Don’t Legalize Marijuana- Why do you think we shouldn’t legalize it?
I have so many friends (not all pot-smokers) and my sisters and closest friends that say we should legalize marijuana for profit, crime rates lowering, and several other petty points. I severely disagree and have a problem with adding more possible ways to make America fatter and lazier and even more useless. Even if the profit margins increase, who wants to live in a world where you see people smoking weed in public and being high in front of kids and the society that doesnt want to see it and be around it. And in my personal opinion, I’m not against prohibition of alcohol, but I don’t strongly advocate it. Anyway, thoughts please, and yes i understand the main points, so don’t spoonfood me bs. I’d like to know what poeple who are against legalization think too.
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The Facts straight up
First of all, the economy and crime lowering are far from petty points. Second, In my humble opinion pot is far safer then alcohol. Look at how many people die each year from alcohol poisoning. In order to die from marijuana, you would have to smoke 20,000 times the effective dose. So far that has not happened once in medical history. How many people do you know who drink legal alcohol, and then get illegally violent? How many pot smokers does anybody know who goes home after a night of bong hits, and beats his wife? I’m not going to even going to get into the drunk driving stats. There are allot of medical reasons why medical marijuana should be legal too, but the idiot congress thinks they know better then the medical community even though the last time they even saw a doctor was for a quite shot of penicillin. Also if pot were to be legal it still wouldn’t be on the streets. It would be in certain designated areas that you can and should keep your kids away from. So yes, it should be legal, but don’t worry. So long as there are politicians out there who want your vote, pot will always be illegal so they have something to demonize. And if too many people want the law to change, they can always fall back on that 1937 scientific study Reefer Madness.
Yeah, because crime reduction is a “petty” point…
Prohibition didn’t work for alcohol, and it has not worked for pot for over 70 years.
Anyone who supports the criminalization of such a harmless herb, anyone who supports putting non violent drug offenders in jail just because they would like an alternative to toxic alcohol or because they would like to alleviate their suffering without lining the pockets of major pharmaceutical companies has not a shred of compassion or regard for basic human rights.
Fuck off
I also agree that legalizing marijuana would be an awful thing for this country.
Smoking weed and the effects it has on a person’s life are remarkably misunderstood by people in today’s era. It’s a frustrating fact that weed is more dangerous than the public currently thinks. You seem to have the instincts correct. Allow me to provide you with the explanation as to why it is harmful so that you can explain it to people in the future.
People look at cigarettes and see that they can hurt in a very clear immediate way (physically can lead to cancer). Weed doesn’t affect you this way. It is safer and less harmful to your lungs and body than cigarettes.
People look at alcohol and see that you lose brain cells, get into driving accidents, damage your liver, say things you regret, and a list of other similar things. Weed doesn’t affect you the same way at all.
People look at weed and see that it stimulates different parts of your brain and allows you to be creative in ways that you hadn’t been in the past.
People see that so many other people smoke weed all the time; people in Hollywood make movies about it. Musicians make songs about it. They all talk about how much they love it.
And yet…the government considers it to be dangerous enough to be illegal. They post commercials trying to portray people as being stupid or lazy or wasting their life to hopefully stop people from smoking. The problem is, that people have to relate very closely to those commercials for them to be effective, and they aren’t hitting home for many people because they are poorly done.
Here’s why weed is so dangerous. It affects you in a way that is impossible to measure, and yet more harmful than alcohol or cigarettes. When you smoke weed, for a period of 24-48 hours, your brain has trouble retaining information. When you smoke weed multiple times over a week or longer, your brain has trouble retaining information for days at a time – until it is out of your system. “Retaining information” is another way of saying “learning.”
