What do you guys think about drugs? Do you think they should remain illegal or become legalized? I agree that drugs can ruin your life, but so can alcohol, and that's legal. And honsetly, I think that alcohol is more harmful than marijuana. Alcohol makes a lot of people angry and violent when they are drunk, but people on marijuana are just relaxed and happy. I just want to know where the government draws the line for this stuff.

I think marijuana shoul;d be legalized, for the reason above, and for the fact that it would give the government a lot more money, and open up new jobs at the 'marijuana farm'. I think the other drugs should stay illegal though - they mess you up pretty bad, from what I hear.

(This is based on USA laws...don't know too much about other countries' policies on narcotics.)

PS - I do not smoke weed, I am speaking from seeing other people high and drunk.

Well, growing up in a family that has no smokers or drinkers I don't suffer from the effects of alcohol on anyone I know.

I am fully for marijuana being illegal, as long as alcohol is made illegal as well.

Which will never happen, so I guess my opinion here doesn't matter.

The only reason I can think of that would (somewhat) explain why marijuana is still illegal would be public opinion.

Addicitive? I doubt it, or at least I doubt its as addictive as cigs, so no way that could be it.

Mind altering? And alcohol isn't?

Public opinion? MAYBE. Though I'm sure the public's view of a "useless pot smoking piece of [censored], you dreg on society!" can be no worse than the tanked up old guy stumbling down the street with a bottle of Jack.

So, while all three are terrible points, I think if I could pick a reason it would be the third one.

Personally, I have nothing against the legalization of marijuana, even though I never touch the stuff. I believe if people have a choice of drinking themselves to death or smoking until they cough up their lungs, then they should have a choice to smoke marijuana as well.

Actually, there's a pretty strong lobby out there that will prevent it from ever becoming legal. The same kind of lobby that got Absyinthe outlawed. Guess what lobby I'm talking about.

Here in Norway... Marijuana is even illegal, even for hospital use and I think that sucks...

About making it legal to just take to get high and happy.. No, I've met and know people who does this, and the one I know. His whole life got ruined because of drugs, he even came by the school to talk about drugs including marijuana. The effects by taking marijuana and other drugs is horrifing..

Alcoho, well as u say it can also ruin your life. Make you violent and such, but I really dont know. If people can leave without alcohol then...

I cant really justify why I think marijuana should be illeagal, though I think it should.

Oh, and its really hard to walk down the street with a bottle of jack drunk as a skunk because of this little law that makes it illeagal to be drunk in public

You shot me down. That sucks

Doesn't mean it doesn't happen. And nothing will happen to the offender if a cop doesn't happen by.

I see drunk people walking downtown a lot.

Tis true dantrag, but here in good ol' Nashville we don't have hardly any public drunks ( no bars ) but the crack trade between the 5 ghettos in the town are at a all time high =)

Hell i even came across the stuff, laying in a flower pot! lol I picked it up and then when I realized what it was dropped in back in there and called the cops

Marijjuana, or weed, or whatever, can still be pretty harmfull to you, it does some bad stuff to your brain and lungs all. The again, smoking anything is pretty bad for you.

Anything in excess can kill you too

Like McDonalds food.. argh

I'd much rather have cannibis legalised and have cigarettes be illegal (though I'd rather have neither in public places). There is obviously the point about long-term mental damage from cannibis, but I don't know much about that. As far as I know, cannibis is much less physically damaging than cigarretes.

Aside from the legality argument, one reason I see more point in cannibis (though I do not smoke either cannibis or cigarretes) is that it actually gets you high. Ever seen anyone get high of a cigarette? I don't see why anyone would want to even try out cigarretes, as there's no incentive there except peer pressure.

Oh, and here's an interesting little fact - while it is possible to have a lethal dose of tobacco, no lethal dose of cannabis has ever been found. (Not counting simply eating cannabis till you explode, of course )

Marijuana should be legalized.

