legalization of Marijuana

[Shadow Wolf]

I've tried marijuana twice, both times to unsatisfactory results. I don't plan on ever trying it again. The first time, I felt nothing. The second time, I might have felt something, but I'm not sure.

It usually does take a couple of times of smoking weed for most people to get a good buzz.

I can tell you from personal experience that that's a load of crap. I've been on the receiving end of it from one person, and heard about a whole lot more. :sarcastic You can't just make these broad generalizations about people who smoke marijuana

Everyone I've ever smoked weed with, and everyone theve smoked weed with, aren't violent while high. Im sure thier there are those who have been violent while high, but generally, people who are stoned are mellow, and non-violent, and are very safe to be around, as long as the don't have weed on them if thier are cops around.
Just incase someone didn't know, if your with someone who was caught with weed, or anyother drug on them, you are just as guilty as they are, even if you had no idea. Its called guilty by association.
And even when your stoned, driving is safe. Usually people who are stoned drive slower than people who arent. When I'm high, I only drive about 40 mph, cause its fast enough. I also turn my radio down alot cause its loud enough. Even my brother, who has a lead foot, slows down when hes high.
I am one of those people that recommends that everyone gets high at least once in thier life.

 

[EnhancedSpirit]

Does any one remember the song made from Shel Silverstein's The Smoke Off ?

 

[Cr0wley]

No, but I remember Black Sabbath's "Sweet Leaf"...

 

[Fat Old Sun]

I saw a guy get thrown out of a Sabbath show for smoking a joint... while they were playing Sweet Leaf. :biglaugh:

 

[anami]

I voted for legalization only for medical use. I've seen programmes where doctor have declared that the earlier you start taking Marijuana, you increase the likelyhood of suffering from depression, schizophrenia, psycosis.

Please refrence an actual study on the effects of marijuana after 1945 that says this. Reefer madness doesn't count as a "study"

Look at it this way; pretend no one had ever heard of tobacco so far. Not a single cigarette in the whole world. Someone now (2005) says "Hey, I've just discovered this stuff I'm going to call tobacco, and market it."

Whoah!!!!!
So pot was "discovered" in 2005?

The difference here is that while marijuana has been used since tribal cultures as has tobacco. And while studies have been done on both giving us more and more information, we are finding that The legal tobacco is infinatly more dangerous than marijuana. What is legal is dangerous and what is relativly safe is illegal.

Recoculous!

I remember hearing someone saying (some while back) that if the potatoe had been siscovered at that time, no lab on Earth would have supported the use of it as food.

ok but we are talking about something that has been injested and utilized safely for many things centuries before the A.D. flip.

 

[anami]

I fail to see how this refutes the fact that smoking pot is stupid. I also don't see how it is very smart for one to put something that contains many of the same carcinogens as cigarrettes in one's mouth, but maybe I'm missing something.

Smoking lettuce is worse than eating a salad. It is the heat and the burning that is the problem not the substance. So if you are worried use a vaporizer or eat it.

Regardless the non consumables from it could easily save the planet.

 

[Majikthise]

Pfffffffffffffft...........................Paaaaaahhhhhhhh....

Yummy.

 

[anami]

yeah, i am going to step out for a splif, if i have any insight on this toipc from it, i'll let you know.

 

[EnhancedSpirit]

ok but we are talking about something that has been injested and utilized safely for many things centuries before the A.D. flip.

Pot was utilized safely for many things centuries before 1940's.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

Marijuana really doesn't slow down motor skills that much. The TV commercials over-exagerate this.

I've seen the footage of the studies...it slows them down enough. Of course, if people are allowed to drive tired, or under the influence of drugs which clearly state on the packaging that they may cause drowsiness and you shouldn't drive or operate machinery while using them, by all means, lets get the roads full of nuffnuffs with slowed reaction times and watch the road toll mount up.

I feel marijuana should be legalized. It would lower the crime rate, due to the fact there would be no deals gone wrong over it. I know someone who is running from the law, wanted ror attempted murder and agravated assault. He stabed someone in the jugular vien because a drug deal over pot went wrong. Couldn't have happened if pot was legal.

Because he's obviously a well balanced individual anyway, to be stabbing people.:sarcastic

 

[Quoth The Raven]

On one hand I don't think pot is a big deal, but on the other there would be problems legalizing it that most don't think about. If it were to be legalized it would have to fall under the control of the government and FDA. It would have to be regulated in production and taxed. Since the government would have to monitor all this they would seize control of any land it was grown on and have it farmed. Anyone who grew it in their backyard or where ever would still fall under legal prosecution anyway for growing a government controlled subtance privately. You can't grow your own tobacco legally because to do so is to ursurp the government of its wanted tax money.

Also on another note, if you work in a factory or any other place that requires high attention and dangerous machinery how safe would you feel if the person next to you had a joint on their last break? You wouldn't want your co-worker throwing back shots of vodka and then operating blades next to you on the production line...would you feel safer if they were high? ...even if it was legally?

