Drugs and the Government

Re: Drugs and the Government

Well, welcome to Critical Thinking. Hopefully by "evade getting banned again" you don't mean you are ban evading, because that would be bad.

Er...I went back over the thread containing CT's rules, the thread about good threads in CT -and- the overall Chardish announcement about forum rules, and couldn't find anything about topics to do with drugs being disallowed. Could you perhaps link us to where you saw that? I may just be blind.

That's probably a good plan. Advocating the use of illegal substances might not be a good idea, rules or not.

You might have a stronger case if you were advocating a lack of bad effects at all, as opposed to side effects. The side effects are anything that occurs incidentally in some number of people, whereas the effects themselves are what the substance does. My other objection is going to wait until the end, based on something else you said below.

I really don't think the government makes these drugs bad. The phrase you're looking for is "One of the reasons people often percieve these kinds of drugs as being bad is that the government tries to influence public opinion about them" Clarity of thought is -really- important in CT, as being left open to misinterpretations is a very good way to have someone misinterpret you. Then we get this ludicrous back and forth as we struggle to make ourselves understood to each other. Bad times.

I assume you have some statistical data to go along with a claim like "Marijuana -doesn't- do X, Y, Z"

Well, since your post contains no citations, no references, no statistical data of any kind, how are we to be assured that you aren't merely presenting your own personal experience with friends or family? You've presented several absolute statements "Drug A -does not- cause effect B" "Nobody has -ever- died from marijuana use" without any actual evidence to back up the claims. Also...I hate to break it to you, but personal observation is one of the prime ways you -conduct- research. If I've personally witnessed someone smoke marijuana and have a siezure and die, that is absolutely a valid objection to your claim that it has no side effects and has never caused a death.

You put an awful lot of faith in 18 year olds to assume that on the magical birthday, 100% of them instantly gain a full capability to make up their mind, and engage in logical, reasoned analysis. If you were allowing us to reference our personal observations, I'd have -plenty- of counters to that statement.

You're very welcome. Don't take the forthrightness and blatancy of my response as something negative. Around here, a point by point discussion of what you said is a good sign. It means we considered what you posted to be good enough to want to respond to, to the best of our ability.

Re: Drugs and the Government

The chemicals released when you smoke marijuana are that of your own brain and do not slow down the neurotransmitters as of what alcohol does nor does the THC in your bloodstream. The only difference in thought process is that of an over whelming happiness during what you are doing which is from all those endorphins. Also, high drivers have a smaller percent crash rate then sober drivers. I read this a while back so im gonna have to do some looking up to quote my source but i would gladly do so if you dont believe me. High drivers generally dont want to be caught high so they also tend to be on edge when driving to make sure nothing happens. Now thats not statistical so much as a biological reason why he is right.
My best advice on learning about the subject is to do some research or your own on the stupidities of the government on this situation. The benefits outweigh the risks at least 100 to 1, and this isn't just concerning the effect drugs have the body. Marijuana is the best clothing resource(stronger, softer then cotton and much more but is a BIG DEAL), good source for canvas which can make paper that lasts 100's of years longer(guess what our original constitution was written on???lol), and blah blah blah i could write a hundred page essay on this. Try going to www.jackherer.com for much more detailed explanations or there's a very good book on it called "The Emperor Wears No Clothes."
I have also researched the negative effects of marijuana and frankly there just isn't any good reason for it being illegal. Cigarettes and Alcohol on the other hand, those have hundreds more reasons to be illegal!

Re: Drugs and the Government

There is one fundamental reason why marijuana will almost certainly remain illegal in the United States in perpetuity. I won't spoil it just yet, I'm sure you guys can come up with it on your own.

I'll give you a hint, it has nothing to do with tobacco companies, or the moral rightness/wrongness of marijuana, nor does it have anything to do with the percieved or actual consequences or after-effects of marijuana smoking.

Re: Drugs and the Government

Haha right, but if the government were to legalize it, tax it. There'd be a huge rise on income for the government, along with a crapload of already organized businesses haha. But I definitely see all your points, very accurate.