You guys realize the only reason it was illegalized in the first place was to give the FBI something to do after alcohol was legalized again.

Not only that, but Hemp, the male cannabis plant, makes really great natural rope, paper, etcetera. This guy who developed a synthetic rope that was about as good as hemp rope bribed governmnet officials to make Cannabis illegal to take this competing form of rope off the market.

I don't like marijuana, I could only see myself using it for medical purposes. It makes kids around here into losers that don't care about school or anything.

As far as Cocaine, Heroine, Hallucinogens, Methamphetamines and other drugs like that go, yeah they need to be illegal.

Actually one jpint contains ten times as much tar as a single cigarette, so they are more physically damaging than cigarettes

oh yes, thoswe stoners seem nice and relaxed while stoned, but when they can't get their fix, ohohohohoho. You'll see the violence.

Addicts will do anything to get their fix.

I think we're a little confused here. You must be thinking of herroin junkies.

Nope, I've seen people that do crack go flippin mad when they don't got their stuff... Its really scary.

Odd though I've never seen a angry drunk man.. now I've seen a Drunk angry man but usualy that makes them happy

never got high so i couldn't say... but you have a point dantrag.
and you hear of drunk drivers killing people more than high people....
i think they should all be outlawed. but if all marijuana does is make you happy, then why is it illegal.

The argument has always been that

1) It leads to harder drugs.
2) Anything that makes you not 100% in charge of your senses is a bad thing.

The first one is impossible to say, with any degree of conviction, either way. There have been studies proving it, and studies disproving it. I know which I believe, but again, I can't prove it.

Second one is utter tosh, when you consider alcohol is legal. So it becomes do you ban alcohol and dope, or make both of them legal. The UK seems to be leaning towards legalising it, though of course, there are loud complaints about it. I think it will happen though. Eventually.

I'm from the netherlands myself, and here of course soft drugs are legal to be used.

I think that's a good thing, it's far less of a problem then in countries where it's illegal, I've friends that use soft drugs, nothing but smoking weed that is, and have no problem with that.

I don't do so myself just to be clear on that

so should it be made legal in more countries, I think yes it should.

Time for me to correct you, sorry.

One joint of marijuana will contain no more than 4 times the amount of tar in a cigerette.

Cigerettes Contain 599 addictives, much more than marijuana

Marijuana is a natural drug. When you breathe in a cigerette you get glue extract, gasoline, kerosene...

Cigerettes have been know to cause skin cancer, lung cancer, heart disease, gum disease, tumors and blood clots, marijuana does not cause any of those.

As far as your health goes, marijuana is practically harmless, but it does turn you into a loser. If you take it every day you short term memory will be compassion, you can't concentrate, everything will seem mundane and boring and you'll be easily aggitated,

To Channler, Marijuana is not physically addictive. No marijuana user will do anything to get their fix, nor will they have a fix. Actually, statistically nicotine is the most addictive substance, followed by heroine.

Are you serious? Nicotine beats heroine?

I guess it just wouldn't seem that way because cigarettes don't give you any kind of high.

Well if you think about it, when someone is taking heroine, they;re intaking a lot more heroine than when someone has a cigerette. There's so little nicotine its funny they even think of nictone as a primary ingrediant. They probabky only do because it's one of the only natural things in there. A single drop of nicotine can kill you, when you breathe in nicotine your breathing in real poison, just a tiny amount.

Think of it as sniffing arsen three times a day or so for thirty years. Every single part of your body that took in arsen molecules is going to get cancer, or clotted, or a tumor, or a disease. Your nose, your lungs, your heart, your brain, your bones... they're all getting an unnoticable amount of arsen that your breathing in over a long period time. That's what smoking is.

Well Doomed these guys must have been making cigs that look like weed cause I sure noticed them goin kinda crazy when there friend couldnt get the stuff

You said earlier they couldn't get the "crack" though, didn't you? Crack is like the hardest drug on the market, obvious someone will flipm out if they can't get crack, that's what crackheads are, people constantly flipping out trying to get their fix. Where does weed get involved in this?

