 03:52 PM

Insofar as these kind of things are culturally determined, I'd see them as providing the standard by which the culture in question is to be measured.

Agreed. And which "measuring stick" is used in making this value judgment? The very same one produced by the personal cultural experience, the "moral education" of the one making the judgment.

All research has this inherent bias. The "scientists" of sociology take great pains to compensate for it in their research methods. That's what I meant by saying that concepts like "right and wrong" are highly subjective and subject to both exploitation and evolution.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 04:13 PM

Yes, Little Hawk, I am a conventional thinker with conventional wisdom. I think by having used it though, I have a much better perspective than you do as to it's values and wastes.

There is no substitute for a life experience to form an opinion on. Your opinions on pot usage are as an outsider with a guesstimate. What goes on behind closed doors in someone's home, whether it is pot usage or child porno does matter if it is indeed illegal. Laws don't have to be agreed with and can be changed. They have been by people who campaign for them and when the change has proven to make sense.

It is obvious to me that this law will never be changed. I considered myself a much weaker person when I used the stuff up until 10 years ago. I think that as long as it is illegal, people can continue to seek out other methods to make them feel better. It's a shame that people do need drugs or alcohol for this. I will not preach and suggest anything. Only that pot and other mind altering drugs do not truly enhance the human experience.

daylia, I feel very sorry for you if you are a parent. You spew the paranoia in life that I freed myself from years ago.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 05:38 PM

"It is obvious to me that this law will never be changed."

But it has been changed in a lot of places, in Europe at any rate, and there is every reason to expect this process to continue. (Cannabis: European law changes) There is now a relatively relaxed attitude by the authorities towards the use of cannabis in numerous places where a few years ago people could expect to get jailed.
.........................

"You spew the paranoia in life that I freed myself from years ago." But in the light of that kind of abuse, Martin, are you quite sure you have succeeded in freeing yourself as much as you say?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 05:51 PM

"There is no substitute for a life experience to form an opinion on."

Correct, Martin. I have such experience. I smoked pot exactly 5 times. Twice in the 70's. Three more times in the 80's. I did it precisely so that I would be knowledgable about it...and find out what the hell all the fuss was about! :-) I was not very impressed by the experience or by the stone (although that was quite powerful on 2 of those occasions).

Bear in mind that I had literally thousands of opportunities to smoke pot, hash, and hash oil in those 20 years...thousands...and I did it only enough times to see what it was all about for myself. It was not something I wanted in my life. Virtually all the friends I had smoked it casually, and a few did so regularly. I was an unusual musician, cos I had the long hair but no real interest in the drugs...legal or otherwise.

I wholeheartedly agree that smoking pot makes one "a much weaker person" and that "pot and other mind altering drugs do not truly enhance the human experience". Couldn't agree more, in fact. I feel the same way about tobacco and alcohol.

I think most people do it simply because it's considered "normal" in their favourite peer group...along with alcohol and tobacco. The 3 common substance vices generally go hand in hand, and encourage each other.

If you're in a somewhat different peer group now, then you find that pot is no longer "normal", but tobacco and alcohol may still be.

I don't go along with either one of those peer groups.

So, I understand your feeling on it all right. I get you.

I guess the real difference is that I think legalizing possession would protect the public while you think it would further endanger the public. For all I know you may be right...only doing it would enable us to find out.

I hate to think of the many perfectly harmless and decent people I know who do smoke it casually getting a criminal record because they had the bad luck to be in the wrong place at the wrong time and got arrested. It seems like a pointless waste to me. They are harmless people, not criminals. I'd rather see cops chase real criminals than go after harmless people who are a bit unconventional in some way.

The thing about the really bad element in a town...they smoke dope all right, but they also do any number of other things (like rob and fence and deal drugs) that the cops are going to be after them for anyway...regardless of the pot. I don't want to see peaceful, harmless users of a drug lumped in with real criminals by a law that is not flexible enough to know the difference.

That's my concern.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 05:55 PM

Yes, I am McGrath. Completely.

It is good people are not getting life sentences for it. they shouldn't. They shouldn't speed, either.

Really, what difference does it make to you?

Do you like to get high?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 15 Jun 04 - 06:10 PM

I like to get high playing music or meditating. Sex is also a lovely way to get high. A hot bath can do it. Being out in Nature on a beautiful day is good too.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: 42
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 07:15 AM

I sure hope you folks never get into freedom of choice!
or whether women are people...
or if slavery is sanctioned in the bible...

or if margarine should be able to look like butter (remember those little dye packages?)

are laws immutable? does nothing change? are we not able to make decisions based on logic and spirit?

I'm not planning to try to keep up with dahlia or little hawk's spiritual journeys or martin's invective but just had to add my two cents worth.

(can't see how growing a couple of plants can be harming the economy or smoking a few joints can ruin my life)

j

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 07:39 AM

"can't see how growing a couple of plants can be harming the economy or smoking a few joints can ruin my life"

Thats why you are just a number

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 09:56 AM

Numbers do serve to identify a poster with a post. Unlike "GUEST".

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:13 AM

Ha! That's funny. I know "42", and she is far more than just a number. She's a fine musician, a good primary school teacher, and yes, a very pillar of decent, if somewhat informal society! :-) (had to throw that in...) I would get her to stop smoking (tobacco, etc.) if I could, but it's her decision, not mine.

I had an interesting conversation with Raptor on the phone about this discussion yesterday. He's of the same opinion as Martin...that pot should be kept illegal...given the fact that he hung around with all kinds of VERY unsavoury people in the Barrie, Ontario, Canada area when he was young and foolish...heavy dope users all...and he figures the situation would get worse if it was legal. Maybe he's right. I figure the key is to not prosecute users but go after sellers. I think that legalizing the substance for SALE would be a disaster...and would increase people's usage of pot, but I don't think that use, per se, is a crime. It's a choice. Marketing it to people is a crime. Driving drunk or stoned is a crime.

42 was speaking in favour of choice. So am I.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 11:27 AM

It's the marketting process that is the problem far more than what is marketted. That goes for just about everything. Politicians, guns, sex, food, technology, ideology...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: *daylia*
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 12:20 PM

are laws immutable?

Hopefully not!

does nothing change?

If it did, wouldn't that be something!!?

are we not able to make decisions based on logic and spirit?

Usually - as long as the one doesn't override the other.

I'm not planning to try to keep up with dahlia or little hawk's spiritual journeys

You are not only lovely and talented but a very wise woman!

or martin's invective

Well, that just demonstrates your emotional maturity and social smarts.

but just had to add my two cents worth.

And thank you for that!

(can't see how growing a couple of plants can be harming the economy or smoking a few joints can ruin my life)

Don't see how it affects the economy either, but please don't light up in front of the police station, or anywhere near people like Martin who may take pleasure in turning you in. Until our archaic criminal laws catch up with 21st century thinking and mores, those couple joints could still ruin your life. (See Donuel's posts above)

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 16 Jun 04 - 10:11 PM

Yep, that innocuous, stupid little joint can (legally speaking) ruin your life! (If a cop arrests you for it.) And that's another great reason not to have the stuff around or smoke it...if you can stand the bad smell and the awful taste of it in the first place, eh Daylia? :-) I sure can't. Ditto for the stinkin' cigarettes!

I would rather eat mangos, given the choice. Now THERE's a great high. Wonderful experience. I recommend well-ripened mangos direct from the tropics. They're still legal, too!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: *daylia*
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 03:08 PM

OK LH I'm game - let's go get mangotangoed! :-)

As the responsible morally upright citizens we undoubtedly are ... ahem ... we'd best educate ourselves thoroughly about this hedonistic behavior first though. A seemingly innocuous mangomunchout might just be enough to bring the walls tumbling down!

For example, look what happened to Ms Black Widow's abode after she was duped into a bit of ditzy dopedabbling?

Scary, huh?

I think she enjoyed the best results with the peyote/mescaline - although the Gentle Herb does run a close second. Loosened her up a little, at any rate.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 03:16 PM

The really scary thing about mangos is that they taste SO good. It's downright sinful. For this reason, I think that it was the mango which Eve offered to Adam, not the apple. He ate it. The Angel then appeared with the flaming sword, said "Man Go!" and drove them out of Eden. A nasty tale.

If the Republican Party (or Martin Gibson) ever become fully aware of the threat that ripe mangos pose to society I'm sure they will be made totally illegal without delay...and I will then technically be a "criminal" on my way to perdition! Or I'll just move to Trinidad or Cuba.

Heh!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: harpgirl
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 03:49 PM

You would have loved my parents south florida yard, LH. They had a mango tree, banana tree, key lime tree, carambola tree, grapefruit tree, orange tree, and two avocado trees thirty feet high all on a very small lot. Plus fishing in the intercoastal off the dock.

Now it is the pleasant views of the ancestral condo that lure me back rather than the ripe fruit...

But mangos are still plentiful in the grocery stores in North Florida and we eat them all the time. Very sweet, but I like NOrthern Michigan blueberries, Western Michigan cherries and Georgia peaches just as much....harpy

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 03:58 PM

Ahhhh...sounds like heaven. What's all this fuss about a smelly weed anyway? I am forever flummoxed by the stupidities of humanity...the only creatures on planet Earth dumb enough to deliberately inhale smoke.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 07:55 PM

It's all very subjective - I think pot, unlike tobacco, smells rather pleasant, better than mangoes. But even so, I'd be against banning mangoes. Mind, they probably have been, or are, illegal in some places - that applies to most things it seems.

Someone should come up with an index of what's been banned and where. There's very likely one anyway, somewhere on the net. Morris Dancing, Mince Pies and statues of Christian saints(Puritan England); music generally, and statues of Buddhist saints (Taliban Afghanistan); alcoholic drink and women drivers (Saudi Arabia); anyone driving on the roads without a man with a red flag walking in front (Victorian England); having a drink in a pub when you're under 21 in various places in the States...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 17 Jun 04 - 08:44 PM

Yeah, I was gonna just stay the heck outtta this thread other than the few posts I've allready made but "smells bad and tastes bad? Now ya done crossed the line wid this ol' hillbilly, LH... Nuthin' better smellin' like the takin' a freash bud in late September... Ya' take that bud and kinda give it a little squeeze and get taht sticky THC on yer finger tips and.... geeze o pete... Great smell... Better than anything I can think of...

And as fir taste? Pot is good enough but now Lebanese blond hashish? Wow... What a nice taste, sho nuff is...

Hey, I may not do as much pot as I once did. Might of fact, no where near as much... And inhaling smoke prolly ain't the best thing in the world fir ya but the calming effects may outweigh the dangers of inhaling smoke... Lots o' stuff prolly don't sound too good fir ya on paper but the ends outwiegh the harm. Lots of folks have cancers treated successfully with chemotherapy, which, ahhh, is purdy much poisoning ones self...

That's my story and (cough) Iz stickin' to it...

Stoner Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Amos
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 12:25 AM

Only in the US would someone dream of returning to the ancestral Condo!! LOL!!


A

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 07:41 AM

Ah. I've insulted a true believer, eh, Bobert? Well, it's all subjective, I guess. :-) After all, our dachshunds adore the smell of decaying meat, fresh dung, filth of every organic kind. They will go miles out of their way to roll in the stuff and then come home proudly.

Takes all kinds.

"Good shit, man!"

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 08:53 AM

Hey Bobert...pot seems to be playin havoc with your spellin. Better smoke even less eh?? lol

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 09:20 AM

Spellin' ain't my problem. The fact that all the letters is wored off my keyboard, coupled with my severe lexdxia, is... Ain't got nuthin' to do with weed... But don't let it be said that I don't appreciate yer conerns...

Now as the "fresh dung" comment from my lotus sittin', meditatin', never-met-a-tree-not-worth-a-hugin', mountain top prayin', neighbor from Canaburg I'd just like to say, "Yeah, LH, but its organic!" It oughtta get at least a point 'er three fir that... And no more talk of "good, sh*t" just 'casue it's organic, too...

