pot legalization

[mooseman]

not saying that i smoke pot, but who here thinks that it should be legalized? (in America)

[Serika]

From what i understand, the reason for banning pot in the first place was more political than medical, so that leaves us without a valid reason to keep it illegal. I'm not and will never be a stoner, but i'll support legalization unless someone proves that pot is more harmful than alcohol and tobacco.

Harmful drugs such as crack should remain illegal forever.

[JackO]

But...pots are cool, just look at these ones...



But nah, all jokes aside, I've never tried pot, but from what I've heard its not as dangerous as many other drugs and in Britain, its a class B drug, so they must think there's something harmful about it, I mean we've had a lot of tv ads with the 'long term effects' of cannabis.

Personally I dunno. I wouldn't mind eitherway, if it was legal, I'd probably try it.

[Flyper]

I support legalization, but only if it has the same rights as tobacco. http://hubpages.com/hub/Grow-Your-Own-Tobacco---Is-it-Legal If every instance of the word "tobacco" in that article can be replaced with "marijuana", then I'll be on-board with it. Partial legalization just causes more problems due to corrupt police being subjective when determining whether the way you're using/growing marijuana is legal.

[FallenStar]

From what i understand, the reason for banning pot in the first place was more political than medical, so that leaves us without a valid reason to keep it illegal. I'm not and will never be a stoner, but i'll support legalization unless someone proves that pot is more harmful than alcohol and tobacco.

Harmful drugs such as crack should remain illegal forever.

This is how I feel. Alcohol and tobacco cause so many deaths per year and are as equally addictive as any other narcotic out there. If we legalize *one* narcotic, then we would have to legalize other narcotics in smaller dosages. Since that would only lead to people hoarding and then overdosing on them, the only real solution to is ban all harmful substances, including Alcohol (as a drinkable item) and cigarettes (which are highly addictive and cost massive long term damage).

Unfortunately, that solution still doesn't work as there are already too many people addicted as is and they'll go through the nose to get it. Prohibition obviously didn't work, so keeping Marijuana illegal is equally useless.

[Krull]

I've never done drugs, and I'll never do drugs.  But let's also get something else straight; there are no marijuana-related deaths in the United States of America.  Absolutely none.   Legalizing marijuana will break thousands of drug rings, and the taxes off of it will give the government a nice tidy sum to spend else where.

[FallenStar]

I've never done drugs, and I'll never do drugs.  But let's also get something else straight; there are no marijuana-related deaths in the United States of America.  Absolutely none.   Legalizing marijuana will break thousands of drug rings, and the taxes off of it will give the government a nice tidy sum to spend else where.

Yeah, like we really need to give the U.S. Government MORE money. Do you have any idea how much a Congressman pulls down these days? And more than that... a PRESIDENT? Sheeze... Them people don't need no more damn money, IMO.   

[Serika]

Yeah, like we really need to give the U.S. Government MORE money. Do you have any idea how much a Congressman pulls down these days? And more than that... a PRESIDENT? Sheeze... Them people don't need no more damn money, IMO.   

Not money for congressmen, money for roads and airports and stuff. Politicians are NOT supposed to put tax dollars in their own pockets, it's just that it is really hard to catch and punish them for doing so. :p

Back on topic, it would indeed save us a lot of money on law enforcement if pot was legalized, and i can't see a spike in crime rates since everyone that currently wants to smoke it does so regardless of the ban. Like you said, this is a lot like prohibition, and that was a waste of effort.

[FallenStar]

Not money for congressmen, money for roads and airports and stuff. Politicians are NOT supposed to put tax dollars in their own pockets, it's just that it is really hard to catch and punish them for doing so. :p 

Oh, don't be ridiculous, Serika. You know as well as I do that any time any new tax or new legislation is passed, there's always a provision in there for mo' money for the Congressmen... Hell, the amount of times they've voted themselves a pay raise is completely inverse to the amount of money the regular joe makes.   

[mooseman]

I've never done drugs, and I'll never do drugs.  But let's also get something else straight; there are no marijuana-related deaths in the United States of America.  Absolutely none.   Legalizing marijuana will break thousands of drug rings, and the taxes off of it will give the government a nice tidy sum to spend else where.

woah buddy don't say none. drug cartels kill thousands of people so that they can not only not get arrested but so that their businesses do better than others. plus i'm sure someone has done something stupid while on pot to get themselves killed. i'm not sure but does anyone know if pot causes cancer? i read that growers all together make over 6 billion dollars. if the government tapped into that then we could do all sorts of things.

