Republicans/Conservatives On Marijuana

Do you agree with the legalization of marijuana? Why?

If I hire a person and the conditions of the hire are to stay off pot, then if I can prove the employee smoked pot, I have a right to terminate the contract.

Oh.

Further to MA comments on your thread here

politics.abovetopsecret.com...

I see it's a double blind study. Or a double stoned study.

Republicans shouldn't be against illegal cannabis, it would conflict with many minds that camaign for a free and open economy. Cannabis therefore should be a part of this free and open economy. But it is not that big an issue, so people grow it themselves and cheat on drug test.

[edit on 23-7-2005 by Frosty]

The government and the laws do not distinguish between use and abuse.

Cannabis is a natural plant that has many benefits.

It is far less dangerous than alcoholic beverages, but because it grows so easily, the government knows
they would have difficulty taxing personal use.

Any use under a doctors prescription should not be prohibited as long as safety issues are considered.

There must be a clear distincton between limited personal use and commercial production.

No one should use cannabis while driving and the same DUI laws should be applied.

This should also hold true for any use while working, but reasonable occasional personal recreational use
should not be prohibited especially on private property.

If you drink one occasional beer, no one has a problem with that.
If you drink a six pack every night or worse, then of course you have a problem.

The major issue is that those who DO abuse, make it difficult for those who use common sense.

Given that cannabis is apparantly detectable in the blood-stream for up to 6 - 8 wks after ingesting there is a hell of a difference between the mere detection of its' presence and any actual intoxication from it.

It is on this last point that British law has, rightly, fallen down so often in trying to nail this one down.

I don't know how America gets around this awkward fact (other than to use ridiculous scare stories - stoned Doctors! Pilots! etc etc - to get 'the people' to turn a blind eye to the courts/gov simply ignoring it and carry on sacking/jailing huge numbers of employees/citizens for something that is in the vast majority of cases utterly harmless and a private matter.)

Land of the free, eh?

[edit on 23-7-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

I'm a Republican, but I'm very libertarian on this issue. I think ALL drugs, not just marijuana, should be legalized and taxed by the gov't.

The biggest issue that conservatives throw out there regarding the legalization of pot is the commerce clause. States should decriminilize pot and make it illegal to be able to sell it across state lines. That would solve that. It's a states rights issue! In every state that has voted referendums on the issue, the people have said they support medical marijuania. The federal government has been trumping states rights on this for a long time now. Conservatives need to wake up and see this for what it is.

I base my beliefs on this on having experienced it for myself and also on prohibition of alcohol (the lessons learned from that). Trust me folks, as a member of society, you'd much rather me stay home and burn one than go out, party/shoot pool and get smashed. Things are much more calm when I do the former. And I'm not out endangering anyone else.

And for the record.. Other than Sundays and some Saturdays, I work every day of my life - and I don't get messed up when I'm on the job.

[edit on 7/23/05 by EastCoastKid]

The Whiskey man, he get angry, he go crazy, he KILL!

The Reefer man, he go home, he sharpen his knife, he plot his revenge. Then he go to sleep and the evil deed is never done!

You brought up a very good point.

Most drug tests are only used to determine if the individual has ANY traces of illegal substances
in their blood stream, not for degree of impairment.

If someone smokes a joint Saturday night at a party, they would NOT still be stoned Monday morning when they return to work.

Unfortunately if they were required for some reason to take a drug test
Monday afternoon, some traces may show up in their blood stream, but never enough to cause
impairment.

It is totally unfair to accuse someone of being under the influence of illegal drugs only based on
small traces found in the blood stream.

Although I am steadfastly againts current laws, there should be a valid test for degree of impairment.

It should still be illegal to drive or operate machinery "if impaired" as a matter of public safety.

The current laws and regulations should be changed so that reasonable personal use and cultivation
are acceptable as long as NO money is involved.

Any non personal, commercial cultivation could then be regulated and taxed under normal income
guidelines.

The real problem is that keeping marijuana illegal actually supports organized crime.

One needs to understand the real motivation behind the current laws.

Monsanto started the evil weed scare campaign long ago out of fear that cannabis would cause too much competition for them in the textile industry.

The same holds true now in the pharmaceutical industry.

The real evil in all this has to do with big corporate profits and competition.








