Legalizing Marijuana?
 

What are your thoughts on legalizing marijuana? Pros/Cons?

discuss. =)

I see you have become the regular pothead my young friend.

Cons - Gateway theory : leads to more extreme drugs aka crack and shit


Pros - Tax that shit : new government revenue will bring in billions annually
Saves Government money: government spends around 1-200 million annual fighting marijuana
This could create a whole knew legit industry for BC.. (jobs for a lot of people)

Btw just to give u an idea of how dangerous marijuana compared to other legal things ( rated on how many people it kills annually )
#1 -Tobacco
#2 - Alcohol
#3 - Caffeine
#4 -Pain killers
#5 - Marijuana ( Actually there isnt a single case ever recorded that marijuana was the cause of death. AKA Marijuan annual deaths 0 )



I actually did a research project on this last semster and found through questionaire of 100 people sample.
That A) 80% of them didnt know the effects of marijuana B) Over 60% of them though Marijuana was #1 killer
C) They didnt expect the trade to be able to generate that much revenue, nor did they expect the amount of money put into the police to try stop marijuana ..



BTW - Iv only smoked twice in my entire life, so im not a super pot head..
O and just to add the addiction level of marijuana is a 1 on a 5 scale... (crack is like 4 or seomthing, CAFFEINE is a 2 or 3..)
Also even if you are addicted to marijuana it only shows small less serious signs of withdraw which last for 1-3days..( unlike crack or herione )

^ good one.

I was hooked on pot through out highschool(6/7years) Finally stopped when I was around 19/20...It runed my social life for a while. Switched over to drinking, not every nght though..I don't want to see it legalized just because.

Keep smoking pot. It will lead you to Cocaine.

Cocaine is one hell of a drug. :eek5r:

smoking weed aint that bad i mean goign to other drugs like coke and herion is just fucked but smokin weed aint bad, my theory is if it comes out the ground it is ok

pro's. BC's GDP is going to sky rocket! this will affect other industries too, mainly tourism! can you imagine, ppl coming for the BC wine tour's and BC bud tours... thats gonna be hilarious!

pro's also is we will be able to pay back what we spent on the olympics within a year!

pro's, sales of munchie foods will go thru the roof.

con's, u open the door a crack, and its gonna flood. we will see more hardcore drugs and gangs find another drug to push.

con's, gov't regulation which also means responsibility. they have safe injection sites, so whats next, safe green rooms?

con's, due to junk food consumption and sales increasing, we will now exceed the obesity rate of all of US.

con's, nothing will ever get done! everyone will be too high! so even private businesses will now work at the same slow pace as the gov't!

lol. ive been smokin weed for ages. and i have never touched an illicit drug outside it in my life. nor have i ever had the urge to.

haha leon, becoming a pothead now eh?

What if people look at it the same way they look at liquor? Clearly you don't drink at work or at like 11am. So you have a stressful day at work, it's 5pm now, go hit the bong/grab a beer at the bar. Could this happen?

like !SG said, the amount the gov't would take in is huge. Here are the cons I see:

- not supposed to be addictive, but how many people make it such a major part of their lifestyle ie: SWED, all the people with 420 in every username they make, etc.

- control: they don't have a roadside test to check whether you're sober enough to drive. this is a big one.

- the border: you think it sucks now? Could you imagine how many "random" searches there would be if we legalized marijuana here? what a massive pain that would be.

- conflict of laws: you aren't allowed to drink in public, so you drink in bars and clubs. but you aren't allowed to smoke indoors. Now where would pot fit in? Clearly you couldn't have it indoors but then does that fall under public intoxication or consumption in public? Who knows but buy stock in brownie batter.

- gateway: that's a hit and miss, along with the addiction bit. I know people that have gone from pot to coke and just about everything else.

- growing it: BC and several other provinces can't keep up with energy demands now, I don't know what differences indoors vs outdoors makes but indoor growing we're already short on power, and outdoor we're already short on farm land.

Pro's:
- tourists in Kelowna wouldn't keep asking me if I have weed/where to find weed. Had it happen 4 times last summer. Sent them to random places.

- people out here in Ontario would quit asking me if I brought a massive bag of weed with me just because I'm from BC. I don't even smoke it! wtf people!

BTW just to point out all this is coming out of the top of my head, so the #'s may not be 100% accurate but its close!

True, but think about the money spent on enforcement officers for weed (aka 1-200million) will be going to crack down on OTHER drugs/gangs. Add in the extra millions made selling marijuana would possible give the criminal enforcement officers a even BIGGER budget to work with...

Just to give you an idea of just how MUCH money the government could possible make off legalizing Marijuana.
Estimated illegal marijuana trade makes 7 billion annually
Money spent on enforcement officers (directly to counter marijuana) 1-200million
Marijuana isnt just a useless plant to smoke.. think about it agriculturally. Not only can you grow practically anywhere, hemp paper last longer then regular paper, it can be made into clothing and hemp seeds contain LOTS of nutritional value... Legalizing marijuana will create a whole new industry for BC, creating thousands of jobs and overall helping in a lot of ways..

