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The Dude abides. Should we? [legalization of Marijuana]
spacekungfuman
Poor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
Poor and minority-filledRegistered User, __BANNED USERS regular
I didn't want to derail the Obama thread, so let's continue the conversaton here.
I think this is a very hard argument to evaluate, because we simply don't have the data we need. I personally think it would go up, since I know many people who only engage in legal debauchery, and draw the line at that which is illegal, simply because it is illegal.
I am going to take the no doubt very unpopular position that innocent deaths "count more" than deaths related to trafficking, based on my belief that people who follow the rules should never be harmed or lose out because of those who do not.
AManFromEarth wrote:spacekungfuman wrote:AManFromEarth wrote:spacekungfuman wrote:AManFromEarth wrote:spacekungfuman wrote:So you want to make pot more available to people who may exercise questionable judgement in using it while driving, and then hope they don't do it? What is the good of legalizing pot that would outweigh the bad of additional traffic fatalities as a result of people using it while driving? I know this is a cheap appeal to emotion, but what would you say to the parents, children or spouse of the first person who is killed by someone driving while high from smoking pot he bought at the 7-11?
It already happens, the law isn't stopping it. They're not going to shoot up if it becomes legal.
What do you say to the parents who get hit by drunk drivers? This isn't a thing that doesn't already happen. Pot use isn't going to magically shoot up through the roof if it's legal anymore than drunk driving would be stopped by prohibition. You're better than this argument.
And if you read my posts you'll see that I'm not actually pro legalization.
I find it hard to believe pot use would not increase quite a bit if it was legalized, and you could go buy it at CVS instead of from some scumbag drug dealer, or from some guy who got it from a scumbag drug dealer.
Of course we are not stopping all pot use now, but there have to be people who would use it but for it being illegal, and some of those people would drive while high. In my opinion, the harms of making pot illegal are outweighed to a ridiculous extent by even one death that results from legalization.
That's a fine argument to make, and again, I'm not pro-legalization, but look at it this way: why would people who won't take the risks of dealing with it while its illegal suddenly start zooming about the countryside in their cars while they're stoned?
The majority of drug users now probably aren't doing it, the majority of drinkers don't drive drunk. The same logic can be applied to outlawing guns or cars or anything. It's not a particularly strong legal argument to make.
The strength of the argument is directly related to the value of the thing to be outlawed. Where it is effectively valueless, like marijuana, I think it is a much more compelling argument than when you are talking about cars, where the value of having them is probably greater than the harm of the deaths they cause. Enabling people to travel much faster and to move much larger distances, thereby enabling our society to function the way it does is extremely valuable. Letting some people have fun getting high? Not so much.
Well then forget the car thing and let's stick to alcohol. By this logic we should outlaw that as drunk driving is a thing. Do you think that would solve the problem?
It's intellectually dishonest to claim that DUIs would increase if pot was made legal. My point is that if you're thinking "kids taking more risks" they're already taking the risk. Most people who would do pot have done. Most people that do it won't drive under the influence and I'm not convinced that those numbers would rise because the "risk takers" are already partaking. That is why it's not a strong argument, it's massively hypothetical and the logic of it, in my opinion, doesn't hold up.
I'm not pro-legalization, but "because DUIs will increase" isn't a good enough argument. It isn't provable. It's baseless supposition.
I think this is a very hard argument to evaluate, because we simply don't have the data we need. I personally think it would go up, since I know many people who only engage in legal debauchery, and draw the line at that which is illegal, simply because it is illegal.
Ultimanecat wrote:It's tough to make arguments about the extended (negative) consequences of allowing or disallowing a behavior, because then you'd be obligated to weigh up those consequences against the moral cost of maintaining the status quo.
If the possibility of even one death due to increased usage of marijuana after it is legalized means that we shouldn't do that, then we must assume that fewer deaths occur on the whole because we currently criminalize it. And there is little point compartmentalizing it into deaths that are "driving-related" vs deaths that are "trafficking" related vs deaths that are "prison" related - if more people die because marijuana is criminal than would if it were legal, then that's pretty much where the argument has to go. I don't personally know how that comparison fares, though...
...which is sort of the point of punishing directly those who make poor decisions when given the freedom to do so instead of simply not allowing a decision in the first place, since accurately gauging consequences is difficult - not only because they are widespread but because we can chase follow-on consequences as far down the rabbit hole as we want and end up in a situation where our moral balancing act becomes untenable.
I am going to take the no doubt very unpopular position that innocent deaths "count more" than deaths related to trafficking, based on my belief that people who follow the rules should never be harmed or lose out because of those who do not.
spacekungfuman on
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Quid's right on the innocent death thing.
