I’ve known people who have smoked weed just about every day for years and have performed with excellence at their highly skilled jobs. I’ve also known people that smoked every day and could not even tie their shoes - burn outs with fried brains.
My 15 year old son is addicted to weed. Has been for a couple years. He steals money from cars,from me,from my wife,from my daughter. He has no real friends - only his dealers. He does not read anything.He has no hobbies.He falls asleep in class.He spends 15 hours a week in Therapy. No girlfriends - only Mary Jane. He used to like,Astronomy,camping,surfing,football and hiking. We’ve spent lots of time together. No more.I have his phone tapped,so I know what he’s using and when and who he’s buying it from. He almost never leaves the house. When he does leave I call the cops to see if they can arrest him,but so far they haven’t found anything on him.It’s sad,I know.

He has a severe medical condition known as depression. As devastating as any form of cancer.Maybe even worse. He goes to sleep most every night hoping he won’t wake up in the morning. The pain is unbearable for him.In his words,”It’s terrifying”. There is no color in his world-only shades of gray. He does not want to kill himself but without weed, he just may.
Drugs are like guns - in the wrong hands,they will kill the innocent.

Don

So, Gayle’s propaganda website commissions a study to be undertaken by Steve’s propaganda “non-partisan research organization” and then SDNN reports on the findings as some sort of legitimate news???!

Shame on you, Hoa Quach. And shame on you, SDNN.

Heroin, Cocaine and Meth are processed chemicals.
They are dangerous and addicting.
The problem with these Dare brainwshing programs is that when the teenagers find out that the part about marijuana is a lie, they dismiss the whole thing as a lie.
Marijuana is simply a plant. It has medical use and is also beneficial as a stress reliever and a depression antidote.
Of course it should not be used by teenagers in high school. Not because it is addictive and dangerous, but because it helps a person to concentrate. The caveat is that they will concentrate on what they are interested in, and not the boring dry lecture by the high school teacher.
So why not start being real and honest with our youth?
As far as a gateway drug? If the statistics they quote are from the anti-drug groups, they have an agenda. This agenda involves forcing youth to state anything and everything that will allow them to get out of having to go to these stupid classed and groups. They will say whatever the leaders of these groups tell them to say.
ALL PROPAGANDA AND STEREOTYPES PUT OUT BY OUR GOVERNMENT ARE WITH ONE SOLE PURPOSE.
TAX THE HECK OUT OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE.
FORCE THEM TO REJECT THE REAL VALUES OF HUMAN LIFE, WHICH ARE FAMILY AND FRIENDS, AND WORK, WORK, TO PAY TAXES, TAXES, TAXES.
The governemnt has always known that marijuana is a safe and harmless plant. But they also know that people can grow it themselves and that will not produce any TAX MONEY for their bureacratic machine.
MARIJUANA IS SAFE AND HARMLESS! GET OVER IT, PEOPLE!

1. “Marijuana legalization is a bad idea because people shouldn’t do drugs.”
Caffeine is a drug, alcohol is a drug, and nicotine is a drug. These things are legal, but this argument seems to indicate that these also should be outlawed.

2. “Marijuana causes violence and crime.”
Because it’s illegal, and unregulated, people choose violent solutions when business goes bad. You can’t sue someone or take them to a credit agency because they didn’t give you the drugs you paid for. Remove it from the black market and you end these kind of problems by giving the consumers and distributors legal venue for restitution.

3.”People will dodge the taxes so legalizing it won’t make any money.”
People dodge taxes on cigarettes by driving to the next state to get them, and that’s hardly an option here. People are lazy. Booze and cigarettes are expensive but only a motivated minority brew their own beer and grow their own tobacco. Increased cost from the per-weight tax is offset by the overall price reduction as open-air price competition drives the price down. $50 for a $400 oz. is not much. I think the potential tax revenues are badly understated, not overstated.

4. “Legalization would be a public health disaster.”
This overlooks the most important fact, that people smoke this substance because that’s the most cost-effective way. If it were cheaper and merchandise aimed at it’s use easier to acquire, you would see an increase in eating and vaporizing it, both of which sidestep the lung associated problems. Beyond that the only ill effects are the same as those from many legal prescription drugs.

