nevermore:
This is exactly what I keep denying.
Discuss it to your heart’s content. Just don’t attribute anything to me.
Primarily the first and third. Possibly the second as well.
So Izzy. A question for you. What drugs should be banned? Which should be decriminalized? And wish should be legalized?
I’m an RN who smoked pot on a sporadic basis 3 or 4 times a month at most usually on weekends off or at a friend’s house. Following an injury at work, about a week after I had last smoked a joint, I was piss tested, suspended and ultmately fired because I was still postive 3 weeks later. My THC level at that time was 17. 20 is considered positive. When I asked how I could be considered impaired a month after smoking, the reply was — As long as there is any trace in your system, you are considered impaired. Now, after 16 years at my job with only excellent performance evaluations and absolutely no disciplinary action of any kind, I was fired. I’m ineligible for unemployment because “I was fired as a direct result of my actions” Also, I can’t begin job seeking because my nursing license may be suspended. Basically I’m screwed.
Now, a person could be take prescription pain pills, nerve pills,use ectasy, LSD, be extremely hung over and smoke 4 packs of cigarettes a day and still pass a drug test. But a person who smoked a joint a week ago would fail. Who would you rather have take care of you?
Let’s pretend I am a law-abiding citizen. Furthermore, let’s pretend I am a law-abiding American citizen who opposes the legalization of marijuana. My major arguments are these:
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American law does not condone intoxication as a form of recreation. Legalization of marijuana would directly contradict that policy.
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Marijuana is a health hazard. While I have heard wispy claims to the contrary, marijuana is smoked, and unless I read Cecil’s article regarding the dubious nature of the studies relied upon to show that second hand smoke kills, I know that smoking kills. It would be sheer lunacy to legalize marijuana at the same time that we are incrementally moving to outlaw tobacco–I mean, addressing the health concerns of other substances that are smoked.
2a) Furthermore, marijuana smoke is not just a health hazard, it is an intoxicant. I will blame the guy who lit up a joint fifty feet away and upwind from me outside of the office when my office collection of bestiality films is discovered on my hard drive. How will you prevent me, a sober, law-abiding citizen from loosening my tie and lightening up a little in public places where marijuana is smoked?
- People who drive while intoxicated on the devil-weed are a danger to other drivers. So there’s an article that says a study implies otherwise. It is illegal to drive under the influence of drugs.
3a) What sort of test do you have that can assure me that I can still drive stressed, sober, and aggressively without being interfered with by these so-called “cautious” drivers?
- Marijuana is a “gateway drug” which leads those who try it to other drugs. (I do not yet acknowledge that a ten-year-old today can purchase crack and heroin from the same source that supplies marijuana, whereas if it were legal an adult might be led to Champale and Beer Nuts. You must convince me.)
Well, okay. It would appear as if I cannot constrain myself to simply stating the arguments as they would be broached by someone who is not daffy. Yet there they are. Can anyone effectively convince my self-righteous alter ego that having marijuana made legal will not endanger its current position of sobriety, decency, and rectitude?
**
Two arguments (also forgive me, I’ve temporarily lost my typing skills).
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American law does not condemn intoxication either. Simply public intoxication. Legalizing hemp will not interfere with those laws.
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You can smoke hemp nad not get intoxicated. I, personally, like the great taste.
**
We are not movingto outlaw tobacco, simply to make it so peoples habit does not interfere with others. The same could and should be done with hemp.
**
It doesn’t travel that way. You might as well blame your manager from breathing the fumes of his lunch time martinis on you.
**
True. And law enforcement officials should have a low tollerance for people driving under the influence of THC or other drugs.
**
God save you from “cautious” drivers.
Also hemp has many benefical heatlh benefits as opposed to tobacco.
HenrySpencer said;
mangeorge, all I want to say is that when you’re in the middle of something, it’s much harder to recognise exactly what’s going on, than when you take a step back.
And much more.
