Time to man up, pot boy.
From the comments;
“That’s the thing about pot. It slowly but surely rots your brain out and you don’t even know it. Then, before you know it, the paranoia sets in and every little thing is seen through the fog of paranoia.”
In. Deed. When reading those archived posts from 2005, it’s useful to know that after exposing the postings at Cannibus Culture, SDA came under repeated DOS attack.
As thought experiment, let’s see what happens when we decriminalize pot and allow the military to ‘dope up’ while on duty.
I’m sure that would get a few extra sparks flying unintentionally…
Alternately, I wouldn’t want my physician ‘higher than a kite’ while operating on me either…
You can add scenarios at your leisure.
Cheers
Hans-Christian Georg Rupprecht, Commander in Chief
1st Saint Nicolaas Army
Army Group “True North””
———————-
Prohibition does not deter drug use in any way.The soldiers who want to use drugs are already doing so. Time for rational drug policy not “head in the sand” ideology. Save that for the Harper “faithful”.
Fact: A society can legalize drugs and still be adamantly opposed to them.
Question: If (illegal) drug use is so bad why aren’t we drug testing police, army, doctors, teachers, lawyers, and most importantly politicians?
Answer: Because so many are using them.
Would those 13 states be Blue states like California is?
Have you been following the dire economic straits that California is in?
——————————
Yes, and the California people/politicians have finally seen an opportunity to end a futile prohibition that costs so much money it has surpassed the education costs in said state. Most people, once informed about the negative impacts of prohibition will support decriminalization and even legalization. California’s decision to abandon the failed “war on cannabis” may have been speeded up by economic pressure but it was coming anyway.
Are you actually advocating prohibition?
I do wish someone would tell that idiot to shut up. Michael Coren was right. Marc Emery is a middle-class white yobbo living an insulated life, not a political prisoner in the time of Stalin. If he thinks laws shouldn’t touch him, he’d better think again.
C’mon Kate (1:14 PM), you can make the same argument about any substance. Pot, booze, food, cocaine, etc. *Any* substance in excess can prove to be harmful. I’ve yet to see one legitimate study on the prolonged use of marijuana that proves your (and Blame Crash’) claim. Anectdotal evidence aside.
Kate weighs in with:
Loki, I’m not stridently anti-pot. (I do think the proposal to decriminalize is a recipe for disaster.)
Kate, I can understand why you might feel that way given your experiences with your friends misuse of cannabis, but this in no way justifies the harsh criminal sanctions that currently exist.
When you get to my age, one of the regrettable things that happens is the steady accumulation of dead friends and acquaintances and the primary mode of death has been motor vehicle accidents and impairment was either alcohol or, in the case of physicians, lack of sleep which can be just as deadly as driving drunk.
We have a test case for the decriminalization of cannabis and that is the province of BC. For all practical purposes, cannabis is legal in Vancouver and widely used in the rest of the province. The vast majority of people use it responsibly and infrequently. Those who use it on a daily basis are usually self-treating some medical condition with it. Whether it is the appropriate treatment has to be determined on a case by case basis but what has struck me about heavy drug users is that there is almost invariably underlying psychopathology present.
I have disagreements with addictions doctors who focus in on the abused drugs while ignoring the likely mood disorder which prompted the drug abuse. These arguments have been fairly heated and I’ve been told one can’t make a psychiatric diagnosis in the setting of drug use to which I answer BS. In the case of an intelligent drug abuser with insight and a mood disorder my approach has worked very well. I don’t deal with homeless junkies and leave those to the addictions specialists although these patients are just as dysfunctional off drugs as they are on drugs.
One interesting statistic is that 95% of people can use cocaine and not have any problem with overuse or even wanting to use it again. 5% of people run into major problems with cocaine. It’s no coincidence that 5% also happens to roughly be the proportion of the population that is bipolar. One thing I always ask depressed patients is their drug preferences, if they’ve experimented with drugs, and bipolars will often go on and on about how euphoric they felt on cocaine or amphetamines whereas the person who used dexedrine to stay awake to study usually comments on things like the annoying teeth grinding and sweating and yes, it did keep them awake. Unipolar depressives seem to be drawn to opiates. Note: this is just one of the clues I’ve found over the years and it is the clinical gestalt that results in my rendering a DSM-IV diagnosis.
