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"The last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be legalized. We have enough problems with alcohol and abuse of pharmaceutical products. Do we

by Rod 18y ago

"The last thing we need is yet another mind-altering substance to be legalized. We have enough problems with alcohol and abuse of pharmaceutical products. Do we really need to add yet another mind-altering substance to the array?" That's a good point. Since I am not an expert on the topic, I will abstain from commenting on how mind-altering marijuana is. However, it does seem natural to conjecture that if one smokes more pot, then one's mind will be "more altered", right? Hence, why not follow the Dutch model? This would mean: - all shops selling marijuana would require the customers to provide some identification card / document. - a network would connect all the marijuana shops to a central database where each person's purchase would be logged. Each person would be allowed to consume a certain quantity of marijuana per day. If one exceeded this limit, the shop would NOT be allowed to sell marijuana. That way, one could legalize the consumption of marijuana, but impose upper bounds on how much can be consumed daily. Of course, the shops could sell pot and not register the transaction at the database, but if caught they would be closed down. There could be a limited number of licences to sell pot per county, so that no shop would have an incentive to break the rules, as that would lead to loss of the precious licence. The downside is privacy. All marijuana sales would be logged at the database. Would this make any sense? What do you guys think?

litewulf 18y ago
I believe that bartenders are not allowed to serve drinks to people that are too intoxicated. I think one could simply apply a similar thing, perhaps with subtle social pressures to smoke marijuana in public places?
baddox 18y ago
Or, workplaces could still do drug testing. Since marijuana is non-toxic, the potential issues from marijuana use can be handled by employers and/or family and friends.
ruby_roo 18y ago
Just try it. At least once. Don't like the smoke? Have a cookie. Within 15-20 minutes, you'll be wondering why you can't get marijuana from a liquor store, taxed and regulated in a similar manner to the rest of the products they sell there (which happen to be far more harmful to you and society anyway). Side effects from over-doing it are basically mental slowness and a lack of motivation (even this will go away if you just stop for a while). If you start sucking at your job, your suckiness should show up on your performance review and HR should handle you accordingly. Maybe you get fired. This is how an alcoholic would be handled, anyway. There is way too much fear and over-analysis surrounding this topic. The tools to manage it are already here. Marijuana is already here, and will continue on just fine regardless of whether it is legal or not. Overachievers like Michael Phelps and Barack Obama will smoke marijuana and go on to do great things, just as they always have. Just legalize it already so we can finally benefit from California's number one cash crop, out in the open, rather than letting the majority of the profits go into the pockets of people who very often do pose a credible threat to society and require insane amounts of tax dollars to manage.
- tome 18y ago
  > which happen to be far more harmful to you and society anyway Are you sure that it's not that they're more harmful precisely because they're legal?
  - jerf 18y ago
    Yes. As much as I'd like to leave it at that one snarky word and leave you to fill in the rest, I had better fill out my argument by pointing out that this experiment was actually, factually tried, and it went terribly. Illegal alcohol was far worse for society than legal alcohol. Prohibition resulted in the only flat-out repeal of an amendment of the Constitution ever.
    - tome 18y ago
      You're right: I wasn't precise enough in communicating what I meant. What I was trying to get at was not "wouldn't alcohol cause fewer problems if it was illegal?" but rather "won't legalization of a niche* drug be guaranteed to massively amplify the social ills it causes?". I have no experience with cannabis, so I'm asking because I'm interested: how do you know that the massive increase in participation which would follow legalization will not cause cannabis to become more of a problem drug than alcohol? * let's face it, cannabis use is niche compared to alcohol and tobacco
garply 18y ago
Why should a marijuana consumer be logged in a central database? Stores are required to do ID checks, but there is no database for alcohol or tobacco consumers.
- Rod 18y ago
  True. On the other hand, some claim that THC is more mind-altering than alcohol. I don't know if it's true or not. I won't go into that. Imagine stoned drivers losing control of their SUVs and running over little children walking out of school. This doomsday scenario could be used to argue against legalization. Of course, drunk drivers are as dangerous, and drivers high on valium are not harmless either. However, there's a cultural "problem" which leads most people to consider some drugs acceptable (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, valium) and some other drugs "evil" (e.g., marijuana). I am not a big fan of the Dutch system of having a central database, but if it would help tame people's fears of over-consumption, then it could be a good idea. Why not devise a smart system which would assign a unique identifier to each person (think authentication instead of identification) so that people's consumption could be limited without compromising their privacy. That way, if there were a privacy breach and the data leaked to the public domain, no one's privacy would be at risk because there would be no way to map one's identifier to one's ID. Do you think this would make sense?
