It does nothing to help your situation, author, when you constantly claim that 'alcohol kills xyz people, while pot kills NONE.'

I find it impossible to believe that NO ONE has ever done something stupid while stoned and inadvertently taken a life, whether it be their own or someone elses.

While it's true that you CAN'T OVERDOSE on cannabis the way you can with alcohol, that doesn't mean there aren't deaths caused by cannabis use.

Now I'll go finish reading the article.

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not that i dont agree with you author, not that i could argue with the facts at hand, but is't'n't (is it not) sad that America's dependancy on any kind of substance is continully a topic no matter who it kills? maybe work shouldnt be so hard, maybe schools could lighten up on the kids homework HLL i dunno but something is way wrong when we're forced to choose btween alcohol and pot. watch lewis black's root of all evil on this debate... theres also a good one on bloggers. go figure.

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How about a little science?

It is estimated that cannabis's LD-50 (lethal dosage of 50% of test animals) 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 cannabis as is contained in one marijuana cigarette. A smoker would theoretically have to consume nearly 1,500 pounds of cannabis within about 15 minutes to induce a lethal response.

The more you know!

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What we are really discussing is a revolutionary way to observe the "problem" which require an entirely distinct paradigm.

Society generally approaches this argument (illegal drugs--specifically marijuana--versus legal alcohol consumption) not from a practical or empirical process but rather from a culturally subjective process. By that I mean that our drug laws are not a result of evidence that has been gathered through rigorously controlled science but rather through social construction--in the same way that our laws regarding alcohol have been created. Certainly there are exceptions to this argument but try to fund a research project that attempts to demonstrate the physical dangers of alcohol versus the physical dangers of marijuana. The ideological state apparatus (see L. Althussar) bombards us with fantastical tales of crazed druggies and the blight they present to society. Since Nixon and later Reagan, its direct(?) correlation to crime, has been furthered through the repressive state apparatus (police, the court/legal system). Meanwhile, responsible research on the catastrophic effects of binge and/or long-term alcohol use are relegated to medical research articles which rarely see the light of public opinion. Meanwhile, lies about the concocted dangers of marijuana or hyperbolic tales of other illegal narcotics are generated on a regular basis as a means of reinforcing the fear of a misinformed public.
(Q: Why did Rick go to Casablanca? If you know then you will understand.)

In today's Chicago Tribune there is an article on the findings of a research group who, not surprisingly, found that though underage drinkers were unlikely to be served at large sporting events (MLB, NFL, etc) obviously inebriated fans continued to be served despite the fact they were obviously drunk. Is this not merely a form of sanctioned drug abuse? If they were smoking pot instead of drinking alcohol would the danger to themselves be greater or less? Would the danger to the public be greater or less?

We are all familiar with the euphemism 'violent drunk'; most of us know some. 'Violent stoner' is an oxymoron.

As a matter of truth in blogging, I spent twenty five years drinking and drugging to excess. While I got in trouble with the law for drugs, it was drinking that nearly killed me. That all ended nearly six years ago. My experience is not unusual but does qualify me to comment with authority.

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... because the personal and social implications are just too large.

Did you know that if we all started drinking responsibly, just as the fine print in all the ads recommend (meaning no excessive, binge or underage drinking), alcohol sales would plummet by 40%?
Alcohol is the western drug of choice. "Partying" is not only a verb, it's considered a valid activity! The last thing people want is the glaring eye of rationality focussed on their pet habit.

Now the 12 Traditions of AA state quite clearly that AA has no position on issues outside of alcohol and that our first priority is to help those who desire to quit drinking.
We are doing ourselves no favours at the frontline of the battle by tolerating long complaints about the overwhelming desire to light up a joint after a few months!
Lest the hypocrisy here is not immediately evident, let me remind you that Bill W., founder of AA, died of emphysema caused by his tobacco use.

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Back in the 70s, I smoked pot several timss and enjoyed the highs immensely.

