You mean like driving a car, drinking alcohol, smoking cigarettes, owning a gun, owning a knife, owning a pack of matches, raising a child, or eating fatty foods? That kinda thing? Okay, just checking.
Several million drug dealers? Seems like a high number, but anyway, in my experience the vast majority of drug dealers are selling dime bags to help pay the rent. Contrary to popular belief, they’re not evil criminal overlords hell-bent on the destruction of the human race. Many of them are very nice guys. I knew one enterprsing individual who, in addition to selling dope, was one of the top insurance salesmen in the state. Relatively speaking, there aren’t that many high-level drug dealers. And I don’t see any kind of horrible criminal revolts in European countries that have decriminalized pot.
If I want to eat, drink, and get high too much, why is that the government’s business? I work full time, and my empolyer tells me I do a damn good job. I also smoke a lot of weed. So what’s the problem?
I know a bunch of people like this. move a qp out at an eighth or quarter at a time, and sell till they break even. then they keep the extra for themselves.
Because he was greedy. And he had an amazing system worked out. He was raided several times by the cops, but never arrested. He kept all his dope off-site. He’s since quit selling pot and now just sells insurance.
Because he was greedy. And he had an amazing system worked out. He was raided several times by the cops,
but never arrested. He kept all his dope off-site. He's since quit selling pot and now just sells insurance.
end quote.
Because he was greedy…ok.
However you’ve characterized dope sellers as mostly people just trying to get rent money. Yet in your next point you offer us some slimy insurance guy who was just trying to finance a new jet-ski.
I’m not going to argue the COPS is the most edifying program in the world but if you think that drugs sales improve the quality of life for most of these small time dealers I’d suggest that you sit down and watch an episode or two or better yet talk to a cop face to face.
Notice the quality of life that these drug dealers provide for those who live in their homes. Dirty clothes and trash usually cover the floor and frequently neglected children wallow among the filth. More often than not the cops pull a gun out from under the sofa inches from where the kids were playing. The dealer may have name brand shoes and every CD produced in the last 10 years but there is no food worth mentioning in the kitchen.
A halfway decent job and some responsible behavior would do much more for the lives of poor people than simply hanging out and selling drugs…frequently to people who have already made a lifetime of bad decisions that pot certainly isn’t going to correct.
Somebody with a good job who smokes an occasional joint isn’t the problem. Its the plethora of others who have enough going against them already without trying to mask their problems with a cloud of smoke, and their kids, that are the victims of drugs.
I don’t agree with this statement. I think that it is more a matter of personal preference than legality. Think about it. Let’s just pretend for a moment that, if marijuana were to become legal, it would be sold in packs much like those of cigarettes, containing twenty joints. Assume these joints are the same size as a cigarette.
Now, prior to the legalization, I smoked about the same amount of marijuana in one day that would equal the amount of marijuana found in 5 of these new legal joints. So, once the product has been legalized, that gives me some other purpose to smoke it? I should just say, “Hey, it’s legal now. Let’s smoke the hell out of it!”? I don’t think so. Like I said, I believe this matter to be strictly preference over legality.
I’d be interested to know what percentage of pot users are under 21. Presumablly even if it were legalized it would have a minimum age limit thus…black market trade…illegal unauthorized dealers…thus…back to square one.
Not to mention those who would grow to sell to those who want tax free pot.
What about people who never smoked prior to the legalization? Would they think to themselves, Well, golly, it’s legal now. Maybe I should start smoking it! ? No, I don’t think that would happen. Preference over legality.
SixString, the poverty stricken, abusive drug dealers you portray are real. They may not be the entire population of dealers, I know a lot of kids that deal too, but they do exist. Selling drugs may not improve the quality of their life. (Its my opinion that it probably doesn’t hurt it either. Lack of ability and ambition will kill you any way you get it.)However, if selling illegal pot isn’t getting them to shape up, how do you think making the stuff legal would harm the situation?
They are not the industrious type to go get a license to grow and sell what they do already and thus would still be getting busted for selling illegally.
