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Interesting reading

Butterbone

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That was interesting.
Seemed pretty clear case though right. All the guy had to do was keep his dope in another room, and be a bit more tidy around the house.
But at the same time, criminal type folks aren't known for maintaining high standards in their lives now are they.

An ounce of prevention, could save your ounce of weed.

On the other hand, putting any person in jail for marijuana is pretty much the dumbest thing I have ever heard.
The war on drugs should only count Weed if it also counts Alcohol and Nicotine.

Treat it like alcohol. Just like alcohol. If they get high and crash their car, bust them for DUI. But sitting around their house .. nuts.


I'll be seeing if google books has this though, A Critical Guide to the Second Amendment , 62 Tenn . L . Rev. 461, 480
(1995) (reporting that felons did not historically possess a right to possess arms) .

That might be interesting.
 

chris in va

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Ah, legalize pot...why not. Alcohol is legal but regulated and we all know what it does when people abuse it.

IMO legalizing pot is jumping from the frying pan into the fire.
 

Butterbone

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I agree that anything when abused, isn't good for anyone.

But you can't honestly say that a 20 year habitual pot abuser is any worse to society than a 20 year alcohol abuser.

I know plenty of people from my younger years who are well into their 30's and are still daily pot smokers and the worse thing I can say about them is that they are kind of dull and relatively unmotivated cause the only thing they are really interested in is pot.

Now take a 20 year old kid, bust him with an oz of weed, send him to prison for 5 years, and he comes back out, Meaner, dirtier, and more skilled than when he went in. Now he fancies himself an outlaw and turns directly to crime and drugs because he knows he can't even work at McDonalds with his record.

Left to his own devices for 5 years he probably would have just messed up alot of drive through orders and smoked his brain out.
 

KY_CCDW

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"Left to his own devices for 5 years he probably would have just messed up alot of drive through orders and smoked his brain out."

And killed somebody on the expressway....
 

boohickey11

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I hate to keep a non-firearm topic going but I would like to make some comments.

How can one claim the right to bear arms while claiming that another does not have the right to do something that they want to do? I should hope that one would not say that the US Constitution gives us the right for one and not the other because they would not know their history very well. The right to bear is inalienable and given to us by god.

The choice to pull out your firearm on a bankrobber puts you in the position to possibly kill an innocent person. The choice to smoke/drink and then to drive is the exact SAME risk.

If I can't smoke marijuana because I might kill you then you can't own a firearm because you might kill me.
 

Butterbone

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"and killed somebody on the expressway"

Just like the old lady who had an Alzheimer’s episode at 70 miles per hour.
Illegalize Oldness?

Just like the trucker who nodded off even though he had his regular sleep schedule.
Illegalize drowsiness?

Just like the 18 year old who was trying to connect her IPod to the stereo at 70 miles per hour. Illegalize music?

Hundreds of other reasons for car crashes including perfectly legal antihistamines, sneezes, just poor driving, and many more.

Pot...is pot.

For someone who takes such pride and serious consideration in expressing his right to carry a deadly weapon where ever he pleases whenever he pleases, you sure have a funny way of looking at other peoples rights about other things.

So bad guys use guns in a bad way, and that's what the anti-gun nuts hold over OUR heads when we want to maintain our right to own firearms.

So some people who do bad things smoke pot, and YOU are going to hold that over the head of everyone else???

Hmmmmm... That's interesting.

Then I guess you have to switch camps, and give up your guns, and start screaming at gun owner’s right?

Since you and they hold the same logic standard, obviously you must see how they are right.
Right?

People have been using it for longer than they have been creating alcohol, its earliest traceable use was 7000 bc for paper and rope and shamanistic ceremonies and pain management.

The first law associated with marijuana is from the Jamestown colonies in 1690. Farmers were required by law to grow certain amounts of the Indian "hempseed".

1910 is when the first prohibition of marijuana occurred and it was outlawed in salt lake city Utah by the Mormons because a group of missionaries came back from Mexico with marijuana, and church attendance started to drop off along with donations because people were spending their time out in the countryside smoking pot, having potluck pick nicks and appreciating the wonders god had made without cutting a little bit of that cash off for the church.

The marijuana prohibition has not reduced its use, its repeat use after incarceration, or it's generally accepted status as "harmless".

The marijuana prohibition has however cost the United States Tax payers more than 16 billion dollars since 1986 for its part in the war on drugs.
Marijuana arrests have resulted in 2 million people being sent to prison for 5 years or longer since the war on drugs has started, and who knows what the cost of that is.
The marijuana prohibition has createdmassive and violent illegal trafficking cartels in Mexico where they didn't exist before.
Marijuana is easy to grow there, and easy to transport in bulk so for every 1 delivery that gets caught 10 or more make it through meaning that we can NEVER slow the supply enough to make it cost ineffective for the cartels.

Ok there are a few cops on here right?

How many of you would throw your hands in the air and stop being cops if Marijuana became legal but controlled like alcohol?

