cheeba wrote:Skeptic wrote:
Well yeah no one's going to support operating machinery while high/drunk, but it happens.
Then by your reasoning, alcohol should be illegal, no?
People drive while texting, drive while tired, etc, etc. You can only illegalize so much. It has to stop somewhere.
?!
Are you trolling me? Aren't you the one arguing that marijuana should remain illegal while alcohol should not?
Alcohol being currently more common than marijuana is due in large part to the fact that marijuana has remained under the yoke of antiquated prohibition laws whereas alcohol was freed from that burden in the early part of the 20th century. You do realize you are contradicting your own position here right?
I know why marijuana is less common. I'm not contradicting anything. My argument is that pot can be as dangerous as alcohol.
Even if that argument made any sense(it doesn't) how would that support your position here? And to support THAT argument you are going to have to come up with far more than 14 people killed in a single train wreck many years ago. You are going to have to show stoned pedestrians who have flown into a 'stoned rage' and killed their friends, spouses, strangers, etc.. Stoned drivers in the habit of driving at 100 mpg down the road swerving in and out of traffic, stoned people committing suicide because of a 'stoned argument' they had with friends or loved ones, etc.
These are all common enough amongst drunks but they simply do not happen with people smoking pot. A minority of pot smokers Do become excessively paranoid but this rarely results in anyone getting hurt.
Except I didn't say pot should be illegal because one dude killed 14 people. That's just an example of the dangers of pot, to contradict the common notion that stoners are harmless cheeto-loving hippies.
Then you will have to do a lot better because(ignoring why you are contesting that 'relatively irrelevant' notion) your case is not made by citing one stoned, Cheetos-loving hippy who crashed a train.
Also keep in mind that I have NEVER advocated that marijuana is harmless.
People die because others who get drunk/high commit crimes under that influence and this is far more common with alcohol, not because it is legal but because the effects of being drunk lend to much more profound loss of judgment, violent mood swings, etc. Again, a stone guy will attack a bag of Cheetos.
This is the argument I'm contradicting. Maybe marijuana is less dangerous than alcohol overall, but it's sure as hell still dangerous and cheetos aren't the only victims. Just do a google and you can see some horrific stuff committed while high.[/quote]
No no no...I am not doing your research for you guy. You will have to cite some of these alleged incidents themselves and then you have the much bigger task of explaining why the comparable infrequency is not of primary importance here? I mean people die sometimes because of Aspirin. Does that contradict the notion that heroin is more dangerous than Aspirin?
It may be hypocritical to have legal alcohol and illegal pot, but the reality of the situation is it's much harder to criminalize alcohol.
They did it back inn the 1920s without much trouble at all and it gave rise to organized crime on a level that had not previously been seen. The fact that it has been more difficult to do away with these archaic drug prohibitions does not in any way make a good case that we should not do so. That's almost a twist on the argumentum ad populum.
So your position here is that ALL drugs(including alcohol) SHOULD be illegal but you are afraid that alcohol is more difficult to pull off so you will be satisfied just keeping other drugs illegal? Do I have that about right?
And how did you not notice that I said marijuana is NOT a harmless drug(contrary to what many of my fellow advocates claim)?! I will chalk this up to a reading comprehension error on your part...
Um, no. You've been saying all along, still, that the only thing that a stoner will do is attack cheetos.[/quote]
Quote me saying "The ONLY thing a stoner will do...". Again, read what i WRITE but don't read INTO what I write. Marijuana causes brain damage and lung cancer, does not help Glaucoma at all, dulls the capacity for alertness and observation, reaction time etc. and can for some rare persons with certain conditions cause other problems.
When I mentioned the "Cheetos" thing I was talking specifically about violent crime and to a lesser extent dangerous driving.
Whether or not it causes cancer or whatever, I don't think is really relevant to this conversation.
It is since THAT was the position I was contradicting when I said marijuana was NOT a harmless drug, to which you mistakenly made all these above assumptions.
