For the same reason they ended prohibition in 1933. Pot is regularly used by millions of people
facillitating its distribution in the U.S. by violently ruthless Mexican drug cartels causing thousands of deaths on both sides of the border every year. That's why the war on drugs has been an abject failure. It hasn't stopped supply & demand & never will. Let's face it: pot, like booze, has gotten a permanent foothold in U.S culture & it ain't going away. Organized crime burgeoned because of the prohibition & same thing
is happening to the Mexican drug cartels because of pot. Once you legalize it a good deal of that criminal activity will go away & if the U.S. govt
can tax its use, can go a certain way to removing that deficit conservatives keep whining about.
Lastly, I find it amusing what a pair of judgmental, teetotaling prisses PW & FFP are on this subject. I'm sure there are others on this board that feels same way that I'm leaving out.
I'm beginning to think the time has come for this issue. These days it seems like everyone is far more open about marijuana than ever before. Hell, even the National Geographic channel has a show called American Weed, and even CNBC covers the business aspect of the product.
I was quite glad that Jimmy Kimmel talked about the issue at the White House Correspondents' Dinner. He asked bluntly (no pun intended) "how many people in this room have never smoked pot?" I only saw one hand go up.
It's quite amazing to look up the history of how prohibition came to be. Do a wiki search of a guy named Harry J. Anslinger. He, more than any single person, is responsible for why it is illegal today.
Jack Herer wrote a very informative book on this history called The Emperor Wears No Clothes. The index includes the Congressional transcript of the hearings that took place when Congress was deciding to ban it back in the 30's. Their reasoning ranged from absurd to blatant racism.
One of the reasons given was that "marijuana addiction", a drug we now know isn't addictive at all, would "make negros so arrogant as to step in the shadows of white women".
Much of the reasoning behind it's illegalization was actually a corporate bailout. At the time, hemp was used for many textile purposes, particularly rope and paper. When a new paper press was invented to make the process more efficient, the paper company Kimberly Clarke bought up acres upon acres of timber. It wasn't the brightest business move, because soon an even more efficient press was made to make hemp paper production even cheaper than paper made from wood pulp. That invention could have caused Kimberly Clarke to go bankrupt, and shortly thereafter marijuana was illegal.
Much of the fears of drugs in the United States came as a direct result of China, who were selling opium at a startling rate in the 20's. The first international drug control treaty was then agreed to at the International Opium Convention at the Hague. Ironically, opiate use has skyrocketed today, as it is the primary drug prescribed to manage pain. These drugs have serious drawbacks and side effects, including hearing loss and losing your teeth. Meanwhile the best pain reliever in the world, marijuana still remains illegal.
I can't help but think, if it was legal, Rush might not need a hearing aid, and who knows, he might even be a nicer guy too.
-- Modified on 4/30/2012 3:43:55 AM
You need to make easy and legal access to another drug for people to kill themselves with?
All the issues facing our country today -- including the exorbitant cost of healthcare that you, yourself, continue to rant against on a regular basis -- and you want to legalize another drug that will be abused by the majority of its users and will likely damage their health.
Good idea willy. Spoken like a true pothead.
I figured people would know this by now, otherwise I would have mentioned it before here, but how do you expect someone to kill themselves with pot?
Annual estimated deaths by drug:
Tabacco: 400,000
Alcohol: 150,000
Prescription Drugs: 100,000
Coffee: 4,000
Aspirin: 1,000
Marijuana: 0
Yes, PW, zero. Zero.
Back in 1979 they did a study at Tulane University to discover the toxicity rate of Marijuana. They stripped Rhesus monkeys into chairs, and put a gas mask on their head and pumped 4 pounds of marijuana into them. For reference, 4 pounds of properly stored marijuana would take me about 2-3 years to finish off, smoking daily. All the monkies died. Upon autoposy they found the monkies had severe brain damage from carbon monoxide poisoning. It was this study that was used to say that pot caused brain damage.
The reality is that smoking anything heavily is dangerous, but there are other ways to consume the drug. Vaporizers don't burn the drug, so much as heat it up, and it's virtually carbon monoxide free. They're even making lollipops out of the stuff in medical marijuana states.
