Should cannabis be legalised?

[The Curmudgeon]

How times change; a year ago if I had ventured into a forum and saw this fucking t-e-d-i-o-u-s debate, I would have swiftly logged back out again. But that's for a good few reasons, non of which, I'm glad to say, apply here;

1. You get the moral high-ground pricks who write stupid "LCC" slogans on walls (Legalise Cannabis Campaign - yes, graffiti is JUST the sort of thing that will get the governments to change their minds)

2. You get people joining in the debate who can barely write their own name.

3. It's all been said and argued about a million times before, all with the same result.

But I figured we merry few would have a crack at it anyway, 'cos its something we've barely ever touched upon. I remember a thread from a few years back asking if anyone took drugs, and the majority answer was "no." Well, now I do enjoy cannabis (I started it to help with my sleeping, but I'd be lying if I said I don't enjoy it), I figured we'd bring this up.

Now, take a look at this video for a different slant on the argument, from UK rapper Mike Skinner, AKA The Streets, about how drink is legal, but weed isn't. Good tune, too. Apologies if you struggle with the dialect, but I'm sure you get the gist of it.



When you think about it - if they just invented alcohol tomorrow, it would be banned immediately. Something utterly addictive that can make you aggressive, cause untold damage to your body and mind? No way would that be allowed. So, like the video says, why is booze legal but weed isn't?

For the record - I didn't believe it should be legalised when I didn't smoke weed - and I still don't believe it should be. What would the benefits be? Drug dealers lose money? They'd get it back through coke and heroin, weed is small fry stuff anyway. All it would mean is a) more and more people take more and more of it, and can you imagine the rise in, say, traffic accidents if people are getting legally stoned? I know I wouldn't mind a spliff before going to work, who else wouldn't?

And just like kids being able to get hold of cigarettes and booze, the same thing would happen with weed. Yeah, they could get it from some shady guy in a street corner somewhere, but getting it from a shop is 1000 times easier. 12 year olds starting smoking dope everyday? Not a good thing.

So, even though I do smoke it occasionally, I still think it should be illegal. What about you?

[trashcanman]

It should be legalized because IT HURTS NOBODY and could be taxed like cigarettes for major capitol. Why is it the government's business what natural substance goes into our bodies? It was legal here for a very long time until the logging and liquor industries along with the government used their money and influence to wage a propaganda campaign, inventing the dangerous foreign-sounding name marijuana because de-legalizing hemp -which could have replaced wood for making paper among other things- would have been laughed away by the public. So basically, people were lied to and fooled into accepting the ludicrous act of banning A FUCKING PLANT. I don't smoke. I doubt I ever will. But stupid is stupid and spending money on law-enforcement harassing potsmokers with no positive results is stupid. Also, look into that propaganda campaign. Hilarious stuff.

[Benjamin Haines]

I'm an avid social toker. I tried it for the first time way back in high school but I didn't start doing it regularly until I started college. As such, whenever I'm at college, I tend to smoke at least once a day or almost every day, and always with friends. For me, the social aspect of it is the backbone of what makes it fun in the first place, and taking that away just kills the point. I have never smoked by myself in my life.

Since I never really hung out with any stoner crowd in high school, none of my friends back home are really into it. So whenever I'm home for the summer (as I am right now), I don't tend to smoke much at all. It's actually been over two weeks since the last time I lit up.

I'm for it being legalized for a number of reasons, first and foremost being that I don't think the government should ever mandate what people are allowed to put into or take out of their own bodies. Ever. Your body is your own damn property, not the government's. If they can tell you that you're not allowed to smoke a plant, who's to say that they can't also decide what you're allowed to eat? It's a purely personal decision unto oneself that no body of government should be trying to control without openly declaring itself a dictatorship.

That marvelous little video hit the nail on the head for the points it was making. Alcohol can be deadly to your body, from tarnishing you liver and developing cirrhosis to overdrinking to the point of alcohol poisoning and dying in a coma. Cannabis, on the other hand, is literally impossible to overdose on by smoking. The amount of THC you would need to overdose simply cannot be gleaned from smoking, even nonstop binge smoking, because as the hours roll by and you keep adding THC to your system, the THC from hours prior is processed and neutralized. Besides, logistically speaking, nobody could stay awake long enough to smoke to that superhuman level.