Henry, I’ve been “stepped back” for about four years now, because to use could cost me my job. No problem, physically or psychologically. My only problem is that I hate to be told that I can’t do something that I find pleasureable.
And I’m still a pretty nice guy. 
mojo57 also had something to say;
Now, a person could be take prescription pain pills, nerve pills,use ectasy, LSD, be extremely hung over and smoke 4 packs of cigarettes a day and still pass a drug test. But a person who smoked a joint a week ago would fail. Who would you rather have take care of you?
I think we’re in complete agreement here. I’d have no problem with the idea of you taking care of me.
Just for clarification, by “impairment testing”, I’m refering to the type of test that measures mental and physical acuity. I think they use a form of this type of test on a car for alchohol abusers, so that they can continue to earn a living.
Being impaired while driving, operating, ect. can be dangerous, regardless of the cause of that impairment.
Peace,
mangeorge
I don’t think it’s a fine point to argue whether people who begin smoking dope and are told by all their friends that it is totally non-addictive, are being lied to, and being led into making a major decision that will affect their health, without all the relevant information. Legalisation advocates (including myself) are always pointing out the number of myths around the drug, but many are perpetuating this quite dangerous myth themselves. Any addiction is detrimental to the people around the addict, especially their family and the people they work with - whether it’s from the lack of normal human contact with them (there are few things more boring than being around a stoned person if you’re straight), or problems that can come up if they need to score and can’t (aggression; money problems in the family; etc). It’s one thing to snidely refer to people being addicted to things like reading or sports, but if their family went hungry because they were compulsively buying books instead of food, or if they became violent with their friends if they couldn’t find their football, this would be recognised as a serious psychological and social problem, and hence is a more apt analogy.
My comment that was interpreted as suggesting that psychological addiction is worse than physical addiction was referring to particular cases when a person does not recognise that they have a problem, and therefore will be less likely to seek help (thus perpetuating the addiction). I was most trying to point out, to return to a previous point I made, that drug-advocates often use ‘psychological addiction’ as almost a jokey term, and then link it with just being very interested in something (there are examples of this in this very thread), which is downplaying something that can often be quite destructive.
And mangeorge, at the risk of beating a dead horse, your point is part of why I support legalisation - drugs can be enjoyable and many people use them without being harmed. But if the point of this board is to ‘fight ignorance’, both sides of reality should be presented. It’s true that dope won’t make you go insane, or make white women want to date black men, or lead to a communist takeover of the world. However, at the same time, it’s not a harmless substance just because it comes from a plant (as do opium and many poisonous things), and it can lead to addiction, which in the case of any mood altering drug is not a good thing for the addict or those around them.
HenrySpencer
cigarettes and alcohol are legalized. why not marijuana?
oldscratch, you convinced me. Do you do Zen?
I don’t know. I would think that cocaine and heroin should definitely not be legalized. Beyond this, I don’t know at the present. Fortunately, public policy does not depend on my decisions, at this time. I intend on studying up on these matters prior to my appointment as drug czar.
Aroo? Matt, I would love some links to info concerning the above, if you have them.
Regarding the OP…
I can’t think of any reasons why one would support the criminalization of Pot. I mean c’mon, this is one of the most ridiculous concepts I can think of - especially when you compare it to alcohol and it’s legal status.
Laws and statistics aside, I can’t even come up with a common sense argument supporting the unlawfulness of weed smoking.
http://www.nationalpost.com/search/story.html?f=/stories/20000801/359453.html
Very interesting. There could be very large changes on the horizon for Canadian marijuana laws. It’s about time.
