Should California legalize marijuana for recreational use?

[rationalist]

All drugs should be legal.

Prohibition does not work. Legalise drugs and you take all the gang/crime related stuff associated with the illegal drugs trade out in one fell swoop.

You also stop those who choose to take drugs from having to imbibe stuff cut with damaging materials and you can even raise tax off the legalised/controlled sale of the product.

There is no downside to legalisation simply because anyone who wants drugs now can get them anyway. They just have to deal with criminals, pay more than they can afford and take a risk on the quality.

Alcohol and nicotine are legal but people seem, in general to be able to deal with those drugs.

The war on drugs is unwinnable.

 

[Sihouette]

Sure, black markets will always be around but legitimizing recreational drug use [let's face it, that's what these States are doing] is sending the wrong message to the kiddies don't you think?

Or are you one of those hippie parents who blows smoke into the faces of their infants to calm them down so they'll stop crying and who bake pot brownies that are left within child's reach "by accident"? Yes, I've seen this with my own eyes.

We encourage low points in our society and guess where it's going to sink?

We need to be sending the message that spending your life in a somatic haze from whatever substance is wrong. And that goes for pharmacueticals too. I'd like to see as part of the public plan, wholesale discouragement of prescription drug addiction with consent of the providers and instead referrals to mental health practitioners. 90% of illness is likely due to psychological issues anyway. I see a whole new job-market for psychologists and mental-health professionals. [Merck investment brokers, trend alert!]. At a low point in my life I was prescribed "feel-good" pills. The thing I kept thinking while I was taking them was that line from Pink Floyd's "Comfortably Numb" song. "Just a little prick, there'll be no more aaaaaagghhhh!, but you may feel a little sick. Can you stand up? I do believe it's working....good...that'll keep you going for the show, c'mon it's time to go.." And how much more depressed I became. I threw them away and got therapy which took years longer but now I feel good again and I get sick less often.

Somatics have their time and place, like if you break your leg, but F them as a lifestyle..

 

[rationalist]

The let's protect children argument is desperate.

We live in a world where there are lots of dangers to children. The motor car, poverty, guns, parents, other children, pornography, alcohol, nicotine, religion etc etc.

We also aim for laws to allow adults to function whilst protecting the interests of the young. There is no reason that drugs should be any different.

Your argument suggests that legalisation of drugs means making them compulsory. It doesn't. As people who want them can get them anyway prohibition is not working.

It is creating a glamour around drugs and gangs and all that stuff but stop kidding yourself.

Nobody who wants drugs holds back because they are illegal and the sooner people put their prejudices away and understood that the better.

 

[Sihouette]

It doesn't make them compulsory, oh purposefully obfuscative one, [could it be your logic is also in a somatic haze?]. It LEGITIMIZES it in the eyes of children. And in this sense, via the formative years, will affect the idea of "normal" within those kids who have grown to adults.

Normalizing a somatic-haze lifestyle isn't what we want for our society, either from pot or from prescription drugs.

We live in a world where there are lots of dangers to children. The motor car, poverty, guns, parents, other children, pornography, alcohol, nicotine, religion etc etc

Yes, and in cars we have seatbelts, with poverty we have programs to help the poor, with guns we have saftey devices and bans on assault weapons, with parents we have CWS, pornography we have webpolice, with alcohol we have limits on age of purchase, consumption and so on, with nicotine we have limits on age of purchase and religion...well...no limits there.

Are you saying pot is a religion? For some it is.

The thing is that all harmful things are recognized as such and are limited or come with restraining devices built in. What restraining devices will there be when everyone is growing pot in their backyard and smoking it indoors around their kids and the kids of other people. [yes I've dealt with this too].

Somatic lifestyles mustn't become normalized.

 

[rationalist]

Cars did not always have seat belts, guns did not always have safety devices etc.

You cannot defend a case by saying children might use something they shouldn't be using.

I notice the US didn't ban Michael Jackson

 

[Sihouette]

..lol... He was able to buy his way out of being prosecuted and labelled as a sex offender. He is where he belongs now IMHO.

Your statements about the differences between something in the past vs now is really in support of what I'm saying. It appears as if you are in favor of restrictions on pot instead of the reverse. It would appear then that we agree..

 

[dogtowner]

..lol... He was able to buy his way out of being prosecuted and labelled as a sex offender. He is where he belongs now IMHO.

Your statements about the differences between something in the past vs now is really in support of what I'm saying. It appears as if you are in favor of restrictions on pot instead of the reverse. It would appear then that we agree..

We already have regulations on pot and they are meaningless.
All you do with regulation on this sort of thing is facilitate an underground.

Its vital to know what your goal is.

The only reason, IMO, to deregulate recreational drugs is to defeat organized crime. All the rest is feel good nonsense.

 

[Sihouette]

Well if you want to defeat organized crime, you should be lambasting the five SCOTUS justices who voted for foreign influence in our electoral process on behalf of their corporate pimps.

The most important reason for de-normalizing pot and prescription drug addictions is to promote our values. At the very least, pot should be subject to the same types of restrictions as alcohol...not being availible to minors, only for sale at certain places with people who have a license to do so [subject to revoking] and so on. That would eliminate your black market and say to kids that there is something abnormal about its use.

 

[dogtowner]

Well if you want to defeat organized crime, you should be lambasting the five SCOTUS justices who voted for foreign influence in our electoral process on behalf of their corporate pimps.

as Justice Alito pointed out, "not ture".

The most important reason for de-normalizing pot and prescription drug addictions is to promote our values. At the very least, pot should be subject to the same types of restrictions as alcohol...not being availible to minors, only for sale at certain places with people who have a license to do so [subject to revoking] and so on. That would eliminate your black market and say to kids that there is something abnormal about its use.

