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Yes

67 (62.6%)

Yes, but only if the amount you could own at any one time was limited

14 (13.1%)

Yes, but for Medicinal uses only

10 (9.3%)

Yes, but only for chronic illnesses(Cancer, AIDS, Crohn's Disease, etc.)

3 (2.8%)

No

13 (12.1%)

Total Members Voted: 107

[Astral]

I think that yes, it should be legalized; currently it's the most prevalent illegal drug out there, is mostly harmless (in the same vein, tobacco and alcohol are mostly harmless in moderation), and more money is spent on arresting and jailing people who use it than it is for preventing serious crimes.

People have every right to mess up their bodies however they want. It sounds bad, but if you eat badly and go to 400+ pounds, you're not getting arrested for overeating, as long as you don't kill someone else because of it (like falling down the stairs, bowling ball style, and taking out three people on the way down). It's all about maintaining your rights without infringing on the rights of another.

Currently, we're in the Prohibition era of marijuana. As the government tries to crack down on it more and more, it somehow becomes even more easily accessible, which is in no way astonishing to anyone who's had a high school history class (particularly on the 18th and 21st amendments).

I don't believe, however, that it will be legalized on anything but small scale operations anytime soon. Because it is easy to grow, many people would be able to do it themselves, rather than having to go through the taxation that tobacco has on it. Plus, there wouldn't be a company-based monopoly on it, so it would be more difficult to regulate, unlike the long standing alcohol and tobacco industries.

[G-Flex]

Ah, I understand your confusion.  To strengthen and clarify what I originally said, I don't think stutter-elimination and the like should be used as an argument for legalizing marijuana >_>  It really doesn't seem serious enough to necessitate the legalization of drugs, when we have better ways to combat it.

Stuttering can be very socially crippling for an individual. It's hardly nonserious. There isn't any particular great way to treat it, either.

So... if, hypothetically, a controlled substance could be used to treat it effectively, why the hell not? Isn't that what we do for every other drug on the planet? We have legal opiates for pain control, legal stimulants for ADHD, legal just-about-anything as long as it serves a legitimate purpose. Why should marijuana be handled any differently? The fact of the matter is that marijuana does, in fact, have significant and legitimate medical use, is arguably a safer alternative to drugs people are using legally in some cases, and is generally not incredibly dangerous at all. Obviously stuttering is just some made-up example (which you seem to somehow doubt the seriousness of as a condition), but you seem to be perpetuating the notion here that marijuana "isn't worth" legalizing just because it has legitimate medical usage, even though we do that with nearly any class of much-more-dangerous substance you can think of.

I could walk into my physician's office and walk out a half-hour later with free samples of potent antidepressants, and he's not even a mental health professional. More legitimately, when I had an ear infection, I had no problem getting opioid pain relievers, which are pretty psychoactive and have high addictive potential. I've known people who have taken enough Tylenol to nearly kill them, and had done so accidentally, just because of unclear doctor's instructions, and that's over-the-counter. What's so harmful about weed that it shouldn't be a controlled, prescription medication at the very least if it has legitimate medical use (which it does)? The fact that it might make people sort of goofy or anxious?

I think that our society's reliance on "miracle-solutions" is going to screw us over in some way or another.  It already is, in a sense... taking the path of least resistance in the present often leads to enormous complications in the future.

I agree with this, though. We're a very pharmaceutically-oriented culture to begin with, and like to turn to pills at the first sign of trouble, and I think anybody who holds up marijuana as some kind of miracle cure is kind of foolish and not helping their cause. On the other hand, I think legalizing medical marijuana could be positive in this case, as it's a hell of a lot more safe, natural, and cost-effective (and with a smaller and less serious side-effect profile) than whatever else the person might be taking instead.

OP, you need some other hobbies.  I hope you find life enriching enough that you don't want to turn to drugs, soon, because at your age there's lots of other fun things to be doing.

This guy is like 13 and he's previously made threads asking whether he should start smoking cigarettes, and I think another one about salvia. Oh, and another about whether or not it would be legal for him to literally stab someone in the back (like, literally, with a knife) after the guy hits him bare-handed once and walks away. I wouldn't take him very seriously.

