Morality of Marijuana Use

[melensdad]

oh GREAT. you have just inspired one certain family to buy organic milk from now on.

but by all means, continue…

Well my whole train of thought here may simply be dismissed as moral relativism but I really think people need to take a look at things like milk and, perhaps more importantly refined sugar (I sit here with a Cinnabon candy at my desk). But as my daughter was diagnosed with Type 1 Insulin Dependent Diabetes about a month ago I’ve been reading all sorts of things about food.

White refined sugar is addictive.

• The average american eats 32 teaspoons of white refined sugar A DAY.
• White refined sugar is more a drug or a chemical than a food product.
• The chemical makeup of white refined sugar is almost identical to alcohol (one molecule differentiates the two).
• Remove it suddently and you will experience withdrawls that include tremors, flu like symptoms, headaches, mood swings (***why do I give my wife chocolate on Valentines Day? Because it makes her feel good! ***)
• White refined sugar is stripped of any nutritional value.
• White refined sugar, in order to be metabolized by your body, actually draws from your vitamin and mineral reserves, which has its own side effects.
• Common problems are too long to list but include
• depression
• mood swings
• irritablilty
• type 2 diabetes
• panic attacks
• hyperactivity
• anxiety
• depletion of minerals in your blood/body
• hypoglycemia
• depletion of adrenal glands
• chromium defeciency
• candida overgrowth
• raised levels of cholesterol
• creates anti-social behavior such as that found in crime and delinquency

One of the worst things is sugar supresses the immune system!

Basically, white refined sugar is poison. The worst thing is we all joke about it as we pour it in our morning cup of coffee or eat a sweet roll. We admit our addiction and continue on with eating it in huge amounts. It is in virtually every manufactured food made.

Now tell me, with all this going against it, why is sugar moral?

Again, help with this one, why is marijuana immoral? Because it is bad for us? What is sugar, its poison! Seriously, help me understand the logic to the marijuana laws because MOST of the morality arguements here are based on the fact that it is illegal.

Seems to me that white sugar and whole milk are killing a lot more people than a little pot. Oh wait, pot doesn’t kill people. Abused it gives them a buzz and makes them want to eat a brownie . . . and what is in a brownie? Milk, chocolate (contains caffeine) and sugar.

OH NOW I SEE . . .
marijuana is immoral because it makes people want to eat sugar and milk

 

[Bennie_P]

As I wrote, I never said it was good. Nor have I defended it. However, some fo the above statements have been refuted scientifically and it is no longer considered addictive.

But let’s look at whole milk.

• Causes heart disease
• Causes fat build up which is associated with numerous cancers
• Causes weight gain which is associated with numerous diseases
• Leads to diabetic complications
• Leads to high cholesterol levels
  Further, it would be hard to debate the fact that supermarket milk is a brew of hormones, chemicals, DDT, fungicides, defoliants and radioactive fallout, produced by artificially inseminated creatures forced to stand around in muddy feed lots all day long.

So where is the morality in supporting the dairy industry when we give milk to our kids? If we give them any milk, perhaps it should be organic soy “milk” or at least organic skim milk?

And while we are making comparisons, how about sugar? I provided an example already. Serious health issues with sugar, side effects to mood, heart rate, breathing rate, attention span, etc too.

Why you are diverting the subject? this is not about milk nor sugar, but the morality of pot smoking.

 

[Bennie_P]

Who cares if pagans used it, or if they are responsible for it’s increased popularity. That doesn’t speak to the morality of the drug, unless you are implying that everything pagans ever did was immoral.

If the legislation was based on lies and racism, I think it is very relevant, particularly when people use the argument “Obey the government”. If the government is making laws for no just reason, I question the moral imperative to follow them.

You avoided the point, I already dimissed the argument that orginally made pot illegal, besides the current laws are not based on those arguments. You avoided and statement about the situation in the Netherlands. Is that society in which wish to raise your children?

Pagan spitituality for Chrsitians is immoral, it is idolatry and bibically it is compared to adultery.

 

[melensdad]

Why you are diverting the subject? this is not about milk nor sugar, but the morality of pot smoking.