5. “Marijuana is a gateway drug and using it leads to using harder drugs like heroin and cocaine.”
This argument is actually one from the original scare campaign by Harry Anslinger almost a century ago. It has repeatedly been shown that tobacco and alcohol use are more reliable indicators than marijuana use. But let’s not forget the most important effect observed: In order to obtain marijuana you have to enter the world of illicit drug dealing, where anything goes. Dealers profit more from coke, methamphetamines and opiates because they are substantially more addictive. By forcing people to go underground to get pot, you force them to deal with people who want them to use something more profitable. Ironically, prohibition itself becomes the gateway.

6. “People will smoke and drive, and we will need to find a way to test for recent marijuana consumption and intoxication to enforce DUI laws.”
I am good friends with a couple police officers, one retired and one active. They both scoff at this question because both tests already exist and are already used. When you get pulled over, you may notice the officer does not immediately test your breath for the presence of alcohol. First they make you prove you are impaired, by performing several simple tests to established that you are intoxicated. They do things this way because it’s important to establish that the driver was intoxicated and that intoxication impaired their ability to safely operate the vehicle. You can go to jail after only having one beer, if that one beer impaired you. Many of the same impairment tests already employed can be used to detect an operator impaired by marijuana, including testing for horizontal nystagmus (jerky movements of the eyes,) backward alphabet recitation and several others. If the driver fails, you can perform a saliva test to determine if they smoked in the last 4-6 hours.

7. “Large outdoor grow operations cause a significant environmental impact.”
In a country that freely manufactures petroleum products, barely recycles and still drinks bottled water, I am almost surprised to see this argument. The fact is that most of the pollution occurs now as a result of illegal operations in California’s state parks. Legalize this operation and you give people who are growing an incentive to protect the environment- staying out of jail. Like any other business, agricultural or otherwise, this behavior is controlled by the EPA through fines and penalties or jail time.

8. “Marijuana can be laced with other substances like crack, methamphetamines, PCP, and even embalming fluid.”
Once again, this happens because marijuana is running with a bad crowd. Because law enforcement treats it as the same or similar, it winds up being sold by the same kind of people (people who have no qualms about contaminating a largely non-addictive product with one that is more addictive.) Legalized, you can prevent this- competition would motivate businesses to sell a product free of contaminants. Many marijuana users are purists, too- products contaminated with pesticides and additives are unlikely to do well, especially with the majority of California having an infatuation with organic products.

9. “People will make stupid mistakes while under the influence of marijuana.” Really? I’ve seen this one posted often enough to warrant replying to it, even though I find it laughable that anyone would make it. Listen up, all of you people who get drunk and stoned and do stupid things you regret: [b]you are still responsible for the things you do because you made the decision to impair yourself.[/b] I am beyond sick of hearing people sidestep responsibility for the things they regret doing. If you know that you have poor decision making ability when you drink or smoke, don’t put yourself in a position where you might have to think. If you know you tend to drive after having a six pack, hide the keys or don’t buy the beer. Don’t tell people alcohol should be illegal because you have no self-control.

10. “Legalize marijuana and what’s next? Crack? Prostitution? Murder?”
Now the argument has taken a truly desperate turn. This is what’s known as the slippery slope argument. It evades the question at hand and sets up “straw men” (points that are impossible to argue against but are not related to the argument.) Not very many Americans want to legalize crack. But the debate is not about crack, the debate is about marijuana. Do you really think they’re both the same? Nobody breaks into a car to get the two bucks in change so they can get a hit of weed. The only withdrawal is psychological, not physical. People get psychologically addicted to World of Warcraft, eating, and shopping for heaven’s sake.

11. “Legalizing this drug is surrendering to drug cartels and drug dealers.”
Perhaps this is the most frustrating argument yet. Legalization means that the drug dealers are out of business, and the cartels funded by them are cut off from a major source of income. Legitimate businesses are required to keep records and pay taxes, and even if a drug dealer found himself motivated to start a business selling what he sold on the street, he would quickly be squashed by legitimate businesses already in place. Legalization is the magic bullet, the one thing we can do to hit cartels and dealers where it really hurts: in the wallet.

