Should weed be legalized?

[wiley8425]

As a side note, the FDA is a Federal Government organization that approves all drugs.

Where is the enumerated power for the creation of the FDA in the Constitution in the first place? Nowhere.

@LouMan

In that case, government shouldn’t regulate any drug. After all, if you don’t want to use it don’t. Fentanyl comes to mind.

Again, where is the enumerated power for government to regulate them in the Constitution in the first place? Nowhere.

Amazing how some people are perfectly fine with government overreach depending on whether or not its something they agree with or not, isn’t it? Land of the free, my ass.

[DMK]

@pjohns

I agree that it is absurd for marijuana to carry the same classification–and, presumably, the same penalties for its sale–as heroin. They are hardly interchangeable.

Gateway legislation?

[SixFoot]

Money changes hands. It was more lucrative to keep it illegal for a long time. Now it’s more lucrative to legalize it. Only problem is, the “right” companies haven’t gotten ahead of the profit margins yet.

[DMK]

I have to agree 100%.

The government should not play the role of mommy and daddy. Mommy and Daddy should step up to the plate. I’m sure many have and have about lost their minds trying to help. And God bless the ones who have. My heart goes out to them.

[wiley8425]

There have been numerous documentaries on the subject. The government was fully aware it wasn’t a category I drug when they categorized it as such. It’s the same reason “reefer madness” is made fun of today. The government snow job to make marijuana illegal in the “public interest” should have been one of the first indicators to the public that the government was no longer even pretending to follow the Constitution. But you know, blind trust. The same blind trust of the military which is full of foreigners now.

[DMK]

@Call_me_Ishmael

Have you had fentanyl? Not sure that most people can say no after the first couple times. I had one dose in a hospital. I know why it’s addictive.

That is where I nope out of pain management. I will discuss the treatment and what will be prescribed. If I don’t like it I am going to ask for alternates.

[wiley8425]

Mexican immigrants referred to this plant as “marihuana”. While Americans were very familiar with “cannabis” because it was present in almost all tinctures and medicines available at the time, the word “marihuana” was a foreign term. So, when the media began to play on the fears that the public had about these new citizens by falsely spreading claims about the “disruptive Mexicans” with their dangerous native behaviors including marihuana use, the rest of the nation did not know that this “marihuana” was a plant they already had in their medicine cabinets.

The demonization of the cannabis plant was an extension of the demonization of the Mexican immigrants. In an effort to control and keep tabs on these new citizens, El Paso, TX borrowed a play from San Francisco’s playbook, which had outlawed opium decades earlier in an effort to control Chinese immigrants. The idea was to have an excuse to search, detain and deport Mexican immigrants.

That excuse became marijuana.

This method of controlling people by controlling their customs was quite successful, so much so that it became a national strategy for keeping certain populations under the watch and control of the government.

During hearings on marijuana law in the 1930’s, claims were made about marijuana’s ability to cause men of color to become violent and solicit sex from white women. This imagery became the backdrop for the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937 which effectively banned its use and sales.

While the Act was ruled unconstitutional years later, it was replaced with the Controlled Substances Act in the 1970’s which established Schedules for ranking substances according to their dangerousness and potential for addiction. Cannabis was placed in the most restrictive category, Schedule I, supposedly as a place holder while then President Nixon commissioned a report to give a final recommendation.

The Schafer Commission, as it was called, declared that marijuana should not be in Schedule I and even doubted its designation as an illicit substance. However, Nixon discounted the recommendations of the commission, and marijuana remains a Schedule I substance.

http://www.drugpolicy.org/blog/how-did-marijuana-become-illegal-first-place

You can say what you want, but the history behind all drug laws in the US was never about public safety. It was always about the same thing everything the government gets involved in is about these days. Money and control. The Federal Government is not your friend. Never has been. Never will be. I shouldn’t have to keep telling people this.

[DMK]

@LouMan

Instead of being stupid thy should look to improve their lives.

Not everyone knows how to do that, LouMan. Maybe YOU do. Maybe I do.

Maybe we had good parents. Not everyone has that growing up and they get lost.