I'm not for legalization, but I think we need to take a good hard look at what the War on Drugs is actually doing. Specifically pot, because it's silly that kids are getting indoctrinated into prison over it and tons of people are getting hurt by the drug war who are "innocent".
I think we lack the necessary data to actually debate your main point, Spaceman, so I'd agree with you on that. My personal feeling is that we wouldn't see a noticeable increase in DUIs were marijuana to be legalized. I think it'd hover around the same.
And if the number of deaths caused by the current status quo is more than those possibly caused by legalization, that's legitimate argument for it I should think. There's a dangerous slope to gallop down by saying that all the people who die in the drug war aren't "innocent".
We're the rules. WE make them. They're not coming down from God on a tablet. A criminal underworld and destruction that springs up because of certain rules we make doesn't get to be dismissed because "the rules are there!"
And plenty of 'innocents' die in gang and traffic related violence. Plenty.
This is my feeling as well.
I don't much care either way, but I don't like how much money pursuing pot costs.
I am against legalizing harder drugs, though. I don't want to see Crack at my local Publix. Though that might make hilarious commercials.
In general, I think the way we go after drug users needs to change (and prison, but that's a much larger debate fora different thread I should think). For the harder stuff, the focus should be on treatment, not punishment, though of course you can't treat the unwilling.
Anyways, I haven't heard a single logical argument to support the current system of illegality. The root of it seems to be the same old conservative fear of change based on falsehoods and/or misinformation.
Legalize it? Are you kidding? We need more illegal substances, not less! Caffeine, cigarettes, and alcohol should all be criminalized. That way we'll have an excuse to lock up millions more citizens, plus create more jobs in the prison industry, and we'll soon be back at full employment! If we let them out of jail they'll just add to the unemployment rate!
[/sarcasm]
Yes, obviously legalize it. It's one of those things that seems so blindingly obvious to me that I can't even give a real argument for it.
While I think prohibition of marijuana has been just as much of a failure as prohibition of alcohol, I'd really hope that legalized marijuana would not wind up being as heavily marketed as legalized alcohol is.
--LeVar Burton
Also, how much would legalizing it be profitable?
It would save a shit ton of money if we could stop prosecuting and housing prisoners for it (which probably wins the financial argument all on its own), but surely the black market would continue to thrive?
I think we could argue more prevelant marijuana use should it become legalized. Commercialization would see to that. The Current DUI laws would suffice unaltered, since IIRC they do not specify the chemical which impairs functioning, just that functioning is impaired.
If we are to raise traffic deaths due to legalized toking and driving as a negative consequence, which I feel is a valid concern, but one that is probably already present, so it is an enhancement of an existing problem, rather than a new threat.
But I digress, if we raise toking and driving, as previously mentioned by other posters we must raise the current costs of illegality. Those do include the Cartels, prison costs, the effects of criminal detention on people incarcerated, etc.
Well, it'd be feasible to legalize marijuana but maintain a government monopoly on any commercial sale of marijuana, much the same way some state governments deal with alcohol.
America already has to deal with the social and financial costs of corporations encouraging people to drink alcohol and smoke tobacco, I'd hesitate to add marijuana to that list.
the people that make billions enforcing those pointless laws.
Not to mention the people killed by over zealous militarized police.
The only two I'm sure should be illegal are heroin and meth. That shit terrifies me. Though only distribution should be punishable with jail time.
a.) This doesn't really prove anything outside of "more people will use pot if its legal" which we've all agreed is true.
b.) we're not talking about total legalization, just pot.
Just speculating, but I think that not as many people would grow their own as one might think. Sure, it grows easily without a whole lot of attention, but to grow quality stuff would probably require much more effort. People generally don't like to put effort and care into doing something that they can just obtain easily/cheaply. Commercial growing would likely be pretty widespread.
Some more wild-ass guessing, but I would think that for the first few years of legalization, yes, you would see a spike of usage in the population. Within 5-10 years, though, I'd expect the numbers start to decline, maybe even to lower levels than at the present (if the drug usage stats in places like the Netherlands and Portugal are accurate and applicable to the US, for instance)
-Drug gangs: Since cannabis is illegal, it makes for a nice cash crop for organized crime and small timers. If the government legalizes it, criminals will make far less from this crop than they currently do, I'm pretty sure it'll be taxed, so they'll still have some incentive to sell it on the black market. This could also have a positive effect on the environment and some recreation since the drug gangs currently resort to damaging national and state parks and other remote environments to grow marijuana out of sight. If growing marijuana won't land one in jail, even criminals will be less inclined to use the remote property of others and the government to grow because it'd be pretty stupid to get hit for charges for bypassing the tax on the sale of marijuana, illegal trespass and destruction of property when you could grow on your own property and reduce it down to just the first charge.
