Japan managed to win its war on drugs. Why can't we?

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Do I know you? I'm strictly nonviolent in every conventional sense. Speak for yourself & stop parroting pharmaceutical industry lobbyists.

"Pure Laissez-faire" thinking is the only reason you have the internet you're using to slander us. Other people being irresponsible is not a reason to tar & feather law abiding Marijuana users. You don't know what you're talking about because you're predisposed against it. Violence is not the same thing as the cause of violence & drugs are just drugs.

You think Marijuana is dangerous but have you even heard of Scopolamine?

We'll see if the research pans out in the direction of those concerns.

That has nothing to do with my position whatsoever. It's that criminalization doesn't work -- unless you enjoy living in a police state.

It's funny you should mention liberalism. I've always asserted that the positions they take on this issue is a more of a conservative one. I mean, don't conservatives generally believe in small government? To me, legislating what you can or can't put in your body is the epitome of big, intrusive government.

The "research" on this topic is being surpressed unless it's conducted by pharmaceutical labs invested in prohibition.

I never accused you or anyone else personally of being violent - the exact opposite, in fact. I'm also no fan of pharmaceutical companies AT ALL - I think they're some of the most contemptible people in the world.

I don't know how well you understand economic theory, but pure laissez-faire is something almost no thinker on either side of the spectrum would approve of, and it's more associated with the far right than with the left. You don't sound like the sort of person who follows Ayn Rand.

I'm most certainly not predisposed against cannabis; in fact, I only changed my mind about it fairly recently.

People that don't do drugs become violent also?

The main thing is, humans evolved using drugs. You may try to eradicate drugs but it will never work, drugs can always be grown or chemically synthesized. You will never completely snuff out curiosity of human beings, there will always be more humans who gain interest in exploring drugs which alter ones mind state. By continuing to rage war on them, is to rage war on natural curiosity and the battle will never end. All you will do is damage lives to push an unconquerable agenda infinitely.

Bottom line: war is for idiots. You're better off getting stoned than supporting wars.

I wouldn't consider Japan a police state.

In a strict sense, the positions are probably the right way round, it's just that the meanings of the terms "liberal" and "conservative" have changed over time to the point that they know mean the opposites of what they meant in the 19th century.



In some ways, I don't disagree with you there. I think I've come off more intense in this thread than I actually am; I don't think the ban on cannabis is a big deal, though I do support it, it's being overturned wouldn't make a world of difference to me. Certainly, my opposition to war, in the military sense, is a political conviction I'm much more passionate about.

Last edited by Prometheus18 on 15 Feb 2019, 4:56 pm, edited 1 time in total.

I'd imagine the figures have spiralled out of control though. By enforcing the law, like we haven't been doing for nearly 50 years. By education and fighting the billionaires thst wish to legalise it to get richer. They aren't trying to legalise it cause they care about your freedoms. We have launched a massive campaign in the UK to stop people smoking cigarettes in the UK now we know the link between smoking and lung cancer. Now we are seeing the links between cannabis and mental Illness, so we should pull the brakes. I don't want to see more and more drug driving, especially given our police force is falling apart.

There's one decent argument for legalizing drugs in the US. Stopping the CIA black ops.

I'm against legalizing cannabis and I'm against wars. Your point is absurd.

If you're advocating for a drug war, you're advocating for a huge body count. More than drugs could ever kill.

Count off: does anyone else in here speak a word of Español?

You're right, no one is legalizing because they care about our freedoms. Most of the politicians who are taking big money from the Prison-Industrial Complex, big pharm, etc., would keep campaigning for continued criminalization of pot. But sometimes the will of the people can still effect change, even if you don't agree it's the right thing.


All the stuff I've read in the past seems to indicate that pot can't cause mental illness if there isn't already a predisposition to mental illnesses. You may be correct, I don't know, I'd have to catch up on the research. It still wouldn't change my mind, for the reasons I've already stated.


Yeah, the CIA! Probably the worst drug dealers of all! That could be a whole topic to itself.


Anyway, I'm going to bow out of this conversation. We'll have to agree to disagree on this one!

People who abuse McDonald's or video games are in the same boat as the hippies because they didn't implement moderation.

Were not talking Crystal Meth here, weed can be used by adults in moderation. Used in this way it has negligible effects on being successful (neither positive or negative)

Yes its addictive, everything you enjoy doing is addictive

Like I said earlier in this thread Successful people who have used it: Bill Clinton, Obama, Elon Musk, Steve Jobs

Japan allows smoking indoors and has a huge smoking rate. Tobacco is still a drug and a bad one.

While I strongly agree with you on everything you said, I think you have one of those people wrong. Elon Musk does not smoke weed. He hit it once or twice on the Joe Rogan show and said he doesn't really like it. Sure, he could be an 'in the closet' smoker, but it sure didn't seem so, it almost appeared as if he didn't inhale, he definitely didn't hold it in.

i was told that by my japanese mother [when she was with the living], that japan has the sociological headwind of neo-Confucianism at its back, that is why intoxication/drug abuse there is not treated as lightly as it is here by the broad culture. there is a strongly stoic thread running through japanese life and above all a strongly moralistic sense of propriety which precludes allowing oneself to lose strict self-control via external substances. being a drunk/stoner over there, despite the common business habit of drinking as bonding with fellow employees [in the executive ranks especially] is still tsk-tsk'ed sotto-voce.