I'm too high to answer you. Just kiddin'.

Well, you can't overdose on pot, no physical dependency although there is some psychological (i.e. "wow, it would be cool to get high right now, oh well..."), and one side effect is to suddenly get the idea that you want to rearrange your furniture but then forget about it.

From what I've heard from some guy somewhere, that's about it.

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Two "no's" make a "yes". Can't argue with math.

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The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

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Quote:

Originally Posted by Inferno You just don't relate to my sense of humor. How about this. Gosh darn funny man living in a whale. doncha know that gawd could do that I betcha he could. wink wink.

I actually took a class on Drug use, and legalization. Main points coming from "Point/Counterpoint". Which I totally agree with.

Legalizing drugs would lead to more drug use. Anyone who thinks legalizing drugs would bring down the use of drugs...is on drugs. Holland legalized marijuana in 1976. Now the only thing 99% of people on this earth know about Holland is. That's it the Drug Capital of the world. It used to be just marijuana, now it's MDMA.

Imagine lazy pot heads roaming the streets. Over 600,000 emergency room episodes yearly are drug related. Given most of those are heroic, meth, crack/cocaine induced. Marijuana might not put yourself physically at risk, but it's not much different driving high, than it is driving drunk.

My last point is this. Not everyone will be legalized to use drugs. There will still be a age limit on marijuana use. Obviously aiming at younger preteens. Those preteens, like teens before regulation, will still be attemping to purchase and consume marijuana. So no matter what. There will always be a black market for marijuana use.

Nothing good will come from legalizing marijuana except giving drug addicts what they want. It's a anti-social related bx. Society shouldn't give into drug addicts attempting to legalizing marijuana. Because what comes next? Heroin? It's natural. It comes from the resin of poppy plants. What after? What before? Cocaine? Cocaine also derives from a naturally grown resource.

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The woman in my avatar is Cristina Scabbia and the woman in my profile picture is Tarja Turunen
Sun flames and moons glow, timeless the tides will flow, what will I face, what will be mine, fortune and fate the other side...

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Originally Posted by Inferno You just don't relate to my sense of humor. How about this. Gosh darn funny man living in a whale. doncha know that gawd could do that I betcha he could. wink wink.

Yet addiction is as rampant today as it was in the past.

Moral of the story, regardless of what decade it happens to be, people are still the same.

The down side of decriminalization:




Holland's Drug Policies: The Lesson for Canada
BY GLADYS POLLACK

Some twenty-four years ago, the Dutch government embarked upon an innovative experiment, a tolerant "soft drug" policy, whose repercussions today are wide-ranging

BACK IN 1976, the Dutch Parliament liberalized its policy towards drug use, a policy differing broadly from that of its European neighbours. The new drug legislation differentiated drugs such as heroin, cocaine and LSD, which were viewed as presenting "an unacceptable risk," from the "softer," less dangerous cannabis products.

Possession of 30 grams of marijuana or hashish (supposedly enough to satisfy the average user's needs for several weeks) was decriminalized. With certain restrictions, the Dutch government also permitted sale of marijuana and hashish in licensed coffee shops. These shops were prohibited from advertising or selling more than 30 grams to one customer. The sale of hard drugs was illegal in the shops, as were sales to persons under 18 years of age. Importing, exporting and selling cannabis products remained illegal outside of the coffee shops.

What are the consequences of the legalization of the so-called risk-free drugs?

Prior to the 1976 drug policy, the content of joints in Holland were similar to those smoked elsewhere in Europe. THC (delta-nine-tetrahydrocannabinol), the component that provides the high, was three to five percent. Nederwiet, the now-popular Dutch-grown cannabis, is far more potent, with a THC that can rise to up to 20 percent, providing a quicker, more enduring high than yesteryear's joint.

A leading British expert on the effects of cannabis on users, Dr. Heather Ashton, of the University of Newcastle's School of Neurosciences, found that more and more of the elevated-level THC cannabis was required to get a high as smokers developed a tolerance to the high THC-level joints. THC, which does not dissolve in water, is absorbed by human fatty tissues and remains there longer than either nicotine or alcohol. Thus, the THC effects remain with the heavy user far longer than he might think, causing a decline in short-term memory, diminished ability to learn and decreased motor skills. Regular users of the high content THC Nederwiet are developing a dependency on this "soft" drug, Ashton has found.

Dutch professionals working with the abusers of "soft" drugs have found that young people, especially those lighting up with the high THC cannabis, may become chronically passive, spending days smoking joint after joint, unable to find direction in their lives.

