it performs a similar function and even has a similar chemical make up. key word being SIMILAR not the SAME.

Not quite, though i do enjoy getting stoned. Youre not going to be able to get it all through congress at once. just like prohibition started gradually and snowballed, decriminalization and regulation is going to have to go the same way.

While I agree with you that pot would be a good place to start the end of the drug war, I find it very self serving on your part how you simply don't care if there is suffering and injustice in our system unless it affects you personally. If you are an American citizen that believes in justice and freedom, then it is imperative that you should care. Our country did not get as bad as it is because people cared. It got as bad as it is because of people like you who are only concerned with themselves. Am I getting through to you?

It is much stronger then street speed. Your argument is flawed, thus, you will not win this point.

Fine. It's what they call a distinction w/out a difference. Since I've no desire to engage in an organic chemistry discourse, suffice it to say there is no meaningful differnece between the two except for legality.

Marijuana is illegal because you can't make cloth, paper or construction materials out of alcohol.

The bolded are direct results of drug prohibition rather than drug abuse (consider that not a lot of people kill one another for their alcohol, nor rob people for a few bucks to feed their habits - why bother - you can beg for enough to buy a 40 in half an hour) The other one is an ancillary side effect (i.e. prohibition doesn't cause meth users/addicts to behave erratically, but prohibition did cause the crystal meth epidemic).

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"Government big enough to supply everything you need is big enough to take everything you have... The course of history shows that as a government grows, liberty decreases."

-Thomas Jefferson

So you're that a drug's illegality is the only reason that it causes people to commit crimes and cause suffering? The use itself is a choice to abandon one's ability to totally control one's decisions. I do think that marijuana is one of the least harmful drugs besides caffeine and nicotine, but if we begin to discuss more 'hard' substances, the parameters for criticism are a little too wide.

No, but he was talking about killing/robbing people to get more money for said drugs. Last I checked, we didn't have too many people robbing/killing one another and then running into the store to buy a pack. Also, correct me if I'm wrong, but drugs don't cause people to do anything. They can impair one's mental functions, but they still cannot cause much in the way of coherent behavior.Well, not always. Many people can control themselves with a bit of alcohol. Some can even control themselves with a LOT of it. However, some do have trouble when using a lot. It depends on the person and on the quantity.

I don't know if it's adjusted for illegality. If it is, then making all drugs legal would generally just legalize those more dangerous and those a lot safer. If it's not adjusted for it, then tobacco and alcohol are probably some of the worst drugs on earth. Legalizing those other ones won't do much of anything except increase liberty and decrease local strife.


Why is it any of your business if others use drugs?

Are you so concerned for others that you want to "save them from themselves"? I would like to know just why you think its a good idea to imprison a person, take away their right to vote and their right to own a gun and their right to privacy, make it difficult to ever find "good" employment ever again and drain their bank account through court fees, lawyer fees,lose their job which often leads to losing their Families. All because they were caught with a "controlled" substance? I guess you don't know, or care because it doesn't apply to you. But, mark my words....This "War on Drugs" is a war against Families, it's a war against humanity it's a war against us...Even if you do not use drugs you will be impacted in one way or another because of it. It could come in the form of a loved one being arrested or you or a Family member or loved one might be robbed, shot, stabbed or burglarized by an addict because black market prices for their illicit fix are marked up 500% over legal retail.
Our government should not be involved in dictating what we do with our own bodies as long as we don't hurt others in the process. That's what free counties are about......freedom.

JD, you've hit the nail on the head.

not going to read 15 pages but I believe we are all aware that smoking is bad for you irrespective of what it is.

feel free to make tobacco illegal too, I've seen first hand what that does. glad I had sense enough to quit decades ago.

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Socialism doesn't create a rising tide that lifts all boats. It drains the lake and teaches the boat riders not to help themselves by rowing.

Jesus loves you, allah wants you dead

"Every government interference in the economy consists of giving an unearned benefit, extorted by force, to some men at the expense of others."

Ayn Rand

The best argument for continuing to make pot illegal would be that by making it legal it would cut down on people who go to jail, and by cutting down on the prison population, that would take jobs away from all those people involved in that industry in America, which is one huge industry when you consider America jails even more of it's population as a percentage than even communist China.

Can't make it legal, that would reduce jobs.

Same argument as why we sould continue on with dirty methods of producing energy, nevermind the fact that more and better jobs would be created by clean-living rather than dirty-living, since oil is going to run out over the next few decades anyway.

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“The America I know and love is not one in which my parents or my baby with Down syndrome will have to stand in front of Obama’s ‘death panel’ so his bureaucrats can decide, based on a subjective judgment of their ‘level of productivity in society,’ whether they are worthy of health care. Such a system is downright evil."-Sarah Palin, not having a clue once again about what she is talking about.

how is that not liberty?

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I care, theres just nothing i can do about it RIGHT now. There IS something i can do about pot. Which will get the ball rolling.