[Serika]

drug cartels kill thousands of people so that they can not only not get arrested but so that their businesses do better than others.

This is actually a reason to legalize it. Allowing liquor stores to sell it would force the dealers (at least the weed dealers, not the ones the sell other kinds of drugs) out of business.

plus i'm sure someone has done something stupid while on pot to get themselves killed.

People do crazy things and get themselves killed while drunk, yet alcohol is still legal.

i'm not sure but does anyone know if pot causes cancer?

I would assume it does... but even so, cigarettes also cause cancer, yet they are still legal.

Pot usage does have consequences, but the same consequences can also be found in alcohol and tobacco usage. Banning one of these and allowing the others is inconsistent, which is a bad thing when it comes to laws. I'm not trying to sound aggressive here, i'm just saying we need a good reason if we're going to outlaw something. :)

[thedude]

I don't see a huge harm in legalizing it.  I mean, it is bad for you, but alcohol can be as bad and it's legal.  People say smoking a little weed can make you a shut in that is automatically not gonna be successful.  Um...... yeah...

  president

  gold metal Olympic swimmer

  first black president

[anathema]

Stoner here, reporting in.

Marijuana smoke is far less harmful then tobacco smoke, lacking much of the tar and other chemicals added to processed tobacco. Burning ANYTHING is going to produce some level of carcinogens, but your lungs just don't turn black from smoking weed like they do with cigarettes. Carcinogen levels can be lowered further by use of a vaporizer, which heats the weed to the point where the active ingredient (THC) vaporizes and you can inhale it, without producing any carcinogens caused by burning stuff.

It's impossible to overdose on weed. Water is far more toxic then THC.

The amount of impairment caused by smoking is largely dependent of the tolerance of the smoker and the quality of the weed (I'll get to quality in a bit).  The more often you smoke, the less impaired you become, and the shorter time it lasts.  A daily smoker, will not be severely impaired after smoking a joint, and could probably pass any roadside sobriety test you could give them. Someone who has never smoked, or hasn't smoked in weeks/months, will become severely impaired after smoking, and will appear obviously intoxicated.  I'd rather have everyone sober and paying attention while driving, but if I had to choose between a drunk and a stoner being on the road with me, I'd pick the stoner every time.

Weed in America is a Billion with a B dollar crop in the united states. The DEA spends hundreds of millions of dollars to completely fail at fighting a bunch of stoned people, and Americans end up giving their billions of dollars to violent Mexican drug cartels tax free.

We need to legalize weed because if we do, we can control the market. There would be ways to settle disputes without violence, grow ops would have to conform to environmental regulations, content and quality could be controlled and you hamstring the Violent Mexican cartels making money off weed.  Nobody is going to buy weed from Paco from Juarez when they can go to the 7/11 and pick up a pack of Bob Marley specials.

In the 60's and 70's THC content in weed averaged around 1% Thanks to aggressive drug enforcement, it became important to increase the potency of the product so one could make the same amount of money from a smaller and easier to smuggle volume. Furthermore, for some 40 years now, hippie botanists have been actively cultivating more and more exotic strains of weed, so that high grade weed can now reach THC content of %30.

The war on drugs has done nothing but rob us of tax dollars, and deliver us cheaper and stronger weed.

Maybe the war on drugs is not so bad after all...

[galyathore]

well i'm gunna have to say it's a good idea to leagalize it, not because i smoke it (which i don't) but because it would create a huge increase in our stock market and would more than likley help with our money crisis.  i mean people are already talking about it being legal in california and it is legal to grow it there as well.

now if it does become legal, i'm thinking that they would have to figure out a way to keep stoned people off the road. even if it means getting pot at a sort of hotel were you can smoke as much as you want but you would not be able to leave until you sobered up...but i'm not sure up to america, so i'll let them think about it

[gophergun]

I haven't seen much compelling evidence for it being harmful. In terms of cancer, there are studies saying it causes it, studies saying it prevents it, but either way, vaporizing, cooking, or any other method besides smoking will nullify the risk anyways. If I had my way, pot would be legalized, taxed, and the taxes on this multi-billion dollar economy would be given to the education system. From what we've seen, there's not much harm it could do, and a lot of good.