Want to Keep Pot Illegal? Time to Justify...

[High_Gravity]

You are magnifying the costs of prohibition. When someone is arrested for shoplifting and found to be in possession of marijuana, is this a marijuana offense? I wish I had a nickle for every defendant who told me they were arrested because they had a joint on them. Then I find out that although there is a charge of possession, they were really arrested for three armed robberies. If you are keeping statistics for purposes of legalization you will only record arrest for a single joint.

Marijuana prohibition costs us a lot of money. Even if a person gets caught shoplifting and it's found they have marijuana on them, it still counts as extra charges, extra time (on whatever sentence they get), and extra paperwork. That extra year someone gets for "possession" is one full year that we have to pay for that person's food, clothing, housing, ect.

Too, we have entire Federal agencies that dedicate large swaths of time tracking down marijuana dealers, sources, ect, specifically.

Finally, if Marijuana is legalized, think about how much value will be added to our economy via the brand new industry that would be created? Instead of the Cartels keeping all of the revenues, imagine all of the US shipping companies, all of the US marketing companies, all of the US stores, ect that would stand to gain real value from the change in law.

Currently, the Cartels make the largest sums of money and keep that money within Mexico (we're talking Billions every year); wouldn't you like that to instead remain in the US in the hands of non-violent criminals? I would..

Would you say the same thing if it were human trafficking instead of marijuana?

Katz thats totally different things, human trafficking is dealing with people marijuana is a substance.

 

[Katzndogz]

Katz, my own experience is that marijuana erases the "pain memory". When I got sick I hadn't touched marijuana for over 30 years. I do have pain, which at times is horrible. If I take a pain pill, that's all I do. I can't read, can't go outside and walk around or anything. When I wake up I feel 'hungover' from the oxycotin or flexeral or whatever.('scuse my spelling') If i smoke a pipe when I hurt, I still hurt, but there is no hangover the next day, and my body isn't all stiff and sore from the previous day's pain. When I have pain, I unconsiously 'tighten up', even grit my teeth. When I smoke, I don't do that. I am not stiff and sore from that the next day. However; for me marijuana does not stop the pain, you could say it just makes it less unpleasant.
As for side effects, there is no drug that doesn't come with risks. none. Everyone is not the same, and while I see your point about people that wanna be stoned all the time, I actually use marijuana because it helps me stay more alert and I can do more than if I take pharmecutical drugs.

You THINK it helps you.

I have a friend with fibromyalgia. She smoked heavily when she was younger, but quit for years. She married a man that wouldn't tolerate it. When she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia her pain was intolerable. She went to a pot-doc and got a medical marijuana card. It would help her. Her treating doctor informed her that he no longer wished to have her as a patient so she now goes to a free clinic. Smoking pot actually increased her pain. Pain was what she used to justify smoking pot. If she had no pain, there was no reason for her to use. Psychologically her pain became intolerable. She could do nothing but lay in bed, screaming in agony and vomiting. The more she smoked, the worse the pain became when she wasn't smoking. She had to smoke more to deal with the increased pain. This is what psychological addiction is like. It could be anything. Whatever the fixation is. For some it's chocolate. There are men who think they are totally sexually dysfunctional unless they have watched an hour or two of porn. Gamblers suffer intense pain unless they are distracted by gambling. The addiction creates it's pain, then treats the pain. Without the treatment, the pain increases.

Of course marijuana doesn't keep you alert. Marijuana keeps no one alert. You aren't different. But you think it keeps you alert. Now you need it to stay alert. Marijuana has created conditions which require marijuana for treatment. And you believe it, you can prove it. You need to use pot.

An experiment was conducted several years ago with spiders. The spider would spin a web. A perfect spider web. Then the spider was given marijuana. The web was haphazard, it was poorly constructed. It would never catch a fly. But the spider sat in some off center spot that the spider thought was the center and waited for its food to arrive. The spider didn't know it had built a poor web. It was convinced that the web would serve its intended purpose because it was a spectacularly constructed web. Then it starved to death.

