[Politics] Weed and Things

Psychic Robot · Post by **Psychic Robot** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:34 am

What the hell do you say to someone who seriously claims that keeping marijuana illegal isn't a big government policy because legalizing and regulating it will expand the government?

IT BURNS.

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:28 pm

"William F. Buckley Jr. of blessed memory disagrees with you." Seriously, I think the citation of one of the biggest names in 20th century conservative liberitarianism should have a significant weight in any libertarian argument.

William F. Buckley Jr. [url=http://old.nationalreview.com/buckley/buckley200406291207.asp]June 29, 2004[/url] wrote:Legal practices should be informed by realities. These are enlightening, in the matter of marijuana. There are approximately 700,000 marijuana-related arrests made very year. Most of these — 87 percent — involve nothing more than mere possession of small amounts of marijuana. This exercise in scrupulosity costs us $10-15 billion per year in direct expenditures alone. Most transgressors caught using marijuana aren't packed away to jail, but some are, and in Alabama, if you are convicted three times of marijuana possession, they'll lock you up for 15 years to life. Professor Ethan Nadelmann, of the Drug Policy Alliance, writing in National Review, estimates at 100,000 the number of Americans currently behind bars for one or another marijuana offense.

...

It is de facto legal in the Netherlands, and the percentage of users there is the same as here. The Dutch do odd things, but here they teach us a lesson.

Username17 · Post by **Username17** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 1:33 pm

Ah. The only people who give a rat's ass about terms like "big government" are conservatards. Everyone else in the world cares about results rather than arbitrary and immeasurable ephemera like how "big" the government is.

Conservatards are in favor of Law & Order. Even Randite "no government" types still want a robust and intrusive police force to beat up hippies. So any time something is handled by the government by having a bunch of police investigate it and then haul people into jail and then have paperwork filed by the judiciary and then have people get beaten or put in prisons or whatever - that doesn't count as "big government". Governmental bigness only measures government officials doing productive or regulatory things. So one clerk checking the marijuana inspection stamps to make sure that your weed has been declared and inspected for purity is "big government", but twenty police officers rounding up hippies to check them for reefers is not.

Sorry, that's just what the term "big government" means. It's not about how many many hours of governmental workers are used, it's not about how many taxpayer dollars it costs, it's not even about how intrusive it is into your life. It's 100% about whether government is doing something productive or regulatory. If it is, that's "big government", regardless of whether this makes your life better or is in all ways preferable to the alternative.

-Username17

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:24 pm

I have a question about weed. I don't smoke the stuff, nor do I have toker friends, but I've been around stoners before. Now I seem to recall actual medical scientists saying "Nah, the government wants to scare you, it's about as serious a drug as a very strong onion." but... Kronic Stupid does seem to be a real condition.

I mean, this could just be a case of a small sample size, but the stoners I've seen... are practically braindead when on the stuff, but still pretty thick when off the stuff. I had a terrible time once, playing the WoW boardgame with some. I picked the rules up in a few minutes, and even the owner of the game kept forgetting rules and none of the stoners seemed to know what was going on.

Anyone have an explanation for this? Real condition but not serious/permanent, or "Koumei found stupid people who are also stoners, or people who feel like they have to act like TV stoners"? Or "actually that is a serious problem, just like alcoholism, but that's legal so..."?

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:30 pm

I always thought "big government" was how it pertained to interfering with corporations. They seem to be fine about having the government intrude in many personal aspects of people's lives.

Count Arioch the 28th · Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:33 pm

My experience with potheads are similar to Koumei's, with the addition that they make you late for everything because they have to get high before leaving the house.

RobbyPants · Post by **RobbyPants** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:37 pm

Koumei wrote:Anyone have an explanation for this? Real condition but not serious/permanent, or "Koumei found stupid people who are also stoners, or people who feel like they have to act like TV stoners"? Or "actually that is a serious problem, just like alcoholism, but that's legal so..."?

