Should Marijuana Be Legalized?

[Arabis]

So are you saying that alcohol abuse is ok because it's legal for adults over a certain age to drink? Allowing legal use of something does not automatically tell everyone that abusing said substance is ok.

No, I'm saying that making it legal sends the message that it is ok to use. The reason there is a legal drinking age is because those adults are supposed to be responsible enough to drink and not abuse the substance. The younger you try something addictive, the easier it is to abuse it.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

No, I'm saying that making it legal sends the message that it is ok to use. The reason there is a legal drinking age is because those adults are supposed to be responsible enough to drink and not abuse the substance. The younger you try something addictive, the easier it is to abuse it.

And if you legalise any drugs I sincerely doubt it's going to be open slather.'Here little girl, company promotion, have a free Eccy with your squishy.',it'll be subject to the same checks as alcohol or cigarettes. Our police are already doing random drug tests on drivers when they do their random alcohol breath tests. This sortof thing would continue, legal ages would be introduced, etc.
However, having said that, plenty of kids below the legal drinking and smoking age drink and smoke. And plenty of them take drugs of one form or another, and there's really no way to even realistically attempt to try and regulate the drug taking. Some random guy on the street doesn't care if he's selling something to a 10 year old, but a legitimate business owner who is in danger of hefty fines and/or losing his licence will certainly think twice.

 

[Arabis]

And if you legalise any drugs I sincerely doubt it's going to be open slather.'Here little girl, company promotion, have a free Eccy with your squishy.',it'll be subject to the same checks as alcohol or cigarettes. Our police are already doing random drug tests on drivers when they do their random alcohol breath tests. This sortof thing would continue, legal ages would be introduced, etc.
However, having said that, plenty of kids below the legal drinking and smoking age drink and smoke. And plenty of them take drugs of one form or another, and there's really no way to even realistically attempt to try and regulate the drug taking. Some random guy on the street doesn't care if he's selling something to a 10 year old, but a legitimate business owner who is in danger of hefty fines and/or losing his licence will certainly think twice.

I totally understand your point, whether it is legal or not people are still going to use and abuse drugs of any kind. I just don't want it any easier than it is for my kids to get their hands on it.

 

[ch'ang]

I don't think the potency is quite the same. You can abuse anything, but the point is why make it ok.

Legalizing marajuana does not make it ok, its government policy and nothing more. You deciede what is acceptable not your governments policy.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

I totally understand your point, whether it is legal or not people are still going to use and abuse drugs of any kind. I just don't want it any easier than it is for my kids to get their hands on it.

It's easier for your kids to get their hands on it now than it if were legal and regulated.

 

[Arabis]

It's easier for your kids to get their hands on it now than it if were legal and regulated.

What about in europe? Is society really better now that drugs are legal in certain places?

 

[NuGnostic]

Can anyone actually say banning drugs has actually accomplished anything,I fail to see how it has actually stopped or really even lessened drug use.

 

[Ody]

Robotussin is widly available, and cheap, especially the off brands. Yet it's not exactly a drug of choice for many people, despite the legallity and avalability. Out of all the druggies I know, only one of them enjoys and uses 'tussin.

SOME PEOPLE DRINK DA PURPLE DRANK YO.

I'mma Grip N' Sip.

or you can get some benadryl, have a nice story to tell

 

[Quoth The Raven]

What about in europe? Is society really better now that drugs are legal in certain places?

I don't have the statistics at hand, but I'm pretty sure off the top of my head I read somewhere that in places where marijuana is legal, use of so called harder drugs has decreased.
Here you go: http://www.drugwarfacts.org/thenethe.htm looks like things are looking up in the Netherlands because of it.

By the way, the closest I've ever come to illegal drug use was the opium poppies I grew in my garden, so don't think I'm coming up with this stuff out of self interest.

 

[Comprehend]

hmmm.

This thread reads like a bunch of pot heads rationalizing to me.

 

[screw_fix2003]

I suppose some of it is a cultural thing. In some cultures it is acceptable in the UK it is against the law.

Some tribes in parts of the world crush up all sort of plants because they produce substances that may them go loopy for want of a better word.

Each to their own I say.

Screw_fix2003

 

[michel]

Should marijuana be legalized? If so, why? If not, why not?

