Congressional spending deal blocks pot legalization in D.C.

a reply to: nwtrucker

You're right. They should just legalize it and get it over with. After all, we believe in liberty right?

Or is freedom only for those with whose agendas you agree?

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

Actually, your probably right.

Freedom is based on the agenda which one agrees. Unlikely to change in the foreseeable future......

a reply to: nwtrucker

Or we just dont want our lives ruined or to go to jail over a plant and a personal choice that effects no one else. I am a HIGHLY

a reply to: nwtrucker

Maybe for some ignorant folks.

I believe in total freedom for everyone just as long as no one encroaches on my own liberties. I don't care what your agenda is as long as you aren't trying to force it on me, dig?

Why everyone else can't see it this way is beyond me. Social conditioning perhaps?

Kallisti

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Sigh, I've listened to all the arguments for and against. Yes, your post has validity.

I fall back on personal experience when debate fails to come up with an answer that satisfies me, personally.

To wit. We live in a drug culture. Psych drugs, pain killers, street drugs, artificial drugs, booze. Cocktails resulting from these mixes. Younger and younger users due to popularization/legalization. Soaring suicide rates and suicide-mass murder incidents well documented in their connection to psych drug usage as well.

My view is it's gone too far.

Freedom is a huge issue. So is restraint and responsibility. Self-imposed or society imposed. More of the former is preferable to the latter.

Balance between the two is where I stand.

P.S. it wasn't a snide comment as much as humor. As you have pushed 'pot' into the general freedom issue this is my response to that general subject

Nothing changes the fact that 'pot' is, by itself, about a small potato 'issue' as is out there, IMO....

a reply to: phishfriar47

Gee! Then abstain...

a reply to: nwtrucker

See?

You don't get it at all.

Honestly, if you haven't even got a leg to stand on, why argue?

I fight for legalization because I owe it to the plant that saves my life and the others that are helped daily by its use. I fight for the poor souls being held in prisons for nothing more than a plant.

Don't you see it?

originally posted by: nwtrucker
a reply to: Krazysh0t

Sigh, I've listened to all the arguments for and against. Yes, your post has validity.

I fall back on personal experience when debate fails to come up with an answer that satisfies me, personally.

So when scientific data doesn't compel you, you trump it with personal anecdotes?

To wit. We live in a drug culture. Psych drugs, pain killers, street drugs, artificial drugs, booze. Cocktails resulting from these mixes. Younger and younger users due to popularization/legalization. Soaring suicide rates and suicide-mass murder incidents well documented in their connection to psych drug usage as well.

So what? Someone taking a drug is their own problem.

My view is it's gone too far.

Gone too far? Do you know how easy it is to obtain marijuana despite it being illegal? All you are doing is trying to plug your ears and eyes from the issue that is HERE at your doorstep. People use pot regardless of legality and making it illegal causes more problems than solves. This is all WELL documented. Didn't you learn about Prohibition and its effects on society in high school?

Freedom is a huge issue. So is restraint and responsibility. Self-imposed or society imposed. More of the former is preferable to the latter.

Exactly. Legalize freedom.

Balance between the two is where I stand.

Impossible. You are either free or detained. There is no in between.

P.S. it wasn't a snide comment as much as humor. As you have pushed 'pot' into the general freedom issue this is my response to that general subject

Nothing changes the fact that 'pot' is, by itself, about a small potato 'issue' as is out there, IMO....

No issue stands alone. Only simple minded people think that an issue can stand isolated from the pack. They are all interconnected and fuel much larger issues. Marijuana is part of the war of drugs, which is by and part really just Prohibition 2.0. It has created and fueled the VERY same problems and issues that caused Congress to repeal Prohibition. By supporting the war on drugs (any drug) you are agreeing with Prohibition. So might as well make alcohol illegal right?

One more thing. It may not be important to you, but that doesn't downplay the importance it may have to other people. People with medical illnesses that marijuana can help. People with family in jail because of marijuana. People fed up with government overreach of authority. Heck, even people who want a safer alternative to relaxing with friends other than alcohol. Etc.

a reply to: nwtrucker

Nothing changes the fact that 'pot' is, by itself, about a small potato 'issue' as is out there, IMO.

Yet here you are arguing against it? Why? If it is a "small potato" issue (which it is not) why are you even here?

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

OK. Let's play out your scenario.

All drugs are now completely legal. No restraints whatsoever.

Envision the work-place. The highways. Conversations at the dinner-table. LMAO.

Here's where it would go next.

The Monsanto's of the world immediately start inventing new drugs and cocktails, patenting them and promoting them, sponsoring NASCAR, the NFL so on and we obligingly, as a society follow along chemicaled up to the nines and we can kiss this civilization goodbye-or more likely just speed up what's already inevitable.

No thanks.

a reply to: nwtrucker

Why imagine such a scenario, when we can look at real world data for it?
'This Is Working': Portugal, 12 Years after Decriminalizing Drugs

WOW they really want that LEO income for enforcement,huh?
WHAT will become of the DEA?

Maybe we should get rid of them ,TSA,DHS,ATF and fold them into the FBI?
NO MORE cross purpose BS.

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

That's 'sounds' great. We overlap. Workplace, highways, family members. Addiction. It affects all of us.

My life experience says balance is key. Not unrestrained freedom. The very fact that people end up in jail for doing doobies says to me that the need/compulsion that drove those people to do so despite those very well publicized consequences speaks volumes as to the power of drugs....

a reply to: nwtrucker

How does it taste?

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

The fact that they're willing to go to jail for a plant tells me the power of that plant.''

Spare the 'life-saving" garbage!

The active ingredients were available in pill form.

a reply to: nwtrucker

Dude.

You have no freaking idea. I'm done arguing with such blatant disregard for facts. The evidence is there, just ask Charlotte Figi.

a reply to: Krazysh0t

Scientific data? Bull!

I've worked in a drug rehab center and dealt with addicts, including pot. The scientific data is completely trumped by the fact it was available in pill form long before the legalization agenda got any traction.

I prefer an environment drug free not spin from single issue self-indulging borderline addicts.

I started a thread on the subject earlier my thread but included a couple of other things they also wrapped into the spending bill. For example, they upped the cap on political donations from $32,400 to a whopping $324,000 and to make sure that new cap got maxed-out they repealed a provision tat prevented banks from using taxpayer-backed money to gamble on the derivatives market. A provision that was put in place after the '07-08 banking/financial collapse. So the politicians made sure they got what THEY wanted and basically said screw the voters. Time to roll out the guillotines people... it worked in France.

a reply to: nwtrucker
There are people 'addicted' to all manner of things. I'm 62 and have been '420 friendly' for over 40yrs as have most of my friends. I've known countless others of similar ilk. I've never once met a 'weed addict'. And I too have worked in drug intervention/rehab in the past.

a reply to: CagliostroTheGreat

Responding to your replies that you sent. There's always a chance that something new might come up....