Marijuana can be used to treat a massive array of illnesses. It's best use is as a pain reliever. Supposedly, Queen Victoria used it for mentral cramps. It's used for cancer patients as an appetite stimulant to prevent wasting symptoms. It's used as a muscle relaxant, it's been used to treat depression, it's been used to treat glucoma, insomnia, neopathic disorders. I saw a story about one kid he has a rare nervous disorder where he has non-stop chest spasms, making it difficult to even breathe. He was prescribed 30 different drugs which had little effect. Marijuana lollipops eliminated all those drugs, and allows him to live a fairly normal life.
It's been used to treat a number of psychological disorder, including bi-polar disorder, OCD, and schizophrenia. It's been used to treat alcoholism, and PTSD, and intermittent explosive disorder (outbursts of uncontrollable rage), and Parkinson's.
Beyond that, it has a host of industrial uses, from the making of cloth, rope, and paper. Since it can grow faster than trees, it can be used to make more paper with less ecological damnage than clear cutting.
It's more effective to make ethanol out of than corn, and has been used to make everything from fiberglass to earthquake resistant concrete for buildings.
An acre of marijuana will produce 4 times more oxygen than an acre of trees, and can used to quickly reduce pollution.
But more than anything, for those who smoke it recreationally, it makes people happy. It makes life far more enjoyable. It enhances creativity. It makes music sound better. It makes movies better.
Get 12 random people really drunk and see if a fight don't break out. Get 12 random people really high and all that will happen is a lot of laughter, giggling, and the munchies.
PW, tell me...what, pray tell, is the public danger of people legally smoking weed? It is the safest and most enjoyable drug in the history of mankind, and I see no reason why anyone should be denied their right to be happy.
But if you want a better reason, if it were legal, then you could tax it. Between the taxes raised, and the fewer costs you'd have to spend on the DEA, incarceration, and enforcement, you could cut the US budget deficit by a third.
So why in the HELL should it still be illegal?
-- Modified on 4/30/2012 12:18:42 PM
Hug a child. No, go one step further.
Hug a child that is suffering from downs syndrome or another awful disease.
Bring a smile to a young person's face. A young person who does not have the chance to enjoy life as fully as you do.
Do that instead of smoking your fucking joint and trying to find dozens of reasons why you should be allowed to do so.
Do something that helps others for a change, instead of thinking only of yourself.
PW, I've talked about my volunteer work here before. And yes, it is a good feeling to help others....but it's not euphoric.
For the same reason they ended prohibition in 1933. Pot is regularly used by millions of people
facillitating its distribution in the U.S. by violently ruthless Mexican drug cartels causing thousands of deaths on both sides of the border every year. That's why the war on drugs has been an abject failure. It hasn't stopped supply & demand & never will. Let's face it: pot, like booze, has gotten a permanent foothold in U.S culture & it ain't going away. Organized crime burgeoned because of the prohibition & same thing
is happening to the Mexican drug cartels because of pot. Once you legalize it a good deal of that criminal activity will go away & if the U.S. govt
can tax its use, can go a certain way to removing that deficit conservatives keep whining about.
Lastly, I find it amusing what a pair of judgmental, teetotaling prisses PW & FFP are on this subject. I'm sure there are others on this board that feels same way that I'm leaving out.
If you had two parents that died from smoking cigarettes, two other family members who lost their lives due to drug addictions that began with their love of pot as teenagers and children of those dead family members who are now serving time for their own drug dealing, then maybe you would feel the same way I do.
Or, maybe not because you are the world's most "objective" person and have thousands of "links" to prove your tremendous mental capabilities.
Keep your "judgmental" thoughts to yourself . . . . .
Perhaps you'd also like to ban cigarettes & liquor, which makes as much sense as banning pot.
As much as I dislike it, pot use, on its own, is NOT lethal.
& I'm sorry about your losses.
but regardless pot users are still inhaling smoke into their lungs.
And, regardless of what pot-users-who-are-afraid-they-will-not-get-what-they-want say, pot usage does lead to other forms of illegal drug use that are undeniably lethal.
