Marijuana

[bones_IV]

Someone told me that because marijuana is outlawed therefore alcohol should be outlawed. I don’t think this reasoning makes any sense. What do you think?

 

[mommyof4]

Nope - doesn’t make sense to me either!

 

[IanBoyd57]

Someone told me that because marijuana is outlawed therefore alcohol should be outlawed. I don’t think this reasoning makes any sense. What do you think?

The reverse reasoning makes more sense.

After all, alcohol kills 50-100 thousand americans a year, tobacco kills 400,000, and yet marijuana has killed 0 people in the entire world in every year combined since the beginning of history.

 

[bones_IV]

Nope - doesn’t make sense to me either!

My brother said, that because alcohol can kill and marijuana doesn’t that marijuance should be made illegal. Are there any reasons to refute that?

 

[IanBoyd57]

My brother said, that because alcohol can kill and marijuana doesn’t that marijuance should be made illegal. Are there any reasons to refute that?

Um, yes. Freedom. Choice. Free will. Liberty. The Pursuit of Happiness (not the movie) [although I heard it was good].

I’m assuming you meant to say that alcohol could be made illegal, btw, because marijuana (strangely) is already illegal, although this happened mostly because of racism and to slow down mexican immigration and what not.

 

[LilyM]

The reverse reasoning makes more sense.

After all, alcohol kills 50-100 thousand americans a year, tobacco kills 400,000, and yet marijuana has killed 0 people in the entire world in every year combined since the beginning of history.

Read this

Marijuana smokers get (and die from) lung and respiratory cancers just like tobacco smokers do - in fact moreso. Their risk of heart attack quadruples in the first hour after smoking, so obviously people have died of marijuana-related heart attacks as well.

Want to rethink your statement?

 

[IanBoyd57]

Read this

Marijuana smokers get (and die from) lung and respiratory cancers just like tobacco smokers do - in fact moreso. Their risk of heart attack quadruples in the first hour after smoking, so obviously people have died of marijuana-related heart attacks as well.

Want to rethink your statement?

No. Marijuana does not cause lung cancer.

washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729_pf.html

Because it is illegal, very little research has been done and much of the information floating around is not true.

Also, you said the risk quadruples. Ok, but, think about it.

The heart attack will not occur unless you have blocked arteries and such that eventually cause the attack to happen. Sure, while high your heart is beating faster and that means that if you were already about to have a heart attack (say in the next four hours) then it would happen then. Yet, it only quadruples the risk, and will not give anyone a heart attack that wasn’t bound or about to have one anyway.

 

[I_A]

That phrase just doesn’t make logical sense. You’d need to tie it together.

The government has a duty to protect peopel’s lives.
The government has the power to ban mind-altering stubstances.
To protect lives the government should ban alochol.

The only way to bring marajuana into it is you could say the government has banned the mind-altering substance, marajuana, so its within the governments power, to reinforce the second line, but that just sets a precedence, not really the crux of the argument, the value judgement of the thrid line. By the way prohibition serves to reinforce that second line just as well, the government has banned alochol in the past so its within its power.

The argument isn’t about marajuana its about human lives lost to alcohol versus the value alcohol brings to human life.

Its like saying since this resturaunt only sells milk it should sell grapefruit juice too. The two arn’t really related.

Since the argument before is the positive effects of alochol on a society are better than the negative effects, you could say the positive effects of marajuana use are greater than the negative effects. Thats a much less “huh?” argument.

 

[Traditional_Ang]

Read this

Marijuana smokers get (and die from) lung and respiratory cancers just like tobacco smokers do - in fact moreso. Their risk of heart attack quadruples in the first hour after smoking, so obviously people have died of marijuana-related heart attacks as well.

Want to rethink your statement?

Lily:

The report you cited is from an agency of the Federal Government whose oly function is to promote the government’s “War on Drugs”. Are you sure that a study from Lancet, The New England Journal of Medicine, Health or some other magazine which wasn’t trying to prove something would have arrived at the same conclusions?

