[livius]

Yes, but alcohol has fairly short-term effects. It takes a seriously long time of heavy use to become addicted.

And if alcohol, a legal intoxicant with a long cultural history, is bad, why add another intoxicant - a drug with proven permanent bad side effects and no cultural history outside of the ME and certain parts of Asia, where it has been credited with their lethargy - to the list?

People in the US think that anything that is legal is good. Marijuana is not good, and furthermore, it’s been tacitly legalized with far fewer controls than alcohol or any other intoxicant.

[fr_freak]

Yes, but alcohol has fairly short-term effects. It takes a seriously long time of heavy use to become addicted.

So you're a doctor/medical researcher, are you? You've got hard facts to back up that assertion?

And if alcohol, a legal intoxicant with a long cultural history, is bad, why add another intoxicant - a drug with proven permanent bad side effects and no cultural history outside of the ME and certain parts of Asia, where it has been credited with their lethargy - to the list?

You've gone off onto the wrong path of thinking that so many have gone down. And, quite frankly, I think it is the path that the government wants you to go down. So here it is: IT DOESN'T MATTER whether marijuana is harmful or not. Of course it is, as is alcohol, as is tobacco, as are foods with high fructose corn syrup, as are Twinkies. The point of government is not to make illegal every risky choice that citizens might make - it is to safeguard the liberty and property of its citizens. Justifying the federal government's shredding of the US Constitution (which are its own constraints) by saying that marijuana may have negative effects is madness. We can argue all day whther alcohol or marijuana is worse for you (I believe alcohol is) but IT DOESN'T MATTER when it comes to whether the government's proper place is to regulate personal usage of it.

The fedgov and local govs have been stomping on the rights of citizens and pissing on their own legal restraints for decades now, and justifying it by saying that marijuana and (some) other drugs are bad. Well, you know what else is bad? Cops invading your home in the middle of the night, shooting your dog, tasering your grandma and seizing your assets, all without trial or presenting a warrant. That is what we have come to. And that doesn't even take into account the fact that the black market for drugs has made violent cartels rich er than some countries.