lekatt I would not encourage anyone to do any drug either, but I wouldn’t quote untruths like “marijuana is addictive, smart people pass them by, and that legalizing pot makes crime worse.” I’m sure you are a great person, it’s that you are giving an opinion as the gospel truth when actually you are probably not real experienced about this subject. no one here is saying to smoke pot. the debate is not whether pot is a dangerous drug. we’re kinda past that, the debate is that since pot is less harmful than tobacco, alcohol and most legal prescription drugs, why are we still spending billions each year to arrest and imprison our own citizens?
AND since as a society we are seeing that the present war on marijuana is not only ineffective, with more people smoking a more readily available weed than when the war started30 years ago, how is the best way to legalize and regulate the sale and use of pot?
anne neville, that is a comprehensive & intelligent answer if I’ve ever read one.
I thought sex was already illegal.
Anyway, I think that 95% of the people who are going to be addicted to, say, heroin are already fucking addicted to heroin. Legalizing heroin will not generate some huge surge in heroin use.
Marijuana use, on the other hand, could be expected to increase, if only by the number of people who are between contacts at any given time (Economists call this “frictional sobriety”). I am not at all sure that this would be a bad thing.
I think I want all drugs to be legal and regulated. I would partake in perhaps a miniscule percentage of them, because I’m not dumb.
Just because a drug is addictive doesn’t mean it’s harmful. Caffeine is addictive. But researchers have been looking for years for harm that it causes, and it doesn’t seem to cause any problems for most people (other than headaches if they miss their fix, but that’s easy enough for most people to avoid).
Incidentally, I think marijuana should be legalized, but I’ve never used it, and in fact I’m allergic to marijuana smoke, so I wouldn’t use it even if it were legal. If it were made legal, I would expect that there would be restrictions on where and when people can smoke it, like there are on where and when people can smoke tobacco.
Many excellent points in the last spate of posts. Amen.
lekatt, the problem with the kind of blanket condemnation you and the NIDA espouse is that, like the horrors demonstrated in Reefer Madness, they are completely and provably untrue. When we kids were forced to watch such nonsense (I know I’m dating myself, but that was in grade school in the late 1950s) we began to question, not just the conclusions we were supposed to draw about marijuana, but many of the other things our parents’ generation took for granted. So we questioned ethnic stereotypes, gender roles, sexual mores, political systems… The result, of course, was “The 60s”.
Credibility in an argument (I use the term with the meaning of ‘discussion’) depends upon factual accuracy. When ANY of your facts are wrong, your entire argument is diminished or even discarded. And the statement that ‘drugs cause addiction’ or that (paraphrase) ‘all recreational drugs have the same dangers to individuals and to society’ is simply unfounded in fact. NIDA repeating the same pap that we’ve heard for my entire life does nothing to make it true.
You are certainly right that SOME people at SOME times have problems with SOME drugs-- the range, for individuals and for different drugs, is enormous. We admit that heroin is quite dangerous, while we maintain that marijuana is hardly so. We place alcohol somewhere in between. But the ‘relative harm’ argument is, admittedly, not very powerful.
Instead we have focused on a larger measure of harm, the harm caused by, not the drugs themselves, but by their illegality itself.
What some of us are suggesting is that the blanket criminalization of a huge percentage of our society is not to our benefit. And further, the money generated by the illicit trade causes additional enormous harm to society.
So it isn’t a question of measurable harm in one scenario (people using drugs) and no harm in another (everyone just says no). The world is more complex than that. And the solution, if one exists, will involve some tradeoff instead of being a simple, absolute answer. This is a “cost benefit analysis”, not a moral judgement.
Decriminalization would surely cause some measurable harm to some people. We argue that this harm would be, while greater than zero, still relatively small. We further argue that the collapse of the illegal drug trade, with all of the graft, corruption, murder, and mayhem that it supports would far outweigh the small harm we admit would be expected.
I have read all the rationalizations and justifications put forth for the legalization of a toxic, harmful drug used only for cheap highs by those who feel they are entitled to them. I am also aware of many individuals who have criminal records, lost their jobs, families, health, mental sharpness, and were involved in accidents due to the use of the drug. Never under any circumstances is illegal drug use warranted. No matter how rosy you wish to paint drugs, the answer for smart people is no, hell no. I have done all I can. Some people can learn from the experience of others and some can not. Some just have to learn the hard way. I wish you all good luck.
lekatt, thank you for the good wishes, despite the fact that you voice them in the same way my mother used to tell me “good luck with…” (insert some stupid decision on my part).
