Don't smoke yet; your brain is still developing.

I haven't and don't have any intention to do it unless it's legal… my brain isn't developed enough for prison either. From the article:

"In 2010, four out of five of the 1.64 million people arrested for drug violations were accused of possession, and half of those arrests were for carrying what were often very small amounts of marijuana. Those hundreds of thousands of drug cases corresponded with an increase in marijuana use. If federal policy were about problem-solving, Colorado would not pose a dilemma, because prosecuting marijuana cases hasn't solved the problem of marijuana use."

More to your point: I think the tobacco argument is flawed. The proper solution to having one bad thing being legal is not to make more bad things illegal.

With that being said, the amount of time, money, and lives that are spent dealing with pot is pathetic. That is the main reason I support legalization. Tax the shit out of it and make the punishment for breaking the law (such as selling to minors) serious.

bo_sox,

I just want to say that I believe you very easily told us your age and your state, and I think you should be careful divulging such information online to people you don't know. That is all.

Yeah, be careful, bo. Draug lives pretty close to Indiana. You know how he gets around 16 year olds.

"pot is much, much less dangerous than mushrooms"

That's such a dumb, uninformed statement that everything else you have to say about this subject can be safely ignored.

i used to smoke pot and i grew and sold it ,i am in the opinion that growing your own pot should be legal but not selling.
from my experience it is harmful not so much for your health but it does brain damage,mostly memory loss and changes behavior,also makes you find yourself surrounded only by pot users and distance yourself from not users,users tend to be lazy and not productive and many of them use other drugs and do minor crimes.
tobacco is worst than pot,almost impossible to quit and it kills thousands of people everyday.
all drugs must be ilegal! tobacco is definitely a drug.

Completely agreed, Abge.

Red, I live in Carmel, go to University High School, class of 2014, and am likely attending Butler University. My dad's name is David and my mom's name is Miriam. They are both self employed. My house is worth somewhere between $370K and $380K. Do a Google search and see if you can find me. Come to my house and I'll beat the living shit out of you. That's what Indiana farm boys and Indianapolis gang boys learn how to do pretty effectively.

In short, I'm not worried about my safety...

bo, it wasn't meant as a threat at all, as most people who know me here know. I was genuinely trying to caution you on the risks of exposing stuff, because you never know what people are going to do. That said, I hope the mods remove this information for your own good. You should definitely tell David and Miriam what I just told you just to learn how they feel about this.

We most certainly will not remove it. However, I will caution bo to think twice before going into public office now.

Bo-Sox48, was that really your info or did you somehow obtain krellin's true identity and where he lives?
If you know where krellin is, please post the address so that obi and dubmdell can find him to get their bet.
And if obi can't afford to drive there, we'll start a fund for him (at least 20% of which should be reserved for him to get a prostitute who provides free marijuana).

I support legalization of marijuana. In my secondhand experience as a police officer, people who are baked out of their minds on pot are still safer to be around than a frat boy who's had one too many shots of booze.

People who are baked laugh a lot, get hungry, and fall asleep. People who are drunk black out and usually make mistakes.

Free up resources from marijuana enforcement and use it to enforce laws against harder drugs. Crack, meth, cocaine, and hallucinogens should be illegal because you are 9 times out of 10 a menace to public safety if you're high on those.

Yeah, yeah, okay Red… I'm not really worried about it. Naive teenager. We're all the same.

Oddly put, Gun, but completely true.

Mushrooms are more dangerous than pot, agreed. However, both have negligible amounts of danger - you just have less control on mushrooms. They are also more fun.

Lol… well put Lando. Like they say, if you think that tree over there is talking with you, you've had too much.

Making drugs illegal doesn't keep people from using them... as observed in prohibition times, when something is made illegal it just drives the market for obtaining and using those drugs. If heroine we made legal tomorrow how many of you would go out and shoot up right away? I don't think anyone would be like FUCK YEAH BEEN WAITING FOR THIS SHIT TO BE LEGAL.

Look no further to why it's illegal than the federal government. They are the ones capitalizing on the drug wars. Heck, they are still fueling the wars to this day and people still act oblivious about it all. Fast and furious, Iran-Contra, opium imports from Afghanistan (which we've been guarding for the past 10 years).

I live in So-Cal and have a MMJ license ... and even as recently as 2 months ago they sent federal agents in to 20-30 clinics in LA county to seize assets and try to shut them down. Even with Colorado and Washington being legal now, I still imagine it being a shit storm for the next 10 years.

@abge - Unless bo is a female, nothing to fear. I'm sort of a "nothing dangles below the waist" kind of guy.

@bo - As has been pointing out, saying that you think something else should be illegal because one illegal things is, in your view, less dangerous is not a valid argument. For one, it's just your opinion pot is less dangerous than "tobacco". The long term effects of smoking pot over a lifetime haven't really been studied like they have for cigarettes.

Additionally, tobacco comes in more than cigarette form just as pot can be consumed in many different ways. Many of those tobacco forms have seriously less detrimental effects on the body than cigarettes. Primarily because, even in smoked form (pipes and cigars), the additives and how deeply the smoke is inhaled in a cigarette makes it far more dangerous. Cigarettes have such additives as additional nicotine and chemicals to disguise the fact that they are made from substandard remnant tobacco not of a high enough quality for cigars or pipes or even chew. So you are really comparing cigarettes to pot, not all tobacco.

Now, as to legalization fo pot... I'm like abge. Do it, tax the fuck out of it, and make selling to minors have the kind of teeth alcohol and tobacco have. America could use a new revenue source.

Oh, and bo, no one need come to your house or your school or even visit you in person to do you harm. It's called identity theft and could fuck up your chances to get into any school, much less the school of your choice.

Wish them luck with that Draug. They can try if they are really that desperate.

And yes, I'm comparing cigarettes to pot.. that's the comparison I've seen firsthand. Like you said, it hardly matters, because legalizing pot has economic benefits, and based on the complete disregard for morals in the government in the past 50 years or so when it comes to money, there's no argument around that.

Cigarettes don't change your state of mind, marijuana does. it is apples and oranges.

Here is what needs to be done.

A) Legalize and legislate pot. Tax it, restrict it, and put in serious penalties for giving it to minors.
B) Clean up cigarettes. Put manufacturing standards on them that reduce or eliminate poisonous additives and added nicotine.

"Clean up cigarettes. Put manufacturing standards on them that reduce or eliminate poisonous additives and added nicotine. "

good luck

I know. But just because it isn't likely to succeed doesn't mean it isn't a worhtwhile thing to push towards.