Legalize marijuana already!

Great Debates
1

Marijuana is less harmful than alcohol and nictotine. Unlike alcohol, nicotine, and caffeine, it is nonaddictive.

It was made illegal in the 1930s due to a hysterical scare campaign that was openly racist. Being associated with African-Americans and Latinos, it was denounced as unfit for white Anglo people who were duty-bound to maintain their racial purity and superiority by shunning the ways of nonwhites.

The reasons given for outlawing it were openly, blatantly racist. If anyone started such a campaign nowadays, it would be instantly discredited. So how could anyone justify keeping it illegal?

Who benefits from its illegality? Only organized crime and the law enforcement establishment. What benefit does its outlawing bring the citizens? The main effect on the citizens I can see is a waste of tax dollars, pointless entanglement in South American guerrilla warfare (in which an American missionary was shot and her baby killed), and the serious potential for erosion of civil liberties including the Fourth Amendement.

Europeans have their heads on straight about it, by treating drug habits as a social problem to be treated gently and compassionately, not a criminal problem to be stamped out with brutal force and idiotic zero-tolerance enforcement. When the District of Columbia voted to allow medicinal marijuana, right-wingers in Congress refused to allow the election results to be certified. So much for “states’ rights” versus the Feds, you miserable hypocrites!

FTR, I do not use marijuana or any other mind-altering substance (except caffeine, and that not very much). I have observed its effects on people I know, and honestly, compared with legal drugs, it just ain’t all that detrimental. I have no intention of using marijuana myself for any reason, even if it were legalized. As a student of herbal medicine, I found that marijuana has an ancient, honorable history of use in helping people in many civilizations. Modern research has shown its effectiveness in treating some conditions. With its lack of inherent harmfulness, the harm caused by outlawing it, the racism at the source of its outlawing, and its potential benefit, I can only conclude that marijuana isn’t criminal, its outlawing is what’s criminal.

2

2nd.
Peace,
mangeorge

3

Marijuana is illegal, while alcohol and tobacco are legal, for one reason, as far as I can see: There’s no money to be made off of it. It is difficult and expensive to manufacture liquor or grow tobacco properly, but marijuana is a weed, and can be grown almost anywhere. There is, therefore, no way to allow its production in such a way that it can be taxed, in order to pay for enforcing the laws that would have to passed about it. So there’s very little impetus to change the existing law.

4

3rd it. It could provide a healthier substitute to alcohol and cigarettes. And it doesn’t seem to have had a bad effect on the lives of any of my friends who are regular users.

I’d just like to add a few caveats.

No smoking up and driving.
No smoking up in enclosed public spaces.

5

Given and given.

6

How is smoking Marijuana any “healthier” than smoking a cigarette?

I can kind of understand it being safer than alcohol, for the mere reason that people don’t generally get violent after smoking a joint… but ever since this happened, I feel like I should start questioning that statement.

I say we can get by alright without it, so… why bother?

LilShieste

7

So, with everything else that going on there, we assume it was the mj that caused the death? I’d also question the source.
Marijuana doesn’t prevent violence.
And most people don’t smoke nearly as many joints as they do cigs.
Peace,
mangeorge

8

Can I suggest the “search” function?

Not that the board police (clique?) is going to come and arrest you, but this has been done.

…and done.

…and done.

9

And yet somehow, despite the obviousness of the argument and the fact that opponents can’t muster any legitimate arguments for it’s continued illegality, marijuana is still illegal.

10

I still have yet to hear any good reasons behind “what makes marijuana healthier than cigarettes?”. I don’t think that “it is because people don’t tend to chain smoke joints” is a good argument, because the number of cigarettes smoked sometimes doesn’t even really matter. You have some people who have smoked all their lives, into their 60s, and don’t have a sign of lung cancer. But then you have some people who develop lung cancer within a matter of years from when they started smoking. We don’t know exactly what causes these cases of lung cancer, but we do know that marijuana contains more carcinogenic materials than tobacco. Cite

The only “decent” arguments I have heard about the legalization of marijuana are the medical uses, and as far as I can tell (correct me if I am wrong) we have other pharmaceutical drugs that can accomplish the same ends as those desired by marijuana (e.g. pain relief, etc). Besides, a LOT of people just use the medical argument as a smokescreen anyway. I am not saying that marijuana doesn’t have the medical uses that people claim, I am just saying that a lot of the people who argue that, could really give a damn about it’s medicinal uses.

If my arguments are going to be considered “illegitimate”, I would like to actually see them proved to be “illegitimate”. If all of my arguments turn out to be baseless, then I would happily retract my opposition for this drug.

LilShieste

11

Over the counter cigarettes contain additives, smoking through a bong is easier on the lungs than smoking through a fiberglass filter, pot brownies don’t affect your lungs at all, pot is not addictive. I’m not saying pot is good for you, but it ain’t as bad as tobbacco.

I smoked pot for a long time, I started smoking cigarettes in college (dumb), I no longer smoke pot but am addicted to cigarettes and I can feel the difference in my lungs between smoking pot for years and smoking cigarettes for years.

