And now for something completely different.
I had an interesting conversation the other day with Father Robinson and Mother Robinson. LEGALIZING MARIJUANA. The devils serum.
Should it be legalized? Should it be banned? Is it too big? Is it too small?
I think that we need to legalize it. It burdens our governments budget. We send too many people to jail for getting high and staring at flowers and colorful movies. Are they really a threat to society? People get killed in the streets over pot deals strictly cause its illegal. You don't see people getting shot over cigarettes do you? No one in the history of man kind has ever died from an over dose of marijuana, its hemp can be used for agricultural purposes, and instead of getting angry when you're drunk, you get relaxed when you're high. I just don't see how you can justify banning a substance that is really not that harmful. Alcohol kills more people from over doses, it kills more people from drunk driving, and it makes people angry(sometimes) and they go off and do something they'll regret. I think that the only reason alcohol is acceptable is that it has been engrained in the fabric of our society since before Jesus. If Jesus smoked a blunt at the last supper we would all be getting high at church. I bet you could find a Mayan God getting stoned. Maybe we should follow him?
I realize that we don't want a bunch of drunks and stoned people running around in the streets. Having drunks running around already is enough. But Bud D made a good point. He said that the government doesn't even need to ban it because almost all employers forbid it anyway. For instance, if I get one little scratch on my work truck I will get sent to a hospital for a urine analysis. I've seen them do it to employees within one hour of the accident. Frito Lay don't mess around. They want to pin the blame on someone else for not following regulations. I don't blame them. This regulation sure as hell stops me from doing it.
So with that being said, if the government legalized it, we would have the same successful people doing their jobs and not smoking, and the same losers not working and getting stoned. The only thing that would change is the jails would loosen up, and more things to tax(things that us successful people don't purchase anyway). Thus, the governments budget would increase.
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The only way to make it illegal and prevent people from using drugs would be to make it a crime punishable by death. Krauthammer made this point. This has been done in one country, don't know which one, and has prevented drug activity for the most part. The other way people would not use it is for people to have a sense of morality, that is not likely to happen.
ReplyDeleteIf you legalize pot then it will lead to other drug being made legal and on down the line.
I am conflicted a little on this subject. People will do drugs whether it is legal or not. Might as well make it legal and prevent all of the deaths that go along with it being illegal. It would be better to deal with the drug problem not from the law but from health clinics and education programs and the family.
But drugs do weaken people and from the point I made on the rock post this destroys their ability to be independent and a free society that is drugged out won't last long.
I guess you can either have the government regulate us or we can regulate ourselves.
The Muslim world generally has obscenely harsh punishments for drugs yet they still permeate through their culture. Due the fact of how many people do smoke pot (and others) it is not believable that the state would be able prosecute. Plus their would be a high political cost of users voting against whatever gov't tried to do that. This wouldn't be a problem so much with heavier substances (those that probably live in a dark world outside of society) but I would venture to guess the number of people that use marijuana is large enough to make the votes matter.
ReplyDeleteI personally don't like marijuana at all, but that's my preference. I think people that are drunk or buzzed are far more dangerous than those that are high. But I still drink beer. Thought experiment, who would you rather run into in the streets at night, a bunch of drunk college students or a bunch of high college students?
Marijuana is only a gateway drug, in my opinion, because its illegal and those that sell it run around with the same crowd that does other worse substances. Legalize it, let Economies of Scale do their work and price dealers out of the market and Marijuana won't be a gateway anymore but something to the tune of cigarettes or beer. Remember, if marijuana truly is a gateway drug, than alcohol would be worse.
I say legalize it, price dealers out of the market by legitimate growers. Tax it, and then use income to pay for law enforcement and drug rehabilitation. Marijuana is another issue in which the Republican party is perceived as crusty and stale tightly clinging to outdated beliefs (partly to toe the line of the Christian Right). It's an easy thing politically to support in order to garner the necessary political capital to deal with issues that actually matter.
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ReplyDeleteI didn't save that comment.
