"After dealing with about 10 000 patients over the last 15 years, I would say that over 200 different medical conditions respond favorably to cannabis."
- The late Dr. Tod Mikuriya, MD, interview in The Union: The business behind getting high
Former national administrator of the U.S. Government's marijuana research programs
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/home
Don't smoke weed, don't care if others do it, as long as they respect that I don't so they won't blow that crap in my face.
"After dealing with about 10 000 patients over the last 15 years, I would say that over 200 different medical conditions respond favorably to cannabis."
- The late Dr. Tod Mikuriya, MD, interview in The Union: The business behind getting high
Former national administrator of the U.S. Government's marijuana research programs
http://yourlogicalfallacyis.com/home
What about people with Stomach cancer, and are incapable of eating without it? What about people with severe stomach issues, are are incappable of eating without it? My mother cannot survive without marijuana, she can't physically eat. Her doctor told her to stay on weed, but he isn't alloud to actually perscribe it because of the state I live in. Just because you're closed minded, you'd actually KILL other living people?
This is just not cool at all. Ignorance is worse then stupidity.
Weed has very good benefits, especially in the digestive track. People who report "the munchies" are generally people who actually have trouble eating, whether it be minor or not, or they notice it or not- they're generally people who don't eat enough for their body as is. Marijuana is truly a wonderful drug, both medical and recreational.
This is just not true yes you can't overdose on this drug but it has caused deaths such as driving while high. I do have to agree alcohol is a worse drug than weed which makes me wonder why something as bad as alcohol is legal but a less harmless drug is illegal. As to the idea of legalizing it I see no reason as not to legalize it at least for medical use as a lot of prescribed drugs are by far worse. My stance on legalizing it for the general public is...well I don't have one seeing how whether its legal or not my life won't be affected much because I don't really care to use it.
In a situation like that, the car is just as much to blame as the drug. You could say "But if the driver wasn't on drugs, he wouldn't have crashed". My response would be "if the car wasn't there, he wouldn't have crashed either". Does that mean we should remove cars from the equation as well?
A death due to driving while high is the fault of the person, not of the drug (or the car, unless of course it was faulty).
Night all, good discussion honestly. I have to agree that both sides of the fence do have some valid points. I still stand by my belief that pot is not any worse than alcohol or tobacco, and is only addicting for someone who is inherently an addictive personality.
Now if you will excuse me, I am going to go smoke a bowl and have a nice deep sleep. (And not kill my liver with pain pills for my bad back)
I think our society has enough issues with alcohol, and tobacco. Marijuana would just be another problem I would choose to just not have drugs in the first place unless used for medical purpose, cigarettes, cigars, booze, weed, cocaine whatever it may be if you are just using for the fun of it that is a miss-use in my eyes, but if you have a terminal illness then marijuana may be something that helps lessen the effect and you can use it. (just my opinion not trying to impose what I think on anyone.)
I have 0 tolerance for intolerant people, I wish they would just stay in their basements, lock themselves in and let the rest of the world live however the fuck they want to.
Intolerance is hands down the worst thing the human race has ever created, if people were more open minded and wouldn't try to force their "ideals" onto others the world would be a much happier place.
For those curious as to why alcohol is legal and weed isn't: Money and tradition.
Alcohol has been legal for thousands of years now. [Wine in the day of the greeks, kinda-beer for the egypts, wine for romans, beer/wine during middle age, etc.]
Due to the extremely high number of people consuming alcohol, even if they wanted to, they really couldn't stop the consumption entirely. In fact, I'm pretty sure that no [major] government in the world would be able to prohibit alcohol without causing a revolution.
A far too big userbase, some of them highly aggressive and shortsighted... yeah, really isn't a good idea to try and mess with them.
Not to mention that alcohol taxes are a major income for most countries, with no downside to them.
Hell, you can actually just keep on increasing them bit by bit every year and, if somebody opposes, just argue with the point that alcoholism is dangerous.
So if you increase the taxes, it will not hurt the people who only occasionally drink a little bit, but only be a problem for those who are strongly addicted and the tax-increase may actually help those people to drink less...
Works as a theory! [Reality is another thing, but oh well...]
Weed, on the other side, is "young". It was used by anti-governmental people, mainly hippies, and has a rather small user-base.
The prohibition of weed is being used as a stepping stone to block the use of harder drugs, it's being used because you just can't get enough money out of weed to make sure that it would be profitable enough to be an alternative to the main reason of weed not being allowed:
The chance to seperate your populace. Instead of trying to make sure that all of your country's inhabitants are on your side, you can take the easy road and make sure that most of them agree with you.
To achieve that, an easy strategy is always to antagonize a small fraction and get supported in your methods by the other parts of the populace.
In this case, the fact that you try to only "feed" people the information that "Weed is dangerous and leads to the use of even worse drugs" makes most of them agree with you, because they don't know any better or don't care to inform themselves.
TL;DR: What I'm trying to say is this: Weed and alcohol are both not good for a person. They should both be banned. The reason weed is and alcohol isn't, is because there's far too big a lobby for alcohol and because alcohol-taxes are a major income for most countries.
Solution to legalize marijuana: Just make sure more people use it. Like 30-40% of the populace. Including the 40% who just don't care, you're bound to succeed at legalizing it.
I'm not against weed, I smoke about 3 grams a day, but there are adverse effects.
After a while of daily smoking you wont get somber anymore... say I smoke my last joint at 02.00 AM and get up at 13.00 PM I will still be high and will continue to feel that way for hours.
It is true that smoking weed can be easely combined with having a job, its not a hard drug where u get sick from when u cant use it... But to much smoking can be hazardous for your social life... I've seen it before, people going paranoid and staying inside of there home's for months just leaving to go to work.
Clarisè
I live in one of the most retarded countries in the western world when it comes to drugs, Sweden. We basically founded the zero-tolerance crap. Anyway I have a very liberal view on most things and weed is one of them. Criminal gangs sells weed and its an important part of their business which could easily be cut of by decriminalizing weed. But I guess its important for the massively huge pharmaceutical companies to continue selling their painkillers.
Another thing, its a fucking plant which ppl have been smoking for thousands of years and ppl wont stop, even if you put them in jail for it. Facists..
thats just it, everyone needs their escape from reality now and then, for most ppl drink is fine (hell anything can do it even playing wow), for ppl that don't like waking up hugover, feeling sick and generally turning into a whole new asshat. then weed is a good second option, at least for me i dont drink i hate the stuff, ill have a jd and coke if the time is right but a glass will last me hours.
being a smoker i find it hard to justify why ive become one, trying to quit is usually futile unless you find something in your life to substitute the smoking with, although if you add weed to your tobacco and smoke like that, well it fills the gap between being a stupid habit to being part of your 'escape from reality'.
the main problem with this whole complex discussion is, ppl are generally idiots. drink and drugs may have a certain age requirement to grasp the social pros and cons and beyond that whole life decision making. yet there is no IQ requirement, dumb ppl that cant handle certain things will fail which is where most of the fail stories come from. dumb ppl doing dumb things while happening to be drunk/stoned.