Marijuana: Another Senseless Overdose

[Felch]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Felch X-

What about massive fines?

Would that not accomplish the goal of regulating marijuana consumption while not arresting those for a joint?

I think that the state does have a compelling interest to restrict and regulate substances such as marijuana.

What about cocaine, LSD, amphetamines? Should these also be legalised?

It simply isn't the state's business to tell me how I can **** myself up. I don't like cocaine and amphetamines, because their potential for addiction is dangerously high, but that's a personal choice. I wouldn't use them myself, nor would I go out with a girl who does, but I've got friends who mess with them, and that doesn't bother me.

Acid should be legal. It's just so much fun.

[chequita guevara]

dp


What the heck is going on with the server?!?

[MosesPresley]

The following article is about alcohol, but I think the argument is relevant. Especially since there were a couple of mentions about driving under the influence.

edit: added link

http://www.joebobbriggs.com/jbamerica.asp

Too Drunk to Drive, or Just Too Drunk

By Joe Bob Briggs
July 4, 2002
copyright

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This is the time of year when we get assaulted with "Don't get drunk" ads.

Of course, they don't call them that. They're "Don't drink and drive" ads, or "Know when to say when" ads, or "Be a real friend--take the car keys" ads.

But I've noticed something over the past five years or so. Gradually the messages are changing from "don't drive drunk" to "don't get drunk at all." They're not so much about protecting lives on the highways as about making alcohol into this Evil Thing that no right-thinking person should ever over-indulge in.

Didn't we go through this once before? Didn't Carrie Nation fight this battle a hundred years ago? Didn't we have ten years of total alcohol probition, thereby proving that it doesn't work?

The difference a hundred years ago is that we had women saying "We don't want you men to drink," and the men saying, "Well, we like to drink, so we'll do it at the club where you can't catch us." Women hardly drank at all, and when they did it was some sort of fruity thing like a julep. (Come to think of it, not that much has changed.) The battle over drinking is partly the ancient battle of the sexes. Women could live without it. Men couldn't.

Earlier this month the Michigan legislature put into effect a new law saying that "I was too drunk" can't be used as a defense to any crime or behavior, no way, no time. I would be surprised if it's constitutional--you're supposed to be allowed to put on any defense you want the jury to hear--but let history record that the bill was sponsored by a female. And Michigan wasn't the first to do it. Ten other states have outlawed a defense that was previously honored for almost a thousand years: admitting intoxication as a way to plead that your judgment was impaired.

The only way this can be interpreted is that drinking too much is now a crime in itself. "The defense that you don't have to take personal responsibility because you are drunk," said State Representative Ruth Johnson, sponsor of the legislation, "is against everything this country stands for."

Well, not really. Laws like that weren't even common in Communist Russia, where they penalized you for the slightest outrages against public "normalcy," but where drunkenness was still regarded as a partial defense. When the Constitution was written, public drunkenness was a crime, but when other crimes were committed while drunk, it was considered a mitigation. That principle lasted about 200 years, and I don't think the courts enforcing it were unAmerican.

It's not a crime to get drunk. Let's start with that. We're going through some kind of retro-Puritanism phase right now in which any kind of benevolent depiction of intoxication is banned. Foster Brooks, Red Skelton and Dean Martin, entertainers who traded on their intoxication, doing "drunk acts" onstage, would probably be picketed by the PTA today, and they certainly wouldn't be allowed on national television.

The reason given, if you press for an explanation, is to cut down deaths on the highways. But what if, like me, you have no car? Why is it assumed that everyone is driving? Even if you do have a car, you might not have it with you. And how is the bartender--on the hook for "over-serving" laws--supposed to know whether the person he's serving has a car or not? Haven't we passed laws that essentially say it's no longer legal to get drunk, even in a bar, regardless of whether you're driving or not?

So the whole driving issue is a red herring. The real truth behind all this legislation is that the authors of it simply don't like liquor. If they could bring back Prohibition, they would. And making it illegal to do anything WHILE drunk is just a back-door way of saying you should sip one wine spritzer per day and then go home and have some coffee. It's yet one more example of government trying to legislate lifestyle.

It also assumes that everybody is drunk in the same way, at the same level, in every case. It makes no distinction between actual blackouts--when you really don't know what you're doing-- and being one-tenth of a point over the legal level of drunkenness. It makes no distinction between the guy who is impaired after one drink, because he's an alcoholic, and the guy who can drink ten but still make judgments. There was a time when it was believed that judges and juries should make these kinds of fine distinctions, but now we have one of those "zero tolerance" laws.

