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At least he’s not smoking cigarettes. We should celebrate his choice in using pot. Sounds like a healthy alternative.
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exactly! compared to cigaretts, and even alcohol… pot is a great thing! Has anyone ever died from overdosing on pot?? i dont think so! i personally commend this kid for stepping up and not being afriad to admit that he smokes pot, and that nothing is wrong with it! if we had more people stepping up like that, then marijuana wouldnt be illegal anymore and we could all enjoy!! =)
Well other than pot smells like ass and I’m not likely to get drunk walking into a room full of people using alcohol, I’d argree with you.
When the activity is illegal she should be allowed to do forbid him from doing it. This includes such activities as smoking, drinking, or doing drugs.
Maybe you have misunderstood my argument here. I don’t think drugs should be illegal. If you want to inject radiator fluid directly into your veins then I think you should be allowed to. The more the better the quicker the rest of us don’t have to walk over you while you’re sitting on the corner begging for change. But until that day a parent has the right and the responsibility to prevent their minor child from doing illegal activities to the best of their ability.
I love the smell of pot, but that’s obviously subjective. However, the idea of a “contact high” is pretty much a myth. Unless the room is literally filled with pot smoke, you’re not going to get high just by being in the same room as someone smoking pot.
Well, I doubt that this is going to be a good argument. Though I’m in agreement with you.
You’re up against some fervent anti-tobaccoists here. You will actually see how some kinds of smoke entering your lungs is OK, while other forms of smoke are inherently evil. I don’t get it either. But the fact remains, it’s well established on these boards the pot is harmless while tobacco is the end of mankind.
Pleased to meet you, everyday pot smoker here. Second in three generations of regular pot smokers. We all hold down good jobs, my mother runs her own company, my dad retired from IBM after 30 years. None of us drink much, and some of us are using pot as a substitute for anti-depressants which produce way too much zombie effect and other deleterious side effects. My partner prefers pot to other medications he could be taking for high blood pressure and anxiety issues because he really likes having a sex drive and the ability to do something about it.
When times come that I can’t afford weed, I just don’t smoke any. No withdrawals, no side effects, no huhu. Can’t say the same of what happens when you have to go off Prozac or Paxil or Zoloft, and if you’re talking not able to afford something–try paying full price for that crap when you don’t have health insurance.
I supervise a team of ten, have excellent relationships with family and friends, my kids and grandchild love me and I them, I have a house (and mortgage) which I manage to pay for along with all my other bills and quite frankly I think all this yap-yap about the imaginary “side effects” of pot smoking is ridiculous. Losers lose, marginal people will always be marginal, stupid people remain stupid, and absolutely NONE of this can be attributed to any substance they’re ingesting or inhaling. Pot just tends to magnify what’s already there, while enhancing the more mellow, cheerful and joyful aspects of a personality while making the more angry, difficult and troublesome parts of the personality seem like too much trouble to bring out on a regular basis. You might think this is a bad thing, but I beg to differ. As for making people stupid, all I can say is that I know how to spell “occasionally” and know the difference between “affect” and “effect.” Even when I’m stoned.
The therapeutic ratio of marijuana closely approaches zero, which means that it’s basically impossible to hurt yourself with it–unless someone drops a bale of it on you from a very great height. It’s been in use for some ten thousand or so years (based on grave goods digs) with no DOCUMENTED, RESEARCHED, OR ESTABLISHED instances of ill effect that can be directly attributed to the drug itself. The shrill assertions of the Chicken Littles of the world about how they just “know” that pot is addictive in some way or that they “know” it causes some bad side effect or the endless anecdotal stories of their roomate’s brother’s aunt’s second half brother three times removed and how he had a reefer madness moment and killed six people don’t amount to a fart in a fuckhouse, scientifically speaking. Pot is not bad for you, in most cases it’s good for the people who use it–which, amazingly enough, tends to be the main reason why they use it.
And in case you’re imagining me sitting in a constant haze with my rasta dreadlocks dangling in the bong water, get over it. I smoke an amount of weed per day that is probably about the size of the last joint of your thumb. That’s it. About the same volume of plant matter as one half of a standard cigarette. How much refined sugar do YOU pound down in a day? Drink more than one alcoholic beverage a day? How about coffee–more than a cup or two? Can’t get through the day without your chocolate bar? Go bongo if you miss your anti-psychotics or tri-cyclic antidepressants? How pissy do you get if you can’t have your cigarette every hour or so? Gosh, seems like the colander is insisting the sieve leaks a bit.
