Arrr... did you even read my previous posts!? I've been very adamant about my arguments that pot is not wrong!

I was merely saying that even if it were wrong, religious belief would not justify it, nor does it prove that it is not wrong.

There are a lot of people who believe that pot is evil, and I believe giving them weak arguments as to why it is not(ie, religious belief) actually hurts our cause. Not helps it.

The best way to get someone to follow your cause, is not to throw out as many arguments as you can no matter how weak they are, but to convince them of your own competence. Once someone believes in your ability to reason and make moral decisions, they are much more likely to take your arguments seriously. Would you rather listen to Einstein's pot arguments, or Hitler's? The answer has nothing to do with who can construct a better argument, who has more points, or even who is right, but everything to do with who already has your faith in their ability to make a moral decision.

This is why I get so frustrated when I see someone arguing toward the same goal as me with a poorly constructed paragraph with no capitalization, punctuation, proper spelling, and poor reasoning. It actually hurts my argument.

Please, before you tell me to do some more research, read my lengthy post on the previous page. Or, at least give me some clue as to what I should be researching, and I will gladly do my homework.

http://www.drugabuse.gov/NIDA_Notes/.../Evidence.html

Usually, a substance is controlled when it is addictive, because economically, it gives the maker an advantage, when selling it. Of course marijuana isn't "manufactured", it's usually home grown.

Will search some more...

In all fairness, I thought I'd post this link:

http://www.mcleanhospital.org/Public...anaeffects.htm


Then there's this one:
http://www.medhelp.org/forums/addict...es/30238a.html
(Whoever mentionned it must be right!)

OK, to clarify my sacrifice parallell: Being a religious custom does not justify certain habits.
Rastafari smoking pot for religiuos reasons most definetely don´t justify non-rastafaris to smoke pot. If anyone feels like smoke pot for any reason, don´t blame the rastafaris.
Sacrificing *may take the expression* of damaging other individuals (wich is not acceptable), but *the meaning* is to please the diety one worships, nothing else. Thankfully sacrifice has developed into less offensive customs, giving money to the church, etc. Still it´s basically the same thing: You give up something of value to You (a slave, some money) to please Your diety (oooh, am I gonna have my ass kicked for this...:p).
regards
Mikael S.

talki, I didn't mean to direct that comment at you, should have wrote people instead of person, the comment was towards those that think its wrong, and i directed my comment towards the quote, not your thoughts, sorry.
Its just that I always run into people that say its wrong, and when you ask them why, they'll just say "oh cause it is"

As for my punctuation, :) oops, didn't know this was English class all over:). I’ll try better next time


that brings up another argument

when marijuana was legal in the states up until prohabition, i read that the reason the government didn't legalize marijuana with alcohol later on is because they would loose money on it (tax revenue), and it makes sense, why go out and spend like $50 on drinks, when you can grow it yourself, smoke it and get just as buzzed.

bb2k, Interesting links. That seems pretty conclusive that pot is addicting. The question that comes to mind, however, is weather this shows that marijuana is physically addicting, or psychologically. People can get psychologically addicted to just about anything.

The other thing I saw in there that interests me is:
That seems to pretty clearly state that marijuana is less addicting than it's legal counterpart, alcohol. So, doesn't that give bar owners an advantage when selling their drinks?

Yes, thanks for clarifying, but the difference still remains that in an offering(and pot for that matter), you give up something of value to you, and in sacrificing, you are giving up something of value to someone else(not arguing with you, just restating for double clarification). I have no problems with people who want to throw their own money away, weather for religion, or not.

So, the situation about *the meaning* is an interesting one. We all make decisions in our lives based on the information we have available to us. If everything I know tells me that I need to appease my maker, then by gosh, I'm gonna go out, find a virgin, double check her hymen, and sacrifice her. My meaning was to appease my god, the ultimate right, but my action was to take a life, the ultimate wrong. Does that mean that I was wrong? Yes. But I made the decision as best I could with the knowledge I had. A couple hundred years later, human knowledge base has increased, and we see how ridiculous it is to take the life of someone else in the name of your god, we even go so far as to look down upon those who did it. But without our little bit of extra understanding of the universe, we would be running around, doing the same things. I often wonder what it is that we do, that in two hundred years will be looked upon as barbaric.

