Patrick Kennedy should know. Very interesting read.



http://www.nbcnews.com/storyline/le...edy-wages-fierce-anti-pot-crusade-n22256

most the reasons he is against it in that article apply equally to alcohol.....infact in a few of the areas alcohol is way worse medically....

True. I hadn't thought about a "big marijuana" emerging analogous to "big tobacco" though. Its truly a dilemma. But you have to ask yourself, "is society (or individuals) going to be helped by more people smoking more dope"? I think not. As a populace, we have no self-control as it is (generalizing--I'm the exception, of course. ).

Jordan

If we made citizens responsible for the consequences of their bad decisions, rather that rewarding them, perhaps it would be different.

No matter how bad legal pot is to the people of this country, the drug war is worse.

Just like prohibition, the cure was worse than the problem.

Seems Patrick Kennedy wants to spend more tax payer money on "treatment" for pot smokers - brilliant! What else is new?

And that is the only question that matters.

You probably don't have a single bit of data; but it did sound official.

I can see his side of it, but I still disagree. Like he said, some people are looking for an escape, and for some of those people pot is where they find it. Others find it in alcohol or other drugs. Fact of the matter is, you cannot protect people from themselves, which is what they are trying to do. Hell, its exactly what the gun control crows claims to be trying to do. "Your not responsible enough to know whats good for you, so we'll tell you".

Its not that they are wrong, either. A chit ton of people out there who are not responsible enough to do whats good for them. However, as long as they are adults, that responsibility rests with them. As for pot, I'm not a fan, nor of alcohol. I just don't particularly care for the effects of either one. I couldn't get addicted if I wanted to. Thats just me though, and I have no interest in telling others what they should do with their life. From the potheads and alcoholics I've known,which is more than a few, I'll hang out with the potheads every time, if I have to choose. I also know plenty who use both/either on occasion, and are no worse off for it.

I realize there are a lot of people out there unable or unwilling to fight addiction. Obviously some people have a far more addictive personality than others as well. Some people are also more likely to snap and go on a rampage than others. We don't ban guns(hopefully)because of those people though. We hold those who cause trouble accountable for their own actions, without punishing everyone else for it. At least, we should.

Finally, the argument that pot leads to harder drugs. I don't buy it. I used to hear "every alcoholic started with one drink", which sounded idiotic to me even back then. Whole bunch of occasional and social drinkers started with one drink too. Should we just go to prohibition, so the playing fields level? Many of those who are on hard drugs started on pot. If they hadn't smoked pot, they probably would have done whatever other drug was offered to them first. Pot is common, so thats what most of them start with. If pot was coke, they would do that. Its the person, not the substance.

If drugs were legalized, would we see more use and more deaths? Maybe. I'm not sure the law is keeping a needle out of too many arms though. People who want to do that will do so. Most others won't, for obvious reasons. As for them dying sooner, well, its cheaper than keeping them in prison and we certainly don't have a shortage of people on this earth.

Nuff said. Good stuff.

The Drug war is worse!

Marihuana or Alcohol?

Ban 'em both! Won't effect me one bit.

Hey MJ isn't all bad think of how many more places there are to rob with lots of money. This opens lots of opportunity in a depressed trade. Think obama career jobs.

only thing ill argue is that pot may lead to harder drugs cause if thats the case, most started with alcohol before pot so if a gateway drug is true, alcohol is it, not pot.....

Wow. There has probably been more violence and oppression in the history of the world due to governments using that rational.

It's for the common good. We must do it.

I'm personally against marijuana, but what's happened in this country to fight drugs is a travesty of freedom and justice. Civil forfeitures? Should have been an American uprising as soon as that concept was ever floated. No knock raids to take down somebody growing a few plants? The forefathers would be ashamed.

Personally I lean to legalize it, then let the STATES regulate it and tax it into oblivion if they don't like it.

Since when do we support freedom by selling taxation? Just take it off the books and forget about it.

Weed is THE gateway drug, much more than alcohol, because it can only be obtained from criminals. Take the criminals out of the equation. That, or actually make it a crime...but that horse left the barn long ago.

Exactly.
Now enter Patrick Kennedy and his novel plan to ferret out marijuana "addicts", force them into "treatment" and if they don't comply with the "treatment", lock them in prison.
Is Kennedy serious?

I said let the states do it.. then it will be up to the people in the state. If the state doesn't care, then it won't be taxed. Heck, California will probably subsidize it. If Utah decides they don't want it at all (body is a temple and all that), then they should have the right to do whatever they want to WITHIN THEIR OWN STATE.

