Legalize It - Part 1

Unfortunately, normal marijuana smokers are considered criminals too. And despite what TV and rap music have to say, most drug dealers aren't violent evil people. They are just trying to make a buck like everyone else.

I would also assume its in no ones best interest to have a fire hazard in your grow operation. And if it was legal, people wouldn't have to hide their operations in their home. Perhaps there would be whole storage facilities dedicated to allowing people to grow, away from their homes.

Finally, just because something is natural doesn't make it better then something that is not. Natural is a good rule of thumb but its not an absolute indication of safe or safer. We use many natural products throughout the day safely and effectively.

All drugs should be legal, but if we only gonna do one, pot is the obvious choice.

I'll add that "natural" has no bearing at all on the good or bad of cannabis. Opium and heroin come from the poppy, and the poppy is "natural" too. The difference is that opium and it's array of products is physically addicting and cannabis isn't.

i agree with most of what you said, but I do think gangs will have to come up with a new source of income if drugs are made legal.

Think about it. You could buy alcohol from some bootlegger or bath tub operation but why would you want to? It's less safe, more expensive, and illegal. Thus, people stopped boot leggin liquor because they couldnt compete with the legal industry. Same would happen for drugs. A black market would still exist, but it would much smaller since the only people would go to it are minors...who dont have alot of money.

Mother, I'm sorry but I'll have to take issue with several of your points. I believe you're misinformed.

First and foremost you've made the same mistake that Nixon did on purpose and Reagan seconded; you've lumped cannabis in with hard drugs. That's a misconception: it doesn't belong there. Cannabis is less harmful than alcohol - both to the individual and society - and is the furtherest thing from physically addicting you can get and still have something that produces a euphoria.

You're right that the prohibiton has no affect on consumption; in fact it's gone up. Which merely points out you can't legislate away desires. Prohibition doesn't work, never has and never will. And we're already out of the closet. The problem stems from the fact that users are tired of being locked up for consuming a substance of choice that's less harmful than others that are legal.

Repeal of the prohibition would remove a major money source from the cartels; putting those annual billions in sales in govt. coffers instead. The Taliban provide only opium which is used in addicting drugs; nothing to do with cannabis.

The US wouldn'd spend billions; they could take that money now wasted trying to stop something they can't stop and spend it instead on something worthwhile; and revenue generated from legal sales would add, not subtract.

Lastly, wouldn't it be a better idea to take teenage dealers out of the equasion and let them finish growing up instead? In countries where it's legal or decriminalized teen use has gone down, not up. Legalization take away the mystique. It stops being "cool."

Repeal makes sense. Continuation of the prohibition is idiocy.

I don't mean to sound like I'm lumping all drugs together. I don't think weed and other drugs are the same at all. What I was trying to say is that legalizing weed wouldn't change the greatest problems the drug war creates at all, which are mostly due to trafficking of other types of drugs.
Other than the weed vs other drugs clarification, it sound like both of your responses are simply reiterating the points I was trying to make in the first place.

No, it your fault if you smoke and lose your keys or something.

Its the gov't fault when you buy weed and get arrested, put in jail, fined, and have a record for smoking something less dangerous then alcohol.

I've got a better idea. How about our Federal Govt quit persecuting and prosecuting everybody they can find that chooses to use a less harmful substance, cannabis, as opposed to a more harmful one - alcohol? How about they stop with the smear campaign trying to tell us how bad it is when everybody, and I mean everybody, that's ever tried it realizes that is garbage?

Their credibility as an authority is down the tubes to the detriment of our young folks that are growing up not believing our govt is honest? They're throwing away tax dollars by the truckful in a futile attempt to stop something they can't stop - in spite of 30 years of their best efforts. They have, however, managed to fill up our prisons to overflowing - also the detriment of taxpayers everywhere and for no accomplishment.

How about instead we take an honest look at it and get a little sanity into our policies. We have everything to gain and nothing to lose; unless you like throwing away money to make criminals out of people that aren't.

Why? What, conceptually, is different about marijuana? Other than the fact that it's your drug of choice, I mean?

I cannot see a rational case for legalizing one drug and criminalizing another.

NJ, the rationality is that one category is physically addicting and the other isn't.

So what?