Weed and medical marijuana

[Xannidel]

So the topic of legalizing weed has been popping up more and more frequently, or at least it has for me, and I want to hear if you are pro or con this topic and please give us some details as to why you chose your answer.

For me I am against legalizing it, I do not smoke it which already skews my opinion but I mean it really messes with people's minds and can cause problems if they decide to drive and that can hinder their ability to drive/put on the brakes in time/ect. I have many pot head friends who all are for it but it just seems like a stupid thing to legalize when the US is in such an economic disaster.
I am all for MEDICAL patients to use marijuana to help them ease the pain but not for some average Joe down the road who just wants an easy way to get out of his world for awhile.

[Arjahn]

I'm for legalizing it. It doesn't mess with your mind nearly as much as you're led to believe, all it really does is relax you like crazy, and it's safer than Booze, which is legal pretty much everywhere. I still think a lot of age limitation laws should be replaced with an IQ test, as I'm against really stupid people using Pot, and I'm even more against stupid people using Alcohol. In fact, let's just ban stupidity, who's with me?!

[SERIOUSLY THOUGH]

I'm against the legalisation of marijuana. A close friend of mine is a researcher in the field so I tend to hear all that's going on. I'll keep it brief though.

You get people who smoke, who get high and who never have health problems. Unfortunately, those people are a large minority and tend to use examples like "I have a friend who's been smoking for 20 years and he's fine" to defend their habits. Then you get those who smoke weed and slowly descend into dependancy and ultimately into permanent states of mental illness.

The major problem tends not to lie with the smoker, but with the smoked product itself. Jamaica has such a large culture of weed smokers yet has very low rates of cannabinoid-related schizophrenia and other related mental illnesses. Then there are countries like the Netherlands who have much higher ratios of mental/physical illnesses to the amount of weed they smoke.
The secret to the matter is the component tetrahydrocannabinol (THC). This is the major killer in marajiuana and a high proportion of this in your 'erbs is what'll get you. Jamaica tends to grow it's weed supply outside in the sun where it grows naturally in day/night cycles. Therefore, their cannabis has a low level of THC and they can puff away for a long time (though the risks are still there). European weed (and I take this from research samples taken in London and Amsterdam), is mostly grown indoors on a 24 hour bright light cycle. That shoots up the THC levels in the final product and creates, not a mind-altering smoke, but what can be pretty much deemed a poison.
It's true that smoking kills so many more people than cannabis per year but the legality of it is that it doesn't make you dangerous when you smoke it unlike cannabis, which plunges you into an unpredictable state of mind (different people react differently to being high - kind of like the difference between 'happy drunks' and 'angry drunks').
Medical marijuana is regulated and is fine and helps a lot of people every year.

In conclusion, if you want to take that risk and spend money to play lottery with your life, it's your choice. However, that lottery could make you dangerous for society and that's not cool. I personally know too much about what's inside it and the likely short & long-term side-effects to ever want to touch the stuff

(07-26-2012 04:09 PM)Arjahn Wrote:  I'm for legalizing it. It doesn't mess with your mind nearly as much as you're led to believe, all it really does is relax you like crazy, and it's safer than Booze, which is legal pretty much everywhere.

I've got to say that yes, in many cases, it's safer and kills many less people than alcohol. Sometimes the laws make no sense but if we can keep just one more mind-altering substance from being legal, [epic music]someone somewhere won't die because of it[/epic music]

[Scormac]

I live in them Dutchlands so its alrdy legal here. I don't smoke myself but I'm not against it.
If people want to spend money on shit like that it's there problem Also alcohol is legal as said before :o if they wanna get rid of the weedz they should get rid of the alcoholz first

[Xannidel]

Yeah but comparing legalizing weed to the legalization of a depressant like beer is not very fair because they are two different products entirely.
I hear Washington is going to be legalizing it soon or something like that and the ONLY pro I can see to this is that they are going to tax the crap out of it.

[BumblebeeCody]

I'm on the side of legalising it. Again, we come to the tobacco and beer point. Two drugs which are far worse then Weed. The government make up a lot of crap about how weed is bad, yet selling alcohol and tobacco is fine because to those guys, they see "weed is a drug therefore bad" without actually bothering to research it themselves. Alcohol puts you in much worse state of mind that weed does.
http://www.saferchoice.org/content/view/24/53/

Medical marijuana needs to be make legal. It's an amazing medical drug.
Also
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medical_can...nt_studies (Wikipedia...I know)

Also (for those in the U.K)
http://epetitions.direct.gov.uk/petitions/29

[damerdar]

I'm for the legalization of marijuana, although I don't smoke it myself (I have before, not really my thing). I do think that it should be regulated and taxed however.

[Xannidel]

How can they regulate it when they can't do so now?

[Cinna]

L E G A L I Z E

the thing about it hindering your driving ability is the same as cold medicine for instance, it makes you drowsy and says not to operate heavy machinery. the same warning can apply to marijuana if it were to be medicinal. i like weed, it's relaxing and takes away stress. hookah does the same for me but after like 30-40 straight minutes of smoking it. weed is a lot faster for me. i understand people not wanting to legalize it and i'm not gonna debate with you guys about it, but i see no harm really. it's not like you can OD on it, you just gotta watch out who gives it to you cause it can be laced with something that can actually do damage to you.