I’m pointing out that I don’t see much difference other than society has made one of those things illegal and legitimized the others. Beyond that it has been shown that marijuana is not addictive, while legal products like alcohol, sugar, caffeine and tobacco are. It has also been shown that legal products are at least as harmful, if not more harmful than marijuana. It has also been touched on the marijuana laws and suggested that they may not be particularly just in terms of punishment fitting the so-called crime, while the laws themselves helped to create an illicit and violent crime trade.

Using comparisons to other, but legitimate goods, seems like a fair way to illustrate the damage we do to ourselves and yet still consider those things to be moral. I have also clearly stated that my arguments may simply be dismissed as moral relativism, never the less, it strikes me that logic has not been applied to either the morality nor the legality of marijuana my many folks prior to this thread. So, in my own way, I’m causing people to at least think about the morality of marijuana, sugar, wine, etc in a different light.

 

[po18guy]

I’m pointing out that I don’t see much difference other than society has made one of those things illegal and legitimized the others. Beyond that it has been shown that marijuana is not addictive, while legal products like alcohol, sugar, caffeine and tobacco are. It has also been shown that legal products are at least as harmful, if not more harmful than marijuana. It has also been touched on the marijuana laws and suggested that they may not be particularly just in terms of punishment fitting the so-called crime, while the laws themselves helped to create an illicit and violent crime trade.

Using comparisons to other, but legitimate goods, seems like a fair way to illustrate the damage we do to ourselves and yet still consider those things to be moral. I have also clearly stated that my arguments may simply be dismissed as moral relativism, never the less, it strikes me that logic has not been applied to either the morality nor the legality of marijuana my many folks prior to this thread. So, in my own way, I’m causing people to at least think about the morality of marijuana, sugar, wine, etc in a different light.

There are no magazines called “milk times”. People don’t get together to drink milk. There are no shops where people go to buy glasses, straws, recipes etc just for milk consumption. The purpose of milk consumption is nutrition.

You smoke weed to get high. Weed does not bring out the subtle flavor of Gouda-Edam cheese. It is not efficacious in cleansing the palate between snifters of wine. Weed gets you stoned. Weed, as an apetite stimulant, does have some effect, but did not save my dad from cancer when my brother (who later died of alcoholism) tried to save him using it.

Point is, law functions in society as a safety net-a lowest acceptable level of behavior consistent with maintaining some semblance of cohesion. Citizens are expected to maintain their demeanor above that minimum level, as voluntary submission to civil authority leads to a more stable society. There is no society that thrives on purely libertarian beliefs, as admirable as they first appear.

Christ’s peace be with all of you.

 

[melensdad]

There are no magazines called “milk times”. People don’t get together to drink milk. There are no shops where people go to buy glasses, straws, recipes etc just for milk consumption. The purpose of milk consumption is nutrition.

I agree with all this except that the ‘purpose’ of whole milk may be nutrition in the eyes of the people who believe the dairy lobby, the reality is it is quite an unhealthy product and kills you. That is simple fact.

You smoke weed to get high. Weed does not bring out the subtle flavor of Gouda-Edam cheese. It is not efficacious in cleansing the palate between snifters of wine. Weed gets you stoned. Weed, as an apetite stimulant, does have some effect

Again, I agree with all this too. I’ve never said it was good for you.

Point is, law functions in society as a safety net-a lowest acceptable level of behavior consistent with maintaining some semblance of cohesion. Citizens are expected to maintain their demeanor above that minimum level, as voluntary submission to civil authority leads to a more stable society. There is no society that thrives on purely libertarian beliefs, as admirable as they first appear.

But what does any of this have to do with the morality of marijuana if the marijuana laws are, at least partially, unjust?

And again, as with legal drugs like alcohol, there is no reason to suggest that people would not be ‘expected to maintain their demeanor above that minimum level.’ So just because a product may be decriminalized does not mean that it can be used freely without impunity. Alcohol can be used in a responsible manner legally and morally, it can also be used irresponsibly and when that happens it can lead to illegal activity such as drunk driving. Social stigma and legal action have dramatically reduced drunken driving and even social drinking. The same laws that apply to alcohol consumption would apply to smoking marijuana (in fact they already do). So just because something is legal, does not mean it can be legally abused. That point has been made (and apparently ignored or overlooked) several times. And again, another point that has been made (and apparently ignored or overlooked) several times is that nobody has argued that it would be moral to abuse marijuana. Clearly, however, society is abusing refined white sugar, a product that is literally killing us, yet we consider that product moral and, obviously legal.

