Should U.S legalize Marijuana??

[livendive 8]

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I totally support the government telling me what I can and can't do to other people's bodies (without their consent). If I violate those laws, they'd be right to prosecute me. But there shouldn't be an *assumption* that I will hurt someone else. Plenty of people drink and do drugs today without hurting others...in "the land of the free", that should be a legal option.

Blues,
Dave

To an extent, i really don't disagree... I really don't... I've just seen and heard about too much carnage... people killed by drunk drivers, people strung out on dope, meth addicts neglecting their kids, or blowing them up... I don't know where the line is. Once you're impaired, it's far too easy for you to decide you'll do x, y, or z b/c your inhibitions are lowered, you feel more invincible, or whatever, and you wind up doing something you wouldn't do when you were sober. And, when that happens and you hurt someone along the way, yeah, you should pay dearly, but that doesn't erase the hurt you caused to that person. It just doesn't make sense to me. And just b/c "plenty of people do [it] today w/o hurting people" is FAR from a compelling argument, since MANY people DO hurt and kill people while doing it.

Most people who jump out of airplanes don't injure people on the ground in the process. Most people who smoke pot don't injure non-smokers in the process. Occasionally, both things happen. If the one doesn't lead you to believe that skydiving should be outlawed, than the other shouldn't lead you to believe that smoking pot should be outlawed.

Blues,
Dave

"I AM A PROFESSIONAL EXTREME ATHLETE!"
(drink Mountain Dew)

[gkc1436 3]

>Psychotic disorder due to prolonged marijuana use

Did you see the size of that chicken?

[StreetScooby 5]

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Did you see the size of that chicken?

As a matter of fact, I did!

We are all engines of karma

[Lindsey 0]

Cannabis Psychosis. You'd really have to look at how the studies themselves were done to have any sense of their validity. I think it's a lot more likely to be able to connect *recent* marijuana use with psychotic events, but a HUGE stretch to connect very distant use (years) with psychosis.

There are people who believe in Multiple Personality Disorder too. It's even in the DSM. But at least as many psychiatrists DON'T believe it exists than do. People who do buy into it will find all sorts of "evidence" for its existence, and they're likely to see it at every turn (and diagnose it) but that evidence isn't very solid scientifically.

This is similar. Connecting causality between very distant marijuana use and later psychosis is just too difficult to support in a good evidence-based way. That's probably why the DSM does NOT support calling this type of psychosis substance-induced.

linz

--
A conservative is just a liberal who's been mugged. A liberal is just a conservative who's been to jail

[jshatzkin 0]

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That's probably why the DSM does NOT support calling this type of psychosis substance-induced.

Where does it state that?

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I think it's a lot more likely to be able to connect *recent* marijuana use with psychotic events, but a HUGE stretch to connect very distant use (years) with psychosis.

I think what the connection was, was chronic and heavy use over a long period, which is very different than very distant use.

As far as MPD, at least they have changed the name to fit a dissociative state and removed it from the personality disorder cluster. That is a step towrd some resolution.

I think people on the thread are contorting my comments to mean that "if you smoke, then this will happen." I have never stated that, and did not say it was a common occurence. I keep restating my point that marijuana is not a docile, harmless drug and can have adverse effects if abused. I have not even mentioned the memory problems, that are researched and evidence based, that it can cause (on a much more common level than psychosis).

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Connecting causality between very distant marijuana use and later psychosis is just too difficult to support in a good evidence-based way

Anybody can argue ANY side of any issue with a general statement like this. It is difficult in most research to isolate the single cause of anything, as nothing we do exists in a vacuum. Especially in psychiatry. We can have our opinions, but to argue the ?validity? of the research? It has been peer reviewed and published. I know that does not make it the gold standard of truth, but at least it is more valid than a dz.commer simply posting their opinion.

Jen

[jshatzkin 0]

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or a common result and reason to fear pot as a 'non soft' drug, as you want to conclude?

Have I concluded that? I never said people should "fear" pot either. In every post I have accentuated the effects of chronic and addictive use, and have been careful to not tie its effects to occasional recreational or experiemental use. I have never mentioned one way or another if it should be legalized. I am just attempting to dispell the myth of it being a harmless drug. I would say similar things about *legal* drugs of alcohol and tobacco too. It just hits my nerve when people use the argument of its being harmless and "God grown in the ground" as basis for their argument because both of these statements resemble little truth to the reality of the drug.

