31–40 of 46 posts
The DEA is now looking into moving marijuana off schedule I. That would make it a regular prescription drug, with regular prescriptions, distribution through pharmacies, and insurance coverage. If that happens, the whole "dispensary" business will collapse.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pointing out the existence of a worse legal poison is not a very good argument for the legalisation of another one. Perhaps it should not be used at all.
GordonS> "Millions of drug users have been criminalised" Well yes, they are criminals who have broken the law. Your argument is defeatist; drug prohibition works quite well in places like Japan and Singapore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Pointing out the existence of a worse legal poison is not a very good argument for the legalisation of another one. Perhaps it should not be used at all.
GordonS> "Millions of drug users have been criminalised" Well yes, they are criminals who have broken the law. Your argument is defeatist; drug prohibition works quite well in places like Japan and Singapore.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me that when you have teenage kids.
@Archio I hate to break it to you, but I was a teenager myself in to the so distant past and I am fully aware of the opportunities available. My point is that I don't want my kids being turned into stoners and that the law should be on MY side, not the guy pushing drugs on them.
If weed is forbidden/taboo, there's a good chance that your child will come across a successful/popular/intelligent peer that completely discredits everything you've ever told them about "stoners". My fiance is in medical school at a highly selective school and from interacting with a lot of her peers socially I've been again amazed at how many regular smokers are highly intelligent, driven and successful. Once it's truly out in the open, these successes can have a lot more context and we'll truly be able to study and discuss what truth there is to the stoner stereotype.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me that when you have teenage kids.
@Archio I hate to break it to you, but I was a teenager myself in to the so distant past and I am fully aware of the opportunities available. My point is that I don't want my kids being turned into stoners and that the law should be on MY side, not the guy pushing drugs on them.
I am going to assume that you grew up in a country where alcohol was available to teenagers, to a greater or lesser extent. And yet you also - presumably - managed to avoid turning in to a raging alcoholic.
Despite the availability of drugs and alcohol, you managed to avoid becoming a slave to either of them.
The mere availability of drugs (of any kind) will not immediately turn your children in to stoners, alcoholics and junkies. The causes of addiction are deeper than that.
As you said, you know what it is like to be a teenager. Teenagers experiment with various things that adults would prefer they avoided. Given that fact, let me ask you this:
Assume your children are going to drink underage (it is statistically likely that they will). Would you prefer them to drink a) a bottle of beer that an older friend purchased on their behalf, or b) a jar of moonshine, which was homemade without any quality control, and might contain adulterants?
This is not a rhetorical question, or a snarky one - I'm genuinely curious as to which you would prefer.
> My point is that I don't want my kids being turned into stoners and that the law should be on MY side, not the guy pushing drugs on them.
You seem to be saying that your children will be turned in to stoners if cannabis is easily available to them. Given that alcohol will be available to them, do you worry that they will turn in to alcoholics?
If not, why not?
If so, are you also campaigning to return to the days of alcohol prohibition?
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Food (or the addiction to it) is also "capable of completely and permanently altering a person's personality in negative ways". Outlawing a substance because of the potential for abuse does not solve the underlying problem. Hopefully, when you say "according to what I have seen", you are referring to respected scientific literature rather than anecdotal experience and heresay...
Oh gosh, you're really convincing me.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Tell me that when you have teenage kids.
@Archio I hate to break it to you, but I was a teenager myself in to the so distant past and I am fully aware of the opportunities available. My point is that I don't want my kids being turned into stoners and that the law should be on MY side, not the guy pushing drugs on them.
The DEA is now looking into moving marijuana off schedule I. That would make it a regular prescription drug, with regular prescriptions, distribution through pharmacies, and insurance coverage. If that happens, the whole "dispensary" business will collapse.
In California (and in Colorado before legalization) dispensary customers are overwhelmingly recreational users, given recommendation letters from "specialists" who issue them with no medical exam. Their "demonstrated medical needs" would never pass muster with a, say, Kaiser doctor. The dispensary business won't collapse because they are not competing with pharmacies. Though it will be fun to watch the insurance comp…
Why do doctors face no backlash for prescribing painkillers willy nilly. Americans use legal painkillers more than any other country in the world.
The DEA is now looking into moving marijuana off schedule I. That would make it a regular prescription drug, with regular prescriptions, distribution through pharmacies, and insurance coverage. If that happens, the whole "dispensary" business will collapse.
I don't know the legal specifics of this, but is that actually true? It is schedule 1 right now, which means it federally has no medical use, yet there are states that successfully empowered themselves to (1) legalize for recreational use, e.g. CO and (2) legalize for medical use from dispensaries, e.g. CA. How would a reduced federal scheduling level for cannabis also reduce the state's power?
Moving marijuana to schedule 2 will allow scientists to make honest assessments of its benefits and harms.
Earlier quoted context omitted.
Why?
The often peddled argument is that cannabis is a "soft drug" is, according to what I have seen, a complete lie. It is capable of completely and permanently altering a person's personality in negative ways. Also, I would not want my kids using it.