Hard Light Productions Forums
Off-Topic Discussion => General Discussion => Topic started by: highwayman on July 31, 2008, 04:20:13 pm
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http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/30/frank.marijuana/index.html (http://www.cnn.com/2008/POLITICS/07/30/frank.marijuana/index.html)
Decriminalize pot? I say yes. It will save the country billions of dollars, will allow law enforcement to focus on violent crime and will drastically reduce the number of people being sent to prison. While I disagree with the argument that weed is completely harmless - in some it causes depression, anxiety and, of course, is not good for the lungs, I do believe that is far less harmful than alcohol or cigarrettes, and certainly not nearly on par with the damage harder drugs can do to a person. It is not a "gateway" drug, as many like to claim, and most users are otherwise law-abiding citizens who are not a drag on society as a whole (unless they are imprisoned for possession, then they cost us all money). All of these points also overlook its medicinal benefits to sufferers of multiple diseases.
Some might say that decriminalizing marijuana is, in essence, saying it's okay to smoke/use it and telling kids that it's acceptable to do. While some might take that message away, again, compare it to alcohol and cigarettes - most parents/teachers warn kids about abusing those substances, and the same should follow for weed. What it does is give people the freedom to choose for themselves, without fear of government reprisal (and again, freedom to choose to use a mild narcotic that is not addictive and does not lead to violent nor anti-social behavior, as alcohol or harder drugs can). This should not take away a company's right to drug test (especially in industries involving driving or operating machinery), and there should also be some sort of a test developed, like a breathalyzer for alcohol, to determine if someone is too intoxicated to drive under its influence. I don't advocate complete anarchy, just some sort of reason in the legal system, especially since all of the current laws governing marijuana usage were drafted without any real knowledge of its effects or benefits and the thinking on the subject, by the legal system, at least, is tainted by years of misinformation and prejudice.
Anyway, those are some of my thoughts on the subject.
Related: How America Lost the War on Drugs - very interesting and long read, assessing the various campaigns and attempts to limit drug use in America from the 70s to the present: http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/17438347/how_america_lost_the_war_on_drugs/print (http://www.rollingstone.com/politics/story/17438347/how_america_lost_the_war_on_drugs/print) (basically, $500 billion spent, millions of people in jail/killed in the US and internationally and drugs are as cheap and easily obtained as they were when the War on Drugs began 35 years ago).
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I consider this a more important reason for me to vote than the presidency; Barack Obama is a given in Massachusetts, but the decriminalization issue, as far as I can tell, is up in the air.
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Now how did I know this would be about weed? I have several friends who smoke, and no, they do not suffer as many ill effects as the ones who drink and smoke cigarettes. One of them is the girl who was this year's valedictorian. I believe that it is less addictive than cigarettes, and less harmful socially than alcohol.
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dont make weed legal. then i would probibly do absolutely nothing with my life. besides its no fun when you dont have to dodge cops all day to get a dime.
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High in public laws?
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High in public laws?
Probably just fall under the general classification of "public intoxication/DWI."
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They tried to make cannabis a lower class of drug in the UK recently (From class b to class c) making it a non arrestable offence to be carrying a small quantity for personal use (Dealers however still were arrested). However, they put it back to class b when stronger and stronger strains of "Skunk" hit the streets and some people were stating they didn't know the longer terms effects of this type of drug! :rolleyes:
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by criminalising cannabis and other recreational soft and hard drugs in its many forms our governments are guilty of financialy supporting terrorism and criminal organisations .
personally i think if you want to poison yourself with what ever drug you choose this should be your right , i also believe that the gouverments would then be able to control the quality and toxicity of these recreational drugs causng less deaths from "bad cooks" ... but then again would meth-amphetamine ever be the same?
by legalising the drugs and licensing the points of sale the educational and health issues could be addressed if your to drunk in pubs they stop serving you , if your too stoned they can do the same , this would also add useful revenue to the economy ....
its time we as citizens of the world take personal responsability for our actions and choices and this way maybe , just maybe we will grow up....
and before you ask , i dont take drugs .....
except the legal ones.........
