should marijuana be legalized??

spendius wrote:

BD wrote-

Quote:
We will discuss this til we're all blue in the face and nothing will change.

We discussed it and it has changed. Marijuana is effectively legal in most,if not all, of Europe provided quantities are small enough to be obviously for own use.

The "addiction to oil" not only kills and injures more people than all the drugs put together but also the victims are often passers-by.

It's all about puritans hating seeing people have a good time and getting their picture in the paper.

The original poster was not talking about Europe. He was talking about the US.

And I hardly think bringing oil into this conversation is productive.

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Thomas wrote:

Bella Dea wrote:
What's been written in the last 3 pages that hasn't already been written in the first 13?

I don't know, and I see no reason to look it up. I don't report to you. If you don't like this discussion, you are very welcome to remove yourself from it. If you find it lacking in content, you are just as welcome to contribute some. Until that happens, however, this will be my last response to you. After all, we both agree we are wasting each other's time.

Boy you must have woke up on the wrong side of the bed this morning.

I never said it was lacking. You accused me of not reading the posts before posting so why shouldn't you go back and read the previous posts before contributing?

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Sweet Thistle Pie wrote:

joefromchicago wrote:
So can someone tell me what are the potential positives of illegal narcotics? Not the societal "positives" of cutting down crime associated with the illegal narcotics trade (that's a bogus argument, as I've explained earlier in this thread), but the positives associated with the consumption of those narcotics themselves.

They make you feel really good. Geez, that was easy.

Opium is the best pure pain reliever known to people. Use of "non narcotic" pain relievers are fraught with problems because the patients need to use more of them. Often patients have to take other drugs to combat the effects of these medications. Cocaine can be used exactly like Acetamenophine but is not as toxic under chronic use. Inhaled marijuana is an excellent appetite stimulant. Meth is the only treatment for narcolepsy and is useful for treatment of burnout. Ecstasy has a strong history of use in marriage counseling and other psychological problems under supervision. Many psychelelics are already granted exemptions by our government for religious practices. Alcohol is wonderful as a topical antiseptic.

Of course, if all these drugs were suddenly legally available it would cause a drop in prices. Can anyone explain why upwards of half the budgets of self proclaimed "anti drug" organizations spreading the dangerous drugs mythology are provided by pharmaceutical companies? What do you suppose would happen if schools started teaching people about what happens when you chronically use any drug - not just the "dangerous" drugs? Can anyone say "lower societal health costs benefitting most working people in this country and lowering taxes devoted to soaring drug costs"? Of course those in law enforcement would also have smaller budgets too. There is NO tradeoff societally in legalization: the War on Drugs is all bad!

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Sweet Thistle Pie wrote:

They make you feel really good. Geez, that was easy.

Thanks for being the first person who actually took the trouble to answer my question. But would you agree that we should legalize anything that makes people feel really good?

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CarbonSystem wrote:

Doesn't hurt others when enjoyed just relatively responsibly. It's hard to really injure somebody just by getting high.

Well, it's also really hard to injure somebody just by getting drunk, but that hasn't stopped the state from restrictions on alcohol consumption.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Sweet Thistle Pie wrote:
They make you feel really good. Geez, that was easy.

Thanks for being the first person who actually took the trouble to answer my question. But would you agree that we should legalize anything that makes people feel really good?

To the extent that said "thing" is not inimical to good social order and does not threaten anyone with harm, my personal view is that we should, simply in recognition of human nature. Even long-term harm to the individual is not necessarily to be legislated against, unless society were now willing to legislate against alcohol, excessive sugar consumption in other forms (with the problem of defining excessive), obesity, gambling, sex--any number of activities which when indulged in to excess can be said to harm the individual. Drunk driving is illegal for obvious reasons--driving while "stoned" would be unacceptable for exactly the same reasons. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that a particular exception is made in regard to the illegality of marijuana. Can it be asserted to have a higher individual and/or social cost than alcohol abuse, other forms of sugar abuse, gluttony, or a gambling or sex addiction? This is certainly a gray area. If one asserts that, as you have, legalizing marijuana cannot be justified on the basis that alcohol, a far more destructive drug, is legal, then i would ask if you support a prohibition on alcohol, and if not, why.

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Thomas wrote:

It isn't -- preserving liberty is important. And in a free society, as a general rule, all actions ought to be presumed legal until somebody demonstrates a compelling need to criminalize them.