[Beardy]

I don't really have any strong feelings on it either way. I don't know enough about its medical applications to form an opinion on the matter, but if it's genuinely helpful then I don't see why it shouldn't be prescribed.

As for recreational use, I suppose I lean towards legalisation. I don't touch it now, but in the past I've found it insanely easy to get hold of. At least if it was legalised then it could be thoroughly regulated and have the shit taxed out of it. I kind of take that attitude with all drugs really. As awful as a lot of them are, taking them out of the hands of drug dealers and into reputable, thoroughly restricted business seems like a sound idea.

I don't hold with the "it should be legalised because I'm permanently stoned and weed is super cool" kind of people because shut the hell up, you feckless stoners, that's not a reason. I don't think the argument that it's safer than booze is a really strong reason for legalising it either. Booze is thoroughly entrenched as a legal thing, that's not likely to change. Doesn't mean you should let other stuff slide just because of that.

Edit - but as I say, I don't really care too much either way to be honest.

[BumblebeeCody]

(07-27-2012 02:45 AM)Beardy Wrote:  I don't really have any strong feelings on it either way. I don't know enough about its medical applications to form an opinion on the matter, but if it's genuinely helpful then I don't see why it shouldn't be prescribed.

As for recreational use, I suppose I lean towards legalisation. I don't touch it now, but in the past I've found it insanely easy to get hold of. At least if it was legalised then it could be thoroughly regulated and have the shit taxed out of it. I kind of take that attitude with all drugs really. As awful as a lot of them are, taking them out of the hands of drug dealers and into reputable, thoroughly restricted business seems like a sound idea.

I don't hold with the "it should be legalised because I'm permanently stoned and weed is super cool" kind of people because shut the hell up, you feckless stoners, that's not a reason. (2 I don't think the argument that it's safer than booze is a really strong reason for legalising it either. Booze is thoroughly entrenched as a legal thing, that's not likely to change. Doesn't mean you should let other stuff slide just because of that.


Edit - but as I say, I don't really care too much either way to be honest.

@2 Its not so much that it's an argument point of it being safer than booze, it's that, how can a drug that's far more dangerous be legal and so widley available yet something as harmless as weed be illegal? As Cinna said as well, it's good for stress relief but also as an anti-depressant. The difference is that Anti-depressants cause deaths (if you take too many) whereas weed can be used in the same manner as weed yet it can't harm you. It doesn't affect you body like other drugs such as: killing brain cells or harming your liver.

Quote:Deaths per year from:
tobacco=340,000-395,000
Alcohol (not including accidents)=125,000+
Drug overdose (prescription)=14,000-27,000
Drug overdose (illegal)=3,800-5,200
Marijuana=0

Source

Even if they don't legalise weed as a "recreational" drug then they need to at least legalise medical marijuana.

Edit: Not to mention the amount of people that get arrested just for sitting at home smoking it. Why?

[Beardy]

(07-27-2012 02:55 AM)BumblebeeCody Wrote:  @2 Its not so much that it's an argument point of it being safer than booze, it's that, how can a drug that's far more dangerous be legal and so widley available yet something as harmless as weed be illegal? As Cinna said as well, it's good for stress relief but also as an anti-depressant. The difference is that Anti-depressants cause deaths (if you take too many) whereas weed can be used in the same manner as weed yet it can't harm you. It doesn't affect you body like other drugs such as: killing brain cells or harming your liver.

Quote:Deaths per year from:
tobacco=340,000-395,000
Alcohol (not including accidents)=125,000+
Drug overdose (prescription)=14,000-27,000
Drug overdose (illegal)=3,800-5,200
Marijuana=0

Source

Even if they don't legalise weed as a "recreational" drug then they need to at least legalise medical marijuana.

Edit: Not to mention the amount of people that get arrested just for sitting at home smoking it. Why?

I guess it's just because it's a drug (not saying that's a valid reason). Booze has the force of historical acceptance behind it.

Your claims that it's thoroughly safe seem at odds with what Seriously was saying above. I don't know who's right, but just from a quick glance at that source you provided.... I don't trust it. Besides, it not leading directly to deaths doesn't mean it can't have profound psychological impacts.

I don't really know why I'm arguing with you here, to be honest. I reckon it should probably be legalised too, but I don't think comparing it to alcohol is a valid way to argue this. It should be decided on its own merits, not through comparison to the (probably highly flawed) approach the law takes to booze.

[retrolinkx]

Eh, to be honest there is a lot of reasons why legalizing it and not legalizing it is good and bad.

Firstly, it does affect you worse than Smoking, smoking may make you run slower and cause cancer and such, but this is much worse, since the effect you get can hurt other people as well as yourself, if it is legalized people would pretty much "smoke everyday", then go out to get food, and probably hurt people if they drove in the car due to it affecting them in the head.

My mother was a nurse for 25 years and she has seen the effects of it first hand. (hurr did she do it when ung lol XD) and she can tell you it effects with your mind, makes you paranoid, it does give you cancer eventually if you smoke the same as a smoker, it pretty much effects you the same way smoking does but makes you feel good for about an hour or so.

I've never tried it, so I don't know the effects first hand, but it's bad, and if it was legalized it wouldn't be good.

[Zaliphone]

Whether it's legalized or not, all I can say is that I will NEVER smoke weed.

[Scormac]

History is such a stupid reason to have alcohol as legal
we did shitloads of stupid things in the past :o alcohol can be considered as one of those stupid things