Time to legalize Pot

[Pottapaug1938]

"We can't legalize pot because that would lead to legalizing [insert bogeyman drug here]"

Did you know that 100% of heroin users have previously drunk milk?

Worse yet, all druggies, alkies, pedophiles and spouse beaters all breath air and at one time drank water. I think "good old" dihydrous monoxide is the ultimate gateway chemical.

There are oceans of evidence streaming into my computer about this chemical. I will brook no delay in my efforts to make it illegal, and send its pushers "up the river".

[LaVidaRoja]

KCB-- You're all WET!!

[Pottapaug1938]

KCB-- You're all WET!!

Perhaps he mist that joke....

[LaVidaRoja]

You calling him a drip?

[texino]

Must stop these puns---Now this pot stuff; I have seen it work wonders on cancer patients, but have never conducted any double blind studies to prove it. It is, however, a medicinal weed that has been used as an anti-emetic and calming agent for hundreds of years. Most importantly, it has never killed anyone. In fact, "dangerous drugs " are only harmful if abused. Of course home made potions such as "meth," ecstasy and PCP are a whole other thing; we are talking about drugs that have some medical value. You might be surprised that Medicinal cocaine HCL is commonly used in ENT practice for treating severe nose bleed. Of course, heroin isn't in the drug cart, but morphine is and it is used not only for pain relief, but it works as a vasodialator to move fluid from the lungs of a patient in acute pulmonary edema. Nitrates are also handy for this as they do not cause central nervous system depression. Still morphine or any opiate can be reversed by use of an antagonist. Back to pot. It seems that where it is legal as a RX med the states are making the tax dollars and the business seems to be clean. I'm quite for the medical legalization simply because it is an inexpensive way to apply treatment to a myriad of complaints without some of the dangers associated with traditional medicine. I admit to using it on occasion and find that it blunts the symptoms of my Parkinson's. My doctors know about this and I would not recommend trying marijuana in aid of a serious condition without seeking medical advice. I hope this post is of some interest, as I find it hard to make my points as my PD progresses.

[Pottapaug1938]

I'm packing to go whitewater rafting; so I'll confine myself here to saying that, when my mother-in-law was dying of pancreatic cancers, pot was the ONLY thing which kept the nausea at bay enough for her to take any nourishment. Had the cops found out, the fact that she lived withon 1000 feet of a school would have enhanced any legal penalties imposed on anyone (and do the fools who enact laws like this not realize that schoolkids who want to buy pot know where to find it, even if it's 1001 feet away?).

[texino]

Good points Capt. and Pottapaug. Catch this lyric from Cab Calloway's "Minnie The Moocher"
"She hung round with a bloke named Smokey. She really dug him though he was cokey. He took her down to China Town and showed her how to kick that gong around." Now this music was being played to white people who were slumming in Harlem. Plus, Calloway's band was featured in films. I guess that singing bout Coke and opium was OK so long as the inference was drawn that it was a black person activity. Personally, I think raising the penalties for selling reefer within so many feet of a church is pretty bogus.

[Green Lantern]

You will find that a lot of the intial hysteria regarding the evils of marijuana and cocaine were tightly intertwined with racism.

Cocaine was a drug that was supposed to make the negroes go crazy and go after white women, while marijuana was only the provenance of dirty, lazy wetbacks, and opium was a ploy by those nasty little yellow people to enslave God-fearing white children.

The racism may have left, but the same unhinged hysteria about drugs has remained.

Exactly so---I think Zinn and Loewen both discuss this.

We have legal use of alcohol and tobacco---two of the deadliest substances on the planet. Rather than waste money on apprehension, detention and ostracism of users, I agree with those who favor legalizing, taxing and treating. Let's face it---people already use, so let's just take the 'dangers" argument off the table. It appears that $ trillions have left the US the last 50 years and found its way to drug lords and other seamy organizations. Let's cut 'em off at the knees.

BTW--I don't use marijuana or cocaine, but find all the federal "Wars on Such & Such" to be total crap.

[Cpt Banjo]

Thirty-six years ago, the Alaska Supreme Court held that criminalization of the possession of non-commercial amounts of pot in the home violated the right-of-privacy provision in Alaska's constitution. The case, Ravin v. State, 537 P.2d 494 (Alaska 1975) makes an interesting read.

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/leg ... /ravin.htm

Subsequent developments are discussed at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ravin_v._State