That's a rather odd statement coming from a libertarian like you. Shouldn't you be arguing that personal liberty is the paramount value here, and that the government never has a compelling reason to limit personal liberty?

Thomas wrote:

Is there a compelling need to criminalize Marijuana consumption? Americans lack recent domestic experience with legal Marijuana consumption. But they know from experience that there is no compelling need to criminalize alcohol and cigarettes. We know from medical studies that Marijuana is no worse than those. Hence, we have good reason to believe that there is no compelling need for Marijuana to be criminal either, which it currently is. The version of the argument you opposed can be interpreted as a shorthand of the longer version I just sketched out.

If we view alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana solely as substances, then you might have a point. But there's a big difference between tobacco and alcohol, on one hand, and marijuana on the other: the fact that tobacco and alcohol usage are now firmly entrenched in society whereas marijuana usage isn't. Tobacco has been widely used for about 400 years, while alcohol has been used since the dawn of history. There's no chance to eliminate them, the only thing we can reasonably do is regulate them.

I'm convinced that, if alcohol and tobacco were introduced today as new drugs, they would be banned -- and with good reason. That we can't isn't to say that alcohol and tobacco aren't dangerous, it's that we need to appreciate that these two substances are securely established in society, and there's very little we can do about that.

I've used this analogy before with regard to alcohol (it is equally applicable to tobacco), but I'll repeat it here:

the gypsy moth caterpillar is an invasive pest, non-native to North America, that destroys trees. First introduced to the continent in 1869, the gypsy moth has expanded from New England and now threatens trees in much of the American northeast. The Asian longhorned beetle is also an invasive pest, non-native to North America, that destroys trees. First introduced to the continent in 1996, the beetle has, as of now, been confined to small outbreaks in Illinois and New York. Both the gypsy moth and the Asian longhorned beetle attack trees and are equally dangerous. The gypsy moth has increased its population to the point where it can no longer be eradicated. At best, it can be managed as a pest. The Asian longhorned beetle, on the other hand, is still at the stage where eradication is a possibility. Now, here we are, faced with roughly equivalent problems. One has become ineradicable, the other has not yet reached that point. Would it, then, be hypocritical to say that we should [i]manage[/i] the first and [i]eradicate[/i] the second? As I see it, we face a similar situation with alcohol/tobacco and marijuana. Alcohol, for instance, has been around for thousands of years, and has become engrained in Western culture -- to such an extent that major religions incorporate it into their ceremonies. As we discovered in the 1920s, alcohol has become, for better or worse, ineradicable. We can do no more, at this stage, than [i]manage[/i] it as a social problem. In contrast, marijuana has not [i]yet[/i] become so engrained in Western culture that it cannot be eradicated, or at least suppressed to the point that it remains a low-level problem. Alcohol, in sum, is a problem that can [i]only[/i] be managed, whereas marijuana can be eradicated or suppressed. As such, I don't think it is inconsistent to suggest divergent approaches to similar problems that are susceptible to different solutions. Rather, it would be falling prey to a foolish consistency to say that, just because we have one problem, we shouldn't object to having two.

Thomas wrote:

Another reason why people may want to make the argument you attack is to counter an assertion that's popular among the opponents of legalization: that to legalize Marijuana is to surrender to the mobsters who currently sell it. Here, the analogy with alcohol suggests that it ain't necessarily so: It suggests that more probably, after the end of Marijuana prohibiton, the mobsters would soon exit the Marijuana business -- just as they left the alcohol business after the 21st Amendment ended alcohol prohibition.

That's not an argument that I've raised. Indeed, earlier in this thread I predicted that, post-legalization, marijuana would be marketed by multinational corporations. The legions of small businessmen currently involved in the marijuana trade would be left jobless.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Sweet Thistle Pie wrote:
They make you feel really good. Geez, that was easy.

Thanks for being the first person who actually took the trouble to answer my question. But would you agree that we should legalize anything that makes people feel really good?

Well no. Some men get their kicks by raping women. Some adults prey on children with esteem issues for sexual contact. Some racists feel good by destroying some people's property. Pyromaniacs get pleasure from setting fire. Public officials get pleasure by lying to the people to influence opinions. Should we outlaw sex, racist language, campfires. matches and fireplaces, and public deception? OK, so I would support the last suggestion. While we're at it let's outlaw private autos [road rage] and guns [drive by shootings - also another argument for banning private ownership of cars].