12

Marijuana dilates instead of constricts the arteries like tobacco does; thus greatly reducing a chance of a clogged artery and receiving a stroke or heart attack. I’ve personally never heard of a case of marijuana causing an artery to burst, that would lead to another type of stroke.

but we do know that marijuana contains more carcinogenic materials than tobacco.

This is one study among many and is far from conclusive. I have studies which contradict everything that this cite states about tumors, and in fact researchers have shown at a medical college in Virginia that it reduced many malignant and benign tumors. We need replicate studies done by competent professionals in their field that continually show the same thing before conclusions can be drawn. There are many carcinogens in just about everything. In the water we drink, in the food we eat, in the air we breath. What happens when you run the marijuana through a water pipe or a vaporizer? There is a study that is yet to be completed, that should finally give us the answers we are looking for. If it does in fact, reduce or even eliminate the carcinogens; then what?

The only “decent” arguments I have heard about the legalization of marijuana are the medical uses, and as far as I can tell (correct me if I am wrong) we have other pharmaceutical drugs that can accomplish the same ends as those desired by marijuana (e.g. pain relief, etc).

“60 Minutes” did a show on this many years back with cancer chemotherapy sufferers. Unfortunately, some of those drugs don’t do as well as many of the pharmaceutical manufacturers would lead you to believe. Also the costs for “Marinol” (I think that was one brand name) was $600.00 if I remember right, which is a bit steep, when you can get better results from marijuana for one-thirtieth the cost. One young man’s father went on the street and purchased some marijuana after his kid had pretty well became a walking skeleton. After his kid smoked it, he was finally able to hold down a meal. Not only that, he gained all of his weight back.

John

13

John Zahn

I have heard hundreds of anecdotal stories like these. Some people who could not eat for weeks pulled out of their coffins by a joint. There is no doubt that for recovering chemo. patients it works. Ask any doctor off the record.

14

I believe this to be a red herring. The only thing in this article about weed is that they went to smoke it. It by no means suggests that it was the pot that made them kill the kid.

As to whether or not weed is better for you that cigarettes, that is entirely beside the point of the argument. It is my belief that the government is here for national defense, and that is it. It has no rights to tell me what I can and can not do to myself. As long as what I do doesn’t interfere in anyone else’s life, who can give me a good argument as to why I can not do it? Certainly not the government.

Bottom line, it’s never gonna happen anyway, so what’s the point of debating the merits of it’s legalization?

15

Quote from the OP:**

**

I think this may be the best point of all. Clearly states have police powers within their borders. Reserve powers and all that. Can’t have it both ways.

16

Reserved Powers as found in the Tenth Amendment

Very important limitation on government or dead letter?

17

Well, that’s just silly. First of all, it is not inherently difficult or expensive to manufacture liquor or grow tobacco. You could do both, literally, in your backyard. Tobacco itself is a weed.

In any event, there are lots and lots of agricultural products that are ridiculously easy and cheap to self-produce, but are still commercial products that are part of commerce and appropriately taxed. Take lettuce for example - real easy to grow.

The fact of the matter is, people pay money for things they can make for themselves for two reasons - quality control and convenience. I could brew my own beer and never spend another penny on Sam Adams, and save myself a buttload of money in the process, but sometimes a batch of beer I made was skanky, and even when it tasted fine, I just couldn’t be bothered to take the relatively short time it took to get the ingredients together or wait until fermentation is complete. So I turn over my hard-earned money to the Samuel Adams Company - their beer always tastes pretty good, and it’s ready right now.

Same with marijuana. Joe Pothead could grow his own, but he can’t be bothered to make sure he has the right fertilizer, the right lighting, and the right seeds to grow some killer Maui Wowie. And he wants to get stoned now, not 6 weeks from now. So he’ll pay a professional pot farmer to do it. And Mr. Pot Farmer will make a choice - pay taxes and legally sell his product at a reduced profit, or not pay taxes, make some more money, and risk going to jail.

Some pot farmers will choose the latter. No shock; even today there are moonshiners and cigarette smugglers. But, as with alcohol and tobacco, the overwhelming majority will decide that paying taxes is worthwhile to avoid the risk of jail.

Sua

18

Have there been any reputable polls lately on de-criminalization? My sense is that the tide of public opinion is shifting (slowly). Wonder what the numbers say these days?

19

This is a meta-marijuana question. Since it is illegal now, should those of us who feel it should be legal be compelled to say why it should be legal, or woul dit be enough to say why it shouldn’t be illegal?

And do other legal drugs set a precident, or just a basis for comparison?

Sorry, but I’ve never been sure how one should best approach this whole topic. when someone says, “There’s no good reason for it to be legal” I have to stop a moment and wonder: “Yeah, but what is the good reason for making it illegal?” These seem like the same question, but it is a matter like “You’re making the claim, it is your job to support it, etc”.

thanks…

20

erislover, it should be legalized because it was wrong to have outlawed it in the first place—the scare campaign to outlaw it was a fraud perpetrated upon the public. Just because a fraud has lasted for 70 years doesn’t mean it’s too late to redress it RIGHT NOW.