REEFER MADNESS!!!!!!

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

Alcohol is significantly more dangerous and on that basis it was probably justifiable to criminalize it. However, all you have to do is look at what happened during its prohibition to see the parallels. Prohibition was not only ineffective, it also created a thriving black market and a great deal of associated violence.

So, you were saying?

Uh, maybe I wasn't clear enough earlier in this thread but due to your inability to debate in substance and instead relying upon selective reading and overly generalized summations of my postings, you and I have nothing to discuss in this thread.  Now, if you can, like Net, maybe own up to that and try a different tact, we can resume discussions.  Until then, I have nothing to say to you on this topic.  It's a waste of my time.  The others, as much as I disagree with them, are at least debating in good faith. 

Have a nice day!

This is exactly the tactic you use to evade every point you can't refute. I can't tell whether you're actually malicious, but you don't seem to be stupid so it boils down to either malice or cowardice. As a mother, it frightens me that you have any influence on the future of anyone's children.

You don't make any points to refute.  You only toss out hyperbole and lazy generalizations.  It's what you do best. 

You ignore points that don't fit in with your anti-drug religion, then deny that any such points were presented. It is intellectually lazy and I find it impossible to respect you for this reason.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You mean like how legalizing alcohol reduced most of its social harm.



That's pretty rich. 

It did.  Gangs no longer run Chicago.

RWHN is apparently unaware of history.

YOu are apparently unaware of the present. 

You mean the present in which, thanks to drug prohibition, black market conditions mirror the influence and violence of the alcohol cartels in the 1920's?

FFS I realize you're from some redneck backwater, but pull your head out of your ass for a minute and look around you at the sheer staggering consequence of marijuana prohibition. You keep parroting the circular argument that people should know better because it's illegal in response to the argument that it shouldn't be illegal, and it makes you come off like a zealous moron. I cannot on any level relate to the people who keep saying that they respect your arguments because your arguments so far have been largely recursive, ill-founded, or diversionary, and resorting to personal attacks as soon as you're called on them.

[Lord Cataplanga]

You mean like how legalizing alcohol reduced most of its social harm.



That's pretty rich. 

It did.  Gangs no longer run Chicago.

RWHN is apparently unaware of history.

YOu are apparently unaware of the present. 

You mean the present in which, thanks to drug prohibition, black market conditions mirror the influence and violence of the alcohol cartels in the 1920's?

FFS I realize you're from some redneck backwater, but pull your head out of your ass for a minute and look around you at the sheer staggering consequence of marijuana prohibition. You keep parroting the circular argument that people should know better because it's illegal in response to the argument that it shouldn't be illegal, and it makes you come off like a zealous moron. I cannot on any level relate to the people who keep saying that they respect your arguments because your arguments so far have been largely recursive, ill-founded, or diversionary, and resorting to personal attacks as soon as you're called on them.

If I remember correctly from some pages ago, RWHN actually agrees (agreed?) with you about law enforcement being too strict and expensive, and suggested that more money should go to prevention instead.
Just because he disagrees with you regarding full legalization doesn't mean he's stupid or evil.

[AFK]

See, Nigel can't actually deal in substance so she has to deal in drama and lazy generalizations.  Instead of actually making any attempt to counter the substantive points I make, she has to resort to character assasination.  Because she has nothing to offer besides generalities.  She isn't really trying to discuss the topic. 

Well that and she doesn't like me much as she made pretty clear when she unneccessarily dragged in my puns into the conversation.  I mean, I would take her criticisms to heart if I felt she actually had a leg to stand on or any kind of decent knowledge base on this topic. 

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

You mean like how legalizing alcohol reduced most of its social harm.



That's pretty rich.  

It did.  Gangs no longer run Chicago.

RWHN is apparently unaware of history.

YOu are apparently unaware of the present.  

You mean the present in which, thanks to drug prohibition, black market conditions mirror the influence and violence of the alcohol cartels in the 1920's?

FFS I realize you're from some redneck backwater, but pull your head out of your ass for a minute and look around you at the sheer staggering consequence of marijuana prohibition. You keep parroting the circular argument that people should know better because it's illegal in response to the argument that it shouldn't be illegal, and it makes you come off like a zealous moron. I cannot on any level relate to the people who keep saying that they respect your arguments because your arguments so far have been largely recursive, ill-founded, or diversionary, and resorting to personal attacks as soon as you're called on them.

If I remember correctly from some pages ago, RWHN actually agrees (agreed?) with you about law enforcement being too strict and expensive, and suggested that more money should go to prevention instead.


Just because he disagrees with you regarding full legalization doesn't mean he's stupid or evil.

I told him I was relieved to hear it.

He then proceeded to attack me personally for stating my general opinion on people who blame the victims of a fucked-up system, and has continued in the same vein since then. At that point I realized that he must endorse victim-blaming, as he responded so vociferously to my post, and as he doesn't seem stupid I can only conclude that he is malicious.