Its illegal now and everyone knows it but those kids go buy it anyway. Do you actually think they will cease doing that once it goes on sale in liquor stores ? Hardly.

 

[Helicitor]

Re: Putting all of your worries to rest...LA has it figured out!

It is my understanding (was told by a former Danish citizen), that in Denmark an addict could walk into any police station and register as an addict and from that point on, he could obtain drugs for free for his own use. The addict thus did not have to resort to crime to maintain and expensive habit. In such Liberal European countries it is also my understanding that "drunk driving" just is not done because it has a cultural prohabiton...a persons relatives, friends, acquaintances influence, prohibit the intoxicated person from driving. Whereas in the USA, such cultural influences are not practiced and or effective.

That works well in a country you could walk across in the same time it takes you to drive across the lower 48.

Drugs wouldn't be a problem if people used them in the own home and stayed out of public places when they're drunk, stoned, etc. Americans just don't do that. One of the things I support is public enforcement of civil public behavior coupled with a lessening of restrictions on what people do in private. I think a behavior based system of enforcement if more just. Example--you could drive as long as you didn't demonstrate impairment. No need to blow in a tube, no need to take blood, enforce the thing that matters--reflexes and cognition. I'd love to see a more civil public square....

 

[GenSeneca]

Well if you want to defeat organized crime, you should be lambasting the five SCOTUS justices who voted for foreign influence in our electoral process on behalf of their corporate pimps.

Don't let the facts get in the way of your hysteria:

Foreign Corporations Donating?

The president claimed that "foreign corporations" could begin spending big money to influence U.S. elections under a recent Supreme Court decision.

Obama: "Last week the Supreme Court reversed a century of law that I believe will open the floodgates for special interests –- including foreign corporations –- to spend without limit in our elections."

Justice Samuel Alito, who with the other justices sat at the very front of the chamber last night, was seen shaking his head and mouthing what appeared to be the words "not true" as Obama said this. Alito joined the majority in the 5-4 Citizens United v. Federal Election Commission decision issued by the Court last week, which knocked down restrictions on corporate spending on elections.

But it’s unclear whether the court’s opinion will lead to allowing foreign-based corporations to buy campaign ads and engage in other electioneering activities. There is still a law barring foreign corporations from spending money in connection with U.S. elections (see 2 U.S.C. 441e(b)(3)), and that’s a matter likely to be litigated further. The court’s most recent decision explicitly didn’t deal with that question. But strictly speaking, Obama couched his claim as something "I believe," making it a statement of opinion and not of fact. So whether his view turns out to be right remains to be seen.

Factcheck.org

 

[dogtowner]

Don't let the facts get in the way of your hysteria:

they wont let this go, it makes a bad 2010 election cycle into a terrible one for them

 

[Sihouette]

Do you actually think they will cease doing that once it goes on sale in liquor stores ~dogtowner

You're really good at purposeful obfuscation. You remind me of someone..

Did I EVER say that I expected complete eradication of its use among minors? Did I? No, really, did I?

What I SAID was that it should be treated as abnormal, discouraged. Obviously its use won't be eliminated but there is a danger to future generations of normalizing something that is detrimental in general. If only the people saying they need it for health were really being honest. Most of the people I know who have the medical permits are just doing what they always did before...puffing away endlessly stoned without ambition and complaining about aches and pains like they are life-threatening illness.

It's a ruse, a sham and a waste of good human potential. Make it legitimized and you'll have just that many more people thinking it's "normal" to go around in a somatic fog. Stoners don't produce. People who don't produce are defined as burdens. Do we want a future of burdensome people or productive ones?

Do you get it now dogtowner?

Quick trivia question: Do I believe that all pot use will be eradicated among either adults or minors as a result of keeping it regulated or illegal?

A. "Yes" or B. "No" ?

Take your time. Try not to misread or trip yourself up..lol..

 

[dogtowner]

You're really good at purposeful obfuscation. You remind me of someone..

Did I EVER say that I expected complete eradication of its use among minors? Did I? No, really, did I?

What I SAID was that it should be treated as abnormal, discouraged. Obviously its use won't be eliminated but there is a danger to future generations of normalizing something that is detrimental in general. If only the people saying they need it for health were really being honest. Most of the people I know who have the medical permits are just doing what they always did before...puffing away endlessly stoned without ambition and complaining about aches and pains like they are life-threatening illness.

It's a ruse, a sham and a waste of good human potential. Make it legitimized and you'll have just that many more people thinking it's "normal" to go around in a somatic fog. Stoners don't produce. People who don't produce are defined as burdens. Do we want a future of burdensome people or productive ones?

Do you get it now dogtowner?

Quick trivia question: Do I believe that all pot use will be eradicated among either adults or minors as a result of keeping it regulated or illegal?

A. "Yes" or B. "No" ?

Take your time. Try not to misread or trip yourself up..lol..

C. who cares.

You obviously missed the answer I gave to accomplish this effectively.
Go draconian for any actual crime committed under the influence.

Encourage drug testing in all workplaces. Make any violation on a kid grounds to not admit them to college, call it a morals issue.

This makes it undesirable to be a junkie once again. But junkies there will be so there is no point trying to stop them.

As I said, know why you want to do a thing.

 

[pocketfullofshells]

C. who cares.

You obviously missed the answer I gave to accomplish this effectively.
Go draconian for any actual crime committed under the influence.

Encourage drug testing in all workplaces. Make any violation on a kid grounds to not admit them to college, call it a morals issue.

This makes it undesirable to be a junkie once again. But junkies there will be so there is no point trying to stop them.

As I said, know why you want to do a thing.

But what would Rush do? Or Bush since he did Cocaine?