That is exactly what happened to me. I drank from 18 to 21, fairly heavily, but I just burnt out by the time i hit 21. Then I fell in love with Mary Jane. I only discovered weed when I was 20 though, I never smoked once during middle or high school. I approached it by doing my research fairly thoroughly on weed, visiting places like this and reading everything I could about it. Then I had to assess the legal aspect of it. I made the individual decision that the benefits outweighed the risks, and that before I started smoking I had already disagreed very strongly with the marijuana laws in this country, and that taking an active role in changing the laws, even if it means facing possible imprisonment is totally worth it if it makes things better in the end and keeps thousands of people out of jail/prison for non-violent and victimless crimes. My dream/goal is to one day lead massive rally's in every major city across the USA for the legalization of marijuana, and more than the once-a-year "Marijuana March" in Seattle and LA and a few other places that only lasts for a few hours and doesn't really get a focused message across often enough to make change happen at any kind of acceptable pace. We need every stoner, pot-head, medical patient, and activist out there on the streets every 3 to 6 months, making our point that marijuana should be legalized. As for driving under the influence, which is something I do every single day, I have never caused one accident. Ever. I drive high 99% of the time. In fact, every once in a while (and I really try to avoid carrying anything in the car... its just bad-mojo) I like to smoke a blunt on long road trips, because it really makes the trip so much better. I'm not advocating other people doing it, but from my personal experience, it just makes me more nervous about the police pulling me over, so I drive better to avoid that.
You're a fucking moron. Stop trying to be John Locke and realize the ways things are. The government passes laws all the time that don't give a fuck about your personal rights. What do you think excise taxes are? In a perfect world I guess I'd agree with you, but that's the time that pigs can fly and I don't have to pay for worthless dead beat's medicare. On another note, I can't believe everyone's trying to take a stand on high driving. The main difference between pot and alcohol is with pot you can just take chill out for an hour after smoking and you'll come down. However, the effects of pot last more than just 1 hour, meaning that's it would be impossible to not chief and drive unless you only chief at night after work and chill (which a decent amount of tokers do but definitely not all). So what it comes to is how does legalized pot and the Netherlands work? Well I have no fucking clue because I've never been there, but I'm sure with dedicated research and analysis the USA could figure a good way to make legalized pot a reality.
No fucking shit they do. You've missed the point of the discussion entirely. This debate isn't about the way it is. It's a debate about the way it should be. If you have a hamster up your ass because you couldn't comprehend the point of this thread and then disagreed with something I said based on your incorrect perception of what we're really talking about here then there's nothing else for me to say to you.
Hey kids, keep it on topic... if it's gets into a "fuck you" contest, it'll be closed. And it's been interesting so far, so I'd hate to see that happen. In other words, take the high road. (See what I did there?)
With the easy availability of alcohol and tobacco, very few people make their own beer or wine today, even though it's legal. My grandpa raised tobacco most of his adult life, but he always bought his chew from the store. The government wouldn't be competing at all. They're not going to sell any weed. Most likely the tobacco companies would pick up marijuana and it would be sold right beside cigarettes, but probably only in liquor stores. The government would treat pot the same as alcohol - the penalty for bootlegging will be high enough that it wouldn't be worth the risk for individuals to grow and sell any. Individual growers wouldn't be able to compete with corporate farms and factories. The open market and taxes would determine the price of a pack of joints, but it would be much lower than anything you can buy today.
Easy there, muffin. Do you need a hug or something? I love it when morons call other people morons. Did you join our little message board just to troll your half-cocked insults without theory or reason to back it up? And what does bringing up a Enlightenment/Theory Of Mind philosopher have to do with talking about personal rights and domestic conflict? This is a place of discussion and humour, not mindless bashing to sound e-tough. Go to an message board for retards like Offtopicz if you want to do that. By the way, pot legalization (THIS THREAD IS ABOUT POT LEGALIZATION, BY THE WAY. NOT A PISSING CONTEST) works in Holland because of a little simple thing called regulations. They're simple: only licensed places can sell it, but you can grow personal supplies INSIDE your own residence. Outside public smoking is forbidden (though not cared about), and you can only carry enough for what's defined as "personal use". Anyone who needs your so-called "dedicated research" to understand something that simple is as empty-headed as your last board entry.
