Locke9-05

"Recreational" substances that induce side effects such as anxiety, paranoia, hallucinations, impaired cognitive abilities, psychosis, and even schizophrenia-like symptoms pose an inherent unnecessary risk to the user and those in their presence. The key word there being unnecessary. It is unnecessary to ingest substances for a weak and pathetic synthetic high to satisfy an equally weak and pathetic addiction. The risk that comes along with said substances--the impaired cognitive abilities by themselves is enough for society to deem the use of said substance an infringement upon the safety and security of the common good when used for "recreational" and individualistic purposes. Your "depending" factors are based on waiting until there actually is someone hurt, and based on the fact that the only consequences recreational marijuana use has ever yielded for society outwardly have been negative, there's absolutely no reason for society to wait until that happens. Recreational marijuana is a substance with no positive benefit to society. Yet it has many negatives... Hello? If you start with no positives and add negatives, you're into the negatives... Marijuana is a negative for society--pragmatically and morally.

Wait, you think it's "pragmatic" that society just starts breaking it's own laws because some of the low-down scum and petty criminals don't want to follow them like everyone else? Oh right... Real pragmatic... That's the only actual basis for the marijuana argument--people will smoke it even if it's illegal, so you may as well let them. That argument is so absurd. So the pot-smokers want pot-smoking to be illegal, what next? Then vandals, drunk drivers, etc. will all want their crimes to be "decriminalized" too. Should society just start decriminalizing all crimes because people are going to commit them even though they're against the law? Because that's the argument I'm reading.

Oh I've already suggested policy for this. There are for more efficient ways to punish criminals than allowing them to waste tax dollars behind bars. Forced labor. First offenders get off light. Second offenders--huge fine and jail time. Third time offenders, prison, forced labor, enormous fine--maybe life. We all make choices, it's just too bad that some people make choices that selfishly put those around them at risk ain't it? They just have to pay the consequences for it. There are very "pragmatic" ways of dealing with those people besides locking them away and forgetting about them.
It's quite obvious that drug-addicts who break the prohibition laws are against the prohibition, or at least foolhardy enough to defy it. If one is against the prohibition, one is an anti-prohibitionist. That is all I was referring to. If you don't actually use and never have, then I don't think you need to worry about being "lumped" into that category, do you?

Completely and utterly incorrect. Who was it that funded the mob? Who fueled the economic fire that was the mafia? Alcoholics. This is a moral and logical issue. Alcohol has far more cons than pros. Society was right to ban it. The only reasons people had for drinking it were selfish and self-serving (at the risk of those around them). Yet they were willing to break society's reasonable law and at the same time commit a completely illogical and immoral (in more than one way) act and buy alcohol from the mob. If alcoholics didn't buy alcohol from the mob, the mob wouldn't have been powerful. You can't blame crime on anyone but the criminals. It starts at the bottom and works up. The petty criminals break the prohibition laws and fuel the mafias economic success. Society didn't cause any of it. Society only told people they couldn't have alcohol (which was a reasonable and moral thing to do). Human constitution allows us to deny our desires for such idiotic cravings and it prevailed for some during the prohibition. It was those criminals/alcoholics/anti-prohibitionists who broke the law first who contributed to the growth of the mafia.
You can't fix a selfish population with "policies" and politics, the selfish population has to pull their heads out their asses and fix themselves. Yes, we all have problems with that to a degree, but there is a line that some are far more willing to cross than others. An individualist population will always want more and no policy will ever change that. The only thing we're talking about here is justice. Justice for breaking the law, justice and laws that we're all required to live by, that none of us is exempt from--even though some of us would apparently like to think we should be...
Profiting from something as immoral and hazardous as recreational marijuana is just sickening. That's a disgusting idea, frankly. The best theory is to simply have a convicted drug user repay their debt to society with some kind of labor and through extended fines. There are far better ways to get back money from such sickening substances than taxing them and allowing people to use them freely. That's ridiculous.