ReplyDeletei know, these comments are a bitch, I wish it would auto-save or something if you move away from the page. Or maybe come up with a warning that everything you wrote is about to be lost.
ReplyDeleteNot an easy answer. I disagree with Toejamm that there are a lot of people in jail purely for smoking pot. It's not much harsher than a speeding ticket nowadays as far as the government is concerned (though I believe the cops crack down harder now than in the '70's). Most of the people in jail for pot are in jail for trafficking or for possessing large amounts. Or for something the cops found while the person was smoking pot.
ReplyDeleteThe thought experiment is valid. I agree that alcohol is a more dangerous drug than pot. And nicotine possibly more so, but that is debatable. Where do you draw the line. Also, right now, it is much much harder to determine whether someone is high on pot than whether they're drunk or not. Technology may change, but that's reality right now. As Toejamm said, alcohol is only legal because it has been a part of our society forever. Nicotine for the same (though much shorter) reason. So, if we're going to go by what's more or less dangerous, then logic says that nicotine and tobacco should be illegal and punished harder than pot. Is that the metric we are to use? Toejamm mentioned what I said about Employers serving the role of Big Brother so the government doesn't have to. They still won't let you work if you have pot in your system, so, everybody but losers and the self-employed (and not many of them) will still not be able to do it.
Making it legal will be just as messy law-wise as keeping it illegal, and will be a step down the slippery slope. In the '70's, pot was even closer to being legal than it is now, and coke was getting to the point where it was just about like pot is now. Then everybody started doing coke (except Robinson Talking Point bloggers) and the destructive aspects of coke became apparent to everyone (see Mike Fjerstad) and the government clamped back down on it. Hmmm...I just may have argued myself out of the slippery slope, ie, we did start down it in the '70's, saw how bad it was, and climbed back up. So, maybe the slippery slope is not valid.
I agree the sin tax is an accepted way to tax in our society, and it possibly could be a good source, but again, if it is still virtually illegal, then it may not be such a revenue source.
I'm against increasing the legal sins in our society. Sins are sins for a reason. Whether God told Moses or whether he just thought of it himself. Adding to the methods and making acceptable the methods for people to escape reality is not good for society.
These issues are complex and take time to form a well thought out opinion. I don't have the time to say half of what I intended to say or say what I do as clearly as I want.
ReplyDeleteLegalizing marijuana will be a slippery slope. Where does it stop? Why not make hard drugs and prostitution legal and tax it. But I guess the same argument could have been stated about ending prohibition. Why not make all sin illegal. I guess some things like killing are different than drugs. But are drugs different than alcohol. Different than sex.
Well maybe we shouldn't make any thing illegal because it might cause trouble to enforce it.
Immorality and sin and the point about how it enslaves a people has a some relation to my thoughts on drugs and making it legal.
I didn't know the Muslim world had such harsh punishment for drugs. I thought the drug trade and poppy trade was a big issue in Afghan. Making a drug use punishable by death will cut the use of drugs but will never be able to eliminate it. Why not make it legal and tax it.
We will never be able to make sin illegal by some law. People have and always will be doing drugs and prostitution.
I wonder how the situation in Mexico would be different if drugs were legal.
The same line of reasoning-- that drugs are bad for you-- that the government uses to regulate drugs is now being used to regulate and tax unhealthy foods.
It comes down to the government controlling and regulating people or people regulating and controlling themselves. A people that doesn't want the responsibility of regulating themselves will be ruled by a government that will. Families and society are looking to the government to regulate themselves and not wanting to take on the responsibility themselves. Some what like the parental government spoken of by Tocqueville.
Obama is against making marijuana legal so I don't think it is only the Republicans that are pandering to the Christian Right. I think the majority of Americans are against legalizing drugs, I don't know the statistics. I am still conflicted about making drugs legal.
Some sins are not regulated by the government. It is our responsibility to regulate ourselves. If we can't then it the government will. As long as the government doesn't promote vices that will lead to the enslavement of the people of that country. Books have been written about the nature of government and how it relates to man so I can't say or present out what I am trying to say in a short blog. I am still developing my thoughts.