[Virex]

Of course it should. It's less harmful than several legal drugs I could name, and the effects of having it be illegal are atrocities: throwing people in jail over it, not to mention the huge amount of money wasted on police efforts to crack down on it and on prosecuting cases and incarcerating people. And there's simply no good argument for it to stay illegal.

Well, no good argument for it to stay illegal without arguing that drugs like tobacco and alcohol should be banned.

And why shouldn't those be banned as well? A significant portion of deaths can either be attributed to second hand smoking or alcohol related violence, which I would think would be enough to at least consider prohibition. It's not that drugs harm the user, but they make the user harm others as well, which is simply impermissible in a liberal society (the whole idea of my freedom to move my fist stops where your nose starts...)

[G-Flex]

which I would think would be enough to at least consider prohibition.

We tried that. It failed miserably.

We also have laws against, say, public drunkenness, driving under the influence, and so forth.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

The past century has shown us that one simply cannot declare somthing illegal and expect it to go away. The War on Drugs in the US has spent billions of dollars preventing people from taking personal responsability about recreational drugs antd making their own choices. Somehow, I think that that money could have been spent in much better avenues, or used to reduce the debt of the US. Not only that, but this patheitc attempt to enforce a standardized morality upon everyone has allowed crime to fester and grow, corrupting society from within. An educated society that has legalized access to a product is always the best option, no matter what that product is. In this case, the product is marijuana.

Instead of educating the populace on the pros and cons of such a drug and allowing them to choose for themselves, keeping it on the open market to foil organized (and not so organized) criminals who would gather untold mountains of money and societal infulence from it on the black market, and insuring that buisnesses sell it in under proper safety regulations with warnings of its effects made clear to consumers, a bunch of greedy lobbyists who are most likely all dead now criminalized it and allowed government propaganda to cause both fear-based rejection and placed the drug in question in the position of being a forbidden (and thus all the more desired) fruit to those who would not reject it. It is sad that even as increacingly large portions of the popultations of marijuania-illegal nations continue to ignore the laws forbidding it, these elected (and sometimes not so elected) officials continue to hide under their own delusions and refuse to listen to their people.

Also, just somthing to keep in mind: Even if it is written in a book of law, if a law isn't agreed to by society, isn't followed by society, and isn't recognized as legitimate by society, it isn't a law. It's a bunch of old fools yelling at each other.
That isn't entirely the reality today, but it might be tomorrow.

[G-Flex]

An educated society that has legalized access to a product is always the best option, no matter what that product is. In this case, the product is marijuana.

That's the same exact argument used in favor of laissez-faire capitalism, and it doesn't work precisely because the assumption cannot be made that all people are well-informed and can consistently make rational decisions.

It's worth keeping in mind that the FDA exists for a reason. If we legalize heroin, methamphetamine, etc., it would be inconsistent to not open the free market to every drug that's now at all controlled. You think the situation with ADHD and other psych medication is bad now? Imagine if you could legally buy it all over-the-counter.


At any rate, (hard) drug usage does not only affect the individual. It affects how effectively that individual can contribute to society, and how much he has to take back from it in the form of, for instance, health care. Yes, this includes tobacco, which is legal, but that's a whole other argument there.


You're also missing out on certain economic realities concerning drugs that have performance-enhancing qualities yet are still dangerous. For example, there used to be (I think it's better now) a problem amongst truckers being speed fiends, because it allowed them to stay awake longer, driving longer distances to make more money. The problem here is that if your best performers in a company/industry perform so well because they take drugs (which can have adverse health effects in many cases such as this one, obviously), then the people who don't take drugs cannot compete. In a situation like this, if you were trying to compete in the work force, the economic reality is that you need to do so or you can't compete, resulting in either you making money far below that which is standard for the profession, or having trouble getting hired. Same situation with something like professional sports: If steroids are allowed in a sport, you take them if you want to compete well, or else you're left behind, despite the dangers.

You're also discounting the fact that many drugs are horribly, horribly addictive. Nobody can be expected to make rational or well-informed decisions 100% of the time, even those who can do so regularly. Everyone has weak points, and makes decisions that aren't the best every now and then. However, with the more addictive drugs, all it takes is a short period of screwing up and you essentially become a slave to it. A nicotine or heroin addict certainly chose to partake in those substances at some point, but it's hardly a choice to continue doing so; they can choose to quit, which is quite difficult and not always successful (and depending on the drug, can be actively dangerous). This is exacerbated by the fact that some highly addictive drugs, such as opioids, can be taken for entirely legitimate reasons for a long enough period to get someone hooked in the first place.


