As per AT tradition, political thread!

Alcohol and Tobacco are both more addictive and dangerous for your body.

Why should Marijuana not be? The tax income from it could easily solve all the economical crisis.

Does this mean that i need to legalise my weed plantation ? If yes will the government pay for the costs ?

if not then no.

Savings from law enforcement/prison costs alone would be tremendous.

Interestingly enough very few people know why marijuana was banned in the US in the first place.

Unlike alcohol, which required a constitutional amendment, pot was banned based on a newspaper publisher's lobbying and not actual medical evidence and through act of congress

If marijuana were legalized, the price would plummet like a stone, because 97% of the risk associated with manufacture, possession, and consumption of marijuana would be eliminated.



End of thread.

If it was legalized, government would control production and taxation.

Oh, not to mention quality control.

Price will stay around the same and the government would reap in the dough.

Not to mention, Martian, that it's in the same class as heroin and such. They never seem to let people do studies with it, either, because they know they'd have to lower the restriction class.

Well, like half of the other non-sense in the US - Hemp would have eliminated a lot of people making money around that time weed was banned.

+1 for The Man.

I was under the impression that it was primarily an anti-mexican-immigrant move in the '30's or something like that...

'course i'm not from the states heh

If I was the govt i'd legalize, quality control & tax the bejeezus out of it

and then put those little warning labels on it ("extensive use of pot will make you dumb") and restrict areas where it could be used, like smoking.... no indoors, min 5m away from any door or window...

"Wharrgarbl! Reefer Madness makes people kill! Your children will turn into rapist homo satanists if they smoke the "marihuana."

^ That's what got weed to be illegal. Pure stupidity.

I think the better way to go is to decriminalize it rather than legalize it.

its already been decriminalized where I live, you can carry up to an ounce if you are over 21.

assuming the state taxed and controlled pot sales like they do alcohol and tobacco, you'd get a lower prison population, and you'd keep a lot of money out of the drug cartel hands. probably lower gang violence too, since they won't have as much of a starter population in prisons, as well as less money to buy weapons

if all that happened was decriminalization, there would still have to be street dealers, and you'd still have problems with quality of product, and smuggling, and violence inherent in the system, and help help i'm being repressed.

i'm rather pro-legalizing pot, in spite of the fact that i'd never smoke it. allergies are a fluff.

i've kind of got a similar opinion on most "illegal" drugs. *i* wouldn't do em in spite of their legal status, but if somebody else wants to fluff themselves up on coke, who am i to object. now, if they go messing somebody else, it's the same system that we deal with if somebody gets into a fight while drunk. public intoxication or other such things. we have the rules to handle it in place already.

They will legalize it and still take you to jail for DWI tho.. God I love this country!

+ 1 more for The Man

everything goes better with a bag of weed.

... Why the hell wouldn't they take you to jail for DWI if you are driving on weed?

I'm torn. On one hand, every pot head I know is a retard and we don't need more retards by adding more pot smokers. There will surely be more pot smokers if its legal, which surely would cause social externalities. I don't see what alcohol and tobacco have anything to do with it. On the other hand, it bothers me that drug dealers make such a comfortable living doing absolutely nothing. I'd like to put them out of business and make them pay taxes and work like the rest of us. Also, marijuana is clearly a state issue that the federal government should have no hand in.

"The tax income from it could easily solve all the economical crisis"

I'm guessing this was hyperbole/a joke? The tax revenue/savings from law enforcement would be beneficial to local governments and state governments but have virtually no benefit for the Federal budget.

hey dibs i bet u get a bigger smoking section if you get the pot smokers to side with you but that said i like smoking weed in my house where is warm:)

make it legal i am getting my card in a few months anyway so i do care that much..

and smoking makes my driving better. drinking does not

should it?

yes, i think in the land of the free, you should be able to smoke/screw with your body in whatever way you want to


will it?

never, they are trying to kill off cigarettes, why in the WORLD, after all the legislation they have passed to destroy every smoker in America, would they legalize something that has been tax-illegal for decades? also, its legal to have marijuana, if you have the stamps for it. i.e. the tax stamps, but they dont make them, nor give them out. so theoretically, marijuana isnt illegal, its just tax controlled, and they dont accept taxes on it, therefore you cant have it. technicality i know, but the truth none the less

MrFord, I'm not so sure it won't, but it will be done through the courts, not Congress. Its on the ballot to legalize it in California this November. There is supposed to be a reasonable chance that it passes. This would put it in conflict with the Federal law, which means it will probably end up in the Supreme Court. The Court should find that the Federal government has no right to tell the states what to do with a plant, and voila, states can do whatever they want. It will never be legal everywhere, it will be a state by state thing.