 

[whitehall]

It's time the prohibitionists justify why marijuana should remain illegal.

Why is it on them? It's on them because prohibition means some very negative and real consequences that we as a society have to all deal with, namely:

1.) Policing marijuana costs us billions in taxpayer dollars every year (ie police work, courts, prison overhead, feeding prisoners, ect). This money comes out of my paycheck.
2.) Policing marijuana drains on vital resources (cops could be stopping murders, violent crimes, courts could be freed up).
3.) Marijuana prohibition puts millions of non violent people who pose no threat to anyone behind bars every year. This breaks up families, ruins career opportunities.
4.) Marijuana prohibition gives power to the drug cartels and their violent activities. If pot were legal, much of their revenue stream (to buy guns, ect) would be cut.
5.) Marijuana prohibition means that all the money that could be made from private legal enterprise in the US instead remain mostly in Mexico in the hands of criminals (tax free).

Now, I'm open for a discussion (of course), but I think it needs to start with providing the benefits of Marijuana prohibition (specifically), and how those benefits outweigh all of those combined.

These things are currently impacting us each and every day, so I think it's a very important discussion.

If the US was a company, is prohibition worth the cost? I say NO WAY.

Thanks everyone...

Let's see, "policing" illegal alcohol and guns is expensive so why not legalize the manufacture of alcohol and guns? It costs a lot to prosecute rapists and afford shelter to abused women. Should we forget about it? It almost seems funny that at a time in history when cigarette smoking has become almost illegal the pot heads want to make a buck selling narcotics to our kids.

 

[Katzndogz]

Big Macs are the threat, not the drug addled behind the wheel of a car.

 

[High_Gravity]

If marijuana becomes legal can we start relaxing a little bit on the ciggarette smokers?

 

[KevinWestern]

Let's see, "policing" illegal alcohol and guns is expensive so why not legalize the manufacture of alcohol and guns? It costs a lot to prosecute rapists and afford shelter to abused women. Should we forget about it? It almost seems funny that at a time in history when cigarette smoking has become almost illegal the pot heads want to make a buck selling narcotics to our kids.

Whitehall, let me explain this very simply.

It does indeed cost a lot to prosecute rapists and women batterers, however those costs are offset by the massive benefit to society (specifically from a human rights perspective) that we gain from cutting down and preventing those atrocities from occurring. The benefit we get in return is worth the cost we pay.

However when it comes to marijuana, the costs we pay (I argue) come nowhere close to being offset by whatever benefits we receive from marijuana being prohibited. I'm not saying marijuana is useful or completely without negative side effects, I'm simply saying that prohibiting private marijuana use is NOT worth the billions of tax dollars we pay in prison costs, the resources we waste that could otherwise be policing/prosecuting murderers/rapists, and the immense power it gives to the cartels.

I mean, just focusing on the cartel issue alone should be enough to convince you. Marijuana legalization will cripple these cartels temporarily if not permanently; much of the violent marijuana drug trafficking (which leads to literally tens of thousands of deaths every years) will disappear and in it's place we'll have a non-violent industry appear much like the current tobacco and alcohol channels.

It all comes down to the old phrase... 'is the juice worth the squeeze'? You need to ask yourself that. Is all the money we're spending, and all the violence that surrounds the illegal marijuana market really worth it? I think the answer is an obvious no.

This isn't about wanting to get high, or even proving a single useful reason to smoke marijuana; it's a simple cost/benefit analysis of prohibition.



.

 

[editec]

The only completely non-toxic psychotropic substance known to man so naturally it's prohibited here in the land of the free and home of the brave.

God bless the American slaves.