Here’s a deal–I won’t bug the rest of you about your bad habits and you get off my dick about mine. Legalize MY drug of choice so I don’t have to be a felon by definition and I won’t help pass more legislation making it a crime to smoke tobacco or drink coffee or be fat as a pig or have a drink, deal? I have my opinions about people who drink alcohol and smoke and overeat but I’ll keep them to myself as long as the rest of you self righteous idiots stop flapping your lips about habits you don’t like. We’ll all just get along and leave our neighbors to go to hell in whatever way they choose, mm’kay?
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Originally Posted by Uzi
Well other than pot smells like ass and I’m not likely to get drunk walking into a room full of people using alcohol, I’d argree with you.
i doupt you could ever get high from walking into a room full of pot smoke, unless there was some serious smoking going on in the room!
SmartAleq - thanks for that. Like I said, ask yourself why you smoke it - and you have. I don’t believe that large amounts of refined sugar or coffee etc etc have the same effect ofcourse, but I also don’t think it is healthy to consume these in great amounts either.
I’m very aware that dope smokers come in every guise and are not limited to bong smoking hippies.
You are using it as self-medication, seem aware of the effects and are able to limit yourself to the same amount every day - in my experience you are somewhat of a rarity amongst daily dope smokers.
I find it a very American attitude to look out for oneself and let others do as they please - well and good if they have attitudes like yours to a mind altering substances, however, most don’t. People also have issues with personal control when it comes to other substances that are bad for your health etc - leaving society to pay to pick up the pieces. I never know where we should draw the line but I know that rampant supply and demand is not the answer neither is massive governmental control and total ignorance of others’ issues only leads to societal problems such as mass poverty and ghettos, crime, obesity etc etc. But way more than scope of this thread!!
Yes I know annecdotal evidence is a difficult thing to qualify - peoples’ experiences are important and interesting though, and if nothing else, help us to make sense of the world around us. BTW if you are a daily dope smoker, you have a very strong vested interest in seeing it in a certain way.
We could find evidence for anything to support any arguement in fact.
I live in a state which has legalized medical use of marijuana. Both of the states to the north and south of me have done the same. A bit further north of me is a whole country with a pretty sensible attitude toward the “killer weed.” In spite of all the shrill rhetoric to the contrary, society has failed to fall into disrepair, dirty hippies are not pushing crack to kindergartners on every street corner, and those who use pot for their personal medical needs bind themselves to the same ethic most of the recreational users do–namely, “don’t be an asshole.” I know shitloads of pot smokers, both medically sanctioned and those who just like smoking pot and both groups are about the same; responsible, bill paying, job holding, kid raising, politically and socially aware, intelligent, involved human beings. Who like smoking a naturally occurring plant which produces congenial effects, generally more than they like drinking a more socially sanctioned drug which impairs all motor functions, can and frequently does result in death from overdosing and usually causes those who use it regularly to be unpleasant people. Oh, and which (distinctly UNLIKE marijuana) does build tolerances to the point where huge amounts are necessary to achieve the desired effect, destroys many bodily functions and organs and is prohibitively expensive. And makes people vomit in public and become unconscious. And loud. And smell gross. And believe that everyone they fancy wants to have sex with them. :rolleyes:
Another Chicken Little prediction which has also failed to materialize is that people will fabricate illnessess in order to get prescribed pot. Oddly enough, recreational users tend to remain recreational and refrain from muddying the political waters by getting pot cards when they don’t legitimately qualify for them. Responsible pot smokers don’t want to be the ones who cause the knee jerks to clamp down on the medical users who are just trying to maintain a decent standard of life by using their drug of choice.
And you mistake me–I am a 100% recreational user, aside from occasional migraine prevention and mitigation. Others in my family use pot instead of other more debilitating drugs which are prescribed for depression and chronic pain.
