legalizing weed in california ?

[Sangetsu]

Originally Posted by alanX

Have you ever walked outside of your mother's basement? I guarantee you have never stepped foot inside a public school. And just because I'm curious of where you got this BS from, please send me a link.

I know AT LEAST 50 people JUST AT MY PUBLIC SCHOOL who have smoked marijuana for at least 5 years. Do any of them have schizophrenia? Obviously not.

Please provide me with your resources. I am literally lolling at you right now.

Where have you been? I'm a teacher, a former police officer, and Army Ranger (medical specialist). I've been to more places than you can name. Wait until your friends hit their 20's and their mental development completes, if they are going to have symptoms, they'll begin at that time.

As for links...


Schizophrenia Research Forum: SRF Interviews

Schizophrenia Daily News Blog: Marijuana and Psychosis Link

Schizophrenia.com - Schizophrenia and Marijuana and Psychosis or Psychotic

Marijuana May Trigger Schizophrenia | Psych Central News

Studies link marijuana use with schizophrenia

Cannabis-induced psychosis and subsequent schizoph...[Br J Psychiatry. 2005] - PubMed Result

There are many more if you want to read them,

[alanX]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

You think marijuana is harmless, not realizing that people are killing and dying just so you can get high.

I'm talking about harm from the use of marijuana itself, not the act or procedures of obtaining or selling it. People die selling weed because it is illegal, if it were legalized, that would take care of this problem. Do people get killed over cigarettes or alcohol? No. Why? Because you can go out and buy them. I guess weed plants and fields are a myth? And I guess somehow Mexico is also supplying weed to all of the other nations that use weed just as much as the states? Australia, Germany, etc. You can blaze all you want in Amsterdam, and I guess somehow people in Mexico are dying so Amsterdam can smoke weed?

Look, I'm not bashing anyone's opinion. LOL
If you think weed is bad, by all means you can go blog about it for all I care. Heck, go ahead and write to your towns congressmen. If you wanna get high, go for it. Again, I don't care what you do.

It's a personal opinion, there is nothing to argue about. It's like arguing about if pink sweaters are cute. They could be to some, and could not be to others.

[Sangetsu]

Originally Posted by alanX

I'm talking about harm from the use of marijuana itself, not the act or procedures of obtaining or selling it. People die selling weed because it is illegal, if it were legalized, that would take care of this problem. Do people get killed over cigarettes or alcohol? No. Why? Because you can go out and buy them. I guess weed plants and fields are a myth? And I guess somehow Mexico is also supplying weed to all of the other nations that use weed just as much as the states? Australia, Germany, etc. You can blaze all you want in Amsterdam, and I guess somehow people in Mexico are dying so Amsterdam can smoke weed?

Look, I'm not bashing anyone's opinion. LOL
If you think weed is bad, by all means you can go blog about it for all I care. Heck, go ahead and write to your towns congressmen. If you wanna get high, go for it. Again, I don't care what you do.

It's a personal opinion, there is nothing to argue about. It's like arguing about if pink sweaters are cute. They could be to some, and could not be to others.

Have you been hiding in your mother's basement? Haven't you heard of "cause and effect"?

I didn't mention anything about Amsterdam, did I? I said "America", didn't I? If you and your 50 friends are smoking pot, then you and they are contributing to the death and misery which are occurring in Mexico right now, and however indirect that responsibility is, it still exists. But of course you'll do the typical American thing and blame someone else: "if it were legalized, those people wouldn't have died...", while conveniently overlooking the fact that smoking pot is illegal, and if you had obeyed the law and not smoked it, those people would also be alive.

The laws governing the possession and use of drugs are not an opinion, they are laws. Death is not an opinion, it is a fact. As long as people continue to be selfish and deny that their actions have an effect on the world around them, then the world will continue to suffer.

