Legalisation of Marijuana

[Special At Specialist]

haha, passionate about bud? very nice

Yes! Weed has some amazing powers! It is very effective at relieving body pain and it can also prevent cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy from feeling nauseous and vomiting.

[no steez]

Yes! Weed has some amazing powers! It is very effective at relieving body pain and it can also prevent cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy from feeling nauseous and vomiting.

I can agree on that. It is truly a powerful drug, with little set in stone negative long term effects. However so many stoners use the excuses of 'effective body pain relief' and other medical reasons to smoke weed. Yes the drug is wonderful for the sick, but I still think it should stay illegal. Mind you, if people want to smoke weed, they will. Many do it for an 'experience' not for medical reasons. Yet it is amazingly easy to get and common in Melbourne.
I personally think trying weed is good for personal reasons and to 'live a bit', but people wreck it when they smoke all day everyday and contribute little to our society. To be honest, I'm fine with semi-regular drug use, as long as the individual does not cause harm to others and can also can contribute to the society we live in collectively.

[Special At Specialist]

I can agree on that. It is truly a powerful drug, with little set in stone negative long term effects. However so many stoners use the excuses of 'effective body pain relief' and other medical reasons to smoke weed. Yes the drug is wonderful for the sick, but I still think it should stay illegal. Mind you, if people want to smoke weed, they will. Many do it for an 'experience' not for medical reasons. Yet it is amazingly easy to get and common in Melbourne.
I personally think trying weed is good for personal reasons and to 'live a bit', but people wreck it when they smoke all day everyday and contribute little to our society. To be honest, I'm fine with semi-regular drug use, as long as the individual does not cause harm to others and can also can contribute to the society we live in collectively.

You could say the same thing about alcohol. Think about all of the domestic violence and car crashes that have resulted from that. Think about all of the alcoholics that spend their whole days unemployed and living on Centrelink payments. The difference between weed and alcohol is that you can overdose on alcohol and die from intoxication that very same day. It would make much more sense if weed was legal and alcohol was illegal.

However, my argument is not in favour of recreational drug use, only medical use. Marijuana should be sold in the same way that prescription medication is sold, or administered from a hospital in the same way that Morphine is administered, so as to prevent drug abuse.

Btw, if you think that Melbourne is bad on drug users/dealers, you should see what Adelaide is like...

[Bad Student]

Yes! Weed has some amazing powers! It is very effective at relieving body pain and it can also prevent cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy from feeling nauseous and vomiting.

Medical marijuana is different from the weed you get from your local dealer. Normal marijuana contains lots of THC to get you high but it doesn't contain high concentrations of the substances which cause the therapeutic effects.

[slothpomba]

Yes! Weed has some amazing powers! It is very effective at relieving body pain and it can also prevent cancer patients undergoing chemotherapy from feeling nauseous and vomiting.

So can a whole host of the other millions of pharmaceuticals we have. If you're going to argue for it on this line, i don' think you'll be very successful.

You could say the same thing about alcohol. Think about all of the domestic violence and car crashes that have resulted from that. Think about all of the alcoholics that spend their whole days unemployed and living on Centrelink payments. The difference between weed and alcohol is that you can overdose on alcohol and die from intoxication that very same day. It would make much more sense if weed was legal and alcohol was illegal.

It would, especially as a pharmacology major, i quite regularly pinch myself on this point but we live in the history we do, not some alternate one. We have the cards we're dealt and it's clear to all who would debate this kind of thing that we have almost 0 chance of successful banning alcohol now.

I don't think its a good case to say, well, we have this really bad thing, in comparison, this OTHER things is way less bad, so, it's good! It doesn't really work that way, it's not as if we do a sum like Alcohol - Marijuana = + then it's good. Much in the same way that if i punched you in the face but then gave you a slice of cake, it wouldn't cancel out the wrongness of the first action or the goodness of the second. Each should be looked at independently. It's the same idea here. It's not good enough to simply say Marijuana is less bad than <insert horrible society destroying drug>. You have to prove why it's good or bad independent of those things.

[mark_alec]

It's not good enough to simply say Marijuana is less bad than <insert horrible society destroying drug>. You have to prove why it's good or bad independent of those things.

It would be good if laws were based on a rational basis, and not the fear that smoking "marijuana" (notice the Spanish sound to it) will make your white women want to sleep with Blacks and Mexicans and for your men to commit rapes and murder.

Conspiracy: Cannabis was effectively outlawed in the US at the same time as DuPont patented nylon (up until that point, hemp was a popular textile, used by the USAF for parachutes in WW2 amongst other things).

[FlorianK]

I'm sure smoking marijuana is not the best even tough I did sometimes even near exam period, but it's better than thelegal drugs. In America 300,000 people die because of the effects of cigarettes, about 10 because of weed and that are people who jumped in front of a car while being high or similar. More people die due to the effects of coffee on your body.
Weed was illegalised in order to legalise the imprisoning of protesters during the Vietnam war.
This is additionally sad because the hemp plant has a bad reputation now, even though it is one best plants in the world. Hence it is not produced in many countries of the world and in the usa even banned.
Please don't think I'm an addict or anything cause I'm not, didn't had any since a couple of months.

[Dayman]

Totally agree there society have Misconception that all cannabis will get you high but that is far from it hemp is one the best plants lot and lots of resource can be produced out it ranging from construction to even petrol!

Since I'm a conspiracy nut I believe that hemp would battle big companies therefore governments ban it.

