Northwest Indiana Discussion

Should marijuana be legal?

The Lessons of Prohibition
In the 1920's, alcohol was made illegal by Prohibition. The result: Organized Crime. Criminals jumped at the chance to supply the demand for liquor. The streets became battlegrounds. The criminals bought off law enforcement and judges. Adulterated booze blinded and killed people. Civil rights were trampled in the hopeless attempt to keep people from drinking.

When the American people saw what Prohibition was doing to them, they supported its repeal. When they succeeded, most states legalized liquor and the criminal gangs were out of the liquor business.

Today's war on drugs is a re-run of Prohibition. Approximately 40 million Americans are occasional, peaceful users of some illegal drug who are no threat to anyone. They are not going to stop. The laws don't, and can't, stop drug use.

Organized Crime Profits
Whenever there is a great demand for a product and government makes it illegal, a black market always appears to supply the demand. The price of the product rises dramatically and the opportunity for huge profits is obvious. The criminal gangs love the situation, making millions. They kill other drug dealers, along with innocent people caught in the crossfire, to protect their territory. They corrupt police and courts. Pushers sell adulterated dope and experimental drugs, causing injury and death. And because drugs are illegal, their victims have no recourse.

Crime Increases
Half the cost of law enforcement and prisons is squandered on drug related crime. Of all drug users, a relative few are addicts who commit crimes daily to supply artificially expensive habits. They are the robbers, car thieves and burglars who make our homes and streets unsafe.

An American Police State
Civil liberties suffer. We are all "suspects", subject to random urine tests, highway check points and spying into our personal finances. Your property can be seized without trial, if the police merely claim you got it with drug profits. Doing business with cash makes you a suspect. America is becoming a police state because of the war on drugs.

America Can Handle Legal Drugs
Today's illegal drugs were legal before 1914. Cocaine was even found in the original Coca-Cola recipe. Americans had few problems with cocaine, opium, heroin or marijuana. Drugs were inexpensive; crime was low. Most users handled their drug of choice and lived normal, productive lives. Addicts out of control were a tiny minority.

The first laws prohibiting drugs were racist in origin -- to prevent Chinese laborers from using opium and to prevent blacks and Hispanics from using cocaine and marijuana. That was unjust and unfair, just as it is unjust and unfair to make criminals of peaceful drug users today.

Some Americans will always use alcohol, tobacco, marijuana or other drugs. Most are not addicts, they are social drinkers or occasional users. Legal drugs would be inexpensive, so even addicts could support their habits with honest work, rather than by crime. Organized crime would be deprived of its profits. The police could return to protecting us from real criminals; and there would be room enough in existing prisons for them.

Try Personal Responsibility
It's time to re-legalize drugs and let people take responsibility for themselves. Drug abuse is a tragedy and a sickness. Criminal laws only drive the problem underground and put money in the pockets of the criminal class. With drugs legal, compassionate people could do more to educate and rehabilitate drug users who seek help. Drugs should be legal. Individuals have the right to decide for themselves what to put in their bodies, so long as they take responsibility for their actions.

source: http://www.lp.org/issues/relegalize.html

GIT-R-DONE!

damn yeah.

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sweetness

I am kind of suprised that it is not legal yet. With all of the hippies from the 60's now in office...

Does anyone see any holes in the analogy to Prohibition that Bull Dog cut-n-pasted from lp.org? It seems pretty straightfoward to me. (Not saying whether I agree or disagree with the conclusions drawn...)

Of course, if the analogy is correct, then perhaps that explains why we have our current drug laws. After all, the people who passed the original Prohibition laws evidently had popular support...

I do not believe that all drugs should be legal!


I figured I would get that out of the way right off.


So... I think that Marijuana should be legal since it has the same effects as alchohol does. If you legalize one you should legalize the other. The FDA proved these results in a series of tests.

As for other drugs yah I can see how they are harmful and should be regulated but not to the point to make them illegal.

I think we should concider it a problem and work to get people off them instead of throwing them in jail.

Anouther option is to lagalize all drugs and make a law stating that if you injure anouther individual under the influance of ANY physicaly or mentaly altering substance you will then be in trouble.

That law would be totaly constitutional if made by the individual states not the federal government.


When making laws we need to realize that we do not need the government to protect us from ourselves. By making a law like I suggested this would protect our rights as individuals and also allow us to lead our life as we choose within the framework of the constitution.

with an avatar like that i wont read your post

giggle
giggle

also think of the tax money, potheads are already used to paying more for pot, since it is illegal the chance of getting busted is higher so the price will go up. right now its as expensive as safron the most expensive season in the world.

I would rather face a stoned driver on the road then a drunk any day.

dr. drew an addiction medicine specialist said he would rather his kids smoke pot than drink or smoke tobacco. canibis is one the only plants that have no carcinogens in it. the only health effect that pot has in bronchitis, with can easily be cleared up by using a vaporizor or water bong. lol

You know, I am intrigued by the discussion. I think we lump all illegal drugs together when we have a discussion...maybe we should look at them individually. I have talked to a number of people whom I would describe as experts about drugs and how drugs impact people, and many of them claim that marijuana is a "gateway" drug. It seems to lead to other things.

My fears are this: first, I am worried about addiction. I am scared to death of heroin, crack and the other drugs that are highly addictive and will screw up a person's life fast...and permanently. I am fearful of the crime that happens when these people need money to feed their addictions.

I am most fearful for kids...and I describe kids as anyone under 18...who start down this path. I have talked to parents who have lost a kid to these problems and it hurts just to hear them speak about what they have gone through.

I think that there is room for discussion about what to legalize...but my thinking is always going to center around what we have to gain by doing it and what we have to lose.

And for the record, yes I did inhale.

I've never inhaled (or imbibed, or anything else for that matter -- pretty much a straight shooter)... and as a Christian, I encourage people not to ingest things that would be harmful to their bodies or impair their judgment. That just leads to all kinds of messes, especially in our relationships with other people.

But that doesn't mean I think all those potentially-harmful or -intoxicating substances should be illegal. In my mind, that's a totally separate issue. In a "free country" like this one, it seems like the basic principle should be that people are free to do what they want as long as they don't infringe on the rights of others. Does it infringe on my rights if my neighbor gets drunk or high? No. But it does if while drunk or high he damages my property or harms me or my family. But those things infringe on my rights (and are hence illegal) whether or not he's drunk or high...

On the gateway issue, I've read different things... And personally I wonder how much of the "gateway drug" effects are caused more by the fact that it's illegal. To obtain marijuana, a person has to cross a line into a culture of disregard for the law where he becomes dependent on others who disregard the law (suppliers/dealers). I'm sure that makes it easier to get pulled into other activities that go with that law-breaking culture.

I wonder if we wouldn't end up with fewer people smoking pot if it were made legal again...

But that's all conjecture, for now... interesting to think about.