Alcohol is addictive, plain and simple. It's not for nothing that there is an organization called Alcoholics Anonymous. Alcoholics who don't get their fix go through withdrawals. Cannabis doesn't have that effect. While it is possible for anybody to become mentally or psychologically addicted to literally anything, the human body does not develop of a physiological addiction to THC. I'm a living example. I smoked more this past spring semester than in any single semester prior. The last time I smoked was over two weeks ago, the day before returning home for the summer, and I'm doing just dandy. No withdrawal, no cravings, despite the fact that my body got used to a routine of smoking nearly every day for months. I just suddenly ended that routine for my body and stopped doing it, and two weeks later I still have yet to feel the least bit lacking from it.

Alcohol can get people so drunk that they lose all semblance of their normal rationale. Inhibitions go out the window, awareness of what's happening is nonexistant, the worst ideas can seem just peachy. Cannabis just gets people so high that they're easily amused. The effects on articulation and expression vary from person to person, but while being can cause you to flub a sentence when you're trying to say some ten-syllable words, it can just as often spark creativity and imagination in new, wholly unique ways. I always try to be high whenever I'm spending hours on end editing a video, both because it makes the process more enjoyable and because it gives me that extra spark of brain activity that can only help a task like editing.

Alcohol makes people belligerent, embittered, and often violent. You get a bunch of people in a bar drinking their sorrows away all night long, at some point or another you're going to see a fight or two break out between complete strangers. With cannabis, you get a bunch of people in a room passing a bowl around and the closest you'll get to a conflict is an impassioned debate over whether Temple of Doom is better than The Last Crusade. Cannabis chills people out, plain and simple.

Alcohol creates division. Too many times I've seen conflict stir between a girlfriend and her boyfriend whenever he drinks more than he should. All too often children are woken in the middle of the night when they hear their loud, drunken parents shouting through the walls. Cannabis does just the opposite; it brings people together. A few months ago, some friends and I were walking up to this regular stoner spot up on a hill in the middle of the night, and when we got there we found two other guys already sitting there smoking a blunt. We didn't even know them, but they just invited us to sit down and join them, so we made it into a circle, us sharing our stuff with them and vice versa. After a bit, the two guys decided it was time for them to head out, but they let us keep what was left of the blunt and finish it ourselves, just as a nice gesture. Stoners are just naturally friendly to one another.

You're right, C, if alcohol were introduced for the first time today, it would be banned instantaneously. Again, I don't think the government should be telling anybody that they're not allowed to consume any substance, but if something like alcohol is legal, the fact that cannabis isn't is just utter bullshit.

Regarding the legalization of pot and how it could affect minors, I don't think that's an issue. Kids are already doing pot everywhere anyway. I was 15 and a freshman in high school the first time I tried it, but I knew people in middle school (6th through 8th grades, ages 11 to 14) who did it regularly. Its illegal status notwithstanding, I can personally vouch from my years as a minor earlier this very decade that it is generally easier for kids to obtain weed than alcohol. The exchange of weed is an underground act no matter what age you are simply because it's illegal no matter what age you are. Unless the dealer isn't personally willing to supply to minors, it really isn't any harder for kids to get the stuff. Hell, some of my fellow students in high school grew it themselves in their closets and dealt it on school premises. Alcohol is harder for kids to obtain because stores everywhere are very strict about not selling alcohol to anyone who doesn't look visibly of age without proper identification. What's more, anybody of age who buys alcohol for minors is risking some serious legal shit, and the only people who are willing to take risks like that are generally the same people who would be willing to deal pot to kids.

Ultimately, any kid who is into smoking, drinking or whatever in the first place generally has or develops a basic enough level of street smarts to get what they're looking for. Tobacco may be easier for kids to get than pot, and pot easier than alcohol, but really, kids get ahold of all of that stuff all the time, no matter where you go. The main reason teens get into it isn't even because of what the substances do to you, but simply because they're not supposed to have them. It's wired into us as humans to rebel in some form another as we go through pubescence. The fact that tobacco is illegal for anyone under the age of 18 is the main reason why anyone under the age of 18 wants it. It's not even something as simple as a bunch of kids talking about what they can do to rebel and deciding upon contraband, but something much more primal, practically an unspoken rite of passage. Once kids reach middle school, they find themselves in a social environment in which they and their peers all instinctively gravitate toward substance abuse. That's just the way it is, and it's like that because it's illegal for them to have it. Now don't get me wrong, I am in no way suggesting we should make these substances legal for minors to try and kill the glamour of it all, because that would just be stupid. I'm just saying that, on the subject of the legalization of cannabis for adults, the issue of how that legalization would affect minors is really rather moot. Whether it's legal for adults or not, kids will be interested in pot, kids will obtain pot and kids will smoke pot. That's all there is to that.

Jun 12, 2009 3:14:10 GMT 2 The Curmudgeon said:

and can you imagine the rise in, say, traffic accidents if people are getting legally stoned? I know I wouldn't mind a spliff before going to work, who else wouldn't?

