Why Marijuana Should Not Be Decriminalized Right Now

Strangely enough I think you answered your question within the question itself.

Some libertarians may agree with your assessment but not all. Personally I do not think we should legalize or decriminalize marijuana for two reasons one is philosophical the other is practical.

Philosophically I think all drugs should be legal for adults anyone who wishes to use or abuse drugs should be free to do so. But suffer the consequences. That is a true libertarian view point. Legalizing or decriminalizing just one drug is hypocritical.

From a more practical point of view the problem with either decriminalization or legalization is the current political climate. We are already establishing one of the most expensive and overreaching programs in government history which is Obama's medical plan. If we allow drug use in general who foots the bill? I'm fine with people poisoning themselves, wrecking their lives and destroying their own mind and body as long as they do not expect me to pay for the damage or consequences even indirectly through government assistance. If we can guarantee that government health care will not be used to treat addicts for even the indirect consequences of drug abuse then I am all for legalization. So far I have yet to hear anyone talk about this much in the national health care debate. People always assume or imply that health care is for people who are naturally sick and cannot afford care. They ignore that many people are ill do to choices and decisions they have made. I have no idea what he stats are but it is reasonable to estimate that many sick people fall into the latter category. On the one hand it seems that everyone assumes such problems will be treated on the public dime. On the other hand it clearly implies that government health care will be the road to tyranny based on the premise that since the government provides health care it has the right to order and dictate how we live in return for that care.

In my view the best solution would be to dump Obama care and allow people to pursue their own health care ( or not ) and no one has to pay for someone who messed themselves up with drugs then we can legalize away.

 

You can handle the drug addiction problem much more effectively through education and treatment than through law enforcement and criminal penalties. What if stopped spending billions of dollars every year on drug enforcement and putting nonviolent offenders in prison and put even just a portion of that money towards treatment and education?

 

Our decision making process would be quite different if we could repeal all federal laws against drugs and the burden of enforcing any drug law fell to the state that passed that law. I bet we would have smarter solutions when we're talking about tight budget from states that can't print money or borrow it from China.

 

I still favor federal criminalization for a very simple reason: What a society tolerates it gets more of. It's the same reason that I favor keeping prostitution illegal. If you look at the things that are morally questionable, yet legal, they are very common compared to similar things that are basically the same, yet illegal. The simple truth is that illegal things are harder to do.

Prostitution is legal in Las Vegas. And it's so commonplace that you couldn't walk down the street without seeing blatant ads for prostitutes all over the place. Not only could you not miss it, but you'd have to go out of your way -- literally -- to not have someone place an ad for prostitutes in your hand. Now compare that to the situation in any other city. You may find a few isolated streetwalkers -- they exist everywhere. The difference is that you have to go out of your way to seek them out. You have to go to the back alley. And most people don't -- either because it's a hassle or because they're afraid of getting caught or afraid that the wife will find a matchbook from a hotel in the seedy part of town and suspect him. It's not a casual decision to seek out a prostitute -- you have to have crossed a lot of barriers already to have gotten far enough to hire the prostitute in the first place. When it's legal, it's a much more casual decision -- it's more of a decision to avoid the situation in the first place than to find yourself in neck deep.

Or consider alcohol vs any illegal drug. It's hard to avoid alcohol. You go to any store in the US you have your pick of alcohols -- different flavors, different strengths, different types -- and you have to go out of your way to avoid it. So lots of people end up drinking because it's no more of a big deal than buying a Coke. On the other hand, in most areas, buying drugs much like prostitution means going far out of your way. It means fear of getting caught, and shame if your co-workers or friends find out where you were. That deters people from making those decisions casually. By the time you've scored your drug, you've crossed several bounderies and made deliberate decisions to seek out the drug. It's certainly not like ordering a wine at a restaurant.

The other part of the argument -- rarely discussed even though it's the crux of the legalizationalist's argument -- is the notion that if the law doesn't work perfectly, it should be repealed. Well, no law has ever 100% prevented a crime. That's not the point. In fact, the idea that crime would be prevented by a law is proven false by the very fact that laws have penalties. If you speed, you pay a fine and get points against your liscence. Well, if a law against speeding was going to stop all speeding, why have a penalty? It makes no sense. But I've heard it a thousand times with drugs -- people still break the law, so lets repeal the law. People still murder even with it illegal, people still steal, people still speed and drunk drive. Can we get rid of all of those laws as well? People defecate in the streets -- repeal the ban on street defecation! It's a poor argument.

Laws are meant to serve as a sort of boundary. Make it clear what actions a state has decided are so beyond the pale that a person should be punished for doing. We made murder illegal with the view that the act of taking a person's life is so evil that it must be punished severely if it happens. The same is said for child porn and child abuse. Those things still happen, but it happens despite the government's best efforts to prevent that evil. All those bans say is that we consider those acts evil and destructive enough that we want to penalize people and make the act as unappealing as possible.

 

This is absolutely rediculous. Become a right? Has Alcohol become a 'Right'? Why would pot be any different?

 

problem saint michael?

 

EDIT: Oh, never mind.

 

Hmmm... I agree.

 

Why do you think decriminalizing marijuana give employees the right to drink a beer or smoke a joint on the clock? I don't think landlords care if their tenants have a drink or get high as long as they pay the rent on time, and don't do any damage to the property. Why do you think the private lives of tenants are of great concern to landlords?