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It's a mixed bag for me. Is there any kind of legal precedent? The only kind of thing I can think of in the States that is (A) Done for pleasure/recreational purposes (B) Doesn't provide any other benefits and (C) can be hazardous to your health without too much trouble, would be smoking tobacco. But even that has less of a risk; you have more motivation to OD on marijuana than to shove six cigarettes in your mouth and die from smoke inhalation.
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can you OD on mary jane?
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can you OD on mary jane?
You can OD on anything, if you try hard enough.
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how much mary jane would it take though? wouldn't someone get sick of it before that ever happened? or fall asleep?...
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The general theory is that if you're actually close to ODing on pot, it's incredibly hard to actually smoke more.
*bubble sound*
*arm fails*
*teenager strains to lift bong, collapses*
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after the 4th bowl your just so disconnected with reality that you cant really keep smoking it. by then your spilling your weed on the floor, getting bong water all over everything, youre incapable of rolling a joint or even operating a lighter. granted you can have several pre-rolled joints on hand but you will probibly pass out or fall asleep before you can smoke a dangerous amount. i know ive done it :D
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i know ive done it :D
No doubt.
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can you OD on mary jane?
You would have to smoke two-thirds of your own body-weight of pot in 15 minutes to get a lethal dose (or eat one-third of your body weight in 15 minutes - you lose potency through smoking). Another gov't study was unable to find a reliable lethal dose of THC:
7. Drugs used in medicine are routinely given what is called
an LD-50. The LD-50 rating indicates at what dosage fifty percent of
test animals receiving a drug will die as a result of drug induced
toxicity. A number of researchers have attempted to determine
marijuana's LD-50 rating in test animals, without success. Simply
stated, researchers have been unable to give animals enough marijuana to
induce death.
8. At present it is estimated that marijuana's LD-50 is around
1:20,000 or 1:40,000. In layman terms this means that in order to induce
death a marijuana smoker would have to consume 20,000 to 40,000 times as
much marijuana as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. NIDA-supplied
marijuana cigarettes weigh approximately .9 grams. A smoker would
theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of marijuana within
about fifteen minutes to induce a lethal response.
9. In practical terms, marijuana cannot induce a lethal
response as a result of drug-related toxicity.
If you take a very high dose of marijuana - like if you ate an ounce or more - you might experience hallucinations and have an unpleasant experience. But in terms of poisoning your body to the point where you'd become physically ill or experience organ failure, it is pretty much impossible to do under realistic conditions.
This is what happens when you "overdose" on pot: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-iBJQFMvgo (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=d-iBJQFMvgo) - you might do stupid things that put you in danger (if you have poor judgment to begin with), but the active ingredient in the drug itself has not been found to have killed anyone on its own, ever.
Other sources:
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_die_from_smoking_marijuana (http://wiki.answers.com/Q/Can_you_die_from_smoking_marijuana)
http://www.sirened.com/can-you-actually-die-from-an-overdose-of-marijuana (http://www.sirened.com/can-you-actually-die-from-an-overdose-of-marijuana)
http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/mj_overdose.htm (http://druglibrary.org/schaffer/library/mj_overdose.htm)
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Seriously, pot has a miraculous self-regulating property. It's not like alcohol, where the more you drink, the more you think you're not drunk enough. With weed, somewhere between the point at which you're crying as you imagine every particle of the universe singing as a voice in a thunderous, divine polyphony, and the point at which you forget how to answer yes-or-no questions/speak/blink/move, you cut yourself off.
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lol... bunch a' stoners on these forums.
Seriously, pot has a miraculous self-regulating property. It's not like alcohol, where the more you drink, the more you think you're not drunk enough. With weed, somewhere between the point at which you're crying as you imagine every particle of the universe singing as a voice in a thunderous, divine polyphony, and the point at which you forget how to answer yes-or-no questions/speak/blink/move, you cut yourself off.