This is a subject that is close to my heart; I know that my views are different from most members, but I believe that marijuana should be regarded as illegal.

I will qualify that by saying that, when dispensed by a doctor for medical purposes, it can be extremely useful for certain ilnesses, for pain relief.

That, however does not detract from the fact that, it has been shown that if it is regularly taken at a young age, there is definite and irreperable damage to the brain.

See:-http://findarticles.com/p/articles/mi_hb353/is_200303/ai_n5555568

Researchers in New South Wales are using sophisticated brain technology to show how far the changes produced by long-term cannabis use mirror those associated with schizophrenia. Dr Martin Cohen, a senior registrar of psychiatry at the Hunter Centre for Mental Health Studies, is studying people aged between 17 and 24 who have smoked at least 2,000 `cones' in the past two years.

 

[ch'ang]

hmmm.

This thread reads like a bunch of pot heads rationalizing to me.

Words escape me....

I challange you to propose any reason, any at all for keeping drugs illegal. Go ahead try.

 

[Kamala]

hmmm.

This thread reads like a bunch of pot heads rationalizing to me.

Actually, I'd be willing to bet many of us here defending legalization don't use drugs.

I certainly don't.

 

[Quoth The Raven]

hmmm.

This thread reads like a bunch of pot heads rationalizing to me.

Apparently you've never read any of the threads that actually were 'a bunch of potheads rationalising', if that's your take on the this one. It's the first of these that I've ever come across here that hasn't degenerated into 'Studies showing negative effects are all junk science/there's no negative effects/I can do whatever drugs and be fit to drive, unlike you and your bottle of wine/no-one who ever smoked marijuana ever gets violent or psychotic, and I don't care that your personal experience is different to mine, because you're wrong and I'm right' within a very short matter of time.
The simple fact of the matter is, it's currently easier and cheaper for kids to get drugs than it is for them to get drunk. That comes down solely to the fact that alcohol is legal and regulated and taxed and expensive and potentially hard to get hold of without your parents noticing, but you can get enough of some substances to keep you flying for the night for as little as $5 from some guy off the street, no questions asked.
If someone comes up with a way to freeze alcohol and make it an icy pole - which happened - there's an uproar and people accuse them of marketing to children and the product is pulled from the market uner a dark cloud.
You come up with some sort of an illicit drug that's looks like an M&M with Bart Simpsons head impressed into it, no one says anything. You know why? Because they don't know, and the 10 year olds that crashed in their school playground after taking drugs that were made to look just like that and actually were marketed to kids didn't tell anyone because hey, they just looked like candy and the person they got it off never told them it could kill them.
No-one is keeping their kids safe from nasties by keeping those nasties illegal...it might be nice to think that, but in reality it makes it easier for unscrupulous people who don't give a **** and have nothing to lose to market their product to the children of people who think that illegality makes us all safe. That saying,'Thou shalt not take illegal drugs!' means they wont.

Now, before you paint me with your handy 'rationalising pothead' brush, let me tell you a few things about myself. I have never smoked marijuana - or taken any other sort of drug - nor have I ever been interested in doing so, despite the fact that a couple of people I knew briefly thought it was their mission in life to get me high when they found out I never had been. Other than one particular girl - who I will get to in a moment - none of my friends I grew up with ever used drugs either, at least in the time I knew them, which for some was over 17 years. The girl that did, had ADHD and was put on valium by a doctor at the age of 4. By 16 she was a heroin addict. I sat there with her ex boyfriend literally crying on my shoulder one night at a school camp because we were watching her crash and burn and she couldn't be helped. At 18 she nearly died of an overdose.
I don't take drugs, I never have, I have no interest in ever doing so. So put away the brush and see what the actual arguments being made are and who is making them.
Oh, and Michel, I've read that study in it's entirity and last I heard they still weren't sure if the cannabis was causing the problems or if these were people with pre-existing problems who were self medicating with cannabis and causing themselves more problems.
Plenty of people who already have problems self medicate themselves to a standstill with alcohol.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I just don't want it any easier than it is for my kids to get their hands on it.

If you send them to public school, they already have very easy access to drugs and alcohol. Especially in high school.

 

[Arabis]

If you send them to public school, they already have very easy access to drugs and alcohol. Especially in high school.

Well, my oldest is 3 and I actually plan on home schooling.