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2 ZigZags (The Legalization of Marijuana)
Posts
And the value of the dollar is suspect as well. Really, you want your assets in durable goods that have a stable value.
That's it, I'm going out tomorrow and getting my 401k converted to a 420k.
That's bullshit. Potheads have pitbulls, banks just have walls and sometimes laser-guided turrets but you can EASILY hack those.
You can't hack a pitbull. Not with a computer, anyway.
Ok...that was pretty funny. Kudos.
I see how 535 specific people might not benefit.
I think you can subtract Nevada's politicians from that.
I guess I can if all the politicians down there are as crazy as the mayor of Las Vegas.
Though seriously, silent majority elects uber-conservatives who wreck this shit is what would happen.
The stuff about allowing marijuana because now only criminals profit from it is stupid. I can apply this to any drug known to man, or any illegal business opportunity...
Alcohol is allowed yet kids get a hold of it, how will legalizing marijuana increase control? If it were legalized anyone could just buy it legally and then sell it to kids...
Hemp is useful indeed, that's why you grow industrial hemp. Which is the kind of hemp that is useful.
You may enjoy marijuana, as I have done. But if you step back and look at it from an unbiased viewpoint there's absolutely no reason at all to legalize it. It's useful as medication/pain relief - as is amphetamines so that's a whole 'nother story.
Both cause memory problems.
So what is it that makes marijuana the more dangerous drug? Because that seems like a wildly off base claim to make.
They profit a magnificent amount from it. And with no benefit to the government through taxes.
So... what? You want alcohol made illegal?
The massive amount of organized crime that surrounds it is a pretty great reason. Oh, and people's careers are destroyed because they had the audacity to get high while at home.
How about you explain why it should be made illegal.
Seriously.
Farmer/smuggler -> Dealer -> You
Any liquor store -> Anyone over 21 -> You
Somehow you find that someone: having to get seeds, set up a farm, grow the fucking plants, hand to a dealer - is faster than anyone at all over 21 just going to a store and buying alcohol?
You can get both pot and alcohol easy as shit. If you're not older than 21 and can't buy alcohol you could just walk "two blocks to a guy's house who doesn't care how old" you are and get it there. The difference is that he got it from a store, while the dealer got the pot from a slower and more elongated chain of delivery.
Hence legalization does not grant increased control, more the opposite. Alcohol goes from it's origin to you a lot more faster.
https://twitter.com/Hooraydiation
The default legality of an action or activity should be "legal" unless it can be shown to significantly harm society, its individuals, or oneself. Unless there's an enormously good reason to make something illegal it should be legal.
Nothing you've said is sufficient to prove to me that marijuana is legitimately illegal.
It seems like a wildly off base claim to make that marijuana is less dangerous! I'm not telling you how wonderful I think alcohol is, I'm telling you marijuana is indeed dangerous.
You think cocaine or any other drug produces insignificant revenue to criminals? How are you disputing my point here?
No, I'm just telling you that legalizing marijuana will not increase control. I've already seen some incredibly bad arguments for it.
Again, why not legalize every drug because organized crime surrounds it? And what do you mean with you're second sentence here? Hardly every employer have drug screenings, if your employer do then that's probably written into your contract no? Are they wrong to demand that their employees don't do drugs?
Seriously why should it be made legal? There's absolutely no point in it.
Didn't I answer this? The answer is that things should always be legal unless there is a reason for them not to be. You haven't provided and legislators and politicians continually fail to provide anything approaching a valid reason to make marijuana illegal.
If there is no valid reason to make something illegal, it should be legal. People have to defend and constantly re-defend the prohibitive laws. It doesn't work the other way around because the default legality of an activity is "legal." And if marijuana is legalized, it will be done so by repealing some or all of the laws that currently prohibit it, as if they don't exist.
My argument, thus, is that there is not enough sufficient evidence or reason in favor of outright prohibiting marijuana from being used, grown, or sold. YOU have to defend why it should be prohibited. And that it is currently prohibited isn't a valid defense of it being prohibited.
By any rubric I can think of, marijuana is safer than alcohol.
I see this not as an argument for legalization but rather an incidental benefit from it.
Who gives a shit? I could care less if more 13 year olds experimented with pot. In fact, I see this as a desirable incidental benefit: chances are some of those underage alcohol drinkers will turn into underage pot users, and the way I see it, I'd much rather my kid experiment with pot than with alcohol.
It is less dangerous than currently legal drugs. What other reason do we need?
None of the other drugs are America's largest cash crop, so I'm going to say their profits are pretty meh in comparison.
Again, do you buy whiskey from some guy's van, or from a store whose stuff has to meet federal regulation? You seem to be missing that control is more than making sure every single kid in the world never touches the stuff.
