Should Hemp/ Marijuana be legal?

yes yes yes and more yes. and not just because i am a happy user of it.

To be honest with you, I don’t care if it is illegal or not. What annoys me is people whining about the fact that it is not legal (at least not over here in the UK). I wish people would just get over it. I’m sure it does have it’s uses but right now it is breaking the law to have it on your person so stop whinging when you get caught and take some responsibility for your actions. Having said that, if it was made legal I would have no problem with that. I don’t use it myself but what others do is up to them. I also don’t have a problem with people using even though it is illegal but I just wish that when they are caught with it they would accept the fact that they chose to break the law (whether they agree with that law or not!) and they should deal with any consequences.

Sorry to rant but I have recently had to sit and listen to a few pot heads I know moaning that they got caught red handed but they shouldn’t have to accept the consequences because “it is a stupid law”. Grow up!

Rant over!

You do know that the hemp that is used industrially is not the same hemp that is smoked to get high, right…..?

@Leanne1986 i agree with that fact that if you get caught just to fess up because you made the decision. its not like anyone forced it upon you to carry it or do it.

@basp yes i do know that there is a difference between the 2 im just sayin i feel they should be legal

yes, most definitely.

more help

Two different questions, but the answers to both are yes.

Yep. And taxed.
Same with prostitution.

@peyton_farquhar that I do agree with!

Without a doubt it should be legalized and as peyton says, taxed!

Yes. I’m ready for the government to get their head out of their ass and realize the profitability of hemp. How can cigarettes be legal but not weed?
Most Addictive Drugs
Most Dangerous Drugs

Yes

Yes. And I live in Humboldt County. I should know.

There is no sound reason for it not to be.

For all who have answered ‘yes’ to this question, how should the inevitable rise in schizophrenia incidence be dealt with once it is legalised?

@FireMadeFlesh I answered yes, because the criminal use and penalties are far worse than the possible consequences when it is legalized, plus it is hoped that the taxes charged on the purchase will go toward the inevitable rise in medical expenses to be covered by the taxpayer.

There is also the possibility that the worst case users will simply eliminate themselves from the gene pool, thereby saving the rest of us a lot of trouble.

@FireMadeFlesh : Why do we have to deal with it? It’s a risk that every user will take. Just like every drinker risks liver disease, every tobacco user risks oral/lung cancer, every driver risks being in an auto accident, every pedestrian being hit by a car, etc. I’ve known plenty of pot smokers in my day, and if it was such a huge problem, I would’ve seen it by now.

Also, why would legalization increase the cases of schizophrenia? Likely the people who are interested in smoking pot already do so. I think this is the least of our worries.

In my opinion all drugs should be legal. I don’t use any, not even alcohol, but the fact that people go to jail for something as harmless as owning plants should be easily recognized by anyone with a modicum of common sense as the height of stupidity and hypocrisy. Tobacco is legal but cannabis isn’t? Can anyone provide solid proof of cannabis causing death, cancer, or any other serious health problems? Tobacco alone kills, what, 500k people a year? Alcohol causes how many auto-related fatalities? My father was put in a wheel-chair by a drunk driver. A cousin of mine rolled his car while drunk, decapitating himself. No one thinks twice about the legality of alcohol, but oh my god… a plant that makes you feel relaxed…tar and feather the user as a deviant and throw him in prison! Damn ‘druggies’! What a joke.

I know prohibition didn’t work, and I’m not calling for that… throughout history man has had his vices and that will never change. Stop the hypocrisy, legalize it all and tax it all. Strengthen the laws on drug-related crimes (any violent offense while under the influence, including drunk driving), use the extra tax money to educate children (and adults for that matter) on the dangers of drugs, especially the two most plentiful: tobacco and alcohol.

@FutureMemory I wouldn’t want them to legalize it all. Do you know how explosive manufacturing crystal meth can be? I’ve seen houses that were blown to bits from a large meth lab gone wrong. It’s not something you would want your neighbor to be doing, for your own safety.

@Phobia But it’s not necessarily something that everybody would be doing. Legalizing it would make the price go down, leading to less people actually manufacturing the stuff.

I wouldn’t have a problem with it at all if it was manufactured in a controlled environment instead of a home-made lab. If it was legalized but, like whiskeys and such, needed a license to manufacture, it would be a bit safer. Of course, this still wouldn’t stop those who want to make it at home….

@ubersiren Illness in any form is a burden on the state. Where I live, governments have put millions of dollars into anti-smoking campaigns because it is cheaper to deter people from smoking than it is to support them when they have lung cancer, throat cancer, strokes etc. The same goes with marijuana. It is cheaper for the state to make it illegal than it is to deal with all the adverse effects it may have. I work with mentally disabled people, and it draws a lot of government funding. People who contract medical conditions from their own choices are still a burden on the state – we support people with asbestosis, even though asbestos manufacturers are at fault. I don’t doubt that marijuana has some positive uses, but just to cover all bases I would like to know how supporters plan on dealing with the adverse results as they arise.

I don’t buy the argument that the people who would suffer from it already are, isn’t the point of legalising it to make it more accessible? This means more people will smoke it and more people will suffer from its adverse effects, such as schizophrenia.

