Princess Ivy

I was watching the news last night (i know, don't fall off your chairs people it can happen) and was surprised to see that 12 of the american states have legalised canabis for medicinal purposes. Not that people feel that it is a miracle cure, after all, morphine was used for years by the medical profession in pain relief, but surprised that it has managed to breach the narcotic barrier. I just don't know. i've never 'done' pot. maybe i'm an inocent, but to me its an illegal drug. Even the use of morphine, is the use of a deritive, not pure opium. I was wondering what your opinions were, should it be legalised for medicinal use? or just plain legalised. or is it a dangerous narcotic and should be banned completely. Studdies have shown that it kills brain cells, that it is harmful to your health, even more so than tobacco. Are the medicinal benifits purely psycosymatic? or are there tangible benifits to it? does that even matter if people in agonising pain are helped?

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Princess Leia: I don't know who you are or where you've come from, but from now on you'll do as I say, okay?

knivesout

Even if it is just a narcotic, so what? So much of modern society seems to be founded on narcotic use. I think adults should have the choice to poison themselves or not, given basic education abotu various substances.

Tackle alcohol, which leads to more deaths and violence per year, or tobacco, which is far more dangerous to health (despite slanted studies to the contrary) first, designer drugs like Extacy, which I see kids half my age ruining themselves on, and then we'll see whether we ought to let anyone step on the grass. Politics, sports, sex and entertainment - what about these insiduous and damaging addictions? Let's all just shave our heads and wear sackcloth and ashes and think pure thoughts.

LensmanZ313

I'm for complete legalization of all drugs . . . .

erickad71

Well, I voted "other". I have no problem with it. Anything can be abused...food, alcohol, drugs, etc.

Spirit_Caller

I think it should be freedom of choice as far as cannibis is concerned. I mean people could have been smoking pot instead of tobacco!!

There are more deaths with smoking and drinking a year than with drugs so shouldn't the goverments be doing something to tackle this.

Leto

Given proper warning (as for cigarettes and alcohol), why not legalizing it ? We should stop treating grown-ups like kids. Once you've told them "that's bad for you for such and such reasons", an adult must have choice to use it or not (and face the consequences).
Plus legalizing it would open field for medical research, at least on the real danger of cannabis (and not cannabis + plus whatever additive the dealer put in its merchandise) and its eventual benefits. Coca and opium were medical drugs before being illegals.

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hodor

i am not saying i am old and wise as i am only 27 but living in a big city like phoenix arizona and the pot capital of the northern usa (oregon) i of course have smoked my share when i was 17 - 22 yrs of age. however i dont anymore and its not because i thought it affected me at work (i didnt smoke at work) or in school or what not. i just found i didnt want to risk the law for one, didnt want to spend money i could spend in other ways, and my friends i smoked with were too much live for today and think not about tomorro. So until i got married i thought no more about it, i didnt smoke it even though i truly believe alcohol is far more dangerous than pot.

i got married at age 26 to a french woman and the marriage was in france and we were to go to the american embassy in paris to get her green card two days after as we had an appointment and all the necessary papers completed. just one month before the wedding my wife was diagnosed with hodgkins cancer... hence no green card allowed... not for six years AFTER the treatment is completed. so i moved to france.
To get to the point i had to watch my wife go through chemotherapy for 9hrs at a time once a week for five months and and then three months of radiation. now it has been proven that the chemicals in chemotherapy and the damage from radiation is FARRRRR more than a little pot and it has also been proven that pot can help ease the pain and the stomach problems and let me repeat THAT was her biggest problem THE STOMACH. i wish i could have helped her more i felt soooo useless. but i truly believe that if pot were legal here that it could have not been a miracle but at least eased a bit of her pain and suffering. its for this i marked other. i know its illegal (except two counties over in the NL) but i think it ought to be seriously thought about.

ps... no need to ask my wife did end up after one year fully cleared of her cancer with only a 1percent chance of relapse and we are looking forward to our first baby. another reason i still dont smoke.