A revered Islamic prophet once distilled the 611 Levitical canons down to two laws: love your god with all your heart and love your neighbor as yourself. You would have to follow BOTH laws: if you love the creator god you couldn't loathe yourself and mistreat neighbors. Now if only Islam would follow the teachings of their revered prophet.....

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Setanta wrote:

If one asserts that, as you have, legalizing marijuana cannot be justified on the basis that alcohol, a far more destructive drug, is legal, then i would ask if you support a prohibition on alcohol, and if not, why.

... and don't forget the gentleman's cultish allegiance to a baseball team that hasn't won the series since Teddy Roosevelt was president. There must be an addiction somewhere in this picture, and I suggest that it be criminalized to the fullest extent the constitution permits.

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rimchamp77 wrote:

Opium is the best pure pain reliever known to people. Use of "non narcotic" pain relievers are fraught with problems because the patients need to use more of them. Often patients have to take other drugs to combat the effects of these medications. Cocaine can be used exactly like Acetamenophine but is not as toxic under chronic use. Inhaled marijuana is an excellent appetite stimulant. Meth is the only treatment for narcolepsy and is useful for treatment of burnout. Ecstasy has a strong history of use in marriage counseling and other psychological problems under supervision. Many psychelelics are already granted exemptions by our government for religious practices. Alcohol is wonderful as a topical antiseptic.

That's a bit like saying that, because strychnine has some value in treating nonketotic hyperglycinaemia, there's no problem in making it widely available to everyone, or that, because dynamite is used in the mining industry, it should also be available for purchase in the hardware store. No doubt there are therapeutic uses for all sorts of illegal narcotics. That doesn't mean that we should make them available for everyone to use in whatever manner they see fit.

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We can eradicate marijuana, heroin and cocaine??? Well, let's start with the prison population. If we can't keep banned drugs from inmates in the most controlled atmosphere in this country why should we expect to eradicate these arbitarily banned substances elsewhere? Why stop at drugs? Every argument for drug prohibition comes in spades with private autos, guns, matches, sharp objects, and any other abusable items.

If you're going to ban something based on societal harm you should set up identifiable standards to justify that ban. If you don't set up standards for the ban you should inform the public that there are no such standards. The War on Drugs is immoral for only one reason: it is based totally on lies. Is it just coincidence that all equivalents of Islam's Satan in all major religions have the same overarching quality: master of deception and lies? I think not!

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Setanta wrote:

If one asserts that, as you have, legalizing marijuana cannot be justified on the basis that alcohol, a far more destructive drug, is legal, then i would ask if you support a prohibition on alcohol, and if not, why.

My answer is set forth in my reply to Thomas.

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Thomas wrote:

... and don't forget the gentleman's cultish allegiance to a baseball team that hasn't won the series since Teddy Roosevelt was president. There must be an addiction somewhere in this picture, and I suggest that it be criminalized to the fullest extent the constitution permits.

It's not an addiction, it's more in the nature of a mental abnormality.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Setanta wrote:
If one asserts that, as you have, legalizing marijuana cannot be justified on the basis that alcohol, a far more destructive drug, is legal, then i would ask if you support a prohibition on alcohol, and if not, why.

My answer is set forth in my reply to Thomas.

Yes, i saw that. Marijuana use has been, however, common in this country for nearly a century, if not as common as the use of alcohol. Futhermore, i found your gypsy moth analogy amusing and more than a little ridiculous--do you assert that millions of Americans long to have gypsy moths in their backyards, but are denied? Marijuana was made a narcotic by definition of the Federal government at about the time that prohibition was repealed. It is interesting that you took no notice of prohibition. If it were acceptable that the government's recognition of the evils of alcohol in the form of prohibition were repealed due to popular demand, why would the prohibition on marijuana not be as reasonably be repealed on such a basis. You point to alcohol use as being established since time immemorial--but that was not true in North America, where alcohol cannot reasonably be said to have appeared before 1519 at least, with the Spanish invasion of Mexico. Marijuana has been used since time immemorial, as well. An archaological find in Tunisia found marijuana in the hold of a Carthaginian warship (a trireme, i believe, although i'd have to go look it up)--it was speculated that the rowers used the drug to factilitate their exercise, as the Carthaginians hired their troops and those who pulled the oars of their warships, rather than employing slaves as the Romans did. I consider these flaws in your exposition, although i realize that you will likely not agree.