I used to work in the meat industry. One day, the apprentice stuck his hand down the barrel of the mincer and the worm bit him (he lost the end of his finger). Luckily for him our mincer had a reverse and he had the presence of mind to knock it into reverse with his knee, thus saving us the very unpleasant job of having to manually wind it backward to get his hand out (not to mention the fact that he would have lost a great deal more without the reverse). The butcher operating the saw had a joint on his lunch break, and the saw was positioned directly in front of the first aid cabinet. The only thing this joker was capable of doing when we yelled at him for a bandage was run backwards and forwards like a shooting gallery duck screaming '****!' at the top of his lungs and blocking the way for anyone else who was together enough to do anything. All the while the saw blade is still spinning merrily away beside him...we were lucky there weren't two injuries.
We only found out after the even what was wrong with him, but no-one under the influence of anything is safe to be around in an environment with sharp, pointy things or machinery.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

Of course, that entire argument is refuted when it is realized that some people utilize the effects of marijuana by chewing and sucking it under the tongue, where the mucous membranes absorb it into the blood.

That's like saying tabacco isn't harmful if you chew it instead of smoke it...then there's the studies on the links to throat and mouth cancers that refute that idea.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

I'm quite sure that smoking in the privacy of your own home would destroy family values and the sanctity of marriage.

Only if you smoke it while in the company of homosexuals.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

Not only are there medicinal properties. Hemp oil can be used as a substitute for petroleum in all oil based products, paint, plastics, cleansers, etc. Also, when harvested as sprouts, marijuana can be used just as diversly as soy. Hemp milk, oil for cooking, you can even make hemp flour.

The amount of paper that can be produced by one acre of hemp is equal to 10 acres of trees. And the process of making hemp paper does not involve polluting our air.

Also, hemp fiber is the strongest fiber in nature. Until the invention of nylon, hemp was used on all warships, because it would not deteriorate in the salt invironment. The only reason marijuana is illegal, is because the pharmecutical companies, and the potroleum companies lobbied to government, and convinced them that the United States had more to gain with man made medicines and such, rather than use nature, which is free to all and rather hard to control or tax.

Here is a rather detailed list of what we could do with legalizing this herb that was given to us by God. 101 Uses for Hemp

The hemp you use for fibre and oil production ISN'T the same stuff you smoke. It's a different species of the plant.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

Whoah!!!!!
So pot was "discovered" in 2005?

The difference here is that while marijuana has been used since tribal cultures as has tobacco. And while studies have been done on both giving us more and more information, we are finding that The legal tobacco is infinatly more dangerous than marijuana. What is legal is dangerous and what is relativly safe is illegal.
Recoculous!
ok but we are talking about something that has been injested and utilized safely for many things centuries before the A.D. flip.

Ok, you've screwed up your quoting, so I didn't get the bit with you asking Michel to quote a study, and frankly I can't be fagged doing the whole cut and paste thing.
Go Here:http://www.abc.net.au/4corners/content/2005/s1318216.htm
It cites a study done in Amsterdam that indicates that the earlier you start smoking marijuana the more likely you are to develop psychosis. What the people involved in this current affairs program have experienced - particularly the mental health professionals - backs up said study.
It also goes on to explain why the plant you are using today is NOT the same plant that has been ingested and used safely for many centuries. Just so you don't declare that mental health professionals and university researchers are people with an agenda, there is also input from users and their friends as to how it effected them.
I understand the logic in the idea that alchohol and cigarettes are legal and therefore so should marijuana be.
What pisses me off is the idea that because you can all sit here and say, 'well, I smoke, and no-one I've ever known and no-one they've ever known have ever had a bad experience,' it's a pack of crap put about by people with an agenda that there can even be negative effects.
Know what? I've been drinking alchohol since I was 15 (the odd sip of my grandad's beer when I was younger) and I've never driven drunk. Neither I nor any of my friends who I have drunk with have ever gotten violent. Generally we get happy and swap bras. Then we eat some chips and watch a video.
Just because I have never personally experienced the negative effects of alcohol consumption doesn't mean I have the inaliable right to stick my head up my own arse and pretend that there aren't any negative effects.
Well, it does, but all it means is that I have a spiffy hat to go with my status of moron.

 

[EnhancedSpirit]

The hemp you use for fibre and oil production ISN'T the same stuff you smoke. It's a different species of the plant.

Yes, I know there is a difference between what I smoke and industrial hemp, however, the government did not make any distinctions when they made it illegal.

 

[Bastet]

Everyone I've ever smoked weed with, and everyone theve smoked weed with, aren't violent while high.

