Marijuana Legalization - Why Not?

[Sikander]

Originally posted by Berzerker

Sikander -

These were people alredy suffering from depression.

Here is the quote again, and please note the portion of it in bold.

In Marijuana: Drugs of Abuse, Volume I, Mark S. Gold, MD, writes "individuals may use marijuana in the mistaken belief that it will help them sleep or that it will relieve their depression, but in reality marijuana has been shown to cause insomnia and depression"

He isn't talking about the depressed people using it because they are depressed, he is talking about marijuana in general terms when he says it has been shown to cause insomnia and depression. I know several people who can't get to sleep when they smoke weed, and I know many people who are less depressed when they are clean than they are when they use. While the effects seem to vary from individual to individual, and even the same person can be effected differently at different times, I don't think that this MD is stretching things in his statement. Since I don't have his book, but just found this snippet on the web I don't have any footnotes or bibliography naming a particular study.

Originally posted by Berzerker

So where is the study showing a higher incidence of depression among pot smokers - and no, not "addicts"? I smoked quite a bit of pot and never suffered depression or insomnia. If my "case history" is anecdotal and to be dismissed, why are the anecdotes offered by this guy valuable?

Because though my time limited search on Google did not turn up any scientific studies of marijuana and depression per se, it did turn up a lot of mental health professionals whose educations and standards of care do tend to require the sorts of evidence that I was unable to find, and they seem to think that there is a known causality. Brain chemistry is such that you will rarely get the same reaction from the entire population to a particular psychoactive drug. The vast majority of people I have seen tend to mellow out when they are high on marijuana for example. There have been a few people (usually schizophrenics or other people with organic brain diseases) who became really violent when they got high. The same is true for depression. Some people don't get depressed even if they use marijuana every day for years. But I would say that a fair percentage of people who use every day will be depressed, and a high percentage of those people will see an improvement in their depression if they stop using.

QUOTE] Originally posted by Berzerker
This just refuted the claims in your sources.[/QUOTE]

Let's look at the whole quote, which came from a pro-hemp site btw,

Depression:
Excessive daily use of marijuana can lead to depression, lethargy, and a feeling of the "blahs." Some people use the drug to constantly "escape" from the mundane world. People with a tendency toward depression should be careful when using marijuana as it can make some depression symptoms worse.
If you are taking anti-depressants and the medications is controlling your symptoms, then moderate use of marijuana should pose no problem.
If depression worsens, you should consult with your physician about changing dosage or type of anti-depressant and possibly reducing the amount of marijuana consumed. There is an equal chance that marijuana will help your depression.

The only source this refutes is itself. The reason I included it was that even pro-hemp people realize that this issue is consequential, even though they themselves are either divided on the issue, or believe that the effect of the drug is heavily dependent upon the brain chemistry of the person taking it.

Originally posted by Berzerker
Exactly! Anecdotal evidence is often used to prove a point while it is ignored when it refutes a point. I was hoping for an actual study showing a higher incidence of depression among pot users (and not just heavy users). I wouldn't doubt heavy use of pot can have negative effects on some people, that just hasn't been my experience.

I was hoping to see a study too, but I gave up after actually trying to read some studies which not only didn't address the points in question, but were unbelievably long and dull as well. One of the many reasons I would like to see marijuana legalized is that it would be studied in much more detail than it has been up to now. There is very little valid marijuana research out there in comparison to the huge number of marijuana users.

We probably don't need a study to show that depression is more likely among pot users than non users, since more young people tend to get high than older people, and young people suffer from depression at a higher rate than non-geriatric adults. Also, drug users in general suffer from higher rates of depression. The question is does marijuana cause, or excacerbate the symptoms of, depression in large enough numbers of people to be considered a risk. My opinion is yes it does. I'm not saying don't anyone smoke weed, I'm saying watch out, especially if you are already someone who gets depressed, who has a family history of serious depression, or are someone who is currently depressed.

Originally posted by Berzerker
"All"? You stayed in close contact with every pot user you knew in school? Most pot smokers don't even continue using that long and my experience doesn't support your claims - but that is anecdotal too.

