Decriminalize Marijuana?

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I realize that but tell that to a machinist whose job became cheaper overseas it's the same for law enforcement they would have such a drastic drop off in funding they would have to totally resucture everything on the local to the federal level if you don't think they would fight tooth and nail to keep things the way they are and their jobs your deluding yourself. As I said earlier I would like to see it decrimalized I think the money would be spent better elsewhere but I don't think it will happen any time soon.

Marijuana's supposedly a disinhibitor, meaning that some people shouldn't smoke it because it may cause them to do something stupid and dangerous that they normally wouldn't do. I've also watched a well-functioning, perfectly nice guy with schizophrenia go into psychosis and get locked away because the pot he was smoking interfered with his meds.

Of course, for both you could answer, "what about booze?"

So, I'm in favour of legalizing pot entirely. Just don't let the government get involved in it! People can grow their own and I don't think we'd profit from having evil corporations and inept bureaucrats taking over. Next thing you know, they'd make you buy a $500 license just to start your own hydroponic operation.

When do you think it will happen parts?

Depending how the country swings though the next election it could be 5 to 20 years If the republicains win again longer but I don't think they will. Even with the democrates in power I think it will be a slow go becuse it's such a hot topic. I think it will be a gradual thing with medical use first then maybe decrimialization then to it being a taxed good. The government would save a lot of money doing it but they don't always see these things in real terms but as the political cost to who ever proposes it. Think how long it took civil rights to really get going

In my opinion marijuana should be decriminalized.

I am a believer in the government maintaining security. In fact, that is government's principle purpose, whether it is going after petty thieves or going after terrorists. The question that should be asked, in regards to marijuana, in my opinion, is, "Does this drug present a danger to the 'life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness' that the government should protect?" I know people who smoke marijuana of whom my personal opinion was that they were generally good people except for the fact that they participated in the criminal act of smoking marijuana. If the only stigma associated with marijuana is that it is bad because it is illegal, then perhaps it should be unbanned. I break the law often when I speed on the highway, but the criminal act of smoking marijuana carries with it a much greater social stigma. I do not have enough information about marijuana's psychological and physiological effects to make a judgement for myself whether there is indeed another reason for it to be stigmatized rather than the fact that it is illegal. I know about people getting "high" and "stoned," but unlike with alcoholic beverages, I do not hear much (in fact, I cannot recall anything) about car wrecks or ruined marriages resulting from someone being "high" or "stoned." In regards to the person who mentioned a man with schizophrenia who became psycotic after smoking pot, I must point out that all kinds of drug interactions (even with drugs sold over-the-counter) could cause such symptoms.

In the UK Cannabis is already taxed, despite it being illegal.

Fortunately, you only have to pay the outstanding tax if you get busted and found guilty in court.

Its 17.5% (standard UK tax) on the polices 'estimated street value' which is usually a LOT more than it should be. In their defence, its not unusual for 10% of your stuff to 'dissapeer' on the way to the weighing room. Whether they end up selling it back into circulation or keeping for themselves is anyones guess

Excerpt from Wikipedia.

"An euphemism is an expression intended by the speaker to be less offensive, disturbing, or troubling to the listener than the word or phrase it replaces, or in the case of doublespeak to make it less troublesome for the speaker."

Currency is the sum of all resources.
Redistribution of resources will not have an adverse effect on the sum.
Societaly speaking The world will be more peaceful.
Now it seems more than ever peace is needed.
Marijuana is a key contributer in renaissance.
More people agree for decriminilization then criminization. From my perspective.
If taxed, revenue is trans'fer'ed for education, tolerance, and community.
Fer' in the sence of magnetism or attraction. Sounds Gaelic. Im probably totally wrong. Ferrous, ferrite.
The world is better evolving than devolving. In my opinion. Though either are not probably equal.
Opportunities for Education equals an increse in efficiency and production.
Maximum production equals zero work.
A Utopia is achieved when a societies level of conflict approaches zero.
From my perspective. Criminilized marijuana creates more conflict than Decriminilized marijuana.

Last edited by VesicaPisces on 02 Sep 2006, 9:11 pm, edited 1 time in total.

www.budmail.biz

nuff said..

http://www.norml.org/

Seems to me that it's a lot safer than many drugs. Tobbaco for sure (though that's mostly because of all the extra stuff they put in it), and likely alchohol too.

