The justification is that this is a country based on liberty, not stopping people pre-emptively from doing something that might cause harm. Punish the actions and actual results, not what "might" happen. Liberty has a price.

The ridiculous cost of prescriptions could be mitigated if people made it themselves... If I ever need something, I buy it in Mexico for a fraction of the price or I order it on the Internet from various other countries.

But this is another issue with demonizing weed...the drug manufacturers are afraid to get involved. The only "manufactured" weed is from the government, and by all accounts, it's basically worthless.

Back to your point though; would you rather pay $30/day to buy weed or spend $4 in lighting and supplies to make your own?

Devils Advocate--

The only hole is see in your argument is that many would argue the bad effects have been seen, especially after the 60's, so we are reacting to a known danger. Your logic would seem to infer that it's okay to let people drive at 150 mph until they hit something, then we can punish them. Despite the fact that we have prior knowledge of the dangers of driving that fast.

It also defeats the purpose of the justice system. I hope, though I know it's not always the case, that the point of the justice system is to prevent wrongs from happening. We can debate 'wrong' all day, but the fact still remains. If we decide it is wrong I'd hope we would try to keep it from happening in the first place rather than punishing people after the fact. Of course at this point I really want to start a huge dialogue on education, and how it's the only true way to remedy the problem entirely...

End Devils Advocacy.

Please allow me to get back to my grass roots again...

I would like Marijuana to be studied to find it's medicinal purposes. At that point we will be able to decide how it can best be used. Until then it's not really worth anyones time to debate whether or not people should be allowed to grow the medicine themselves.

There are many 'over the counter' medications and 'home remedies' that are perfectly legal, and for good reason, we're pretty certain they won't cause any trouble if used as directed. At the same time many drugs, like penicillin, are not given out without a prescription, and even other drugs you can't get unless you are under the care of an anastethiologist (bad spelling, sorry). It all depends on the situation.

And with Marijuana it's just to hard to tell where it fits in this scheme at this moment in time. But I would guess that handing the seeds out would lead to bunches of them getting thrown into the market at large. Thus allowing basically anyone to grow it who wanted to.

I want to reiterate, I'm abstaining from judging whether or not marijuana is or is not a good thing for recreational use. If I said anything that inferred this earlier I apologize, I misspoke. But I fervently believe that people should be allowed to do whatever they want as long as it doesn't directly harm someone else's basic rights. That statement is purposefully vague, and has to be applied one situation at a time. In this situation...I honestly just don't know.

That's a good point, Carlos, and I agree in principle. Only when you know in advance what the statistical likelihood of "harm" is likely to be, you can reasonably consider preventive policies with the common good in mind, as Zalister has noted.

I view the medical issue as separate from that of social recreational use. By all means, let's not restrict research on the former, but let's also evaluate it using the same criteria we use for other pharmaceuticals.

There is absolutly no evidence that THC ingestion creates physiological changes in the human body that would in any way make one more likely to ingest other addictive substances. There is, however, plenty of clear evidence that putting THC containing substances in the same class as methamphetamines is entirely counter-productive when trying to teach kids about the risks. The black-and-white, dualistic message we send out, that "legal drugs are good and illegal drugs are bad", would seem to be based not on meeting the needs of society, but rather based on meeting the needs of the pharmacuetical industry and the market.

A quick personal example: during his last few years, my partner suffered terribly from peripheral neuropathy (secondary to HIV disease/AZT mega-dose treatment) and chronic pain syndrome. He was taken across the spectrum of presciption pain-control medications, to the point of even being treated with methadone. Now just think about that for a second. It was legal for them to addict him to methadone (truly one of the nastiest drugs there is, far more side-affects and harder to get off of than heroin!) which gave very little effective relief, while it remained essentially illegal for me to aquire/transport/administer the marijuana that DID help. And this was in Mendocino County, among the very first in California to implement prop 215 - the California Medical Marijuana initiative, the feds and the state police remained ever-vigilant in their efforts to stop it's implementation.

THC ingestion was also the ONLY effective treatment for his chronic wasting syndrome.

It is very difficult to seperate the recreational use issue from the medicinal use issue, primarily because many of the same "misconceptions" are used in the arguments against both of them.

None of what I've said is intended as any kind of personal attack on the motivations of any of the previous posters. I am thrilled that we seem to be able to have a thoughtfull discussion, amongst people with possibly-differing viewpoints, and continue on in a civil manner. This is a wonderfull thing!

:)

LOL, can you imagine that?

"Hello America! We have a new product that will make you confident, speak louder than normal, and think that all your jokes are hilarious. It will last hours, perhaps all night.

The price is within everyone's budget, however the real price is paid the next morning. You will be dehydrated, depressed, nauseous.

Other possible side effects include calling ex-girlfriends, fighting the biggest guy in the bar, smoking Pall Mall's even if you don't like tobacco.

Long-term effects include cirrocis of the liver, weight gain, over-all bad body odor, and has strong addictive qualities. Many deaths have also been linked to the use and actions encouraged by alchohol during and after consumption."

