Unfortunately, people make too many assumptions on how I feel about the legalization of marijuana. Marijuana does not need to be legalized because it tells our youth that it’s okay to do one more drug. So instead of saying it’s okay to drink, we are also saying it’s okay to drink and smoke pot. Why would we want to add-on another drug? We can’t make alcohol illegal; it’s just way too late for that now. If it wasn’t and we could switch the two drugs then I would actually support that idea. Let’s face it, the addicts are the ones that get behind the wheels of a car and run over a family. The two drugs together are much more deadly than each one separately. But, if we want less deaths, and less problems with addiction we can not say “Hey kids, while you’re drinking go ahead and fire up a joint too.”
Being an addict, I’ll be the first one to say that we’ve screwed it up for all of the “normal people” in the world. We are the ones that run over people, hurt others and generally do bad things because we drink and use too many drugs. But, that’s the way of the world. Sometimes the bad apples ruin it for everyone else. I guess you could say the same for the health care industry. If it wasn’t for those people who got sick all of the time then it would be cheaper for the rest of us.
I am also firmly against putting “most” people in jail for selling drugs. The judges need to send people to rehab and not prison. Just because I don’t think we need to add another drug to the “OK LIST”, doesn’t mean I feel people should be put in prison for selling drugs. Each case needs to be evaluated separately and fairly.
If marijuana was legal, the economy would be boosted to the size of godzilla. no joke. And alcohol is actually much worse than marijuana, because it is actually addicting. Marijuana isn’t addicting unless you smoke it all the damn time.
and Jon, i agree with you very much so.
Here’s the problem. You want society, or me, to raise your kids for you.
Part of raising children is teaching them the truth. Prima facie you lie to your children, furthermore specifically about the effects of marijuana. Your argument is that of the prohibitionist and the prude, whereby you mean to, by hiding it from your children, play make-believe that it doesn’t exist.
You should be ashamed that you allow people to go to jail for hurting nobody, for breaking nothing, for trespassing nowhere, not even jaywalking. If you dummies continue to condone this police-state mind-game behavior, you are one of the persecutors of innocent men.
And don’t start with that “break the law” business. We all break the law, every time we speed, for instance. There is a difference, a problem when a man does one day in jail for doing absolutely no harm to a single soul.
Wake up, you need counseling alright.
re. Admin’s:
“This website is designed to help alcoholics and addicts. In early recovery we really struggle to stay sober. We are the type of people who make split decisions about using drugs and alcohol. If the marijuana stores start to open-up it is only going to make it harder for us because in a split second we could be purchasing marijuana/alcohol. It’s already hard enough to drive by the liquor stores for most AA members. We don’t need another store that sells drugs.”
There is no such thing as a pot addict, my friend, and what does alcoholism have to do with “Say No To Pot” dot com? Stop misleading the people with what you do.
Aspirin kills thousands every year, not one man has ever died from pot. How then is a smoker a nuisance to anyone? Because he does not believe in your God?
You do-gooders, psycho-whack-jobs have made a living too long off of telling everyone they have drug problems while you drink your highballs at lunch and pop your valiums aftter work. No, not you? maybe baseball, then, or tennis, or what, a brisk walk. Well what if we said these activities will be illegal. You are some kind of loony bird if you feel you need to work out three times a week, and have an addiction. You are psychologically warped because you feel you must go to church every Sunday. How would you like that?
Then, you could come to our meetings, and we can explain to you how your particular “diversion” is responsible for your present fate.
“We can’t make alcohol illegal; it’s just way too late for that now. If it wasn’t and we could switch the two drugs then I would actually support that idea.”
Yeah, and in a few years you would be on the wrong end of the stick.
Because pot makes its users less aggressive than alcohol does pot is still illegal.
Chris, I agree 100%.
It IS a question of civil rights. The Government has no right to decide what is ” OK,and what is not OK” .
Everyone in this country needs to grow some balls , and tell the government to stop the lies,and hypocrisy.
I am a recovering Alcoholic who was saved by cannabis!