I think the two remaining arguments you guys have is that it will lead to a slippery slope and that it is a sin.
ReplyDeleteHow exactly is marijuana a sin? What reading from the bible makes marijuana more of a sin than say wine and spirits? Or is the argument that we add to the diversity of things that interfere with a man's judgement? As far as I know from the bible, drinking is not inherently bad by itself. I think there are several verses that speak positively of it, but that over indulgence, or imbibing anything which makes us act in manner that we would not otherwise do is bad. So marijuana by itself isn't a sin, just as alcohol isn't a sin intrinsically, but it's the chronic (no pun intended) use of it that's bad, just as the chronic or overindulgence of alcohol is a sin.
So then the response is that it alters our behavior so we should be against it? But does not one beer do the same? Why does one drink a beer after work from time to time if not but to ease the stress of the day and relax? That's because one beer DOES have an affect on your mind that wouldn't otherwise have happened unless you consumed it. Just as taking small amounts of marijuana does not have to make some one "baked" or whatnot, but can be a stress reliever. The argument of sin, if applied by the bible, is really an argument against overindulgence as overindulgence means an individual is trying to cope with problems not with God/Jesus, but with some sort of substance. This argument by itself is not sufficient to keep marijuana illegal. Man made marijuana illegal, it is not a sin, but a law that we've had for the last 70 years or so. Laws change.
You could argue that this could be said of other drugs, but I think its easy to draw the line as its hard to safely come off work and drop some acid, shoot heroin, or chill with cocaine. Small uses of them IS overindulgence which is why they are A) So attractive to those who want the effect of overindulgence and B) Opposed by most of society.
The real argument that's left is the slippery slope argument which I think has been approached by two angles. One is the implication that marijuana leads people to use other worse substances, the other is that it will lead people to want other drugs to be legalized (the argument brought up by Bud-D about Coke).
Upon the first slippery slope assumption. Marijuana does not have some physical properties that make other more dangerous drugs more appealing. It's not a drug "force multiplier" that makes other drugs more convenient or better to use (if there is, please tell me so I can delete this post stop making an ass of myself). As I've stated before, it exists in the black market in tandem with other illegal substances. If Johnny decides to go see Billy the neighborhood drug dealer, chances are, that when little Johnny buys pot, Billy will most likely have other nasty stuff too and will try to get Johnny to buy them as well. By legalizing it we take it out of the hands of Billy and keep Johnny away from the nastier stuff.
On the legalization campaign. I think the coke example shows a "fuzzy line" in our drug policy, but its a line nonetheless. Drastic harm to the individual. alcohol/nicotine/pot does it, but it takes a lot of use over a prolonged period of time. We kind of say, "that's marginally okay" but when things have an immediate effect burning holes in your brain or whatnot (going back to the sin argument, permanently altering you), its bad. That's why, and as Bud-D figured out towards the end of his argument on this, society won't all of sudden pick up the torch for legalization for other things once marijuana is legalized.
As far as how much income pot can bring to the state is significant. I don't quite understand what marijuana being "virtually illegal" has to do about a sin tax. My gist of your comment is that people would not buy it or something because it's already prevalent? The easy response is what I said before, Economies of Scale. I can't have a giant farm in a warm wet environment (lets say Florida) to grow marijuana on a MASSIVE scale because its illegal (The kind of operation that does land people in prison for long periods of time) But, if I could, then I could sell pot for cheaper than all those who are growing a little bit in their garage or basement with artificial lights. Legalization will destroy the little private growers and since giant farms and corporations that grow pot will be hard to hide, I think it will be readily easy and lucrative to tax it. Obviously, this argument is only valid in so long as the sin tax does not make the mass produced product more expensive than it would be if it were sold by Billy the neighborhood drug dealer.
The real argument against the legalization of pot should be that it destroys small businesses.
