Yes, but you are not denying the fact that weed can in fact zombify people, and THAT is a problem in and of itself! So we know it exists. The fact that you are comparing it to Alcohol, which has been discussed by all of you to be a harmful, addicting drug - which it is - means that weed must also be harmful, and damaging. Just because something doesnt kill you doesnt mean it wont hurt you.

Also, I don't particularily like hanging around people that are just plain idiots and I wouldnt have become such good friends with them if they had always been like that.

 

You seem to be confusing marijuana use with marijuana ABUSE.

My last post from NORML also addressed this topic. Im sorry but your argument is unsubstantiated. Your using negative stereotypes which just arent right. You cant become "perma-fried" as you call it.

Allegations that marijuana smoking alters brain function or has long-term effects on cognition are reckless and scientifically unfounded. Federally sponsored population studies conducted in Jamaica, Greece and Costa Rica found no significant differences in brain function between long-term smokers and non-users.48 Similarly, a 1999 study of 1,300 volunteers published in The American Journal of Epidemiology reported "no significant differences in cognitive decline between heavy users, light users, and nonusers of cannabis” over a 15-year period.49 More recently, a meta-analysis of neuropsychological studies of long-term marijuana smokers by the National Institute on Drug Abuse reaffirmed this conclusion.50 In addition, a study published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in April 2002 reported that even former heavy marijuana smokers experience no negative measurable effects on intelligence quotient.51
Most recently, researchers at Harvard Medical School performed magnetic resonance imaging on the brains of 22 long-term cannabis users (reporting a mean of 20,100 lifetime episodes of smoking) and 26 controls (subjects with no history of cannabis use). Imaging displayed "no significant differences" between heavy cannabis smokers compared to controls. "These findings are consistent with recent literature suggesting that cannabis use is not associated with structural changes within the brain as a whole or the hippocampus in particular," authors concluded.52
Claims specifically charging that marijuana leads to brain changes similar to those induced by heroin and cocaine are based solely on the results of a handful of animal studies that demonstrated that THC (delta-9-tetrahydrocannabinol, the main psychoactive ingredient in marijuana) can stimulate dopamine production under certain extreme conditions, and that the immediate cessation of THC (via the administration of a chemical blocking agent) will initiate some mild symptoms of withdrawal. These findings have little bearing on the human population because, according to the US Institute of Medicine, “The long half-life and slow elimination from the body of THC … prevent[s] substantial abstinence symptoms” in humans.53 As a result, such symptoms have only been identified in rare, unique patient settings – limited to adolescents in treatment for substance abuse, or in clinical research trials where volunteers are administered marijuana or THC daily.54

 

Comparison is not only for the sake of similarities but for DIFFERENCES.

Marijuana is compared to alcohol simply for that, comparison. Marijuana is much more similar to caffeine than alcohol. It is being compared to alcohol because alcohol is a far more dangerous drug that IS legal and IS accepted by our society. If you look at every one of my posts i only suggest that we should treat marijuana like we treat alcohol. Most of the facts i point out are DIFFERENCES between the two.


Furthermore if someone wants to be "zombified" LET THEM. It is their body, their life, and it has absolutly no effect on you. This is a VICTIMLESS CRIME. If you dont use marijuana no one is trying to force you to. No one is forcing you to be around it. If you dont like being around lazy retarded stoners remove yourself from the situation! Or maybe find some people that dont act like idiots when theyre high. Find a musician that uses it as a tool to create, maybe then youll appreciate it more. Have you ever talked to and seen a drunk person? Loss of co-ordination and slurred speach dont sound like traits of an intelligent person. With every drink you sound dumber and dumber.

People tell me the only difference they can tell in my when i high vs sober is that i am happier and more social. When im not high i tend to be shy and dont talk alot, give me a few puffs and ill be a regular chatty-cathy.


The punishment for a crime should never be worse than the crime itself. In my state you can face up to 7 years in PRISON for posessing a gram of cannabis flowers. Stick that in your pipe and smoke it!

 

Marijuana prohibition is unfounded plain and simple.

 

^^^ Yerp. That is correct.
Someday dude, someday...

 

Im sorry you died....I had nothing to do with that...

I know it will be legal day but hey...paying a ***** in Las Vegas is legal but Im not doing it.

Every european country that I have visited that drugs are legal looked like a Sh*t hole because everyone was drugged out. Making smoking pot will do more damage to the US then good. This is the USA and not Europe, if they want to be so damn liberal and let there people detroy themselve's so freely...let them.

 

You have no faith in people at all... so little, that it's a fault.
So legalizing weed will result in the nation going down the crapper... but tobacco and alcohol is legal, and God bless the fecking US of A right? Yer nation is perfect! (or it was until that terrorist Obama got elected).

And you're sorry I died? I think you're trying to be clever or something, but that just doesn't even make sense. Your posts are barely coherent. Brush up on grammar skillz.

 

The risk associated with smoking marijuana falls within the range of choice we permit the individual in a free society. It is unconstitutional plain and simple.

