Draugbar, I simply rely on the ability to comprehend what a fact is, as in the instances of a statistical survey carried out by a government survey. Is there a degree of errror, there always is. Is there a blatant disqualifying prejudice, you're too lazy to go directly to the link at the .gov site with your degree in Terminal dumb ass, but hey that's revealing in its own right. You don't want the truth. It's pretty obvious your philsophy is "White good, black bad" on this issue.
Your only trusted source is "kkk.org."

Putin, regarding your violent-crimes article - It is an interesting piece which shows that roughly 60% of drug-related prison sentences in Michigan were to people who have also had other things on their rap sheet.

However, it fails to show any amount causation. If these convicts didn't smoke pot, would they still have committed their prior crimes? I'd argue yes.

I believe you're reasoning that, because a large share of drug-felons have priors, then the drugs are the cause. Likewise, you can look at the huge number of Canadian youth that smoke pot but don't commit violent crimes to argue the opposite point.

Also, here's an interesting paper discussing a possible anticorrelation between risk of injury and marijuana.
http://www.biomedcentral.com/1471-2458/9/40

Yonni, let's be honest. Has there ever been a study which conclusively demonstrated "causation" to you? You can point to the number of people who have dangerous handguns but don't kill people and make the same argument. You can make that argument with anything.

If cops keep arresting blacks instead of whites every chance they get it paints a false picture that fools the fools who thankfully self-identify without any prompting.

You can make the argument that foreign automakers hate their workers based on the viewpoint of one fool, Puts in this case, who lives near the auto workers and hates them himself because they aren't in unions.

You can't make an argument with anything, but you can base your opinion on nothing.

Talk about government overreach.
Jumping off your boat for a swim in Pine Flat Lake, Calif., without a life jacket?
Anyone - including boaters - found swimming more than 100 feet from shore without a life jacket could now face a $175 fine as part of the new life jacket regulations put into place April 1 by the Army Corps of Engineers, which manages the lake.
You also can't wear the life jacket of your choosing. You must wear a coast-guard certified life jacket.
How did the country survive massive waves of drowning deaths that put our nation's survival in jeopardy before the founding of the Corps of Engineers and their regulations.

You have the attention span of a flea.

Putin, there are studies. However, using studies like this to prove causation are much more effective when you can make some reasonable argument as to 'why' or 'how'. In the case of handguns, It's easy to understand how their prominence leads to increased murder rates. You pull a trigger, it kills someone. Simple. I fail to see how the effects of smoking weed lead people to commit dangerous crimes. The most reasonable argument in my head is that smoking weed is an illegal activity meaning that you're associating with the underbelly of society or it at least shows that you have a disregard for the law.

This goes back to what I was saying before. We need to look at the effects that the drug have on people and, from that, determine their 'harm to society'. I'd goes as far as saying that people are less capable of committing violent crimes when they take weed or more powerful hallucinogens.

Well, it depends on the hallucinogen. A "bad trip" on a powerful hallucinogen will put others at risk. Marijuana, on the other hand, is really mild, and it has a calming effects. I think most of the "links" marijuana has to crime are simply because it's currently illegal. if you made it legal, its correlation to crime would drop dramatically. To be honest, so many people smoke marijuana, saying that it has a direct cause to non-marijuana related crimes (i.e trafficking, possession, distribution, etc.) is like saying cigarettes and tobacco are also related to crime, simply due to the sheer number of people who smoke cigarettes, and a lot of them have committed a crime. Then again, a lot of them haven't.

^I agree. A bad trip can put other (and mainly yourself) at risk. But I just don't seem someone holding up a convenience store loaded on shrooms. It just wouldn't work but would make for a hilarious scene in some Apatow movie.

So here's the issue: No amount of evidence will satisfy the legalizers, because they'll claim that marijuana *self-evidently* makes people more relaxed and therefore any association with crime *must* be due to other factors. Nevermind that possession alone is rarely prosecuted, so this claim that the violence is due to people's association with criminal elements doesn't really work. Never mind that we have studies showing that marijuana uses are multiple times more likely to develop psychotic symptoms, and never mind that in a New Zealand study of 1,000 youths that 34% of them had convictions for violent behavior. It must be due to other things. But if decriminalization becomes mildly correlated with a decrease in crime or addiction, which is supposedly the case in Portugal (through gross misrepresentation of evidence by Glenn Greenwald), then the legalizers will shout that they have conclusively demonstrated that legalization will both decrease drug use and decrease crime.

Consistent marijuana use has been shown, repeatedly, over and over again, to be strongly linked to psychosis. We even have longitudinal studies showing that marijuana *causes* psychosis and not the other way around, which is as close to demonstrating causation as you can get. Psychosis can most definitely lead to violent behavior. It's not *beyond common sense* to suggest that habitual marijuana smokers become violent. The legalizers are going to have work a bit harder on this than simply dismissing all evidence they don't like by saying "correlation isn't causation" and resorting to stereotypes about mellow, stoned slackers.

There's a huge double standard going on, and the legalizers are putting up the highest thresholds of evidence possible for opponents of legalization while insisting that very little evidence is needed for their position.

No amount of reality will persuade believers that the drug war isn't working.

Stoners become violent. OMG!!!! Thanks for another cheap laugh Puts.

