Put another way, people who are unable to moderate their behavior (because really, too much of anything is a bad thing) don't let marijuana affect their lives because of the nature of the drug. They do so because of their own personal nature.
There are people who generally have poor impulse control, but there are also people who have different permutations of mental conditions that use alcohol responsibly but just can't handle marijuana. This may or may not have anything to do with how marijuana directly affects their cannabinoid receptors, and it is more likely that their rituals surrounding marijuana were etched in before they gained enough insight about themselves to keep their guard up against falling too much into other diversions, which they may accomplish admirably. However, it is possible that this learned habit has become so automatic that these safety factors aren't enough to extinguish the behavior. They might be concerned about their use or are even earnestly trying to kick the habit, made difficult by constant judging of their peers, since the common conception is that anybody weak enough not to be able to handle something like marijuana, video games, or ice cream is a basic lowlife. This is not what you're saying, but I'm taking the semantics to the extreme to clarify the point. Personality disorders that egregiously hinder basic functioning are not actually as common as specific addictions, and people who are given the right motivational support at each stage of their addiction, recovery, or remission can actually lead highly functional if somewhat rule-bound lives. Bullemics, for instance, could be said to have a food addiction, but that doesn't mean they are unable to generally moderate their behavior and will go crazy on any drug, though there definitely are people who tend to cross-abuse.
The whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem, and I wish the goverment had made a Drug Rehabilitation Agency with the money they used for the Drug Enforcement Agency, but as far as that goes, there are several political and criminal factors of which I have no knowledge that make such a wish useless and ignorant. All I'm trying to say is not to be too hasty in judging the people that fail marijuana.
Paladin on
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Refer to my above post for alcohol and tobacco.
The economic and social benefits of driving are immeasurably more than marijuana which has no apparent benefit.
Food and exercise are such an integral part of life that they are not possible to regulate without significant impact on personal freedoms. Therefore we have national promotion of healthy eating and exercise.
Marijuana has no apparent benefit, isn't essential for life, and harms people. Therefore I don't think it should be legalised.
But I mean, okay, you're right. The government can legislate good behavior. So, let's make alcohol and tobacco illegal. Outlaw all junk food. And we have to make sure that people are eating healthy, so let's have everyone log their meals with the government. Gotta make sure they're exercising too, so let's send all fat people to work camps. Can't bus them, though, cars can be dangerous. Gotta make everyone walk from now on.
Personal freedoms aside, the harms of such acute measures outweigh the benefits, but I don't think this thread can stand the sort of discussion this tone of argument will incite.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
But if the drug wasn't available, could those people have remained well and avoided that situation?
Isn't it our responsibility as a society to protect people from that scenario?
Just because something is illegal to possess doesn't mean it won't be available. In fact, it may be more available to vulnerable sections of the population, because people involved in illegal activity have no incentive to discriminate between purchasers.
And how, exactly, do you propose making a plant unavailable in the first place?
Legal retailers typically don't care who buys their product, unless it is illegal to sell it to a particular group (minors) and then some don't care anyway. Legal supply is usually cheaper and the most vulnerable people may be able to access more of the product.
Avoid distribution of plants by:
1: Not selling it in stores
2: Reducing demand (education, rehabilitation)
3: Charging and jailing those involved in large scale distribution
If regulations are in place with respect to the distribution and sale of an item, legitimate retailers have an incentive to comply with those regulations, as noncompliance may result in penalties that interfere with ongoing business. If you are concerned about price-point, impose heavy taxes on the item, and use the tax revenues to support education and harm-reduction initiatives.
Your plan to make cannabis unavailable bears remarkably close resemblance to the status quo. How has that worked out so far?
+6
MalReynoldsThe Hunter S Thompson of incredibly mild medicinesRegistered Userregular
Legal retailers typically don't care who buys their product, unless it is illegal to sell it to a particular group (minors) and then some don't care anyway. Legal supply is usually cheaper and the most vulnerable people may be able to access more of the product.
Avoid distribution of plants by:
1: Not selling it in stores
2: Reducing demand (education, rehabilitation)
3: Charging and jailing those involved in large scale distribution
I'm not entirely sure I follow the basic tenants of your argument; you're saying that because alcohol has been around 'forever' that we would never consider banning it, but if it came about today, we wouldn't allow the sale of it and we'd jail those who sold it? Because prohibition was a thing, and it failed entirely. Granted, alcohol use was already ingrained in our society recreationally (much like, I would argue, casual marijuana use is today). But what you're not considering is how long plants have been smoked to achieve mind-altering results. It's been quite a long time as well. It's only contemporarily that it has been put under a spotlight (I'm thinking, perhaps, the last century or so that we've really started scrutinizing) which makes it seem like it's an epidemic of great proportion.
So, I suppose, I disagree with the foundation that your assertion is based on, and because of that, find the rest of your claims to be - while in good nature, spirit, and faith - lacking.
