Oh.
Well, then, sit back and wait for those on the other side to make their case. In the meantime, the extant laws will vanish instantly.
Good grief.
Petitio principii. This assumes the truth of what you’re setting out to prove. Presumably, those on the other side don’t agree it’s “needless” to imprison marijuana dealers.
Laws always exist to control other people. It’s up to you to show WHY this particular control should not be exterted on people. Merely inveighing against the control of people as a general principle doesn’t address the issue.
By this reasoning, someone who successfully picks your pocket has, by that precedent, established his right to take possession of your house.
I presume you’re referring to the Tenth Amendment, which (more precisely) limits the federal governemnt vis-a-vis state governments and individuals. Current legal doctrines, built upon a set of definitions that make Bill Clinton look like Noah Webster, pretty much ignore this requirement through the magic of bafflegab (e.g. defining “interstate commerce” as including non-commercial intrastate acts, defining “public use” as use by private entitites, et cetera).
Er… no.
That would be an example of the slippery slope fallacy.
I’m not telling you to develop your own cites. I’m merely asking you to review the ones that myself and others have posted countless times in past debates on this very forum.
To be perfectly honest, I don’t really have the inclination to rehash things I’ve said a million times here and that are easily searchable, but it does appear that many of those old debates have been lost. Also, you do seem to be genuinely curious about the issue, and I’ve always enjoyed reading your posts and have been continually impressed by the staggering amount of legal knowledge you bring to the SDMB, so I guess I can spend a bit of time digging up cites and presenting what I hope will be a sufficient summary of the available data.
Here is a Cecil Adams column on the long term health effects of marijuana, in which, among other things, Cecil notes that:
That column could stand to be updated with information from this recent study, which found that:
You may also be interested in this page of health-related marijuana myths. Granted, this information does come from NORML, but it is actually an even-handed and extensively-cited page on the subject.
Really, there is so much information about the health effects of marijuana out there that it’s very difficult to provide anything close to a comprehensive summary.
Here is a review of the first federal anti-marijuana law, which was rooted in racism and inspired by public hysteria over supposed effects of marijuana that we now know to be laughably false. The American Medical Association unsuccessfully stood in opposition to this law. Here is more information on The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937. This information comes from The Schaffer Library of Drug Policy, which contains more information on the subject of drug policy than you could ever possibly want to know.
And here are William F. Buckley’s thoughts on the matter of legalization/decriminalization.
As far as marijuana’s effect on driving goes, see the cites from the GQ thread I linked to earlier in this thread.
So basically, no, marijuana is not completely harmless, but it’s a far cry from the threat propagandists make it out to be. Enforcement of marijuana laws costs tens of billions of dollars when the government could instead be making billions from taxing the drug. In places like Holland where marijuana is decriminalized and sold openly, society has not exactly ground to a halt.
Like I said, this is a pretty broad subject that is not easy to summarize, so if you have any questions, feel free to ask away.
Thank you very much – I do appreciate it.
As I suggested above, I’m not really moved by the “Well, it’s not as harmful as alcohol and tobacco.” There are practical problems involved with criminalizing either substance. But there are no such problems criminalizing marijuana - it’s already been done. The question is: does THAT move make sense, on its own? I’ll stipulate that using the same standard, booze and cigarettes should also be illegal. But they are not. This means absolutely nothing in a debate about marijuana, though.
That study was presented to the “International Cannabinoid Research Society,” which, according to their home page, is "…a scientific association with over 200 members who are active researchers in the field of cannabis and the cannabinoids. "
It does not sound to me like a neutral, peer-reviewed study.
OK. In the absence of someone arguing the other side, let’s say I accept the NORML “Myths” page. It’s consistent with Cecil’s take: marijuana is not as dangerous as some make it out to be, but it has some dangers and ill-effects.
That’s still not really a strong argument for legalization – presumably the “keep it illegal” folks could respond by saying even those lesser health and safety hazards are sufficient to keep it illegal.
Billions of dollars of completely uneccessary expenditures and the arrests of people who aren’t hurting anyone don’t constitue practical problems? I must respectfully disagree on that point.
Well, the fact remains that millions use it despite the law, so really, the damage is already done. Prohibition only compounds that damage and funnels money into the coffers of criminal organizations that could instead be used to create more legal jobs and generate more tax revenues.
Dutch rates of legal marijuana usage are comparable to our own rates of illegal usage, so it’s hard to argue that legalization will turn the U.S. into a nation of potheads.
So really, what’s the point of criminalization? I honestly can’t see it.
That’s not who conducted the study; it’s the group to which the findings of the study were presented. Read further:
Bricker: I am also a long-time fan of yours here on this board and I agree that whether or not marijuana is as harmful as alcohol or tobacco alone should decide if legalization is the right thing to do, but it should be a factor in deciding.
The big question is “WOULD MAKING POT LEGAL CAUSE MORE PROBLEMS THAN IT SOLVES?” Not an easy question but there is a lot of issues to consider which are not too subjective…
Billions spent on mj prohibition/Tax revenues to be reaped.
Limited availability = less pot heads about.
Possible medical benefits.
Sends the wrong message to kids…. Just to name a few.