There is countering research that looks at the medicinal use of marijuana, and the hemp use (saving more trees). The problem is not absence of countering research, the problem is what the politicians do with the research. And it likely has more to do with big industry and companies (that's who drives policy). This is about policy, not research.

Jen

[PLFXpert 0]

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What happens if you choose not to drink for a week?

I'm a little bitchier, but fine nonetheless.

And before you ask, yes, I have gone a while w/out it before for reasons that are nunyadamnbizness.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[PLFXpert 0]

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(and it only took 4 days to start sleeping after dropping the narcotics)

To each their own. Wine or not. Stress or not. Whatever or not. I nearly ALWAYS sleep like a rock for 8 hours.

Paint me in a corner, but my color comes back.

[SkyDekker 1,122]

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do agree (and scholarly studies show) that marijuana is the stepping block to addiction and harder drugs. Not to imply that everyone who uses it will go on to heavier drugs, but it is called the "gateway drug" for a reason.

And formula, water, milk and coca cola are clearly stepping blocks to alcoholism. Not to many alcoholics that didn't start with those beverages. And if you think at least one of those beverages doesn't alter behavious, than you obviously have never seen a toddler or pre-teen after a can of coke or two.....

[freethefly 6]

June 29, 2004, 12:07 p.m.
Free Weeds
William F. Buckley Jr.

The marijuana debate.
Conservatives pride themselves on resisting change, which is as it should be. But intelligent deference to tradition and stability can evolve into intellectual sloth and moral fanaticism, as when conservatives simply decline to look up from dogma because the effort to raise their heads and reconsider is too great. The laws aren't exactly indefensible, because practically nothing is, and the thunderers who tell us to stay the course can always find one man or woman who, having taken marijuana, moved on to severe mental disorder. But that argument, to quote myself, is on the order of saying that every rapist began by masturbating. General rules based on individual victims are unwise. And although there is a perfectly respectable case against using marijuana, the penalties imposed on those who reject that case, or who give way to weakness of resolution, are very difficult to defend. If all our laws were paradigmatic, imagine what we would do to anyone caught lighting a cigarette, or drinking a beer. Or — exulting in life in the paradigm — committing adultery. Send them all to Guantanamo?

Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening, in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these — 87 percent — involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.

What we face is the politician's fear of endorsing any change in existing marijuana laws. You can imagine what a call for reform in those laws would do to an upward mobile political figure. Gary Johnson, governor of New Mexico, came out in favor of legalization — and went on to private life. George Shultz, former secretary of state, long ago called for legalization, but he was not running for office, and at his age, and with his distinctions, he is immune to slurred charges of indifference to the fate of children and humankind. But Kurt Schmoke, mayor of Baltimore, did it, and survived a reelection challenge.

But the stodgy inertia most politicians feel is up against a creeping reality. It is that marijuana for medical relief is a movement which is attracting voters who are pretty assertive on the subject. Every state ballot initiative to legalize medical marijuana has been approved, often by wide margins. Of course we have here collisions of federal and state authority. Federal authority technically supervenes state laws, but federal authority in the matter is being challenged on grounds of medical self-government. It simply isn't so that there are substitutes equally efficacious. Richard Brookhiser, the widely respected author and editor, has written on the subject for The New York Observer. He had a bout of cancer and found relief from chemotherapy only in marijuana — which he consumed, and discarded after the affliction was gone.

The court has told federal enforcers that they are not to impose their way between doctors and their patients, and one bill sitting about in Congress would even deny the use of federal funds for prosecuting medical marijuana use. Critics of reform do make a pretty plausible case when they say that whatever is said about using marijuana only for medical relief masks what the advocates are really after, which is legal marijuana for whoever wants it.

That would be different from the situation today. Today we have illegal marijuana for whoever wants it. An estimated 100 million Americans have smoked marijuana at least once, the great majority, abandoning its use after a few highs. But to stop using it does not close off its availability. A Boston commentator observed years ago that it is easier for an 18-year old to get marijuana in Cambridge than to get beer. Vendors who sell beer to minors can forfeit their valuable licenses. It requires less effort for the college student to find marijuana than for a sailor to find a brothel. Still, there is the danger of arrest (as 700,000 people a year will tell you), of possible imprisonment, of blemish on one's record. The obverse of this is increased cynicism about the law.