The Priest who was the Rector at St. Mary’s was one of he few priests on the Westside of any kinds (Catholics included) who went to the AIDS Wings when patients were dying by the hundreds in the Mid-1980’s. The Priest who’s the interum Rector was a Physicians Assistant who treated patients at a clinic from 1983-1998 (which meant he followed his patients into the clinics). Between the two of them, I’ve met a lot of AIDS patients and the people who cared for them.

I understand that a lot of AIDS patients either were baptized or gave their confessions to the first Rector, and that a few are lying in repose at St. Mary’s as I type this.

If it weren’t for Marijuana, a lot of these patients would have died a lot sooner and a lot more terribly, because they would not have been able to hold their medications or their food down, or to have even eaten, because of the nausia caused by the disease and the drugs they were taken to treat it. And, AIDS Wings used to be notorious for their thick clouds of marijuana smoke.

And, I understand that much of the same can be said for using Marijuana to treat glaucoma and many other disorders.

And, here is where growing the plant has huge advanges over paying for the pill from the pharmacuetical company. Not only is it cheaper for the patient or the family of the patient who has one of the conditions for which Marijuana might be indicated to grow a plant, but the THC pills have been shown to cause nausia, which is what we’re treating.

And, This is NOT to advocate the casual recreational use of Marijuana or the heavy use of Marijuana as cigarette smokers do with cigarettes, just as I would not advocate that people use opiate painkillers when Aspirin or Advil would do.

It’s just that drug laws, like all other laws, have to make sense, so that the laws serve the people and don’t destroy the people. When someone with AIDS is told that, as a condition of Bail, he may not smoke the Marijuana that is allowing him to keep both his food and medicines down and to keep his weight up and to keep healthy, and he then dies because of the condition of Bail, the law is WRONG.

And, This happened in 2004 in a Medical Marijuana Case where the Federal Government decided to show that they could throw out the California Medical Marijuana Law at will. They succeeded and got the verdict they wanted - An AIDS patient who was an AIDS activist was DIED!

This time, what killed a man wasn’t Marijuana, it was the relentless Prosecution under the Marijuana Laws.

Your Brother in Christ, Michael

 

[Exalt]

The real issue with drug use and politics is really a question of the scope and power of government.

Personally, I think the government should have a very hands-off approach to directly controling our own lives. I favor the government staying out of the personal lives of it’s citizens in nearly every case. The government’s role, in my opinion, should be about protection and facilitating freedom. A citizen has a right to use mind-alterting drugs (like alcohol or marajuana) so long as he doesn’t harm anyone else. If he does, such as in driving under the influence, then he ought to be prosecuted.

Personally, I think making drugs like marajuana illegal creates a violent black market. It persecutes nonviolent offenders. It can be dangerous, sure. It can turn you into a mindless slob - but it doesn’t do that to everyone. And even if it *does *turn you into a mindless slob, it’s *your *life. The government has no right to go into your own home and arrest you for just smoking pot.

And then there’s the issue of how the government can tell you that you can use caffiene, tabacco, and alcohol but not marajuana. It’s especially incoherant when you consider how *deadly *alcohol is and how that compares to marajuana. You can overdose on alcohol and die. You can’t overdose on marajuana.

Personally, I think that the government should stay out of my personal life and let me smoke pot if I want to without fear of government persecution.

 

[Catholic_Dude]

Someone told me that because marijuana is outlawed therefore alcohol should be outlawed. I don’t think this reasoning makes any sense. What do you think?

It depends on the grounds in which either one was made illegal.
If I had to guess I would bet pot is illegal is because it encourages further worse types of drugs usage (ie its a “gateway drug”) and even encourages alcoholism itself.
I know there is a safe and responsible manner in which alcohol can be used, but is there such a thing as a “safe level” of getting high?

Also it should be noted at one time in American history alcohol sale was constitutionally banned…only to be constitutionally repealed down the road…SO…given something like that you could almost conclude there either isnt any logic to what is or isnt outlawed or that its more about popular/public opinion.

