Political Poll USA: Should Marijuana be legal?

[POKEMASTERALEX]

Spoiler:

The ban on marijuana and other drugs - yes, even cocaine, which is undisputably harmful - functions just as the prohibition on alcohol did.

Drugs are NOT a problem because kids get hurt by them or people are addicted to them or whatever. Their medical effects are completely irrelevant to the argument over whether they should be legalized. The problem is Violence. The problem is people getting rich (or at least making money) by running drug operations and anyone who is a threat to their income gets killed.

If you legalized them, companies (or the government) could sell them for ALOT cheaper, so the wealthy, violent drug dealers would be completely out of business. In addition, the business or government organization that sells the drugs wouldn't mix any strange and possibly lethal stuff in the drugs, which is often what happens when it is sold on the street. So if you're worried about the medical side-effects, legalizing drugs would take care of all that.

In short, legalizing drugs is the answer to the drug problem.

I should say that, I personally have no stake in this - I don't do drugs and have never done drugs, I don't sell drugs -- and most of all, I don't live in a neighborhood where people are killed because of drug dealers.

not to single you out my friend but you have brought up some points I'd like to address.

Sure marijuana sales would go down as far as drug cartels are concerned but they dabble in a lot of other illegal activities such as cocaine, maybe meth, maybe prostitution. The point is there money will be made elsewhere. Also people aren't victimized or "jipped" when they get laced weed. They want it like that. Obviously syndicates or amateur dealers aren't going to give out free drugs so chances are someone isn't going to be buying weed and being surprised with laced stuff. They will pay more for laced stuff because they want it.

In that respect, the only thing they would cut down on is kids, or people, buying weed that is not pure and has additives that aren't drugs; like if some agent was added that is cheap like oregano and can end up being harmful to the human body.

*EDIT(addition): and there are no pipe or hooka bars, around where volky and I live ;)

 

[Richard Wagner]

Spoiler:

not to single you out my friend but you have brought up some points I'd like to address.

Sure marijuana sales would go down as far as drug cartels are concerned but they dabble in a lot of other illegal activities such as cocaine, maybe meth, maybe prostitution. The point is there money will be made elsewhere. Also people aren't victimized or "jipped" when they get laced weed. They want it like that. Obviously syndicates or amateur dealers aren't going to give out free drugs so chances are someone isn't going to be buying weed and being surprised with laced stuff. They will pay more for laced stuff because they want it.

In that respect, the only thing they would cut down on is kids, or people, buying weed that is not pure and has additives that aren't drugs; like if some agent was added that is cheap like oregano and can end up being harmful to the human body.

*EDIT(addition): and there are no pipe or hooka bars, around where volky and I live ;)

My response would be that, as I stated before, what I said applied to all drugs, including cocaine. As for prostitution, sure there's money to be made, but I don't know if that has or will account for the kind of violence that drugs do - but I'm not informed on the topic of prostitution-related violence so I guess I can't say much.

 

[HaZard2k8]

Statements like that are why medical marijuana will never be legalized.

Marijuana should just be legalized in general. Having only marijuana for medical purposes would be pointless anyways. People would just rob the hospital xD.

Seriously though. It should be legalized because if you compare it to Alcohol and Cigarettes, its not that bad. Majority of teenagers now have smoked weed whether first or second-hand.

Now people who say "It should be illegal forever because drugs are bad". Yeah we aren't in 5th grade. People do drugs, nothing is going to change that. Most things people have everyday are considered drugs. Drink coffee or soda? Guess what, you getting caffeine in your body. Caffeine is a drug, a stimulant actually. Its been proven drugs aren't that bad for you if you control it. If your not addicted. Anyone can get addicted to anything. Stop acting like Marijuana is some evil drug, high school kids OD on Tylenol and Advil. If they want to get messed up with drugs, their going to do it whether or not a certain drug is legal or illegal.

The one positive thing about Marijuana being legal would be, that crime would reduce. After Prohibition, crime was greatly reduced. Do you really think people would risk it and buy Marijuana at a drug dealer if it was legal and they could buy it at some corner store like you can with cigarettes today? Hence drug dealers would lose business, etc.

 

[Vortecks]

I voted just plain "yes". I do, however, feel there does need to be some sort of government control on it, similar to alcohol maybe?

It should be legal for several reasons.