I stand by my statement. Everyone who I knew in college who smoked every day and who I still know today and who still smoke every day, are not doing well. That is four people. I know many more who have smoked weed every day for over a decade, and the same holds true for a majority of them. I also know several others who smoked every day for over a decade who got seriously depressed and quit smoking. Those people are doing a lot better than those who continue to smoke every day. Not a statistically valid sample, but if I were someone who smoked every day and were depressed I would definitely consider it as better than no evidence. What would I have to lose, there will always be more weed to smoke.

[Dr Strangelove]

This was the basis for claiming marijuana is linked to violence? I've known people who banged away at each other while sober, does that mean sobriety causes violence?

Yes, but at any one time of the day only so many people are drunk, stoned, high or wired up. The fact that such a large portion of crimes are committed by persons in the aforementioned conditions certainly seems to indicate a connection. I also might mention that I once saw a guy stoned whack a guy on the head with a wrench, knocking off a chunk of scalp. It was evident to me that he was so stoned that he didn't know what he was doing. More recently my niece's boyfriend was shot while exiting his car by a guy stoned on pot. So far the guy hasn't given a reason for his actions, but the cops found three bags of marijuana on him. They didn't charge him with drug possession until the victim's lawyer complained. Incredible,huh? Maybe you can get a bunch of potheads to go protest at the trial. That would be terrific. Then my niece's BF can throw his colostomy bag at you.
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So his motive was a conspiracy against him? Does the fact millions of people use marijuana without "dispatching" anyone lead you to believe there was something else going on? The fact sober people dispatch others doesn't mean sobriety is causal to murder.

You don't pay attention do you? Are you stoned? He THOUGHT they were conspiring against him because his thought process was impaired by a hallucinogen called marijuana.
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Just as they can cite cases of murder committed by people who don't use marijuana.

You can speak for people in the medical community? What do you do? Are you a doctor, nurse, technician or what? Like I said in an earlier post guys like you need to spend some time in an ER "cleaning up" the after effects of the damage drunks and druggies do to innocent people. You don't know what I mean, do you? What do you think we do with the corpses after we declare them dead? You don't think we just walk away and let the janitor dispose of it do you? Nope, the corpse has to be cleaned off enough to make it presentable to the family. Then the family has to be shown in. Someone stays with them, console them, and answer questions while they view the corpse.

Oh, is this argument getting too emotional for you Berserker? Well, it's real, and your's isn't.
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Well, the fact they did not have stats for post-prohibition years kind of limits them to prohibition and pre-prohibition stats. Accusing our side of playing nasty tricks based on what people did way back then is a "nasty trick".



Yes they were, they were being compiled by the Commerce Dept.

No, not in the years 1910 to 1930, and the lack of a publication date makes the citation untraceable.
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The Commerce Dept was compiling these stats, not anti-prohibition "propagandists". You claimed they compiled stats from at least two major urban centers which would actually bias the stats toward an even higher crime rate before prohibition making the increase under prohibition appear even less just as Ramo pointed out.

Again, there seems to be an attention span problem here. If you were to take the murder stats for NYC and treat them as if they were the stats for the whole state you would dilute the results. Like I said, In the first decades of the 20th century there wasn't a unifrom process for the collection of crime data. Crime data is inevitably collected at the local level, passed on to the state, and then in turn passed on to the federal government. Most of the states didn't bother with collecting crime data from every county prior to 1920.
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Why does it matter when the Commerce Dept published the stats? I imagine they published them the following year.

Because real researchers list the entire citation so that other people can go look it up!
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If the Commerce Dept was compiling stats before he entered the picture, it wasn't his fiefdom. Hoover was not in charge of prohibition and he strongly resisted allowing the FBI to get involved with drug wars.

But he was ambitious and very early in his career as director he pushed for a role of the Bureau of Investigation as a national agency for he collection of crime data.

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Prohibition was ratified at the end of 1919 and didn't go into effect for a year - the end of 1920. And prohibition was repealed at the end of 1933. Look at the stats, murder rates began climbing after 1920 and started declining after prohibition was repealed. And by 1940-41, murder rates were back down to where they were before prohibition and before US involvement in WWI.

The 18th Amendment went into effect in January of 1920. While ratification of the 22nd Amendment didn't occur until December of 1933, FDR put into effect a law permitting legal beer in the Spring of 1033.
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How did the Depression of the 30's (beginning in 1933) fuel crime in the 20's?