A lot of alcoholics are also bipolar and I’ve missed the diagnosis in patients until it was too late and they died of liver failure.
When it comes to cannabis and driving, once a person who has been using cannabis for medical reasons has developed tolerance, they’re perfectly safe behind the wheel. The one thing that remains is driving with annoying slowness, sort of like being in Victoria traffic. People on chronic opiates are safe to drive although if I’ve got a truck driver on opiates I’ll refer them on to someone more qualified than me to make a determination of whether they should be on the road.
One either believes people are responsible and won’t perform their duties impaired, or one believes that only the iron-fisted intervention of the state in all aspects of ones daily life is what keeps people from being in a perpetual state of intoxication. The war on (some) drugs has been an absolute disaster and has served only to make all illegal drugs much more readily available and cheaper (the price of a gram of pure cocaine in 1975 was $150 and when I last inquired it was about $75 in Vancouver in 2005). It has also been the excuse for the development of a totalitarian state.
Reading the old literature on medical use of psychedelics has me hoping that this class of drugs will come back into use as I see patients who are so deeply entrenched in their psychopathologies that only something like LSD or psilocybin has the power to alter, albeit temporarily, their welanschauung enough to let them see that there is a whole exciting world out there.
There never has been a “war” on drugs so as such it has not failed. There has however been a war against people or organizations who believe mainstreaming and legalizing drug use is detrimental to society.
Were the “war” on drugs to be conducted with the same vigor and support of the political class and the unipolar sychophantic media that the fraud of Global Warming has been given, we might actually see some results in terms reducing the use of drugs and public support thereof.
I tend to regard pot prohibition much like the Canadian folk regarded US Prohibition in the late ’20’s and early ’30’s….ambivialence.
An associate, departed recalled in Niagara-on-the-Lake, seeing booze exported legally to Cuba….the boats were back in the morning…..
He remembered hearing the pom-poms of the US Customs firing on the rum-runners, out on the lake….. It was a spectator sport….
“It slowly but surely rots your brain out and you don’t even know it.”
-citation needed
Kate’s support for the War On Drugs shows what a farce her claims to be a supporter of freedom and a Rand fan are. ALL drugs should be simply legal (like alcohol); the government has no moral right to dictate what I can do beyond preventing the initiation of force. But keep fighting on, drug warriors, the beheaded and shot up citizens of Ciudad Juarez are so grateful!
cytotoxic,
leave the gross generalizations aside.
Such as?
Nothing gets people hot under the collar quicker than restrictions on their freedom to act irresponsibly. Speeding, pot, booze, abortions, …
Fun fun fun. They knock themselves out and take others with them. Besides being a drain on our health care.
“It seems like the arguments for sending him abroad to be jailed for crimes committed on Canadian soil are more based on dislike for the guy than anything else. Frankly I don’t think Marc Emery is important enough as a human being to supplant other larger, more important considerations that have nothing to do with him.”
Emery used the US mail to transport pot seeds in the US. And that is a crime in the US. Its pretty clear.
I’m disppointed with Kate’s 2004 comments, esp. the remark that she’s OK with arresting folks absent a good test for intoxication. This point demonstrates how close at hand is the totalitarian impulse even in super-intelligent anti-statists like our beloved Kate.
Again, better than most, this issue delineates the libertarian from the conservative mind. Conservatives, it seems, are OK with Leviathan as long as it does its bidding.
The social destruction from the “War on Drugs” surely does more damage than the substance abuse itself. And anecdotes about old friends who abused a substance just don’t cut it.
