Yes. Yes yes yes yes yes yes yes yes. Please.
Funny stuff in NY - if you’re smoking tobacco in a bar, the owner can be subject to a $2000 fine. If you’re smoking marijuana in a bar, you’re subject to a civil citation and possibly a $100 fine. Therefore, our local watering hole has been turning a blind eye to us smoking the occasional bowl in the corner, just as long as we take the after-bowl cigarettes outside.
Cite and cite.
I’m all for legalizing it, but I am concerned with government control.
If you consider the government control over alcohol, the alcohol content is tightly controlled such that you can not get anything over 40% (with the exception of some 75% rums). My point is that if the government were to control marijuana there is a good chance they’d place a variety of restrictions on it, and part of that might include the level of THC. In considering how government “controls” things, I’d expect requirements to get the THC levels so low you’d be better off just smoking the papers. My two cents…
Considering the attempts to sue McDonalds for making people fat, I’d worry about brownie-eating remaining legal too…
No.
But maybe that’s because everyone I know who smokes it is a drop-kick and I also think they should be a lot harder on smoking than they are.
But hey, if you want schizophrenia.
Yes, legalize it subject to similar restrictions as with alcohol.
My cousin is a police officer and he’s in favor of legalizing it as well. I think he’d rather be getting rapists and murderers off the streets than arresting people whose only desire is for bigger bags of Doritos.
I don’t even drink and I’m pretty sure that’s not the case.
If that happened, people would stop smoking their weed and go to other sources. So I imagine the government would have to keep a decent product out there to compete. I think there was a thread here some months back about some Canadians suing their government because their medical marijuana wasn’t good enough, and the government was working on improving it.
Fire Engine, do you think you could explain yourself a bit more? I’m not sure what you mean.
Government control would have to be descent quality. I’d be willing to buy a dimebag from Unclesam if it was of average quality. They could make it illegal for higher-quality shit. Are you really going to go to your local dealer to buy really great weed when you could go to the gas station and buy decent weed?
I’m for it. I would really like to see some polls, though. If the majority of everyone is for it, then why is it still illegal?
I know most European countries have proportional-representation systems, which makes it easier for minor parties to exert influence on public policy. Is there such thing as a Dutch Libertarian Party? Or a Pan-European Libertarian Party? (Or a pan-European political party of any kind?)
It should be legal, no doubt about it. But it won’t be soon, maybe in 20+ years, after my parent’s generation is waining. Hell, if everyone thought like they did, it probably would be legal already. But they don’t, obviously.
As far as government involvement in the matter, if they treated it exactly like alcohol, that would be fine with me. That would mean that it would be regulated if produced for sale, but pretty much unrestrained if produced for personal consumption. That would limit its attraction as a revenue stream from the government though, as it is insanely easy to grow. Anyone with an apartment balcony could grow enough for themselves and their friends. But, then again, beer is not that hard either (at least you are not risking blowing up the house, like with distillates), and beer companies seem to make it ok.
Finally, if it was legalized, I would advocate a law along the lines of the german beer purity laws, but for cannabis. It would suck to have cigarette companies adulterating a non-addictive drug with addictive drugs in order to get folks hooked.
Of course, legalize cannabis. No real need for new Federal agencies exists. Simply modify the mandates of existing agencies.
For instance, the ATF now becomes the DG, “Drugs & Guns”. It’s really not very complicated. Plus, you generate a huge amount of new tax revenue by regulating it. I mean, think about the kinds of dollars your average coke habit will generate for Uncle Sam. Really, the fact that the Feds haven’t embraced legal grass ages ago confuses the hell out of me. All that money slipping through their fingers, and into the hands of people in Canada, or Mexico. Talk about your trade deficits and need for tarrifs. Good grief, the American peole are being robbed blind by modern-day bootleggers. You think Joe Kennedy could have bought his son the presidency without the Eighteenth Amendment?
To paraphrase another president “I’d rather legalize dope. Does that bother you? I just want you to think big, for Christ sakes.”
I’d love to see cannibis legalised, then I’d like to see all drugs legalised. If the government thinks it’s OK to kill ourselves with alcohol poisoning and lung cancer, why can’t I get off my head on LSD and jump off a bridge thinking I can fly. The government should go all or nothing, and at the moment it’s leaning towards nothing. The only thing stopping them banning what we already have is public outcry of their rights, and that healthy chunk o’ change they take from smoker’s and drinker’s pockets. It’s like the old joke, all the legal drugs are taxed drugs. Mind you if the govt. handled it properly and kept it sensible, legalising cannabis could seriously boost the ecomony, and improve profits of Domino’s everywhere!
Actually, I believed the thing about pot screwing up your long term memory as well. I’m still a little skeptical, I know some really stupid potheads, but read this.
I decided to read up more on effects after posting this thread. If you’re too lazy to read it, it basically says that there is no negative effect on long term memory of pot smoking (according to this study). Your short term memory can be effected, but it looks like it’s no problem in the long run.
Well, I can’t figure out how to edit my post, so I’ll just post another one in rapid succession.
Thanks for the heads up norinew. I actually have heard a wide variety of arguments against it (I’m a high school student, there are plenty of self-righteous people who think that because something is illegal it must be worse for you than hitting your head with a rock for an hour).
Just wanted to make sure that others had more sense :).
OH NO!!!
I thought we’d always have amsterdam…
If you want schizophrenia… then what? There’s no evidence that marijuana causes schizophrenia, so perhaps you meant to post that to another thread?
From Jackie Brown:
ORDELL: “That shit gonna drain you of your amibition!”
MELANIE: “Not if your ambition is to get high and watch TV.”
You can’t edit your posts here.
I wouldn’t know for the Netherlands, but really libertarianism is virtually unknown over here. Anarchism, though being completely on the fringe, even further down than, say Trotskism, is inincredibly more common than Libertarianism, to give you an idea. Actually, I heard once in my life about libertarianism, and it was quite recent, in an article refering to the US before I began to visit US message boards.
I’ve one issue with cannabis, though, which is that it’s not currently possible to determine who has smoked/ingested it recently, which is a problem in particular for DUI (and for some other activities). And I’ve a real issue with people driving under influence.
Not enough for me to be against pot legalization, though, but I would like them to find some way to be able to figure out when people are intoxicated. With the current methods, one would turn positive if one smoked one joint three weeks ago, which is completely irrelevant.
Well, there are general tests for reaction time that can be used. Also, I don’t know how much faith to put in this, but I’ve heard that police test people for marijuana intoxication by watching their eyes as they try to focus on things very close to their face.