Many parts of the country, especially agricultural area, began suffering from economic reversal as early as 1926. Ever here of the dust bowl?

[Ted Striker]

Excellent post Dr. Strangelove.

This myth about the benevolent pot smoker that harms neither himself nor anyone else needs to be cleared up.

I have YET to speak with someone in the medical profession that dismisses that stuff as harmless.

[Asher]

Ted: Of course the stuff isn't harmless. And I really doubt you'd find most of the medical community saying any substance is "harmless". Even chocolate can be "harmful".

The point is, if things like cigarettes and alcohol are legal, it only makes sense to make "soft drugs" like marijuana legal. It's stupid to have alcohol legal while marijuana illegal, especially when you take into account the huge black market for the drugs, the $Billions being spent to try to combat it (unsuccessfully), and the crime and cartels associated with distributing the drugs in the black market.

Marijuana has sideeffects, it's not exactly healthy, but damnit, if I want to use it in my own home occasionally why should I have to be a criminal to do it?

[Ted Striker]

Well I think part of the problem is the perception of pot as a "soft" drug. That perception leads to it being abused more easily because people don't take it seriously.

I agree with Faded in that once it's made legal, the problem will get much much worse.


I say keep it illegal.

[Asher]

So we should also deal with alcoholism by making alcohol illegal.

[Ted Striker]

Maybe.

You will notice that many neighboorhoods do not allow liquor stores close to them.

How many times have we heard over and over and over and over again about how inner city people complain that there is a liquor on every corner. Often seeing a line outside at 5 in the morning is a depressing site indeed.

[Berzerker]

Dr Strangelove -

Yes

Yes what? Yes that you based your claim that pot causes violence on one incident you witnessed, or, yes, sobriety causes violence?

The fact that such a large portion of crimes are committed by persons in the aforementioned conditions certainly seems to indicate a connection.

Try being a bit more specific. What crimes? When? And under the influence of which drug? And how does this "justify" caging people who did not commit these crimes?

I also might mention that I once saw a guy stoned whack a guy on the head with a wrench, knocking off a chunk of scalp.

Several times I saw guys who were under the influence of alcohol attack others, so what? I've seen sober people attack others, should sober people be put in cages too?

It was evident to me that he was so stoned that he didn't know what he was doing.

Have you ever used pot? I've never known anyone who did something like this because of pot. What other drugs was this guy on? Alcohol?

More recently my niece's boyfriend was shot while exiting his car by a guy stoned on pot. So far the guy hasn't given a reason for his actions, but the cops found three bags of marijuana on him. They didn't charge him with drug possession until the victim's lawyer complained. Incredible,huh? Maybe you can get a bunch of potheads to go protest at the trial. That would be terrific. Then my niece's BF can throw his colostomy bag at you.

And does the fact some drunk hurt a friend of mine mean I should have all the people who use alcohol put in cages? Maybe you can get a bunch of alcy's to tell my friend he has no reason to punish them for what someone else did to him.

You don't pay attention do you? Are you stoned? He THOUGHT they were conspiring against him because his thought process was impaired by a hallucinogen called marijuana.

You didn't say the conspiracy was fictional so don't blame me for your lack of clarity. How do you even know if the conspiracy was fictional?

You can speak for people in the medical community?

So now I must be a member of the medical community before stating the obvious fact people within the medical community deal with the victims of sober people?

What do you do? Are you a doctor, nurse, technician or what?

I don't need to be a doctor to know doctors have to take care of people injured by sober people.

Like I said in an earlier post guys like you need to spend some time in an ER "cleaning up" the after effects of the damage drunks and druggies do to innocent people.

Why? Are we responsible for crimes committed by others? Why don't you "clean up" the victims of drive-by-shootings resulting from drug dealing gangs battling over marketshare? Do you want to ban alcohol? If not, stop with your hypocritical BS. The fact someone commits a crime while under the influence of something does not justify caging millions of people who did not commit that crime.

You don't know what I mean, do you? What do you think we do with the corpses after we declare them dead? You don't think we just walk away and let the janitor dispose of it do you? Nope, the corpse has to be cleaned off enough to make it presentable to the family. Then the family has to be shown in. Someone stays with them, console them, and answer questions while they view the corpse.

