legalizing marijuana

[scout]

Can anyone pick a more harmless drug?

That would be a huge NO.......

 

[Outlaw2747]

I would throw in my two cents but you people are pretty much speaking for me, especially Tori. Keep it up.

 

[ToriAllen]

When the laws regarding prostitution and gambling were removed in Nevada, the criminals opened up Las Vegas, I don't think you can ever get rid of gangs as per say, I think they will just change there ways and become legit buisness.

I think the drug problem world wild is beyond belief, if you did legalize the drug trade, you would get rid of alot of the criminal element, but in doing so, you would end up with more addicts and social problems in the long run, atm, the addicts are in the minority and its the laws that keep most people away from become addicts/ dealers, I say we should have even harsher laws for drug dealers, everytime someone takes a hit of heroin, cocaine, speed, x, or any other hard drug they run the risk of overdosing and dying, I think drug dealers should get the death penalty.

I just want to add to this point. Legalizing drugs with not get rid of gangs. Gangs also deal in weapons, and as for as I know most guns are legal. There is also a black market for prescription drugs, also legal. These are substances for which you must prove appropriate use to get; don

 

[hugo]

Eliminate the vise laws and the selfish idiots will cause chaos and wipe out the intelligent while they are in their paranoid delirium. They don’t just affect themselves; they affect those around them as well.

Oue experience with prohibition of alcohol proves otherwise.

 

[hugo]

I just want to add to this point. Legalizing drugs with not get rid of gangs. Gangs also deal in weapons, and as for as I know most guns are legal. There is also a black market for prescription drugs, also legal. These are substances for which you must prove appropriate use to get; don

 

[ToriAllen]

Oue experience with prohibition of alcohol proves otherwise.

How? DUI, domestic violence, alcoholism

 

[lilcutie8900]

getting high is the best! and the government is stupid for not legalizing it.

 

[ToriAllen]

getting high is the best! and the government is stupid for not legalizing it.

...says the 12-year-old half wit. Save those brain cells, kid. You're going to need both of them just to survive until your 18th B-day.

 

[manicmonday]

Gangs are not a huge problem in the US. Gangs are only found in large cities and typically stay in a select few areas, making them easy to avoid. In the long run, drug addicts are much more dangerous than gangs. They can be found anywhere.

Maybe where you from gangs aren't a problem, but where I'm from, there's at least a shooting a week, usually more. A teacher is sitting in jail with charges of drug traffic, and selling to minors. There's a drug bust 2-3 times a week, and you have to provide ID to buy Sudafed. The stores also keep track of how many boxes you buy and distribute those lists to all the other stores. Annhydrous(sp) tanks are locked up and company's are now hiring security guards to watch them 24/7. All of this is directly traced back to gangs and not like 7 degrees from Kevin Bacon either. Direct link. Oh and our schools have banned certain colors, clothes sybols and you have to have clear back packs to carry to school. The sign language teacher's also had to ban certain signs because they caused a riot at one of the schools. Nope, no gang problem here.

 

[ToriAllen]

Maybe where you from gangs aren't a problem, but where I'm from, there's at least a shooting a week, usually more. A teacher is sitting in jail with charges of drug traffic, and selling to minors. There's a drug bust 2-3 times a week, and you have to provide ID to buy Sudafed. The stores also keep track of how many boxes you buy and distribute those lists to all the other stores. Annhydrous(sp) tanks are locked up and company's are now hiring security guards to watch them 24/7. All of this is directly traced back to gangs and not like 7 degrees from Kevin Bacon either. Direct link. Oh and our schools have banned certain colors, clothes sybols and you have to have clear back packs to carry to school. The sign language teacher's also had to ban certain signs because they caused a riot at one of the schools. Nope, no gang problem here.

Like I said, a problem in the large cities. We had drugs where I grew up, but no gangs. I grew up just outside of Atlanta. All of the gangs were in the city, not in the suburbs. There are drug deals that are not part of a gang. I would say the majority of drug dealers are not specifically linked to a certain gang. Gangs and gang territories are easier to avoid than druggies. If it is that big of a problem, perhaps a move is in order. I

 

[angie]

Getting IDed for Sudafed and other OTC cold meds has nothing to do with gangs. Simply meth production. Most major chains do it nowadays (Target, Wal-Mart, etc).
Last summer, there was a meth lab busted up here in CT. Know where it was? In a back woods hick town where there is ZERO gang activity. The nearest city with gangs is nearly 30 miles away. Were they selling it to gangs? Perhaps. But not exclusively, if it all. I know people from the town, and these people had no known associations with gangs. They were mainly supplying themselves and their useless burnt out druggie friends. In the end it was a bunch of bored white hicks who wanted to make some money to support their own habit.

 

[ToriAllen]

I live in the middle of nowhere in one of the tiny little hick towns with no entertainment. The cops have busted several Meth labs since the new Sheriff was elected in our county about 1 ½ years ago.

 

[hugo]

How? DUI, domestic violence, alcoholism… People are stupid with or without laws. At least with laws something can be done about it.

Yep, the same things that occurred when alcohol was illegal, along with the other crimes committed due to alcohol being on the black market. There need to be harsher laws against those who harm others or steal the property of others. There would be much more asets devoted to apprehending, convicting and warehousing the rapists, robbers and murderers if we stopped protecting the dopeheads from themselves.

So do you favor the return of prohibition?

Of course, domestic violence would come nearly to a halt if women would leave a man the first time he struck them. It is a damn shame we have to spend so many tax dollars protecting the terminally stupid.

