There’s a small but important disctinction to be made here between drug use and your example. While overeating is definitely a plague, it is still the result of abusing stuff necessarily for survival. While car accidents are tragic, car usage is a necessary part of making a living for the vast majority of people. Since both of those have benefits, the risks are worthwhile.
Drug use is neither beneficial or necessary. It is rolling the dice for entertainment purposes. There is no legitimate benefit of recreational drug use, therefore it should not be covered, any more than suicide should be covered by life insurance.
I looked up my state, Ohio, and discovered that I was wrong: up to 1,000 is a misdemeanor.
Thinking about it, though, I’m not really surprised that Florida is more strict than Ohio, even though I was initially bemused-- this being the “heartland” of America and somewhat conservative (The “drug court” issue during last election was a dismal failure.) The population of elderly people, who tend to vote more than younger folks, would keep legalization off the ballots; any politician who suggested such a thing would be comitting political suicide.
So the pursuit of happiness is not a valid aim in life?
Should car accidents that happen when you are on vacation not be covered by insurance? What about people who choke while eating an extra donut just for the taste of it? Drownings in the city pool? Swimming is no more necessary than drug use. Who makes the judgement about what activity has a legitimate benefit and which does not? You? A judge?
I understand that. You guys took off on a tangent based upon something I said with my very first post. I justified it later and you continued to question what I was saying, so I continued with the tangent.
Coca is still an anaesthetic/stimulant, and an effective one at that. But how are those properties beneficial to the recreational user?
“We guys” are not a collective group. We are individual people responding to what we see when we see it (at least, in my case, the others may be part of a hive mechanism).
I will not discuss the recreational benefit of cocaine in this thread. Create a thread about it if you like. I’m discussing marijuana. I’ve never (to my knowledge, I admit there have been questionable stints) experimented with cocaine, so I feel unqualified to take part.
However, there are numberous recreational purposes of smoking marijuana, the general gist of which is the word “recreatonal” in general. YMMV.
Legalize it. Quit wasting government time and money on people toking on a joint down in their basement, and start looking for real terrorists. I truely can’t see any harm in a person smoking marijuana. It makes no sense to keep it illegal. The only people who want this plant to be illegal are the cigarette and pharmacutical companies. It’s my belief that these companies have already capitalized enough on people’s misfortunes it’s time we get the right to grow our own medicine.
Economic Left/Right: 6.88
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -6.67
Yes. Legalize all drugs.
Actually, there is a point in having established limits, rather than an all or nothing test. Even if people have to wait for days after consuming alcohol, something that’s already impractical, you will always have some amount of alcohol in your blood (the amount will vary with the foods you’ve recently eaten). In a somewhat similar vein, drug tests can indicate the presence of opiates if one has ingested poppy seeds 48 hours prior to testing. Granted, this involves the consumption of a different substance rather than low levels of the substance in question, but the principle is the same: a drug test alone will not tell you much about the mental capacity of the person during the administration of the test.
Personally, the outcome of this case will affect me not at all. Athough a former dealer (! hah ! gotta make college money somehow ), I am not a pot user, but I support personal freedom of choice in all drugs in a general sense.
But the medical marijuana question seems to cloud the issue. I don’t believe it is a scientific certainty that MJ has the beneficial effects to humans as some claim, other than making the sufferer feel good. On the other hand, if someone wants to use it regardless of efficacy, that’s none of my business.
There are people who think that bee stings help arthritis sufferers. No solid proof of this that I know of either, but isn’t it an individual’s right to be foolish as long as no one else is hurt (unless you’re from PETA and don’t approve of the wanton slaughter of bees. :rolleyes: )?
Certainly the gummint shouldn’t be in the business of promoting an uncertain cure, but neither should it prohibit it if there is no harm.
I’ve often felt that some of the reason behind those who oppose MJ use is rooted in the puritan ethic, as defined by H.L. Mencken:
Economic Left/Right: -3.75
Social Libertarian/Authoritarian: -5.64
Agree. I don’t smoke pot, but believe it to be much, much less dangerous than alcohol. The primary danger it presents is that it’s illegal and possessing it can land you in jail.
It pains me to have to say that, because as a defense lawyer marijuana’s continuing illegallity puts food on my table. A lot of the time, the potsmoker isn’t the one paying me, either; it’s you taxpayers.
Car accidents while stoned?? Have you ever tried it or do you just assume it impairs driving because it’s a drug?
When you’re stoned, you drive slow. Real slow. Ridiculously slow.
It’s probably safer to drive under the influence of grass than it is to drive sober, stressed out and late for an appointment. Much safer.
Taxpayers’ money, burden on society, blah blah. Just tax it properly, and whatever healthcare is needed for ill dopeheads will come straight out of their pockets. Incidentally, there has not been one recorded death due to marijuana abuse. I don’t see what additional healthcare they would require. Tax animal fat instead. That would help balance the budget.
(I’ve given up smoking, it just makes me paranoid and hypocondriac in my middle age)
No, I infer that it reduces driver safety because it has been demonstrated to delay reaction times and impair judgment.
Slow does not necessarily equal safer.
Since you don’t provide any references to back up this assertion, I’ll refute it without references: no, it isn’t safer, probably, but in any case, so what? - this is an irrelevant argument; it is absurd to permit A because you can imagine B, which happens to be much worse.
My SO used to smoke pot about every other day. He had mood swings and mild paranoia and was an absolute pain in the neck to live with. Now that he doesn’t smoke it, he is even tempered and not paranoid and a pleasure to live with. These days he has an occasional beer after work - this makes no difference to his personality. He loved smoking pot, thought it had no effect on his personality.
From this experience and others, I don’t think that people who smoke it really understand how their behaviour and thinking changes (from another’s perspective).
If you think legalising is a good thing, you really need to look at countries that have already done this and the effect it has had on them, from all perspectives.
I personally have a problem with having to push my way past drug users, openly shooting up and dealing in large groups, in order to get to the subway. I don’t want my children looking at this and thinking that it is ‘normal’ and the subsequent mental processing that occurs, ie. that it is good or at least an okay thing to do.
I have to disagree that the costs of prosecuting marijuana possession and distriubution are infantesimally small in the grand scheme of things. The DoJ/FBI Sourcebook (warning pdf) states that from 1999-2001 marijuana prosecutions accounted for around 46% of all drug prosecutions in the United States, more than heroin, cocaine, and synthetic drugs put together, and almost more than all other drugs put together; it’s by far the most widely used and widely prosecuted illicit drug. In 2001 marijuana trafficking convictions represented 33% of all federal drug trafficking offenses, and marijuana possession convictions accounted for 48.4% of all drug possession convictions in federal courts. On the state level marijuana trafficking and possession accounted for about 6.4% of all felony convictions in 2000. The vast majority of marijuana convictions are misdemeanors with very little jail time, but we’ve had more than five clients go the state pen for felony marijuana charges (possession of more than four ounces, delivery of more than a quarter ounce) in the last year alone!
Incidentially, for what it’s worth I also came across this (warning pdf) regarding the number of emergency room visits in which a drug was mentioned.
Most likely, but it was in a country where pot is legal - the police don’t seem to bother about the illegal using and selling of drugs as much as before legalisation. This was in broad daylight, above ground, around the entrance to the subway stairs, in a large city - not some dark, hidden area, in a subversive manner.
), I am not a pot user, but I support personal freedom of choice in all drugs in a general sense.