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Marijuana: Facts, Myths, and plain old Stupidity.

Is there really anyone who thinks there is an appreciable difference between beer and marijuana? I mean, the whole idea that marijuana should be illegal while Popov Vodka in plastic bottles is legal is totally absurd.
 
colton said:
Here's the issue: I would have no problem if you were saying "Due to the historical inertia and propaganda, no serious studies have been done to see if marijuana use is harmful on an individual and on a societal basis. Therefore we should do some, and change our laws if the studies find marijuana use to do more good than harm."
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That is what I'm saying. You see, people have been citing research (in this thread and others), and it overwhelmingly comes down on the side of prohibition not working.

Yes, I enjoy cannabis, and, as far as the research says and I can tell, it's providing me with a lot more positive utility than negative utility, and hurting no one else. Saying something is "bad" is meaningless, irrelevant, and thus obviously not reason enough to make something criminal, and ruin people's lives over.

When people are arrested for illegal but perfectly reasonable religious observances, do you also think they should have known better?
 
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And I'm an extremely discrete person. The law has no discernible effect on me. That doesn't mean it's not something worth fighting to change. Hundreds of thousands of people are directly affected each year, many of their lives ruined, by this stupid War on Drugs.
 
billyshelby said:
Note to self: Move to Western Canada with lots of pot.
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BC beat you to it. Western Canada is absolutely full of weed, we get it all through BC for the most part. What I meant with my original post is that I'm from like a weed-prevalent area, yet i still haven't touched the stuff. I've just sorta avoided it throughout my early years; given, Im still a youngin'

EDIT: Thank you, GVC. ill try to make my posts less cryptic from here on.
 
I'm having trouble getting free access to the article you cited (in Behavioral Pharmacology), but read the abstract they provide on their website. The relevant assertion they make is that the effect of smoking one whole marijuana cigarette (3.96% THC) on brake latency and equilibrium is equal to that of someone with a BAC of .05 driving at the same speed. That's not really a meaningful comparison, since .05 BAC is well below the legal limit AND cannabis use tends to reduce while alcohol use tends to increase driving speeds (per some of the other studies cited in this thread). Also, most people who haven't built up a resistance to THC wouldn't smoke a whole joint and then go out driving at 60 mph. Minor details.

From the NIDA website:
Data have also shown that while smoking marijuana, people show the same lack of coordination on standard "drunk driver" tests as do people who have had too much to drink (8).
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If that's not purposely misleading, I don't know what is.
 
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The Distinguished Gentleman from Can... Er... Vermont has the floor.

Also, I miss you


GVC said:
I'm having trouble getting free access to the article you cited (in Behavioral Pharmacology), but read the abstract they provide on their website. The relevant assertion they make is that the effect of smoking one whole marijuana cigarette (3.96% THC) on brake latency and equilibrium is equal to that of someone with a BAC of .05 driving at the same speed. That's not really a meaningful comparison, since .05 BAC is well below the legal limit AND cannabis use tends to reduce while alcohol use tends to increase driving speeds (per some of the other studies cited in this thread). Also, most people who haven't built up a resistance to THC wouldn't smoke a whole joint and then go out driving at 60 mph. Minor details.

From the NIDA website: If that's not purposely misleading, I don't know what is.
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colton said:
This is another item I was going to bring up. As mentioned earlier in the thread, my own feelings are complex and I could possibly be persuaded that marijuana should be legalized. However, what I totally do not get are all of the people in the thread who are saying that they think laws against its use are stupid, and therefore they have no issue with using it themselves. There are LOTS of laws that I think are stupid, but that does not mean that I should be able to break them with impunity.
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I live in a state where it's legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, but if you ride in a car without a seat belt you're braking the law. I consider this to be similar to the alcohol/marijuana laws. I doubt many people would argue that seat belts are a bad idea, but that doesn't mean our government should be forcing us to wear them. If so, then motorcycles should be against the law. So should smoking. And as long as we're at it, we should probably start regulating what people chose to eat. Mandatory exercise also sounds like a good idea.

How does one become a lawmaker, anyway? I've got some GREAT ideas on how to force people to live.;)
 
colton said:
There are LOTS of laws that I think are stupid, but that does not mean that I should be able to break them with impunity.
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What are those laws? What are the penalties for breaking those laws? How many people are affected by those laws? What are the negative/positive effects of breaking those laws?
 
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freakazoid said:
I live in a state where it's legal to ride a motorcycle without a helmet, but if you ride in a car without a seat belt you're braking the law. I consider this to be similar to the alcohol/marijuana laws.
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Except driving without a seat belt isn't a felony.
 
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