Wow, Someone is getting bold

[Chad L. Magee]

so this whole hating dope thing is the result of one experience! thought you professor types were slow and methodical about how you develop theories? believe it or not some folks don't smoke 18 cones every time they have a smoke some just have a couple to relax at the END of the day just like you having a couple of beers  well this dumb dope user (30 years) has to go off to the job I've had for 25 years 8 hours a day 7 days a week first in the building last to leave, in charge of security and OHS etc .jee now what was i going to do today again? doh

I am slow and methodical about my theory development, as I have been observing this matter for quite some time.  It has been more than twenty years since high school and I can clearly see a difference between non-users and users of dope just in my own classmates.  The one experience that I mentioned was one of many, but a personal one to show how it can affect people.  Your assumption that all dope users are not violent does not hold water based upon my studies on this subject matter.  Just because you feel that you are that way does not mean everyone is the same.  We are all unique, some more than others in some ways.  As for the beer reference, you are barking up the wrong tree.  I do not consume alcohol of any type, as I am allergic to it.....

[Daytona R/T SE]

 when was the last time you saw a violent stoner?

You ever try to raid a dude's twinkie stash?

[Fred]

It's more than the result of one experience, It's many people with at least one. Like I said earlier about my older sister, with all the crap she put through her body, she has the mentality of a coat rack. They always smoked a lot of pot.

I guess if you look at it from the governments standpoint, keep the masses stoned and they won't want to take up arms against you when you take everything away from them. Not the way I was brought up to live.

They don't have anything to start with, Tilar, do they?   Nothing much to take away from them. just sayin'

[Fred]

You don't have to smoke dope to become dumb. I'll introduce you to my sister-in-law. She's dumber than a box of rocks and has never in her life lit up a joint.  It's the booze that's it's toll on her.  Her memory is shot to hell!  It won't be long before she'll be wearing a name tag, that's for sure.   Very, very sad.

[Tilar]

It's more than the result of one experience, It's many people with at least one. Like I said earlier about my older sister, with all the crap she put through her body, she has the mentality of a coat rack. They always smoked a lot of pot.

I guess if you look at it from the governments standpoint, keep the masses stoned and they won't want to take up arms against you when you take everything away from them. Not the way I was brought up to live.

They don't have anything to start with, Tilar, do they?   Nothing much to take away from them. just sayin'

If you're talking about the part of taking everything away... It was liberty, freedom and our rights that I was talking about... so yeah they would have a lot to lose. If you take those away, not much left worth having as it's all materialistic.

[Mike DC]

  
Like the freedom to sit in your home and smoke some plants?  It's not exactly a big risk or cost to society at large.  



The question is not whether pot can do people any harm.  It can.  Just like fast food.  Or alcohol.  Or extreme sports.  Or guns.  Or fast cars.  

The mere fact that something can do harm is not justification for banning it.  The larger picture has to be taken into account.  

[Tilar]

The larger picture says 60% of the people that apply for a job at walmart are not eligible to work because they cant pass a friggin drug test. So does that mean that when all this goes legal that the percentage will go higher? To me that says the number of welfare rats will increase because nobody can get a job. Just what I want to pay for.... More worthless people.

[Fred]

It's more than the result of one experience, It's many people with at least one. Like I said earlier about my older sister, with all the crap she put through her body, she has the mentality of a coat rack. They always smoked a lot of pot.

I guess if you look at it from the governments standpoint, keep the masses stoned and they won't want to take up arms against you when you take everything away from them. Not the way I was brought up to live.

They don't have anything to start with, Tilar, do they?   Nothing much to take away from them. just sayin'

If you're talking about the part of taking everything away... It was liberty, freedom and our rights that I was talking about... so yeah they would have a lot to lose. If you take those away, not much left worth having as it's all materialistic.

I was referring to material possession's, liberty hadn't even occurred to me. I see your point.

[Mike DC]

The larger picture says 60% of the people that apply for a job at walmart are not eligible to work because they cant pass a friggin drug test. So does that mean that when all this goes legal that the percentage will go higher? To me that says the number of welfare rats will increase because nobody can get a job. Just what I want to pay for.... More worthless people.