The neatest thing was no hangover like with booze. Unlike alcoholic beverages, however, I found it hard to control marijuana's intoxiation -- in terms of intensity and duration. So I quit toking and remained a light drinker.

There is one more thing about grass that concerned me. The rush was so damn good, I was afraid of becoming a cronic pot head.

In sum, despite my negativity towards grass, I believe it should be legalized so other adults can decide for themselves about the pros and cons of marijuana.

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...is tobacco. A rational person could at least make the argument on behalf of both alcohol and pot supporters that you at least get something out of drinking a beer or smoking a joint. Both death totals combined from these habits pale in comparison to the damage done by the almighty cigarette. How long will our country continue to allow a worthless, disease-inducing cancer on our society(literally) to prosper?
Have a beer, get high, do it responsibly. Cigarettes, which I'm terribly ADDICTED to, benefit only Philip Morris, waste precious resources better served producing FOOD(land, water, fertilizers that runoff into our environment), kill enough people to have a deaths-per-hour figure, cause indeterminate amounts of property damage through negligent fires, produce piles of butts that litter nearly every square foot of ground in the nation, so on and so forth. Beer and marijuana have their uses and are "safe" when used by responsible users, and laws are in place for those that don't. Cigarettes are a valueless plague on our society and should be banned even before a disapproving finger is waved at a cokehead. After all, think of how many tasks that cokehead can accomplish in the time it takes me to clock out and walk outside for a 15 minute smokebreak. Marijuana opened my mind and calmed my rages, cigarettes took away my soccer, my 5:15 mile, and deflated my Mom's right lung..twice.

I need a beer.

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Perhaps the article's point is that marijuana is relatively harmless. But when Idiot America reads this, they see: Bring back prohibition.

These little comparisons are beside the point. The real answer ought to be that it's nobody's business--including the government's--what you smoke or drink.

It may be tragic that some people poison themselves with drugs and alcohol. But it's more tragic that people die from things beyond their own choice and control, like wars, lack of food, and lack of health care.

Many liberals and progressives seem to have gone into the behavior management business, as if they didn't have enough on their plate already. The Right has proven a thousand times over that you can't protect people from themselves. Or to paraphrase Dennis Leary: "It's called: 'thinning the herd'".

If you want to draw and quarter people for killing or injuring others while driving drunk, knock yourselves out. But please make sure you do the same for those who do so while yapping on their cell phone or driving like an idiot.

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all the amazing flowers and berries and vines and leafs ... what a wonder has been given to us and rarely the teaching to go along with it ... all of these elementals are sacred and deserve reckoning the spirit that comes with the sentinent being in the medicine ... so know the spirit you entwine with ... alchohol is one for anger in large doess and friendship in small ... cannabis aids the spirit mind body complex in many layers of ways ... our limited culture and the vacuum of guides leads many into narrow spaces where those who wish to control the mother make them feel bad or the potential of feeling bad.


may we connect to the mother in whichever way we can make that connection. may all connections be open. may we enjoy the gifts and the magic within.



they say cannabis is safer than aspirin ... so alternet, i am bored with the science and governing of medicines, can some one pluuuuueeeez write an article exploring the spiritual and metamagical in cannabis.


thank you.

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Alcohol is taxed, and brings in big money for governments. Alcohol companies also make donations to political candidates. Pot is not taxed, and in many cases is home grown. It is in govenments' financial interests to encourage booze while prohibiting the smoking of weed.

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If we can have alcohol, tobacco and firearms - all legal, all deadly, we can have the weed.

It's simply stupid for a person to argue against marijuana reform when we have all those legal killers totally accepted by people.

Watch the folks who speak against this - INVARIABLY they have only the government propaganda in their pointy little noggins where I have real information. I know MORE than they do.

Those of you who are reformers, keep hammering on the ATF meme. Cannabis should be 'regulated'.

For extra points, hammer on it in all Democratic blogs. Democrats MUST be the ones to fix this travesty and reap the rewards.

