Q&A: Joe Rogan Talks Comedy, Cannabis, and Kimbo Slice

First off, you're comparing cocaine with cannabis. While cocaine has both a physical and mental dependency for regular users, cannabis does not. Cocaine has a toxicity level, which means you can overdose and die from moderate to heavy use. Cannabis has a toxicity level is so low, scientists and researchers have estimated that you would have to smoke upwards of 10 times your body weight in about 15 minutes, which is virtually impossible to do. Comparing a plant like cannabis to a destructive drug like cocaine is not only inaccurate, it's unfair. Truthfully, they shouldn't even be in the same schedule classification based on how differently cannabis and cocaine affect the body.

And to the illegal drug trade: We should not be catering to them. The ones that manufacture and sell illicit drugs will continue to do so and be arrested. It will just take one form of profit out of their pockets, and give the flow of money back to the state and it's people. Not only that, but I'm sure that the smarter criminals will take this as a way to leave the illegal drug trade altogether. If you legalize cannabis and allow for the cultivation, sale and purchase of the plant, then you will see a viable market build. Those markets need vendors, and those vendors in the more urban areas will have seed money from their trade. It's not a certainty, but more like a possibility or a viable scenario.

Another thing: 60 years ago, this habit wouldn't be breaking the law. It's only after years of propaganda and unjust laws that cannabis users are considered "addicts, potheads, lazy, criminals, etc". I think that Cannabis has more potential to create jobs than take them away, and also has the power to revitalize a community. Imagine urban cannabis farmers and dispensaries located in inner cities bringing in revenue that would otherwise be going out of urban areas and out of the United States. Cannabis has been proven to be an agricultural boon, just look at how much California makes a year in MEDICINAL cannabis... Now, think about how much that would be if it was legal everywhere in the US. We could practically pull ourselves out of this recession on one cash crop.

Bill Hicks is timeless!

Oh, they'd be having perfectly distilled product, refined molecule capsules. And then synthesis of new variants.

Potentially, some might be a thing that would intrigue the steadfast toker.

Ok, so we shouldn't legalize marijuana because drug dealers will make other drugs stronger?

Do you have any factual basis to back this claim up?

Then legalize it all and treat addicts of harmful drugs instead of incarcerating them. Leave cannabis smokers alone with their safer alternative to alcohol.

now i understand both sides of this argument. on one hand other drugs might get more potent and attract more users that want heavier stuff.

on the other keeping cannabis illegal, as seen in the years it has been illegal, is not only holding back our economy but also hurting it because of the billions of dollars that go to drug dealers and cartels that leave the U.S. so the money never gets cycled back into the system.. so the Govt. as well as the taxpayer is losing large amounts of money. not only that but millions of jobs would be created if cannabis were legalized.... i could keep going on about the positives.

but with regards to the whole drug dealers pushing harder stuff... all of that is irrelevant. recent study has shown that users of cannabis are more likely to give up harder drugs, debunking the whole gateway theory. so drugs can get as strong as they want to get, as long as people aint using them it dont matter.

now i realize that not everyone falls into that category of giving up harder for cannabis, but many people will give up harder... think about morphine or Oxycontin or any of those prescription drugs that are extremely addictive, you think if people could smoke cannabis they wouldn't give up morphine? or shit even cocaine, or heroin, or shrooms, or what ever you can name?

and regardless of what happens with legalization, drugs will get harder and harder, theres no way to stop it.

now i wouldnt say legalize everything but i do understand why people say that legalization of everything is better.. i disagree because theres a difference between legalizing cannabis and legalizing heroin. rat poison is legal but it is illegal to use it in anyway other than directed. still people commit suicide on poison. legalizing heroin is like legalizing another poison, keeping it illegal wont stop people from obtaining it but id rather make it hard for someone to get it then make it readily available for everyone.

cannabis is a different story... like joe said and it is true, its physically impossible to overdose on cannabis, not only that but there has been 0 deaths due to the use of cannabis. if you want to talk about people lacing cannabis then thats something completely different and irrelevant. its the people that mess with cannabis and lace it, not the cannabis that laces itself. and if legalized no one would be able to lace it because of govt. regulations and oversight.

It won't be half as fun; It will be TWICE as fun, because the plants will be more potent.

disagree - it's not fun to have to worry about the police taking you away for no good reason, or to have to worry about losing your job because of a random pee test. Breaking out of oppression and feeling free to do as you please so long as you don't hurt anyone is more fun to me.

i disagree but understand why it wouldnt be as fun..

but im thinkin about what "noxidereus" said. thousands of people get arrested just for possession, not to mention paraphernalia, others arrested for cultivation of cannabis for medical purposes.. the list goes on.

when the fear of getting arrested for ingesting a natural plant that is not effecting anyone but the user their self is gone, then it would be fun.

when i can walk down the street... or even just chillin in front of my house, relax and smoke a blunt while reading the news paper without a officer pulling up and turning my house over because of probable cause and then arresting me for being under the influence of an illegal substance and possesion of said illegal substance, then it will be fun.

now i understand the whole adrenaline rush thing but cops are a buzz kill for me.

definitely disagree, there is nothing more fun about being secretive!