Even though the coffee shops are prohibited from selling to minors, cannabis use among Holland's 14- and 15-year-old high-school students rose sharply between 1984 and 1996. Back in 1984, four percent of these teenagers surveyed said they had tried cannabis once. By 1996, 28 percent of boys and 21 percent of girls admitted to smoking up. Addicts (registered cannabis users being treated) increased by 25 percent in 1997. At the same time only a three-percent rise in the numbers of people looking for help with alcohol-related problems was recorded.

Twenty odd years ago, the Netherlands was comparatively free of international drug-trafficking criminals. Today, Holland has become an illegal drug producing and distributing giant, a devastating threat not only to the Netherlands but across Europe. Of the amphetamines seized in France in 1996, 68.5 percent originated in the Netherlands as well as some 80 percent of the ecstasy tablets seized. In 1988, almost 40 synthetic drug-producing sites were found in the Netherlands.

And Nederwiet, most of which is illegally produced, is also wending its illegal way to the Netherlands' neighbouring countries. Holland's soft-drug yearly sales are estimated at some $3 billion.

In the 1970s, proponents of the liberalized policy said that the coffee-shop soft-drug environment would save users from the clutches of drug peddlers and stop them from falling into hard drugs. Critics however, argue that this policy tells kids it's perfectly okay to smoke cannabis and provides an easy stepping stone to the use of synthetic drugs like ecstasy. They question the mentality brought about by soft-drug legalization and the generally tolerant attitude towards drug use which followed, and worry that this may endanger the Netherlands as well as its European neighbours.

Heroin addiction, virtually unknown in the Netherlands prior to the policy change, has escalated, with the number of addicts estimated by the Netherlands' Institute of Mental Health (called the Trimbos Institute) to be 25,000. An estimated 12,000 addicts are being treated in methadone-maintenance programs.

While there may be no psychological step up from cannabis smoking to heroin, and not all pot smokers progress to hard drugs, more than 90 percent of heroin addicts treated at De Hoop (The Hope) drug rehabilitation centre in Dordrecht, Holland, were habitual grass users before moving on to heroin.

Despite legislation which forbade the sale of hard drugs in coffee shops, they were being sold there. So, five years ago the government clamped down, reducing the number of shops and the amount of cannabis products sold to an individual user, from 30 grams to five.

Holland's tolerant drug laws were aimed at preventing drug users from getting caught up in an illegal drug environment. But the escalation in the use of coke, ecstasy, speed and heroin in that country questions the efficacy of its government's drug policy. As a result, twenty six years after liberalization, drug laws in the Netherlands are still being debated and observers are left wondering if the longed-for benefits of legalization were just wishful thinking.


http://www.readersdigest.ca/mag/2000...ink_drugs.html

Actually it does


I say that we legalize most drugs so long as the Government doesn't have to pay for the aftermath

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Even if that is true, so?

Yet alcohol is legal and marijuana isn't. Contradiction much?

Yes there is one good: Freedom. The freedom do what you want. The freedom to self-destruct if you so decide.

I can still remember one sultry summer night in 1971. I dropped a 4 way of windowpane, and then went out driving with a friend of mine. there were a lot of bugs out, and as they hit the window, they exploded into fireworlks, and the line in the middle of the road split into 6, and it was all I could do to follow one of them.

What I really remember most was arriving home about 5 in the morning ,and my Mum was really p!ssed at me for having the car out so long. She was smoking a cigarette, and all I could do was follow the tracers from the lit end as they swirled off into space. AS she continued to chew me out for being 16, her face started to alter and become wavy at the edges. The skin then pulled back from her face and continued to melt until there was this skeleton looking at me with a ciggy dangling from the lower mandible, and so I was starting to freak out a little bit. I mumbled something about having a couple of beers (sensible enough to plea bargain, I was), and ran off to bed.

Once in the bed, I stared at the ceiling with the sound of crickets and buzzing things outside. As I became fixed on the chorus of critters, the sound started to intensify andthen it phase shifted on me. As it grew louder, some fingers appeared at my ceiling, then peeled back the corners until I could see the face of a greek god (or maybe it ws Roman [I know it wasn't Toltec cause it would have, like, sacrificed me already), and pretty soon the one god was joined by others, all in flowing robes like a giant pantheon of super beings festooning the ceiling of my room.

ah, drugs.........

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I've had a perfectly wonderful evening......... but this wasn't it. -- Marx

Wavy Gravy said not to eat the brown acid. OK, you probably couldn't hear him over the bongos.

Being serious for a minute, that read like Hunter S. Thompson in the voice of John Updike, minus any sociopolitical references.

Nice going. I gave you rep for that.

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Two "no's" make a "yes". Can't argue with math.