-Penalties for possession, distribution and growing pot, need to be seriously re-evaluation whether we legalize the substance or not. With jail space and money becoming issues, I'd prefer to avoid wasting either if it's not required to achieve the goal. I also feel it's incredibly stupid that the punishment for these offenses can likely result in having the opposite desired effect. When you send some young idiot to jail for drug possession and that results in him/her leaving as a more hardened and dangerous criminal because that puts them in contact with worse criminals. It starts to seem really stupid when a fine and/or community service might have done the trick without making it easier for criminal groups to find recruits. Yes, our jails need some reworking so that they far from being removed as ideal recruiting grounds and that could accomplished by not sending people there, when we have alternative, humane methods to discourage unwanted behavior.
-As I covered with the drug gangs, there is an issue with criminal groups resorting to using state and national parks to grow their illegal crop. I'm pretty sure any remote location will do the trick for them actually. Makes it really hard to perform environmental protection when people start illegally destroying it so they can grow illegal products. Also if it isn't abundantly clear, these guys tend to bring guns with them to protect those illegal crops so if you live in an area that gets any sort of tourism from those remote areas, it tends to put a damper on that.
And then the question of whether the current system is one where the 'punishment fits the crime'. With pretty fucking frightening (to me anyways) frequency, it doesn't.
Someone getting more time for 'trafficking*' pot than another gets for murder, rape, child molestation, and any number of truly horrible acts, isn't uncommon. What kind of message does that send to society? Drug abuse is 'as bad' as killing or raping another human being? The truly fucking frightening thing is that some people would say 'yes, it is'.
*: legally speaking, if you smoke pot, you are involved in trafficking
Because you're in a debate forum and no one is impressed with the DARE of cost-benefit analysis.
As AMfE pointed out, few people (at least in this thread) have been so foolish as to state that legalization would not increase use.
One should also point out that since the crime in question is Mala Prohibita and not Mala in Se, the way that information is presented is a little leading. As befits an organization with a dog in the fight. I further dislike that article as it ignores possible confounding factors in the decisions to legalize and re-criminalize marijuana use. Correlation does not equal causation damnit.
Edit: This debate (and the free exercise one) has reinvigorated my love for the law. Makes me want to go get my J.D. Expect me to post like this for a while.
Well one, because it's lazy. Two, it can lead to sloppiness, like arguing against a point no one's made. I have no doubt more people would use marijuana if it were legalized. So what? More people drank alcohol after it was made legal once more too. That is not inherently bad. And three, the argument the DEA is making turns in to a scare crow when, making a case against marijuana, they point to heroin use.
So there are a few reasons not to do it.
Maybe it's the cranky straight edge kid in me, but I'd consider the cultural prevalence of alcohol and marijuana use to be an inherently bad thing, and an increase in either to be a bad thing as well.
It's just that the inherently bad things that come along with government prohibition of either are far, far worse.
Mala Prohibita = Bad (things) by prohibition (ie. it's bad because there's a law against it)
Mala In Se = Bad in itself (ie. it is intrinsically bad)
Many a court ruling have leaned heavily on the Prohibita side of the argument.
But in any event, while I'm not completely opposed to utilitarianism, I do think people need to understand that if you say, "If too many good/innocent people could get hit by a few bad people driving under the influence, then they shouldn't be allowed to smoke pot," you're directly buying into a philosophy that says, "If you're in a car with no breaks, about to drive off a cliff and die, and you're an engineer/lawyer/etc., and you see a fat homeless guy that should stop your car, you should hit the dude." If you buy into that second statement, fine, your prerogative, I don't judge. BUT, if you say, "That's crazy!" Then you need to justify why the first statement's acceptable and the second isn't.
But, if you agree that it's not your schtick and you can't explain why you make an exception for the first statement, then I have a very simple moral absolute. It's not pretty, it has some negative consequences, and I don't completely buy into this philosophy, it's the simplest way to sum up my view:
The government can regulate a lot, but what substances I abuse in my own home or in the home of someone else with their permission? That's beyond their scope.
Oh and I'm a democrat, so I don't think their scope is all that narrow.
Gotr of Vatik
Scholar by day, rogue by night.
"If all I ever got was one shot, I'd still never blame fate."