Does Walmart test their applicants for fast food usage within the last several months?  Alcohol?  Cigarettes?  Etc?  

If pot was legal then Walmart could stop testing people for a legal substance and go back to trying to judge them on overall competence.  


It's easy to point to examples of potheads who can't function like a normal person.  But there are plenty of other pot smokers out there who can.  Just like there are people who drink alcohol a couple times a week and still hold a regular job.

[Chad L. Magee]

 
Like the freedom to sit in your home and smoke some plants?  It's not exactly a big risk or cost to society at large.  



The question is not whether pot can do people any harm.  It can.  Just like fast food.  Or alcohol.  Or extreme sports.  Or guns.  Or fast cars.  

The mere fact that something can do harm is not justification for banning it.  The larger picture has to be taken into account.  

True, but if you allow people to do things that will lower their intelligence over time, what will you end up with?  America is falling behind in so many acedemic catagories already.  Why would you want to totally legalize something that will cause us to become even further behind?  Look, I realize that not everyone is an Einstein, but America was once a land to greatness and ingenuity.  Face it, our older generation had the brain power to get us where we are.  Will we ever get back to that is a good question that I do not have an answer for.  What I can see is that legalizing dope would not contribute well to us ever going in that direction.  It may make you seem more creative, but that can be a misperception of reality.  For those who do it to relax, a piece of advice:  If you need to reduce stress in your life, do like I do and exercise both your mind as well as your body by going for a meditative walk....

[Tilar]

The larger picture says 60% of the people that apply for a job at walmart are not eligible to work because they cant pass a friggin drug test. So does that mean that when all this goes legal that the percentage will go higher? To me that says the number of welfare rats will increase because nobody can get a job. Just what I want to pay for.... More worthless people.

Does Walmart test their applicants for fast food usage within the last several months?....

lol fast food usage? Seriously? I hardly think eating a big mac and going to work will have the same results as smoking a doobie and going to work.

[Tilar]

 
Like the freedom to sit in your home and smoke some plants?  It's not exactly a big risk or cost to society at large.  



The question is not whether pot can do people any harm.  It can.  Just like fast food.  Or alcohol.  Or extreme sports.  Or guns.  Or fast cars.  

The mere fact that something can do harm is not justification for banning it.  The larger picture has to be taken into account.  

True, but if you allow people to do things that will lower their intelligence over time, what will you end up with?  America is falling behind in so many acedemic catagories already.  Why would you want to totally legalize something that will cause us to become even further behind?  

It's called the "dumbing down of America". Other countries have seen it coming for decades and have even written books on it, America has been too stoned to realise it was happening and many still don't see it.

[Fred]

 
Like the freedom to sit in your home and smoke some plants?  It's not exactly a big risk or cost to society at large.  



The question is not whether pot can do people any harm.  It can.  Just like fast food.  Or alcohol.  Or extreme sports.  Or guns.  Or fast cars.  

The mere fact that something can do harm is not justification for banning it.  The larger picture has to be taken into account.  

True, but if you allow people to do things that will lower their intelligence over time, what will you end up with?  America is falling behind in so many acedemic catagories already.  Why would you want to totally legalize something that will cause us to become even further behind?  Look, I realize that not everyone is an Einstein, but America was once a land to greatness and ingenuity.  Face it, our older generation had the brain power to get us where we are.  Will we ever get back to that is a good question that I do not have an answer for.  What I can see is that legalizing dope would not contribute well to us ever going in that direction.  It may make you seem more creative, but that can be a misperception of reality.  For those who do it to relax, a piece of advice:  If you need to reduce stress in your life, do like I do and exercise both your mind as well as your body by going for a meditative walk....

Well said. I'm with you. 

[Mike DC]

lol fast food usage? Seriously? I hardly think eating a big mac and going to work will have the same results as smoking a doobie and going to work.

No, but going to work drunk can cause a few problems.  Does Walmart does breath-test every job applicant and employee clocking in?

Walmart just assumes people aren't drinking on the job unless they are given reason to think otherwise.  Walmart doesn't care what people do on their own time.  That is how a society handles a legal drug.