 

While well crafted and fairly rational, this argumemt totally disregards the foundation of democracy.... Majority rules.

Can / should the minority impose their morals on society?

 

Marijuana was legal in this country a lot longer than it's been illegal.

 

The number one reason why this is rediculous is because it grows naturally outside of anyones house. Its not like mushrooms where they grow in some places and not others. You can litterally grow the plant (which is in high demand) anywhere in Southern Canada and the entire USA.

Its absolutely absurd to claim that millions of your citizens are criminal for buying a product you cannot control. You are right this plant should not be decriminalized. It should be legalized. Nearly every citizen has done it once in their life or more. Its the same as making beer illegal it costs too much money to police it.

Furthermore it allows for hateful people to go to war with one another over who puts what into their bodies. Just because you know Im smoking weed doesnt mean you are doing a good service by trying to get me punished. This is simple to see to anyone who is not constrained by religion.

As long as someone is not damaging someone else property or causing harm to another person other than themselves what they consume should be irrelavent. On the other hand people constantly causing disturbances while drunk and high should be punished a little more severely than sobering up in a cell over night. Repeated offenders of disorderly intoxication should result in jail time.

Legalize this relatively harmless plant and save billions in fighting its growth year in your country alone. Remember 1,000,000 americans could have 250,000 homes if the money for the war on drugs was spend on rent to own for the poorest citizens in areas outside of the ghettos they are stuck in.

This plant should never have been illegal and its only a matter of time before it is perfectly legal to buy, sell, smoke, eat, whatever.

Stop wishing a good portion of your population a hard time for a harmless habit.

 

Treat and regulate Marijuana just like alcohol.

Seriously stupid argument that anyone is arguing that smoking marijuana should be a right- the argument is really just the opposite- the government shouldn't be making marijuana illegal. Government should not be in the business of jailing people for their personal behaviour.

Jail someone for driving while stoned, not for growing a pot plant in their back yard.

Regulate, tax, just like alcohol. Prohibition was a failure with alcohol, its a failure with marijuana.

 

I'm never surprised when I see the Left making this argument. You're all statists and have no problem giving more and more power to government. But when I hear conservatives and self proclaimed Libertarians making this argument, it really unsettles me. It makes me wonder about the power that an herb has over an individual that they'll stow their principles and grovel and beg the government, "Please make it legal at tax it so I can get high". Though in my life I've met some true libertarians (none on this forum) the vast majority of them have proven to be frauds over and over. Anyone who wants to give government new and inventive ways to tax people and increase revenues to serve the statist beast is NOT a libertarian. That person is a fraud.

 

The same argument can be made about alcohol, and look how well that prohibition worked out. Pot is a (*)(*)(*)(*) plant, that's been used for a long long time. It's no worse than booze. The argument that people aren't mature enough to handle pot is stupid.

Here's a suggestion, mind your own business, and let other people worry about what they ingest into their own body.
I can't believe we are even still disguising this.

 

In a perfect world you might be correct.

But the reality is that unless we treat marijuana as a regulated intoxicant exactly as do alcohol- it will continue to be criminalized.

I think it makes sense to regulate marijuana and tax it- just as we do alcohol. That by the way is the direction Colorado is moving, and their plan sounds very workable.

What I find hilarious is that you think regulating and taxing something is more obstrusive than putting people in jail for smoking marijuana.

 

Instead you prefer the state to have total control over marijuana and an individuals right to use it

Your quote:

We can't decriminalize marijuana because there are too many who will push it to the next level. That's my opinion.

Yeah......no hypocrisy there at all.

 

So, let me get this right. People are statist for wanting the DECRIMINALIZATION, and yet you want the government to continue making a (*)(*)(*)(*) plant illegal. Really???

 

Obviously, it's not a question of whether or not we're mature enough for plants. It's whether or not the plants are mature enough for us. Can we handle the mature plant? Is it safe? I heard these plants carry the key to brain receptor cells, so like; how did the plant know about all that? Can we trust our garden?

 

Rush is a pillhead peice of crap who runs his mouth about someone smoking weed. He has proven himself to be a scumbag hypocrite once again.

 

What I find hilarious is that you think there will be no negative impact on society when people start abusing drugs unbridled; that somehow it will affect somebody else's family, not yours. The one thing that the Pothead Left has in common is they all believe that drugs are used by responsible people in the privacy of their own home and the fallout from their addiction affects nobody but themselves. That's the fantasy bubble that you live in. Meet reality.

 

How do I answer this politely- do you have a reading comprehension problem?

Where did I say- or imply in anyway that there wouldn't be ANY negative impact by legalizing marijuana?

Where did I encourage or suggest that people should abuse drugs or anything other than say that marijuana should be legalized.

You have chosen to misinterpret what I have said, whether by design or because of your blind prejudice in the matter I do not know.

But I didn't say or imply that which you want me to have said.

I will deal with the substance of the your claims in my next post.

 

Legalizing anything increases its use because those who would otherwise be inhibited by the law would experiment if the law doesn't sanction that activity anymore. You can't separate support for decriminalization and support for the increase of drug use and all the corollary effects of a culture of drug use. It all comes in one package. The Pothead Left continues to demonstrate that they live in a dream world at variance with how things really work.

 

So now you're a Libertarian???? just as I always suspected - you've been smoking too much pot