I'm actually with Putin on this one. Never gotten artificially high. Never will. I'm against legalization too. From a business aspect (my major) I really don't like it.

@goldfinger

Wait, what isn't to like from a business aspect? Legalize it, regulate it, and tax the shit out of it. Uncle Sam gets money, instead of wasting it trying to stop people from using it, and it's safer because you aren't buying it from some back-alley drug dealer. I can understand arguments against legal weed, but business can't be one.

I'm thinking more along the lines of worker productivity that would come from the increased availability and the fact that its legal and not punishable to come into work high anymore. If you can still punish workers for coming in high, then I suppose I would be fine with it. But mainly its the productivity decrease that I wouldn't like

And I'm Republican, I don't like taxes hahaha

Correct me if I'm wrong, but if I come into work drunk, I'll get fired. Why would this be different?

Right, as I expected, any amount of uncertainty and you'll cling to it.

"“People who reported new psychotic symptoms, and who persisted in using cannabis ... reported more persistent psychotic symptoms than those who stopped using cannabis,” write Wayne Hall, PhD, of the University of Queensland in Herston, Australia, and Louisa Degenhardt, PhD, of the Burnet Institute in Melbourne, Australia, in an accompanying editorial."

"“Carefully conducted prospective studies such as this one provide the best evidence available that cannabis contributes to the cause of some cases of schizophrenia,” says Matthew Large of Prince of Wales Hospital in New South Wales, Australia. Large recently published a similar study linking marijuana use to earlier age of onset of schizophrenia.

“The study goes a long way to clarifying that it is not psychosis that causes cannabis use, but rather the reverse,” he says in an email."

So the fact that people who smoke pot reported more persistent psychotic symptoms is not evidence, apparently. Let's be honest, there's nothing a study could tell you that you'd ever accept as evidence that marijuana has negative effects.

Ehhh, that may be true, but the people on this website tend to be the top 10% of society, no? I know of people who did cocaine the night before drug tests and such. My mindset is that people are stupid and will do anything. So people who are logical and say "If I do this I'll get fired" are not the ones I'm worrying about. Hell, I knew tons of people in high school who went to work high and never got fired. Not everyone is as rational as us.

Of course legalization is better than what's going on now. But at the same time I can't stand people (usually pot smokers...) who insist that pot is just the most benign thing ever.

I get your point - it's not as bad as your gradma makes it out to be, and better for you than alcohol. That doesn't make it *healthy* and doesn't make it something you should make a habit of.

"Ehhh, that may be true, but the people on this website tend to be the top 10% of society, no?"

That's a dangerous assumption to make.

"My mindset is that people are stupid and will do anything"

Then making it legal or illegal will not make a difference to them. But, at least it will be safer and bring in some revenue.

"Hell, I knew tons of people in high school who went to work high and never got fired."

That is the company's problem; not mine.

@Putin

I'm not going to argue that pot is safe. In fact, I'll state that almost everyone is probably better off without it. However, people are going to use it and we already allow a lot of dangerous things (cigarettes, alcohol, fast food). To me, and from what I've read, pot seems to fall into this category of dangerous. It is not comparable to heroine or meth, which should remain illegal.

People are going to do it, so why not put in regulations that we can actually enforce. Would that not be a better system?

Let me preface this by saying that I live in California and I voted for legalization, but I have never smoked myself.

All these people who espouse the positive effects of marijuana and say there are no drawbacks are idiots. Yes, marijuana can help treat things like insomnia and lack of appetite and can counter the pain caused by cancer treatments. However, unlike alcohol, there have been few long-term studies into the negative effects of heavy, continuous use of marijuana. We just don't know what it does in the long run.

There are also a lot of bullshit claims about what marijuana can do. I don't smoke because of asthma (and I have no desire to). People have repeatedly told me that smoking weed will "help relax my lungs" or something like that. That's a crock of shit. Can't think of any others off the top of my head but there are lots of claims and not a lot of backing.

Oh, I should probably mention that I've never actually smoked pot, so I don't have some personal motivation to make it legal other than I think it's stupid for the government to waste its time on something like this.

hmmm, you're right abge, there are a lot of holes in my arguement. And you're right, people will do it whether its legal or not, but I'm worried that it will become more prevalent if its legalized. But I guess I'm still living in a fantasy world where the war on drugs will eventually succeed.

@goldfinger

Consider this: Legalizing pot *may* increase it's use, but if it does, I suspect it may *decrease* the use of hard drugs (coke, meth, heroine). The law would then reflect in a clearer manner the difference between hard and soft drugs. Furthermore, the average person will no longer be buying pot from someone who may also be a meth dealer. So, the situation where a pot-user was coerced into trying different drugs by their dealer would never occur. I'll admit that this is purely conjecture, but I think it's reasonable. I would be interested to see if there are any actual data on this.

Cigarettes are being phased out. The irony is we're making it harder to smoke tobacco but relaxing the restrictions on marijuana, which is worse. Nobody hallucinates while smoking tobacco. Tobacco usage is not associated with violent crime, like marijuana is (anyone who disagrees with this last point can feel free to ask the Dutch about their crime rate since decriminalization).

