Comments on: High Stakes: A Call to Legalize Marijuana

California Desperately Needs Tax Revenue, Prompting Some to See Green in Making Grass Legal

[AB390]

No matter how many people we arrest, pot is still easier to buy for high school students than vodka.

Keeping marijuana illegal does not benefit our children. It benefits special interest groups: liquor companies, the prison industry, police departments, government bureaucrats, and drug cartels.

If you live in California, tell your legislators in Sacramento to tax and regulate marijuana. Visit <a href="http://yes390.org"> <b> yes390.org </b> </a>

[Senseitaco]

Lots of offense, ArmandB, you're an idiot.

[Senseitaco]

WITH A $50 PER OUNCE TAX, YOU'RE STILL LOOKING AT POT EASILY HALF OFF CURRENT BLACK MARKET PRICES, WITHOUT HAVING TO DEAL WITH COPS, OR THE POSSIBILITY OF ****** PRODUCT, ETC. I cannot say this enough, people.

[OregonJames]

The government is spending around ten billion dollars per year fighting marijuana, yet it is plentiful and easy to get and millions of people use it every day. It is a stupid waste of time and money. Everyone knows that prohibition does not work. Legalize marijuana and the commercial production of hemp.

Revealingly, the percentage who opposed marijuana legalization and the percentage who believed in the gateway theory were identical, both coming in at exactly 46%. As we look for ways to persuade those who remain opposed to marijuana reform, it's clearly in our interest to work towards demolishing the pernicious gateway theory once and for all. Let's take a look at what the data shows.

In 1999, the National Institute on Drug Abuse commissioned a major study on medical marijuana conducted by the venerable Institute of Medicine, which included an examination of marijuana's potential to lead to other drug use. In simple terms, the researchers explained why the gateway theory was unfounded:

Patterns in progression of drug use from adolescence to adulthood are strikingly regular. Because it is the most widely used illicit drug, marijuana is predictably the first illicit drug most people encounter. Not surprisingly, most users of other illicit drugs have used marijuana first. In fact, most drug users begin with alcohol and nicotine before marijuana -- usually before they are of legal age.
?
There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs.
In 2006, the University of Pittsburgh released a more thorough study in which researchers spent 12 years tracking a group of subjects from adolescence into adulthood and documented the initiation and progression of their drug use. The researchers found that the gateway theory was not only wrong, but also harmful to properly understanding and addressing drug abuse:

This evidence supports what?s known as the common liability model, an emerging theory that states the likelihood that someone will transition to the use of illegal drugs is determined not by the preceding use of a particular drug but instead by the user?s individual tendencies and environmental circumstances.

[stychokiller]

Actually these so-called "gateway theory" proponents always ignore the fact that a user of a so-called "gateway drug" finds out that the Authorities lied about the pernicious effects of the so-called "gateway drug". So why should someone believe what the Authorities say about so-called "dangerous drugs?"

[sixtyfps]

What is our image of the average alcohol consumer? Well, thanks to the magic of regulation (REAL regulation, not the absurd notion of prohibition as regulation), it's accurate; alcohol consumers, by and large, don't exhibit the traits we've come to rightly associate with those who consume it inappropriately (read: abuse) it... because nobody has reasonable cause to go to great lengths to conceal their usage of this dangerous drug.

On the other hand, until very recently, only the most obnoxious cannabis consumers (the abusers) displayed their conduct for the world to see.

In other words, to paint a picture of the average cannabis consumer as lazy, stupid, giggly, smelly, and generally morally bankrupt rings about as hollow as the portrait of the average alcohol user as a bloodied, reeking drunk passed out in the gutter, his emptied paper-bagged bottle clenched tightly to his chest.

Drug worriers: show me a problem or irritant that you consider associated with illicit drugs, and I'll show you a problem that has been either (1) created by or (2) exacerbated by drug prohibition. The greatest danger posed by any illit recreational/medicinal substance stems directly from the scale of its prohibited status. It's the legal status, not the substance.

I didn't always feel this way, though; I used to hate every drug except caffeine in college (like a good little boy). My steep climb to reason began with a peer's observation that only people against the 'Drug War' were in favor of participating in an extended debate on the issue. There is a reason for this proclivity for lengthy discussion, and that reason is simple: given enough time and exposure to facts largely supplied by the USA government, anti-prohibitionists will evince reasonable people that federal prohibition of any popular substance is not only unpracticable and dehumanizing; it's against free societies' most precious ideals.

The marijuana discussion has moved beyond the soundbite and the cheap pun, CBS. It's in your best interest to regain some of our respect, because:

1) we are not lazy,
2) we are not violent,
3) we are not stupid,
4) we are in the majority, and
4) we are, indeed, paying very close attention.

Your complicity in attempting to further crass stereotypes does far more damage to your increasingly precious and dwindling credibility than they do to us, the Average American Cannabis Consumers.

[debinok1]

1) we are not lazy,
2) we are not violent,
3) we are not stupid,
4) we are in the majority, and
4) we are, indeed, paying very close attention.

Your complicity in attempting to further crass stereotypes does far more damage to your increasingly precious and dwindling credibility than they do to us, the Average American Cannabis Consumers.


Amen. I know Doctors, Bankers, Financial Advisers, Educators, all very smart well educated, hard working, taxpaying citizens who are also recreational users. They not only made it through High School, they made it through college and beyond. They use it to relax and unwind. The typical pothead mentallity is so outdated.

[jvally]

Very astute comment!

[earthling76]

Quality medicinal grade cannabis does not grow just anywhere. It is cultivated. It takes a lot of care, time and effort. Americans are a people of convenience. We are more likely to purchase it than take the time (of which most people have little to spare) to cultivate quality cannabis properly. Thats not to say its impossible. Just impractical for most people. Also the IRS is pretty good at sniffing out unclaimed income.

[earthling76]

Patients only smoke upon their own preference. Others vaporize. As for the legal variations,... how much does that cost?? Could someone without health insurance afford it? Patient Educator? That sounds weird. What are educating terminally ill patient about? How to die in accordance with your beliefs? The title is just weird. No offense but if I was in your care as a dying patient and you tried to refuse me anything I would tell you to go pound it. My life lady, I will do with it what I choose.

[earthling76]

Palin is a joke.

[earthling76]

Perhaps because its B.S.