Your opinion of making marijuana legal

[MewMan]

Hey Mr. Mewman, I gave you a counter-argument if you care to look at it. One page back. I've already debated this issue to ashes with a more competent debater than you, so I'd be more than happy to listen to what you have to say, if you insist on not reading through the entire thread.

I did read your post. All you did was make a direct comparison to alcohol and assume it would be the same for marijuana. Can you suggest what could possibly outweigh the estimated $60 billion in revenue from marijuana taxation? Oh, and you also posted information without a source and then mocked somebody else for doing it in the same post. *facepalm*

 

[Noctourniquet]

He's talking about management. He's saying in an illegal system, a teen gets as much as they want, but in a legal system, I guess he's saying it would be something along the lines of <x> not being able to buy <x> amount of alcohol in a single setting.

Oh right, I get it. So, allow the sale of it, but limit that? It could work, but IMO it would be very risky... I'm still sticking by what I said at first. Medicinal purposes only.

 

[chuboy]

He's talking about management. He's saying in an illegal system, a teen gets as much as they want, but in a legal system, I guess he's saying it would be something along the lines of <x> not being able to buy <x> amount of alcohol in a single setting.

Basically. At present, it is possible to buy a litre bottle of vodka, which contains about 370mL of pure alcohol. Drinking this in one sitting is enough to kill many people, at the very least poison them. That is why the system is flawed - the concept of an off-licence store allows people to obtain quantities of alcohol potent enough to harm them.

My suggestion was that legal drugs would be available in a system whereby any dose of a drug is available at any time but it has to be consumed on the spot - either that or drugs to be taken later are provided in 'safe' doses which can't kill a person by taking them. Exactly the same concept as a pub - they sell you alcohol but they open the bottle or pour it for you so that you can't take it home and have it later.

 

[Noctourniquet]

^ So, you think that places such as Pubs or Clubs should be able to sell small amounts of it assuming that its consumption is supervised?

 

[Vaporeon4evr]

I did read your post. All you did was make a direct comparison to alcohol and assume it would be the same for marijuana. Can you suggest what could possibly outweigh the estimated $60 billion in revenue from marijuana taxation? Oh, and you also posted information without a source and then mocked somebody else for doing it in the same post. *facepalm*

What the hell are you talking about? This is the post I made:

Keeping marijuana illegal is completely indefensible. I challenge anybody to come up with legit reasons for it to be illegal.

Learn to burden of proof.

From here.

~Research on the long-term effects of marijuana abuse indicates some changes in the brain similar to those seen after long-term abuse of other major drugs. For example, cannabinoid withdrawal in chronically exposed animals leads to an increase in the activation of the stress-response system3 and changes in the activity of nerve cells containing dopamine.4 Dopamine neurons are involved in the regulation of motivation and reward, and are directly or indirectly affected by all drugs of abuse.

~Long-term marijuana abuse can lead to addiction; that is, compulsive drug seeking and abuse despite its known harmful effects upon social functioning in the context of family, school, work, and recreational activities. Long-term marijuana abusers trying to quit report irritability, sleeplessness, decreased appetite, anxiety, and drug craving, all of which make it difficult to quit. These withdrawal symptoms begin within about 1 day following abstinence, peak at 2–3 days, and subside within 1 or 2 weeks following drug cessation.5

For starters. Oh, and since there are so many schmucks on the internet with opinions, make sure you check the credibility of your sources before citing some hothead blogger who claims there is nothing bad about marijuana. The above article is a government document: the most credible form of information you are likely to find on the internet.

Yeah...

 

[Profesco]

Basically. At present, it is possible to buy a litre bottle of vodka, which contains about 370mL of pure alcohol. Drinking this in one sitting is enough to kill many people, at the very least poison them. That is why the system is flawed - the concept of an off-licence store allows people to obtain quantities of alcohol potent enough to harm them.