So here’s the problem. If you take a few hits one day, you will have essentially gone the next 24 hours without learning anything complicated that was presented to you. Some straightforward things can still be learned, but the fact is that most of life’s lessons are anything but simple. There are often many factors that you have to take into account when you make a given decision. It’s learning things like that that your brain just can’t handle when you’re baked. If you smoke weed one day in your life, that’s not that big of a deal. You will probably learn what you missed out on in one way or another…but think about it. YOU LEARN SO MANY INTRICATE, NEW THINGS EVERY DAY, AND THEY ALL BUILD ON EACH OTHER. I’m not talking about things that your teachers teach you in school, or things that your boss teaches you at work. I’m talking about the fact that there’s a difference in maturity between a parent and a child that comes from learning things like how to handle relationship issues, and how to avoid upsetting someone by not learning how to be aware of issues a friend of yours is sensitive to, and other things along those lines. I’m talking about all the things that you instinctively aren’t good at, that you have to work on getting better at. It’s those things that your brain can’t improve when it’s affected by weed. For example, a lot of people out in the world who smoke weed regularly hit 30 years old before they learn how to not make poor financial decisions. Sure, some people who smoke weed make good financial decisions, but almost without exception, those are the people who already naturally paid attention to money. It’s the people who don’t have that natural tendency who would have otherwise learned by thinking about it on their own or talking it through with other people who don’t end up learning till later if ever. Someone who has a natural tendency to be good with money, may have more trouble learning how to relate to the emotions of the opposite sex or something else that isn’t as naturally simple to them. When you’re baked, you almost never reflect on things that happened to you in the same way you do when you aren’t.
So back to the statement I made earlier “It affects you in a way that is impossible to measure, and yet more harmful than alcohol or cigarettes.” It’s impossible to measure the effects of weed because you can’t take a person who has smoked weed a bunch in their life, and compare how smart they are to themselves had they never smoked. The fact is that they are likely less socially graceful in the way they interract with their peers and co-workers, less motivated to improve themselves as individuals, and they have missed out on a ton of learning that would have improved the quality of their lives, their children’s lives, and the lives of everyone around them.
Think about how many things there are in the world that you understand. You learn hundreds, if not thousands of things every day. If you get rid of a day, you miss out on a lot. If you get rid of a month, or year, or more, then you miss out on a tremendous amount, and it affects you for the rest of your life.
How many people in their 20’s do you know who have smoked weed since high school who still act a lot like they did back when they started smoking while other people who used to be the same as them have matured at the same time? I know quite a few.
In my opinion, one of the world’s greatest flaws has been the failure to teach this to our youth.
the ONLY reason and I mean the ONLY reason it is still illegal, is so the Government can take a fat wad of cash out of the people bringing it into the country, and take a FAT wad of cash when they catch people with it.
the lies they feed are BullS**T.
weed is almost as harmless as coffee.
Alcohol is the poison. and they have that legal, because you can get addicted to it.
Cigarettes are the poison, and they have that legal, because you can get addicted to it.
WEED is not harmful, really.. at all.
It is not pyshically addictive, but can be mentally. you can find yourself having such a good time with it you’ll want more.
but in moderation, its fine.
BUT IT CAN LEAD TO OTHER DRUGS (this is the only supporting argument for criminilization) IF YOU HANG AROUND WITH THE WRONG PEOPLE.
You ignorant douche, have you ever even tried smoking pot? You make generalizations about people you obviously don’t even know, and who says people would smoke in front of kids? People smoke cigarettes in front of kinds and you don’t do a thing. So fuck you. Here’s my argument.
1. We could save millions of tax dollars by taking nonthreatening marijuana users out of jail.
2. We could tax marijuana and make even more money.
3. The government could regulate the production of marijuana and make sure it’s “clean” (not laced, etc.).
4. Marijuana wouldn’t be a gateway drug as much because people wouldn’t have access to harder drugs through their weed dealers.
5. Pot doesn’t harm anyone, except the person who smokes it, but cigarettes do too. Also there are healthy alternatives like eating and drinking it.
Alcohol causes so many deaths per year as you know, marijuana causes zero. Why is alcohol legal and marijuana not?
1.) to minimize under age smoking of it .
2.) to remove the criminal enticement.
3.) to remove any risk of harmfull additives and regulate quality
4.) to prevent otherwise law abiding people from getting criminal record
5.) to keep schools safer.
How many more reasons do we need?