MalReynolds on
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Avoid distribution of plants by:
1: Not selling it in stores
2: Reducing demand (education, rehabilitation)
3: Charging and jailing those involved in large scale distribution
So, your plan to stop people from distributing marijuana is marijuana prohibition without enforcing marijuana prohibition.
Because how do you determine if someone is involved in large scale distribution? You happen upon their warehouse full of pot and have a photo op showing a truck scale being used to weigh the capture? Guess how often that happens. You might arrest a dozen people a year, if that. In the meantime, drug dealers will laugh all the way to the bank because they're smart and will drive to every drug deal with an amount of marijuana just under the amount necessary to actually get charged. You're dreaming if you think they'll drive the Potmobile around town with bricks of the stuff to make home deliveries.
Now don't get me wrong; I'm not saying people who have small amounts of marijuana should go to jail. I'm saying that what you suggest is in no way a viable solution.
I don't think even the DEA can argue at this point that marijuana prohibition has been successful at eliminating... wait, even lowering the distribution of marijuana.
If lots of people want to smoke a plant, they're gonna fuckin' smoke that plant. If you make it illegal, all you do is make sure that criminals get paid for it instead of law-abiding citizens. And lots of people want to smoke marijuana. More than you are likely comfortable with. That's the reality of the situation; popular support in the United States is now in favor of ending marijuana prohibition. So, not to appeal to popularity, but you're effectively saying, "The status quo will reduce marijuana distribution!" It's going to take a much stronger argument than that to convince people that being able to smoke a plant should be against the law.
Ending alcohol prohibition saw a spike in alcohol use, then it gradually lowered to pre-prohibition levels. I imagine legalizing marijuana would have much the same effect. Right now, pot is essentially a counter-cultural symbol to argue that government just wants to keep you down. Once people realize that it is effectively harmless and that they've been lied to about it making them suddenly want to shoot up, they assume they're being lied to about other things as well. This contributes to a belief that we should have less government, when really what we need is to stop governing stupid shit like plants and start governing important things, like health care.
Put another way, people who are unable to moderate their behavior (because really, too much of anything is a bad thing) don't let marijuana affect their lives because of the nature of the drug. They do so because of their own personal nature.
There are people who generally have poor impulse control, but there are also people who have different permutations of mental conditions that use alcohol responsibly but just can't handle marijuana. This may or may not have anything to do with how marijuana directly affects their cannabinoid receptors, and it is more likely that their rituals surrounding marijuana were etched in before they gained enough insight about themselves to keep their guard up against falling too much into other diversions, which they may accomplish admirably. However, it is possible that this learned habit has become so automatic that these safety factors aren't enough to extinguish the behavior. They might be concerned about their use or are even earnestly trying to kick the habit, made difficult by constant judging of their peers, since the common conception is that anybody weak enough not to be able to handle something like marijuana, video games, or ice cream is a basic lowlife. This is not what you're saying, but I'm taking the semantics to the extreme to clarify the point. Personality disorders that egregiously hinder basic functioning are not actually as common as specific addictions, and people who are given the right motivational support at each stage of their addiction, recovery, or remission can actually lead highly functional if somewhat rule-bound lives. Bullemics, for instance, could be said to have a food addiction, but that doesn't mean they are unable to generally moderate their behavior and will go crazy on any drug, though there definitely are people who tend to cross-abuse.
The whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem, and I wish the goverment had made a Drug Rehabilitation Agency with the money they used for the Drug Enforcement Agency, but as far as that goes, there are several political and criminal factors of which I have no knowledge that make such a wish useless and ignorant. All I'm trying to say is not to be too hasty in judging the people that fail marijuana.
Cannabis is described in the literature as being less addictive than caffeine, tobacco and alcohol. So, unless you're saying that the specific addiction to marijuana causes more of a public health issue than the specific addictions to caffeine, tobacco and alcohol, I don't really see the distinction between "I am addicted to marijuana because I am one of the 9/100 people who potentially find it habit-forming" and "Some people get addicted to marijuana because they have poor impulse control" as anything other than semantic with regard to whether or not it should be legal.
Additionally, the three highest risk groups for cannabis addiction are adolescents (I'm still going with poor impulse control on this one), Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders (not relevant to a discussion of USA marijuana legalization) and -- here's the big one -- people with psychiatric disorders.
MichaelLCIn what furnace was thy brain?ChicagoRegistered Userregular
Just sort of a random - how much of the marijuana ease-of-access is due to class control? That is, do the "1%" let it flood the streets because it tends to be a lower class drug that pacifies the masses? Not really into lizard men cabal theories, just a random thought.
Legalising it gives it legitimacy. Compounds that potentially cause the problems that it does, with no benefits to society, should not be legal.
See my earlier comments regarding alcohol and tobacco.
When we are working so hard to reduce tobacco and alcohol use, why should we legalise another harmful drug?
Legalising it gives it legitimacy. Compounds that potentially cause the problems that it does, with no benefits to society, should not be legal.
See my earlier comments regarding alcohol and tobacco.