My suggestion was that legal drugs would be available in a system whereby any dose of a drug is available at any time but it has to be consumed on the spot - either that or drugs to be taken later are provided in 'safe' doses which can't kill a person by taking them. Exactly the same concept as a pub - they sell you alcohol but they open the bottle or pour it for you so that you can't take it home and have it later.

That would still be susceptible to abuse, though. For the 'safe' dose idea, what's stopping someone from buying multiple doses from different stores, or saving them up for a single event, and still putting themselves in harm's way? And due to the addictive qualities of many illegal drugs, what happens when the available potency of the drug doesn't work for the taker anymore? If the user can't get what he wants from the proper channels, there'd be an opening for black market sellers again.

Controlling it just seems as difficult as containing water in your bare hands.

 

[chuboy]

^ So, you think that places such as Pubs or Clubs should be able to sell small amounts of it assuming that its consumption is supervised?

No, just places with the same concept as a pub or club. Pubs and clubs sell you alcohol, however they are only licenced to sell it to you if you drink it on the premises. To stop people taking the drinks home they have to pour the beverage for you or open the bottle before giving it to you.

The problem with alcohol is that you can go to an off-licence and buy as much alcohol as you want. As far as the retailer is concerned you aren't going to drink it all in one go, but you still can.

In any case, there are plenty of OTC drugs that you can easily overdose on, paracetamol being the famous case. One packet is enough to give many people permanent liver damage or even kill them. We are still allowed to buy lots of that.

At the end of the day we probably can't worry about people who will deliberately kill themselves. It's the people who die after being accidentally poisoned by dodgy drugs that we want to protect. If people want to buy ecstasy when they go out, they can, they just have to buy and take it at the club in sight of the club 'pharmacists'. If people need big doses of smack or whatever, they can take as big a hit they need, but it has to be done in sight of the pharmacist.

When it comes to marijuana, it's relatively harmless so it should be as freely available as cigarettes or alcohol.

What you have to remember is making these drugs safe to buy and take totally removes the black market appeal and therefore drug syndicates collapse and a huge element of crime disintegrates.

 

[MewMan]

What the hell are you talking about? This is the post I made:



Yeah...

Cannabidol protects against strokes:

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/36/5/1071

Cannabis prevents neuronal injury:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12850548&dopt=Citation

Cannabis is neuroprotective:

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/21/17/6475

Studies reveal no abnormalities in the brain following frequent marijuana use:

http://www.ukcia.org/research/EffectsOfFrequentMarrijuanaUseOnBrainTissueVolumeAndComposition.htm

Chart comparing the addictive potential of various drugs:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg

Note cannabis is lower than both alcohol and tobacco, and many studies place it even with caffieine for addictive potential.

Burden of proof, eh?

 

[The_Panda]

Cannabidol protects against strokes:

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/36/5/1071

Cannabis prevents neuronal injury:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12850548&dopt=Citation

Cannabis is neuroprotective:

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/21/17/6475

Studies reveal no abnormalities in the brain following frequent marijuana use:

http://www.ukcia.org/research/EffectsOfFrequentMarrijuanaUseOnBrainTissueVolumeAndComposition.htm

Chart comparing the addictive potential of various drugs:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg

Note cannabis is lower than both alcohol and tobacco, and many studies place it even with caffieine for addictive potential.

Burden of proof, eh?

The problem with that style of argument is that if someone came back against you with their own list of papers about the dangers of cannabis (which could quite easily be done), even papers that totally refute those claims, your claims become more or less worthless unless you can explain why your sources are more correct than others (and I'd myself seriously doubt the veracity of many of the claims in there, if you want to actually get into a neurological and pharmacological argument, which I'd be more than pleased to conduct, then I'll continue, otherwise I'll stop here). Although you have to be congratulated on using actual journal articles, instead of rubbish from activist groups that is strewn across the internet. Anyway...

