The Legalization of Cannabis

[Zach]

I've been in plenty of vehicles where everyone was smoking, it happens more than you think.

Sure, they legalize it, then we'll have the same people bitching because people eat and talk on cellphones and smoke cigarettes when they drive, and that they should be allowed to smoke weed and drive.

You'll have high people walking down the streets, out in public, being stupid, causing accident after accident.

This will happen. It doesn't happen with alcohol on a -wide- scale because alcohol has been an industry for decades, and we were brought up that there is a proper place and time to drink, and that you shouldn't operate vehicles.

In this day and age of whiney liberal "I wanna do this and I wanna do it now, the constitution says blah bla blah" type people, once you make it legal, they will start on something else like driving, or being fired for showing up to work high, or some other BS reason.

If people want to sit in their basement and get high after a stressful day, and not come out of their house for the next 5 - 10 hours, thats their business.

I don't want to deal with the idiots who don't care, however. The ones who will just walk down the street with a joint in their hand cause they think they look cool now. Or the ones who will start robbing 7-11 to get their high cause they are so burned out on their legal drug, they can't even keep a steady job to afford it.

[ScotchGuy]

The thing is, it will be legal and cheap, I doubt they'd need to rob a place, especially for a drug which is only psychologically addictive.

I've never heard of a crime epidemic because of people not getting their cigarettes, it's because they're easy to obtain and cheap. This would be the same case with marijuana, except that marijuana is less addictive, so I don't think we'd need to worry about that.

[Zach]

You get a different high from cigarettes than you do from weed however, and a different addiction. A psychological addiction is just as serious as any other addiction.

Weed has a more disreable high, which means you increase the desire for it over other highs.

FOr instance. I have 500mg pills of hydrocodone/apap sitting here on my desk. I take them for strong pain like after dental work, and currently am experimenting with them to help try and diagnose some possible disorders that are effecting my sleep.

When you first pop one of these you are seriously off to lala land. Then it becomes two. Sometimes two work, and sometimes even 3 don't do much.. Its easy to see how someone gets addicted. These pills will knock you out, or give you a dizzy happy feeling that you will never want to leave; its sometimes hard to look at the bottle and say NO. I have met people who talk the same way about weed, people who say it takes twice as much weed to get them high as it used to, etc.

Various levels of addiction are there, no matter what drugs you are using. And going to extreme lengths to get what you want is a well documented flaw thruought human history.
I know when I smoked weed it seriously impaired my motor skills, and made me want to sleep a lot. I didn't like it because in particular I felt weak and powerless and not under my own control. Others might embrace that same feeling as their own high.

All it takes is one strong desire, and a ready supply, waiting to be taken; by any means necesarry.

[Jet Set Willy]

There are a lot of "Don't Drug Drive" posters around here, because of people causing accidents whilst high. My friend's car was smashed in by a drug driver only last night. So yes, it is an issue.

The whole argument is fucking stupid. People need to give and take a little more. There isn't a right side to this debate, just accept what you're forced into. You won't change it. Give up.

[Zach]

Feeling optimistic today baby

[Jet Set Willy]

Here is what I believe to be a good opinion on the matter:

"The latest stats on marijuana research

There aren't any!

But here's why: The FDA keeps approving research projects left and right, and Uncle Sam keeps telling the Universities and scientists they can't do the research (because it means allowing some people to smoke pot for science&#33.

However, I did dig up some stats on where the current research has and hasn't gotten, so at least you can tell people who spout pseudo-science at you to shut the fuck up.

There's been no official research on the effects of marijuana on arthritis, tendonitis, depression, and a lot of other stuff. Unofficially, quite a lot of people claim that it fixes or helps all these things, and just the same number claim that it causes them. But there is chemical evidence that cannabinoids may contain anti-inflammatories (explaining why it helps arthritis, etc.], and may help to ease the symptoms of depression, though nobody claims to know why.

A study was recently completed which tested the addictive properties and withdrawal symptoms of marijuana--of COURSE Uncle Sam would allow THAT--and the results are downright funny.
Only heavy, long-term smokers were reported to have physical withdrawal. Mind you, to qualify as a long-term heavy smoker, you had to a) have smoked an average of a doobie a day for at least five years, and B) have smoked more than 5,000 times. (5,000 times is once a day for thirteen years.) Of course, the headlines of the project screamed "MARIJUANA IS ADDICTIVE!", and then the text below went on to explain, "Well, the symptoms were mild and only lasted 28 days...". As I said, it was funny. But their punchline, which I should at least give lip service to, was that after smoking like a fiend most of your life, you will experience moderate to mild withdrawal, and the symptoms come from the same part of your brain that handles withdrawal from heroin and crack...and chocolate and The X-Files, for that matter.

Oh, and I actually read several--meaning MORE THAN ONE--websites claiming that pot caused undue aggression in its users. Don't worry, none of the legitimate sites said that, but STILL."

[Zach]

Actually I knew a guy in HS who said he could fight like hell when he was smoked up.
He said he just didn't feel a thing when people would hit him, so he'd be in a fight and just keep swinging and swinging until he beat the shit out of the other guy.

He was a cool guy tho, lost touch with him, and then I moved out of state. Oh well.

[hitmonlee]

i think that if people are allowed to decide whether they want to drink alcohol and smoke cigarettes, people should also be allowed to decide whether they want to smoke pot.

[Badger]

I don't smoke cannibas, and I am quite anti-drugs, but I don't have any real problem with cannibas. As long as people on it don't speak to me I am quite happy, as there is somthing about stoned people that just do my head in when they talk. I would happily see it legalised

In Scotland just now there is a real problem with Ecstacy and Cocaine, infact one of my boyhood friends died just the other week from taking E, and I know very few people that have never tried it.

Heroin is also starting to become a major problem. Before it was mainly just concentrated in the cities, but now its creeping into the small towns at an alarming rate. Just about everywhere you go has a "bigger than you would think" junkie population, and it makes me sad seeing people I used to know ending up on smack. I read somewhere that the region that I stay in has an estimated 15,000 herion addicts, compared with 3,000 10 years ago. Which is very concerning given only about 300,000 people live around here. Fucking 1 in 20 are a junkie.

[Motoko]

i fucking hate people who show off about taking canabis or people asking me why i don't do it?