Jmho.

its the high thats the issue, not the legality.....some people are just wired to chase the high....and for the last 15 years in most places its easy enough to get pot from people that just deal in pot and nothing harder....vast majority of pot smokers do not get it from guys that are also slinging heroin or meth.....vast majority of pot smokers get it either from or one person removed from those growing it....outside of inner cities anyway....

I guarantee you that more pot is coming from outside our borders, so unless all the smokers have a cousin name Jesus in Mexico, they ain't getting it from one person removed.

vast majority of smokers aint smoking Mexican brick out side of inner cities....even 15 years ago most the chit i smoked was coming here via British Columbia from a grower a friend knew or from growers within the state, usually out of Missoula......far more pot is grown inside the borders anymore than is imported, especially from Mexico...

It doesn't matter. It illegal. Birds of a feather.

If you say so, I'm sure I haven't a clue about any intel concerning such.

Nothing should be Illegal if you do it in your own home

Your missing the biggest part look at the paper when u buy a gun It says do u or have u use drugs , They leagalize the junk then take it away your done if u use it

for the most part its illegal for kids to drink aswell but im positive as a cop you know that doesnt stop a damn thing.....least it never has up here.....

Sure, but Farooque, won't let 'em hang out in the back room of the 7-11 while all his friends are cutting up dope. Hanging out with criminals is never good for a kid.

yeh but with states like Washington and Colorado legalizing and 24 other states having varios decriminalization and medical laws....regardless of federal law on a local level it isnt always handled as illegal....for minors maybe but otherwise not treated any different from meds or alcohol....which only increases the "grown local" and getting away from the typical drug dealer...

Appears the only Pot the OP curries is Pol.

I don't use illegal drugs, nor should I need to answer such questions to purchase a firearm

I'm for legalization, or criminalization. One or the other. Right now it is a mess. IMHO, the problem is that most people don't want their kids doing dope...'til they do. Then they don't want them to get in trouble for it.

yeah see that crap all the time...."throw the book a them....oh wait my kid was involved? he is a good kid give him a pass and only punish the 'real criminals'"

actually we flustered the hell out of the local juvinile probation officer when one of our girls got in trouble....nothing major just chose the wrong group to hang out with and sat and watched while they did something....when he told us what her punishment was gonna be cause he knew she wasnt a major part of the activities we flat told him that aint gonna get the point across with her, you better up it

It is a step in the wrong direction.

The war on drugs has failed, the people (and I'm not talking about the far religious right wing folks here) know this and will direct their Politian's in the direction they want to go, just as how prohibition of alcohol was ended.

Thats for shor. There's potheads everywhere.

Nothing worse than a reformed anything.

I would presume he is rabidly against alcohol too. And smoking, and coffee, and.....

A dope arrest and conviction will do more to adversely affect one's life than the occasional blunt ever will.

My motion to suppress the 2 joints found inside the backpack of a passenger of a vehicle was granted this morning. The passenger was a family member. I as not paid my minimal 3500 bucks. In fact, I didn't even get 35 cents.

Had I not pulled a rabbit out of my ass, our 18.2-251 probationary disposition calls for drug counseling and 6 months on your mitt, with allowances for work,school and counseling classes. The problem for most parents, whose kids get tagged for minor amounts of dope,is that they are the ones who get smacked with the attorney's fees and driving their kids around when family member vehicles are not available.

One has to fight it as best they can, though. The drug conviction taint on a kid's jacket rides their back well into their later life. I do have a problem with that.

And, if their arrest in no way is vehicle related,keep the DMV out of it.

Keep it illegal,imo. If a violation and arrest occurs for minor amounts of dope; 500.00 fine,25 hours community service and push it out for 3-6 months. If the kid accomplishes the probationary obligations and mandates and satisfies fines and costs, the charge is then dismissed at the end of the ordered time period.

Do you believe the feds should have the power to make it illegal inside of all 50 states, or that it should be left up to the states to decide?

Or just let the feds blackmail the individual states with roads funds like they do on so many other things?

The reason pot was the gateway drug for decade is the same guy who dealt pot also dealt cocaine and heroine. Breaking that connecting lowers it's effects as a gateway drug.

It is illegal in all 50 States, by Federal Statute. Obama has declared that the law will not be enforced under his watch.

yeah he declared that but he also ignored it shortly after declaring it and started raiding medical places here in Montana within 8 weeks of saying he was gonna leave it to the states.....

That's because Montana ain't blue enough yet.

prolly

Yes, and certain people are being allowed to get rich unmolested operating "dispensaries".

which they wind up paying a chit load in property and income/sales taxes....like any other business....