How about this one….
right now the law equates marijana with coke and heroin as being an illegal narcotic. That is sending a message to kids who have already tried marijana that the Government is lying and there isn’t anything wrong with drugs at all. That’s exactly why its thought of as a “gateway drug”
By moving the “line in the sand” to exclude marijuana from the list, we can legitimately say that this one is mild by comparison, but those ones will do so much more damage. Right now kids have no reason to beleive anything you tell them about marijuana. If we can allow 18 year old kids to smoke tobacco which does nothing but kill, then we have no moral ground to deny grown adults access to marijuana.
again advertising you’re an idiot. what did you do cut and paste that same mind numbingly retarded answer to any question requarding the use of marijuana? are you some sort of social deviant? are you whacking off to reefer madness? maybe you just watch “cops” with a hard on. go away. your pathetic attemp at reasoning is disgusting.
MANY OTHERS WOULD STRONGLY DISAGREE WITH YOUR POSITION AGAINST “DECRIMINALIZING” OF MARIJUANA FOR PERSONAL USE !!! it’s a “soft” drug,and a plethora of data does NOT indicate the great physiological dangers as are presented by alcohol,or, tobacco,which,incidently, are BOTH ‘taxed’ legal abusable substances.
They are making more off it by it being illegal think about it they take all your possessions fine you put you in jail and then charge you for money being there
I disagree with your suggestion that Americans are fat, lazy, and useless. Most Americans are good, hardworking, relatively healthy individuals. And, for the vast majority of them, marijuana will not change that. You are talking about a lie based upon a baseless stereotype that your government would love for you to continue believing.
Marijuana has consistently been shown in scientific studies to be a nonaddictive, relatively benign herb with great utility in treating hundreds of different illnesses. While there are some individuals who shouldn’t use marijuana, such as addictive personalities, minors, and schizophrenics; the overwhelming majority of adults can safely use marijuana if they choose and they should, at least, have that choice legally.
Given your comments on what legal marijuana looks like, “who wants to live in a world where you see people smoking weed in public and being high in front of kids and the society that doesnt want to see it and be around it…,” is your neighborhood swamped with people getting drunk in public and in front of kids?” Alcohol is legal AND it is regulated. People who get drunk in public typically get arrested and face penalties. Marijuana will be regulated the same way.
As for profit margin, in point of fact, regulated marijuana will decrease the profit margin for growers and sellers, and in point of fact, the black market will not survive competition from open market competition once this beneficial plant is legal. The government, on the other hand, will profit greatly from the regulation of marijuana. First the bottomless pit of money thrown away on the failed Drug War will finally be sealed; no more wasting money to pay for propaganda programs that don’t work or to buy bullets for drug enforcement “terrorists” who break into homes at night and murder families over a weed. Secondly, the taxes on marijuana will prove a great source of revenue for the government. Finally, many people who are suffering from all manner of horrible illnesses, particularly those who endure incredible pain that is resistant to standard opiate treatments, will be able to add this useful plant to their arsenal of treatments to help them cope with pain, to maintain their weight when eating is difficult due to illness, and to shrink and/or eliminate tumors.
Criminalizing alcohol didn’t work, and it won’t and hasn’t worked for weed. Our prisons are full of people whose only crime was holding weed.
Legalize it, brand it and tax the hell out of it.
It will take the profit out of dealing, empty out the prisons so there is space for real criminals, and bring in lots of tax revenue.
People forget that marijuana does the same thing to the lungs as cigarettes do. Who cares if it’s legal or not? It’s just plain stupid.
I think weed should not be legalized because it would be open a gateway to other currently illegal drugs to become legalized. I am sure that people wil start smoking more dirty because weed would be legal.
The primary reason I would not want to see pot legalized is that it cannot be contained to the user. Meaning if you walk into a bar where a few people are smoking pot, you too will be smoking pot whether you intend to or not. Most of us have already experienced this at a rock concert or two. Alcohol on the other hand does not get the person next to you drunk when you drink it. Imagine driving your car and a passenger decides to light up a joint, but don’t worry, you are driving and therefore not smoking so you won’t get high right? Hehe. If pot is legalized you and your children will simply come into much more contact with second hand pot smoke. Of course if you are already a pot smoker you probably don’t care who else has to breathe your smoke.
If you want to legalize an illegal drug pick one that does not get on other people when you use it.