I did!?! OMG I'm glad I dont do drugs cause Im not even getting everything straight with a clear head o_O

Hmm yes nicotene is up there with heroine as far as addiction, that is why smoking is such a hard habit to quit.

nicotene bonds with certain chemoreceptos in your brain and slowly changes their shape, so eventually they are receptive to nicotine and not to the chemical it is supposed to bind with (can't think of the name of it) so when you stop taking nicotine well those chemoreceptors won't be activating and the neurons won't fire that certain emotion, (i want t say dopamine O.o but I may be wrong) and if you aren't happy and hooked on cigs, then you want to smoke more cigs to get the feeling of slight euphoria once again.

No, thats pratically any drug addict. The body and mind devolp a dependance on the drug over time. The more addictive, the less time it takes for this bond to devolp. The quick it devolps and the longer one uses the drug, the harder it is to break the bond.

Well hgere's an analogy.

The chemicals in your brain have receptors built to amtch the chemicals like a puzzle piece. drugs release chemicals in your brain very similar to the natural ones to fool your brain into thinking you're taking in natrual chemicals. Here's the funny thing, your body actually produced natural THC, the addictive in Marijuana. becuase it does, the receptors are built exactly for THC, and therefore over time there is not change made to your body's receptors, that's why marijuana is not physically addictive, just mentally addictive.

well phrased, but some like nicotene change the shape of the chemoreceptors.

anywho's addressing the issue of cannibis, i think it should be legalised for many reasons already stated though primarily for medical reasons. Cannibis is beneficial in other ways apart from smoking it O.o which is a common misconception among some people, who apparently think that cannibis for medical purposes means they give it to their patients to smoke, this is however not the case. there are many chemicals in marijuana plants that have been isolted and found to be beneficial for some reason or another (there's an article called The Cannibis conundrum that goes more into detail about this.) and have been extracted to make pills out of them. however since marijuana is illegal the substances extracted from teh marijuana plants are also illegal -.-

Well, you implied that people that smoke dope turn violent when they don't have any, I think that's a pretty big misconception.

There's several important differences between the consumation of hard drugs such as heroin, crack etc and 'soft' drugs, such as cannabis products. The first big difference is the 'users': crack and heroin are consumed by people that have no perspective, that are 'at the bottom'. They don't usually have a job and thus no source of income, and sometimes turn to crime in order to get their fix. They do that because there is a physical addiction that is more or less driving them nuts when they don't get theirs. Dope is a different thing. As others have explained, it is not physically addictive, but mentally. As a result, the effects of withdrawal are not quite as severe, and thus the pressure to "get more" is lower by orders of magnitude.

Another important difference is the price. While hard drugs are hard to come by and often incredibly expensive, 'soft drugs' are rather cheap. What a junkie spends on his daily fix will last a dopehat for weeks. Why is the price lower? Because cannabis products are much more accepted and used by a much larger portion of the population - all ages, all professions.

It is also true that cannabis can not only be smoked, but also eaten. AFAIK, this is not the prefered method though as results are less predictable and take longer. Still, if you think about whether or not to allow it for medical purposes, that is an important factor.

As you may have figured by now, I'm a proponent of the legalization of cannabis products. I think they are a good alternative to alcohol, which has inredibly damaging effects to the brain and liver. However, a few things need to be made absolutely clear:

NO kind of drug should be accessible to minors. This includes alcohol, cigarettes and cannabis products. Every drug has the potential of abuse. No drug is harmless. That is why -no matter what kind of drug is used- it should only be used responsibly, in small quantities. That is true for cananbis, alcohol and tobacco as well as other drugs such as cofffein. Some drugs cannot be controlled, and should not be touched at all. Those are illegal for a good reason. This includes heroin, crack and cocaine.