No but the craft brewing industry is to alcohol sales what 3D hologram alternate nude ed. covers are to comic book sales.
I have no idea what 3D hologram alternate nude ed. covers are to comic book sales, but the microbrew industry is pretty goddamn big, and growing at a rate of 40% per year.[/quote]
the 'Alternate cover' was once a fairly unique thing done for certain special comics. Now every comic book printed comes with at least 2 and often 4-6 'alternate covers'(including nude covers for sexy female heroines and such). That the micro brew industry is growing bigger is hardly relevant to your case here. There have always been a minority(now a larger minority I admit) of beer drinkers who approached beer in the way culinary artists approach food. But beer is still mostly an inexpensive and easy to obtain intoxicant(which even the PBR/Busweiser/Miller crowd will prefer the beer they think tastes best of those they can afford). AS I said I am a lover of good beer, for the taste and not the effect so I certainly understand and to an extent probably agree with you on this but I fail to see how this makes the case you are trying to make?
It may be small potatoes compared to the swill industry, but that rate of growth plus a look at the wine industry should give you a pretty clear understanding that there are lots of people out there who consume alcohol mostly for the flavor and not to get blotto.
Correct. I am just saying let's not be silly about this. Your earlier posts made it sound as though drunks were a small, unfortunate side effect of the otherwise harmless alcohol industry. Even amongst the micro brew lovers alcoholism is a HUGE problem and drunk driving, violent crime, etc. persist. possibly even nearly as much as with the PBR crowd because micro brews have higher alcohol content(I am drinking a stout right now that has 7.9 % by volume).
Except that was your whole point in the statement you made to which my above was offered in reply. I can also point out that 'drinking = getting buzzed/drunk' regardless of the fact that many of us are not drinking our micro-brews for that reason.
Except you'd be completely wrong, drinking != getting buzzed/drunk. I can drink a beer and often do without feeling any effects from the alcohol.
I can smoke a bowl and often do without feeling stoned as well. Call it a combination of weaker pot plus tolerance...I don't know but in any case this is irrelevant to the discussion. A red herring of sorts. What matters is what the overall effect is in total, regardless of whether you intend to get drunk/high or how well able YOU happen to be in drinking responsibly. You drink two micro brews and unless you are a very large man with a ridiculous tolerance, you are probably not in good shape to drive.
But again I do not see the relevance of this to whether pot/alcohol should be legal or not.
I'm sure if you tested me after one beer there would be no significant difference between my reactions while without beer vs. having 1 beer.
Depends on teh beer and your own size and such but the point is that unfortunately many if not most do not drink just one beer. They drink and immediately feel more relaxed('buzzed') and then have another. Now they are relaxed and buzzed enough that judgment is more lax and so a third does not sound like such a bad idea...and so on.
Let me rephrase my original statement: nobody out there smokes pot without the intention or understanding that they will get high.
Again, false and refuted in my previous reply which you seem to have missed or are ignoring. There are cancer patients I personally know of who do not even LIKE marijuana and the high associated with smoking it but they need the medicine for their appetites, pain etc.
Just because they don't LIKE the high doesn't mean they don't get high.[/quote]
And...? Just because drinkers do not intend to get buzzed does not mean they do not get buzzed.
It doesn't matter why they smoke it or what it does for them, it gets them high. That's the point. Joint = high. Just because you've got glaucoma doesn't mean the pot doesn't get you stoned.
it does not help one iota with glaucoma and it is irrelevant that it gets you stoned. Even if we assume that everyone smoking pot gets REALLY high, the fact is that they tend to have MUCH better judgment and capacity for self control than the drunks. Drunks are more dangerous by far than stoners and you cannot arbitrarily like this. Cold medicines cause drowsiness and other effects, regardless of your intent behind taking them.
"I am in a very peculiar business...I travel all over the world telling people what they should already know." - James "The Amazing" Randi