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The only reference to this archaeological find which i have been able to find is: Frost, H. "How Carthage Lost the Sea." Natural History 96 (1987). Perhaps because the article dates from 1987, i have not been able to find it online. However, this is said to be an extract from that article:

Quote:

Natural History 96(12) {Dec. 1987} "How Carthage Lost the Sea," concerning the wreck of a 3rd century B.C. Carthaginian shipwreck discovered off the town of Marsala in western Sicily. Author Honor Frost notes (pp. 61-63):

The most surprising discovery, however, was the stems of a grass whose yellow color stood out among the dunnage (the layer of branches that protected the bottom of the hull from ballast stones). There was so much of this plant material that we could do no more than bag random samples for analysis at the Jodrell Laboratory, Royal Botanic Gardens, Kew...after excavating two basketfuls of them, we made a special request for their identification. The answer was, probably Cannabis sativa. The doubt was due to the decay of the minute hairs that would have differentiated these stems from two other plants: hops and stinging nettles. Given the choice, I accept cannabis: baskets of stinging nettles seem improbable and there is no record of Punic hop cultivation, whereas Herodotus, writing in the fifth century B.C., already refers to cannabis smoking.

Caroline T. Miller suggested in a follow-up letter ("Letters", _Natural History_ 97(7) {July 1988}) that the cannabis found was likely the remains of extra sails/rigging material (since hemp was a commonly-used material for this purpose). This was refuted in an editor's note (ibid.) wherein was noted:

According to Honor Frost...rope was found on the ship, but all of it was made, not from hemp, but from a type of grass. The two small baskets of cannabis on board would not have been suitable or sufficient for rope making.

The source for that material is The Schaffer Library's "Drug Library" page, and appears to be maintained by an organization or organizations which support the repeal of drub laws. As such, it could be seen as an unreliable source. However, the same cannot be for the magazine Natural Hisory. I will see if i can find information on the article, and the contention that Herodatus mentions cannabis use among the Carthaginians, something which i do not recall.

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The following was found at Lost-Civilizations-dot-net, which cannot necessarily be described as having a drug legalization agenda. Note that it does not refer to the Carthaginians, but to the Scythians, a nomadic Aryan tribe living north of the Black Sea, and that it was to them that Herodotus refers. The Histories of Herodotus are available online, but i'll be damend if i'll read the whole thing again looking for this reference.

quote="lost-civilizations-dot-net"]It is most likely the seeds described by Herodotus were seeded buds, and that the charred seeds found by archeologists are what was left over from the burnt buds.

Proving the Myth

Herodotus' ancient records of the Scythian hemp rites were once believed to be mythical, but they were verified in 1929, with the discovery of a Scythian tomb in Pazyryk, Western Altai, by Professor S. I. Rudenko. As cannabis expert Ernest Abel explains in Marihuana, the First 12,000 Years:

Digging into some ancient ruins near the Altai Mountains on the border between Siberia and Outer Mongolia, Rudenko found a trench about 160 feet square and about 20 feet deep. On the perimeter of the trench were the skeletons of a number of horses. Inside the trench was the embalmed body of a man and a bronze cauldron filled with burnt marihuana seeds!

Clearing the site further, Rudenko also found some shirts woven from hemp fibre and some metal censors designed for inhaling smoke which did not appear to be connected with any religious rite. To Rudenko, the evidence suggested that inhalation of smoldering marihuana seeds occurred not only in religious context, but also as an everyday activity in which Scythian women participated alongside the men.

The Encyclopedia Brittanica describes the cauldrons found at these Scythian burial sites as follows:

These cauldrons varied in size from quite small examples to others weighing as much as 75 pounds. An overwhelming majority have a solid base, shaped like a truncated cone, around which the fire was heaped. The upper section is a hemispherical bowl... with handles (shaped like animals) fixed to the rim opposite each other... at Pazyryk, small cauldrons filled with stones and hemp seeds were found standing beneath leather or felt tentlets with three or six supports.[/quote]

At all events, the argument for ancient custom as applied to alcohol applies equally well to marijuana.

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Setanta wrote:

Yes, i saw that. Marijuana use has been, however, common in this country for nearly a century, if not as common as the use of alcohol. Futhermore, i found your gypsy moth analogy amusing and more than a little ridiculous--do you assert that millions of Americans long to have gypsy moths in their backyards, but are denied?