  - garply 18y ago
    People smoke very different amounts, so at what amount do you cap consumption? Imagine the same scenario being carried out for alcohol. You might drink a couple beers a month, but Joe the Drinker might max out his beer quota every day and still want more. You, or someone like you with an entrepreneurial bent, might then decide to max out your own beer quota every day in order to sell the beer to Joe with a markup. Then presumably the law would need to crack down on you for selling your alcohol ration to someone else, and we're in a legal place very similar to where we started. Doesn't that issue crop up in the Dutch system? Or is the allowed amount high enough that people can essentially get as intoxicated as they want?
    - Rod 18y ago
ewiethoff 18y ago
Sounds like what New York has been doing with pseudoephedrine sales for the past year or so, though I don't know whether the limit is daily, weekly, or monthly. I find the whole pseudoephedrine thing eerie, but I'm not opposed.
jerf 18y ago
"Do we really need to add yet another mind-altering substance to the array?" - "That's a good point." Actually, it's a terrible point. Three paragraphs after being informed that marijuana is a $14 billion dollar industry already, not a $14 billion dollar industry in potential but in actual fact, we get two paragraphs of people whining about "adding" pot into the mix. Adding? It's there! Like it or not. This is why journalists get no respect from me. These guys ought to be asked how anything would be "added" to the $14 billion industry already in place. Perhaps they'd come up with some decent answer, after all, but in the meantime their argument as presented in this article is terrible. At least the last paragraph showed some sane recognition that the horse bolted from the barn millennia ago.
- Rod 18y ago
  Marijuana IS a mind-altering substance. Disregarding this scientific fact is potentially irresponsible. We are not even discussing policy / politics here, it's Science. And unless you are a neurologist or a pharmacologist yourself, I really do NOT believe you are qualified to argue against this. Recalling the words of wisdom my parents' old-school doctor friend used to say: "the dose, not the substance, makes the poison" (it sounded more impressive in latin) Thus, instead of discussing the BIG questions such as whether marijuana should be legalized or not, why not discuss the details such as how much marijuana would each citizen be allowed to consume on a daily basis without endangering others. The devil is always in the details, right? It's true that the industry is there. But that fact alone does not mean it's OK to go ahead and legalize everything without any bounds and reason. Following that rationale, why not legalize prostitution, human trafficking and arms dealing? After all, these industries exist already, right?
  - jerf 18y ago
    You missed my point. It was simply a narrow point that there's no "adding" to be discussing. It's here, and it's huge. Speaking as if there's nobody consuming marijuana and legalizing it is going to suddenly cause a huge burst in consumption is simply factually incorrect. It may cause an increase, but it can't cause a huge increase. It is a dishonest tactic that is almost always used by proponents of a law, to slip in the hidden assumption that the law already works, or will simply work if added, even when flatly contradicted by the truth. Personally, I can't hardly conceive of how marijuana prohibition could be any more of a failure than it actually is. None of the rest of what you talk about is relevant, as you simply read into my post. I'm not even claiming "it's there already so let's legalize it". I'm just saying, "it's there already and arguing implicitly as if it's not is dishonest". Arguments shouldn't be based on dishonesty. I will, however, point out that the badness that could be added is fairly sharply bounded by the ready availability of the product today. Prostitution and human trafficking have been at least reasonably well suppressed, and re-legalizing them would have an effect. I'm not convinced there's a large number of people for whom the sole reason they are not smoking is that it is illegal. So your metaphor, as is so often the case with terrible metaphors brought out to make a dubious point in an argument, is not applicable. (Note I didn't add mention "arms dealing". I don't think that has been "reasonably well suppressed" at all.) You probably think you're arguing with a pothead. Actually, I pretty much agree with everything about the nature of marijuana you said. I do not smoke it myself and have every intention of telling the truth about it to my children (which is that it isn't going to kill you but it is certainly dangerous with little compensating gain). But I don't mistake my morality for good government policy. The effects of prohibition have been a net negative, and no amount of moralizing on my part (or anybody else's) about how it just shouldn't be that way can change that.

