I don't think your history of alcohol legality/cannabis legality validates arguments like :

• Cannabis should be legalized because alcohol is and that's bad too
• If you're against legalization cannabis, you should be against current legalization of alcohol

As someone who seems to generally have a working head on his shoulders, I would think you'd see the reasoning of that.

I'm honestly not biased because I do smoke, but I do agree with everything janszoon has had to offer in this thread. I can't see how it's not relevant.

Yes it definitely is. I'm not going to chase stats but the amount of people who smoke weed in the US is Very High. This is important to know. Many, many, many people purchase and consume pot.

The reason that the comparison is relevant is because we can look to relatively recent US history to see how prohibition of alcohol fucked up our society royally.

When alcohol was illegal violent criminals came to power by supplying it to those who wanted to drink (that is to say many, many people). A lot of people died or risked their lives only because violent criminals controlled the alcohol market. And, of course, even the non-violent criminals who produced or supplied alcohol were punished by law if caught.

While marijuana is a different drug that perhaps has a different base of users than alcohol we can see direct comparisons between the prohibition of the two drugs.

In the US: Some smokers grow their own. Some buy from a friend who grows. Some buy from a grower who drives their product all over the country. But many smokers buy from a source that is ultimately run by violent criminals who will kill their competition and anybody who attempts to undermine their business.

Here's an interesting example of what I'm talking about: In college I took a class called The Geology of National Parks. The professor had been to all of them and encouraged us to go to all of them and to enter them from different points than the main entrances. This was so that we could see the less touristy parts of the parks. However, he advised us to definitely NOT visit Volcanoes National Park in Hawaii from anywhere other than the main entrance because you are likely to accidentally stumble upon a large marijuana farm and be shot by its armed guards. He wasn't joking. The fact is that violence will and does occur in the US when popular drugs are illegal. And also, non-violent people involved in the trade go to prison.

Anyway, I think that's the main reason why talking about alcohol makes sense in these arguments. I think you're right that comparisons of the two drugs' effects on users is not all that relevant, though.

edit: Looking back at this thread I see that you've argued for prohibition of weed because of its effect on users compared to that of alcohol. So it's not you who I agree with on that, its just what I think. In fact, you are wrong to think that the dangers of marijuana triggering schizophrenia is not an acceptable risk. It is. As others have said, I think a very tiny percentage of weed smokers suffer from significant mental damage because of it. Remember, lots and lots and lots of people smoke pot. I don't know of any or of anybody who knows anybody who this has happened to. I do however, know personally a person who suffered a schizophrenic break from LSD use. And, like many, I personally know a lot of people who have suffered greatly from alcohol use and abuse. Still, I don't think these things weigh much in the debate over pot legalization.

lol. Fortunately I'm not making either of those arguments.

HAHA so true.

I could be wrong, but I don't believe cannabis use in the US and it'c cultural importance is anywhere close to alcohol use and its cultural importance at the time of prohibition. I'm no expert on US history with legality, but I would expect that pre-prohibition, alcohol had much the same role in society that it does today. That it was a pleasure the large majority of adults indulged in which a number of people had made a legal business out of pre-prohibition. It had been accepted and was part of food culture a long time before prohibition. People were used to it.

I don't believe the same is true for cannabis users. While there certainly are many, it's mostly prevalent in certain social groups and can't be said to be something adults from just about all walks of life do. Out of the statistics of how many there are who have smoked, most probably just experimented during their teens. It has no real place in food culture beyond hash brownies, no one have legal cannabis jobs that their family have held through generations and I would think that unlike alcohol which is something many consumed weekly pre-prohibition (my guess), the percentage of the population who today use cannabis weekly is relatively much less. Alcohol came into illegality from a long period of social/cultural acceptance. It has a long societal history. Today, cannabis is not coming into illegality from a long period of legality. It is not becoming legal after centuries of use and acceptance on a grand scale. It is not the 1800s and the drugs are different. Hence, there's no reason the two scenarios will play out exactly the same.

A few posts made recently in this thread :

Here's a swedish study I linked to : CANNABIS AND SCHIZOPHRENIA A Longitudinal Study of Swedish Conscripts : The Lancet

I read a report that just about all who smoke knows someone who have freaked out more or less on cannabis. Many of them suffered for long periods after the drug has worn off. This happens to newcomers to the drug and it can seriously screw up their lives. This does happen to a lot of people and unlike alcohol, it's way harder to see it coming. I can't understand why people seem to think this is irrelevant. I believe I posted a link to the report earlier in the thread. I may have to dig it up again.