Now for my sad but true pot story... 'Bout a year ago I figgures that maybe my poor ol' hillbilly thinkerator would work better if I took a little break from pot so I took my stash to the P-Vine and told her hide from me fir awhile... Well, 'bout a month 'er two later, after finding the thinkerator going the wrong way, I asked her fir it and she, who has never smoked none of it in her life, couldn't remember where she hid it! And to this very day, it's hid somewhere in the house. I'm thinking or calling the cops and asking if I could borrow one of their dope dogs fir a couple of hours to help my poor ol's self find my stash. Whaddayathink 'bout that idea?

Not-Stoner Enuff Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: JennyO
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 12:29 PM

Daylia, I was rather interested to notice that one of the weirdest looking webs was from the spider that had caffeine!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 01:35 PM

I do agree with Martin that mind altering drugs do not enhance the human experience. As to whether pot should be legalised, I also agree with Martin - it shouldn't. But for totally different reasons, namely that the economies of so many developing countries like Afghanistan, Turkey etc etc would suffer as the price of the stuff drops with legalisation.

Tobacco, now there's a drug much more destructive - why isn't it banned, I wonder. Ah, yes, its tax revenues support the NHS in the UK and help keep taxes down in other countries.

Nobody is immune from double standards. When it suits them.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 03:10 PM

Now here's the dope - while mind altering drugs may or may not enhance the human experience, according to this Canadian study smoking a little dope every week may make you a little smarter!

Current marijuana use was significantly correlated (p < 0.05) in a dose- related fashion with a decline in IQ over the ages studied. The comparison of the IQ difference scores showed an average decrease of 4.1 points in current heavy users (p < 0.05) compared to gains in IQ points for light current users (5.8), former users (3.5) and non-users (2.6).

Hmmm - if I'm interpreting this correctly, this means people who've never used or quit using pot have less of an IQ increase than a light pot smoker. Interesting!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: *daylia*
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 03:26 PM

I just noticed that the scientist at Carleton University responsible for that study is one Dr. Peter Fried!

Imagine that! He must wake up in the morning to piles of correspondences like "Dear Dr. Fried; I thoughtS there was something half-baked about your research, but now I see I was wrong. It's not half-baked - just Fried!"

Hee hee hee ... sorry ...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 03:27 PM

So Georgiansilver presumes that the legalisers who have been slagging off those with other opinions are pot smokers. It seems a foolish presumption to me.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 04:44 PM

the economies of so many developing countries like Afghanistan, Turkey etc etc would suffer as the price of the stuff drops with legalisation.

Wouldn't work like that - the people who produce the stuff get a tiny fraction of the selling price, it's the entrepreneurs who take the profit. As is the normal pattern for Third World produce, legal or not.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: harpgirl
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 04:46 PM

....I believe the standard deviation on IQ tests like the Stanford-Binet is 10 IQ points daylia, which means anyone could score up or down within a range of ten points on any one day they took the test for no particular reason except that their socks were too tight; which makes predictions about the effects of pot on IQ meaningless. But I suppose I should read the study!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: harpgirl
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 05:08 PM

The study *daylia* refers to is very interesting in its full text. I used a hierarchical regression analysis in my dissertation on a similarly small sample: their's 74, mine 109 subjects. That small a sample is too small to generalize to a larger population but it is an acceptable size in behavioral research. The amounts of pot they smoked was self-reported so there is no way to control for THC quantity but they averaged it at 5-5% THC to have a stable measure. e
Neither sample (mine about anxiety disorders, their's about pot smokers)was randomly selected which means that the statistical test has considerably less validity. The self selection quality of the sample is interesting because the IQ levels of the subjects (WISC test) appears to be slightly above average to begin with...It was longitudinal which gives it much more validity. The standard deviation on this test is 15. I just skimmed it so I haven't really given it a good workover but the most significant variable in the study is probably the fact that the subjects were.......








CANADIANS!!!!!!   


Now what could we conjecture about this!!!!!! LOL
love, harpy

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 05:39 PM

harpgirl: I don't know if it will help your research, but when I had the occasional puff or two in the '60s and '70s, there was a direct correlation between how much I smoked and the standings of Sara Lee on the TSE and NYSE. The study doesn't have any validity because there was only a few friends and myself involved--and of course Sara.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Once Famous
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 09:53 PM

El Grecko, wouldn't those economies of those underdeveloped countries be better served if they tapped the minds of it's citizens instead of feeding the underworld with a supply of narcotics?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 18 Jun 04 - 11:28 PM

McGoH, just because my argument is full of holes, did you really need to shoot another one in it? :-)
Martin G, I agree 100%. Now, who's going to tell Columbia? Any volunteers to stroll up to the cartel kings and enlighten them?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 12:43 AM

Those fellows are not conducive to enlightenment, I'm afraid. It would be like trying to get Tony Soprano to give up crime and go into philanthropy and spiritual self-improvement, only more dangerous. There are some people that there's simply no use talking to.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 03:09 AM

Yep, and a lot of them are Mudcatters

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Rustic Rebel
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 03:41 AM

I skipped this entire conversation but I would like to just add that The herb is a plant. There are several plants in this world that can give you a buzz. Reefer is just one of the few..
To me the whole point should be, who the hell does anyone think they are, to try and regulate any plant that grows or to control a spiecies of plant life.

We all choose our life. We all are responsible for how we choose to live it. Smoke pot, don't smoke pot.
The choice should be our own.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 10:21 AM

Yeah, that's what I always thought too. It is not sane to outlaw a plant which is part of nature, and whether one uses that plant privately is one's one business. It is sane to regulate the public sales of that plant, however, if it's a mind-altering one.

I remain convinced that the primary reason pot is a social problem is that there is a lot of money to be made selling it. This happens in one of 2 cases: 1. when it's illegal 2. when it's legal to mass market it.

Remove the money angle, and you have removed virtually the entire impetus driving people to aggressively push the drug...they do it for profit, not because they feel a sacred duty to get people high and give them a good time.

The only people left growing pot under the laws I propose would be a few quiet, harmless characters like Bobert, growing and smoking their own. In my opinion. I may be wrong. Only trying such a legal approach will ever prove if I am.

I don't think rebellious young people would be much interested in pot anymore if it was legal, as a matter of fact.

However, here's my prediction. It will either remain as it presently is, illegal....or it will be made legal AND marketed...and that will cause a lot more people to use it, because marketing has one objective in mind...SELL MORE PRODUCT BY ANY MEANS POSSIBLE, AND WHO CARES WHO GETS HURT BY IT?

That's the ugly fact of the matter. I would rather see it remain totally illegal than see the politicians give private industry another way to hook people.

Why does everyone think in all-or-nothing terms when discussing such matters? Why?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 01:44 PM

I'm still stuck on the lack of an answer to what society gains by having it illegal. Is it as simple as the fact the "the ruling elite" wants to keep the "proles" in their (our) place? Clearly, large numbers of people smoke despite its being illegal. Clearly also, most of them do not use other substances. I'm going to weigh in on the personal level, and perhaps someone can tell me why I should have done jail time to "benefit" society, and also why it is valuable to spend the hefty weight of criminal justice resources on doing so.

We were SO stoned! Oh yes, we were. I am NOT ASHAMED that I smoked! I did it; I LOVED IT; and I would do it again! And if life is good to me, I will.

Some of my circle of friends smoked over the three year period that we were tight, as much as two or three times a week. Some seldom smoked. I, myself, smoked occasionally three times a week, but more often only three or two times a month. Mostly, it was pot. On ocassion, we were fortunate enough to have some hash. But I enjoyed that sweet smell! I enjoyed the companionship of sending it around the circle as we all slowly got more buzzed. We listened to music; we discussed ideas, literature, history, philosophy, solved the world's problems--mostly through peace, love, and music--imagine that!--we ate WAY more food than we normally would; and we laughed hysterically at most anything. Firesign Theater and Frank Zappa records were a favorite, because they were funny even if we were straight.

Although a few of us tried acid a few times, no one in my group ever "went on" to narcotics. One of our group, however, did become an alcoholic. None of us ever perpetrated any crime other than "normal" traffic offenses. Among our group--this was 30 years ago--there is now a museum curator, a writer, a college professor, several K-12 teachers, several IT professionals, a classical musician, a silversmith, an astronomer, a medical doctor, a lawyer, a Navy Seal--now THERE was a huge disappointment!--an insurance salesman, an NSA employee, and assorted other productive members of society who have families, pay taxes, consume "stuff" (as all good consumers MUST do to keep the economy going), and just generally live their lives.

I enjoyed those times, and I would do it all over again. I would be more likely to smoke again if I were not so concerned about my lungs. The fact that it is illegal and the current atmosphere is paranoid and hysterical to the extreme is also a deterrent. If it were offered at a party, I would likely imbibe. I am confident that I would enjoy it, and that I would not injure society as a result of smoking.

Some of the group still smoke on ocassion; most don't. Some have taken up tobacco. Some have become drug-free to the point of eschewing most persctiption drugs, even. One smokes (pot) pretty regularly--perhaps five times a month. One of the former group reports that he has smoked a few times over the years in what he thought were the last few minutes of his life before he committed suicide. He reports that getting that buzz relaxed his tendency to do himself in and that he instead focused on listening to some music, finding food, and then falling blissfully asleep. By the time he "returned to normal" that he felt much less like killing himself. We don't know if he might have already killed himself otherwise. But I would not be the one to tell him to never ever again smoke pot. And don't start with "he should have sought treatment,etc." since we KNOW how that one would go, given the deplorable state of health care in the US, the confusion over how to treat depression, and the increasing likelihood of his personal information ending up on the Net.

Whether we smoke now or don't is most likely a result of us being in a different phase of life. The legality obviously has not stopped those who still smoke, iside or out of my own particular group. And society would not be better off if they were costing the taxpayers $50k to house rather than being productive, taxpaying professionals.

Of course, this is only anectdotal. YMMV. But I still cannot come up with any good reason for using the considerable force of law to punish someone for smoking pot. I have a long list of things that DO constitute harm to the community that should be powerfully punished. Let's start with making people completely responsible and conscious in their automobile driving. That means, stopping ALL distrative behaviors and use of ANY substance that might inhibit response time. But the power establishment, in its wisdumb does not see it my way.

Finally, would society be safer if Willy Nelson, Satchmo, and about MOST of the entire rock world had been made prisoners? How about Carl Sagan? Examples abound, and I eagerly await an answer.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 01:54 PM

And speaking of bars...How about some prison time for "W" for his cocaine use? It is good enough for the rest of us...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: George Papavgeris
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 01:58 PM

Only smoked it a few times in my student years. Never did much for me, couldn't be arsed to continue with it. I agree with Little Hawk's "2 ways" theory. And I sympathise/understand/applaud Saulgoldie's sentiments and his account of pot usage in his circle of friends. For the record, I would support its legalisation in order to take the glory out of it and would NOT support its commercialisation. You want to smoke it? Grow your own - leave it at that.
But what is all that poppycock about "the ruling elite" keeping "proles" in their place by keeping it illegal? And how, pray, do they achieve this dastardly purpose through this underhanded means?
Sorry, Saulgoldie, that's just "chip on the shoulder" stuff, sheep mentality.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 02:06 PM

Keeping the proles under control is a viewpoint that has been expressed by others on this thread. I was only referring to that in my post. It does make sense, in a way. I am still waiting for plausible explanations for why it is good that it is illegal. That is the only suggestion on this thread, so far, and that was posed by someone who thinks it should not be illegal.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 04:25 PM

Laws can easily exist with no good reason at all, Saul, but merely as a result of hysteria, ignorance, prejudice, and unfamiliarity of the "mainstream" with something. They can also exist as a result of cultural expectations which are totally arbitrary. Example: Our present culture figures that women's breasts should not be exposed...completely, that is...in public. It's a custom. Men's breasts are not remarked upon. That is arbitrary. There have been many cultures where women's breasts were exposed, and nobody thought anything of it.

