hodor

yes alexa but i wasnt refering to it as a painkiller persay. you see it helps the stomach. my wife used to only be able to eat microwaved apples for the first two days after chemo and then was hunkered over the toilet ten or twelve times a day. in the NL where pot is legal chemo patients are actually advised to use pot for it reduced what is known as "the chemo taste" (which btw never fully goes away) and helps the food stay down. my wife prefered not to have painkillers cuz it was mainly a big problem of fatigue and poison in the body.

knivesout

I have to severely contest the notion of pot as a gateway drug though. It depends much more on the person. In the Dutch experience, legalising pot hasn't lead to a proportionate increase in addiction to harder substances, for instance.


Either ban 'em all or make 'em all legal. Anything else is pure and simple hypocrisy.

hodor

i agree knivesout i have seen some friends who smoked pot go on to harder stuff and some who havent. i also feel it depends greatly upon the ppl. for instance if you start smoking pot and you go to a guy to get it and you start to hang out with him but he does something harder you have one of two choices.

i feel if pot were legal there would be less of a chance of going on to harder stuff because there would be no need to go to the evil black drug market to find the stuff and thats in my opinion what gets ppl to the harder stuff more often than not.

btw i am REALLY sorry about your brother tgirlpaula thats real sad. and i agree with you in the fact i like to keep my head down in reality as well. i have smoked in the past but i have no desire to now thats for sure.

polymorphikos

Dope pisses me off immensely. This is rooted in personal experience (leading to bias) and some logic. My main annoyance is the fact that many smokers often harp-on about how harmless it is, when it has many damaging effects, plus I really hate stoners. Crapping on about all this bulldust and that and basings long and rambling arguments on points that make no sense. That said, legalise it. It doesn't do much harm, and when it's being sold in shops the dealers will cease to exist (most dangerous aspect of the trade). Those who say it leads-on to other things may have a point, but so does alcohol (yet another thing that pisses me off, but meh. I generally don't get-along well with ultra-frequent users of intoxicants), but Graham Greene makes the point in Travels with my Aunt about the man who started with a glass of beer and ended-up dying of liver-failure and leaving his wife bankcrupt and doomed.

In Victoria you can grow two plants and only be charged for dealing, and that if you possess above a certain quantity, so it is effectively legal here. Just drum it into the heads of all users of intoxicants that just because something is fun and they've used it for years without their heads exploding, telling someone something is harmful is not always the Man trying to nark on your stash, as Homer Simpson might say.

So, yeah, legalise it fully, and take Burroughs' advice on heroin and such of perscriptions for addicts and a slow-phasing-out. Then nipple-cripple any stoners who refer to grass as a spiritual experience.

In sumation - make sure to use in moderation.

hodor

YES stoners drive me nuts too. The main reason i parted hanging out with alot of my friends back in the usa is because they NEVER wanted to DO anything. just sit around the tv.

i never heard the big speeches though... i guess i am lucky.

however now that i am thinking about it isnt it immensly cheaper to make paper from hemp?

polymorphikos

And pants.

LensmanZ313

My wife suffers from Lupus; she's in constant pain a lot of the time. Her doctor believes that medicinal marijuana would help her a lot. Tennessee doesn't have it but Oregon does.

Look at American history. Drugs were legal for a long time, and, yes, there were problems; but, those problems inscreased after the particular drug was banned. The Harrison Act, the Volstead Act . . . both have proven to be failures.

The US government spends four billions dollars a year to stop marijuana trafficking; marijuana is my country's top cash crop, generating 25 billion dollars a year.

Prohibition never solves anything.

hodor

yes as i remember when the prohibition of alcohol was in effect it actually resulted in higher crime in the area of illegally making buying and trafficking.

Maryjane

Those who say it leads-on to other things may have a point, but so does alcohol.

That's true. All depends wether one develops an adictive personalety or not. I would say that 75% (I may even be underscoring that average) of drinkers you see in a packed bar have a potential adictive personalety and this is not just necessarily restricted to people with hereditary or genetic background of alcoholism in the family like so many believe. Any number of things can bring you over the line of no return, living or having been brought up in a disfunctional life style is one of them or maybe a phsycological problem being medicated with alcohol. But what it boils down to is can you have three drinks and then leave it be without the discomfort from the fenomana of craving? 2 drinks 3 at the most is concidered to be a social drinker. Some heavy drinkers do go to stronger stuff (narcotics) But I think you will find that allot of alcoholics are happy and content with her/his bottle till their liver gets pickled and even then some won't quit.
And heavy drugs get you to town faster but also burns you out physically and mentally allot sooner the alcohol does.

Circus Cranium

I think it should be legal, mainly because I see alcohol as FAR more harmful, and that's legal. I don't buy the claim that pot will always lead to harder drugs; you can say the same for alcohol, but if someone has an addictive personality, they're going to find something to abuse, even if it's drinking cough syrup or doing whip-its from the Dairy-whip canisters at the grocery store. Many people drink responsibly, many people use a little weed responsibly now and again. I don't see it as on the same level as hard drugs at all. In fact, it baffles me that the US is so hard ass about it. It makes me wonder if someone is making money somewhere in congress by keeping it illegal.

p.s. I'm not paranoid, I KNOW they're all out to get me!