That doesn’t mean I excuse the behavior at the point adulthood is reached, but I do realize a house built on a faulty foundation is going to crumble.

[pjohns]

The desire for a ban on cell phones is a very good point. The use of a cell phone, when driving, is known as distracted driving here in Tennessee; and it is just as chargeable as drunk driving.

But let us not imagine that two wrongs add up to one right…

[LouMan]

• 1600s: In the 17th century, the production of hemp-a variety of the cannabis plant-was highly encouraged to make clothing, rope, and sails. In 1619, the Virginia Assembly passed legislation requiring that all farmers grow hemp. Some states even traded hemp as legal tender.4
• 1700s: George Washington was interested in farming hemp. But he also questioned the potential medicinal uses of marijuana in his journals in 1765.1
• 1840: Marijuana became widely accepted in mainstream medicine and was an ingredient in many over-the-counter products.1,4
• 1850: Marijuana was added to the U.S. Pharmacopeia. It was used as a treatment for opioid withdrawal, pain, appetite stimulation, and relief of nausea and vomiting.1
• 1862: Hashish candy was advertised in an issue of Vanity Fair as a pleasurable and harmless stimulant that could cure melancholy and nervousness.6
• 1906: The Food and Drug Act required that any product containing cannabis be labeled appropriately.4
• 1900-1930: For 3 decades, marijuana was an ingredient in a variety of medications. It was marketed as a painkiller but was also used for sedation and to treat muscle spasms.1However, during this same time period, Mexican immigrants introduced recreational use of marijuana. Because the drug became associated with the Mexican immigrants, people began to fear the drug, with anti-drug campaigners referring to it as the “Mexican Menace.”4
• 1914-1925: Twenty-six states passed laws prohibiting marijuana. These laws passed readily and easily with little to no public outcry or political debate.6
• 1930s: The Great Depression resulted in job loss for many Americans. This created more fear and stigmatization of Mexican immigrants as many Americans worried they would take away their jobs. This lead to more public concern over the dangers of marijuana. The media began to report that research showed that marijuana use was linked to crime and violence.4At the same time, Harry Anslinger, commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, began a campaign to criminalize marijuana, claiming that it led to insanity. As a result of his efforts, by 1936, all states had some form of marijuana regulation laws.1
• 1936: The film Reefer Madness was released. It depicted marijuana as a drug that could lead to violence, rape, suicide, and psychosis.1,4
• 1937: The Marijuana Tax Act was passed, which restricted marijuana use to only those that could pay a heavy excise tax for specific authorized industrial and medical uses.1,4,5,6
• 1942: Marijuana was removed from the U.S. Pharmacopoeia and doctors began to discredit marijuana as not having any medicinal use.1
• 1944: The New York Academy of Medicine published a report stating that marijuana was only a mild intoxicant. Harry Anslinger responded to this report with a solicited article in the American Journal of Psychiatry that attempted to attack and discredit the information they had previously published.6
• 1952: The Boggs Act passed, creating strict mandatory punishments for offenses involving marijuana and a variety of other drugs.5
• 1960s: Marijuana gained popularity among the counterculture, who considered it a harmless high. Its use was popular among college students, free-spirited Beats, anti-war activists, hippies, and other youth.1,4,6President John F. Kennedy and Vice President Lyndon Johnson commissioned reports that found that marijuana did not induce violence or lead to the use of other more dangerous drugs.4
• 1965-1970: Marijuana arrests on the state level increased tenfold as authorities began to crack down on marijuana use and distribution.6
• 1970: Congress passed the Controlled Substances Act, which placed marijuana as a Schedule I drug, along with LSD and heroin. According to the act, marijuana had no medicinal value and a high potential for abuse, giving it harsher criminal penalties. This law made it difficult for doctors and scientists to study marijuana and its many uses.5
• 1970s: Despite federal efforts to strengthen enforcement of strict marijuana laws, states such as Oregon, Maine, and Alaska decriminalized marijuana.5
• 1972: The Shafer Committee recommended that personal use of marijuana be decriminalized. But President Richard Nixon ignored their recommendation.4,5
• 1976: The parents movement against marijuana began, as more and more parents feared the drug and sought to prevent use in teens. Their efforts were strengthened by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the National Institute on Drug Abuse.4
• 1980s-90s: The public opinion of marijuana shifted back to it being dangerous, as many considered it a gateway drug to harder drugs such as cocaine and heroin.1
• 1982: First Lady Nancy Reagan started the “Just Say No” campaign.6
• 1983: The Drug Abuse Resistance Education (DARE) program was established, which brought police officers into schools to discuss the dangers of drug abuse. Funding and use of this program was later cut back as research showed that it did not lead to decreased drug use in youth.6
• 1986: President Ronald Reagan signed The Anti-Drug Abuse Act. This law raised marijuana penalties and created mandatory sentences, many of which equated marijuana with heroin.4
• 1989: President George H.W. Bush declared a “New War on Drugs” and continued anti-marijuana campaigns.4
• 1996: California voters approved Proposition 215, which legalized marijuana for medicinal use at the state level.5
• 1998-1999: The Clinton administration spent $25 million on television campaigns that placed anti-drug messages in primetime TV shows.6