 

[Bennie_P]

I’m pointing out that I don’t see much difference other than society has made one of those things illegal and legitimized the others. Beyond that it has been shown that marijuana is not addictive, while legal products like alcohol, sugar, caffeine and tobacco are. It has also been shown that legal products are at least as harmful, if not more harmful than marijuana. It has also been touched on the marijuana laws and suggested that they may not be particularly just in terms of punishment fitting the so-called crime, while the laws themselves helped to create an illicit and violent crime trade.

Using comparisons to other, but legitimate goods, seems like a fair way to illustrate the damage we do to ourselves and yet still consider those things to be moral. I have also clearly stated that my arguments may simply be dismissed as moral relativism, never the less, it strikes me that logic has not been applied to either the morality nor the legality of marijuana my many folks prior to this thread. So, in my own way, I’m causing people to at least think about the morality of marijuana, sugar, wine, etc in a different light.

If you cannot see the spiritual reasons that marijuana use is immoral then think about this**;** the smoking of Hasish in Europe helps to pay for arms used against our soldiers in Afganistan and Iraq and helping to sustain terrorist organizations - being a veteran, for now that is immoral enough. If we legalized marijuana in America across the board tomorrow, that fact would not change. Why we are at it, let us go ahead legalize herion also, there are studies say it is less addictive then alcohol and less of a health hazard then pot. Besides poppies is the number one cash crop in Afganistan, anything for the Taliban.

What group of currently illegal drugs did affluent, middle- aged women in nineteenth century America widely imbibe? What drugs were also used in teething syrups for babies and as a cure for alcoholism? What drugs aroused opposition, not because of any demonstrated health hazard, but because of a congruence of special interests and anti-Chinese racism? And what drugs were first banned by the national government, not as a result of conditions in this country, but in response to obscure international events occurring halfway around the globe nearly a century ago?
The answer is the opiates: heroin, morphine, codeine, and opium.
Of all illicit drugs, heroin has the most vicious reputation. Even many of those favoring the legalization of marijuana and other “soft” drugs blanch at the prospect of a free market in heroin. The estimated half-million heroin users in the United States are viewed, in the words of a 1962 Supreme Court decision, as a plague of “walking dead”–driven into prostitution, if they are women, and into crime, if they are men, in order to finance their $120-a-day habits.
Heroin-related deaths number in the hundreds every year, while some analysts attribute as much as 70 percent of all property crimes to heroin. Despite the billions of tax dollars allocated by governments to deal with this drug problem–either through strict law enforcement or through various treatment panaceas–the problem persists at epidemic levels.
Contrast the current state of affairs with the nineteenth century, when there was no narcotic drug problem in this country and virtually no drug laws. Full story

Moral relativism? Chip away, chip away …
Are you old enough to remember when they lowered the drinking age to 18? and the effects it had on teenagers and young adults? Within a decade they moved the age back to 21 and we still haven’t regained the moral ground loss.

 

[Guldenat]

You avoided the point, I already dimissed the argument that orginally made pot illegal, besides the current laws are not based on those arguments. You avoided and statement about the situation in the Netherlands. Is that society in which wish to raise your children?

Pagan spitituality for Chrsitians is immoral, it is idolatry and bibically it is compared to adultery.

You are correct, the original arguments for the criminalization for marijuana are no longer used. The current ones are no longer racist but are equally ridiculous. Marijuana is a schedule 1 drug, in order for that the drug has to have no useful medical benefit. The link I provided earlier shows many examples of how this simply isn’t the case, especially since the government has been allowing medical research with marijuana. THC is known to completely stop epileptic seizures is just one example.

As far as the Netherlands, in lieu of your question I attempted to research crime rates and such in the country, and I have not found sufficient information in which to honestly answer the question. Was their something in particular about the Netherlands you were referring?

And yes, Pagan spirituality for Christians is immoral, of this I have no doubt. However I do not understand your insistence that we link marijuana use to pagans from thousands of years ago. I do not know of anyone who uses it for that purpose, they use it for the same purpose as drinking a beer.

