should marijuana be legalized??

By the way, i am not an advocate of the legalization of marijuana--nor am i an opponent. I just find the discussion interesting.

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Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
However, it is interesting that you are so determined to defend your position, ...

Actually, I think Joe just likes controversial discussions. As do you and I.

And I enjoy reading along with all three of you.

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Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
However, it is interesting that you are so determined to defend your position, ...

Actually, I think Joe just likes controversial discussions. As do you and I.

No . . . ya think?

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rimchamp77 wrote:

Every argument for drug prohibition comes in spades with private autos, guns, matches, sharp objects, and any other abusable items.

Careful -- Joe is an authoritarian. He supports the laws that constrain our cars to the right side of the road. He may even approve of the horrid infringements on people's Second Amendment rights that are so common in his state of Illinois.

rimchamp77 wrote:

The War on Drugs is immoral for only one reason: it is based totally on lies.

Not totally. There is actually truth in the part where the warriors say Columbia is in South America.

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I thought Columbia was in New York . . .

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Thomas wrote:

So, in returning to drug legislation, my standard would be strict scrutiny for any infringement of liberty, civil or economic. Convince me that "war on drugs" tools like the controlled substances act, civil forfeiture, etc, are narrowly tailored to serve a compelling government interest, and I won't bother you with my objections again.

Well, the enforcement measures that you mention, such as civil forfeitures, are pretty common in conjunction with strict prohibitions, so if you don't like the latter it would be pretty surprising if you liked the former.

Thomas wrote:

Simply from looking around the people I know, I'd say it's about as firmly entrenched in American society as prostitution, which, like Marijuana, is illegal in the US (most of the US anyway). And just as an aside, I will note that prostitution is legal in many European countries including Germany. The sky isn't falling there either. As to the historic aspect of ""deeply entrenched"I have read peer-reviewed historical studies, admittedly non-webbed, which found that hemp used to be a widespread crop throughout Germany, and that smoking it in pipes has been common practice among German farmers for centuries. I haven't read any comparable studies about Americans yet, but I would be surprised if the pleasures of smoking hemp had escaped them.

And I'd be rather surprised if marijuana smoking was as "widespread" among German farmers as your studies would suggest. In any event, even if the German Bauernstand was habitually stoned on weed, that doesn't mean that marijuana usage was as deeply entrenched in Western culture as alcohol usage. Just because one particular segment of society used marijuana doesn't make it commonplace among society in general. I'm sure both Bauer and Burger drank alcohol, even if only the former took the occasional toke.

Thomas wrote:

Of course, non of this adresses my central point: America is a free country, where I don't have to justify why I want something to be illegal. You're the one who wants to criminalize, so the burden of proof is on you. Why is it a compelling government interest

For many of the same reasons that we impose strict regulations on alcohol consumption. It is beyond doubt that marijuana causes some of the same kinds of effects as alcohol (if it didn't, nobody would smoke it) -- loss of certain motor abilities, impaired judgment, etc. If there's a compelling governmental interest in regulating the consumption of alcohol, there's an equally compelling governmental interest in regulating the consumption of marijuana.

Thomas wrote:

No -- and you will note that I never accused you of hypocricy, and explicitly stated that consistency isn't what's important here. The important thing is that the case of alcohol shows that management works just fine, so there is no real need for eradication.

Management is clearly a second-best option. Ideally, we should want to eradicate or suppress these kinds of problems rather than simply manage them. As I said before, just because we have one problem, that doesn't mean that we should be content with having two.

Thomas wrote:

I disagree, because you can eradicate a beetle without infringing on people's liberties.

I see you missed the point of that analogy almost as completely as Setanta. I can only hope that you got half as much amusement from it as he did.

My point was simply to show that, given two nearly identical problems, one of which was entrenched and the other which was merely nascent, we need not be constrained to deal with them in similar ways. In other words, just because we can't eliminate one problem doesn't mean that we shouldn't eliminate a similar problem.

Thomas wrote:

But you can't eradicate Marijuhana smoking without infringing on people's liberty of ingesting whatever the hell they want to. Indeed, the fact that you find the cases even comparable suggests to me that individual liberty ranks fairly low on your list of political priorities.

No, individual liberty rates fairly high with me, but it doesn't blind me to the fact that we can still treat alcohol and marijuana differently.

Thomas wrote:

I see no historical or sociological reason to believe this is true. But I won't dwell on it, since it's not the major prong in my disagreement with you.

Well, I think it's a major disagreement between us, but let's not disagree about that.