Shelly,
You are not a recovering alcoholic if you are smoking pot. In AA we call that “Marijuana Maintenance” and it is not accepted within the AA community. The next time you go to an AA meeting tell everyone that you’re smoking pot now and see what they have to say. Give your sponsor a call (I doubt you have one) and tell him or her your new way of dealing with your addiction.
If your gonna have an addiction
Marijuana is the best addiction to have
“isn’t it ironic that on this page was an ad for SayNoToPot.com?
Alternet, come on!
IF pot had been marketed with cigarettes and shown as being smoked by guys who looked like characters on “Mad Men,” we would be in a completely different paradigm today. But WR Hearst wanted to preserve his monopoly on paper production (over hemp) and, well, you know, those Mexican types smoked it, and this is America, so the outcome became what it is.
In this country you WILL partake of only the approved intoxicants and mind altering substances – those that make money for the ‘right’ people.”
“Yea, I clicked on to that ****. Obviously sponsored by the rehab industry trying to get parents to send their ‘pot addicted’ children to these rehab farms. God, people are stupid and uninformed. Nice job Alternet, you’re obviously just another ***** with your hand out.”
“The Pharma lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. Bottom line is that decriminalization will hurt their profit margins. Think of all the drugs that will be replaced with a product that can not be owned by the industry.”
Dont get fooled…
I’m sorry, I didn’t know you HAVE to go to AA to stop drinking. Cannabis is a wonderful substitute for alcohol for reasons already mentioned. Cannabis SHOULD be legalized, everyone needs to get their head out of their *** and realize this. Oh and cannabis Is addictive… in the sense that most highly enjoyable things are worth endlessly repeating
Gonzo said :
““The Pharma lobby is one of the most powerful lobbies in Washington. Bottom line is that decriminalization will hurt their profit margins. Think of all the drugs that will be replaced with a product that can not be owned by the industry.”
The sad part about that is it is true.
That is the primary reason marijuana remains illegal IMO
Since they can’t patent a plant, marijuana will have a hard time becoming as legal as alcohol.
Admin,
You are a very selfish individual. You’re spreading outdated lies to protect you. What about those who suffer from diseases such as cancer? Are you aware of the benefits of marijuana for these people? Of course not. Because YOU don’t have cancer. It doesn’t benefit YOU. You need to start holding yourself accountable for your own actions and stop trying to punish your community. AA teaches you that it’s not your fault. You need to know that it IS your fault. That being said, your soberity is also because YOU want to, not because AA is telling you too. Your mind is a powerful tool. If you use it properly, you can accomplish unimaginable things without having to ‘trick yourself’ with AA meetings.
I’m a recovering addict. I used to smoke a quarter of weed a day and a couple of times a week I’d throw some LSD or MDMA into the mix. I did drugs for a two terrible years. I drove high more than I drove clean. I went to work under the influence and you know I was smoking on the job. All my money went to drugs. I sold LSD to make extra money for drugs that my job wasn’t making and when those two weren’t enough I pawned my possession, or other people’s possessions and forged checks. Drug addiction almost killed me. (Drug addiction isn’t just being physically dependent on the drug, it’s a psychological disease like bipolar, OCD and ADHD) I went to rehab for two months and came out with a passion for staying clean. NA has helped me achieve what I have today and that is a functional life. I hate what drugs have done to me, however this brings me to my point, just because drugs **** me and other addicts doesn’t mean they should be illegal
I believe in freedom to the extreme, but in relation to this, I believe an individual should have the right to decide what they put in their own damn body. It shouldn’t be a governments decision. Sure people are going to abuse them and cause problems for others and themselves, but don’t we already have alcohol and tobacco doing this in our society? I smoke cigarettes and I’ll be damned if the government tries to tell me I can’t smoke them because they’ll give my lung cancer, it’s my own decision to make. It’s a matter of freedom. The government doesn’t need to parent it’s people and tell them what they can and can’t put in their own bodies.