Yes, the risk of triggering psychosis (in people who are vulnerable to psychosis) is a very real risk of marijuana use. It is a fact that many advocates of legalization do not recognize but should. However, I advocate that people should be given the chance to responsibly use the drug. People who are prone to heart disease have a responsibility to not stuff their face the Big Macs. There's a very real risk of heart attacks if you sit behind a computer screen all day and don't exercise. But we afford people the opportunity to eat whatever they want and exercise however little they want because we decided that freedom, in these cases, is more important than mandating a healthy lifestyle.

We try counter the harms of these other lifestyles through education. We teach people what the appropriate eating habits should be and the signs and risks of obesity. Likewise, we should teach responsible drug use and the signs and repercussions of irresponsible drug use.

I think there is unfair value judgement made in your critique of marijuana that probably stems with the stigma it has from being illegal.

We also have studies saying that there is no serious medical effects from smoking marijuana on a consistent basis. Even Psychotic effects. looool.

Putin, please don't attack us like we're too stubborn to see the truth, when you fail to recognize basic facts yourself, and are also stuck in your ways.

And, as I said earlier, sooo many people use marijuana, especially people in the lower income brackets. people who, by their place below the poverty line, are already more likely to commit a crime, even violent ones. Once again, Putin, you fail to see the whole picture, and just choose bits and pieces of it to make your point.

Um, Kingdroid, I'd have to disagree with you there.
I believe the general medical opinion is that there is a good chance that marijuana can trigger psychosis in people who are susceptible to it. There's also increased chances of lung/throat cancer. Along with hampered memory and motivation.

In Putin's fantasy world PCP is a harmless drug compared to the violent rampages of pot heads.
Don't wake up Puts. It's so fun to read your dribble.

http://www.dutchnews.nl/news/archives/2011/06/cannabis_cafe_tourist_ban_can.php

Even your pro-drug shangri-las are closing shop.

You've cited that a number of times when you're looking evidence against legalization.

I really don't think it's a good example. I'd hate it if my city became a haven for drug-tourism. It just attracts a generally unpalatable crowd. Amsterdam's coffee shops are a schtick for tourists and not the Mayor's objection to them is clearly coming from this point of view.

He wants to "turn coffee shops into member-only clubs open only to people who officially live in the Netherlands."

Well this was a new development. The Dutch court authorized the national government to implement a blanket ban on drug tourism.

That's fair. Like I said, I'm on the same page as you with drug-tourism. It's not something I'd want in my backyard. It's also about as far as you can get from responsible drug use. It's a lot of people trying things for the first time and doing so in large quantities.

Hang on, I thought I saw this topic before:
threadID=720392

"Um, Kingdroid, I'd have to disagree with you there.
I believe the general medical opinion is that there is a good chance that marijuana can trigger psychosis in people who are susceptible to it. There's also increased chances of lung/throat cancer. Along with hampered memory and motivation. "

Um Yonni, you should really research before making an assertion. I won't argue the psychosis aspects because there are studies showing both ways and those that have linked it to psychosis usually also show other factors in those who have the psychotic break.

But marijuana not only hasn't been linked to upper aerodigestive tract (UAT) cancer as the studies have been inconclusive and the levels of the known carcinogens in cannabis are lower than in cigarettes. Additionally, there is data that suggests cannabis can reduce and even halt cancer growth.

@Putin - "Consistent marijuana use has been shown, repeatedly, over and over again, to be strongly linked to psychosis. We even have longitudinal studies showing that marijuana *causes* psychosis and not the other way around, which is as close to demonstrating causation as you can get. Psychosis can most definitely lead to violent behavior. It's not *beyond common sense* to suggest that habitual marijuana smokers become violent. The legalizers are going to have work a bit harder on this than simply dismissing all evidence they don't like by saying "correlation isn't causation" and resorting to stereotypes about mellow, stoned slackers. "

Even if it does lead to violent behavior, so does getting shit faced. Yet alcohol is still legal.

Now, I don't partake at all of pot, mind you. But if regulated like tobacco and alcohol, cannabis has the same side effects as drinking and smoking, and actually has a reduced amount of the carcinogens found in cigarettes, being more in line with pipes or cigars.

OK, I may be mistaken about the links to UAT cancer. However, most of the things I've seen have suggested that weed contains many carcinogens (maybe less than cigarettes but that's irrelevant). Also, I'd guess that the way you inhale weed exposes your lungs to a great deal of these carcinogens.

California has marijuana smoke listed as a carcinogen which is enough to convince me that at least some scientific evidence exists to support the claim, even if it is contested.
A quick google gives me this: http://oehha.ca.gov/prop65/hazard_ident/pdf_zip/FinalMJsmokeHID.pdf

And, yes, that may not apply to eating weed but that's not the most common mode of consumption.

There are also very definite withdrawal symptoms (although not as harsh as from other drugs). And (reversible) short-term memory issues. But, this may not fall under 'serious' medical effects so I apologize to Kingdroid for that.

does this have anything to do with socialism?

Not much.

But TC's definition of socialism is any social imposition by the government and drug laws are certainly just that. So, here we are.

I wasn't aware that tobacco made people hallucinate. At any rate tobacco is being phased out with increased regulations. Why we're simultaneously relaxing regulations on marijuana is beyond me.