by Rod 18y ago

litewulf 18y ago

I believe that bartenders are not allowed to serve drinks to people that are too intoxicated. I think one could simply apply a similar thing, perhaps with subtle social pressures to smoke marijuana in public places?

baddox 18y ago

Or, workplaces could still do drug testing. Since marijuana is non-toxic, the potential issues from marijuana use can be handled by employers and/or family and friends.

ruby_roo 18y ago

Just try it. At least once. Don't like the smoke? Have a cookie. Within 15-20 minutes, you'll be wondering why you can't get marijuana from a liquor store, taxed and regulated in a similar manner to the rest of the products they sell there (which happen to be far more harmful to you and society anyway). Side effects from over-doing it are basically mental slowness and a lack of motivation (even this will go away if you just stop for a while). If you start sucking at your job, your suckiness should show up on your performance review and HR should handle you accordingly. Maybe you get fired. This is how an alcoholic would be handled, anyway. There is way too much fear and over-analysis surrounding this topic. The tools to manage it are already here. Marijuana is already here, and will continue on just fine regardless of whether it is legal or not. Overachievers like Michael Phelps and Barack Obama will smoke marijuana and go on to do great things, just as they always have. Just legalize it already so we can finally benefit from California's number one cash crop, out in the open, rather than letting the majority of the profits go into the pockets of people who very often do pose a credible threat to society and require insane amounts of tax dollars to manage.

tome 18y ago
> which happen to be far more harmful to you and society anyway Are you sure that it's not that they're more harmful precisely because they're legal?
- jerf 18y ago
  Yes. As much as I'd like to leave it at that one snarky word and leave you to fill in the rest, I had better fill out my argument by pointing out that this experiment was actually, factually tried, and it went terribly. Illegal alcohol was far worse for society than legal alcohol. Prohibition resulted in the only flat-out repeal of an amendment of the Constitution ever.
  - tome 18y ago
    You're right: I wasn't precise enough in communicating what I meant. What I was trying to get at was not "wouldn't alcohol cause fewer problems if it was illegal?" but rather "won't legalization of a niche* drug be guaranteed to massively amplify the social ills it causes?". I have no experience with cannabis, so I'm asking because I'm interested: how do you know that the massive increase in participation which would follow legalization will not cause cannabis to become more of a problem drug than alcohol? * let's face it, cannabis use is niche compared to alcohol and tobacco

garply 18y ago

Why should a marijuana consumer be logged in a central database? Stores are required to do ID checks, but there is no database for alcohol or tobacco consumers.

Rod 18y ago
True. On the other hand, some claim that THC is more mind-altering than alcohol. I don't know if it's true or not. I won't go into that. Imagine stoned drivers losing control of their SUVs and running over little children walking out of school. This doomsday scenario could be used to argue against legalization. Of course, drunk drivers are as dangerous, and drivers high on valium are not harmless either. However, there's a cultural "problem" which leads most people to consider some drugs acceptable (e.g., alcohol, tobacco, valium) and some other drugs "evil" (e.g., marijuana). I am not a big fan of the Dutch system of having a central database, but if it would help tame people's fears of over-consumption, then it could be a good idea. Why not devise a smart system which would assign a unique identifier to each person (think authentication instead of identification) so that people's consumption could be limited without compromising their privacy. That way, if there were a privacy breach and the data leaked to the public domain, no one's privacy would be at risk because there would be no way to map one's identifier to one's ID. Do you think this would make sense?
- garply 18y ago
  People smoke very different amounts, so at what amount do you cap consumption? Imagine the same scenario being carried out for alcohol. You might drink a couple beers a month, but Joe the Drinker might max out his beer quota every day and still want more. You, or someone like you with an entrepreneurial bent, might then decide to max out your own beer quota every day in order to sell the beer to Joe with a markup. Then presumably the law would need to crack down on you for selling your alcohol ration to someone else, and we're in a legal place very similar to where we started. Doesn't that issue crop up in the Dutch system? Or is the allowed amount high enough that people can essentially get as intoxicated as they want?
  - Rod 18y ago

