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#31
10-23-2005, 02:58 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
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#32
10-23-2005, 03:29 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
Well, employing police is not a rationale for anything, though as you imply, it supplies votes and becomes a huge part of how society is structured. The prison industry is booming, almost entirely because of our drug policies. It supplies most of the income of many towns all across America. And the involvement of state, local, and federal policing agencies, and even the military, makes the drug business as big for the government and the national economy as it is for the dealers. So once a bloated infrastructure is set up to process American citizens into criminals like so many sides of beef, it's almost impossible to cut it back.
But that doesn't mean it's a good idea to have it in place, any more than buggy whip manufacturers could use a few good subsidies to stay in the game. The idea that this is somehow productive and justified because marijuana has some negative effects is not a good one. Negative effects are not anathema to life; they are part of it, along with personal freedom. If one is hurting no one but oneself, it is highly arguable whether that is anyone else's business at all. In the name of helping the citizens, government constantly attempts to interfere in and control citizens' lives. This almost always does more damage than good. This becomes all the more absurdly apparent when the punishment far exceeds the "crime," as is the case when something capable of only very moderate harm, if any, becomes transmogrified into something worth panicking over and sending people to jail for. If someone drinks too much, that does not mean we should criminalize drinking. People will still drink, as Prohibition proved, but we'll just turn a bunch of petty thugs into a national and then international criminal force, in order to supply booze to what are actually perfectly good citizens who couldn't care less about a harmful and ultimately doomed and pointless law. Massive amounts of money will be spent, and jails filled, to no positive effect whatsoever, and at the cost of great injustice. America has taken the lessons of Prohibition and resolutely learned nothing from them, and decided to not only repeat history, but do it on an even grander scale. Tne results have been, commensurately, disastrously more severe. We have a higher percentage of imprisoned citizens than any nation on earth. The premise that the government needs to intervene in personal decisions is itself flawed, and in particular goes against the tenor of the philosophies that founded this country. We do not need the government telling us what to smoke any more than we need it telling us how to have sex. Yet the country has been burdened with laws about both, ostensibly for the citizens' "own good." Yet no good is being done, and the concepts of natural rights, privacy, and citizenry itself is severely eroded. Whether we ingest booze, coffee, cigarettes, excessive fats and sugar, too many Nintendo games, or pot, government intervention is not appropriate, and by and large cannot stop it anyway. All it can do is waste money on a problem that won't go away, while abusing its citizens and destroying the productivity of large swaths of the population, either by taking many people out of the workforce and putting them in prisons instead, or by forcing the remainder to pay a great deal of money for their support, or by diverting citizens from productive jobs into policing other citizens. The fact that we have built up a national security state since WWII discourages any cutting back of military or police, once built up, and encourages the build-up. All that is needed to sustain this distortion in society is propaganda from government and adequate indifference from politicians and citizens. Indifference, we've got in spades. Toward the suffering of people in prison, toward the increased militarization of society, toward the waste of our economic power, and toward the loss of our privacy and natural rights. We in America are the masters of indifference and short-term thinking. And that's why foolish, costly, harmful laws are the masters of us.
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#33
10-23-2005, 03:36 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
agreed with your post unntil
[ QUOTE ] because it doesn't have the addictive qualities of alcohol. [/ QUOTE ] people that say it isn't addictive are such liars. Maybe your body doesnt become dependant on it, and you won't suffer physical withdrawals. (Maybe) But it is most definitely mentally habit forming. My friends taht smoke reguarly will get depressed when they won't be able to smoke for a day, or get real moody when they go without it. But anyyways, definitely should be legal. edit: and on a semi related note, anyone in the jersey area that sells, PM me.
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#35
10-23-2005, 03:43 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
[ QUOTE ]
agreed with your post unntil [ QUOTE ] because it doesn't have the addictive qualities of alcohol. [/ QUOTE ] people that say it isn't addictive are such liars. Maybe your body doesnt become dependant on it, and you won't suffer physical withdrawals. (Maybe) But it is most definitely mentally habit forming. My friends taht smoke reguarly will get depressed when they won't be able to smoke for a day, or get real moody when they go without it. But anyyways, definitely should be legal. edit: and on a semi related note, anyone in the jersey area that sells, PM me. [/ QUOTE ] Almost anything used frequently can be considered psychologically addictive.
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#36
10-23-2005, 03:54 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
[ QUOTE ]
Same as with many harmless activities internet, video games, only the effects tend to be a little worse. [/ QUOTE ] funny sidebar - I haven't hurt myself yet smoking pot, but I gave myself some sore hands for a couple days after playing Xbox for 10 hrs straight and holding the controller too tight. Video games are dangerous to my hands - ban em - [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] At the very least, the fact they're keeping me from getting laid should be cause enough for banning -
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#37
10-23-2005, 03:57 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
another interesting point -
Anti-pot legalists like to say that twice as many people have gone into treatment for addiction to marijuana this decade then the last decade. What they don't tell you is that the increase is because of an increase in mandatory court-ordered treatments - People get busted for a joint, have to go to rehab, and play the 12 steps game for 30 days otherwise they'll be reported as failed. I read where guys had to make up consequences of smoking weed so they looked like they were following the 12 steps in their court mandated treatment - they BS'd their way thru, got out, and lit up again - they knew it was BS. RB
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#38
10-23-2005, 03:58 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
[ QUOTE ]
I get depressed when baseball preempts the Simpsons and I can't watch it for a day. [/ QUOTE ] No you don't. By you post I can definetly say that you have no idea what withdrawl is. I can also say that your post gives me more respect for you. There is no good to be learned in addiction.
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#39
10-23-2005, 03:58 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
first thing I thought when I read this post -
all 2+2'ers need to go into treatment for their psychological addiction to masturbation - [img]/images/graemlins/grin.gif[/img] THAT, I probably have a psychological addiction to....LOL. RB
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#40
10-23-2005, 04:02 AM
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Re: I\'m joining NORML.
[ QUOTE ]
I need a new supplier - should meet some there [/ QUOTE ] This is why you should quit. Maintaining connections is a complete bitch. Better to not need the buzz.
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