Should Marijuana be legalized for medical purposes/recreation?

[WicKeD_WaYz]

First off I wanna say I really dont have an opinion on this one way or another, Im not a pothead so Im not arguing for legalization or anything like that, just putting this on the table. I was talking to a stoner today in class for like 30 minutes about pot and his view on why it should be legal. He really made some valid points and had me convinced a little. He was telling me how the smoke from weed is actually not radioactive, like the smoke from ciggs. Also that 90% of lung cancer caused by ciggarettes is from a radioactive chemical in them, and NOT, by the tar. And he claims there has never been 1 case of lung cancer successfully linked to marijuana. Also I was reading about it and THC in some cases has been known to actually kill cancer causing cells. Im not going to lie im in the 90% or w.e of teens who have smoked weed before, Ive been high enough times to know what it feels like, mostly when I was younger, and I really high people will do less damage then drunk people. So then why has our government legalized alcohol and not weed? From what I understand alcohol and ciggs are both more harmful, long term and short term, than marijuana. So why cant they legalize it and put an age of 21 on it? Maybe just tax the hell out of it and work on paying off the national debt? I dont know....just thinking out loud here.

Opinions?

PS-I really dont smoke, the times ive done it, it makes me tired and lazy after, and I just cant have that, im more of a person.

EDIT: O and I know theres a thread on this from back back in the day, but theres so many new people and old people gone, that whatever. Just go with it.

[RevBrown]

First off I wanna say I really dont have an opinion on this one way or another, Im not a pothead so Im not arguing for legalization or anything like that, just putting this on the table. I was talking to a stoner today in class for like 30 minutes about pot and his view on why it should be legal. He really made some valid points and had me convinced a little. He was telling me how the smoke from weed is actually not radioactive, like the smoke from ciggs. Also that 90% of lung cancer caused by ciggarettes is from a radioactive chemical in them, and NOT, by the tar. And he claims there has never been 1 case of lung cancer successfully linked to marijuana. Also I was reading about it and THC in some cases has been known to actually kill cancer causing cells. Im not going to lie im in the 90% or w.e of teens who have smoked weed before, Ive been high enough times to know what it feels like, mostly when I was younger, and I really high people will do less damage then drunk people. So then why has our government legalized alcohol and not weed? From what I understand alcohol and ciggs are both more harmful, long term and short term, than marijuana. So why cant they legalize it and put an age of 21 on it? Maybe just tax the hell out of it and work on paying off the national debt? I dont know....just thinking out loud here.

Opinions?

PS-I really dont smoke, the times ive done it, it makes me tired and lazy after, and I just cant have that, im more of a person.

EDIT: O and I know theres a thread on this from back back in the day, but theres so many new people and old people gone, that whatever. Just go with it.

I say no. It would set a legal precident for other more destructive drugs to become legal.
I think the current slap on the wrist you get is just fine. And yes I am an occasional smoker.

[deadeye9]

Marijuana should be legalized for medical and recreational purposes, but
illegal for all other purposes.

[Steelrat]

If it can be controlled, yes. But as California has proven, once its semi-legalized, controlling the distribution completely fails.

Drugs suck, and should never, ever, ever be legalized for recreational purposes.

[jdev]

I would love to see this thread get to a few pages or so, for the sole purpose of me printing it up and sending it to my congressman. No, not for the legalizaion of marijuana, but to display the intellect that responds to this thread in support of it (see posts above mine, save a few coherent thought posts).

See, the same thing goes on over at pbn. One person tries to make a serious thread about something, and people like kai and jonneh (dont get me wrong, I have nothing against either of you personally) come in and make the comments they make. lets also not forget quik's gem of a comment either.

The only intelligible responses in this post (thus far, and it is early) come from RevBrown, Steelrat and Deadeye9. At least they put a little coherent thought into what they were going to say on this thread.

Personally, I don't think it should be legalized. It will set a precedent for other drugs, whether you choose to believe it or not. What is your foundation for legalizing marijuana? That everybody does it? That its not harmful? That NOBODY has ever died from an overdose? Those points are all well and good, but, very weak points to make an arguement on. So what if everyone smokes marijuana. As the old addage goes, If everyone jumped off a bridge, would you? Look at you being a unique individual. As far as harmless goes, yea. As I understand it the smoke from marijuana contains some of the same carcinogens found in tobacco smoke. Not to mention the tar content is signifigantly higher. And touching on the subject of NOBODY ever dying of an overdose.. so what. Its not to say that there haven't been marijuana deaths. I Am sure we have all heard of an incident where 'a friend' or 'friend of a friend' was smoking marijuana, exercised poor judgement, and got themselves, or others injured.

Listen. Legalized or not, people are still going to do it. Leave it as is, and let people then get punished for doing it, as they shouldn't be. I am really eager to see the responses of well founded thoughts for legalizing marijuana. I have low expectations though, since the majority of posts will be summarized as the following:

I smoke pot all the time. I think they should legalize it because its no big deal. All your pot are belong to me.

That, is what new laws and regulations are founded on.

Good luck guys.

[BobDoleIsMyHero]

They did try to make alcohol illegal but that led to excessive crime, that is why alcohol is legal and marijuana is not. I think making pot legal is a bad idea. what if workers started taking their smoking breaks with pot instead of cigs? that could be dangerous depending on where they work. while tar might not cause cancer it does cause emphysema.

[Will Wood]

It will never be legal.
People will still do it.

Do you know why it won't become legal? Not because it's 'bad.' Because the government can't make money off it, they can't controll it.

