Skepticologist

This country is so hung up on drugs that it can't see beyond the end of its nose. Let's just look at it from an economic standpoint. How many billions of dollars have been spent on the "war on drugs" over the past 40 years or so? And, still, is there anyone in this country who wants drugs who can't easily find them?

I'm not personaLLY convinced whether drugs are inherently good or bad. They are, to put it simply, a fact of life in this country. Some Scandinavian countries, most noteably Sweden, accepted that inevitable reality decades ago and, instead of populating their prisons with every "head" they caught using or dealing, they took the radical step of making drugs, as well as treatment programs, legally available in state clinics. As a consequence, they decriminalized drug use, and in so doing, they made it unprofitable to clandestine suppliers. So, there are virtually no muggings or robberies or murders in Sweden perpetrated by drug users, and absolutely none by drug suppliers, because the state is the supplier at a cost they can't compete with.

Contrast that system with the one in place in the good ol' US of A, thanks to the religious right and others who insist on fighting "evil" at every turn, which hasn't made even a small dent in drug use, nor in the violence perpetuated on innocent citizens who have a bit of money in their wallets and put themselves in vulnerable situations, nor in the number of users and suppliers who are invarcerated at the expense of the taxpayers, and it's easy to see which is the better system.

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"I am an agnostic; I do not pretend to know what many ignorant men are sure of."

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debdodd

those damn religious conservators keep screwing everything up and keep us in the dark ages!!

Until our government is as old as others through out the world (i.e. Sweden as Skept mentioned) we are going to continue to have this ego of "we can "fix" anything" .... in some ways the American "can do" spirit is empowering but I see it in the long run as just a road block to our success as a nation.

We Americans buy into the idea of there is an answer to everything. Hell, most of the time I am clueless as to what the question is let alone the answers. The older I get the more clueless I feel .... what happened to the days when I knew it all?

Oh yeah now I remember I have a kid that knows it all so I can forget what I thought I knew so that he can tell me how much I don't know and if I just listened to him then I would know everything and then I would have all the answers to the stupid questions that I ask or the idiotic opinions that I have and then I wouldn't have to ask him what he thought or have a discussion that I was clearly underprepared for or that I know nothing about .... I'm not sure .... I better go ask him what I think ....

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"Ubi dubium ibi libertas."

"We are all lone souls. It pays to know humility, lest the delusion of control, of mastery, overwhelms. And indeed, we seem a species prone to that delusion, again and ever again ....."

GX

I must have missed this one...MagisterFaust, you are only partly correct here. There are so many varieties (sativa and indica) and strains within those varieties as well as level of THC within those varieties that each plant will give substantially different effects. Weed is like alcohol in that regard. Some are like beer, some like wine and some like tequila and moonshine.
The effects you describe are of the high thc strains. There are strains however that do give you that mild mellow buzz that many achieved during the 70's and its no bullshit or myth. As far as the argument for legalising it having to change due to its strength, I feel the opposite is true. If you legalize it, you can regulate its strength so that the stuff sold is the mellow, light buzz stuff from the 70's instead of the high thc paranoia inducing stuff you get on the streets now.

GX

This IMHO is the most pressing reason to legalize marijuana. Deforestation will cause catastrophic climate changes. Marijuana can be used to supply the majority of the raw materials needed that trees are now being cut down for without any negative effect on climate or soil whatsoever.


Prince Charles: Eighteen months to stop climate change disaster
By Andrew Pierce
Last Updated: 1:08PM BST 18/05/2008
The Prince of Wales has warned that the world faces a series of natural disasters within 18 months unless urgent action is taken to save the rainforests.

A chameleon in a Madagascar rainforest. Prince Charles has warned of 'disaster' if urgent steps are not taken to protect the forests
In one of his most out-spoken interventions in the climate change debate, he said a £15 billion annual programme was required to halt deforestation or the world would have to live with the dire consequences.

"We will end up seeing more drought and starvation on a grand scale. Weather patterns will become even more terrifying and there will be less and less rainfall," he said.

"We are asking for something pretty dreadful unless we really understand the issues now and [the] urgency of them." The Prince said the rainforests, which provide the "air conditioning system for the entire planet", releasing water vapour and absorbing carbon, were being lost to poor farmers desperate to make a living.

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He said that every year, 20 million hectares of forest – equivalent to the area of England, Wales and Scotland – were destroyed and called for a "gigantic partnership" of governments, businesses and consumers to slow it down.

"What we have got to do is try to ensure that these forests are more valuable alive than dead. At the moment, there is more value in them being dead," he said.

He estimated that the cost would be about £15 billion a year but said that this should be viewed as an insurance policy for the whole world. "That is roughly just under one per cent of all the insurance premiums paid in the world in any one year. It is an insurance premium to ensure the world has some rainfall and reasonable weather patterns. It is a good deal."

Last month, the Prince had a meeting at St James's Palace with four state governors from Brazil to discuss the best way to allocate the money. One option would be for an organisation such as the World Bank to administer the fund. The Prince made clear yesterday that if nothing was done there was a "severe danger of losing a major part of the battle against climate change".

In an interview on Radio 4's Today programme, the Prince disclosed that he had raised his concerns with the White House, Vladimir Putin, the Russian prime minister, and President Sarkozy, of France. He said he had pressed Barclays, Shell, Goldman Sachs and McDonald's to join his campaign.

But he also said consumers had to play their part by choosing products that were environmentally sustainable and called for improvements in labelling.

He denied, however, that he was interfering in the political process. "All I am ever trying to do is to provide an enabling facility," he said.

He conceded that at times he had been forced to keep his counsel when he would have liked to have spoken out. "You learn as you go along. I am going to be 60 this year. I would be a blinding idiot if I had not learnt a bit by now."

•The number of birds, animals, marine and freshwater creatures in the world has dropped by almost one third, according to the WWF conservation organisation. It found that between 1970 and 2005 land-based species fell by 25 per cent, marine species by 28 per cent and freshwater species by 29 per cent.

romansh

Prince Charles .....

he may well have a valid point. But using him to give credence to your argument?????
There is a reason the queen is hanging on to the crown for dear life.

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There is a theory which states that if ever anybody discovers exactly what the Universe is for and why it is here, it will instantly disappear and be replaced by something even more bizarre and inexplicable. There is another theory which states that this has already happened. ........... Douglas Adams

GX

We'll take all the help and publicity we can get!

Buddha

I would love to go down to the local seven eleven and pick up a pack of J's in lights or regulars. Hell, if it ever happens I may even fly an american flag. Land of the free my ass.

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Compromise, conformity, assimilation, submission
Ignorance, hypocrisy, brutality, the elite
All of which are american dreams

Ice_Monkey

and I've yet to debate it with anyone capable of formulating a coherent argument against it.

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God created humans to act as if they possessed human nature, and by god, he's not going to let us get away with it!

Ice_Monkey

indeed.

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God created humans to act as if they possessed human nature, and by god, he's not going to let us get away with it!

jaej

Why would anyone want to legalize? It's not like thc has been shown to shrink tumors or anything. And it doesn't cause cancer and liver disease like fags and alcohol, so that's a double no-no. Not to mention the rampant problem of stoners raping and murdering everyone they see.

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