I am surprised to see you sitting on the fence with this after all of your posts about the government poking about your life without just cause. The fact is the reasons pot became illegal are at the very least somewhat misleading or at most downright plain fucking bullshit! This should also be considered when one is looking for the right answer. (If I am mistaken and you do think the government should poke about your life without just cause, please ignore the previous line).
Again with the petitio principii? The other side presumably claims the expenditures ARE necessary, and the people ARE hurting others. That’s the status quo. Show that they’re not. Don’t assert that they’re not as proof that they’re not.
Millions of murders happen, so the damage is already done. Let’s legalize murder and tax it.
An absurd argument, of course. Murder harms people. But then, so does marijuana, according to the people that want it kept illegal.
Strawman. No one’s arguing it will turn the US into a nation of potheads.
Well, I would have hoped that someone who was ardently in favor of criminalization would make himself known in this thread, so we could get a better answer to this question. I assume it’s because pot is alleged to be more harmful than benign.
The point of “peer review” is that the group to whom the study is presented is critical.
Your second and fourth points seem pretty subjective to me. Having fewer pot smokers around isn’t objectively any better or worse than having fewer NyQuil users around. As for sending the wrong message to kids… there’s hardly a consensus on the issue of whether sending messages to kids should even be a factor in passing laws, let alone whether legalizing pot would send the “right” or “wrong” message.
Sorry, it was not easy for me to come up with “anti” positions. I was hoping they were not “too subjective”.
I would think one should prove that it hurts people/society to make the claim that it does. It is kind of hard to prove that it does not hurt anyone.
“It’s legal” “go do it?”
Shouldn’t the burden of proof be on the side of the debate making the extraordinary claim? We’re spending billions of dollars on enforcing anti-pot laws. For such a staggering outlay of money, there must be no end of reports and studies linking marijuana to all manner of violent crimes and destructive behavior, no?
So, where are they?
It’s a hyperbolic restatement of Sage Rat’s argument:
While neutron star was overstating the opposing case, the evidence from countries that have decriminalized it seems to indicate that there will be no significant increase in the number of users if the US followed suit.
It’s also worth noting two errors Sage Rat made in his post: the first, in conflation of the use of marijuana with the use of marijuana while driving, which are seperate issues, and more importantly, the assumption that use of marijuana impairs driving ability. There is, to my knowledge, no scientific evidence that this is the case.
Well, what ways could they be hurting others? I’ve already addressed the DWI argument, and even the most ardent prohibitionists don’t put forth the argument that marijuana makes people violent - quite the opposite, even.
So how can I show that marijuana users aren’t hurting others when nobody can provide examples of how they could be doing so? I can’t refute what isn’t there.
But unlike murder, nobody seems to be able to show how marijuana harms anyone other than the user.
That was a bit of hyperbole. Obviously, it will never be as commonly used as alcohol, but a few people in this very thread have voiced concerns of legalization leading to increased usage.
And the group to whom it was presented was a collection of scientists and doctors who specialize in marijuana research, many of whom are funded by the U.S. government. Granted, their web page looks like shit, but there’s nothing about them that indicates any sort of pro-pot agenda, and the author of the study has conducted several studies critical of marijuana in the past.
Nonsense. The real world doesn’t work like that. Why should we consider the issue of marijuana as if it were in a vacuum?
I know, and I admitted that. However, I am always somewhat hesitant when people take common stereotypes (which often, whether we like it or not, do have some basis in reality) and state the opposite (well, everyone I know who smokes pot is a 1600 SAT scoring rocket scientist).
It’s fine to admit that the group of people you know may not be indicative of the general group of users. But it is hard to rely on the secret army of ambitious pot smokers who you can’t see, over the fairly large number of jobless pot smokers you have seen. It’s human nature, I guess.
The cause and effect argument might be better; for all I know, naturally shiftless people are attracted to pot, rather than pot causing shiftlessness.
Beats me.
But the burden rests on the person advocating change. If you assert you have no burden of persuasion here, then remain quiet. The existing laws will not evaporate as a result.
Hendrik Robbe and James O’Hanlon, “Marijuana and Actual Driving Performance,” NHTSA Report #DOT-HS-808-078 (1994), concluded, among other things, that driving ability under marijuana:
- dangers are less than those of drunken driving
- produces a moderate, dose-related decrement in road tracking ability
- dangerous in emergency situations that put high demands on driving skills
Sure the world works like that. In considering the constitutionality of a law, you cannot haul in the existence of another law and claim ITS rationality is a basis for overturning or upholding the first law.
Perhaps my knowledge of the law is off here, but don’t you legal types use precedents involving similar situations all the time? Isn’t that one of the core foundations of the legal system?
For example, look at Lawrence vs Texas. I know you disagree with their reasoning, but it is the law of the land now and you’re the one who brought up the law and how it is argued.
They compared one situation (homosexual sodomy) with other legal issues involving sexual freedom (like Griswold versus Connecticut). One of the reasons they struck down Bowers was because it’s logic wasn’t consistent with the logic in other cases (Griswold vs Connecticut, Roe vs Wade).
Of course, what we are talking about here is purely a matter of legislative preference instead of a Constitutional issue. I don’t dispute the right of the state to outlaw cannabis. But I still think legislators should at least aim to be intellectually honest with their decisions in the same way judges are.