Someone above (don’t have time to look now) mentioned that this is a silly issue for a libertarian to take a stand on. My initial knee-jerk reaction was to nod in agreement, but after some further reflection it occured to me that there can be no better grounds to push a libertarian argument, for if we don’t own our own bodies and have the full freedom to put in it whatever substance we choose, then we have nothing. Self ownership is the very bedrock of property rights.
And what EBD said, every word, and the ellipsis at the end …
Sure is a lot of hullaballu over a harmless weed. The prohibition of pot is just as silly as restricting CO2 emmissions. The only real difference is, pot prohibition creates more blue collar jobs.
A. Cooper @2:56
Google ‘health effects from cannabis’ and you’ll find tons of serious studies about pot ill side effects. Look it particular at impacts on the immune system.
You also have to define ‘prolonged use’. Amount consumed is just as important if not more, just as it is for alcohol.
I’m not against pot. As a libertarian myself, my preferred option would be to let people do what they want and be fully responsible for the consequences if it goes too far. But I disagree with some pot advocates who claim pot is totally harmless. It’s simply not true.
Whether you believe in the law or not Emery challenged the laws and the government. It is just not smart to do that while engaging in illegal matters. Want attention? Got it. Prove a point? Yeh, it’s illegal. Are you special? Not enough.
Another thing about pot is that it gives it’s user’s a false sense of being able to foretell the future. They mistakenly believe that if they get their way, the paranoia will end, the drug cartels will become respectable business’s and our jails will be empty and all the convicts will become upright citizens. But….
Coincidentally enough, I myself am a true fortune teller and am here to inform you that these are all false prophesies.
What will happen is our whole society brains will surely rot out, and again we wouldn’t even know it. Societal breakdown will be the outcome of allowing unfettered dope use.
And into this vacuum will ride a strong horse. Upon this strong horse will be a horseman with a sinister smile as he surveys this land of weak minds. From his scabbard, he will draw his sword and he will have his way.
Sorry bud, if EBD’s comment above applies; I missed the sarcasm in your post if that was the case.
Mea culpa
Mhb
BlameCrash: whatever you’re taking it is WAY more powerful and destructive than pot! Meth? Coke? Social conservatism?
@Dhimmmi: You really can’t be too surprised that Kate is a hypocrite, like the rest that have bought into the fraud that is conservatism.
when emotions rule, logic fails
this topic is a classic example of that
I think loki has some excellent input on the topic
he points to the 5% of users/abusers, this percentage applies to much of human behaviour/variance other than drug use
and as to ROTTING the brain, worst cases I’v seen happen to be alcohol rotted brains
You’re right, GreenNeck (4:13). No one can reasonably say that any drug that alters your thought processes and mood is harmless in the long run, depending to a certain extent on the amounts consumed and the frequency of use. In the case of marijuana, you just have to look at some of the old (over 50 or 60, say) Island Rastafarians when they’re talking – they are absolutely stunned, almost catatonic, with spittle in the corners of their mouths.
Does the occasional smoking of small amounts of marijuana cause sufficient harm to justify the criminal penalty? Probably not, but that doesn’t make marijuana a “harmless weed.” Drinking a couple of glasses of wine a day isn’t harmful, but nobody says “alcohol is harmless.”
There are reasonable arguments to be made for the decriminalization of marijuana – the fact that unlike all other drugs it’s a plant – a weed – consumed in unprocessed form, the fact that it’s impossible to die from an overdose, etc – but the assertion that it’s harmless isn’t one of them. You most commonly hear that sort of magic claim from heavy consumers whose behaviour, demeanor and thought processes demonstrate otherwise to everyone who’s not stoned.
Legalize and tax it. Require users to become card-carrying members of the NDP.
Oh wait, no.
Legalize it and tax it. Encourage a 10 year “conversion plan” to conservatism.
Oh wait, no.
Just legalize it and tax it.
It will take a few years, but the “gangs” will diminish down to the hard core stuff that is easier to track.
Paul
*Breathing* is not “harmless”. We’re dying from the day we’re born. I’m out of this because emotion trumps reason in this issue.