I don't understand why, in an era where health care costs are skyrocketing, we would want to legalize a substance that is not only going to increase regular healthcare costs, but lead to more people having mental illness.

I reject the idea that we can't enforce laws against it. We're not trying hard enough. Countries like Sweden have a zero tolerance policy, and their drug use rate is among the lowest in Europe, if not *the* lowest. It's possible to effectively enforce drug laws. Many countries have done it. But America is addicted to drugs, and for whatever reason wants to make itself believe this is fine and that problem is not the people on drugs, but the laws against drugs.

Cannabis has no medicinal value?

http://www.cannabis-med.org/studies/study.php

There have been over a thousand studies showing that to be ignorant. Now please explain the medicinal value of alcohol or caffeine. I don't use Alcohol, Caffeine, nor Delta-9THC/CBD/CBN's and any drug for that matter.

For the purpose of this discussion drug is defined as the following:

Either a substance intended for use in the diagnosis, cure, mitigation, treatment, or prevention of disease
or
a substance that affects the CNS (Central Nervous System)

To mean illicit or otherwise shall be stated not assumed.

Medical Marijuana leads to testicle cancer - empirically proven by South Park

@ Putin

you added another reason to why I want to get out of this country and move to Sweden haha.

The long term study of psychosis associated with cannabis users is in regards to teen and young adult usage. A psychotic which Delta9-THC absolutely is used in young people whose brain has not fully developed is sure to cause some form of psychosis. Were people whose lifestyle or condition prior to using cannabis at an early age for a long period of time the cause of psychosis or the drug itself? I say it must be a mix of both.

The medical benefits are not Delta9-THC but the CBD/CBNs contained in the plant. People use Delta9-THC for recreational use while the Cannabinols have proven medicinal value.

The real reason drugs are illegal in Sweden is because their furniture is so complicated to assemble, if anyone in the country wasn't 100% sober, the entire country would collapse in on itself.

lol!

Pot improves sex.

Oops sorry, my proof is the black guy in Dewey Cox that tells Dewey not to try pot because it makes sex better.

@ goldfinger - I'm not sure how marijuana could become much more prevalent. On my college campus I know far more people that regularly smoke marijuana than cigarettes. The same was true for my high school and the part-time job I work at. Also, whatever costs would be added in healthcare would be more than offset by the drop in law enforcement and correctional costs, as well as increased revenue from taxation.

@ Putin - But Sweden doesn't have many places to grow pot very nearby. The US has Latin and South America to supply it's weed, plus pot-growing regions of the US such as the Emerald Triangle (a region of northern California).

The Netherlands isn't near Latin America either.

But they can import legally, and, I would imagine drow some of their own. Marijuana isn't well-suited to Sweden's climate, nor would it be easy to move large quantities over old Hanseatic trade routes to get it to Sweden.

Growing outdoor marijuana in Europe would be stupid, that can only happen in drug heavens like Albania and even there were some crackdowns on growers (not smugglers of course, it's Albania). However, large-scale indoor plantations can produce huge quantities with great efficiency. Constant supply of light thanks to powerful artificial light (if you sometimes encounter a lamppost lacking its lamp, it's been put to use for someone's personal growing purposes) and other advanced forms of raising the crop yields (hydroponics) are used in deserted warehouses. It's probably not the Rolls-Royce of marijuana but it has it's customers (in the Czech Republic, it's mostly exported elsewhere).

Also, Sweden has higher drug-related death per capita ratio than the Netherlands (still 7 times lower than the USA but really, the USA is such an outlier in many negative statistics...), which might be quite surprising.

I can also recommend one of the legendary Swedish drunkard cruises over the Baltic. Swedes developed a very peculiar way of drinking due to the strict restrictions and high alcohol taxes. They drink fast to get hammered quickly with minimal amount of consumed alcohol possible. By the time you're still warming up, they're already well in the right partying mood.

Concerning the working productivity issue, it's not much of an issue. In any sensible country, the employer should have the right to demand a drug test for an employee who acts as if under an influence of some substance. If the test is positive, the employee might be fired, no matter if the substance is legal or not, that's how it works with alcohol. If it's negative then the employee will not be safe either, since residual amount of marijuana stay in the body for several months. Be sure that the employer will survey a pot user much closer than before. Finally, there might be regular health and inspections for all the workers in a company (including the director) so again, the pot user is in trouble. Although there are problems with this approach since a clean employee will oppose instituting these inspections if he happens to have some illness that might not make him employer happy. This means that the inspections have to be carried out in a strictly confidential way and with specific aims in mind.

I do not smoke for the same reason as Durden, Asthma. I also live in California, and while I did not vote, I would have voted for legalization if I had been old enough at the time. I understand that it isn't 100% safe, but i think people should be allowed to do what they wish as long as it does not hurt others.

Oh, and Putin, while Sweden may have a successful drug enforcement policy, they also have much-much higher tax revenues, and a smaller country.