Comments on: America's Love-Hate History with Pot
With a New CBS News Poll Finding 41% Now Support Legalization, CBSNews.com Examines Changing Views of Marijuana in the U.S.
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- Midnight munchies, lmao.
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- "They told us that marijuana was a gateway drug," said Stamper, who these days is a speaker for Law Enforcement Against Prohibition. "It was not."
Oh but this is MILD when you look back over the lies told during my lifetime.. mild indeed. The WAR on Drugs has been and continues to be the biggest waste of Tax Dollars in the history of this nation. After DECADES and DECADES what have they accomplished? - Reply to this comment
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- Do you mean the war on poverty ?
biggest waste of Tax Dollars in the history of this nation. After DECADES and DECADES what have they accomplished?
More poverty
And you want MORE trickle-up poverty....no thanks !
- Do you mean the war on poverty ?
- Whether Anheuser-Busch is American is not the issue. The issue is that they have lots of money so shove up legislator's arses to keep their protected position
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- The real gateway to which marijuana smoking leads is food, pretty much everything you can get your hands on.
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- Mellow out, have s*e*x, eat everything in sight and pass out. That is what I remember about using pot. I did not move on to anything harder. I did not get addicted. I did not get violent or go out and kill people. When it became illegal to use, I quit. It wasn't worth risking jail time for. But oh to have it legal again, to get a good nights sleep, to really relax and chill out, would be awesome.
- The original Viagra and cure for bulemia.!! (dont care if it aint spelled right-ya get my point) Pass the dorites!~!
- The way I see it, is by making pot legal it screws Big Pharma. In my opinion that is the ONLY reason they are unwilling to change the laws. If we all stop and think about it, what did pot do to us when we used it? It made us hungry, made some of us *****, made us sleepy, and mellowed us out. To Big Pharma that is a fortune in lost drug revenues. Bye bye Viagra, Bye bye Ambian and Lunesta, and bye bye every anti-depressant and anti-anxiety drug on the market. Not to mention the effects it has on cancer and other patients that get no relief from conventional pharma, it helps them feel less pain, and it helps them eat(which with a cancer patient is key to survival). Big Pharma is the BIGGEST SINGLE reason that Marijuana is still considered a highly addictive narcotic, even though it isn't.
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- Big Pharma is not the problem, they would love to have another phara they can sell....it's the law enforcement community who is 100% against any legalization or decriminalization.
- Oh yeah, right. They already sell it and make a profit off of it, almost $300 for distracted THC in very small amounts. They CAN and DO use it for medical purposes. If it becomes legal people don't have to pay them for it anymore.
- [Big Pharma is not the problem, they would love to have another phara they can sell....it's the law enforcement community who is 100% against any legalization or decriminalization. ]
[by Joe_NY_15 July 13, 2009 7:01 AM PDT ]
that's because police dept ranks are filled w/ authoritarians and control freaks ... and the current law is right up that 'control freak' alley.
how many cops are for people doing as they choose?
- They dont want to make it legal because of the prison industrial complex,we build 8 prisons to every college, we arrest far more people than any other country in the world.
And yes BIG PHARMA they dont want it legal either because then we could grow it and they wouldnt be able to profit from it,drug comp are trying like crazy to come up with a synthetic form so they can profit from it and our GOVT who gets billions of dollars of lobbying money from them are helping them out!!
- Evidence clearly shows that drinking tap water leads to use of illegal drugs. It's a slipery slope. Until we can get politicians to own up to their own histories and admit that they too have used herb we will never get beyond the rhetoric stage of lies and more lies. The last three past presidents of this nation have admitted using this and other drugs but lack the intestinal fortitude to advocate legalization or decriminalization. What phonies!!!
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- It is utter insanity to continue doing the same exact thing like the WAR on DRUGS and growing our entire criminal justice system with thousands having simple marijuana possession, and expecting a different outcome.
It is well past time to try a different approach. - Reply to this comment
- Bush, Clinton, Obama, all smoked pot.
Marijuana has been illegal for over 70 years and today it is America's #1 cash crop.
Billions of dollars going straight to drug gangs and cartels simply because they have a monopoly on all black market profits thanks to prohibition. Marijuana is now stronger and easier to get than ever while gangs and cartels are richer and more powerful than ever!