"Zero tolerance" is the solution for people too lazy or stupid to figure it out. "Zero tolerance" is for people who think every court case is the same, every defendant is the same, and every judge is a child who shouldn't be allowed to look the accused in the eye and make a judgment call. (Increasingly judges aren't allowed to judge anymore.) "Zero tolerance" is the language of the fanatic, the zealot and the witch-hunter.

I'll give you an illustration. In any drunk-driving case, there are three factual points in time that have to be studied by the court:

1. When the guy started drinking.

2. When the guy got into his car.

3. When the guy got stopped, either because of an accident or because he was pulled over.

The number of drinks has to be divided by the time that elapsed between point 1 and point 2 in order to figure out how drunk he was.

At point 2, there could--under the old laws--be two types of mitigation. He might know he's had too much to drink but get in the car anyway. He might think he's under the limit. Or he might be so blind drunk that he doesn't even know what city he's in or what day it is. Under the old system, evidence would be presented to determine what kind of decision he was making, if any at all.

This is all moot now. The legislatures and courts have essentially said, "People who drink have no rights." A person having an actual alcoholic blackout--a person who is, according to the American Psychiatric Association, clinically ill--is regarded at point 2 as a person who is rationally choosing to endanger other people's lives.

But the law goes even further. Current DWI laws say that, if you cause an accident while drunk, you're punished more than a person who drives recklessly for some other reason--for example, a person who's just angry, or stressed-out, or sleepy. The logic here is that you always know what you're doing when you get into the car, even if later events prove that you don't know what you're doing. You get an extra year, or ten years, tacked onto your sentence for choosing to get behind the wheel, even if you can prevent evidence showing that you didn't choose to get behind the wheel--evidence that is now forbidden anyway.

What this does is hammer you for point 1--having the first drink. It's a law against drinking. And maybe that's what they want. God forbid anyone should suggest that every case is different, that types of intoxication are as variable as types of people, that levels of responsibility are as complex as human beings. God forbid we should go back to having real trials instead of kangaroo courts. God forbid the courts should ever show an iota of mercy to a sick man.

That would be so 19th century.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
I sure don't hate you because of it and I'm sure that feeling is mutual.

Agreed, for a change.

[Arrian]

Quick question:

Why, when discussing health effects, does everyone seem to assume you have to smoke pot to get high? Cookies will do the trick, and not **** up your lungs. Plus they're yummy.

As for driving stoned... bad idea. Done it, was impaired, realized it, stopped doing it. Alcohol & Pot impair you differently, but they both impair you.

There is really only one problem I see with the legalization + driving is this:

The current testing for marijuana will turn up use over a long period of time. It isn't equivalent to a breathalizer. So how do you test for stoned drivers? You could pull somebody over, test them, and charge them for getting high the previous weekend, while they were completely sober when driving. That's a problem for law enforcement.

-Arrian

[Willem]

Originally posted by obiwan18
Felch X-



What about massive fines?

That amounts to the same thing. Except that only the poor will end up in prison.

[Willem]

Originally posted by Gatekeeper
But that doesn't mean I can support the full legalization of all this crap that's illegal right now. It's my so-called "line in the sand," I guess.

We're not talking about "all this crap", we're discussing marijuana. In comparison to what currently is legal, it's relatively benign, even beneficial in some cases. So it makes no sense to me that someone can be branded a criminal and a drug abuser simply because he/she light up once in awhile.

You seem to think for some reason that if we open that door, that our streets will soon littered with heroin addicts. That's simply not the case. Look at The Netherlands! They have the most liberal drug laws in the world right now, and they also have the least amount of problems due to drug addiction, especially in comparison to the US.

[JCG]

Legalize it. Why not?

Afterall, if you want it, then you surely deserve to get it. :sarcasm:

(make of that what you will)

Just don't pretend it's totally harmless.

[Willem]

Originally posted by JCG


Just don't pretend it's totally harmless.

Nothing is totally harmless. Even the air we breath has pollution in it that can affect our health. But of the known mind/mood altering substances, marijuana is about the least harmful.

[Berzerker]

Gatekeeper -

FYI, I did *not* call you an idiot, although I am sorely tempted to do so at this very moment. To wit:

Y'see that little part in bona fide quote marks? It was posted by Oerdin way back on Page 1 of this thread, prior to my arrival in this thread.

So why did you quote my response to Oerdin and accuse me of twisting your words when I was responding to him? You caused the confusion by quoting my response to him and acting as if I said it to you.

Now, get that joint smoke out of your eyes and apologize.

Don't blame me for your mistake, a$$hole.

What I was trying to communicate — repeatedly, I might add — is that if you make pot into just another legal drug available at nearly every store in town (much like tobacco or alcohol), you *do* increase the risk that someone will abuse it, and that someone could be the person in charge of an airplane, a train, a truck or some other critical component of modern society.