When we are working so hard to reduce tobacco and alcohol use, why should we legalise another harmful drug?
Now you're just parroting DEA talking points and platitudes without addressing anything I or anyone else has written.
Alcohol kills people daily. It's true. Yet we would never ever prohibit it again. Why? Look at what alcohol prohibition did. It created the Mob. People were murdered over alcohol because it could potentially ruin your life if you were caught distributing it. People kept drinking anyway, even though it was illegal. There were these places called Speakeasies where you could basically give the finger to Prohibition. Only problem was, without any sort of system in place to regulate the production, storage, etc. of alcohol, you ended up with at best a wildly variable product and at worst something containing wood alcohol. It was actually less healthy to be an alcoholic under Prohibition than it is now. Moonshine was held to no regulatory standard. In the same way, nobody who sold the stuff was carding people underage so if you had money you could get it.
Organized crime got so out of hand that criminals became celebrities.
People die from alcohol every day in some fashion. But making it illegal would be far worse. You need to see things practically, not idealistically. It may leave a sour taste in your mouth to legalize pot. But look at what pot prohibition has done: it has given criminals and organized crime a steady income stream. It has militarized our police force. It has jailed people who did nothing but consume a plant, and the harm from prosecuting pot users far outweighs the harm pot causes itself. It ensures that your kids will have access to the drug as soon as they have the money to buy it and the knowledge of who sells it; like with alcohol prohibition, no criminal is checking IDs. Additionally, when your kids go to that dealer, he may try to get them to try something heavier. Hey, addicts are customers right?
This whole thing ends when we stop treating marijuana like a criminal issue and start treating it like a health issue. But we're doomed to repeat the past because we don't like to admit how similar the effects of our current drug war are to alcohol prohibition. Either that, or we never actually learned about all of that.
Put another way, people who are unable to moderate their behavior (because really, too much of anything is a bad thing) don't let marijuana affect their lives because of the nature of the drug. They do so because of their own personal nature.
There are people who generally have poor impulse control, but there are also people who have different permutations of mental conditions that use alcohol responsibly but just can't handle marijuana. This may or may not have anything to do with how marijuana directly affects their cannabinoid receptors, and it is more likely that their rituals surrounding marijuana were etched in before they gained enough insight about themselves to keep their guard up against falling too much into other diversions, which they may accomplish admirably. However, it is possible that this learned habit has become so automatic that these safety factors aren't enough to extinguish the behavior. They might be concerned about their use or are even earnestly trying to kick the habit, made difficult by constant judging of their peers, since the common conception is that anybody weak enough not to be able to handle something like marijuana, video games, or ice cream is a basic lowlife. This is not what you're saying, but I'm taking the semantics to the extreme to clarify the point. Personality disorders that egregiously hinder basic functioning are not actually as common as specific addictions, and people who are given the right motivational support at each stage of their addiction, recovery, or remission can actually lead highly functional if somewhat rule-bound lives. Bullemics, for instance, could be said to have a food addiction, but that doesn't mean they are unable to generally moderate their behavior and will go crazy on any drug, though there definitely are people who tend to cross-abuse.
The whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem, and I wish the goverment had made a Drug Rehabilitation Agency with the money they used for the Drug Enforcement Agency, but as far as that goes, there are several political and criminal factors of which I have no knowledge that make such a wish useless and ignorant. All I'm trying to say is not to be too hasty in judging the people that fail marijuana.
Cannabis is described in the literature as being less addictive than caffeine, tobacco and alcohol. So, unless you're saying that the specific addiction to marijuana causes more of a public health issue than the specific addictions to caffeine, tobacco and alcohol, I don't really see the distinction between "I am addicted to marijuana because I am one of the 9/100 people who potentially find it habit-forming" and "Some people get addicted to marijuana because they have poor impulse control" as anything other than semantic with regard to whether or not it should be legal.
Additionally, the three highest risk groups for cannabis addiction are adolescents (I'm still going with poor impulse control on this one), Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders (not relevant to a discussion of USA marijuana legalization) and -- here's the big one -- people with psychiatric disorders.
100% of what you say is true. However, I already said that "the whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem," so I'm worried that we're two ships passing here. What I originally took offense at was the line that "I see stupid people burning out, but they do that because they're stupid," to which you qualified as "people who are unable to moderate their behavior" let marijuana affect their lives "because of their own personal nature" which I say is a bit harsh. It is true that a substance use disorder is a type of impulse control disorder, but this is different from the way it is commonly understood and the way you describe it. True personality disorders are actually very rare, and a general inability to control your own impulses - a "weak will" - isn't guaranteed in people who have a specific substance problem. You can have a major problem with marijuana or X prevalent habit and post-abstinence be a high functioning, well adjusted individual. You can be described as intelligent, responsible, and trustworthy, even with a history of substance abuse. There are people practicing medicine today who have fought their way through opiate abuse and physiologic dependence without even having a lapse in their license.