Well, aren't you the lucky one. :areyoucra My ex was "mellow" sometimes too - but that didn't stop him from being an aggressive, violent c*** when he didn't get his own way, either. He woke up with a cone (or three), he smoked pot for most of the day, and then had a few more cones before he could sleep at night. And he claimed he only smoked because it made him "mellow". Bull****. By the time I'd had enough of him, he was so paranoid it wasn't funny, his short-term memory was non-existant (which, along with the paranoia made him more aggressive, because he couldn't find things when he'd literally just put them down, and blamed it on the nearest person 'stealing' it, i.e. me). He had put his own mother in hospital, beaten his sister's head against a wall, and had been physically violent with me - all while high.
One of his good buddies he used to spend the days smoking with was also paranoid (which was later diagnosed as schitzophrenia), and had bashed his stepfather and put him in intensive care. My ex's brother was also a heavy pot smoker, and ended up being kicked out of the army when he went skitz with a loaded gun...waddaya know, he was schitzophrenic too. A good mate of my ex from the town he used to live in, came to stay with us once, and I was left alone with him - after my ex told me that not only was he schitzophrenic, but he'd pulled a knife on someone and attacked them. He was high. You can imagine how comforted and at ease I felt with him in the house.
Then there was the manager I worked with for years, whose behaviour became increasingly bizarre and paranoid. He used to scare the kids at work with the weird s*** he'd come out with, and he'd often disappear on shift to go score. Having lived with my ex, I could tell when this manager was stoned, and his behaviour became so erratic that he even started to scare me. Given my past experiences, I'm not easily scared by stoners. He was eventually fired, and his parents packed him off to rehab, where it was discovered he was (now this one's gonna shock ya), a paranoid schitzophrenic. :sarcastic You can't tell me there's not a link. I'm not saying smoking pot causes schitzophrenia, but from what I've seen, it seems pretty clear that if a person has a predisposition to it (family history or whatever), that it brings it on.

Im sure thier there are those who have been violent while high, but generally, people who are stoned are mellow, and non-violent, and are very safe to be around, as long as the don't have weed on them if thier are cops around.

Yeah - the key word being generally. I never said that all people who smoke dope are violent; all I said was that you can't make a blanket statement like Druidus did (that you won't find a pothead hurting anyone), because it's incorrect.

Just for the record, I wasn't violent when I was stoned either. The first cone made me talk a mile a minute; you literally couldn't shut me up. Second cone made me extremely *ahem* amorous...it wasn't until I'd had 3+ that I was what you'd call "mellow". As I said before, marijuana (indeed, all drugs), has a different effect on different people. I don't touch the stuff these days because I didn't like the fact that it dulled who I am, and I lost my identity. It didn't raise my IQ - I am quite comfortable admitting I was a dumb f*** while I was stoned. It slowed my reflexes, my reaction time, my ability to comprehend and process things mentally. I went along with some really stupid s*** that I wouldn't even contemplate if I hadn't been high. And, quite apart from anything else, it gave me worse hangovers than I've ever had from alcohol. Don't see the point, me.

And even when your stoned, driving is safe. Usually people who are stoned drive slower than people who arent. When I'm high, I only drive about 40 mph, cause its fast enough. I also turn my radio down alot cause its loud enough. Even my brother, who has a lead foot, slows down when hes high.

"SAFE"??? I don't think so. They take drivers licences away from old people here, when they reach the point where their reflexes and reaction times are slower than they used to be. Why? Because they're dangerous on the road. My grandfather, when he was alive, moved faster than many of the people I've seen stoned, and I wouldn't have recommended you stick him behind the wheel of a car in his later years, either.

I am one of those people that recommends that everyone gets high at least once in thier life.

And that speaks volumes.

 

[Bastet]

Ah, I found a site with info on the roadside saliva drug test that the police here are now doing here. http://www.arrivealive.vic.gov.au/c_drugsAD.html#2 And something else which I found interesting:

In 2003, a total of 31 per cent of drivers killed in Victoria tested positive to drugs other than alcohol.

Since some of you undoubtedly will think my source has an agenda, I'll see what else I can dig up.

*edit* Here's another snippet (although I'm sure you're still going to argue with me about it)

Driving after using cannabis:

• Means you take longer to respond.
• Alters your distance and time perception.
• Lowers your concentration, coordination, alertness and ability to react.
• Narrows or blurs your field of vision.

You often don’t realise your driving is affected until you’re faced with an unexpected situation. Its only then you find you can’t make a quick or correct decision.

http://www.rta.nsw.gov.au/roadsafety/drinkdriving/drugs/index.html

 

[EnhancedSpirit]

Ah, I found a site with info on the roadside saliva drug test that the police here are now doing here. http://www.arrivealive.vic.gov.au/c_drugsAD.html#2 And something else which I found interesting:
Since some of you undoubtedly will think my source has an agenda, I'll see what else I can dig up.

There are a lot of drugs other than pot. And if you smoke pot and do cocaine, then obviously you are not going to be able to blame one or the other as the culprit.

I'm wondering why there has been over 100 posts on this thread but only 36 votes.

 

[Bastet]

There are a lot of drugs other than pot. And if you smoke pot and do cocaine, then obviously you are not going to be able to blame one or the other as the culprit.

Yes, I do realise this, which is why I'm still researching the specifics. Read the edit.

I'm wondering why there has been over 100 posts on this thread but only 36 votes.

Many people have made multiple posts...it's not rocket science.