Why Does This Board Tolerate Illegal Activities?

[Rousseau]

Then you are the one who missed the point. My speed limit analogy was in response to people who suggest that because they know people who smoke pot and graduated from college, there is no reason why marijuana should be illegal. I was saying that you must make the laws based on the people who are irresponsible (you call them "assholes).

I’ve said, I would prefer it if we could make anti-drinking (or anti- the distribution of alcohol, if that’s what floats your boat) laws, but we can’t. Alcohol and other drugs destroy so many lives in this nation, and their redeeming values are virtually nonexistent.

Besides, we all know what would happen if we followed your plan, and marijuana was legalized, but operating a motor vehicle while under its influence remained illegal. People would start to get stopped under suspicion of driving while stoned, and they’d get busted for it (as I assume there would be extremely harsh penalties). Since a breathalyzer wouldn’t work, a blood test would be the only way to determine whether or not the person actually was under the influence of THC. Then you’d bitch about having your 4th Amendment rights abridged, and you’d rally until the anti-stoned driving laws were virtually unenforcable.

Also, it amuses me that you refer to the ingestion of marijuana as a “privilege.”

What could NOT be done was make it successful, like the stupid ‘Drug War’ you advocate.

Man, maybe you’re not even ready for Reading for Comprehension 101. Go back and study that paragraph I wrote about how I don’t espouse the current manifestation of the “War on Drugs,” (a ‘Drug War’ is usually between gangs).

Pedophilia is improper use of sexual behaviour. Just as drunken driving is improper use of alchohol.

Just like arguing with a numbnuts like you is an improper use of my time.

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“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill

[Rousseau]

Mojo: Yes I would. My apologies…thanks for pointing that out. Although I think you know what I meant.

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“History will be kind to me, for I intend to write it.” -Winston Churchill

[Lexicon]

You use words like an Animal Control worker uses a shovel.

Only when I’m shoveling the shit you spout.

I have no doubt that you are very intelligent, and that you have a lot of great things to contribute…

somewhere else.

The things you say here are so assinine, ignorant, bigoted and retroactive that I can’t even begin to think how I could possibly make a start of showing you where you are wrong.
I am not a psychologist, and I am not a therapist. Your problems are beyond my faculties and I cannot help you.
All I can say is that you do need help. You are seriously fucked up.

Of course, that’s just my opinion, I could be wrong.

[yosemite]

Uh - hmmm…

All this debate and sniping aside, I still am curious to hear an answer to my question, (as stated more comprehensively in my previous post.) Why, with the apparent risk involved in buying drugs off the street, do some of you feel like ya gotta have it?

Bear in mind, I am not fervently trying to squelch an individual’s drug use - I think that is mostly an exercise in futility. And as long as they can function in society, and don’t make it my business, I’m not getting my knickers in too much of a bunch. But, why take risks with unregulated substances from unknown sources?

[Lexicon]

Yeah, you mean like prohibition? That worked great, didn’t it?

It’s true, any attempt to legislate drug use is a waste of time.
It is in effect trying to legislate morality.
The legalization of certain drigs is an eventuality that certain individuals seem to have a problem with. Why I have no idea.
My guess is that some people are just so damn bored that they have to make shit up to bitch about. Shmucks.

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“Winners never quit and quitters never win, but those who never win and never quit are idiots.”

[Lexicon]

disclaimerprevious post not directed at yosemitebabe, it just seems that way.

[DoctorJ]

So it seems to me that, in effect, we would just be creating a new, more potent cigarette. Or are potheads too durn smart to fall for corporate America’s tricks?

You have hit on exactly why I don’t support total legalization of pot–I don’t want corporate America getting its grubby hands on it.

I don’t want to see it for sale in nice colorful packages at Super America. I don’t want guys in board rooms plotting ways to increase their share in the dooby market. I don’t want to hear the endless debates about whether people have the right to toke up in public, or whether the Spleefy the Squirrel ad campaign was aimed at children or not.

Marijuana should be purchased in a nondescript plastic baggie from a guy down the street who calls everybody “dude” and will use the money to put speakers in his van. It should be expertly rolled or packed on the coffee table, and fired up about the time “Scarlet Begonias” kicks over to “Fire on the Mountain”. Corporations are not involved, the government is not involved.

(I should point out that I don’t even smoke the stuff. Never did much for me, and I’d love to try to get a medical license after getting busted for possession.)

