Carlos Santana to Obama...

[SteamWake]

"Wish you would legalize pot"...

http://apnews.myway.com/article/20090403/D97AUPQG1.html

Your thoughts?

[Arclight]

"Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education,..."

Brilliant! The income from the pot can pay for the increased number of teachers needed to school the under-achieving teenagers now turned pothead, and pay for their medical bills when they get a long-disease.

[AVGWarhawk]

Yaaaaaahhhhhh maaaannnn, that would be so stoked! Keewwweel, fatties for all. Yaaaaahhhhh ddduuudddeee.

I think Obama has other things to do other than listening to Santana and legalizing pot. Pelosi might listen. She will listen to anything off the wall

[August]

I'm not a smoker but considering the enormous costs of marijuana prohibition i'd say it's not a bad idea at all.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by August

I'm not a smoker but considering the enormous costs of marijuana prohibition i'd say it's not a bad idea at all.

Thinking like this only leads to other things prohibited and cost incurred to go away because of said thoughts. Laws are laws, prohibiting anything will incur costs. And, as Arclight said, lung disease and medical would far outweigh the cost of prohibition IMO.

[August]

Originally Posted by AVGWarhawk

Thinking like this only leads to other things prohibited and cost incurred to go away because of said thoughts. Laws are laws, prohibiting anything will incur costs. And, as Arclight said, lung disease and medical would far outweigh the cost of prohibition IMO.

Really? More than the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating millions of people for years, even decades? More than the cost of funding criminal organizations and the violence they cause?

Cigarette smoking causes far more lung disease and related medical expenses but it's legal. Alcohol causes far more disease and related costs to society but it's legal. Sorry I just don't buy the idea that the government has a right to protect people from themselves, especially when there is no rhyme or reason to it.

[Sailor Steve]

Originally Posted by Arclight

"Legalize marijuana and take all that money and invest it in teachers and in education,..."

Brilliant! The income from the pot can pay for the increased number of teachers needed to school the under-achieving teenagers now turned pothead, and pay for their medical bills when they get a long-disease.

Um, it would still be illegal for teenagers, who currently prepare themselves for lung diseased futures by smoking cigarettes illegally and other medical bills by drinking illegally.

Legalizing the devil weed would remove a major money source from criminal gangs and be a major new source of tax revenues.

If you really believe your hype why aren't you advocating the criminalization of alcohol and tobacco?

[Bort]

Originally Posted by August

I'm not a smoker but considering the enormous costs of marijuana prohibition i'd say it's not a bad idea at all.

I agree with you completely. I'd probably never make use of legal marijuana but the money that we're spending catching criminals and locking them up could easily be better allocated so as to benefit society, education, etc.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by August

Really? More than the cost of prosecuting and incarcerating millions of people for years, even decades? More than the cost of funding criminal organizations and the violence they cause?

Cigarette smoking causes far more lung disease and related medical expenses but it's legal. Alcohol causes far more disease and related costs to society but it's legal. Sorry I just don't buy the idea that the government has a right to protect people from themselves, especially when there is no rhyme or reason to it.

Incarceration of millions for pot infractions for years or decades does not happen. Most of it is street level justice. Throw the crap away in the gutter and move along. Just the larger dealers who sell more than pot get the years of incarceration. Pot is only part of the larger drug problem. This will not stop the money spent on the larger drug problem that pot is only a part of.

Adding pot smoking on top of cigarette smokers does not help the lung disease problem. It only enhances it. Two wrongs do not make a right. Alcohol has nothing to do wth this conversation.

[AVGWarhawk]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Um, it would still be illegal for teenagers, who currently prepare themselves for lung diseased futures by smoking cigarettes illegally and other medical bills by drinking illegally.

Legalizing the devil weed would remove a major money source from criminal gangs and be a major new source of tax revenues.

If you really believe your hype why aren't you advocating the criminalization of alcohol and tobacco?

Steve, I will answer the same as I did with August . Pot is only part of the larger drug problem. The push for other drugs will become greater and enforcment cost will remain the same. All of this would be great if pot was the only drug around. It is not. It is just one of many that is sold.

Alcohol and tobacco are not part of the conversations but slowly tobacco is being outlawed. You can not smoke anywhere, period. Second hand smoke....so, do we put up with second hand pot smoke now? Can't have it both ways.

[rev. beetle]

i do not know the right answer but the last i checked it has been some what legal in europe for decades and i do not see a large increase in health care or useage if you take away the thrill of doing something against the law all the fun is gone for most people

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Um, it would still be illegal for teenagers, who currently prepare themselves for lung diseased futures by smoking cigarettes illegally and other medical bills by drinking illegally.

Why add medical cost from marijuana to that?

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

Legalizing the devil weed would remove a major money source from criminal gangs and be a major new source of tax revenues.

The money goes from criminal gangs to the owners of the coffeeshops. A big shop where I used to live got closed down because the business was becoming "mob-like". Yeah, much better.

Like stated before, the gained tax-revenue would be hard needed, not only for increased strain on developing brains (schooling) and medical bills, but also for drafting new laws and legislations, not to mention the increased strain on law enforcement that needs to control the shops and enforce these laws.

Originally Posted by Sailor Steve

If you really believe your hype why aren't you advocating the criminalization of alcohol and tobacco?