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"Ask not what your country can do for you; ask what you can do for your country."
-John F. Kennedy

"Education begins the gentleman, but reading, good company and reflection must finish him."
-John Locke

"What worries you, masters you."
-John Locke
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LiveUninhibited

Please prove that these symptoms are often of a sufficient magnitude to cause the person to commit crimes that victimize other people. Your conclusion that these effects make marijuana extremely harmful to society seems to go well beyond the studies you had previously provided, if I recall correctly.

Most people do something that they enjoy that is of no net benefit to society. Watching TV wastes electricity and encourages the development of fat and stupid people. These fat and stupid people then become a net drain on society. Alcohol + marijuana almost covers a majority of the population in themselves, but if you include all of the acts that are selfish and harmful, almost everybody would be guilty. So now we incarcerate 1% of our population. If we followed your standard for eliminating selfish and mildly destructive behavior, we would have to incarcerate at least half, if not more of the population. This is what I mean by your ideas being based upon a principle, but not being pragmatic.

Not exactly. The punishment needs to fit the crime for one, and we need to prioritize for another. Jails and prisons should be to incapaciate those who are serious offenders.

In most cases, we don't need to jail vandals either. A pragmatic approach to vandalism would be: 1. Make them pay at least double the damage they did. 2. Make them do community service.... If they fail to do both of these things, then they can go to jail.

For drunk drivers, an appropriate response would be to fine them, suspend their license, and require them to have one of those breathalyzers installed on their car so that they cannot drive their car drunk. (this is for a 1st time offender).

Murderers should be incarcerated. Repeat murderers should be incarcerated for life. Repeat rapists should have a choice been life in prison and chemical castration with a shorter sentence. In all cases they should pay restitution to their victims' or victims' family.

I'm not soft on crime, I'm not hard on crime. I simply want an approach that will be pragmatic and benefit society most.

My interpretation was that an anti-prohibitionist is somebody who is opposed to the policy of prohibition. Glad that's not exactly what you meant.

It is possible, and desirable, to draft policy that makes it easier for people to make better choices. Most people are selfish, but selfishness can be either destructive, neutral, or beneficial to society, as Adam Smith pointed out. In the context of alcohol prohibition, buying alcohol was destructive because it supported the violent mob. But after alcohol was legalized, it became a much more neutral act, perhaps positive as it supports those who brew it. Our social policies set the context for selfishness, which may be the fault of individuals but will exist regardless. Selfishness is a variable we can count on. A pragmatic policy is one which gives people more choices so that their selfishness can be neutral or positive.

Drug addicts may be at fault for their addictions, but some people have better options than others. For example, fewer people would find drug use appealing if they had more opportunities in terms of education. Some still would choose drugs, but fewer would.

Now suppose you have ten marijuana users and 3 of them steal to support their habit. Would society benefit most from incarcerating all ten or just the ones who steal from other people? Does it even make sense to incarcerate those who never have, and perhaps never will, actually victimize another person? If we incarcerate somebody for mere use, then what options will they have for positive behavior in the future? Many fewer. This isn't about sympathy for them, it is about maximizing the chances that they will not become serious criminals. Incarcerating minor and non-violent offenders will invariably lead to more serious and more violent offenders as we have then limited their future options. Therefore, incarcerating somebody needs to be a last resort for minor offenses, and done for the purpose of incapacitation for serious offenders.

The law does not determine what is wrong or right. Justice is just ice; a nice word for revenge, but justifiable and institutionalized revenge. I'm not saying I oppose justice, but real justice would be for a criminal to pay restitution to people they victimize, not for them to pay some "debt to the state" for a prison sentence.

I think you misinterpreted what I was saying. I was not talking about taxing a legalized substance, though I would support that too. Decriminalization here simply means we can fine people for drug possession, but not incarcerate them unless they fail/refuse to pay the fines. I would support either decriminalization or legalization. Either would be better than the status quo.

Dr House

I think pot should be legal. And it should not be taxed or regulated, either.

