NEWS: Torn Over Marijuana

I especially like the anti-drug commercials that show a couple of kids in a car getting high at a fast-food joint and running someone over.

The King of Beers gets away with advising you to "Drink Responsibly", though.

The drugs thing: I think cannabis should be legalised for the over 18's. (Or whatever your alcohol laws are) At the moment people ignore any health advice attached to cannabis because they imagine that it comes form antis who are trying to stop people taking drugs. Legalising it would remove income from dealers, provide income to the state (especially if it was taxed gently) and free up police to concentrate on other crimes.

I'd go further; I'd probably legalise all drugs. The harm to society from heroin comes from it being addictive and illegal. People turn to crime to fund their habit. Most burglary in the UK is commited by people who need money for drugs. The state will not provide heroin for these people, but it does give them methadone. Many addicts don't want methadone because a)it isn't heroin and b)they say it is more addictive than heroin.


About the law thing:
US law is weird and complicated. It can't be a good way to run a country. Illiberalism is spreading across the world and causing great harm.

Well, actually it happens more often than you'd think. Obviously it's much less often than alcohol related trouble. Cannabis is probably safe (apart from the whole smoking thing) for most people, but there are serious concerns about mental health problems and cannabis for a few people.

I agree with the whole legalization of pot thing and making it have similar rules to alcohol use.

But the thing about driving drunk is that it can be tested for easily, but it's not as easy to check whether someone would be 'legally' high while driving, from what I understand.

Pot stays in your sytem for a long time, so you could have high concentrations in your blood without actually being high.

They're talking about doing this in Canada and I think that was one of the opposition's points.

Target Has nothing wrong with it


They just need to set their Prices Straight


http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/601-5502511-6945707?asin=0823916839


http://www.target.com/gp/detail.html/sr=8-6/qid=1101758481/ref=sr_8_6/601-5502511-6945707?%5Fencoding=UTF8&asin=B0000256JA

Okay, and SSRIs make some people suicidal.

One link is broken; the other's for a CD.

There are ample functional field tests in use here for impaired driving. Ex: reciting the alphabet backwards, walking the line, touching your nose with head tilted back and eyes closed, etc. It would be hard to get a quantitative value, but someone too toasted to drive would likely have problems passing the tests.

I have never been able to say the alphabet backwards even stone cold sober.

I was tested for alcohol while driving once.(only because I was in an accident and I was wearing an undershirt with wine stains on it from the night before... hey, I didn't have time to change before I took my roommate to work!!) The test was cool. The dude said LISTEN TO WHAT I SAAAAY, and follow a long. Then he told me to move my finger to my nose, then sideways... meanwhile he put his finger to his nose and moved it up and down, hoping I would mimic him instead of listen to him. Ha ha! He did not trick me... then i walked some in a line and that was that... I am surprised I passed, I had a really bad concussion(I think they should have just drawn blood and tested for % to be fair, because being drunk and having a concussion are sort of similar)!

Many people can't but it's fun to see them try. My officer clients tell me the real test is how badly people screw it up.

As long as it was good quality and a reasonable price, I'd rather buy pot from a store than from a dealer. It would probably be more consistent and definitely alot more convinient. Even if it isn't some shady dealer, the quality often varies and that person isn't home all of the time.

As for prostitution, I think it's legal, but not actually provided by the governement. Plus, it's alot easier to produce good and cheap pot than good and cheap hookers. Drug dealers wouldn't have any edge on government pot.

The problem is that it would be hard to stop people from growing it themselves and not paying taxes.

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Prohibition doesn't work. Regardless of how many people quit drinking when alcohol prohibition was enacted, many people smoke pot anyway, so criminalizing it doesn't help. If it's not working as a preventative measure, there's no sense sending these people to jail.

I also think all drugs should be legalized. I'm not about to start using hard drugs just because it's legal. I doubt people are going to start thinking it's ok to fly planes and perform surgery because the drugs are legal. Those actions would still be illegal. Most of the "drug problem" is due to the illegality of it. It would save money on enforcement and keep innocent people out of jail. It would also cut down on people buying bad stuff from shady drug dealers and ODing.

This is really tangential, but isn't federalism the practice of having a strong central government, not a weak one?

Edit: Nevermind, I looked up the definition. I understand now.

[Edited on Nov 30, 2004 by Cigarette]

I have cancer. I smoke 4 or 5 times a day. I really couldn't eat or live normally without it. I've never chosen to get a government prescription, but, I can't even imagine going through this without being able to smoke.

I dont doubt that at all. Because, unlike alcohol, it tends to mellow impatient assholes.