Legalizing Marijuana will cause more to drive while under the influence as they do with alcohol, that is a threat to public safety.
Actually we don't know whether there will be an increase in intoxication- we may end up having those who would normally drive drunk instead driving stoned. Or perhaps those that normally would have driven drunk will get stoned and decide not to drive at all. The answer is of course to treat marijuana intoxication exactly the same as alcohol intoxication. We do not outlaw alcohol to prevent drunk driving- we put reasonable restrictions on alcohol and criminalize driving while intoxicated.
That is adding to the police man's workload, if more regular people start using Marijuana they will be tempted to drive under its influence too.
Actually we don't know whether there will be an increase in intoxication- we may end up having those who would normally drive drunk instead driving stoned. Or perhaps those that normally would have driven drunk will get stoned and decide not to drive at all. The answer is of course to treat marijuana intoxication exactly the same as alcohol intoxication. We do not outlaw alcohol to prevent drunk driving- we put reasonable restrictions on alcohol and criminalize driving while intoxicated.
No it won't. There is an opportunity, same as with Vicodin or vodka, but making it legal for sale doesn't cause anyone to break the existing law against driving while intoxicated. If you want to try and round up everything someone could use to get high and make it illegal... well I genuinely wish you good luck. But until you make that your goal, I won't support your arbitrarily picking and choosing which "get high stuff" you personally don't care for. That ship has sailed and public resources are needed elsewhere.
I don't drink either... and yet, I would not want to see it made illegal for others to do so... looking at your poll, seems you were wrong, most of us believe in keeping this country free.. ...
It will encourage drug use from people who wouldn't necessarily think of using marijuana when it was illegal. The drug addicts of the marijuana persuasion spew dangerous carcinogenic fumes that smell terrible, and that could cause more health problems for Obama care to fund as well.
LOL....anyone who would be tempted to smoke pot, has already tried alcohol. Like I said- treat pot like alcohol, and we will have sane laws that do more than just enrich criminals.
The marijuana is a vegetable at its origin [when I was in Nepal I noted that Sherpa chew it like in Bolivia they chew cocaine leaves. The real cost of that vegetable is very low, it's its illegality to add "value" [to remunerate the high risks of the criminal organizations who distribute it]. I don't smoke, but I don't expect cigarettes to be declared illegal. The main problem is that who controls the market of drugs has got a lot of money to do lobbying and to corrupt this or that officer [wonder how is it possible that, with all those controls, illegal drugs are available everywhere and anyway in our Western countries ...]. Legalize drugs and Mafia will we well weaker than ever ...
Apparently at least one person doesn't mind risking prison time for smoking pot. I haven't smoked pot once in my entire life. I think it should be legalized because over the course of my life anecdotally and statistically nationwide more people are harmed by alcohol use than pot by far. I know a fair number of drunks that treated or currently treat their friends and family like crap the worst thing I can say about my pothead friends is that some of them aren't going to amount to anything in life.........but neither are the drunks.
I do not smoke weed, but I think it should be legal. Anyways, an even more pressing question is who the hell is that guy that answered "No- I use weed"?
I think, to help gain funds, that we should legalize it. We SHOULD tax it like we do alcohol, because that essentially is what marijuana is. That would cut some crime rate and generate income for the United States.
"Apparently at least one person doesn't mind risking prison time for smoking pot." I get tired of this nonsense. In the small city where I lived in Colorado, possession of less than an ounce--a pack of king-sized cigarettes is an ounce--was a $25 fine. Smoking in public got you a $25 ticket. I support legalizing all drugs and not supporting their use. No welfare benefits for people who prefer doing drugs to working.
I have never used pot but I have known a number of friends who did and, due to subsequent changes in their behaviour, we are no longer friends. Usage of pot, in my experience, can have unintended behavioural consequences.
Most definitely. That doesn't mean I want to cage them, if they want to screw up their lives that's their choice to make.