Marijuana was considered unusual when the laws were passed. A culturally-based viewpoint. Had it already been considered "usual", as it was among most young people that I knew in the 70's, then no laws would ever have been passed against it. It's as simple as that.

Can you hurt yourself with it? Yes, but most people don't hurt themselves much with it. You can hurt yourself with any number of legal things which are taken for granted by this simple method...overdo them or handle them improperly. More people die of overeating than of smoking dope, but the law has not seen fit to make gluttony illegal, because gluttony fits within the culturally established framework of things the law takes for granted. Pot doesn't. It's arbitrary.

People confuse "good and evil" all the time with what is really just "familiar and unfamiliar" to them....like bare female breasts in public, for example. These things are not a question of good and evil, they are a question of habit and expectations formed by habit.

We all tend to feel uncomfortable in the presence of things which go contrary to our usual habits, and that's understandable, but we should not be so quick to say, "That's bad!" when it's just different from what we are accustomed to.

I made my own free decision not to smoke pot, after thoroughly investigating the matter, and I grant other people the right to make their own decision about it as well. Freedom of choice does not frighten me. People restricting other people's freedom of choice is what frightens me.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 05:30 PM

Basically there are two reasons for wanting it to remain illegal.

One would be the idea that somehow this meant that fewer people used it, and that this meant fewer bad effects from their using it.

The second is that keeping it illegal benefits people in the pot industry, both on the dealing and on the law enforcement side.

The first reason seems very much at odds with the actual evidence, but provides a useful smokescreen The second reason strikes me as the one that actually determines policy.

.................
I'd wholly agree with Little Hawk about it very desirable to keep the commercial marketeers out of it. Essentially that's decriminalisation rather than legalisation, and it's how the Dutch have tried to work it, with some success. In fact there'd be a lot to be said for applying that principle to a whole lot of other things.

However I suspect that in the USA anyway, there'd be some constitutional problems in the way of putting legal restrictions on advertising, promoting and marketing something that wasn't actually illegal. I imagine it would be seen as undermining the free market/capitalist ideology - and though that could be an excellent thing to do, it'd be up against some powerful enemies.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 06:42 PM

Ah-hah! You have hit on an important matter there, McGrath. Indeed, in the USA it is sacrilege not to allow people to make good money off something that is legal! (Even if it's totally disgusting, vile, pointless, and destructive to society...and I am not referring to marijuana, but to many other popular things that sell bigtime.)

One does not offend the ruling deity (money) with impunity within the borders of the 50 states of the USA...or anywhere else these days either, practically.

And that's why marijuana will most probably not be de-criminalized...unless it is simultaneously turned into a burgeoning legal drug industry, complete with stylish TV commercials to get more people to buy it and be "cool".

You see, de-criminalizing it would be a heavy financial and organizational blow to both cops and drug dealers. That would be sacrilege in a true profit-oriented system. The cops might even have to downsize some, and that could put people out of work!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 07:53 PM

Yep, and a lot of them are Mudcatters - ie people it's no use talking to.

This is fantastic conceit, Johnny. Several people who disagree with you have put forward cogent arguments in support of their own views, usually with more tolerance than I have felt inclined to show. You haven't begun to address any of those arguments. You haven't even given any indication that you've given them a moment's thought. Above all, you haven't attempted to show how prohibition helped in the case of your own family experience. So if it didn't work in your case, who DOES gain from prohibition? Apart from the racketeers etc?

Try letting some light in on the issues, instead of just thrashing around in the dark.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: annamill
Date: 19 Jun 04 - 09:33 PM

Sorry. Not having read all the posting due to time constraints, all I can say is: YES!

Love, Annamill

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 06:17 AM

Peter, there's very little point in attempting to argue it out because the Yea-Sayers will continue to say Yea no matter what I say. In fact my views were rubbished by some people for the very reason that I have experience (not only family but also professional) of hard-drug use which evolved from the use of cannabis! What a pie-eyed way to try to win an argument - they tell me "You're too experienced in the problem for your views to have any weight" whilst at the same time using the "I did it and I got away with it, therefore it's harmless" routine - is there any wonder I have no respect for these people? Do they also drive their cars under the influence of cannabis, or alcohol for that matter, on the basis that they've always got away with it so it's harmless? Duh!

I understand the reasoning behind the argument that legalisation will remove the dealers from the equation, however it's simply untrue that those who make serious money from trading in drugs will go away, and anyone who thinks they will clearly has never experienced the way they work (which is a highly-developed and intelligent marketing strategy, it's insinuous and involves a persuasiveness so effective on the minds of adolescents that it would astonish anyone who'd never witnessed it), nor their resilience, persistence and business acumen. Pot's as cheap as chips now, and it'll be a lot cheaper if and when it's legalised, so they will simply give the stuff away as a 'loss-leader' to ensure they make contact with, and exert influence on, the innocents who are susceptible to their persuasion. Despite what the pot-heads try to tell us, cannabis is psychologically addictive (witness the number of Good Ole Boys 'n' Gals on this thread who boast about how they smoke and what a great way it is to have fun and no-one gonna stop 'em spliffin' it up - a perfect indicator of psychological addiction n'est ce pas?), and once they have them in their grip they'll manipulate them, and move them on to the stuff that really brings home the bacon, exactly as they do now.

Drug dealers aren't people with dirty nails, in dirty coats, so high on drugs themselves they can barely think, who come up to you in alleyways and ask you if you "Want some good stuff" - they're just the messenger boys. Drug dealers live in big expensive houses in Cheshire and the Home Counties, they drive Mercedes' and Jags, they wear designer clothes and educate their children at private schools. They could live in your town and you'd never know. They're intelligent, articulate people who know the way to run a business. And legalising cannabis will be a godsend to them

I'm not a druggie or a pot-head trying to justify my habit, or past habits, by rubbishing the views of someone who opposes them and who, in my heart of hearts, I know has good justification for his opinion. I'm just a guy who's seen where this 'harmless' substance can lead. If one kid has a spliff and it stays there, well and good. If he or she moves on down the road to bigger and 'better' hits, that's one too many. I don't give a shit about the pot-heads, I care about the ones who don't 'get away with it'.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 06:31 AM

Oops, sorry, don't know what happened there - I was typing furiously and it suddenly disappeared. As I was saying..........

.....I care about the ones who don't 'get away with it'. We're talking adolescents here, young people with unfinished minds which are easy to play around with, and for too many the next step is an easy one. If the price of keeping one youngster from taking that step is for all the pot-heads in the world to be denied their drug it would be a price well worth paying.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 07:59 AM

Should pot be legalised and be available on the "open market" then the drug barons will push to recover profits by making available andselling more "hard drugs"....Am I thinking fact or fiction here?
They have to make their profits somehow!!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 01:00 PM

Good post there, Strollin' Johnny. I agree with your description of the drug dealers and their methods. Very accurate. You are also quite correct that marijuana smoking is psychologically addictive for many, if not most people who choose to smoke it fairly regularly. This was what disturbed me most about it when virtually all my friends were into it back in the 70's. I could see that they had become dependent on it. They didn't see it that way. They saw it, frankly, much the same way they saw things like: coffee-drinking, eating burgers and other fast food, drinking pop, listening to their favourite music, and a lot of other things like that. It was simply part of the everday stuff that they considered enjoyable and normal in their lives. It was that common and ordinary. However, pot-smoking was accorded a sort of mystical importance which set it apart for this reason: it was seen as a very iconic and powerful "coming of age" ritual for those who were moving through adolescence into adulthood.

This is one of the problems that tends to arise in a society that has largely lost its traditional sense, caved in to mere mass marketing of anything that sells, and left its young people in moral limbo.

They go off and find their own coming of age rituals if they are not provided with much of any social structure by their elders.

The key coming of age rituals then (in the late 60's, early 70's) were:

1.(a)smoking cigarettes!

1. (b) drinking alcohol (most typically, beer)with your "buddies"

2. losing your virginity (if at all possible) and pretending you had lost it, if you didn't succeed in that objective!

3. swearing a lot, and using all those forbidden words at every possible opportunity (this tended to result in a very reduced vocabulary)

4. adopting various other verbal slang that older people didn't use or like (further reduction of vocabulary...)

5. wearing clothing that indicated your tribal affiliation (the "young" tribe) and bugged the hell out of older people

6. growing long, long hair and (for some of the guys) facial hair too

7. espousing unusual philosophies, politics, and religions

7. Getting high! You could get high on a variety of things, and pot and alcohol were definitely the favourites.

Now, what were these young people doing? They were trying to clamber out of childhood into adulthood and gain control over their own lives (instead of being controlled by their parents)...but without the wisdom of a few decades of experience that one hopefully gains later in life they were mostly just floundering around in confusion doing things that were silly, often destructive to their health, and sometimes illegal. This put them at further risk of unnecessarily acquiring a criminal record, although they were not, in truth, criminals. Lawbreakers, yes...but not criminals. There's a difference.

Criminals are people who consciously and deliberately act to harm, cheat, and take advantage of OTHER people. Criminals rob, murder, commit fraud, damage property, kidnap, embezzle, blackmail, and so on.

My friends were not criminals. They were simply young people with not much experience and not very good judgement. They were engaging in practices which were technically illegal (just like someone does when he parks in a "no-parking" spot or makes an illegal left turn on a deserted street with no other traffic in sight). They were not committing what I call "crimes".

I think it was unproductive and unhelpful that the legal system treated these young people as criminals. It did not help improve them in any way, and it often resulted in a worsening of their basic nature.

In my own case, I was quite unusual. I rebelled against my own age group even more than I did against the older people. I resisted peer pressure. Very few did that.

Accordingly, I did not smoke, barely drank, simply observed but did not participate in the common drug use around me, and didn't swear very much either (a bit, though...). I could have been classified as almost totally "uncool", except for these saving graces: I grew my hair very long, and I wore the cool clothing, and I was a good musician.

In fact, I refused to conform to the expectations of either straight society OR my young friends...so I guess I was protesting against just about everybody! :-)

My actions were based on this reasoning: Long hair doesn't hurt anyone, nor does hippy clothing. Smoking is bad for people's health. Getting drunk is bad for people's health and results in idiotic public behaviour. Getting stoned impairs judgement and efficiency and is most likely bad for your health. Doing things that are illegal is unnecessarily risky, so why bother?

I also took an interest in unusual philosophies, politics, and religions...and still do. Why? It opens one up to new possibilities and it doesn't hurt anyone.

I dearly wanted, like everyone else, to lose my virginity (which I don't call losing anything, but gaining experience)...but was frustrated in that endeavour for the longest time. :-)

Reasoning on this: Losing your virginity doesn't hurt you, as long as you have enough judgement to avoid getting someone pregnant. It's part of normal adult existence to have sex with consensual partners, and virtually everyone agrees that it's an experience worth having. :-) I was looking for "true love", but I had a very hard time finding it, probably because I was too serious about it.

Now, what puzzles me is how most young people are so careless in their choices of how to rebel...in that they do things which are personally risky and potentially harmful. I didn't. I could reason it all out beforehand. I think the main reason most young people are so reckless is this...they want to prove themselves to their peers. I was in rebellion against my peers for the most part.

The whole nature of adolescence guarantees this: if marijuana is illegal, most young people will seek out opportunities to try it. That is the norm. Those who are particularly vulnerable by nature to a psychological addiction to that particular experience will get heavily dependent on it. Those who aren't won't.

Why is it that I have tried marijuana (on a very few occasions), alcohol (very moderately), and yet not gotten hooked on either...while millions of other people do get hooked?

Why is it that all the young people whom I knew well in my 20's tried marijuana and used it quite a bit...yet not one of them died as a result of that...and most of them became conventional, functional, contributing members of the society....while a member of your family was apparently destroyed (indirectly) by it?

