Once again, a fucking ridiculous strawman argument. Some things have no use other than to kill people. A nuclear weapon is designed to kill millions of people at a time and lay waste to the enemy. That is its primary purpose. There is no way that you can argue that a person can safely own or use a nuclear weapon without hurting someone else, or putting people's lives at risk. Do you really think that personal use of a drug like heroin, which is designed and consumed to make you feel good, is the same as having a nuke sitting in your living room? If you equate the two then you are a retard, plain and simple. We are talking about drugs here people. Not dynamite, not anthrax, not fucking h-bombs. In terms of their ability to damage others, they are orders of magnitude apart. I'm going to stop this argument for the sake of not going around in circles and because it's probably boring people. I don't personally crusade or advocate the legalization of hard drugs. I don't do them myself and I don't really give a shit if they're legalized in the future. If pot and non-addictive drugs were legal tomorrow, I would consider myself a lucky man and thank drug-jesus and not want anything else. But if you ask me if the government has the right to imprison a law abiding citizen from putting something into their own bodies, I say no way in hell.
Great example. Seriously. Because that's how we actually deal with every other immoral or potentially dangerous thing. Owning a gun or a nuke isn't wrong. Using it to violate the rights of someone else is. If you don't like a gun owner next door move. Or pressure him within his rights to move or get rid of it. Or form a community land ownership (a town) and only allow people to move into it that agree to rules the community sets at the outset. There are ways to handle these matters that don't infringe upon the rights of others.
I'd say boring people is only ONE of the things you're doing. The topic is about legalizing pot, not your nonsensical whimsy that the rest of us learned in grade five.
With a good enough act, I can pretend to be uber-ADHD and receive legal crystal meth or be in chronic, prolonged pain and receive legal opiates with in our current health care system. On the cheap. Gotta love rich insurance and drug companies. The issue with marijuana is that it's not endorsed by the white elite. If Philip Morris lobbied for the legalization of marijuana, it would be legal in a heartbeat. I don't think they care, or somehow associate its use with a lower class (or race). Also, it is my perception that the casting system / perception that goes along with marijuana use / illegal stigma is MORE profitable (or advantageous?) than legalizing it to the US. It has to be. Otherwise, they'd have to be more robust talks going on at the federal level.
"I would legalize drugs by subjecting them to exactly the same rules that alcohol and cigarettes are subjected to now. Alcohol and cigar- ettes cause more deaths than drugs do, by far, from use, but many fewer innocent victims. And the major innocent victims, in that case, are the people who are killed by drunk drivers. And we ought to enforce the law against drunk driving, just as we ought to enforce the law against driving under the influence of marijuana, or cocaine, or anything else. But I would, as a first step at least, treat the drugs exactly the same way we now treat alcohol and tobacco, no different." Guess who said that? Not some fucking hippie loser. Not some retard that failed "grade five". Milton fucking Friedman said that, a man with a Noble Prize. Legalization is not a fringe idea, it's not championed by only idiots and addicts. Like it or not, some extremely smart and reasonable people have shared my same viewpoint. Just because something challenges your morals or preconceived notions of how the world should be, does not mean it's not worthy of consideration. You don't have all the fucking answers.
Look at the brain damage caused by alchohol, epidemic compared to brain damage caused by other drugs. What is the most dangerous drug to detox from heroin, meth crack? Uh no, it is booze. Alchohol destroys way more families and lives than all the other drugs put together. Addicts will do whatever it takes to get what they are addicted to legal or not. My point with legalizing all drugs is, there will be a certain amount of people who get addicted, ruin there lives, ruin the lives of their families, kill people and die, just like they do now.Most addicts would be dead by 40 if not treated so the gene pool will be slimmed pretty quickly. Let the addicts that want to be addicts do what they want. If we concentrate on rehabbing those who want and need help, put emphasis on personal responsibility and education it would be a huge financial relief to the taxpayer and a bit less draconian way of dealing with drug use and abuse. We would not have to pay to house addicts and abusers in taxpayer supported institutions to the tune of 40k a year per inmate. Not to mention the huge saving by cutting the DEA and other law enforcment drug enforcemnt budgets by 75%. I think way outside the box on this but a drastic change is needed, I believe it is called a paradigm shift.
Ah yes, the always enjoyable tail-end of these threads. Three pages of conjecture, repetition, and personal attacks. It's enough to drive a man to heroin, I tell you.
Regardless of people's personal views on hard drug use, I'm glad to see not a single comment has been made in favor of continuing marijuana prohibition. I see more and more support every year. On one hand, hell yeah. People are finally getting the right idea and it's been a damn long time coming. Attitudes are changing alright. On the other hand, all this change of personal opinion is going to do what exactly? Like others have mentioned, I have no doubt that this is just as much a lobbying/economic issue as a political issue. Some very powerful players in this country have a vested interest in keeping weed illegal and underground.