So no, I don't think full legalization of all drugs is a smart idea. Many health professionals can't even responsibly prescribe certain medications, never mind people being able to shop around for the psych meds of their choice over-the-counter. We also don't live in some sort of Ayn Rand Wonderland where everyone can be trivially educated perfectly and has infinite rationality and willpower. We live in a world where education is flawed, people make mistakes, and not everybody can be assumed to be an expert about everything or even to act rationally, and not even through any fault of their own.

I'm not arguing that the "War on Drugs" has gone well, or been fought properly at all. It's a propaganda machine, which is contrary to the purpose of actually preventing people from doing drugs. I mentioned my high school health class engaging in this; all it does is make people distrust the educators, which is the last thing you want, but which is actually justified in cases like this, because the educators have had a tendency to lie to them. I think we need better, more legitimate education about drugs, as opposed to either the current Official Government Lie Machine or the full legalization of every mind-and-body-altering substance known to mankind.

[Africa]

Of course it should. It's less harmful than several legal drugs I could name, and the effects of having it be illegal are atrocities: throwing people in jail over it, not to mention the huge amount of money wasted on police efforts to crack down on it and on prosecuting cases and incarcerating people. And there's simply no good argument for it to stay illegal.

Well, no good argument for it to stay illegal without arguing that drugs like tobacco and alcohol should be banned.

Arguing that would basically require you to argue that people shouldn't be allowed to make any decision that could potentially end in harm to themselves, and that the government should stop them. Hence, "no good argument."

Not at all. The major arguments for illegalisation of (generalised) drugs is the harm the user causes to other people.

Either way, still not good arguments. It makes just as much sense to ban dangerous pastimes like certain extreme sports, downhill biking, base jumping, and so on, because the chances of serious (and expensive) injury which has effects on everyone close to the person involved, are quite high.

[G-Flex]

Last time I checked, those weren't addictive or chemically psychoactive.

[ChairmanPoo]

... you could make a case that they are, in a way. Endorphine high.

[G-Flex]

In a sense, yeah, but I hardly think that's comparable to taking most drugs. I figured someone would say something like that, though.

[MetalSlimeHunt]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

An educated society that has legalized access to a product is always the best option, no matter what that product is. In this case, the product is marijuana.

That's the same exact argument used in favor of laissez-faire capitalism, and it doesn't work precisely because the assumption cannot be made that all people are well-informed and can consistently make rational decisions.

It's worth keeping in mind that the FDA exists for a reason. If we legalize heroin, methamphetamine, etc., it would be inconsistent to not open the free market to every drug that's now at all controlled. You think the situation with ADHD and other psych medication is bad now? Imagine if you could legally buy it all over-the-counter.


At any rate, (hard) drug usage does not only affect the individual. It affects how effectively that individual can contribute to society, and how much he has to take back from it in the form of, for instance, health care. Yes, this includes tobacco, which is legal, but that's a whole other argument there.


You're also missing out on certain economic realities concerning drugs that have performance-enhancing qualities yet are still dangerous. For example, there used to be (I think it's better now) a problem amongst truckers being speed fiends, because it allowed them to stay awake longer, driving longer distances to make more money. The problem here is that if your best performers in a company/industry perform so well because they take drugs (which can have adverse health effects in many cases such as this one, obviously), then the people who don't take drugs cannot compete. In a situation like this, if you were trying to compete in the work force, the economic reality is that you need to do so or you can't compete, resulting in either you making money far below that which is standard for the profession, or having trouble getting hired. Same situation with something like professional sports: If steroids are allowed in a sport, you take them if you want to compete well, or else you're left behind, despite the dangers.

