Legal Cannabis

I drank at the same age and still made straight A's; as did probably hundreds of my other friends. Weed smokers drank more, more often, and almost always while smoking their weed (with the weed smoking starting before the drinking). Then again lets ignore the rest of the post and all logic like you've done to the bit you quoted last time, and live in our own little fantasy world where the joints never stop flowing. People that drank comparable amounts to the weed smokers still made it through school.

Did I mention stoners are probably the worst company around? Unless you're into that whole lets dumb down our senses and comprehension skills so we can laugh at each other thing.

 

Almost all of my friends are smokers. they're not stupid as **** as you describe them and they dont drink more then others.

 

beep

 

I think tiffy could need a good joint from time to time to be less "realistic" as she would call it...

 

Or perhaps you should stop smoking a "good joint" so that you, too, can make informed, accurate, and unbiased decisions based on something other than your own personal greed and wants.

I find it amusing, and revealing, that Tiffany makes a fact filled post based on actual sources, respected scientific sources, in addition to her own life experience, and all the reactions are personal attacks and whining.

Not a single attempt to provide factual counter arguments, just whining.

And you wonder why Cannabis legalization doesn't go mainstream? Laughable.

 

I don't smoke at all.
But thank you for reminding that you are, too, biased.

 

You are not informed nor accurate either... But this discussion is just bullshit because we don't change anything with it.

 

"You are not informed nor accurate." Still not trying to counter Tiffany's points. There's enormous evidence about all the downsides of this drug you so desire to legalize, plenty of Police anecdotes... and that's all you can say?

You are right though, this discussion won't change anything. Unfortunately for this movement, the vast majority of people, for all intents and purposes anywhere, aren't in favor of it.

 

For me it's easier to get weed then it is to get alcohol, Because you have to go into special stores to buy it. And those stores have cameras and even guards.. To get weed I just have to call someone and he will come driving to me with the weed. If it was legal. I dont think I would have used it by now.

But i agree, Weed isn't all good at all. But the bad parts are not THAT bad. beer and wine are much much worse, Yet, they are legal for people over 21(iceland).

 

That this discussion is useless is the reason i don't defend cannabis... it speaks for itself... since we all know you and tiffy are kinda indoctrinated, the point of giving information, let it be the most accurate evidence to anything, you would deny it and still believe what you want to believe...

 

Anybody who's seen someone on tequila will understand that weed should be legalized

 

This looks like a fun thread to chime in! I consider cannabis to be pretty harmless, but here's some points to consider.

Such behavior could also be explained by bad peer influence and/or parenting;
Drug use at 13 is a huge red flag to me that the ones responsible for the kids are not doing a great job.
Also, expanding on what Gretar briefly said, the brain is still in development at this stage and any type of mind-altering drug use will affect your cognitive abilities negatively (to however miniscule or great an extent) later on. This is seen commonly in alcohol abuse at a young age. Surely if cannabis was carefully regulated there would be a required age to legally obtain it. In other words, go ahead and enforce prevention of cannabis usage, provided the person is not an adult.

There is a lot of anecdotal evidence in this thread. Almost always, this ends up with a bunch of flaws. Off the top of my head: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cherry_picking_(fallacy)
You can branch off from there and find any number of cognitive biases that screw up personal experience as evidence. As Tiffy said, there are definitely people who do smoke but conceal it. If the people who are open about it are usually morons, that creates a negative bias. (and what person in their right mind would be open about doing something that is illegal!?)


As with all mind-altering substances, or anything really, moderation is essential. Just because a select group of cannabis users (like i said, generally teens..) use it irresponsibly doesn't mean the it should be illegal for use in adults. Of course, this argument doesn't apply to harder drugs which are actually physically addictive. The only argument for recreational use that i have already seen in this thread that i like is one point of Rahau's:

The obvious implications of this, like Drolith said, is that a large amount of money would be saved from ending the combat of an activity which cannot even be significantly stymied. It's not that weed is a fantastic thing that cures all woes and SHOULD be legalized ASAP- it's just that SHOULD NOT arguments are not solid.

As far as the gateway drug argument goes, i do not see a reason for believing that cannabis actively causes a person to seek out harder drugs, however, having access to such drugs does, at least sometimes, give you opportunities to obtain harder drugs more easily.

 

Do you know why the driving under the influence thing isn't an issue in Europe? Europeans don't drive. In the Netherlands especially? They are one of the largest bike-using countries in the world; and Amsterdam is considered the most bike-friendly region in the world. There is nothing but bikes. Yes people there still drive, but the sheer number of people that use public transportation or bicycle transportation is astounding.

America is not the place to have people with dumbed down senses and reaction times. Why? Because we have this little luxury known as the automobile and roads to drive them on.

