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- Go to I voted against legalizing marijuana but my reasons have changed.
I can only report what I have first hand knowledge of.
As for jail ruining lives with draconian sentences, even a two month sentence is all you need to be ruined (lost residence, lost belongings, lost jobs, lost friends and pets, etc). I agree, weighing the failed deterrent effect versus the realistically disasterous effect of even short incarceration, logic dictates changing the approach.
Illegal sales and distribution, though...suspended sentence, probation and monitored community service for six months for the first offense. Any psychjoactive needs to be regulated tightly. Maybe make it like wine or beer, you can make a little.
When I was a rescueman, I liked manila rope, but yeah, gotta watch for rot...sniff for it too. (But not SMOKE for it!).
posted by
majroj
on November 8, 2010 at 9:28 PM
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Re: Benefits of growing it....
Maj,
Regarding hemp's use as a natural-grown fiber, it is and always was, far superior and durable, as a fiber, to cotton, teasle, thistle, flax, wool, etc. but with the discovery of synthetic fibers like nylon, dacron, acryllics, and other chemically (oil) based fibers, etc. that will never rot, as organic fibers do, during the US ramping up for wartime, ( WWII,) only several years, it became a moot point. The hundreds of people sent to prison for MANY, MANY years, on truly Draconian NARCOTIC drug (!) possession laws, would argue that far more harm was done TO them, and to their families, than was ever done BY THEM, for their having smoked flowers, regardless of why or when they did something, declared to be illegal by those who didn't know anything about what was being proscribed, because they had never even tried it, personally!
After 4,000 or more years of scholarly medical observation, and recreational use, in Asia and Africa, if this was actually a dangerous substance, there would be MANY observed and well-known side-effects, that medical professionals would have been aware of, and warning against, for hundreds of years. I have known and discussed this, and other arguments both for and against, with physicians, law enforcement professionals, lawyers, teachers, hippies and stoners, ever since forming my own opinion, back in 1968. Nobody has ever come up with a convincing case for incarceration of humans, over their use of this harmless herb.
posted by
northsage_45
on November 8, 2010 at 4:19 PM
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Darson, thanks for the Cafe comment
I live near Sacramento, and the freakshow that is the Medical Marijuana lobby on the street is not to be believed.
posted by
majroj
on November 8, 2010 at 3:34 PM
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Tzippy, agreed.
Ciel, Northsage, thanks for weighing in!! Good points.
posted by
majroj
on November 8, 2010 at 3:29 PM
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Benefits of growing it....
Gotta disagree there too.
1. Potency would probably be higher (pun unintended) than most home-grown and wild "ditch weed", but not like the mutant ninja weed nowadays.
2. Most cannabis grown for fiber would not meet smoking standards. To avoid it being marketed as legal weed, it would probably still be banned. Why not use thistle, teasle or other fiber plants? Grow more flax.
Big businesses would probably love to get on board the cannibis express as tobacco abuse in America continues under attack.
posted by
majroj
on November 8, 2010 at 3:28 PM
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Well, I have to disagree.
Having lived through the Sixties, Seventies etc., been around a lot of marijuana use before and during the USAF, and being an educated and licensed nuring pracitioner who worked for two decades with drug abusing populations, I assure you it is not more innocuous than aspirin, and the abuse issue looming large is how to do a field test for an impaired driver as you can do for alcohol. Swab the mouth and test for THC I guess. (Or offer him a brownie or some Fritos! ).
Any psychoactive material affects decision-making and motor skills, and for many folks this can lead quickly to trouble. Aspirin will not (usually)encourage me to take more aspirin, nor impair my ability to drive or work unless I OD; then there is more potential for self-harm, not driving or working impaired.
And as for "medicinal marijuana", THC as a controlled-dosage prescription medication is available already. There is no other medical substance of comparable strength you smoke (imprecise dosage while you get a nice hit of soot, CO2, carbon monoxide, etc.) and grow for yourself at home. "Medical marijuana" is an avenue for people to self-medicate and circumvent abuse laws.
Alcohol is as bad or worse, but we survive it with many legal restrictions, treatment centers (including jail detox) and help groups. We need to choke off the narco dollars and stop ruining the lives of people who are going to use it anyway.
posted by
majroj
on November 8, 2010 at 3:23 PM
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An herb, drug, or a substance that one CANNOT overdose on, SHOULD be legal!
Pharmaceutical, barbiturates, uppers, and opiates, and even some "Over the Counter Drugs," can be deadly if abused, but The "Evil Weed," CANNOT! In fact, it is more innocuous than aspirin, and has many good uses, among them dozens of medical uses, for which there is no superior replacement.
The only reasons that it was outlawed in the first place, was because the well-funded and enormously powerful alcohol, oil, and the cotton industries and Dow Chemical Company, didn't want any competition from canabis plant products and hemp-fiber growers, and our own disgraceful U.S. cultural prejudice, against the primarily Black and Hispanic users of the plant. Who would risk standing up, for those practically universally scorned minorities? Nobody even CARED about them, but most feared them!
Nope, once it was declared illegal, there was no going back. It would have been necessary to admit that thousands of years worth of human suffering, broken families, and the criminalization and alienation of several generations of otherwise good young American citizens, and all the evils of the resulting criminal organizations, was all for NOTHING but a conspiracy among business leaders, solely to quash possible competition.
As with all prohibition, intended to legislate human behavoir, it did more harm, than any POSSIBLE good.
If we must legislatively protect our youth from their own choices and actions, outlaw the actually dangerous, deadly drugs, and then just STAY the hell out of all the rest of what is demonstrably harmless human behavoir.
The "Partnership for a Drug-Free America," and like-minded groups don't want anybody to be able to take any substance, if it makes them feel GOOD! I guess that there will always be those who think that suffering and self-denial builds character, when all it does is ruin lives, and warps people, into being damaged human beings, for all the rest of their damaged lives.
Guy
posted by
northsage_45
on November 8, 2010 at 11:30 AM
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I have long suspected that legalization would do several useful things
Not only would it increase taxes, once the mainstream growers get into growing and marketing it, the potency would likely decline. But maybe a bigger benefit would be the return of hemp and hemp fiber as an American cash crop.
posted by
Ciel
on November 8, 2010 at 2:01 AM
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I totally agree with you. I am a very conservative person, and I
am totally against getting drunk or high on anything, but legalizing Marijuana is a good thing, problem is feds are not involved in the legalization so pretty much its still a problem.
posted by
Tzippy
on November 7, 2010 at 9:55 PM
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