Should marijuana be legalized?

[jangler]

Originally Posted by panthers55

The argument about pot smoking being rampant and causing all kinds of problems or getting high by a contact buzz are not very valid. I used to work in a drug rehab facility and after that for an emplyee assistance plan where we did drug testing, education, and monitoring. The arguments you bring up are just not true or our of context.

For example you are very unlikely to ever get a contct buzz by being in a room of people smoking pot even if it is thick with smoke. Most immunoassay (first line urine screens) drug tests have a floor of 15 nanoliters of marijuana before it reports a positive test. So incidental contact won't be reported as a positve test. Plus what are you doing in there in the first place for 30 minutes (time necessary to inhale an appreciable amount). And if you didn't know they were smoking, it wouldn't be of any consequence. I am talking about being a room with a thick haze of smoke for a significant period of time.

Secondly you wouldn't see it at work anymore than you see alcohol on the job. Because it may be legal but not on the job or at the workplace. That is the purpose of drug testing and drug policy. Plus since it stays in your body up to 30 days, it is much easier to detect for longer making it more likely that someone would come up with a positive test for pot than for alcohol use even if it was the night before or last week.
You own a business, if you smelled alcohol on someone what would you do? Send them home? Warn Them? Fire them? Give them a drug test?

You would do the same with marijuana. If someone is impaired then they are in violation of your comapny's drug policy and can be fired. Plus people like airtraffic controllers get drug tested randomly and can't smoke pot anymore than they can show up drunk or hit the sauce before they come into work. Alcohol is legal but they can't drink a few drinks and come to work either or down a few brews at lunch.

Some jobs allow drinking as part of the culture but most don't.

The argument is not promoting pot but decriminalizing it's use. With 20 million people admitting recreational use per year, it makes no sense to continue to fill up jails with offenders when that money could better be spent with drug awareness, treatment, and drug testing programs. By putting an age limit on it and increasing penalties for underage use ie. under 21, you are targeting stopping children and teenagers where use begins, not adults when it is too late. Now it is no more illegal to sell it to an eight year old as it is to a 30 year old. If you regulate it then it would be harder for kids to get not easier.

Lastly in states like Ohio where is a misdemeanor to possess it or in Alaska where it is legal to grow some for your own personal consumption, have their been these out of control issues that you fear? Legalization under some circummstances doesn't mean widespread use or promotion of it. It is simply a way to control its use since millions already do it, and provides a means of taxation and subsequent funding of programs designed to curb it's use.

This might be the best point on the thread.
Most people would not smoke pot, if it were legal. So for some people to say running rampant( my words ) in the streets. Sounds like the fears of " the Communists are taking over America" from the "50's.

[Purity-Control]

Originally Posted by panthers55

The argument about pot smoking being rampant and causing all kinds of problems or getting high by a contact buzz are not very valid. I used to work in a drug rehab facility and after that for an emplyee assistance plan where we did drug testing, education, and monitoring. The arguments you bring up are just not true or our of context.

For example you are very unlikely to ever get a contct buzz by being in a room of people smoking pot even if it is thick with smoke. Most immunoassay (first line urine screens) drug tests have a floor of 15 nanoliters of marijuana before it reports a positive test. So incidental contact won't be reported as a positve test. Plus what are you doing in there in the first place for 30 minutes (time necessary to inhale an appreciable amount). And if you didn't know they were smoking, it wouldn't be of any consequence. I am talking about being a room with a thick haze of smoke for a significant period of time.

Secondly you wouldn't see it at work anymore than you see alcohol on the job. Because it may be legal but not on the job or at the workplace. That is the purpose of drug testing and drug policy. Plus since it stays in your body up to 30 days, it is much easier to detect for longer making it more likely that someone would come up with a positive test for pot than for alcohol use even if it was the night before or last week.
You own a business, if you smelled alcohol on someone what would you do? Send them home? Warn Them? Fire them? Give them a drug test?

You would do the same with marijuana. If someone is impaired then they are in violation of your comapny's drug policy and can be fired. Plus people like airtraffic controllers get drug tested randomly and can't smoke pot anymore than they can show up drunk or hit the sauce before they come into work. Alcohol is legal but they can't drink a few drinks and come to work either or down a few brews at lunch.

Some jobs allow drinking as part of the culture but most don't.