Gee, I didn't know

Oh, is this argument getting too emotional for you Berserker? Well, it's real, and your's isn't.

I don't let emotions lead me into the immoral trap of punishing the innocent because of the guilty.

No, not in the years 1910 to 1930, and the lack of a publication date makes the citation untraceable.

Geez, how did you miss the statistics posted by Ramo? He posted homocide statistics compiled by the Commerce Dept refuting your claim that crime didn't increase during prohibition and all you can do is complain that he didn't offer a publication date?

Again, there seems to be an attention span problem here. If you were to take the murder stats for NYC and treat them as if they were the stats for the whole state you would dilute the results.

The results wouldn't be "diluted", they'd make it look like the state of NY had more crime than it really did. The result of using murder rates from two urban centers to translate into a national murder rate before prohibition would skew the stats to make it look like there was more crime before prohibition (if the compilers made the mistake of not understanding the inherent bias). And that would mean the actual increase in crime during prohibition when the feds started using more reliable data would appear smaller when in fact the crime under prohibition increased even more.

Like I said, In the first decades of the 20th century there wasn't a unifrom process for the collection of crime data. Crime data is inevitably collected at the local level, passed on to the state, and then in turn passed on to the federal government. Most of the states didn't bother with collecting crime data from every county prior to 1920.

Which all means using urban centers as the basis for stats skewed murder rates higher before prohibition. The result? The appearance of a smaller increase in crime
resulting from prohibition.

Because real researchers list the entire citation so that other people can go look it up!

So you don't trust the Commerce Dept's stats? Hmm...first you dismissed Ramo's post claiming it was propaganda from a pro-legalization site, then after he pointed out the obvious fact the stats came from the Commerce Dept and not from the "propagandists", you dismiss the stats because they were not accompanied by publication dates! Why don't you produce stats showing crime went down during prohibition?

But he was ambitious and very early in his career as director he pushed for a role of the Bureau of Investigation as a national agency for he collection of crime data.

Then you explain why the Commerce Dept was compiling crime stats because they obviously were.

The 18th Amendment went into effect in January of 1920. While ratification of the 22nd Amendment didn't occur until December of 1933, FDR put into effect a law permitting legal beer in the Spring of 1033.

Correct. Now explain why murder rates began escalating after 1920 and began decreasing after 1933.

Many parts of the country, especially agricultural area, began suffering from economic reversal as early as 1926. Ever here of the dust bowl?

Both the Great Depression and the Dust Bowl occured in the early 30's and the latter was exasperated by a major drought beginning in 1932.

Ted -

This myth about the benevolent pot smoker that harms neither himself nor anyone else needs to be cleared up.

No one said every pot user is a saint. But using them to "justify" putting millions of people in cages is immoral.

I posted a short list (end of pg 4) of negatives resulting from the drug war and you guys have ignored that list. You guys have not produced any evidence prohibition has reduced drug consumption or crime - the two goals of prohibition. We have posted plenty of evidence showing that crime has increased under prohibition while offering evidence that prohibition has not reduced consumption.

[Berzerker]

This debate should be about the following questions:

1) Does prohibition reduce crime?

2) Does prohibition reduce drug consumption enough to outweigh all the negatives of prohibition?

No one on your side has even tried to answer these questions in the affirmative. Only Dr Strangelove has made the effort to address these questions, and his arguments were destroyed by Ramo with actual homocide statistics compiled by the government.

Here is a graph showing the effects of prohibition on murder rates:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer...y/graphs/10.htm

Notice how murder rates increased dramatically under alcohol prohibition and doubled during the more recent drug war? That means about 5 people are murdered for every 100,000 people
because of intensified prohibition. That's 12,000 - 15,000 people every year! Furthermore, if prohibition is supposed to reduce crime by reducing consumption, and crime actually increased, doesn't that mean consumption increased? But you guys would have us believe prohibition decreases consumption, so why did crime - murder rates/property crime - increase?

