Legalizaion of Marijuana?

Great Debates
1

Why do you all think that Marijuana has such a bad reputation? Do you think it really harms you in ways the Government wants you to believe? Is this just another version of Prohibition? In most states in America, why is Marijuana labeled a Schedule 1 drug, while Cocaine, (that’s right COCAINE) is labeled as a Schedule 2 drug?

Taking it a step further, is the ban on Marijuana an infrigement upon my rights?
I suppose if it is, then all drugs would have to be legal, including the really nasty ones.

But why legalize Alcohol and not Marijuana? They both have similar effects, except that you can die of Alcohol posioning. I’m just curious as to what other people believe.

2

There aren’t any multi-hundred-million-dollar corporations here in the U.S. trying to get marijuana legalized, but there are such corporations fighting to keep alcohol and tobacco legal. It’s just the Golden Rule.

And it’s not that marijuana is good or bad for you–whether it is or isn’t is trivial compared to the fact that tobacco is obviously lethal. If serious consideration was given to whether or not marijuana should be made legal, that scrutiny might one day turn towards tobacco or alcohol, and Philip Morris just won’t have that.

3

The difference between Schedule 1 and Schedule 2 is mostly that Sch. 1 drugs have no recognized medical purpose. In the US, the Drug Enforcement Agency steadfastly maintains that marijuana has no medical value. This ignores a growing body of published research to the contrary.

Cocaine, on the other hand, has been recognized as a topical anaesthetic since it was first discovered.

4

This is a staple topic of GD that gets reincarnated every other month or so.

Two recent threads:

Will Marijuana Ever Be Fully Legalized In America?
So why are alcohol and tobacco legal while marijuana is illegal?

5

I think so. The government should educate people about the dangers of consuming certain substances but I don’t think they should be prohibiting them.

6

The effects of alcohol are absolutely nothing like that of marijuana. People have a tendancy to compare everything to alcohol because its the only thing they’ve tried. Thats as bad as saying valium is like vicodin. Even saying something along the lines of “mushrooms are like acid” is completely wrong. Apples and oranges, people.

Pot was made illegal largely because people wanted to keep mexicans out, and they were the ones bringing. marihuana into the states.

Through ignorance and a “save the kids” attitude, its been allowed to be illegal and will remain for quite some time. I think theres hope though.

Denver just voted small quantities to be decriminalized, which is amazing progress. Pot is already decriminalized in about 10 states.

About 770,000 people are arrested because of pot yearly. The war on drugs effects many lives.

7

Completely wrong?

8

Gyan II–

Sorry about the repost, but I’m new to the SD message board, and I can’t search the forum archives. I’m not trying to be a nuisance, but thank you for the links, they were helpful. I like it here, As a broke college student, I might try to save up that Ramen Soup money for the 15 bucks it costs for a membership.

Thank you.

9

I recently read a book that claims there is a religious reason why marijuana is illegal too. Something along the lines of, “The only thing that should give people pleasure is praying and procreative sex.” I don’t know if that’s the greatest explaination, but I think it better fits the majority of anti-hedonistic laws.

Imagine if you will, the cost of incarcerating, or otherwise dealing with 770,000 people. Imagine if the police didn’t have to waste their time with pot-heads, and instead could focus on crack fiends and cokeheads, and dealers, and whatnot.

I’m sure that has been discussed before, though.

In Canada it would be especially beneficial to legalize it. The government could tax it like they do cigarettes, they could make billions of dollars that they could put back into healthcare.

For the record, I don’t use the stuff myself, but I still don’t understand why it should be illegal.

10

I’m always ironically amused by comparisons of marijuana prohibition today with alcohol prohibition in the 1920s. During alcohol prohibition, simple possession remained completely legal in most jurisdictions. Manufacture and sale were obviously illegal, but the punishments meted out to small timers paled in comparison with what you could get for growing pot in your basement.

To advocates of legal pot, alcohol prohibition looks like legalization.