 

[Guldenat]

If you cannot see the spiritual reasons that marijuana use is immoral then think about this**;** the smoking of Hasish in Europe helps to pay for arms used against our soldiers in Afganistan and Iraq and helping to sustain terrorist organizations - being a veteran, for now that is immoral enough. If we legalized marijuana in America across the board tomorrow, that fact would not change. Why we are at it, let us go ahead legalize herion also, there are studies say it is less addictive then alcohol and less of a health hazard then pot. Besides poppies is the number one cash crop in Afganistan, anything for the Taliban.

I think that hashish is on shaky moral ground simply because it is incredibly strong as compared to your run of the mill cannabis, and I question a person’s ability to use it in a responsible manner. From my understanding, even the slightest inhale of hashish would cause someone to be completely stoned, and perhaps lose their inhibitions and free will. In my opinion the moral difference between hash and marijuana is that marijuana can be used like alcohol inasmuch as it is easy to control how much THC you ingest. I do not believe this to be the case with hash, or heroin for that matter. In order for one to have even the most remote faculty of the will, one would have to have had built a tolerance to the point where it didn’t effect the person as much. I think the whole idea of morality concerning drugs hinges upon this: can it be used responsibly, and can one retain the faculties of will and reason while using the substance. I know this to be true with alcohol and marijuana (though any abuse of either seems to make the user a complete idiot)

 

[RLT]

Wow, I couldn’t read all the post because I got as far a a few of the posters knocking alcohol, one even saying he’s for prohibition.
Yeah that’s we need a “Neo Temperance” movement.

Sheesh some religious orders would be sad if the Church or secular law prohobited alcohol, especially the Cartusians who make a wonderful liquor called Chartrues or a group of Salesian nuns in Jerusalem…heck the reason we have so many different wines, beers, and liquors today is due to the innovations of monks.
It was St. Hildegard who said “Men hurt men, wine heals them”

 

[Guldenat]

Wow, I couldn’t read all the post because I got as far a a few of the posters knocking alcohol, one even saying he’s for prohibition.
Yeah that’s we need a “Neo Temperance” movement.

Sheesh some religious orders would be sad if the Church or secular law prohobited alcohol, especially the Cartusians who make a wonderful liquor called Chartrues or a group of Salesian nuns in Jerusalem…heck the reason we have so many different wines, beers, and liquors today is due to the innovations of monks.
It was St. Hildegard who said “Men hurt men, wine heals them”

To read your post, the first thing I saw was the latin at the bottom of your pic “Fide Defensor”. When I looked up at your post, it was not at ALL what I was expecting.

BTW, Chimay, the French trappist beer, is absolutely delicious.

 

[melensdad]

If you cannot see the spiritual reasons that marijuana use is immoral then think about this**;** the smoking of Hasish in Europe helps to pay for arms used against our soldiers in Afganistan and Iraq and helping to sustain terrorist organizations

Please go back and read what I have defended. Points like you are making are simply irrelevant if marijuana is legalized, regulated, taxed and controlled in the way that liquor and cigarettes are controlled.

Again, and this has been covered a half dozen times in the thread. . .

• Nobody is suggesting it is moral to abuse marijuana.
• Nobody who is seeminly in favor of legalization has argued that it should not be regulated, taxed and controlled.
• Nobody is suggesting that marijuana use would be allowed in any legal way that is beyond the current alcohol laws* (no driving under the influence, no public intoxication, etc).*
• Nobody suggests that it would be legal for minors.
• Nobody argued when it was suggested that the government would set the potency of 1 marijuana cigarette to equal 1 glass of wine.

Now, if you want to talk moral relativism, let’s go back to white refined sugar and dairy products. Those products clearly are abused by Americans every day, all day and it is killing MILLIONS of Americans yearly. High fat diets, primarily from dairy products, are the leading cause of heart disease. White refined sugar is a leading cause of too many diseases to list, is addictive, and is a drug in every sense of the definition EXCEPT for the fact that it is publicly accepted. So I’ll stop defending marijuana, but then everyone else needs to admit they are drug abusers when they have sugar and confess their sin of gluttony when eating cheese, drink milk, or have any of the 100,000 packaged goods that contain “milk solids” or other milk products that are clogging your arteries.

So why don’t we just start making lists of products, those we consider legal & moral to consume, that are abused by the American public and simply stop eating them?