Sorry, didn't mean to lecture. My comment was actually more directed at ataxy, than you. I, too, get frustrated at people who follow their beliefs without questioning it or knowing the reason why. And I get even more frustrated with people who believe the same thing as me, but for the wrong reason. Or justify it with half truths.(not referring to anyone in particular)

My theory on why it is seen has a gateway drug by many. The people you get it from are usually pushing Crack, coke etc so they encourage users to try something harder truly more addictive (end theory).
Hell but can you imagine if weed was sold and distributed by P.Morris it would probably be 10 X more additive than crack. Anyway one reason it is illegal is in part to cotton growers from days gone by (Do not remember the years sorry) well I heard many different reason in a college class that I do not want to bring up now – try google many answers there - .


The touch, the feel, The fabric of your life. (ß cotton not hemp)

hey JOE can we get a smilie smoking a blunt ?

Alcohol is the mother of all gatewaydrugs

Found a cool techno 'net radio station, and surfing around their forums a bit while I was bored I found this link...

http://www.dancesafe.org/documents/druginfo/risk.php

Kinda makes ya think about some of the stuff you do and how dangerous it really is. As far as it relates to this discussion... weed has a 1 in 10-million chance of killing you, while alcohol falls into the 1 in 1000 category, and tobacco in the 1 in 100 category. Also interesting (from my point of view at least) - the most dangerous drug I've ever tried according to this chart falls into the 1 in 10000 category (not counting alcohol, which I don't believe causes 1 in 1000 to die unless you drive right after or some such) is far safer than say motorbike racing, which I'm leaving tomorrow morning to do for the weekend.

cool chart thx for the link

Leisure Activity: Russian Roulette*
Approximate. numerical: 1:10

lol this is a funny one though :D since when is that a leisure activity? and a 1:10 chance, i didn't know revolvers hold 10 bullets

well its only funny if you dont read what the * means

yes i would have to agree with cybersamurai, i hate when the statisticians of america make something out to be so dangerous that no one in the world should ever do it for fear of being a crack head, or a heroin addict, or an alcoholic, or that you will die in car accidents if you smoke marijuana. you see these commercials which say that 1/3rd of all accidents are marijuana involved ( we have all seen them don't lie to yourself, i know you have) , how do they know? marijuana can stay in your system for 30 to 90 days? so if you smoked 3 months ago and got in an accident statisticly they could say u had marijuana in your system, this is a false statistic, it makes the world seems like marijuana cuase a 3rd of all accidents which obviously isn't true, im not condoneing smokeing and driving but statistics can be twisited to favor whoever is trying to prove a point, sometimes they can be exagerated, and thus you can't jump to conclusions like smoking marijuana forces you to smoke crack later in life, i dont' believe that

The reason marijuana isn't legal is the fact that it is not profitable to the goverment to have it legal.

Think about it. Alcohol is produced by large corporations for the most part, same with tobacco. The government can easily place taxes on alcohol and tobacco. Tabacco is hard to get it into useable form from the plant, and Alcohol isn't easy to make either.

With weed, a monkey could grow it, the production isn't, and will never be controlled by large corporations. Sales are on the street and there is no way the government can tax it, so it is illegal.

Notice the same trend with moonshine, correct me if i'm wrong, but the laws are you can only produce a gallon a day for PERSONAL CONSUMPTION.

It's pretty obvious the the argument on the side of the government isn't health because weed is bad, it's money, because they cant profit from it.

Haven't read this whole thread yet so forgive me if this has been said , but , take a step back and i'm sure you'll find that most of your doctors , defence lawyers etc.. all smoke it already. Alot of doctors are telling patients it's ok to do it in moderation etc.. So therefore , one can assume that they partake in this as well --Josh

That's quite an assumption!:eek:

While I am sure there are some that do so, I think it is a bit of an overstatement that most do it. By that logic, there would already be a majority for legalization, yet they are little heard from....:shrug:

Bob

Alcohol is the second biggest killer there is! (next to tobacco). The physical harm it can cause to your internal organs(liver failure, ect) is what kills you, more so than drink driving accidents, it can cause permanent brain damage as well (which even heroin does'nt). Alcohol withdrawal can kill as well, no one ever died of heroin withdrawal yet it's considered more dangerous, as if no-one dies from alcohol overdose eh?. Not to mention the harm done to familys and relationships through alcohol abuse...

People have realy fugged up priorities IMO, all this BS about hashish when the real killers are not only legal, they're socially bloody acceptable!!...

