[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]DBCooper wrote:
[quote]Fletch1986 wrote:
[quote]kneedragger79 wrote:
So are we supposed to legalize weed because there is worse drugs out there?? I forgot I was talking to the dumbfuck from kiwi land!! Go back to your little island and worry about yourself instead of always spewing your ignorance all over the land you know NOTHING ABOUT!!
mak YOU amaze me everyday!!
[quote]Makavali wrote:
Coffee is more addictive than pot. Gateway drug?
Yes, psychological addiction exists, but if it isn’t pot it will be something else.[/quote]
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It’s not a question of whether marijuana is good or not. It’s a question of what does more harm: legalization/decriminalization or making it illegal. [/quote]
It’s not even really a question of that though. The question(s) is/are: if something that someone can freely choose to do can have negative effects, is it the responsibility of the individual to make the choice that does not carry a negative impact, or is it the responsibility of the govt to make that choice for not only that particular individual, but ALL individuals? If that choice carries some sort of inherent risk to society, can the govt limit that risk without taking away free choice?
In the case of weed I think they can by simply legalizing it, creating laws about its consumption identical to alcohol use (although I would make a first-time DUI a mandatory felony charge and a second-time offense punishable by at least a year in prison and permanent loss of driving privileges) use any tax revenue from its sale to strengthen programs that discourage kids from using it and bolster programs designed to alleviate the impact its use can have on society. It is NOT right to take these potential revenues and use them for anything else.
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I assume you apply this sentiment to harder drugs too like heroine, meth, and crack? I’ve seen what crack can do to a person and what’s crazy about it is that it does it’s damage so fast. By the time someone on it would be looking for intervention, permanent effects on the person’s health are already there.[/quote]
I’m kind of on the fence about harder drugs like heroin or crack. But again, if we’re talking about strictly the effects that those drugs have on the abuser, then the argument is a simple one: the govt does not exist to protect us from ourselves and our own bad decisions. I think the longer-term effect that illegalizing these sorts of products strictly for the effect they have on the user is unmeasurable, but huge. I think it creates a horrific mindset within society when we look to the govt to save us from ourselves.
But when we look at the use of such drugs from a larger, societal standpoint is when the issue becomes murky. Weed is dangerous to society, period. But it’s danger does not begin to approach the level of danger that heroin or crack or even alcohol presents to society. Govt DOES exist to protect my rights as a citizen and to ensure that the law of the land is faithfully executed. I think that the govt can still accomplish these things w/o illegalizing crack and heroin, but it is much more difficult and probably carries a lower success rate.
But I think that even the negative effects that these drugs have on society can be lessened if society as a whole moves away from the idea that govt is there to protect us from ourselves, because in the long term this move will create a larger sense of personal responsibility within society, and that can only be beneficial.
There are all sorts of things that carry the implicit possibility of death if used improperly (nunchuks, guns, knives, bats, hammers, nail guns, saws etc etc) but we do not ban those things. However, we do expect people to use these things with care, whether it’s a legally-owned assault rifle or a butcher knife. We place the responsibility for the use of these things in the hands of the people, and when they are used criminally, with malice aforethought or with criminal negligence, THEN we start in with the arrests. But the fact that a gun or a knife is not bad for the user if used properly, whereas drugs still are bad for the user regardless of how they are used (the degree of “badness” being variable) is irrelevant because we should expect that people be able to make those choices themselves.
It’s unrealistic to expect the govt to illegalize everything that carries some sort of danger to society, but it isn’t unrealistic to illegalize the IMPROPER use of such things. Improper use of drugs would be selling to minors, driving under the influence of them and so forth. It’s also unrealistic to be expect the govt to be able to quantify the level of danger for each of these potentially-dangerous things and to then have some sort of cut-off where one thing is deemed just dangerous enough to be worthy of outright illegalization and another just short of that danger.
