Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[MaximumZero]

Everything has an LD50, but it's extremely unlikely to hit it by ingestion via eating or smoking.

[Sheb]

Neonivek: decriminalized is not the same as "uncontrolled".

[Neonivek]

Neonivek: decriminalized is not the same as "uncontrolled".

decriminalized isn't the same as legalized

We are talking about legalized as in uncontrolled.

As in you don't even need a prescription, there is no carrying limit, and really the only restrictions are with growing and transportation.

[MonkeyHead]

The prohibition era is pretty much a blueprint of how not to do things though - making things like alcohol/weed/genericsubstance illegal plays into the hands of organised criminals who are ready to take advantage of such a scenario, and makes more things worse for more people than legally controlling things.

You still need the government to control substances pretty much no matter what.

Unless you can tell me the difference between Weed and every other controlled substance out there.

By the way popularity is transient.

Well, lets imagine some kind of line. One extreme has meth and heroin on it. The other has alcohol and tobacco on it. By pretty much each and every metric, weed would fall incredibly close to the alcohol and tobacco end, and even in some ways, is not as bad as them. I would not chose to use weed, in the same way I do not choose to use alcohol and tobacco. However, I do not see why the law treats weed in a similar manner to MDMA, LSD, Ecstasy and so on when it lacks the classic "drugs are bad" characteristics of those chemicals.

The beauty of governmental control over a substance is that it generates wealth through taxation, quality can be maintained, and associated criminal activity can be brought to near zero levels. That is the rationale used with tobacco and alcohol being legal, despite the health effects.

Assuming that you are against the legalisation of weed in this way, could you explain why? Or is there some kind of language barrier here making it hard to distinguish between "legal but controlled" and "unregulated - do as you damn well please" which is an unrealistic expectation for pretty much anything.

[Neonivek]

One extreme has meth and heroin on it. The other has alcohol and tobacco on it.

That isn't really... a good line.

The other should probably be something like Salbutamol

Assuming that you are against the legalisation of weed in this way

I am not against legalization of weed in anyway except maybe that it smells HORRIFIC! (Either that or smoking weed makes you not take showers or use deodorant)

I mostly favor legalization because we are past the stage where it is a "substance with unknown qualities" and have mostly found that all its detriments were exaggerated or we have sufficiently proven is safety.

Its only quality that can be argued to keep it illegal is its hallucinogenic quality... Which I guess fine... if that is the metric we have for making things illegal.

[Frumple]

... I'm not really sure what point you're trying to make, neo. When both alcohol and tobacco are granted exemptions for no substantial reason, despite easily being as harmful and addictive as many substances that aren't exempt, weed being a controlled substance is... fairly meaningless.

As others have noted, if you want to equalize treatment of equally dangerous substances (i.e. remove the exemption for alcohol and tobacco), then... fine? You'll fail, as has been noted in the past, but you're consistent. In the mean time, decriminalization and/or legalization+regulation of weed (and, perhaps, eventually other similarly harmless recreational drugs) is, pretty much without doubt, the path of least harm and greatest benefit. The current situation does very few people good and a great deal of harm to society, and there's not really a good way to deal with that besides legalization and regulation.

[Neonivek]

The current situation does very few people good and a great deal of harm to society, and there's not really a good way to deal with that besides legalization and regulation

I don't know...

Hard drugs really don't do anyone good. I am kind of entirely for the government stepping in to prevent things that are just outright self-destructive.

[MonkeyHead]

One extreme has meth and heroin on it. The other has alcohol and tobacco on it.

That isn't really... a good line.

The other should probably be something like Salbutamol

Except there are not significant numbers of people in cities all over the world hooked on an asthma drug being used recreationally.

[Neonivek]

One extreme has meth and heroin on it. The other has alcohol and tobacco on it.

That isn't really... a good line.

The other should probably be something like Salbutamol

Except there are not significant numbers of people in cities all over the world hooked on an asthma drug being used recreationally.

All the better for it to be at the other end of the spectrum isn't it?

Since alcohol is sort of in the middle of the spectrum by even relaxed standards.

I was also surprised to find out that codine is a popular recreational drug...

[MonkeyHead]

No, as that makes it a massive false equivalence when the goal here is to compare recreational substances with the potential for hram to an individual or to society. You might as well put paracetamol there, not that it would tell us anything.

[penguinofhonor]

The beauty of governmental control over a substance is that it generates wealth through taxation, quality can be maintained, and associated criminal activity can be brought to near zero levels. That is the rationale used with tobacco and alcohol being legal, despite the health effects.

