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| When will it be legal here? |
| Within 2 years |
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20% |
[ 3 ] |
| 2-5 years |
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13% |
[ 2 ] |
| 6-10 years |
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6% |
[ 1 ] |
| 11-20 years |
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26% |
[ 4 ] |
| It'll never happen |
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33% |
[ 5 ] |
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| Total Votes : 15 |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Who, specifically doesn't? |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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David 
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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| Mugwump wrote: | ^ two interesting posts, David. It would probably take an essay to answer both, and this is not the place for that. In brief, however :
Marijuana use is high because it has long been de-facto decriminalized. Possession laws are rarely enforced, and when they are enforced, it is usually with a caution. When was the last time someone incurred a criminal record for possession ? I know lots of people who freely admit to smoking dope and have zero fear of the law about it, but patchy enforcement of law clearly does not make law invalid. It makes politicians and police invalid.
I have lived in The Hague, where dope is quasi-legal (but the Dutch government is now tightening this very significantly as it wrestles with the social consequences). I have also lived in many places where dope is illegal. Because of the feeble, pea-hearted enforcement, there may be little difference in availability for dedicated dopeheads with the right networks, but my 18 yo children cannot walk down the street in an average town and buy it over the counter whenever they want to. That is a big difference.
Moreover, you assume that the debate is between status-quo and legalization. I would like to see the law enforced properly. Then the “it happens anyway” argument would fall flat. The drug legalisers’ argument is often like saying that Police are inactive about DV, so it happens regularly, so we might as well regulate it. It’s strange that we bitterly enforce .05 laws and then openly connive at dope use. Why do we imagine that some laws are to be obeyed and others not ?
Portugal is an essay in itself, but the summary is that it was already one of the most drug infested countries in the world (ca 1% of the population we’re addicted to opium in 2001). It’s data is also patchy and usage is now apparently rising. High bases do not father rapid escalations. Colorado will reap the wormwood of its policy in due course, I suspect.
I think the fallacy in dope use is libertarian : that there is such a thing as a victimless crime, if the perpetrator is the only one who suffers. This once seemed to me self-evident, but it is far from the case. Firstly, you do not commit a moral act when you give a drunkard alcohol. You do not do right when you let a child walk alone through a busy city. Many adults reason little better than children about possible harms. Secondly, no man is an island - damaged families, psychosis, social medical costs, and the sheer waste of human productive potential carries social costs for all. Then there is the fact that drugs are a gateway for vulnerable individuals, with all that entails.
On your second post, I recall someone asking David Bowie, a few years before he died, why he was still making records, what he still wanted to say. He replied “I don’t have anything to say. I make records so as not to die of boredom”. A society built on hedonism and the pursuit of pleasure is always on the edge of boredom. I think that has much to do with it. When we abandoned powerful, connective ideals like family, tradition, faith and patriotism - ie when we really had “ community” rather than prating about it - and substituted them with the pleasure-seeking, consuming individual, we created the poor infinitely addictable creature you rightly identify. It is a great irony to me that the Left has so gullibly destroyed community on behalf of capitalism.
A final word - addiction is a concept that has proved as elastic as granny’s old knickers. It’s really just a code word for how much will I have to exercise in order to avoid harms. Once you think about it that way, it’s hard to use the word as blithely as we do today. |
While I agree that marijuana doesn’t seem to be rigorously policed now, we do have ample access to a case study of where a hardline approach leads: the US, where a zero-tolerance approach towards marijuana over the past three decades has led to skyrocketing imprisonment rates and decimated communities – far more social harm than marijuana itself could ever have caused.
It’s possible that you would advocate for something less draconian than this. But, personally, I always want punishment to be linked to actual harm. The fact is that most casual marijuana use and low-level dealing of the drug causes very little social damage, either to other people or the individuals themselves. So what you’re arguing for is punishing people for a nebulous overall harm, not a consequence that is necessarily entailed in their specific actions.
Drink-driving is a useful comparison, and some might argue that the .005 limit is policed too vigorously (speed limits are another example). But in both cases, the act of drink-driving is often lethal, and anyone who does this is at least risking causing permanent damage to someone else. Dealing ice is somewhere on that spectrum; casual marijuana use simply isn’t.
I don’t necessarily disagree with Skids on a broader decriminalisation approach. But that doesn’t mean that we are, or should be, treating all drugs the same. These are substances with different qualities, effects and dangers; it’s just common sense to take them on a case-by-case basis (even if that is informed by broader underlying principles). Marijuana is not harmless, but it’s not harmful enough to be treated as contraband, IMO.
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Nick - Pie Man
Joined: 04 Aug 2010
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| stui magpie wrote: | | David wrote: | | I think it'll happen, but progress is so glacial here that it may well be over a decade away. |
So Gay couples will be allowed to get legally stoned before they can get legally married.   |
Quoted for posterity  |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| David wrote: | ...
Drink-driving is a useful comparison, and some might argue that the .005 limit is policed too vigorously (speed limits are another example). ... |
If only. |
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David
I dare you to try
Joined: 27 Jul 2003
Location: Andromeda
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Ha. One standard sip an hour, would you say?