HenrySpencer said:
OK. I don’t consider that a fine point, either, but if you’re still referring to the fact that I said it was not addictive, I pointed out earlier that that comment was intended to illustrate that it’s not addictive in the (in my opinion) much more destructive way that IzzyR was referring to when he was making blanket statements about drugs in general. I don’t go around telling people it’s “totally non-addictive”; if the subject comes up with a person considering trying pot, I tell them exactly what I know. It’s not like there’s some grand conspiracy by all the brainwashed potsmokers of the world to trick all their friends into getting hooked and dying of cancer, and if there is a significant number of people being told it’s non-addictive, it’s likely because the source is misinformed. Which is, of course, the source of your vexation. If it hacks you off so much, start an awareness page. I don’t know. But don’t assume I’m the spreader of the evil gospel just because of a misinterpretation of a single remark I made (or rather, a lack of clarity on my part).
As to the rest–yes, I realize that psychological dependence is detrimental to others besides the user. My question was, do you believe that it is detrimental to the world outside the user as such that it needs to be illegal, which you’ve made it clear you do not. I was simply suggesting that if you don’t, there’s no reason for us to argue because (a) we agree on the main point, being that marijuana should be legalized, and (b) I cannot convince you that pot’s not the source of depression, money problems, and extreme anti-social behavior that you seem to think it is, and you cannot convince me it is. Obviously you and I have had very different experiences with the drug, and no amount of relaying them on my part or yours is going to change the perspective of the other. Therefore, our argument contributes nothing to this topic or the furthering of knowledge in either participant, so there’s no reason to continue it.
(and yet I have a sneaking suspicion that saying that will be about as effective as anything I’ve said so far.)
IzzyR–
when I said I was under the impression that you supported the banning of drugs, I wasn’t attributing anything to you. I didn’t say “You obviously support the banning of drugs.” Anyway, you respond that that’s exactly what you keep trying to deny. I don’t recall anywhere you tried to deny that position, for one, and several things you said led me to believe this; I didn’t invent it out of thin air. For example–
hmmm…don’t the drug laws make drugs illegal? If you say you’re in favor of them, that leads me to believe you’re in favor of drugs being illegal.
In reference to marijuana (which you said “no less than 3 times” that you don’t know enough about to specifically comment on) you said:
and being that, according to you, you can’t differentiate between it and other drugs, this statement leads me to believe you would support outlawing drugs in general for the same reason. Again, I’m not attributing anything to you. I’m telling you my impressions as gathered from your posts, and if indeed these impressions are incorrect, would you mind telling me— what exactly is your position?
nevermore, here’s my offer of the peace pipe 
before everyone starts misquoting or misrepresenting each others’ opinions. I also don’t want to get into a game of duelling anecdotes. It annoys me when people who agree argue with each other, but I think we’re coming to the same conclusion (pro-legalisation) from quite different directions and for very different reasons. I don’t think anyone involved in the debate on either side is doing so for malicious reasons (whether your cliched idea is of drug-fiends sneaking grass into their friends drinks to get them hooked, or big business paying off polititians to keep it illegal as they are scared of losing millions if the wonder drug/plant became legal).
In Australia we have excellent adverts about the dangers of drink driving, which, even though they start to piss you off, do get the message across. The ads they’ve used to try to educate about speed/ecstasy/etc are far less effective, because the people who use these drugs can smugly think ‘well, they’re just saying that because it’s illegal, and it’s illegal for such and such illogical reason, and therefore these drugs are really safe’. I believe if these things were legal, many kids would not have a reason to hate the police or become involved with low-lifes, and they would take the health messages about the problems of addiction more seriously. Their information would not only be coming from either ‘the man’ or their smoking buddies (each of which have vested interests, even if they are not, as noted, malicious).
I hope this thread has been of some use to people contemplating taking up smoking - I know the people who will decide whether the law is changed won’t be reading this.
HenrySpencer
nevermore:
This is bizarre. I shall rerun three quotes of mine.
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“I’m not familiar enough with the difference between marijuana and “hard” drugs to comment on marijuana specifically (sorry, Tzel), but in general am in favor of drug laws”
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“You may well be right about marijuana. I don’t know enough about it specifically, as mentioned. But the OP, in his first two sentences, seemed to suggest a similar attitude about drugs in general, so I figured I’d sneak in a remark about the general topic. Perhaps a marijuana expert will comment. (I think Cecil addressed it somewhere). I would certainly be opposed to outlawing it (or anything else)on “for your own good” grounds.”
