When I look at the simple economics of it I can't understand why we continue the drug war. It isn't winnable, costs too much money, and supports a criminal element that would be out of business overnight if drugs were legalized.

And what is even more mind boggling is we get the vast majority of the benefits from legalizing the least dangerous and far and away most used drug... weed.

I don't smoke weed, and don't hang around with anyone who stil does, but there is absoloutely no reason for the stuff to be illegal.

that makes sense, but i am not saying that all police are out there arresting people just because they are a certain color. I think for the most part good cops are just doing their jobs, and want to come home to their wives and kids. Its really not the law enforcers that i have the problem with, even though there are bad apples in every barrel. Its the lawmakers that i have a problem with.

What is appalling to me, is why these laws were adopted in the first place, and if you look back the majority of those drugs were deemed dangerous and illegal because of the use by minorities. Just because something is illegal doesn't mean that it should be or its bad. Alot of laws out there need to be looked at and reversed, modified, changed, whatever. I think Oral Sex is still illegal in Louisiana, and i am damn sure not going to tell my wife, no baby that's illegal. Drug use is like any other thing, there are bad people who do it, there are good people who do it, but it is so taboo in this country that everyone gets grouped in with basehead thief murderer category. Red Meat will kill you faster than weed will, hell what if we find out that cell phones cause brain damage, we going to outlaw them too? There are too many non violent drug users being locked up daily for nothing, and its a waste of mine, and your money.

How can anyone sit here and say that heroin should be illegal when the government sells methadone to anyone at methadone clinics? I could go into a methadone clinic today, pay a fee and get drugs legally. Why can't they do that with all drugs?

Drugs will never go away, you can lock up 50 people and 1000 more will start seconds after those 50 are locked up. Its like trying to kill a bed of ants with a toothpick. So look at Amsterdam and other European cities and do what they do, since Amsterdam started letting people get away with smoking pot in bars, crime has gone down, heroin use has gone down, cocaine use has gone down.

:thumb:

Fair enough. Oral Sex is against the law and several other states. I far more funny thing (that the law has not changed to accompany this) is that domestic violence can only pertain to members of the opposite sex living under the same household. You can't hit your mother without being labeled domestically violent, but you can beat up your partner in a homosexual relationship and the rule doesn't apply. Several states have laws that have not been updated, for various reasons.

From my perspective of sitting in courtrooms, most people get somewhat sorted out on their first conviction. Probation with drug testing is the common sentence there, and that's even for distribution charges. The lumping together comes when it becomes a repeating offense. Though it rarely happens, it's supposed to be an automatic felony arrest for Marijuana on a second offense, even for just a blunt or a baggie.

I agree that drugs don't go away just because most citizens want them to. But making all of them legal is not going to work. Any job that requires drug testing or an employer who wants drug testing done is still not going to let employees come to work high, or have his employees testing positive. Since most drugs affect physiological actions and alter mental judgement, these employers will not want their employees on it, as is the case with police, lawyers, doctors, engineers, ems, military, teachers, social workers, and so on. The only ones who would benefit from drugs being legal are the people who do not have to worry about such testing, namely the majority of people who use them now beyond the recreational level.

Also, drugs will still cost money, probably more so since taxes will be levied on them. That money has to come from somewhere, and the users will still have to result to the same ways of getting that money that they already result to, by theft, burglary, robbery, and so on.

Yes, there are many other things in the world that are more dangerous than drugs that are legal, but they have either a smaller percentage of hurting a great number of people, or are used by a greater majority of peopel than drugs, or do not impair judgement or anything physiological. As such, they are deemed OK by the powers that be.

I think they should all be legal, because i feel its a personal choice, and i nor anyone should have the right to tell anyone what they can and can't do to themselves. But its not going to hurt my feelings if Heroin and Crack, and Meth stay illegal unless a family member of mine gets addicted to that crap then it will hit home. But weed?

Oh and i think the major issue with the employment side is insurance. I am an employer and the only reason i drug test is so that when dumbass A gets in an accident at the job and then fails a drug test, i am not liable. But do i care if someone is on drugs or not, no, not really, especially if it doesn't effect their performance, or cause any injury to anyone else. You can smoke a joint and then 2 weeks later its still in your system, and trust me, i have never found any pot in which the buzz lasts for 2 weeks.

I get what you are saying though, and i am not anti cop or anything, i have a very good friend who is a narcotics officer oddly enough in the Fort Worth PD. So i appreciate what you guys do.

perhaps i hang around with lunatics that do not represent the prevailing sentiment, but your opinion is the only one i ever hear from anyone i know. who out there still opposes legal marijuana?

yunno i notice people like to put latin in their sigs. what is the value of latin, i dont get it. is something more true if i dont know what it means? just curious.

stimulating conversation that kind of just died. This is a fun topic.

I do.

It's one of my breakpoints with most Libertarians. I acknowledge that MJ is similar to booze as a drug. But the "gateway drug" aspect of it is not just a cliche', it's very real. And booze differs in the way it is totally integrated into European-based culture. Pot is a subculture that has no socially legitimate "hook" to it. So it is very easy to keep it illegal and only pizz off a small portion of the population.

I generally like small government and prefer to let people be responsible for both the decisions in their lives and the consequences of those decisions.

I view the control of certain conciousness-altering substances as a vital public protection function, and one of the very few legitimate chores, that a good government should provide.