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All watched over by machines of loving grace |
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Mugwump
Joined: 28 Jul 2007
Location: Between London and Melbourne
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^ the last time I looked, the us prison population was about 2 million and of those, about 30,000 were in jail for MJ offenses, almost all for supply. Dope is not a major cause of the US prison population. That is caused by significant inequality plus libertarian social norms.
I think the penalties for possession could be graduated, escalating with multiple offences, rather as those for the more severe driving offences are. Ultimately this should lead to the strong deterrent of a criminal record, with the restriction of life choices this involves. Repeated defiance of the law, however, should then rightly lead to imprisonment. It cannot be a matter of whether I like to do this particular crime.
But you’d have to start actually enforcing the law on possession before it became an issue. At the moment, we do not, so marijuana use is widespread. I don’t think this drug is necessarily disastrous for the odd casual user. I say that the benefit to the casual user is not worth the costs to society at large and those with powerful susceptibility to psychosis, indolence, “addiction” etc. In some respects I see it as like poker machines, another stupid example of us applying libertarian principles and causing much misery. However, I also see the sheer business of deliberately intoxicating yourself and disordering your mental function as incompatible with civilized humanity.
My comparison with drink driving was not to suggest that the two acts are comparable in all respects. I completely support drink driving enforcement, and I recognize that there is risk of harm to others that dope use alone does not necessarily bring. My point was only that it is absurd to make laws and barely (if at all) enforce them while we sternly enforce others. Law cannot be voluntary.
Many years ago I took dope three times. Once was blissful, one neutral, and the third brought me very close to psychosis, to the point where only a friend’s attendance stopped me running onto a busy road. Maybe the last dose was laced, but I doubt it. The big difference in the three cases was my mood at the time of consumption. It is not as simple as “dope is always a good thing.”
Brain altering chemicals can have different effects on different people at different times. Altering the neurotransmitters of a million people is intrinsically a risky thing to do, and I think only a very bad government would do so. I also remain suspicious of an anecdotal link between heavy use in some individuals and mass shooting/terrorism when they are not under the influence. This question applies to SSRIs as well, as K has noted.
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Two more flags before I die!
Last edited by Mugwump on Fri Apr 27, 2018 9:25 am; edited 1 time in total |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| I know Brain the bot pretty well. |
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Skids 
Quitting drinking will be one of the best choices you make in your life.
Joined: 11 Sep 2007
Location: Joined 3/6/02 . Member #175
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Well, it's bloody hard to get hold of any at the minute!
I haven't had a choof for a few weeks now, and do you think I can get hold of any!!??
Was looking forward to; a big spliff, supreme pizza and having a movie day in the Daicos Bar with me dog this Sunday while all the girls are out.
Hopefully today will bring some joy 
_________________
Don't count the days, make the days count. |
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HAL
Please don't shout at me - I can't help it.
Joined: 17 Mar 2003
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| Is this a "yes or no" question? |
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Woods Of Ypres
Joined: 27 May 2003
Location: Yugoslavia
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its the paranoia thing I'm worried about.
I've smoked it a few times, I enjoy the experience but there was one time I smoked it when living in Canada with a friend, we were by the lake and when he left I was completed disorientated. took me 2 hours to walk home which should have taken 10 minutes. All my senses were heightened and I was convinced I was being followed by all types of creatures. i had it under control but when survival mode kicks in people react differently |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| Woods Of Ypres wrote: | its the paranoia thing I'm worried about.
I've smoked it a few times, I enjoy the experience but there was one time I smoked it... |
Do you know anything that might have led to this one experience being so different from the others, or do you believe it's really rather random? |
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K
Joined: 09 Sep 2011
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| Mugwump wrote: | ...
Many years ago I took dope three times. Once was blissful, one neutral, and the third brought me very close to psychosis, to the point where only a friend’s attendance stopped me running onto a busy road. Maybe the last dose was laced, but I doubt it. The big difference in the three cases was my mood at the time of consumption. It is not as simple as “dope is always a good thing.”
... |
Blissful, neutral and terrifying in that order? Do you think the order of the experiences has any significance?
Were they all from the same source, and is this why you doubt the last was contaminated? |
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stui magpie 
Prepare for the worst, hope for the best.
Joined: 03 May 2005
Location: In flagrante delicto
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I only had a paranoid reaction once. Couple of bongs laced with hash.
driving home, I was 20kmh under the limit, turned the radio off in the car as it was distracting me, told the missus to STFU till I got home, then I saw one of the street lights ahead om start to blink.
Then the £$%$er exploded.
That nearly did me in, but I turned to the missus and said "Did I just see......." and she replied, yeah, that street light just exploded.
That settled me enough to get home and that was the last time I had hash.
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Every dead body on Mt Everest was once a highly motivated person, so maybe just calm the **** down. |
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Woods Of Ypres
Joined: 27 May 2003
Location: Yugoslavia
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| K wrote: | | Woods Of Ypres wrote: | its the paranoia thing I'm worried about.
I've smoked it a few times, I enjoy the experience but there was one time I smoked it... |
Do you know anything that might have led to this one experience being so different from the others, or do you believe it's really rather random? |
my understanding is there are different strains of the drug. 'BC (British Columbia) Bud' is world famous for potency. I found this out afterwards. That being said, if we legalize marijuana, will it include all strains? i think some of these strains can be quite dangerous. |
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