The term 'Virtually Illegal' refers to two things: 1) THC remains in the system long after someone has smoked pot. Though this could change in the future, there is no agreed on level where someone is high, so no way to tell whether someone is high on the job or not. Only that they have smoked pot in the last month or two. 2) My point about Corporations taking over the role of Big Brother: Neither State Dept workers, nor snack food delivery men, nor power utility engineers will be able to smoke pot even after it is legalized for reason 1) and the fact that most companies nowadays test for this and the punishment for failure is firing or non-hiring. This goes for probably the majority of employees in the United States, though I have no data to back that up.
ReplyDeleteMy point is that legalizing marijuana will not change a thing for any practical purpose due primarily to the fact that THC remains in the system for so long.
I can see marijuana being legalized eventually for the purpose of creating tax revenue. Look at California. The government is an will be hurting for tax revenue soon.
ReplyDeleteIt is business's choice to not have a drugged out workforce and rightly so. They are helping government out.
I don't think something should be made illegal just because it is a sin. It is each person's responsibility to regulate control themselves and live with the consequences of their actions. As long as what someone does does not interfere or harm with other people it should be legal. It is not the government's job to regulate sin.
My point was that doing drugs weakens people and make them less independent and self sustaining. A drugged out society is not able to rule themselves. A immoral society can not rule themselves. Morality is necessary for freedom. That was my whole point about drugs being a sin; although, I don't have time to explain or illustrate it fully.
"My point is that legalizing marijuana will not change a thing for any practical purpose due primarily to the fact that THC remains in the system for so long."
ReplyDeleteApparently tons of people still use it despite this fact and thus, tons of money can be made by taxing it. This also goes against your slippery slope argument too. If no one is going to use marijuana because of their jobs, than no one is going to ruin their lives (that is not currently at risk) with more harmful drugs later because they won't use marijuana in the first place. Thus, the only thing left to consider is whether or not marijuana being legalized might actually make those that use it in Status Quo less at risk to more substantial drugs. An argument I propose and has yet to be contended.
I also think if it is legalized than there will be cases/lawsuits that will come up that will force employers to come up with a better system to determine whether someone's judgement was impaired by marijuana while on the job or was it a trace of something he did when he was on his on time.
"As long as what someone does does not interfere or harm with other people it should be legal. It is not the government's job to regulate sin."
Welcome to the Libertarian Party my brother.
But you also address the root of the conflict within a liberal society which is the foundation of the discussion we are having. As how do you compare the above quote to this other statement of yours:
"A immoral society can not rule themselves. Morality is necessary for freedom."
How do I determine when my morals or your morals can infringe on someone else? i.e. When you tell me that drinking is a sin and that you are going to ban it, you are infringing on my right to drink, or my right to smoke. I think it's fair to say that I can drink/smoke so long as it does not threaten anyone around me, i.e. I can't drink in public as I might harm someone (or in a car etc).
Apart from this discussion, what you are trying to figure out is what thresholds do we use to determine what morals are universal, and what are individual? The further that your sense of morality applies to the individual, the more libertarian you become (or more Conservative before the Neo-Cons), the more universal the more Republican (and wee bit further, Democrat).
I don't know what book you read before, but the best discussion of this, it's short, to the point, and written for a journal back in the 19th century (thus was intended for an intelligent but not intellectual audience) is John Stewart Mills "On Liberty." You can read it in a day.
You're wrong dad. I know a lot of people who have been to jail for smoking pot. I was sent to a holding cell for doing it. I know that isn't jail, but its something. Our government spends over 600 million a year on incarcerating people with marijuana crimes. Now, I know that most of them it wasn't just smoking it, probably distributing as well, but it wouldn't be like that if it was legal. 600 million could be spent on something else.
ReplyDeleteWe need to stand up for ourselves and stop letting the government take away our liberties just cause we feel "so so" about it. Whether you like pot or not, it seems the census in this blog agrees that it is not bad. Just cause you don't smoke it, doesn't mean that you should just say, "F it," and allow the government to mistreat the stoners.
If you have fundamental beliefs about how you are to be treated by your government then you should stick to them. Don't allow yourself to be a hypocrit and only support the legalization of things that you like to do in your recreation time.
