Posted on 01/21/2014 4:29:12 AM PST by Kaslin
How did we end up in a world where Big Gulps are being banned in New York while the welcome mat for potheads is being rolled out in Colorado? How is it that cigarette smokers are pariahs, while people smoking weed are being cheered? This is despite the fact that potheads are almost universally recognized as unmotivated, low class, degenerate – and, yes, smelly failures. Even the ones that get somewhere in life, like Barack Obama, usually turn out to be mediocrities.
Moreover, we all recognize that smoking is a dirty habit that makes you die younger and while drinking is a potentially dangerous habit that leads to hundreds of thousands of deaths per year, but we want to condone pot use on top of that? That's like saying you've got a bad back and a bad shoulder; so why not break your knee cap to top it all off. How many lives are we willing to flush down the drain because a significant number of Americans tried pot a handful of times in their lives, got away with it and now feel guilty about it? One hundred for every person in prison? 1000? 10,000? There's a reason pot was made illegal in the first place and quite frankly, the only reason alcohol and cigarettes are legal is because they're so deeply ingrained in our society that we can't get rid of them.
There is certainly a financial and human cost to keeping marijuana illegal and we can see it in our prisons. But, there would be an even larger cost to making it legal.
1) It's extremely addictive for some people: If you don't want to take my word for it, listen to Dr. Drew Pinsky who has been working with addicts for decades.
It would be malpractice to say that cannabis isn't addictive. Anybody who's experienced it, actually been addicted to it, knows how profound that addiction is.... The difficult thing about marijuana addiction is some people, even though they're addicted can do fine with it for many many years before they start to have difficultly, but eventually the high starts wearing off, people start smoking a lot more to try to get that high back and that's when they descend into difficulties. ...I've been treating cannabis addiction for 20 years. When people are addicted to cannabis, cocaine and alcohol the drug they have the most difficult time giving up is the cannabis. It is extremely addictive...for some people. I think that's where people get confused. It's not very addictive for many people. It's a small subset of people with a genetic potential for addiction. But for them it is really tough. You only need talk to them, they'll tell you how tough it is.
Additionally, that "small subset" Dr. Drew is talking about isn't so small in a big country like America. "Of the 7.3 million persons aged 12 or older classified with illicit drug dependence or abuse in 2012, 4.3 million persons had marijuana dependence or abuse." It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that the more legal and available marijuana becomes, the higher those numbers are going to go.
2) This experiment hasn't worked out so well for Amsterdam: Humans being what they are, just about any stupid idea we can come up with has already been tried somewhere else. Amsterdam is the most famous place across the world that has effectively legalized pot. It has even turned into a tourist destination for potheads. Legalizing weed has been a huge success there, right? Actually, not so much...
Its citizens are now alarmed that their children are increasingly being exposed to it.
Amsterdam today became the first city in the Netherlands to ban students from smoking marijuana at school.
The city's mayor Eberhard van der Laan introduced the law after school chiefs complained about pupils turning up to classes high after rolling up outside the grounds.
Marijuana is widely available in Holland as, although it is technically illegal, police can't prosecute people for possession of small amounts.
But it has also had the unwanted side effect that Dutch children are frequently exposed to the drug in public areas.
Additionally, contrary to the claims that legalizing it will reduce crime, in Amsterdam it’s been found that crime is now centering around the coffeehouses where marijuana is sold.
…Certainly the outlook for coffee shops is bleak. Among the few policies that the three parties in the new coalition government agree on is the need to reduce their numbers. The governing agreement released last week laid out plans that will force them to become members-only clubs and shut down those shops located near schools.
The coalition is also advancing the idea of prohibiting the sale of cannabis to non-Dutch residents, which amounts to a death knell for many coffee shops.
...The circumstances that led to the tolerance policies have changed in the past decade, as large-scale crime around coffee shops and the legal sex trade became more visible. In particular, the absence of legal means for coffee shops to obtain cannabis has highlighted their association with organized crime.
