the feds and states have persecuted smokers and drinkers for generations witn taxes, constutional ammendments, jail, regulations - so what's the problem? with the budget deficits we now face - legalize pot! tax the sh** out of it like they do with tobacco and alcohol, restrict it like they do with both of them. can't have it in public, can lose your licence or go to jail if driving intoxicated - but they still get their taxes on the product. WAKE UP POLITICIANS _ you are missing out on a new TAX SOURCE - why lose revenue to the south american drug cartels. Lets keep it in the USA - Kentucky has some of the finest pot farms in the nation. Indiana was one of the best hemp substitute producers in WWII.

why use anything to dull your actions, reflexes, and thinking.

we have experts who claim they are depressants, others who say they are stimulants - should we ban coffee? How about greaseburgers that drive our cholesterol through the roof? Why don't we regulate THAT?

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Classic WU= 7,237 Classic Hours= 42,079

yes, we should ban coffee if, after drinking coffee you are slow nonsense mumbling moron.

While I'm all for ending the prohibition on cannabis, I've come to the realization that it could be very dangerous to individuals participating in the legal transaction of this drug should the prohibition be repealed.

In another thread, one writer considers murder and arson as reasonable responses to transactions involving the legal sale of cannabis, should the prohibition be repealed.

While this writer feels very strongly about the use of pot, he doesn't seem to have the same level of contempt toward alcohol.
His signature at the bottom of all of his posts warns against excessive drinking because you may miss while shooting at the taxman.

Everything I've said here is located elsewhere in this forum...so I think there's no harm, no foul.

While I'm all for ending the prohibition on cannabis, I've come to the realization that it could be very dangerous to individuals participating in the legal transaction of this drug should the prohibition be repealed.

In another thread, one writer considers murder and arson as reasonable responses to transactions involving the legal sale of cannabis, should the prohibition be repealed.

While this writer feels very strongly about the use of pot, he doesn't seem to have the same level of contempt toward alcohol.
His signature at the bottom of all of his posts warns against excessive drinking because you may miss while shooting at the taxman.

Everything I've said here is located elsewhere in this forum...so I think there's no harm, no foul.

I agree - the south american cartels would take umbrage if us yanks were allowed to GROW OUR OWN and the yankee government got taxes - who needs THEM? Retribution might be forthcoming. But who would care - we ALREADY have a problem in that area which our politicians seem bent on ignoring.

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Classic WU= 7,237 Classic Hours= 42,079

yes, we should ban coffee if, after drinking coffee you are slow nonsense mumbling moron.

thanks for the compliment :>)

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Classic WU= 7,237 Classic Hours= 42,079

i have always thought it would be great for user of those to shoot video that you could watch later (yes, i know it would be boring to watch, but hey it is boring to watch live too) and find out how marvelously clever you are in "high", even it seems rather"down" to outside viewer.

i have always thought it would be great for user of those to shoot video that you could watch later (yes, i know it would be boring to watch, but hey it is boring to watch live too) and find out how marvelously clever you are in "high", even it seems rather"down" to outside viewer.

aristo, you are correct.
In a perfect world, there would be none of this going on.

The reality of the situation is that we are not in that perfect world and are forced to deal with the way things really are.
The demand for illicit drugs is driving these gang wars over the profits created by prohibition.
Prohibition isn't working. It never has and it never will.

How do we lessen the dangers of gang warfare over control of the cannabis trade?
How do we take back control of the streets?
How do we stop the flow of money to the drug lords?

"Just Say No" didn't seem to stop anything.
DEA ATF FBI and any number of lettered agencies have not decreased usage or stopped the killings.
What good are sealed borders when a product can be grown locally?

There has to be a better answer than the so called "War On Drugs".

ok, how about this, the government is only one who can grow marijuana legally,
and it will sell it so cheap that it will make it nonprofitable to anyone else, but you have to have permit to use it, which don´t cost you a thing, and then you can buy it and smoke it as much you like, but the more you use it , the more you have to pay taxes, by the way , i forgot to mention that you have to have job to be able to buy it, if you don´t have you can´t buy it, if you lose your job cause of smoking, you cant buy more til you have new job, and of course
if your job is something to do with risk of hurting other people, driver or..., you have to pass drug test every morning blah blah and so on. illegal growing and you go to jail, break those rules and you go to jail etc..

ok, how about this, the government is only one who can grow marijuana legally,
and it will sell it so cheap that it will make it nonprofitable to anyone else, but you have to have permit to use it, which don´t cost you a thing, and then you can buy it and smoke it as much you like, but the more you use it , the more you have to pay taxes, by the way , i forgot to mention that you have to have job to be able to buy it, if you don´t have you can´t buy it, if you lose your job cause of smoking, you cant buy more til you have new job, and of course
if your job is something to do with risk of hurting other people, driver or..., you have to pass drug test every morning blah blah and so on. illegal growing and you go to jail, break those rules and you go to jail etc..