On another note, I also remember reading in a smoke enthusiast store that 1 acre of marijuana = to roughly what, 4 or 5 acres of trees? as far as nutrients, and oxygen productivity. Thank you for the input on how I should be more clear with my thinking. And yet again, thank you for all your inputs, keep 'em coming!!!

Thanks for the welcome =P

Firstly, I looked through the rules in the Critcial Thinking, and noticed that drugs weren't allowed in here.

I meant

Firstly, I looked through the rules in the Critical Thinking, and noticed that there wasn't a rule against talking about drugs. =P

Re: Drugs and the Government

I would love to see Marijuana advertising companies pop up in magazines and billboards. Spliff-easy Ciggaweed, a 60 40 blend that will send you flying. But really guys, you ever see the great government produced "Reefer Madness" PSA/show?.. ,not remembering exactly what it was, but it showed people smoking marijuana then while "high" killing loved ones and all around being cranky.

About legalization though, I'm not sure what reason your thinking would be the gov's reasoning behind not legalizing it, but i wouldn't want it to be anyway. As an avid "stoner" I have a relatively easy and safe passage whenever I feel like making a purchase. I know exactly where my product is coming from half of the time and its usually good quality.... I would hate to lose the experience of hanging out with friends (who would happen to be dealers) and smoking the plant I've seen grow from seedling form. Which is what I think would happen if it became Legal. The common Citizen loses the right to grow, whatever company does its patents blah blah and has the R.J.Reynolds of Pot. I know the prices would be a great increase and the strains used for most would degrade.

Well I don't remember where I was planning on going with this but ill leave you with a main point I guess. I love the drug community (around where I live anyway) and I sort of take pride in how my friends and I are part of this business/family tree ladder of runners and dealers... its a great company to get into... though its not for everyone. Theres plenty of things wrong and dangerous about the drug in certain situations, but its a lot less frightening than Alcohol.

Re: Drugs and the Government

See, here's the thing though...if the government were to legalize marijuana and try to tax it, they would absolutely -NOT- make a ton of money from it.

The kind of cigarettes most people are addicted to take a -lot- of processing between "A tobacco plant" and "A cigarette"

Alcohol that is any good requires a long time, and special facilities to make.

We have a vested interest in letting the government tax cigarettes and alcohol because the extra cost doesn't come close to outweighing the time and expense involved in manufacturing it ourselves.

Now look at pot. There's really just about -one- step between a plant and a joint, and that one step is easy, involves no special machinery and very little time. You see where I'm going with this?

People are already growing pot on their own, in their basements, and back gardens, and processing it themselves. All legalizing it would do is make it that much cheaper and easier to grow and use your own. The government would derive -very- little revenue from it, because very few people would have an incentive to buy it through government systems when they could just grow their own.

Re: Drugs and the Government

It indeed does. See, marijuana is in the black market. The black market is a bad thing. Gangs get money from the black market because they're generally the ones who have control of it. Drugs are more potent in the black market to get the most out of a shipment. Things are UNREGULATED IN THE BLACK MARKET. There are zero taxes! You're getting a lot of bang for your buck in the black market.

Guess who generally buys from the black market? I bet you know. Why? Because it's illegal! A law abiding person is less likely to do something illegal by definition. There's also just so much risk from dealing with illegal drugs. Mess up and your future is ruined. Hard-working, intelligent people can lose a job 20 years down the road because they got caught with marijuana at one point.

Kids have easier access in the black market, too. If you have connections, in < an hour you could have any illegal substance on your doorstep (so says aperson at least). With cigarettes or alcohol, you'd need to do a straw purchase (remember, ALL of this is illegal!), which requires more effort because dealers usually don't carry around legal substances because, well, someone could usually get them anywhere yourself. And that would require having a different dealer, usually, especially if your dealer is also underage (which is the case for many kids who'd be into drugs... they'd get their drugs from their friends, possibly the one that got them into drugs, who might even possibly have another peer as a dealer, and who knows when the ladder ends and it finally hits an adult who could legally buy all of that stuff!).