Good, cause I thought maybe you were. You've been making posts like these :

Yet, if you'd read my posts, you'd know that health-wise, I think the scary part about cannabis health-wise is users can't know beforehand how they will react to the drug. You know that if you drink lots of alcohol every day, that will deteriorate your health. However, you don't know if you're gonna be okay after casually smoking cannabis a total of ten times in your lifetime.

I believe you knew this by the time you wrote that post (you read my posts, don't you?), yet you still decided to make it. It's like instead of making thought out posts with valid points, you're just making up little questions. You force people who debate with you defend their positions over again in an attempt to tire them out.

Of course not. Adults have jobs that require drug tests. If people were tested for alcohol at work, then you would be saying that about alcohol. And you also have to consider the propaganda that was used to make marijuana look like the devil. People have been brainwashed into thinking that marijuana is horrible and for some illogical reason, alcohol is more acceptable.

So there's been legality and related issues which has kept cannabis from being ingrained into your culture like alcohol has. Hence, its continued prohibition is not parallel to alcohol going from being accepted to becoming illegal in the 1800s.

Examples of currently available hemp food products include salad dressings, nutrition bars, breads, cookies, granola, waffles, nut butter, chips, pasta, frozen deserts and cold-pressed oil supplements.


Like other oil seeds, the hemp nut consists mainly of oil (typically 44%), protein (33%) and dietary fiber and other carbohydrates (12%, predominantly from residues of the hull). In addition, the nut contains vitamins (particularly the tocopherols and tocotrienols of the Vitamin E complex), phytosterols and trace minerals. Overall, hemp's main nutritional advantage over other seeds lies in the composition of its oil, i.e. its fatty acid profile, and in its protein which contains all of the essential amino acids in nutritionally significant amounts and in a desirable ratio.

Hemp is a high protein seed containing all nine of the essential amino acids (like flax). It also has high amounts of fatty acids and fiber as well as containing vitamin E and trace minerals. It has a balanced ratio of omega 3 to 6 fats at around a three to one ratio.

The protein content of the hemp seed is supposed to be very digestible. Many people noted their personal experience of finding that hemp seed protein did not cause bloating or gas, like some of their whey, or other protein shakes did.

And, get this, unlike soy which has super high amounts of phytic acid (that anti-nutrient that prevents us from absorbing minerals), hemp seed doesn’t contain phytic acid.


That's definitely wrong.

I thought it was obvious, but the point concerns cannabis as an intoxicant.

I wrote "just about" and there's a chance you know someone who have not told you about their experience because they find it uncomfortable to talk about.

What about the dangers of alcohol, which are also hard to foresee?

Asthma exacerbations may arise as a result from drinking alcohol. Among alcoholic beverages, wine is found to be the most common culprit in triggering asthma. Sulphur dioxide or sulphites is the main preservative in red and white wine. They work by inhibiting the growth of yeast that causes spoilage. However, a number of asthma sufferers reported wheezing and asthma exacerbations after or while drinking wine. This is mainly due to the presence of sulphites and not the alcohol itself. If left untreated, the allergy could lead to anaphylaxis (Anaphylaxis is a life-threatening type of allergic reaction).

Just thought I'd throw this out here since you like to talk about the dangers of cannabis.

The American Association for Cancer Research has found the marijuana actually works to slow down tumor growth in the lungs, breasts, and brain considerably.


Marijuana is a muscle relaxant and has “antispasmodic” qualities which have proven to be a very effective treatment of seizures. There are actually countless cases of people suffering from seizures that have only been able to function better through the use of marijuana.

Since medicinal marijuana was legalized in California, doctors have reported that they have been able to treat more than 300,000 cases of migraines that conventional medicine couldn’t through marijuana.

Marijuana’s effects on multiple sclerosis patients became better documented when former talk-show host, Montel Williams began to use pot to treat his MS. Marijuana works to stop the neurological effects and muscle spasms that come from the fatal disease.

Despite what you may have heard about marijuana’s effects on the brain, the Scripps Institute, in 2006, proved that the THC found in marijuana works to prevent Alzheimer’s by blocking the deposits in the brain that cause the disease.

What's this? Do I see the argument that because one bad is allowed, that automatically justifies the legality of another? I've already argued multiple times why I think the legality of alcohol is not a good basis for decisions on cannabis legality.

