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Legalized pot is making America’s lower class poorer and less responsible
New York Post ^ | 8-20-16 | Naomi Schaefer Riley

Posted on 08/21/2016 10:34:48 AM PDT by DeweyCA

(Snip)

The middle and upper classes have been the ones out there pushing for decriminalization and legalization measures, and they have also tried to demolish the cultural taboo against smoking pot. But they themselves have chosen not to partake very much. Which is not surprising. Middle-class men and women who have jobs and families know that this is not a habit they want to take up with any regularity because it will interfere with their ability to do their jobs and take care of their families.

But the poor, who already have a hard time holding down jobs and taking care of their families, are more frequently using a drug that makes it harder for them to focus, to remember things and to behave responsibly.

(Snip)

In fact, the typical user is much more likely to be someone at the bottom of the socioeconomic ladder, whose daily life is driven, at least in part, by the question of how and where to get more marijuana. Just consider the cost. Almost a third of users are spending a tenth of their income on marijuana. And 15 percent of users spend nearly a quarter of their income to purchase the drug. The poor have not only become the heaviest users, but their use is making them poorer.

To all the middle-class professionals out there reading this: Do you know anyone who spends a quarter of their income on pot? Of course not. But these are the people our policies and attitudes are affecting.

(Excerpt) Read more at nypost.com ...


TOPICS: Culture/Society; News/Current Events
KEYWORDS: brainwashing; cannabis; control; crime; goodintentions; liberalism; marijuana; pot; potheads; poverty; slavery
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

I can see that you don’t care, because you keep ignoring it. Whether or not you believe me is out of my hands, but I think that you are a drinker, because I have never seen you deny it.

So how much alcohol do you drink per year?

And surely, since I’m such a druggie, you should easily be able to defeat the points that I’ve made in this thread relating to how we are all responsible for the individual choices we make in our lives. That includes doing drugs, how much drugs and not doing drugs, and that such is what freedom is.

Within the realm of freedom exists the potential choice that ruins your life, doesn’t it?

Within the realm of freedom exists the potential choice that ends your life prematurely, doesn’t it?

Why don’t you go ahead and illustrate for me just how drug laws and police operations have stopped drug dealers from selling drugs to our kids.

Perhaps you can also explain to me why it is that your kids want to buy drugs from drug dealers. Didn’t raise them well enough? Drank too much too often? Beat them too many times? What was it? Why aren’t they happy enough to make the choice to remain sober when faced with the option to do otherwise?

Oh wait, I forgot, none of that even matters, because drugs are only a fact of my life, and no one else’s. Forgive me, that little bit of “wisdom” from Ethan Clive Dummy slipped my mind. So sorry.

The people in this thread that have said that they in fact “do drugs” was just me on alternate accounts, right?

So go ahead and refute that. I’m just a druggie, I can barely think straight, so it should be easy for you.


221 posted on 08/24/2016 9:55:42 AM PDT by chris37 (How do you make Republicans turn on their own candidate? Sneak up behind them and say "Boo".)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode
Ah yes, the Tyranny that gets in the way of druggies selling drugs to our kids.

No, that would be a crime. So that's a phony equivalence.

Please learn to distinguish between infringing on others' rights, and the lack thereof.

Vote Trump!

222 posted on 08/24/2016 10:08:49 AM PDT by sargon (Any one AWOL in the battle against Hillary is certainly not a patriot. It's that simple.)
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To: chris37; sargon
I heard what you are saying, but emotion usually has trouble listening when logic starts talking.

Within the realm of freedom exists the potential choice that...

Exactly right! It's all about consequences. Parents used to teach consequences. Did something change?

We kids had a lot of freedom, but not freedom from consequences.

It's not that hard, really. Whatever you do, just "Don't be that guy."

I had a couple of paper routes when I was in 7th and 8th grade and there was a customer on one route who was in very bad shape, some neurological condition or what, I didn't know, but I felt sorry for him.

He was about the same age as my parents and as it turns out, my mom remembered him from way back when.

My folks were Depression/WWII kids, much older than the parents of other kids my age.

My mom's first husband was a musician and she said that guy on my route was one of the best musicians in his band, handsome, witty and fun to be with, never without a date, etc., etc.

When she told me that, I couldn't believe it. No way that guy was the same person she knew back in the day, no way. So, what happened?

Syphilis, back before there was anything to stop it. It got his brain and nerves and there he was: the "After" picture.

I barely knew what venereal disease was at that age, but it scared the crap out of me just looking at that guy.

Consequences.

I don't care who you are; those "Don't be that guy" consequences more often than not lead to an understanding that changes the heart.

That's the system we were born into, complete with all sorts of built-in feedback mechanisms to keep things, and us humans, honest and on track.

We're just being stupid when we lie about consequences.

223 posted on 08/24/2016 11:44:03 AM PDT by GBA (Here in the matrix, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.)
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To: little jeremiah; A_perfect_lady
Yes, I live in a Potopia also.

I see a lot of bilge passed off as serious discussion on pot. No defense of its use as much as attempted justification.

The Libertarian in me says people should be entitled to act stupidly. The human inside me recognizes no problem is made better by adding pot to it...and that children deserve parents not stoned. The rational person in me says laissez faire only works if they alone bear the consequences of their stupidity. And drugs in general and pot use in particular is anything but a victimless crime.