And my point is that you are advocating the punishment of millions of people based on what someone else does while under the influence - that's immoral. Furthermore, banning pot does not prevent people from using pot before flying a plane. And you are making an unsupported assertion - that pot use will increase if legal. The historical record refutes your assertion, drug consumption was comparable to today when all drugs were legal.

Detachment from reality, huh? I beg to differ. I happen to believe that pot has a far more significant impact on one's perceptions when using it than, say, a shot of booze or a smelly cigarette. That's called a difference of opinion, pal, not a detachment from reality.

Nice try, but we were talking about being drunk as opposed to high on pot. Thinking that being high on pot is worse or even comparable to being drunk is a detachment from reality.

Yep. I also advocate beheading pot users. The ultimate deterrent. (cue in barbarian roar here)

You don't believe pot smokers should be punished? You want the behavior illegal, enforcing the law requires punishment.

I'm a non-drinker, so any argument involving my supposed support of legalized alcohol won't get much of a reply from me.

Do you want to ban alcohol and do you tell opponents they should be willing to board planes flown by drunks?

BTW, did I also say somewhere in this thread that booze is cool? If so, please show me, Berz.

Did I say you did? If so, please show me.

The second part of your argument rests on a faulty base; namely, the assumption that what I was saying in my first post was a challenge.

Stop your ******* spinning, you can call it whatever you want. I saw it as a challenge and a charge of hypocrisy. Telling us we should be willing to board planes flown by high pilots if we support legalising pot is just as absurd as telling proponents of legalised alcohol that they should be willing to board planes flown by drunks. You're trying to get an emotional reaction, not a logical or moral one - that's demagoguery.

It wasn't, and I'm not going to repeat that again. It was an attempt on my part to get across a single point: Why increase the risk that you would be on a flight with a stoned pilot?

Then you should have said that instead of implying hypocrisy. But how does banning pot decrease this risk?
Would you have government mandate we all sleep a certain number of hours before work since a pilot might fly while fatigued?

But I refuse to live with adding yet another risk on top of that; namely, the possibility of stoned pilots.

That possibility exists now. How can you be oblivious to this reality? And you are still advocating the punishment of millions of people based on what a pilot might do.

Y'know what? I actually support drug treatment programs for addicts. But, hey, with your ability to peer into my soul, you've uncovered my dark, slithering monstrous secret. (insert requisite barbarian roar here)

Wtf does drug treatment have to do with your desire to punish millions of people based on what a pilot might do? What if a pot user doesn't want your "treatment"? Will they have a choice or will you force them into this "treatment"?

Ah, so now we're going to veer off into the wonders of amphetamines, are we? Sorry, but I'm not taking the bait again. This is all about pot and the ramifications of making it legal (or keeping it illegal).

If you want amphetamines kept illegal, your "concern" about impaired truckers is insincere. I'm not surprised you dodged that one too.

BTW, did anything ever come of those two U.S. airmen who are on trial for accidentally killing four Canadian soldiers over in Afghanistan? I remember something being mentioned of their use of — yep, you guessed it — amphetamines! Yes, yes, I know. State-sanctioned in this case to keep the men awake longer and supposedly more alert. Tell that to those dead Canadian soldiers.

Funny, the state gave them the amphetamines. But they were also given bad information, they were told there were no friendlies in the area. But instead of the bad info, you blame the drug. Did you know the practice of supplying speed to soldiers goes back to WWII? We might have lost WWII without amphetamines. The Pentagon also blamed the explosion of the #2 turret on the Iowa on an "alleged" jilted homosexual - Clayton Hartwig - but it was later shown to be bad powder. They made up the BS about Hartwig!

Oh my, Berz. Aren't you being a sweet boy tonight? Just for that, I think I'll really push for a "Behead Drug Users" bill in Congress, just to fulfill your *fantasies* about folks like me.

That was your strawman, not mine.

Non-drinkers and free of drugs like pot, nicotine, cocaine, crack, heroin, and meth. We're a dangerous bunch all right.

You seek the destruction of our freedom, you certainly are dangerous.

Actually, the impression I got was that *all* those drugs are considered "gateway" drugs and that this study was merely a repudiation of those who claimed that pot *wasn't* a gateway drug. That claim, according to the study, is likely *not* true.

A study you didn't even link. By your criterion, every drug is a "gateway" drug. Even the extensive study commissioned during the Clinton administration claimed that pot was only a "gateway" drug because of it's illegal status.

Pot could very well be a gateway drug, is the essence of the study.