While I don't think marijuana is that safe, it's pretty well accepted in the medical community that marijuana likely has some very useful medical properties; its painkilling effect has been known since time immemorial, and some of those links have hit upon quite interesting claims. There definitely is potential in marijuana for the development of treatments.

However the same thing can be said of a huge number of natural substances; indeed a huge number of modern treatments have been developed from traditional "herbal" remedies. There is actually quite a strong analogy that you can draw here. Many of the herbs from which modern drugs have been developed are in themselves somewhat ineffective, and often are associated with significant side effects. However, from that natural form, the chemicals that cause the desired effect have been extracted and in turn used to create much more pure drugs that are far more medically useful. The same applies equally for marijuana.

What you'll find is that arguments about the medical usefulness of marijuana are without any merit in a debate about legalisation. They are only arguments for the use of marijuana for the extraction of chemicals which in turn would be used to create drugs, not for any sort of recreational use. The arguments, thus, fall somewhat flat; in the way that the medical usefulness of morphine is irrelevant in a debate on heroin.

 

[Vaporeon4evr]

Cannabidol protects against strokes:

http://stroke.ahajournals.org/cgi/content/abstract/36/5/1071

Cannabis prevents neuronal injury:

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/entrez/...ve&db=PubMed&list_uids=12850548&dopt=Citation

Cannabis is neuroprotective:

http://www.jneurosci.org/cgi/content/full/21/17/6475

Studies reveal no abnormalities in the brain following frequent marijuana use:

http://www.ukcia.org/research/EffectsOfFrequentMarrijuanaUseOnBrainTissueVolumeAndComposition.htm

Chart comparing the addictive potential of various drugs:

http://upload.wikimedia.org/wikiped..._(mean_physical_harm_and_mean_dependence).svg

Note cannabis is lower than both alcohol and tobacco, and many studies place it even with caffieine for addictive potential.

Like the poster above said, now we're just getting into a source-citing war, which won't get us anywhere. Although the validity of some of these tests are questionable, like the one where the sample size was 18 males (what kind of conclusive data can you gather from a statistical test involving a sample size of only 18?), I don't want to go further into it. That's not what we're here to debate, now is it?

These articles you have cited essentially provide justification for legalization of medical marijuana. Personally, I do not dispute that there is overwhelming evidence that marijuana could have medical uses, but this does not mitigate the fact that the drug has a high susceptibility to abuse, and that complete legalization for recreational purposes is unwise and unnecessary. As is the case with other drugs of benefit, but with harmful side-effects, marijuana usage should be left to the discretion of a medical professional, provided the user actually has viable need for the drug (which means none of this "doctor I have a headache give me weed" nonsense). Recreational marijuana, the real beast of this debate, is what I dispute. Essentially, this:

What you'll find is that arguments about the medical usefulness of marijuana are without any merit in a debate about legalisation. They are only arguments for the use of marijuana for the extraction of chemicals which in turn would be used to create drugs, not for any sort of recreational use. The arguments, thus, fall somewhat flat; in the way that the medical usefulness of morphine is irrelevant in a debate on heroin.

Burden of proof, eh?

Well, yes. Since the status quo maintains that marijuana is illegal, you are essentially proposing a change from this norm. Which, in debate laws, means that the burden of proof lies on you to tell us why it should be legalized, not for us to tell you why it shouldn't. Which is why that first claim you made (to which I responded "learn to burden of proof") didn't fly.

 

[Noctourniquet]

Like the poster above said, now we're just getting into a source-citing war, which won't get us anywhere. Although the validity of some of these tests are questionable, like the one where the sample size was 18 males (what kind of conclusive data can you gather from a statistical test involving a sample size of only 18?), I don't want to go further into it. That's not what we're here to debate, now is it?