-----------------------

True, but if you allow people to do things that will lower their intelligence over time, what will you end up with?  America is falling behind in so many acedemic catagories already.  Why would you want to totally legalize something that will cause us to become even further behind?  Look, I realize that not everyone is an Einstein, but America was once a land to greatness and ingenuity.  Face it, our older generation had the brain power to get us where we are.  Will we ever get back to that is a good question that I do not have an answer for.  What I can see is that legalizing dope would not contribute well to us ever going in that direction.  It may make you seem more creative, but that can be a misperception of reality.  For those who do it to relax, a piece of advice:  If you need to reduce stress in your life, do like I do and exercise both your mind as well as your body by going for a meditative walk....

So why on earth are trashy violent video games, movies, and music still legal?  

If we're going to decide what is legal & illegal based on a perceived effect on kids' education, then we've been going about writing the laws all wrong for centuries.



Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Americans go to prison for personal amounts of pot.  Prison.  Quite a few people do YEARS over it when you factor in the instances of pot being a parole violation (not uncommon at all).  What does this do to the society's overall health?  Lots of these people are mothers & fathers of children.  

[Tilar]

Alcohol has an approximate detection time of 12-24 hours in urine. Smoking just one joint can be detected up to 10 days later in a pee test and up to a couple years in a hair test.   I would think the people going to work drunk vs high are a lot different in numbers but either way I imagine the percentage of both are very low.

So why on earth are trashy violent video games, movies, and music still legal? 

Because we've got rid of all the morals that were used to build this once great nation. Pot is just another nail in the coffin to be added to the above llist.

Meanwhile, hundreds of thousands of Americans go to prison for personal amounts of pot.  Prison.  Quite a few people do YEARS over it when you factor in the instances of pot being a parole violation (not uncommon at all).  What does this do to the society's overall health?  Lots of these people are mothers & fathers of children. 

Then they should choose their actions a little more carefully, Especially when they are mothers and fathers of children.

[Mike DC]

Alcohol has an approximate detection time of 12-24 hours in urine. Smoking just one joint can be detected up to 10 days later in a pee test and up to a couple years in a hair test.   I would think the people going to work drunk vs high are a lot different in numbers but either way I imagine the percentage of both are very low.

The technicalities of the test are beside the point I was making.  I'm saying they don't test for legal drugs, they just trust people not to be doing them on company time and don't concern themselves with what people do in their own time.  It's not perfect but it works pretty well.  At any given time the vast majority of employees in a typical department store are probably sober.  

Because we've got rid of all the morals that were used to build this once great nation. Pot is just another nail in the coffin to be added to the above llist.

 
People all over the world have been complaining that their culture is going down the toilet for thousands of years.  It's like people saying "The kids' music is too loud nowadays" or "I walked uphill to school both ways as a kid."  It's probably the normal state of opinion for the majority of adults.  I don't think the issue is that simple.  Changes in culture and values can be hard to understand while they are happening.  And lowering standards can be much easier to observe than raising ones.  

IMHO every time has some goods and bads when it comes to this stuff.  The mythical post-WWII period of "high values" in the USA was a lot greater for white Christian males than for anyone else.  And future people might also someday regard right now as the time when humans finally got their heads out of their asses about population expansion & environmental/resource pillaging.  Stealing from our descendants is immoral too, whether we do it with a credit card or a bulldozer.  (And as bad as our "credit card" govt and private debt is right now, it absolutely pales in comparison to the far reaching consequences of the bulldozer damage.  It's not even in the same ballpark.)

Then they should choose their actions a little more carefully, Especially when they are mothers and fathers of children.

Do you like paying for incarcerating these people?  
Do you like paying for the costs of their kids not having parents?  
Do you like paying for all the indirect costs to society that this stuff incurs?

Or do you just like riding a high horse about certain very common human weaknesses, because they don't happen to be things you personally struggle with?

Locking people up does not remove the costs from the rest of us.  It only shuffles them around.  Either we can execute every human being with any trace of genetic predisposition for substance addiction today, or else we will continue to deal with consequences of people's addictions in one way or another.  