I don't know. It all comes down to the individual and the individual's unique characteristics.

I was undoubtedly helped by the fact that I grew up in a non-smoking family where alcohol and other drugs were never abused. One tends to follow the example one sees as a very young child. It gets imprinted.

I figure that if a toddler sees his/her parents smoking, then the chances that he will take up both tobacco smoking and marijuana-smoking in his adolescence are astronomically increased. If he sees heavy drinking in the home, he is likely to repeat that too.

Accordingly, the most important factor in shaping young people's minds is not the law...it is the day to day behaviour of their own parents while they are growing up. That will prove to be a much stronger influence on their minds in the end than a law that makes some common substance illegal.

I'm speaking in general terms there, and not trying to say anything about your particular family experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 01:18 PM

So would that imply, Georgiansilver, that keeping it illegal is justified as a way of paying-off the drug barons by protecting their sales, and so reducing to some extent the damage they might otherwise do?

True enough, anytime there is a demand for an illegal commodity, any illegal commodity, there will be people who will see this as a chance to make money. Ensuring that there is something relatively harmless which is outlawed is a way of making sure that there is a reliable source of income for the dealers. It happens to be pot, it could just as easily be coffee. Rather better since it would be a much bigger market.

There's a sort of logic in that, except that it hasn't worked too well so far with pot. The evidence seems to be that, keeping it illegal ensures that the various drug markets are integrated, so that dealers will supply whatever is required, and that would presumably apply if it were coffee instead of pot which was the drug they were after in the first place, the "gateway" drug.

On the other hand, the evidence is that decriminalisation of pot, in Holland at any rate, has had the effect that people wanting harder drugs would need to find a different dealer. So rather than being a gateway drug, in this context, it can be seen as providing a kind of barrier against harder drugs.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 02:01 PM

Thanks Johnny, I understand your reasoning much better and go along with some of it. But Little Hawk is surely right to say that people are affected in different ways, and if only for that reason I remain resistant to a blanket prohibition (which often fails to achieve much anyway, in terms of protecting the vulnerable). But McGrath has put some good arguments too, and I have no trouble accepting that if pot were available over the counter like tobacco, the most obvious link with hard drugs would immediately be severed.

The argument about denying all the pot-heads in the world to save a single life has a certain resonance ("He who saves a wingle life saves the world entire" is how the Talmud puts it, I think) but in the end it leaves me uneasy.

On all sides I see society being pushed towards ever greater fear of what seem to me to be quite reasonable risks. (For instance a mood of something close to hysteria surrounds sex crimes against children, or at least it does in the UK. It is fuelled by our disgraceful newspapers, and it fails to recognise that the incidence of such crime has changed little over several generations. The result is that even on traffic-safe routes, many children no longer have the daily pleasure of meandering their own way to school and back.)

For better or worse, life is a fragile. Life is a risk. We should celebrate the fact that our kids, on average, live 70 years and more, despite all the horrific risks that the tabloids keep throwing in our faces. So let's keep a sense of proportion. There are parts of Africa where all are dead before they're 30, with few exceptions.

By the way, I have also had (and continue to have) experience of trying to steer youngsters clear of drug dependency of any sort, but in the voluntary sector rather than as a professional. In fairness to Johnny I should admit that some of those I've worked with in this field - probably a majority - think as he does and would want the supplying of pot to remain illegal. But I've never met anyone who would pretend that either way is perfect.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 03:01 PM

Pot and other drugs are not good for kids. Period. I worked on a suicide hotline for a few years in Montreal. Drugs do bad things to people. Period. Saying it's otherwise doesn't make it otherwise.

We live in a world that gives Paxil, Prozac, etc., to children to alter their moods or behaviours. The drugs often just mask the problem. We let adults use the same drugs. The Rolling Stone's song, "Mother's Little Helper" was a reference to dexadrine (one of the amphetamine family), and lots of North Americans used it. I used Paxil for depression until it friggin' near killed me. Eight days of 10 mg/day and then on the second day of 20 mg/day, I went blind while driving on the highway. (Because I developed the habit years ago while driving ambulance of being aware of what's ahead, beside and behind me on any road, I knew I had the space/time to take my foot off the gas, "feel" for the shoulder, and glide to a stop.) Scared the crap outta me. I quit using it that day.

I know that drugs are not good for kids--and that includes grass. However, the drugs that have made me sickest have all been over-the-counter meds. Grass never made me go blind, lose my cool, look for stronger 'kicks'.

If it is legalized, I wouldn't care for it to be available for kids. I don't think I would go back to smoking. And I wouldn't want to enter an emergency situation with a fellow firefighter who had just toked up. But then, legality would have nothing to do with that, would it? I wouldn't want to enter ANY emergency situation with ANYONE who was CON (condition other than normal). It seems to me that legality/illegality is not the issue.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 05:13 PM

Of course, if it were legalized for people of a reasonable age - say 40 or 50 - it would make it very uncool for kids and they'd probably stop using it anywhere as much.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 09:14 PM

My God, what a stupendous idea! You're right, McGrath. Kids would lose all interest in the stuff.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 20 Jun 04 - 10:06 PM

Well gol danged, ya' all...

Seems like this issue is being argued out by a bunch of non-stoners... Hey, that ain't fair...

All right. lets look as some realities here:

1. First and formost, there is no victim other than the stoner (and that's is a matter of dispute).

2. By keeping it illegal we are pushing kids toward crime and ciminals.

3. The chances of kids using harder drugs is increased by making folks buy pot from criminals.

4. The usual. Tax bucks lost.

5. All the rest of the logical argumements for legalization..

Now I don't make no bones about being a stoner. Yeah, some folks will say "Hey, Bobert's brain is so fried that he can't type 'er spell 'er nuthin'..." but that ain't he case at all... Catchin' a little buzz (organic, LH, gol dangit...) ain't the friggin' end of the world here. Most folks calm down from it. Most folks become more, ahhh, peaceful from it... Most folks become more creative from it...M ost folks don't become criminals or junkies, 'er___________ (fill in yer own scarey end to "Reefer Madness").

Yeah, it would be nice if everyone lived as cleanly as LH, but, hey, they don't. When I think of my 19 year old son out in Oregon I find a level of comfort knowing that he will take a couple tokes tonight rather than drinking alcohol...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 08:08 AM

Little Hawk and Fionn - very nice posts guys, thanks very much for that. And thanks for not simply shouting "Yah Boo Rubbish" like some others have done. You'll be disappointed to know that you haven't changed my opinion about legalisation, but I understand perfectly well where you're coming from and I respect your views.

Fionn - how right you are in your final sentence - neither way IS perfect. But I sure as hell know which one scares the hell out of me! :0)

Brucie - "If it is legalized, I wouldn't care for it to be available for kids". The sale of cigarettes to under-16's is illegal in the UK, but I see an astonishing number of 12-13 year-olds openly puffing away (surprisingly, nay nauseatingly, some with their parents' approval!). Cannabis is available to anyone who wants it, right now, legal or not - that's fact.

Bobert - "Most folks don't become criminals or junkies". Absolutely correct. "Most folks" who drive when over the legal alcohol limit don't have accidents - by your logic should we therefore make drunk driving legal because "Most folks" don't get hurt by it? Or is this another example of pot-head double standards? It's not about what "most folks" do or don't do, it's about what happens to a vulnerable, adolescent, innocent minority.

McGrath - you keep dropping in your irritating red herring about coffee. Caffeine is a stimulant. A stimulant, not an intoxicant. It does not give a recognisable 'hit', and its effect increases, rather than diminishes, over time due to continued use. Consumption of caffeine results in, inter alia, disturbed sleep patterns, disturbed heart-rhythm, irritability and, in my own case, the shits. It does not produce feelings of intoxication or euphoria. In my considerable experience gained over many years of life in the real world (as distinct from the pseudo-intellectual fantasy-land that some Mudcatters appear to reside in), I have never met a coffee-drinker who felt the need to move on to illegal hard drugs because coffee no longer gave a sufficent hit. You persist in comparing a horse with a camel. It's the act of a charlatan. Knock it off. :0)

J :0)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 10:21 AM

I think you miss the point I am making when I mention coffee, Strollin' Johnny. Obviously coffee has different effects from pot, just as is the case with alcohol and nicotine and theobromine (the active constituent in chocolate). What they all have in common is that are are all to some extent habit-forming, and they all have some psychoactive effect. By that I mean that people use them as a way of adjusting their mood and so forth. And it is definitely possible to take too much caffeine. (And in some cases it can have very serious effects)

And if any of these substances were made illegal, it is absolutely certain that there would be dealers selling them, and that in many cases these dealers would be ready to supply a range of other drugs. And I think it is pretty certain that there would be some people who would experiment with the other drugs on sale. What makes something a "gateway drug" isn't the fact that it is a drug, but that it is illegal.

Chewing gum would do as well. I believe in Singapore, where chewing gum has been illegal for the last 12 years, there is a flourishing black market - and I note that the Singapore government has recently relaxed the ban, though only for registered users, for medical purposes, from pharmacies Singapore lifts ban.

...............
When a comparison is drawn between two things that does not imply any suggestion that they are alike in all respects, but merely that in a particular respect or respects they have something in common. Which is rather obviously the case with horses and dromedaries since both are mammalian quadrupeds used for riding. But that doesn't mean that someone pointing out this commonality is under the impression that horses have humps and so forth.

I have noticed that people often seem to respond in this way when people make a comparison or draw an analogy, for example between two historical situations.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 12:07 PM

McGrath, I understood the point perfectly well, however I continue to dispute your assertion that it is the illegality of cannabis that makes it the 'gateway' drug (and thanks for the admission that it is indeed a 'gateway' drug, what a reality-leap that represents! Your fellow Yea-Sayers all, for some odd reason, fail to recognise that fact). Coffee (caffeine) is not commonly, if ever, used to achieve intoxication, it's used almost exclusively for other purposes - usually to do with maintaining alertness levels during strenuous and continuous mental exercise or simply because the consumer enjoys the taste. Conversely, the only purpose for the consumption of cannabis is to achieve intoxication. Hence my horse/camel analogy. They are both drugs, but there the similarity ends.

The people who trade in drugs are, as I've already pointed out, extremely resourceful, intelligent and organised, and they simply will not conveniently go away. They will find a way to defeat any attempt to subvert their purpose - trust me, I've met some of these people and they do not give up. I assure you they will continue to use 'harmless' cannabis as the sprat to catch the mackerel. Whatever it costs the punter to buy it legally over the counter, they will undercut it even to the point of giving it away - don't forget we're talking about hooking in adolescents here, they are the prime target because they are gullible and malleable, and they represent a long term constantly-developing market. A susceptible fourteen-year old wouldn't give tuppence for a cup of coffee because it doesn't give him a hit, but put a spliff in his mouth and everything changes when the room spins - and that's how they get hooked in to drug culture, nothing to do with illegality, everything to do with the effect of the drug. They don't care whether its legal or not, they just want the intoxicating effect, and having little or no income they'll follow the nice man who'll let them have it for nothing, or rather he'll 'lend' it to them for a while then call the debt in big-style.

The assumption that legalising cannabis will somehow make dealers throw in the towel is both naive and dangerous - it won't, and the kids will be hooked in just the same. Others here, like Bone-Head Bobert, might think it's a bit of Yee-Ha Slap-Ma-Thigh Down-Home Mountain-Man Fun. They've got a lot to learn - they should meet some of the people I've had the unpleasant experience of rubbing shoulders with, they'd soon change their minds.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 01:09 PM

The substances which for most people give them their first experience of getting intoxicated tend to be ones which are fairly easily obtained without getting into contact with dealers - most commonly glue, or petrol or alcohol.

In as sense it is fair to describe these as "gateway drugs" - some people are going to want to move on to other things. But there isn't the same direct connection with dealers that you get when a substance is not legally available in the first place, which is where they differ from cannabis.