What I support is severe, severe decriminalization of marijuana, to the point that convictions are unheard of. What we have is an attitude of “anything goes”, as long as it helps us “end the plague of drugs”. No penalty is too severe, no right is too important to step on. We have somehow picked up the idea that marijuana is such a danger to society that we are willing to lock someone up and destroy his name and reputation if he happens to possess any. A faulty premise, a ridiculous conclusion, and a colossal waste of our tax dollars, in my opinion.

Now, I’ve run across my share of potheads (my taste in music tends to run concurrent with theirs)

Since we have established previously that we’re both fans of druggie hippie music, I would encourage you not to consider the people at a Phish concert to be a reasonable cross section of marijuana users. That’s about like calling the people on Bourbon St. on Mardi Gras representative of beer drinkers everywhere. (By the way, did you mail order for any shows this summer? I’m doing Deer Creek and Polaris.)

Sure, it may not be as harmful as crack, but it IS a “gateway drug,” and by that I mean it is readily available to teenagers

If you’ll see above, in my response to B-Dude, I poked some holes in the “gateway drug” idea.

and can seem contradictory to the message “DRUGS ARE BAD,” the message that we have to send to kids.

Why? Why does the message have to be so simplistic? I’m getting ready to enter a profession based on the idea that drugs are actually pretty good. Should we not give our kids antibiotics, lest we undermine our message of “drugs are bad”? (Yes, it’s a silly example, but not much sillier than lumping together pot and heroin.)

Dr. J

PS: I keep forgetting that this is the Pit. Um, fuck fuckety fuck fuck fuck.

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“Seriously, baby, I can prescribe anything I want!” -Dr. Nick Riviera

[Larry_Borgia]

A couple of minor points.

First, alas, the only lasagne recipe I know involves buying delicious fourcheese lasagne at marvelous market, heating it and eating it.

Second, If you look at the thread that Democritus started that got Avenue B so worked up, it’s not about how to do pot better, it’s about something that happens to him when he does smoke pot. It isn’t neccessarily advocating drug use, though I can’t imagine the topic would be of much interest to a non drug user.

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Perked Ears indicate curiosity - Know Your Cat

[tomndebb]

Second, If you look at the thread that Democritus started that got Avenue B so worked up, it’s not about how to do pot better, it’s about something that happens to him when he does smoke pot.

You’re not suggesting that AvenueB-dude’s reading comprehension was faulty? My, my.

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Tom~

[MandaJo]

Mandatory Disclaimer : I don’t smoke pot, but hung out with the proverbial “wrong crowd” in high school.

Yosimitebabe:
People smoke pot “off the street” because they see the risks as inconsequential. This is not an unreasonable proposistion. Yougert, to use your example, can go bad rather easily, and with grave consequences. Pot, on the other hand, is a plant, and not that easily adulterated. It certainly dosen’t go bad–think how often you throw out your dried spices because of age. Stories of pot ‘laced’ with other, harder, drugs seem to be of the same caliber as tales of poisoned Halloween candy. Everybody’s heard of it, but it hasn’t ever happened. Now, I would be willing to accept that there might have been occasions when a sack was laced with something else, but it would be an extremely rare event. For one thing, you get what you pay for. Hard drugs are expensive and people don’t just give them away to people who don’t even WANT them. Second, the vast majority of pot smokers do not buy their drugs "on the street’; they buy them from their buddy who lives two blocks over. And buddy buys his shit from a guy he knew in the military, and so on and so forth. Eventually it goes back to some shadowy “dealer” , but that person is selling pot by the pound, or the tens of pounds. I guarentee he is not lacing a pound of pot with anything that packs a buzz out of the goodness of his heart. And what motive would he have to lace it with something lethal? He could be psycotic, but so could the chef at your local diner. All the people down the chain are good friends, at least with the people directly next to them (A with B with C with D) so there is no one likely to pull any shit on their buddies. Pot smokers always buy from the same people over and over again–to do anything else is considered risky. On the rare occasion that a dealer is busted or someone moves, the process of finding a new source is a delicate operation with it’s own exquisite ettiquette. Now, of course, even with these safeguards there is always a danger of contamination. But I do not think it is any higher than the danger of a lot of things most people find acceptable–eating at greasy spoons, driving a little too fast, playing football.

The reeason that pot smokers are willing to risk the legal consequences is that the vast majority of pot smokers are never busted. Millions are, but so many people smoke pot that it just dosn’t seem like a threat worth worring about as long as reasonable precautions are taken–sort of like driving, really, or living somewhere where there are earthquakes. Not anything to cramp your style over. Hope this helps.

[Milossarian]

Rousseau said: Now, I’ve run across my share of potheads (my taste in music tends to run concurrent with theirs), and I will admit that I’ve met a number that are perfectly respectable. But I’ve also met a lot that aren’t.