I'm glad you found it amusing. Obviously, you missed the point entirely, but at least I can be comforted in knowing that I was able to bring a little whimsy into your life.

Setanta wrote:

Marijuana was made a narcotic by definition of the Federal government at about the time that prohibition was repealed. It is interesting that you took no notice of prohibition. If it were acceptable that the government's recognition of the evils of alcohol in the form of prohibition were repealed due to popular demand, why would the prohibition on marijuana not be as reasonably be repealed on such a basis.

Because there wasn't the popular demand for marijuana as there was for alcohol.

Setanta wrote:

You point to alcohol use as being established since time immemorial--but that was not true in North America, where alcohol cannot reasonably be said to have appeared before 1519 at least, with the Spanish invasion of Mexico.

Even accepting your assertion as true, I don't think a 27-year gap between the discovery of the new world and the introduction of alcohol is noteworthy. In any event, I'm not suggesting that alcohol was a major part of Meso-American culture, I'm saying that it is a major part of Western culture.

Setanta wrote:

Marijuana has been used since time immemorial, as well. An archaological find in Tunisia found marijuana in the hold of a Carthaginian warship (a trireme, i believe, although i'd have to go look it up)--it was speculated that the rowers used the drug to factilitate their exercise, as the Carthaginians hired their troops and those who pulled the oars of their warships, rather than employing slaves as the Romans did. I consider these flaws in your exposition, although i realize that you will likely not agree.

If the Carthaginians had prevailed in the Punic Wars, then we might not be having this discussion. That they didn't is, regrettably, one of the burdens that the advocates of marijuana legalization will have to learn to bear.

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joefromchicago wrote:

Thomas wrote:
It isn't -- preserving liberty is important. And in a free society, as a general rule, all actions ought to be presumed legal until somebody demonstrates a compelling need to criminalize them.

That's a rather odd statement coming from a libertarian like you. Shouldn't you be arguing that personal liberty is the paramount value here, and that the government never has a compelling reason to limit personal liberty?

Only in strawman-versions of libertarianism like the ones that lawyers like Cass Sunstein and Robert Bork sometimes draw up. I'm unaware of any libertarian who disagrees that the government has a compelling reason to limit my liberty of killing, mugging, and defrauding people. (Anarcho-capitalist libertarians would say the same about the protection agencies in the stateless societies they invision.) For the purpose of the discussion, you can assume I'm a moderate-enough libertarian to settle for a return to America's Lochner era. Marijuana, as you know, was legal when the Supreme Court decided Lochner v. New York.

Furthermore, you can assume that I like the Supreme Court's "substantive due process" jurisprudence as polical philosophy, though I don't necessarily like it as constitutional law. My only problem is that it abandoned this jurisprudence in the economic field. 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.

Thomas wrote:

But there's a big difference between tobacco and alcohol, on one hand, and marijuana on the other: the fact that tobacco and alcohol usage are now firmly entrenched in society whereas marijuana usage isn't.

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.

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

joefromchicago wrote:

Now, here we are, faced with roughly equivalent problems. One has become ineradicable, the other has not yet reached that point. Would it, then, be hypocritical to say that we should manage the first and eradicate the second?

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.

joefromchicago wrote:

As I see it, we face a similar situation with alcohol/tobacco and marijuana.

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

joefromchicago wrote:

Alcohol, in sum, is a problem that can only be managed, whereas marijuana can be eradicated or suppressed.

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.

joefromchicago wrote:

That's not an argument that I've raised.

I didn't say you did. But I hear it fairly often from other people in this kind of discussion -- often enough to make the analogy with alcohol a useful counterargument.

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joefromchicago wrote:

If the Carthaginians had prevailed in the Punic Wars, then we might not be having this discussion. That they didn't is, regrettably, one of the burdens that the advocates of marijuana legalization will have to learn to bear.

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. However, it is interesting that you are so determined to defend your position, that you are willing to assert that the antiquity and prevelance of a preference for one particular type of drug abuse makes it more acceptable that a different type of drug abuse. I think your argument is contracting to one in which you accept alcohol becuase it has been legally used anciently in the West, while marijuana has not. Sort of an appeal to customary law it would seem. Once again, the government once yielded to popular demand to repeal the prohibition on alcohol. They may some day do the same with marijuana, and i think the argument about the ancient and customary nature of alcohol addiction is not a cogent argument agains doing so.

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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.

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should marijuana be legalized??

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