 

[slackjawed]

Katz, my own experience is that marijuana erases the "pain memory". When I got sick I hadn't touched marijuana for over 30 years. I do have pain, which at times is horrible. If I take a pain pill, that's all I do. I can't read, can't go outside and walk around or anything. When I wake up I feel 'hungover' from the oxycotin or flexeral or whatever.('scuse my spelling') If i smoke a pipe when I hurt, I still hurt, but there is no hangover the next day, and my body isn't all stiff and sore from the previous day's pain. When I have pain, I unconsiously 'tighten up', even grit my teeth. When I smoke, I don't do that. I am not stiff and sore from that the next day. However; for me marijuana does not stop the pain, you could say it just makes it less unpleasant.
As for side effects, there is no drug that doesn't come with risks. none. Everyone is not the same, and while I see your point about people that wanna be stoned all the time, I actually use marijuana because it helps me stay more alert and I can do more than if I take pharmecutical drugs.

You THINK it helps you.

I have a friend with fibromyalgia. She smoked heavily when she was younger, but quit for years. She married a man that wouldn't tolerate it. When she was diagnosed with fibromyalgia her pain was intolerable. She went to a pot-doc and got a medical marijuana card. It would help her. Her treating doctor informed her that he no longer wished to have her as a patient so she now goes to a free clinic. Smoking pot actually increased her pain. Pain was what she used to justify smoking pot. If she had no pain, there was no reason for her to use. Psychologically her pain became intolerable. She could do nothing but lay in bed, screaming in agony and vomiting. The more she smoked, the worse the pain became when she wasn't smoking. She had to smoke more to deal with the increased pain. This is what psychological addiction is like. It could be anything. Whatever the fixation is. For some it's chocolate. There are men who think they are totally sexually dysfunctional unless they have watched an hour or two of porn. Gamblers suffer intense pain unless they are distracted by gambling. The addiction creates it's pain, then treats the pain. Without the treatment, the pain increases.

Of course marijuana doesn't keep you alert. Marijuana keeps no one alert. You aren't different. But you think it keeps you alert. Now you need it to stay alert. Marijuana has created conditions which require marijuana for treatment. And you believe it, you can prove it. You need to use pot.

An experiment was conducted several years ago with spiders. The spider would spin a web. A perfect spider web. Then the spider was given marijuana. The web was haphazard, it was poorly constructed. It would never catch a fly. But the spider sat in some off center spot that the spider thought was the center and waited for its food to arrive. The spider didn't know it had built a poor web. It was convinced that the web would serve its intended purpose because it was a spectacularly constructed web. Then it starved to death.

I dod not say it knocked out pain. I also did not say it made me alert. Read my post again. It seems to eliminate the soreness left over from being in pain. Big difference. It lets me stay more alert than oxycotin (spelling) my dr.'s drug of choice it seems.
I can't take pain meds all the time, nor can I smoke all the time.

On top of everything else I don't have to miss out on life in general because I'm zombified from oxycotin.

Btw-doctors don't know it all, 8 years ago I was diagnosed with insulanoma and metasized tumors on my kudney. List the kidney but I was told 7 years ago I had no more than 2-3 years left.

A big rasberry to uc-davis medical because I am still here.

Sent from my SCH-I500 using Tapatalk

 

[PaulS1950]

OK, make marijuana legal. At the federal level so that anyone who wants to can toke their life away. Most won't - they will use it in much the same way that people use alcohol. Some will use it for medicinal purposes, that's fine too. The minority that use alcohol and drugs abusively will have one more drug at their disposal. They will have another crutch to escape and evade life but it will be available until someone decides that second hand marijuana is a public health issue. Then they won't be able to smoke it in certain areas until the only place they can is in a private home. Then the children's advocacy folks will say it is bad for the children to be exposed to second hand smoke and it will be legal but only on your own property, outdoors and only as long as you are at least twenty feet from a door or window.

Think that's funny? it already happened for smokers!
If you are going to villify smoking tobacco then why is marijuana any different? it uses the same paper and produces the same gases and even has some nicotine in it - though less than tobacco.

I am not against legalizing marijuana - although I have never used it and don't plan to in the future (yes, I really am one of the 10% that has never tried it) whether it is legal or not.