The argument is not promoting pot but decriminalizing it's use. With 20 million people admitting recreational use per year, it makes no sense to continue to fill up jails with offenders when that money could better be spent with drug awareness, treatment, and drug testing programs. By putting an age limit on it and increasing penalties for underage use ie. under 21, you are targeting stopping children and teenagers where use begins, not adults when it is too late. Now it is no more illegal to sell it to an eight year old as it is to a 30 year old. If you regulate it then it would be harder for kids to get not easier.

Lastly in states like Ohio where is a misdemeanor to possess it or in Alaska where it is legal to grow some for your own personal consumption, have their been these out of control issues that you fear? Legalization under some circummstances doesn't mean widespread use or promotion of it. It is simply a way to control its use since millions already do it, and provides a means of taxation and subsequent funding of programs designed to curb it's use.

REP

[Anavax]

I'd much rather have professionally indoor-grown cannabis than some trash that sprung up on the side of the road. Its just not worth the hassle to install and maintain the complicated hydro systems required to grow 19-24% weed. Not to mention there are so many different strains that have a different effect, like liquor that it would be nice to change over every so often without having to grow multiple plants that are gonna make your house smell like skunk piss.

[jabbo420]

Originally Posted by panthers55

Interestingly both conservatives and liberals have supported legalizing it for different reasons.

I would vote for legalizing it and then putting an age limit on it like we do now with alcohol. For many teens it is easier to get pot then alcohol since the penalty to sell it to a 8 year old is the same as selling it to a 40 year old. I would go after the dealers and folks who sell it to kids who don't have the experience or ability to make adult decisions, not the grown adult.

Secondly we should tax the hell out of it like cigarettes. People say that pot grows anywhere but so can tobacco. But how many people grow their own?? The reason pot is expensive is because it is illegal. And don't believe pot growers want it legalized. They don't. It would take all the money out of it for them.

On other fronts:
How many illegal activities and even terrorists acts are fueled by drug money?? More than people think.

How many billions of dollars go to prosecuting pot smokers that could be spent on harder drugs or treatment. In fact the taxes gained by selling it could pay for all the treatment needed.

Does pot lead to other drugs or violence? No correlation with violence by users. The violent ones are the dealers. The actually number 1 gateway drug and predicter of future drug use is actually cigarette smoking by the age of 12.. The correlation between pot and harder drugs is more on the line of if a person will do illegal things or engage in risky behavior they may do more illegal things or riskier behaviors.

iI the concern that more people will use drugs, consider that some of the money from the taxes could go to drug testing programs. Just because it is legal doesn't mean employers can't test for it or keep drug users from working in the workplace.
There are sophisticated tests which can measure whether someone is currently impaired so the argument of "I used last month not recently" are not as valid.

Lots of arguments to legalize it. Arguments to keep things as they are: not so many or that good of ones. Ask William Buckley, Jr who while conservative has come out supporting legalization.

excellent post

[SorthNarolina]

Originally Posted by tattoorhino

Smoking pot has also been determined to cause cancer. I guess thats a good thing we should want for our kids. We dont want our kids to smoke cigs but when it comes to pot, well thats Ok?

There would be an age limit on pot too, its not like it would be 13

and you can eat pot too, smoke free, thats the largest way that I've ever done it(but i dont do it anymore) and its much better, with no smoke, nearly perfect IMO

but yeah giving it a wider access to kids is a tough cookie, but i think they'd have more money for D.A.R.E. from all the money saved from not prosecuting all those people

[dimbee]

It's gotten awful damn quiet in here from the "other side" () since Panthers55 broke out not only the DAYUM! stick, he also broke out the Experienced Knowledge stick.

[xooberon]

Originally Posted by tattoorhino

Smoking pot has also been determined to cause cancer.

ORLY

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection

[dimbee]

Fact > Bullcrap

[hepcat]

I wrote a sweet paper on this very topic in english class.

[SorthNarolina]

Originally Posted by xooberon

ORLY

Study Finds No Cancer-Marijuana Connection

studies studies

face it, you put enough smoke in your lungs, cancer chances will increase, it doesn't matter from what

maybe they should make joints with little strips from those firelogs that cleans your chimmneys

[dimbee]

BRILLIANT!!!!!

[jangler]

What doesn't cause cancer?

[dimbee]

Milk



No... wait..... crap

[hepcat]

Originally Posted by jangler3

What doesn't cause cancer?

cancer doesn't cause cancer......?

[Anavax]

Originally Posted by hepcat

cancer doesn't cause cancer......?

Never heard of it spreading?

[SorthNarolina]

Originally Posted by Anavax

Never heard of it spreading?

hahaha yeah, its not like it just sits there, usually its eating you up