Medicinal Marijuana - Is Bush a moron for opposing it?

$500 billion spent on the so-called "War on Drugs" and for what?

No administration can point to a decrease in illegal drug use. In fact, there are some who believe the Feds are bringing the drugs in from places like Colombia.

In any case, ill Americans suffering from AIDS or cancer or MS should be able to use whatever brings them relief from their pain.

There are some matters that exist outside the boundaries of the law.

Cracking down on drugs isn't the answer.

Drugs are postively reinforcing, and they help people forget their problems and such. They help them forget about being picked on or beat up or having their mom work as a prostitute.

There was one group, I forgot the name, who used postive reinforcement to decrease drug use. And they were very successful for a fraction of what prosectuion costs.

Crack down on poverty, increase education, train people to get jobs and you decrease drug for a lot cheapter than what this idiotic drug war is costing.

Centroles, so true. When the economy sucks and unemployment is high, drug crime follows.

I wonder what will become of Notorious Rush L? Drug shopping is a very serious crime, but I nary hear a conservative comment on one of their own.

Noel Bush either.

And so it goes......................

The only reason you are concerned with Rush is that he is an outspoken celebrity. There are far greater drug problems than Rush in the US. Cocaine, ecstacy, crack, heroin, LSD, PCP, etc... are taking it's toll on inner cities and minorities and these problems are much more devestating to america than Rush's pain medicine addiction.

Marijuana is a gateway drug. there is no argueing that. The problem with legalizing marijuana is that teens and irresponsible adults will abuse it.

Libertarian party platform:
It's time to re-legalize drugs and let people take responsibility for themselves. Drug abuse is a tragedy and a sickness. Criminal laws only drive the problem underground and put money in the pockets of the criminal class. With drugs legal, compassionate people could do more to educate and rehabilitate drug users who seek help. Drugs should be legal. Individuals have the right to decide for themselves what to put in their bodies, so long as they take responsibility for their actions.

From the Mayor of Baltimore, Kurt Schmoke, to conservative writer and TV personality, William F. Buckley, Jr., leading Americans are now calling for repeal of America's repressive and ineffective drug laws. The Libertarian Party urges you to join in this effort to make our streets safer and our liberties more secure.

"Marijuana is a gateway drug." McGentrix

You could write the sequel to Reefer Madness.

This is pure establishment propaganda -- period. My parents were in college in the 60's and were stoned all the time.

They never went on to any other drugs and they are both very successful, contributing Americans. My father is a civil engineer and my mother is a pediatrician.

Your parents obviously are not the majority of pot smokers.

I don't have the stats, but I would be willing to bet that at least 75% of pot smokers have tried other drugs once having smoked dope and seen the less than harmful results. Myself, I never even drank before going to college, started smoking dope, then I tried shrooms and then LSD. I would have done neither of the more potent drugs without having first smoked a lot of dope.

So, take my propaganda, out in your pipe, and smoke it.

Sorry, but I don't smoke anything -- too many allergies.

I'd "bet" you can't produce anything to come close to supporting your 75% claim either. My parents stopped getting high about midway through college. But who cares?

Medical use of marijuana is another issue entirely.

No offense dude, but if I enjoyed putting stuff in pipes and smoking it, I'd prefer marijuana.

A high percentage of burglaries, robberies, and auto thefts in our area are committed by addicts looking for cash and stuff they can sell for cash to buy drugs. (The next single largest group of thieves and robbers are illegals. At the bottom are the relatively few who prefer to steal rather than work for a living.) Then there are a relatively high number of crimes committed by people on drugs and drug related gang activity.

It would seem that a good deal of crime could be eliminated and the streets could be made safer if we legalized all drugs, not just medical marijuana, made them affordable, and had doctors dispense them to the addicts.

Those countries who have tried this, however, have found that it didn't work out too well. Almost without exception where drugs have been legalized and regulated, more kids experimented with drugs and the number of addicts increased.

I am in a business that sees lots and lots of people hooked on legal narcotic prescription drugs.

http://www.drugwarfacts.org/internat.htm

Would that be the case with medical marijuana? Would those receiving it for medical purposes sell it on the street? These are all issues that need to be addressed before policies are implemented I think.

I am more libertarian than anything else, too, Dys. But I do think there is no simple or easy answer for the issue of narcotic drugs.

I think the real question here is why we live in a culture of addiction, period, but that's a topic for a whole new thread, I think.

Ah, somehow I doubt a patient who is in the advanced ravages of HIV/AIDS, or crippled from late-stage MS, or visually impaired from glaucoma, would have the ability or interest to take suddenly rise from their beds and take to the streets to become a drug dealer, selling their medical marijuana. <sigh>

"why we live in a culture of addiction?" cavfancier

From what I've read and have been told, much of the so-called legal drug addiction to painkillers is due to chronic pain.

For example, diabetics can develope peripheral neuropathy which destroys the oute layers of the nerve lining in their feet and hands, leaving them exposed. Back and spinal injuries are common and extremely painful and largely untreatable. Even arthritis can reach a pain threshold that is beyond OTC drugs like aspirin.

Chronic pain is a very real issue.

I agree Info. If only those sufferers of AIDS, advanced glaucoma, etc. were the issue, I think there would be no problem. It's just that the problem is so deep and so serious, there is no 100% simple answer to it.

"take a glass of water
make it against the law
see how good the water tastes
when you can't have any at all"

Alcohol is the mother of all gateway drugs.

Most marijauna users would NOT be considered addicts.

Most crack/heroin/speed/amphetamine users are addicted though. The majority of them started by smoking dope or drinking heavily.

the current laws are not in place to be restrictive, but to protect the idiots in America that can't take responsibility for themselves. These same people are likely to vote for J.F.Kerry this fall.

I don't see the laws as protecting the people who are unable to take care of themselves, but rather laws that promote the common welfare. Those countries who have legalized recreational drugs all report more negative results than positive ones. Should we conduct the same experiment ourselves or learn from what they have already done?

One of the most compelling reasons for not legalizing recreational drugs is that the huge lion's share of recovering addicts do not want them legalized.

The majority of them also started drinking milk. So milk is a gateway to hard-core drugs.

This is called the post hoc ergo propter hoc fallacy. It conflates subsequence with cause and effect.

It's true that many hard drug users started with marijuana but that can be due to the fact that it's illegal.

Marijuana being an illegal drug puts it in the same distribution networks as harder drugs.

So the "gateway" argument can be used just as well to argue for legalization as against it.

Can you cite some evidence of this. All research I've read suggests that drug addiction is lower in nations where recreational drugs are legal.