However I don't think it's banned in aus.

[Professor Polonsky]

So can a whole host of the other millions of pharmaceuticals we have. If you're going to argue for it on this line, i don' think you'll be very successful.

Yeah, except a lot of these drugs have quite dangerous side effects. We sell drugs like Xanax and Prozac completely legally. Are their effects truly less dangerous than cannabis? My reading suggests not, but I'm happy to be proven wrong.

[Russ]

It's not a reason to legalize marijuana rather than specific cannabinoid compounds for pain relief (which, incidentally, are still a frontier area of research)

[slothpomba]

It's not a reason to legalize marijuana rather than specific cannabinoid compounds for pain relief (which, incidentally, are still a frontier area of research)

This. From a pharmacological perspective, Cannabis would make a horrible drug. You can't precisely measure it out. Most drugs have a single active ingredient (eg. your panadol has 100mg of panadol). It'd be hard to standardise every single sample of marijuana to ensure a decently similar dose across each joint or cookie or whatever. We're long past using rough plant mixtures as medicine.

So, i dont think it necessarily entails fully legalising it for everyone everywhere or even the raw plant material for medical use right now.

[nubs]

I look at it from a libertarian point of view. It's my own body, why should I be punished for doing something that does not harm anyone around me? The harm done unto ourselves is also questionable.

It's an extraordinary thing to call the consumption of marijuana a crime. Being convicted of possessing a personal amount of marijuana will do me more harm than smoking it on occasion. These laws barely protect us, they make criminals out of non-violent individuals who are only looking to alter their consciousness or experience something new.

The fact that the government has the nerve to not only dictate how we should act or behave in public, but how we should think, what we should be able to experience within my own minds - frustrates me deeply. They are effectively patrolling our consciousness - and are expecting us to hand over the keys to it while believing it is in our best interests to do so.

Within the privacy of my own home, without the slightest chance of hurting anyone around me - I would still not be allowed to alter my state of consciousness through the use of a plant that has been around for longer than mankind.

[Special At Specialist]

I look at it from a libertarian point of view. It's my own body, why should I be punished for doing something that does not harm anyone around me? The harm done unto ourselves is also questionable.

It's an extraordinary thing to call the consumption of marijuana a crime. Being convicted of possessing a personal amount of marijuana will do me more harm than smoking it on occasion. These laws barely protect us, they make criminals out of non-violent individuals who are only looking to alter their consciousness or experience something new.

The fact that the government has the nerve to not only dictate how we should act or behave in public, but how we should think, what we should be able to experience within my own minds - frustrates me deeply. They are effectively patrolling our consciousness - and are expecting us to hand over the keys to it while believing it is in our best interests to do so.

Within the privacy of my own home, without the slightest chance of hurting anyone around me - I would still not be allowed to alter my state of consciousness through the use of a plant that has been around for longer than mankind.

I couldn't have put it in better words myself! This is exactly how I feel about drugs, in particular marijuana. I think that it is absolutely disgraceful that a country would label someone who smokes marijuana as a "criminal". He could be a very kind, successful, generous, helpful and upstanding member of society, but instead of recognising him for his friendliness and contributions to the world, he is labelled with the same title as a selfish, reckless and dangerous thug who harms others and causes the world to live in fear.

Perhaps if the justice system wasn't ruled by elderly conservatives who have a fear of change, then it would actually be slightly logical, but that's a totally different discussion right there.

[Russ]

I suppose there are two major points you glossed over;

There's a pretty big precedent for governments intervening in public life to protect people from their own choices and actions. Some people would say that the role of government is to do exactly that.

Is there really a reason to think that individuals exist solely in a vacuum though? You can say that private use is private but are you really able to completely compartmentalize your life like that?

(also what, doing good things doesn't cancel out doing bad things, that's sort of the point)

[nubs]

There's a pretty big precedent for governments intervening in public life to protect people from their own choices and actions. Some people would say that the role of government is to do exactly that.

And do you believe that grouping non-violent, occasional drug users with the violent is a good way of protecting 'people from their own choices and actions'?. Again, what is worse? Smoking a joint or having a criminal record?

Do you believe incarceration and prosecution (with the accompanying social condemnation and stigma) is more helpful than rehab for those who actually have a problem?

Although I agree that protecting people from making potentially detrimental decisions is a significant role of the government, I don't believe prosecuting and perhaps even incarcerating is the right way to go about it. Why not leave it to education? Not the type most of us have been subjected to in our schooling years, but arguments made with actual evidence instead of mindless propaganda and outright lies

How about a system that treats marijuana the way cigarettes are. Honest campaigns that would discourage people from doing drugs. They should protect us by treating us like responsible adults (those of us that are) instead of nannying us as if we don't know any better. Provide us with the various arguments and allow us to make a decision for ourselves instead of mindlessly locking us up.

I don't choose to avoid heroin or meth because it's illegal, I do so because I know of the risks that are associated with their use. If it were to become legal tomorrow, I highly doubt any of you would go out of your way to try it.

By prosecuting marijuana users, what exactly are you protecting them from? Sure there are risks - many of which can be avoided through proper education - but an overwhelming majority are able to lead perfectly normal lives. Many users would also say that their quality of life has been benefited by their use.

This argument would be much stronger for drugs like LSD, mescaline, ecstasy - where the long term risks can be non-existent if used responsibly. Why exactly are we be 'protected' from using those drugs? Ones that often turn users into pacifists and have minimal adverse health effects?