legalize all drugs - free money and freedom

Let's hear your own logic on the matter, but I'll answer the ridiculous propaganda piece.

First, the user is not a "victim." A person makes his own choices. Claiming that a person can be a victim of his or her own decisions is to take away responsibility from that person. Unless you would claim that someone else owns people, every individual is a self owner and cannot make his or herself a victim.

Second. This is not true in all, or even most, cases. Nor does it entail the government getting involved and punishing the drug user for burdening his family. If the family, friends, etc. do not want the burden, they can choose to disassociate. Many things that a person can do can be the source of drama for family or friends. A person can cheat on his spouse. He can be a serial liar. He can gamble his money away or just go deeply into debt buying knick knacks. Since these things create "victims" among family and friends, should not the government put the cheater, liar, gambler or debtor in prison? If not, why not? Use some logic here, I want you to explain why the drug user is treated differently.

Third. Crime is crime. Where there is a victim, the criminal who used force or fraud should be tried, and, if found guilty, punished for the crime and made to provide restitution. Not all drug users commit crimes. In fact, most don't.

Lastly, it is government that forces taxpayers to pay for these programs. If anyone is doing the victimizing of taxpayers, it is the government. I'd be right there with you if you call for bureaucrats to be put in jail. Instead, you post their propaganda without any critical comment of your own.

 

First, define "easy addiction." Second, would you become a heroin user if it were legal? Third, what has changed about people today that makes them different than they were 105 years ago? 105 years ago, those drugs were legal, and easily obtainable, yet somehow we managed an industrial revolution and some of the most productive growth periods this country has ever seen. According to you, they should have all be drug-addicted zombies, unable to work. So what was different?

 

Marijuana is not fatal with any abuse, it is also not physically addictive, nor is it fatal if a potential addict tries to abstain from it; why is marijuana even an issue?

 

Yes, but if all drugs become legalized, there will be way more crimes committed by people that are under the influence of drugs. If these substances stay illegal, there will be way less crimes.

 

Other than the fact that both situations involve the government banning substances and organized crime thriving off of these substance's illegality, do you see some similarities or parallels between alcohol prohibition and pot being illegal?

 

Once again, no cause and effect is being established. Simply using cocaine, for example, and "being under the influence" of cocaine when "robbing a bank" does not imply that the cocaine was the reason for the bank robbery. Why not claim that a "white shirt" is responsible for many crimes because criminals might wear a white shirt when committing a crime.

Cause and effect has rarely been linked to illegal drugs except in relatively rare cases where a crime was committed to fund a drug addiction because the drugs cost 100-times more than they would or could cost if they were legal. In these cases it's actually about "money" and is not actually because of the drug itself. The money is the primary reason for the crime and the crime is unrelated to the actual use of the drug.

Except for the criminal black market in the illegal drug there really isn't any significant linkage between illegal drugs and crime. We also know that because many drugs "sedate" to some degree that they could actually lead to a reduction in acts of violence. A person doing any of the opiate based drugs (e.g. heroin) is very unlikely to engage in any form of violence even if they are inherently a violent person because the drugs mellow them out while they're "high" in the drug.

People that are opposed to legalization of drugs cannot establish a significant "cause and effect" relationship but instead refer to statistics where no cause and effect relationship is established. In fact they often clarify that the cause and effect relationship doesn't exist by caveat in the "fine" print of their statements but many that oppose legalizations tend to gloss over these "fine print" caveats because it contradicts they opinions.

 

If that person was not on cocaine, they may have had better judgement, and they may not have robbed that bank. Also, even if it has been proven that cocaine does not cause violence, if more people are on cocaine, there will be way more car accidents which are related to people that are driving under the influence of cocaine.

http://www.narconon.org/drug-information/cocaine-effects.html

 

Getting cancer from smoking marijuana is fatal.

 

How many people actually get cancer from smoking pot? Some people may be predisposed to some cancers regardless of which drugs they use.

 

Let's clarify the anti-drug propaganda related to drug use and crime by citing a passage from a previously cited article.

http://www.healthydrugfreecolorado....galization What Do You Want to Know FINAL.pdf

We have a statement about crimes being caused "because of drugs" that references the "Arrestee Drug Abuse Monitoring Program, 2010 Annual Report" as being the source supporting the statements being made but that is not what this report is about and the report does not make or support the claims that the "drugs" were the cause of the criminal acts. The focus of the "Report" is to determine whether a person arrested for a crime has used drugs recently and doesn't investigate whether there was any linkage between the use of the drug and the crime committed.