You are certainly entitled to your opinion. And I’m sure you believe you are trying to help us poor, wayward fools. Just like my mother.
But the problem we have with your argument is that you accept without question the idea that “illegal equals harmful”. As has been extensively cited earlier in this thread, most illegal drugs were made illegal, not because of their potential for harm, but for other reasons. So the equivalency is demonstrably untrue for some drugs (like marijuana). And the legality of others (like alcohol) does not indicate that they are harmless.
I don’t think any of us have painted a rosy picture of drugs. I have plenty of first hand horor stories that I could relate. But this isn’t about some simplistic situation or moral judgement. It is a risk benefit analysis. Anyone who performs this analysis with an open mind concludes that the societal degradation caused by drugs’ illegality overwhelms the societal degradation caused by the drugs themselves.
It ain’t just me lookin’ for a cheap high.
People have the right to choose to cmoke a marlboro or drink Grey Goose…Each drug has horrible side effects and can and does kill thousands of people a year. The issue is they have the choice to use either one. What legalize-it people want is the choice to smoke a joint of cannabis if they so choose. The benefits are grand.
But our society has made a collective choice to draw the line at drugs. How harmful is pot? Harmful to some, less to others. But in America we already have our share of problems. Guns, crime, alcohol, unhealthy lifestyles, cigarettes. And we have determined that we aren’t going to add drugs to the list.
But we can change our laws. All we are saying is the laws don’t make sense and should be changed and we are giving reasons why. Can you give us reasons why not other than this arbitrary line in the sand?
Yes. Because there is no current problem with drugs. Lord, no.
There are a litany of problems in our nation as I noted above, and the average American doesn’t want to add to that. Do a lot of Americans smoke pot? Sure, about 83 million have tried it, from what I’ve read. But that fact that it’s illegal, does make some refrain from smoking. And most Americans don’t want to increase the drug problem. Perhaps if it was legalized, there wouldn’t be much of a problem. But I know the kids I went to school with who smoked pot. And a lot of them are still smoking pot - in some small apartment, or at mom’s house. Yes, yes, I know. Kennedy smoked in the White House and there is some computer engineer who smokes pot and makes $300K a year. But most of us have experience with those who tried drugs, and got addicted for some period of time, to their detriment. And the up side of allowing a minority of the population who could handle it, is not worth the potential downside. The thought of our 16 year old daughter going to the local CVS to buy a pack of mj is just something most Americans don’t want.
To answer your question, some reasons are::
- It being illegal does prevent some from smoking.
- The upside of smoking isn’t worth the down side
- While pot may be more harmless than alcohol to the average guy, alcohol is culturally acceptable, while pot isn’t.
- It’s a slippery slope. As Stolichanya has stated, because there is a drug problem already, let’s legalize it. What’s next? Coke? Heroin?
- There a lot of self-destructive behaviors that our culture is trying to reign in. Eating habits. Drinking. I don’t think most want to add to that list at the same time.
Note: Guppy, while we differ, really appreciate the non-snarkiness of your last post.
I think that every potentially dangerous recreational substance should be made legal so it can be regulated, so that the incentive to engage in illegal trade is removed, and so that grievances can be redressed through the civil court system.
And I certainly am saying “legalizing recreational drugs would reduce the problems caused by the illegal drug trade”, which is a bit different from saying “let’s legalize everything that’s a problem”.
If marijuana is legal, maybe your daughter will go buy some pot at the drugstore. When she’s 18. And it will be tested and regulated and taxed, and if she becomes dependant on it she can go to an authority and freely admit her overuse of a perfectly legal product. Like alcohol is now.
However, your 16 year old daughter could right now go to a shady part of town and engage in a cash transaction for a substance whose quality is backed up by a dozen levels of criminal enterprise. Not the most comforting of thoughts, as long as we’re engaging in appeals to the innocence of children.
Also, I’m not trying to be a jerk. So I hope you can charitably interpret my somewhat zealous response, because I am interested in your perspective. 
Where I went to college, pot use was far more prevalent than alcohol use. Judging from the tales my daughter told me, I think the pot smokers were far better off than the drinkers. No hangovers for one thing. Far more sedate. Since I didn’t partake, I had a sober and straight view of things. I’m pretty sure my floormates did much better than if they were using the legal drug.
As I said, where I went to school it was de facto legal. I never saw anyone get addicted. There were smokers who did worse in school than me, but also plenty who did better. There weren’t enough of us non-smokers for a controlled experiment, though.