To liberalize something which is prohibited has got usually a couple of effects on the general consume of the substance: to be no more prohibited reduces the charm, the attraction, overall for teenagers [they adore what's prohibited!], on a side, on the other side there could be a wave of consume, simply because it will be available, safe [if weed becomes a product distributed by pharmacies it will be controlled according to federal laws] and cheap [like common cigarettes, I guess, but sure cheap in comparison to how weed costs on the illegal market]. Anyway, like for drinking and smoking, we've got a long experience of social control of usage of similar substances and actually the consume of tobacco is under control [more than the consume of alcohol, at least in Europe]. Smoke can be annoying [every kind of smoke. Also the one from cigarettes] so that there is a kind of natural social limitation, despite what you smoke [if in a pub is prohibited to smoke, in that pub you won't be allowed to smoke weed ...]. This is also why I think that these kinds of drugs can be legalized and ruled without social danger. Then, back to my opinion that to legalize light drugs would mean also to cut a lot of economical power to the criminal organizations, some data: in Netherlands the legal market of marijuana [only in little quantities and in particular shops] makes the state earn a mountain of taxes, but since out of Netherlands it's illegal, the country has declared illegal its wide cultivation and exportation. No way, Mafia has managed to have real plantations in Netherlands and it made marijuana the second more exported Dutch agricultural product [in Netherlands it's an agricultural product as it should be]. The global market, only of the marijuana, has estimated between 130,000,000,000 US$ and 150,000,000,000 US$. Considering that the margins of earn for the organizations controlling it are enormous, there is a lot of money for bribery, corruption, lobbying, financing government in third world countries ... Ah, 50% of that money comes from the United States [so I wouldn't say that being not legalized limited the consume ...], 1/3 of the demand is met by Mexican producers. In Europe the "preferred" drug is Hashish
That figure looks like a lot, but the vast majority of it is simply a transfer from taxpayers to drug dealers via the price markup due to the threat of imprisonment.
As in any business, the level of risk is a main factor in determining the sale price. Here comes the base reasoning of prohibitionism [which is anyway economical]: if the authorities are able to increase the level of contrast of drug distribution, the risk for the dealers will be so high that they will be forced to imposed too high prices on the market, so that it will be no more economically advantageous to illegally sell drugs. Unfortunately to make the level of contrast reach that point, the state should spend too much. Nothing more simple than this. Not only in a direct way [increasing coast guard patrolling units, just to say], but also in an indirect way. If a customs officer gains a wage similar to the one of a common worker and he has to sustain a family [and may be the wife is a common worker or even without a job], it's not difficult that in the mass [I'm not saying that dishonesty is diffused, get me right] some corruptible officers can exist. So, among the moves of a good prohibitionist policy there should be a generous increase of the wages of pubic officers dealing with the problem of contrasting the illegal drugs market, including policemen, [this means to multiply at least for two the wages of those persons ... at least, imagine the global costs for the state].
Yeah, I agree. The billions spent results in an ounce being $300. Most stoners are fine with that. Most people are fine with that, it's not much more outrageous in value than a case of beer. So its effect as an economic disincentive is highly suspect. More likely it slightly reduces use, but massively increases the transfer in money from users to dealers.
Not voting because I'm half undecided and because as I currently feel, there is no option to reflect it. I think marijuana should be decriminalized. As in, you're not going to get arrested for growing it or having it or using it, outside of driving or operating machinery while high, the same types of crimes you'd have with alcohol use. Pot is not as debilitating as alcohol but not having those things be illegal would set a bad precedent if you ask me. But, I'm not yet decided upon whether it should be legal to be sold in stores and vending machines. This I'm waiting on making a judgment about until some time has passed and I can see the results from Washington and Colorado to see how it works there. I'm not convinced that easy access to it is the right way to go, but I'm not deadset against it either.
The doubt is the pillow of the wise man. At least this is what a proverb says. Anyway about a thing we can be sure, when in Italy the government [the government I voted for, I'm Conservative] decide to criminalize the little sale and the ownership of little quantity of weed, here prisons literally exploded. Thousands and thousands of teens in minors prisons [imagine the experience ... and for some weed], an incredible quantity of minimal trials in the courts. Is usage diminished in those year? No. So, being pragmatic I have accepted to realize that such a policy didn't work.
