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Post by Blaque on Jun 12, 2006 13:36:40 GMT -5
There are all types of petitions going around that are encouraging law makers to legalize Marijuana for all uses medical and recreational in all 50 states of America. People compare the use of marijuana to alcohol. Personally I think that too many people are irresponsible when it comes to drinking, I can't imagine what would happen if we started legalizing drugs. What are your thoughts?
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jazzlover
B.E. Sergeant First Class
It Takes Pressure to Make a Diamond
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Post by jazzlover on Jun 12, 2006 13:39:38 GMT -5
I say no, but in my opinion Alcohol is WORST! When I smoked herb all I wanted to do was sleep and be mellow, Booze makes people violent! I do think it should be legal for medicinal purposes! Chemo patients and chronic pain patients, if it were legal I MIGHT try some for pain!
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Post by Blaque on Jun 12, 2006 14:19:32 GMT -5
You might, huh? ;D No, but I agree about it's use for medical purposes. Anything other than medical reasons, I say no. I've never experimented with any drugs so I can't say whether it's worse than alcohol. But marijuana is illegal for a reason. I think it should stay that way.
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Post by blackviking on Jun 12, 2006 14:37:20 GMT -5
Oh boy, here we go. This is going to be a good one. Short answer... yes, marijuana should be legalized. Long answer... all drugs should be legalized. Here's why... 1. The criminalization of drugs does not deter their use. People are going to do what they do regardless of the law or the risks. 2. The criminalization of drugs is a long standing tool that the government uses to control the masses. Originally, marijuana was added to the Federal Controlled Substance List in the 1920's in order to control Mexican immigrants (the "reason" you were just talking about, Blaque). The latest addition to that list is crack. Guess who they're controlling with that. 3. Along the same vein... the disproportionate sentencing in regards to drugs allows White America to place more and more African Americans behind bars for extended periods of time. For example, possession of cocaine caries a minimum sentence of five years. Possession of crack carries a minimum sentence of twenty years. Why? Because African Americans are more likely to have crack than cocaine. Crack is cheaper. 4. For most cops around the country, Driving While Black means Driving With Drugs. Even though there are more White people using illegal drugs than Black people. Every single day, non-drug using, law abiding, African Americans are harassed, humiliated, and generally inconvenienced by a retarded pork-rind who pulls them over for going five miles over the speed limit. Then convinces them to consent to a search (which, BTW you never, ever, have to do. If a cop has the authority to search your car, he's going to do it without asking you if it's OK. If he even starts saying stupid shit like 'Is it OK if I look around?' don't say a damn thing to him. Just get on the phone and call an attorney). 5. The War on Drugs costs billions of tax payer dollars every year, and yet the use of drugs increases on a national level every year. So, we throw more money at the problem, and the problem gets worse??? 6. Legalization is the solution for two reasons. a. Rehabilitation costs a whole lot less than incarceration. b. The price of street drugs would drop through the floor. No more peripheral crimes related to the drug market. No more gangs fighting for turf (there's no more profit to fight for). No addicts stealing to support habits (the prices would by such that a minimum wage job could support any habit). This aspect alone would give our neighborhoods a level of safety that we have not experienced in three generations. Folks, for the sake of our communities, our children, and ourselves... we have got to see this happen.
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Post by Blaque on Jun 12, 2006 14:51:54 GMT -5
Viking, I think you are one of the most intelligent men on the planet, and you do make some very valid points. But do you really believe that if we legalized drugs that anyone would want to be rehabilitated? I can't imagine a world where people could use drugs freely. Drug use is out of control now and it's illegal. If it ever becomes legal users would be so out of their minds, I would think crime would increase, not decrease. I don't know Viking, for me it's a very scary thought.
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Post by blackviking on Jun 12, 2006 15:17:03 GMT -5
Viking, I think you are one of the most intelligent men on the planet Thank you very much. That means a lot to me coming from you. But do you really believe that if we legalized drugs that anyone would want to be rehabilitated? No, I don't think everyone would want rehabilitation. No more people would want it than now. Again, people are going to do what they do. Criminalization doesn't deter the use. That's the point. Drug use is, and will always be, out of control. It's not something that we can control. Stiffer laws, harsher sentencing, and giant wastes of money like the DEA, are not solving the problem. In fact, they make the problem bigger by creating peripheral issues like the ones I listed. Just like now. If you look at the prohibition of alcohol in the 1920's, you can understand why I say that crime would decrease. Alcohol was legalized because it was clear that the criminalization of it was causing more problems than the drug was. But, the difference between that and the other drugs we're talking about, is that those problems were for White people. Since then, the process of enforcement has been refined to stick it to people of color, while leaving White folks generally unscathed. I understand. You have your government to thank for that. The government has spent literally generations convincing us that drugs are going to be the downfall of our society as we know it. They've done this because the War on Drugs costs billions of dollars, creates millions of jobs, and makes the upper 1% of this country very rich. What we have to ask ourselves is... what is it doing for us? What is it actually doing versus what it's supposed to be doing? Regan said that drugs would be the downfall of our great nation. Unfortunately, I believe that if we don't change our attitude toward dealing with it... he might be right.
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Post by Blaque on Jun 12, 2006 15:40:42 GMT -5
I hear what you are saying. And all makes perfect sense. But people today are not like they were in the 1920s. If you tell people that it is ok to do drugs, I can't help but think that it will do more harm than good. Hopefully we will never find out.