The White House report does not establish that "People are assaulted, mugged, murdered, raped, or robbed because somebody is under the influence of drugs" because it doesn't investigate that at all. It's a simple drug test performed at the time of the arrest and the cases are not investigated to determine if the crime was "caused by the use of the drug" which is being claimed. The person may be "under the influence of drugs" but that doesn't establish that the crimes were committed because the person was under the influence of the drug.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/sites/default/files/ondcp/policy-and-research/adam2010.pdf

The fundamental problem with the statements in the "Healthy and Drug-Free Colorado" report is that it assumes that correlation establishes causation but that has long been rejected by science. They take a report that merely documents that people that use drugs commit crimes and then make the false statement that the crime was because of the drug usage based upon correlation unsupported by fact.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Correlation_does_not_imply_causation

We also see the statement made that "Hundreds of innocent people are killed every year because of drug-impaired driving" which is actually true but the number is really in the thousands because it includes those that die as a result of alcohol use which is the number one drug identified in fatal accidents resulting from the use of drugs (alcohol is a drug remember). So the statement can be made but it isn't limited to illegal drug usage where few accidents are actually established where an "illegal drug" was the cause of the accident.

Also of interest is that in 2011 there were 32,885 fatalities in automobile accidents and even if we assumed that "hundreds" were because of impaired driving due to illegal drugs this would represent an insignificant percentage of overall traffic fatalities. We can note that marijuana in a person's system does not establish any connection to an accident because marijuana stays in a system for up to a month.

Of course driving under the influence of any substance that impairs driving ability is already against the law so it is irrelevant to the legalization of drugs.

Finally, we have the blatantly false statement, "The nexus between drug use and violence is indisputable" because the connection be between violence and drug use is highly disputed. Basically the Healthy and Drug-Free Colorado" author expresses a blatant lie in attempting to convince people. Once again correlation does not imply causation. There isn't an established link establishing a cause and effect relationship between drug use and violence.

What can accurately be said without dispute is "The nexus between the black market in illegal drugs and violence is indisputable."

 

Smoking pot is very damage to the lungs.

http://www.justthinktwice.com/factsfiction/fiction_marijuana_is_harmless.html

Marijuana has 50-70% more benzopyrene, which is a carcinogenic which smoke creates, than tobacco smoke.

 

Here is more recent research:

 

Yes, the THC itself has some anti-cancer properties, but the smoke itself is very toxic to the human body, and it's also very carcinogenic. Are you aware of the fact that pot smoke has seven times more tar and carbon monoxide than what tobacco smoke has?

 

This has already been addressed. The higher potency of marijuana today reduces the damage by reducing the amount of marijuana used if it's smoked. Vaporizers, that younger marijuana consumers have adopted as the primary means of using marijuana (albeit banned in some states as drug paraphernalia) eliminates the smoke because the marijuana is not burned which creates the smoke that has the harmful attributes.

THC itself, which is the active ingredient in marijuana, has not been determined to be harmful.

Repeating the same claims that have been shown to be fundamentally flawed or irrelevant to responsible and healthy marijuana use just so it can be disputed over again is not going to win an argument.

Can marijuana be consumed without harmful effects to the person's physical health? Yes, it can. End of discussion.

BTW How often do we complain about cooking a steak on a barbecue that introduces cariogenic substances to the human body? If we want to ban all human activity that introduces unhealthy chemicals into the human body then perhaps we should ban barbecues.

http://environment.about.com/od/health/a/charcoal_grills.htm

What the hell, let's just ban everything because everything represents a potential health risk. We need to even ban water because of the possibility of drowning. A person can literally drown on a glass of water so ban it.

 

Some people consume marijuana with vaporizers, foods, or drinks, which is becoming more popular, because in areas where pot is legal, people do it more openly and these things are being advertised now. Legalization of pot may even reduce the harms which come from smoking marijuana, since these other methods of consumption will be discussed more openly as well as advertised. That's one of the reason why I now support legalization. Also, if pot is legal, vaporizers will also become more available, since drug paraphernalia would also be legalized.

