Quote Originally Posted by copobo
we certainly don't need to be regulating marijuana any more than we do fruits and vegetables in this regard.

marijuana isn't especially harmful, requiring special regulation for health and safety. in fact, it's especially un-harmful. We just don't need to be pretending we are doing the right thing, regulating it like it's cocaine, when it's just cannabis.

cannabis is as safe as mothers milk.
But if this is truly medical marijuana, shouldn't it be tracked like any other medication? We don't allow people to make pharmaceuticals in their homes and distribute them, regardless of how safe they are.

If you're talking about legalization, I think you make a fair point. I just feel like at this point we're muddling the two.

I don't subscribe to most of the conspiracy theories you will read about on these forums and others. To be effective would require of the conspirators an efficiency and competency that government rarely if ever displays. I do however believe that government employees eventually seek to preserve and expand their own power base, at the expense of their original remit.

I also am a firm believer in the law of unintended consequences, by which the actions of government tend to have consequences that were unforeseen, and often make the "cure" worse than the "disease." In this case, clearly (to me at least) unadulterated marijuana is not dangerous enough to justify any regulation whatsoever. With respect to possible adulterants, without the rewards inherent in trafficking in a black market substance (which marijuana still is under the current regulatory scheme because of the "medical" sham) there would be no reason to use any such adulterants to stimulate growth or kill pests. Once again, an example of the law of unintended consequences.
I disagree with you on stimulating growth, but let's turn the law of unintended consequences on it's head. If you remove marijuana from the black market, do we see a rise in illicit, highly addictive drugs? An increase in border violence as cartels struggle to retain power? I certainly wouldn't use either of these as arguments against legalization, anymore than say... a repeal of DADT may make some people uncomfortable, because it's the right thing to do. Unintended consequences are funny like that, though.

Should the government allow use of other relatively harmless substances, like LSD or mushrooms? MDMA? Do they have the right to tell you to wear your seatbelt? That you can't yell fire in a movie theater?

Just trying to get some bearings on where you're coming from.