It reduces the levels drastically, but "near zero" is an exaggeration. There is a huge cigarette smuggling industry, for example. After weed is legal there will still be people selling weed illegally to avoid the high taxes and things.

[Neonivek]

No, as that makes it a massive false equivalence when the goal here is to compare recreational substances with the potential for hram to an individual or to society. You might as well put paracetamol there, not that it would tell us anything.

Ok then where do we put Asperine and Codine? Those are both taken recreationally and one is perfectly legal and one is illegal.

Ohh and Cough Syrup, ethanol, anti-freeze, moonshine, Laughing Gas (Less dangerous, more, more, more, less)

Why is Alcohol on the "extreme safety" side?

It sounds like you are trying to create a bias.

Laughing gas I assume is still rather controlled because of its difficulty to produce.

[MonkeyHead]

The beauty of governmental control over a substance is that it generates wealth through taxation, quality can be maintained, and associated criminal activity can be brought to near zero levels. That is the rationale used with tobacco and alcohol being legal, despite the health effects.

It reduces the levels drastically, but "near zero" is an exaggeration. There is a huge cigarette smuggling industry, for example. After weed is legal there will still be people selling weed illegally to avoid the high taxes and things.

I will take that one on the chin

A quick googling suggests illegal tobacco hits the UK economy by around £3bn a year, with illegal weed costing the UK around £5 to 9Bn. Illegal alcohol is estimated to cost around £1bn. Though these industries are hardly Mexican Cartel style machine gun rampage in nature, thankfully.

No, as that makes it a massive false equivalence when the goal here is to compare recreational substances with the potential for hram to an individual or to society. You might as well put paracetamol there, not that it would tell us anything.

Ok then where do we put Asperine and Codine? Those are both taken recreationally and one is perfectly legal and one is illegal.

Ohh and Cough Syrup, ethanol, anti-freeze, moonshine, Laughing Gas (Less dangerous, more, more, more, less)

Why is Alcohol on the "extreme safety" side?

It sounds like you are trying to create a bias.

Laughing gas I assume is still rather controlled because of its difficulty to produce.

What we do with hose things is for now leave them out of the discussion as they are not really relevant compared to the substance currently illegal, and the 2 most comparable substances that ARE legal to said illegal substance. Oh, also, who said that is was a "safety" side? I was considering a scale of "legality" more than anything - hence class A controlled substances (UK classification) down to legal. Besides, less dangerous is so very much not the same thing as safe. The not so safe nature of alchol but it being legal is pretty much one of the points I am making when considering the legal status of weed.

[GavJ]

Well, some particular anti-marijuana people are also anti-alcohol, anti-tobacco, and anti-recreational-drug in general. IIRC some states still have state-run liquor stores, for example. Regardless,  I don't think "Well why don't you want tobacco banned too?" stands as much of a counter-argument.

Are they anti-KFC chicken (in a legislative sense)? Anti-skydiving? anti-motorcycles? Anti-microwaving things in BPA containers? Anti-walking around outside during thunderstorms?
Yes, it's a fantastic counterargument, because unless you support literally everything more dangerous than marijuana being illegal as well, it is hypocritical, and almost everything is.

The idea that you're "not allowed" to hurt your own body if you want to implies that the government thinks you don't own your own body, they do.

I didn't say that alcohol hurting the drinker (but not others) is a reason to make it illegal. I said that it's a reason why wanting marijuana illegal is hypocritical if you are citing harm to the user as an argument.

[A reason it is illegal is smuggling]

? Making it legal would instantly eliminate all smuggling. Smuggling as an industry arises when things are overly regulated or illegal despite there still being a high enough demand. This is in fact one of the absolute best reasons to legalize marijuana -- stealing all the profits from the violent cartels who profit off of smuggling it.

Yep, there is no middleground.
You either support total government non-intervention in substances and care to the point where there is government mandated suicide booths.
OR you want a nanny state that makes eating KFC illegal.

Yes, actually, this is the valid argument. It's not that there "can be no middle ground" It's that if there is a middle ground, yet marijuana is illegal, then the "middle ground" is actually a "way the hell over in a tiny area on the left hand side" ground, and you have a police state.  Here is a helpful diagram:

[Heron TSG]

As in you don't even need a prescription, there is no carrying limit, and really the only restrictions are with growing and transportation.

Marijuana production is very regulated in Washington. You need a license to grow it, and to sell it. You can only have a certain amount on you or in your home at any given time. You have to report every transaction to the state via quarterly reports.

It's actually so complex to get a license that there are still many people who deal illegally.