DO YOU THINK POT WILL EVER BE LEGAL?

[WantDaChronic]

I belive that the only reason that pot is illegal now is because of the fact that the drug trade is the only non-taxable trade left in the world....it might not be like that with australia but if it aint it would be due to australia's laws reflecting those of the USA....

 

no matter how many people are pro pot there will always be very strong opposition...remember the NBN Telethon ??? well they talked stacks about drugs during the time that the telethon was being held which sorta informed the community about drugs...i think that a short series about drugs, ie. deicate an episode to a different drug, that run for an hour or so outlining ALL the facts about that particular drug....it would be pretty funny if they did run a series on drugs and said pot aint a drug so we wont touch it ...what ya think the public would say then ???

 

anycase im stoned and gonna read some more stuff on here so have a good one all and have a bong for me

[Guest Wilderbud]

It has medical benefits that other forms of drug cant provide so it must be legalized for medical use as soon as possible. Tell people you get stoned daily if they are anti-drug then ask them why its illegal and then tell them you may be supporting criminals by seeking illegal drugs [makes them think every time Ive done it].

 

It sucks to write this next part because I enjoy the ideal of being self-sufficient.

 

Everyone growing their own isnt a good idea IMHO - it attracts criminals [people who make money from illegal/immoral activities]. A government-run [military-protected] commercial plantation would be a safe place to grow marijuana until the price of street-marijuana is reduced enough to make it a less attractive drug to steal and sell [less people will hold a gun to your head to steal your ounce of tobacco but they probably would to steal your ounce of marijuana].

 

Crap, now that I think of the above two points it raises another drama - exportation would be attractive if the price of weed was reduced in one country and not another. Frreing the weed isnt as easy as it sounds.

Edited August 26, 2003 by Wilderbud

[pipeman]

wilderbud that makes no sense to me. If everyone is growing their own the demand to buy weed will drop, therefore so will the prices and profits and therefore if there is less profit to be made from weed the less chance there is you're going to have crimes resulting from it.

[Guest Wilderbud]

wilderbud that makes no sense to me.  If everyone is growing their own the demand to buy weed will drop, therefore so will the prices and profits and therefore if there is less profit to be made from weed the less chance there is you're going to have crimes resulting from it.

Just growing your own isnt helping to overturn stupid laws - it makes it cheaper for you to use it and cuts profits of dealers but you still risk being burgled and raided so its a temporary solution.

 

We had a methadone trial supposedly so why not do the same for marijuana to see if it stops people from 'commiting crimes to support their habit/dependancy' - using marijuana should be less of a crime than using alcohol as its more safe.

[Guest agitator12]

There are too many vested interests for it to be made legal:

Cops use it as an easy way to garner crime stats & ask for more police.

Criminals would no longer make any money from it.

John Howard & his ilk would no longer be able to polarise the community

Plus the BIG ONE-the US needs prohibition to protect big business.

[pipeman]

how does prohibition of MJ protect big business?

[ScuzZ]

Marijuana won't be legalised within Australia for a long long time. Why would the government legalise something they're not getting their share of?

 

They'll decriminalise it for medicinal reasons because they don't want to be left behind in cancer research.

 

It's the same with alcohol and firecrackers. The first time a firecracker hurt someone they were banned, but how many people are killed each year due to alcohol related accidents?

 

There has never been one death reported due to an overdose or stupid act under the influence of Marijuana.

[Luke Skywalker]

ScuzZ Posted on Sep 1 2003, 05:53 PM

There has never been one death reported due to an overdose or stupid act under the influence of Marijuana.

 

I doubt that is true mate, there are lots of idiots out there who've toked up and been killed, it's not that amazing a thing. Whether the marijuana itself killed them directly, ie, gave them a heart attack or made them suffer a stroke or massively overdosing, is another matter, I don't think that's very likely, but I'm sure it's happened. I know of a guy who's lungs collapsed due to bong smoking, he had to have his lungs reinflated through tubes in his chest and never smoked again. This isn't a good example, I think it was the bong that nearly killed him, not the weed, but do you see what I mean? And I don't think you can compare alcohol and firecrackers... ones a drug (poison actually, but it has drug like effects in low doses) and the other is a small rocket.... That's like comparing heroin to cars. Many hundreds, if not thousands are killed or injured by cars, and yet heroin kills relatively few.... So should we ban cars?

