Archdiocese gives $850,000 to fight marijuana bid

  • Thread starter Thread starter JapaneseKappa
  • Start date Start date
Status
Not open for further replies.
Our LORD Himself used alcohol. To oppose it now would be to try and improve upon Him. No good!

The same cannot be said about marijuana or any of the other “fun drugs.”

I am shocked at the amount of advocacy for pot there seems to be among Catholics! We are to renew our minds; not fuddle them!

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
Our LORD Himself used alcohol. To oppose it now would be to try and improve upon Him. No good!

The same cannot be said about marijuana or any of the other “fun drugs.”

I am shocked at the amount of advocacy for pot there seems to be among Catholics! We are to renew our minds; not fuddle them!

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
I’d rather have folks choose marijuana over opiates. Opiate addiction is a physical dependency. Marijuana is not.

Marijuana is in itself fairly harmless, especially with modern methods to avoiding smoking and burning. Taking it out of the criminal category prevents its “gateway” effect, keeping the unlicensed dealers and dealers of other substances away from the general population
 
ABUSE is the sin, not USE. In moderation, marijuana is reasonably harmless, like alcohol, when anything is abused, it becomes sinful. The church can provide sermons on the evils of these things.
 
SyroMalankara said:
I’d rather have folks choose marijuana over opiates. Opiate addiction is a physical dependency. Marijuana is not.

Marijuana is in itself fairly harmless, especially with modern methods to avoiding smoking and burning. Taking it out of the criminal category prevents its “gateway” effect, keeping the unlicensed dealers and dealers of other substances away from the general population
Click to expand...
Yep, going to a dealer you are bound to run into other substances that they have for sale. It is currently easier to get weed than it is alcohol.
 
J_Peterson said:
Yep, going to a dealer you are bound to run into other substances that they have for sale. It is currently easier to get weed than it is alcohol.
Click to expand...
Only if you already have connections in the stoner subculture.

I might be the last man in this timezone to have never used pot. I’m not sure how one would get it for the first time without getting busted (that’s assuming they wanted it, as I do not).

Whereas, being visibly over 21, alcohol is easier than food to purchase.

ICXC NIKA
 
GEddie said:
Only if you already have connections in the stoner subculture.

I might be the last man in this timezone to have never used pot. I’m not sure how one would get it for the first time without getting busted (that’s assuming they wanted it, as I do not).

Whereas, being visibly over 21, alcohol is easier than food to purchase.

ICXC NIKA
Click to expand...
You ask friends and they introduce you. That is much easier to do if you are a teen in high school than if you are an adult in a new city. For example, I got acid in high school from the same guy that got me weed. It was very easy.

It’s not that easy for someone under 21 to get alcohol. They card everyone for alcohol around here nowadays. I just got carded for buying 2 bottles of wine at Trader Joes and I’m nearing my mid-forties. If I forgot my ID they simply wouldn’t sell it to me. This is how weed will be handled.
 
J_Peterson said:
You ask friends and they introduce you. That is much easier to do if you are a teen in high school than if you are an adult in a new city. For example, I got acid in high school from the same guy that got me weed. It was very easy.

It’s not that easy for someone under 21 to get alcohol. They card everyone for alcohol around here nowadays. I just got carded for buying 2 bottles of wine at Trader Joes and I’m nearing my mid-forties. If I forgot my ID they simply wouldn’t sell it to me. This is how weed will be handled.
Click to expand...
That assumes the illegal vendors would go away. They would not if they can undercut the legal market.

Teenagers have got drunk since time began. Older brothers, or older friends are the connection.

ICXC NIKA
 
I’ve been following this thread. There was a very interesting 60 Minutes segment last night. Including the rise in newborns testing positive for THC. Pot is more potent today than it used to be.

THE POT VOTE

As five states vote on whether to legalize recreational pot, Dr. Jon LaPook visits Pueblo, Colorado, a town that knows firsthand the impact of the legal weed business

cbsnews.com/news/60-minutes-five-states-to-vote-on-recreational-pot/
 
From your link:
So far, Colorado hasn’t seen a huge spike in driving while high or in marijuana abuse by teens. But the data is still being collected on pot’s overall impact on the state.

All these issues sit on the shoulders of Governor John Hickenlooper, who was originally against the legalization of recreational marijuana.

On the positive side, Governor Hickenlooper says last year revenue from marijuana brought in $141 million in taxes, and he’s encouraged that arrests for possession are down almost 50 percent since 2012.

John Hickenlooper: No one can argue the old system wasn’t a disaster. We had an old system where kids had open access to marijuana and everything was black market. There was no regulation. There was all illegal activity. We were creating whole generations of kids that were growing up thinking that to break the law and make money selling drugs was perfectly fine. That’s what we’re trying to fight against.
 
My point in posting the link is that the problems are not going to go away. As marijuana is legalized in more states, people’s attitudes in general will change. They’ll seeing it as something benign. It’s rather like the frog in the pot of water. As the mother in the piece said, ‘How can it be harmful? It’s a legal drug.’

I think it’s very telling that Pueblo County is looking to opt out from the production and sale of marijuana.
 
