Everyone Who Wants to Smoke Pot Is Already Smoking Pot

[TallDave]

As I walked back to the hotel, it seemed very strange that any society would want it different. You don't want rules and security guards? You'd rather thrust this relatively mild and commonplace activity into a criminal world where the law is enforced by biker gangs and Mexican cartels, thus guaranteeing their continued profits and monopoly power? Tell me again, why?


Look, I'd hate it if my kids became stoners. I'd hate it more if they became alcoholics. But that doesn't mean:

A) I'd want them to get arrested for smoking a bong hit or two on a Saturday night; or that...

B) I'd want to use the awesome power of the law to force the entire world to behave as I would like my children to behave.

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Just as criminalization was the fruit of a newspaper campaign by a timber baron and decades of gov't propagandizing, legalization became inevitable when the Internet disintermediated (and disembowled) the information gatekeepers now and forever.

This is an age when Reefer Madness is viewed exclusively for its ironic value and campy ignorance. Every year a few more people wake up to the obviousness of the truth.

[Diogenes]

As I walked back to the hotel, it seemed very strange that any society would want it different. You don't want rules and security guards? You'd rather thrust this relatively mild and commonplace activity into a criminal world where the law is enforced by biker gangs and Mexican cartels, thus guaranteeing their continued profits and monopoly power? Tell me again, why?


Look, I'd hate it if my kids became stoners. I'd hate it more if they became alcoholics. But that doesn't mean:

A) I'd want them to get arrested for smoking a bong hit or two on a Saturday night; or that...

B) I'd want to use the awesome power of the law to force the entire world to behave as I would like my children to behave.

Read more

Just as criminalization was the fruit of a newspaper campaign by a timber baron and decades of gov't propagandizing, legalization became inevitable when the Internet disintermediated (and disembowled) the information gatekeepers now and forever.

This is an age when Reefer Madness is viewed exclusively for its ironic value and campy ignorance. Every year a few more people wake up to the obviousness of the truth.

Bringing a knife to a gun fight? The bone of contention is not pot. It's Crack, Meth, Opium, Heroin.

Your theory of liberty requires that those be just as legal as pot. Don't run from it. Own it.

[kcdodd]

You just straw manned his argument. What you just said would apply if hamburgers were illegal. If you let people get hamburgers then we have to let them get crack cocaine too.

[Diogenes]

You just straw manned his argument. What you just said would apply if hamburgers were illegal. If you let people get hamburgers then we have to let them get crack cocaine too.

You are going to have to simplify what you are saying for me to be able to comprehend it. It's gone completely over my head.

[kunkmiester]

Bringing a knife to a gun fight? The bone of contention is not pot. It's Crack, Meth, Opium, Heroin.

Your theory of liberty requires that those be just as legal as alcohol and tobacco. Don't run from it. Own it.

I fixed your argument, Diogenes. Think it still works?

[kcdodd]

You just straw manned his argument. What you just said would apply if hamburgers were illegal. If you let people get hamburgers then we have to let them get crack cocaine too.

You are going to have to simplify what you are saying for me to be able to comprehend it. It's gone completely over my head.

I told you to go get some crack cocaine.

[Diogenes]

Bringing a knife to a gun fight? The bone of contention is not pot. It's Crack, Meth, Opium, Heroin.

Your theory of liberty requires that those be just as legal as alcohol and tobacco. Don't run from it. Own it.

I fixed your argument, Diogenes. Think it still works?

I am supposed to object to something?

[TallDave]

Zuh? Is Dioneges actually conceding marijuana legalization makes sense? Hooray?

Marijuana is key because it's so obvious that we've been lied to and the laws regarding it don't make sense. It's the foot in the door to a broader reconsidering of the whole notion that the criminal justice system ought to be concerned with forcibly preventing consensual transactions at all.

When I was a movement conservative, it was marijuana policy that first gave me doubts about social conservatism in general.

Mike Gray actually has a great bit in Drug Crazy which seems apropos to share here: he suggests the reader imagine food has been made illegal, such that hamburgers and hot dogs now cost hundreds of dollars and can only be obtained illegally. Imagine a life in which you're constantly starving, obsessed with finding your next meal, perhaps turning to crime. This is the world we force addicts to live in.

This is 90% of the reason why addicts have trouble functioning in society. The WOD isn't about keeping people off drugs, it's about destroying the people who use them.

Someday in the not-too-distant future treating drug addiction as a crime will be viewed as barbaric and cruel, on par with treating cat-burning as public entertainment.

[kunkmiester]

I am supposed to object to something?

We already have two drugs that are quite legal--one is very destructive, as any recovering alcoholic and their relatives will tell you.

I suppose it does need a bit more context--either we make these drugs illegal too, or legalize and regulate the harder drugs, like we do alcohol and tobacco. If a line can be drawn between alcohol and cannabis, then there's little point to objecting to a line between cannabis and harder drugs.

You seemed to imply that legalizing weed would be bad, because then we'd have to legalize harder drugs. It was in many was a redefining of kcdodd's argument, since it keeps with the drug theme, but provides a "softer" example than the lower limit of weed. Now, your argument does indeed work if you also favor outlawing alcohol and such, but then, we know what happened last time that was tried.

