As a 'newer' poster, I have not been able to discern all you fine folk's stances on decriminalization or legalization of marijuana.
I personally am in favor of decriminalization (a plank has passed in my district (Iowa - 02) and is on the state platform). I believe the burden our repressive drug laws puts on our corrections system is ridiculous. I would even go a step further in saying that the straight legalization combined with govt regulation and taxation (similar to that of alcohol and cigarettes) would (in my humble opinion) greatly increase our nations wealth, moreso than would it cause harm.
It is exactly that sort of comment (sarcastically or not) that creates the image of marijuana as a drug like the others.
It is not.
According to a Reuters report on March 25, 2002 Dr. Manuel Guzman of Complutence University in Madrid, Spain, released evidence that THC destroys tumors in rats thus verifying results from 1974 Virginia published in the September 1975 Journal of National Cancer Institute.
The Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis published a revised paper in March 1996 confirming that the human brain has receptor sites for THC and its natural cannabis cousins to which no other compounds known thus far will bind.
When God created us and gave us every herb-bearing seed, he set up our bodies to utilize cannabis--all this from a weed you can grow in the back yard for free. Maybe its time we asked ourselves just whose interest they are trying to protect
2. We've had surveys on this before, there's about 90% support for legalizing
Really, it's quite difficult to make the case that marijuana should be illegal. One could reasonably argue against the sale of marijuana, but I haven't yet seen a cogent argument for illegality of posession and/or use.
But I agree with you. I live in NY, and the Rockefeller drug laws are packing our prisons with far too many undeserving offenders.
Unfortunately, decriminalization sounds way too "far out" for many Americans who have been conditioned to think that marijuana is evil, so I'm not sure if the movement will get off the ground anytime in the near future.
42. In my state we have started running petty drug offenses...
...through a medical court and not a criminal one. There is no jail time and no bad marks on your record. Now we have room to lock up those that actually need to be locked up.
Once you sell the people on the cost savings and the safer society you get from this action then all opposition fades away.
is, and always has been, bogus. Marijuana was only criminalized in the'30s because Dupont had invented nylon, and they wanted the competition quashed. Personally, I have hemp clothes, and they are great! I have a friend who has his eyesight because of medical use of marijuana. It should be made legal and taxed. I've felt this way since I was 16, when I debated the issue. Now, here's the kicker-I've never smoked or eaten the stuff! So it isn't just potheads who want it legalized!
Most drug laws were enacted based on pretty racist reasons, mainly that various races would be under the influence and try to corrupt our precious white women (marijuana = African Americans or Hispanics, opium = Chinese people).
Which kind of figures, I guess, since we disproportionately lock up minorities for drug offenses than white people. I got this from an article in Reason magazine where more white kids have tried and/or sold drugs than black kids, but there's more black kids in prison for selling/trying drugs than white kids.
Legalize all drugs, prostitution, gambling, evil thoughts, all victimless crimes. Educate and tax. It would solve all our financial woes, especially if we also stop spending billions to slaughter innocent citizens of other countries.
Legalization cannot occur because to do so is to admit
1. We have been wrong. 2. Pleasure is not a sin.
This goes against everything we hold sacred. Maybe in 100 years. Maybe. Look at Canada's idiotic attempts to legalize: they're legalizing possession, but increasing penalties for cultivation. What kind of logic is that?
In fact Im in favor of legalizing all drugs. My theory being if people want to do a drug, then there is nothing you can do to stop, so you might as well regulate it to ensure safety. The problem is people see legalizing drugs as an endorsement of using drugs, which I don't think is true at all. We got a long ways to go in this country, and before we can even begin to think about legalizing marijuana and then drugs, we first have to get Bush out of office.
People will not get a drug just because they want to do it. It is abhorrently difficult to get alocohol under 21 in this country (you have to know peeps or get a good fake ID, basically) and that's because it's illegal. Sure, I want to drink all the time, but sometimes I can get hooked up.
Also, if all drugs were legal people would be more routinely exposed to things they may consider trying that they wouldn't be exposed to if the drug were illegal.