YOU CAN GROW IT IN YOUR BACK YARD. Why would people go pay for it when it would be perfectly legal to make their own for almost no cost.
In addition, just like alcohol, you shouldn't be able to drive and do those kinda things under the influence. Unfortuantly, there's no spot test that can detect if someone is high.

[chairman_mao]

I think legalization has too many drawbacks for both user (hippies and thugs) and regulator (government). These drawbacks can also bee seen as positives depending on the mentality of the debator. Legalization leads to taxation, which leads to higher prices. Does anyone really want that? I know I pay enough as it is. Also legalization leads to the industrialization of the product. If you think you don't like what big biz is doing to paintball imagine a product that could make them billions of dollars a year. In addition if marijuana is all of a sudden legal what happens to the millions of people incarcerated for marijuana related crimes (I'm talking possession , trafficing etc. not robbing the 7-11 to buy a nickle bag).

A more sensible solution is to keep certian aspects of it illeagal and decriminalize other aspects. This has been done successfully in other countries, most notably the Netherlands (where Amsterdam is). This avenue allows for those who wish to indulge to not be punished for doing so in designated areas. However it is not legal to smoke a joint walking down the street. The sale is allowed only through designated places(mostly cafes).

I believe people should be allowed cultivate for personal use (within reasonable limits I believe 3-5 plants) without legal repurcussions. Meh what the hell do I know.




Oh and In before the lock

[tropical_fishy]

Marijuana should be legalized for medical and recreational purposes, but
illegal for all other purposes.

Forgive me for seeming ignorant, but there are other purposes beyond medical or recreational? What have I been missing...

I don't smoke either, let me just preface this post with that. I do think that pot should be legal though, or at least decriminalized (I'll get to that later). My argument for legality would simply be that we tried to prohibit substances like this in the past. It didn't work. We ended up with a HUGE black market (for alcohol) and lots of violence related to said black market. Now, I don't drink either, so my stance on this is not "let's make it easier for stupid teens to get drunk/high and kill people with cars!" I just think that if you have an adult who smokes every once in a while, that should be less of a crime than an adult who gets drunk and violent. When was the last time you heard of a pothead going nuts and attacking someone randomly on the street? Or beating a family member senseless?

Okay, moving on. I'd say that we're probably never going to have a legal form of recreational pot (although we could tax it and get rid of a lot of debt. anyway), but i'd also say that the drug laws are WAY too harsh. If you have over 1000 marijuana plants in your possession (yeah, a lot of plants... you're not going to smoke that much, so you're probably in the business to sell...) and you're a nonviolent criminal, you get put in jail for life w/o parole (thanks for that, Reagan). There are convicted murderers walking around on the streets after 10... 15 years because they were good in prison. Seem fair that someone with a nonviolent marijuana offense should get life w/o parole when a murderer didn't? It seems a little backwards to me. I definitely think mandatory minimum sentencing should go, and go quickly. Our jails are too crowded with people who haven't really done anything to hurt anyone else, and that's a shame.

This last part I'm probably going to get into a lot of trouble for, but I really dont think it's the government's business what a responsible adult puts in their body. Restrictions on driving, working, whatever while stoned-- I'm fine with that, but it just totally rubs me the wrong way when someone says "you can't do this even though it won't harm anybody else because the government says so and you should always listen to the government because they know best."

[bofh]

Morphine is legal for Medical use, when did THC become so dangerous?

I really see no reason why THC shouldn't be allowed for medical use, unless of course, it doesn't have any medical application.

And no, fun is not a medical use.

[Creative Mayhem]

In Canada, or Ontario at least, Medical grade(very weak) mary-j is legal for those with a prescription. That is to say for people with MS, MD, and some cancer patients but it is still very resricted as to who actually gets the prescription, and to how much they can actually get.

I really dont care either way, legal or not, you are going to end up with people who function while smoking it, and people who cant do a damn thing. There will be accidents and deaths attributed to its use whether its legal or not. The real question is, as JDev has said, will it set precident for the more dangerous drugs available?

[tard]

As far as harmless goes, yea. As I understand it the smoke from marijuana contains some of the same carcinogens found in tobacco smoke. Not to mention the tar content is signifigantly higher. And touching on the subject of NOBODY ever dying of an overdose.. so what. Its not to say that there haven't been marijuana deaths.

While it may be true there is more tar and chemicals in it, people who smoke cigs smoke far more of them because they are addicted to them. Someone like me who smokes for fun, probly like a few bowls 3-4 times a week is gonna have way less damage to the lungs then someone who smokes 1 pack a day.

It should at least be semi-legalised like in amsterdam and if you get caught for posession it should only be a fine not jail time. Whoever said the thing about murderers made a good point. I just wish there was a way to make it legal for the people who are responsible with it and illegal for the dumb people out there.

[Crighton]

[tard]

Well i think that most people have already made there decision if whether or not they want to smoke pot because it is so easy obtain if they wanted to smoke they could. So i don't really think legalising it would bring in that many new smokers. And if the people who started smoking it after it was legalised i think that would mean that they probly wouldnt do illegal drugs because if they didnt smoke weed because it was illegal that means they probly wouldnt do other drugs that are illegal. So i dont really think there will be as big of a problem of pot being a gateway drug as they are making it out to be,

[SCpoloRicker]

*unpopular opinion*

Decriminalize and tax absolutely everything.

The War On Drugs is a complete joke that results in horrid rates of incarceration, high taxpayer burden, and is generally ineffective at reducing the amount of drugs in circulation.

*/unpopular opinion*