Replies

"Never occurred to him to simply stop smoking? Hey, why should he when he has a family with a little money and living in a town where they were understanding."

They don't quit here either where the judges and prosecutors are not at all understanding regardless of how much money you have. They stand there in court and say "yes sir" "no sir" to the judge and walk out talking about what a bunch of b.s. our whole system is. Almost everyone who smokes pot thinks the government has no business telling them they can't smoke pot. Almost all of them think pot should be legal. You don't see the same things with thieves, for instance. You never hear a car thief saying it should be legal to steal cars.

For a lot of these people, smoking pot is part of their lifestyle. Their friends all do it, and it would be hard for them to get away from it if they wanted to. Hardly any of them are just going to up and quit because they got caught. Most will eventually quit, but not because some guy with a badge or some man in a black robe tells them they have to. They quit because they grow up and other pressures of life take precedence over their youthful ways. The same will happen with most of their friends. People start getting married, having kids, careers, and so on, and sitting around getting stoned playing video games all the time is just not compatible with real life and all of the responsibilities that come with it.

"I'm sure you're telling me this anecdotal story because it's typical of 100% of the people who smoke marijuana. Left alone, they'll all end up working for major law firms. (shudder)"

The part about working for major law firms is not typical, but otherwise that's the way it works for most people. Most who smoke pot grow out of that phase in their lives. It's a shame that some of them come out of it stuck with felony or even misdemeanor records that will haunt them for life. Absolutely no good comes out of that policy, but it does cause harm.

"If the basis for legalizing marijuana is that it's "not as dangerous" as alcohol, you've suddenly flung the door wide open to most, if not all, soft drugs."

That's not the basis for legalizing marijuana. It's only one factor out of many.

"Now, you can start backpedalling, saying that is goes beyond how dangerous a drug is."

Who is backpedaling? I never said that the only reason marijuana should be legalized is that it is less dangerous than alcohol.

"I'm sure all the nitrous legalizers agree."

All what nitrous legalizers? Where are all of these nitrous legalizers?

I'm not going to waste my time arguing with you about legalizing these other drugs you call soft drugs. I don't want those other drugs legalized. Most people who think marijuana should be legal have no desire to legalize these other drugs. You aren't going to see any shops opening up selling GHB, LSD, ketamine, ecstasy, and so on, because a majority won't ever go for it. Only a tiny fraction of Americans want to see that happen, compared to around a third or more of Americans who think marijuana should be legal and controlled much like we control alcohol today. The percentage of Americans who feel this way is slowly but surely on the rise, and it's already big enough to give it a real chance of turning into a majority in the foreseeable future. I don't think it we'll ever see the same thing with these other drugs. Shoot, there will be plenty of robertpaulsens out there whining about the fact that we legalized marijuana and they surely wouldn't sit back and let another drugs slip by. And then there will be normal people like me who are satisfied with marijuana being legal but who would rather not open up the door on these more dangerous drugs that hardly anyone uses anyway. Keeping them illegal actually works, not so much at deterring people with fear of the law from using them, but at keeping availability low and making them much less desirable because of the risk of them being unsafe products due to lack of regulatory agencies keeping them pure, and the lack of legal redress for harms caused by "bad stuff."