A couple of (big) glasses of wine a day, everyday, is harmful. Have seen it first hand in many people.
cytotoxic, leave the gross generalizations aside.
Posted by: A. Cooper at May 22, 2010 3:41 PM
Such as?
Posted by: Cytotoxic at May 22, 2010 3:57 PM
Hey Cyto, how about this:
“…ALL drugs should be simply legal (like alcohol)…”
Posted by: Cytotoxic at May 22, 2010 3:21 PM
Proof positive pot wrecks your cognitive ability. You can’t even remember what you wrote 30 minutes ago?
EBD is right (why doesn’t he try being wrong for a change? Yeesh…). Just because Emery is a smelly hippy doesn’t mean he doesn’t have rights. The U.S. should not have legal jurisdiction over the actions of foreign nationals on foreign soil.
(Although Horny Toad @4:02 may have a point re. the U.S. mail. And God, Emery’s friends are freaks. Who knew weed caused anti-semitism?)
Cytotoxic – in your heart of hearts, do you really believe that radical libertarianism is the one and only answer to all of life’s timeless, intractable conundrums? Just a general question, I’m just curious.
A. Cooper @2:56 – what’s wrong with “anecdotal evidence”?
(Personally, I wish pot was: A] Completely legal and B] totally uncool. That would be a good balance.)
“Proof positive pot wrecks your cognitive ability. You can’t even remember what you wrote 30 minutes ago?”
Eh? What were you saying?
I say let the potheads wreck their cognitive ability by themselves legally.
Much of the “fight the man” stuff is pot-related.
Let them go, legally puffing on the weed of their choice while the rest of us “get on with it”.
@Dave: that’s not a ‘gross generalization’, it’s a statement.
@Black Mamba: technically I’m an Objectivist (like libertarians but better). Libertarianism is just a political theory; it can only be applied to political problems. If a conundrum is inherently intractable…then it has no solution/answer. But as a default, I go with freedom and the defense of freedom from both lefty-loons and conservative authoritarians.
I’ve never claimed smoking weed chronically everyday is harmless, but have the studies suggesting such harm make any suggestions as to how much of this harm is the direct effect of THC and how much is a result of everything else (tar, particulates, etc)? It’d be interesting to know since vaporizers are good at reducing the latter.
Kate is the most !! She allows commneters with side effects to prove that there are indeed side effects.
Your right about Emery with his ass hat bellicosity.
Thing is though Prohibition has never worked. Like socialism it sounds sound but in the end is a disaster because of human nature. It just corrupts the societies justice system. The police, courts,poor.
As for drivers, since stop check the figures for drunk driving have increased or stayed the same. You cannot enforce morality. Only allowing the Public to shame those who do certain behaviors works on personnel vice.
After all the anti-Smoking laws to the point where we have lost real rights, has only reduced smoking by 5%.
All you create is a more prosperous criminal class with a black market as Ontario knows all to well. From almost banning smoking & overcharging tax practices on cigarettes.
Having Paranoiac feelings these days is a survival mechanism. Frankly from what I have read only a small percentage get like this as alcoholics get delirium tremors. Even coffee is a drug, a stimulant to be exact. It too can make you paranoid.
There is also the fact this guy was charged not in Canada but was given up. Yet a terrorist gets ten million for SAYING he was tortured. Yet no one really checked.
I don’t drink or anything but I don’t deny that to others. Nor do I feel superior because I don’t enjoy these vices.
Oh I do smoke though.
Two countries, country A and country B.
Country A, let’s call it Canada, legalizes marijuana use and 20% of adults smoke it regularly. Country B, let’s call it China, does not and less than 1% of adults smoke it regularly.
What do you suppose are the long term prospects for each country in terms of economic performance, education, scientific achievement, strong families, dysgenics, and health, both physical and mental?
But what am I asking, the Cult of Emery will remind me that Thomas Jefferson grew weed!!!!!!!!! and therefore smoking it will increase worker productivity by eleventy percent while the close minded dinosaurs in country B will die out and go bankrupt buying bead necklaces from the creative class that is the economic engine of country A.