Leftyh8er, Stoners think weed makes them do everything better, even though it doesn't. Stoners are retarded.

Klown, smoking doesn't impair your ability to drive, unless you smoke A LOT. Even then, it's nowhere near as bad as a few beers or drink will do to you. And pot smokers aren't dumb because they smoke, it's just that a lot of dumb people smoke weed. They'd be stupid either way. And mrford, it is classified as a class 1 controlled substance, so good luck trying to get people to believe it's legal.

Klown weed makes you react 1 to 5% slower, not 100% on the number but beer will fluff u up much more. i drive 5+ MPH over the speed limit when not high but i drive the speed limit when i am high so yea getting high makes me a better driver. most cops in San Jose, CA wont give u a DUI for high driving if they cant prove it which is very hard without somthing smoking when they get to your car door.

as for all pot heads being dumb well there are a lot of dumb people in America and a lot of people smoke weed so u see the two over lap not my fault just happens that way.

as for me i have a college degree in accounting smoked weed all 5 years in college be4 tests and class so yea also working on my CPA so want me to do your taxes :)

"Klown, smoking doesn't impair your ability to drive"

Bull. Sh*t.

"unless you smoke A LOT."

Forgot that part. If you're baked off your ass, then yes, you may have a harder time driving, if you're an easily distracted person. If you smoke all the time, and smoke a little bit and go driving, your chance of getting into an accident is maybe a couple of percent greater, if that. Cell phones will put you in a lot more danger than a bit of weed will.

Weed actually makes you focus better, it almost slows down your time.

And thats a good thing how, exactly, when driving?

Because you pay more attention than some pretentious asshole who's going "I'm not stoned so I'm a better driver derrrrrrrp!"

Stupid comment.

An old friend of mine and his friend were smoking weed while driving (back in high school) and they drove perfectly fine. From what I have seen weed does not lead to other drugs just by doing it, it most likely leads to other drugs by the drug dealer offering you a different kind of drug.

If you eliminate the drug dealer, you eliminate the "gateway" to other drugs. (this is my own opinion as anyone I have known has never had an urge to do harder drugs just by doing weed)

It also does not make you more ignorant.

BTW....Alcohol is legalized and I have YET to hear on the news someone killing someone or anything while being under the influence of weed and I live in the chicago metropolitan area. I hear all the time on the news and read in the paper about someone being drunk and way over the legal limit but yet , not pot.

I believe if it was such a terrible drug that makes you lose your concentration and dulling your senses, I would hear about drivers getting DUI"s for pot since Chicago has a huge drug problem

IT also has lots of benifits to society such as helping people with pain, a calming effect without all the harmful cathogins found in cigerettes, taxes, and allowing people to have a good time without intoxicated to the point they don't know what is going on

In the end lets face it, the people that are doing it now, are going to continue to do it, the point is, should that money be going to the newest member of the Forbes 500 which is a drug cartell, or the U.S. state and local governments?

TGD pretty much wins. Klown is el teh losro.

If we really stop to think about this, it is a stupid question.

We don't need more legal drugs, we need less of them. So no.

Yeah, except this is one of the drugs that could easily be legalized, and take money and power out of the hands of criminals. It's not going to make a difference. People think the world would explode, somewhat like they thought the healthcare bill would kill all of us. Sanity doesn't play a part, in their minds.

http://www.youtube.com/...ZJyHE&feature=related

Treat it like alcohol/tobacco, and tax it. Just like beer, if people wanna smoke pot and what not let 'em....just so long as they don't hop in a car and think they can drive through rush hour. I'm for enforcing responsible use.

more like 2 am runs to BK :)

I put up with enough bums asking me for weed when I dont even smoke pot.

forget BK....SLIDERS! :-D

pot should not be legal.

it should illegal to sell pot, or buy or grow pot with the intent of selling.
personal use should not be considered a crime, like hitting somebody with a baseball bat or kidnapping some child somewhere is- one has a victim, the other doesn't.

a crime on the same level as you drove without a seat belt on... jail, no, record no, evil terrible criminal? not for pot he isn't

got no objection at all for growing for own personal use, or using it (in discrete time)

pretty much as braden put it

NOW3P, you see the problem with that right here in this thread. All the hippies in here all think it makes them drive better, and would be more than happy jumping into a car during rush hour. I'm already swirving to avoid teenage girls texting, the last thing I want to do is have to avoid AoS too while he pauses to record a 'deep thought'.

