Do you smoke?

[jack palmer]

bmattock ,You need to lighten up, sounds like you've been listening to to much Rush Limbaugh or watching to much Shaun Hannity or maybe you're just wearing your underwear to tight.

 

[Gumby]

And what is your point anyway? I don't like pot? Or you don't like the fact that I like and smoke pot? What is to you? Or against you? And how much of those things against you are inflicted by the prohibition itself?

I await the answers with baited breath.

 

[Al Kaplan]

I guess maybe it's time to follow my neurologist's advice. She'll just be so proud to find out that I'm smoking pot again to control my seizures instead of supporting the big drug companies. Hmmmm...and my GP keeps telling me that if I was shtupping cute teenage girls I'd be unlikely to suffer from ED. This is getting better and better.

 

[40oz]

funny, I came to this thread because I am smoking a cigarette to the detriment of my health. I'm washing it down with a beer.

Once I check the latest posts, I find it's a discussion concerning pot, with one side being representing an intolerant position arguing that basically pot would be fine if it weren't illegal, and the other side being represented by rational and tolerant individuals saying the same thing pretty much lol.

"On the other hand, if a person in the USA buys pot, they are buying it, ipso facto, from criminals." (Only because possession is illegal, in point of fact.) Eerily similar to the "outlaw guns, and only outlaws will have guns" argument, IMHO.


Thank God I'm not hurting anything, much less myself, by smoking and drinking lol. It's the Demon Weed that causes all pain and suffering in this world

 

[mcctoronto]

Marijuana grown in the USA is grown in national forests and on public and private land that does not belong to the growers. They protect their interests with sophisticated alarm systems and kill trespassers. They are distributed by street gangs and outlaw motorcycle gangs that kill each others as well as innocent people who get in their way.

If you buy illegal drugs, your hands are not clean. You can think that they are if it helps you sleep better at night, but you're guilty in my opinion. I will do everything I can to make sure illegal drug buyers are arrested and prosecuted. I turn in drug dealers.

EDIT: And according to the DEA, only 25-30% of marijuana sold domestically in the US was grown here. Of course, with all illegal goods, estimates are prone to error.

Prone to an error of about 70 percent. That's one error they made on purpose. DEA loves to reword statements and use loopholes to make you believe and get their way. I have dealt drugs before. I sold weed on my bike for a delivery service like to the guy on the movie Half Baked. Met a lot of nice people. Learned a lot. I dare you to turn me in. PM me for an address. I would be proud to be arrested by such a fine law enforcement which has NEVER done anything wrong. HAHA !! I made a funny. The 25-30 percent your precious DEA refers to is the amount of drugs they put into community's themselves. Simply to meet quotas so they still have jobs in the end. Ever notice alot of police doing traffic and minor crimes at the end of the month? I have. Wonder why?

 

[literiter]

Once I check the latest posts, I find it's a discussion concerning pot, with one side being representing an intolerant position arguing that basically pot would be fine if it weren't illegal, and the other side being represented by rational and tolerant individuals saying the same thing pretty much lol.

This seems to point out the differences and odd similarities between the "conservative" mindset and the the "liberal" mindset. When all said and done the desires of each seems to amount to the same thing.
This is an interesting link talking about this very subject:
http://www.ted.com/index.php/talks/jonathan_haidt_on_the_moral_mind.html

 

[RF_newbie]

what did you say ?
oh man ...i have cotton mouth so bad, i need some ho-ho's and a 54 ounce thirstbuster. Oh no, where's my car man !
this is a killer conversation dude.....
OK what were you talking about ?
:smile:
really officer i thought it was legal in the state Utah !

 

[mcctoronto]

great video literiter

 

[Al Kaplan]

Yes indeed, the world is full of absolutes. One doctor telling me not to drive when I take my meds, the other telling me not to risk driving if I don't take them. Well, I just took my evening (legally prescribed) pill and I'm pleasantly stoned, a big drug company's profits are assured, and the children of some poor South American peasant will go to bed hungry again. Save The Children!

 

[Morca007]

There is a straight, bright, line connecting the average stoner to groups like FARC, MILF, the Taliban, Al Qaida, et al. If you don't wish to acknowledge it, fine with me. It does not change facts.

Seems there's only one option: Buy from a cause you support!


Now if only the EZLN grew marijuana...

 

[bmattock]

Once I check the latest posts, I find it's a discussion concerning pot, with one side being representing an intolerant position arguing that basically pot would be fine if it weren't illegal, and the other side being represented by rational and tolerant individuals saying the same thing pretty much lol.

