Smoking Pot.

[Marisa]

I haven't forgotten about those, which is why I don't drink alcohol or smoke.

As with most things, moderation is key. Some studies show that a glass or two of wine a day may be good for your heart even.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

So much this. Some people need to chill out every once and a while.

This is a debate forum: I was offering a rebuttal.

Illegal pot kills people all the time. Look at Mexico. Your desire to say "Pot bad. Pot bad!" ends with dead bodies daily. If it were legal, there would be no money in it for criminals, and we could stop reading stories about 10 people being found in a dumpster with their heads cut off because the druggies wanted to make sure they got the right guy.

People who are against illegal drugs need to take a hard look at this. That trade is the only work available for many poor farmers, many people are people, many journalists have been killed trying to cover it (as far as I know, more than ISIS have killed), and even tribes of people have been wiped out. But just because it's illegal doesn't mean people will quit using it. Legalizing pot would make pot so cheap, especially since people could buy their own or a pack of Marlboro Greens, the drug cartels would be no more. When you look at California compared to Indiana, it's so much more expensive in Indiana that a bunch of people who travel say we get ripped off and on average a half-gram of the cheap, seedy, low quality, blood-grass cost the same as what California charges for home-grown, good work conditions, no one gets killed over it medical weed. Medical grade, around here, is about $120 for a half gram.

As long as we have a society where some people are going to be marginalized, and a substance makes them feel better while they are trapped, you'll have a drug problem. Wanna get rid of drugs? Get socialized health care and free university educations. If people have hope they have no need to escape.

People also need to look at this one. This is what tends to drive addiction. Even the "study" with mice dying from heroine addiction was fixed in a study where the isolated mice became addicted, but those with things to do and other mice to be around hardly touched it, and the addicted ones quickly got over their addictions once introduced into the non-isolated environment.
Societies around the world are in dire need of a real and unbiased discussion of drugs, recreation use compared to escapist use, abuse, prescription drugs, hard drugs, and natural drugs, and all the other stuff to cure the massive propaganda against drugs. But they've been so heavily demonized that I've met many people who are shocked to learn that many ADD and ADHD meds are doctor-prescribed meth. Ones just cooked in a real lab under stable and clean conditions and the other is cooked up in a makeshift kitchen lab is designed with quick and easy disassemble in mind over stability.

Tobacco regulation has been a financial windfall for governments, and illegal tobacco sales are almost non-existent and rarely end with murdered people. There's just no money in it.

Around here high schools, jails, and prisons are where the illegal tobacco sales happen.

We will have to agree to disagree on what constitutes success when it comes to recreational drug policy, apparently.

Obviously making them illegal has failed. Portugal, with a much more relaxed drug policy, did see drug use initially increase, which some have hypothesized were mostly long-time users admitting for the first time, but after the initial increase in numbers the numbers went down. The violence and corruption that happens over drugs is because the states have associated them with those sorts of people, and a bunch of people believe all the lies.

 

[oldbadger]

I agree. It puzzles me when people rant about the evil of "drugs", conveniently forgetting the terrible harm done by alcohol and tobacco. Particularly because the health and social problems caused by alcohol abuse massively outweigh the harm done by currently illegal drugs.

Is this in this UKIP manifesto?

Hi Spiny....
UKIP supports the repeal of some drug laws....... about half way to a total repeal....
That nice Mr Farage has some sensible;e ideas...

• Nigel Farage: I have never taken drugs but they should be ...
  The Telegraph - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph - Telegraph › News › Politics › UKIP
  4 Apr 2014 - The Ukip leader says he has never taken drugs himself but that he believes the 'time has come' for legalising 'certain drugs'

• The War on Drugs "is lost" - - UKIP Daily
  ukipdaily.com › Views
  22 Feb 2014 - Nick Clegg said that 'the so-called War on Drugs isn't working' and that 'we .... on Watch Suzanne Evans launch UKIP's fully costed manifesto.

 

[Rick O'Shez]

Nigel Farage: I have never taken drugs but they should be ...

• The Telegraph - Telegraph online, Daily Telegraph, Sunday Telegraph - Telegraph › News › Politics › UKIP
  4 Apr 2014 - The Ukip leader says he has never taken drugs himself but that he believes the 'time has come' for legalising 'certain drugs'

I noticed this: "A biography of the Prime Minister published in 2007 also reported that Mr Cameron was almost expelled from Eton College for smoking cannabis". So Mr Cameroon is really an old hippy!