Here is an article on traffic accidents and drugs:

http://www.druglibrary.org/think/~jnr/nhtsa1.htm

You guys point to the "horrors" of marijuana use, but fail to explain how prohibition prevented those horrors - because you can't. In fact, all you've done is tell us legalization will dramatically increase consumption, but don't offer anything to support your claim. In an earlier debate, someone posted US Commerce data showing that alcohol consumption actually increased under prohibition. And in The Netherlands where pot was largely legalized quite a while ago, teen use of pot there is much lower than here in the US. And in India where pot is legal (last I heard) they don't have the "problems" with consumption we have here. While I can't track down the stats right now, I did see the author of a pro-prohibition book on C-SPAN, and this man acknowledged that the consumption of drugs was comparable or slightly less back in the 19th century when they were mostly legal. So where is your proof that legalization will significantly increase drug use?

Here are some of the negatives of prohibition:

1) 1 or 2 TRILLION dollars down the proverbial rathole. That's 30 years at an ~ average of 30-70 billion a year.

2) Increased crime rates, particularly murder and property crime.

3) Corruption, numerous cases of law enforcement getting involved with drug dealing.

4) Overcrowded prisons have led to the outrageous situation of early release programs for real criminals to make room for drug offenders.

5) Diverted law enforcement resources to bust people for drugs means less money available to catch real criminals. The drug war should be re-titled to accurately reflect the result - the crime empowerment act!

6) Asset forfeiture laws have been used to seize the property of people who had nothing to do with drugs, often without ever charging the property owner of any crime. They charge the property with a crime instead and use less stringent standards of evidence to "convict" the property. There have even been a few cases where landowners were targeted just so their land could be seized if the agents got lucky. One case led police to kill a homeowner who believed he was protecting his wife from late night intruders. Farmers with large tracts of land are in jeopardy of losing it all to government if someone else tries to hide pot plants among his crops.

7) Bungled drug raids have caused many deaths of both police and civilians, including many cases of "mistaken identity".

8) The spread of STD's is propagated partly by needle sharing. Outlaw drugs and paraphenalia and you help spread STD's through government policy.

9) Overcrowded courts have not only increased plea bargaining for real criminals, it has bogged down some jurisdictions with drug cases so much that civil cases have lengthy waiting lists.

10) A nation of suspects! That is what we've become since drug possession is a "crime" without a victim, there is no one to file a complaint with the police, and no one to offer a visual ID of the perpetrator or the stolen property. No leads means the cops have to "guess" who is violating the law and that leads to (racial) profiling.

11) The black market, fueled by the profit margin of illegal drugs, not only causes real crime to increase, but creates job opportunites for the poorer members of society. This has led many teens to get involved in the drug trade.

12) Back in the mid-80's, the feds followed by the states increased penalties for adults busted dealing drugs.
The result was not surprising - many adults seeking to avoid those harsher penalties recruited teens who were exempt from the more severe penalties into the drug trade. It's no coincidence these laws were quickly followed by record gang recruitment. If you are a teen about to sell drugs, better join a gang for protection and marketshare. It's no surprise juvenile crime began skyrocketing around this time.

13) Religious freedom? Not in this country! Yeah, some people use drugs as part of their religion. At least the alcohol prohibitionists exempted Catholics from their social engineering.

14) Marijuana prohibition led to heroin and cocaine trafficking. Why? They're easier to transport and more profitable.

15) The US blackmailed Colombia into fighting our drug war. The result? A vast increase in crime and violence! But I thought drug wars reduced these

16) Guilty until proven innocent! That is the immoral assumption underlying the drug war! Just look at this thread. People here want government to forcibly take our money - "taxes" - to pay for what they want. And what is it they want? To punish millions of people who use drugs because some drug users hurt themselves or others. As if being physically abducted and put in a cage with violent criminals doesn't harm the user. If all non-drug users were being put in cages because some of them hurt themselves or others, people who don't use drugs would scream bloody murder.

17) I'd like to see all murderers punished. I'd like to see all rapists and robbers punished. But how can one reasonably support a policy that seeks to cage 30-40 million people? We don't have the jail space and never will!

18) The black market to supply adults with drugs has spilled over to children. Maybe this is why the teen rate of marijuana usage is lower in The Netherlands than in the USA where we have a massive black market. We don't see The Marlboro Man and Jack Daniels walking around the local school grounds.

These are just some of the negatives you guys have to overcome...