Those of you who still want to cling to fictions? You're clinging to fictions! Hows that working for you??? LMAO!

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Fist, I have been an everyday pot smoker for over 15 years. Literally everyday of my life with the occasional few days break when I run out. I own my own successful business, 2 homes, married, have a child, pay my taxes, never drink and drive, and my memory and motivation are just fine. There is nothing wrong with pot. To me it's just like your morning cup of coffee.
Second, there is a very basic reason why making pot completely legal is problematic. If I go to a bar and sit next to someone getting drunk, I won't get drunk myself, no matter how drunk the other person gets. If someone sit next to me while I smoke pot (alot for a long time of course) they would themselves get high, a contact high. In order to truly legalize we would first have to mandate a delivery mechanism for public use that would not affect others second hand.

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The last time I checked statistics there were approximately 60,000 annual emergency room admissions for overdose conditions. 40,000 were alcohol related, 20,000 were related to all your drugs such as heroin, cocaine, and other drugs except pot, of which there was ZERO. There is absolutely no scientific rationale for perpetuating such an imbalanced control of this substance.

Can pot be used in a negative way? Sure it can. But we can also use many things in negative ways. You can drink yourself to death with water. Does that mean we have to regulate it? Knowing what I know about the true connection between the food supply and our health I can’t express to you the anger and disgust I feel at the failure of our system to protect us where there is scientific rationale. You can’t imagine the frustration I feel when I see a mother starting her child on cheeseburgers, fries and shakes at the age of two. Yet it’s an accepted and even encouraged form of legal child abuse.

The list and possibilities are endless. Anything can be used and abused. The laws are then mostly an arbitrary reflection of a particular point of view. The point of view that society is encumbered with has nothing to do with how bad pot is. Instead it has everything to do with how useful hemp is.

Get the facts. Wake up and grow hemp! Refuse to be a chump any longer.

Understand that the industrial interests of the likes of the Hearst and DuPont Empire have engineered the removal of hemp by subverting pot on all accounts. They have taken away one of the most valuable cash crops of the people; one that is truly eco friendly and sustainable in order to limit our options and freedoms. The result is they have eliminated a cornucopia of valuable and healthful products in exchange for artificialities and the poisoning of the planet while they cement the centralization of wealth.

Research and learn the truth and you’ll have all answers you need to understand why we’re in such a knot over pot prohibition and why it’s killing our society, in more ways than you can possibly suspect.

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Marijuana use was often a common thread among peace advocates during the Vietnam War. But "Tricky Dick" Nixon, even though he promised during his campaign to end the war, of course did not immediately do so. He needed a way to control the protesters, and that way was to equate marijuana use with the use of much more dangerous and addictive drugs (cocaine, opium, heroin). Hence the War on Drugs and the DEA. If you can't join 'em, bust 'em. So it continues today, with hefty fines and jail time for simple possession of a plant. However, the American College of Physicians has recently recommended the medicinal use of marijuana for pain management and glaucoma, because according to their study, the drug acts on different receptors than the stronger and more addictive opiates, and can therefore reduce the need for these potentially more harmful drugs. It is a step forward, but the obvious (to me) conclusion is to decriminalize marijuana because its classification as a "Class 1" substance is faulty. Problem: the FDA and the drug companies haven't found a way to make millions off marijuana use, so the stigma "pot head" remains.

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Granted, no one ever dies from marijuana overdosing, but people can watch their lives go down the drain by working into a psychological addiction to marijuana.