 

[leibowde84]

So, today is International Worship a Plant Day.

Personally, I'm against the use and legalisation of Marijuana beyond regulated medical applications.

What are the thoughts of others?

The harm caused by the war on drugs is monumental coompared to the purely speculative "gains" it has caused. It has been proven to be far less harmful than tobacco and alcohol (and even has been found to be safer than caffein). So, I cannot fathom why anyone would want to ruin peoples lives over it.

 

[leibowde84]

Personally I am against the use of anything in excess, especially any intoxicant (and I consider excess to be much more that extremely limited and infrequent use). But that said, I am in favor of complete legalization.

I agree. Ginger Snaps can be abused for God's sake. The possibility for excessive use should not be sufficient reasoning for making anything illegal.

 

[Mycroft]

The harm caused by the war on drugs is monumental coompared to the purely speculative "gains" it has caused. It has been proven to be far less harmful than tobacco and alcohol (and even has been found to be safer than caffein). So, I cannot fathom why anyone would want to ruin peoples lives over it.

I agree that legislation and politics have failed. Largely because they're obsolete systems that have no hope of controlling these things anyway. Rather, it's a very human, very educational issue in that ways need to be found of teaching people that there are better, alternative ways of achieving whatever pot achieves for them.

 

[sun rise]

The harm caused by the war on drugs is monumental coompared to the purely speculative "gains" it has caused. It has been proven to be far less harmful than tobacco and alcohol (and even has been found to be safer than caffein). So, I cannot fathom why anyone would want to ruin peoples lives over it.

That's ignoring the research. To me the simple immune system dysfunction finding should be enough. The pot-cancer link is not proven but:

• Many of the carcinogens and co-carcinogens present in tobacco smoke are also present in smoke from marijuana.
• Marijuana smoking does cause inflammation and cell damage, and it has been associated with pre-cancerous changes in lung tissue.
• Marijuana has been shown to cause immune system dysfunction, possibly predisposing individuals to cancer.

Does Smoking Marijuana Cause Lung Cancer

 

[leibowde84]

I agree that legislation and politics have failed. Largely because they're obsolete systems that have no hope of controlling these things anyway. Rather, it's a very human, very educational issue in that ways need to be found of teaching people that there are better, alternative ways of achieving whatever pot achieves for them.

Fair enough, but it has to be legalized FIRST. The damage is ongoing even with relaxed enforcement. Not to mention the fact that the war on drugs has almost entirely funded the Mexican Crime Syndicate.

 

[leibowde84]

That's ignoring the research. To me the simple immune system dysfunction finding should be enough. The pot-cancer link is not proven but:

• Many of the carcinogens and co-carcinogens present in tobacco smoke are also present in smoke from marijuana.
• Marijuana smoking does cause inflammation and cell damage, and it has been associated with pre-cancerous changes in lung tissue.
• Marijuana has been shown to cause immune system dysfunction, possibly predisposing individuals to cancer.

Does Smoking Marijuana Cause Lung Cancer

Watch Sanje Gupta's ongoing expose on the subject and your mind will be changed. And, you are ignorant of how marijuana can be injested without ANY carcinogens. But your main mistake is the assumption that marijuana has to be smoked. Many more use vaporization or oral injestion to avoid any of the harms that smoking causes. The mere fact that smoke is bad for your health in no way shows any negativities about marijuana. It merely shows that specific way of injesting marijuana is harmful.

Further, your immune system claim is laughable. Should everything that can negatively effect someone's immune system or cause cancer be illegal?! That is nuts! What about sunlight, smog, polution in general, car exhaust, tobacco, alcohol, chlorine, tuna, ... the list goes on. Something being bad for you is not even close to reasonable for making something illegal.

1. Many use vaporizors now to injest. Also eddibles are widely available.
2. CBD, found only in Marijuana, has been shown to slow and even stop cancer cell-growth completely.

 

[Mycroft]

1. Many use vaporizors now to injest.

Which studies reveal can be, in some cases, full of harmful, unregulated chemicals.

2. CBD, found only in Marijuana, has been shown to slow and even stop cancer cell-growth completely.

But not conclusively proven. Part of the trouble with the weed-cancer link is that a large majority of people who smoke weed also smoke tobacco.

 

[leibowde84]

Which studies reveal can be, in some cases, full of harmful, unregulated chemicals.



But not conclusively proven. Part of the trouble with the weed-cancer link is that a large majority of people who smoke weed also smoke tobacco.

