16 replies to this topic

[«¤ºxXl3úÐXxº¤»]

NORML-The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws

I strongly belive that marijuana laws should be repealed. It is less harmful than ciggaretts or alcohol. Many people would like to group us all together and say we are lazy bumbs who just bring our society down, or with out marijuana laws there would be a much higher crime rate. Lets face it, in amsterdam you can have marijuana and they have less crime than us. There are also many hard working, blue collar americans that make this country run and smoke marijauna.

The National Organization for Reform of Marijuana Laws

Read up on it some and see for yourself. After you do this, respon with a yes or no to the repeal of marijuana laws and support your position please.

[Squee]

Marijuana is not good for you. You take in tar and put it smack-dab into your lungs. For a few minutes of euphoria, you steadily eat away at your health.

Is reality too tough? Need to find some escapism? There are plenty of other ways than by lighting a fire three centimetres from your lips. I can't balance a chemical equation for the burning of a joint but I can say that smoking anything cannot be good for you. It's fire. Find joy in your wife, your kids, your family, your friends - not in ground up plants.

However, I'm getting a little off topic. I'm still sitting on that warm and cozy fence on this one (the repealing of marijuana laws). I'm leaning slightly to the decriminalization of marijuana simply because it means that the court systems become less constipated. The police can simply slap perpetrators on the wrist (hard) and be done with it. By decriminalizing (note, not legalizing), murders and rapists might actually have to go to court now instead of just grabbing at plea bargins.

What I cannot stand, however, is that many facts about marijuana smoke are extrapolated, manipulated or in some way, changed. When you compare marijuana to alcohol and cigarettes and rave about its "relative harmlessness," you bring about the wrong message. All three of these things are bad for you.

It is also simply asanine to say that because respected people use a substance, it automatically means it's good. Freud used crack cocaine - he even wrote a paper describing its use as an anesthetic. Others have raved about cocaine being a "cure" for certain brain diseases. Opium (to a lesser extent) shares a similar fate. These drugs are not "beneficial." They are harmful (extremely harmful), despite being used by a world renowned psychoanalyst.

And I think I'll end touching base on Amsterdam. You cannot say that because it works for Amsterdam, it will automatically work for America (Canada). The low crime rate in Amsterdam can be attributed to a plethera of things - not just the decriminalization of marijuana. Were the cure (for lack of a better word) for a crime-ridden society as simple as little green leaves, it would have been decriminalized ages ago.

[«¤ºxXl3úÐXxº¤»]

I never said it was good for you. Of course it is bad for you, but marijuana don't have rocket fuel, fiberglass, and an assortment of other things in it, and with casual use you lungs have a chance to heal to some extent. The american public knows that ciggarretts and alcohol destroy your health yet they are legal. Why not legalize marijuana.

Its not about you either, nor is it about finding an escape. How is getting a high considered trying to escape? In honesty if i wanted to escape i'd get a gun and shoot myself. I guess i'm getting a little off topic now.

Yes it would clear the court system. In 1991-2003 the arrests went from about 275,000 to 760,000 in the U.S. alone. 88% of these were simple possesion. We spend crazy amounts of money on such a simple matter. If they would legalize it and put the same laws on it as alcohol that number would surley significantly decrease.
Graph of Marijuana Arrests

I didn't say that its "good" just "respected" or hard working people use it. I'm just saying you can not say that its bad because people that use it are lazy and worthless to society. Also its asinine to compare the use of marijuana to the use of cocain.

In some states marijuana is Legaly subscribe by licenced docters. Also cocain and opium are NOT the issue. they are EXTREAMLY dangerous and harmful to your healt, and should not be compared to marijuana in any way. Marijuana is harmful but not nearly as harmful.

As far as amsterdam goes, i understand that the low crime rate in amsterdam could be from a number of things, but if you could aquire and use marijuana legaly don't you think it would be sold just like ciggaretts or alcohol? Think of all the problems that alone solves with gangs and illegal distributers.

