The Marijuana Debate: My Answer to Your Criticisms

I wasn't implying that you should not be allowed to have or express your opinion on the subject, I was pointing out that your article was full of false information. If your article had only contained your opinion I probably wouldn't have commented at all. However, as many others also pointed out, the statements you made concerning the abilities of people after "doing" marijuana and your statements on the medical impact of using marijuana were completely untrue and obviously borne from a complete lack of knowledge (ie ignorance) of the facts.

I will, like ColdForged, reiterate that I am not calling you an ignorant person. On this topic, however, you lack factual knowledge.

Please read my article about Marijuana use -

http://missdev.newsvine.com/_news/2006/02/08/89739-fight-crime-legalize-marijuana

I too, do not smoke/consume Marijuana. But I do support the legalization of it. Feel free to disagree - but I feel that it would not be a waste of your time to read it.

Thanks for your opinions! Without them, Newsvine would not be nearly as interesting!

I realize the article isn't about alcohol, but your reasoning for not wanting to compare it to alcohol seems to imply that you think alcohol should be illegal, but that it would be impractical. If that is the case, do you personally drink alcoholic beverages? I think that is an important question because if you think alcohol should be legal (for practical reasons) but marijuana should be illegal (for moral/safety issues) then you are still being hypocritical. You can't use alcohol and condemn marijuana, regardless of your reasons for each.

On the other hand, if you don't use alcohol, then good for you. I don't either. :)

Personally I think that an ideal world would not have any mind-altering drugs (although I do acknowledge that both alcohol and marijuana have legitimate medicinal uses). However, I think making them illegal leads to more problems than it solves.

"Now here's a man who knows what he's talking about! Thank you very much for your comment. This is the only one that actually makes me consider the opposing point of view as well as the only one that attacks my ideas without making me turn purple."

So are you going to respond to it?

MY ARTICLE IS NOT ABOUT ALCOHOL!

It has to be addressed, Alcohol companies have lobbied against legalization for years because they fear their sales would go down. Because alcohol has done so much more harm to a society as a whole logic dictates that if anything legalizing marijuana would reduce some of the problems that alcohol cause. Granted some new problems would pop up but anyone who has used marijuana and alcohol can easily understand the difference between the who and how it can negatively affect those around you. Look at domestic violence statistics, 2/3 of victims of intimate partner violence reported that alcohol was involved in the incident.

http://www.marininstitute.org/alcohol_policy/violence.htm

Alcohol plays a part in some religious faiths

So does marijuana.

The courts have ruled that marijuana use is not protected by the free exercise clause of the first amendment (the freedom of religion). Therefore, neither would alcohol.

I'm glad you don't drink. I don't either. I think both alcohol and other drugs are dumb. Not immoral, but dumb. Pointless. I don't get it. But it's not my job (or the government's) to tell people what is dumb or what is moral. It is the government's job to keep society stable. Since there are several very stable countries in Europe which allow marijuana use and have lower crime rates even (like most of Europe), I think it's safe to say that banning marijuana is not necessary for that goal.

...we have to respect the most prominent religions before anything else.

I disagree. If we have to respect one religion's beliefs, then we must respect all of them in the same way. We can't say alcohol is legal because Christians use it for their ceremonies, but then say marijuana is illegal even though other religions use it for their ceremonies.

By comparing marijuana use with sacrifices you're (possibly sub-consciously) making a judgement on the validity of those beliefs. That's OK for you to do, but it is not OK for the government to do. I personally think using alcohol in religious ceremonies is silly (granted, I think all religious ceremonies are silly). Regardless, it's not my place to say that they can't use alcohol for those ceremonies just because I dislike alcohol.

You'd better stick to your other arguments. I still disagree with them, but the religion excuse is completely bogus.

If we were to legalize marijuana, it would still need to be strictly controlled, for example, in marijuana bars. Bartenders would strictly keep watch over how much each person had taken already, and decide when that person has had too much. If the bartender thought that the person was too impaired to drive, he would either make them wait until the effects wore off or call a taxi for them.