My best friend was huge into the stuff when we were younger. He's pretty bright, but he was also lazy as hell. I'm not sure I'd blame the laziness on the pot, though. Lazy might not be a good word. He doesn't like to apply himself, and that's stuck with him his whole life.

angelfromanotherpin · Post by **angelfromanotherpin** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 3:42 pm

http://drugabuse.gov/infofacts/marijuana.html

Research has shown that, in chronic users, marijuana's adverse impact on learning and memory can last for days or weeks after the acute effects of the drug wear off. As a result, someone who smokes marijuana every day may be functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level all of the time.

Research into the effects of long-term cannabis use on the structure of the brain has yielded inconsistent results. It may be that the effects are too subtle for reliable detection by current techniques. A similar challenge arises in studies of the effects of chronic marijuana use on brain function. Brain imaging studies in chronic users tend to show some consistent alterations, but their connection to impaired cognitive functioning is far from clear.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 5:04 pm

angelfromanotherpin wrote:http://drugabuse.gov/infofacts/marijuana.html

As a result, someone who smokes marijuana every day may be functioning at a suboptimal intellectual level all of the time.

Smoking pot simulates being an average Politician then?

Juton · Post by **Juton** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:05 pm

As stultifying as marijuana use can be, I haven't seen it be as harmful as alcohol. I believe that people have the right to get buzzed or baked, what I don't understand is the people who think one is ok and not the other. Especially when they say alcohol is OK but pot is not, when in just about every metric being a drunk has more severe health consequences then being a pot head.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 7:44 pm

Juton wrote:As stultifying as marijuana use can be, I haven't seen it be as harmful as alcohol. I believe that people have the right to get buzzed or baked, what I don't understand is the people who think one is ok and not the other. Especially when they say alcohol is OK but pot is not, when in just about every metric being a drunk has more severe health consequences then being a pot head.

Not only for the alcohol user, bot others around or near them. (See drunk drivers, domestic abuse cases, alcohol related deaths, etc)

In a bar one time while i was designated driving, I asked some, partially, inebriated people would they rather have an argument with someone stoned on pot, or someone drunk, and hands down they would rather be in an argument with a pot-smoker because risk of injury form the argument is less as a drinker is more apt to become violent.

And we all know how well prohibition worked....

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:15 pm

Juton wrote:As stultifying as marijuana use can be, I haven't seen it be as harmful as alcohol. I believe that people have the right to get buzzed or baked, what I don't understand is the people who think one is ok and not the other.

There is a lot of misinformation about pot out there. I've heard false arguments that it is worse than tobacco (although they may contain more stuff than tobacco because of the way it is used, cancer rates are actually lower than tobacco use).

Doom · Post by **Doom** » Wed Mar 23, 2011 8:25 pm

Whether it is better or worse than tobacco is besides the point. The issues are whether the government holds sufficient ownership of its people to keep them from eating/smoking a certain thing, and whether it's cost effective for the government to engage in such prohibitions.

For the US, the answers are no, and no, respectively.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 6:52 am

Doom wrote:Whether it is better or worse than tobacco is besides the point. The issues are whether the government holds sufficient ownership of its people to keep them from eating/smoking a certain thing, and whether it's cost effective for the government to engage in such prohibitions.

For the US, the answers are no, and no, respectively.

Especially when you consider the non-monetary "costs" of the drug war...like corruption, civil rights violations, etc. etc.

http://reason.com/archives/2011/03/21/h ... ops-go-bad

Josh_Kablack · Post by **Josh_Kablack** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 3:29 pm

"Nah, the government wants to scare you, it's about as serious a drug as a very strong onion.

Have you ever had to interact with someone who smoked three onions a day?

There are strong enough politics around the issue that I don't fully trust anybody on the health harms of marijuana, but I am thoroughly convinced that inhaling any sort of smoke at all does notable damage to the lungs. And well, that is gonna reduce the amount of oxygen getting into the blood and to the brain.