-Dr House

sirhc

i feel that pot is possiabley the WORST drug out there.

other then it ruins ur cognative ability, it dimminishes hand eye cowardination and dexterity. weakens resolve and slows reaction time.
this isn't temporary the effects are obvious at least a week later. Even a small dose will effect you for the rest of your life.

and finaly there is a direct link between Scitscofrenia.

seriously, wat is wrong with u people pot is harmful

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Ignorance is mans greatest flaw

Demarcoa

Pot is NOT the worse drug out there. From every standpoind (i.e. damage to the body, addictiveness, burden on society). There is no direct link to any long term disease, it is barely addictive, and within a week it is out of your system for good. (Cite: Health issues and effects of cannabis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia) Tobacco, Alcohol, Cocaine, Heroine, Barbituates, Morphine are all examples of drugs that are much, much more destructive of your body and those around you.

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Capitalism has always been a failure for the lower classes. It is now beginning to fail for the middle classes. - Howard Zinn

TheKentuckian

Ideals are kind of like religion, it's all fine and dandy until someone wants to base laws on them.

If someone breaks into my house, the problem is the action not that they had a buzz or are just bad actors.
If someone kills or rapes then the same logic applies.

All that matter is don't tread on me. When you lose track of that nonsense ensues. I could care less if my neighbor is doing an 8 Ball and meth cocktail, as long as he keeps it at his house. In fact, that may be happening right now and since I don't know I certainly don't care.

We need energy, I think every person should have internet access, I think we need better and more education, we need clean air and water, we need access to health care. These kinds of efforts are where we need to be investing our resources, billions of dollars to warehouse people that aren't stepping on my toes is a waste. Prisons should exist in very limited numbers as a last resort to separate those that are a persistent threat to life, limb, and liberty of society as a whole and for no other purpose.

No substance or behavior should be illegal but instead only actions that pose an immediate threat to someone else. Every dollar spent on vice is a dollar wasted that could be used with purpose and results elsewhere.

nemesis

Do you think alcohol should be illegal too?

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Taliesin

Yes I do nemesis; I said earlier that I use that same argument for alcohol criminilization. I've also said in some other thread that I believe that cigarettes should be made illegal as well. I've taken a personal stand on this as I've never smoked cigarettes or marijuana and (apart from communal wine one time at a Catholic Church) I've never consumed alcohol.

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"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
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nemesis

Then you advocate putting at least a third of the our population in jail then. At least 40% of Americans admit to trying marijuana at some point in their lives and I believe at least 20-30% of Americans smoke. God knows how many drink and making it illegal isn't going to cause those numbers to decrease anytime soon. Tell me whose going to pay hundreds of dollars a week per person to keep people in jail when so much of the population will be in jail to begin with? As unlimited said, illegality simply isn't pragmatic. Prohibition taught us that.

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Proof of media bias? A mistake by the major networks they don't want you to know about. http://www.pbs.org/newshour/bb/media...als_04-24.html

Taliesin

I didn't say that I wanted to put everyone who has ever smoked pot, cigarettes, or consumed alcohol into jail, I just said that they should be illegal. When something becomes illegal, you don't arrest everyone who has ever done it.

Here's an argument I just thought up...

17,941 people were killed due to drunk driving accidents in 2006. Roughly 438,000 people had smoking related deaths in 2006. And roughly 8,000 people were killed due to driving accidents due to drugs such as marijuana in 2006 (just ask and I'll go find the sources). That means in a single year, these three substances killed nearly half a million people.

Now you say that our taxes would increase sizeably with all the new people in jail. I agree. How about these half a million people whose lives we save every year share the tax burden with us? The increase in taxes then wouldn't be quite as extreme as you suggested.

And just because Prohibition didn't work doesn't mean that it never will. Our invasion of Canada during the War of 1812 didn't work. That hardly means that any US invasion of Canada will fail. All Prohibition's failure taught us was the incorrect way to impliment criminilization of alcohol.

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"One of the penalties for refusing to participate in politics is that you end up being governed by your inferiors."
~Plato