11

If pot was still purely a recreational drug, it would have been legalized by now. It no longer is. Users who have emotional dependancy on it are not recreational and let’s face it, there are far more dependant users than recreational.

Pot smokers make them poor employees. I would never rush to hire one and I know many users who can’t keep jobs.

Pot, booze, it’s all the same. Booze is of little value to society, either. There are far more dependant drinkers than recreational and they’re not exactly my favorite group, either.

Legalizing pot would create the same giant corporations that liquor has, so it’s being kept at an amateur level to keep it from having power. Can you imagine how it’s probably killing some people not to be able to tax it?

12

Cite?

According to official surveys, like the National Comorbidity Survey, 15% of alcohol drinkers are dependent and 9% of marijuana smokers.

13

Like he said Apples and Oranges. Apples and Oranges are both fruits they are both acidic, but they are not the same. Just because two drugs are entheogens doesn’t mean they are the same. I love taking acid in high intensity settings, but I prefer more subdued settings for mushrooms. In fact on mushrooms I become acutely aware of the lack of sensitivity that we deal with on a normal basis, whereas with acid, I don’t really care.

They are certainly both entheogenic, but I wouldn’t compare them. Marijuana is entheogenic as well and I wouldn’t compare it to acid, and well alcohol is not an entheogen.

I think the little known fact that Marijuana has been used as a sacrament for many many years by multiple religions across the globe has something to do with it. Our Christian ruled country doesn’t want pagan rites to be rampant. Remember a lot of this stuff was made illegal during a time where they wanted everyone to fit into a suburban 50s cookie cutter clean cut image, and they associated drug use with what they saw as socially aberrant behavior, like well, being a hippy or a beatnik.

Now to be fair, drug prohibition came during a time of extreme ignorance, and sudden access to many different substances. A lot of drugs were actually national health risks, but instead of educating people about the health risk they just made it illegal, and kept the populace ignorant to this day. In the 50s Doctors were prescribing amphetamines for any number of symptoms and it was causing serious health problems.

Education is the answer, unfortunately that’s not possible under prohibition. Why should know about something you aren’t supposed to do? Did you know it’s illegal for herbalists to tell you what the herbs they sell you do? Besides holding back knowledge of herbal medicine in this country, it also limits the sharing of information, which is not a good thing.

Addiction is a symptom not a cause, you can’t make it illegal to be addicted to something. An addict is looking for a vice to ignore something they don’t want to face, and that can come in teh form of promiscuous sex, rampant drug use, or working night and day. We need to treat the cause, not the symptom, until America realizes that, we’re going to remain a half-literate society.

Erek

14

Thanks for the cite, II Gyan II, I was going to demand one as well. Someone’s personal bias is showing.

15

More like one variety of apples versus another. Different, yes, but quite closer together compared to acid vs. pot or acid vs. speed.

16

I disagree. Acid and Pot are as equally alike as Acid and Mushrooms. In that, they are all drugs and they are all entheogens, but the aspects of consciousness that they affect are not the same ones. I unfortunately can only argue from my subjective experience having much experience ingesting all of the chemicals in question, and I have read a few things about how they affect the brain, but I don’t know enough about neuroscience to argue it on those grounds, though I think they do affect distinctly different parts of the brain.

Erek

17

Acid and mushrooms elicit very similar activity in the brain. That’s why they are grouped together.

18

What?!?!
or better what are you smokin’

I think we all know.

When pot was made illegal it was growing freely (amoung other places) on the banks of the Potomac River which runs through Washington DC.

19

Probably hemp, with very low levels of THC, not cannabis that can be smoked. Even today, hemp grows wildly in someplaces in the US. The DEA “seizes” such growth every year to boost their ‘results’.

20

See, the problem with this, is that you only know pot smokers who are lazy and cannot hold a job. I bet it’s three times as many that hold down jobs, are excellent workers, and take care of their family. But I can see your point. If you smoke a lot of pot, and cannot get, or hold a job, it’s going to be a problem for you.