And while a total ban on cigarettes is vey unlikely, I applaud the efforts made in recent years to force cigarette smoking to very limited places.
Why in the world anyone in today's society -- with the knowledge of what smoking does to one's health -- would ever take up the habit is beyond me. And it becomes even more ridiculous and insane when some smokers attempt to defend their habit.
-- Modified on 4/30/2012 1:46:01 PM
the cost/benefit of pot laws just dont make sense anymore.
pot is just as easy to get as alcohol and is no more a "gateway drug" than booze or mom and dads medicine cabinet. indeed, for most, it begins with booze and pills are a far greater problem today than most other drugs except maybe tweek
BTW, i would draw a HARDLINE at pot though.
avoiding your own life.
So, I guess America is supposed to give in and let this shit take place, huh?
Pretty sad fucking way to live one's life . . . .
I forgot what I was going to say ? 
""Pot is nothing more than a chickenshit way of getting high and avoiding your own life.""
Look, I have'nt puffed weed in 3 decades so my views are not selfish. But I puffed a ton before that so they are'nt ill-informed either.
In terms of our national physical health look no further than the liquor and medicine cabinet for far and away the greatest cause of problems. Leaving pharmacuticals aside (for they do have productive uses) booze is far more destructive than weed and yet as Main Street as Coors Field in Colorado. How is it intellectually honest we can have a Coors Field and yet a dude puffing weed at home faces charges??
I seriously don't think legalizing pot will stop much crime, the crack/coke/herion users will still need their shit and I have not come to a place where I can rationalize legalizing that poison, so it's not the macrocrime I'm concerning myself with.
Yeah, it can be sad watching weedheads piss away their lives, but that's the price of a free society.
Telling people how they should live...
where can I be free ?
....is bullshit. Sorry, PW, but this has been debunked 6 ways from Sunday.
I've smoked weed since I was a teen, and the only experimentation I ever did beyond that was LDS, 'shrooms (both of which are fairly safe). When I was in my early 20's I experimented once with amphetamines and once with ketamine, and never had the desire to try anything else ever again. I have a serious hatred of crack, cocaine, and most especially illicit opiates, and have never, and would never use any of them. When I had 3 wisdom teeth yanked I got prescribed 12 doses of vicodin, I took 2, hated it, and decided to smoke weed instead for the pain. The rest got crushed and put in the trash.
Studies have been done about the gateway drug issue, and it's been found that heroin addicts more often than not start huffing gasoline.
It's a stupid argument that assumes causation. Yes, for people with serious drug addiction problems, the first illicit drug they use tends to be pot. But pot didn't cause a damn thing. It's popular, so it's readily available. You'll find far more pot on the streets than cocaine, LSD, meth, or heroin. A person prone to use any drug they can find will more often than not run into pot. It's as specious as looking at the number of obese people who die of cardiovascular disease and saying food causes heart attacks. These days, I've noticed these kind of addicts tend to go for prescription drugs, and I've seen far more addicts in my volunteer work these days who get started by doctor shopping or forging prescriptions.
Sadly, some people just seem to be wired to become addicts. I have an uncle that I never met who died in his teens from a drug overdose. At age 12 he was emptying every pill out of the medicine cabinet. He died before his 20th birthday. It's incredibly unfortunate, and I'm sorry for your losses, PW, but in no way is marijuana to blame for it.
I didn't know you were a Mormon, WW----you know that means you're not allowed to smoke dope---
-------LMAO !
Well boy-willy you and pri-boy are the perfect examples and proof that it does not take much in the way of taking drugs to make someone a useless pathetic leech on society.
You’re welcome
2012 = Drug Free GOP
The Feds, specifically Holder, have been cracking down on California's medical marijuana dispensaries, and pot farms in Mendocino County. It's been a relentless fight the past 3 years.
Actually, they just want to control the supply chain so they can enforce taxation on it.
OK, don't act so shocked!!
it appears that our elected representatives and those profiting from the private prison industry are the only Americans against legalization of Marijuana.
The silence by our elected legislators and representatives on this issue is deafening.