[Mesozoic Mister Nigel]

See, Nigel can't actually deal in substance so she has to deal in drama and lazy generalizations.  Instead of actually making any attempt to counter the substantive points I make, she has to resort to character assasination.  Because she has nothing to offer besides generalities.  She isn't really trying to discuss the topic. 

Well that and she doesn't like me much as she made pretty clear when she unneccessarily dragged in my puns into the conversation.  I mean, I would take her criticisms to heart if I felt she actually had a leg to stand on or any kind of decent knowledge base on this topic. 

You're so full of shit it's oozing out of your mouth. I've made numerous valid points which you have insisted on conflating with other people's posts or ignoring altogether. I no longer see much valid reason to try to argue using logic or intelligence with you, as you universally ignore logic and intelligence and resort to bawwwww and insults. This seems to be the level you're most comfortable with, so I came down here to meet you.

Happy?

[BadBeast]

The incentive behind any kind of prohibition, should always be harm reduction. And by far and away, the most traumatic and detrimental consequence of smoking cannabis, is getting busted.
And to approach any social concerns with the idea that Legislation is about protecting people, is naive and blinkered.
Cannabis is illegal, all across the Western World because of Politics. Because of lobbying from the drug companies, because people in positions of power are profiting from it's untouchable status as a Tax free commodity that keeps it's price nice and steady, whether it's a boom, or a recession.

The very fact of it's illegality encourages people to smoke it, not so much for it's soothing, relaxant or euphoric qualities, (Though you should't have to look any further than this to justify having a puff) but as a Political statement. As an act of defiance. This purely oppositional stance of Political polarity is only possible because of the Political nature of the Legislation against it.
And the fact that the Legislation is enforced using disproportionate levels of severity, is simply criminalising a significant (and impressionable) section of people with no other reason behind it than money.   

[AFK]

Despite the conspiracy theories, that IS the incentive behind having marijuana illegal.  Harm reduction.  And as I've outlined over and over again, there is documented and researched evidence to back this up.  Laws and policies, and the enforcement of those laws and policies, set a standard in a community.  A community norm.  This is a very important protective factor that, along with other protective factors, will help to keep kids away from marijuana and other drugs.  If you remove that protective factor, you make it MORE likely that kids will engage in substance abuse because they will perceive that the community condones it.  That is classic Hawkins and Catalano. 

[AFK]

Your speeding analogy isn't grounded in reality.  In most cases if you are only going 5 mph over the limit you aren't going to get pulled over unless you ARE obviously driving dangerously.  They are going to pick out the car weaving in an out of traffic before they pick out someone barely going over the limit.

And you seem to be ignoring the main thrust of my point which is when you are a father your actions no longer effect just you, they also effect the children in your family whom depend upon you.  I just don't think exposing your family to that kind of risk is something a father should do.  Certainly not for a recreational activity. 

So in other words drug laws are more absurd than traffic laws on another level.

Someone with 4 oz of pot is absolutely not "clearly distributing" weed, and yet they still get charged with distribution.  The metaphor that trix made was accurate.

This father was willing to risk a hefty fine and not being able to get financial aid (he probably doesn't need it anyways" for a posession charge.  His assumption that he would be hit with a posession charge seems pretty reasonable, since he was not distributing, and aside from the quantity posessed there was no reason to think that he was.

He wasn't aware that he was facing prison time (and presumably things like the confiscation of his vehicle and perhaps even his home) so he wasn't choosing to risk that.

It is still a known illegal act involving an illicit substance.  I think it is an irresponsible thing for a father to do.  Period.  WHen you are single and childless, go ahead, smoke up.  But when you have a child at home, in my opinion, one should reconsider these activities and the impacts they will have on their child. 

[AFK]

No I don't think you understand at all what I do.  I work in schools, with the entire school population.  I can assure you my perspective on this as it relates to kids is very broad.  We focus on ALL four stages of drug use from experimentation up to dependency.  I'm sure there are kids who perceive benefits to using pot, but they are just that, perceived.

I still haven't seen any of you address the link I posted to the article in Pediatrics which lays out why legalizing marijuana will be bad for youth.  If y'all disagree that the impact will be bad, please read that article and tell me what is wrong with it.  Please counter it with counter evidence.  Can we stop focusing on my vision, whether I'm seeing the whole picture, yadda, yadda, yadda, and actually address the substantive evidence which supports my position? 

Maybe?

Okay, I read the report, even though it is from 2004 and is likely outdated. What I found was a lot of 'maybe', 'possibly' and so forth. It openly admitted that 3 reports out of 50 something indicated what you propose could happen.

The report, to me, was openly indecisive about the effects of legalization, while doing its best to come down on the side against legalization.

In the 7 years that has passed since the article was written many things have changed, such as we now should have plenty of data available, not only from the U.S., but internationally as well that could include impact studies on the states that have legalized it as opposed to the states that haven't, an openly admitted flaw in the report you provided.

Your report also seemed to put a lot of focus on advertisements if it were legalized, an issue that is without merit as those could be outright banned or regulated. It tried to compare tobacco and alcohol advertising focusing on youth to what would happen with pot.