[Kyousuke]

What the hell? marijuana , like anything else, is harmful in large doses. if you smoke 5-10 joints a day its going to be like smoking 5-10 cigarettes a day. same goes for anything else you eat or drink. you eat too much sugar you get diabetes, drink too much milk you get weak bones later in life, eat too much meat you can clog your arteries and have a heart attack. if you take too many aspirins its going to be your last headache. the trick is to use it in moderation like everything else we consume.

to tell you the truth, if you have never smoked marijuana just once then your opinion doesnt really matter. your just "punching invisible people" so to speak. if you at least tried it and didnt like it then you have a proper opinion instead of a made up one. thats how scientists discover things, by experimenting with their experiment. and if you "heard from a friend" that marijuana is bad because they tried it, thats not going to help an argument, like if i heard from a friend that the man didnt shoot the clerk. thats not going to hold in court, only facts and evidence.

[Sangetsu]

Originally Posted by MMM

If semantics are the issue, then yes, I should have said "decriminalized" and not "legal". Alcohol is "legal" in the US, but illegal if you are under 21, drink too much of it in public, drink too much of it and drive...etc.

So it is "illegal" but there is no "criminal penalty".

Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work? - TIME

... Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.

At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy.

Decriminalized or legalized, it worked in the very Catholic country of Portugal, and I think it could work here in the US.



Imagine what would happen if the government sold marijuana at pennies on the dollar of what the drug cartels sell it at. How many lives would that save a year? Decriminalization means no more money to drug cartels. Thousands of lives would be saved every year.

How many lives has legalizing cigarettes and alcohol saved? Cheap drugs are no less addicting than expensive ones. The tax and treatment method does not solve problems, it merely changes them. Legalizing a drug does not make it any less addictive.

I don't disagree that Portugal's system has been a success (of sorts), but it's due more to the treatment options which were also implemented. It's not as revolutionary as it is made out to be. Possession of small amounts of drugs is not a serious crime in America, and in may places it is not a crime at all, merely an "infraction", just as it is in Portugal. But drugs are still illegal in Portugal, and drug users are still supporting the drug cartels, are they not?

Were it not for the potential psychological side effects of marijuana use, I wouldn't mind if it were legalized. But as I said in another post, up to 80% of new cases of schizophrenia and psychosis are thought to be related to marijuana use. These side effects are permanent. The side effects from smoking and alcohol are generally treatable, and those who suffer from them can live more or less productive lives. Mental illness is another matter altogether, it's been determined in some studies that smoking marijuana as few as 5 times is enough to bring about schizophrenia in people who have a family history of it, and that's just too scary. If it causes these effects in just 1% of users, that is still too high a number to tolerate.

[Kyousuke]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

Have you been hiding in your mother's basement? Haven't you heard of "cause and effect"?

I didn't mention anything about Amsterdam, did I? I said "America", didn't I? If you and your 50 friends are smoking pot, then you and they are contributing to the death and misery which are occurring in Mexico right now, and however indirect that responsibility is, it still exists. But of course you'll do the typical American thing and blame someone else: "if it were legalized, those people wouldn't have died...", while conveniently overlooking the fact that smoking pot is illegal, and if you had obeyed the law and not smoked it, those people would also be alive.

The laws governing the possession and use of drugs are not an opinion, they are laws. Death is not an opinion, it is a fact. As long as people continue to be selfish and deny that their actions have an effect on the world around them, then the world will continue to suffer.

people die for alot of things. like the rice you eat, the pork you cook, the sugar you put into your coffee, the gas you put into your car, and obviously the diamonds you buy. you may not know it but its true. people find a great source of coffee beans , coacoa beans and such and people die over it so someone can walk into a store and pay 1.99 for a can of it. this is how the world works, im sad to even say it but its the truth. everything you buy has a price on it worth more that the dolllars your paying for it. even if people stopped smoking weed, those people are going to die anyways. when they run out of diamonds to sell in africa, those innocent people are going to die just because of their creed and race. i do believe that if it is legalized ,though, that people wouldnt die. supply and demand would be a factor concerning the growth and production of marijuana. in order to sell it to the states, they would need workers to grow and maintain the plants. because in the U.S. everything must be of a certain quality to be sold. you wouldnt buy water if it had shit floating in it. then they would need people to pick and screen the product. then they would need licensed drivers to drive the products to the U.S. and to other COUNTRIES THAT BUY MARIJUANA AS WELL. without a proper work force the business would go to somewhere else, and making money is something everyone thinks about. one reason that people are killed is because some shipments are stopped by customs and by the guard. if they dont make it to the U.S. then most of the time they blame the people making the delivery and kill them. if your still really interested in doing something to stop the killing then do something about it than jsut arguing about it on here

[alanX]

Originally Posted by Sangetsu

Have you been hiding in your mother's basement? Haven't you heard of "cause and effect"?

