Posted on 06/24/2010 9:12:15 PM PDT by Walter Scott Hudson
It’s A DANGEROUS DRUG, so say the potheads.
I didn't say they weren't. I just couldn't accept your irrational stretching of the concept. I could quit drinking the small amount of alcohol I consume but your atherosclerosis is permanent. You will never again know what rational thought is like.
“When any action results in harm to another there are ample criminal and civil remedies already in place to address them.”
I know.
The problem is, when you deliberately make yourself:
1. irrational
2. unresponsive
3. delusional
4. physically impaired
5. uninhibited by your usual moral codes
then you have deliberately made yourself far, far more likely to harm another person, or, neglect another person who is legitimately dependent upon you.
Yes, we could incarcerate the jackoff who, after smoking his ganja for a few months, decided we did something terrible to his mother (?) and broke in to our home, doing violent bloody assault while pregnant me hid with my 3 year old in the bedroom, leaving him alone in there when necessary to help my husband.
But I think that is putting the cart way too far after the horse. We all know pot makes you paranoid. Paranoid people do not behave rationally. So I think it should be illegal to make yourself paranoid.
We know the usual effects of all the recreational drugs. They aren’t hard to figure out.
Sometimes, people get crazy or irrational or comatose through no effort of their own. But when they do it to themselves on purpose, I say it’s criminal. Because we are all living here and are in one degree or another subject to each others’ actions or lack of actions.
Punishing the man who almost murdered us because he made himself crazy on benign old marijuana might be enough for you, but it’s not enough for me. I prefer to see potheads relieved of their pot, and imprisoned until they are good and rid of it. Junkies of all kinds should be treated the same way, IMO. And everyone who produces or distributes.
I do not rationalize. I speak from personal experience.
I might say you are rationalizing drug abuse, because apparently you have not personally experienced abuse at the hands of a drug abuser.
That's the problem with pot. Train of thought usually turns out to be a train wreck.
That may be a moral judgment to you but a reasoning adult can easily see that it is more properly a pragmatic distinction based on objective definable differences between adults and minors.
AND...
How you can equate civil laws governing a public thoroughfare with a moral judgment is beyond my ability to imagine
You either believe in individual liberty or you don't. That's the bottom line.
We all know pot makes you paranoid.
Pot smokers don't know that. At least none that I've ever met. Teenagers who are engaged in breaking laws get paranoid I am sure.
We know the usual effects of all the recreational drugs. They aren’t hard to figure out.
Such as the very common aggressiveness and violence exhibited by consumers of alcohol. It doesn't seem to be too much of a problem to deal with that through appropriate criminal sanctions on assault and battery and civil remedies for property damage though. Of course we could apply your paranoid and irrational standard of justice to those problems as well and go back to alcohol prohibition. It was emotionally satisfying to its supporters back in the day too.
Thanks for proving my point about your convoluted thinking. A very simple distinction between a pragmatic moral judgment and a judgment of social mores was too much for you to process.
You don’t even know what you wrote means, apparently.
Light up another joint.
Slosh down another bottle, jack.
Or you could have just shot him.
It’s really not the consumers of alcohol (one can have a drink or two) but the drunken.
Yes, I do believe in individual liberty. I have the liberty to be in my house and not be assaulted by a person who has deliberately made himself delusional by smoking pot.
I am no geneticist but have a good friend who specializes in drug-induced psychosis, especially schizophrenia, heading up major studies in that area. He has opened my eyes to the fact that many mentally ill people are that way due to previous drug abuse. A famous person you may relate to in that way would be Roger Waters, of Pink Floyd, who lost his mind to LSD. He is famous, but there are of course many more non-famous as well.
Secondarily, a large number (I won’t pretend to remember how many) with mental illnesses were RAISED by drug abusers, who either abused or neglected them, or both. Due to their drug abuse. Which makes you far more abusive and neglectful than you would normally be.
Thus, while I am all for individual liberty, I do not consider drug abuse to be an individual liberty.
Smoking cigs? Individual liberty. (I don’t smoke or drink, so I have no horse in this race). The second hand smoke arguments are absurd. The automatic snuff in cigs nowadays prevents the fall-asleep fires. So I see cigarette smoking as an individual liberty.
Likewise alcohol use, up to but not crossing the line of drunkenness. Same reason - I see no evidence that it’s harmful to anyone else.
At least we have established your anti-alcohol credentials.
Reminds me of the folks here who tear down Reagan to try to make their stiff (Rudy, Mitt, Palin, etc) seem more palatable.
“Or you could have just shot him. “
Yes, if we had had access to a gun. It would have been within our rights.
Although interestingly, this moron, after being hospitalized for three days due to the severe 20 minute beating he got from my husband (as I mentioned in my more thorough description, there was blood on the ceiling, not to mention all over most of the house)
he was not arrested. Because the cops said, that since we opened the door when he beat on it hysterically, we “let him in.” (he pushed his way in)
As for the assault, they said, he looked a lot worse than my husband did, so they did not want to prosecute. After 20 minutes of trying to subdue this guy, all my husband had to show for wear were cracks in between all his knuckles from all the punching he did.
Sweet, huh. If we had shot him I wonder what would have been done to us.
Anyway, I don’t think I should have to go through the trauma of being broken and entered, threatened, assaulted, and then killing somebody (even if I’m right, that is one heck of a thing to live with), let alone should my 3 year old enjoy that experience and those memories, just because someone wants to get high.
That was Syd Barrett, original founder of PF, not Roger Waters. But I would argue Waters is a mental basket case too.
Comparing Ronald Reagan to alcohol is a pretty clear demonstration of your detachment from even the most basic aspects of reality.
“That was Syd Barrett,”
My bad, you are correct.
I wasn’t comparing him to alcohol. I made an incisive analogy that the even the average dope smoker should be able to figger out.
Did you unlock and open the door, and why did you not have access to a gun?
I don't relate to Roger Waters because he's an a-hole. But he isn't the Pink Floyd member who lost his mind. That was Syd Barret who lost it and left the band before the band really took off.
LSD is not marijuana or anything close to it. Nor is it clear that Syd Barret lost his mind because of LSD, at least not solely because of it, but it is possible. However, the number of people who use or have used LSD is so small it really can't be considered a significant societal problem. No one ever gets addicted to it due to the nature of it. Its effects are self-limiting for habitual usage.
I have never heard of anyone losing their mind, even temporarily, while using pot. Not even a credible anecdotal story.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.