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that the vested Big Business interests fear. When Big Oil, Cotton, Chemical, Paper, Timber, Coal, Gas, etc ... had feared that they would be wiped out, the vested business interests teamed up with the social cons of the early 20th century to prop up the anti-Cannabis propaganda. Sadly, FDR and the Democrats did America a HUGE DISSERVICE by over-taxing the plant and later the Democrats pandered to Nixon's creation of the DEA to keep it outlawed. Virtually, all presidents starting from Nixon refused to push for overturning the ban and the same can be said of most members of Congress. If alcohol had even 1000 industrial uses, the prohibition would have stayed. Let's stop using the silly "pot" frame and cut to the chase by focusing on the 26000 industrial uses especially fuel, plastics, and even home material. Our petroleum driven society can easily be replaced by the powerful renewable resource HEMP, a member of Cannabis often purposely confused as "marijuana" by the business and social "conservative" elites to keep the market RIGGED.

IT IS NO COINCIDENCE THAT AMERICA DESPERATELY FIGHTS RESOURCE WARS FOR OIL ALL THE WHILE OUTLAWING GOD'S GREATEST PLANT WHICH PROVED INVALUABLE FOR OUR ANCESTORS AND CAN STILL PROVE INVALUABLE FOR THIS GENERATION AND FUTURE GENERATIONS.

By the way, Ron Paul is again trying to introduce the HEMP FARMING bill. How many Democrats will support it and how many will continue to side with BIG OIL?

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Pots been used for millenia- the longest Longitudinal study ever. Cancer..Only if you smoke it..it is able to be eaten and steeped.
Addictive- not phyiscally, and mental is not worth getting worked up on When physical addiction to tabacco, alcohol, caffiene and chocolate are so readily available.

the only reason Pot has not been legalized is because it can be easily grown by the average person- seeds, soil, light and water...Grow , Pick,Dry, use..No middle man manufacturing required..thus no way to make a profit for the Pharmacuticals or Big Corp manufacturers.

Also if you are able to grow your own, no need to buy it from someone else..No crime related to access and cost. The most obvious reason for not legalizing it is that it would revive the Free Market model. Big Ag would hate that, start by growing pot..next thing you know people will start growing and selling corn, wheat..Food.And what would happen to Industrialized Food production if that crazy notion took hold? Safer Food, less use of pesticides, more humane treatment of livestock..such things would be bad for Business...Corps HATE the Free Market!

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Too much pot makes you impotent. (trust me)

Too much booze makes you do reproductive acts.

The author here is only looking at one side of the equation.

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There is a group in Colorado called SAFER -- which stands for Safer Alternative for Enjoyable Recreation -- specifically designed to educate the public about the relative harms of marijuana and alcohol. They are led by a guy named Mason Tvert and do great work.

They are currently leading an effort to have the Denver police refrain from arresting people for marijuana possession during the Democratic convention. Anyone interested should check them out.

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the safer opinion on pot has been around for a long time. In fact in all of recorded history,all 5,000 years if it,has'nt got one sentence of pot usage killing anyone. The use of hemp rope for hanging folks not with- standing.
To keep it illegal and watch kids at family gatherings get 'sips' of beer from a kindly elder is a little out of balance.
So..we amke pot legal to posess,use and grow for personal use,if you're 18 or older. Yeah,18,if you're good enough to come home in a G.I. bodybag,you're old enough to smoke a fucking joint!!!. Plus get the hell of the people's backs about doing something the Creator of all things made over something a greedy human made without regard to if it was safe or not.

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I am not a "conservative," certainly not a neoCON, and I'm all for impeaching George Bush. So don't accuse me of being a troll, okay?

Pot is not a harmless drug. It does trip people over into insanity (which is why it's known as "loco" weed). It's a halucinogen, as LSD, less potent, but a tripper nonetheless. I know people who were sane and productive people who lost their mind from smoking pot.

It also is proved to cause PERMANENT short term memory loss. This is your mind you're talking about, not worth it to get high. Also, being fat soluable, it heads for the brain and reproductive organs and remains there, causing damage (figure it out yourself).

Doesn't matter if Prozac and the other antidepressants are also halucinogens. Doesn't matter if there are a ton of legal drugs out thre that are as bad or worse than pot. The point is, pot is not a harmless drug.

That said, the criminal people running the government keep it illegal so as to have an excuse to ruin people's lives, to put people in prison to make them work for 20 cents a day in their private prisons.