 

[KaliAndersson]

My Grandparents got in a lot of trouble for trying to buy some farm land by growing marijuana in Minnesota...My Grandfather got like four federal feloneys and spent a lot of time in prison.My Grnadmother got off because she was still a teenager.
It grew wild and the cultivated kind blended in real well but he was charged as a bigger dealer yet because they counted all the plants, even the wild hemp as belonging to them....But such is life that is how the dice fell and they lost..

Now for the first time it is now legal to grow in Colorado and does well here if it don't get to hot.Loves summer weather between 70 and 80 degrees if grown outside.Will do fine even above 9,000 ft.Lot more will be grown probaley even tho' the county is riddled with growers
already.

My boss at the restuarant takes a hit every two hours and has every since he came back wounded from Viet Nam way way back ( he gets a 20 percent disability check for having part of his shoulder blown any and a bullet is still by his backbone).I guess it don't hurt him any.Of the 987,264 kinds grown here he says he likes Blue Moonshine, or Colorado Pine bud the best...Purple Cush tho' is getting very popular.Stawberry cush is probaley grown the most....
I have never grown Marijuana, nor do I intend to,any knowledge I pass alone is what I get from seeing those who do...It is after all still a federal crime...I personally don't want to be layed back,,,I need to go...go...go....

 

[KaliAndersson]

OK, make marijuana legal. At the federal level so that anyone who wants to can toke their life away. Most won't - they will use it in much the same way that people use alcohol. Some will use it for medicinal purposes, that's fine too. The minority that use alcohol and drugs abusively will have one more drug at their disposal. They will have another crutch to escape and evade life but it will be available until someone decides that second hand marijuana is a public health issue. Then they won't be able to smoke it in certain areas until the only place they can is in a private home. Then the children's advocacy folks will say it is bad for the children to be exposed to second hand smoke and it will be legal but only on your own property, outdoors and only as long as you are at least twenty feet from a door or window.

Think that's funny? it already happened for smokers!
If you are going to villify smoking tobacco then why is marijuana any different? it uses the same paper and produces the same gases and even has some nicotine in it - though less than tobacco.

I am not against legalizing marijuana - although I have never used it and don't plan to in the future (yes, I really am one of the 10% that has never tried it) whether it is legal or not.

I don't think the Lord likes me to waist my time with it.Everything can be abused and it often does but there is worse things...Congraulations on never doing it You have not missed that much.Everything can be abused including peanut butter.My Mother sure had a probalem with it and was a true mariholic, would hit it everynight after coming home from working at Bluebells Blue Jean Factory (wrangler) in nearby Ada, Oklahoma(Closed and went to Mexico and China now)Boyfriends were chosen if they could supply, and if they offered protection, as my Mother had been kidnapped and raped for over two days when she was 19...May have suffered from PTSD.

The first time I tried it was under a trailor inside a big cardboard box we played house in right after I turned seven years old...Older kids had dared us to do it.I cannot ever remember being that sick in my life.

 

[AVG-JOE]

It's time the prohibitionists justify why marijuana should remain illegal.

Why is it on them? It's on them because prohibition means some very negative and real consequences that we as a society have to all deal with, namely:

1.) Policing marijuana costs us billions in taxpayer dollars every year (ie police work, courts, prison overhead, feeding prisoners, ect). This money comes out of my paycheck.
2.) Policing marijuana drains on vital resources (cops could be stopping murders, violent crimes, courts could be freed up).
3.) Marijuana prohibition puts millions of non violent people who pose no threat to anyone behind bars every year. This breaks up families, ruins career opportunities.
4.) Marijuana prohibition gives power to the drug cartels and their violent activities. If pot were legal, much of their revenue stream (to buy guns, ect) would be cut.
5.) Marijuana prohibition means that all the money that could be made from private legal enterprise in the US instead remain mostly in Mexico in the hands of criminals (tax free).

Now, I'm open for a discussion (of course), but I think it needs to start with providing the benefits of Marijuana prohibition (specifically), and how those benefits outweigh all of those combined.