Marijuana laws and their enforcement violate our first, fourth, fifth, sixth, eighth, ninth, and tenth amendment rights. The constitution and bill of rights is the supreme law of the land, not even the government is above the constitution.

The first ammendment says government is not allowed to make any law about religion, speech, press, or assembly. In spite of this our government holds only religions that conform to their standards as legal. Marijuana has been used for religous purposes for thousands of years. Today it is in hindu, buddhist, and various tribal celebrations. In addition the rastafarians and etheopian zionist coptic church both use marijuana sacrimentally and have been prosecuted within the united states by the DEA.

The fourth ammendment grants us the right to privacy and security against unreasonable search and seizures. According to attourney Richard Glen Boire: "In addition to taking your cash and your car, the state and federal governments can take your home and real property. Under the federal law, cultivaton of marijuana is a felony punishable by more than one year in prison, so the federal government can seize your home and real property even if a single cannabis plant is found on the property. Even if the marijuana was solely for your own personal use and not for sale"

Recent supreme court rulings have eroded our freedom furter by allowing warrantless searches durring traffic stops and searches conducted "in good faith" but with bad warrants. When police can freely search and harass motorists in search of contraband we have created a society where democracy and freedom are illegal.

The 5th ammendment grants citizens important rights if they are accussed of a crime, and specifically forbids the government from depriving us of property without due proscess. The government violates this one all the time. The federal governments tax and police agencys are notorious for seizing property without due proscess. In 80% of cases, property is seized without charges being filed. Most of the seized property goes directly to police departments and informants creating a situation where police raise money by raiding private citizens.

Drug testing in criminal cases violates the 5th ammendment against self incrimination but the supreme court has ruled random testing is acceptable. Even the section dealing with immunity has been emasculated with "use immunity" which states that the government can prosecute you for all crimes you testified to under immunity if the prosecution develops the evidence "independiently". In addition citizens are routienely prosecuted for drug crimes under federal and state governments, thus subjecting them to punishment twice for the same crime.

Because the war on pot has packed our jails with ordinary citizens the entire criminal justice system has become a mockery. Plea barganing and drug-diversion programs are used to subvert the judicial proscess and help unclog the mess caused by all the pot busts. Te more packed the courts the greater the likelihood of plea bargaining. In 1980 when 5,0006 persons charged with violating federal drug laws faced trial 69% pleaded guilty ot no contest. In 2000 five times as many people faced federal drug charges but 94% chose not to contest the case.

People who are accused of marijuana crimes and who "accept responsibility" rather than asserting their right to trial are promised lighter sentences under federal guidelines. Such perversions of our judicial proscess are far more serious threats than any drug. For instance, Bryan Epis, a meducal marijuana provider was offered a plea bargain of four and a half years, which he did not accept. He was found guilty by a jury and sentenced to 10 years in federal prison. In comparison the Symbionese Liberation Army member who pleaded guilty to murdering a bank customer in a botched bank robbery were sentenced to less than 8 years.

Trial by jury is so important that the founding fathers gave juries the constitutional right to acquit if they think the law is wrong. This right to nullify laws through the actions of a jury is one of the greatest weapons that citizens have to oppose bad laws. The founders understood event he best governments can pass bad laws and that juries of common citizens must have the right to judge both the accused and the law.

Marijuana defendants have the right to trial by jury but courts use threats of punishment to pressure defendants into pleading to a charge. Jusges and district attourneys abhor jury trials and they stop at nothing to pressure people into giving up their constitutional right.

Bail for drug defendants is usually much higher than others. Ed rosenthal, when arrested in 2002 for assisting medical marijuana paitents, the cash retainer was set at $200,000 on $500,000 bond. This is not un usual.

The founding fathers would be shocked at the excessive bail, fines, and punishment inflicted for violation of our drug laws. People are being jailed for 25 years without the possibility of parole, for having a joint. Their homes and property are being seized for growing a plant. Prison for life without parole is not unusual for "serious" marijuana offenses. Murderers and rapists RARELY get life without parole, byt marijuana entrepreneurs can expect it especially fi they refust to become government informants. Sending peple to prison for the rest of their life for growing marijuana is not only a clear violation of the constitution but tramples human rights as badly as anything going on in the most despotic and totalitarian countries.

The ninth ammendment is unequivocal, just because the constitution defines only certain rights dosnt mean rights that havent been defined can be taken away. Certainly none of the authors of the bill of rights gave a thought to including the right to get high or to use drugs because those werent being threatened. Anyone could buy or grow marijuana at that time. it wasnt untill 139 years after out government was organized that the feds started to "tax" marijuana and then criminalized it in 1967.

That We, the people, have rights that can never be taken away by the government is further solidified by the 10th ammendment. This explicity states that legal powers not granted by the constitution to the federal gvernment and not prohibited by it for the states are reserved to the states respectively, or to the people. All federal marijuana laws are unconstitutional, it should be up to the states and more importantly the PEOPLE to decide.

Think about this, why did prohibition of alcohol require a constitutional ammendment? Because the government does not have this power granted to them by the constitution.