Marijuana: Facts, Myths, and plain old Stupidity.
- Thread starter TroutBum
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Agoxlea
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I think so too, because you STILL haven't backed up your argument with anything despite multiple requests.
Sorry, I misspoke. I agree with Salty that you can't detect current impairment. If you are trying to argue that you can, you are flat out wrong.
ad hominem
ad hominem
I am not breaking any laws in my state. I am a medical marijuana patient. The federal government is not prosecuting medical marijuana users for possession. I have a full time job, great relationships with both my family and my significant other, I vote, pay my taxes, etc. I would like to know how that is either legally or socially irresponsible?
I think GVC is at an age where his brain is already developed. Proponents of marijuana legalization are in favor of its use for adults.
Reread your ad hominem attacks.
It may not be religion, but you haven't explained the foundation of your argument other than to illustrate you are morally opposed to it. You haven't explained how you developed those opinions, but if those moral convictions don't have religious roots I am more than happy to hear you explain them.
GVC
Well-Known Member
I'm really not sure what you're looking for here. Everyone is going to have a different standard on this one, and come to their own conclusion. Hopefully, they're rational and flexible enough to change their mind when presented with new information.
If you're wondering about the specifics on why I think the current prohibition on cannabis is unjust, you can start in this thread.
- More arrests for simple possession in the US than all violent crimes combined (a number that's upward of 800 000 per year). Those arrested are often affected in one way or another for the rest of their lives (whether they go to prison or not). I'd argue that that penalty is especially extreme since the crime, as far as I can tell, isn't unduly harming anyone other than (potentially) the user himself. Id someone does something that harms someone else, punishment may be reasonable. Otherwise, it's unjust.
- In decriminalized states, there has been little evidence that decriminalization leads to an increase in use. Further, with resources devoted to other methods of combating addiction have proven a boon to many societies (harm reduction strategies have been both more effective and cheaper).
Because impairment has nothing to do with THC levels in the blood, or because you can't detect THC? This statement really makes no sense. You can use blood levels to detect THC impairment in the same imperfect way you can detect alcohol impairment.
GVC
Well-Known Member
And that's what he's missing. I'm all for keeping potentially powerful drugs out of the hands of minors, but, and I think there's ample evidence to support this contention, I don't think the current prohibition is the best way to tackle that. I'm not sure if it's in this thread, but I have before posted the NIH studies on teens and availability of legal and illegal drugs.
I'm with you. I've tried to post relevant information in this thread (and others), but those who disagree have yet to present anything resembling a rational argument. I'd love to have that discussion.
GVC
Well-Known Member
As I posted before, THC content dissipates at a much slower rate because it's fat soluble. Even 24 - 48 ours after consumption, you can still detect levels of THC in the blood consistent (or at least very close to) with the levels recommended as a zero per se level in the study discussed in this thread. That's problematic since the "high" potentially lasts only a few hours.
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Agoxlea
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THC is in your system much longer than alcohol and the levels cannot be linked to a certain level of impairment. The national highway traffic safety administration even says
"It is inadvisable to try and predict effects based on blood THC concentrations alone, and currently impossible to predict specific effects based on THC-COOH concentrations” because “[d]etection time is well past the window of intoxication and impairment.”
LogGrad98
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That is an erroneous conclusion, as even if states have decriminilized medical usage, the federal government has made it abundantly clear that is still regards the issue as a federal matter that they will enforce, hence there is no true decriminilization to compare to. Even if the feds do not prosecute users as much as before in those states, there is still that spectre that taints the results.
Anyone have any data on usage in other countries that went from illegal to legal?
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Agoxlea
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GVC
Well-Known Member
Uh, that's what I was referring to. Way to jump to conclusions.
We didn't have very many anti-drug laws for the first 5900 years of "history" even as defined in the most conservative view, and although there were some places/times/cultures that made liberal use of available known substances it all sounds pretty mild compared to our druglord wars nowadays and the unprecedented imprisonment of millions of humans for non-political issues of biochemistry/conformity. In that context, the real problem looks to me like a cultural addiction to coercive regulation of behaviors. A sort of mass pyschology of dependence on government authority for making rules.
It occurs to me that this has developed historically from the breakdown of parental/family authority in the first place, beginning in Western Europe with the entrenchment of religious (Catholic) influence in the middle ages. Cultures bastardize their young when they undermine the absolute power of parents. We wouldn't need drug laws if parents or teachers could stand as credible threats to wayward juveniles on the verge of stupidity.
ha ha. I had you you guys going along with me about halfway here, didn't I.
Anybody ever read Lord of the Flies. We reject organized religion as the absolute arbiter of acceptable behavior, we reject parents as well, and then we expect the government to do the nasty job of telling us all what to do? Government should be the first organization on our rejection list. Parents we can run away from as soon as we can figure out how to find a job of our own. Religion without government power attached can be socially compelling, but with a little courage we can just ignore it.
It's a tall order to expect humans to ever achieve purely personal self-governance, in a thousand ways we all want some kind of social context to live in. Who are we going to give all that power to?
But I find the kind of study that Agoxlea linked pretty compelling. There is definitely something wrong with the results of our drug laws.
Maybe freedom works even if you want to see drug abuse go to zero.