These things are currently impacting us each and every day, so I think it's a very important discussion.

If the US was a company, is prohibition worth the cost? I say NO WAY.

Thanks everyone...

Seems that the po-po agree.

LEAP | Law Enforcement Against Prohibition

 

[NoNukes]

It's a HUGE source of revenue for the drug cartels

It won't be, soon. Very soon, probably within two years. I'd say we're close to the tipping point now when marijuana becomes commodified and gets local production and taxation.

Then the illegal drug trafficers will switch entirely to very dangerous drugs like meth and the incidence of crime would go way up.

I'm not actually interested in marijuana; it's a done deal. I worry about the hard drugs causing the crimes around my county ----------- and that's not marijuana, be sure.

If the authorities are not going after marijuana, they can focus on the dangerous drugs.

 

[NoNukes]

Marijuana users don't go on crime sprees. Their crimes are ones of negligence. The mother who put her baby on top of the car then drove off. The person who forgot they left the stove on, candle burning or the baby in the bathtub. Like my step granddaughter who put a six year old as baby sitter of an 8 month old, took the three year old to the store and forgot the child until she got hit by a car. That's what pot users do. Pot users don't beat their wives, they forgot to put the brownies away until the children are poisoned. I have relatives in Colorado, since pot was declared legal, the veterinarians have seen a boom in treating animals that have been poisoned by pot. Use among children has skyrocketed with the result that schools are dealing with kids too high to learn anything.

Pot might be worse than heroin simply because it is more insideous. However, there is nothing to stop legalization as long as others are permitted to protect themselves without legal impediment.

Do you have a link proving these accusations concerning Colorado? They just passed the law in November.

 

[NoNukes]

Someday your friend will cause a traffic accident and someone will end up dead. It won't be her fault, the victim shouldn't have done whatever it was they did. And, when she goes to jail for criminal negligence, when she's prosecuted she will say that she was prosecuted just for smoking a little weed. The criminal act will be completely forgotten and ignored. She will be one of those jailed under unfair and draconian marijuana laws.

A friend of mine, a Judge for the international court at the UN has been all over the world, in every country, who explained what's going on. For whatever reason, a large number of people feel that their lives are so incomplete that they have to get high. The father could be out playing ball with his son, but he would rather get high. A mother accepts her daughter's abusive boyfriend because he will get high with her and it makes mom feel young. That's where the problem is. Drugs have always been available and they will always be available in some form. The difference today is that we have a population of unusually selfish and hopeless people who will sacrifice anything if it leads to getting high. They get no satisfaction from their jobs, their families, their communities. The only satisfaction they get in life is when they are high and that is where the problem is. That's what makes drugs so intractable today.

In Yemen khat is killing the country.
Is Yemen Chewing Itself to Death? - TIME

"You sit up discussing all your problems and think you've solved everything, but in fact you haven't done anything in the last four hours, because you've just been chewing khat and all your problems actually got worse," says Adel al-Shujaa, a professor of political science at Sana'a University and the head of the Yemen Without Khat Association. Plus, he says, "all the decisions you've made are bad because you've made them while on khat."

Portugal decriminalized drugs and that was a failure. Decriminalisation Of Drugs In Portugal Was Not A Success, Says Dr Manuel Pinto Coelho

Why would legalization work in Amsterdam and not in Yemen? In Amsterdam the brothels and cannibis shops are controlled by organized crime. Proponents in the US think, in some sort of drug delusion that legalization will stop the money going to the cartels when it obviously won't. It will work the same way it does in Amsterdam. The control and money will flow straight to the cartels.

Tackling organized crime in the Amsterdam Red Light District | Amsterdam Gangland

Organized crime is firmly embedded in the Amsterdam Red Light District, which means, for example, that they have a firm grip on the prostitution sector. Human trafficking, exploitation and forced prostitution are common. Also there is a growing nexus of organized crime with the backdoor activities of coffee shops. In order to tackle these structural problems a continuation of close cooperation between government agencies is needed. This is the key recommendation in the final report of the Emergo Project that was presented to Minister of Security and Justice Opstelten and Amsterdam Mayor Van der Laan.