Pot should be discouraged, but so should Big Pharma's murderous medicine and happy pills.

The "enemy" here is not the right versus the left, alcohol versus pot -- but rather, the secret government that owns everything that has set things up to destroy all of us.

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Let's see.

Alcohol: not counting drunk driving and wife beating, directly poisons hundreds each year.
*LEGAL

Tobacco: Known to be highly addictive and to kill about 400,000 Americans each hear.
*LEGAL

Pot: Kills no one. Not addictive.
*ILLEGAL

Seems the government only wants it's citizens to consume deadly agents but not the safe ones.

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Maybe four countries have set the age limit as high as 21.

Some French kids bring a bottle of wine to school for lunch. Other countries have the philosophy that if you introduce drinking in a social context, millions of teens don't learn to binge drink and they don't become alcoholics.

We already have semi-prohibition, but only for the nation's young people, who rarely if ever vote and even more rarely run or campaign. Perhaps stoners don't vote much either.

At least there's no such thing as binge getting stoned. When you're stoned, you pretty much lose interest in smoking and you do something else.

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It is absurd to assert that the government doesn't warn against the dangers of binge drinking. I feel like I've been reading stories about it every week for the past ten years.

Also, 300 deaths per year from alcohol poisoning is not "shockingly high" considering how much heavy drinking actually takes place, and compared to other countries. Frankly, 300 sounds shockingly low to me, as someone who has been in and around the heavy drinking scenes.

I am all for marijuana, but don't go around bashing other substances in an attempt to boost your cause. It just makes you look petty and cheap.

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THOSE people smoke pot!!! You know who they are! Hell, that's why the powers that be made it illegal in the 1930s. And you know how much Americans LOVE demonizing "the other."

And hell, look how many people make their living off of arresting, prosecuting and jailing pot smokers! You expect law enforcement to actually do something constructive? So much property out there to seize.

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"Afghanistan has doubled its opium production over the past two years and now accounts for 93 percent of the world's output, according to the annual UNODC survey. The southern province of Helmand alone has become the world's biggest source of illicit drugs. The amount of Afghan land used for opium has surpassed the total used for coca cultivation in Colombia, Peru and Bolivia combined. Afghan poppies, which start as flowers in farmers' fields and often wind up as heroin on U.S. streets, fuel a $3 billion a year industry in Afghanistan. The industry is filling the coffers of the Taliban, the group who gave safe haven to al Qaeda before and after 9/11, and it is destabilizing the Afghan government". (CNN) This investigative report was done using the figures from 2005, since then the figures from 2006 have been released and are much higher.

After many decades of fighting this same war on illegal drugs; it would be safer, faster and much cheaper to end this war by legalizing the drugs. The worst resistance would come from the drug cartels world-wide and the terrorist networks in the Middle-East. Without the illegal drug industry funding the terrorists, this global war on terror could end much sooner. At the same time for just a few more years (not decades) the United States will still have to continue clearing up the mess by the once illegal drugs; the same way as usual, with tax-payer funded drug rehabs, including heroine or methadone babies and their medical costs etc. Our society needs to get more faith in itself, because in the Middle-East where it is much easier to get heroin than it is to get clean drinking water, they are not a society of drug addicts.

This would also cut off the funded government corruption in the Middle East, Mexico and the United States. In time this will also solve many other problems in our economy especially the cost and availability of health care. The repercussions this would help to create for a few years (not decades) is one of the best examples of why our forefathers emphasized so strongly on the necessity of separation between the church and state. We should take one-third of the drug rehabs in the U.S. and turn them into hospice units for the “drug challenged”.

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Yes, some people do live very productive lives while smoking pot. But most people I know who use on a regular basis do not. They tend to not be able to hold down more than an entry level or low level job.

Pot may not poison you in the traditional way, but it can have some nasty side effects. It is fat soluble, so it doesn't flush out of your system quickly or easily.

