Posted on 02/06/2015 9:48:52 AM PST by ConservingFreedom
“With marijuana,” declare William J. Bennett and Robert A. White in Going to Pot, their new prohibitionist screed, “we have inexplicably suspended all the normal rules of reasoning and knowledge.” You can’t say they didn’t warn us.
The challenge for Bennett, a former drug czar and secretary of education who makes his living nowadays as a conservative pundit and talk radio host, and White, a New Jersey lawyer, is that most Americans support marijuana legalization, having discovered through direct and indirect experience that cannabis is not the menace portrayed in decades of anti-pot propaganda. To make the familiar seem threatening again, Bennett and White argue that marijuana is both more dangerous than it used to be, because it is more potent, and more dangerous than we used to think, because recent research has revealed “long-lasting and permanent serious health effects.” The result is a rambling, repetitive, self-contradicting hodgepodge of scare stories, misleading comparisons, unsupportable generalizations, and decontextualized research results. [...]
When it comes to assessing the evidence concerning marijuana’s hazards, Bennett and White’s approach is not exactly rigorous. They criticize evidence of marijuana’s benefits as merely “anecdotal” yet intersperse their text with personal testimonials about its harms. They do Google searches on “marijuana” paired with various possible dangers, then present the alarming (and generally misleading) headlines that pop up as if they conclusively verify those dangers. They cite any study that reflects negatively on marijuana (often repeatedly) as if it were the final word on the subject. Occasionally they acknowledge that the studies they favor have been criticized on methodological grounds or that other studies have generated different results. But they argue that even the possibility of bad outcomes such as IQ loss, psychosis, or addiction to other drugs is enough to oppose legalization. [...]
(Excerpt) Read more at forbes.com ...
“Why are you here?”
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Who the hell are you to question why I’m here. Just like CF is a retread troll that’s been zotted before, I might remind you that YOU YOURSELF - due to your pro-pedophilia posts once got the zot yourself. But you re-registered and came back.
I will not back down. Even though this place is now a libertarian hot mess supporting drugs, euthanasia, sodomy, I will not be silent.
That is an ignorant statement, albeit widely spread by Libertarians for the last forty years.
Pray tell, what are the consequences of *NOT* having a war on drugs? Do you have any idea what those look like?
Do you have any examples in history to point at to show us a nation that didn't have a war on drugs, and how much better they turned out than what we have?
How about you give us an example in history of a nation that didn't have a war on drugs, but everything turned out better? How about that?
You see, the only example in history of which *I* am aware, was an unmitigated disaster. Millions dead, massive civil unrest and distress, and eventually a collapse into a dictatorship.
But i'm willing to look at an example where none of this happened, so how about you just point out this imaginary country where they did better without a war on drugs?
Nope. And Marijuana is not a “gateway drug” either, any more than alcohol. It’s not the drug. It’s the person.
It’s like I’m arguing with a 50 year old in the 60’s. We’ve gotten past Reefer Madness.
I’ll tell you a little story about how I started smoking the stuff in December of 1972.
I graduated from high school in 1972. I was a real drug prude. My friends would smoke it but I never touched the stuff. In fact, my final paper in high school was on the evils of marijuana.
Guess what I found out? It was, at the time, not that different from our “evils of man made global warming” talking points now. I felt duped. I still got a good grade on the paper though.
I still didn’t touch the stuff because I was CHEAP. It was $10 a lid when gas as $.28 a gallon and I made $2 an hour.
And the reason I stopped was I thought I acted stupid when I used it (1977). I have not touched it since. Thing is, it’s not an addictive drug. That’s why people can “move on” from it.
And ALL of my friends that smoked it have moved on. One became a permanent “loser” but that’s not about drugs. It’s about his character.
I’m against marijuana use because the ONLY reason for using it is to alter your perception of reality. As a Christian I do not bellieve that is good stewardship of the body God gave me.
But as a Christian I also believe people should be allowed to make their own decisions except in cases where it overtly affects others.
And I’ve never heard of a beligerent stoner. ;-)
And I invite you as well to put forth an example of a nation that was better off without a war on drugs.
Where is this Libertarian utopia? I want to see it!