And someone with his thinking cap on might then conclude that pot is rather ancillary and insignificant to whether a person is “good” or “bad,” productive or non-productive for society.

So, if they’re hurting anybody, they’re hurting themselves, and even that’s debatable. Pot seems to have no connection to or bearing upon a person’s societal worth so, why is it illegal again?

“We need to send the message to kids that drugs are bad.”

You know what happens when you send kids such a simplistic, one-note, shallow message, and lump a drug like pot in with drugs like crack and heroin?

Those kids get older, they see some of their peers using the drugs without becoming maniacal deviants who bake babies in ovens, they determine that you’re full of shit and can’t be trusted and they shove your “Just say no” message right back up your ass.

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“Nothing is so firmly believed as what is least known” - Michel Gyquem de Montaigne

[neutron_star]

I think health is a precious thing

Everything in this world is a health risk. That Big Mac I ate tonight (combined with a thousand other burgers) could end up giving me a heart attack. I risk my health every time I get in my car. Many people risk cancer with cigarettes. Many risk an ugly splat by skydiving or bungee-jumping. It all depends on how much you want to risk.

Why, with the apparent risk involved in buying drugs off the street, do some of you feel like ya gotta have it?

Well, as amazing as this may sound, there ARE drug dealers who aren’t out to poison you or steal your money. Some of them (especially low-level dealers) are really nice, trustable people. I know the pot I’m getting isn’t tainted because my dealer smoked it, and so did his dealer and all of his friends, etc, etc. I’ve been smoking weed for 6 years and have known many potheads. I have yet to hear of ANYONE getting tainted weed. No “friend of a friend” accounts, NOTHING!

And there is a difference between “gotta have it” and “want to have it.”
I’m not a hopeless junkie scouring the streets for my next fix.

[yosemite]

Thanks you guys for your answers to my question about the risks of using pot. Yes, by your account, it doesn’t sound as risky as I might have thought. Not that I don’t think there are some small risks still there. Not that I respect pot use, or ever will. But that’s beside the point.

I have to say, I’m a person who doesn’t drink, doesn’t smoke. I don’t eat meat. I have the occasional Pepsi, and I need to exercise more. My health habits are not flawless, (far from it) but perhaps do not contain some of the “socially accepted drugs” (alcohol, cigarettes.) So I just don’t get any of that. I don’t think I’d enjoy using a product (pot) that carried even the small risk of arrest. But - hey, that’s my choice. If you want to take the chance, that’s up to you.

As I stated earlier, pot use does not bother me as much as other drugs. The “hard” stuff really amazes me, and yes, I do believe that people who use cocaine or heroin are risking their health in a rash and unnacceptable way. It’s their body, but what a waste. I’d like to be able to have them trade places with my sister - they can have her bad eyes and crappy health - hey - they knew that taking some potent drug from a dealer on the street held some risks, but they were willing to take the risk. My sister took medication from a doctor. She was never informed of the risks from a doctor that she trusted.

I know my logic (wanting to trade my sister’s bad eyes with a reckless hard drug user good eyes) is rather harsh and a little illogical, but it’s just a feeling I have inside. A feeling of rage that people decide to take such rash chances with their health…for what? A buzz? To escape for a few hours? Because they are bored? Hell if I know.

Well, that’s a tangent, since this is mostly directed towards pot use. Which I am not convinced is a great thing, but hey…whatever.

[neutron_star]

Alcohol and other drugs destroy so many lives in this nation, and their redeeming values are virtually nonexistent.

Nonexistent? You wanna rethink that one? Oh wait, nevermind. You can’t rethink if you never thought in the first place.

No value, eh? Well a glass of wine a day can help prevent heart disease. Ingestion of marijuana during a stroke (Don’t ask me how. I guess somebody would have to blow the smoke in your face) can prevent brain damage, not to mention the plethora of other medical uses for marijuana.

Cocaine is a topical anesthetic. Amphetamines have been used as diet aids. Opiates (like heroin) are still the most effective painkillers known to man.

LSD was used (and had a pretty decent success rate) as a cure for alcholism before it was criminalized. It was also a wonderful tool for studying schizophrenia. Indeed, the original classification of the drug was a “psychomemetric,” a mimicker of madness.

Peyote, psilocybe mushrooms, and ayahuasca have been used for millennia by Native Americans for spiritual reasons.

Nonexistent sigh The ignorance must permeate the air so thoroughly in Rousseau’s house that he’s suffocating his entire family.

