Gupta is also a liar though, that point has to be remembered and he lies about medicine/health care. he's been forced to fess up to it several times over the years the most prominent instance being his debate with Michael Moore and his Sicko documentary

heck Gupta admitted he's been misleading people about marijuana as well (admitted to it during interviews regarding his marijuana documentary)

It seems like the point missing here is weed itself is not addictive, the addiction is all mental. It's great there is finally some positive press for it, one thing I don't like tho is how they seem to blindly categorize recreational users as social deviants. Yet, if you drink alcohol or smoke cigarettes its okay. We need to get rid of that mentality before it is legalized, IMO.

actually not really.

if you drink alcohol a lot, and chain smoke a lot. you're also a social deviant.

drunks and chain smokers are looked down upon. no respect for drunks... they're like... total low lifes, and chain smokers are just... i duno, they smell like shit and... it's like watching someone kill themselves... and killing yourself is ultra low respect too.

though you have to be an extreme of alcohol or cigs to be a social deviant. if you even mention pro marijuana then you're already a deviant lol. but of course you are... it's illegal. by definition if you support anything that is illegal then you are a social deviant.

gangsta rap made me do it.

CIC banned from thread. Continue on, guys.

I can agree with the 15%.
Yet if you actually went around and asked everybody who has ever smoked weed (even once) I bet the conclusion would be about 65-70%+.

Majority of people know that weed isn't addictive, it doesn't cause serious harm to you or anyone else, so lots of people are willing to try it. Even if its just once.

according to this 47% of people in BC have not smoked weed. I don't think you will see a 32% increase if weed is legalized

http://www.google.ca/url?sa=t&rct=j&...,d.aWc&cad=rja

The whole 'gateway drug' is bullshit. People who want to use will use what's available. When you're a kid and you can't get cigarettes or alcohol because they're too strictly controlled, they'll get pot. You're a kid in highschool, it's a serious pain in the ass to get booze or smokes unless you've got an older sibling who'll hook you up. But you find a guy to hook you up with weed, and you're set. Of course you're going to find more people who aren't of legal age who are using pot--it's the drug that's easiest to find and dealers seriously don't care about how old (or young) you are.

You want to make sure that kids can't get drugs? Regulate it. People always say "Oh, if you legalize it, then little kids will be smoking it and the world will end!". I got news for you: THEY ALREADY ARE BECAUSE IT'S EASIER TO GET THAN BOOZE. You go to 4/20 at the VAG, and you'll see a damned good chunk of kids strutting around acting like they're the shit. You've got potheads who think it's cool that kids are getting hooked up and will help them get high. You regulate pot and you'll eliminate a chunk of the problem in a few years as things get cleaned up.


I completely and totally agree with education, but one of the problems I have with education is those people who say that "Pot is just as bad as heroin or cocaine". Anyone who's had experience with pot will understand why that kind of comment makes me laugh so hard. Pot, more than anything, is comparable to booze. You ask someone who enjoys a beer or a scotch if they're addicted to alcohol, they'll say no. You ask them if they'll give up booze for a year--hell, even six months--and they'll give you this "weeeeeeeeeeeeellllllll.....". Funny, that's what people who smoke pot say. But if you ask them to give it up for a week. Two. Even a month if you push it, they can do it.

They won't have the shakes. They won't be freaking out. They won't be stressing telling everyone how long it's been (sometimes to the hour) how long it's been since they last had a drink or a toke.

Well, most won't. Some will. And THOSE people are addicted.

I'm not saying that drugs aren't bad (alcohol and tobacco included). But I will say that the rhetoric around pot (especially compared to alcohol and tobacco) is blown hugely out of proportion.


My grandpa was a pharmacist back in the '40s and '50s. You know what he gave you when you had a stomach ache and weren't eating? Heroin. Oh, and also if your skin needed some clearing up: tonic of heroin. The coca-cola that he drank as a youth before the depression? Laced with cocaine.