Amazing quote
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lol... bunch a' stoners on these forums.
(http://thebrowntimes.com/funnypics/albums/ghetto/warnabrother.jpg)
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Thing is, I have yet to see a reason that if it were decriminalized it shouldn't be even more heavily regulated then tobacco, but nobody wishing to decriminalize it wants to touch that with a ten-foot pole. So, okay, sure, we'll talk when you're ready to deal with that.
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I quit a year or so ago, so I'm all for legal but heavily regulated.
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this tread makes me want to smoke a bowl
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this tread makes me want to smoke a bowl
I beat you to it.
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Thing is, I have yet to see a reason that if it were decriminalized it shouldn't be even more heavily regulated then tobacco, but nobody wishing to decriminalize it wants to touch that with a ten-foot pole. So, okay, sure, we'll talk when you're ready to deal with that.
Um, how about we start with the fact that marijuana doesn't contain half of all the carcinogens known to man.
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Um, how about we start with the fact that marijuana doesn't contain half of all the carcinogens known to man.
Wrong answer. The smoke's actually more carcinogenic then cigarette smoke. Try again.
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Because most people won't smoke a pack of blunts a day?
Because they won't do this every day
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Wrong answer. The smoke's actually more carcinogenic then cigarette smoke. Try again.
Eh, not according to my understanding. Kindly substantiate.
And Mars is also right. Nobody smokes marijuana the way people smoke cigarettes, because it's not chemically addictive. So even if that suspect claim were worthy of any credence, cigarettes would still pose a greater risk as far as cancer is concerned.
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Eh, not according to my understanding. Kindly substantiate.
To be fair, people actually inhale less (usually) then they do with cigarettes, but there's actually a larger amount of tars in marijuana then there is in the average cigarette (according to various studies that have been waved about here in California over medical marijuana, by as much as twice), and the people who brought you the secondhand smoke troubles will have a field day with that. So they don't need a pack a day to pose the same risk, if not to themselves necessarily.
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Eh, not according to my understanding. Kindly substantiate.
To be fair, people actually inhale less (usually) then they do with cigarettes, but there's actually a larger amount of tars in marijuana then there is in the average cigarette (according to various studies that have been waved about here in California over medical marijuana, by as much as twice), and the people who brought you the secondhand smoke troubles will have a field day with that. So they don't need a pack a day to pose the same risk, if not to themselves necessarily.
Smoking it is definitely not healthy and depending on how much you smoke, it could possibly more harmful to you than cigarrettes over a long period of time. Were it legalized (not just decriminalized, which is quite different), there should be similar laws to cigs/alcohol - over 18/21 to purchase, no smoking in enclosed public spaces (if such laws exist in your locality) and clear warnings to consumers about possible adverse health effects. But as for determining those adverse health effects, far more money and effort need to be devoted to studying short- and long-term effects of marijuana usage - currently there are rather few studies on its effects, partly because the US government has been so determined to keep it illegal and has not been interested in granting exemptions or funding studies. I'd imagine that decriminalizing it would spur more in-depth studies if the goal was eventually to regulate and legalize.
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Alaska, where I am temporarily living, has the loosest laws on marijuana in the USA. I could possess 1 oz of marijuana with no penalty whatsoever (in my experience that is more than enough). 4 oz is only a misdemeanor with a fine up to 1,000 dollars. The enforcement agencies in my area don't bother with marijuana because meth is a much bigger problem up here. Hell, now that I think of it, Ive only seen one police car in the 3 months I've been here.
I am still very puzzled as to why this drug is almost unilaterally considered illegal across the globe? What is so nefarious about weed that it requires the strictest punishment? Why dont most of the countries around the world ban alcohol as well? It cannot solely be the dangers of the drug. There must be an explanation more complicated than that...
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do you live in juneau? there's so much weed here i find it rather amusing how some 75% of the populace acts stoned.
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dont make weed legal. then i would probibly do absolutely nothing with my life. besides its no fun when you dont have to dodge cops all day to get a dime.