When there is any kind of black market, the effect is that would-be purchasers are put in touch with people who can supply a wide range of illegal goods. In that sense, anything illegal or rationed can be a "gateway purchase". Coffee, chewing gum, nylons... I just don't think it is a good idea to broaden the black market in this way. And, as I have indicated I think it would be a very good idea to move cannabis out of that market, through some kind of decriminalisation.

The idea of dope dealers handing out free joints to kids at large in the hope of getting customers, in line with Tom Lehrer's "Old Dope Peddler" who "gives the kids free samples because he knows full well
that today's young innocent faces are tomorrow's clientele"? Well maybe - but I don't think it seems to work that way with other drugs that can be obtained legally. There may be dealers passing out free alcopops, as a way of drumming up trade for the hard stuff, but I don't think it's too common.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 03:51 PM

Strollin' Johnny:

As I said, legality/illegality is not the issue.

I started smoking cigarettes when I was nine. I have been able to get the habit down to about ten smokes a day, and I hope to keep it there. I don't think it's good that kids smoke tobacco either. I have never smoked or had alcohol around my kids--well, never smoked, and I don't drink at all. I worry that dealers will approach my kids--but I gotta tell ya buddy, I would have absolutely NO hesitation about taking a baseball bat to someone's knees. As a teacher, I have faced down some dealers who were trying to sell to my students. When it comes to my own kids, I would hospitalize the bastards and not think twice about doing so. I have made that clear to many people in the town I live in, and so far, the dealers are keeping away from both my students and my children. The day they don't is the day I call 911 for a few unlucky individuals.

Bruce M

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 21 Jun 04 - 03:58 PM

PS, I'm not tryin' to come across as some sort of tough guy--I am, but I don't wish to give the impression that I settle things with my fists and feet. Other than an incident in which I got between two drunks and broke stuff up--and sparring in classes--I haven't been in a fight for over 20 years. But, sometimes a guy's gotta do what a guy's gotta do, ya know? First offense, I figure I'll get off with community service. I can live with that. And my kids are worth much more than that to me.

BM

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 08:38 AM

I think it's time we called a halt to this one. No-one's listening, no-one's winning. I give you people the benefit of my long, hard experience, you rubbish it (and yes, McGrath, I can tell you they ACTUALLY DO give it away - and your disbelief in your last post has given the game away on what a sheltered Airy-Fairy Cloud Cuckoo Land you must live in).

Brucie, you insult me by your inference that I haven't the balls to defend my kids. You don't know what we've been through and I'm not about to broadcast it here, but if you think I'm a weak-kneed wuss you couldn't be more wrong. I assre you I can look after myself, and I've defended myself very successfully on more occasions than I care to remember, but lots of people have tried the tough-guy act with these people and failed - you can't punch someone's lights out when a gang of his cronies have already punched you silly, or kneecapped you, or shot you from the back window of a moving vehicle. It's dead easy to be a Big Guy on a Mudcat Thread. As I told you all before, you should meet some of them - the Real Ones, not their little pissy-pants druggie messenger-boys.

What I tell you now is that, when cannabis is legalised (as it undoubtedly will be within the next ten years) and the horrible truth emerges, it'll give me no joy to say to you Planet Zog-dwellers "I told you so".

Now I'm outta here. Too much effort for too little gain.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 09:06 AM

My personal belief is that people who "NEED" pot should receive the benefits from it and those who just "do pot" for the sake of it should come in the "illegal" band....Who really wants to smoke it and why?. Our society has become watered down as far as the law is concerned. The "blind eye" is turned to many things and laws have been abolished to supposedly make life easier for all. Our society has been de-generating for years into one where people expect to be able to do as they like. They do not think it fair that they get a speeding ticket when they have been speeding because the law is stupid..They get angry when they get a parking ticket even though they are illegally parked....There are many other laws which people get agitated with/angry with...nevertheless they are laws and have been put there for a reason. So shall we abolish all these stupid laws and just do as we please? Why not abolish all laws instead of watering them down to suit how we think our society should be.
I'm all for keeping the laws we have and maybe even adding some new ones in some sort of effort to get safety back on the streets and in our own homes. I'd like to be able to walk the kerb without being mowed down by teenagers on bikes. I'd like to be able to walk the streets without the thought that I might get mugged. I'd like to be able to go anywhere in my town without seeing syringes lying around.
Ah well, I suppose I can dream of a better society can't I...OR should I just draw on my reefer and forget all the problems in our society????? What do you think?????

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 12:52 PM

Man, I dream of a better society every day! I never stop dreaming of it. Be that as it may, I consider the mainstream society to be deteriorating in many ways and I don't frankly know what I can do about it except govern my own activities as wisely as possible.

I think the problem may be that there are simply too many people sharing one planet at this point. Too high a density of population and a diminishing amount of land and resources.

It's harder to get along when you're in a crowded cage. Consider the example of lab rats. They start to lose their good relations when crowding passes a certain point.

When you're living in a very small town you can park your car wherever you like. The town gets bigger, more traffic, and they put in stop lights and meters. Life gets more complex. The town gets bigger yet and they put in all kinds of "no parking" zones and the price of the meters triples, and you start worrying about getting expensive parking tickets because you got delayed a few minutes doing your shopping.   The town gets bigger yet, and it takes you an hour of totally frustrating driving to even GET downtown at all, and when you finally do you have to pay $20 to park your car in a lot, and then somebody breaks into your car and steals your radio! Furthermore, you have no idea who that somebody could be, because there are so many people in the town now that everyone is lost in an anonymous haze and nobody cares about anyone else anymore!

And so it goes...just awful.

To escape it you have to go either where there are fewer people (and fewer jobs, though) OR you have to join an ashram or some other little society of like-minded people who have set themselves apart from the mainstream. In that ashram you will not find anyone dealing dope, needless to say.

I do not expect more laws to solve the problems of mainstream society. I think its problems are beyond solving at this point.

I don't blame people for still trying, though...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 01:11 PM

Strollin' Johnny--anything I said was in no way meant to be insulting to you. I am aware that some of these guys play rough. And I did not imply--nor should you have inferred--that I was castigating you in any way.

However, take a flying fuck to yourself for your interpretation. You have had some terrible problems caused by drugs. However, you're not the only person who's had terrible problems, and fuck you for thinking you are. I had a brother who committed suicide recently, mostly due to drugs. So, fuck you again.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 01:43 PM

"They do give it away" - my point wasn't that this doesn't happen under the present regime, but that this is very tied up with the fact of illegality.

Drug dealers do not give out currently give out free alcopops, or even tubes of Evostik, so why should we anticipate them to be any more likely to give out free joints, once the normal source of supply for cannabis is somewhere else?

Somehow there always seems to be a tendency to read into a post what we expect to find there, when what is actually there can be significantly different. And then we leap to some conclusion that can be poles removed from the truth, like Strollin'Johnny. "What a sheltered Airy-Fairy Cloud Cuckoo Land you must live in" - if only!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 03:30 PM

Yo Johnny, it would indeed seem fit to think of yerself as "strollin'" since you took what I wrote about folks who smoke pot and "strolled" ("rolled" would be a better word) right over to where you thought I talkinmg about.

Where did I say anyhting about folks driving impaired? I didn't. You took yer srollin' johnny self over there all by yer little strollin' johnny self.

There is responsible uses and irresponsible uses of just about anything on the planet. What, now you're gonna say that Bobert, because he says he is a "stoner", advocates driving impaired? Like, are you nuts, 'er what...

Hey, I say enough things fir folks to argue with 'round this joint not to have folks inventing stuff...

Now say "yer sorry" and, please, no more arguing with points that other folks ain't made, thank you...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 04:08 PM

I am in a town of 10,000--I would likely think very differently in a large city. Strollin' Johnny, you have your own demons to deal with. They are not everyone else's demons. Have a nice life. I will avoid you in future.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 05:51 PM

Yeah, living in a big city is totally different. I recommend living in smaller towns if you can manage it.

The key to using anything (pot, a gun, alcohol, a car, an ax, a knife, a match) is HOW you use it...responsibly or irresponsibly. I grew up in a family where alcohol was around, but it was never used irresponsibly. My uncle Bill had a family where guns were around but were never used irresponsibly. I see other people who can't use a car or anything else responsibly, because they don't give a damn about anyone.

Laws should be used to penalize irresponsible public activities, not to ban substances, in my opinion. Dealing drugs is an irresponsible public activity. Bobert's peacable smoking of a joint in his own home is not. It has not made him a bad person.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 07:14 PM

There are many good arguments for and against on this thread but also, yet again, so much personal attack which is unnecessary and possibly hurtful. Can people not just get points across without "downing" someone else to do it?. Also I believe that using swear words of whatever type proves nothing except a lack of good vocabulary on the users part....probably swear at me now eh??
Be Blessed.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 07:19 PM

I would posit that my vocabulary is the equal of yours, Georgiansilver. I though it was the right word to use. And you too be blessed.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 07:25 PM

I was just on another thread, and I posted this: ""See - you generally find here that sooner or later you find yourself with someone you've been arguing with.

And here's Georgiansilver, with another example of exactly that. And it strikes me that this is just another reason why personal attacks are so out of place and pointless.

Friendly insults are one thing, and can be fun, in their place, but personal attacks are completely different, and shouldn't have a place here.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 07:26 PM

I was just on another thread, and I posted this: "See - you generally find here that sooner or later you find yourself agreeing with someone you've been arguing with."

And here's Georgiansilver, with another example of exactly that. And it strikes me that this is just another reason why personal attacks are so out of place and pointless.

Friendly insults are one thing, and can be fun, in their place, but personal attacks are completely different, and shouldn't have a place here.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 08:15 PM

Well I'm with Georgiansilver to some extent. I was thinking brucie's attitude childish if not obnoxious well before the assault on Strolling Johnny. But for Georgian then to sneer about limited vocabulary because of an expetive or two - well that's pathetic.

I have grumbled about his/her "Be blessed" sign-off already, and coming at the end of the most recent post it looked particularly sanctimonious and patronising. Maybe that's the intended effect. Or maybe if Georgian realised it could have that effect, he/she would quietly drop it.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 08:25 PM

No, I think it's an indication of his desire to meet a certain spiritual standard of good intentions towards all...but...it can certainly sound sanctimonious to someone who doesn't like that style or subscribe to the same beliefs.

Half of the bitter arguments on this forum are kicked off mainly because someone just doesn't like someone else's style or way of expressing themselves. That's a matter of personal taste. For example, almost nobody likes Martin Gibson's way of expressing himself... :-) Some people can't stand mine either. Heh!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peace
Date: 22 Jun 04 - 08:50 PM

Peter K: You are a good writer, OK thinker, and probably a very nice person. However, I find you to be a snob in some of your attitudes. Let's agree that we don't care for each other. Have a nice day.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 03:45 AM

mmmmmm. I know I don't have to justify my "Be Blessed" to any of you but at the end of the day we are all just people who have arrived in the world, to whatever lives we live or have chosen to live. We have to live our lives as we see fit.
As a Christian I may make mistakes in life..I may say the wrong things to people at times...I may annoy some or frustrate them and maybe even hurt them because I am human!!! However...I have no malice toward anyone and truly wish a Blessing on all I come into contact with. I try to get my point across with dignity(which I am sure I often fail at).
I think the least we can offer our fellow man/woman(even if in total disagreement with him/her) is respect.
Perhaps you feel that is wrong for you but I'm how I chose to be.
Be Blessed.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 03:58 AM

Incidentally....I wonder how many of you would be prepared to face the people you "down" in real life..or how much you really know about them........I know nothing of Strollin' Johnnys beliefs but I have the honour and privilege of knowing him as a Folk performer of great talent and a person I respect. A man with a good knowledge of life and its pitfalls and who is capable of giving good advice to those in difficulty or despair. Someone with a rich life experience.....
I am Blessed.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 05:01 AM

Georgian, you may indeed be blessed, but I still don't see that it's incumbent on you to call down blessings on the rest of us. As I've just said in another thread, I tend to see religions as forms of mental illness, and I think you should show that view some respect.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 06:04 AM

Blessing is an interesting word, because its roots come from the word for wounding, which is what it still means in French.