1) It's not harmful. (at least not nearly as bad as tobacco, or alcohol)
2) If alcohol is legal, it makes absolutely no sense for marijuana not to be.
3) Remember prohibition? It didn't work.
4) Legalizing marijuana would lead to a drastic decrease in crime.

I suppose some of those could have been tied together, but so be it.

 

[ShadowLeader]

well we got some really good replies here on this subject....does anyone else have something to add?

 

[Volkner's Apprentice]

Marijuana should just be legalized in general. Having only marijuana for medical purposes would be pointless anyways. People would just rob the hospital xD.

Seriously though. It should be legalized because if you compare it to Alcohol and Cigarettes, its not that bad. Majority of teenagers now have smoked weed whether first or second-hand.

Now people who say "It should be illegal forever because drugs are bad". Yeah we aren't in 5th grade. People do drugs, nothing is going to change that. Most things people have everyday are considered drugs. Drink coffee or soda? Guess what, you getting caffeine in your body. Caffeine is a drug, a stimulant actually. Its been proven drugs aren't that bad for you if you control it. If your not addicted. Anyone can get addicted to anything. Stop acting like Marijuana is some evil drug, high school kids OD on Tylenol and Advil. If they want to get messed up with drugs, their going to do it whether or not a certain drug is legal or illegal.

That doesn't mean that's a good way of thinking about it. No one should be doing drugs or crap like OD-ing on Advil. It's because they're messed up in the first place, have extremely low self-esteem (also stems from being messed up by past family events/bad relations with friends, etc.), or kids who just want to 'fit in'. If you're seriously in an environment where you absolutely need to do stuff like that just to feel good about yourself? Then I would seriously consider some major life changes.

I'm not saying it should or is going to be a perfect world. But attitudes like that are exactly why it stays the way it does.

And NO. It's not going to reduce crime, they're just going to move on to even more drugs. Worse drugs. Prostitution. Finding other means (possibly more dangerous ones) of getting money and getting what they need to support the gang.

Not to mention, once again, we can't just have people who are high walking into stores pretending to act normal. You aren't currently in a good state of mind-you're high for God's sake! That's also not a great condition to be driving in either, and yeah, if they considered the legalization of it, maybe there'd be huge restrictions placed on it. Still, and don't get me wrong I'm not supporting alcohol by saying this or saying it's okay for drunks to walk around, but drinking in public has been accepted in certain ways. For instance, it's seen as unhealthy, weird, and pathetic to be drunk in the middle of the day. It's not okay for it to be legal to walk your dog at lunchtime while you're high, it's not okay to go grocery shopping and be rude to dozens of people while you're in there because you're high, and it's definitely not alright to be anywhere in or near school while you're high. Yeah, I know, people do that kind of stuff already, but for it to be considered socially acceptable is ridiculous.

And to the person who mentioned how prohibition didn't work: at the transfer college of 3,000 kids I want to go to next year, ask them who would like to drink this Saturday. A good guarantee a pretty hefty percentage will say yes. Now ask them how many would like to get high and just 'chill'. You're going to get a really big chunk that's going to move over to the no from those who said yes to drinking.

Drinking is just more popular and a lot of them can argue that they have way more control of what they say and do while only socially drinking a beer compared to smoking for the night. You aren't going to see massive riots across the U.S. if they decide to go super crazy on breaking down on marijuana users (more than now I mean.) Now if they brought up something against drinking again, there'd be chaos.

That's also not to say drinking isn't harmful; I'm aware that tobacco is disgusting and much more terrible (my mom is in the quitting process) and that alcohol is no picnic either. You just can't say, just because it's 'not as harmful as *blank*' that that makes it alright and a 'better choice'.

 

[Fox♠]

Ughh, this is ridiculous. Most of you who are against it show common signs of following what the media tells you, a lot of that is lies. I've tried pot, it's not great, it's not awful either. I mean the few times I've done it I've never had a bad experience. Neither have my friends who do it.

Smoking tobacco is easily 10x worse in the long run. Drinking will kill you off quicker too. I don't think cannabis should be legalised per se, instead I think Tobacco should be made illegal, and that more honest awareness campaigns are brought out.

 

[~*!*~Tatsujin Gosuto~*!*~]

I think it should be legalize, hey let people learn from their mistakes


:t354:TG