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Thu Mar 24, 2011 11:14 pm

I'm all for outlawing fireplaces and making a fire alarm sufficient grounds for police to search your home.

PoliteNewb · Post by **PoliteNewb** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 12:01 am

CatharzGodfoot wrote:I'm all for outlawing fireplaces and making a fire alarm sufficient grounds for police to search your home.

I'm assuming (perhaps mistakenly) that you're replying to JoshK (based on the comment about "inhaling any kind of smoke").

In all fairness, though, Josh didn't say a word in defense of current police/legal practices regarding inhaling smoke of various kinds...just that it's probably not good for you. And he has a point...I don't think even most stoners would claim smoking rope is good for you.

But Doom (a couple posts up) is totally right...whether or not it's good/bad for you is beside the point. People should totally be allowed to do things that are bad for them without getting hassled for it.

ubernoob · Post by **ubernoob** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 2:17 am

Josh_Kablack wrote:
"Nah, the government wants to scare you, it's about as serious a drug as a very strong onion.
Have you ever had to interact with someone who smoked three onions a day?

There are strong enough politics around the issue that I don't fully trust anybody on the health harms of marijuana, but I am thoroughly convinced that inhaling any sort of smoke at all does notable damage to the lungs. And well, that is gonna reduce the amount of oxygen getting into the blood and to the brain.

http://canyouhearusmrpresident.com/wp-c ... Rigo14.jpg

Just saying

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 2:59 am

Yeah, when that came out in the news, Good News Week immediately went with it for an opening joke. "How many gold medals do you have to win before you can get away with smoking marijuana? ...apparently, more than Phelps won."

Followed by how Kellogs dropped him from their advertising campaign, because they don't want to be associated with marijuana use - despite stoners with the munchies being basically 99% of their consumers.

Maj · Post by **Maj** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 3:48 am

Koumei wrote:despite stoners with the munchies being basically 99% of their consumers.

Um... Children?

Koumei · Post by **Koumei** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 3:57 am

There isn't that much difference between a stoner and a child. I know drunk and child is a more apt comparison, but still.

And in Australia at least, I'm sure marijuana accounts for way more cereal consumption than children do.

Draco_Argentum · Post by **Draco_Argentum** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 7:48 am

Any time you ban something you hand control of its production and supply to criminals. There always needs to be an analysis of cost to benefit and one of the costs is giving bikie gangs an easy income source.

shadzar · Post by **shadzar** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 9:40 am

PoliteNewb wrote:People should totally be allowed to do things that are bad for them without getting hassled for it.

Who was it that said something like "learning doesnt come from books, but by making mistakes is how we really learn"?

tzor · Post by **tzor** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 2:22 pm

CatharzGodfoot wrote:I'm all for outlawing fireplaces and making a fire alarm sufficient grounds for police to search your home.

Fireplaces? The number one reason the smoke detector goes off in my house is the broiler in my oven. The smoke gets out of the room, winds down the hall, turns the corner, winds down the next hall and BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

(Actually I haven't used my fireplace in years.)

CatharzGodfoot · Post by **CatharzGodfoot** » Fri Mar 25, 2011 6:08 pm

tzor wrote:
CatharzGodfoot wrote:I'm all for outlawing fireplaces and making a fire alarm sufficient grounds for police to search your home.
Fireplaces? The number one reason the smoke detector goes off in my house is the broiler in my oven. The smoke gets out of the room, winds down the hall, turns the corner, winds down the next hall and BEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEP.

(Actually I haven't used my fireplace in years.)

My fire alarm is almost always disconnected for that same reason (Shh! Don't tell AAA). Otherwise it would be going off at least once a day.

But the two issues are separate: fireplaces should be illegal because their primary purpose is to produce toxic fumes. The fire alarm would allow cops to search for other sources of smoke.