Pot should be legalized, and cocaine, heroin, amphetamines, should at the very least be de-criminalized. Most people feel Pot ought to be legal but draw the line there. But in a free society, adults should be free to make thier own choices with respect to drug use. They must have individual choice and responsibility. Like tobacco and alcohol, any legalized drugs cannot be made available to minors. THe cost to our society and economy from our insane and rabid anti-drug laws and interdiction and imprisonment is huge. We have entire police divisions in every major city devoted to catching drug users and drug sellers. Since drug dealing is a criminal activity, it atttracts a subset of society which must use violence to protect their market share and gain share from others. Legalize drugs, and the drug dealers will be off the streets, shootouts and drug-gang wars will decline or disappear. An enormous relief will be given to the justice system, reducing the burden of processing so many drug offenders. Police narcotics departments will shrink or disappear, the justice system elements devoted to drug crime will shrink, and the prison population will shrink. This will provide very large tax relief at local and state levels. Toss out the DEA and you save a few billion also. Politicians will no longer be able to play the law and order card, "clean up our streets, just say no..etc" And this is why it may prove so difficult to legalize drugs: there a huge entrenched interest in the nation's "drug problem".THere are likely are several hundred thousand people employed directly or indirectly by the "War on drugs". There are even big corporations to whom state functions are contracted that have an interested in a growing penal system, like Corrections Corporation of America, and several outfits that provide medical services to jails and prisons. Can you imagine big corporations with a lobby to create more crime laws on the books? As a society, we are overtaxed, over-regulated, over-self righteous, and overwrought over getting a non-alcoholic buzz on. Its time to put choice in the hands of adults, and stop this nanny state, which includes not just drug laws, but the remains of the welfare state. PS anyone know where I can get some good blow?
Is the government making $$$ off of the marijuana sales? IF so, then that might be a good reason for the low incarceration rate. Why cut off the arm that feeds you?...
Coming from a high school that has some drug problems, I think it's safe to say that is pot was legal, it would lead to less abuse. Half the kids who puff this shit all day long just do it because it's illegal. Half the people who sell it do it so they can claim drug-dealer status. I also believe that weed gets stronger and stronger as time goes by. Most people have no idea what they're in for the first time they try. I know I sure wasn't.
Bullshit, I smoked pot for years and my IQ is testing 10 points higher than it did before. The high comes from the marijuana shutting down different portions of the brain, not destroying them. I don't think that shutting down the best parts of your brain with a drug so that consciousness has to come from the less developed parts of your brain is a great thing to do really, it seems ok to me to take a hit and become really relaxed and happy occasionally however. Recent research is showing that common colds and flu viruses destroy brain cells to the point where measurable memory loss effects are being noted and researched. Another recent development is the finding that your brain actually can generate new cells. It takes proper nutrition to do that, huge ORAC value vitamins will killl off the plaque that causes Alzheimers and once that is accopmplished the brain [in dogs at least] will generate new cells. New brain cell generation has been observed in humans under other circumstances as well, quit worrying about your brain cells and use them a little more.
It has gotten incredibley stronger over the years. I used to get large quantities of Mexican weed in the early 60's and 3 of us smoked it by the ounce. Nowadays you can get stuff that you could never smoke an ounce in a day. If it was never made illegal it never would have gotten so strong and a zillion other drugs would never have sprung up either. Most of the stuff is here because there is money in it. I would outlaw alcohol long before Marijuana, Alcohol causes way more family problems than Marijuana ever could.
So we add readily accessible weed to the alcohol problem by legalizing it and things will get better? I don't think soooooo.... Maybe we should just legalize Heroin while we are at it. That should make things better also. Maybe LSD too!... P.S. If the government gets ahold of growing some bud you know it will go down in quality. And the price wil go way up. I don't think stoners will go for that will they? Plus, you let everyone get high and no one will want to go to work on Monday morning and all the corporations will be freaking out...