[Valentine]

I would imagine getting high is the same type of escape as getting drunk.....but I don't know. Since THC in a UA would prevent me from getting my nursing license, I won't be trying marijuana any time soon. I'll do it when it's legal or when I retire.

I'm for reform of the laws, by the way....if people are stupid enough to get in trouble with it then let them....my opinion anyway. That and the adverse effects are a lot less than a lot of the shit that is legal at the moment.


I'm a little drunk right now, so please forgive any typos.

[Squee]

I never said it was good for you. Of course it is bad for you, but marijuana don't have rocket fuel, fiberglass, and an assortment of other things in it[1], and with casual use you lungs have a chance to heal to some extent[2]. The american public knows that ciggarretts and alcohol destroy your health yet they are legal. Why not legalize marijuana[3].

[1] You forgot to mention polycyclic aromatic hydrocarbons - a main player in smoking related cancer. Not to mention that when you smoke a joint, you're inhaling 13 parts of tar for every 1 part of cannabinoids (bongs and filters are more than 30% worse).

http://my.marijuana.com/pipestudy.php3

[2] Just like my wrists will heal if I cut them; just like how my skin will grow back if I douse myself in gasoline. Of course, only "to some extent." Just because healing can or will occur, it doesn't mean it's automatically good. If this were the case, we would skin our newborns alive so they grew up with a harder, denser, more calloused skin.

[3] That is a very poor argument. And I don't appreciate you insuinuating that I support alcohol or ciggarettes. However, I'll ignore it for now.

Marijuana may be "less harmful," according to your source. However, as you and I have both said, it still isn't good for you. We shouldn't be legalizing everything under the sun simply because Drug A is less harmful than Drug B. Were this the case, cocaine will soon be fighting for decriminalization (and then legalization) because of its use in treating "nasal reflex neurosis" or for its use as an anesthetic (both Freud) or the role it can play in eye surgery (Karl Koller, a college of Freud).

And, yes, I am comparing marijuana to cocaine, both mind altering drugs and both readily available. Both are harmful (perhaps one more than the other). Prominent and respected people throughout history have used cocaine and marijuana.

I compare these ideas in order to show you where your logic (and in part, the logic of NORML) are flawed. In theory, I should be able to take your "formula," (if x drug is used by person y, then x drug must be beneficial), then I should be able to manipulate it this way.

Its not about you either, nor is it about finding an escape. How is getting a high considered trying to escape? In honesty if i wanted to escape i'd get a gun and shoot myself. I guess i'm getting a little off topic now.

You misunderstand the term escapism. Playing Nightmist is escapism, going bowling with friends can be escapism; marijuana use is most definitley escapism.

but if you could aquire and use marijuana legaly don't you think it would be sold just like ciggaretts or alcohol?

Sure, why not. However, does your country have the money to do this? I know for a fact you [America] are in severe debt - Canada is in debt, as well. You can say that taxation will make up the difference but how many years will that take to recover? What should happen if the country suddenly needs that money? A disease outbreak or some other unforseen event could strike, crippling the country perhaps beyond help.

Think of all the problems that alone solves with gangs and illegal distributers.

Of course I've thought of this. However, you cannot say that marijuana will magically stop these things. It won't. If you truly want to take gangs off the streets, you either have to:

a) Take away everything from them. Sieg hiel.

b) Take them off the streets by nipping the problem in the bud (wherever that bud may be located - such is not the topic of this discussion).

Marijuana might be able to put up some "flood gates," but how long before those burst?

Edited by Squee, 06 November 2005 - 04:07 PM.

[Dc]

i dont think that it being good for your health or not matters to much. You have to look at what marijuana does to people and the people around them. Both my mother and father were drug dealers and abusers and i have to face the consequences of their actions. Marijuana destroys lives. To legalize it would not be a very good idea. Im not saying that alcohol and other things dont also ruin people, but just because those things are legal, it doesnt mean that we should legalize marijuana. It just doesn't make sense.

