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Quote: Aussie

Quote: AZDuffman

Stop ignoring the brutal downside of legal pot

Interesting opinion piece on marijuana legalization. The pols are ready to become either the largest dealers or the gangster collecting the street tax of the local dealers. Meanwhile, same pols who are worried to death that kids might smoke a cigarette overlook the downsides of the stuff.

Looking at the tax rates this seems if even unintentionally to be a way the lower classes will stay lower class. Buy some dope with that lottery ticket every week and wonder why you never have any money. If government would run payday loan shops they would have the entire cycle.

Downside or not, why should the government be telling someone what they can and can’t do to their own body?

Cocaine, meth, heroin, ecstasy -- all should be legal then, right?

Quote: aceofspades

Quote: Aussie

Quote: AZDuffman

Stop ignoring the brutal downside of legal pot

Interesting opinion piece on marijuana legalization. The pols are ready to become either the largest dealers or the gangster collecting the street tax of the local dealers. Meanwhile, same pols who are worried to death that kids might smoke a cigarette overlook the downsides of the stuff.

Looking at the tax rates this seems if even unintentionally to be a way the lower classes will stay lower class. Buy some dope with that lottery ticket every week and wonder why you never have any money. If government would run payday loan shops they would have the entire cycle.

Downside or not, why should the government be telling someone what they can and can’t do to their own body?

Cocaine, meth, heroin, ecstasy -- all should be legal then, right?

Nope. Hard drugs has absolutely no public support for legalization.
Let the people decide
I think a lot of people will replace alcohol with MJ
I currently have a friend that is pretty much committing slow suicide with drinking
I wont touch alcohol. I consider it a dangerous drug. It can totally incapacitate you. You drink too much, you die
I've seen neighbors out of control on alcohol and get arrested
The best sight at the local dispensary, happy senior citizens.
I see lots of seniors at the local dispensary
Latest poll in the USA, 61% are for legalization
Its freedom and republicans are starting to recognize that
Here in Florida, medical MJ passed with 71%. Wasn't even close.
Power to the people

I smoke, I have money, just bought a beautiful metallic dark blue 2016 F150. Paid cash. I own it, not a bank. Biggest check I ever wrote in my life. How is that possible after reading AZ's comment.
No lottery ticket, I work hard and have a good job due to my computer savvy intelligence. ROTFL

Quote: aceofspades

Quote: Aussie

Quote: AZDuffman

Stop ignoring the brutal downside of legal pot

Interesting opinion piece on marijuana legalization. The pols are ready to become either the largest dealers or the gangster collecting the street tax of the local dealers. Meanwhile, same pols who are worried to death that kids might smoke a cigarette overlook the downsides of the stuff.

Looking at the tax rates this seems if even unintentionally to be a way the lower classes will stay lower class. Buy some dope with that lottery ticket every week and wonder why you never have any money. If government would run payday loan shops they would have the entire cycle.

Downside or not, why should the government be telling someone what they can and can’t do to their own body?

Cocaine, meth, heroin, ecstasy -- all should be legal then, right?

I’m at the point where I say why not.

Quote: Aussie

Downside or not, why should the government be telling someone what they can and can’t do to their own body?

They tried that in China. When Mao
came to power in 1949, China was
an unregulated drug cesspool. Opium
dens were everywhere, people were
wandering around in a doped up
daze.

Mao immediately made selling or
doing narcotics a death sentence
and guess what. 70 years later
China is a world power and will
run the world some day.

Quote: Aussie

Downside or not, why should the government be telling someone what they can and can’t do to their own body?

One thing that needs to be looked at, is you need drugs that the majority of people won't feel compelled to use at times when they need to avoid them.

You combine a drug that impairs judgement and behavior, with the unbearable compulsion to use, and make it easily accessible than you may create vast problems across society.

The stronger the drug, the more likely the compulsion to use even when you need to lay off it. If drug addicts lie and steal from their own family under the influence to get certain drugs --- well, what are we signing up for?