Your report also claimed that pot is addictive, without any supporting evidence, unless I missed the supporting evidence. Even if it did supply supporting evidence I could counter with many reports to the contrary.

In short, what I got out of the report was, "We don't know, but this is what we think."

Another thing that has happened since that report is that we've gained an even better and clearer understanding of how the brain develops in adolescence and have a clearer understanding of how substance abuse at an early age can be very detrimental the the brain development of a child.  Which, in my mind, ups the stakes even more.  Another thing to consider and perhaps research. 

[BadBeast]

Despite the conspiracy theories, that IS the incentive behind having marijuana illegal.  Harm reduction.  And as I've outlined over and over again, there is documented and researched evidence to back this up.  Laws and policies, and the enforcement of those laws and policies, set a standard in a community.  A community norm.  This is a very important protective factor that, along with other protective factors, will help to keep kids away from marijuana and other drugs.  If you remove that protective factor, you make it MORE likely that kids will engage in substance abuse because they will perceive that the community condones it.  That is classic Hawkins and Catalano. 

But for the past 80 years, the level of harm actually achievable with cannabis has been hyped up to hysterical levels of disproportionate magnitude. In the 30's and 40's, it was too politically tied up with race to be objectively looked at. In the 60's and 70's it was too tied up with the peace movement to deal with as a politically separate issue. And in the 80's, all your Republican Government was concerned with was flexing it's "American family value" muscles to give a shit about locking up hippys. The research done in the late 90's and up until today, has been largely funded and carried out on research grants from Drug companies and sanctioned by Government.  Which makes any conclusions about as credible as the Oil Companies looking into alternative energy sources. All this is borne out by the levels of legislation, and reflected in the severity of sentencing for what are in fact, harmless amounts of Dope.

History proves over and over that Legislation against people's recreational (or even their addictive) drugs is ineffectual when it comes to reducing consumption, or demand, and in fact, exacerbates the more socially destructive symptoms by disenfranchising the people who choose to defy the Law.

The supply is therefore in the hands of criminals, and criminals are not too concerned about breaking the law. That's what they do, and the more Legislation, there is, the more criminals there are.
Not one single crime has ever been stopped by Legislation.

Every single criminal act ever committed has broken at least one of these so called Laws. Laws create Criminals, and create the choice of criminality, without mitigating peoples behaviour.  Every single act of Legislation makes more criminals out of honest men. And every man who falls foul of the Legal system, is  eventually stripped of his ability to make an honest living afterwards.

[AFK]

So, people don't have any responsibilities at all for their actions? 

[AFK]

Oh, and by the way, we actually HAVE been successful in reducing consumption until just recently.  For the past decade rates of underage drinking, tobacco use, marijuana use, cocaine use, etc., have been down across the board.  So it isn't technically correct to suggest that consumption hasn't decreased. 

And I find a bit of a disconnect going back to the responsibility point.  There is an argument being put forth by some that we shouldn't legislate to protect kids because that's the parents job.  The parents need to be responsible and take care of their responsibilities.  But, when then presented with scenarios where parents AREN'T taking care of their responsiblities as parents, they are now helpless victims.

So which is it?  Are individuals responsible for their actions or not?  It feels like folks are trying to have it both ways. 

[BadBeast]

So, people don't have any responsibilities at all for their actions?  

If all their actions are subject to Legislation, then the responsibility for any punitive or investigative consequences arising from such action is assumed by the State. So if you do something anti-social, and illegal, rather than someone who was offended by your actions, coming along and giving you a piece of their mind, and maybe a slap, the State takes it upon itself to punish you on behalf of everybody else. Which, in my opinion is a bit of a bloody liberty.

And mostly, a waste of time and resources. If people had to face the direct and proportionate wrath of their neighbours for any heinous behaviour, they'd be a little more respectful of other people. And that's a real consequence, learned from having to take responsibility.

People don't mostly obey the Law because they are morally better than the Lawbreaker, (No matter what they say) they generally do it out of a fear of being caught.

[BadBeast]

Oh, and by the way, we actually HAVE been successful in reducing consumption until just recently.  For the past decade rates of underage drinking, tobacco use, marijuana use, cocaine use, etc., have been down across the board.  So it isn't technically correct to suggest that consumption hasn't decreased. 

And I find a bit of a disconnect going back to the responsibility point.  There is an argument being put forth by some that we shouldn't legislate to protect kids because that's the parents job.  The parents need to be responsible and take care of their responsibilities.  But, when then presented with scenarios where parents AREN'T taking care of their responsiblities as parents, they are now helpless victims.

So which is it?  Are individuals responsible for their actions or not?  It feels like folks are trying to have it both ways. 

Parental responsibility can't just be made compulsary with a Law,  that's just wrong. We should all be looking out for all kids. State run systems of child protection rarely (here, at any rate) do anything more than churn out another generation of whores and junkies anyway.
And they are too quick to intervene where intervention is not conducive, and in cases where it may be appropriate, they very often don't bother. If people would man up, and take it upon themselves to look out for child abuse or neglect instead of deferring the job to a Government Department, then it really does become everybodys business. As it should be.