Drugs are bad. Drugs should be kept out of certain hands. People need to be educated that drugs are bad. But the people who should be deciding these things are doctors after extensive scientific research. Control of these things need to be taken out of the black market and regulated (private or public, don't care), so that we can at least get a bit of a handle on the problem.

Cops will often issue announcements about problems with drugs on the street: overly high potency, cut with problematic and/or poisonous materials--they'll often say "The major reason you shouldn't take illegal drugs is because you don't know what's in them". The solution? Dispense them from a pharmacy at a government-regulated level! Why not just say "The maximum strength of heroin or cocaine that you can purchase is 10%, and you can only purchase X amount within Y period of time from a regulated area, and you'll have to provide a certain type of ID to ensure you're not purchasing more than you should."

Is there anyone here who isn't currently using heroin or cocaine who'd start just because it's legal? I'm pretty sure that the legal punishments are not at the front of our minds when we think about the downsides to drugs. There are nutjobs out there who say that "the law is the only thing stopping doctors from snorting coke before they do operations, or judges from injecting heroin before they judge a case". I'm pretty sure that's bullshit. We've all developed moral compasses; we just need to make sure that the education we give future generations will be proper so that they can develop their own.

Won't load on my work computer... =/

You have any friends who are cops?
Cops need to take a lie-detector test when they are going through the steps to become part of the force. 1 of the questions is: "Have you ever smoked weed?" Ask them next time what percentage says yes. :D

great post and well thought out as always but i disagree with the bolded section

altering our physiological states and conciousness through pharmacy is a fundamental component of humankind and carries with it many cultural, anthropological, philosophical and spiritual connotations

drugs are one of the major catalysts for human growth and development as anyone who has ever studied history will know. primitive hunter gatherers used magic mushrooms to enhance their eyesight and also to question their limited conciousness. our first agricultural societies developed simply because those with grain surpluses could afford to brew beer, with didnt spoil

the idea of prohibiting drugs is laughable because of how intoxication is and always will be an intrinsic component of human existence and conciousness

Honestly, I don't disagree with anything that you've said. But as it stands, the way that black market drugs are handled, and with the oftentimes unpredictable nature of hallucinogens, it poses significant risks for a serious chunk of the population.

A great number of people drive to work every day, and there are a large number of people who use heavy machinery either at work or at home (yes, I'm counting things like riding mowers 'heavy machinery' for the purposes of this explanation). When you look at shrooms or DMT or LSD, there's no way to be sure of the potency of what you'll get, nor of the longevity when it comes to how long your 'trip' will last.

I'll be honest, point blank those things both entice and scare the shit out of me. Do I want the life-changing visions that LSD has brought to hundreds of thousands of people (if not millions) throughout history? Hell. Fucking. Yes. Am I worried that it'll knock me out for hours if not days, and that I may have a 'bad trip' which would leave me somewhat scarred and/or traumatized? Just as much.

That's the problem with hallucinogens and other drugs of that ilk. They're both wonderful and terrible and unpredictable--and it's that unpredictability which brings those qualities. Were there a way that I could take them in a monitored environment in which I could be dealt with if I start to go nuts I would feel infinitely safer in trying them, and would feel much more free to do so.

My 'drugs are bad' statement was an oversimplification and was essentially a statement on the current state of non-pharmaceutical recreational street drugs and their purity/consistency/potency. My answers aren't perfect answers, and the best solutions are nuanced ones rather than black and white. Apologies if I didn't adequately express that.

Weed a gateway drug? What kind of stupid crap is that? I love how weed is demonized as a gateway drug, yet Alcohol or Cigarettes are never gateway drugs.

How many people have drank booze before they smoked weed? How many people have smoked cigarettes, before trying weed? Pretty sure my first time smoking weed started with hitting some beers first. It's such a ridiculous argument, my mind completely turns off when I hear a person say that garbage.