Strikes me, though, that anyone who objects to it being used as a sign-off expression would have at least as much as much reason to object to "Goodbye".

Every now and again I sneeze in public, and some passing stranger says "Bless You", the way we do here. I rather like that. I suppose Fionn would find it insulting...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 06:14 AM

Peter K(Fionn) If you chose to see me as mentally ill then so be it.
I am personally hoping you are not a Psychologist or Psychiatrist as your opinion of my mental state would certainly seem to have validity then.
Be Blessed.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: 42
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 06:18 AM

It has always been my experience that a few tokes with congenial companions raised my spiritual awareness.
The crone seems to have cut the weave of this thread.
Whatever the terminology chosen; regardless of the casual nature of the benediction; how could anyone be offended by good wishes?

go gently

j

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 07:40 AM

Oh, some people can be offended by anything, 42. It just depends on what style rubs them the wrong way...or what mood they happen to be in at the time.

There are even people who are offended by a smile. Not many though, thankfully.

I find the "God bless you!" from people when I sneeze annoying. Why? Because we didn't follow that custom in my family when I was a kid, so it always kind of surprised me and puzzled me when people did it. It struck me as quite odd. To me a sneeze is just a sneeze, not something requiring a blessing or even something to be remarked upon at all. So, somebody sneezed. So what????

Then too, I have a basic resistance to cliches. I hate it when people say things like "Hot enough for you?" or "Are we keeping you up?" (when I yawn)...that sort of thing. Now admittedly, these people are not trying to be offensive, it's just that I get fed up with hearing the same thing again and again.

We all have our trigger points.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 08:01 AM

Well, I'm with you on the "Hot enough" one, LH and so I turn it back on 'um by sayin' "Heck no, put another log on the fire." Couple times of that and it makes 'um think about what they are sayin? Another one I hate is men callin' other men "Money". I don't know if they do it in yer parts of the world but when someone does that to me I says "Well, if I had your's, I'd burn mine". Again, a little humor to try to get folks to realize they are parroting some dumb stuff that they've heard all their lives...

Now I ain't got no problem with someone sayin' "God Bless you". Just not after someone sneezes, dangit. If it's heartfelt then it's a wonderful thing to not only say to someone but also, in most cases, for that person to hear because God does Bless us in so many ways.

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 08:11 AM

Yeah, it's the "talking without thinking" that really bothers me...robotic behaviour by people who don't even know why they're doing it. I want to smack them and wake them up. I don't mind anyone saying "Bless you" to me as long as they actually consciously mean it, in a spiritual sense. It's when they don't really mean it that it bugs me.

I can just see it, the next time it's raining..."Did you order this weather?"

"Yeah, buddy, matter of fact I did! Bet you didn't know I had that kind of pull around here with Mother Nature, eh? Are you enjoying it?"

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Sttaw Legend
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 09:21 AM

Definition:   
[adj] expletives used informally as intensifiers; "he's a blasted idiot"; "it's a blamed shame"; "a blame cold winter"; "not a blessed dime"; "I'll be damned (or blessed or darned or goddamned) if I'll do any such thing"; "he's a damn (or goddam or goddamned) fool"; "a deuced idiot"; "tired or his everlasting whimpering"; "an infernal nuisance"
[adj] highly favored or fortunate (as e.g. by divine grace); "our blessed land"; "the blessed assurance of a steady income"
[adj] having good fortune bestowed or conferred upon; sometimes used as in combination; "blessed with a strong healthy body"; "a nation blessed with peace"; "a peace-blessed era"
[adj] characterized by happiness and good fortune; "a blessed time"
[adj] enjoying the bliss of heaven
[adj] Roman Catholic; proclaimed one of the blessed and thus worthy of veneration
[adj] worthy of worship; "the Blessed Trinity"

Be Blessed

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Peter K (Fionn)
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 11:46 AM

God knows where dianavan went. (Or maybe Allah knows.) Anyway, now this thread has finally frayed beyond repair (thanks in part to me, I'm afraid) I think she should be dragged back here to see what she started.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 12:22 PM

She started it? I've been enjoying its recent divergence into a discussion of annoying cliches....

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 12:28 PM

"I heard that", LH... Yeah, there's another one... There are folks out there who parrot that one after anything anyone says...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 23 Jun 04 - 12:42 PM

Well, there's nothing like stating the obvious, is there, Bobert? I met a guy once who responded in this fashion...

Him: Hi, whatcha doin'?

You: I'm on my way downtown.

Him: Oh, are you?

You: Yeah, gotta get some groceries...

Him: Oh, do you?

You: Yeah...gotta eat, y'know.

Him: Oh, you gotta eat, eh?

You: (clenching teeth) Yeah. Well, I guess I'll head out...

Him: Oh, will you?

And so on...

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Green Man
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 09:31 AM

Some years ago a retiring high court Judge name of Pickles made a tv documentary and came out in favour of decriminalising cannabis in the UK. In the program he pointed out the amount of money spent by the government and the Excise in trying to control trafficking in cannabis. This money he said was of such an order that the NHS could be overhauled using it if it was saved.

Although as a Judge he was bound by law to point out that in no way was he condoning the use of illegal substances he made the point that breaking the chain between this 'relatively harmless substance' and dealers greatly lessened the likelyhood of a 'client' moving on to harder drugs as they werent likely to be exposed to them.

Hemp used to be grown in England as it was used to manufacture rope and canvas for our navy. It was only made illegal when a trade agreement dealing with the cotton trade came into force in about 1920. Up to that point it was considered by some to be a decorative plant and was found in a lot of Victorian walled gardens.

The substance THC fits into receptors in the human brain as if manufactured specifically for the purpose and as we have been given domain over the beasts of the field the plants and birds of the air do not see where any person has the right to stop us doing whatever we want with the plant. Retting the stalks to make canvas for jeans, using the oil to lubricate delicate machines or using the the plant medicinally are all possible uses. I have a pair of trousers made from hemp cloth and they will in probability outlast me.

As for it's addictive properties, I am not an expert but after reading the arguments here I would go with the point of view that anyone who is an addictive personality will eventually find a way of damaging themselves. ANything taken to excess will eventually cause problems. Excess is not the road to enlightenment, rather the reverse.


Blessed Be

Green Man

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: harpgirl
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 10:22 AM

Green Man... as I have mentioned before the use of the term "addictive personality" is gratuitous, non-informational, and pejorative. It's a way of blaming the victim, IMHO.

I have to keep up with the literature on street and prescribed pharmacology for my license. I recommend to anyone interested the following:

A Primer of Drug Action: A Concise, Nontechnical Guide to the Actions, Uses, and Side Effects of Psychoactive Drugs. (2000) Robert Julien MD. PhD. Freeman & Co New York. Chapter 11: Marijuana: A Unique Sedative-Euphoriant-Pyschedelic Drug.

This chapter talks extensively about the cannibinoid recepters, where they are in the brain and effects in humans and primates.

(Light, not heat, folks!) harpster

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 11:26 AM

Most people have addictive personalities...just to what is the question. :-) For some, it's substances. For others, it's behaviours. For others it's physical sensations (most commonly, sexual sensations). For others, it's emotional habits, like anger or worrying. When anything occupies more of a person's time, energy or money than it ought to, to the point where it is damaging some other important aspects of their life, it's an addiction.

Pot is just the teeny tip of the iceberg when it comes to addictions. It could just as well have remained a useful plant used to make rope, sails, clothing, and lubricants...but it got a cultural reputation as a mind-altering drug in the 20th century, and there you go.

People have a way of being really silly, given half a chance.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 12:25 PM

"Canvas"is the same word as "cannabis", just a different spelling, because that's what they used to make it out of. George Washington used to grow it.

"It's a way of blaming the victim" I'd have thought "addictive personality" is the reverse of that, being a way of saying people can't always be assumed to be to blame for getting addicted.

Whether it's personality or physiology involved I've no idea - but if you look at the way that some people can smoke tobacco for years, and give it up just like that, and others have enormous problems, it's fairly clear that we aren't all the same when it comes to getting addicted to some drugs - and it's definitely not a matter of stronger or weaker willpower.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 12:49 PM

I think where I draw the line is somewhere around the concept of *harmful* when it comes to disussing addictions. This includes smoking pot, writing poetry, drinking, sex, etc. etc.

If the behavior is harmful then there's a problem. Now, I don't mean splitting hairs harmful, like the guy who takes a couple tokes of weed 2 or 3 times a week, or has a couple glasses of wine a day. Sure, some would argue those behaviors are harmful. And, I would guess under the wrong circumstances they would be. Example: person takes two tokes of pot and then gets in his car to pick up his daughter at school. That could be very well mean harmful becuase it is also irresponsible.

Now alcohol is a better example of the harmful argument. One guy drinks 2 glasses of wine every night with dinner. That makes approximately 700 glasses of wine a year. Another guy only drinks 5 glasses of wine a year but does it all in one sitting without the benefit of food. Then this guy gets in his car to pick up his daughter from school. Hmmmmm? See what I mean? It the irresponsible and potentially harmful consequences that come into play here.

Now some one is gonna say, "But, Bobert, inhaling smoke ain't good for you so why is that not harmful?" and I don't have a great answer for that but I have one none the less. Compared to smoking a pack a day of cigarettes, 6 inhalations a week of pot smoke cannot reasonably be considered to be in the same category. We all make choices. Red meat is also considered by some to be harmful but I don't eat red meat. Pork is considered hatmful and I don't eat pork. Heck, farm grown salmon is considered hatmful if eaten more than twice a month so I limit my intake of farm grown salmon. Tobacco products are considered hatmful so I don't use them. Driving fast is considered harmful so I don't do that. See where I'm going with this?

Like I said, people make lots of choices in life where there is some level of risk of harm. But I think responsible people have no problems figuring out the choices where imminent and probable harm will follow...

Now, that said, I think I'll have me a little toke..

Aww, jus' funnin'. Got to get back to work and pot and work don't mix too well. (Oh, how friggin' responsible, Bobert...)

Stoner (kinda?...) Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 12:59 PM

That's true, Bobert, it's in overdoing things or doing them at the wrong time or in the wrong way that people get into trouble. There's a safe way and an unsafe way to deal with almost anything one could care to mention. Most of the people I knew used pot in a safe manner. Many of them did not use alcohol in a safe manner.

As for cigarettes, my sympathy fails when it comes to that. I don't regard them as "safe" under any circumstance, but I still would not make it illegal to smoke them outdoors or in privacy, because it's up to the user to make his own decision about that, not up to me to make his decision for him.

Besides, making tobacco illegal would result in an illegal drug trade that would make today's drug wars look mild in comparison (just like happened with alcohol during prohibition).

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 02:54 PM

My first point, LH, about cigarettes was that 6 tokes a week has to be way less harmfull than smoking a pack of cigarettes a day. And when I say tokes, I mean *one* inhalation.

My second point is that since tobacco products are hermful, since they are anly directly harmful to the smoker, then if someone wants to use 'um away from non cigarette smokers smokers, that's their business. Doesn't mean I gotta smoke 'um. I do, however, end up payoing more taxes and health insurance premiums, I'm sure as a result of someones elses cigarette habit, but that doesn't justify prohibition of tobacco products...

(Speaking of tobacco products, there's a good 'ol boy gas station in Winchester, Va that sells gas a little cheaper than the others around so I get my gas there. But walkin' in to pay fir it is a challenge since the entire lot is filled with wads of spit chewing tobacco. Talk about nasty!)

Now back to pot. You all see that I'm perfectly content talking about pot...

And speaking of pot, yeah, outlawing hemp production is the dumbest thing I ever heard of. It's about like outlawing movies or magazines to fight pornography... Dumb, dumb, dumb....