Since a breathalyzer wouldn’t work, a blood test would be the only way to determine

Actually they now have a technique where they shine a special light in your eye and if your pupils dilate a certain amount, they can tell you’re stoned. I’ve only read about this. I have yet to see it in practice.

but it IS a “gateway drug,”

DAMN IT ROUSSEAU!!! I have provided links to government studies debunking this in other threads regarding this subject that you posted to. I have, however, come to realize the futility of this, since your preferred method of debate is covering your ears and yelling “LA LA LA I’M RIGHT AND YOU’RE NOT LA LA LA!” You ignore the evidence and continue to post baseless tripe! While the rest of us fight ignorance, you’re bent over in the bed of a purple El Camino giving ignorance a blowjob!

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`What is ominous is the ease with which some people go from saying that they don’t like something to saying that the government should forbid it. When you go down that road, don’t expect freedom to survive very long.’
– Thomas Sowell

[Valerieblaise]

While the rest of us fight ignorance, you’re bent over in the bed of a purple El Camino giving ignorance a blowjob!

Neutron Star, you’re the wind beneath my wings. That is brilliant.

Carry on.

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Everybody knows that Steve McGarrett only takes orders from the governor and God - and occassionally even they have trouble.

[TwistofFate]

Disclaimer: I have toked in the past, but now only stick to the legal drugs. Tonight, I’m on NyQuil and Sudafed.

Gateway drug? Thats like saying Grape juice leads to NightTrain.

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well, at least one person wants to meet me…
http://fathom.org/polldata/pollcheck.adp?poll=dope-page5&question=62

Cheers!!

[andros]

Gateway drug? Thats like saying Grape juice leads to NightTrain.

Actually it was the other way around for me. I stopped drinking 'Train when I realized I could get exactly the same effect from slugging month-old Welch’s and pounding my head into a brick wall over
and over
and over
and over . . .

[Dirty_Devil]

Originally posted by DoctorJ:
Marijuana should be purchased in a nondescript plastic baggie from a guy down the street who calls everybody “dude” and will use the money to put speakers in his van. It should be expertly rolled or packed on the coffee table, and fired up about the time “Scarlet Begonias” kicks over to “Fire on the Mountain”. Corporations are not involved, the government is not involved.

I really love this!!!

(By the way, did you mail order for any shows this summer? I’m doing Deer Creek and Polaris.)

You people in the East and Mid-West always luck out. I’d seriously consider moving to the East Coast just so I could see them more than five or six times a year. We’ll probably get one show this Fall in the SF Bay Area, and maybe a show or two in Southern California and a show or two in Oregon or Washington or Idaho. Too far for me to drive with two small kids. I’ll be at Shoreline, though, guaranteed.

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I’d like to cut your head off so I can weigh it. What do you say?

[The_Peyote_Coyote]

AvenueB-Dude: As the poster who asked for advice about beating a drug test, I renew my original offer to you: Send me your address and I will send you train fare so you can go to the East River and drown yourself. You are a fascist putz who should be a commissar in North Korea, not a citizen of the United States.
Dr. J: That was a classic post. Thanks, doc.

YosemiteBabe: Others have answered this, but I will add my two cents. I rarely, if ever, buy marijuana off the street. Currently, I buy from two sources, one a married couple who are friends of mine and the other an acquaintance of several years standing. I buy only from people I know (us coyotes are a paranoid bunch).

[Dirt]

[/non-expert aside]

neutron star said:

…a glass of wine a day can help prevent heart disease.

Just wanted to clarify a common semi-misconception about the benefits of wine in heart disease prevention. From the Heart Information Network:

Wine vs. purple grape juice
Although large-scale studies that evaluate the long-term results of including more flavonoids in the diet still need to be performed, it appears more likely that the flavonoid content of red wine rather than the alcohol is more responsible for the decreased CVD [cardiovascular disease].

In other words, it ain’t the wine (i.e. alcohol) so much as the grapes. Another study (from the January issue of the American Journal of Clinical Nutrition, cited on Dr. Koop) supports this notion:

…increases in total (+)-catechin in plasma were similar after ingestion of alcoholic and nonalcoholic red wine…

Which is not to say, OTOH (and in support of neutron’s actual point), that the alcohol is wholly without benefit. The Koop bit continues:

But moderate amounts of alcohol also make a contribution to heart health. Previous research shows that alcohol by itself increases concentration of HDL – “the good cholesterol” – in the blood, the researchers note.

Of course, the key in all this is the “moderate” part. Also, I’ve yet to meet anyone who drinks wine solely for the health benefits. But whatever.

[/non-expert aside]