Nettdata Edit: I'd thought I was being nice, and basically said "ignore the fucking troll". Is it that hard to understand?
My argument is that the effects of drugs can be harmful to others with a myriad of consequences that might be unintended by the user. Harder drugs even more, if some family less bum OD's no one's hurt, but there are families destroyed because of drug use. Hell alcohol which is legal does quite this often. How is a parent that is addicted to meth not affecting the children they have? See what I'm getting at? Taking a bong rip before bed might not hurt anyone but you seriously cannot say to me that drug users do not harm others with what they do with their own body.
Agreed. Destroy yourself, and you're destroying the people that care about you. I can't see pot tearing a family apart (unless they're idiots), but most substance abuse harms everyone. Just ask the wife of a violent, loser drunk when she decides to hide his booze from him for the sake of the kids.
I see your point. But why should we throw out the baby with the bath water just because there are fuck ups who can't use responsibly? A lot of alcoholics do destroy families, but that's no reason to make alcohol illegal. To just ban all drugs (even the hard and really bad ones) because of a a select group of users no matter how much the represent the entire population of all users is shitty. With Marijuana the choice is obvious. But with just about every other illicit substance out there, this is where it gets sticky. Is it worth it to you to give up your freedom of choice because of them?
I support the legalization of all drugs because of my political beliefs, but like Hunter S. Thompson said "it might be rough for a few people for a little while". I think prohibition leads to crime and negative societal consequences, but I'm unsure of how across the board legalization would affect the urge to do drugs among Americans. On one hand, it's your body and you should put whatever the hell you want in it. Pure, toxin-free drugs from a legal source would probably go a long way towards diminishing the ginourmous black market for hard drugs in this country, and a lot of the stealing, killing, and such that go along with it. Then again, pure, toxin-free drugs from a legal source sounds damn appealing to people like me, who do coke here and there but never really got into it because of the shady market, unavailability, and price. I think it really is a matter between short term negative externalities and long term positive externalities. It's my gut instinct that if hard drugs were legal and available, their use would increase substantially. But in the long term, use would probably plateau and drop off, as well as the other crimes associated with them. Unfortunately, our political system is set up to reward short term benefits, so no politician is going to push for something that won't pay off until he's out of office. But anyways, half the fucking marriages in this country end in divorce. People's domestic lives are ruined because of all sorts of things, mostly because bad, stupid people can still get married and have kids. I sometimes think that if we were truly looking for a way to avoid broken homes, we would have large scale marriage counseling programs and tax incentives to have children when a healthy relationship and financial stability between the parents is established.
No. What percentage of heroin and crack users just do it recreationally, at parties and such? I'd be shocked if it's more than 1%. Those drugs result in addiction, pure and simple. When's the last time you saw a successful heroin addict? They don't exist, and that's why those kinds of drugs will never be socially acceptable, because there's no benefit to their use.
Yeah, no kidding. I'm firmly AGAINST legalizing everything. Some things, sure... hell, I'd rather see pot legalized before booze. But go take a look at the brain damage caused by some drugs, like Crystal Meth. Addicts will go to just about any lengths to get some, and there is nothing "recreational" about it. If a person decides to partake of something like that, there's a very, very slim chance that it will only affect themselves and nobody else.
That, and just look at it from a family man point of view. If I found pot in my daughter's backpack, I'd probably just be pissed she was holding out on me (I'd be a the hypocrite of the century if I scolded her). However, if I found meth or another hardcore chemical drug, I'd probably systematically hunt the fucker that sold it, then stick an umbrella up his/her ass and open it.