The reverse reasoning makes more sense.

After all, alcohol kills 50-100 thousand americans a year, tobacco kills 400,000, and yet marijuana has killed 0 people in the entire world in every year combined since the beginning of history.

While I dont agree pot has killed 0 people its very clear alcohol and tobacco kill an outrageous amount of people.
At the very least such legislation is ironic at the most its pure insanity.

 

[runandsew]

Not that I would know, but it seems to me that you can drink a beer and not be drunk, but if you inhale marijuana just once, you are stoned. Stoned is the right term, correct?

But with marijuana, as well as alcohol I guess, there are users, and abusers.
Some people can use it and get along fine, others use it and can’t stop from abusing it. Not that I would know.

 

[InTheWilderness]

Why is this in the moral theology section?

So far, I have seen no reference to either theology or morality in this thread. Certainly there is some discussion of government, politics, and medicine, but I see no moral theology.

Is the current law regarding marijuana a just law? Yes, in many cases it is. However, it some cases it may not be.

Unless you are an extreme case (such as a terminally ill person who has a condition such that marijuana use brings about good affects that clearly outweighs any bad affects, and which can not reasonably be obtained in some other way), then you are bound to obey the current law, so it seems to me. Feel free to try to change it, but in the mean time obey it.

As for government not regulating mind altering substances, that is a fine position to advocate. I assume you also would wish to dispense with the FDA and the various laws about food, drug, and cosmetic safety. After all, if it is not the place of government to protect you from your own use of mind altering substance, then the government shouldn’t have to protect you from using rat poison as cough syrup.

 

[puzzleannie]

Someone told me that because marijuana is outlawed therefore alcohol should be outlawed. I don’t think this reasoning makes any sense. What do you think?

we tried it 100 yrs ago in this country, and no, it did not make sense to outlaw alcohol. What is illegal becomes more expensive, but thanks to enterprising criminals, not unattainable. The organized crime spawned and nurtured by prohibition has been a blight on society and a major scourge ever since.

Before 1900 there were no specific laws on any drugs, including the opiates, which were in everything from patent medicines (what we now call OTC) to soft drinks. London and other large European cities had opium dens where one could go to smoke or otherwise ingest it legally, and sleep off the resulting lethargy for a couple of days. A war–the Boxer Rebellion–was fought over opium, and the history of China altered. Drugs were seen as a major public health problem and reform movements in Europe and US lobbied for the laws to regulate drugs for medical use, insure their safe manufacture and sale, and prohibit drugs defined as damaging.

bottom line. for now marijuana like other mind-altering (and therefore mind-damaging) drugs are illegal. To participate in any way in the purchase, sale or use of these drugs is immoral not only for the damaging effects of their use–don’t tell me they are not damaging, I grew up in the druggy generation and we still have deadheads to take care of. This is immoral because it supports the organized crime that uses drug money to fund other evils such as pornography, including the type produced by exploiting and abusing women and children, sex slavery and other crimes against persons and society.

If you want laws to change, lobby and become politically active, but be prepared to argue that their is a corresponding positive benefit to society as a whole, not just a small subgroup of society.

 

[thistle]

Jesus and the Apostles drank wine. If it was good for them then its good for us.

Excessive drinking of course is a different matter.

 

[thechrismyster]

you cannot, and will not EVER be able to legislate morality with laws…
passing all the laws in the world will never stop drugs, drinking, crime… it will force crime to alter itself and adapt. but the ‘war on drugs’ and the 'war on _________(fill in the blank)" do one thing and one thing only…
create public and private sector jobs. and once those jobs are created, no politician in the world is going to commit political suicide by being the one to stop the process.
the “DARE” program is the biggest single waste of money ever devised to try and teach our children about drugs.
the change in drugs use after 20 years of DARE… 0%.

making laws only expands the definition of lawless.