(Although, with the legalization of all drugs, the black market for drugs would consist entirely of straw purchases intended for minors. Everything would arguably be just as easy as it was to get as before because people would switch to dealers intended for straw purchases, not purchases through the illegal drug market. This already established black market filters out things not in it, so removing everything from it would make the straw purchase market predominant. It would be wrong for me to assume that, well, since having alcohol and cigarettes legal makes it harder for minors to get it, that making everything legal would make everything harder to get. But would it matter at that point? No!)

I don't know about "bad." That assumes they're good in the first place. But their status as illegal definitely makes them worse.

Re: Drugs and the Government

You seem to have made the same error in language that I was correcting in the first place.

"The government makes them bad" implies that They are good, and through some physical process, they are made literally into worse substances. "The tobacco companies make tobacco bad" is a true statement, because they add many chemicals and so forth to the tobacco that make them quantitatively -worse- for you than they started.

The phrase you're both looking for is "The government makes them out to be worse than they are"

Re: Drugs and the Government

It does not need to become physically worse to become worse. Although when illegal the drugs generally become more potent.

Re: Drugs and the Government

Usually the drugs are more potent because (excuse my obvious answer) people want a better high. The better the product, the more money you'll be taking in because word will spread that you have really good stuff. Therefore another dealer tries to get even better stuff to run you out of the competition, etc...

Drugs are just bad for you, period. Of course I'm also just a good, old-fashioned law-abiding person now. My answer may be biased because of my experiences, but drugs, not matter how "beneficial" it may be, are bad. Period. However, this is just my opinion, and I understand that others may vary greatly. I just have not seen any benefits with people that use drugs.

Re: Drugs and the Government

Wrong. I repeat what I said: more out of a shipment. Of course a dealer will be charging more, which is how they get the most out of a shipment. If they charged the same amount for a more potent shipment, then they wouldn't need to make it more potent:

On one unintended consequence of prohibition—drug potency—Thornton has a nice discussion. He shows, using standard economic analysis, that making drugs illegal causes the mix of drugs sold to be more potent. The idea, drawn from work by Armen Aichian and William Allen, and by Yoram Barzel, is that prohibition acts like a tax. If the government imposes the same per-unit tax on beer and whiskey, the price of beer, though still lower than the price of whiskey, becomes higher relative to the price of whiskey. Buyers would rationally respond by increasing the percentage of whiskey in the mix of liquors they buy. I communicate this subtle economic insight to noneconomists with the old saying: “You might as well be hanged for a sheep as for a lamb.”


It is your opinion. Okay. Then don't present it like it's some sort of truism.

Re: Drugs and the Government

So...you're saying that making something illegal makes it more potent on the grounds that "If I'm breaking the law, I might as well break it as much as possible"?! I'm not entirely sure I buy that. In the example, if beer was 2.00 and whiskey was 5.00, and the fine for drinking alcohol was 5.00, they seem to be saying "In that situation, its as though beer became -more- more expensive than the whiskey did, so people who previously drank beer will drink whiskey"

Their example uses prohibition, making all alcohol illegal, as being the equivalent of a tax being put equally on all alcohol. Nowhere I've looked still has exact statistics or listed penalties available, but I find it hard to believe that the punishment for prohibition was identical for making/selling/drinking 0.5% beer as it was for making/selling/drinkin 75% moonshine you made in a still out back.

Re: Drugs and the Government

Of course drugs shouldn't be used by minors.

But, they still manage to get it somehow.

And for alcohol and such, yeah, I don't know why. Most minors believe all the myths people say about beer, like it'll make you feel good and crap. Well, it don't. I'm also thinking that most of the alcohol consumption, by minors, is by young girls.

But they end up getting raped if they are at a party. Why? They had too much, and they got some stuck in them, and they had a huge hangover the next morning.

Re: Drugs and the Government

I disagree completely. I would say most underage drinking is done by males 15-X (Where X is your legal age) though it would be a relatively simple task for you to check with your government information on underage drinking charges.

Um...wait what? So...in your theory, a girl gets drunk, a guy (presumably not drunk in this scenario or you'd have said so) -RAPES- her, and you blame that on her having gotten drunk? Oh my friend, I wouldn't say that around too many women.