Nothing so needs reforming as other people's habits. - Mark Twain

No man is good enough to govern another man without that other's consent. - Abraham Lincoln

Prohibition will work great injury to the cause of temperance. It is a species of intemperance within itself, for it goes beyond the bounds of reason in that it attempts to control a man's appetite by legislation, and makes a crime out of things that are not crimes. A Prohibition law strikes a blow at the very principles upon which our government was founded. - Abraham Lincoln: Speech in the Illinois House of Representatives, Dec 18, 1840.

[Ted Striker]

No one said every pot user is a saint. But using them to "justify" putting millions of people in cages is immoral.

Well I think jail time for drug users isn't a good idea.

Jail should be for the violents first and foremost.

[Berzerker]

Dr Strangelove - are you going to answer my questions or run away...again? The stench of your hypocrisy would repel a starving vulture!

1) Immoral - advocating the punishment of millions of people for using pot based on the crimes of others.

2) Hypocrisy - advocating the punishment of millions of people for using pot based on the crimes of others while not advocating the punishment of everyone else based on the crimes some of them commit.

3) Intellectual dishonesty - attributing fictional arguments to your opponents so you can defeat your strawmen instead of addressing what they have said.

4) Demagogue - using those fictional arguments to vilify your opponents.

While the first two apply to supporters of the drug war, you're guilty of all four!

[korn469]

awsome couple of posts berzerker!

i'm not sure if the history of why the federal government actually started enforcing drug laws is in this thread, but it is quite interesting, basically it is another case of governmental creep

i just want to say that i totally agree with your 18 points, and i think that those 18 points along with freedom of choice outweighs the benefits of trying to enforce drug laws

to me when i see someone light up a joint i do not associate that with criminal behavior

however if i saw somebody take an axe and cut another person up i would associate that with criminal behavior

now certainly each society has different norms, and murder could be a norm in certain societies, however i think a far greater number of societies could agree that murder is against the norms of society, while drug use wouldn't garner such agreement

junk food certainly causes more deaths indirectly through heart disease etc, than pot does indirectly however chocolate and nachos are socially acceptable killers

[Berzerker]

Korn469 - thx

i'm not sure if the history of why the federal government actually started enforcing drug laws is in this thread, but it is quite interesting, basically it is another case of governmental creep

And extremely racist! First it was the Chinese and opium dens - the "Yellow Peril", then it was cocainized "negroes", followed by Mexicans and "marijuana" - a term intentionally popularized by William Randolph Hearst of "Remember the Maine" fame who wanted to eliminate industrial hemp from the marketplace to raise or maintain the value of the paper-producing forested lands he had purchased in 1920's and 30's. The term "marijuana" was used so often that many farmers who were growing industrial hemp - a crop re-legalized to fight WWII (hmm..."utility") - didn't even know they were being attacked by the unconstitutional legislation passed by Congress.

i just want to say that i totally agree with your 18 points, and i think that those 18 points along with freedom of choice outweighs the benefits of trying to enforce drug laws

I left out freedom because supporters of the drug war like the Doc and Ted apparently don't give a damn about it (unless it's their own freedom under attack), their arguments are about the "utility" of prohibition so my list dealt specifically with that alleged utility.

to me when i see someone light up a joint i do not associate that with criminal behavior

Yup, I associate it with self-ownership - freedom. The real criminals are the people who assume the "authority" to dictate what the rest of us can or cannot ingest and use violence to enforce those dictates - prohibition.

however if i saw somebody take an axe and cut another person up i would associate that with criminal behavior

But while you and I (and many others) see this quite obvious distinction, the Doc cannot. I guess logic is not a requirement for becoming a "doctor".

junk food certainly causes more deaths indirectly through heart disease etc, than pot does indirectly however chocolate and nachos are socially acceptable killers

Exactly! The diabetes epidemic in this country (USA) is driven by processed sugar but I don't hear the Democans demonizing that product, no, they subsidize it!

[Deity Dude]

I agree - well done Berzerker. Then again I'm a Libertarian. I always felt I knew what was best for my self as opposed to a collection of people Ive never met.

Korn - junk food is probably worse for you then pot. The problem is, when I smoke pot - I eat way too much junk food.