The Reason Pot Is Still Illegal

While Marijuana may have uses for medicine. As a recreational drug, I think the in ability to easily check when you consumed it, or to have a high as a result of just burning off fat. (it is fat soluble, and you can end up high even years later if you burn enough calories) Makes it harder to enforce responsible use than say alcohol.

I don't think we want pilots, surgeons, or police doing their jobs while high, and since the buzz could come quite a long time after consumption that would always be a risk.

Hemp is often promised to be this miracle product that will solve all of our problems, but visiting places where hemp is legal we don't see massive quantities of it.

We import cotton, and bamboo, but you don't see many hemp t-shirts.

We even import paper, which is one of the things Hemp is pretty decent at. But we don't see much Hemp paper. Turns out ink doesn't stick to it as well as it does to Wood pulp and cotton blends.

The real reason Pot is still illegal is that it is dangerous to those who aren't consuming it. A stoned Doctor might not smell of it, might not have any real outwards signs, and then could get the giggles when he nicked an artery.

Edit: Years may have been a stretch. Looks like 7 days has been shown in a lab, and the CDC thinks weeks. http://healthland.time.com/2013/09/17/one-toke-many-hits-exe.... http://www.cdc.gov/mmwr/preview/mmwrhtml/00001143.htm

Re: The Reason Pot Is Still Illegal

#6

Post by hamiltonkibbe » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 2:36 AM UTC

drakaal wrote: post #5

While Marijuana may have uses for medicine. As a recreational drug, I think the in ability to easily check when you consumed it, or to have a high as a result of just burning off fat. (it is fat soluble, and you can end up high even years later if you burn enough calories) Makes it harder to enforce responsible use than say alcohol. I don't think we want pilots, surgeons, or police doing their jobs while high, and si…

Is the fact that alcohol use is easily detected in a field-administered test all that keeps surgeons from doing surgery drunk?

Re: The Reason Pot Is Still Illegal

#7

Post by drakaal » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

hamiltonkibbe wrote: post #6

drakaal wrote: post #5

While Marijuana may have uses for medicine. As a recreational drug, I think the in ability to easily check when you consumed it, or to have a high as a result of just burning off fat. (it is fat soluble, and you can end up high even years later if you burn enough calories) Makes it harder to enforce responsible use than say alcohol. I don't think we want pilots, surgeons, or police doing their jobs while high, and si…

Is the fact that alcohol use is easily detected in a field-administered test all that keeps surgeons from doing surgery drunk?

No, but easily defined rules about how long between a drink and the surgery is.

Just like pilots. You can drink and be a pilot, just not 8 hours before. How long you have a high varies wildly, and under stress old highs can come back.

Edit: And if you think you can come up with a combination where you didn't die an hour after your drinks and are still drunk 8 hours later, here is a calculator

http://touchcalc.com/calculators/bac

Re: The Reason Pot Is Still Illegal

#8

Post by elleferrer » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 2:38 AM UTC

n0rm wrote: post #2

any TL;DR?

tl;dr: Pot is illegal because of the money coming in from big Pharma companies to keep it down, since they will lose money once legalization occurs. Community Anti-Drug Coalition of America (CADCA) is hypocritical in it's war against marijuana while choosing to ignore the dangers of opioids and related prescription drugs.

Also, law enforcement is lobbying hard to keep the status quo since property seizures from pot activities are a major source of income to law enforcement since the Reagan administration.

"Legalizing marijuana could, however, hurt the bottom line of drug companies that make money off drugs like Oxycontin and Vicodin."

Re: The Reason Pot Is Still Illegal

#9

Post by oldmanjay » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 2:39 AM UTC

chx wrote: post #3

This is complicated as usual. There are quite a few people who gain power (think police) and/or wealth (think private prisons) from the War on Drugs.

Hell, it's a public jobs program at this point. There's a lot of good-paying work in saving people from themselves.

Re: The Reason Pot Is Still Illegal

#10

Post by buckbova » Sat, Jul 12, 2014, 2:41 AM UTC

This isn't the only country where pot is illegal and I doubt it's "big pharma" behind every country where the drug is prohibited.