We're not going to find someone running for president who advocates reform of those laws. What is required is a genuine republican groundswell. It is happening, but ever so gradually. Two of every five Americans, according to a 2003 Zogby poll cited by Dr. Nadelmann, believe "the government should treat marijuana more or less the same way it treats alcohol: It should regulate it, control it, tax it, and make it illegal only for children."

Such reforms would hugely increase the use of the drug? Why? It is de facto legal in the Netherlands, and the percentage of users there is the same as here. The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.

"...And once you're gone, you can't come back
When you're out of the blue and into the black."
Neil Young

[micro 0]

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do agree (and scholarly studies show) that marijuana is the stepping block to addiction and harder drugs. Not to imply that everyone who uses it will go on to heavier drugs, but it is called the "gateway drug" for a reason.

And formula, water, milk and coca cola are clearly stepping blocks to alcoholism. Not to many alcoholics that didn't start with those beverages. And if you think at least one of those beverages doesn't alter behavious, than you obviously have never seen a toddler or pre-teen after a can of coke or two.....

C'mon everyone! Let's do our morning STRRRRRRRRETCHES!

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[SkyDekker 1,122]

I agree it is a stretch, so is the original steeping stone claim of MJ. Most drug users also smoke and drink, should cigarettes and alcohol be prohibited for the same reason as well.

I agree that most heavier drug users have often started with MJ. I just don't agree with the casuality suggested.

[micro 0]

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I agree it is a stretch, so is the original steeping stone claim of MJ. Most drug users also smoke and drink, should cigarettes and alcohol be prohibited for the same reason as well.

I agree that most heavier drug users have often started with MJ. I just don't agree with the casuality suggested.

It is a vexing question isn't it. I used pot quite extensively in my misguided youth but didn't turn to heavier illicit drugs at all.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[SkyDekker 1,122]

And in my mind it is pretty clear that the argument that if we take MJ away people won't try heavier drugs is utterly flawed. To me it is like saying if we take beer and wine away people won't start drinking Scotch.

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And in my mind it is pretty clear that the argument that if we take MJ away people won't try heavier drugs is utterly flawed. To me it is like saying if we take beer and wine away people won't start drinking Scotch.

I agree with you there.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[jshatzkin 0]

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I agree that most heavier drug users have often started with MJ. I just don't agree with the casuality suggested.

That is all I was trying to say. I never stated that if you use marijuana then you will use heavier drugs. But for those who do abuse heavier drugs, they often started with heavy use of MJ. An involved study, noted in the book "drugs, society, and human behavior" by Oakley Ray and Charles Ksir, highlights the gateway theory. Cigarettes and acohol are initial gateway drugs (because they are more accesible to youth) with marijunana being 3rd (1st in the illegal drug category). They state "we don't think gateway drugs are the cause of later illicit drug use, but, instead, as an early indicator of deviant behavior resulting from a variety of psychosocial risk factors." So YOU are implying the word "gateway drug" with "causality",..which it clearly is not the definition of gateway drug.

I am still on the fence of the legalization aspect, because it is much about policy and economics than anything else. It's not illegal solely for its effects (read my earlier posts about history of drug policy). I guess my post was more of a general statement that has many sides to argue. I never stated that "it is a gateway drug and therefore should be illegal". That is totally taking my posts out of context. I just am trying (as I have stated before) to dispell the myth that it is harmless. And yes, alcohol and tobacco are harmful too,..again refer to my post about drug policy history.

On a lighter note, I have found in my own experience that belly flying is a gateway drug to freeflying!

Jen

[micro 0]

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On a lighter note, I have found in my own experience that belly flying is a gateway drug to freeflying!

And you're quickly finding that posting here is a gateway drug to not finding a JOB!!!

Just teasing. Good luck finding something satisfying.

I miss Lee.
And JP.
And Chris. And...

[jshatzkin 0]

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And you're quickly finding that posting here is a gateway drug to not finding a JOB!!!

You got that right

Jen

[rhys 0]

the fact that prohibiton feeds the black market was proven earlier last century with alcohol prohibition.

i havn't read the whole thread, but money and power is to blame. the petrochemical and cotton inustries made many more millions when Hemp was prohibited!

the companies that control the cotton an pertochemical industries were the ones that made it illegal in the first place.

it has nothing to do with health, it has nothing to do with what is wrong or right. it has everything to do with money.

"When the power of love overcomes the love of power, then the world will see peace." - 'Jimi' Hendrix

[jshatzkin 0]

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the fact that prohibiton feeds the black market was proven earlier last century with alcohol prohibition.