 

Anyway, on to other things....

 

pipeman Posted on Sep 1 2003, 02:54 PM

how does prohibition of MJ protect big business?

 

The prison business is huge in the states, just to name one industry in particular which benifits greatly from drug prohibition. 25% of the worlds prisoners are held in US gaols, and yet they have only 4% of the worlds population. People aren't gaoled for 99 years for having an ounce of pot and a bong in their home because they know that these are heavy criminals who deserve to be punished to the full extent of the law. They do it because it's a cheap labour force. Which can be selectively recruited through the justice system. It's a bit conspiratorial, I know, but they have privatised gaols in the US, and they make money by getting more prisoners, and more prisoners can make more products for the prisons to sell... They don't have to pay anything like a decent wage, if at all, let alone provide good health care. The costs are more than outweighed by the profits because if they weren't, these private companies never would have gotten into the prison/slave work business... would they?

 

That's just one, and there are many other industries which are greatly advanced by current prohibition laws. Alcohol is one, so is the large pharmaceutical (sp?) companies, although it seems that some are starting to buck the trend by producing cannabis based drugs.... They'd never support legalisation tho, as that would substantially lower the prices they could demand for their products, not to mention having an almost complete monopoly on scientific knowledge on cannabiniods... I'm fairly sure they aren't going to use this advantage to humanities benifit, unless you define that as being the CEO's benifit.... The synthetic fibre industry has a vested interest in keeping cannabis down... whilst we don't differentiate between drug type cannabis and fibre strains, then they are able to exploit the absence of the strongest natural fibre from the market. If more countries changed from cotton, (which in turn also supports prohibition, as they also compete for fibre markets, not to mention the fact that cotton needs massive amounts of pesticides to make it to harvest, whereas cannabis needs little if at all...) and synthetic fibres to more hemp production... jobs, stronger clothes, housing... shit, the list is just endless as to the applications of this plant... and as a result, there are a lot of powerful people out there who would support the status quo, regardless of any benifit to mankind....

 

Whew, only a few minutes back online at home again and I'm ranting like never before.... Anyway, this doesn't mean I don't think that cannabis will or should be legalised... I feel that if enough people get together and show a concerted voice on the subject... then we'll get there. If we say that "it can't be done" then it won't be... If we say, "we know that you want it to stay this way, but we're mad as heck and won't take it anymore" then we will succeed.

 

Have some faith in the plant... Its made it through several thousand years of human co-existence, I'm sure we'll have it around and be using it freely in the future, even if we can't do so now....

 

That's my 5c....

[Mr Nice Guy]

Thanks for opening my eyes more to how fucked America is Luke... I was watching cops the other night... And they had 3 undercover cops dressed as gang members selling like 1-2gram bags for 5 bucks and as soon as someone would buy them all these cops would come and bust them, take there car (They were saying to them you can buy your car back from us when you get out of jail). Its fucking disgusting. Im glad I don't live in America

[Guest niall]

I feel that if enough people get together and show a concerted voice on the subject... then we'll get there.  If we say that "it can't be done" then it won't be... If we say, "we know that you want it to stay this way, but we're mad as heck and won't take it anymore" then we will succeed.

Precisely, well said Luke Skywalker

 

This is my first post here so hi... There's two problems here - the original illegality, which had nothing to do with harm and everything to do with US scaremongering, and the ongoing status quo of illegality.

 

There was no valid reason to prohibit cannabis - all kinds of lies were made, and in some cases no real debate was even entered into after it was described as "a narcotic of some kind" - the politicians who banned it had never even heard of it and asked what it was! So really, it should have never been made illegal in the first place.

 

But it is, so the question becomes: how do we change its current status? How do we wrest free of this inertia that makes criminals of otherwise law abiding Australians, prohibits a plant that is undeniably relatively harmless, and in fact causes far more harm than the plant and its users ever could?

 

Cannabis could be legal today if those who came before us had gotten their shit together. Canada is leading the way now, it's effectively legal and unregulated until the Supreme Court rules on the constitutionality of prohibition around November-March. We're running way behind in Australia.

 

It really is up to us, do you guys want to legalise cannabis or not?

 

I'm serious! Is anyone else willing to put down their bong for a few hours a week and actually make a difference? PM me if you are, it all starts here, tonight - if you want it to.