These articles you have cited essentially provide justification for legalization of medical marijuana. Personally, I do not dispute that there is overwhelming evidence that marijuana could have medical uses, but this does not mitigate the fact that the drug has a high susceptibility to abuse, and that complete legalization for recreational purposes is unwise and unnecessary. As is the case with other drugs of benefit, but with harmful side-effects, marijuana usage should be left to the discretion of a medical professional, provided the user actually has viable need for the drug (which means none of this "doctor I have a headache give me weed" nonsense). Recreational marijuana, the real beast of this debate, is what I dispute.

Amen. My opinion exactly. I do not see why Marijuana should be legalised. Fine, it helps people to enjoy themselves, but it is also a gateway to Violence, Abuse, and hard drugs. IMO, the negatives far outweigh the positives. Medicinal purposes are the only exception. Marijuana can actually help people under these circumstances, but IMO, everywhere else, no good will come from it.

 

[MewMan]

Like the poster above said, now we're just getting into a source-citing war, which won't get us anywhere. Although the validity of some of these tests are questionable, like the one where the sample size was 18 males (what kind of conclusive data can you gather from a statistical test involving a sample size of only 18?), I don't want to go further into it. That's not what we're here to debate, now is it?

These articles you have cited essentially provide justification for legalization of medical marijuana. Personally, I do not dispute that there is overwhelming evidence that marijuana could have medical uses, but this does not mitigate the fact that the drug has a high susceptibility to abuse, and that complete legalization for recreational purposes is unwise and unnecessary. As is the case with other drugs of benefit, but with harmful side-effects, marijuana usage should be left to the discretion of a medical professional, provided the user actually has viable need for the drug (which means none of this "doctor I have a headache give me weed" nonsense). Recreational marijuana, the real beast of this debate, is what I dispute. Essentially, this:





Well, yes. Since the status quo maintains that marijuana is illegal, you are essentially proposing a change from this norm. Which, in debate laws, means that the burden of proof lies on you to tell us why it should be legalized, not for us to tell you why it shouldn't. Which is why that first claim you made (to which I responded "learn to burden of proof") didn't fly.

One of the primary reasons I believe marijuana should be legalized is from a moral standpoint. Why should the government try to protect us from ourselves? Alcohol and tobacco are certainly more harmful than marijuana, yet these remain totally legal. If an adult wants to do nothing but drink himself into a stupor every day, he is free to do so. If an adult wants to eat nothing but McDonalds until he dies from health conditions related to obesity, he is free to do so. If an adult male wants to purchase a bottle of bleach and drink it until he is dead, he is free to do so. Why should an adult male, who has done nothing to harm anybody but himself, be made into a criminal for getting high? "Because it's the norm" isn't a valid argument. There are many things we now consider wrong that were once commonplace and acceptable which upon facing scrutiny from a modern perspective are repealed. Why is taking marijuana the exception to this?

Amen. My opinion exactly. I do not see why Marijuana should be legalised. Fine, it helps people to enjoy themselves, but it is also a gateway to Violence, Abuse, and hard drugs.

Wait, what? You must not be very familiar with marijuana if you think it leads to violence. Drunk people are far, far more likely to be violent - weed is much more likely to make you calmer. Sure, marijuana can be abused, but so can most things. Fast food can be abused, alcohol can be abused, heck even aspirin can be abused. Why should the minority of abusers influence the law instead of the majority of users? Also, the gateway hypothesis has been disproven many times. The vast majority of hard drug users began with legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco, and on average only 1 in 110 cannabis users go on to use cocaine.

 

[Noctourniquet]

Wait, what? You must not be very familiar with marijuana if you think it leads to violence. Drunk people are far, far more likely to be violent - weed is much more likely to make you calmer. Sure, marijuana can be abused, but so can most things. Fast food can be abused, alcohol can be abused, heck even aspirin can be abused. Why should the minority of abusers influence the law instead of the majority of users? Also, the gateway hypothesis has been disproven many times. The vast majority of hard drug users began with legal drugs like alcohol and tobacco, and on average only 1 in 110 cannabis users go on to use cocaine.