It is much more carcinogenic than straight tobacco (most cancer from smoking tobacco results from the additives, not the tobacco itself).

It does affect the sex hormones, so many heavy users who are male start having performance issues, as well as exhibiting female secondary traits, such as breast development.

I know people who use only occasionally, but I also know people who only smoke tobacco occasionally. Whether pot is emotionally or physically addictive, there are a lot of people who use who can't or won't stop, no matter how bad their lives become as a result of using.

Anything you put in your body, from water to heroin, is going to affect it.

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I would much rather have a teenager get stoned while getting down with a little pink floyed and a couple tokes of pot. than to have them get drunk crazy or worse yet boof a little coacain or worse hit the meth. When I grew up in the 70's everyone smoked a little. We stayed put smoked our pot and we listened to the music. We didn't take out our mac 10 machine gun, the choice of gangs in Kansas City. And get violent, rob, steal, kill for money to get these addicative drugs that will make you sell your soal, baby, neighbor or anything close to you down the drain just to get yout fix.
Pot should be legal nufssaid, westdot

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That cannabis and alcohol stimulate very different parts of the brain. In most people, cannabis tends to quiet left brain activity and enhance right brain activity. Hence it's attraction for artists, musicians and other disciplines which incorporate the imagination, the more intuitive responses in us.

Alcohol slowly shuts down all higher brain activity leaving moderate to highly intoxicated people operating from the part of the brain that is refered to as the reptile brain. Making for far more physical responses to situations... those "in your face" attitudes that drunk people are well known for which can lead to confrontational behavior.

Trouble with Americans is they equate alcohol with cannabis... few are discerning enough to notice the difference in effects... most people mix them. Combined, the alcohol wins out as it shuts down what supports the higher brain functions so the effect of the cannabis is lost. They'll smoke, then kill the cotton mouth with beer or wine or something else alcoholic. This is because for most of them the object is to get "fucked up" which to the onlooker can be anything from silly, to stupid to violent.

Case in point, at one time in the not yet too distant past, rock concerts and later raves were places where alcohol was prohibited but cannabis use was allowed dispite it being illegal and the atmosphere at those events was generally blissful and supportive. When the alcohol lobby convinced concert promoters to start letting major beer and other booze companies sponsor events, the entire climate at these events changed. Drunken brawls broke out, performers were injured and even killed, often for the kinds of petty reasons that can seem so logical when one is drunk. I am fond of an occasional good tasting ale and I also enjoy sampling the annual harvest of cannabis we enjoy here in Northern California. I use everything in moderation , though, not to get fucked up as the media encourage us to do all the time with all the beer and wine and hard liquor ads. I have never seen the sense in that after having tried it some when I was younger. I could sense the genuine injury to my body and it wasn't something I found enjoyable. I equate this tendency to overindulge with that annoying American thing of having to have the biggest share of something, be able to drink the most without passing out, to have the biggest military, the most, the best, ad nauseum. All this is somehow seen as marks of achievement in America... of "greatness".

An alcoholic population is far more easily enticed into herd behavior than a stoned populace. You can convince shit faced people that war is necessary, that unions are bad and that global climate change isn't real and they'll believe you, cheer you on like you are the stand in for the home team. Offer their children to die in your adventures.

Stoners are more individualists, free thinkers, critical thinkers, questioners and governments DON'T LIKE THAT. They prefer a nice, herdable populace... that's why they encourage alcohol consumption and can lock you up for years in some places for using cannabis.

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I once thought that marijuana should be kept illegal, but in the last few years, I've been giving it some more thought. I live in an area with a large population of college-age students. They get drunk. They get VERY loud, to the point where my wife and I can't sleep. They broke into the apartment downstairs, they crashed into the side of the building once, they get in fights every few months right down in the parking lot or up on our roof. I dislike alcohol. No, that's not quite correct. I dislike some people's ABUSE of alcohol. It's really not fair to disturb someone else's quiet evening with your asshattery just because you've had too much booze.