Oh wait, again, nobody suggested it was moral to** abuse **marijuana.

So again, explain how we can abuse products like sugar but we can’t use marijuana in moderation morally like we do with wine, beer, tobacco, etc?

Or explain the whole concept of locational morality where it is moral in one place but not in another just because one place says its legal and another says not

Or explain how our current marijuana laws are providing justice with punishment suitable to the crime as per the CCC

RLT:

It was St. Hildegard who said “Men hurt men, wine heals them”

The beauty of quotations like this is that it brings out the true nature of things. Men, it might be argued, are inherantly evil and we have to struggle to be good.

Wine, in and of itself, is not inherantly evil. Sure, it can be abused by man and simplistically blamed for the evils that man commits when he has abused the wine, but the man is still to blame. The wine is not. Wine, in moderation, is not evil. I can’t understand how wine is realistically different than marijuana, if the marijuana were made legal and then its production, distribution and sales were legitimized as we have done with other consumer products such as alcohol and tobacco.

Thank you for providing the quotation.

 

[Bennie_P]

I think that hashish is on shaky moral ground simply because it is incredibly strong as compared to your run of the mill cannabis, and I question a person’s ability to use it in a responsible manner. From my understanding, even the slightest inhale of hashish would cause someone to be completely stoned, and perhaps lose their inhibitions and free will. In my opinion the moral difference between hash and marijuana is that marijuana can be used like alcohol inasmuch as it is easy to control how much THC you ingest. I do not believe this to be the case with hash, or heroin for that matter. In order for one to have even the most remote faculty of the will, one would have to have had built a tolerance to the point where it didn’t effect the person as much. I think the whole idea of morality concerning drugs hinges upon this: can it be used responsibly, and can one retain the faculties of will and reason while using the substance. I know this to be true with alcohol and marijuana (though any abuse of either seems to make the user a complete idiot)

 

[Bennie_P]

http://www.nida.nih.gov/ResearchReports/Marijuana/Marijuana.gif
**

From the Director

**

In the 1970s, the baby boom generation was coming of age, and its drug of choice was marijuana. By 1979, more than 60 percent of 12th-graders had tried marijuana at least once in their lives. From this peak, the percentage of 12th-graders who had ever used marijuana decreased for more than a decade, dropping to a low of 33 percent in 1992. However, in 1993, first-time marijuana use by 12th-graders was on the upswing, reaching 50 percent by 1997. Although the percentage of 12th-graders who have experience with marijuana has remained roughly level since then, there is still reason to be concerned.1 In 2002, an estimated 2.6 million Americans used marijuana for the first time. Roughly two-thirds of them were under age 18.2 Furthermore, the marijuana that is available today can be 5 times more potent than the marijuana of the 1970s.3

The use of marijuana can produce adverse physical, mental, emotional, and behavioral changes, and - contrary to popular belief - it can be addictive. Marijuana smoke, like cigarette smoke, can harm the lungs.4,5,6 The use of marijuana can impair short-term memory,7,8 verbal skills,9 and judgment10 and distort perception.11,12 It also may weaken the immune system13,14,15,16 and possibly increase a user’s likelihood of developing cancer.14,17 Finally, the increasing use of marijuana by very young teens may have a profoundly negative effect upon their development.9, 18, 19,20

We hope that this research report will help make readers aware of our current knowledge of marijuana abuse and its harmful effects.
Nora D. Volkow, M.D.
Director
National Institute on Drug Abuse

nida.nih.gov/ResearchReports/Marijuana/default.html

 

[melensdad]

BennieP apparently you are ignoring what was written already

Again,

• nobody is defending abuse
• nobody is suggesting that the current drug trafficers be a legal source
• nobody is suggeting that potency should not be regulated
• blah blah blah I’m tired of repeating it all everytime a new person enters the thread and brings up old tired arguements that have already been discussed. Someone else will have to take up the mantle. But that is a 3 year old report, published 2 years ago, and the addictive properties were refuted by scientists since then. Further, nobody is claiming it is healthy, that report simple restates it is not, which has been agreed upon.