For example, my friend jokes about doing LSD all the time, and he probably would if he got a chance. But because it is illegal (and thus really hard to get in high school) he's never had a chance to do it (this may change for him in college). (BTW, all you LSD lovers, im not condoning or condemning the use of LSD, just an example of drug availability affecting use)
41. "It is abhorrently difficult to get alocohol under 21 in this country"
bwahahahahahahaha!!!! thats the funniest thing Ive ever heard. Its easy to get alcohol underage, the over 21 law has not decreased the drinking among teenages in this country, im in favor of bringing that down to 18 as well.
For a whole list of reasons. That's actually one of my core issues when it comes to a candidate's platform....
I'm, in principle, also for (at least) decriminalization of most drugs, since I believe it's a person's choice as to what they do to their own body. We have laws already that prevent people from injuring or killing others while under the influence of anything, so prosecute THAT, not the actual usage.
I remember an episode of "Cops" I saw a while back where they were arresting someone for heroin possession, and as they took him into his cell, you could see that he was getting really sick. I thought to myself then, "How horrible it is to put somebody in a jail cell in that kind of condition for what really amounts to nothing more than a medical problem."
But I'm a newbie here as well, so my opinion may not reflect the majority.
The only proper, sensible way to deal with marijuana is to legalize, regulate, and heavily tax it. Consider all of the money that goes along with the illegal status of Marijuana. First, billions of tax dollars squandered on a failed drug war that focuses primarily on pot. Second, the inordinate amount of money wasted on a substance which is cheap and easy to produce, simply due to its status as contraband. Third, and perhaps most importantly, the overburdened judicial system which tries and sentences many thousands of "offenders" each and every year, and the ever-expanding prison system that has sprung into an extremely profitable industry by incarcerating the growing rolls of the convicted.
Do you really think decriminalization will take care of all of those problems? Distribution will still be illegal, and every aspect I mentioned will remain unaffected by such a meaningless change in legal status. If, however, marijuana were to become legal, growers were able to obtain licenses to produce X amount, just as tobacco farmers do, and the Government were to tax it to the point where it was roughly 20% as expensive as it is now, not only would all of the DrugWar money be saved every year, but a healthy new source of revenue would very quickly make its value known, loudly and clearly.
Decriinalization would be a marginal improvement, since possession of a certain small amount would no longer be considered a crime, but in order to fix what's broken, legalization is the only way.
How about just legalize it? Using the tax code to shape petty drug use is worse than establishment of religion. It's establishment of fake religion for the sake of pushing people around and taking their money.
Only a nation so utterly corrupt that it would put the mafia numbers rackets out of business in order to monopolize gambling so that it can swindle its own citizens with absurd unwinnable lotteries offering odds ten times worse than the mafia ever dreamed of... oh, wait a minute. We already passed that thresh-hold of corruption, so what the hell! Tax pot. Tax comfortable shoes. Tax cunnilingus. Tax anything people like and show the fucking little people who's boss around here.
Keep that boot on their collective neck until they understand that life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness are guaranteed them by nothing more than the good graces of their intrusive censorious neighbors.
I said nothing about curbing marijuana use by taxing it to death. My idea is in essence to 'nationalize' an illegal but otherwise inoffensive industry (marijuana production, marijuana consumption) in order to normalize it and take it out of the hands of those who typically run it, such as the Hell's Angels and other undesireable elements.
In addition, I see the role of Government to ensure quality, ensure safety (e.g., paraquat-free), ensure affordability within reason. Remember that alcohol was also once illegal, during which time all of those concerns went by the wayside.
Further, tax revenue to support underfunded social programs...is a bad thing? For god's sake, pay your taxes as a point of pride. It is your member-of-a-civil-society merit badge, and not a burdensome task to be undertaken with resentment. "Life, Liberty, and the Pursuit of Happiness" are not freebies, as many Conservative anti-tax types would have us believe.
If your intent wasn't using taxation to regulate vice then your intention is using taxation to take advantage of vice. When somebody says "should x be legal" it's kind of weird to see the question as a springboard for schemes of taxation or regulation.
Why should it be taxed at all? (I mean particularly taxed beyond the normal taxation of income generated or retail sales taxes)?
If we're going to put special taxes on things just because they';re not illegal then why not tax tomatoes people grow in their backyard, or better yet, tax people scratching their nose when it itches.