Substance dependence is a disorder separate from substance abuse, and it is further classified as physiologic or non-physiologic. Physiologic dependence requires either evidence of withdrawal or tolerance, and non-physiologic requires that the drug elicit overuse, a desire to cut down, a significant time investment related to the drug, discarded social activities to make room for the drug, and/or use despite physical or mental harm. As long as you can secure 3 of those, you don't need the drug to be biologically addictive to be classified as disordered use as long as it significantly impairs functioning.
I know that to agree that some people who abuse marijuana don't have an overarching problem with their mental status concedes that for some, marijuana is a causal factor for the problems in their lives, but in the grand scheme of things it's not a whole lot of ground being given, and if I succeeded in explaining the point correctly I'm sure you'll be wondering what all the arguing was about in the first place. Just try not to look down too much on people who can't handle marijuana, because they may not be as dumb as you'd think.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
When/if they DO legalize it; I just hope it's still illegal to smoke it publicly. Fucking stuff stinks. Oh and I guess since contact highs exist (unlike second-hand smoke and alcohol) and places of work fire you if you fail a drugs test, I suppose that won't be a problem.
Because fuck public transport if thats not the case. The same day it's legalized, people will be walking around openly all 'fuck the police!' about it. Hell, where I live you're likely to ride the bus with people smoking it, about 3 times a year.
Put another way, people who are unable to moderate their behavior (because really, too much of anything is a bad thing) don't let marijuana affect their lives because of the nature of the drug. They do so because of their own personal nature.
There are people who generally have poor impulse control, but there are also people who have different permutations of mental conditions that use alcohol responsibly but just can't handle marijuana. This may or may not have anything to do with how marijuana directly affects their cannabinoid receptors, and it is more likely that their rituals surrounding marijuana were etched in before they gained enough insight about themselves to keep their guard up against falling too much into other diversions, which they may accomplish admirably. However, it is possible that this learned habit has become so automatic that these safety factors aren't enough to extinguish the behavior. They might be concerned about their use or are even earnestly trying to kick the habit, made difficult by constant judging of their peers, since the common conception is that anybody weak enough not to be able to handle something like marijuana, video games, or ice cream is a basic lowlife. This is not what you're saying, but I'm taking the semantics to the extreme to clarify the point. Personality disorders that egregiously hinder basic functioning are not actually as common as specific addictions, and people who are given the right motivational support at each stage of their addiction, recovery, or remission can actually lead highly functional if somewhat rule-bound lives. Bullemics, for instance, could be said to have a food addiction, but that doesn't mean they are unable to generally moderate their behavior and will go crazy on any drug, though there definitely are people who tend to cross-abuse.
The whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem, and I wish the goverment had made a Drug Rehabilitation Agency with the money they used for the Drug Enforcement Agency, but as far as that goes, there are several political and criminal factors of which I have no knowledge that make such a wish useless and ignorant. All I'm trying to say is not to be too hasty in judging the people that fail marijuana.
Cannabis is described in the literature as being less addictive than caffeine, tobacco and alcohol. So, unless you're saying that the specific addiction to marijuana causes more of a public health issue than the specific addictions to caffeine, tobacco and alcohol, I don't really see the distinction between "I am addicted to marijuana because I am one of the 9/100 people who potentially find it habit-forming" and "Some people get addicted to marijuana because they have poor impulse control" as anything other than semantic with regard to whether or not it should be legal.
Additionally, the three highest risk groups for cannabis addiction are adolescents (I'm still going with poor impulse control on this one), Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders (not relevant to a discussion of USA marijuana legalization) and -- here's the big one -- people with psychiatric disorders.
100% of what you say is true. However, I already said that "the whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem," so I'm worried that we're two ships passing here. What I originally took offense at was the line that "I see stupid people burning out, but they do that because they're stupid," to which you qualified as "people who are unable to moderate their behavior" let marijuana affect their lives "because of their own personal nature" which I say is a bit harsh. It is true that a substance use disorder is a type of impulse control disorder, but this is different from the way it is commonly understood and the way you describe it. True personality disorders are actually very rare, and a general inability to control your own impulses - a "weak will" - isn't guaranteed in people who have a specific substance problem. You can have a major problem with marijuana or X prevalent habit and post-abstinence be a high functioning, well adjusted individual. You can be described as intelligent, responsible, and trustworthy, even with a history of substance abuse. There are people practicing medicine today who have fought their way through opiate abuse and physiologic dependence without even having a lapse in their license.
Substance dependence is a disorder separate from substance abuse, and it is further classified as physiologic or non-physiologic. Physiologic dependence requires either evidence of withdrawal or tolerance, and non-physiologic requires that the drug elicit overuse, a desire to cut down, a significant time investment related to the drug, discarded social activities to make room for the drug, and/or use despite physical or mental harm. As long as you can secure 3 of those, you don't need the drug to be biologically addictive to be classified as disordered use as long as it significantly impairs functioning.