What's payed in taxes is beside the point.
Either the thing is legal or it's not.
How can one person be given permission to break the law and get rich while some regular person is jailed for a joint.

Because in this state the regular person is no longer jailed for the joint.

Yes it will, your tax dollars will still be spent on a war that has been long lost, instead of on something constructive. Public pressure , via information,has reduced DUI's and smoking cigarettes has been vastly reduced by the population.

Like cigarettes, pot is a crutch that you will end up paying for, for yourself and others that use them to excess.

To much money spent, tax dollars collected, jobs, equipment, prisons, etc. etc. to crooked peoples pockets being lined, to stop the drug war in our lifetime.

What most here are too young to know is that many years ago...under the auspices of one J. Edgar Hoover...the FBI conducted an extensive study regarding the usage of drugs and it revealed that something like 80% of the major drug users started out smoking 'weed'!!

no they started with alcohol....they leave out that lil fact cause they know they cant outlaw alcohol cause that dont work......your telling me 80% of hard drug users smoked pot before ever having a beer? thats just idiotic thinking....i really cant understand why it shoots over peoples head that alcohol is a drug the same as any other intoxicant....it gives you a "high" and all things considered coming from someone thats had alcohol pot and medically prescribed opiates, beer is alot closer to opiates than it is pot as far as dangers ect....

yearly average deaths due to just alcohol flat out killing you do to alcohol poisoning: 88,000 in the US per year

number of known poisonings due to marijuana.....there MIGHT be all of 3 in known literature....not 3 per year, three total known and 2 of them are possibles and not definitive.....

there are far more legitimate reasons to outlaw alcohol than there is for marijuana....lots of idiot college kids kill themselves or cause severe brain damage due to one night of bing drinking....however if you want to reliably kill someone with marijuana other than an accident, you have toput a couple pounds of it into a bag and than beat the person to death with it....as far as drugs go its far less toxic than Tylenol....

I agree, some folks here don't like change. They like the same old thing garnering the same old results, dadgummit.

They also produced a propaganda flick called Refer Madness claiming that if you took a drag off a join it would turn you into a murderer.

Hmmmm...what 'grade' are you smoking these days??

Nearly 100% of them started out drinking milk.

high end medical grade but i dont smoke, my lungs have enough issues from a life time of asthma for me to smoke....

I agree. No one is arguing that smoking weed is a good thing or good for you.

The argument is that prohibition and its enforcement have been far more harmful to society and our way of life than legalization ever could.

Considering what we now know about J. Edgar Hoover, I wouldn't give much credibility to anything that he was involved in.

The ones with the red slap mark on the back of their heads were biters.

One measure of insanity is doing the same thing and expecting a different result.
But, we keep pumping billions of dollars into it- your taxes. A sane, rational country would have changed course years ago. But the knee jerk lock em up and throw away the key like from many here. How's that been working out the last 90 years?

AID's came close to solving a lot of problems.

I believe that to be true, just like I would bet 99% of all bank robbers started out with shoplifting or another petty offense, then moved on to a bigger crime. I guess we should put people away for 10 years for shoplifting, heck it's keeping bank robbers off the street!

as many have said, those who are chasing the high will follow it. the amount of self control they use and which drugs they use aren't dictated by laws. if they were pot wouldn't be a "problem" now filling up the prisons.

Pot is the only drug you don't have to refine, and you can grow it anywhere. no way if could have been stopped from the beginning

I love reading the views of those that have never used it. Amusing schitt. Like given an opinion on a rifle they have never used.

it's because of videos like this back in the day.

obama will try to make it legal nation wide before long.its just another way to control you. if you a drughead you will become easier to control.

Like Charles Krauthammer said, the effects of marijuana on the human body are benign compared to the effects of alcohol...the problem is that is makes people stupid and think they're smart.

Does alcohol make people stupid and think they're smart?

If not, then all this time our stereotypical introduction for describing insanely stupid activity has been wrong - "hey, hold my beer and watch this!"


Once again, the issue is not one of "marijuana is good." People keep trying to put those words into the mouths of those in favor of legalizing it since that is a really easy argument to refute.

Drugs are drugs are drugs. None of them are "good" except in narrow circumstances and very moderate use.

But making them illegal has FAR more adverse effects on society as a whole than the individual effects on those who consume them voluntarily and even the secondary effects on society of those who voluntarily abuse them.

Drugs are NOT good.

Criminalizing them is MUCH worse.

outlaw bad behavior.