That's not exactly correct. I initially only responded because I made a wisecrack in response to someone's assertion that they didn't smoke cigarettes (the implication being that they smoke something else) and I called pot smokers (half jokingly) 'criminal scum'.

I was asked to defend my remarks, and I did. Intolerant? I have made no judgments about pot, the benefits or lack of, please read what I said. In what way is it intolerant to point out that illegal purchases of pot fund criminal enterprises, including terrorist organizations? That's not a statement that can be said to be 'tolerant' or 'intolerant' - it is either true or false.

I have never said pot would be 'basically fine if not illegal', nor have I implied that. I have noted where illicit pot comes from, who funds and benefits from its sale.

 

[bmattock]

Yes indeed, the world is full of absolutes. One doctor telling me not to drive when I take my meds, the other telling me not to risk driving if I don't take them. Well, I just took my evening (legally prescribed) pill and I'm pleasantly stoned, a big drug company's profits are assured, and the children of some poor South American peasant will go to bed hungry again. Save The Children!

I love the comments - now that everyone has had some time to soak it all in, the apparent response is that no one can defeat my logic - so therefore, I am either 'intolerant' (according to some) or 'absolutist', not to mention 'right wing' and a Rush Limbaugh fan.

I do not know in what way it is a political 'absolutist' statement to say that the sun rises in the morning. I said that illicit drugs come from illicit sources, including terrorist organizations - that's nothing to to with absolutism, that's just fact, like the weather.

 

[russianRF]

So you agree that we should legalize it? It's been established that physically it's less damaging and addictive than, say, beer. If it were legalized it would instantly no longer be a source for illegitimate sources, including ethnic gangs, terrorists, and such. And you believe generally in the principles of capitalism, right? You understand that there is a market for it that isn't going away just because Uncle Sam wags his finger at you?

 

[bmattock]

So you agree that we should legalize it? It's been established that physically it's less damaging and addictive than, say, beer. If it were legalized it would instantly no longer be a source for illegitimate sources, including ethnic gangs, terrorists, and such. And you believe generally in the principles of capitalism, right? You understand that there is a market for it that isn't going away just because Uncle Sam wags his finger at you?

I agree that if marijuana were legalized in the USA, it would eliminate the illicit channels from which it comes, and end its usefulness as a source of income by various criminal organizations, including terrorists.

I agree with the principles of capitalism and free markets.

I also agree that the market is not going to go away because the US government wishes it to.

I will keep my opinion about the goodness or badness of marijuana as a relatively harmless recreational drug to myself, if you do not mind.

My observations were limited intentionally to describing the channels by which illicit pot is currently supplied - which seems to have unduly fashed a number of people, for reasons one can only speculate about.

 

[mcctoronto]

I didn't know people actually believed terrorists are in America. I now know there is no point in trying to talk because you are always right (wing).

 

[40oz]

That's not exactly correct. I initially only responded because I made a wisecrack in response to someone's assertion that they didn't smoke cigarettes (the implication being that they smoke something else) and I called pot smokers (half jokingly) 'criminal scum'.

I was asked to defend my remarks, and I did. Intolerant? I have made no judgments about pot, the benefits or lack of, please read what I said. In what way is it intolerant to point out that illegal purchases of pot fund criminal enterprises, including terrorist organizations? That's not a statement that can be said to be 'tolerant' or 'intolerant' - it is either true or false.

I have never said pot would be 'basically fine if not illegal', nor have I implied that. I have noted where illicit pot comes from, who funds and benefits from its sale.

You may not be intolerant in your mind, but your posts on this subject continually indicate an unwillingness to entertain any view other than "pot is wrong because it is illegal."

As far as your personal views on the dangers of pot, they are your opinion. The vast majority of scientific and anecdotal evidence says it is quite harmless in itself. Criminal enterprise fostered by the US legal and enforcement industry has caused definite and non-debatable damage to our society. Far more damage than mere consumption of the drug has ever caused.

You might be interested to know that in 1939, in response to widespread public alarm over the claims of Henry Ainslinger (First commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics) among others that marijuana was a scourge destroying the nation, the then-mayor of New York commissioned the New York Academy of Medicine to examine the problem of marijuana in New York City.

The study lasted five years, and the results were published in 1944. The bottom line was that the majority of users of marijuana were African-American or Latino. And that cut to the heart of the issue. There was no real issue except racism and immigration.
Communities in the Ssouther and western states were clamoring for a solution to their immigration and racial issues. Ainslinger was a bureaucrat who saw marijuana as a path to power and fame. He proceeded with a very public campaign to build support for ever greater funding and power. The issue for Ainslinger was that after prohibition, there really weren't any real big issues with narcotics in the US. Many people remembered a day when drugs like cocaine and heroin were not only legal but heralded as medical miracles. They also remembered the sobering truth of their real affect.