[Äññöÿäñcë]

Wow, you all just got owned by Squee's major long typage

[Dark]

as much as i love getting high i am against the legalisation of a drug that causes mental health problems, i vote keep it illegal

[newb2]

People would still get marijuana illegally because they wouldn't want to pay the high taxes on it that would be imposed by the government if made legal.

Marijuana would also become just as bad if not worse than tobacco because it would be planted and harvested under similar conditions.

I do enjoy escaping from reality, but you would have to be a fool to think I would ever alter it.

I haven't looked at the site, but I am guessing it is one-sided and filled with false information, as most groups like this tend to present information in that sort of manner.

[«¤ºxXl3úÐXxº¤»]

its a political activist site, same type as NRA and AMA and such

[The Unholy Newt]

Cigarettes are most definetely not worse than marijuana. I've never heard of someone getting paranoid, freaking out and jumping from a 5th story balcony to his death from smoking a cigarette have you.

Marijuana makes vast personality changes in people, I know from first hand. I have watched while friend's of mine who have turned into lazy, uncaring, snappish derelicts who will spend all their time sitting in their rooms smoking bongs and wasting all their money on buying it.

I'm not necessarily saying that all people who smoke marijuana turn out like that, I'm just describing what I have witnessed, but on the same note, I haven't seen cigarettes do that to people.

[«¤ºxXl3úÐXxº¤»]

I've said my say, and provided information to back it up. As for the one sidedness of things, well i'm no more one sided than you who say no.

[Da_J_Mooney]

So how many times have you heard of someone who smokes beat their wives? Now how many times have you heard of a drunk guy doing it? There are times when people who get high get behind the wheel, but how bad is it compared to drunk driving?

It's bad, no questions asked. But at least you're calmed down, and less likely to be out and about. I just quit smoking Tuesday (yay me!) but -everytime- my friends and I smoked, we stayed right there. Not once did any of us (even if someone didn't smoke) got behind the wheel for AT LEAST 5 hours. I know that's just me, and not everyone is the same, but everyone I know who does it stays where they are and just hangs out. No one I know tries to drive afterward. I just think the only reason it's not legal in the U.S. is because of all the money the government is making off of drug busts with it.


Ehh... that's just me though.

[Thunderja]

You are all lazy bumbs who just bring our society down.

[Ryuku]

Weather it's completely illegal, illegal without percripsion, or made legal, people will continue to do it, so it's pointless.

[The Unholy Newt]

The guy who beats his wife may very well be a smoker, but do you really think that is the reason he beat her? As for the drunk guy who beats his wife, I hope he gets alcohol poisoning and dies a painful death because for no reason, and I mean NO reason should anyone do that no matter what drug is influencing them, I have no respect or sympathy for those people.

But that doesn't change the fact that marijuana causes large behavioural changes in people. People who smoke it may not necessarily be calmed by it, I've seen people sciz out on it. A person I knew, freaked out, and ran full pelt into a brick wall screaming 'they're chasing me' and got a concussion.

And don't think that by me saying that marijuana is worse than cigarettes or alcohol means that I support some of the things people do while under the influence. I do not support people who get drunk and go driving and I most definetely do not support men who get drunk and beat their wives, I am merely making a point.

Thank you, goodnight.

[MysticStorm]

Hate to say it, but Alcohol is 10 times worse than marijuana but marijuana is 10 times worse than cigarrettes. As someone said, the prices of marijuana will be extremely higher than what it is now if legalized and we'll have more homeless people and the unemployment rate and welfare rate will sky rocket because of it. Not to mention they will just use marijuana as a ploy to lace them with coke, acid, meth and mess with people more. Thank gawd I am allergic to marijuana.

Btw... This forum is NOT a good place to be discussing this considering 75 percent of the player base is all kids under 18. Nice responsibility. It's no a wonder why the government won't legalize it. People aren't responsible themselves.

Oh, one other thing... the states that do practice the legal marijuana for medicinal purposes.. they are now trying to out-law that seeing as how the effects of marijuana are starting to prove more dangerous and is being highly abused.