Marijuana is just the “Let’s not tolerate hate crimes against gays.” stage of the argument for eventual drug legalization. It is the camel’s nose in the tent.
Focus.
It is good when we can all keep our sense of humor. :)
For the first century-and-a-half or so of its history, the USA didn't have a war on drugs.
It’s literally why I’m here.
So we agree conceptually, but just differ as to means.
-— For what it’s worth, almost everyone I know on pot is also on welfare -—
Does pot smoking cause laziness, or does welfare dependency lead to idleness and substance abuse? Or are both true?
St. Thomas reasoned that the calculation for criminalizing a vice should weigh the damage resulting from the vice against the damage caused by criminalization. He even believed that there were circumstances where it would be better to tolerate prostitution than criminalize it.
Anyway, the calculation regarding drug legalization is complex. But I think we have reached the point where criminalization has caused more harm than good.
I had to leave the first Baptist church I attended here because of their stance on alcohol. And not because they were against it. It was WHY they were against it. Raw dogma.
The final straw was the sunday school class on alcohol. EVERY SINGLE verse they used to support their position said to not be a drunk or drink a lot. And if you tried to even politely suggest there may be more to the story you met a brick wall. I tried, but it was time to move on.
Now, whenever someone around my area says they are against alcohol I ask them, “Oh, are you Mormon, or is it Muslim?”
The term "Legal" in this context is baseless. Legality has become so cut loose from it's moral underpinnings as to represent no compelling argument.
We are a nation in social decline, and you are working to accelerate it.
Yes, for over 100 years, there were no laws against the use of recreational drugs yet somehow we managed to muddle through. You are obviously a proponent of the nanny state that needs to control everyone with your idea of what is acceptable.
You are taking my comment about the flu vaccination and broadening WAY too much. I could take your position the other way, of course. Lets allow the government to enter your home at will to ensure that you are living your life in a way that will in no way potentially harm others. Strap your kids to a table to get them vaccinated and eat the right foods. Etc.
I think you see just how far I could take it if I desired. The government can incentivize people to do the right thing. I was all for those seat belt commercials back in the 60’s. But making it a law crosses a line.
Alcohol IS a brain-altering drug, you DOLT!!!!
Take a few more puffs. Your blood pressure is getting too high.
You are parsing words.
The term "Legal" in this context is baseless. Legality has become so cut loose from it's moral underpinnings as to represent no compelling argument.
The term "legal" in my parenthetical note was not intended as an argument but simply to clarify the breadth of the preceding "all." Or if you mean that you weren't talking about marijuana legalization at all, then what were you talking about - what is "intemperate" and what should we do about it?
Conservatives and Libertarians are very different creatures philosophically. They are socially liberal, but fiscally conservative.
The fault with their philosophy is that fiscal policy cannot be separated from social policy. In a nation that has no moral conception of stealing, murder and lying, there is no foundation upon which an economic system can operate.
Adam Smith and Edmund Burke were not only contemporaries but good personal friends, and their philosophies are intertwined and synergistic. You can't pick one and eschew the other. Such a system does not work, it declines until collapse.
This is supposed to be a conservative website, but i'm seeing much evidence that it is slowly being eroded into a Libertarian one.
As they say, bad money drives out good.
Interesting. You know what they say about that...
A little gentle ribbing is hardly an ad hominem. The boy was sounding a little hysterical.
That’s pretty funny. One of my friends in Seattle was having a party and I couldn’t find him. I wondered around his yard (he has a very nice place) and he comes out of the bushes with two other guys and one is holding a bong.
He told me he knew I frowned on useing dope so they had decided to do it back there. I told him I didn’t judge and he need not hide it from me.
He’s a second level manager at Microsoft.
i.e. You may be basing your opinion more on the type of people you hang around rather than the type of people that smoke dope.
It’s a devil’s game to get people to believe that inanimate substances are capable of anything that requires initiative.
Once people do believe it, then the devil has all the fun of leading on the game we know as idolatry.
It would be simply sad because most people will not seriously contemplate consuming “pot” but it gets frightening because it transfers over to guns and crosses and flags etc. etc.!
Reminds me of the “journalist” who said Nixon couldn’t have won because nobody she knew voted for him.
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