Nope, can’t do it, can’t have a reasonable conversation about pot, people are just way too emotionally invested. Gotta say though, the Cult of Emery gang ignores some pretty important facts:
-Weed is a harmful drug.
-It is illegal in every single country on this planet
-Far from conducting a “war” on drugs Canada is, in the global context, relatively lax in enforcing their already lax laws.
-An increase in the use of marijuana will unambiguously lead to net harm in Canada.
-Canada has an extradition treaty with the USA which specifies that Emery can be extradited for what he did.
-There is a very real country called the “USA” on our borders which revokes the most favoured nation status of countries that don’t enforce their drug laws; they could and would impose economic sanctions on us, at the very least. The Cult of Emery needs to acknowledge this reality and stop pretending we live in a world where America would be indifferent to our legalizing weed because that betrays a lack of maturity.
-Marc Emery and his supporters are socialists who fundraise and organize for the NDP. They are not remotely libertarian nor are they freedom fighters nor are they heroes, they are single issue zealots who have willingly aligned with profoundly anti-freedom political parties like the NDP who want to restrict speech, overpay public servants, and hike taxes. No, uh-uh, can’t get there from here, can’t support the NDP and be a freedom fighter or a libertarian, it’s utterly, 100% impossible. He’s a socialist.
Horny Toad said:
Emery used the US mail to transport pot seeds in the US. And that is a crime in the US. Its pretty clear.
Speedy said:
Whether you believe in the law or not Emery challenged the laws and the government. It is just not smart to do that while engaging in illegal matters. Want attention? Got it. Prove a point? Yeah, it’s illegal. Are you special? Not enough.
——————————-
These two comments sum up the situation perfectly. Emery broke US law knowingly and repeatedly. For profit, no less…and more than once he publicly ridiculed the American government for their “outdated, draconian laws” while doing so. We had no choice but to extradite him, and rightly so; does anyone seriously think that we should have defied the US and told them that because we don’t agree 100% with their laws that we were going to continue to allow one of our citizens to violate them? Yeah, sure…give that one a try sometime…
“we don’t own our own bodies and have the full freedom to put in it whatever substance we choose, then we have nothing. “
The moment you convince the powers that be that each and every one of us should pay for every single penny of our health care, then I’m on board. Either that, or tell drug users that if they end up overdosing in an alley, the only ones coming for them are the street cleaners.
It’s amazing how many people believe they “own” their own bodies… right up until the moment in time that they have to pay to take care of it.
Kate, I absolutely agree. Make everyone responsible for their own lives, and eliminate government interference in my life. No taxes. All roads should be toll roads, totally private health care, no publicly funded garbage collection, snow removal, parks, sidewalks. Private militias for civic defence (no border services at all). Get rid of the “Powers that be” altogether. Everybody pays their own way based on what they want to do! YeeHaw! Freedom!
But until then, why don’t we just admit that the so called “war on drugs” has been an unmitigated disaster and find another way to deal with the problem than wasting police and court resources? Then maybe we can stop distributing 4 million free needles a year in Saskatchewan, stop the gang control of drugs and human trafficing, and move towards people taking responsibility for their own lives.
Drugs – Where the socialist and libertarian nirvanas intersect.
Good response Kate.. I have friends, who smoke pot every day, after work.They smell like skunks, and walk around in a semi-vegetative state. Thats fine for them, most of them are single, although one is married.. Has no appeal for me, tho at one time I was one of them.. Paranoia was the reason I quit, and it was very unpleasent. Marc Emery is addled to say the least.I have heard him interviewed on the radio here in “Budland” many times.. He says he will be the most famous prisoner in the US penal system…Sure,.. he equates himself with Gandi, Mandella,etc..He tells interviewers that the majority of Canadians are beside him in his fight…When they were holding him in custody pending his legal decisions, he said there was a tent city set up outside the jail, full of protesters.. Well in my work day, I went by this “tent city” just about every day, usually a few times a day.. two(2)tents, Three(3) people were the most I saw, athey were never awake in the morning during the the heavy rush hour traffic, .I used to blow my horn just to wake the “heads” up.. Last week when he was back there awaiting extradition, there was one guy with a tiny hiking tent.. Our Canadian “Jesus”is delusional, and now off the “bud”, probably scared as hell, and deserves everything his rotting brain has wrought.