Fair enough, I was kinda making assumptions. But my question still remains; why should it be legalised when it has the potential to go so wrong?

 

[Profesco]

Alcohol and tobacco are certainly more harmful than marijuana, yet these remain totally legal. If an adult wants to do nothing but drink himself into a stupor every day, he is free to do so. If an adult wants to eat nothing but McDonalds until he dies from health conditions related to obesity, he is free to do so. If an adult male wants to purchase a bottle of bleach and drink it until he is dead, he is free to do so.

The problem here, which has seen constant recycling throughout this thread, is the common sense principle of "two wrongs don't make a right." [X] stupid, harmful activity being unregulated does not provide any justifiable incentive for [Y] stupid, harmful activity being deregulated.

 

[chuboy]

The problem here, which has seen constant recycling throughout this thread, is the common sense principle of "two wrongs don't make a right." [X] stupid, harmful activity being unregulated does not provide any justifiable incentive for [Y] stupid, harmful activity being deregulated.

Why not? Whatever incentive deregulated [X] can surely be applied to the less harmful [Y]?

 

[Vaporeon4evr]

Why not? Whatever incentive deregulated [X] can surely be applied to the less harmful [Y]?

Because this logic, when applied to other substances, can provide for ALL harmful things to be legalized. We don't want all perscription drugs that are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco legalized, now do we? If marijuana gets legalized recreationally, why can't my acne meds be available without perscription? They're certainly less harmful than marijuana. And so on, so forth. You can't merit the legality of something by comparing it to some other substance. Each substance is to be viewed as its own entity and evaluated as such: you must isolate marijuana and view it as a single substance, not compare it to others.

 

[Hotrod93]

To be honest I hope they dont make it legal, not just for the fact of all the stuff about it floating around but from what ive seen it do to people.

Most of my family(Both sides) who did it got into drugs badly, None of the ones who did it knew of anyone else who did it in my family. First the love the feeling it gave them, then they wanted something better and more effective. So they tried laced Mary J, said it made them feel funny but the got hooked, most of them got into drinking, other drugs(Crack,heroine,LSD).

Along story short alot of them are dead, some quit, others are "On/Off again". My uncle was they one who made me swear that I would never take or do any of them. He had his problems, grew up in a bad family, got with the wrong crowed, did things he wished he never did.
He was the type of guy who big and strong andcould take on three different guys at once, but on his death bed he was weak and looked like an old man(He was only in his Fifties).

However if they did make it legal I hope they put an age limit on it.

 

[The_Panda]

One of the primary reasons I believe marijuana should be legalized is from a moral standpoint. Why should the government try to protect us from ourselves? Alcohol and tobacco are certainly more harmful than marijuana, yet these remain totally legal. If an adult wants to do nothing but drink himself into a stupor every day, he is free to do so. If an adult wants to eat nothing but McDonalds until he dies from health conditions related to obesity, he is free to do so. If an adult male wants to purchase a bottle of bleach and drink it until he is dead, he is free to do so. Why should an adult male, who has done nothing to harm anybody but himself, be made into a criminal for getting high? "Because it's the norm" isn't a valid argument. There are many things we now consider wrong that were once commonplace and acceptable which upon facing scrutiny from a modern perspective are repealed. Why is taking marijuana the exception to this?

Just to stop any prejudice from leaking into this, I agree with you that marijuana laws should be relaxed. But on most other fronts, I'd love to disagree...

I'd seriously want to challenge your premise that "from a moral standpoint" the best thing to do is to legalise marijuana. The argument that people should be free to do whatever they want is a compelling and commonly used one, but I don't really know if you really are much in a position to say anything. It's extremely easy for someone living the good life to say that: after all, you're not the one at fault, you're not the one ruining your life. Just a guess, but you've probably never seen somebody ruin their lives in front of you. Just a guess.