Would it bring anarchy to your normal beat or would it give you more time to look for people who may actually be doing something dangerous, rather than being forced to scrutinize every car that drives by with smoke rolling out the windows?

I don't advocate marijuana legalization out of interest in being able to smoke it.
I outgrew it when I was turning from a teenager, into an adult.
Once I could legally go into bars, pot seemed like way too much hassle compared to just hanging out and having a beer.

It's just my opinion that the effects of marijuana use on society have never been bad enough to make it illegal.
The biggest problemwith pot has always been that you can't stop people from growing it at home and processing it themselves.
So in the past there was no real business in growing controlling and distributing it like Tobacco and Alcohol.

But people are so ignorant and lazy now days, they would still buy it rather than grow it themselves, so it would be a brand new market for generating cash in the US.

And just think of the benefits of integration and population distribution!

How many hardcore inner city gangster types would try to get Farm loans and move to Minnesota or Montana so that they could become full time pot farmers?

More than would try it now, I guarantee it.

Might even cause a decent migration from many urban areas into rural farming areas and lower costs in cities while increasing jobs in the rural areas, and increasing property values, and putting a little pep back into the farming sector of the U.S.

I would argue that it would increase tourism, but in all honesty, if the US legalizes marijuana 2 dozen or so other countries would legalize it within a month.
Many countries only outlaw it because they have to as part of international agreements with the United States so that we put bases in their country which generate millions for them, and because we won't sell them cheap guns or surplus tanks and weapons if they don't follow our War on Drugs policy, or because we won't forgive some of their Aid Debt they owe us.

There are more reasons to legalize pot than to continue wasting money to prohibit something that is no different than buying a 6 pack of beer.

You can have all the outrage you wish. It doesn't change the facts.

You want people to have the freedom to carry a gun, but not to smoke a joint???

What about cigarettes??? You want to make my smokes illegal?

So how much other stuff do you want to take away from everyone else while making sure that the things YOU want to do are OK???
 

KY_CCDW

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I guess I know why some here are such big proponents of open carry and not concealed carry. You CANNOT get a concealed carry license if you are a user of illegal drugs (like marijuana), unless you are a liar about it.
 

MgoBlue

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boohickey11 wrote:
How can one claim the right to bear arms while claiming that another does not have the right to do something that they want to do? . . .
Well . . . at the risk of perpetuating a non-gun topic, I'm gonna jump in!

The right to bear arms is a fundamental right granted to us as an amendment to our Constitution. Smoking pot is not.

You seem to infer that people should be free to do whatever they want to do. If that were the case, society would be chaos. Freedom? That's an illusion. All of us are controlled. By so many different things. The least of which are contingencies of reinforcement in the environment. (spoken like the psychologist I am, right?) What's more important is that we need controls in society. Absent control, we have no society.

I do not want anyone here to think that I believe that pot is some evil substance. As a matter of fact, my wife and I were discussing this just last night and reached the conclusion that pot is relatively harmless (as far as mind and behavioral altering substances go). However, it is mind altering. Whether behind the wheel of an automobile or the grip of a Sig P226, individuals under the influence of pot, alcohol, or even strong prescription medication put themselves and others at unnecessary risk. If you choose to smoke in the safety of your own home -- and are certain you will not drive nor shoot -- then, I suppose you can have at it. There are worse things you can do to yourself.

Still, society has deemed smoking of pot to be against the law. In my youth did I break this law? Most certainly. Fortunately (for me), I was never in a position to be caught. However, as I have grown and matured, I put such practices behind me -- for the good of myself and my family. Just as (in my earlier years) I drove many times from the O-club at Miramar NAS after having too many drinks, I learned to also put such foolishness behind me.

If everyone who drank or smoked pot did so in the safety of their homes, there would be no danger to the rest of society. Since we know that not to be the case, legalizing pot probably would only lead us to further problems on our streets -- and even in my college classroom! As it is, far too many of my students suffer from major alcohol problems. Not only does their driving put others at risk, but the drinking is killing off enough brain cells to put their education and future careers also at risk. We should not go further down the road of liberalizing the use of any additional mind and behavioral altering substances.

Just my 2¢. Thanks for reading! Reg
 

boohickey11

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MgoBlue wrote
The right to bear arms is a fundamental right granted to us as an amendment to our Constitution. Smoking pot is not."

...Still, society has deemed smoking of pot to be against the law.
The Constitution does not give Congress the right to make the laws that make Marijuana illegal. Therefore, those laws and your argument are invalid.

I believe in freedom; I believe that if what I choose to do does not hurt others then I should in no way be restricted from doing these things. Choosing to drive in a dangerous manner (DUI or whatever reason) is dangerous to others and therefore inflicts upon others freedom of life.

In 1930s and 40s German, "society" deemed Hitler a good leader and Jews to be a sub-human race that should be 'dealt with'. My point is, *bleep* society.

I'm a libertarian so I can go on forever like this. I make a habit of pointing out hypocrisy and creating simple logic. :cool:
 

Butterbone

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I definately think Congress has the authority to make laws to restrict things. And that they should.