Even though pot smoke has more benzopyrene than tobacco smoke, the benzopyrene in pot smoke is not carcinogenic, because the THC and the CBD stops the CYP2C9 enzymes from converting the benzopyrene into a carcinogenic substance, according to the Drug Metabolism and Pharmacokinetics Journal 2012 (Google - PMID: 22166891 - read full article).

 

Yes, THC has been found to be an effective drug related to cancer treatment.

There is no scientific evidence whatsoever that THC has any carcinogenic properties.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tetrahydrocannabinol

Of note synthetic THC (i.e. "Marinol") can kill a person (four reported deaths related to Marinol use) but natural THC cannot.

 

That's a very interesting fact. Chewing tobacco (even without the smoke) causes cancer, and some studies have shown that even one glass of alcohol per day (which is considered to be moderate drinking, without even getting drunk!) can cause cancers, but marijuana by itself is not carcinogenic (except for when people smoke it).

However, how exactly do people die from Marinol? I thought that it's impossible for somebody to overdose on THC. Does Marinol kill people because of it's very high concentrations of THC, or because of some of the toxic synthetic chemicals which are added into it?

It's a synthetic form of marijuana, and synthetic chemicals which are put into some prescription drugs can be very toxic and dangerous for the human body (which is why some people believe that medical marijuana should replace some or all of Big Pharma's prescription drugs).

 

A previous study you posting showed that the worst effects of smoking pot, are those associated with heated air flowing through our air passages.

 

There is absolutely no evidence to substantiate your wild assertion nor do you have any logical evidence to sustain it. In fact, I am now quite certain that you are bereft of any interest in providing any substantiation to any of your arguments, and are merely repeating the same themes over and over again in order to entertain yourself or perhaps get some attention.

 

Why do you not believe that tax revenues generated will not be spent on the least wealthy, socially, to preclude it?

 

You should know better than to assume that people care about drug use - they don't. It's about control. THEY don't think drugs should be legal because THEY don't think drugs are nice.

I don't think kittens are nice. In fact, I hate them. They can cause all kinds of diseases (think "cat scratch fever"), and cats attack people every year. They even blind other household pets.
Some people - particularly single women - become addicted to cats and become "crazy cat ladies," storing great numbers of cats and becoming unhealthily reclusive.
So we should obviously make all cats illegal.

I hope other posters can see how insane this reasoning is. While everything in the above statement is true, it does not justify making cats, or drugs, illegal.

 

Why should we confide in the sincerity of Nanny-State-ists, if they are unwilling to pay for their public policy schemes with Nanny-State taxes?

 

I'm not an expert on this but rarely is a synthetic compound the same as a natural compound. They're close chemically but not the same. It does not have to do with the "concentration" level because no amount of natural THC is toxic but apparently with synthetic THC there might be a toxicity level. I don't even know if the deaths were attributed to overdose.

As noted though only four cases of deaths related to Marinol have ever been reported according to Wikipedia which is statistically insignificant and could even reflect a error in the diagnosis of the cause of death. Perhaps they were related to an allergic reaction to a synthetic compound. Who knows for sure but I believe we can accept that its still an anomaly of statistical insignificance overall.

 

Prior to 1907 people bought drugs without constraints. Local drug store.
Many more addicts in population. Interestingly, practically no crime
associated with drug use. What have we done wrong?

 

We know why the prohibited drugs were made illegal. It was based upon racism and numerous studies have established that the drug laws are fundamentally anti-black racism laws based upon actual laws themselves (i.e. penalties for crack cocaine, used more often by blacks, were much more severe than penalties for powder cocaine used by whites) to the enforcement of the laws (blacks are arrested at four times the rates of whites and receive harsher sentences while drug usage is the same between both whites and blacks). We can also note that state and federal controlled substance acts (i.e. drug laws) were championed by the KKK (a WASP Nationalist organization) when it was at the height of it's political power after WW I. The KKK also championed the 18th Amendment to ban alcohol based upon its WASP Nationalist agenda.

When we look at the origin and enforcement of these laws we can really draw the conclusion that the current supports of the War on Drugs are de facto supporters of the KKK agenda because all of these laws were championed by the KKK based upon it's WASP Nationalist agenda which the KKK continues to endorse today.