[Ledgem]

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

I'm under the impression that most people who want it legalized like to get high sometimes, as in, biased standpoint.

Probably true for most supporters. I can tell you that I don't use marijuana, never have, and don't intend to (the same goes for other mind-altering drugs), but I think it should be legalized.

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

I'm not for legalizing weed. Maybe it'll work out okay. Maybe it won't work out good. Don't wanna take that chance. Once we legalize it, there will probably be no going back. Remember when we tried to outlaw alcohol?

The Prohibition taught some valuable lessons that are very much applicable today. What happened when alcohol was banned? Liquor stores closed up and overall alcohol consumption probably declined (I don't have data on that point, but it stands to reason). However, something happened in response. Gangs began to produce their own alcohol, and they sold it on the black market. Money that was originally going to "legitimate businesses" began to flow toward the gangs. If you look at the data from around that time, you'll see that crime began to increase; supposedly this is because the gangs were receiving huge amounts of cash from alcohol, and they were able to expand into other criminal ventures with it. To combat the crime, money spent on police began to increase.
When the Prohibition was ended, the source of money that had been fueling the gangs disappeared.

Does that sound familiar? Take a look at how powerful the drug cartels in Mexico have become. They've gained such influence and power that they routinely challenge the Mexican government, and have completely taken over some towns. Legalize marijuana and it will weaken them and other criminal enterprises that cash in on the underground sales.

What it ultimately comes down to is the fact that we can't control people. People are going to smoke marijuana regardless of the legality or penalties. I say we make the best of that situation: legalize it to divert money away from criminal organizations, tax it, and use the taxes for things like drug education and social support programs for addicts.

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

And I don't like hearing people say it isn't a gateway drug because I really doubt that. I had two close friends in high school start with weed and then were doing and dealing coke a couple years outta high school and I had a next door neighbor who went from doing some weed to a lot of weed to doing oxycontin, derailing his life and eventually bringing him to rehab (and it could have easily turned out worse). On top of this, I knew many students in my high school and in my town that started with weed first and it led them to try hard drugs and led them to abuse pills.

Marijuana (and cigarettes) can certainly be gateway drugs, but I think we need to ask ourselves why they're gateway drugs. To make my point, I'd like to make a comparison to something interesting and slightly unrelated: binge drinking.

Binge drinking is a problem in America (particularly among the college crowd), yet by the numbers, it's not much a problem in Europe. Why? How come Europeans use alcohol responsibly, while Americans don't? One theory has to do with the drinking age and alcohol laws. In most (if not all?) European countries, the drinking age is lower and it's not quite frowned upon for a young adult to enjoy alcoholic beverages. They drink with their families, learning responsible consumption from them... but more importantly, the "taboo" factor is removed. They drank alcohol and can drink it whenever they want - who cares? But in America, young adults go off to college, and it's their first time drinking more than a few sips. Further, they're breaking the law. That's taboo, and it's reckless. Combined with their lack of learned responsible usage, it leads to reckless usage and behavior.

How does that relate to drugs? When one smokes marijuana today, they're doing multiple things. They're using a substance, but more importantly, they are breaking the law and doing something risky. Other drugs are also illegal, but now that they're lawbreakers, that doesn't matter. Without any social support network to encourage responsible usage (and combined with a youthful attitude of recklessness), they advance to the harder, more dangerous drugs.

If marijuana were legalized, some people would undoubtedly still advance to harder drugs. Yet many would respect the distinction between marijuana - a legal, socially accepted substance - and harder drugs, which would be illegal and dangerous.

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

People can go ahead and debate all that and make a case for legalizing weed; okay, fine. I'm just saying, if we legalize it and it doesn't turn out just fine and it turns out bad or very bad, well then, the 'legalize it' crowd would have fucked up and we will have a very hard time reversing things.

Is the situation anywhere near perfect now? We have massive criminal enterprises building in part thanks to sales of illegal marijuana, and we have huge portions of our population incarcerated over marijuana usage and sales. Society didn't become a bunch of drunks just because alcohol was legalized; what's the worst that could realistically happen, and is it really worse than where we are currently?

Originally Posted by Urzu 7

Plus, if we legalize weed, it'll probably mean even more teens end up smoking weed (illegally; they will probably set the legal age to 21), and teens smoking weed is pretty bad for many reasons, especially because of the study that just came out that revealed that teens who smoked weed often had their IQs drop some digits; compared to teens who didn't smoke weed, who didn't have a decrease in their IQ in their adult years.

Many of these people are smoking it anyway. It seems we have a rough choice: we can have people smoking and "dropping IQ points" (didn't read the article, so I don't agree or disagree with its assertion), while branding themselves as lawbreakers and being thrown in prison; or we can have people smoking and "dropping IQ points" and... that's it. There's no perfect option, but which of those two seems more desirable?

Originally Posted by Tigress

Why legalise it? People have total access to it then especially kids. Also isn't doing weed and driving a car as bad as drink-driving? People do it and have been caught, so why facilitate that behaviour by making it legal.

The problem is that people are already using the substances. Making it illegal hasn't controlled people's behavior, and it seems impossible to eradicate it from society. As I wrote to Urzu 7, there's no perfect solution, but we have to admit that what we're doing isn't working, and we're arguably creating problems in the process (criminal enterprises that benefit from illegal marijuana sales; our growing prison population). Try as we might, we can't control people. Wouldn't it be better to change our approach?