On the abuse issue, when was the last time a high teenager shot a gas station clerk for munchies? Or a pot party destroyed a house, not left trash all over, but literally broke the walls, doors, windows and other partiers? It takes some amount of energy to be destructive, and that fury I have rarely seen on the faces of potheads.
Yeah, COPS is the most accurate portrayl of drug dealers out there :rolleyes:
Most of these wallowing-in-filth dealers are selling crack, meth, or some other nasty hard drug. Come to think of it, have you ever seen our beloved COPS called to ANY home for ANY reason that didn’t look like a tornado hit it?
You don’t see the nice guy dealers because either :
They’re not gritty enough to make it on the show. Nice, compliant offenders are boring. Resisting arrest is great entertainment.
The good dealers are either too smart to get busted, or sell in quantites so small that the police either don’t know or don’t care about them.
I’m just using that to illustrate the fact that dealers come from all walks of life. Many hold real jobs in addition to dealing. Really, all these people are doing is supplying a product for which there is a demand. Pot is less harmful than alcohol or tobacco, but I’ve never seen anybody get up-in-arms about liquor store owners. Inner city drug dealers often get caught up in violent turf wars. Why? Because drugs are so damn expensive and profitable. This is a consequence of prohibition, not the effects of the drugs themselves.
So the argument is…alcohol and tobacco are harmful and legal so why not add one more thing to the list and make it easier to get.
I can certainly see how life on the “south side” would be improved if one could open up hash bar’s next door to the local liquor store. Obviously alcohol alone cannot provide a thick enough haze to mask poverty so lets throw in some grass to help.
Sarcasm aside…and perhaps more along the lines of the original question of this thread…which was more to do with the morality of pot than the legal issues…I think the last thing we need in this country is yet another option for people to cloud their minds with.
Really though I am a big supporter of personal responsibility. If I thought that people who make stupid choices to screw up their lives didn’t end up effecting me then I wouldn’t care, but all of us pick up the check for other people’s stupid decisions.
Failing to educate one’s self, engaging in activities that can put one in the position of having to support a family prematurely, deadening one’s decision making ability with alcohol and drugs…all of these things are now subsidized by my tax dollars.
I object to my money being used to try desperately to keep people from frying their own brains by their own choice, but I remain unconvinced that ending the expendature on the user and supplier end wouldn’t mean more necessity of funds on the recovery end.
Another consideration: Suppose for a second that legalization of pot does lead to more use by people who never would have done it? (Contrary to popular conjecture lots of people don’t use it because the last thing most otherwise solid citizens want is to be involved in any kind of legal embroilo. ) Suppose it does become a gateway for even more hard drug users? Then what? We go back to the drug war with even more dopers to deal with. The consequences of being wrong about drug legalization are pretty serious. Is it worth taking the risk just so we can buy doobies at the 7-11?
I don’t buy this “pot as a gateway drug” argument. The problem isn’t pot, it’s people. It’s only a gateway drug if the person using it is predisposed to excess, or possibly self-destruction. When I started smoking pot, I was happy with it. It didn’t make me go out and try coke or heroin or whatever. The only other drug I ever experimented with is LSD, and that wasn’t very often. I’m not saying I dont understand what you’re saying. Yes, an addict may start out using pot and move on to harder drugs, and in this sense, technically, it is the “gateway”. But wouldn’t it be fairer to say that alcohol, or perhaps even cigarettes are the true gateway to addiction?
But which way do we go? Do we legalize marijuana or do we reinstate prohibition. Either one is going to cause a ruckus. But it just seems to me that a drug as relatively harmless as pot being regulated, is a better option than black market and the gang trade.
sigh Let’s think about this for a moment. Most teens claim that marijuana is currently easier for them to get than alcohol. Why? Drug dealers don’t ask for ID! If we really wanted to “preserve family values” and “save the children,” wouldn’t we institute some type of policy to make it harder for them to get pot?