Yes, it is a peculiarly American attitude to keep our damned noses out of things which don’t concern us–it’s the reason why the country was founded in the first place and I wish more Americans could remember this basic fact. As for worrying about how we’re going to pay for the end results of what heedless stupid people do to themselves, we’ll do it like we always do. Tax it and spend the money to fix the problems the irresponsible people create. It has nothing to do with substances and everything to do with personal responsibility or the abdication thereof. Some people can control their own desires in order to balance their lives and do so. Others can but won’t. Some are too fucking stupid to even essay the exercise of responsibility. Since they won’t let me shoot the stupid ones and the rest of the people in this country seem hell bent on wrapping the fuckers in cotton wool to ensure they breed prolifically and replicate themselves ad infinitum, I say tax their bad habits and that way those who overuse any substance are also paying a proportional amount towards amelioration of ill effects.
Personally I say let 'em kill themselves–I don’t think ANY drug should be illegal. Let the addictive personalities (who are a minority despite all brainwashing attempts by 12 step program junkies to convince us otherwise) take themselves out of the gene pool as soon as they can, thereby improving the breed. The majority, who are perfectly capable adults who know how to limit their intake of anything and decide for themselves what risks they wish to accept will then go on with their lives just like they do now, shaking their heads at the stupid who just will not learn.
And good, responsible people will no longer be put into prisons with murderers, rapists, thieves and child molesters for the grave and heinous infraction of growing a plant in order to consume it. :smack:
Yes but your system isn’t working is it - you’ve created great poverty in one of the richest countries of the world, with huge health problems and a sueing culture where people don’t take responsibility for their actions.
I’m not going to tell you you’re wrong in what you believe. If you smoke pot and can handle it as well as a drinker can handle booze, more power to you. I’ve been known to toke a time or two every few months. Never more than 2, as my tolerance is very low, but I inhale the Devil Smoke just the same.
If it can ever be shown that pot smokers are benign to society, or at least no more a risk than drinkers, we’d have a leg to stand on.
What you’re forgetting is the inherent rights that Americans proclaim. Every American, no matter the issue. The vocal, insistant pot smokers argue that since pot is OK, so is peyote. It’s argued that peyote is smoked by Native Americans, therefore should also be legal. And since Native Americans can smoke peyote, mushrooms should be legal. And mushrooms, being hallucinogenic mean LSD should be legal.
Based on LSD being man-made, cocaine and heroin should be legal since they’re natural substances.
Then we get into meth. Made from legal ingredients, why should the government decide what we can do with them?
All of the above is bullshit, of course. But it’s how the various legalization groups seem to trend. A good idea is promoted, then a few dozen other groups try to take it 8 steps further. And the ideas are all lumped together guaranteeing it won’t get any traction.
I blame the expected acknowledgement of anyone that wants to declare themselves an advocacy group. Once you get recognition for something, 19 other groups will try to glom on and overtake what you were fighting for in the first place.
For all the problems we have in the US, we have no shortage of people with enough comfort in their lives to spend their free time fighting for whatever cause takes their fancy in any given week.
Is it? The logic is flawed, but the conclusions are sane enough. There really isn’t much of a reason for drugs like peyote, mushrooms, or LSD to be illegal. A person who uses hallucinogens responsibly is no more dangerous than a person who takes sleeping pills before bed - they’re not going to be of much use in an emergency for several hours, but if you leave them alone, they’ll be fine.
duffer, if you’ll notice at the end of my last post I make it pretty clear that I don’t support the criminalization of ANY drug. They should all be legal, every damned one of them. Cocaine, heroin, crack, meth, hallucinogens, club drugs, the lot. I don’t think it’s the government’s business to decide what sovereign adults put into their bodies. Even if it’s bad for them, even if it costs society, even if kids find out–don’t care. All drugs should be legal, easily obtained, reasonably priced, pharmaceutically pure and duly taxed. The taxes should be spent EXCLUSIVELY on education, diversion and rehabilitation of those who fuck themselves up with it. If people die because they’re unable to govern their own habits, too bad, tough shit, don’t care. If they kill someone ELSE or otherwise harm them while rocking their favorite drug, they get their asses nailed to the wall, and they are personally on the hook for reparations to those they damage. This includes serial drunk drivers, too, who ought to be indentured servants paying off the bill for damages they incur.