You're also discounting the fact that many drugs are horribly, horribly addictive. Nobody can be expected to make rational or well-informed decisions 100% of the time, even those who can do so regularly. Everyone has weak points, and makes decisions that aren't the best every now and then. However, with the more addictive drugs, all it takes is a short period of screwing up and you essentially become a slave to it. A nicotine or heroin addict certainly chose to partake in those substances at some point, but it's hardly a choice to continue doing so; they can choose to quit, which is quite difficult and not always successful (and depending on the drug, can be actively dangerous). This is exacerbated by the fact that some highly addictive drugs, such as opioids, can be taken for entirely legitimate reasons for a long enough period to get someone hooked in the first place.


So no, I don't think full legalization of all drugs is a smart idea. Many health professionals can't even responsibly prescribe certain medications, never mind people being able to shop around for the psych meds of their choice over-the-counter. We also don't live in some sort of Ayn Rand Wonderland where everyone can be trivially educated perfectly and has infinite rationality and willpower. We live in a world where education is flawed, people make mistakes, and not everybody can be assumed to be an expert about everything or even to act rationally, and not even through any fault of their own.

I'm not arguing that the "War on Drugs" has gone well, or been fought properly at all. It's a propaganda machine, which is contrary to the purpose of actually preventing people from doing drugs. I mentioned my high school health class engaging in this; all it does is make people distrust the educators, which is the last thing you want, but which is actually justified in cases like this, because the educators have had a tendency to lie to them. I think we need better, more legitimate education about drugs, as opposed to either the current Official Government Lie Machine or the full legalization of every mind-and-body-altering substance known to mankind.

I know it's rather ruthless, but in my mind blanket legalization is the best option. Going between Official Government Lie Machine and blanket legalization will help, but in my view it will not help enough in both societal freedoms and crime reduction.  People aren't perfectly rational in their decisions, but that's never been a extenuating circumstance in any other situation, and should not be in recreational drug use either. A person's actions have consequences, and those consequences fall on the sholders of the action-taker alone. If someone is educated, even in our world of flawed education, then I'm willing to say that it's good enough that they are responsable for themselves. Things will never be perfect.

As for being forced into these substances by competition, I really don't know what could be done about it. I suppose signifigant legal action could be provided against employers for discrimination through substance use, but that's about it.

[Tellemurius]

come on guys show some love:

[G-Flex]

I know it's rather ruthless, but in my mind blanket legalization is the best option. Going between Official Government Lie Machine and blanket legalization will help, but in my view it will not help enough in both societal freedoms and crime reduction.  People aren't perfectly rational in their decisions, but that's never been a extenuating circumstance in any other situation, and should not be in recreational drug use either.

Of course it's an extenuating circumstance. That's one of the huge reasons why government regulatory agencies even exist. You learn this pretty quickly if you argue with Libertarians. One of the reasons why we have safety regulations, food regulations, labels, prescription drug approval processes, and the like, is because you cannot expect people to consistently make well-informed decisions, which are often difficult for people to make even when the information is available, and it often isn't.

A person's actions have consequences, and those consequences fall on the sholders of the action-taker alone. If someone is educated, even in our world of flawed education, then I'm willing to say that it's good enough that they are responsable for themselves. Things will never be perfect.

Nobody can be perfectly educated, even with a perfect education system, and we don't have that either. Not everyone even has the same capacity for education or critical thinking, and the education we do have is so flawed in that regard that you can't really expect it out of anybody.

You're essentially saying we should blame drug addicts for being drug addicts, which is the exact kind of view the conservative anti-drug people (who you are complaining about, incidentally) have been trying to push for decades. That has not worked out very well. The only reason we have good anti-drug programs, rehabilitation, and so forth is because we've been able to accept that being addicted to drugs means that you have a problem, not that you are a problem, and that it doesn't make you a terrible person and, when addicted, isn't even a choice.

come on guys show some love:
[some freaking image]

Er. You trying to get this thread deleted? I suggest being constructive instead of posting contextless images. We're probably on thin ice here as it is.

[Tellemurius]

Spoiler (click to show/hide)

hey, i find Jay and Silent Bob to be a great image of potheads!

Now thats been said and done, farther up north from where i live is a city called Boulder, biggest bunch of hippy-wannabes anywhere. those guys are the biggest pot smokers in the state. They have been advocating in legalizing weed for years. hell we just had the Cannabis Convention a month ago.

[ChairmanPoo]

Has anyone made the obligatory Lebowski jokes yet?