But the open-minded instincts that helped foster the policies are also being questioned. And it is not just the far-right opposing coffee shops. The traditional parties of power on the center-right, the Christian Democrats and the Liberal VVD, have also moved against the policies they once promoted.
That doesn't exactly sound like a success story, does it?
3) Marijuana is terrible for your mental health: Marijuana may even be WORSE than cigarettes. At least cigarettes don't peel points off of your IQ.
A recent Northwestern University study found that marijuana users have abnormal brain structure and poor memory and that chronic marijuana abuse may lead to brain changes resembling schizophrenia. The study also reported that the younger the person starts using marijuana, the worse the effects become.
In its own report arguing against marijuana legalization, the American Medical Association said: "Heavy cannabis use in adolescence causes persistent impairments in neurocognitive performance and IQ, and use is associated with increased rates of anxiety, mood and psychotic thought disorders."
So, there's a good reason most habitual marijuana users come off as stupid. The drug is making them stupider, even when they're not high. You really want your kids on that?
4) Marijuana is terrible for your physical health: How bad is marijuana for you? It's even more toxic than cigarette smoke. Regular users are hit with devastating lung problems as much as 20 years earlier than smokers. Even small amounts of marijuana can cause temporary sterility and it has a terrible impact on the babies of women who smoke including "birth defects, mental abnormalities and increased risk of leukemia in children." If your standard is, "Well, it's better for you than Meth or Crack," that's true, but you're deluding yourself if you think pot is anything other than absolutely horrible for your health.
5) The drug decimates many people's lives: Movies portray potheads as harmless, fun-loving people who spend their time giggling and munching Cheetos, but they don't show these people when they're flunking out of school, losing their jobs, frustrated because they can't concentrate or losing the love of their lives because they just don't want be with a pot smoking loser anymore. Even in the limited number of studies that are out there, the numbers are stark.
A study of 129 college students found that, among those who smoked the drug at least twenty-seven of the thirty days before being surveyed, critical skills related to attention, memory and learning were seriously diminished. A study of postal workers found that employees who tested positive for marijuana had 55% more accidents, 85% more injuries and a 75% increase in being absent from work. In Australia, a study found that cannabis intoxication was responsible for 4.3% of driver fatalities.
...Students who use marijuana have lower grades and are less likely to get into college than nonsmokers. They simply do not have the same abilities to remember and organize information compared to those who do not use these substances.
It's bad enough that we already lose so many Americans early to cancer caused by cigarettes, alcoholism, and drunken driving. Do we really want to endorse the loss of millions more potentially productive Americans via Marijuana? Do we move on from there to Crack, Heroin or Meth? Some people would say, “If they want to do it, great, then it's no business of ours.” But, you can also bet that those same people will be complaining about all the junkies and welfare cases that will be created by the policy they endorsed.
So, ask yourself a few key questions. Is legalizing Marijuana going to make this a better country or a worse one? Would you want to live in a neighborhood filled with people who regularly smoke marijuana? Would you want your kids regularly smoking pot? Now is the time to think about it because although it's easy to thoughtlessly legalize a drug like marijuana, when things go predictably wrong down the road, it will be a lot harder to put the genie back in the bottle than people seem to think.
How many kids did you raise?
Ever notice how pot legalization threads attract Libertarians like flies to a dog turd.
Yes.....And everyone uses the “tax it and make money off it” excuse.
Sure, lets make money off other people misery. Don’t we have a big enough problem with booze? Why add Pot to the mix?
That's what I thought.
I recall the addiction debates on this from the past.
Alcohol as a depressant is physically addictive so much that under extreme conditions abrupt withdraw can cause death,
Pot is not physically addictive but as a mild hallucinogenic it is psychologically addicting to many and leads them to desire stronger drugs for a stronger high, which can be serious. Others seem to have no problem with moderate use.