Right.

here comes the but ...

some among US got away with legalizing water-boarding and The Opium wars II

I need some Pot every day to get over that fact ...

You are right in the sense that with freedom comes responsibility. It seems his point of view is meant to make light of this psuedo freedom we have to choose what we do with our lives. When we have greater legal opportunity to obtain life-threatening means than those which have been traditionally, unfortunately illegally, and intelligently by some to personally navigate and explore their own consciousness (not to say any drug is required to discover what we already are), it seems natural for a question to be raised.

People will find a way to get anything and use it regardless of whether it is legal or not. On the illegal side of usage it happens to benefit authority in myriad ways. If something is legal, it seems everyone benefits for the sake of upholding personal freedom, with opportunity to educate safe usage for those who use whatever it is regardless. Peace only comes with respect for ourselves and others.

Well, also, some things may be forever allocated to the realm of the pirate.

One must make strident, purposeful decisions in exploring certain strange new worlds. Some things just shouldn't be canned.

You shouldn't, if you had the choice, put people in prison/jail for smoking/growing it because you personally don't like marijuana.

If you personally were given the power to legalize and you did not, are you then responsible for all of the broken families, police shooting deaths, etc, that laws against marijuana cause? Would you take ownership of the fact that laws against marijuana have caused immeasurably more harm to people than marijuana itself? What if the children of a parent who is incarcerated are told that their otherwise law-abiding mom or dad is going to jail because of your prejudice against how other people spend their leisure time? Would you take on that responsibility?

Since when does freedom mean that the people fighting for freedom are responsible for what everyone else does with their freedom? We have lots of freedoms that can sometimes lead to bad consequences, like the right to own guns. People die in shooting accidents all of the time. What about the right to drive your car? People die in auto accidents all of the time too. Who's responsible for that? How about the right to walk up and down stairs, or to go for a swim, or to eat at McDonald's? Who are your lawyers going to sue when something happens as a result of these freedoms? Should we have laws against everything that can potentially cause harm (I should mention that marijuana is less harmful than countless legal substances), or just the ones you personally have emotional (not intellectual) objections to?

The fact is that where it has been decriminalized there was no Armageddon. Civilization did not end or descend into chaos. You're not thinking rationally. Smoking marijuana should not be a crime, especially since it's criminality is based on falsehoods. Do you support our government misleading people and dictating fascist laws against what people do in their own free time that doesn't hurt anyone? Sounds like you are.

Not at all. I think, as a friend told this goofy drummer once, he didn't care if the guy shoved cabbage up his butt, as long he showed for the gig.
And having it against the law can grind away at one who wants to smoke pot. Anything against the law, that one wants to do brings the notion that whose business is it if you want to smoke pot - and how can the law take away a simple right, the right to do whatever you want.
But of course, when you have something against the law and you're thinking of making it legal - they'll still come back at you with you can't be too loaded in public place - which is anywhere, you can't be loaded while driving a car.

etc.

They'll have to have the law so every cop has you nicely tied in a neat package. No stepping too far out of line!

It probably should be legalized.

This, however, has nothing to do with whether it is a good idea to get hung up on pot for your whole life through.
I have said before - there are lessons to be learned with drugs, or at least there has been (maybe there could be a time when something else presents a great unknown that allows new and varied experiences).

I have found that once the lessons are learned from something, you have what you came for.
As an adjunct to personal or social pleasures, and one is already quite saturated, nothing would hurt.

But pot takes a long time to get out of a system. So, along with all the other rugs, that unique aspect of being clean and healthy, clean body, clean mind, is ever further away.

And as pot and drugs have a plethora of gifts, - steaming along with a clean brain has a whole bunch of advantages as well - and when you're doing drugs, you can not have those. You can only have full access to that potential, when you knock it all off and let it clean away from your system.

I am talking about another high.

And ps, they'll have laws about selling and about selling to minors, which they will of course accuse you of if they think you have more than you're supposed to have.

Those cops aren't going away.

But it probably should be de-criminalized - legalize, however you hope for it.

you clearly don't know anything about politics; why would one person be held for the outcome of a law that passed?

& legalizing these things I think could only help this country with debt, drug abuse, and countless other problems we face due to old concrete conservitive views.

LEGALIZE IT!
i could only get better-