Quote: Aussie

Downside or not, why should the government be telling someone what they can and can’t do to their own body?

WE LIVE IN A SOCIETY! - G. Costanza

Government's purpose is to provide a foundation for society. As a free man of the kingdom animalia I should be "free" to s#$% in my own yard. It's perfectly natural and has served us for 10,000 years, and is fundamentally better for you, as modern toilets have poor positioning for voiding bowels. But, we found that s#$%ting in your yard brings about a lot (LOT) of problems. In short time, disease and infection becomes rampant. Water sources become poison. Many people, entire towns, would perish. So we cull a bit of freedom for the greater good.

Drugs are no different (they're very different, I'm just saying they shouldn't be). As a free man, I should be free to ingest alkaloids to my heart's content. So we did, and we do; I can think of two that are very popular. Both of them are pleasurable. Both are easily attainable. Both are marked by an increase in activity and production. And both are about as popular as a thing could be. But one, if you take too much, makes you jittery, maybe nauseous. The other, if you take too much, causes paranoid delusions, hallucinations, and death. Quitting one makes you irritable to the point of snapping at your boss or kid. Quitting the other makes you irritable to the point of shanking random strangers on the bus.

Just looking at it logically, it's easy (and I dare say "fair") to see why N America is about to put down its 100,000th Timmy Ho's Café and Bake Shop, while there's not a single Pablo Escobar's Jitter Joint to be found. It CAN BE ARGUED that cocaine's risk to society is of greater harm than the harm caused by the culling of that particular freedom, so we can in good conscience and good faith "destroy freedom".

Common sense says to... just use common sense. Is weed a net positive? We make our pro and con list. Somehow, we have said "no". OK, fine. Weed's not perfect, there ARE issues aplenty with its presence. BUT, has our response been in line? You can say a man is better off doing productive manual labor than playing video games, and therefore weed is bad. That is good. But your (generic you) response has been to instead throw them into the prison industrial complex, destroy their family, irreparably harm their ability to find gainful employment, and make them a 100% taker with no giving for years on end. Is this a proper response? Or does it turn a wrong into a GD tragedy?

The CIA gave us LSD in the 60's, they (IMO) had a hand in the crack/coke of the 80's, and now .gov's love affair with Big Pharm gave us the biggest opioid epidemic since 1840's China. Not to mention the largest incarcerated population in world history, most of which come by way of nonviolent drug busts.

I think we should make .gov illegal.

Quote: Face

As a free man, I should be free to ingest alkaloids to my heart's content. .

Aren't you the guy who used and
abused everything in his life to the
point that, in your 30's you have
the physical problems of a man
in his 70's? Wore down, wore out,
in pain all the time. You admit to
taking and abusing every drug
under the sun at one time, and
look what it's got you.

Quote: Evenbob

They tried that in China. When Mao
came to power in 1949, China was
an unregulated drug cesspool. Opium
dens were everywhere, people were
wandering around in a doped up
daze.

Mao immediately made selling or
doing narcotics a death sentence
and guess what. 70 years later
China is a world power and will
run the world some day.

I remember a usenet post where some guy in China said just that. It is why I am conflicted on decriminalization. On one hand, the drug war is out of hand. OTOH, I don't know of any drugged up society that leads the world. I have never seen a successful person credit marijuana smoking for their success. I have seen several say how glad they were that they got off smoking it.

The more we legalize the more we have to accept a permanent user underclass that must either be supported or we decide to thin the herd.

Quote: AZDuffman

. OTOH, I don't know of any drugged up society that leads the world.

It's the addictive nature of people.
You would end up with an addicted
underclass who would drag the rest
of society down with them. Look at
the number of people dying now
from narcotics, and it's still illegal.
Legalize them and Jennie, bar the door..

How the Plight of a Heartland Could Upset America's Balance

STRATFOR is not news but best place to put this.

Good take on why I have stated the USA does not last another 50 years as a country in current form. Really good take on how the real divide is not on the issues, but what the issues even are.