I know that to agree that some people who abuse marijuana don't have an overarching problem with their mental status concedes that for some, marijuana is a causal factor for the problems in their lives, but in the grand scheme of things it's not a whole lot of ground being given, and if I succeeded in explaining the point correctly I'm sure you'll be wondering what all the arguing was about in the first place. Just try not to look down too much on people who can't handle marijuana, because they may not be as dumb as you'd think.
I never said that I look down on people who are addicted to any substance of any sort nor did I say they were dumb. You're reading something that isn't there
I just wanted to make sure because the overall rhetoric was kind of heading there.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
I have a great deal of empathy for people who have formed a habit to a drug, since I am personally taking benzodiazepines for anxiety but experience withdrawal symptoms if I miss even one dose.
When/if they DO legalize it; I just hope it's still illegal to smoke it publicly. Fucking stuff stinks. Oh and I guess since contact highs exist (unlike second-hand smoke and alcohol) and places of work fire you if you fail a drugs test, I suppose that won't be a problem.
Because fuck public transport if thats not the case. The same day it's legalized, people will be walking around openly all 'fuck the police!' about it. Hell, where I live you're likely to ride the bus with people smoking it, about 3 times a year.
Places of work drug test you because they want to see if you break the law and are likely to be a problem for the company since you could potentially and embarrassingly end up in jail, and they'd have to find a replacement for you.
No employer should give a shit if you legally build a tower of crystal-covered, purple and sticky marijuana and set it ablaze, dancing naked in the smoke as you breathe its acrid vapors with exquisite ecstasy -- as long as there is no unacceptable decrease in your job performance as a result.
Besides, there are already smoking laws across most of the US. I don't see marijuana smoke being an exception to them. If you live in an area where those don't exist, well, try to change it, but if you can't and it's such a huge deal to you, move to one of the many places that have already banned public smoking.
Actually, I'm sure even if it was legalized, you'd still be in trouble for failing the test for the same reason you would for failing a breathalizer; it's a mind-altering substance, and I highly doubt any employer wants actively stoned people at work.
Or you could educate your kids so they know not to try it and not give them enough money to spend on illegal drugs.
Kids are going to get their hands on illegal stuff if they want to, legal or illegal. But they won't be able to ask their big brother to go to the store and get some which happens all the time with tobacco and alcohol.
There is, as far as I know, no way to test for how high on pot someone is at any point in time in the same way a breathalyzer would test for alcohol intoxication. Maybe a blood test but... "Excuse me, random drug check. Expose a vein, please." Yeah, no.
If an employer is really concerned that an employee is working while high, it's probably because their job performance has declined, which is cause in and of itself for disciplinary action. If it's a dangerous situation, the police could be called in to perform a field sobriety test, I suppose. But I don't think that happens much even now (calling the cops to see how high someone is), and people are certainly smoking weed and going to work.
Employers can fire you on the basis of a failed drug test, legal or illegal (with stipulations); it's just easier with marijuana since it stays in your system for 3 days after a single use and 4 weeks after the last use if chronic, unlike cocaine which can actually come out clean if you get tested too early.
A sweat patch test for cannabis use is actually more accurate, more sensitive, and less cheatable to determine recent marijuana and other drug use and may see a greater application in the future as marijuana use becomes more commonplace.
Marty: The future, it's where you're going? Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Alcohol has been a large part of society for ever. Smoking for several hundred years. If they were new we would ban them. They are banned for children and their sale is restricted in both cases. We are working towards banning smoking but it is a few decades off. Plain packaging, graphic warning labels etc.
Yes, marijuana is also an old drug, but its use did not ever become an integral and accepted part of society.
Food is different as it is an essential for life. Hard to restrict that.
Quoting this from the previous page to make a point about the bolded: marijuana and cocaine were made illegal mainly because the groups that partook of them the most were minorities (hispanics and blacks respectively). Remember that the Coca in Coca-Cola was originally cocaine. Alcohol was also made illegal for similar reasons (the Irish in this case) but because it affected the majority as well it ended up getting reversed while the rest stayed illegal.
My point is this: the argument that something "did not become an integral and accepted part of society" when its ouster was fueled by racism isn't a good argument.
Actually, I'm sure even if it was legalized, you'd still be in trouble for failing the test for the same reason you would for failing a breathalizer; it's a mind-altering substance, and I highly doubt any employer wants actively stoned people at work.
If you were stoned enough to affect your job performance, they wouldn't need to drug test you. So drug testing is basically to find out if you're smoking pot on your own time.
+1
Jacques L'HommeBAH! He was a rank amateur compared to, DR. COLOSSUS!Registered Userregular
Or you could educate your kids so they know not to try it and not give them enough money to spend on illegal drugs.
Kids are going to get their hands on illegal stuff if they want to, legal or illegal. But they won't be able to ask their big brother to go to the store and get some which happens all the time with tobacco and alcohol.
This is something that does happen,. It is known, but there's still that chance that the elder sibling will just say "no" (ha!), and a much better chance than a drug dealer saying the same thing. I take this opportunity to tell you a story.