I shouldn't have said your intention was taxation to reduce consumption. Perhaps the intention is taxation to maximize revenue, which is not much better. Government taxes vice because people like vice and are willing to pay high prices. Essentially, because it can. That's just exploitation. Imagine a surcharge on the top five books on the bestsellers list or on particularly popular movies--nobody would (or at least should) stand for such a thing. "We're going to tax this item because we have reason to believe you'll pay it."
PS I am all for higher taxes. Just not 'vice' taxes that target segments of society for reasons other than ability to pay.
regulation, and taxing of marijuana, much more of it will be kept out of the hands of young people. I suspect, (remembering days of yore!) that students in high school and lower grades have more difficulty obtaining alcohol than pot.
Taxing it will have obvious benefits, as well. And what about the clogged courts? There'll be fewer case loads. Legalizing it seems to solve a whole host of problems.
It's on par with the evolution/creation debates. Any nonasshole who is well informed doesn't need me to tell them which side of the debate the ignorant assholes are on.
or at least taxation for profit, to finance anti-drug programs (esp OTHER, HARD drugs) is one thing, but to profit off someone getting high just seems weird (for the government to do at least, i know plenty of kids who do it on their own)
And for the guy that was jokin about the LSD, sorry dude it has been a long day and I have been away from the 'sagebrush' for too long.
Now that that is out of the way, are there any viable candidates for any office that hold opinions even CLOSE to those expressed in the majority of the responses?
I think this issue would actually be opposed by very few of the 'average' people in society, but unfortunately it is opposed by most of those that actually vote. (at least in my area).
And the REAL crime ia having terrorized and jailed us for all of these years. Alchohol, a much more dangerous drug, if you will, was legalized. Personally, I don't give a crap anymore. I grew my own, and smoked it for years. All the while in a state of paranoia. But I've quit. But for those who want to, I feel it's appropriate to let them do as they please. Isn't that liberty? Isn't that freedom? Isn't that what America is all about? I'd even go as far as to say that intoxication is someone's own decision. And instead of freaking out and punishing all for safety's sake, we let people do as they will. After all, look at tobacco deaths. They surpass traffic accidents due to intoxication, by a magnitude. I can take my own responsibility for getting out of the way of a stoned driver. But I can't get out of the way of a law crazed, safety fixated country.
Again, it's about jobs. Cops, jailers, lawyers, judges. Legalize drugs, and we'd lose jobs.
In this country that which is not forbidden is permitted. A thing is legal or it is not. Any scheme that allows possession but not distribution is an affront to reason, let alone an affront to American civilization.
While on the topic, anyone who opposes the legalization of marijuana is a monster--an honest to God monster. I'm amazed how easily certain 'progressives' embrace using the gulag to impose their personal hang-ups on other people, which is all this topic boils down to.
If a person thinks it's okay to imprison people for disagreeing with them he might as well cut to the chase and simply murder people.
There are issues that don't have "two sides" and this is one of them, right alongside female suffrage and slavery.(So there!)
I became especially convinved of this when I went to a pro marijuana event and listened to the speakers. It should be every adult Americans right to consume a less harmful and in some cases, beneficial, drug if they so choose. We should not arrest people who who sell it either. Such a thing is rather hypocritical.
All drugs will be available no matter how illegal they are on the books - and people will always use them. Just decriminalize all of it and let people make their own choices. A tax on drug sales that subsidizes addiction treatment programs for people who need/want it would make sense. This is government-as-nanny gone waaaay amok.
40. HOW MJ WAS MADE ILLEGAL (you should know if you don't)
Edited on Tue May-18-04 09:15 PM by beam_me_up
I've posted this many times here at DU, but it has been a while. SO here it is for all those who haven't seen it:
EXCERPTS FROM The History of the Non-Medical Use of Drugs in the United States by Charles Whitebread, Professor of Law, USC Law School
<long historical snip>
The Marihuana Tax Act of 1937
<snip>
When we asked at the Library of Congress for a copy of the (Congressional) hearings (on the prohibition of Marijuana), to the shock of the Library of Congress, none could be found. We went "What?" It took them four months to finally honor our request because -- are you ready for this? -- the hearings were so brief that the volume had slid down inside the side shelf of the bookcase and was so thin it had slid right down to the bottom inside the bookshelf. That's how brief they were. Are you ready for this? They had to break the bookshelf open because it had slid down inside.
