Monday, January 26, 2009

Question of the Day

Should marijuana be legalized?

13 comments:

Anonymous said...

Absolutely. I think there are a lot of argument for radically liberalizing our drug policy in general, but even if we are not going to do that, we should legalize marijuana just for the sake of consistency. Marijuana is less dangerous than either alcohol or tobacco, and was originally illegalized as a form of economic sanction against Mexico. The current policy just doesn't make any sense.

Kurt M. Boemler said...

Decriminalized.

Regulate it.

Tax the hell out of it.

Prosecute its misuse like we do with alcohol.

Use the plant for all the other awesome things its good for.

Anonymous said...

Stresspenguin has a good idea.

Anonymous said...

Yes; it should be treated about the same as beer: you can make your own, or buy it at a liquor store, but you can't provide it to minors.

For those who favor continuing the current marijuana laws, here's an interesting two-part exercise:

1. Make a list of all the reasons marijuana is bad.

2. Now split your list into two smaller lists, the first containing all the problems caused by the biochemical properties of marijuana, and the second containing all the problems caused by the fact that marijuana is illegal.

Compare the sizes of the lists.

Anonymous said...

Another point: there was some study or other that found that it is currently easier for minors to get marijuana than it is for them to get tobacco. Why? Because people selling marijuana don't care about the law (they are already outside it), whereas people selling tobacco generally do.

Anonymous said...

No.

We just went through all the contortions with tobacco (started out it was good for us, then people started dying, people started suing, now your an outcast if you smoke). We don't need the same thing with marijuana.

If it's legal it becomes big business, big business lobbies for influence, they make their products more addictive through "product development" and we start the same garbage all over again.

All the evidence for marijuana being less dangerous is anecdotal at best and crap for the most part. My cousin never smoked a tobacco cigarette in his life, but died at the ripe old age of 25 from lung cancer after using marijuana regularly for three years. Two years ago a baby was killed in our town by a driver high on marijuana

Legalizing it isn't going to reduce the risks associated with it. It creates a headache for employers because unlike alcohol, the THC doesn't filter out as quickly and now you have to decide if it's ok for Joe to drive the forklift if he smoked a doob last night. Heaven fobid he have an accident.

It's not legal for recreational use anywhere in the world, I don't think we should be the guinea pigs.

Theresa Coleman said...

Yes.

Because I'm a Libertarian, prolly, I say yes. It was legal for so very long and yes, it was misused. But it's MORE misused now.

And making other substances illegal? Look how well that worked for alcohol in the 20's. Yes siree Bob. That worked out SO WELL.

I agree with Stresspenguin -- tax the HELL out of it, but make it legal.

truevyne said...

Are these pics of any of your rabbits? Come on, tell us now.

I say no legalizing pot. I'm told it's a gateway drug.

John said...

Truevyne-

No, my bunnies have passed on to the great burrow in the sky. But I've had this picture in my archive of caption contest pictures for about a year, and decided to use it.

John said...

Rev Mommy wrote:

I agree with Stresspenguin -- tax the HELL out of it, but make it legal.

Don't tax it too much or we'll have a black market for marijuana, like we do now.

Anonymous said...

It's a gateway drug primarily because you have to deal with illegal drug dealers to get it, and they naturally want to sell you the higher-profit products instead.

If radishes were illegal, then radishes would be a gateway drug for precisely the same reason.

Kurt M. Boemler said...

I decided not to hijack your blog, and instead posted my opinion on the matter here.

Anonymous said...

Uh are you psychic? If not psychic, you were at least ahead of the curve.

I'm watching CNN right now and they are all over this legalizing pot story. Apparently when Michael Phelps gets caught doing it, everybody thinks pot should be legal now.