What do we lose by taking this approach? We lose a large percentage of our crime rate. No huge profits or risks in drugs means no incentive for criminals to get into it. No drug dealer will be able to undercut the pharmaceutical companies in price or quality–they’ll be out of business in days. We lose a large percentage of the population of our prisons, people who are incarcerated for non-violent drug related crimes–possession, trafficking, etc. We also lose the bill for warehousing these “criminals.” We lose the good opinion of some countries who profit heavily by feeding our drug habits. Some arms dealers will be a little pissed I suppose, but screw them. We lose our “reputation” as a “moral” “Christian” country–no big loss as far as I’m concerned. Who gives a fuck what people think anyway? This is about pragmatism, not global opinion or social ostracism.
What’s going to save us from the fearsome threat of rampant addiction? Same thing that’s reduced the overall percentage of smokers from 42% to 22.5% between 1965 and 2002–it became unfashionable. We educated people about the dangers of smoking, made it more difficult for unethical companies to market their wares and stopped tolerating smokers being assholes in public areas. Upshot, the public acceptance of cigarette use is very low and tobacco fiends pretty much have to refrain from indulging their bad habit outside of their own houses, which is as it should be for any personal bad habit. Keep it home, don’t shove it in people’s faces, because there’s a time and a place for everything which has very little to do with legality. Good example of this: ass fucking should be legal, ass fucking on a table at the library, not so much.
I’ll be the first to admit that the US is chock full of stupid meddling assholes who want to make a shitpot of money doing whatever they want while campaigning like mad for laws preventing any activity they don’t like. I just think it’s time to stop freaking out over so-called morals and ethics when determining how to handle personal responsibility issues like drug use, sexual habits and risk seeking behavior and just take a fucking sensible, pragmatic approach to amelioration of effects. I don’t really care WHY people do things, and it shouldn’t matter. All I care about is maximizing personal freedoms, minimizing government meddling in private affairs and mitigating negative effects to innocent bystanders of bad personal choices.
I’ll go one step further. Drunks and addicts shouldn’t be punished at all for what they do under the influence. Ingestion of mind-altering substances impairs your judgement. If a guy wants to go on a 3 day coke binge, I have no problem with it. As long as he locks himself in his house and doesn’t interact with anyone, nobody is hurt. I can concede that point.
Of course, he’ll need more health care than a non-user, which will add to the health care problems, which are cited as one of the main reasons the Evil Weed Tobacco[sup]TM[/sup] neds to be eradicated. I can smoke a heater and drive to work just fine. Coked up? Probably not a good idea. I’ll take second-hand smoke over a tweaker in a Buick anyday. YMMV.
But if the guy does want to go out and party? If he’s stoned he’s too impaired to know better than to drive. So wiping out a family on thier way to Disneyland shouldn’t be punished. If he were sober he would probably realize that some actions such as shooting up then getting behind the wheel is a bad idea. If he’s already shot up? Probably not thinking about that.
If some crack-addled guy decides to break into a car to get the money for tomorrow’s hit? Meh. He’s stoned and has a brain rotting by the day. I can’t fault him for that. It’s not his fault, it’s the drugs. It would be immoral to prosecute him. Sure, he’s negatively affecting other people, but it’s not his fault. The addiction and active use are the cause of the problem, but the drugs are legal.
Of course, if the drugs were legal, the above situations wouldn’t be an issue, right?
Oh sure, if a person gets out of control a court can mandate treatment. But that’s one of the dumbest things I’ve ever seen done. I’ve known people that were ordered into AA after a 2nd or 3rd DUI. 6 of the 7 I know went for, get this, the ordered number of meetings. Not a single one after that. The 8th went for 3 more months. Rehab is for quitters, not for people that don’t want to be there.
But we don’t have enough problems. I can’t see legalizing heroin and meth adding to them. :rolleyes:
On the other hand, as an Evil Straight White Male Republican Conservative[sup]TM[/sup], I should probably be on your side on this issue. Based on statistics, legalizing the hard narcotics would affect for the most part minorities. Much like my recent enlightenment on the abortion issue, it would help weed out the lower-class and misfits. This could be a very good thing for the American economy.
Not only can we help accelerate the death rates, we can tax the shit out of them on the way out the door.