[SixFoot]

1999-04-21

Application filed by US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS)

1999-04-21

Priority to US09/674,028

1999-04-21

Priority to PCT/US1999/008769

2001-02-07

Assigned to HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES, THE GOVERNMENT OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA AS REPRESENTED BY THE SECRETARY OF THE DEPARTMENT OF

2003-10-07

Publication of US6630507B1

2003-10-07

Application granted

2015-05-28

First worldwide family litigation filed

2019-04-09

Application status is Active

2019-04-21

Anticipated expiration

[asaratis]

…and what was the date that Jimma Carter’s son smoked dope with Willy Nelson on the roof of the White House?

[SixFoot]

The government’s patent on cannabinoids is set to expire this month and the nation is ripe for federal rescheduling. I still say it will happen this year.

[Zantax]

@LouMan

I love terminating pot smokers. They are so self righteous as they say but it’s legal as they are escorted out the door with their last check.

And I love not hiring sanctimonious busybodies.

@LouMan

Bottom line this broken society doesn’t need another device to escape their lousy lives. Instead of being stupid thy should look to improve their lives.

The this society already has pot. That toothpaste isn’t going back in the tube. It’s amazingly easy to grow.

[Zantax]

Driving while high is also illegal. We don’t ban cellphone use as it doesn’t harm others, we ban using them in cars, just as we ban driving while high.

[Zantax]

I always have to laugh at the land of the free people, they obviously haven’t done much traveling. Or maybe they only visit China, Iran or Singapore?

[LouMan]

In a perfect world drugs should be legal and everyone should be able to choose then quit.

This is not a perfect world.

We have poor role models, poor parenting, addictive behaviors and people making bad choices.

The people who say everyone should chose is kidding themselves as some people cannot chose wisely. Some people will become addicted. I have a person I work with on occasion. He has the addictive behavior. He’s addicted to cigarettes, POT, Alcohol, vaping you name it, he can become addicted. He’s incredibly bright and cannot control the urges. If government made everything legal and you got to chose he would be dead. Many people have the issue with addiction. Look at the stress of Denver where the homeless use to be older people hooked on alcohol. Today there are younger people all hooked on POT and other drugs available on the streets.

[LouMan]

@Zantax

And I love not hiring sanctimonious busybodies.

Not to worry, our paths will never cross that’s for certain.

And people can smoke pot, eat it snort it or stuff it up their arse. Companies hire me to perform the management dirty work and I have no problem complying with their needs.

The best part of HVAC work is it does tend to weed out the drug and alcohol users.

[PhysicsHunter]

It’s not like we don’t have real problems to solve in the USA…

If this is your big issue go borrow a quarter from a stranger and buy your first brain cell.

[wiley8425]

Not sure why you’re laughing. Our freedoms keep getting taken away and enablers like Lou here are part of the reason why. Advocating using the force of government to control people’s behavior goes against everything this country was founded on. The same government that WAS Constitutionally bound to protect its citizens from enemies both foreign AND domestic. Before it decided it no longer needed to follow that document, anyway. Once liberty is gone, all that’s left is tyranny. It’s not like we weren’t warned.