This is why many cops are saying LEGALIZE and REGULATE MARIJUANA.
Find out more!
www.LEAP.cc
Law Enforcement Against Prohibition - Reply to this comment
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- LEAP.cc is a great organization. ASA, Americans for Safe Access, is another great association that want to make medical cannabis available to patients and doctors who need it.
What could be wrong with a substance that makes chemotherapy endurable??
If they put everyone who ever smoked it behind bars, including Bush, Clinton, Obama, and most of Hollywood, then we'd have a very humongous prison population (even more then we already do). Most of us would be in a cage. Sounds like Stalinist Russia, or Nazi-Germany. Just throw people who don't agree in jail. End of story.
- LEAP.cc is a great organization. ASA, Americans for Safe Access, is another great association that want to make medical cannabis available to patients and doctors who need it.
- Today's debate is more about the Double-Standard politics and lessons learned about Prohibition Era. Most with experience feel alchohol is more addictive and dangerous than marijuana. This nation already has experience outlawing alchohol by a constitutional amendment, and then later repealing. The organized crime intensified around alchohol when it was illegal and the nation's economic problems were serious. Many feel that marijuana is an equal to alchohol and some say alchohol is far less dangerous. Medical evidence says both have their slight consequences, and alchohol has a more serious impact on genetic mutations seen in offsprings of alchohol users.
This nation struggles as every other nation does, with addiction chemical management in the form of alchohol, caffiene and nicotine.
The nations who follow the "time and place" regulation and simply accept public usage of addictive chemicals and tell the public where they can and can not use the chemicials have the greatest success with public views of the social problems.
The nations who try to act tougher with "Zero tolerance" have the poorest success with public views of the social problem.
The Marijuana Debate is more of a debate about managing "Social Problems" than the state's advocacy for the nation's health. Until the recent nation-wide interest in public health care, the nation accepted the GOP government's apathy toward extending serious interest in public health or addictive chemicals.
Some say the decision is about which direction the government will take. The nation's political answer is about giving the country National Health Care or giving the country Marijuana. - Reply to this comment
- Anheuser-Busch would have a hissy fit if they had to compete with legal pot. Good. Pot's better.
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- Whether Anheuser-Busch is American is not the issue. The issue is that they have lots of money so shove up legislator's arses to keep their protected position
- I can guarantee you that smoking pot will not make drink any more or any less than I do right now, which is very little. Now gaining weight after eating bags full of Cheetos may be another story.
- Exactly, AttentionDeficit!! And pot is calorie-free unless you get the munchies. With beer you have to figure out what to do with the empties, too.
- How true. Alcohol is now the only legal buzz available. Lots of money their to fight legalization. Also, if recreational use was legalized then all uses of cannabus would be legal and the timber, cotton, etc... industries wouldn't be pleased. More money against it. Stupid law. Enough said. Peace all. :)
- i never heard of anyone beating their wife after smok'n a joint. also read a gov't report that stated that alcohol and cigs are more of a gateway drug than weed.
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- Here is a couple of findings for this topic complete with the sources!
In March 1999, the Institute of Medicine issued a report on various aspects of marijuana, including the so-called Gateway Theory (the theory that using marijuana leads people to use harder drugs like cocaine and heroin). The IOM stated: "There is no conclusive evidence that the drug effects of marijuana are causally linked to the subsequent abuse of other illicit drugs."
Source: Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr., "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999).
The Institute of Medicine's 1999 report on marijuana explained that marijuana has been mistaken for a gateway drug in the past because "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."
Source: Janet E. Joy, Stanley J. Watson, Jr., and John A Benson, Jr., "Marijuana and Medicine: Assessing the Science Base," Division of Neuroscience and Behavioral Research, Institute of Medicine (Washington, DC: National Academy Press, 1999).
- Here is a couple of findings for this topic complete with the sources!
- Oh Whats the big deal.
Just legalise it,
its not like its so hard to come by you loose a months weages on ajoint.
Tax it and be done with it.
sell it at Starbucks with a Late in the form of a Brownie. - Reply to this comment
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- What's wrong with it? Well for starters, a persons learning and cognitive abilities actually decrease over time. The first sign is usually a person has a hard time recognizing words, and properly spelling them.