I meant Bud D, not dad. Sorry for violating the unwritten law of using Aliases
ReplyDelete"Don't allow yourself to be a hypocrit and only support the legalization of things that you like to do in your recreation time."
ReplyDeleteYou know what I like to do and what I don't like to do? Well, regardless, that's pretty much an irrelevent issue. The only thing that matters is what's right for society. And I admit this isn't clearcut. There are good arguments both ways. However, as I said before, increasing our options to escape reality is not good for society. Encouraging stoners to tune out is not good for society, though jailing them for doing it is not good either. I don't recommend anything more than a slap on the wrist from the government (though again, the punishment you will receive from your company will be much harsher) but, it shouldn't be encouraged. So, that's where I stand. Sorry, "do what ever you want, dude, as long as you're not hurting anybody", is not good enough. That's where I differ from Libertarians.
Maybe my point is only not so closely related to this topic. In part my point is based on these quotes by Tocqueville and E Burke: " Liberty can not be established without morality.." and Men are qualified for civil liberty in exact proportion to their disposition to put moral chains upon their own appetites.." What is morality and who defines it. That is too big a topic to discuss fully here.
ReplyDeleteThe whole morality point is related to what I discussed in the rock posting. I lean toward making marijuana legal. I agree with Melkor and Bud-d. I don't believe it is the governments job to enforce morality or to define it--government can't legislate morality. Morality applies to the individual. It is each person's responsibility to do that within themselves. Morality is not simply limited to drugs, sex, and violence. It encompasses a large sphere or meaning. Corruption and lying etc. Is this related to the topic. I don't think so.
Government should not and can not enforce morality but it can promote behavior that can be considered immoral, and by doing that it can lead to the downfall of a nation. A good example, the current economic situation. The government created the incentives and forced bank to give loans to people that can't afford homes. The government created the incentives and forced them to act immorally. Third world countries are poor in part due to corrupt governments. A country needs to have a system or code of conduct with dealing with people to be a successful country.
"Putting chains moral chains on their appetites." Does this relate to drugs. I think so. A society that is high or drugged out all the time can not be independent. They need to be dependent on someone else. Businesses create incentives to not want to do drugs. I don't think most people will become druggies if maraijuana will be made legal. Will this lead to other drugs being made legal? Could be going down a slope. Is marajuana a gateway drug? I don't know the statistics. Will the government be promoting be promoting behavior that will help destroy America by legalizing marajuana? Depends on how they go about doing it and if they will have programs to deal with the drug problem and it doesn't promote the use of drugs in order to gain more tax revenue. (The government did sell electric devices during the great depression so that people would use more electricity from the TVA ;and therefor, make more money. Not related)
One thing for sure is that the war on drugs has not done away with the drug problem. I think it has caused more harm than good. I don't see most people becoming druggies even if drugs were made legal.
People have chosen to have the government regulate themselves in this matter.
I think government should define morality as not harming or infringing on other people's right. Protecting individual rights. Does legalizing marajuana fall in this category? I don' think so.
Doing drugs should be up to each person as long as they don't harm others. It is each person's responsibility. The government can't force people to be moral nor should it. Government can promote and create incentives for people to act "immoral";and therefor, help them to become their destroyers. Is this the case with legalizing drugs. I think it possibly could be. But a people that won't control themselves will be taken over by by a dictator or destroyed.
Some movies have explored the theme of a government using drugs to sedate and control a people. Will this happen by legalizing marajuan? I don't think so.
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ReplyDeleteThe contradiction and trouble of my point, I think, comes from morality and sin being equal. The way I use the term morality it is not equal to sin.
ReplyDeleteGovernment enforcing of laws should be limited to protecting individuals' rights from being infringed on by others. I was trying to relate the term morality into this function of government, but I contradicted myself.
When I use the term morality in this context, I use it to mean the moral code each person uses to relate to society.