Now back to the *other* cannibus...

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 03:05 PM

Wa-a-a-a-ait a minute! What did you say? "outlawing movies or magazines to fight pornography..."

That is brilliant, Bobert! Just brilliant! It's so brilliant I'm amazed it hasn't been done. We could have eliminated all that disgusting pornography totally if that had been done long ago. Yes! We should definitely outlaw movies, magazines, books, and...well...the Internet...umm...(?)

Hmm. I gotta think about this for a bit.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: saulgoldie
Date: 24 Jun 04 - 03:11 PM

Pornography...disgusting? Maybe you're buying from the wrong source.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: *daylia*
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 07:00 AM

saulgoldie, have you ever been propositioned a dozen times a day or more by barnyard animals, garden vegetables or prepubescent children? That went on and on for a few months last winter before I changed my eMail address.   

And yes, I did change it in a fit of disgust.

But hey, maybe I'm just criminally repressed. Hmmmmm ... maybe if I tried a bit harder to prefer alcohol over the Gentle Herb, it might help???    ;-)

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: *daylia*
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 07:34 AM

Keeping the proles under control is a viewpoint that has been expressed by others on this thread. I was only referring to that in my post. It does make sense, in a way. I am still waiting for plausible explanations for why it is good that it is illegal. That is the only suggestion on this thread, so far, and that was posed by someone who thinks it should not be illegal.

saul, I haven't been on this thread for a bit and just noticed your post above. Good question!

Personal opinions and biases aside, 'keeping the proles under control' is the only explanation given here because it's not only true but the only one that fits with the historical facts. That's why I posted Dr Elgin's research above.

I'd like to see these facts become common knowledge outside of university classrooms. That would certainly help dispell some dearly-held illusions about the hows and whys of gov'ts and laws - and I'm not just referring to the laws criminalizing certain psychoactive plants.

daylia

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 09:14 AM

Smoking is only one method of taking either nicotine or cannabis. Not the best - in fact the most anti-social and unhealthy method.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 09:29 AM

That's true. Smoking is silly. No animal will willingly inhale smoke. Eating cannabis or nicotine works better, I would think. The trouble with smoking (aside from lung damage to the user) is that it goes into the air and affects other people who are nearby as well, and that may not be their choice. Now I'm not accusing you of that daylia, just talking in general terms. There are many people whose children are exposed to cigarette (or in some cases marijuana) smoke all the time at home and, even worse, inside the car! What a rotten thing to do to your kids.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 10:51 AM

An addictive personality is often talked about, but I'm not entirely sure that it exists. Yes it is true that some people get addicted to more than one thing, or that when they stop abusing one substance they get hooked on something else. but that doesnt necessarily mean that they have an "addictive personality". I think it is more likely that when they quit the substance, they have not learned new coping strategy to deal with their problems/stress, so they resort to the same old methods they have always relied on. they think they have mad progress because they have given up eg booze, but might become a workaholic, or start abusing another substance etc.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 11:23 AM

Yeah, it's a stress relieving thing. You could do the same by engaging in daily meditation...if you were willing to and had the patience. Or maybe by running or playing golf, for that matter.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: el ted
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 11:28 AM

or... a pot full of Assam tea with genoa cake... or wild, rampant nostril flaring rumpo... or my personal favourite, combine all of the above simultaneously!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 11:33 AM

Sounds lovely.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: jimmyt
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 05:09 PM

Let me throw my 2 cents in, now that you ran Brucie off. I have never tried cannibis, not once. I have used alcohol, though not ever to excess for 40 years. I have been, as a musician, around people who were high or drunk many many times over the years. My observation is that people that are high, tend to be mellow. People who are drunk are unpredictable and frequently will turn to violence with little provocation.

I wonder how the real research lines up on how many people would actually resort to "hard drugs" regardless of the portal of entry, whether from Cannibis, alcohol or by other means altogether. I tend to think pretty libertarian on this issue, that perhaps we need to have a war on drugs, but shouldn't we choose our battles to go after methamphetimine, cocaine heroin, etc rather than something that seems to not have any more adverse, in fact probably less adverse effects than Alcohol? And could I encourage some thoughtful discussion rather than the heated rhetoric that appears above?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 06:09 PM

Well said, JimmyT. You know, looking back to the people I grew up with it wasn't too hard to see which ones were likely to turn to hard drugs. Yeah, those particular individuals used pot all right, and they also smoked and drank and searched out any other high they could possibly find, and did it exessively. They would have done the same thing if pot never existed at all. Blaming it on pot is a bit facile, in my opinion. You could just as well blame it on alcohol, cigarettes, or blue denims.

The crucial thing is a person's attitude. It is their self-destructive or reckless attitude that will take them into hard drugs and keep them there till it kills them. 98% of the young people I knew in my early 20's used pot casually. Only about 5% of them went into hard drugs to much extent, but about 50% of them had real trouble with alcohol and about 95% of them smoked cigarettes every day of their lives...and damaged their health and family life in the process.

I watched it all and couldn't fathom how they could do that. It was their attitude, and what they took for granted, and what they thought of as "a good time". It was also peer pressure...wanting to "fit in". Whenever I felt peer pressure pushing me, I tended to deliberately go the other way, and it served me well in the long run.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: jimmyt
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 06:26 PM

By the way Little Hawk, I still owe you a bottle of Piesporter Goldtrophkin or some other nice Reisling.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 08:03 PM

Yeah...you're down by Atlanta aren't you?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: jimmyt
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 09:13 PM

90 miles north in the foothills of the Appalachians near Chattanooga Tennessee

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bert
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 10:21 PM

I must admit that I skipped the last half of this thread it started repeating itself too many times.

But a lot of people posting here seem to have missed a point.

Pot doesn't lead to hard drugs, it doesn't confuse the mind and make your thinking slower. It doesn't cause crime.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bert
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 10:36 PM

OK. Windows, behave...

IT!!! doesn't do anything - but grow. It just sits there and grows period. If someone wants to do something WITH IT then that's a different issue.

So just let it sit there and grow. It will be quite happy. Or smoke it and you will either be quite happy yourself of kinda bored depending on how it affects you.

Whether it or any other substance should be legal or not or whether you should be allowed to ingest something or not is an issue of personal freedom.

If someone you love is taking a substance that is bad for them, I don't see how that should become a legal issue.

If you really insist on restricting personal freedom and want to start banning things. Then perhaps we should look at religion. How many people are have been killed this year by 'religion' (speak up Shrub, here's your chance) and how many have been killed by pot?

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bobert
Date: 25 Jun 04 - 10:43 PM

Hear, hear...

Well said, Bert..

This toke's on you, pal...

Peace

(cough)

Bobert

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Gervase
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 07:57 AM

Surely the 'gateway' argument is old hat by now. Strolling Johnny calls on it to make his rather emotive points, but I have yet to see one serious piece of research that backs it up.
The addictive personality argument is trickier. I suspect that I may have one such, being addicted to nicotine and caffeine. Certainly I also like to experiment with psychoactive substances (for which Huxley can probably take more blame than my dope dealer).
Perhaps I should declare my hand here - I've smoked cannabis for more than 20 years - preferring to grow my own rather than subsidise criminals - but have also used many other drugs over that period.
For some time I used rather more cocaine than was good for me - up to two grammes a week in the early 90s (I was introduced to it by a friend who was vehemently anti-smoking and who had never even tried cannabis). The high was certainly enjoyable (and, Strolling Johnny, it is a stimulant very much like caffeine) and under the influence I was able to work and play longer and harder. The downside was, of course, that the 'downtime' became less pleasant - irritability, paranoia and depression are a high price to pay for a short-lived high - so I stopped snorting and haven't had a line for the best part of five years. I still sometimes get offered the odd line, but it simply doesn't appeal.
Crack cocaine I tried two or three times and, oh boy, I can see its appeal. The high is instant and very strong, giving a feeling of invincibility to the smoker. The downside is very similar to that of ordinary cocaine, however, and comes quicker, leaving the user feeling completely wrung out.
I've smoked but never injected heroin. That was the most worrying drug, because it seemed to produce some of the worst things attributed to cannabis, including demotivation, a loss of 'self identity' and a psychological craving, while wrapping one up in a warm feeling of contentment.
My experiences with LSD (which, of all the proscribed drugs, is the one that most researchers agree is non-addictive) were all remarkably positive, with the acid opening the doors of perception in Huxley's phrase. The downside there was that the apparent perception and lucidity were so transient, with the 'man from Porlock' getting his foot in the door before the effects had fully worn off.
All of the above drugs, however, came from different sources. Most dealers at street level in the UK seem to specialise in one drug - you get your grass from one, charlie from another and smack from a third. At no time when I was buying grass and hash was I ever offered a Class A drug, so the keepers of the gateway were certainly missing a trick there!
All of the above, however, is a personal and subjective view. I know of people who have found that cannabis precipitates psychological problems, just as there are others who can't take alcohol or caffeine.
If I have any regrets at all about my own experimentation it is that it has put absurd amounts of money into the hands of criminals and thus I've connived in the exploitation of others. As a result, my own view is that we should not only legalise cannabis but all other proscribed drugs as well. Like some others, I prefer to reserve my intolerance for organised religion!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 08:19 AM

Gervase, a question - which of those illegal substances was the first one you used?

The 'gateway'argument is only old hat to those who wish to continue their consumption without the risk of prosecution and therefore shout loudly for its legalisation. There are a great many people who would disagree with you, and whose voices aren't heard because, as it's already illegal, they don't need to shout about it.

You may feel you've got away with your (apparently extreme) substance-abuse scot-free. I'd be interested to hear the views of your family, friends, employers about that. Assuming you still have them.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: PoppaGator
Date: 18 Aug 04 - 01:54 PM

If ever there was a "gateway drug," it's tobacco.

Most of the "aging hippies" I know who still indulge in cannabis, occasionally or regularly, do *not* smoke cigarettes. Not "some," not "many," but nearly every one. Some never used tobacco, the others once did but have since quit. The population upon which I am reporting from personal experience is, by and large, gainfully employed, homeowning, and composed of "family people" -- parents and, in some cases, grandparents. Oh yeah -- they/we don't use other "harder" drugs, either. (Almost all will take a drink or two.)

A caveat: There are a few individuals in the same social circles who abuse prescription "downers" -- almost exclusively women, for whatever reason -- but these folks generally do not smoke (or otherwise ingest) pot. Also in general, they are able to carry on ostensibly normal lives, and do not allow their habit to overwhelm them.

In contrast, consider anyone you know who has a serious, habitual "drug problem." He/she can't last an hour without lighting up a cigarette -- right? Whether this is a manifestation of the so-called "addicitive personality" or not is moot; suffice it to say that some of those who cannot resist the siren song of the tobacco corporations exhibit a similar weakness for the addictive temptations offered by those other drug dealers who lack the protection of the law. And, conversely, almost *everyone* who has fallen prey to true narcotics additiction had long since become dependent upon tobacco.

Also, apropos of I-don't-know-what: If you ever want to witness a hotbed of chain-smoking, visit a psychiatric ward. The mentally ill are among the most desperately tobacco-addicted people anywhere in western society. I'm not sure exactly what this means, but I think it's worth consideration.

I have many more thoughts on the subject, but at this point in the discussion, I'd only be repeating what's already been said, quite articulately, by others.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Gervase
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 10:32 AM

SJ, the first illegal 'gateway' drug I tried was probably alcohol under-age, followed by cannabis at aged 16. It was the cannabis that eventually got me hooked on nicotine, because I found eating the stuff was too random in its effects. The next illegal substance was acid in my twenties, followed about a decade later by cocaine, crack and heroin.
As for family, friends and employers, I've still got 'em - and all of them apparently happy with me. Apart from employer, that is. I jacked in a £60k salary to start my own business and have now retrained as a blacksmith - and never been happier.
Of course there have been drawbacks to my substance abuse. I could have spent the money I spent on cocaine on alleviating third world poverty or subsidising the performing arts, or (like many of my contemporaries) on booze and fast cars.
Sorry to rain on your parade, but that's my own - admittedly subjective - experience.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: SINSULL
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 10:50 AM

There was a time when I easily said that pot should remain illegal. Now I think that if pot is to be illegal so must cigarettes and alcohol and for that matter McDonald's hamburgers. All are harmful to that section of the population that can't control their use of them.