As far as the constitution goes, the constitution is a series of continual restrictions on "natural actions of living" to define the state of a civil secular society.

Theescalating list ofrestrictions placed on the natural state of manare designed to protect people from undue influences of each others ideaologies or lack there of.

I appreciate that the right to bear arms is seen as a natural right. So is the right to eat drink or smoke anything I choose.

Has the government outlawed turpentine even though you could drink it?

No they haven't. There are alot of cases where something dangerous is totally legal to own, but recommended that you not use it cause it could be hazardous to you.



I agree with the prohibition of most narcotics and opiates as well because there is no anecdotal or medical evidence that there is anyone with a "maintained cocaine addiction" like there are people with maintained alcohol problems.

People can and do have sustained heroine addictions, but they constantly fall off the wagon and go on benders and OD and so on.

So I can agree with prohibition of substances like that.

But I can't agree with alcohol being legal but marijuana being illegal. Alcohol alters a persons state of mind, factually much MORE than THC.

You never hear anyone say, "Man I was so high last night I took that fat chick home from the bar".

"Man I was so high last night I passed out in the front yard and didn't even make it in the door."

"Oh don't party with that guy, when he smokes weed he get's angry and starts fights with anyone around him."



And yet we all probably know someone for whom those statements have been accurately made, except you have to substitute drunk and whiskey as the state and substance.



I'd rather someone be high on THC, and carring a side arm, than someone Drunk on alcohol and carrying a fire arm. THC calms a person, enhances and produces light sense of euphoria and introspection.

For most people alcohol lowers inhibitions, decreases cognitive reasoning, slows erflexes, and in a small portion of the population, drasticly increases adrenaline production, and activiates the fight or flight mode of the brain, but then supresses the flight part. Just kicking them into a fight and fight mode.

I do no think anarchy is a positive state for any society. It just doesn't work.

But we are talking about legalizing and controlling, a substance cultivated for recreational use, not unlike the cultivation and production of multiple forms of alcohol that people drink daily in many cases.

Legalizing pot isn't opening the door to Anarchy.

It's recognizing that pot got lumped in to the failed War on Drugs, and taking away the restriction for what is still and will continue to be the most widely used illegal substance in the country.

Just take that one and legalize it, and give it a few years and measure the results.

Anarchy and chaos will not be an unstoppable state of affairs and it won't happen overnight.

Look at the prohibition of Alcohol. People just kept on drinking, and the states lost millions and millions in taxable revenue, and the prohibition of it, actually created new and larger and more violent criminal cartels than had existed before it's prohibition.

Sound familiar???

After prhibition was lifted? Dozens of new distribution companies popped up over night. Paying taxes and employing people, and buying buildings and trucks and equipment.

More than likely the same thing will happen after the end of prohibition on marijuana.

New business will arise out of the old, and the only people who will have the hardest time are those who were a part of Reagan's Just Say No movement who will feel betrayed for all the work they did.

Well sorry. Times change. Noone is sayin you failed or that you were wrong. But in the current era, it's just not as big a deal as you guys thought it was back then.
 

Thundar

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boohickey11 wrote:
The Constitution does not give Congress the right to make the laws that make Marijuana illegal. Therefore, those laws and your argument are invalid.

I believe in freedom; I believe that if what I choose to do does not hurt others
+10

If the constitution had to be changed in order for the Federal Government toprohibit alcohol, then what is the federalconstitutionalauthority for congress prohibiting marijuana?
 

Butterbone

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1937 Marijuana Tax act.

At this point, marijuana (or marihuana) was a sensationalist word used to refer to Mexicans smoking a drug and had not been connected in most people's minds to the existing cannabis/hemp plant. Thus, many who had legitimate reasons to oppose the bill weren't even aware of it.

Back then noone called it Marijuana. They called it Cannabis, and Hemp.

William Randolph Hearst spent 2 years, running stories in his newspapers all over America the described insane axe murderers killing off white women in parks, all because of MARIJUANA and REEFER!!!
 

KY_CCDW

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Let me know how getting the drug laws repealed on a constitutional basis works out for you. You better have a bunch of money to pay the lawyers.

In the mean time, ITS STILL ILLEGAL, and if you do it, YOU'RE A CRIMINAL!
 

MrOverlay

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Gee Whiz!

I thought a forum about firearms would be interested in a Supreme Court case that in part says that what the Constitution says can be changed by the Legislature if it has a compelling reason. No Constitutional amendment, just a new statute.

I had no idea that the drug part of the opinion would be the dominant, if not the only,discussion point.
 

smoking357

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Y'all realize that the mechanism that allows pot to be criminalized due to some people feeling uncomfortable with it and believing it causes danger and harm to others is the same mechanism that people can use to ban guns, under the same rationale.

People have a right under natural law to enjoy pot, booze, and apple pie.

People have a right under natural law to protect them and theirs from harm and encroachment, thus they have a right to spears, bows and guns.

Whether I approve of what another person is doing is irrelevant. I shouldn't be looking over his fence, and he shouldn't look over mine.
 
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