What if after the cops catch you then you have to smoke whatever you're carrying and then catch them? :D
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If anyone wants legilation, do it the right way... We have weed decriminalization in The Netherlands (Which you all probabaly already know), but although selling weed isn't illegal, mass-scale (more then two plants) production is. And that is the only way to get enough amounts of it...
So bassicly, weed is still illegal in NL.
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Alaska, where I am temporarily living, has the loosest laws on marijuana in the USA. I could possess 1 oz of marijuana with no penalty whatsoever (in my experience that is more than enough). 4 oz is only a misdemeanor with a fine up to 1,000 dollars. The enforcement agencies in my area don't bother with marijuana because meth is a much bigger problem up here. Hell, now that I think of it, Ive only seen one police car in the 3 months I've been here.
I am still very puzzled as to why this drug is almost unilaterally considered illegal across the globe? What is so nefarious about weed that it requires the strictest punishment? Why dont most of the countries around the world ban alcohol as well? It cannot solely be the dangers of the drug. There must be an explanation more complicated than that...
Yeah, weed is pretty much legal up here. As long as you keep it at your house. If you're caught transporting it, well then you're a dumbass and no one should ever rely on you for transporting stuff in secret ever again. Other than that, do it at your house, don't do it in public. It surprises me how people get caught smoking weed because they choose many of the worlds worst places to hide and smoke it. Only the smarter people seem to mandate the awesome secluded hidden area in a forest with room for a getaway trail.
I don't smoke weed, but i do have an awesome secluded hidden area in a random forest clearing that's about 25ft diameter walled off by tons of dead trees and logs with two entries, a firepit, and a hidden underground cooler. A totally awesome camp out spot, and the only place where my permafrost cooled secret cooler gets shared with my trusted under age friends.
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I don't smoke weed, but i do have an awesome secluded hidden area in a random forest clearing that's about 25ft diameter walled off by tons of dead trees and logs with two entries, a firepit, and a hidden underground cooler. A totally awesome camp out spot, and the only place where my permafrost cooled secret cooler gets shared with my trusted under age friends.
What else do you do in there?
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That would be pretty cold
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Alaska, where I am temporarily living, has the loosest laws on marijuana in the USA. I could possess 1 oz of marijuana with no penalty whatsoever (in my experience that is more than enough). 4 oz is only a misdemeanor with a fine up to 1,000 dollars. The enforcement agencies in my area don't bother with marijuana because meth is a much bigger problem up here. Hell, now that I think of it, Ive only seen one police car in the 3 months I've been here.
I am still very puzzled as to why this drug is almost unilaterally considered illegal across the globe? What is so nefarious about weed that it requires the strictest punishment? Why dont most of the countries around the world ban alcohol as well? It cannot solely be the dangers of the drug. There must be an explanation more complicated than that...
Want an explanation? It's very hard to tax.
Anyone can grow weed in large quantities quite easily with few or no special tools required. That means most marijuana will be sold by off-the-books dealers and the government won't get its cut.
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Eh, not according to my understanding. Kindly substantiate.
To be fair, people actually inhale less (usually) then they do with cigarettes, but there's actually a larger amount of tars in marijuana then there is in the average cigarette (according to various studies that have been waved about here in California over medical marijuana, by as much as twice), and the people who brought you the secondhand smoke troubles will have a field day with that. So they don't need a pack a day to pose the same risk, if not to themselves necessarily.
Smoking it is definitely not healthy and depending on how much you smoke, it could possibly more harmful to you than cigarrettes over a long period of time. Were it legalized (not just decriminalized, which is quite different), there should be similar laws to cigs/alcohol - over 18/21 to purchase, no smoking in enclosed public spaces (if such laws exist in your locality) and clear warnings to consumers about possible adverse health effects. But as for determining those adverse health effects, far more money and effort need to be devoted to studying short- and long-term effects of marijuana usage - currently there are rather few studies on its effects, partly because the US government has been so determined to keep it illegal and has not been interested in granting exemptions or funding studies. I'd imagine that decriminalizing it would spur more in-depth studies if the goal was eventually to regulate and legalize.
