Should Weed Be Legal?

[Dante]

It being prohibited probably entices more people to try it and I don't see what's the point since alcohol is legal...

[OmarFW]

It being prohibited probably entices more people to try it and I don't see what's the point since alcohol is legal...

Exactly. Many young people want to do what they aren't allowed to do simply because they aren't allowed to do it.

Weed, while basically harmless, is something that should only be done with responsibility. Teenagers should not be doing something that could get them arrested and have a permanent stain on their record and most teenagers are too naive to not get caught.

This of course would be resolved by legalizing weed so there would be no danger of a kid getting a strike on his record for something so insignificant.

If you don't allow things like weed, then kids will just try things like alcohol or tobacco which are more easily accessible and far worse. You can't keep your kids from trying things like these so parents might as well endorse the lesser 'evil'.

[clauemi]

H*ll no! We already have enough weirdos running around and don't need more LOL!

I hate that smell, it's so intoxicating. My neighbors from downstairs are pot heads and I myself have never tried weed but it's not a hard smell to distinguish.

Weed just makes people stupid, why would anyone want to be stupid. Maybe it's just people who don't love themselves, I don't know.

[OmarFW]

H*ll no! We already have enough weirdos running around and don't need more LOL!

I hate that smell, it's so intoxicating. My neighbors from downstairs are pot heads and I myself have never tried weed but it's not a hard smell to distinguish.

Weed just makes people stupid, why would anyone want to be stupid. Maybe it's just people who don't love themselves, I don't know.

Some of the best inventions and music were created and written by people who were on marijuana. If you think marijuana makes people stupid then you clearly either have a faulty definition of what stupidity is. It's effects can vary from person to person and some people have done stupid things while on weed, sure, but it does not make everyone stupid as it has sometimes amplified the intelligence or abilities of some individuals. A friend of mine gained the ability to play the drums with no previous experience once when he was high.

[clauemi]

H*ll no! We already have enough weirdos running around and don't need more LOL!

I hate that smell, it's so intoxicating. My neighbors from downstairs are pot heads and I myself have never tried weed but it's not a hard smell to distinguish.

Weed just makes people stupid, why would anyone want to be stupid. Maybe it's just people who don't love themselves, I don't know.

Some of the best inventions and music were created and written by people who were on marijuana. If you think marijuana makes people stupid then you clearly either have a faulty definition of what stupidity is. It's effects can vary from person to person and some people have done stupid things while on weed, sure, but it does not make everyone stupid as it has sometimes amplified the intelligence or abilities of some individuals. A friend of mine gained the ability to play the drums with no previous experience once when he was high.

Well I would not know since I have never tried weed but I find that hard to believe. Every person I have ever know in my life that smoked weed was either very dumb or lazy even when they were not high. The smart ones must be very few if it's even possible that weed can make someone smarter. I will believe it when I see it. Weed is just like any other trend out there, most people start because someone they know does it and then they can't quit or they stop when everyone else does.

[MyDigitalpoint]

Priests and shamans from Ancient Civilization used Mariljuana and other psychotropic drugs to "talk" with their Gods and obtain the guidance and knowlege they needed, while many renowned writers created their master works under the influence of alcohol.

Problem is not at all those substances but its use and abuse, and here is where people fail due to most drugs cause addictions and very few persons have the willingness to stay apart when needed.

I believe that making legal weed may get tons of individual trying it, this is, smoking marijuana will be "trendy" but like many other drugs, overtime the hype will be over so making it legal has a social cost to start up, but overtime is beneficial because is the only way to unroot narcotraffic.

[Cecil15]

I don't think that marijuana contains nicotine, and it isn't physically addictive. The only "addiction" that one would have to the drug would be a psychological one.

LOL, I am pertaining to cigarettes to contain nicotine. Well, I guess some just don't have self-control that's why they get addicted.

[quote='gamingmaster42' pid='10352' dateline='1312584903']
But the thing is, alcohol is legal yet marijuana is not. Further alcohol can seriously damage you with a few drinks, where as the same is not true for marijuana. And as we saw from Prohibition, banning the product does not make a positive difference.

Well, I don't really know the real exact disadvantages in consuming both but I very well know that both are harmful when taken in excessive amounts. So it's really up to us. As for the legalization, maybe the government should further evaluate the pro's and con's of using marijuana, right?

[OmarFW]

Well I would not know since I have never tried weed but I find that hard to believe. Every person I have ever know in my life that smoked weed was either very dumb or lazy even when they were not high. The smart ones must be very few if it's even possible that weed can make someone smarter. I will believe it when I see it. Weed is just like any other trend out there, most people start because someone they know does it and then they can't quit or they stop when everyone else does.

I would say that a person who is drunk would become 'dumb' in a more accurate sense since their cognition is impaired and they cannot make correct decisions.

A person high on weed however is not impaired at all; sometimes the exact opposite. The effects are extremely various depending on the person and type of marijuana but often people undergo a heightened use of their senses. Their inhibitions are lowered just like alcohol so it is not as hard to react to things they normally wouldn't, which is why you see people who are high giggling and laughing at seemingly not-so-funny things. That might seem 'dumb' but it is completely harmless so I don't see it as such. You wouldn't ever see a stoner running naked in traffic or crashing a car or doing other such dangerous things because weed more often provokes a desire to introspect rather than do physical activities. You would however see drunk people do that kind of dangerous stuff which is why I consider drunk people to be legitimately dumb.

There are of course the cases in which people buy weed from corrupt dealers and the weed is laced with other drugs in order to get the user addicted and coming back. This isn't common, but it happens and in that case the effects are obviously not going to be that of typical marijuana. This is another reason weed needs to legalized; to take it out of the hands of these dealers and put it into the hands of government regulated shops so this kind of thing can't happen.

The human body cannot become dependent on THC (the chemical in marijuana that gets you high) like it can with nicotine so marijuana is not physically addictive. This is not a matter of opinion, but a scientific fact. That is different than a mental dependency of course, which can be formed around anything but is not a danger to everybody. This is why for some people it is a 'gateway drug' in the sense that they move on to harder drugs because weed doesn't do it for them anymore. This is not however because they are physically addicted to the marijuana, but because they are mentally dependent on simply being high and some people can develop a tolerance for THC and therefore an immunity to weed over time, provoking a person who desires to be high constantly to go out and seek harder drugs. Again, this is only a danger for people who are prone to be co-dependent. At the same time, these people could just as easily develop a dependency on nicotine or alcohol which are readily available at any store so prohibiting weed does not take away this danger nor does it even prevent people from obtaining weed anyway. I've known plenty of people who have smoked the same amount of weed for the last 10 years and do not desire to do increasingly more and more, nor do they undergo withdrawl if they take a break from doing it for a while.

I am one of those kinds of people which is why I did not try weed until this year and found out that I do not enjoy the effects so I did not continue doing it.

[Zach]

0.0 Great post and great video, OmarFW...
More people should see that video. Any violence caused by drugs is entirely the fault of the government for making it illegal. That guy's relative would still be alive today if the punk who killed him could have obtained his fix at the local convenience store or Publix pharmacy.

[MyDigitalpoint]

Actually in Mexico is widely discussed the topic to make drugs legal and while opinions are divided, many people say the major concern is money.

Governments involved in drug cartels on the backstage while pretending to be fighting in a drug war. According to this, marijuana can't be legalized because in the USA don't want to put a final period to the black markets that distribute it.