In this recession with families having a hard time making ends meet, the last thing I want is someone breaking into my home or a home invasion and raiding my refrigerator and pantry.
The only benefit I can see after a long and non-illustrious career of drug abuse is that there is a promise for the persons afflicted with HIV/AIDS, CA and Chemo and other degenerative diseases.
The last thing I want is for the government to get involved in anymore aspects of our lives. By passing this law they will be direct beneficiaries of one more vice or graft for their little shop of horrors in the state capitals throughout this land.
- [The last thing I want is for the government to get involved in anymore aspects of our lives. By passing this law they will be direct beneficiaries of one more vice or graft for their little shop of horrors in the state capitals throughout this land. ]
amazing. the govt telling people that they can't grow a certain type of weed in their yard or their house ... and that even if they didn't grow it they can't posess, transport, or consume that same weed is as much the government being in your life as they could be ... short of them mining all your personal data and placing cameras on every street corner (which they now have covered in spades).
yes ... but 'this' law ... this law that says you can do as you choose with respect to what you put in your body ... this law is the government being in people's lives.
exactly what's in the water that leads to complete bizarro world views is still a mystery.
- John, while you site studies about learning and cognitive abilities, you fail to mention that it only applies to chronic use in young teenagers. Legal marijuana would only be sold to people 21 years of age and older, thus rendering your first argument useless. If anything, legalization would help these issues because it would make it harder for teens to get a hold of the stuff. Right now, only drug dealers sell marijuana. They do not card, and do not care how old their customers are. This is why it's easier for the average 16 year old to get marijuana than alcohol.
Secondly, you mention fears of people busting into your home. This is a silly concept, for a couple of different reasons.
1. If it doesn't happen already, why would it start happening when it's legal? Millions of Americans smoke marijuana already. How often do you of hearing about robberies to support a weed habit (you are thinking of cocaine). Marijuana is not physically addictive, so when people can't afford pot, they don't buy it.
2. Marijuana will be cheaper if legal. Less middle men, less risk involved with selling, and increased supply will all lead to cheaper prices. So, if anything, it will decrease your chances of getting your pantry robbed (unless you have some friends over that are smoking. Then it is a possibility).
Finally, you say you want the government less involved with our lives? That is exactly why we need it legal! I plead with you to see my point. I'm a college student, and I have always had trouble sleeping. Ever since high school, I could not go to bed until around four in the morning. Because of this, I had a lot of trouble when I got to college. I could not wake up for my morning classes, I was always tired, didn't have a lot of spare time to work. It sucked. I was thinking about dropping out after my first year.
I am now going to be a junior. I get all A's and B's, I work 20 hours a week (including working breakfast shifts every single morning), and go to bed at 11 every night. Want to know what changed? I toke up before bed. Every night. Marijuana helped me exponentially, and now I'm well on my way to getting a Masters degree in Accounting. However, I have to constantly worry, because according to law I am a criminal. If marijuana were legal, I would not have to be scared to use the substance that has changed my life for the better. Responsible adults, such as myself, should be able to make our own decision about marijuana without government interference.
- What's wrong with it? Well for starters, a persons learning and cognitive abilities actually decrease over time. The first sign is usually a person has a hard time recognizing words, and properly spelling them.
- It's a victimless crime and the enforcement of it's legal status costs billions to taxpayers.
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- It is utter insanity to continue doing the same exact thing like the WAR on DRUGS and growing our entire criminal justice system with thousands having simple marijuana possession, and expecting a different outcome.
It is well past time to try a different approach.
- 15,000 people die from drunk drivers each year. That number will double if pot impaired drivers are added to the problem.
The idea that pot smoking is a "victimless crime" is stupid. Legalized dope will cause just as much mayhem as alcohol does in terms of death, domestic violence, murder and all the rest.
As a nation, we have decided to live with the consequences of alcohol, even though it takes a devastating toll on people. Adding to the mayhem by legalizing dope is just insane.
- Obviously, you haven't tried Marijuana. It is so mild it isn't in the same ballpark with booze. Marijuana is already being used to help people with chronic illness.
- Please, snowball77, give me a break. I have seen live and up-close the damage dope does to people. It ruins far more lives than it helps.