No, the carcinogenic effects of smoke produced by burning cannabis are fairly well known and studied. Cannabis contains more natural carcinogens than cigarettes even have added to them during processing, and despite the fact that marijuana users tend to smoke less in general, they hold smoke longer and breathe deeper, thus ensuring they are actually at much higher carcinogen exposure levels than your average cigarette user.
In short, like pretty much every other kind of smoke you inhale:
...it's bad for you, mmmkay? =)
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Honestly snail, it was a spot me and my friends used to drink at and cook hotdogs. Occasionally a spot where i'd go to sneak a beer or a smoke because of some stress. But, my other friend, if he still did weed at the time, then i know for sure he was smart and smoked back there. The spot is located way far on the back of his property deep in the forest and about a hundred feet away from a neighborhood road. It's within walking distance from my place. It's pretty cool.
I don't use the spot any more for anything unless i need absolute safe storage of something. My friend moved out of his house, so his backyard fence is no longer maintained, so the dogs can get out and go see what that crunching of dead leaves in the forest is and bark at it. His gma still lives there and is a *****.
That would be pretty cold
Actually when we made the underground cooler, we just dug like a 3 foot deep hole with the cooler taking up two feet of the depth and this took place in summer. When we closed the lid to the cooler, we had a foot thick chunk of dense forest ground moss to put on top of it, the chunk of moss was supported by some metal grating with a hidden handle that was like two inches underground when the moss is in place. And loaded it up with beer, we were then going to buy some ice later in the day. We forgot to buy ice, so we just decided to drink the beer. To our amazement it had all nice and cold like a normal refrigerator. That's when our brainfart for the day ended and realized it was due to the permafrost in the ground during summer keeping everything cold.
Having an underground cooler in summer where there's permafrost is really cool.
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No, the carcinogenic effects of smoke produced by burning cannabis are fairly well known and studied. Cannabis contains more natural carcinogens than cigarettes even have added to them during processing, and despite the fact that marijuana users tend to smoke less in general, they hold smoke longer and breathe deeper, thus ensuring they are actually at much higher carcinogen exposure levels than your average cigarette user.
In short, like pretty much every other kind of smoke you inhale:
...it's bad for you, mmmkay? =)
Well it's somewhat misleading to just say that pot smokers are exposed to more carcinogens without showing the results of that exposure. In fact, while there are indeed more carcinogens, a recent study on long-term effects among the baby boom generation showed that even among the heaviest smokers over a period of decades, there was no increased risk of lung cancer compared to people who smoked less or not at all (see link below).
A total of 611 lung cancer patients living in Los Angeles County, and 601 patients with other cancers of the head and neck were compared with 1,040 people without cancer matched for age, sex, and the neighborhood they lived in.
All the participants were asked about lifetime use of marijuana, tobacco, and alcohol, as well as other drugs, their diets, occupation, family history of lung cancer, and socioeconomic status.
The heaviest marijuana users in the study had smoked more than 22,000 joints, while moderately heavy smokers had smoked between 11,000 and 22,000 joints.
While two-pack-a-day or more cigarette smokers were found to have a 20-fold increase in lung cancer risk, no elevation in risk was seen for even the very heaviest marijuana smokers.
The more tobacco a person smoked, the greater their risk of developing lung cancer and other cancers of the head and neck. But people who smoked more marijuana were not at increased risk compared with people who smoked less and people who didn’t smoke at all.
Here's the full story link (from FoxNews, nonetheless, although I have seen it reported elsewhere by more reputable news sites): http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196678,00.html (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,196678,00.html).
So, yeah, pot smokers are exposed to more carcinogens, but there is clearly a difference between the other substances in pot and in cigarrettes which alter how the body reacts to those carcinogens. Focusing just on the carcinogenic qualities does not tell the whole story.