12. “We can’t legalize because our youth will start using marijuana too.”
I have some news, friend. They’re already smoking it in record numbers, because it’s forbidden. They will also drink. These things will happen whether or not alcohol and marijuana are illegal. But instead of getting medical care when they’ve done something stupid they will risk death so their parents don’t find out they were smoking pot. As a youth it was easier for me to get weed than alcohol because the penalties for providing a minor with booze were stiff and adults preferred to drink with other adults. They saw little reason to take that initial risk when they could drink legally with their friends. But with marijuana they’d already committed a serious crime just by having it, so it wasn’t a tough transition to provide it to minors.

I’m sure I’ll think of more later, but this kind of flawed argumentation really bothers me. I think there are some very good reasons to legalize and some reasons might not want to. But people please- think about whether your argument is valid before you trumpet it from the mountaintops. Think before you speak!

I challenge any and all comers to refute me, especially politicians. I seek the truth, even if it means I’m wrong. But I also expect you to be true to yourself. You don’t win a debate by yelling your invalid argument louder than your opponent. You do it by being right.

End the violence and crime caused by keeping it illegal.

And let adults over 21 enjoy it.

Why? Meth and heroin are terribly addictive drugs. Only a tiny percentage of our population use these drugs, and a small core of addicts in about every community cause an awful lot of problems. We don’t have to legalize these drugs. I firmly believe we are causing far more harm than good trying to keep up the ban on marijuana, but I’m strongly opposed to legalizing drugs like meth and heroin.

Americans consume more marijuana than all other illegal drugs combined. According to government data over half of all American adults under 65 have smoked it. Americans consume many thousands of tons of marijuana every year. Cocaine is the second most popular illegal drug, but according to government estimates, if we add up all the cocaine, meth and heroin combined that is consumed in this country every year, it’s only going to be in the hundreds of tons, not thousands. The black market for drugs is mostly just a black market for marijuana.

Our government believes that Mexican cartels bring in and wholesale most all the cocaine, meth and heroin consumed in this country, but they make most of their money from marijuana sales. Our former drugs czar, John Walters, said that marijuana is the “bread and butter, the “center of gravity” for Mexican cartels. Various government estimates put the total percentage of income earned by cartels from marijuana at more than 60% and some estimates have been higher than 70%. Marijuana is the backbone of the illegal drugs trade.

Not only does the marijuana trade generate billions every year for organized crime, but it also helps them move there other far more dangerous illegal drugs. Pot smokers like to party and are more likely to be interested in other illegal drugs than people who don’t smoke pot. It’s also a pretty safe bet to offer pot smokers other illegal drugs because they are breaking the drug laws themselves and are not likely to tell on their pot dealer for offering them other illegal drugs. There are probably millions of people out there involved with selling marijuana to some degree and a lot of these people will help sell the other drugs too, which more often than not are coming from the same suppliers. Even pot sellers who don’t generally sell Mexican pot are recruited to sell other drugs because being in the illegal drug world they end up having connections with people who can supply the other drugs and since they have built in customers with money to spend on “party supplies” they end up getting hit up to sell the other drugs, if they don’t seek these drugs out first. There are many millions of people participating in the black market for illegal drugs as buyers or sellers. Most are just involved with marijuana, but because marijuana is illegal and part of the illegal drug trade being involved with marijuana increases their exposure dramatically to other illegal drugs.

If we just legalize marijuana and regulate it similar to alcohol, we would deprive these cartels and most other drug trafficking organization of most of their money and make it harder for them to get the other far more dangerous drugs out to people who would consume them. The black market for drugs would shrink to something much smaller and easier to manage even if use of other drugs doesn’t slow down. These drug trafficking organizations, particularly Mexican cartels, would shrink considerably too because they won’t be able to replace the many billions of dollars they generate every year from marijuana sales in the U.S., and it’s going to be harder for them to sell their other drugs. And they can’t just switch to selling cocaine, meth and heroin, mind you, because they already supply most all the demand for these drugs. They’re just going to end up being smaller, with far less operating capital, far less power, and they’ll be far less of a threat here and in Mexico.

Answer: Ethyl alcohol