224 posted on 08/24/2016 2:12:12 PM PDT by gogeo (I am a proud Trumpublican.)
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To: Snickering Hound
I was thinking of opening a bar named "Night School".

Where have you been?

Night School. :)

225 posted on 08/24/2016 3:06:44 PM PDT by Does so (Vote for Hillary...Stay Home...==8-O)
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To: gogeo

Very far from victimless.

My position is anyone who wants to use for “medicine” or just to get stupid and crazy, should be allowed to grow mj or opium poppies, BUT ONLY FOR THEMSELVES. Therefore, small amount. ANY selling will get (ideally) public caning, second offense execution.

That would give the people who really, really want to use, the freedom to so, without infecting anyone else.


226 posted on 08/24/2016 4:52:07 PM PDT by little jeremiah (Half the truth is often a great lie. B. Franklin)
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To: gogeo
...laissez faire only works if they alone bear the consequences of their stupidity. And drugs in general and pot use in particular is anything but a victimless crime.

Exactly. Thank you.

227 posted on 08/24/2016 5:16:54 PM PDT by A_perfect_lady (They aren't being radicalized; they're being activated.)
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To: chris37
why it is that your kids want to buy drugs from drug dealers. Didn’t raise them well enough?

So, when your druggie friends sell drugs to kids, we should put the parents behind bars.

228 posted on 08/24/2016 8:51:17 PM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (Nuke Saudi Arabia now)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

Either answer my questions or f*** off, douchebag.


229 posted on 08/24/2016 9:41:22 PM PDT by chris37 (How do you make Republicans turn on their own candidate? Sneak up behind them and say "Boo".)
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To: chris37
f*** off, douchebag.

Going berserk at this point would surely be bad publicity for libertarian drugism. After all, shouldn't drugs be mellowing you out and taking the edge off?

230 posted on 08/25/2016 3:53:17 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (Nuke Saudi Arabia now)
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To: T-Bone Texan
If there is another option, I am willing to give it a try.

I just find it hard to accept that there are problems in life which can only be solved by becoming a pothead.

231 posted on 08/25/2016 3:55:08 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (Nuke Saudi Arabia now)
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To: gogeo
Two questions:

1) Why did American Prohibition fail?

2) We've had an official "War on Drugs" for most, if not all, of my life, but the drugs we're at war with are now more popular than ever before. Why?

One observation:

Passing a law that cannot be enforced, or when it is enforced causes more problems than having no law at all, seems quite curious and there seem to be no logical reason for doing so.

232 posted on 08/25/2016 8:10:31 AM PDT by GBA (Here in the matrix, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

F*** off then.


233 posted on 08/25/2016 8:47:09 AM PDT by chris37 (How do you make Republicans turn on their own candidate? Sneak up behind them and say "Boo".)
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To: GBA
Regarding those two questions, one possible answer from Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, 1957?
“Do you think that we want those laws to be observed? We want them broken.
There’s no way to rule innocent men.
The only power the government has is the power to crack down on criminals.
Well, when there aren’t enough criminals one makes them.
One declares so many things to be a crime that it becomes impossible for men to live without breaking laws.”
And, every year they keep adding more and more laws to the ones we already have.

Some Ephesians 6:12 related questions:

What is the name of the spirit that posses freedom lovin' voters and makes us believe putting people who live to control in power over US is a good idea?

How do we cast it out and get rid of it? Anybody know a good exorcist?

234 posted on 08/25/2016 6:53:38 PM PDT by GBA (Here in the matrix, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.)
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To: Garth Tater
Locking people up for doing nothing more than minding their own business and doing as they please is not conservative

I agree. We shouldn't lock up druggies; we should shoot them.

235 posted on 08/26/2016 2:05:52 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (Nuke Saudi Arabia now)
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To: GBA

“Passing a law that cannot be enforced, or when it is enforced causes more problems than having no law at all, seems quite curious and there seem to be no logical reason for doing so.”

AMEN!!!

Vote trump 2016


236 posted on 08/26/2016 5:40:45 AM PDT by TheStickman (Trump will be the 1st Pro America president since Reagan)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

“We shouldn’t lock up druggies; we should shoot them.”

That’s right. Treat them like Muslims treat gay people & throw them off roofs cuz’ bullets cost $$$. /s

Vote Trump 2016


237 posted on 08/26/2016 5:43:52 AM PDT by TheStickman (Trump will be the 1st Pro America president since Reagan)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode
We shouldn't lock up druggies; we should shoot them.

Caffeine? Nicotine? Or do you just want to kill marijuana users? Are you going to line them up in front of trenches and shoot them in the back before you bulldoze them in, 'cuz there's millions upon millions of them you know.

You're a frick'n idiot and you probably don't even know it.
238 posted on 08/27/2016 12:01:25 AM PDT by Garth Tater (What's mine is mine.)
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To: Garth Tater
Or do you just want to kill marijuana users?

Sounds like a good way to start.

Are you going to line them up in front of trenches and shoot them in the back before you bulldoze them in, 'cuz there's millions upon millions of them you know.

Eventually there won't be any.

239 posted on 08/27/2016 3:04:55 AM PDT by Ethan Clive Osgoode (Nuke Saudi Arabia now)
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To: Ethan Clive Osgoode

“Sounds like a good way to start.”

Thanks for sharing the neanderthal/pro-nanny state perspective.

Vote Trump 2016


240 posted on 08/27/2016 3:10:43 AM PDT by TheStickman (Trump will be the 1st Pro America president since Reagan)
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