Hmm, though all my life I have been told to stay away from drugs, I feel that if sold in government approved stores, in small dosses and if bylaws are added, weed would be fine. If you could only buy enough weed to make you high, could only buy it twice to three times a week and you couldn't smoke it in certain areas of the city, I personally would feel pretty safe. Personally, alchoholics scare me a lot more then junkies, and if they weren't smoking any where near me, I wouldn't be scared of junkies at all. Keep in mind I have never and will never do drugs in my life.

Wise words.. and totally true..

Its been proven that controlled use of alcohol, 1 glass of red wine a night, has very positive affects on the brain and many docters recomend it..

But, thats not in excess..

Cannabis might not be bad for you, but I bet if you smoke it too much youd see some bad results, just like smoking to much, just like drinking too much, JUST LIKE EATING TO MUCH

Everything thing is bad if not controlled

Heart too I think...

I believe the red wine has more to do with the contents of the grapes than the actual alcohol itself. Since they recommend red grape juice for minors, since i has similar benefits as red wine.

i'm a smoker, so i can tell u advantages and disadvantages.
first off: $5 a week for cigarettes is quite a bit if u do the math (about $300 every year). some smoke way more than that. other drugs are more expensive. advice to the parliament: make drugs legal for a high price in farmacies and give controlled doses for anything white, gradualy replacing it with methadone. they'll quit.
second to that: health issue---i don't give a damn about my body, but i hate the fealing of needing a smoke in order to think streight.
last but not least: PEOPLE, TRY ALCOHOL if u will, but drink it FOR THE TASTE, as i have yet to hear anyone tell me it does any good for your mood. (talked to addicts about this)

No I don't think that cannabis should be legalised, no I don't think any "drug" (ie narcotics) should be legalised beacause all recreational drugs have purely negative societal effects. They no do good and they do lots of bad, hence they shouldn't be allowed to proliferate. It's the only logical thing to do. The whole thing about civil liberties is nosense, if anything by elimating narcotics who are liberating people from enslavement to chemicals, hence you are actually setting them free.

Cannabis caused schizsophenia and I suppose it probably causes many of the same problems as tabacco to the respiritory system.

Both tobbaco and alcohol should in an ideal world be illiegal. Neither of them contribute anything to society of a positive nature, tobacco makes people stink, kills them in droves from heart disease, lung cancer, throat cancer and a whole range of other conditions, plus due to passive smoking impose those effects on others. Alcohol is worse, not only does it cause liver disease, but also causes huge amounts of violance and destruction. The case for banning all narcotic substances is great, the only reason that they can't do it is that these substances are so widespread and hold such a wide segmant of the population in various levels of slavery. The effects of allowing other narcotics to join them in taking over society would be utterly undersirable.

So I say, keep drugs banned and make no concessions to drug-slaves and their libertarian allies that campaign for their legalisation, and prepare from the day that mankind can rise up and throw off the chains of alcohol and alcohol once and for all. Eternal war on all Narcotics!!!!!

Illegalization is not the cure to a drug problem. It's been proven time and time again that if you want to fight something negative, you don't tell a bunch of men in guns to arrest anyone who uses it or partakes in it. This is how you can fight your war on drugs: don't use them, don't let them in your house, pressure your friends and family off of them. That's it. Illeglization wouldn't fix any problem.

Marijuana does more good than bad. It's medical uses go beyond just reducing glocoma behind the eyes to slowing the growth of brain tumors and countering the side-effects of chemotherapy. Because a small percent of the population abuses its use, we should not allow these people that get something really good from its use to have it? Do you have any idea how difficult it is to put yourself in a hallucinogenic state using marijuana? Even more so to go into a schizofrenic state.

My stance on Marijuana is the exact same on abortion (a tie in to the last parliment). I don't use it, I don't practice with it, and every other human being has the same choice. If (or as long as it is) illegal there will still be hundreds of people who don't get the help they need, or have to commit a crime to get the help they need. It's not fair to those people.