The guy who sells you weed probable sells other drugs too. The person who sells cigs and booze does not sell weed and coke.

The guy who sells weed most likely does not sell coke or smack, but the guy who sells coke and smack may have some weed just in case. The guys who sell weed are often hippy-dippy guys or guys who aren't into hard drugs because they're squishy or squeamish or just in it for the quick/easy/'safe' money.

Kids who try pot probably aren't trying it as their first toe-dip into the brain-altering world. Chances are they've had cigarettes from older sibs/stolen from parents/given by older kids. Or that they've scored some beers from other people. Admittedly anecdotal evidence, but I know not a single person who tried pot as their first 'drug'. Alcohol or tobacco were always at the top of the list.

The marijuana trade in BC is run by criminals. The same ones who ship weed to the states bring coke into B.C. Weed is the first illegal drug most people try.

I wasn't talking about the trade. Many of the wholesalers and the smugglers and producers may be the same; I really couldn't say. But I will say that most of the pot dealers and smokers that I've dealt with have been the type who have stayed away from the harder drugs.

That having been said, they usually know a guy who can get what you want if you really want it. I mean, it is the drug trade after all.

-----

One is legal on is not. FYI Tylenol is also a drug.

:rukidding:

Tylenol is also 100% controlled. Typical safe dosages are on the shelf.
Yet if you want the "hardcore" Tylenol 3's, you need a doctors prescription, and the doctor will diagnose how much of a dosage you need.

How is it 100% controlled? I can eat as many as I want.

That's like saying bleach is a drug. I can go and drink as much as I want..

drugs are good for the body! Keep it high friends! :drunk:

Fuck's sake. Tylenol ISN'T a drug. It's a fucking BRAND.

Acetaminophen is a drug that's in most over the counter Tylenol. And you can fuck yourself up on it pretty bad if you mix it with acetylsalicylic acid (Aspirin - ANOTHER brand). Not the tripping kind of fucked up, the fucking medical emergency kind of fucked up. That fucked up.

And no, they're not controlled, but their higher end prescription drugs from the same companies (Tylenol, Bayer, etc.) ARE controlled. You can have as much of the lower shit you want, but it's not vicodins, percocets or codeine you're having at that point. It's acetominophen, which will do fuck all to bring on a high for you.

Back to the argument at hand, alcohol is the first legal drug that will garner any noticeable effects of intoxication or inebriation, easily, without any relatively harmful side effects.

Plus one to what Alatar said, and also some other points.

When people compare acetaminophen and weed or ibuprofen and booze, they're making a mistake by conflating [medicinal] drugs and [recreational] drugs. Medicinal drugs have been specifically designed, often over several generations or iterations, to produce an exact medical result. The reduction of inflammation, the reduction or elimination of pain and so on and so forth. When it comes to over the counter medications, this difference is quite clear. When it comes to prescription medications, however, the differences become more negligible.

Percocet, methadone, codeine and other medicinal drugs can be taken or used recreationally. This makes them no less effective as medicinal drugs, but does cause people to have the line between the types of drugs blurred and results in the kinds of arguments we are seeing here.

While Tylenol is a legal drug of which you can consume as much as you like, it is also completely controlled. The companies who produce it are strictly regulated and licensed and monitored. The chemical components that are used to make the drug and bind them together into the pills and caplets that you take are equally monitored and regulated.

The question is not whether or not people will get high. People will get high from legal recreational drugs, illegal recreational drugs, or even legal consumer products that aren't supposed to be used in that way (gasoline, compressed air cans &c &c). The question is how we can manage to have as few people addicted as possible, and to reduce the risks to those people as much as possible--if for no other reason, then simply to reduce the strain on the medical system for the rest of us.

Are you a square? You will be hard pressed to find a guy who sells weed, who will also happen to have Coke, Molly, etc to sell you at the same time.

Give me a break. That was a laughable post. You have a better chance asking a random downtown for Coke than asking your pot dealer.