If you remember, there was a six week period a few months back where marijuana legalization came to the forefront of the national press. The reason? Spillover from the cartel wars along the U.S.-Mexico border. Like I said before, people don't give a shit about concepts like 'civil liberty'. But they absolutely care when rival gangs are fighting in the streets of Phoenix, Arizona because they ran out of room to kill each other in their own country. When the fighting died down, so did the chatter. That's what it's going to take, I think. Actual, vivid proof that continued prohibition of marijuana is actively detrimental to the United States. No politician is going to take a stand for legalization unless he can attach something to the cause about which Middle America actually cares. The people who pushed for the 21st Amendment didn't run with the slogan 'We'll all be able to get shitfaced again!'. They promised to loose the iron grip of organized crime. That's why they won.
Portugal Decriminalizes Drugs From the CATO Institute. Warning: Fairly long. This is an interesting video of the results of Portugal decriminalizing all drugs in 2001. Sure it's not out right legalization but it does have interesting results that are very favorable for the end to out right prohibition of all drugs. On Topic: Much like everyone, I am for the legalization of weed among most other drugs. As for "hard" drugs I'm not sure should be legal, I think they should at least be decriminalized.
edit: Fuck it. Everyone already knows my stance. Back on topic... edit 2: I just posted this question in the drug thread in permanent. This thread is not about other drugs besides Marijuana. Plus, that's what the drug thread is there for anyways. If you guys care enough to continue this discussion there I'd love to debate it with you for days.
My patients will not fall into those categories: I'll be doing ortho surgical only, I don't need to worry about terminal cancer/MS stuff.
I do not have that information. But it seems exceedingly possible, that, given our current state of scientific advancement, we can manage it. There's a 15-minute HIV test, fer Chrissakes. THC metabolites show up in your blood for three days, so just going off of that, we'd need more information to determine how many metabolites are given off per unit of THC, how long it takes to metabolize them, etc. We're able to pretty accurately figure out time of death from a decaying body by measuring the waste products of the scavengers/bacteria/flies. I do not know the body's rate of "cleaning", but there are people who've spent a decade in school who do. Just because I do not have the solution does not mean that there is no solution. Although you could be right, y'know. I mean, it's not like you could take a similar model developed for a different chemical and modify it to suit this drug. That'd be like changing a gasoline-powered car to a diesel! It probably can't be done.
Not my opinion on legalizing, but wanted to let you guys in on this: Yes, you can be arrested for DUI on marijuana. If (in AL.) you are pulled over for for possible DUI, and we smell it, its found in the car/ and or person, and we determine NO alcholic beverage has been consumed- we have every right to pop a blood test on you if you submit or not. We just piss the judge off by waking him up if you say "no". if your blood comes back dirty- for any controlled substance- it's good. Don't kill the messenger, fellas..Yes, believe it- we can 99% ot the time pick a pothead out of the crowd, or any other druggie because we see it ALL the DAMN TIME. yes we have to take steps to get from the initial stop to the end result, but if you do it right, they do it for you.
You appear to be a cop so I would be very interested in your opinions. What do you feel as a police officer in legalizing weed and what do you feel about people driving stoned who are regular smokers (Because pot hits you a lot harder when you first start)?
Add this to the fact that you don't even need to be chemically tested (breath, blood, or urine) or given a field sobriety test to be charged and found guilty of just an alcohol DUI (depending on the laws in your locality). It can be all up to the word of the arresting officer and a myriad of "indicators" that he/she might have perceived. This is why the "there is no scientific test" argument is worthless.
I see alot of people driving drunk- I have arrested many, many people from this form of DUI. I see alot of people driving while stoned on everything from pills to shrooms. To be honest, I wish people would lay off the meth and smoke pot. Anyway, as far as what I think-Ive only seen one person in my career so far that was too impaired to drive from weed, versus every drunk I come across. Yes, I gotta do what I do, but my opinion matters little. I was just pointing out the fact we can determine "impairment" from FST's.
You guys keep making the argument about how many people die from alcohol/tobacco related deaths compared to how many people die from OD. What would the number of deaths be if everyone was smoking crack instead of cigarettes? Or snorting heroin instead of drinking beer? The rate of death would have to be astronomically higher. I would do the math, but I'm at work, and I don't have the time to pull the numbers.
Who gives a shit? That scenario is so stupid why even think about it. Why is it you think everyone that smokes or drinks is so completely stupid they're just waiting for legalization so they can become raging drug addicts?