@FireMadeFlesh

where is the data supporting a causal link between marijuana use and schizophrenia?

1. This one shows a substantial link, although it is more linked to heavy use than use in general.

2. This study shows more drastic delusionary symptoms in schoziphrenic patients among those using cannabis.

3. Another one states that “Second to alcohol, cannabis is the most frequently misused substance among patients with schizophrenia.” and “Thirteen per cent of the sample had a history of cannabis abuse, which was twice the rate of matched normal controls.”

4. Yet another study says that “People with major mental illnesses such as schizophrenia are especially vulnerable in that cannabis generally provokes relapse and aggravates existing symptoms.”

Just search the relationship between cannabis use and schizophrenia on Google Scholar, and you will turn up these exact results and many more. It is well documented. Note I haven’t yet read the full text of these articles due to lack of time, but the abstracts are quite clear in the results of their studies.

firemadeflesh
the studies you offer are about individuals who are already schizophrenic and abusing pot…......they do not say that if one uses pot they will become schizophrenic.
I would imagine any substance that was abused by a schizophrenic whould impact their symptoms and condition.

@basp I think I would have to agree w/you on the last part of your statement.
abuse of any drug has the potential to exasperate any mental illness.

@basp Fair enough, I’ll give you a few others with that in mind.

1. This paper finds that appearance of schizophrenia in cannabis users is either due to confound variables, which is open to debate, or that cannabis is a risk factor for schizophrenia.

2. This one shows an even stronger set of results, stating “On an individual level, cannabis use confers an overall twofold increase in the relative risk for later schizophrenia. At the population level, elimination of cannabis use would reduce the incidence of schizophrenia by approximately 8%, assuming a causal relationship.”

Again, there are more on Google Scholar.

Yes.

why not. It does not kill you

@msright1981 Maybe not, but it has the potential to severely diminish your quality of life. I think the beneficial attributes should be investigated and used as directions for future medicinal research, just like Morphine has been produced from opium, but the plant itself should remain restricted to lessen the impact of the adverse effects on the state health system.

@FireMadeFlesh

I really don’t smoke Marijuana, but I don’t see it addictive so it really will not diminish your quality of life unless you use it ridiculously. I mean its not much different than alcohol, if you go crazy about it then its your problem not the product it self problem :).

@msright1981 That’s fair enough, I’m not sure how addictive it may be. Another factor that must be considered then is the extra cost of making RBT units able to deal with marijuana intoxication as well as alcohol. I think you make the mistake of assuming that people are in general responsible. Most people might use it responsibly and with relatively little adverse effects, but there will be people who don’t currently use who will use it in excess. We currently have ad campaigns targeting binge drinking, and it would cost a similar amount again to run campaigns against excessive cannabis use.

Marijuana should be legal for personal consumption and growth only.
Two reasons why it has not and probably will not:

1. The war on crime is BIG money for both sides of the fence.
2. Marijuana legalization for profit would create competition for alcohol. Not going to mess with that “good old boy” BIG money.

@FireMadeFlesh I agree with you some people will use it in excess, but that does not mean to forbidden every one from using it. I mean some people use cars as a killing machine the way they drive, shall we forbidden cars. I believe we should have a law to punish people who use it in excess, than punishing every one who use it. I believe it will be more controlled that way, than its now. Ah guess what, it will get cheaper & dealers will not car to spread it as much as well :).

@msright1981 I see your point, and I think we may have to agree to disagree.

One final point though, because of the strong aroma people who do not wish exposure to cannabis will end up exposed in a form of passive smoking. A friend of mine, who is very clean, told me that she felt effects of cannabis walking down the streets in Amsterdam.

Taking Amsterdam’s liberal laws for cannabis as a case study, do you think it would be successful? I don’t know the answer, because I don’t know much about the place, but I would be interested to see a study done on it.

@FireMadeFlesh This answer has some interesting things to say about it. This article might shed some light on the subject.

@YARNLADY very interesting, thank you.

I did a thesis paper on medical marijuana and found studies that compared Holland to the U.S. One study in particular showed a decrease in marijuana use after it became decriminalized, particularly amongst the group America is most eager to see use in decline—ages 12 through high school.

@FireMadeFlesh, If you ask me I am against allowing smoking in public area :P. So that will resolve the full question. We decriminalize marijuana, but not allow smoking it in public area. I mean just like most places for Cigarettes. I mean Cigarettes has a worse passive smoking effect than marijuana, so try to control it the same way.

Let me grow a couple of plants. I will smoke it in private.
All that needs to be allowed.

@ChazMaz haha I have no problem at all in allowing that, So vote for me in the next election :).

@msright1981 you got my vote.

@prude I still need only few million votes extra :).

@msright1981 I think your on the right path
lol

@prude I am working on it. Anything else you guys want to be allowed let me know so I can include it in my election campaign.

@msright1981 on your campaign trail you can throw free hemp stuff at your supporters;)

If it were to be legalized, i think it should be legal to grow yourself too. That way all the potheads would naturally be more interested in nature and our enviroment.

Hemp is already legal for making things. Rope comes to mind.