I agree with that. I think I stated many times in this thread that the policy issues go deep, and pointed to big industries and political ties.

Now, having said that,..I still think MJ does have harmful health effects.


Warning: going on a tangeant rant

So, to clear this problem of the black market; let's legalize everything so we can control it. Even prostitution. There won't be gang wars or pimps or drug shootings. We could make sure that quality of drugs are pure (no rat poison, dirty cans or fillers). We could use the tax (Sin Tax) money to help pay for addiction treatment, disability payments and anything else we need. Although reality is, the money would probably be used in tax rebate for big companies who support politicians. Another reality is, there will always be a black market for something. There are black markets for designer clothes and pirated movies. There is even a black market for cigarettes, and they are legal. The huge taxes on cigarettes, makes them a viable candidate for a soaring undergound market. Even if drugs were legal, there would still be "cheaper, get you high faster" drugs in the black market. Hell with our Big Brother government, they could even monitor who is buying drugs (if legal) and then use it against them later. A similar system is in place for alcohol. Have you ever bought alcohol in a place that types in your birthdate and name?? I have, and it's kind of creepy.


Let's take up the abortion issue as well. (might as well since the gun issue has found its way into the argument)
There would definitely be a black market for abortions if illegal. Dark alley midnight abortions with hangers. So definitely keep abortion legal.

Tangeant rant over. Where were we??

Oh yeah, I was looking for a job.
Oh, wrong thread.

Jen

[jakee 1,255]

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Lung cancer cases would increase by an order of magnitude which would cripple treatment systems. Users would eventually file a suit mirroring the tobacco lawsuits, posing even more government oversight.

Haven't read further than this in the thread so maybe an out of date comment. How many people do you think would regularly smoke marijuana if it was legal that don't already smoke it?

I don't reckon legalisation would have the massive effect on user numbers that you are envisioning.

Do you want to have an ideagasm?

[jshatzkin 0]

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Lung cancer cases would increase by an order of magnitude which would cripple treatment systems. Users would eventually file a suit mirroring the tobacco lawsuits, posing even more government oversight.

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Haven't read further than this in the thread so maybe an out of date comment. How many people do you think would regularly smoke marijuana if it was legal that don't already smoke it?

I don't reckon legalisation would have the massive effect on user numbers that you are envisioning.

I don't think the number of people smoking MJ, if it were legal, would increase a whole lot. I think some people who don't smoke it now because only of job urinalysis and the fact it is illegal, might take it up. I definitely think the people already smoking it would probably smoke more often, thus increasing the lung cancer argument. Possibly.

Jen

[pirana 0]

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You'd think we'd have learned by now that prohibition of substances like this and persecution against victimless crimes doesn't work. Never has.

But there is the argument to be made that drug use/abuse isn't a victimless crime: look at parents who neglect their kids while using (applies to alcohol too for that matter). Or harming people while driving under the influence...

I think you got to focus on the actual crime without extrapolating to the excuse given (or implied) for doing it. Plenty of sober people beat their kids. The crime isn't in getting high (well, OK, it is a crime for now) it's in beating the kids.

" . . . the lust for power can be just as completely satisfied by suggesting people into loving their servitude as by flogging them and kicking them into obedience." -- Aldous Huxley

[kelpdiver 2]

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(and it only took 4 days to start sleeping after dropping the narcotics)

To each their own. Wine or not. Stress or not. Whatever or not. I nearly ALWAYS sleep like a rock for 8 hours.

take vicodin for 2 months and see if that's true.

[kelpdiver 2]

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or a common result and reason to fear pot as a 'non soft' drug, as you want to conclude?

Have I concluded that? I never said people should "fear" pot either. In every post I have accentuated the effects of chronic and addictive use, and have been careful to not tie its effects to occasional recreational or experiemental use. I have never mentioned one way or another if it should be legalized. I am just attempting to dispell the myth of it being a harmless drug.

Every drug has the potential to do harm. The relevent detail is in the frequency, hence the remark by several to you about statistics. It's hardly noteworthy for you to have seen a handful of cases.

Like I said, a small minority of the population is violently allergic to nuts. Have we banned peanut butter? Not yet, thankfully. Do the vast majority of the population run in fear of it? No.

Unless you can say more on the subject, I can't view the cases you saw as any different than a rare allergy of sorts.