TGD, thats fine but studies have shown that it does hurt your ability to drive. I know someone that drives drunk all the time and has never gotten into a wreck. While the drug dealer may be part of the gateway effect, I think its more caused by an increase in willingness to try new drugs. If you've never done an illegal drug before and somebody busts out coke at party, you're unlikely to do it. If you've done weed you say 'Well, Weed was cool and not so bad, let's give coke a try'. Now that may change if weed was legal, but I don't know.

The alcohol argument is pointless and has nothing to do with marijuana. The only way its relevent is if you can show that legalizing marijuana would decrease alcohol consumption, and while thats a possibility there is no proof. Anyway, this is a state issue, let the people decide what to do -- but thus far everytime its come up on the ballot it has been rejected. A personal reason I don't want it to be legalized is that I hate being around people that are stoned, they are so boring and idiotic. There is nothing worse than being with stoned people IMO. I'm afraid it would catch on and people would smoke instead of having a good time at a party and then I wouldn't have any fun.

just decriminalize it

legalize mj and legalize cocain

I'm not saying it makes people drive better, but the amount it makes your driving worse is negligible. I've ridden in a car with a stoned driver more times than I could count, and have never been anywhere close to an accident. Pot is nothing like alcohol, it doesn't make you pay less attention to the road, or think safety is unimportant, most people pay more attention, if anything. I've also been at more than a few party's where someone had coke, and I've never touched the stuff.

Like I said, it's not weed that makes people do stupid things or try new drugs, stupid people smoke weed and people that like drugs smoke weed, but the pot doesn't cause it, it's just there.

umm
pot does make you a worse driver. Period. There is plenty of data to prove it.
And yes alcohol impairs you much more quickly than pot does.

So yes I don't think getting high and driving should be legal. That doesn't mean pot should be illegal in general.
Hell, it's illegal to take any medication that makes you drowsy and then get behind the wheel too. That doesn't mean that that medication should be banned.

Also I have seen heaps of data that shows that using a cell and driving is as bad as drinking and driving. Impairment is impairment when operating a vehicle. The scary thing is that for some reason talking on a hands free still impairs you more than talking to someone in a car or yelling out the car window.

yes...it should

That's because people that multitask a lot suck at it, martian. If you have to divide your attention in any way, it'll impair your ability to drive.

And do you have a link to any of the data that pot makes you a worse driver? I'm not saying it doesn't, but I'd like to see some hard numbers. :P

martian does lines of coke off of my tummy!

when i drive after/while smoking pot...


i check my mirrors a lot more often!

Simply solution to many problems.

Legalize all drugs.
Let companies grow them, and add a nice tax to support rehab clinics. and fund Obama's healthcare intiative.

This will eliminate drug cartels, who need drugs to be illegal to exist.
this will eliminate the main revenue stream of most gangs
This will lower violence based on turf wars

And it creates an additional tax revenue.

And it clears people out of our prisons for traffiking. Lowering goverment costs, and we can put the 40K a year into houseing each person into retraining and helping be productive.

Sounds good in theory:)
Won't ever happen.

"whacked out pot head"? :P

I think about it this way

you have the morons who KNOW that drinking to much will do horrible things to them and they still do it

then you have the intelligent people who just do social drinking, drink a few over the course of the night or day and know how much to drink

The same will be with pot. It it is legalized, you will probably get people who have been wanting to try it going to try it, but the increase, in my opinion, will be minimal. Why? Many teens do it because it is a fad, they get a thrill off doing it because IT IS illegal. They want to rebell. They won't feel the urge to do it if the rebellion isn't there.

Just like Alcohol, many teens drink because it is illegal FOR them to drink. I would love to hear Europeans response to their teenagers drinking as I believe that after teenagers have been allowed to drink, they limit their moderation and learn to control themseves.

Everyone learns that pot is so horrible. I have yet to see anywhere on the news where it is anywhere close to beer or cigs in its destructive power. Pot doesn't make you go out on a bing and murder, rob, or do some other horrible crime

In the end through, if it ever DOES get legalized, it will be for people 18 years and older which could make teens want to try it, but even if this is the case, you won't get jails filled up with people with a little bit of pot in their car, saving millions of dollars in tax money both from housing these people and paying for public defense lawyers. and if my above statement is true, you just may lose those potental people gatewaying to another harder drug thus filling up our prisions with hard core drug offenders. In the end, it could not just be the tax money states are getting but the savings in taxes and possibly lives. But this is all speculation