I don't want to repeat it yet again, so instead I'll just say my reply to this can be found in previous posts.

I've no problems accepting medical usefulness of cannabis. It's fine that people with multiple sclerosis smoke, I've no problem with that. Chemotherapy also helps cancer patients, but it's not something the general populace should indulge in.

I'm arguing the cons of cannabis because I believe they are real and very few other people in this thread seem at all aware/concerned about them. I believe if you get a chance to help decide with your vote, you should have a clear idea of the pros and the cons when you make your decision and not base your decision on myths and false beliefs and arguments. As I'm not an american and agree that the way smokers have been treated in the US only hurts society, I may be less biased than you think I am.

All true but none of it bears on the importance of cannabis use in the US today. Alcohol was/is more commonly recognized as part of the food culture because early US customs were adopted by European ones (the colonizers' customs). However, pot smoking has been very popular in the US and, I think, in the Western world for quite long time. The disparity between the two drugs' use is primarily because alcohol was more commonly known at an earlier point in human history. However, as soon as cannabis intoxication was discovered by the majority of western societies, it became very popular. At least that is the case in the US. Europe too, I think.

I know from experience that this is not true. Alcohol use is more prevalent among society in general but weed-smoking is definitely not constrained to any social groups. Some of all tiers of US society use it.

I don't have the stats on-hand but I think this is wrong. It's not part of the food culture because it's been illegal for so long. But, again, having walked among many various groups of them, I know that a certain percentage of people in every part of US culture smokes pot.
There are people now making a legal living from it's production and distribution. It only takes a few centuries for a drug industry to become deeply ingrained in a culture. Perhaps now is the beginning of that for the pot industry, just like it was at one point for the alcohol industry.

They won't play out the same. They're different drugs that appeal to different people. But this would be the case no matter how long one or the other drug was socially acceptable. Again I say alcohol only has a longer history of use. It doesn't have more recognizable appeal because of this, it only has more usage.

None of those posts indicate schizophrenia or appreciable mental damage. People "freak out" a lot over all kinds of experiences but that doesn't necessarily make those people irreparably damaged or impaired.
A lot of sane people have sworn off alcohol because of how it makes them feel or act.

I admit that I didn't read that and I guess I should if I want to credibly oppose your arguments but I repeat: I know that A LOT of people in the US smoke pot and have no resulting mental damage. And I do mean a lot, I've seen it. Many Americans have also seen it. Many casual pot smokers don't even use alcohol. So pot makes a predictable amount of users insane while alcohol makes a predictable amount of people dead from accidents and disease. None of that justifies pot prohibition or alcohol prohibition.

The legalization of both are acceptable risks for US society.

I say this simply because you are saying some of the dangers of cannabis are hard to foresee. I'm just saying that the same thing can be said for alcohol, wine to be more specific.

Wow, how much money did it cost per year to keep ourselves situated in Iraq (out of curiosity)?

Pot makes a predictable amount of people sick when the numbers of people are very large because you can then use it in statistics. You can then say something like 6 in every 100 people who use cannabis will become schizophrenic compared to 1 in 100 who don't use it. Still, that doesn't mean the effect of cannabis is predictable to every user. Getting high is generally pleasurable, but can be a deeply traumatic experience to some. That's not uncommon in psychoactive drugs like LSD and shrooms. The same is not true for alcohol, hence people have to take other things in consideration when looking at the different drugs.

As for the rest of your post, I see little in it that I feel justifies the argument that the same scenario will play/is playing out for cannabis prohibition as it did for alcohol prohibition. Sure, cannabis could become infused in american society to the extent alcohol is in the future, but then those points will be valid in the future - not now. For the record, I don't believe cannabis ever will become as socially embraced as alcohol as long as it's prohibited, so (imo) the difference between long history of legality and sudden illegality versus the cannabis legal situation today is quite significant.

And I'm saying that doesn't matter. How is that a valid pro-legalization argument?

Approximately 100 billion each year. Its most likely more than that, though.

How does it not matter? I'm not using it for a legalization argument. So you're saying that the dangers of cannabis are important but the dangers of alcohol are not?


So you are saying that alcohol doesn't play a role in traumatic experiences? The effects of alcohol cause people to do things that create traumatic experiences for others, and in turn can create trauma for themselves (guilt). For example, you're driving drunk and you get in a wreck with another car and you kill someone. That not only causes trauma for the loved ones of the people you killed, it should cause trauma for you, knowing that you've killed another person.