Marijuana is good for you that is why they give it to cancer and glaucoma patients.

http://www.freetheplant.com/2006/08/31/ ... er-funded/

From the site of the above URL:

THE "GATEWAY EFFECT" MAY BE A MIRAGE: Marijuana is often called a "gateway drug" by supporters of prohibition, who point to statistical "associations" indicating that persons who use marijuana are more likely to eventually try hard drugs than those who never use

I've never understood the importance of even dismissing that argument. Isn't it obvious that if a drug is illegal then it's much more common that you get hold of it from a person who also happens to sell other drugs, like heroin or meth etc.? And also, as we have here in Sweden, use of misinformation (cops who lectured to us in school claimed that marijuana was addicting and a hard drug) is another obvious mistake that probably also is a major cause of many people going through the gateway, because obviously if someone tells you it's the same s**t as heroin and you try it, only to find out it's not at all dangerous, then you may just as well try a shot of that good ol H too, seeing as they're all a bunch of liars, then the risk is higher to be sucked into the evil vortex.

Btw... I read a book that was a study comparison between the drug policies and their effects of the Netherlands and Sweden, both of which were initiated about the same time (at the end of the 60's). Sweden has a strictly - naïvely and irrationally - restrictive attitude called "Zero Tolerance" against anything that could potentially expand consciousness or be harmless fun (yes, as soon as they find out something is used to expand the mind, they're all over it like a couple of starving vultures), because I sure as s**t haven't heard of the use of cannabis in hospitals, but I've personally had morphine or some other opiate injected into my blood stream while hospitalized...
Well, the book was interesting (but I can't remember its title). It showed an alarming increase of heroin abusers and other drug abusers, while of course the Netherlands showed the opposite with every drug abuser except heroin, and they claimed in the book that that was because heroin is usually addictive for life, so it was simply the same addicts who were still alive. In Sweden they died like flies and that's no surprise, because this piece-of-shit country was hard even in coming to the humanitarian decision to have a needle exchange program for heroin users, plus there was a police squad in the 70's (iirc) called the "baseball league", who saw it as their responsibility to bash in the skulls of heroin addicts wherever they could find them (and I can well imagine just how moronic the regular police attitude is toward drug abusers even today, behind the curtain).
Furthermore: We have a prime minister who claims that cannabis is addictive and dangerous; there was a talk show episode about drug addiction where the only intelligent liberal was cut out (about 30 minutes was cut out of the program and the only thing they showed of his informative answers wasn't cut away because it would've looked strange in contrast to the answer of a person opposed to drugs), and the other was a poor bastard from the outskirts of the capital who's equally poor arguments were hacked to pieces of rhetorical morons in the audience who outnumbered him; the once-a-year Cannabis March is never covered in the media, etc. etc...
Well, conclusively - back to the book again - Sweden, according to it, officially held that its drug policy was the best in the world (the two countries are apparently competing about this title) and still today (although nowadays the pressure is so high on legalizing that things may just change after all) have the same restrictive zero tolerance attitude.
I and the book at least give this naïve piece of land that at the start, things were horrible in the drug scene: tons and tons of amphetamine users (which back then was used as a diet cure) circulated it, so of course they had a good reason to react, but to keep at it and ignore the statistics is beyond my comprehension in stupidity.

Sorry if this information is a repetition, because I haven't read through the entire thread and haven't searched for other ones, but just in case anyone would've missed it, the reason marijuana was legislated was because it made mexicans get away with untaxed drug use that eventually spread to white (:-O) people in the US and partly because hemp competed with the forest industry, being cheap and easy to grow, making controlled markets hard to... well, control ... like taxing and stuff.

softsecrets did an interview with a swedish smuggler - they call Sweden the 'North Korea of Europe'

http://softsecrets.nl/_public/SSUK2005-03.pdf p38

WARNING! - 8MB .pdf - contains mild nudity.

I would call Sweden a paradise for criminals and hell on Earth for law abiding citizens.

Our prime minister Göran Persson is a fat, ignorant, stupid self rigtheous piece of s**t. Most of our politicians are, by the way.