So people would automatically start doing all these drugs if they were legal? This is the same exact argument for prohibition of anything you guys are making. It doesn't hold up with meth any more than it does for beer. You still have to make the case why someone can't do to his own body what he wishes.
Do you think your daughter would be more likely to do meth if it were legal? Isn't it your job as a parent to teach her that what is harmful and what is not? Your children will be exposed to a great deal of dangerous things, hopefully they've got a decent conscience because there is no shortage of bad choices to be made. No offense, but if I found out my daughter was doing meth I would question my success as a parent, not go blaming whatever asshole supplied it. Like if your daughter got outrageously drunk and crashed her car, would you blame the older kid who bought the fifth for her? You might, but you are not attacking the source of the problem, which is that you raised a daughter who thinks its ok to drink and drive. My stance on legalizing hard drugs isn't so much a support of them (they are incredibly dangerous and I personally have no desire to ever do heroin or meth), but an issue with the market and crimes associated with their prohibition. I also think it would be beneficial to offer drug counseling and safe spots to addicts instead of locking them up with murderers, rapists, and all manner or heavy drug users. Prison is no place for a decent person who has a problem with drugs.
And you're missing the point. I don't give a rats ass what someone does to themselves. Go eat a gun, jump off a bridge, cut off a limb, paint yourself purple, or shove a big needle through your dick... I could care less. But saying that letting someone do crystal meth will only affect them is living with your head up your ass. Doing that drug fucks you up so you no longer are safe to be around, or have any control over your actions. It should be illegal, and nothing you can say to me will change my mind. To go to a hypothetical extreme, if there were a drug that, once taken, immediately made you a psychopathic killer, wanting to hunt down and kill every living being within range, should it be legal as well? Of course not. You'd be an idiot to think so. By the same token, I could say "Why should you care if I strap all of these explosives to my body and blow myself up... it's my body, and I can do whatever the hell I want with it." Like it or not, there are some things in this world that should be controlled, for the greater good. And those of you trusting in the general public to know what drugs should or should not be taken recreationally are really giving too much credit to the general population. There are a TON of idiots that will try something like crystal meth, feel great, and think it's the best thing ever. They won't know about, or will refuse to believe, the known effects of doing so.
The difference is that I think people should be allowed to do whatever they want, until they infringe upon the rights of others. It's possible to do heroin and meth without hurting anyone else. It's unlikely to happen that way after prolonged use, but it's possible. The second that you hurt someone, or take away someone else's rights, you should be punished to the full extent of the law. The murder drug and suicide bomber are kind of straw men though. No one is advocating turning people into deranged killers or allowing them to detonate explosives in public. I don't support the sale of cyanide and land mines in grocery stores. I believe in the right to own a gun (an incredibly dangerous thing in itself), but I don't believe you should be able to fire it into the air or in random directions. Just because some people don't know how to safely use a gun or drugs doesn't mean that right should be taken away from everyone. Compare the 2000 or so people that heroin kills a year with the 21,000 people who drink themselves to death, or the 10,000 that are murdered with a gun, not even counting accidental and suicide deaths. Clearly guns are dangerous as hell, but I believe that a person with a relatively clean criminal record should be able to own however many they want. You should be allowed to do drugs in your own home, without hurting anyone else, without fear of arrest. With hard drugs, their sale and manufacture should remain illegal, while their personal use should not. Sources: Spoiler http://www.fbi.gov/ucr/05cius/offenses/expanded_information/data/shrtable_07.html http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/nvsr/nvsr56/nvsr56_10.pdf
And I think people should be allowed to own nuclear weapons as long as it remains in their home and isn't used to blow up a city. It's possible for an atomic bomb to sit safely inside my home without hurting anyone else. But the second I, or any other atomic bomb owner, detonates that bomb, they should be punished to the full extent of the law. Pot, go ahead and make that legal or decriminalized. Very low risk for a stoned person to commit a violent crime against someone else. But Crack, meth, heroine, shit like that... you can't be serious.
Right, even with no black market these hard drugs still have a great power to do a lot of harm. End of story.