Let me now mention the drug war's effect on our constitutional protections. The power to tax is the power to spend ,or regulate, mentality really acceleratred with the 1938 Marijuana Tax Act . It recenly culminated with a Supreme Court decision allowing state and local bodies to utilize the power of eminent domain to confiscate your home for as shady a public use as simply increasing tax revenues. State laws on drugs are debateable, federal laws are unconstitutional. An amendment was needed to enact and repeal prohibition.

 

[ToriAllen]

Yep, the same things that occurred when alcohol was illegal, along with the other crimes committed due to alcohol being on the black market. There need to be harsher laws against those who harm others or steal the property of others. There would be much more asets devoted to apprehending, convicting and warehousing the rapists, robbers and murderers if we stopped protecting the dopeheads from themselves.

So do you favor the return of prohibition?

You are talking about the legalization of all drugs. I wonder if you really know the side effects of some of these substances. At least alcohol, in moderation, is actually good for you. Can you say the same about each of the other drugs? There would be an increase, not a decrease, in crime with the legalization of drugs. Some of the drugs cause psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia, all of which can lead to violent acts against others. You can not tell me that this is a good thing. You would have to allocate the funds to these other areas because crimes of this type would triple. At least gangs generally target each other, and crimes of drug dealers are usually contained to a specific group of people. Crack heads and other drug addicts are non-discriminatory in who they attack, rob, or murder. Do you not read the crime statistics about crimes committed by people who are on drugs? And you want these to be readily accessible to everyone?

 

[ToriAllen]

Of course, domestic violence would come nearly to a halt if women would leave a man the first time he struck them. It is a damn shame we have to spend so many tax dollars protecting the terminally stupid.

As I've said over and over again...People are stupid.

 

[hugo]

You are talking about the legalization of all drugs. I wonder if you really know the side effects of some of these substances. At least alcohol, in moderation, is actually good for you. Can you say the same about each of the other drugs? There would be an increase, not a decrease, in crime with the legalization of drugs. Some of the drugs cause psychosis, hallucinations, paranoia, all of which can lead to violent acts against others. You can not tell me that this is a good thing. You would have to allocate the funds to these other areas because crimes of this type would triple. At least gangs generally target each other, and crimes of drug dealers are usually contained to a specific group of people. Crack heads and other drug addicts are non-discriminatory in who they attack, rob, or murder. Do you not read the crime statistics about crimes committed by people who are on drugs? And you want these to be readily accessible to everyone?

Robberies are largely due to the high price of drugs caused by the fact the drugs are illegal. By and large, alcoholics have no need to commit robberies. For every drug that creates aggression there is one that decreases it. Drop the price of a crackheads dope and he will be smoking it...not robbing people. Few mentally impaired dopeheads are a threat to others. The few that are can be dispensed with by a legal system that actually punishes crimes against persons and property.

 

[hugo]

As I've said over and over again...People are stupid.

And the best way to remove them from the gene pool is to stop enabling stupid decisions.

 

[ToriAllen]

Robberies are largely due to the high price of drugs caused by the fact the drugs are illegal. By and large, alcoholics have no need to commit robberies. For every drug that creates aggression there is one that decreases it. Drop the price of a crackheads dope and he will be smoking it...not robbing people. Few mentally impaired dopeheads are a threat to others. The few that are can be dispensed with by a legal system that actually punishes crimes against persons and property.

Lower the price of a crackheads dope and he will be smoking it instead of working, so he will have to commit robberies anyway. With LSD, Heroin, Coke, and several other drugs it is not possible to lead a normal life. The drugs that cause hallucinations do so in everyone who takes them, not just a select few. Social Services does not take children away from mother simply because they are doing drugs. It is because it is impossible for them to function effectively as a mother while on drugs. It is this inability to function that leads to the discovery that the mother is on drugs, rather than the drugs leading to the assumption the mother can't function. We have enough ineffective leeches in society as it is. We do not need to create more.

And the best way to remove them from the gene pool is to stop enabling stupid decisions.

No, that would be how we keep them from eliminating us.

 

[hugo]

From:

The Failure of the War on Drugs-BECKER

After totaling all spending, a study by Kevin Murphy, Steve Cicala, and myself estimates that the war on drugs is costing the US one way or another well over $100 billion per year. These estimates do not include important intangible costs, such as the destructive effects on many inner city neighborhoods, the use of the American military to fight drug lords and farmers in Colombia and other nations, or the corrupting influence of drugs on many governments.

Assuming an interest in reducing drug consumption- I will pay little attention here to whether that is a good goal- is there a better way to do that than by these unsuccessful wars? Our study suggests that legalization of drugs combined with an excise tax on consumption would be a far cheaper and more effective way to reduce drug use. Instead of a war, one could have, for example, a 200% tax on the legal use of drugs by all adults-consumption by say persons under age 18 would still be illegal. That would reduce consumption in the same way as the present war, and would also increase total spending on drugs, as in the current system.

But the similarities end at that point. The tax revenue from drugs would accrue to state and federal authorities, rather than being dissipated into the real cost involving police, imprisonment, dangerous qualities, and the like. Instead of drug cartels, there would be legal companies involved in production and distribution of drugs of reliable quality, as happened after the prohibition of alcohol ended. There would be no destruction of poor neighborhoods- so no material for

 

[manicmonday]

Like I said, a problem in the large cities. We had drugs where I grew up, but no gangs. I grew up just outside of Atlanta. All of the gangs were in the city, not in the suburbs. There are drug deals that are not part of a gang. I would say the majority of drug dealers are not specifically linked to a certain gang. Gangs and gang territories are easier to avoid than druggies. If it is that big of a problem, perhaps a move is in order. I