I drive stoned/while getting stoned frequently and it doesn't handicap me in the least. My friends and I have come up with a list a of three reasons why a high driver is the safest driver on the road (half-joking, but these really are true points):

1. When you're driving high and you see a stop sign or a red light appear over the horizon, you start easing your feet down on the brakes way ahead of time. There's no running through stop points to be had.

2. If you're going 30 in a 30 zone, you feel like you're going 50 and you take it easy. You can always tell who the high drivers are because they tend to be the slowest ones on the road.

3. When you're driving high, as far as you're concerned, every other car on the road is a cop car.


But if weed were legalized, just to err on the side of safety, I think that its status should be very much like that of alcohol. You should be able to consume it, but driving under the influence of it should be illegal. That wouldn't stop me from doing it personally, but I know people who aren't comfortable driving high, and I'm sure some of them wouldn't be safe doing it either.

For the record, I was recently busted for possession of weed and paraphernalia. This past November, three of my friends and I made a series of stupid decisions regarding when and where we would smoke one night, basically ending up with us smoking in a parked jeep in a parking lot on campus and having the rent-a-cops called on us. Our cases are getting dismissed, and though the ordeal of court dates and court-appointed lawyers and what not has been a tedious one, I must admit that I found the actual experience of getting busted to be rather funny. Granted, I was already stoned at the time, but that is one thing I like about weed being illegal: the thrill of it all. It feels good to be high, it feels fun to get stoned with a bunch of friends, but it just feels downright exciting to be taking some level of a risk every time we do it. Whether it's driving around a looped mountain road or wandering up onto a wooded hill in the middle of campus, the thrill-seeking aspect definitely adds to the fun for me, and that's something that I would miss if/when cannabis is ever legalized.

[mackshere]

Curmudgeon, I am surprised with your feelings of weed remaining illegal. I must say I totally agree with you. For all the exact same reasons.
Pot is not as bad for you as alcohol, of course. But it does have significant effects on the brain. I have witnessed this at work: Potheads & heavy machinery = Bad combo! There have been moments of seriously poor judgement that could have been extremely dangerous. I firmly believe the reefer played a starring role in the near mishaps.
Plus the weed does lead to heavier stuff, just ask a couple of my in-laws.
Still I wonder, if they legalized it would that kickstart our economy? That could be lots of new jobs and taxes. Interesting to think about...

[trashcanman]

I've never known people to need pot to make bad decisions. One wonders if pot were legal if many people would move on the harder illegal drugs when weed can be consumed without the hassle of the law. Alcohol is the worst fucking substance out there, but Haines already covered that thoroughly. I think it's just a knee-jerk reaction that people think it should remain illegal simply because it always has been (in their lives, at least). The fact that it was banned based entirely on lies and deception should be reason enough to surmise that there was no legitimate reason to do so in the first place. If the best reason to ban it is traffic accidents and heavy machinery then cough syrup, sleeping pills, and pain killers would all have to be banned as well. Pain killers do a hell of a lot more social damage then any amount of pot. I live in the meth capitol of the world. Let me tell you that pot only serves as a gateway drug because they have to deal with drug dealers to get it. Those people are salesmen. You go get to a dimebag, they offer you a freebie of tweak or coke and BAM! Now you want more of that instead. I think the "gateway drug" myth would simply evaporate if marijuana were legalized. As it is, it's nothing more then guilt by association based on circumstantial evidence. "Hey, that person smoked weed before they started doing heroine. So marijuana causes you to become addicted to smack. Yay science!"

[Benjamin Haines]

The only other "drug" I've done in my life since I started smoking pot regularly was psychedelic mushrooms once on a camping trip. Fun times, and let me tell you, I'm glad that I became a regular toker before trying shrooms, because I sure as hell wouldn't have been ready for that trippy experience as my first exposure to any kind of substance abuse. I've also smoked hashish, if that counts, though it's really just a variation of marijuana.

Pot doesn't make anybody get into any harder drugs. No matter what they say or what they try to blame it on, people do what they do because they choose to do it. Crackheads and meth addicts aren't forced to try that first hit of a substance that is world-renowned for creating addiction upon the first try, regardless of whether they've done weed before or not. I've dealt with pot dealers all across the state of North Carolina, I've been offered coke, crack, meth, heroin, acid, X, salvia, and just about every type of painkiller pill under the sun, and I've said no thanks every time. People who get into that kind of harder shit just need to learn some damn self control.