ewiethoff 18y ago

Sounds like what New York has been doing with pseudoephedrine sales for the past year or so, though I don't know whether the limit is daily, weekly, or monthly. I find the whole pseudoephedrine thing eerie, but I'm not opposed.

jerf 18y ago

"Do we really need to add yet another mind-altering substance to the array?" - "That's a good point." Actually, it's a terrible point. Three paragraphs after being informed that marijuana is a $14 billion dollar industry already, not a $14 billion dollar industry in potential but in actual fact, we get two paragraphs of people whining about "adding" pot into the mix. Adding? It's there! Like it or not. This is why journalists get no respect from me. These guys ought to be asked how anything would be "added" to the $14 billion industry already in place. Perhaps they'd come up with some decent answer, after all, but in the meantime their argument as presented in this article is terrible. At least the last paragraph showed some sane recognition that the horse bolted from the barn millennia ago.

Rod 18y ago
Marijuana IS a mind-altering substance. Disregarding this scientific fact is potentially irresponsible. We are not even discussing policy / politics here, it's Science. And unless you are a neurologist or a pharmacologist yourself, I really do NOT believe you are qualified to argue against this. Recalling the words of wisdom my parents' old-school doctor friend used to say: "the dose, not the substance, makes the poison" (it sounded more impressive in latin) Thus, instead of discussing the BIG questions such as whether marijuana should be legalized or not, why not discuss the details such as how much marijuana would each citizen be allowed to consume on a daily basis without endangering others. The devil is always in the details, right? It's true that the industry is there. But that fact alone does not mean it's OK to go ahead and legalize everything without any bounds and reason. Following that rationale, why not legalize prostitution, human trafficking and arms dealing? After all, these industries exist already, right?
- jerf 18y ago
  You missed my point. It was simply a narrow point that there's no "adding" to be discussing. It's here, and it's huge. Speaking as if there's nobody consuming marijuana and legalizing it is going to suddenly cause a huge burst in consumption is simply factually incorrect. It may cause an increase, but it can't cause a huge increase. It is a dishonest tactic that is almost always used by proponents of a law, to slip in the hidden assumption that the law already works, or will simply work if added, even when flatly contradicted by the truth. Personally, I can't hardly conceive of how marijuana prohibition could be any more of a failure than it actually is. None of the rest of what you talk about is relevant, as you simply read into my post. I'm not even claiming "it's there already so let's legalize it". I'm just saying, "it's there already and arguing implicitly as if it's not is dishonest". Arguments shouldn't be based on dishonesty. I will, however, point out that the badness that could be added is fairly sharply bounded by the ready availability of the product today. Prostitution and human trafficking have been at least reasonably well suppressed, and re-legalizing them would have an effect. I'm not convinced there's a large number of people for whom the sole reason they are not smoking is that it is illegal. So your metaphor, as is so often the case with terrible metaphors brought out to make a dubious point in an argument, is not applicable. (Note I didn't add mention "arms dealing". I don't think that has been "reasonably well suppressed" at all.) You probably think you're arguing with a pothead. Actually, I pretty much agree with everything about the nature of marijuana you said. I do not smoke it myself and have every intention of telling the truth about it to my children (which is that it isn't going to kill you but it is certainly dangerous with little compensating gain). But I don't mistake my morality for good government policy. The effects of prohibition have been a net negative, and no amount of moralizing on my part (or anybody else's) about how it just shouldn't be that way can change that.