[Diogenes]

Zuh? Is Dioneges actually conceding marijuana legalization makes sense? Hooray?

Marijuana is key because it's so obvious that we've been lied to and the laws regarding it don't make sense. It's the foot in the door to a broader reconsidering of the whole notion that the criminal justice system ought to be concerned with forcibly preventing consensual transactions at all.

When I was a movement conservative, it was marijuana policy that first gave me doubts about social conservatism in general.

Mike Gray actually has a great bit in Drug Crazy which seems apropos to share here: he suggests the reader imagine food has been made illegal, such that hamburgers and hot dogs now cost hundreds of dollars and can only be obtained illegally. Imagine a life in which you're constantly starving, obsessed with finding your next meal, perhaps turning to crime. This is the world we force addicts to live in.

This is 90% of the reason why addicts have trouble functioning in society. The WOD isn't about keeping people off drugs, it's about destroying the people who use them.

Someday in the not-too-distant future treating drug addiction as a crime will be viewed as barbaric and cruel, on par with treating cat-burning as public entertainment.

My opinion (currently) is that marijuana appears to be the least harmful drug which people want to consume. It appears to be less harmful than alcohol, it appears to be less harmful than tobacco.

The major threat from it is symbolic. Legalizing it will be another incremental ratchet like advance in the direction of total drug legalization. Along that path lies only death and destruction. That is what the evidence shows, and that is what I believe.

You advocates seemingly cannot see the big picture of life, History and Humanity. You must learn your lessons through death and bloodshed, and then the knowledge only lingers as long as you do, and must be relearned again by the next generation.

We (humanity) have been down this road before.

[Diogenes]

I am supposed to object to something?

We already have two drugs that are quite legal--one is very destructive, as any recovering alcoholic and their relatives will tell you.

I suppose it does need a bit more context--either we make these drugs illegal too, or legalize and regulate the harder drugs, like we do alcohol and tobacco. If a line can be drawn between alcohol and cannabis, then there's little point to objecting to a line between cannabis and harder drugs.

You seemed to imply that legalizing weed would be bad, because then we'd have to legalize harder drugs. It was in many was a redefining of kcdodd's argument, since it keeps with the drug theme, but provides a "softer" example than the lower limit of weed. Now, your argument does indeed work if you also favor outlawing alcohol and such, but then, we know what happened last time that was tried.

I am not implying, I am outright stating that this is exactly the argument of the Libertarians. (All drugs must be legalized.)

As for my argument, it consists of this. Alcohol and Tobacco are horrible, and kill thousands (many innocents) every year. Why would we want another one of these, let alone a dozen more beyond?

[kcdodd]

Please be a little more dramatic Diogenes.

[rjaypeters]

As for my argument, it consists of this. Alcohol and Tobacco are horrible, and kill thousands (many innocents) every year. Why would we want another one of these, let alone a dozen more beyond?

Diogenes:

We do not want the evils of alcohol and tobacco to be visited on anyone, and yet those are visited on many thousands today. Let alone worse.

In the case of Prohibition in the United States, the people of that day got the evils of alcohol and the rise of gang activity (e.g. corruption and violence) resulting from driving the production, distribution and consumption of alcohol underground by making them illegal.

The United States war on drugs in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First century has had at least some of the same effects as Prohibition in the early Twentieth century. Indeed, we have a worse situation than Prohibition; Mexico is nearly fighting for its life (if I read the news correctly) in much the same way Columbia has been for two decades.

There don't seem to be any good optiions, but we (the United States) have had the equivalent of Prohibition for many years. How is it working?


P.S. Do you search for an honest man as did your namesake?

[Diogenes]

As for my argument, it consists of this. Alcohol and Tobacco are horrible, and kill thousands (many innocents) every year. Why would we want another one of these, let alone a dozen more beyond?

Diogenes:

We do not want the evils of alcohol and tobacco to be visited on anyone, and yet those are visited on many thousands today. Let alone worse.

In the case of Prohibition in the United States, the people of that day got the evils of alcohol and the rise of gang activity (e.g. corruption and violence) resulting from driving the production, distribution and consumption of alcohol underground by making them illegal.

The United States war on drugs in the late Twentieth and early Twenty-First century has had at least some of the same effects as Prohibition in the early Twentieth century. Indeed, we have a worse situation than Prohibition; Mexico is nearly fighting for its life (if I read the news correctly) in much the same way Columbia has been for two decades.

There don't seem to be any good optiions, but we (the United States) have had the equivalent of Prohibition for many years. How is it working?

We have spent billions (if not trillions) to defend the nation. It occasionally causes death to ours and others. Why do we persist in this foolish behavior when it obviously isn't working because we're still having to spend so much time and money to defend ourselves.

If we would just stop fighting against other people trying to take us over, we wouldn't have any enemies!


As for Mexico, if they do not utterly wipe out the pretenders to their throne, the pretenders will sit on it and become the new rulers.

P.S. Do you search for an honest man as did your namesake?

Inward and Outward, Constantly.

[Diogenes]

Please be a little more dramatic Diogenes.

I would if I could.