Now that I've said that, the only experiences I've had with pot are the fellow downstairs who smokes a good quantity of it. It reeks horribly. Being just a year and a bit out of university myself, I've smelled a lot of pot and I know it should smell a little sweet and sort of herby. This stuff... must have been cut with dog-poop to smell so foul. I'd really like to see marijuana legalized JUST for the sake of regulating it. If everyone had good quality pot, I'm sure we'd see the instances of "smelly potheads" go down. Maybe. I hope so.

Here's one final thing. I'm allergic to cigarette smoke. I've had a friend tell me that her doctor says that's impossible. Well, when your throat closes and you pass out from lack of oxygen just from being in a room with a bunch of smokers, it's pretty clear what happened. (yes it's happened more than once and the common factor is always cigarettes, even the smell of them can give me a migraine) Even I, who has a very legitimate reason for wanting people not to smoke, will advocate your right to enjoy yourself and do whatever you want with your body.

I want to propose something and if you're interested enough, feel free to tell me your thoughts. You can't drink willy-nilly on the street here. You have to be in a bar or in your home. But you can smoke anywhere. Seems weird. Especially given that when you smoke, everyone around you has to inhale it. We don't have a choice. How about if we had something like "smoking bars". A smoker's lounge if you will. I actually feel bad for smokers outside in the snow and the driving rain, so why not have a room or two in every shopping mall, or a place with pool-tables, couches, etc for folks to go and smoke? That way, you get to smoke your cigs and I don't have to breathe it in.

Solves the problem of people potentially getting high of someone else's dooby. (thought damn that's a lot of pot) I mean, nobody actually pays attention to the "you must stand 30 feet away from a building entrance when smoking" rule anyway so why not give them a clear place to go so they can enjoy their cigs?

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It's listed as a narcotic, Schedule II controlled substance, when it's not a narcotic. Marijuana is a sedative/hallucinogen. But since it's incorrectly labeled a "narcotic" they can profit by doing lots of evil things to you.

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I am presently being piss tested, with a pig watching every month. I only can smoke the day I see the P.O. I started drinking again which is also prohibited but as long as I stop for two days before I go in I'm Ok that is true of any other drug I want to take, if I was so inclined.However the least harmful drug, cannabis, I cannot take this year. I'm not always drunk or anything but I seem to live better when I rarely drink and smoke cannabis much more frequently. But because of our ridiculous laws and the nature of THC I am doing something more harmful in smoking tobacco like a fiend. Ironic?

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Social Security is broke. Let people smoke cigs, eat junk and drink themselves to an early death?
That's what our government is counting on.

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Somewhere, I can't find it now, I saw photos of uniformed Blackwater bullies trashing a legal Calif. Medical Marijuana Co-op. Does anybody know more about this travesty?

Apparently Blackwater Inc. has been stealing everything they want (for themselves) from the clinics, then, never filing charges or turning in the stolen pot to authorities. They opperate outside the law because Calif. judges will just toss the cases out .... clinical MJ is legal in that state.

Anybody? ... Anybody out there that can illuminate this crime?

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Prohibition creates a corresponding black market. The black market features inflated prices and the ever-present risks of violent injury and death, not only from within but also from without the market, i.e., from the police. Violence and death are the necessary products of prohibition regardless of the exact substance banned.

The question society should be asking itself about marijuana prohibition is this: Are the deaths caused by marijuana prohibition an acceptable cost for preventing people from using a substance that has never killed anyone?

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While I'm not in a position to question the simple stats of the author's claims I can see in the news that there are certainly a number of people that have been killed just by being in proximity to the import of drugs into this country. Look at the Mexican/American border and the number of those that are trying to enforce the existing laws and tax evasion of those involved in the traffic of illegal substances. As alcohol abuse and alcoholism each have side effects on those not directly involved through accident, murder and relationship, it cannot be claimed that there is much difference between the effects of the abuse of any narcotic.