The primary goals of legalizing cannabis in the Netherlands were as follows:

1. To prevent recreational drug use and to treat and rehabilitate recreational drug users.
2. To reduce harm to users.
3. To diminish public nuisance by drug users (the disturbance of public order and safety in the neighbourhood).
4. To combat the production and trafficking of recreational drugs and save money doing so.

Notice that all of these were taking a negative and trying to simply make it less negative. There are few positives when it comes to weed; even in moderation. "People do worse stuff already so we should let them do this." Is hardly an argument...

It is a useless conversation because anyone with a different opinion from you is just being "biased, indoctrinated, needs to relax and smoke a joint". I'll agree that I probably am biased because I have grown up with both of my fathers being cops, and constantly surrounded by other cops and their families. I have seen the horrors that come with marijuana use and abuse; and more importantly I see criminals ALL the time; and I would say that a large majority of them smoke pot.

But I guess we can ignore all of this and just make it legal because a very small minority of people want to get high legally and it would provide a short term economic boost; that would probably later lead to a generation of lazy thugs that just want to get high all day every day due to the greater accessibility and decreased cost. Lets completely ignore all the long term studies done on mice and even humans that show some extreme negative effects, in favor of the very weakly founded and short term medical research that has been done and in most cases proved that medicinal pot is inconclusive or only minorly helpful for a specific set of few illnesses; and in most cases not as effective as other treatments.

Since the best argument your cause seems to have going for it is that it will save money on police efforts for something that can't be completely controlled, we should also legalize speeding, driving while under the influence of drugs, hit and runs, and a whole plethora of other things that are hard to control; since all of these activities will likely increase once weed is legal (no matter how much pro-weed supporters insist it won't). Pot heads do stupid things. Face it.

By the way, if you keep up with foreign news at all you would know that the Dutch have been strongly pulling back on their policy concerning recreational drugs and making them much tougher. People were creating stronger batches of pot with more THC; slicing it with different drugs, and selling it in larger quantities than allowed. Cannabis remains a controlled substance in the Netherlands and both possession and production for personal use are still misdemeanors, punishable by fines when more than 5 grams or 5 plants are discovered. Their government simply doesn't really enforce it.

I'm biased. But at least I'm on the side that is going to save lives of the people who chose not to do it. I'm done posting on this thread. Spent too much time for a pointless discussion *_*

 

You act like you have poked any holes in anything that I have posted, and that you are the god of debate when you are in fact not.

You are just as guilty if not more-so of many of the things you just described as being poor debate tactics. I'm not even going to take the time to explain why your poll could be considered biased because at this point it's obvious the forums is mostly pro-pot and it will all fall on deaf ears. Clearly however a sample size of 1005 people who bothered to stay on the phone long enough after hearing it was a survey, and then again after hearing the topic at hand represent all of America. Not to mention I'm sure I hallucinated and none of the things I've seen with my own eyes; which I never brandished as fact; are completely disallowed in a forum thread with the opening question being "Do you think..."

Like I said I'm done with this thread; but don't come running in like you are the President of Debate and call everyone else an idiot. Most of your "facts" are based upon personal assumptions, "proving things that were never in question", you made "erroneous implicit assumptions" based upon what you think will happen, you ignore the immediate effects based upon what you think might happen in the future, and what you think will happen is highly misguided conjecture. The worst part is you think you're good at debate, and that the other side is "simply terrible at it". What a silly inflated view of your self.

I don't think I'm good at debate whatsoever. I know I'm terrible at it but that's why you don't see me talking about stuff like this on things like C-SPAN. This is a forum for a minecraft server; with like 20 people that actively post. This entire thread is a spec of pepper on a pea in a bowl of peas, in the middle of a giant buffet table with thousands of food items on it, in the middle of a row of giant buffet tables at a banquet. It is irrelevant and full of mediocrity; but that's part of the forums charm for me.

Make no mistake I was never under the delusion that I'm good at professional debate or even arguing over whats for dinner on any given night. But since the King of Debate has spoken, consider this my bow out. The mods on these forums take the debate forum way too seriously and absolutely ruin every thread in it when they post or lock it because they incorrectly interpret civil argument as flame. Should this result in a ban I must say it was a pleasure playing with you all over the course of the five months I've been playing. I learned a lot about the mods in minecraft and had a lot of silly fun messing around and building cities <3

Still luv you SK <3

 

So, you come to this thread, make ~50% of your post insults directed towards anyone who has posted in this thread and criticizing anecdotal evidence, then make another ~45%, anecdotal evidence. I'd lock this thread if I were you, for you have just kindled an actual flame.

 

wat