1. you are out of your element. They aren't electronic cigs, they are vaporizors which vaporize only marijuana. I'm not talking about "e-juice". You just use dry plant matter, and it heats up in a small oven. 0 combustion.
2. What does the fact that marijuana users also use tobacco have to do with anything? I know many people who have quit smoking cigarettes because of switching over to light marijuana use. And, there has been 0 cases of cancer caused by marijuana. Thus, there is absolutely no reason to believe that marijuana causes cancer apart from the smoke itself, which, as I stated, is not necessary.

 

[Mycroft]

1. you are out of your element. They aren't electronic cigs, they are vaporizors which vaporize only marijuana. I'm not talking about "e-juice". You just use dry plant matter, and it heats up in a small oven. 0 combustion.
2. What does the fact that marijuana users also use tobacco have to do with anything? I know many people who have quit smoking cigarettes because of switching over to light marijuana use. And, there has been 0 cases of cancer caused by marijuana. Thus, there is absolutely no reason to believe that marijuana causes cancer apart from the smoke itself, which, as I stated, is not necessary.

Why is smoking it necessary at all?

 

[Shadow Wolf]

I agree. Ginger Snaps can be abused for God's sake. The possibility for excessive use should not be sufficient reasoning for making anything illegal.

Puffer fish are still consumed despite many people dying from eating too much. Doritos are made to maximize the cravability and wanting more of them. Caffeine is widely abused. And of course we have refined sugars.

I agree that legislation and politics have failed. Largely because they're obsolete systems that have no hope of controlling these things anyway. Rather, it's a very human, very educational issue in that ways need to be found of teaching people that there are better, alternative ways of achieving whatever pot achieves for them.

This assumes that people use pot (or other drugs) for any reason other than enjoyment. It also excludes religious uses. And sometimes people just feel like getting stoned, drunk, going on a trip, snorting a line, etc. And of course there are the artistic outlets that different drugs open up in different ways. Francis Crick was on LSD when he discovered the double-helix model of DNA, and Freud loved his cocaine. Tennis shoes cannot provide the same thing that a hang glider can. And of course the shoes provide for things the hang glider can't.

 

[Shadow Wolf]

1. you are out of your element. They aren't electronic cigs, they are vaporizors which vaporize only marijuana. I'm not talking about "e-juice". You just use dry plant matter, and it heats up in a small oven. 0 combustion.

They make dry herb vaporizer tips for e-cigs. They also make e-juice with THC in it. And of course there are a ton of different vaporizer models and types that are designed primarily for weed. And you an always eat it, but I think the taste is really bad.

 

[leibowde84]

Why is smoking it necessary at all?

It's not. Who said that it was? There are many ways to injest it.

And, if you were being fascicious, I would say that something being "necessary" is and has never been a prerequisite for it being legal. So, I'm not sure what that has to do with anything.

Legalization is about the fact that the war on drugs does a whole lot more damage than good. It wastes an immense amount of money that, as you said, could be used for education. And, the myth that legalizaiton means government endorsement is so laughable it makes me sick. Does the Government "endorse" tobacco? Does the Government "endorse" abortions?

Finally, the real question is "what have we gained from the immense money spent and many lives ruined by the war on drugs"? Look up Law Enforcement Against Prohibition, a collection of former police officers who have seen the damage caused by the war on drugs first hand. Sure, drug use causes major problems, but they pale in comparison to the damage caused by prohibition. I think the best thing to do is to legalize and regulate all drugs.

 

[freethinker44]

Why is smoking it necessary at all?

It's not.

 

[leibowde84]

Which studies reveal can be, in some cases, full of harmful, unregulated chemicals.



But not conclusively proven. Part of the trouble with the weed-cancer link is that a large majority of people who smoke weed also smoke tobacco.

The e-juice in electronic cigs is completely different than marijuana vaporizors. This is my major problem with those that oppose legalization. There is this irrational stigma associated with pot that only those who do not smoke and aren't around marijuana a lot hold. Compared to some other substances, like alcohol, that are legal, marijuana is pretty much harmless.

 

[leibowde84]

Why is smoking it necessary at all?

Does something have to be "necessary" to be legal? Let's outlaw TV, movies, gum, sneakers, flip-flops, newspapers, short buildings, skirts, yoga pants, etc.

 

[freethinker44]

Does something have to be "necessary" to be legal? Let's outlaw TV, movies, gum, sneakers, flip-flops, newspapers, short buildings, skirts, yoga pants, etc.

At the risk of creating a feedback loop that destroys the universe, I ask, is being necessary, necessary?