Posted on 11/26/2012 5:02:37 PM PST by StevenCrowder
“a nontoxic flower”
I am as antiprohibition as anyone. Vices are not crimes. However, this line of argument always bugged the hell out of me. What does it being natural, organic, a flower, a plant, or whatever have to do with anything? For all the reasons it ought to be legal it being a flower is irrelevant. The poppy is a flower, remember, as are the too many to list poisonous ones. The word “flower” only connotes peace, happiness, harmlessness, and inherent legality to dirty hippies.
You do qualify it as nontoxic, which is something. But of course not all toxins are illegal; actually most aren’t. Whence this notion that toxicity has anything to do with legality? More likely marijuana is illegal because it is psychotropic.
“it is no more addicting than any other pleasurable act”
This is highly misleading. I realize you don’t get chemically addicted to marijuana. Also, like with gambling and sex, for instance, it becomes an obsession only with minds specially adapted for it, while others can take it or leave it as if it’s oreo cookies, or something. However, unlike gambling and sex, which CAN affect the pleasure centers of your brain, marijuana WILL do so, because that is specifically what it does.
Activities can be more or less addictive depending upon much pleasure they give you, which will depend on your varying moods. But psychotropic drugs like marijuana are mood alterers, and they affect the central nervous system reliably no matter what your previous state (unless you happened to be already high, but let us not get bogged down in silliness). To say it is no more addicting than other pleasurable acts, therefore, is nonsense. It is more consistently pleasurable, and therefore more addictive than various other pleasurable acts.
This is all beside the point. Marijuana is not illegal because it is addictive. Alchohol, for one, is clearly more addictive. Marijuana is illegal for no good reason.
Nonsense. Medical pot is doing a booming business despite high taxes. CA collects $100M/yr from sales of $1B. That’s money the cartels are losing and they can’t do a thing about it.
Partaking of the herb, does NOT make you a criminal any more than having a drink.
It is a non toxic flower. Trying to demonize it to explain it's persecution is ridiculous. This is corporate hardball against a source of almost free medicine, as well as an abundant supply of paper, fabric, oil, and food.
It used to be illegal to NOT grow hemp. All our founding fathers did. Oh yeah they are criminals now.
there's no black market on alchol but yet kids seem to have ready access to it......and just for good measure, I'll also throw in prescription drugs.
The decades since 1990 have been spent, among other things, evaluating the improbably vast gulf of difference between the promised and much-ballyhooed "negative long term effects" of all of these drugs (as presented by still more "experts" who never chopped a line or split a windowpane), and their actually negligible lasting clinical legacies.
The "reality" about drugs as sown by all the "experts" paid to create boogey-men to frighten the children is for people who can't handle drugs. It has no place in an adult discussion of the facts. Period.
Deal with it.
;^\
More consistently pleasurable than, say, masturbation? Really? Do tell.
You come across as another know-nothing know-it-all willing to spout any grotesquely overgeneralized inanity in the furtherance of your emotional opinion regardless of how lacking in factual support it may be.
You, sir, present as decidedly more "wasted" than most pot smokers I know.
;-\
Who are you trying to fool, me or yourself? If you have spent all that time studying the effects of marijuana you must know it is a psychotropic drug affecting the central nervous system so as to produce the same inability, for instance, to operate heavy machinery as when drunk. I did specify judgement as opposed to the physical reactions and mental awareness which mainly make it harder to drive, for instance, but it impares judgement too. You cannot possibly not know that.
“It doesn’t ‘impair’ your judgement, but it does ‘alter’ it.”
Is that like how the handicapped or whatever you want to call them are “differently abled”? You don’t want to cast aspersions on marijuana smokers because though it diminishes their capacities in some ways, it also helps them write better beat poetry? I realize idiot savants are savants as well as idiots, but that doesn’t mean the idiot part isn’t a bad thing.
“the improbably vast gulf of difference between the promised and much-ballyhooed ‘negative long term effects’ of all of these drugs...and their actually negligible lasting clinical legacies”
Di you accidentally trip into one of your other ongoing arguments? What does this gave to do with what we’re talking about? I never said anything about longterm harm. I was talking about harm done while high.
“for people who can’t handle drugs”
Ah, but if there’s something to handle then presumably there’s some effect that is bad or could lead to bad consequences. Even if you do handle it, it was there. Otherwise there would have been nothing to handle. I don’t presume it is any more of a challenge than legal products like booze. In fact it is less harmful. Just saying the harm is there.
You may go back to beating up your straw man.
“More consistently pleasurable than, say, masturbation?”
Yes, absolutely. Is that a serious question? Do I really need to justify myself here? Marijuana contains chemicals that operate directly upon the central nervous system and alter consciousness. Masturbation can produce the same effect, but also may not. The active ingredients in marijuana do just that. It is their job. They are synonymous with it.
I don’t have the statistics for it, but I can say without doubt that there is a higher incidence of addiction among marijuana smokers than among people who masturbate. This may be a bit unfair as you might argue those with a propebaity to get addicted to things are more likely to try marijuana, and those who masturbate are an unruly assortment of at least all males over a certain age. I stand by it.
“You come across as another know-nothing know-it-all willing to spout any grotesquely overgeneralized inanity in the furtherance of your emotional opining regardless @of how lacking in factual support it may be.”
What opinion am I so emotionally attached to? That marijuana is an addictive substance, and more addictive than various other pleasurable activities? That’s an odd thing to be so irrational about. I might assume you think I’m emotional about the need to outlaw marijuana, as many people are. But I said explicitly that I am not a prohibitionist. Vices are not crimes, and marijuana should be illegal.
If what I say sounds overgeneralized and inane perhaps it is because they are such obvious and well known truths that they’ve become cliches and therefore boring. Or perhaps they’ve been too taken for granted, and we’ve forgotten ti teach them as true.
“You are making a mountain out of a mole hill”
Perhaps, though I did indicate the reason I brought it up is because it annoys the hell out of me. There must be something to it, as why else would people be throwing around words like “herb,” “flower,” etc., as if they were related to the subject?
“Partaking of the herb, does NOT make you a criminal any more than having a drink.”
It does make you a criminal, depending on the circumstances, because it is against the law. It should be legal, and for the same reason beer is. That has nothing to do with marijuana being an herb nor beer being made from various naturally occurring substances. I’m simply unaware of any philosophical principle that there can be no law against the possession and distribution of plants.
Libertarianism is the opposite of statism, not the opposite of conservatism.
The GOP is no more true to conservatism than the Libertarian Party is to libertarianism. The Libertarian Party platform does not necessarily reflect the tenets of libertarianism.
Conservatives that continue to rail against libertarians should at least acknowledge their tolerance for statism to achieve the desired level of control over the citizens.
Finally, killing an unborn baby violates the very fabric of libertarianism. And I don’t give a # what the assholes in the Libertarian Party preach about the bogus ‘choice’ argument.
there's no black market on alchol but yet kids seem to have ready access to it
They find it even easier to get marijuana. Hugin is right.
Well said. Abortion is a complete violation of the non-initiation of aggression principle. It is an unjustified and unjustifiable act of violence against a completely innocent party.
:-)
Exactly and precisely the opposite of the truth.
Alchohol is a CNS (Central Nervous System) depressant. It directly impairs neuromuscular activity and, in sufficient dosage, can completely destroy one's most basic motor-control functions.
Marijuana is not a CNS depressant, it is a psychedelic which can actually stimulate alertness, motor-control functions and observational acuity. Please, think before you type. Stick to the facts, and check the hormones at the door.
Emotional hyperventilation has no place in a serious discussion, despite that it may look rather good on you...
;-\
bfl
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