Comments on: High Stakes: A Call to Legalize Marijuana
Add a Comment
- We can't legalize marijuana! All those drug gangs and cartels might be forced to find another way to make money, and government officials might need to find other people to take bribes from.
- Reply to this comment
- National Referendum is the answer.....if the majority want it, then they should have it
- Reply to this comment
- Alcholol is very different then from drugs and the two should never be compared
=====================================================================
alchohol is a drug moron. - Reply to this comment
- Selling pot should stay illegal in every state in the USA ...
We as a nation have enough problems already and to make pot legal will just become the bigest one.
You think mental health care is high now just wait till thousands of kids and adults start doing pot.
why put something as debilitating as pot in to the mainstream of our society??? just to make a few tax $$$. That's the worst idea California has ever come up with.
California can not solve its bad government problems by selling pot. - Reply to this comment
- @StopDcratSocialists
If stupidity were illegal, you'd get a life sentence+20 years, with no possibility of parole. - Reply to this comment
- "The marijuana of the 1960s and Woodstock is not what's being sold on the streets in the United States today, said Chief Bernard Melekian, head of the California Police Chiefs Association. "The narcotic portion, the THC of marijuana in the '60s, hovered around one or two percent. THC today is around 27 to 30 percent."
This statement is untrue. The THC of marijuana is the '60s was not one or two percent. If that were true then the entire Woodstock Generation would have experienced a placebo effect. Industrial hemp, which you cannot get high on, is only one or two percent.
THC at any percent is nontoxic. Marinol, a pharmaceutical pill, is 100% synthetic THC and it was proven to be so safe that it was moved from Schedule 1 (most restrictive category for heroin, etc.) to Schedule 3 (category for more benign drugs).
Marijuana of 20% THC requires the user to smoke less to achieve the desired effect, thus lessening the amount of smoke in lungs, much is undoubtedly a good thing.
The scare tactic of "it's not your dad's pot" is based on falsities and total propaganda. - Reply to this comment
- This is a slippery slope we are on people. The next thing you will see is crank, meth, coke, and heroin. If this is passed, what will stop those? Natural plant or not, this is not necessary. Wake up people.
- Reply to this comment
- For all of those that believe that MJ should remain illegal, I just have one
question: "Are you still that racist?" You only have to google "cocaine-crazed
Negro" to find out why drugs are illegal. It's the White man's way of being
able to arrest anyone at anytime and placing them in prison for a long time
(by the way, I'm a 51-year old White male). Everyone that thinks the Govt will
legalize it for tax revenue are missing one important fact: It's called weed
because that's what it is . And as such, if it becomes legal and taxes on it
become too steep, people will grow their own. Let's say for the sake of argument
that it finally does become legal -- what are the consequences?
1. The Police will have to spend their time and effort actually going after
DANGEROUS criminals -- that have guns and aren't afraid to use them!
2. Church attendance won't necessarily go down, but how can a good Reverend
preach about looking for rewards in Heaven when users are having such a good
time here on earth? When one looks at the history of drugs vs. religion, one
notices that almost every mind-altering substance known to mankind has been
condemned by organized Religion (they can't stand the competition!). Furthermore, at one time religious arguments were used to rail against the preceived immorality of consuming alcohol to excess, which led to Prohibition -- we all know how stupid that turned out to be (except religious fanatics that only believe what their Pastor tells them to!), even though Jesus "turned water into wine." Go figure.
3. Users will actually have to admit that they're responsible for their actions,
while stoned and while straight. Lawyers are going to lose out on an impressive
revenue stream of excuse-making for their clients misbehavior.
4. Doctors will finally have to face the end principle that they are no longer
in charge of DECIDING what is good for their patients -- they will have to admit
what's been going on all along -- that patients will only follow recommendations
from the Medical Establishment, when it's not too inconvenient for the patient!
5. For everyone currently in Jail for using weed, well I would say that they should
be released -- but they have to acknowledge the fact that they knew they were
breaking the law, and that's a crime that cannot be excused so readily.