This will be even more true when deluded people who think it is "mild" get behind the wheel of a car and start killling people in huge numbers like drunks do.
All the drunks say they can drive okay too, but they are killing people at the rate of 15,000 plus per years. Dope-impaired people will be doubling that kill rate.
- Please make more massive Tax Cuts so that we can also legalize Cocaine and Heroin and other Narcotic Drugs to fill in the lost revenue.
Washington D.C. will be just another Drug Cartel taking in huge amount of lucrative money.
What a wonderful way to govern a nation.
- dowelll100, they are already out there. Nobody is waiting for it to be legal just like they didn't wait for alcohol to be legal.
- "Prohibition goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attemps to control a man's appetite by legislation,and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes"
Abraham Lincoln
- Dowell100,
There have been hundreds of thousands of people driving under the influence of pot on our highways since the 60's. Where are the statsitics showing all the deaths they have caused so far? Or will this only take effect once it has been made legal? The Dept. of Transportation did a study using real people under the influence behind the wheels of real cars in real traffic situations and determined it was not a detriment to driving safety. There have been numerous other studies conducted through the years showing the same thing...funny you don't hear about them.
- Dowell100, its not that I agree or disagree with you, I would just like to ask what facts you have that suggest that legalization of marijuana would lead to the doubling of DUI realated fatalities. Marijuana usage is nowhere as prevalent as alcohol consumption and nothing suggests that legalization would change those trends as drastically as your post would lead to believe. Prohibition doesn't affect people from getting it, it just affects the punishment. Do you know the current rates of marijuana related crashes now?
- Hey Dowell100:
"Recent research into impairment and traffic accident reports from several countries shows that marijuana taken alone in moderate amounts does not significantly increase a driver's risk of causing an accident -- unlike alcohol, says Smiley, an adjunct professor in the department of mechanical and industrial engineering."
http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/1999/03/990325110700.htm
Where are your facts?
- [15,000 people die from drunk drivers each year. That number will double if pot impaired drivers are added to the problem.
The idea that pot smoking is a "victimless crime" is stupid. Legalized dope will cause just as much mayhem as alcohol does in terms of death, domestic violence, murder and all the rest. ]
you should make a movie ... call it 'beyond denial'.
you have any proof of any of your statements ... or are you just making stuff up to support your current (and incorrect) belief?
- I just wanted to say to dowell100 that pot and alcohol are 2 totally different substances,,I have BIG news for you,there is already people driving while under the influence of pot, keeping pot illegal is not gonna change that!!
Im tired of the anti pot crowd making totally ignorant remarks about due mostly cause of their opinions instead of looking at facts like dowell100 is doing!
- Not to jump on Dowell100...but seriously?? People love to spout off and throw out completely irrational stats. He obviously has no clue what he is talking about and is brain washed into believing what he has heard about the "devil weed". People love to take a stance based on what they "think" they know...thats one of the major problems here...the huge amout of mis-information and how people blindly believe it. I can tell you one thing.....I would way rather be on the road with 1000 "evil pot smokers" than one drunk. Who do you think paid for all of those "anti drug" adds you see? Might want to look into that too.
- by bonz8420, by bobnjersey, by Chiefsfan42 and others:
Impaired drivers kill people. If dope is legalized, the general population will be smoking the stuff in larger numbers and the number of impaired drivers on the roads will increase dramatically. That means more death.
The fact that some of you say there are already some pot-impaired people on the road now does not prove anything, except perhaps that pot impairs logical thinking. If your logic differs, then YOU show some prove that dope smokers are not driving risks. I say, from simple logic, that the more drugged people behind the wheel means there will be more killers out there, and society doesn't need the grief.
Dope smokers will always always have a million excuses why getting high is okay. That's a bad thing. However, it doesn't make me angry in any way. I only feel deep pity that so many have such horrible lives that they need dope to escape it.
Getting high is not entertainment, but is a desperate cry by tragic people who have no meaning in their life. It is a need to escape reality by individuals who are ill-prepared to cope with reality. To legalized dope is to enable already troubled people.
- It is utter insanity to continue doing the same exact thing like the WAR on DRUGS and growing our entire criminal justice system with thousands having simple marijuana possession, and expecting a different outcome.