I have some friends, let's call them Flotsam and Jetsam, both the youngest of their families, who, once upon a yesteryear, scraped together enough money to ask Jetsam's elder brother buy them some booze for a good 'ol under age time, woo-hoo. Jetsam's elder brother said, "okay, guys, give me the money, and never speak of this to anyone". They agreed and gave Elder Jet the cash. About an hour later, Flotsam's mother comes up to her room, where the devious duo had been patiently awaiting the arrival of their alcoholic treat, and tells Jetsam he is to go home, and that his mother is waiting down stairs to help him do just that.
What happened was elder Jet took the money, bought the booze, and told the parents of the involved party of their plot. Flotsam recants this story every once and a while to reiterate her disdain for elder Jet. Now, what elder Jet did was a dick thing to do, seeing as he could have just said no, but as an elder sibling, I can appreciate that he wasn't willing to enable his younger brother and associates to gain access to a product that they simply shouldn't be fucking with yet. So, please, don't act like elder siblings circumvent the established method of asking for ID, because we're not all degenerates and we're still better than drug dealers.
Oh, also, both Flotsam and Jetsam started smoking weed on the reg well before they were 18 and didn't start drinking until well after that. Just sayin'.
0
HenroidMexican kicked from Immigration ThreadCentrism is Racism :3Registered Userregular
Alcohol has been a large part of society for ever. Smoking for several hundred years. If they were new we would ban them. They are banned for children and their sale is restricted in both cases. We are working towards banning smoking but it is a few decades off. Plain packaging, graphic warning labels etc.
Yes, marijuana is also an old drug, but its use did not ever become an integral and accepted part of society.
Food is different as it is an essential for life. Hard to restrict that.
Posts
There are people who generally have poor impulse control, but there are also people who have different permutations of mental conditions that use alcohol responsibly but just can't handle marijuana. This may or may not have anything to do with how marijuana directly affects their cannabinoid receptors, and it is more likely that their rituals surrounding marijuana were etched in before they gained enough insight about themselves to keep their guard up against falling too much into other diversions, which they may accomplish admirably. However, it is possible that this learned habit has become so automatic that these safety factors aren't enough to extinguish the behavior. They might be concerned about their use or are even earnestly trying to kick the habit, made difficult by constant judging of their peers, since the common conception is that anybody weak enough not to be able to handle something like marijuana, video games, or ice cream is a basic lowlife. This is not what you're saying, but I'm taking the semantics to the extreme to clarify the point. Personality disorders that egregiously hinder basic functioning are not actually as common as specific addictions, and people who are given the right motivational support at each stage of their addiction, recovery, or remission can actually lead highly functional if somewhat rule-bound lives. Bullemics, for instance, could be said to have a food addiction, but that doesn't mean they are unable to generally moderate their behavior and will go crazy on any drug, though there definitely are people who tend to cross-abuse.
The whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem, and I wish the goverment had made a Drug Rehabilitation Agency with the money they used for the Drug Enforcement Agency, but as far as that goes, there are several political and criminal factors of which I have no knowledge that make such a wish useless and ignorant. All I'm trying to say is not to be too hasty in judging the people that fail marijuana.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
The economic and social benefits of driving are immeasurably more than marijuana which has no apparent benefit.
Food and exercise are such an integral part of life that they are not possible to regulate without significant impact on personal freedoms. Therefore we have national promotion of healthy eating and exercise.
Marijuana has no apparent benefit, isn't essential for life, and harms people. Therefore I don't think it should be legalised.
Personal freedoms aside, the harms of such acute measures outweigh the benefits, but I don't think this thread can stand the sort of discussion this tone of argument will incite.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Just because something is illegal to possess doesn't mean it won't be available. In fact, it may be more available to vulnerable sections of the population, because people involved in illegal activity have no incentive to discriminate between purchasers.
And how, exactly, do you propose making a plant unavailable in the first place?
Avoid distribution of plants by:
1: Not selling it in stores
2: Reducing demand (education, rehabilitation)
3: Charging and jailing those involved in large scale distribution
Your plan to make cannabis unavailable bears remarkably close resemblance to the status quo. How has that worked out so far?
I'm not entirely sure I follow the basic tenants of your argument; you're saying that because alcohol has been around 'forever' that we would never consider banning it, but if it came about today, we wouldn't allow the sale of it and we'd jail those who sold it? Because prohibition was a thing, and it failed entirely. Granted, alcohol use was already ingrained in our society recreationally (much like, I would argue, casual marijuana use is today). But what you're not considering is how long plants have been smoked to achieve mind-altering results. It's been quite a long time as well. It's only contemporarily that it has been put under a spotlight (I'm thinking, perhaps, the last century or so that we've really started scrutinizing) which makes it seem like it's an epidemic of great proportion.
So, I suppose, I disagree with the foundation that your assertion is based on, and because of that, find the rest of your claims to be - while in good nature, spirit, and faith - lacking.
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So, your plan to stop people from distributing marijuana is marijuana prohibition without enforcing marijuana prohibition.
