Weed, weed, and weeeed

[The Sum of Awe]

We should save more prison cells for people who murder than those who smoke weed...

We support the right to bear arms, support alcohol. But then again, are they not less dangerous then weed?

Would you rather talk to a guy who has a gun or a guy with a joint?

[jelly]

...or a guy from the joint with a joint.
I go with the guy with a joint.

[Mathematician]

All drugs should be decriminalized and most made legal. Weed is the most obvious.

[The Sum of Awe]

Originally Posted by GeneCosta

All drugs should be decriminalized and most made legal. Weed is the most obvious.

Any explanation or reason behind it?

[Poisonshady313]

Originally Posted by The Sum of Awe

Any explanation or reason behind it?

Spend less time, money, and other various resources locking up folks who just want to get stoned. Just like you said, "We should save more prison cells for people who murder than those who smoke weed"

As for other drugs...

Some drugs are worse for you than others. Some drugs are more fun than others. Some drugs are more addicting than others. In the end, people ought to be responsible for themselves. If they're stupid enough to OD pulp fiction style, they weren't meant for this world, and we should be glad to be rid of them.

[Levite]

Weed should be legal. Most other drugs should be legalized also. Any other drugs should be decriminalized. In the case of something like weed, we're spending many billions of dollars trying to keep people from growing an consuming a substance far less harmful than many legal substances. And in the case of less benign drugs, we're making what should be a health crisis requiring the aid of the medical community into a crime crisis that puts sick people in jail, often for reasons that would not apply were drugs legal, or at least decriminalized.

This so-called "war on drugs" is a waste of money, a drain on precious resources, a useless clog to our judicial system, a source of overcrowding in prisons, an excuse to preserve and prosper a shady and often unethical prison-industrial complex, a distraction keeping police officers from spending time on real criminals and crimes, an excuse to violate people's rights and privacy, an unwarranted control of personal freedoms, and most importantly, it helps keep international criminal cartels profitable and prosperous, causing endless grief and misery to uncounted thousands of lives. It's classist, it's racist, it's an unmitigated and incredibly expensive disastrous failure.

[Acim]

Originally Posted by The Sum of Awe

Any explanation or reason behind it?

Reason for decriminalizing:

My main one is that we co-create a black market that I truly believe inflates demand and without dispute places grave risk on suppliers and buyers. When I hear of "good guys" being killed in the "war against drugs," I have little to no sympathy based on context of the war.

While making weed as legal and plentiful as say alcohol could very well result in related deaths (I would argue far fewer than alcohol), it would save lives of those involved in the war, and would put the criminals out of business. Just as no criminal in America is making substantial income from the underground market of alcohol trade. Yet, when prohibition occurred in early 20th century America, not only was there lots of money to be made, but crime and corruption was substantial. It proved to be a war that could not be won, and again, I would say it inflated demand.

Principally speaking, I think drugs (including legal kind) are a crutch, or even black magic. We clearly don't need drugs to survive, though some might argue this and I likely lose that argument. There is clearly a demand for drugs and a desire. As long as that is the case, I think efforts to massively legalize (as in all states in US agree) needs to be pushed, education on drug use ought to occur and be valid (rather than using only 'scared straight tactics') and economics of the market need to be realized. That is whole other issue to this that anyone who's thought this through realizes this is a cash cow, but the decision must be responsible in how we allow the substance(s) to be marketed. Just as we have laws that say how cigarettes can be marketed, so would we have similar for weed. It ought not be hidden in dingy corners, but neither should it be next to the high school. (Pun intended)

[Vendetta]

Should cocaine be legal? Or Heroine?

[gnomon]

Originally Posted by The Sum of Awe

We should save more prison cells for people who murder than those who smoke weed...

We support the right to bear arms, support alcohol. But then again, are they not less dangerous then weed?

Would you rather talk to a guy who has a gun or a guy with a joint?

Of course we should legalize marijuana with strict regulatory controls similar to alcohol. There is no moral justification for the status quo on the government's regard on marijuana.

The first step should be the POTUS insisting the DEA, his branch, his employees, to reschedule the drug from I to IV. Hell, cocaine is schedule II and while heroin is schedule I they have opium extracts, opium poppy, Methadone...basically any and all things opium as Schedule II. There's a reason for that but none of it supports having a substance the medical community states should belong lower on the Schedule. If the DEA would do this which they have complete freedom to do without an act of Congress it would be a good first step. Don't count on Obama pushing for this, however. He has made no indication in supporting the medical marijuana concept or rescheduling the drug.

Then we have law enforcement specifically related to marijuana. Given the entire history of enforcement has practically been one of racism in that the percentage of individuals in minority groups who engage in the use of marijuana is the same as those of the majority yet the jails, prisons and probees of this nation on this issue are overwhelmingly minorities than that means we have a serious social problem not related to the drug but related to enforcement of the law.

That's just some of it but I get tired of repeating myself on this forum on this issue.

[Oneatatime]

Originally Posted by The Sum of Awe

We should save more prison cells for people who murder than those who smoke weed...

We support the right to bear arms, support alcohol. But then again, are they not less dangerous then weed?

Would you rather talk to a guy who has a gun or a guy with a joint?

Wars on *insert whatever conservatives don't like* don't seem to work very well. Alcohol prohibition, drugs in general, terror etc... either do nothing or make the problem worse.