- "With a New CBS News Poll Finding 41% Now Support Legalization, CBSNews.com Examines Changing Views of Marijuana in the U.S."
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It will never be legalized until the government figures out a way to effectively tax it.
Cigarettes are legal because there is tax revenue derived from their cancer causing, cigarette break productivity decreasing, health care cost impact (on everyone else) and nicotine addiction.
Alcohol, similar story.
But those plants that will grow like weeds in your backyard...
End of story. - Reply to this comment
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- Just like a Tomato. You go to the store to purchase it you will pay taxes on it. But not if you grow it yourself.
Im not going to grow pot by myself so I would get it from a "distributor" so I am willing to pay taxes on it.
I think pot should be legalized. It is no worse than beer.
- Please make more massive Tax Cuts so that we can also legalize Cocaine and Heroin and other Narcotic Drugs to fill in the lost revenue.
Washington D.C. will be just another Drug Cartel taking in huge amount of lucrative money.
What a wonderful way to govern a nation.
- Narcotic drugs reduce pain, alter mood and behavior, and may induce sleep or stupor. The UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, amended in 1972, recognizes that the medical use of narcotic drugs is indispensable and must be made available, but that addiction to narcotic drugs is a bad thing. It makes no statement as to the addictiveness of cannabis, but treats it like opium, which is known to be physically addictive. 48 years of experience has shown that governments and law enforcement agencies are metaphorically addicted to the power that prohibition enables, but we also know that the pleasurable enjoyment of cannabis by responsible adults is nothing like opium addiction.
The UN semantically distinguishes the cannabis plant from its flowers, and resin, which are listed in their schedule of drugs. Cannabis flowers and resin are in their Schedule IV, but extracts and tinctures are in their Schedule I. There is an explicit exemption for using the cannabis plant for industrial or horticultural purposes. UN member countries are required to control the drugs which are in the Schedules (e.g. cannabis is required to be controlled like opium), but countries are permitted to denounce or have reservations to these rules. The US should denounce the rules and develop better ones.
Cannabis the plant is problematic for governments because it can be used in so many different ways: newspaper, clothing, bio-fuel, food, and drugs. Cannabis when used as a drug is not necessarily bad. Many medical benefits are being rediscovered. It kills cancer cells, yet a massive overdose is not lethal. Burning cannabis to get high is what upsets so many bystanders who consider it bad. Perhaps they unconsciously respond to the abuse by fire of this kind plant, but they typically complain of the smell of the smoke. The federal law should be changed to recognize this distinction.
The word 'cannabis' appears only once in the Controlled Substances Act of 1970, in the semantics trick which is the abstruse definition of the racist term 'marihuana' (Section 802, Item 16). If Congress will just pass one bill to simplify the definition of this term, then the pejorative connotation can be isolated and its racist point mitigated.
This simplification has the potential to make positive contributions to health care, foreign policy, border security, energy policy, agricultural policy, penal policy, and economics. It will have the additional effects of promoting the control of the spectrum of uses of cannabis by restoring the State's 10th Amendment right to regulate the commercial uses of the plant (e.g. based on THC content determined by random testing of plants), and restoring the People's 9th Amendment right to the medical benefits of cannabis, as well as our right to the many practical uses of cannabis as hemp. The UN rules could be appeased with the creation of a Department of Cannabis Oversight.
Just tell your congressional representatives to change the definition from this:
"The term 'marihuana' means all parts of the plant Cannabis sativa L., whether growing or not..."
to this:
"The term 'marihuana' means all parts - of the smoke produced by the combustion - of the plant Cannabis sativa L., period."
With this simple definition, the public use of marijuana (the smoke) remains prohibited until it is removed from CSA Schedule 1, while cannabis (the plant, including its un-smoked parts and vapors) becomes unscheduled, so that its uses can be legally prescribed rather than proscribed.
- Armyoftwelve. Funny thing is that I bet you meet people everyday who are those evil "POT SMOKERS" you hate so much. Maybe your doctor, people you work with...almost anyone. Thats the problem...your statement and people like you who think you have it all figured out, and you assume everyone who smokes pot is the stereotypical "pot smoker" you hate. Little do you know how short sighted and wrong you are.
- Just like a Tomato. You go to the store to purchase it you will pay taxes on it. But not if you grow it yourself.