GEddie said:
I am shocked at the amount of advocacy for pot there seems to be among Catholics! We are to renew our minds; not fuddle them!
Click to expand...
If the hard questions, like the difference between the legal approaches to alcohol as opposed to marijuana, can not be asked here, then where can they be asked? If it is a matter of degree, then why is marijuana treated in the same way as opiates and not as alcohol, to which it is more akin? Finally, which has been more destructive to families and society, marijuana, or our high incarceration rate, which is the highest in the world primarily due to the War on Drugs? They Church has spoken out against both.
 
J_Peterson said:
It’s not that easy for someone under 21 to get alcohol. They card everyone for alcohol around here nowadays. I just got carded for buying 2 bottles of wine at Trader Joes and I’m nearing my mid-forties. If I forgot my ID they simply wouldn’t sell it to me. This is how weed will be handled.
Click to expand...
Stores in our area get in trouble at times, for selling without carding. The state sends people in to check as to whether they are following policy.
Marijuana sent a friend to a long term treatment center; it’s not benign. Saying that at least it is not as bad as opiates, seems an admission that is is problematical at some level.
In Washington it is associated with increased motor vehicle accidents (which are associated with injuries, deaths, and rising insurance costs). It is fat soluble and stays in the system long after ingestion. It affects reaction time, which affects our abilities to handle machinery, keep up with our children.
It would be interesting to see studies looking at effects on children in the womb.
If our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, why clutter up?
 
jeannetherese said:
Stores in our area get in trouble at times, for selling without carding. The state sends people in to check as to whether they are following policy.
Marijuana sent a friend to a long term treatment center; it’s not benign. Saying that at least it is not as bad as opiates, seems an admission that is is problematical at some level.
In Washington it is associated with increased motor vehicle accidents (which are associated with injuries, deaths, and rising insurance costs). It is fat soluble and stays in the system long after ingestion. It affects reaction time, which affects our abilities to handle machinery, keep up with our children.
It would be interesting to see studies looking at effects on children in the womb.
If our bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, why clutter up?
Click to expand...
The cluttering the body argument is weak when it comes to legality, since legally all kinds of clutter is allowed (including prescriptions). Just because something is legal does not mean you have to use it if it’s against your virtue. About your friend, marijuana has no physical dependency, if he or she were sent to a long term treatment center it must have been underlying psychological issues or mixing marijuana with other substances.
 
jeannetherese said:
Stores in our area get in trouble at times, for selling without carding. The state sends people in to check as to whether they are following policy.
Click to expand...
Who’s checking age on marijuana in areas where the entire sale is black market? What repercussion is there for violating the law in lawlessness? Government regulation coupled with legalization for adults, in this case, is a very good thing.
 
I am a proponent of decriminalization of marijuana. The “facts” about its use have been so muddied by those against it for so many years (think “Reefer Madness”) that I am unsure if we have true facts at all.

That said, the idea that a diocese is spending $850,000 dollars to give to a political action committee for the purpose of enacting/changing laws just seems wrong to me. That is a lot of money to spend on advertising for something that is based on fear-mongering and bad information.

I would think that this diocese if it is like most others in the northeast, would have much better things to spend its money on. 😦
 
SyroMalankara said:
The cluttering the body argument is weak when it comes to legality, since legally all kinds of clutter is allowed (including prescriptions).
Click to expand...
I agree. I can take a pill for anxiety and depression but smoking a natural plant is morally wrong? I can take man made medicines to help with IBS symptoms but to use something made directly by God that works 100% of the time is somehow morally wrong? We can drink a couple glasses of wine and have some fun but we can’t use a natural product for the same?

I’m curious if people that claim that marijuana is a sin feel the same about something like Kava, Wild Dagga, Damiana, blue lilly or any other legal herbal product that has a psychoactive effect. Should the Bishops start pumping money into getting those things made illegal? Then there are other things like LSA, Mescaline, and DMT which are found in legal plants. Sure it’s illegal to extract the chemicals but you can grow them in your garden with no problems. Maybe all of those plants should be made completely illegal as well?
 
pnewton said:
If the hard questions, like the difference between the legal approaches to alcohol as opposed to marijuana, can not be asked here, then where can they be asked? If it is a matter of degree, then why is marijuana treated in the same way as opiates and not as alcohol, to which it is more akin? Finally, which has been more destructive to families and society, marijuana, or our high incarceration rate, which is the highest in the world primarily due to the War on Drugs? They Church has spoken out against both.
Click to expand...
Precisely. It’s not that I think marijuana is great and am chomping at the bit to get stoned. I don’t think the criminal approach works well and that the War on Drugs is the greater harm.
 
The idea that because something is “natural” it therefore belongs in our bodies, is weak, to say the least. Poison mushrooms, cow flop, and arsenic are all natural. None have any place in the human soma.

ICXC NIKA
 
On the 60 Minutes segment, a physician was discussing the large numbers of newborns he is now seeing with marijuana in their systems. Their mothers are surprised to learn that this is harmful to their babies.

“I try to explain to them that even though you’re not smoking very much, the baby is getting seven times more than you’re taking and that there’s-- this drug has been shown to cause harm in developing brains.

Research suggests babies exposed to marijuana in utero may develop verbal, memory and behavioral problems during early childhood.

. . .You need to be able to protect babies. And you’re gonna need to protect teenagers. And by “teenagers,” who are developing brains, you have to take in mind that marijuana potentially permanently affects brain growth until people are 25 or 30.”
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Back
Top