There were three bodies of testimony at the hearings on the national marijuana prohibition.
The first testimony came from Commissioner Harry Anslinger, the newly named Commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics (son-in law of the DuPont family, by the way).
<long, interesting snip>
So, over the objection of the American Medical Association, the bill passed out of committee and on to the floor of Congress. Now, some of you may think that the debate on the floor of Congress was more extensive on the marijuana prohibition. It wasn't. It lasted one minute and thirty-two seconds by my count and, as such, I will give it to you verbatim.
The entire debate on the national marijuana prohibition was as follows -- and, by the way, if you had grown up in Washington, DC as I had you would appreciate this date. Are you ready? The bill was brought on to the floor of the House of Representatives -- there never was any Senate debate on it not one word -- 5:45 Friday afternoon, August 20. Now, in pre-air-conditioning Washington, who was on the floor of the House? Who was on the floor of the House? Not very many people.
Speaker Sam Rayburn called for the bill to be passed on "tellers". Does everyone know "tellers"? Did you know that for the vast bulk of legislation in this country, there is not a recorded vote. It is simply, more people walk past this point than walk past that point and it passes -- it's called "tellers". They were getting ready to pass this thing on tellers without discussion and without a recorded vote when one of the few Republicans left in Congress, a guy from upstate New York, stood up and asked two questions, which constituted the entire debate on the national marijuana prohibition.
"Mr. Speaker, what is this bill about?"
To which Speaker Rayburn replied, "I don't know. It has something to do with a thing called marihuana. I think it's a narcotic of some kind."
Undaunted, the guy from Upstate New York asked a second question, which was as important to the Republicans as it was unimportant to the Democrats. "Mr. Speaker, does the American Medical Association support this bill?"
In one of the most remarkable things I have ever found in any research, a guy who was on the committee, and who later went on to become a Supreme Court Justice, stood up and -- do you remember? The AMA guy was named William C. Woodward -- a member of the committee who had supported the bill leaped to his feet and he said, "Their Doctor Wentworth came down here. They support this bill 100 percent." It wasn't true, but it was good enough for the Republicans. They sat down and the bill passed on tellers, without a recorded vote.
In the Senate there never was any debate or a recorded vote, and the bill went to President Roosevelt's desk and he signed it and we had the national marijuana prohibition.
One of the many many uses of the hemp plant is to make paper. That's right, cheap, non-forest damaging paper. Guess who owned major logging operations to make the paper his shit-rag newspapers were printed on?
William Randolph Hearst.
He couldn't let hemp threaten his paper empire, so he started printing "Reefer Madness" stories in all Heast newspapers. As we know, if the lie is repeated enough, people start accepting it for the truth.
the number of people in prison in this country for simple drug possession is obscene . . . and it's particularly obscene when the "drug" is pot . . . I'll toke one up for you tonite . . .
oops . . . down to seeds and stems again . . . another time, perhaps . . . :)
48. Here's some news from The Lancet. (The AMA Journal)
NEW YORK (Reuters Health) - Various reports indicate that young people who use cannabis tend to experience psychological and social problems. However, there is no evidence that marijuana use is directly linked with such problems, according to the results of a study published in The Lancet.
"Currently, there is no strong evidence that use of cannabis of itself causes psychological or social problems," such as mental illness or school failure, lead study author Dr. John Macleod of the University of Birmingham in the UK told Reuters Health.
Plus, if you legalize it, you will collapse the illegal drug distribution and marketing system that also carries other popular contraband, like guns. How are we going to get cheap guns to the drug dealing gangs? They will have to go Chapter 7!
We need to stop wasting our money and time worrying about people getting high. The only people who benefit from illegal drugs are drug dealers and wasteful government agencies like the DEA.
The government isn't anti-drug, they just want you to buy their drugs. Everything needs to be regulated and taxed so the criminal enterprises will have nothing to stand on and otherwise law-abiding people will not be made into criminals for possession.
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