Sorry i dont understand this comment.. not sure if your saying its bad or not.. LOL

Im pretty sure if they wanted to make a breathalyzer for weed, some random tech/science guy would make one..

No comment :P cause its true.. haha unless america legalizes it toooo :D

The laws for public drinking and smoking are bull shit, the government only keeps them there because corporate companies pressure them and wont allow them to change the law. Seriously think about!

Why is alcohol and tobacco legal?
Because they have absolutely ZERO/NONE/ZIP health benefits?? Instead killing thousands of people annually?!
And all they seem to do is make the corporate companies rich, while allow the government to tax the shit out of the product (aka government is making lots from smokes/booze)

BTW if any of you are gonna say its part of our heritage! u can go fuck yourself .:thumbsup: Public health over your heritage/history bullshit

I agree it is a hit and miss, just to add in i know more then 10 people who occasionally smoked or smoke weed BUT none have them EVER have tried crack or other serious drugs. (This is because were educated and know the other shit will do to us compared to weed)

The amount of illegal grow ops is HUGE.. there wouldnt be a difference in energy consumption, if they legalized it forcing ALL the home grow ops to close down.. ( In fact it may even save energy consumption because government grow ops will be standardized and properly set by electricians.. Not some random guy who learned how to reroute all the electricity from the house to the basement.. )

To add on: marijuana can be grown practically anywhere.. there was a bust up in the mountains a few years back. The police found over 15 emptied train carts underground, which was a whole grow op operation.. Land isnt a problem ..

I'm saying it's bad haha. If you smoke weed *every single day* that's called an addiction. I don't get why people who smoke pot are the only ones who feel the need to slap it on all their forum/gamer tags. I like beer but I'm not gonna call myself BeErGuY_24_7. Look at Vansterdams username, DP, etc for example. And I think he just failed everyone in this thread who had ever the slightest hint that they thought legalizing pot was a bad idea. Classy.

They're working on it actually, I doubt the police like hauling people to the station to piss test them.

Which they almost never will.

I'm pretty sure the tobacco companies want people to smoke everywhere. The reason is the public. People don't want to have to inhale cigarette smoke just to get a beer in a bar, and people don't want to see drunken jackasses running around, some of which would be yelling and swearing around their kids. I don't think allowing people to drink in public would be a very positive setup for the kids lol.

Actually if you consume 1-2 beers/day or I think 1 glass of wine/day it is good for your health. Overconsumption is bad for your health. And they can't get rid of it because it has become too deeply ingrained into our society. Do you remember how well prohibition went? Not very.

i dont believe this one bit.

BC sells more of its power than it uses. the whole reason why u see so many bc hydro commercials telling everyone to be more environmentally aware is because its their duty to, pressure from lobbiests, public, and gov't, and also because to keep up the demand they get from selling the electricity, they need to tell the locals to cut down on use.

same with wood. if u go anywhere to buy some 2x4s for a weekend project, you will notice, the wood isnt anywhere near as nice as what we export. we export the finest quality to get highest top dollar for it.

im iffy about this one. vpd/rcmp are grossly undermaned and underpaid for their profession and land mass they have to cover.

say they legallize marijuana. though it sounds like it will free up resources, i think if anything, it just wont be as bad as it is now. internet fraud department for all of vancouver consists of 3 police officers! they wont even look at ur case unless it breaks over a million in fraud =/

with marijuana legalized, i think cocaine, and meth will just take a larger portion of the illegal drug pie.

most kids cant afford coke but meth yes, both are pretty hard drugs

weed is good

regardless, people in vancouver will continue to blaze

I can check with my uncle (he works for Hydro) but I'm pretty sure we actually import power.

cool! that would actually put an end to one of the questions. i read that it was the opposite that hydro power is one of the natural resources we export.

some googling told me that we flip between importing and exporting, in the 90's we had a streak of importing but through most of the 2000's we've had a net export. 2008 we had a net import though. So I think we're sitting around our limit right now. If it was grown in say, the middle of nowhere (old clearcuts perhaps?) then energy use wouldn't be much of an issue, but you'd probably want to hire security.

another pro I thought of is quality control. I know one of my friends got a joint off some guy that was laced with coke, whatever that's called. It messed him up a bit and he didn't find out til later what it was.

im not so sure about this one...putting cocaine (costs more) into a joint (marijuana: costs less) seems very non cost efficient. and its not like dealers in vancouver cant get customers.

anyways, i see legalizing it as a pro, but i highly doubt it will become a reality, unless major companies start investing in marijuana. which they wont.

best thing to do? spark up a dutch and just laugh.

I think it's to get people into the effect, and then transition them into full out cocaine. idk that's just what I was told. I know people do mix stuff up though.

i dont see why anyone would want it legalized.
you can freely smoke almost anywhere in vancouver without getting hassled.
its basically legal right now as it is.

Can I be your 420th fail?