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Setanta wrote:

While this sort of thing is cute, it does not address the objection which i raised, which is that the use of marijuana is as ancient as that of alcohol, and in what we may term the West, as well.

No doubt some enterprising Cro-Magnon combined the new technology of fire with hemp seeds and got himself prehistorically baked, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone found a couple of half-smoked doobies in the innermost vaults of Cheops's tomb. Marijuana usage may, indeed, be central to some other culture, but that still doesn't mean that it was central to Western culture, and if the Carthaginians or the Scythians or any other of history's losers were perpetually high on weed, that still doesn't have any bearing on Western cultural practices. And I'm sure any reasonable Carthaginian or Scythian would agree with me -- if you could find one.

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Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
However, it is interesting that you are so determined to defend your position, ...

Actually, I think Joe just likes controversial discussions. As do you and I.

I hate discussions about drug legalization, primarily because they bring out the monomaniacal types like rimchamp, but also because they force me to read up on the debates in this area, which are as tendentious and dull as many of rimchamp's posts (although they don't interject Islam into the topic -- that's just weird). That I do so regardless is because these drug threads, no matter how tendentious and dull, are still more interesting than the threads that Coberst keeps posting in this forum.

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Thomas-

Rabelais has a fair section on loading ships with the stuff for an expedition. And we conquered the world. And look at us now.

From memory I think it was in 1927 that heroin, which I don't recommend, was banned by the House of Lords with plenty of opposition, it was said, coming from those Peers whose wives used it.

The illegality of drugs has lined many pockets.

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1) i'm a late entry to this thread
2) i have NOT read every entry
3) i have never tried any of the "substances" for the fun of it (don't know what might have ben in prescribed medications)

i think the use of these substances is more widespread than many of us believe .
moviestars , musicians ... seem to use them on a regular basis - teenagers must think it's ok , since these people are often millionaires ;
if i were young i might make a connection between drug use and earning power .
the war on drugs has been going on for decades (?) and what success has it had ? (wasn't it president bush senior who stated that once noriega was arrested the war on drugs would be won - over - finished ? what has happenend ?)
look here for the cost of the war on drugs...DRUG WAR CLOCK...
at least once a month there is a report ... "the biggest drug seizure ever" ... and it keeps getting bigger .
perhaps more money should be spent on long-term education of our children - rich and poor alike . it seems that the long-term education about the dangers of tabacco are finally beginning to sink in - but it's been going on for decades , hasn't it ?
perhaps decriminalization AND education should go hand-in-hand ?

as an aside :
a senior canadian officer on leave from afghanistan was interviewed by the local news paper this month . (since we have a major canadian military base within our city limits we get a lot of reports about afghanistan first-hand).
he stated : "i have told my soldiers NOT to eradicate any of the poppy plantations in the village where we are stationed . we need the co-operation of the villagers and they need the poppies to make money , so they can buy food for their families .
the monies promised to the villagers never arrives ; it seems to get no further than kabul . i don't want the villagers to starve because of stupid drug policies" .

perhaps if farmers in the third world could make a living growing food , they might not see a need for producing drugs ?

that would still leave the problem of "locally" grown hemp ... do we have to learn how to live with it , just like we live with alcohol and tabacco - on a diminished scale ? wouldn't it be better than having police spent their time uprooting the plants in the fields and sending people to jail ?

(i still won't try a "puff" - but have been educated on what it smells like when some neighbours light up - i think it stinks !)
hbg

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joefromchicago wrote:

Setanta wrote:
While this sort of thing is cute, it does not address the objection which i raised, which is that the use of marijuana is as ancient as that of alcohol, and in what we may term the West, as well.

No doubt some enterprising Cro-Magnon combined the new technology of fire with hemp seeds and got himself prehistorically baked, and I wouldn't be surprised if someone found a couple of half-smoked doobies in the innermost vaults of Cheops's tomb. Marijuana usage may, indeed, be central to some other culture, but that still doesn't mean that it was central to Western culture, and if the Carthaginians or the Scythians or any other of history's losers were perpetually high on weed, that still doesn't have any bearing on Western cultural practices. And I'm sure any reasonable Carthaginian or Scythian would agree with me -- if you could find one.

Well, i'm not going to Tunisia or the Ukraine to ask around, that's for sure. However, the interjection of characterizations such as "loser" hardly has any real bearing on the discussion. For example, although Carthage was defeated by Rome, you'd be hard-pressed to provide any evidence that the Scythians were ever "losers" in such a context. Now the Romans certainly loved their vino, finding truth therein. But Alaric sacked Rome in 410 CE, and Mehmet sacked Constantinople in 1453 CE, which rather suggests that the Romans were losers, too. The French love their wine, but they got pasted by the Germans in 1870. The Germans love their beer, but it did them precious little good in 1918 or 1945. That's more than a little silly, because the examples of western cultures who loved their alcohol and could be characterized as losers on just such a basis as you use for the Carthaginians are legion. Being a "loser," a rather vague term having not been defined here, is no basis for a preference for destructive recreational drug abuse.