I recall potheads in HS (Long ago for sure) wanting nothing but to get high every day.
I am on the fence on this one.
To date: one-and-a-half. We’re not quite finished with our second one.
The first is in her early thirties with three kids of her own. She’s in nursing school. She does not use drugs - doesn’t even imbibe in alcohol.
Our son is 12 with no signs of trouble yet. Genetically he is of northern Russian (Finno-Ugric) stock - people whom statistics seem to indicate have a much higher than average propensity for alcoholism. My wife and I are taking extra efforts to educate him about the potential ill effects of alcohol (and drugs, too).
Does strong support for individual freedom cause libertarianism, or does libertarianism cause strong support for individual freedom?
;-)
I guess we’ll have to make booze illegal again, the same points apply. Of course, that’s only if you’re interested in intellectual consistency. And if you’re not, then there’s no way to keep marijuana illegal. At any rate, the train has already left the station, just have to wait for a few more old farts with propaganda-addled brains to die off.
30 years of working ER and I can count the number of MJ “ODs” on 1hand.
Every weekend I see at least 10 drunks.
There is an awful lot of ignorance on the subject of pot here.
There were many similar sentiments made during the end of Prohibition, when people thought that if society imbibed “the demon alcohol” that it would be the end of Western Civilization as we know it.
The truth is, the people who want to smoke pot are going to smoke pot, regardless of the legality of it. And because it’s illegal, there are a lot of people who are having their lives destroyed by the state.
The BIGGEST RISK factor for using cannabis isn’t lung cancer, or the onset of dementia or psychosis. The BIGGEST DANGER in using cannabis is GETTING ARRESTED and having a slew of legal troubles.
We either live in a world where people can decide what they want to ingest, or the government tells us what we can ingest.
You can’t argue for Liberty with one side of your mouth, and then on the other side of your mouth try to legislate your morality on other people.
Regarding the guy who said that pot brownies are like LSD: no. That’s just completely inaccurate. You eat two, three pot brownies (an “overdose”) and you will fall asleep. You will snore quite loudly for a good two or three hours. If you take even one dose of LSD, the effects are the polar opposite, you will have a ton of energy and be hallucinating and sleep will be physically impossible until the effects of the LSD wear off.
It is possible to drink oneself to death - literally - with alcohol. You can actually ocnsume so much booze that you DIE from it from “alcohol poisoning”. You can’t do that with cannabis. It’s been around for thousands of years and there has yet to be a case of someone dying from smoking pot.
Are there other effects? Sure. Does pot seem to make some people pretty unmotivated? Yep. So does alcohol, off track betting, and daytime TV.
It’s almost like everyone likes the part of Liberty that agrees with their beliefs, but no one wants to give Liberty to people who see things differently than they do.
>>It’s extremely addictive for some people
Though if that’s the case, alcohol and tobacco would be illegal. (Instead they’re great revenue providers for the government through taxes, and isn’t/wasn’t tobacco growing subsidized by the government?) I’m not saying pot should necessarily be legal but again, if the nanny state government really wanted to save lives, they would outlaw booze and cigs—both of which are VERY addictive (and can be dangerous when abused). Just saying...
I was attacked and nearly killed by a group of pot-smokers in a car.
They were dangerously paranoid and out-of-control.
There’s a reason why the infamous Assassins (”Hashish-eens”) were doped up to the eyeballs.
Statists as well.
Obama wants to spread The Fail around because he hates America.
Otherwise people would move their welfare checks to Colorado & Washington. The other States could then elect decent leaders to save the country.
Exactly.
The most dangerous side effect of marijuana is prison rape.
That’s just not true.
Then, in the same way we do with alcohol, make marijuana legal for adults, but illegal for minors.
Yeah, moving from one extreme to the other is totally reasonable.
Touche
Police powers were originally retained by the States, as is appropriate.
Put the federal government back in its Constitutional box.
/johnny
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