My daughter got hooked on tobacco at 16, at an arts camp. She has finally freed herself from it. I assume she smoked pot sometime, and I’m pretty sure she doesn’t now, but stopping that was far easier stopping smoking. I found an excellent anti-drug message by the way. We went to a Dylan concert, and sat behind a bunch of 60 year olds who were stoned out of their gourds, dancing around and basically not acting their age. That’s a scaring straight experience.
Funny! though I can appreciate the old stoners enthusiasm. When I went to see Dylan I sat behind some uptight 30 somethings who whined and complained about Dylans set, They weere expecting some laid back folkie concert and they tried but couldn’t sing along, didn’t recognize the songs, couldnt see because of the dancers in front.
IF’n they were stoned I bet they would have had a better time! :dubious:
Let me start by saying it is nice to see a thoughtful, reasoned response here on this board. These SDMB mj threads are usually very lopsided and thus become dull.
My response to your points……
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I believe legalization will lead to a spike in use just as ending alcohol prohibition did. I also believe the spike will be short as the novelty wears off.
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The question here is not whether smoking pot is worth the drawbacks, but will legalization create more problems than is solves.
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Pot is not just less harmful to the average guy; it is less harmful to everybody!
Alcohol kills thousands every year. No one dies from pot.
I don’t know if cultural acceptance should be a factor in this law but this may be a valid point. -
The related question is “Should the government lock people up for doing drugs?” If legalizing pot will result in all other drugs soon following then maybe this is a good thing. Keep in mind that coke and heroin kill people. Pot does not kill people.
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I do not see this as adding to the list of social problems. Most people who want to smoke pot do. I don’t think adding a few more pot smokers will unravel our entire civilization. I do see legalization as subtracting from the list of what the government can lock you up for.
Marijuana use can lead to dancing and having a good time? Even past middle age?
My god. Lekatt is right; it must be stopped.
She knew the songs, for sure. I do pay attention to at least some of my paternal duties!
I suspect she was thinking that she might look that dumb when she was stoned. and its not like she’d never seen an aging hippy before - we don’t live that far from Berkeley. (This latter is addressed to Turnip. As should be clear, I’m all in favor of legalization, even if I’d still never touch the stuff.
Zoo has done an excellent job of covering this, but I think I’ll add a few thoughts of my own as well.
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If it is legal, it can be regulated. For those under the ‘toking age’, legalization is likely to increase, not decrease, the difficulty in gathering pot. So, being legal would also prevent some from smoking. It’s anybody’s guess as to whether there would be a net increase or decrease (after the initial novelty spike wears off, that is.)
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It’s debatable whether marijuana is bad. (As you’ve surely noticed, there are some here arguing that it’s pretty much totally harmless.) It is however not debatable whether the illegal drug trade is bad. I don’t have any numbers, but an entire massive criminal culture exists purely for the purpose of bypassing the antidrug laws, and they seem to be largely succeeding, whilst killing people and ruining lives in the process. Similarly, the government is hemhoraging money and filling prisons trying to stop the drug trade and enforce anti-drug laws.
If drugs are legalized, the drug trade and all its ills evaporate. Since we are discussing the merits of legalization, and not the simple merits of taking a toke, you need to take the benefits of eliminating drug crime into account.
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(Legal) Porn is not culturally acceptible at all; it is however legal – in private. I think that if pot were legalized, the culture would force it to be only used in relative private–and nobody’d have a problem with that. More importantly, we’d still get the benefits of eliminating the illegal trug trade.
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Um, you realize that a slippery slope is a fallacious arguement, right? That is to say, this is not a valid concern. Just because we legalize marijuana doesn’t mean we have to legalize anything else. (Which is not to say that their wouldn’t be benefits from eliminating the illegal coke and heroin trades; however it’s a separate issue to be considered separately.)
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Persons are smoking marijuana anyway, in spite of its illegality. So you can’t add pot smoking to the list of the world’s problems; it’s already on the list. What we can do, however, is get these guys out from under the table, so they’ll answer honestly on censuses and we can properly determine how much of a problem marijuana actually is; so that they’ll ask for help if they need it, and so we can ensure that the crap they’re smoking is what they think it is.
If marijuana were legalized, I would still continue to not try it. I’m not interested; maybe I’m “too smart”; I dunno. However even if I don’t want to use it I can still see the positive side of nailing the illegal drug cartels right through the heart.