I am, tobacco at least. Alcohol... meh, as long as someone is able to show restraint and keep it "healthy" (glas of wine at dinner, beer or 2 watching the game).

Originally Posted by rev. beetle

i do not know the right answer but the last i checked it has been some what legal in europe for decades and i do not see a large increase in health care or useage if you take away the thrill of doing something against the law all the fun is gone for most people

Wouldn't know about increase in health care, but usage doesn't seem to be effected by it. Particularly people who are or were "down on thier luck" (like me) are regular users. They don't need the thrill of doing something illegal, they need to forget. Although that thrill may account for some teenagers trying it out.

To clarify; I live in Holland, it's been legal here longer then I can remember. I tryed it when I was 17, became a habit few months before I turned 18. Used quite a lot untill I was 21 (my rough patch in life), by that I mean I rolled one when I felt like it: 5 to 10 joints per day. Then my brain kicked in (or money ran out) and I reduced it to 1 to 5 a day. Since I was out of the situation causing my need, the habit reduced further to 1 or 2 a day, only after I had done the things that needed to get done that day (light the first and possibly only between 6 and 7pm). At 24, I quit all together. Not because I thought it was evil, not because my health was fading but because I didn't need it anymore. I just ran out one day and didn't feel like I had to go to the shop and get more.

The point is: people use weed for the wrong reasons. Yes, it's fun to try out, but a sustained habit doesn't have that motivation. It's usually to forget about something, not have to deal with it. Everyone knows what happens if you don't deal with stuff; it catches up to you and bites you on the ass. My life is still a mess, not that it's caused by weed but it didn't help. If I hadn't turned to weed, I could have solved problems faster and earlier.

It is a drug. Although not fysically addictive like alcohol, tobacco and cocaine, heroine and all that other crap (you don't go in withdrawal from quitting; withdrawal from alcohol and "hard" drugs can literally kill you). If it is legalized, it should be treated for what it is, and only made available to people who aren't prone to misuse, which would mean something like: you could only buy it if you had a special pass, made available to you after a psychological evaluation by a trained and certified psychologist. Not a realistic possibility, so IMHO it should not be legalized.

[FIREWALL]

@ Arclight >" a beer or two watching the game "


Ya Right ! Don't forget to leave milk and cookies out for Santa.

And be sure to put your tooth under the pillow for the Tooth Fairey.

[UnderseaLcpl]

As muchas I agree with Mr.Santana that pot should be legalized, that's about the worst argument I ever heard for it. We could afford a better governor!?!?!? Yeah, tell me about it, the price of governors has just been killing me lately And don't even get me started on how throwing money at the education system isn't going to make it any better.

August has already pointed out one of the best arguments for legalizing marijuana; the massive burden it places on the legal system.
Call me crazy, but it seems like a waste to spend tens of billions of dollars every year to incarcerate victimless criminals and pay the DEA to not keep marijuana out of the country.

In fact, I extend such arguments to include all drugs, not just mj. And the harms of prohibiting drug trade extend far beyond the legal burden. Hundreds of billions of dollars every year are lost in the form of trade and taxation that could benefit from drugs. Drug cartels wage secret wars against each other with many casualties to control the illegal trade. People steal and assault others to get money for the expensive drugs they crave, because forcing this black market underground forces prices up.
Public servants die enforcing this ridiculous policy.

Imo, the private sector provides the most effective form of drug regulation anyways. Most employers require drug screenings, and one's career is a pretty strong incentive to stay away from drugs. That's regulation without infringement upon personal freedoms and it doesn't cost billions of taxpayer dollars. For those who continue to choose to use drugs, a few simple laws against use of drugs in inapproporiate venues and perhaps some licensing requirements for retailers should ensure that only the chronic(no pun intended) abusers are penalized or jailed.

Of course, there will be people who slip through the cracks and destroy their lives. Is it tragic? Yes. Should we care? Yes. Should we force everyone to care and simultaneously waste billions of dollars? No.
I seriously doubt that the strung-out losers who ruin their lives with drugs are worth the fortune that has been spent on ineffectively trying to prevent them from making destructive choices. Why not get some use out of them before they poison themselves to death? You can't stop them from doing it, and as statistics on school drug use show, you can't stop them from being exposed to and trying drugs. Prohibition is both impossible and extremely expensive.

The only rational argument I can see for prohibition of drugs is the fact that it incurs taxpayer costs in healthcare, as AVG says. Of course, the state has no damn business paying for healthcare in the first place, especially in the U.S., where it has no constitutional authority to do so.
And even without drug-related costs, medicare and medicaid alone make up about half of all federal expenditure.
In my younger years I tried to argue the case for drug prohibition in NFL(National Forensic League) debates and also in Student Congress. The case is almost impossible to make. The harms of drug prohibition are far too many and far too well-documented to make an effective case.

[Arclight]

Originally Posted by FIREWALL

@ Arclight >" a beer or two watching the game "


Ya Right ! Don't forget to leave milk and cookies out for Santa.

And be sure to put your tooth under the pillow for the Tooth Fairey.

:rotfl:
Okay, I don't drink much, I admit it. The point is restraint, if it becomes an addiction, you're doing something wrong.