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“I’m not lumping anything together. In fact, I’ve specifically pointed out that I could not specifically single out marijuana for comment, as I was not familiar with the specific aspects of it. HenrySpencer (my man!) suggested that it too is addictive, so who knows. In any event, I would refer only to drugs which can be shown to be addictive, (or hard to shake, so as not to get into semantic debates about the term addiction).”
It seems as clear as possible that; 1. I am not commenting about marijuana; 2. I agree that legalization proponents may be right about marijuana, and am again not commenting about it, and; 3. am not including marijuana along with any drug, and am intending all my remarks to refer to drugs “which can be shown to be addictive”.
Despite this you said the following:
- “And you are exactly right, but a few people currently in the discussion cannot make a clear distinction between marijuana and other drugs, so they tend to group it with other drugs as if it were anything like them”
And
- “your initial opposition to my view was your stance that marijuana is indeed addictive. My response was that it is, but not in a way detrimental to the world outside the drug user, as such that it should be illegal (according to those with opinions similar to those of IzzyR, and there are quite a few).”
This is not an honest representation.
It means that in general I am in favor of the idea that some drugs should be illegal, as opposed to those who would propose legalizing all drugs.
Huh? What this means is that I would oppose banning anything including marujuana and any other drug on the grounds of their being harmful to an individual himself. But to the extent that marijuana or any drug can be shown to be harmful to society in a larger sense i would support banning them. As I don’t know enough about marijuana (and many other drugs) to know for certain which share these charachteristics I refrained from taking a position on marijuana. But as I am quite sure that there are some drugs that are indeed harmful, I figured I’d debate the principles that concerned these.
Please see my previous post addressed to oldscratch.
Frankly, I find everything that I’ve written here to be quite obvious. From your previous exchange concerning genetic damage you gave the impression that you had some intelligence. I find it hard to believe that someone with this level of intelligence (or with any intelligence at all, for that matter) could honestly mistake this.
Althea wrote:
Marijuana can too alter brain chemistry!
I mean, if you took your brain out of your skull, wrapped it in marijuana leaves, and set them on fire. Or shot a wad of marijuana at your head at 9000 miles per hour, thus making a hole and letting your blood and encephalic fluids leak out.
IzzyR—
seems I made a major mistake in reading one of your comments. Where you said you would be opposed to outlawing it on “for your own good” grounds, I must have misread and interpreted it as the other way around. Honest mistake. I don’t know how that happened–I didn’t even recognize it until reading your response beginning with “Huh?” Sorry bout that.
As to the rest…I’m quite clear on the fact you don’t take a position on marijuana, you’ve said it a million times; reiteration of the quotes was unnecessary. What I wasn’t clear about is that you don’t support all drugs being illegal. I’m sorry if you feel you were lucid with this point, and maybe it’s just stupidity on my part, but I don’t remember anywhere that you said this, until the response to oldscratch. And just the fact that he (or she) would ask you that question probably means that said point was not clearly made before that time.
HenrySpencer–
you’re right, we agree on the gist of it, so as I said before there’s no point arguing little stuff. But I just thought I’d say that this–
–is an excellent point. I see (part of) where you were coming from earlier, in light of this statement. Saying it this way makes it sound more pro-legalization and less like an argument against marijuana, which is what it (maybe subconsciously) sounded like to me earlier, even knowing full well you & I agreed on that aspect of it.
If anyone responds and I don’t answer for a while, it’s because I’m moving and who knows how long it’ll be before the computer’s up again. But I’ll be back…eventually.
oops guys, that wasn’t hardcore up there, that was me…
stupid dad forgot to log off…
sorry for any confusion, Izzy & Henry…
Dad is not stupid. As evidence, I offer you as someone I obviously influenced.
I hope you enjoy your upcoming college years. I know I will be very proud of you.
I already miss you very much.