Because how do you determine if someone is involved in large scale distribution? You happen upon their warehouse full of pot and have a photo op showing a truck scale being used to weigh the capture? Guess how often that happens. You might arrest a dozen people a year, if that. In the meantime, drug dealers will laugh all the way to the bank because they're smart and will drive to every drug deal with an amount of marijuana just under the amount necessary to actually get charged. You're dreaming if you think they'll drive the Potmobile around town with bricks of the stuff to make home deliveries.
Now don't get me wrong; I'm not saying people who have small amounts of marijuana should go to jail. I'm saying that what you suggest is in no way a viable solution.
I don't think even the DEA can argue at this point that marijuana prohibition has been successful at eliminating... wait, even lowering the distribution of marijuana.
If lots of people want to smoke a plant, they're gonna fuckin' smoke that plant. If you make it illegal, all you do is make sure that criminals get paid for it instead of law-abiding citizens. And lots of people want to smoke marijuana. More than you are likely comfortable with. That's the reality of the situation; popular support in the United States is now in favor of ending marijuana prohibition. So, not to appeal to popularity, but you're effectively saying, "The status quo will reduce marijuana distribution!" It's going to take a much stronger argument than that to convince people that being able to smoke a plant should be against the law.
Ending alcohol prohibition saw a spike in alcohol use, then it gradually lowered to pre-prohibition levels. I imagine legalizing marijuana would have much the same effect. Right now, pot is essentially a counter-cultural symbol to argue that government just wants to keep you down. Once people realize that it is effectively harmless and that they've been lied to about it making them suddenly want to shoot up, they assume they're being lied to about other things as well. This contributes to a belief that we should have less government, when really what we need is to stop governing stupid shit like plants and start governing important things, like health care.
Cannabis is described in the literature as being less addictive than caffeine, tobacco and alcohol. So, unless you're saying that the specific addiction to marijuana causes more of a public health issue than the specific addictions to caffeine, tobacco and alcohol, I don't really see the distinction between "I am addicted to marijuana because I am one of the 9/100 people who potentially find it habit-forming" and "Some people get addicted to marijuana because they have poor impulse control" as anything other than semantic with regard to whether or not it should be legal.
Additionally, the three highest risk groups for cannabis addiction are adolescents (I'm still going with poor impulse control on this one), Aboriginal people and Torres Strait Islanders (not relevant to a discussion of USA marijuana legalization) and -- here's the big one -- people with psychiatric disorders.
See my earlier comments regarding alcohol and tobacco.
When we are working so hard to reduce tobacco and alcohol use, why should we legalise another harmful drug?
Now you're just parroting DEA talking points and platitudes without addressing anything I or anyone else has written.
Alcohol kills people daily. It's true. Yet we would never ever prohibit it again. Why? Look at what alcohol prohibition did. It created the Mob. People were murdered over alcohol because it could potentially ruin your life if you were caught distributing it. People kept drinking anyway, even though it was illegal. There were these places called Speakeasies where you could basically give the finger to Prohibition. Only problem was, without any sort of system in place to regulate the production, storage, etc. of alcohol, you ended up with at best a wildly variable product and at worst something containing wood alcohol. It was actually less healthy to be an alcoholic under Prohibition than it is now. Moonshine was held to no regulatory standard. In the same way, nobody who sold the stuff was carding people underage so if you had money you could get it.
Organized crime got so out of hand that criminals became celebrities.
People die from alcohol every day in some fashion. But making it illegal would be far worse. You need to see things practically, not idealistically. It may leave a sour taste in your mouth to legalize pot. But look at what pot prohibition has done: it has given criminals and organized crime a steady income stream. It has militarized our police force. It has jailed people who did nothing but consume a plant, and the harm from prosecuting pot users far outweighs the harm pot causes itself. It ensures that your kids will have access to the drug as soon as they have the money to buy it and the knowledge of who sells it; like with alcohol prohibition, no criminal is checking IDs. Additionally, when your kids go to that dealer, he may try to get them to try something heavier. Hey, addicts are customers right?
This whole thing ends when we stop treating marijuana like a criminal issue and start treating it like a health issue. But we're doomed to repeat the past because we don't like to admit how similar the effects of our current drug war are to alcohol prohibition. Either that, or we never actually learned about all of that.
100% of what you say is true. However, I already said that "the whole mess with legalization is not my kind of problem," so I'm worried that we're two ships passing here. What I originally took offense at was the line that "I see stupid people burning out, but they do that because they're stupid," to which you qualified as "people who are unable to moderate their behavior" let marijuana affect their lives "because of their own personal nature" which I say is a bit harsh. It is true that a substance use disorder is a type of impulse control disorder, but this is different from the way it is commonly understood and the way you describe it. True personality disorders are actually very rare, and a general inability to control your own impulses - a "weak will" - isn't guaranteed in people who have a specific substance problem. You can have a major problem with marijuana or X prevalent habit and post-abstinence be a high functioning, well adjusted individual. You can be described as intelligent, responsible, and trustworthy, even with a history of substance abuse. There are people practicing medicine today who have fought their way through opiate abuse and physiologic dependence without even having a lapse in their license.