Maryjane

May the great spirit bless you and your wife Hodor. Well all I have to say about pot is it's not gona go away and their not going to be able to stop it even if they declared marshal law. What I think might be a solution is to legalize it and let the tobaco co's use the empty fields they have, to grow and distribute Marijuana like they do cigaretts. Good revenue in it for the government in the form of taxes. Eliminate the dealer and have either a government or private interprise distributer controling the quality, pacaging, pricing and shiping. The prohibition never slowed anyone from drinking did it? I don't know if the label narcotic fits but maryjuana is definatly a mood altering substance and can impare your jujgmnet especially your conception of time and distance. It is also suspected that mayjuana is more destrutive to lung tisue then ciggarets if smoke it on a regular basis. It also can relieve pain by numbing the nerve endings of the nervous system, wether it is just as affective as other pain relieving drugs they already use in hospitals I don't know. I don't like pain killers and never took any. I did sample pot at one time, I remember the time and distance distortion experience but wether or not it numbed pain I do not remember. And as for burning out brain cells I agree with that but it depends greatly on what brand of poison your using and how strong it is to determine how much and how fast brain cell deteriation actually occures. Some drugs will put you in the bug house much sooner then others and in allot of casses, shokingly, to many OD on the heavier stuff. They are slaves to this stuff can't live an entire 24 hs without it or they face maddness. I worked with these kind of people, you wana cry? Go visit one of those rehabs. The thing about pot is it's not the drug that will kill you, what it does is set you up with a craving for higher highs and when one doesn't get them anymore and pot is no longer satisfactory they move onto something stronger. The stronger the drug the more harm it does to you mentally and physically.
Age has relitively nothing to do with my knowledge of drug and alcohol abuse, just experience and caring.

TGirlPaula

I am 53 going on 12 and I live in the Washington, DC area.

My kid brother, the baby of the family, died on November 24, 1998 from a dose of too-potent heroin.

He started by smoking pot and doing keg parties when he was 13.

Next he did crank. He tolod me that he went without sleep for weeks at a time.

He started with grass and brew.

He lived at home in Scranton, PA and worked in the Poconos. He went to New York a lot where he found the stuff, heroin.

He started with reefer and it wasn't "Reefer Madness," either, but it was his first daily habit.

I don't use tobacco and the stuff is useless but for those who wish to pollute themselves, let them pay their way. It's dangerous and smelly and a sure killer, but what does it lead to? Smoking stronger tobacco? Chewing tobacco? Overdosing on Nicorets?

Tobacco and pot have no valid comparison beyond habit-forming substances. Hard for me to say that Chris died of tobacco use when he took a shot of exceptionally pure heroin and his heart burst inside of him.

He used to ask me to do a number with him, in the car. I never did.

Maryjane's idea of cultivating, packaging, taxing, and selling a safe (no paraquat residue) doober sounds good but with one flaw: everyone I know who statred there either graduated to harder drugs or is so smoked-out that they cannot hold a job with a hammer and nails.

I would be open to treating it like the addictive drug that it is prescribed for pain relief as hodor described, but controlled as rigidly as oxycontyn. Cultivation of pot not on government land and stored in a bonded warehouse should be a federal crime with heavy penalties. Why? Because once weed is approved for medicinal use only everyone else has lost their ethical "innocence" and is an ugly profiteer.

My brother dies at age 40. He was a mover and shaker within McDonald's Corporation. Had a company car and 30 days' sabattical.

I miss my brother. Perhaps Steppenwolf had it right: God damn the pusher man."

Thank you for hearing me out.

Alexa

This post reminded me I forgot a bottle of Morphine in my desk at work. Stupid me ! I have to put it tommorw into the vault.

I've never smoked pot or tried the others. I do not feel the need or curiosity to fly with them. I like to feel my head on my shoulders all the time.

Canabis should be kept under control status like all the other narcotics. Why open the Pandora box ? Those who need them as pain killers can take a prescription.

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