The gateway drug theory has been refuted time after time in study after study. Thank you for dredging up this old jewel yet again, though. Think of it this way : If I can buy pot at 7-11, I’m never going to come into contact with the type of people that sell hard drugs. If it’s illegal and has the element of criminality to it, there’s always a chance my pot dealer will sell something harder, too. Thanks to prohibition, I’m more likely to try cocaine than I would otherwise. You don’t hear people saying alcohol leads to heroin. Why? Well, I’ve never bought alcohol from a heroin dealer. Have you?
And who exactly is picking up the check for me working full time, smoking pot in the privacy of my own home, and not hurting anyone? Now if I get arrested and thrown in jail, who has to pick up the check to the tune of $30,000 a year? That’s what I thought.
Well, we now have at least a dozen nations on this Earth that have decriminalized pot. Have any broken out in drug-fueled anarchy?
As a female veteran who has been to sea on a wespac and on land with the Seabees I definitely think that women should be in the armed services. I am not saying that every person is cut our for the military. This is why so many recruits do not make it through basic training or even the first year without being booted out either by choice or through pure stupidity. But woman and homosexuals have just as much right to be in the service as men do. It was not so long ago that this debate would have been …
Do you think women homosexuals and blacks should be allowed in the military?
Now, we recognize that not allowing African Americans in the military is not only racist but ignorant, but not so long ago that was not the case. When I was in the Navy there was never a time that I could not perform my job because of my gender. I may have had to do it differently physically I am not as strong as a man, I had to work smarter not harder is all.
As far as the debate about whether or not homosexuals should be allowed in the service it is a mute point. Hello, they are already there. What I always found interesting though, was the silent acceptance of lesbians and bisexuals in the service. We had several lesbian and bisexual women in my berthing area that everyone knew about. No one seemed to care. But I also knew a couple of guys who were in the closet and had to stay there for a reason. I think that it is because men find the idea of women being lesbian or bisexual titillating and men being homosexual or bisexual threatening to their masculinity, and women just don’t care. In general I have found that women are much more comfortable with their sexuality so those sorts of issues do not come up.
Oops. and no no moral problems at all with weed. It is in my opinion alot less harmful then alcohol. The only reason that it could be a gateway to harder drugs is that it is illicit.
Yeah dude, this crazy 1920’s-Chicago-style blackmarket for booze around here is getting quite out of hand. I was laid on heavy like, just because i wouldn’t sell Capone Beer in my grocery store. And i don’t even own a grocery store!
More likely, underage kids would get their weed the old fashioned american way, by borrowing big brother’s ID.
And as to your earlier post, all of these people living in absolute shitsqualors are not victims of drugs. They are victims of poverty, of which drug abuse (not use) is a symptom.
I never much liked smoking POT but cannot see why it is illegal while the government condones and profits from the use and misuse of tobacco and alcohol.
Legalize it and drug dealers would lose some profit although they would still black market it to avoid the inevitable high taxes the government would place on it.
I have a friend that uses Pot to treat chronic pain, he runs the risk of being busted every time he goes to purchase some.
The Canadian Government was asking that people grow Pot for them so that they would have a supply for medical testing, People sent so many samples the government doesn’t have to give license to anyone.
You won’t see someone high on Pot walking into the 7-11 and holding it up…
"Hey man…give me all your money… no… wait… ummmmmm… Doritos… give me some Doritos… "
Then when they legalize other drugs and crack is legal too, you’ll have the “Big Crack” companies and the “Crack-Pot” Conglomerates… There goes the business district. :-Þ
No, I think the argument is that it’s none of your damn business. If I conduct myself responsibly, and I’m not hurting you, why should I have to justify my actions?
In word but not in deed, it seems.
As has been mentioned on this board before, if pot is in fact a gateway drug (and I think it sometimes is), it’s mostly because it IS illegal. The people you get pot from are often the same people who introduce you to other drugs. If you got your pot at the corner store along with your beer and coffee, you might never have to meet these shadowy denizens of the night
Freedom is generally risky. I thought the idea of this country was that it was, in fact, worth the risk.