When discussing cannabis legality, it doesn't matter. Alcohol is already embraced by society and even though you could argue that alcohol should be illegal for the same reason cannabis should, that doesn't mean that one would have to accept that illegality for alcohol would be best for society right now. As I mentioned, it's a lot easier to legalize a recreational drug than it is to make it illegal. Making alcohol illegal will put every pub and many breweries, distilleries and wineries out of business and will make a ****load of people very unhappy. Those are negative consequences on society. The continued illegality of cannabis has different consequences than a sudden illegality of alcohol, so why do you feel everyone who argues against legalization of cannabis has to be for illegality of alcohol and all related negative consequences like every pub going out of business?

edit :

Are you taking this discussion seriously or are you just pulling my leg? Or is it a third alternative?

Answer the question.

I understand that. But continuing the illegality of cannabis IS hurting the US economy.

Finally, a valid pro-legalization argument that I can respect. It's the first one I can remember seeing from you, so congratulations.

It's so damn obvious, it doesn't need to be said. You can continue rambling on about the cons of legalization, but the fact is, the pros far outweigh the cons.

Of course the effects are not predictable for every user but, for what my observations are worth, I think your hypotheticals (6 out of 100 users sick vs. 1 out of 100 non-users sick) are pretty drastic. But, like I said, I haven't studied all the research so I'm just making an educated guess about this.

True but you only mentioned LSD, psilocybin, and alcohol here. Not marijuana which is the main topic, right?

My argument is hypothetical and the legality of marijuana wouldn't be a sudden decision. The laws surrounding it have been controversial for nearly one century already.

And of course the embrace of marijuana's legalization is inhibited by its prohibition. Any relevant points that will be valid in the future are relevant now. Realization of this is how change begins.

edit: I think I addressed the economic problems that pot prohibition causes when I talked about how non-violent criminals who don't pose a significant threat to society are imprisoned with public funds.

Tore, have you ever smoked marijuana?

Is that fact? Why are we at all discussing it then? :p:

I accept that the pros of legalization may outweigh the cons of the current situation, but the best solution overall could be decriminalization.

.. And on a side note, perhaps fixing the american prison system so that it's not one huge boot camp for criminals. From here commenting a bit crudely, it looks like every time you put someone in jail, that person comes out a worse menace to society than when he or she went in. Of course any law that puts a lot of people in prison under those circumstances will tax society tremendously.

Yes, like so many, I experimented in my youth, but never did it much because I'm another one of those who do get paranoid on cannabis (which was a surprise to me). My friends today are generally not cannabis users.

Most definitely.

From an economic standpoint, legalization would do great things. It would generate so much money into the economy and It would create many jobs (it already has in states that have legalized medicinal use). And when your country is in as much debt as America, and unemployment rates are at all Time highs, those things are very important.

I fully accept the validity of that point and it's the argument which first made me reconsider my stance on this issue many pages ago (or was it in a different thread?).

That nobody will want to do because they're all stoned

:)

when i'm working, i feel perfectly stoned anyway

Na, we'd all just be really late getting to work. But our boss wouldn't care because he's high too. And every office will have a nacho dispenser. Traffic on the way home? Nobody cares because everybody is high. They'll build fast food joints every quarter mile, and line the sides of the road with hostess snacks. Highway signs will be replaced with giant LCD flat screens playing Go Gabba Gabba, Power Rangers and Teletubbies 24/7.

Perfect world.

I think you may be convincing me :laughing:

The office would have a juice dispenser like in McD's, so you can cure your thirst at anytime. We would have offices full of bean bags and playstations for breaks too. And a cheeseburger making chef.

best thing is you never have to make a joke ever again

just say anything and the whole office will be laughing

We should show this thread to Congress, these last few posts will definitely convince them.

I would say that there are many things one can consume, from caffeine to peanuts, which you can't know beforehand how they will affect you. Nevertheless, as long as things can be regulated and people can be made aware of the risks, I see no problem with adults trying them if they so desire. This issue of regulation is actually an excellent reason to support legalization over simple decriminalization as well in my opinion.

Er... that seems like an odd criticism to make considering that the post you're referring to was actually just a response to a not particularly substantive little remark from you. I have to admit I'm a little surprised by the personal attack as well.

:laughing:

I think if we give all of congress a box of weed cigars and just tell them they're Cubans we'd have a much better chance of getting pot legalized.

What personal attack?

Exactly the point I was making about allergic reactions to alcohol.