It's proved that there's a link between cannabis and schitzophenia. The whole stuff about it having positive effects that outweigh the bad (except maybe in a few medicinal situations) is simply propoganda by libertariens and their junkie allies, if tobacco isn't good for you, how much better can cannabis, proven to cause schitsophenia do. People don't need cannabis to stay alive hence their is no justification for tolorating widespread cannabis use.

You should never make laws around the criminals that break them, the purpose of legislation is not to elimate the crime completely (which is impossable) but to control the offending behavior. Thus the fact that smoking such illiegal drugs is not normal practice in the same way as smoking and alcohol in mainstream 'lawabiding' society mean that the legislation has worked. Remember, once you allow any narcotic free rein in your society, not only will you reap the negative effects, but also do not have the freedom to elimate them, look at tobacco and alcohol for proof. I very much approve of treatment of drug users, that way you reduce the base and also think that action to destroy the production facilities of such drugs is also to be welcomed.

Remember all Narcotics (even alcohol) enslave those societies that use them, if things are bad enough with the current levels of junkies and drug dealers, think how much worse things will be when the almost the whole population uses drugs, advertisments for drug brands are placed on TV and so on and the 'drug dealers' are respectable highstreet shopkeepers. Those who campaign for drug legalisation are frankly idiots who fail to learn from the damage that already legalised drugs have done, how much more will be done if even more and possibly more powerful drugs are added to the mix. Sure 'crime' will be lower but that's some way to get rid of crime, get rid of the laws that make them. Seriously giving ground to crime is surrender and cowardice.

People can function quite happily without narcotics, so what need do we have for them. But 'Narcotics' don't want to be eliminated, therefore it utilised those it has already enslaved to fight the effort to undermine those that have the courage to oppose them and attempting to take over large swathes of society (starting with those already excluded such as various shades of criminals) in order to secure the destruction of their enemies. If this sounds a bit wierd, remember that each narcotic constitute a powerful entity that by 'using' the minds of those they already control, effectively conspire to secure power and secure more slaves. Illiegal narcotics have marked the societies that banned them as enemies, and conspire through crime and isolating their slaves from other influences to strengthen their hold over them. The aim ultimately is to convince their enemies that they have failed and thus achieve surrender/legalisation.

A link between marijuana and schizophrenia is the reason why marijuana, despite how much it has helped people, should be illegal? A link? There's a link between George W Bush and Al Queda. There's a link between crying and AIDS. There's a link between salad dressing and Mustard Gas. The chances of getting schizophrenic from marijuana are very slim. I'm not sure you'd understand how slim because I doubt you've ever had marijuana. To even get to the point of being so high you hallucinate to that extent is nearly impossible. But no, there's a link, therefore we should illegalize it, even if it's a natural, harmless (if taken in moderation) way to ease the pain of chemotherapy, quickening the recovery of thousands of cancer patients.

And don't throw the word enslavement around. People have hyperbolized the effects of softer drugs enough. Yeah, I've seen Scarface, I know effects of hard drugs like Cocaine, but I'm not talking about Cocaine. If you read above, you'll understand that marijuana does not chemically bond with the brain. There are many psychological ways to become addicted the marijuana, but the funny thing is, Marijuana is less addictive than Orange Soda. It is a perfectly helpful, and homeopathic medicine that a small portion of the population abuses.

You talked about advertizing and marketing of drugs, well we live in that world. Pharmacutical corporations produce synthetic drugs that make people more sick so they become addicted to the drug. The pharmacuticals are the ones that are "enslaving" people and we ought to turn our attention toward them, not Pedro and his little marijuana cartel. Want to see some real physical bonding between dopamine and receptors, look at Zoloft or Paxil. If you gain a dependency on one of those then the same occurance happens with nicotine, you find the drug to be your only source of really good relief, and the depression you had before gets worse when you're off it. I see them advertized on TV all the time, why aren't we turning our priorities on them?