The sad fact of life is that humans are very, how should I put it, fallible. We make many mistakes, and it's undoubtedly part of the "human condition" that under the weight of time we do things on the spur of the moment, which only in retrospect can cause us immense torture. A sad fact of life is that once we are able to glimpse our own actions, they exist only in unchangeable memories. When people choose to do drugs, it's very much a classic one of these things. Believe me, no heroin addict wants to take his next shot, and - with absolute sincerity - wishes he'd never made that first, but somehow timeless, piercing of the skin with the needle. After all, they do say you only get high once.

I'm not suggesting it's the addicts fault that he took that fateful dose one day, which all in all ruined his life. I'm not even suggesting that such choices are momentary and accidental: people can make incredibly committed mistakes, but regardless of how much deliberation put in, they're still mistakes. And without respect to such considerations, I think we can all agree that yes, it is fundamentally that person's choice, that person's body and that person's life. In fact I'd find it simply disrespectful to humans in general to try move such a heavy burden as guilt onto anything but ourselves.

So far, I guess, we can agree. But it's here that many people would say something you know, along the lines of, "so it's their fault, why should I care?", or something perhaps rephrased to sound a little less... malicious. When you really think about it though, such an apathetic but even further misanthropic attitude is truly one of the worst possible attributes of a human mind. Yes, other people make mistakes, but since when did the mistakes of others somehow mean that we should care less about our fellow men? Don't you think, to watch someone destroy his own life, willfully or not, and to look upon without care or regard, to not make any thought about it but only to just dismiss it as another man's business, is just completely wrong?

I don't think you would be able to sit there and watch another man self-destruct and not do anything about it. I don't think many people could, perhaps only those with the darkest of hearts. So really if we are going to just let other people make a mockery of the life they have been blessed with and torturing themselves from within, then how really is that different to just sitting there as others are dying in front of us and not even trying to do anything? Apathy remains apathy, whether in your face or many mental miles away.

You may have noticed my post hasn't directed tackled the issue of marijuana, nor does it respond directly to your post either. What I have offered though, is a defence of action over inertia, and a common burden of responsibility for our fellow human beings not to be violated by selfish ignorance.

 

[MewMan]

Because this logic, when applied to other substances, can provide for ALL harmful things to be legalized. We don't want all perscription drugs that are less harmful than alcohol and tobacco legalized, now do we? If marijuana gets legalized recreationally, why can't my acne meds be available without perscription? They're certainly less harmful than marijuana. And so on, so forth. You can't merit the legality of something by comparing it to some other substance. Each substance is to be viewed as its own entity and evaluated as such: you must isolate marijuana and view it as a single substance, not compare it to others.

But those acne medications are more harmful than marijuana. If you take too much of most prescription drugs then there will be serious health concerns and possibly death, whereas there is no unsafe dose of marijuana. When scrutinising marijuana, the conclusion that is drawn is that it could be legalized without a detrimental effect on society.

 

[chuboy]

But those acne medications are more harmful than marijuana. If you take too much of most prescription drugs then there will be serious health concerns and possibly death, whereas there is no unsafe dose of marijuana. When scrutinising marijuana, the conclusion that is drawn is that it could be legalized without a detrimental effect on society.

Acne medication, like all drugs, has side-effects which many potential buyers would be happy to overlook (i.e. teenagers who are desperate to get rid of a sole pimple). Prescriptions are a good idea - they allow a professional to evaluate whether the drug is needed at all.

Also, don't make the mistake of assuming legal means available over the counter. Acne medication is legal, if you have a prescription. Cocaine is illegal, period. People who feel they really need 'illicit' drugs could just as easily go to a doctor and have them write up a prescription, but that system has the potential to be abused more than one where drugs are freely available with the clause that they must be taken in a 'safe' zone within the confines of the pharmacy etc, and out of the possibility that they could be sold on to someone else.

In other words, the exact same concept as a pub, which sells alcohol that must be consumed on the premises.