How many kids had fathers sitting around drunk instead of paying for their children's upkeep? This is known as the "Tu Quoque" Fallacy. Bad behavior from one person does not excuse or justify bad behavior for another. The fact that drunks do it too doesn't make it right. The question is, are these children of stoners victims? Yes. Yes they are victims. So are we taxpayers.
Are you ready to re-instate Prohibition because of those drunks?
And this is the fallacy known as "False Dilema." You present only two answers as if they are the only possible answers. I wouldn't mind heavier regulation of drunks, but we don't have to prohibit alcohol.
It appears to be a regular thing among segments of humanity to blame objects instead of people for bad behavior.
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If a guy fails to do his duty by his children, don't blame him, blame the booze he was drinking or the pot he was smoking.
So by your thinking, if we give you heroin, you ought to still be able to get up and work a regular job and feed your children, right? Heroin wouldn't interfere with your functionality at all because it's just a substance, and we can't be blaming substances right?
No, in this case the substance is a deadly mind altering poison, and it WILL cause you to behave differently. It will in fact be responsible for the changes to someone's life after they start consuming it.
Tampering with brain chemistry is on a level a great deal above just owning a gun.
Sure, I'll play this game.
I'm glad you spent some time learning the names of common logical fallacies, but, unfortunately, you misapply them.
1)
This is known as the "Tu Quoque" Fallacy. Bad behavior from one person does not excuse or justify bad behavior for another.
The analogy of drunks wasn't to excuse smoking pot. That should have been obvious. It was used to show your own logical dissonance in which you apply two entirely different standards to the same principle. If you are not willing to fully ban alcohol (Prohibition) because it is "bad behavior", but you DO want to ban marijuana because it is "bad behavior" (of the exact same nature as alcohol - intoxication) then you demonstrate that you are not operating from a fully logical and consistent standpoint.
And this is the fallacy known as "False Dilema." You present only two answers as if they are the only possible answers. I wouldn't mind heavier regulation of drunks, but we don't have to prohibit alcohol.
Bingo. You admit you apply two different standards for virtually identical behaviors. You've just buried yourself. And you misapplied the "False Dilemma" fallacy. You are calling for a full ban of marijuana, a "Prohibition" of marijuana, and the reference to reinstating alcohol prohibition was an analogy of that, not some "false dilemma".
So by your thinking, if we give you heroin, you ought to still be able to get up and work a regular job and feed your children, right?
False analogy. decriminalization does not, in any way, involve anyone giving anyone anything, ever. We simply allow the individual to make that choice for himself. Perhaps there is a guy out there who can do moderate amounts of heroin and still lead a normal life. I don't know. But if there is, then it is not the proper role of government to tell that guy he can't because some other guy might not handle it as well as he does. And it certainly isn't the proper role of government to use that anti-drug law to shred all of the rights of freedoms of the people it is "protecting".