I didn't mention anything about Amsterdam, did I? I said "America", didn't I? If you and your 50 friends are smoking pot, then you and they are contributing to the death and misery which are occurring in Mexico right now, and however indirect that responsibility is, it still exists. But of course you'll do the typical American thing and blame someone else: "if it were legalized, those people wouldn't have died...", while conveniently overlooking the fact that smoking pot is illegal, and if you had obeyed the law and not smoked it, those people would also be alive.

The laws governing the possession and use of drugs are not an opinion, they are laws. Death is not an opinion, it is a fact. As long as people continue to be selfish and deny that their actions have an effect on the world around them, then the world will continue to suffer.

You're a Democrat, aren't you?

So what you're saying to me is.... since People in Mexico kill each other over weed, it's somehow America's fault for the death's because American's smoke weed too?

I smoke weed...and billy smokes weed...and sam smokes weed. Billy and Sam kill each over over weed. (because it's illegal) and you're saying it's my fault they killed each other? Nothing that you are saying is really making sense.

You said "I never mentioned Amsterdam" but I can say the same thing about Mexico. What does Mexico have to do with America's weed problem? It's not my nor "my 50 friends problem" that people in Mexico are murdered over weed, just like it's not Mexico's problem that people in America are being murdered over weed.

Originally Posted by Kyousuke

people die for alot of things. like the rice you eat, the pork you cook, the sugar you put into your coffee, the gas you put into your car, and obviously the diamonds you buy. you may not know it but its true. people find a great source of coffee beans , coacoa beans and such and people die over it so someone can walk into a store and pay 1.99 for a can of it. this is how the world works

Exactly what I was trying to say. But I guess somehow this weed make me unable to say it. (spot the sarcasm)

People die over weed, it's no one fault except their own. If someone sells weed, then gets killed, it's not America's, Mexico's, Germany's fault. It is your own for selling it.

[Debi]

So finally AlanX, are you for the legalisation of it or not ?

[fluffy0000]

Those confused souls -blaming americans who smoke weed for the violence south of the border must have forgotten the history of the US government and law enforcement agencys hidden role in 'importing' drugs such as cocaine across the border specifically the drug called 'crack' . Well documented in Gary Webb ... 1999 book Dark Alliance: The CIA, the Contras and the Crack Cocaine Explosion from Seven Stories Press .....also a reporter for the San Jose Mecury News Webb was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his work.

The violence south of the border more closely resembles the present Mexican government who never really won the last elections fair and square is still consolidating it's uncertain hold on power. excerpt from
Name the Dead!
By JAIME AVILÉS
Mexico City
Jaime Avilés is a columnist for the Mexican daily, La Jornada,
In Mexico we have witnessed a naked campaign against López Obrador in the last elections when he was called “a danger for Mexico”; we have seen Calderón claim power after a massively contested election claiming he would grab it “by any means”; we have then seen him back-track on all his promises, starting with that of employment, and embark on an artificial war “against” the narcos [drug industry] which succeeded only in militarizing the country and retrench his otherwise weak grab on power; we have seen him risk through these actions the national security of our country and that of the United States. So we Mexicans have clarity and maturity enough to know that Calderón is not below anything: if one day he dressed up as a soldier to launch the armed forces onto a tragic adventure, he now dons a white coat to succeed in keeping us under house arrest, sweating in panic.

[SaintKat]

I'd really like to see it decriminalized here in New Zealand. Know plenty of people who smoke or did in the past, don't have a problem with it myself. Drunk people are more of a pain in the ass than stoned people are.