Because they have actual draw backs to being legal. They fucking kill you way faster than anything else we have that's legal.
I believe so, yes. If it doesn't affect their work performance over the short or long term, it shouldn't be a requirement.
ORGANIZED CRIME. INCREASED REGULATION.
LESS PEOPLE WOULD BE DYING.
Hey look, I didn't bitch out and not answer the question. Now you answer mine. Why should it be illegal?
From marijuana? You act as if marijuana is some seedy black market trade, but it's incredibly relaxed compared to harder drugs. I hardly think organized crime has interest in such a pitiful drug when cocaine and heroin make so much more money.
One inarguable tangible benefit, however, is that I wouldn't have to awkwardly ask a rotating cast of my shady college acquaintences for hookups and then traverse the city to go get it from them. Nor would I have to feel awkward and paranoid walking into Walgreens to buy ice cream when there are police officers in the store.
"Not inconveniencing Qingu" is, in my opinion, one of the biggest benefits to legalizing marijuana.
Do you not agree that pot changes peoples personalities? Cause addiction - which causes more use. Of a harmful product? I'd say that in itself is sufficiently harmful.
Alcohol wouldn't be allowed if it was introduced today, it only is because it's been around for thousands of years as the society we have has evolved. Prohibition? Well everyone was used to using alcohol, why tolerate it being removed when we liked it so much...
I'm just using how you phrased your post now: Marijuana is legitimately illegal if it is illegal in your society, if not then you go by your personal law - which is not a good idea in most cases...
To say nothing of the people killed over the money since it's not exactly being kept in banks.
Do we have hard evidence of horrific shootouts involving marijuana? That sounds a bit far-fetched, considering it's a drug literally anyone can grow in their home.
Are we talking gangs or the mafia, here?
Marijuana, like alcohol, has also been around for thousands of years in many societies.
Also: we don't live in god-damned Saudi Arabia, dude. The default status of substances is not "haram." I take that whole free society business seriously. I think the burden of proof is on the person arguing for infringing on someone's freedoms.
Whether or not something "changes peoples' personalities" is irrelevant. Everything "changes someone's personality" to some degree. I don't even know what you mean by that. And addictiveness is also not necessarily something to make illegal by default. I can understand the argument, but addictive is not equivalent to harmful, by default.
I don't even know how to respond to this. Do you honestly and truly believe this is true? MMORPGs should be illegal too then because they are so addictive.
The existence of a particular law doesn't legitimize itself just by virtue of its existence. That is a horrible kind of argument, and you should REALLY seek to drop it from your body of argument if you want to debate this subject seriously with anyone. To cite one example, I consider the illegality of homosexual marriage in most areas of American society to be illegitimately illegal. Law is not legitimate just because it is law.
agreed, one can develop a dependancy and a personal addiction, but pot is not inherently addictive.
http://addiction-dirkh.blogspot.com/2007/05/is-marijuana-addictive.html
LESS PEOPLE WOULD BE DYING.
Hey look, I didn't bitch out and not answer the question. Now you answer mine. Why should it be illegal?
I did just answer your question.
http://articles.latimes.com/2008/aug/18/health/he-marijuanacon18
You are really REALLY playing loose with the facts.
Games: cause addiction, changes personalities, can be harmful. OMG BAN!!
But in the case of alcohol there isn't a guy whose job it is to sell illegal alcohol for profit. At most he's getting to keep the change for his trouble, but he isn't going to be able to make an income off it, and so is much less likely to do it. This is opposed to the pot provider, who has pot on hand for sale and has a monetary incentive to provide it to all able consumers, regardless of age.
From the drug war. If you work for an organization that is funded by the importation and/or distribution of drugs, and someone (police, rival organization) tries to take those drugs, arrest you, or otherwise intrude on your ridiculous profits made possible by an artificially low supply, what are you going to do? You aren't going to go to the police, because your product is a felony crime. You are going to resort to violence.
Also, would you dispute that the drug war incarcerates and deprives of property people who, other than their use of drugs, are harmless and upstanding citizens? This is not to mention the enormous tax burden placed on the American people. I would assert that there if the money spent keeping pot illegal were instead spent on healthcare, many lives would be saved. This is not even to speak for the profit made from taxation export, which could be spent on any number of things.
Good point there. Some laws and prohibitions are wrong. I believe most of us think so. The general point I was making though is that just because you think something is illegitimately illegal doesn't make it legal... I see the point I was trying to make but perhaps I'm unable to make it clearer, so let's just skip it.
I find your and others comparison with games strange. At someone else of you, yes marijuana has been common in many societies, native american ones for example. The U.S. in general nowadays isn't based on that culture though.