Emery’s quest is much like homosexuality. I personally don’t care if he smokes, just like I don’t care if adults want to engage in sodomy or cunnilingus. I just want him to shut the f##k up about it.
No one is concerned about Hamas, Hezbollah, or the Tamil Tigers using Canada as a staging ground for their foreign terror crimes (including using Canada as a recruitment source, a base for money laundering and other funding necessities).
Sure Harpers government has outlawed these groups after years of Liberal acceptance, but they still march and wave their flags freely in Canadian streets. Living side by side in your community and not a word of outrage is uttered.
Unless they are deported of course, like this liberal pot smoking weenie. The only issue I have with all of this is look at the demographic of acceptance and political correctness concerning who has a right to commit crimes against other nations launched from Canadian soil.
people need to read up on persistent druguse cultures, like in Africa& CentralAmerica..okay that’s hard drugs.
Grass is a hoot when you’re a late teen but after that it’s a snore. Like said above, DISMANTLE the welfare system and give no quarter to ones inhaling drugs..
It’s a good thing that cigarettes are legal and taxed … because, it like, stops crime.
http://tinyurl.com/2ep68uj
I keep reading the word “prohibition” cited in this thread as though it was a failure. It most certainly was not. It permanently transformed the way in which alcohol was consumed in western Canada.
∞² @ 7:35
Last time I checked, I could grow my own tobacco if I wanted to.
I agree with Black Mamba, who cares if people want to fry their brains with drugs. Make it legal and make it un-cool.
The issue is who pays for these society dropouts and their crimes to either fund a habit or a lifestyle of underachievement?
With the legal acceptance of pot out the door should go social assistance while penalties for crimes against the taxpaying public should be doubled. No more publicly funded methadone clinics, instead build a devils island with the help of David Suzuki and let them live in some communal hippy heaven as society cast outs.
djb: “Last time I checked, I could grow my own tobacco if I wanted to. ”
your point being what? If it’s legal to buy and legal to grow … why would crime be involved? … or are you saying this is a matter of trademark infringement?
Sorry, if you haven’t bothered to look at the link(s) I have provided … I have used criminals and crime interchangeable.
Black Mamba said: “The U.S. should not have legal jurisdiction over the actions of foreign nationals on foreign soil.”
Would this include Omar Khadr, the poster boy for Canadaian muslims/socialists? Canadian born, Pakistani Muslim schooling, killed American(s) in Afghanistan. Does your statement apply to him?
So a computer hacker in Kyrgystan breaks into YOUR computer in the USA (or Canada), steals your identity, uses your credit card and bank info to steal thousands of $$$ from you (although you may get reimbursed by the bank), all without leaving his shack in Bishkek, or breaking local laws.
Is he a hero or do you think he should be punished, and who’s going to do it?
Kate wins this one, hands down! I’m a guy with an addictive personality, and it took me 20 years to quit smoking tobacco, and longer to quit drinking (to stupification) It was fun, but there is a time and place for everything. It was time to quit; I had my share, and several other’s too.
Posted by: rmgk>
“…a computer hacker in Kyrgystan breaks into YOUR computer in the USA (or Canada), steals your identity…”
Bingo, well said!
“Those who use it on a daily basis are usually self-treating some medical condition with it.”
If you really HONESTLY believe that, I have a purple polka-dotted unicorn to sell you.
Not being a naive buffoon, I can confidently believe that there are a hell of a lot more daily “wake and bake” stoners than there are legitimate medicinal users.
Mark IV…Interveinous drug user..LOL..or Mark .. They are treating their medical condition, i.e. marijuana addiction… Or I suppose you could say a mental illness, so in a way loki is right.