Hayne, this is overtly political! I’m going to report this to the moderators!!
Oh, umm...

:p :D

Re: Getting high on the Trans-Canadian Highway
 

Minor pedantic point, Phil:

TCH stands for Trans-Canadian Highway -- which reportedly offers drivers and passengers a pretty good natural high.

The active ingredient in Cannabis is THC, tetrahydrocannabinol.

Both according to Wikipedia, which also points out that synthetic THC, dronabinol, is a prescription drug available in numerous countries, including the USofA. It’s sold as Marinol, manufactured by Unimed Pharmaceuticals, and actually approved by the FDA.

Carlos, regarding weed-smokers who fight over Twinkies: Marinol is prescribed as an appetite stimulant. ;)


Elatedly yours,
ArcticStones

THC - oops! I knew that. ;)

I think you must have done a little too much LDS at Berkeley back in the sixties...

No, I never did a Latter Day Saint (LDS). :D But I have had Catholic and Jewish girlfriends. And, um, I went to drab UC Davis; never had the pleasure of hallucinogenically colourful UC Berkeley.

But I can’t speak for Phil... ;)

No LDS, but I do much enjoy MacXOS Hints. :D

Everything can be bad if abused. Look at the dangers of Dihydrogen Monoxide, which is literally everywhere you look. Since it's odorless and colorless, you might not even know. It's in food, in the air, in your body--guarantee you have some in your body. DHMO has been linked to millions of deaths throughout history, and currently is one of our top killers. It is widely reported that two tablespoons of DHMO is enough to kill someone. Prolonged exposure causes tissue damage, and is always found in pre-cancerous tumors and lesions. Of course, dihydrogen monoxide is a vital part of other drugs like marijuana, cocaine, alcohol, etc. We must ban it.

What're you talking about?
;)

Hayne, I can tell from your post that you have been imbibing some recently.
Carlos, you’re absolutely right!

In fact, every single year known to doctors, several athletes die of overdosing on dihydrogen monoxide -- commonly written H2O. In addition, some adolescents and adults who purportedly die of Ecstacy, have instead died of water poisoning. E has the opposite effect of a diuretic. They’re blaming the wrong substance!

:D

Exactly. The whole "gateway drug" theory smacks of statistics abuse to me. It's mistaking correlation with causation. Look at it this way: someone who uses any drug has at some point made a decision that they value the drug experience more than they fear the risks involved. Since marijuana is the most readily available, socially acceptable, and affordable illegal drug, it's likely to have been one of the first drugs they tried. This doesn't mean that marijuana led them to the other drugs - it just happens to have been along the way.

You might find that drinkers and smokers, when compared to non-drinkers and non-smokers, would show a higher incidence of illegal drug use. It wouldn't be because alcohol and tobacco are 'gateway drugs' - and I bet if a study indicating that ever became public, the alcohol and tobacco industries would very quickly mount a campaign to educate the public on the difference between correlation and causation.

Besides, we all know that when one first tries marijuana, he does NOT suddenly gain an interest in cocaine and heroin - he instead becomes obsessed with lava lamps, Pink Floyd albums, potato chips, and cookies. :p

That explains those sales figures!

I thought Pink Floyd was an LSD thing! Oh, by the way, nice Star Trek reference back there. My family always found the reference rather funny, go fig.

[QUOTE=ShavenYak]Exactly. The whole "gateway drug" theory smacks of statistics abuse to me. It's mistaking correlation with causation. Look at it this way: someone who uses any drug has at some point made a decision that they value the drug experience more than they fear the risks involved. . . /QUOTE]

Right, and that's how we understood it when I was in the field of drug counseling. It wasn't so much that THC made one long for other drugs, but that those who used pot were more likely to encounter people using other illegal drugs than those who used only alchohol and tobacco. We rarely encountered someone addicted to, say, cocaine, who hadn't also first smoked pot. It was about people wanting to get high looking for other kinds of experiences.

I realize that one of the arguments for legalizing pot is that it would remove users from having to turn to the "street" and its illegal drug peddlars, and that's a strong argument. It has to be weighed against the possible (and probable) negative consequences to the community, however, and that's an ongoing discussion.

Somewhere in all this, I think we're asking the wrong questions. Pushing for yet more ways to legally distort our emotions and perceptions doesn't seem a a very worthy cause, imo.

I completely agree both on the bogosity of the "gateway" argument and the fact that +any+ drug use probably should not be encouraged.

But if you look around in other cultures, magic mushrooms, cannabis and all sorts of other drugs are being used since time immemorial.

Unless we give up the idea that the justification for drug restrictions are public health concerns, depenalising cannabis makes a lot more sense than keeping the abuse of alcohol, tobacco and junk food legal...

I look at is as a way to increase the police attention given to real crimes, with victims, and to stop ruining lives over something that is either harmless or just self-harming. If people hurt others because of drug use, that's another story, but the drug use itself isn't the problem. If cops weren't arresting people for "possession," then they could be working on actual crimes committed by anyone--not just drug users.