[F8-4life]

Im gonna go toke a good bowl and then ponder how retarted some of the comments in this thread are....
People can be dumb but just cause they also happen toke that IS the variable and cause?
Chances are they were likely to become that already because of themeselves.
Stupid people are outnumber the bright ones everywere and weed being a downer it drawns in even higher numbers of lazy airheads.
So personal examples arent fully valid.
Smoking can be very helpful in the right circumstances.

anyone who drinks and or smokes cigg cant talk crap 

[Tilar]

Then they should choose their actions a little more carefully, Especially when they are mothers and fathers of children.

Do you like paying for incarcerating these people?  
Do you like paying for the costs of their kids not having parents?  
Do you like paying for all the indirect costs to society that this stuff incurs?

Or do you just like riding a high horse about certain very common human weaknesses, because they don't happen to be things you personally struggle with?

Locking people up does not remove the costs from the rest of us.  It only shuffles them around.  Either we can execute every human being with any trace of genetic predisposition for substance addiction today, or else we will continue to deal with consequences of people's addictions in one way or another.  

So we just turn a blind eye to it by making it legal? Do you think they should make it legal for school children to get it too since many of them are smoking it anyway? Or does it stay a "medical" issue where you just go to your local crackpot doctor and get a prescription? Maybe have certain specific issues that justifies the prescription?

Maybe "justifiable homicide" would be something we could make legal? It would keep people out of prisons and not cost anyone anything other than a funeral and $1.25 for a .45 hollow point. The list could go on and on.

[skip68]

anyone who drinks and or smokes cigg cant talk crap  

I'll agree with that to a point.  Abuse is abuse no matter if it's a legal substance or not.   There is alot of people that drink way more than they should and are far worse than the guy that takes a few hits of pot at night or on a weekend.  I'm not in favor of it becoming legal but I do feel that alcohol does more harm in general to it's abusers.      

I feel if it's legal just like having a beer we will see a huge rise in problems related to it. Because right now it's undrground so to speak, once it's something that is legal we will see everybody coming out in the open and the problems will really start.   I do believe there ARE responsible pot smokers just like responsible drinkers and don't abuse it but I fear the abusers will make it bad for the rest and out number the responsible users. 

[dyslexic teddybear]

JMO.

Seems I have the moral high ground here, to comment. [not something I usually have]

Never smoked anything in my life.

Alcohol.....very little when I was younger.....none for many years. Not really hard to do, I learned years ago.......huge hangovers[sick for 2-3 days] kinda killed the urge to drink much.

I have seen problems with weed.....but I think more from alcohol.

I think we, as a society, would be better served to legalize it.

Seems there would be a benefit from separating buyers from someone who very much wants to sell you something more profitable, and much worse. Like a convenience store that sells only beer, does not try to convince you to get Jack Daniels.

Second, it would be better to move the "threshold" of going to illegal. Believe it used to be called the "gateway" drug, leading to wanting "harder" stuff. Seems logical to make a bigger gap so to speak, between "softer" legal, and "harder" and more dangerous illegal ones. Not to mention pulling a huge amount of cash flow from drug underworld.

Third, would move and concentrate police and rehab resources to worse and thus more important areas.

JMO...worth less then

[polywideblock]

again the answer to people going to jail for smoking dope is to decriminalise it !then you would get an on the spot fine like speeding .speeding is illegal but unless your do 200 in a school zone its just a fine .how many of our prisons are full of people caught speeding in their car? the whole thing (prison) could be handled by a citation for posesion/use . just think all this bullshit wouldn't be happening if a cross dressing fruit hadn't made it illegal back in the 20"s because the Negro's were do-in it so it must be bad

[Mike DC]

So we just turn a blind eye to it by making it legal? Do you think they should make it legal for school children to get it too since many of them are smoking it anyway? Or does it stay a "medical" issue where you just go to your local crackpot doctor and get a prescription? Maybe have certain specific issues that justifies the prescription?

No, we could de-criminalize it, as myself and several others are saying.  