 

[Guldenat]

Not to mention all of the harmful effects of marijuana come about FROM ABUSE****. If used responsibly, like pretty much everything else on the market, than the negative effects are irrelevant. If a person smoked one joint a week, the risk of emphysema would not be increased, or any of the other harmful effects that is mentioned in that report. Just like melensdad’s analogy of whole milk or white sugar - it’s fine in moderation, if abused it causes a long list of illness. However, I do echo melensdad’s sentiment, having to repeat oneself becomes awful tiresome.

 

[Bennie_P]

BennieP apparently you are ignoring what was written already

Again,

• nobody is defending abuse
• nobody is suggesting that the current drug trafficers be a legal source
• nobody is suggeting that potency should not be regulated
• blah blah blah I’m tired of repeating it all everytime a new person enters the thread and brings up old tired arguements that have already been discussed. Someone else will have to take up the mantle. But that is a 3 year old report, published 2 years ago, and the addictive properties were refuted by scientists since then. Further, nobody is claiming it is healthy, that report simple restates it is not, which has been agreed upon.

Well, after all of that, if you think legalization could happen, well it is not going to happen. If you legailized it in the United States, the suppliers would still be the same crimminal elements, do you think they are going to give up control of their cash cow? You must remember the world is made up many countries other then the United States and we will be the users, but we would have the same suppliers.

Which scientist do you claim dispute those findings I posted?

As for tired old arguments, you are just parroting the same old “hippie” arguments I have been hearing since the time I first smoked a joint when I was a teenager back in the early 70s. And the elements of the pro-pot, that is the leaders of the pro-pot movement are the same people that were teenage pot heads back then and and are pushing for legalzation now, of course the gain a few followers with every new group teenagers. The danger and immorality of marijuana is clear. The issue is clear, it is a continuous chipping away at the moral fabric of society, just as in other areas.
You talk about regulating potency, how do you propose to do that? The legization movement want people to be able to grow their own, are you suggesting that we have federal regulators go into pot growers’ home and test their pot?
Do you realize that making it legal will make it more available to teenagers and children? The message will be to the young that it is OK to get stone- “Look dude, I slipped a joint from dad so we can have a hit or two during recess, like wow.”

One thing I come to noticed about people that push for legalization, they are either one of two type of people. One - they are pot heads and want to justify their behavorial and of course they will deny that pot is addictive, or Two they haven’t been around pot heads enough to see the destruction it has done to peoples lives.

Yes, some try it and move on with their lives, yet others try and it destroys their lives.

I ran into the Devil, babe
He loaned me twenty bills
I spent that night in Utah
In a cave up in the hills

I set out running but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight
I might get some sleep tonight

I ran down to the levee
But the Devil caught me there
He took my twenty dollar bill
And he vanished in the air

 

[RWMorris]

There is nothing wrong with smoking a little pot. There, I said it! Most people on this forum haven’t even used it or been around it very much and have no idea of the weed’s true characteristics. I personally think that a lot of people would benefit from smoking weed. It is ten times better than having alcohol. When you drive stoned, you’re not nearly as likely to have a wreck as you are when you drive drunk. Reason: pot makes you go slower and exaggerates your safety bells. Alcohol causes you to ignore those bells.
If the only reason we as Catholics are not to smoke weed in the US is because it is against the law, then that is stupid. That means I can go to Holland to get high and it won’t be a sin.
Besides, the cannabis plant grows wild in the US. And didn’t God tell Paul that nothing on earth was unclean? So why is pot unclean? It’s not…it just doesn’t make sense that there is anything wrong with smoking a little weed.
I freely admit that I have smoked weed all my life and finished high school as salutatarian; went to college; graduated from college on the Dean’s Honor List; worked, raised babies, etc. Now am in three different Who’s Who editions for my accomplishments in music and have received numerous other awards for my music.
So where do the bad effects of marijuana come in again? How could I accomplish so much if pot is as bad for you as some people think?

 

[Guldenat]

Well, after all of that, if you think legalization could happen, well it is not going to happen. If you legailized it in the United States, the suppliers would still be the same crimminal elements, do you think they are going to give up control of their cash cow? You must remember the world is made up many countries other then the United States and we will be the users, but we would have the same suppliers.

Which scientist do you claim dispute those findings I posted?