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Alaska, where I am temporarily living, has the loosest laws on marijuana in the USA. I could possess 1 oz of marijuana with no penalty whatsoever (in my experience that is more than enough). 4 oz is only a misdemeanor with a fine up to 1,000 dollars. The enforcement agencies in my area don't bother with marijuana because meth is a much bigger problem up here. Hell, now that I think of it, Ive only seen one police car in the 3 months I've been here.
I am still very puzzled as to why this drug is almost unilaterally considered illegal across the globe? What is so nefarious about weed that it requires the strictest punishment? Why dont most of the countries around the world ban alcohol as well? It cannot solely be the dangers of the drug. There must be an explanation more complicated than that...
Want an explanation? It's very hard to tax.
Anyone can grow weed in large quantities quite easily with few or no special tools required. That means most marijuana will be sold by off-the-books dealers and the government won't get its cut.
wrong
weed is a 10 hour job from what i hear. always changing bulbs and maintaining tempuratue, dipping the plants several times a week, to kill mites. keeping the plants from becoming hermaphroditic. few people know you can only smoke female plants. once you got a good strain then you clone it. then you got to make sure it doesnt gender bend. weed is a very difficult plant. i know a grower you see. he has a masters degree in horticulture and was an award winning grower. he stopped growing when laws changed making it easyer for cops to do unexpected search and seizure. oh yes did i mention dodging the police? monitoring scanners, keeping a truck on standby to haul off the plants should your adress flash over. granted you can grow skunk weed with a fraction of the work.
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Alaska, where I am temporarily living, has the loosest laws on marijuana in the USA. I could possess 1 oz of marijuana with no penalty whatsoever (in my experience that is more than enough). 4 oz is only a misdemeanor with a fine up to 1,000 dollars. The enforcement agencies in my area don't bother with marijuana because meth is a much bigger problem up here. Hell, now that I think of it, Ive only seen one police car in the 3 months I've been here.
I am still very puzzled as to why this drug is almost unilaterally considered illegal across the globe? What is so nefarious about weed that it requires the strictest punishment? Why dont most of the countries around the world ban alcohol as well? It cannot solely be the dangers of the drug. There must be an explanation more complicated than that...
Want an explanation? It's very hard to tax.
Anyone can grow weed in large quantities quite easily with few or no special tools required. That means most marijuana will be sold by off-the-books dealers and the government won't get its cut.
wrong
weed is a 10 hour job from what i hear. always changing bulbs and maintaining tempuratue, dipping the plants several times a week, to kill mites. keeping the plants from becoming hermaphroditic. few people know you can only smoke female plants. once you got a good strain then you clone it. then you got to make sure it doesnt gender bend. weed is a very difficult plant. i know a grower you see. he has a masters degree in horticulture and was an award winning grower. he stopped growing when laws changed making it easyer for cops to do unexpected search and seizure. oh yes did i mention dodging the police?
Plus if you grow it outside, you have to worry about people stealing it or wildlife eating it. Deer love eating pot plants. It might not be hard to just chuck a bunch of seeds out and have plants sprout, but to get a smokeable product, it requires a lot of care, just like any other farmed product.
I read a pretty good book about some guys who are recruited into the weed farming business in a remote California location with very high expectations and see it all go tragicomically wrong. Book is Budding Prospects by TC Boyle.
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It doesn't change the fact that average joe can buy a couple hundred dollars worth of stuff and have a good chance of being able to grow a fair amount of weed.
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Best place i've seen for the stuff so far was a trapdoor in the kitchen of my friends house leading to a room that goes under their house. It's insulated, kept warm, has a fan, and 4 gigantic plants. It was a great place to keep the stuff. My friends family then gave away all the cats that kept making kittens frequently. That's how i found the pot room, i walked into the kitchen and saw a bunch of kitties sleeping on top of a doormat. I went to pet one and found that the doormat was warm. No wonder the cats were sleeping right there in an otherwise pretty cold house. My friends dad showed me what was under the doormat the next day. It was one of those things where your eyes say holy **** rather than your mouth.