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There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

thehill.com

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Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#121

Post by brokenmachine »

shreyansj wrote: post #13
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least it isn't hazardous like cigarette smoke. I really wish cigarettes were completely banned in public spaces. If you want to destroy your own lungs on your own property, fine. But I shouldn't have to breath it in.

Add gasoline/diesel powered automobiles to that list please.

This is the standard strawman argument that antisocial smokers who don't care about others right to peacefully enjoy relatively clean air make.

Fact is, cars have a lot of other utility, and if it was possible to make a car that doesn't make smoke cheaply and without any other negatives, the whole car industry would go that way, legislation would happen and no more smoky cars would be made.

Smoking however has no other utility beyond, "screw you, I smoke wherever I want regardless of others comfort/health, and if you don't like it then you have go somewhere else".

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#122

Post by brokenmachine »

mdifrgechd wrote: post #43
Wowfunhappy wrote: post #9

Earlier quoted context omitted.

At least it isn't hazardous like cigarette smoke. I really wish cigarettes were completely banned in public spaces. If you want to destroy your own lungs on your own property, fine. But I shouldn't have to breath it in.

Personally I find marijuana smoke way more irritating than cigarette smoke, at least second hand outside. Maybe I'm reading too much in to your comment, but with cigarette smoking there is a lot of the "if you want to destroy your lungs" attitude that I hypothesize stems from the puritain "if you want to prioritize enjoying something over long term health, I'll be especially harsh towards you". I 100% understand the…

I find tobacco smoke the worst, and it's not even close. There is almost nothing worse than being behind a smoker on the sidewalk.

I really, really could not care less about what people smoking do to themselves, but that horrible smoke carries so far and is so overpowering that it's hard to think about anything else when you're forcefully exposed to it.

A smoker is dominating a massive area around them and preventing other members of the public from enjoying that space. In a city space is at a premium.

Being an addict skews their ideas on what is socially acceptable, but the worst part is that the smokers themselves have no idea how bad it smells because they have completely ruined their sense of smell, so they are also at a heavily reduced capacity to judge how their actions are affecting others.

We have rules around a lot of antisocial behaviors, why should smoking be exempt?

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#123

Post by Fezzik »

mustacheemperor wrote: post #84
sevencolors wrote: post #50

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I also think it's an older generational mindset, that being pro-pot will sink your career. They don't want to offend too many people so it's easier to stick their head in the sand and then "come around" when it's suddenly popular. There's also people like my mother who believe marijuana is akin to meth. If you smoke it once you'll end up homeless, under a bridge down by the river

>They don't want to offend too many people so it's easier to stick their head in the sand and then "come around" when it's suddenly popular. Another example to point to from recent US political history: the federal legalization of same-sex marriage, and subsequent rapid rehabilitation of the public platforms held by its former opponents still regularly running for re-election.

Just to be clear - the “federal legalization” of same-sex marriage came from the Supreme Court, not actual Federal Law, so it is definitely at risk of being overruled with the new court membership. The best our federal government could do was the Defense of Marriage Act, (reluctantly) signed in to law by Clinton in ‘96, which defined marriage as between one man and one woman. Individual states, with significant aid from the Supreme Court, did away with that barbaric nonsense. We are not likely to see such progressive thinking from the current bench regarding drug use.

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#124

Post by jedberg »

enneff wrote: post #101
jedberg wrote: post #53

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> Also, a bit of secondhand smoke outside isn't dangerous, it just smells bad. That's provably false. And besides, not only does it smell bad, but it sticks to your clothes and then you smell bad.

I’ve never in my life observed clothes smelling like smoke from being near smokers outside.

You probably just don’t have a very sensitive nose. My wife would be able to tell any time I hung out with my coworkers for their smoke break, and that was many hours later.

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#126

Post by mhh__ »

buzzert wrote: post #90

Nobody seems to talk about marijuana being a “gateway drug” anymore, even though it’s still true. I’ve witnessed friends in college become addicted to weed (yes, psychological addiction is still addiction) and their futures have suffered as a consequence. I believe we need to discourage drug use as a society, not give up and let it become accepted. If that means instilling fear that one could be arrested with possess…

The opportunity cost of changing the status quo is overwhelming in favour of doing so. Drugs can ruin your life, so we'll send you to prison for decades?

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#127

Post by mhh__ »

amanaplanacanal wrote: post #91
buzzert wrote: post #90

Nobody seems to talk about marijuana being a “gateway drug” anymore, even though it’s still true. I’ve witnessed friends in college become addicted to weed (yes, psychological addiction is still addiction) and their futures have suffered as a consequence. I believe we need to discourage drug use as a society, not give up and let it become accepted. If that means instilling fear that one could be arrested with possess…

Unfortunately, for most people, the side effects of being convicted are much worse than the side effects of smoking.

That and the racial and class politics behind who gets convicted.

(UK) I know some rich people who have some plants growing right outside their kitchen, if I tried that where I live I'd get shafted without question.

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#128

Post by lotsofpulp »

Reelin wrote: post #112
lotsofpulp wrote: post #60

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Not being a carcinogen doesn’t mean something isn’t bad for you. I’d even go so far as to say all added sugar is bad for you. Doctors even put fruit juice on the list of bad things since it’s just sugar, even for kids. And sugar needs to be vilified more if anything. I would bet healthcare spending on issues related to excess sugar/carbohydrate consumption (aka being overweight) dwarf anything else.

> Doctors even put fruit juice on the list of bad things That's not because simple sugars are inherently bad for you but rather because many people don't realize just how much of it fruit juices contain. Related to this, an older family member was warned by a doctor for various reasons to cut back on fruit intake (not juice, but fruit itself).

That is my point though. Even though sugar isn't inherently bad for you, it's so incredibly easy to over consume, that is responsible for an enormous share of our healthcare costs, if not the majority.

So it's possible to consider it as even worse than some carcinogens.

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#129

Post by vagrantJin »

buzzert wrote: post #90

Nobody seems to talk about marijuana being a “gateway drug” anymore, even though it’s still true. I’ve witnessed friends in college become addicted to weed (yes, psychological addiction is still addiction) and their futures have suffered as a consequence. I believe we need to discourage drug use as a society, not give up and let it become accepted. If that means instilling fear that one could be arrested with possess…

Anecdotally, people who dont smoke or use drugs tend to have pretty strong opinions. Case in point the hilarious story of gateway drugs. You don't suppose drug addiction is a linear progression do you? What variables, risk factors are involved from a drug to go from being a giggling fool to being hamstrung on herione? What percentage of the weed smoking sample populatiob does your observation represent?

Sample size matters.

Seeing 2 people become addicts is not ground to mobilise society into not legalizing a recreational drug, very much like alcohol and sugar of which have worse health side effects which society subsidizes.

Re: There was a clear winner on election night: Marijuana

#130

Post by psyc »

nashashmi wrote: post #49

Some people voted yes despite never consuming because it was persecuting a certain race of individuals. That’s not how laws should be formed in this country.

This seems absurd to me, since by that logic I shouldn’t support gay marriage. Put another way your view kind of discounts the quality of compassion.
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