It wasn't real difficult for Ainslinger to manufacture a crisis around marijuana. After all, the blacks smoked it, and the Mexicans. Blacks and Mexicans were seen by many as a scourge unto themselves, and as minorities they were unlikely to pose a political threat. So they were a safe target that had little sympathy in the greater population.

Marijuana was fairly wide-spread if not exactly ubiquitous, so once Ainslinger managed to get it declared contaband, he had justification to ask for ever-increasing resources to combat it. This made him powerful and without question padded his own pockets.

The fact that this all came at the detriment to immigrants and the disenfranchised was to his advantage. We live today with a widespread belief that Ainslinger's propaganda was fact, when in reality the facts are a counter-argument.

Since September 11, 2001, Ainslinger's followers have turned to a new tactic - smoking pot helps terrorists. Despite the lack of any factual evidenec whatsoever, this propaganda has been disseminated widely. Even people with no knowledge, experience, or axe to grind repeat it as if it is unassailable truth.

I challenge you to find any objective evidence that organizations like Al Qaida benefit from homeboys in Harlem slinging bags for ten bucks. Provide a rational chain-of-supply from college kids back to terrorist organizations.

Morocco produces some of the finest weed available (according to their own claims ) but when I was there, I found no evidence of terrorist activity whatsoever. Same for Amsterdam. Or Northern California, Alaska, Hawaii, Mexico, etc. The evidence simply does not exist. There is simply no basis for the claim that buying a dime bag funds terrorism.

The people that make these claims have no proof. They simply say that it is so. They rely on the average American to assume they know something the rest of us don't.

A good friend is an inner-city vice cop. She has decades of experience, and simply dismisses the "threat of pot" as silly. Unless they stumble upon bales of the stuff, it goes in the gutter. The fact that they may occasionally find bales of pot when serving warrants on houses known to harbor kilo upon kilo of heroin and cocaine speaks to the fact that pot too is contraband, and there is money to be made. It is in no way guilt by association for pot.

My local metro community police recently celebrated the fact that they busted 20-30 pot growing houses located in surrounding suburbs puts the lie to claims that pot in the US is primarily imported. It's just not true. And even that which is imported comes from regions of the world that are not hotbeds of terror groups. Morocco? Please. I've been there, I know more about it than you do. The Netherlands? Again, please engage rational thought. Hawaii? Alaska? Canada? Mexico? These are most definitely not places our esteemed President and his brain trust have warned you about, and for good reason. Don't you think if there was some real issue with these places funding horrific acts of violence, they'd be on the public watch list?

Why have major metropolitan cities like Vancouver, Amsterdam, et al, along with numerous US states decided that marijuana offenses are more of an economic pain than they are worth? I live in Minnesota, and since decriminalization, have seen violent crime actually decrease. I'm not even suggesting a correlation, merely pointing out that there is no fatal repercussion for relaxing of penalties.

You claim you are not intolerant. You claim to be aware of the facts. So please look at the facts you have, analyze them with logic and rational thought, and consider your position. Feel free to take your time. I'm not suggesting it is fair to expect you to agree with me today. But you are not dumb. I think you will agree that whatever the real facts are, what we are being told by drug enforcement arms is not even plausible.

It is one thing to state an opinion that pot holds little real benefit for a person. it is quite another to suggest that pot causes damage to societies. Draconian enforcement policies cause real, immediate harm. Smoking pot at worst causes a person to work minimum wage and just get by. I don't smoke pot very often for the same reason I don't get drunk every night - it isn't productive.

 

[Rayt]

What bothers me about pot is that 12 year olds are smoking the stuff. If it is legal and regulated and I don't know if that would address this problem but it should help a lot since clandescent dealing would be rarer.

 

[literiter]

12 year olds are drinking booze, 12 year olds are smoking cigarettes, 12 year olds are sniffing glue. More available than pot and just as (if not more) insidious.
The issue is substance abuse and the conditions that encourage it. I dunno.. like poverty, ignorance, abandonment etc.

 

[RF_newbie]

i actually read somewhere (Chomsky?) that although terrorists organizations do involve themselves in the heroin trade (among others) that Al Qaida WOULD NOT because of some religious face saving. i personally believe though, that AL Quida is in cahoots with Starbucks .

 

[Al Kaplan]

...and again last week my neurologist said I'd be better off smoking pot than using the Lamictal she prescribes.

As for Starbucks? Hell, I'm the one who's in cahoots with the baristas at my friendly neighborhood supplier of some really primo caffeine!