OK, interesting angles.
Government grown is fine with me.
I don't see the need for a permit, free or otherwise.

Why an increasing taxation scale? Couldn't you get around that by asking non-smokers to buy it for you?

Why do you have to have a job? Would you deny retired people or those on disability? What about rich people living on their inheritence?
A part time bartender can buy some but a multi-millionaire cannot?

Jail terms for growing it yourself would be no different than arresting mooshiners, so I suppose that could work.

I think limiting it in the same way liqour is regulated would be sufficient.
It's the fairest means of controlling it's usage while still making it available to all adults.

retired ok,rich people, little work don´t hurt them,increasing taxation cause you are not so productive member of community if you are high.

It is a research made by the university of "Universidad Complutense de Madrid", Spain...
I am against tobacco but this morning I found this article in the local news--->cannabis against cancer cells
I have no time now to translate it into English, but it says basically that it can be used against cancer cells in the brain.
The way it is used is via spray (not smoking, sorry).
If someone interested in more detail can email me and I will try to translate most of it in 1 or 2 days.
Thank you for not smoking around anyway!--->I stick to that

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retired ok,rich people, little work don´t hurt them,increasing taxation cause you are not so productive member of community if you are high.

Well, you can't force the idle rich into getting a job down at the carwash or the corner 7/11. All that does is take jobs away from those who really need them.
Personally, I'd like to see them picking up dog poop in the parks. LOL

As we all would hope, people using cannabis would be doing it in a manner similar to going out for a drink on Friday or Saturday night after a hard week of work.
What you do to relax over the weekend doesn't interfere with your productivity at work during the week.

Still, I could live with the restrictions you've mentioned if it would end the prohibition on pot.
As people get more comfortable with the situation, changes in regulations could gradually be brought forth.

It would be fine by me if they banned alcohol also, it is even a worse problem than pot is and probaly would continue to be the worst.

However, pot, lsd, and some of the other "recreational" drugs do not have the standing in our society yet as alcohol does.

So there is no consenus yet - to legalize it.

So, in my very small voice, restricted to only those that read these posts, and to those I meet in person. I try to head off another disaster.

But I must admit, after reading the postings here, that nothing of my warnings is considered relevant to those that want it legalized.

It's the same when I try to "talk sense into" my brothers.

That they live in poverty,
that they can't hold down a job,
that they have and continue to screw their kids out of the basics that anyone would want for their children.

Doesn't matter. Being able to "party", is more important.

Just as it is here in these postings. Consequences be d@mmed! We want our pot legal.

We don't care how many lives our ruined.
We don't care how many people die.
We want our pot.

Other peoples problems our not our concern. Our concern is gratifying our need to intoxicate ourselves on demand without legal repercussions.

We want to be able to sit by ourselves or in a group and laugh incoherantly at something nobody else gets. We want to sit silently and be confused at what is going on around us. And if somebody has to die, or be finacially ruined, or make a total disaster of their personal life. They need to do that because we want to be stoned.

And the quote I use from Mark Twain, while funny, is serious.

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Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. - Mark Twain

So, in my very small voice, restricted to only those that read these posts, and to those I meet in person. I try to head off another disaster.

But I must admit, after reading the postings here, that nothing of my warnings is considered relevant to those that want it legalized.

It's the same when I try to "talk sense into" my brothers.

That they live in poverty,
that they can't hold down a job,
that they have and continue to screw their kids out of the basics that anyone would want for their children.

Doesn't matter. Being able to "party", is more important.

Just as it is here in these postings. Consequences be d@mmed! We want our pot legal.

Tom, while I respect the thoughtful opinion you've expressed in your posting I've snipped out the above quote. You seem to be assuming that if pot were legalized that everyone who smoked would instantly become hopeless, addicted, thoughtless, partying losers.

I've known surgeons, lawyers, military members, scientists, politicians, and yes even law enforcement that have smoked pot--all top members in their fields. Never once have I seen any of them high while working, or around their kids, or while driving, etc, etc. I've seen first-hand how cannabis is a medical benefit to many people. Never once have I seen a life ruined by it that wouldn't have been "ruined" in some other way by that person, because of their innate traits without being high...

The key words here are PERSONAL RESPONSIBILITY. If someone is a "loser" without regard to consequences of their own actions to begin with, pot isn't going to make them or their lack of integrity any better--or any worse.