That alcohol is alleged to "central" to Western culture is no reason to allege that it is a good thing, and preferable to any other form of drug abuse. If one opposes drug abuse, then appeals to ancient custom are bootless.

********************************************

As for your subsequent comments, i would note that in looking for evidence for the Carthaginians and for Herodutus' comments, i found just thousands and thousands of silly pro-marijuana web sites. But about one point, you are absolutely correct--even those sites, and this discussion, are far more entertaining than those threads which Coberts habitually inflicts on us. I've sworn off Coberst entirely, i don't even look at his threads--i've gone cold turkey, and have had no discomfort to speak of.

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Thomas wrote:

Setanta wrote:
However, it is interesting that you are so determined to defend your position, ...

Actually, I think Joe just likes controversial discussions. As do you and I.

What's controversial about drug legalization? I can't find anyone willing to debate me on this issue and I would be called "extremist" by lapdog media outlets - who are among those unwilling to discuss this with me in a public forum. If there are no legitimate studies justifying criminalization of any drug for safety reasons how can there be controversy.

IF those in authority would stop telling lies like "drugs aren't dangerous because they're illegal; they're illegal because they're dangerous" [repeated by the pathological liars in charge of the DEA for Klinton and GW] that would be preferable - but it would undermine public support for the drug war. If they admitted that public safety is NOT a major factor in prohibition and that the reasons had much more to do with which ethnic, cultural or racial group was using and/or - in rare cases - abusing the drug, that would be preferable to blaming drugs for bad behaviors.

Drug education should be about informing people how to use drugs, supplements, exercise and good diet to improve physical and emotional health. It should not be about promulgating the dangerous drugs mythology that presents the atypical use of certain drugs as typical of all use so as to justify an immoral and abusive social policy. Education should never be an exercise in self justification for those in authority. But it is in our public schools. Our lapdog media should counter these lies - but all they do is amplify them. I wrote an education curriculum about real drug-related issues and I've proved that those in authority have no motivation to solve any real problems. They don't want to discuss any problems that bring up embarrassing truths about those in power.

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Quote:

Drug education should be about informing people how to use drugs, supplements, exercise and good diet to improve physical and emotional health.

Either you've never smoke dope . . . or you've smoke way too much.

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Does this mean that i need to become a pathological liar in order to seek employement with the DEA?

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You might need to become a liar -- if only as an acute condition -- to secure employment. Pathogenicity, even in duplicity, does not require chronicity.

Lotta jibber-jabber going on around here. Where's the good humor man?

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patiodog wrote:

Pathogenicity, even in duplicity, does not require chronicity.

Ehm, the what where who? And why? And how, again? Me no understand. Please, think of me as the doobie inhaling Cro-Magnate earlier mentioned, and explain these difficult words to me... Words of 3 syllables and up tend to confuse me.

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najmelliw wrote:

patiodog wrote:
Pathogenicity, even in duplicity, does not require chronicity.

Ehm, the what where who? And why? And how, again? Me no understand. Please, think of me as the doobie inhaling Cro-Magnate earlier mentioned, and explain these difficult words to me... Words of 3 syllables and up tend to confuse me.

I was confussed a long time ago

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"I was confussed a long time ago "
well , well , well ... Rolling Eyes

... smoke get in your eyes ?
hbg

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Setanta wrote:

That alcohol is alleged to "central" to Western culture is no reason to allege that it is a good thing, and preferable to any other form of drug abuse. If one opposes drug abuse, then appeals to ancient custom are bootless.

I never said that alcohol is a good thing. Indeed, I said that, if it were introduced today as a new drug, it would probably be banned. It's not that alcohol is good because it has been widely used for thousands of years, it's that it is firmly established because it has been widely used for thousands of years.

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joefromchicago wrote:

I never said that alcohol is a good thing. Indeed, I said that, if it were introduced today as a new drug, it would probably be banned. It's not that alcohol is good because it has been widely used for thousands of years, it's that it is firmly established because it has been widely used for thousands of years.

So what.

So what if it's been firmly established, it's the hypocrisy that is so obvious which makes it hard to justify the prohibition of marijuana.

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should marijuana be legalized??

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