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...It's one against alcohol.

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If nothing else speaks to nicotine's addictive properties it would have to be it's comparison to pot. I started smoking pot before I ever lit up a cigarette. I love pot. I wouldn't have any problem with it in the world if it weren't for the government's facist Drug Free Workplace program. Money is a terrible persuader. Drug test your new hires, or we don't subsidize you. Nice.
I'm looking for a new job, as I have in the past. To do that, I am forced to give up my release/relaxation, which is really not a huge problem for me. I can quit smoking weed with absolutely no problem. Cigarettes though, are another monster entirely and you don't even get any benefit from them.
Kinda fucked up that an alky can drink a fifth and squint through the glare all the way home and go to an interview the next day with no worries. But I smoke a joint and have to wait a month to be able to pass a drug screen so that I can get the same job. I was once drug tested for a job at a convenience store paying a whopping 7.25/hour. Are you serious? Yes, I am. Our country apparently wants to make sure that there aren't any stoners staring menacingly at the Hostess cakes at Exxon while they're on shift, but the manager that's sweating out the Jack Daniels he polished off an hour before his shift is good to go. If ever there was a case for getting an education, there it is though. Oddly enough, people in trades that pay very large sums of money for doing very important jobs, don't drug test at all. What's that all about?

Keepin down the little man.

It's things like this that make me hate the world we live in. (I can't speak for other nations as I've never tried to get employed in Canada)

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Being an ex-bartender and alcoholic, the uncontravertable truth is that alcohol kills way much more than pot does. I have seen, and so have most others in this world, people go berserk from drinking to an insanity induced by alcohol's affect on the brain. Leading to at the least unwanted behavior to serious injury and death.
Pot will somehow kill but with nowhere near the regularity that alcohol does. Which is funny, because the death rate, injury rate from both are never displayed to bring this out.
Moderate use of either should not produce outrageous behavior but, being human and an animal, the ability to moderate is a fine line for too many people that cannot be halted in the drive to total intoxication. Too much pot is not healthy, too much alcohol is deadly, just count up the alcohol related road deaths and any death rates from pot just would not come close to a equal comparison.

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The official story is that "drugs are harmful, hence illegal". Comparisons of various drugs have, IMO, only one valid application: to demonstrate the illogic and hypocrisy of the prohibitionist camp. CLEARLY they do NOT actually believe that "harms" are necessary and sufficient for a ban - seeing as how tobacco and alcohol are legal. That's all we can say, but it's pretty powerful to simply state clearly that we refuse to discuss these "harms" because the prohibitonists don't even believe in their own hype.

Fundamentally it is completely irrelevant whether a drug is very harmful or very harmless. Basic axiom: everything has harms. Period. Anyone pretending otherwise will look like a friggin moron (and us legalizers frequently look like morons on this particular point).

The fundamentally correct question is: "WHAT policy is the most rational to use to solve the drug problem?".

Just because a thing is "dangerous" it doesn't necessarily mean that prohibition is the best solution. On the contrary science is almost unanimous in the judgement that the punishments of prohibition do not work as intended and it often makes the harms many times worse or creates a massive black market that's utterly destructive to society.

In fact - if cannabis legalizers weren't so blindly focused upon their drug of choice - they'd realize that often the more HARMFUL drugs are better candidates for legalization simply because of these terrible dangers (like lethal overdose, spreading HIV among IV users, etc.).

Every single time the argument does something like "cannabis is harmless and should be legal, while those BAD DRUGS should be illegal and really cracked down on" we actually ADMIT that prohibition works. Why else would be recommend prohibition for those other drugs? And why shouldn't prohibition incidentally WORK for cannabis, since we just admitted it should be used on all those other drugs?

So be wewy wewy careful how you argue...

(As a USER of a drug it's clearly very fortunate to know the exact risk profile of the drug you're using, it's just that the harm from a drug doesn't mean squat whether it should be criminalized or not)

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