My whole problem of legalizing drugs comes from how it will affect society. (Just because something is viewed as breaking a religious code does not give it grounds to be made illegal. I do think using drugs to alter you mind and getting addicited to them does violate God's law.) The question is does smoking pot violate another person's rights. How does it affects society as a whole? There is no doubt that doing drugs does have an impact on society. And anything that weakens society should be controlled to some extent. It is one of the roles of government to control our vices and the negative affects they have on society as a whole. Maybe doing hard core drugs leads to more health care cost. And a less productive society. Someone will have to pay to support these people. This does affect society as a whole. This is not marijuana though.
The American law and constitution was based on Judeo-Christian values
I will state my whole point in simple and basic terms. A society that has is not a moral society can not survive or live under a free society. Sin immorality or whatever you want to call it does harm not only to the person who does it but to society at large. For example, having sex outside of marriage is frowned upon in the Bible. By people having sex outside of marriage, the chances go up dramatically that babies will be born into and grow up in a single parent home. Studies have been done that have shown that kids that grow up in a single parent home or much more likely to be a criminal a high school dropout or a non productive member of society. This brings society down as a whole by having more people not producing anything and being a leech off of society. STD are also a result of this activity and it takes more resources and labor to deal with the health issue; thus, depriving a nation of labor and wealth that can be used for more productive things. Overall, it has a negative effect on society.
ReplyDeleteWhat about criminal activity. Well if a country that has a criminal problem, then it makes the cost of doing business go up and more resources and labor must go into providing security. This is one reason stuff is more expensive in poor neighbor's where there is a lot of crime. The business must charge higher prices to make up for the increased security measures. A crime ridden country or a country with wide spread corruption drives out foreign investment and makes doing business by businesses more risky and therefore less likely to do business there. Sometimes a business must break the law or act immoral just to survive. Thus depriving a country of need capital and resources. Basic Economics illustrates this point in more detail. Overall, more energy and labor and capital must go to policing society and dealing with crime instead of producing anything.
A corrupt government leads to a poor country. There are no rules of the game that give certainty to the businesses and people engaging in economic activity in that country.
What about drugs. A society that is addicted to drugs especially hard core drugs then these people are more like to do crime to get those drugs, even if drugs were legal, because a heroin addicted is not likely to be working and producing anything but living off of the government. They would be costing the country more money in health care cost because the drug life is not healthy and they injure themselves and thus will need more medical care that must be provided by charity or government. If people are addicted to drugs they are likely to not be productive member of society. A drugged out society can't govern themselves.
These are a few examples that show how "sin" or immorality is bad for society. Should the government control some of these. I think the issues that go into the realm of violating the rights of other people such as crime and drugs should be made illegal. Is marijuana hard core drugs. I don't think so. A complex issues. Having sex is a personal decision and should not be regulated by government. That goes into the personal realm. But it doesn't change the negative effects it has on society. I think people do have some responsibility to society; although they should not be made to serve it. My whole point was to show how sin is bad for society and if the government promotes such activity then it is leading to the downfall of a country.
As long as the government doesn't promote drug use I am for legalizing marijuana, but not hard core drugs. The issue is complex and not cut and dry. I was trying to tie this point into legalizing marijuana. Hopefully this resolves this. This is how I see things. I am still learning and developing my thoughts.
"I agree that alcohol is a more dangerous drug than pot."-Bud D.
ReplyDelete"The only thing that matters is whats right for society."-Bud D.
How can you justify punishing a lesser of two evils?
When I said "Don't allow yourself to be a hypocrit and only support the legalization of things that you like to do in your recreation time." I meant that you should stand up for your fundamental beliefs on how a society should be treated by its government. If you think things should be restricted because of the danger to society(which you said they should) then alcohol should be restricted over pot(according to the fact that you said alcohol is more dangerous than pot). I was saying it would be hypocritical to say that pot should be punished because of its danger to society but then you turn around and drink a beer when you know its more dangerous than pot.
ReplyDeleteI'll respond in detail when I get back from the Property, though the response could be put together from bits and pieces of my previous comments. And like I said, I admit it's not entirely convincing, but it's the most right of the various options as far as I'm concerned. Reasonable people can disagree.
ReplyDelete