In a study done by botanists they proved the effects of natural and homeopathic chemicals are much less harmful on the human body than synthetic ones, and yet most of the doctors in this country are on such a tight leash by these pharmacutical companies they swear by the synthetic, brand name merchandise. Talk about enslavement look at the money line between most doctors and pharmacutical companies.

In conclusion, I don't advocate abuse of narcotics, but I believe illegalizing medicine with less side-effects than most medicine on the market and less chance of dependency than an antacid is the wrong approach to solving the problem.

Let's try and stay civil here, shall we?

Do people need narcotics to stay alive. No. Have narcotics been shown to be harmful, yes. Therefore there's no case for legalisation.

Do people need fast food to stay alive, NO. Has the fast food industry been proven to be harmful, Yes. therefore why is that institution still standing if we follow your logic.

anyways in the case of some drugs, the benefits out weigh the harm. or even better, when certain chemicals in the drug are isolated becuase it has shown certain medical value, it is then put in some ingestable form. and behold the user does not even have to use the narcotic.

Yeah good poiont. I mean, sure, marijuana has been proven to fight one cause of blindness, and therefore for certain people they need marijuana to stay "able to see," but that's not actually "alive." Read some chemotherapy horror stories too, it's just hell on Earth for the people that go through that, and marijuana lessons the negative effects of chemotherapy. It settles their stomache, it makes them feel less sick all the time, it helps their headaches. That's not alive, even if it is evasion from torture. Oh wait, I just realized, some people do use marijuana to stay alive. Malignent brain tumors have been shown to slow or be stunted by the use of medical marijuana long enough for doctors to be able to act upon the tumor. Oh my god, what do we have here? Peiople using a drug to keep themselves alive? But that can't be, I mean it's a natural drug, no pharmacutical company produced it, and because of that obviously no doctors are going to stand behind its use. You're fighting the wrong battle.

I'm sorry but your post makes no sense to me O.o I can't tell whose side your on and it sound sarcastic, bu then doesn't. i'm very confuzzled.

I was arguing with slayer, don't you worry that head of yours.

HEEY! No need to be rude to Megil! Stay civil here.....please...


Edit by Stargelman: May I just squeeze in here? I'd just like to add this:

One more such outburst, and the thread will be locked.

Though I may seem like a bit of a jerk by saying this, but please don't make this discussion seem so black and white. There's more to drugs than highs and death.

Right now its my turn. yey!

Ok i drink, i smoke cigs and i used to be into weed in my uni days. I ditched the weed soon after i left uni because the immediate effects it had on my friends who also smoked it was evident. They became reclusive and unresponsive and i realised that was where i was gunna end up.

The problem is that legalising weed is all fine and dandy until it becomes abused by people to the extent that our social lives are saturated with all 3 drugs: alcohol, nicotine and marijuana.

Alcohol and cigarettes (in UK at the very least) have been a staple diet for our tax-loving government, and the financial benefits outweigh the health problems (in the eyes of the government) by quite some margin. Ironically its these kind of drugs that pay our health service. Odd eh. The institutionalisation of alcohol and cigarettes means that its virtually impossible to illegalise it at this point.

But don't get me wrong. Its a nice idea to have weed legalised. The chances are that once it is available then the market will slow down somewhat (generalising here but i figure us Brits probably do more weed than the residents of Amsterdam, for instance) as its no longer a 'naughty' drug.

Most weed smokers here mix their joints with tabacco anyway, so right there you have the worst of both worlds. Mental problems are immediately apparent with weed and there is a degree of dependency as many people need the drug just to get through their day (note: i do not mean addiction). One of my old flatmates used to spark up a new joint as soon as he woke up.

So, im for controlled legalisation of weed. Any way to prevent it saturating a market that is already screwed from alcohol abuse and nicotine addiction. Legalising it will probably (over time) lead to a lower amount of usage. Speculation i know., but thats how i see it.