So we will take all these solutions that have been proven not to work and apply them in the United States. All because we have a population that wants to get high more than anything else in the world.

Cannabis is not legal in Amsterdam.

 

[Article 15]

You are magnifying the costs of prohibition. When someone is arrested for shoplifting and found to be in possession of marijuana, is this a marijuana offense? I wish I had a nickle for every defendant who told me they were arrested because they had a joint on them. Then I find out that although there is a charge of possession, they were really arrested for three armed robberies. If you are keeping statistics for purposes of legalization you will only record arrest for a single joint.

Marijuana prohibition costs us a lot of money. Even if a person gets caught shoplifting and it's found they have marijuana on them, it still counts as extra charges, extra time (on whatever sentence they get), and extra paperwork. That extra year someone gets for "possession" is one full year that we have to pay for that person's food, clothing, housing, ect.

Too, we have entire Federal agencies that dedicate large swaths of time tracking down marijuana dealers, sources, ect, specifically.

Finally, if Marijuana is legalized, think about how much value will be added to our economy via the brand new industry that would be created? Instead of the Cartels keeping all of the revenues, imagine all of the US shipping companies, all of the US marketing companies, all of the US stores, ect that would stand to gain real value from the change in law.

Currently, the Cartels make the largest sums of money and keep that money within Mexico (we're talking Billions every year); wouldn't you like that to instead remain in the US in the hands of non-violent criminals? I would..

Would you say the same thing if it were human trafficking instead of marijuana?

You were never going to win because you are on the wrong side of the debate but this post is definitely where you lost.

 

[editec]

If you don't own you own body?

Telling yourself that you live in a land of freedom is delusional.

 

[Katzndogz]

Marijuana users don't go on crime sprees. Their crimes are ones of negligence. The mother who put her baby on top of the car then drove off. The person who forgot they left the stove on, candle burning or the baby in the bathtub. Like my step granddaughter who put a six year old as baby sitter of an 8 month old, took the three year old to the store and forgot the child until she got hit by a car. That's what pot users do. Pot users don't beat their wives, they forgot to put the brownies away until the children are poisoned. I have relatives in Colorado, since pot was declared legal, the veterinarians have seen a boom in treating animals that have been poisoned by pot. Use among children has skyrocketed with the result that schools are dealing with kids too high to learn anything.

Pot might be worse than heroin simply because it is more insideous. However, there is nothing to stop legalization as long as others are permitted to protect themselves without legal impediment.

Do you have a link proving these accusations concerning Colorado? They just passed the law in November.

Drug Testing Company Sees Spike In Children Using Marijuana « CBS Denver

Colorado Vets See Spike In Cases Of ?Stoner Dogs? « CBS Denver

Dogs getting high on marijuana is an increasing problem in Colorado, vets say  - NY Daily News

What a very sad world we are creating. Perhaps, in time, the addicts will kill themselves off, but between now and then, we have a very bad way to go.

How does marijuana use affect school, work, and social life? | National Institute on Drug Abuse

Those poor children, thinking they are just having fun. But then the whole world has come down to just having fun.

 

[KaliAndersson]

Since December 10th Marijuana has been legal here.I don't think it has made any difference so far.But a lot of people are planning on growing it.I'm talking Grandpa's and Grandma's to give them more retirement income.
What has increased is the number of people from out of state on a ski vacation asking where they can get some..
This rural county is known as the Humbolt county of Colorado, and growers were never harassed by law enforcement for a long time.
I work as a waitress in town, and now that it is Spring break in parts of the country, the college people are constantley,constanley asking for where.....I could make a fortune as I know growers but it is still impolite to mention names.

 

[Katzndogz]

How long will it be before these growers get socked with a tax evasion charge?

Colorado was expecting to become a pot tourism hub so none of this is a surprise.