6. All of the Puritans and Politicians that think that somehow, vices can be
prohibited, will have to recognize the hard truth that there are 10
Commandments in the Bible. After all this time, even those prohibitions are being
violated on a daily basis. Even God has found out that forbidding a choice doesn't
lead to righteousness, and trying to force someone to believe as you is a total non-starter.
7. Children will suddenly have more respect for Govt, Church, Law, Medicine and
other Established Institutions once they give up on the Hypocrisy that's been
the so-called war on drugs.
8. Govt will have to find Honest work for the FDA, the DEA and Customs.
In short, this argument should not be about right-wing conservatives vs left-wing
liberals, or Decepticrats vs Republicons, it should be about Stupidity vs Common
Sense, which, judging by all of the previous comments, is in quite short supply
here in the USA.
9. In the final analysis, it still boils down to this: Where do Authority figures get off telling me what substances I can and cannot ingest/smoke/look at, etc? I was told that we live in a free country. I can think of no more fundamental right than to determine what substances I will or will not use to make my body/mind feel better. No government has the right to say otherwise. Notice that there are no laws on drinking cyanide? People are not that stupid, unless of course their judgment is clouded by Authoritarian Power of some sort -- reason stands no chance of succeeding against these sort of people.
This so-called "War on Drugs" is an attempt to legislate morality (again!), plain and simple. - Reply to this comment
- I have an idea for all you people who think we should keep marijuana illegal. Let's do that. I can keep smoking pot just like I always have, and not have to pay any taxes to do it. In the mean time, we can raise your income taxes and cut things like social security payments and Medicare coverage. If we keep wasting money on marijuana prohibition; this is exactly what will happen. And I will keep smoking pot tax free while I watch you whine about your high tax rates, giggling as I watch you pay high sales taxes on your wine, beer, and liquor.
- Reply to this comment
- "The marijuana of the 1960s and Woodstock is not what's being sold on the streets in the United States today, said Chief Bernard Melekian, head of the California Police Chiefs Association. "The narcotic portion, the THC of marijuana in the '60s, hovered around one or two percent. THC today is around 27 to 30 percent.'
I've heard enough of the argument quoted above. As much as people would like to reduce a question of pharmacological and medical science to the rhetoric of moral indignation, it just doesn't work that way. The statement about pot being stronger today than in the 60's is meaningless on the one hand and simply false on the other.
It's meaningless because, like most drugs, the effects of THC are complex. THC has been shown to kill neurons in test tubes (it is not known if these same concentrations are actually reached in vitro) but THC also stimulates the growth of new neurons in the hippocampus. This is a trait it shares with SSRI anti-depressants and may indicate that THC might alleviate major depression. Having more THC in pot then could be better OR worse, depending on whether the positive effects lag or lead the negative effects as the dosage increases. Furthermore, it's known that many of the easily recognizable negative effects of cannabis (lung disease or cancer, potential embolism) stem from it's being smoked, not from THC itself and a higher concentration of THC MIGHT decrease the risk of these effects by lowering the amount of plant material a person must consume to get the desired effects. Increased marijuana potency is a fact, but it's a qualified fact and hardly an open and shut argument against marijuana use.
The argument is also entirely false when one considers the acute dangers of THC, that is, how easy it is to overdose on THC. The amount of THC necessary to kill a human being outright is more than is humanly possible to consume (you're talking about smoking kilo's in a few minutes, assuming the smoke didn't kill you first); in terms of acute toxicity, THC IS harmless. If it takes a pound of some toxin to even make you start getting ill, what difference does it make if I make you eat one gram or two? If it takes a minimum of a thousand pounds of feathers dropped on a person's head to kill them, what does it matter if I drop 2 or 27 pounds of feathers on their head?
It's not necessary to discuss drugs like marijuana with all the technical abstraction as goes on in research science, but you simply cannot reduce the debate to simplistic and unqualified arguments like this one about increased potency. It's not only stupid, it's dangerous because it encourages people to think in stupid ways about the chemicals all around them. Case in point, the recent change in the allowed dose of tylenol; anything labeled a "drug" is dangerous beyond all reason, but an OTC painkiller is taken at liver toxic dosages by people who don't give it a second thought.
Speaking of which, it's tylenol is FAR more toxic (acutely speaking) than THC is. - Reply to this comment