Out of all the drugs only Alcohol and "leaf" have any benificial effects whehn used in moderation, in small amounts (Excluding morphine b/c it is waaay too adictive).

That's worth thinking about.

Alcohols ONLY redeming 'benificial effect' as a medicine is it can be used as an antisceptic. Tell me what benificial effects you were thinking of?...

Beer = stress relief :) in that same way... Steak = stress relief or Boobies = stress relief

Alcohol spefically red wine has proven to help with the heart. people who drink 2 galsses of wine 1/2 bottle a day are healthier than those who do not.

Actually some of the ingredients in beer have also been proven to have good anti-oxidants in them, which help prevent heart-attacks as you get older. So I guess if you drink a lot of beer you can sacrifice your liver for your heart.

I didn't want to mention beer as many beers such as the mass produced lagers are not very good for you... but most of the "real ales" are.

Cider of course is a big no no for continous drinking... stomach ulcers are NOT fun... *groans*

I suppose there is a range as there is to is cannabis.

Leaf rather than block is considered to be less harmful as there are less impurities, and you have to consider that the stuff around now is about 20 times more powerful then the stuff that was around in the sixties during its heyday.

The ironic thing is the healthiest thing you can with cannibis is to grow it yourself.... any sort of government company maying wacky baccy are bound to contain countless impurities and will actaully acentuate the dangers of smoking leaf in the first place.

I can't believe people are actually even contemplating something so stupid as drug legalisaztion...

Now Now...

Everybody's got a right to an opinion.

...but I agree with you. ;)

hey iceheart why not give us your opinion? then give us why you believe what you believe. You could even give some evidence if your reasons are not purely emotional.

A lot of people here are comparing pot to alcohol, its side effects, potential risks, etc. Heres the deal: if I got out to a public place and have, lets say, two beers with dinner, I'm the one consuming the beer. As the alcohol leaves the container, it enters straight into my body. Not the case with pot. If you smoke pot in public, then other people around have to deal with the smoke who may not want to. Some people say its a violation of thier rights not to be able to toke it up. Well it's a violation of my rights if I have to inhale your smoke unwillingly. Well then you say, lets only legalize and say you can only smoke in private places. Then there will obviously be problems with people disputing what is public etc etc.

I will never smoke pot because I have no interest in it.

Thats my .02

golovko good point. I believe pot should be de-criminalized but shouldn't be allowed in any public areas. I believe the same of tobacco, I hate smoke but I don’t think that my dislike for it should dictate whether or not others should be allowed to use it especially in a setting where I am not affected.

I think the same about alcohol and tobacco, indeed any intoxicating substance. It's not something ANY of the public should have to put up with...

Look at the leverage it's given to criminals, and the damage those criminals have done to the world. How could you possibly contemplate leaving it's control in thier hands?. The fact is IT'S THERE ANYWAY. Legalising and controlling it can only be good...

Under the same arguments, a number of things should be legalized...

As I pointed out, you can't use the law as a tool to enforce a law. The law is there to define what's wrong and right. By making pot legal, you're effectively saying that it's ok to smoke it, and that that's the end of it. It's wrong...

That's true. And...?

By what standard? By what right does the government tell me how I live my life? Since when have I become the chattel of the government? If my actions affect only me, or those who willingly choose to be affected, why must the government become involved?

I suppose the next time you and your wife wish to "get it on":dome:, you should retain counsel to verify that the evening's festivities conform to government standards.:rolleyes: If they have the right to determine what can enter your body through your lungs, why do they not have the right to veto anything else entering through any other orifice?:mad: :shrug:

Bob

ps. I hope I didn't grosse anyone out with the visual!:eek: :p

...then by extension, child pornography would become legal.


The governmental institution isn't there to tell you how to live your life: it's there to balance your rights versus your freedoms. You're otherwise free to do anything you want, any way you want it. ;)

Our governments have the difficult task of balancing our rights, as individuals, and as a society, versus the freedom we all enjoy.

We're not free to just kill anyone, because it infringes on our individual rights, and our social rights. That one is pretty obvious.

It's when we get into pot that it becomes a lot more "grey". There are drugs curently available that mimick the effects of marijuana, and they were designed for that purpose too!


Maybe a better exercise here, would be to try to answer the question: why is marijuana illegal? Regardless of your position, just try...

Where's a good lawyer when you need one? (A: probably sitting at his desk, waiting for the next sucker to fork out $300 for an hour of his time!)