I don't use pot and have no vested interest in having it made legal.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Strollin' Johnny
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 12:32 PM

Well Gervase, if your story is indeed true (and I've no reason to believe otherwise) then you have indeed been a fortunate fellow. However, very many others aren't so fortunate, and you do impressionable young people no favours at all by revelling in and glorifying your personal stupidity.

As I said, at great length, in my much earlier posts, I have considerable subjective experience too, as a parent of a heroin-addict and also as a youth-worker. You're not raining on my parade - I'm well used to being shouted at and down by drug-abusers at all levels, and it's water off a duck's back. What I do care about though are impressionable young people whose lives are wrecked by drugs, and you should be ashamed of yourself for boasting about your abuses.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 07:21 PM

I don't use any drug whatsoever (unless you count drinking tea), and I am in favour of legalizing pot possession...but not legalizing the mass marketing of pot by any company or organization...just allow private individuals to grow and use their own, but not to sell it for profit. It is the search for profit that drives drug trade. If something is generally available and really easy for anyone to grow and prepare for use, then you can't effectively build a drug trade with it or make a profit with it.

I have always personally regarded it as stupid (very stupid) to smoke pot or any other substance whatsoever. If I were going to make something illegal, it would be tobacco...but it wouldn't work to do so. There would be a huge illegal drug trade in tobacco, and people would buy it and smoke it with far more determination than they presently do with pot, and the criminals pushing it would use it as the gateway to harder drugs...which is what they often do with pot now.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 22 Aug 04 - 10:02 PM

Absolutely!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Gervase
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 05:30 AM

SJ, it's not a question of boasting. Undoubtedly I have put my health at risk in using drugs of all kinds. I mention my drug use merely to point out that 'drug abuse' is a huge subject that impacts on a large number of people, and is not always the horror story related by the red-top tabloids.
As for revelling or glorifying in personal stupidity, I've seen people put their lives in far greater jeopardy with booze - even at folk festivals!

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: HRH ted of hull
Date: 23 Aug 04 - 05:32 AM

294

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,dianavan
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 05:40 PM

I think pot should be in the same category as alcohol and cigarettes. Use by minors would then be restricted in the same way. That way, the money used to enforce the present anti-pot laws, could go into busting crack houses and heroine pushers. Why spend so much money on trying to eradicate a weed? If it were legalized, there would be no need for anyone to push it.

Maybe its too hard to catch the real criminals or bust the crack houses. Busting pot farmers is easy (its done from the sky,) there's very little risk to the officers involved and it looks good in the media - "we're winning the war on drugs"! Meanwhile, the real criminals continue business as usual.

d

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 06:10 PM

I thought a real criminal is someone who breaks the law..not just someone appointed so because of their particular activity.
It is acknowledged that Alcohol and Cigarettes damage health and wellbeing, why add to it?
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: McGrath of Harlow
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 06:36 PM

It is acknowledged that Alcohol and Cigarettes damage health and wellbeing, why add to it.

You mean why make things worse by making Alcohol and Cigarettes illegal? I agree. It wouldn't significantly reduce the damage they do, and at the same time prohibition would have terrible secondary effects on society,

And by the same token, decriminalising cannabis use would be unlikely to increase significantly whatever harm it does, and would reduce the harmful secondary effects of prohibition.

I'd favour "decrinminalising" rather than legalising, so that possession for personal use, growing your own, and supplying on a small scale would be free from criminal sanction, but attempts to make a tobacco style cannabis industry would be severely punished. Perhaps some kind of licensing scheme for suppliers might be the way to work that one out, with no licences for the big guys and the big companies. Or for anyone with any record selling heroin and so forth.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Little Hawk
Date: 12 Sep 04 - 10:55 PM

That's a matter of opinion, Georgian. I do not define "real criminal" as "a person who breaks the law". No sir. Lots of real criminals don't break the law, technically speaking. I define "a lawbreaker" as someone who breaks the law...and I do not necessarily define a lawbreaker as a criminal.

A lawbreaker, under some circumstances, is a hero and a benefactor to humanity. Gandhi openly broke the colonial laws numerous times as a protest against the British Empire in India and in South Africa. He was no criminal.

Jesus was seen by many to have broken Jewish law. He was no criminal.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Teresa
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 12:01 AM

There are a number of "right-wing" groups who are actually Libertarians, or have individual-rights leanings, and I think these folk, being less authoritarian-minded than others, are seeing the wisdom of keeping the issue out of the legislative/criminal arena.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Paco Rabanne
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 04:10 AM

300. I thank you.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Georgiansilver
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 04:33 AM

Point taken LH and agreed with, my statement was sweeping and inaccurate. However, whosoever commits a crime ..if convicted..is a criminal. Breaking a speed limit does not commit a crime but does break the law so I accept your statement on that.
The point I was perhaps trying to make was that it is a crime to possess drugs, to distribute them etc. In the eyes of the law, whoever does whatever illegally with drugs commits a crime.
This is slowly becoming watered down in everyday life as are many other laws of the land.
Best wishes.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST
Date: 13 Sep 04 - 09:41 AM

Suhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: dick greenhaus
Date: 14 Sep 04 - 12:30 AM

I neither use nor like the stuff, myself but....
One definition of insanity is to continue a demonstrably failed response
to a current situation. THe US is a country with roughly one percent of its total population in prison (a considerably higher percentage of the adult males who seem to be the ones most frequently imprisoned.) Maybe we should try something different.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,chester
Date: 11 Nov 14 - 08:53 AM

The Obama Administration, together with Federal partners and State and local officials, is working to reduce the use of marijuana and other illicit drugs through development of strategies that more fully integrate the principles of prevention, treatment, and recovery.

THC acts upon specific sites in the brain called cannabinoid receptors, triggering a series of cellular reactions that ultimately lead to the "high" users experience when they smoke the drug. Marijuana intoxication can cause distorted perceptions, impaired coordination, difficulty in thinking and problem solving, and problems with learning and memory. Studies have shown an association between chronic marijuana use and increased rates of anxiety, depression, suicidal thoughts, and schizophrenia. Other research has shown marijuana smoke to contain carcinogens and to be an irritant to the lungs. In fact, marijuana smoke contains 50‐70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than does tobacco smoke.

"Smoking marijuana is not something I encourage, and I've told my daughters I think it's a bad idea, a waste of time, not very healthy"

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 11 Nov 14 - 08:05 PM

It's nice to quote your source.

http://www.mentalhealth.va.gov/coe/cih-visn2/Documents/Provider_Education_Handouts/Marijuana_Information_Sheet_for_BHPs_Version_3.pdf

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,chester
Date: 12 Nov 14 - 07:36 AM

A Threat to the Environment

Outdoor marijuana cultivation sites are becoming increasingly common. These "grows" often result in the destruction of natural habitat from diesel spills, pesticide runoff, and trash from cultivators.24 National parks and other public lands in the United States are used for cannabis cultivation operations, primarily by Mexican criminal groups. Data from the Department of Agriculture Forest Service and the Department of the Interior indicate that more than 4 million marijuana plants were eradicated from U.S. public lands in 2008 alone.

"The Administration steadfastly opposes legalization of marijuana and other drugs because legalization would increase the availability and use of illicit drugs, and pose significant health and safety risks to all Americans, particularly young people."
Whitehouse.gov

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: gnu
Date: 12 Nov 14 - 06:18 PM

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciQ4ErmhO7g

And MANY more. Put that in your pipe and smoke it. Well... no... smoking it is bad for you.

Do some research if you haven't made up your mind(s).

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: mayomick
Date: 13 Nov 14 - 01:23 PM

Chester ,
A 199 study by the Institute of Medicine, run by the United States National Academy of Science , concluded that that nausea, appetite loss, pain and anxiety can all be mitigated by cannabis.It can save the lives of patients going through chemotherapy - some of them find they can't hold down anything they eat without cannabis .

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,chester
Date: 01 Dec 14 - 08:19 AM

True there are medical use for pot but does that mean it is acceptable for recreational use? Why are you mixing the two uses? Should we legallize narcotic pain killers for recreational use?
I dont think so

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ed T
Date: 01 Dec 14 - 09:37 AM

""Legalizing pot could stimulate business"

Munchie-Treats Inc.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,#
Date: 01 Dec 14 - 10:52 AM

I would suggest that those people opposed to smoking grass don't.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: olddude
Date: 01 Dec 14 - 01:55 PM

Correct just pass it over to me.
I got no worries I got no cares
if got no trouble mind
The blues don't mean a thing to me
I stay stoned out.. All the time

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Bill D
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 10:14 AM

you can argue any side using Google

"While chemically very similar, there are fundamental differences in the pharmacological properties between cannabis and tobacco smoke. Cannabis smoke contains cannabinoids whereas tobacco smoke contains nicotine. Available scientific data, that examines the carcinogenic properties of inhaling smoke and its biological consequences, suggests reasons why tobacco smoke, but not cannabis smoke, may result in lung cancer."

"While cannabis smoke has been implicated in respiratory dysfunction, including the conversion of respiratory cells to what appears to be a pre-cancerous state [5], it has not been causally linked with tobacco related cancers [6] such as lung, colon or rectal cancers. Recently, Hashibe et al [7] carried out an epidemiological analysis of marijuana smoking and cancer. A connection between marijuana smoking and lung or colorectal cancer was not observed. These conclusions are reinforced by the recent work of Tashkin and coworkers [8] who were unable to demonstrate a cannabis smoke and lung cancer link, despite clearly demonstrating cannabis smoke-induced cellular damage."


There are other links... Google marijuana + carcinogens

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: Ed T
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 10:45 AM

While the source of this article is pro-pot, and few research sources are provided, the positive side of vaporization seems reasonable.


vaporization 

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 04:25 PM

I ain't into smokin' Marijuana myself, but I think it oughta be legal for private use and private cultivation.

So here is my simple solution:

1. make pot legal
2. make Bobertz illegal!

All the cops who are presently runnin' around and wastin' their energy over pot would be freed up to deal with Bobertz! :) This is a war that can be won! The war against drugs can't be won, but the war against Bobertz can definitely be won if all the cops in the USA are intent on dealin' with him, so it should be fought. When it is won, everyone can celebrate on a job well done.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: olddude
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 04:43 PM

Bobster is alive unlike you stinking chimp

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: GUEST,Chongo Chimp
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 04:57 PM

You are walkin' way out on a shaky limb, buster. Better be careful it don't break.

Subject: RE: BS: Legalize Pot?
From: gnu
Date: 02 Dec 14 - 05:56 PM

In the end, from what I have read so far, vape or eat eh. I don't do Mary Jane but I don't shit on those that do.

What the fuck is it to do with youse anyway? Ya wanna get all pissy? Get pissy about booze and tobacco. Then you might have some credibility.

I am gonna have a couple of Buds and watch some late night talk shows now and not bother to tell other people what to do except put up or shut up... it doesn't concern me in the slightest unless it's a problem like booze and smokes. That's some bad shit, man. Unfortunately, I can't do anything about them and, apparently, NObody else can either. Ya can't tell others what to do unless yer holier than thou and ya got the $$$ ta do it eh? Who makes more coin than the booze and smokes companies?

You get rid of booze and smokes and THEN we'll talk about weed. The sooner, the better.

BTW... my eye doc and my GP said weed would help me but they can't give me a "prescription" because our system is messed up. Soooo, I suffer and I wonder.