One more reason to make weed legal.

[PsykhikosAnarchosNautikos]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

Vaporizes, the good ones, are smoke free, and even some high tech pipes, but a little more expensive. Just saying.

[anunitu]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

These days I would go for weed tea,actually not a bad drink,and in California if you knew where to find it they brewed weed Beer.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

Smoke-free pipes? Weed beer? Wow...never heard of that stuff! Tea makes sense, and I guess that was done decades ago too, since it sounds a bit familiar.

[anunitu]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

you put your weed in a tea ball,and let it brew.

[Aeran]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

I really hope we start to see a shift towards alternative methods of ingesting weed as we approach legalization. While I think the evidence against it being strongly carcinogenic is formidable, I also know too many heavy smokers who've ended up with collapsed lungs, emphysema, etc at a young age to be comfortable with smoking being promoted as the primarily method of ingestion, when there are so many other, safer alternatives.

And besides, I'm not a huge fan, but when I did dabble with it, I found that it gave a far better effect cooked into food.

[Hawkfeathers]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

Also hope the gov't. or producers don't end up filling it with dangerous additives like they do to tobacco.

[PsykhikosAnarchosNautikos]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

Also hope the gov't. or producers don't end up filling it with dangerous additives like they do to tobacco.

That's bound to happen, but in certain states you are allowed to grow your own. From what I remember you could have one plant no bigger than three feet tall (this way you can't get enough to sell, at least not on a larger scale). Plus, the prices will probably sky rocket. I used to get .5-.7 grams for 10 dollars- which is rip off, where one 'friend' would give at least 1.0-1.2 gram per ten dollars. Anyway, street price is expensive enough- look at cigarettes (which I am glad I don't smoke), they're up to $8 a pack where I live!

So weed will probably be like $20 for a cigarette pack size- or more, a lot more. I say legalize it just so the puritan cops and what not get off smokers cases, but on the other hand, keep it 'illegal' (but tolerable by the law ) to keep the prices down and quality up. As long as friends and dealers get medical, and that remains legal, that's as far as it needs to go, legal wise.

[Doc_Holliday]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

I dislike marijuana completely. Its like I just naturally dislike it. Never used/smoked it, never will. Although I'm all for its legalization, because legalization would not harm me and people would be happier in general, nothing wrong with that.

[PsykhikosAnarchosNautikos]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

I see legalization as a ploy to get corporation more money, especially tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical companies (who are basically the same parasite anyway).

[Aeran]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

What about the hundreds of thousands of people having their lives ruined through being prosecuted for marijuana use or distribution?

I doubt the price will go up if it was legalized, if anything, I'd expect the opposite to happen. As far as crops go marijuana, as I understand it, is incredibly cheap to grow and produce, the reason it costs what it does currently is the same reason all illegal drugs are so expensive, they're priced so that setting up a distribution network and selling it in the face of risking a prison sentence is worthwhile. Even with the extensive taxation that will surely take place, I don't think there's much to worry about in that regard.

On the flip side, the chemical additives and pesticides are a real concern, but hopefully after what we've seen with cigarettes, there'll be a far more extensive effort to restrict their use. And with how easy marijuana is to grow, I'd imagine you'll see local 'natural' growers and so forth crop up even if corporations do start to get into the game.

[PsykhikosAnarchosNautikos]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

What about the hundreds of thousands of people having their lives ruined through being prosecuted for marijuana use or distribution?

I see your point, and that's why in an earlier post I said 'tolerable', for the very reason that a cop doesn't have to arrest or persecute someone in anyway when it comes to... well, to just about anything. Things like abusive violence, drunken driving (I mean drunk, not just a few beers), hardcore drug dealing and usage, etc, they are bound by law to arrest you, but not for minor things like being high or calling a cop a jackass. They'll probably arrest you anyway, but they aren't bound by law to do so.

[Aeran]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

Yeah I get where you're coming from, but imo that still leaves it open to exploitation by cops who need to get their quota up or just want to be a jackass. Look at the drama over the 'stop and frisk' issue in New York and how they're busting like 80% black and latino kids, despite the fact that white kids smoke just as much as black/latino kids. I don't think leaving any ambiguity around the issue is a good idea, better to have people's rights in this regard codified. Full legalization also helps people realize that legalizing a previously legal chemical won't make the sky fall down, which lays down the pathway for reforming the laws surrounding other drugs and adopting an evidence based policy.

[B. de Corbin]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

I see legalization as a ploy to get corporation more money, especially tobacco, alcohol and pharmaceutical companies (who are basically the same parasite anyway).

Or, maybe, it is the government finally bending to the will of the people, and increasing their personal autonomy.

[iflewoverthecuckoosnest]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

Relevant:

http://www.alternet.org/story/47815/pot_prisoners_cost_americans_$1_billion_a_year

These statistics only apply to the U.S. but it's some good info, nonetheless.
In summary:
Imprisonment of marijuana offenders costs 1 billion dollars a year.
Marijuana offenders make up 33,655 of state inmates and 10,785 of federal inmates (and that's excluding those in county/local jails)
1 out of 8 people incarcerated for drug offenses are doing time for marijuana based offenses.
The total criminal justice costs associated with arrests/prosecution of marijuana users is 8 billion dollars per year.
An estimated 786,545 people were arrested on marijuana charges last year, 88 percent of whom were arrested on the charge of possession alone.
94 million Americans (40 percent of the 12 and older population) admit to using pot at some point in their lifetimes.

Besides all of that, the fact that someone could throw me in prison for putting a certain kind of plant into my own body is enough to make me want to legalize. I'm not a little kid and I can make the choice to put marijuana in my own body to alter my own mind if I want to, just like anyone over 21 can put alcohol in their own body to alter their own mind, or anyone over 18 can put tobacco in their own body, etc. etc. I think everyone should have the right to make their own informed decisions about these sorts of things.

[PsykhikosAnarchosNautikos]

Re: One more reason to make weed legal.

Or, maybe, it is the government finally bending to the will of the people, and increasing their personal autonomy.

I guess you have more faith in the government than I do.