[edit on 27-7-2005 by FallenFromTheTree]

Originally posted by FallenFromTheTree
The real evil in all this has to do with big corporate profits and competition.

- I think it goes even beyond that FFTT.

I tend to agree with a theory that was put to me some time ago.

All those drugs (a multi-billion $ a year 'industry) are kept illegal because if they were legalised and that income stream vanished there is only one place left where the really serious criminal world could replace that sort of 'income'.

Guess from where/who?

The world's ultra wealthy individuals, companies and corporations.



[edit on 27-7-2005 by sminkeypinkey]

Marijuana should never have been grouped along with more serious drugs in the first place.

It's always bugged me how our noble legislatures can go out for a 3 martini lunch
and pass these rediculous laws.

If people were free to grow their own strictly for personal use, then our esteemed leadership could
concentrate on more serious crimes.

You should investigate a little of how the drug laws came to be; in many instances it is nothing less than pure hysteria, racism and class anxiety.

What was once freely available in your local chemist (without the sky falling in) is now used to incarcerate huge numbers of people across the globe at vast expense (on so many different levels to us all).

Just because, in the vast bulk of cases, they wouldn't just do as they were told in their private lives.

(......oh, and allowing the serious criminal underworld to abuse and leech off of the bottom and middle end of society in the manner they do keeps them away from being too much of a threat to the top ends of society, hmmm?)

What (real) crime have I committed by going home at the end of a stressful workday, locking my door, and firing up a fatty? If I stay home and don't communicate with the outside world at all? And I'm perfectly safe? Where is the crime? It's completely ridiculous.

ECK

The answer is that there really is no crime. Humans will be addicted and/or abuse whatever they can get their hands on, legal or not.

We are wasting too much money on a "War" that has done little to no good and had almost no effect other than increasing drug use.

Gee what if they called it "The War On Tax Free Use Of Natural Grown Pharmaceuticals"?

Yes, most specifically industrial hemp. Not for the drug affects but for the economical benefit.

IMHO Republicans v. Democrats is not an issue here. Both sides equally partake of the stuff.

I wont go any further as to not say the wrong thing.

Is there an issue with Republicans v. Democrats when it comes to drinking booze?

I read somewhere that some 60%-80% of the chemicals dupont has made in the las 80 years never would have been needed or invented if pot would have remained legal. Hemp would devistate the cotton industry, you see hemp is easier to grow than cotton, takes far less herbaside, insecticide, It takes enormous chemicals to grow cotton effectively, and guess who makes the products needed to grow cotton....dupont

However if pot were to become legal, it would devistate the timber industry about 20% of log cut are used for lumber, the rest is used for paper products, hemp is cheaper, renewable faster, and better then wood pulp paper.

The oil industry does not want pot legeal either, pot/hemp is to industry as soy beens are to agricuture.

Hemp is the oldest used plant on earth, humans have used pot/hemp for over 10,000 years, the oldest know piece of cloth is hemp, the oldest paper found is hemp paper.

just look what it would do for potatoe chip sales

Hemp seeds are the Most complete food source on earth. If you had 1 choice of a food to eat for the rest of your life...hemp and the seeds have all the nutrisional value to sustain you into old age.

I have heard it said that the elderly and Republican christians are why it is illeagal plus the above mentioned industry.

just look what it would do for twinky sales

Making pot leagal would almost cut our prison population by 3/4, thus leading to prison closing, layoffs...ect. Think of All the people on probation and parole, this would also lead to these officers bein layed off, and more probation offices closing, but look at the bright side, this would leave the cops plenty of time to go after Violent crimminals...ect

If it were to become leagal..[not holding my breath, our current govrnment are into taking rights away and i don't see that changing] I would make a ten dollar tax per pack, with 10 joints per pack. Half the money would goto social secrurity, half would goto schools, or universal healthcare.

well thats my 2 cents

peace

I personally don't really care that much if someone smokes pot.

But a lot of people can't seem to grasp the concept of "personal responsibililty." Such as--you shouldn't drive while drunk or stoned.

I keep hearing so many conflicting things. On the one hand, you have people who swear up and down that it's really harmful, it'll lead to harder drugs, etc. On the other hand, you hear about the health benefits.

That being said, I'm not against medicinal marijuana--provided it actually does have benefits. Any drug can be abused.

You know Coca-Cola used to have coc aine in it, right? Until about 100 years ago....