Why not legalize drugs, regulate how much people can buy, tax them and use the money earned from the taxes and ending the war on drugs to sponsor socialized drug rehabilitation that’s open to anyone and mandatory for people committing drug related crimes? Doesn’t that sound smarter than throwing addicts who are powerless over their addiction on their own in jail for doing something that shouldn’t even being illegal to begin with. As someone who’s been incarcerated for drug crimes I can safely say that that didn’t do **** to help me, it just made me bitter.
Another thing I’d like to note that’s kind of off topic but in response to other comments on here is on the whole notion that marijuana couldn’t be taxed if it was legalized because people could grow it and sell it on their own. Well first of all that’s a really dumb thing to say. It’s just about as easy to make alcohol in your home as it is to cultivate marijuana. However it is illegal to make alcohol in your home without a permit, it’s also even more illegal to sell homemade alcohol. If marijuana was legalized I’m sure it’d be treated similar to alcohol, if not more stringently. So people would still be getting arrested for slinging weed and/or growing it.
Also, why the hell would you want to buy some weed grown in some dudes basement illegally when you could roll up to a store and buy weed grown by legit corporations and companies. Those companies would probably grow weed better than you could ever imagine. Botanists working on cultivating the ultimate marijuana plant, and the company mass producing it. That would make it both cheaper and more potent than the weed grown in some dude’s basement
You CANNOT legislate morality.
Period.
My body = MY body. If I want to smoke something as harmless as pot, I WILL DO SO.
Because – again – you CANNOT legislate morality.
PERIOD!
What utter crap this person is spouting! I know a lot of people aged 18-40 who have smoked a lot of weed and are intelligent, respectable individuals. I believe that people should not be judged for smoking a bit of weed every now and then, it doesn’t mean you are an addict. If you have a few beers at weekend does it mean that you are an alcoholic? Of course not. Life is short, and on your death-bed, will you be regretting the joints you smoked throughout your life? I think not.
@Grebo
That’s a curious statement. Morality is a very broad term. It applies to every decision we make. If I have no moral issues with murder or rape should I legally be allowed to engage in both of those activities? The only society that doesn’t legislate morality is a society of anarchy and that’s not really much of a society anyways. Every law enforces a principle of some moral code in one way or another. I think a better criterion for what a government shouldn’t be able to legislate is anything that doesn’t harm, inhibit, or directly interfere with the lives of others. I think that’s a moral code we can all agree on
If you want drugs to be illegal, then why is their no campaign here against sugar, caffeine, and over the counter drugs. Why is our society saying it’s ok to use those drugs, the ones that are by far more dangerous than marijuana. Sugar has no nutritional value, causes major obesity, and is addictive. Caffeine kills thousands of people a year from overdose and is also highly addictive. Over the counter drugs cause more problems than the fix by taking them and also kill thousands of people a year. The so-called harmless ibuprofen can cause serious liver problems and yet people take it all the time. And why are you running such a big campaign against marijuana when it kills no one and alcohol kills more than 200,000 people a year. Maybe we should question ourselves why marijuana is illegal in the first place. The first time is was made illegal was basically because black people used it, how do you think jazz was formed, and it was thought to make you agressive. The second time congress made it illegal was because war protesters were using it, and so congress stated that it made you a pascifist and would be used by the communists to weaken our will to fight; this is the exact opposite reason than the first time it was made illegal. If marijuana was made legal then it would make it by far harder to get for younger people. Right now all they need to know is a drug dealer, whom are everywhere. And if it was made legal then maybe you could educate them like you do with alcohol on the effects it has, other than just stating it’s illegal. By keeping it illegal there is a thrill factor with doing it for most young people because it is illegal.
The fact that something is legal does not mean the government condones it. It’s legal for me to go around making fun of people. Will I? No. And making something illegal doesn’t make it go away, rather, I think it makes the problem worse. I wish guns didn’t exist, as well as meth, heroin, tobacco, and alcohol. But, since they do, we need to learn how to deal with them, and that does not mean making them illegal. If the government ever makes drugs legal (I hope), I will not run out and shoot as much heroin as I can. I’ve already made the choice not to do heroin. It’s legal status has not prevented me from having access to it. It is our choice as members of a “free” society to decide what we want to ingest. NOT anyone elses, or the governments, or even the majority.