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Team SETI.USA Forums
Somewhere, something incredible is waiting to be known. ~~Carl Sagan

never i have saw people to became smarter, to have better health, to become better person when they have started smoking.( but i do have seen them gaining weight, and have problems related to smoking, even mental problems)

"I've known surgeons, lawyers, military members, scientists, politicians, and yes even law enforcement that have smoked pot--all top members in their fields"

You just made me feel safer - a surgeon called in on his day off to perform my emergency surgery, A military member handling nuclear weapons or with a loaded weapon called out for an emergency. A politician/law enforcement offical willing to break th laws they have sworn to uphold. I feel much better now.

Go to an AA or NarcAnon meeting, you will meet doctors, lawyers, military members, scientists, politicians and yes even law enforcement, does that make you feel better?

And they became better at their profession when they were high?

"they would be losers anyway"

How would one document that? What statistics can you use for this hypothosis?
It's evident when someone has a drug problem that they have a problem - becoming a loser as you say. Do you have a test for "loserism" that a store clerk can use before he sells them legalized pot?

As to the medical "benefits" - you have any recognized, peer reviewed studies to back that up? Or is it more of my cousin's friend tried it and his acne went away? You have a medical condition that is fixed after 10 days of pot smoking to tell us about? The criteria for a medical drug is that it "safe and effective". What would you write for the warning label that comes on a baggie of pot? May cause hysteria, uncontroled laughter, paranoria, loss of reasoning, unsound judgement, liver and brain cell damage, loss of sexual desire, withdrawal, psychiatric symtoms, has been shown to be habit forming. Do not use when driving, operating equipment, holding an intelligent conversation. Best used when confined to your mom's basement. Can imagine the lawsuits a drug company would have to deal with?

The proposal is not to legalize it for one person who has "personal responsibility" - the proposal is to make it available for 200 million folks for whom you have no idea as to what "personal responibility" means.

If only 1 in a thousand of your 200 million has a problem you have just added an extra 200,000 problems to be solved.

If a person doesn't show "personal responsibility" should we shoot them? deport them? Or should we pool our money together and support them?

Would it not be easier on the rest of us if you gave up this one simple pleasure? Could you not read a book? Take your kid to the park? Chop some fire wood? Trade the time you are high to work in a soup kitchen? Paint a landscape? Farm a small plot of land to give food to homeless people? How about snuggle up to your wife - I am sure she wouldn't mind some extra attention. You could be a hero to homeless people, you could be a very good painter.

If you need to smoke a joint to relax, to unwind, to be "happy", then you have a drug problem, whether you recognize it or not. A healthy human being is capable of all these things without any drug inducement. If you are smoking a joint to relieve unbearable stress, you need to remove the stressor, not self medicate. After you smoke a joint the stressor is still there.

I have had to deal with pot problems while I was in the military for twenty years, as a civilian employer in my small business, and with those in my family that chose to use it. I had one employee that could write wonderful computer programs, he delivers pizza now. I have two brothers that went from high paying blue collar jobs to nothing. I have nephews and neices that were bright wonderful kids than now have serious problems with crack and cocaine after starting with pot.

We will never know how there life would have turned out.

Would you be proud to know you gave an alcoholic his first drink? Are you ready to create another 200,000 losers? So you can laugh hysterically at something you normally would only think mildly amusing, so you can sit in a mindless drunken stupor for about an hour?

And don't say I advocate alcohol use, everything I have said about pot goes double for alcohol.

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Man - a creature made at the end of the week's work when God was tired. - Mark Twain

You have to ask the question: do you support drug dealers and gangs or do you want to take away their power and destroy the business they control? Like when alcohol was legalized, organized crime took a big hit. Gangs and dealers depend on the black market to survive. If the black market is destroyed, crime and violence will go down. The solution is either by wiping illegal drugs off the face of the earth (not going to happen) or by decriminalizing personal possession and private use of certain recreational drugs. They then can be regulated, controlled (lower THC content=safer) and taxed etc. Ultimately I would rather drug revenue go to the government than to drug dealers. And if you think this will make drugs easier to get, that might be true. But as it stands you can currently get any drug you wish on the street if you know where to look. Chances are you probably live near a dealer right now.

See what the war on drugs is doing to Mexico?

Lastly, it should be legal to grow industrial hemp in the states. Hemp can be used to make paper products clothing and packaging products with a small environmental impact then using wood or animal products.

You are advocating wide-spread decriminalization of other drugs as well then....

Oh yeah I'd love my doctor to legally shoot heroine and then operate on me...yikes.

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