Likewise, people who get high as a kite before going in to work with heavy machinery or something else with similar risk are just stupid. I'm pretty sure that management of such businesses already frown on their employees being under such influence while working, legal or not. It all comes down to self control. I know people who really aren't comfortable driving high, so they don't do it. Good for them, I say. I'd also put down money on the notion that if weed were legalized, the widely-accepted stigma naturally associating its usage with rulebreaking would be gone too. If everyday folk in the working class who get up in the morning and earn their living from 9 to 5 five days a week are suddenly able to legally light one up when they get home after a hard day's work, I see no reason to expect them to suddenly start taking risks with their job and coming into work stoned. Alcohol is already legal, and how many white-collar workers frequently come into work drunk? Not many, I imagine, if they like keeping their jobs.

I work at a grocery store and, while I imagine that getting high before going in would make the whole ordeal so much easier to endure, I've never done it. Even if cannabis were legalized, it'd still be against company policy to come into work stoned, and I still wouldn't want to do it. It's a job that keeps me on my toes and I like being on top of things. It's all about self control.

[Ben]

I'm not heavily opinionated on this matter, but one thing I've noticed around my own school is that the stoners are almost all deadbeats. I can only think of one off the top of my head who amounts to anything, and he isn't a regular smoker.

I've never tried it myself, nor do I have any desire to.

[mackshere]

How can you say stoners are deadbeats?!!?! Look at Michael Phelps! If not for the weed, he never would have won all those gold medals.

[trashcanman]

Gotta be the weed! Ben makes a good point, though. Excessive smoking (especially at a young age) does damage your brain and perception and robs many people of any focus and motivation. That's why I won't touch the stuff.

[The Curmudgeon]

Actually, Ben has a point. The reason I decided that weed wasn't for me (originally) was that everyone who took it at school turned into a complete loser. Not over night or in a "lying in the gutter covered in your own piss" sort of way, but that it seemed to dominate their lives. I "lost" a best friend that way - he started smoking it and that's ALL he ever fucking talked about. I ditched that fool and fast, and pretty much never saw him again. Sigh.

[Benjamin Haines]

Like I said, it's all about self control. I didn't really get into weed until the first semester of my freshman year of college in fall of 2007. Of all the friends I met that semester who also smoked regularly, about half of them returned for the spring 2008 semester. By the time I started my sophomore year this past fall, only a fraction of the smokers I'd met were still at that school.

Weed is a great way to have fun and relax, but it is a leisure activity through and through and needs to be treated as such. People who have to get up early for an 8:00am class or a 9-to-5 job wouldn't stay up all night playing video games or watching movies. Those aren't anytime activities, they're things you do when your other responsibilities have been taken care of and you've got time to wind down and enjoy yourself. It's the same deal with weed.

[The Curmudgeon]

Yeah, I agree - I know people who just sit at home on their days off and get stoned out of their minds all day. That's not social smoking at all, which weed really should be. I have some with a few friends or just with my wife before bed (if I've had a few beers, I can't take my sleeping pills after booze), and it IS fun and relaxing and all that.

That being said, an earlier comment of "I don't think we should be dictated to over what we put in our bodies" sounds a little unrealistic. I mean, should we able to go into a shop and buy heroin?

[trashcanman]

I said we should be able to put anything NATURAL into our bodies. Marijuana is nothing but a plant. Heroine, cocaine, and other hardcore shit that can kill you will only do so because of the distilling and refining process that the substances go through to get it pure. Poppies aren't illegal for a reason. Hell, it's my state flower. And crank is just a combo of man-made chemicals. That shit is easier to regulate because you need a fucking laboratory to make it. Weed just grows.

[Benjamin Haines]

Forget the consumption/self-administration of drugs like heroin, cocaine, methamphetamine, etc. It's the possession, production or distribution of those drugs that should remain illegal. That's not a matter of the government dictating what you can or can't put into your body, it's just a matter of those specific substances being contraband unto themselves.

Cannabis, being a naturally-existing plant, does not deserve the same classification, and cannabis users really don't deserve the same classification as hard drug addicts. I have a friend with arthritis who normally smokes every night to relieve the pain and make it easier to sleep. However, some people living in her neighborhood have been making and distributing meth, and the police have been keeping an eye on them. They were patrolling the neighborhood one evening, saw my friend smoking on her porch, and now they're keeping an eye on her, believing her to be either an associate of the methheads or involved in the same ring. The only reason they haven't taken any police action against her is because they're hoping that keeping an eye on her will lead them to drug dealers of any kind, so now she's being forced to lay low for a while and not be in possession of any weed or related paraphernalia. In the eyes of the law, a young woman smoking cannabis to ease the pain of arthritis is as much of a criminal and a police target as someone who cooks meth and deals it out of their homes. Fucking bullshit.