Widespread prescriptions would just mean it's legal or illegal depending on your income level.  
(But this seems to be what we are heading towards.)

Maybe "justifiable homicide" would be something we could make legal? It would keep people out of prisons and not cost anyone anything other than a funeral and $1.25 for a .45 hollow point. The list could go on and on.

Oh, come on now.   Let's not equate reducing pot sentences to legalizing murder.

[polywideblock]

 i didn't try it until i was 20 ,but i came from a time when the local cop would kick your behind and tell you to get home! to much PC crap these days. no school age child/young adult(what crap) should be smoking dope!

[Tilar]

So we just turn a blind eye to it by making it legal? Do you think they should make it legal for school children to get it too since many of them are smoking it anyway? Or does it stay a "medical" issue where you just go to your local crackpot doctor and get a prescription? Maybe have certain specific issues that justifies the prescription?

No, we could de-criminalize it, as myself and several others are saying.  

Widespread prescriptions would just mean it's legal or illegal depending on your income level.  
(But this seems to be what we are heading towards.)

What does income level have to do with it? Isn't it supposed to be the same cost for everyone with Oblahblah care kicking in?

Maybe "justifiable homicide" would be something we could make legal? It would keep people out of prisons and not cost anyone anything other than a funeral and $1.25 for a .45 hollow point. The list could go on and on.

Oh, come on now.  Let's not equate reducing pot sentences to legalizing murder.

Honestly what is the difference? I'm not going to try to push this into a religious direction and I sure don't condone killing that is not in self defense, but think of the 10 commandments for just a moment... In Gods eyes, Is there a difference between killing and stealing? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultry. All in the same set of commandments. You shouldn't do any of them but according to the bible is one worse than the other?   It's just like my kids growing up, They would get their ass spanked for not doing what I told them to do, and they would get the same punishment for hitting each other.


By the way, Good debate, Mike. I'm enjoying it. 

[Mike DC]

What does income level have to do with it? Isn't it supposed to be the same cost for everyone with Oblahblah care kicking in?

Well, that is another matter.  I dunno exactly how the advent of Obamacare will alter the picture.

The reason I say income will affect it is because we can already see this picture with other legal controlled drugs.  Just look at "uppers" - wealthier people get scripts for things like Adderall & Dexedrine while the the lower notches end up buying scripted drugs from other people illegally and/or cooking meth in the backyard.  Same basic drug effect, two very different legalities depending on how you get it.  Doctor appointments & pharmacy scripts are a big obstacle for a low-income person with sketchy health care coverage. 

Same principle for why crack-cocaine has been MUCH more heavily punished than coke itself.  One is more popular in the high-functioning upper class whites, the other is more prevalent in the inner-city projects.  The much different legal treatment of the two drugs reflects society's prejudices. 

Honestly what is the difference? I'm not going to try to push this into a religious direction and I sure don't condone killing that is not in self defense, but think of the 10 commandments for just a moment... In Gods eyes, Is there a difference between killing and stealing? Thou shalt not kill, thou shalt not steal, thou shalt not commit adultry. All in the same set of commandments. You shouldn't do any of them but according to the bible is one worse than the other?   It's just like my kids growing up, They would get their ass spanked for not doing what I told them to do, and they would get the same punishment for hitting each other.

I'm not sure how reducing punishments for pot falls under the commandment of stealing.  In biblical terms I would equate pot smoking more closely to drunkenness. 

The point of reducing punishments is not to let everyone off easier, it's to let Cheech & Chong off easier while focusing the legal attack more on Tony Montana.  Stop giving people months & years in the slammer for possessing a couple ounces or pounds of the stuff.  Save the legal beating for bigger fish who get rich by moving tons of it per year.   

They also need to stop making minor pot convictions a parole violation IMHO.  A bag of weed that's worth a couple days in the slammer can potentially give someone a couple years if they are on parole at the time.  And the picture gets even murkier when you realize that the original big sentence was probably a lot more than the judge intended to give him in the first place.  These days judges tend to give out oversized sentences with the assumption that a lot of the time is likely to get paroled away. 

 

By the way, Good debate, Mike. I'm enjoying it.

Agreed.