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jazzlover
B.E. Sergeant First Class
It Takes Pressure to Make a Diamond
Posts: 3,912
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Post by jazzlover on Jun 12, 2006 16:21:57 GMT -5
As a chaplain in Trauma Unit in the most violent city in America, I have to disagree with BV, The problem with drugs is the addiction leads to crime! Last week I was on duty when a drive by killed 2 people and wounded 3 all because of a drug deal gone bad. One person was just out buying some fried chicken. I think Marijauna should be decriminalized, but Heroin and Crack make people CRAZY! They NEED to follow the money trail back to the Govt that let the damn dope in our cities, but they don't really care because it primarily affects Blacks and the Poor!
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Post by blackviking on Jun 12, 2006 16:46:58 GMT -5
As a chaplain in Trauma Unit in the most violent city in America, I have to disagree with BV, The problem with drugs is the addiction leads to crime! I disagree. There are many people addicted to cigarettes and alcohol. Why don't these addictions lead to crime? I'll tell you why. Because these addictions are legal and therefore affordable. If crack and heroin were legal and therefore affordable, the crimes related to them would stop overnight. Things like this are precisely why the drugs need to by legalized. If drugs were legal, incidents like this one would never happen again. Consider it this way... Is there anything about what we are doing now to deal with the drug problem that is working? If so, what? If not, isn't it about time we tried something else?
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jazzlover
B.E. Sergeant First Class
It Takes Pressure to Make a Diamond
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Post by jazzlover on Jun 12, 2006 16:59:10 GMT -5
They won't be legalized BECAUSE more money is made through it being ILLEGAL! A crack head or a heroin addict will rob their mother to get a fix, when a persona has THAT kind of monkey on thier back...THE PRICE WILL ALWAYS BE HIGH!
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Post by blackviking on Jun 12, 2006 17:18:38 GMT -5
A crack head or a heroin addict will rob their mother to get a fix, when a persona has THAT kind of monkey on thier back...THE PRICE WILL ALWAYS BE HIGH! Forgive me BP, but that's an assumption you're making. The fact is that it's the black market of street drugs that keeps the prices high. Yes, an addict will steal from his mother to get a fix. But, only if he has to! Here's a better example... I'm a smoker. I smoke approximately a half of a pack a day. The addictive properties of tobacco are well established, so I won't go into that. When I need a fix, I go buy a pack of cigarettes. If I can't afford a pack, someone I know will give me one. A stranger is likely to give me one if I ask for it. A co-worker would lend me five bucks to buy a pack if I needed it, and so would my mother. I don't need to steal from anyone, neither does anyone else, to support that habit. Are cigarettes more or less harmful than crack? Why? Why are gangs shooting each other and bystanders over turf, but liquor stores aren't? The only difference between tobacco and alcohol, and all other drugs... is the law.
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jazzlover
B.E. Sergeant First Class
It Takes Pressure to Make a Diamond
Posts: 3,912
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Post by jazzlover on Jun 12, 2006 17:26:06 GMT -5
You won't shoot someone over a cigarette either!
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drok9
B.E. Sergeant
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Post by drok9 on Jun 12, 2006 21:21:01 GMT -5
True Black Panther! If they legalize it for non-medical purposes .... I would be really afraid for innocent women, children and men alike.
I lived next door to a drug house and it was crazy. We got chased home by guys in nothing but their underwear in the dead of winter as they licked on an icicle .... some just stayed in their cars rocking back and forth with a crazy freakin look on their face calling out our names. It was scary! I won't even mention the fights, police chases and gun shots.
I have 6 sisters and this one guy who lived at the drug house knew it ... one night ... middle of the night ... we wake up to the guy in his underwear pulling on our security door .. he freakin broke our security door he was so high. He was trying to get into our house ... it was scary.
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Post by dolphinfan on Jun 12, 2006 21:43:00 GMT -5
No it shouldn't be legalized!!!!!! i think some of the laws are STUPID!! and don't make any sense what so ever. If it is legalizes, who would take on the people who get sick from it (cancer) and so on. I think legalizing it, is a weak excuse, for just giving up!!!. I look at the country's that legalized, drugs!! and it's not good. Prostitution, Aids, and other disease. Are spread around, just as much as now!!!. it looks like they have it in hand, but the truth is, when you are ADDICTED to something, you DON'T ALWAYS PLAY BY THE RULES!!! placed before you!!!. People are victimized, because crooked people know where to find you in your hour of desperation!!!!.The only payoff is, you KNOW, where they are. And you either get them UNHOOKED off the drugs!! or stand around until they die, or are so used up, that they are no good to anybody and are cast to the side, like bums on the streets, in this nation. All we will have, is a population, legally addicted to drugs, and maybe, a new industry, that takes care of them!! and to me, it's not worth it. I hear all the time about how Marijuana, isn't addicting, and that maybe true, but there is no way in hell, theses days, you can tell you are getting clean marijuana, because back in the day (I never sold it) they put everything they could think of, to help you get high or stay high!!.
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Post by blackviking on Jun 12, 2006 22:18:37 GMT -5
If it is legalizes, who would take on the people who get sick from it (cancer) and so on. Who's doing it now? Exactly... just like now! I haven't made any claims that legalization would solve any of those problems. Only that what we are doing currently isn't solving them either, and is causing a whole slew of other problems in it's wake. Well... that's at least one more pay off than we have now. Just like now! Have you looked around this country lately? It's not a new industry, it's an old industry. It's the same industry that's caring for them now. A little off the subject, but dealers don't do this. It's not cost effective. Why add something to the marijuana to increase the potency, when you can sell the untreated stuff for the same price? In the old days, dealers used to increase profits by by mixing other things in with the weed that would give weight but were actually free (such as grass, hay, manure, ect). This doesn't happen anymore. The vast majority of marijuana smokers know exactly what it looks like, and a dealer who does this won't make any sales.
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