As for tired old arguments, you are just parroting the same old “hippie” arguments I have been hearing since the time I first smoked a joint when I was a teenager back in the early 70s. And the elements of the pro-pot, that is the leaders of the pro-pot movement are the same people that were teenage pot heads back then and and are pushing for legalzation now, of course the gain a few followers with every new group teenagers. The danger and immorality of marijuana is clear. The issue is clear, it is a continuous chipping away at the moral fabric of society, just as in other areas.
You talk about regulating potency, how do you propose to do that? The legization movement want people to be able to grow their own, are you suggesting that we have federal regulators go into pot growers’ home and test their pot?
Do you realize that making it legal will make it more available to teenagers and children? The message will be to the young that it is OK to get stone- “Look dude, I slipped a joint from dad so we can have a hit or two during recess, like wow.”

One thing I come to noticed about people that push for legalization, they are either one of two type of people. One - the are pot heads and want to justify their behavorial and of course they will deny that pot is addictive, or Two they haven’t been around pot heads enough to see the destruction it has done to peoples lives.

Yes, some try it and move on with their lives, yet others try and it destroys their lives.

I ran into the Devil, babe
He loaned me twenty bills
I spent that night in Utah
In a cave up in the hills

I set out running but I take my time
A friend of the devil is a friend of mine
If I get home before daylight
I might get some sleep tonight

I ran down to the levee
But the Devil caught me there
He took my twenty dollar bill
And he vanished in the air

Just like the posters who came before you, you’ve resorted to ad hominem arguments after your points have been refuted. Bravo.

 

[melensdad]

Illegal versus legal suppliers arguement . . .

OK folks, its been brought up that pot suppliers would not give up their hold on their illegal trade so that is something to consider.

cannabis plant grows wild in the US.

First, as RWMorris points out that is poppycock! Marijuana grows naturally in most of the United States, so there would be no need to import it from other nations if it were legalized, regulated, taxed and controlled like tobacco or alcohol.

Secondly, it is poppycock! The legal distribution system would quickly replace the back alley hoodlum and street corner vendor as people could buy “brand names” of “known potency” and “guaranteed quality” from their local licensed tobacco or liquor shop. People crave low prices, high quality and consistent product and the legitimate market would provide that.

Third, it is poppycock! Farmers would eagerly grow a crop that has multiple uses, requires little fertilization and minimal pesticides, yet would turn a reasonable profit. Just as with tobacco, farmers could be allocated shares they would be allowed to grow, cure and sell. Further, they hemp stems (I gather you smoke the leaves) are also valuable for the fiber it produces and can be made into clothing, handbags, etc and is similar to, but more durable than cotton.

Fourth, it is poppycock! State taxing authorities would love to get their hands on the taxable revenue generated by marijuana sales. Consider that a carton of cigarettes in Chicago sells for $70 ($7 per pack of 20). Consider that roughly $50 of that cost is TAX and is divided up between Federal, State, County and City Taxes!!! The revenue departments work hard to prevent “counterfeit” tobacco sales, you better darn tootin believe they would work to keep every penny of “pot taxes” too!

Fifth, it is poppycock! Consumers would rather not risk life & limb to buy their products. Given the choice, would you prefer to buy your groceries in an alley, a dirty bathroom of a bar, or some unlit streetcorner? Or would you prefer to walk into a clean store and buy your goods? Studies show people prefer clean, well lit stores!!! Consumers will buy at legitimate retail stores and ignore their former dealers.

Sixth, it is poppycock! The corner dealer will have no option when his customers dry up. He will have to switch professions, find a job, do anything else, but he won’t be selling much pot because of the above reasons. The associated drug wars over territory will vanish, along with the associated violence (at least those wars and that violence that is related to marijuana, it will, however, not affect other hard drug violence).

Seventh, it is poppycock! The “free market” economics that rules the western world will drive the prices down making it uneconomical and unprofitable for dealers, while the market economies of a vastly more efficient tobacco/liquor distribution and sales industry will find the sales to be profitable based on their ability to handle the goods in an efficient manner, apply the taxes (as distributors do with cigarettes) and merchandise the product at licensed retail shops (as the distributors do with cigarettes). Taxes will be applied making up the price differential but not making up the profit differential and consequently the risk-reward for drug dealers selling pot will vanish, leaving a legitimate distribution channel in its place like we have with tobacco and liquor.