Substance dependence is a disorder separate from substance abuse, and it is further classified as physiologic or non-physiologic. Physiologic dependence requires either evidence of withdrawal or tolerance, and non-physiologic requires that the drug elicit overuse, a desire to cut down, a significant time investment related to the drug, discarded social activities to make room for the drug, and/or use despite physical or mental harm. As long as you can secure 3 of those, you don't need the drug to be biologically addictive to be classified as disordered use as long as it significantly impairs functioning.
I know that to agree that some people who abuse marijuana don't have an overarching problem with their mental status concedes that for some, marijuana is a causal factor for the problems in their lives, but in the grand scheme of things it's not a whole lot of ground being given, and if I succeeded in explaining the point correctly I'm sure you'll be wondering what all the arguing was about in the first place. Just try not to look down too much on people who can't handle marijuana, because they may not be as dumb as you'd think.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Because fuck public transport if thats not the case. The same day it's legalized, people will be walking around openly all 'fuck the police!' about it. Hell, where I live you're likely to ride the bus with people smoking it, about 3 times a year.
I never said that I look down on people who are addicted to any substance of any sort nor did I say they were dumb. You're reading something that isn't there
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Places of work drug test you because they want to see if you break the law and are likely to be a problem for the company since you could potentially and embarrassingly end up in jail, and they'd have to find a replacement for you.
No employer should give a shit if you legally build a tower of crystal-covered, purple and sticky marijuana and set it ablaze, dancing naked in the smoke as you breathe its acrid vapors with exquisite ecstasy -- as long as there is no unacceptable decrease in your job performance as a result.
Kids are going to get their hands on illegal stuff if they want to, legal or illegal. But they won't be able to ask their big brother to go to the store and get some which happens all the time with tobacco and alcohol.
If an employer is really concerned that an employee is working while high, it's probably because their job performance has declined, which is cause in and of itself for disciplinary action. If it's a dangerous situation, the police could be called in to perform a field sobriety test, I suppose. But I don't think that happens much even now (calling the cops to see how high someone is), and people are certainly smoking weed and going to work.
A sweat patch test for cannabis use is actually more accurate, more sensitive, and less cheatable to determine recent marijuana and other drug use and may see a greater application in the future as marijuana use becomes more commonplace.
Doc: That's right, twenty five years into the future. I've always dreamed on seeing the future, looking beyond my years, seeing the progress of mankind. I'll also be able to see who wins the next twenty-five world series.
Quoting this from the previous page to make a point about the bolded: marijuana and cocaine were made illegal mainly because the groups that partook of them the most were minorities (hispanics and blacks respectively). Remember that the Coca in Coca-Cola was originally cocaine. Alcohol was also made illegal for similar reasons (the Irish in this case) but because it affected the majority as well it ended up getting reversed while the rest stayed illegal.
My point is this: the argument that something "did not become an integral and accepted part of society" when its ouster was fueled by racism isn't a good argument.
If you were stoned enough to affect your job performance, they wouldn't need to drug test you. So drug testing is basically to find out if you're smoking pot on your own time.
This is something that does happen,. It is known, but there's still that chance that the elder sibling will just say "no" (ha!), and a much better chance than a drug dealer saying the same thing. I take this opportunity to tell you a story.
I have some friends, let's call them Flotsam and Jetsam, both the youngest of their families, who, once upon a yesteryear, scraped together enough money to ask Jetsam's elder brother buy them some booze for a good 'ol under age time, woo-hoo. Jetsam's elder brother said, "okay, guys, give me the money, and never speak of this to anyone". They agreed and gave Elder Jet the cash. About an hour later, Flotsam's mother comes up to her room, where the devious duo had been patiently awaiting the arrival of their alcoholic treat, and tells Jetsam he is to go home, and that his mother is waiting down stairs to help him do just that.
What happened was elder Jet took the money, bought the booze, and told the parents of the involved party of their plot. Flotsam recants this story every once and a while to reiterate her disdain for elder Jet. Now, what elder Jet did was a dick thing to do, seeing as he could have just said no, but as an elder sibling, I can appreciate that he wasn't willing to enable his younger brother and associates to gain access to a product that they simply shouldn't be fucking with yet. So, please, don't act like elder siblings circumvent the established method of asking for ID, because we're not all degenerates and we're still better than drug dealers.
Oh, also, both Flotsam and Jetsam started smoking weed on the reg well before they were 18 and didn't start drinking until well after that. Just sayin'.
Hell no. Is it our responsibility to watch out for our friends and loved ones, and maybe our peers (probably just the closest ones)? Sure.
As I said in my quote, our responsibility as a society. Making everyone's lives better.
All of this is irrelevant to this:
Never mind that marijuana was an integral and accepted part of society. Just not rich white society.