You don't get free speech on this forum. Try being racist and see how long before you're banned. You make yourself sound like an ignorant and uneducated child with the mindset of "eww! a man kissed a man!", especially when you suddenly announce it's perfectly fine when women do it, as long as their hairstyle is correct. Sense no make? Truth be told, you're just weird.
Yea, I am weird. Weirder then one should be. I really don't mind if they kiss. I don't care if they do it in public. But I hate the fact that, ieven though it aint in public, they do fould stuff. I've just realised how bad an argument I'm making, and I've decided I'll stop before more then one member chucks flame bombs at me. I'll stop comenting in this. Cya
I honestly don't care if I am banned for posting much in the lounge as I don't post much anymore... (I am through with the flaming though) But I just have to say I cried when I heard the news and am extremely happy!
You presume much. This is more or less my point. You legalize these things, they gain a degree of social acceptance -- or at least tolerance, much like alcohol to those who don't like it. But hard drugs are far, far worse than alcohol and should never be viewed as acceptable. There is no earthly reason that I can think of why these should ever be made legal, or why people (who aren't already) should be educated about them. Drugs in general serve no purpose other than to alter one's state of mind -- at least with alcohol you can drink it for the taste without being required to get drunk; I like the occasional beer, and once in a while something a little stronger, but I haven't gotten drunk since I was just beyond my teens. Drugs have no such purpose; they're purely for getting stoned. Soft drugs, fine, don't have a big problem with those because death and crime (apart from the illegality of the drugs themselves) aren't generally associated with them. Hard drugs? Every damn time. (Acid excepted) Legalizing them and making them available in any capacity, OTC or not, won't change a damn thing; no matter how affordable you hope to make them, people will get hooked on them, blow all their cash on them, and commit crimes to get more. The addiction will increase to fill the ease of availability. Or until the person dies, whichever comes first. We don't need to study them. We don't need to educate people about them. We just need to leave them the hell alone. There's a thing called bigotry, too. One guess which trumps what.
People who say this clearly don't understand how "free speech" works. "Free speech" is only applicable to public places, and private entities (including the government) can limit it however they want, for various reasons. The internet just so happens to be a conglomerate of private companies and spaces. You can't say whatever you want because you are borrowing a company's space. It's not some magical, public space for expression. Please learn about the constitution and come back in ten years. :\
I respectfully disagree with your opinion. I don't advocate recreational drug use of any kind legal or not, and I feel it should be up to the individual to decide what they want to do with their body and spending the amount of money that is being spent trying to fight this "problem" that will exist either way seems like a waste. I also feel that as far as crime goes - the crime is always worse when the substance is illegal, alcohol has proven this. A chronic alcoholic is no different than a chronic coke head or junky. Addiction is equal parts abuse and sickness - it is not criminal, it is a sickness and should be treated as such. Education is key - and not just fear based education.
It is an addiction, not a sickness. A sickness is something that is wrong with your body or your brain generally through no agency of your own, either through birth or contraction. An addiction is a dependence on a substance that you created for yourself. And there is a huge difference between an alcoholic and a drug addict, and it isn't just because the drugs are illegal. If you can't see that then there's really no point in continuing to debate the point.
Sorry to drag this up from a few pages back, but isn't it slightly contradictory to claim the danger of drugs is the user's addiction and actions in searching for drugs, then claim weed and alcohol are fine because people are too stoned/drunk to really be criminals? I mean, maybe it's really easy to get weed in Cali now, but it's not like that everywhere Anyway, I'm strictly against prohibition of anything, if the public want something, they will always find ways to get it. If there's a profit to be turned, it will always attract organised crime. Sure, there might still be criminal elements attached to the usage of harder drugs even if decriminalised in a controlled system, but surely that's better than damning them to an existence of illegality, therefore any action associated with them becomes illegal. What I'm trying to say is, the criminal aspects would be lessened in a tightly controlled decriminalised system when compared to the prohibition of today.
Huh? We have gay and lesbian marriages for uh... maybe more than 10 years here in Germany... The marriage of two of my friends was the biggest and best party I ever saw... They were celebrating for 2 full days and at one time Franks aunt was so drunk that she danced on the table and nearly started a striptease. There was such a pretty girl at the party but as soon as I approached her I found out she is a lesbian. Later, Frank saved me out of the cluthes of some kind of drag queen. Nothing happened, thank heavens. I remember that I accidentally swallowed a small goldfish. And you folks would be very surprised about the possible usages of a billard table. Well, I fell from one. These guys sure can throw cool parties!
Different drugs effect people differently. When was the last time you heard of someone holding up a gas station or variety store or snatching purses so they could buy more weed or a bottle of MD20/20? When was the last time you heard of someone doing the same for more meth, or crack? I'm not saying the former doesn't happen, but it doesn't happen with anywhere even remotely close to the frequency of the latter. That is part of the difference. No, but I have a feeling wider acceptance isn't that far off. Socially, weed isn't demonized like it used to be as people are realizing that it's just not really that harmful. Medically it's being recognized as an effective treatment for pain and glaucoma. In its own way -- and this still doesn't mean I endorse it recreationally -- it's not even as bad as alcohol, though as I said before, it isn't without its own problems. In what way could that in any way be considered an acceptable alternative? You're trading the criminality of the (hard) drugs for more drug addicts who will turn to crime to get those drugs. And they will, don't kid yourself, legal or not. This is not like the prohibition of alcohol, not even close. Hard drugs have a much more profound and dangerous effect than alcohol does and are much more addictive (in the sense that they are orders of magnitude easier to become addicted to, not necessarily that the addictions themselves are more profound or harder to break).
That's very true, the users are less likely to be violently criminal in order to get their drugs in the cases of weed and alcohol. But in the case of weed, because it still carries street value, it's easy for it to become associated with violent crime, not because the users are jonesing for a fix, but because it's valuable. I don't think it's far off either, but there are still a great deal of people who immediately find weed synonymous with 'drugs', assume my brain is melted and that I have no idea what I'm talking about. This is my experience in the UK though, and it is about 50:50 for people I meet, but it's always one way or the other. Not that everyone who understands smokes it though, but if they don't understand they really don't understand. There's nothing to indicate that a controlled decriminalisation would lead to more drug addicts. Yes addicts turn to crime in order to get their fix, but they do that already. I'm referring to reducing the crime behind the sale of the drugs, not the crime of the users. My main problem with prohibition is it doesn't work. So why waste time and resources trying to control a problem that is clearly beyond control?
I'm thinking the street value for weed would plummet if it were legalized. Tobacco fields are usually pretty far away, yet for weed you'd be looking at something local. It wouldn't have all the import/export costs, nor the manufacturing, branding etc... it'd be like buying any other plant.
I think just looking at the popularity of tobacco and alcohol is a pretty good indication in itself. Every weekend millions of people go out to get drunk and smoke with their friends, which pretty much continues throughout the week only on a smaller scale. Making weed socially acceptable means people will share it out, the whole peer pressure game starts up again, kids start smoking it behind the bike sheds in school because they're told it's cool and because it gives you a better high than tobacco does.