Many people don't go to bars. And why complicate matters by forcing those who wish to partake to leave the safety and security of their own homes? There's precisely zero danger to anyone if the person stays in their house. You can't overdose on marijuana -- well, technically you could but the lethal dose would require you to smoke roughly a kilo which would prove mildly difficult -- and about the worst you could do would be to fall and break your neck. Are we legislating now to keep people from falling down?

Your "solution" would place someone in more danger than if they could have simply stayed safely in their house as they are now under the supervision of a single person who, quite frankly, likely has too much to do to keep track of the relative intoxication level of every one of her patrons. Unlike breathalyzers there isn't an easy measure of level of intoxication for marijuana. Sure, you could pee in a cup and it could test and tell you "yes, you have THC in your system."

Punish the behavior that causes the problem: driving under the influence. You're now saying a "decent workaround" is to put people on the road to go and perform the activity ("but they can take a bus!" How about the okeys in rural Utah? Just because they're not in bus range of a pot bar they should be denied?). That's wrong-headed. Legalize it. Punish first-time driving under the influence with 6 months in jail and loss of driver's license for 5 years. Second one gets 5 years in jail and revocation. Punish first-time -- well, only time as it turns out -- manslaughter while driving under the influence with a death sentence.

Actually, I have never had "real" or "fake" marijuana and am proud to say it.

So don't argue that you know everything about all the "bad, terrible" things that it does. Don't act like you know everything when you've never even tried it.

In response to what side of the road I would walk on, I would choose the unoccupied side, as chances are the pot-smokers would be walking in the middle of the road because of how pretty headlights must look when you're high.

Where do you get this just completely biased impression of stoned people? Sure, most of the reason that rock music sounded good 'back in the day' is because they were high, but just because you're stoned doesn't mean that you're going to get run over. See my last comment (#11) again and see if you're qualified to make a comment like that.

...but my point is that we have to respect the most prominent religions before anything else. If we were to make alcohol illegal, chances are we would be violating the religion of a huge portion of our population.

The point of the first amendment was to protect the rights of the minority. The majority's rights don't need protecting, they have the numbers to back them up. That argument could've been used to support the KKK. Many (maybe a majority) of people in the south thought that black people should've been hung, does that make it right? It's not the majority's but the minority's rights that need protecting.

1. fine then. go to erowid.org and see for yourself. Sure, for some people they really can't do anything. On the other hand, there are many people who go to work stoned and do perfectly fine. For instance, a large percentage of people in the restaurant industry (people who make your food, and this is from a restaurant owner) smoke marijuana. Anyone you talk to in the radio industry will tell you that all the DJs are high while they're "spinning the records" and they're doing fine. I don't know where you get this blanket stereotype that all potheads are deranged, because it's just not true.

2. True, but how is murder ANYTHING like smoking some marijuana? When someone sits down on their couch and smokes a joint, who are they hurting. On the other hand, if the person to be sacrificed is consenting to being killed, I have no problem with it, but that is ONLY when they consent.

Because something is illegal doesn't mean that it's bad or needs to be cracked down on. There are still "dry" counties in America but that doesn't mean that they are right. Drugs don't need to be controlled by the government but by the people who are using them. They need to control what they put in their body and that's it.

I really don't think that people are that stupid. They have to be free to make mistakes and learn from them. I don't want the government telling me or anyone else what is good for me. I want to be able to make that deciscion myself, and if it turns out that it is the wrong deciscion, I won't do it next time. People need to be free to make mistakes.

This of course assumes that it's a "mistake". Many people would disagree.

Adam: That is true. But for those who think it is a mistake...the argument holds true.

What you say is true, when someone has an addictive personality. Otherwise, it's not addictive. And here's some real evidence:

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Marijuana ranks around Caffeine for addictiveness (just barely above is some categories).

Just out of curiousity - have you ever looked into WHY marijuana is illegal? Also - WHEN it fell out of favor with the US government?

Miss Dev: I sort of do. Do you? Because if you can pull that info up it would be nice because I don't want to do it.