 

[bones_IV]

we tried it 100 yrs ago in this country, and no, it did not make sense to outlaw alcohol. What is illegal becomes more expensive, but thanks to enterprising criminals, not unattainable. The organized crime spawned and nurtured by prohibition has been a blight on society and a major scourge ever since.

Before 1900 there were no specific laws on any drugs, including the opiates, which were in everything from patent medicines (what we now call OTC) to soft drinks. London and other large European cities had opium dens where one could go to smoke or otherwise ingest it legally, and sleep off the resulting lethargy for a couple of days. A war–the Boxer Rebellion–was fought over opium, and the history of China altered. Drugs were seen as a major public health problem and reform movements in Europe and US lobbied for the laws to regulate drugs for medical use, insure their safe manufacture and sale, and prohibit drugs defined as damaging.

bottom line. for now marijuana like other mind-altering (and therefore mind-damaging) drugs are illegal. To participate in any way in the purchase, sale or use of these drugs is immoral not only for the damaging effects of their use–don’t tell me they are not damaging, I grew up in the druggy generation and we still have deadheads to take care of. This is immoral because it supports the organized crime that uses drug money to fund other evils such as pornography, including the type produced by exploiting and abusing women and children, sex slavery and other crimes against persons and society.

If you want laws to change, lobby and become politically active, but be prepared to argue that their is a corresponding positive benefit to society as a whole, not just a small subgroup of society.

What specific connections are there between pornography, sex, and slavery and marijuana? Does the Church condemn it? If so, for that reasons besides killing the soul. What are the long term effects of smoking marijuana and how does it effect other people?

 

[asquared]

What specific connections are there between pornography, sex, and slavery and marijuana? Does the Church condemn it? If so, for that reasons besides killing the soul. What are the long term effects of smoking marijuana and how does it effect other people?

the specific connection, poster states is that as long as marijuana and other recreational drugs are illegal, buying them supports organized crime, which is also the source of pornography produced by criminal activities exploiting and abusing, and even in some cases killing children and women, and in the international sex trade. This connection is well documented in MSM and not disputed. Illegal criminal pornography and sex trade that involves crimes against women and children is now a bigger industry than drugs.

the 4th commandment includes obedience to legitimate civil authority, so where marijuana is illegal it is immoral to use it, buy it, grow it or sell it.

 

[bones_IV]

the specific connection, poster states is that as long as marijuana and other recreational drugs are illegal, buying them supports organized crime, which is also the source of pornography produced by criminal activities exploiting and abusing, and even in some cases killing children and women, and in the international sex trade. This connection is well documented in MSM and not disputed. Illegal criminal pornography and sex trade that involves crimes against women and children is now a bigger industry than drugs.

the 4th commandment includes obedience to legitimate civil authority, so where marijuana is illegal it is immoral to use it, buy it, grow it or sell it.

My brother told me that marijuana doesn’t kill people and alcohol does? Are there specific links that testify to this?

 

[thistle]

the specific connection, poster states is that as long as marijuana and other recreational drugs are illegal, buying them supports organized crime, which is also the source of pornography produced by criminal activities exploiting and abusing, and even in some cases killing children and women, and in the international sex trade. This connection is well documented in MSM and not disputed. Illegal criminal pornography and sex trade that involves crimes against women and children is now a bigger industry than drugs.

the 4th commandment includes obedience to legitimate civil authority, so where marijuana is illegal it is immoral to use it, buy it, grow it or sell it.

Abortion is legal in many countries but it remains (rightly so) a grave sin.
It makes no difference if Marijuana is legal in some countries it remains a grave sin to use drugs, other than for strictly medical reasons under the supervision of doctors.
Abortion is legal in many countries but it remains (rightly so) a grave sin.

CCC 2291 The use of drugs inflicts very grave damage on human health and life. Their use, except on strictly therapeutic grounds, is a grave offense. Clandestine production of and trafficking in drugs are scandalous practices. They constitute direct co-operation in evil, since they encourage people to practices gravely contrary to the moral law.