And I asked what that meant and you dodged that too. Is basketball a "gateway" sport if I started out playing basketball before playing other sports?

According to the study, which appears in the Journal of the American Medical Association: "... By tracking 311 pairs of Australian twins (both fraternal and identical) in which one twin used marijuana before age 17 and the other did not, researchers have been able to show that early pot users are as much as five times more likely to use or abuse cocaine, heroin, hallucinogens, sedatives or alcohol."

Geez, do you ever respond to my counterpoints? By the age of 17, countless environmental factors have affected changes in these "twins".

But here's the kicker, Berz: "... What makes this (study) so persuasive is that it factors in such things as economic background, family upbringing and even, in the case of identical twins, genetic makeup."

How does it factor in psychological reactions to what life brings? If you start out with "identical" twins and one faces more stress than the other, you won't have "identical" twins in 18 years. Why is that so difficult to understand?

The study also has the caveat that it doesn't have all the answers, but that it gives young people one more reason to heed the advice of their elders.

Yeah, doesn't have all the answers.

I'm going to use a tactic employed against me by another person who skipped over a chunk of what I'd written in another thread: "BLAH, BLAH, BLAH, BLAH. What's your point?"

Did you chastise them for skipping over what you typed in another thread? If so, that's just more hypocrisy. You advocate punishing millions of people for smoking pot based on what a pilot, engineer or trucker might do. That means you advocate punishing the innocent because of the guilty. You wouldn't consider that a moral endeavor if you were the one being punished because someone else committed murder. If government didn't exist, would you run around "taxing" people to get their money to put millions of people in cages for using pot? Would your behavior be moral? If not, what about "government" transforms it into moral behavior?

[Berzerker]

Gatekeeper, I see chegitz asked you for your position on banning alcohol and you danced around that one. But it sounds like you would oppose banning alcohol, so, does that mean you should board a plane flown by a drunk?

[Ben Kenobi]

Willem:

But of the known mind/mood altering substances, marijuana is about the least harmful.

Prozac?

Also, your point regarding the inequity of fines is well taken, although Felch didn't manage to come up with that idea. I don't support fines, I'd rather keep the status quo.

MosesPresley:

Many men as well as women supported alcohol prohibition. The issue is not the gender of the protesters, but the prohibition. It is NOT about gender politics, but about the effects of drunks on society. I go to a Russian ministry, and for them, one of the worst problems people have is with overconsumption of alcohol. There is nothing wrong with having a drink or two, but overindulging causes problems for both the drinker and the other people around him.

Apostle Paul asks that those who are strong to accede to those who are weak. Those who don't have an alcohol problem should be allowed to drink, just not in front of those who are recovering.

Personally, I don't trust myself with alcohol. I'd rather leave it alone. I've driven many a friend home, and helped host their parties, so I don't miss out on much of the fun.

[Berzerker]

Obiwan - Paul also told slaves they should strive to be good slaves. Sorry, but he is a pollutant to the Christianity of Jesus. If Jesus told slaves they should be good slaves, Christianity would be an immoral religion.

[Ben Kenobi]

Couple passages here.

Ephesians 6: 5-6

Slaves, obey your earthly masters with respect and fear, and with sincerity of heart, just as you would obey Christ. Obey them not only to win their favor when their eye is on you, but like slaves of Christ, doing the will of God from your heart.

Colossians 3:22-24

Slaves, obey your earthly masters in everything; and do it, not only when their eye is on you and to win their favor, but with sincerity of heart and reverence for the Lord. Whatever you do, work at it with all your heart, as working for the Lord, not for men, since you know that you will receive an inheritance from the Lord as a reward. It is the Lord Christ you are serving.


This begs the question, if Paul really approves of slavery why does he modify his expression to 'earthly masters?'

Paul answers your very question in 1 Corinthians 17-23.

Nevertheless, each one should retain the place in life that the Lord assigned to him and to which God has called him. This is the rule I lay down in all the churches. Was a man already circumcised when he was called? He should not become uncircumcised. Was a man uncircumcised when he was called? He should not be circumcised. Circumcision is nothing and uncircumcision is nothing. Keeping God's commands is what counts. Each one should remain in the situation which he was in when God called him. Were you a slave when you were called? Don't let it trouble you--although if you can gain your freedom, do so. For he who was a slave when he was called by the Lord is the Lord's freedman; similarly, he who was a free man when he was called is Christ's slave. You were bought at a price; do not become slaves of men.

[David Floyd]

I have only one comment. Someone who wishes to punish me for a voluntary act that is non-coercive and harmless to anyone except myself out of a sense of superiority, moralism, religion, or anything else can **** themselves.