Should cannabis be legalized?

[dopefiend]

:rasta: LEGALIZE!!! :rasta: i will post a 5 page report on why it should be legalized in a couple weeks, been workin on it a while now, view at www.geocities.com/dobesguy/legalweed.html around nov 20 :rasta: nice way to say it man\/\/(pic)

[Rizzle]

INDEED

[parrotman]

It is a drug that has a less harmful effects than alcohol, and no study shows that it causes cancer. The only resean why its not legal is because the government has brainwashed people for so long. i know I will prob. never see it legalized where I live cause its Bush territory down in Texas. Oh well keep smoking and be happy, I know I will. :rasta:

[CANABIZNIS]

I think it should be legalized but not for society to be walking around high 24/7..cannabis has different affects on everybody, it may make some people violent or it may make someone calm..think, if you weren't a smoker and everyone was high an one turned violent would you want them to beat you up or possibly kill you? This is just a scenario im not saying it's a fact ..but just think about it. What is a fact is someone i know smokes and turns violent would you want someone like that around you if you were a calm smoker? lol

[1234abcd]

Why 10 years? The next election is in 2008, that's only a little over 2 years. Also, the rest of what you are saying is nonsense knowing America's history with marijuana.

Why the hell is it non sense. It used to be legal and its way safer than alcohol and you can buy fucking cases of that...so why fucking can't we have a federal ounce limit on pot like a lot of states.

And I said 10 years because its not the first fucking thing the democrats will do in office is legalize pot. Fuck there is way more important issues out there that need to be dealt with but all Im saying is that when the next democratic run gets into office, I see that there is a good possibliity that the supreme court will give a major victory to medical marijuana in the USA and not just in certain states or they will change the federal guidlines to be more leniant. I am not a god. I do not know whats going to happen.

And also ...Im just puttin out my fucking opininon out there. Isn't that what your suppost to do. I dont get why people like you have to fucking argue with certain people saying they are non sense and wrong and you are right. Why dont you just put your opinion out there and shut the fuck up.

[Nullifidian]

Alcohol prohibition didn't work either! It just created an criminal underclass that made lots of money, and filled prisons with people who shouldn't have been there.

[beachguy in thongs]

Damn it!!! Prohibition should end...six reports agree
Six recent reports -- from the American Enterprise Institute, Citizens Against Government Waste, Taxpayers for Common Sense, The Sentencing Project, a Harvard University economics professor, and the U.S. Department of Justice -- point out the failures and steep costs of marijuana prohibition and call for a new approach.

Ending Marijuana Prohibition Would Save $10-14 Billion Annually ... Report Endorsed by Milton Friedman and More Than 500 Economists
In "The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition" (released June 2, 2005), Dr. Jeffrey Miron, visiting professor of economics at Harvard University, estimates that replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of taxation and regulation similar to that used for alcoholic beverages would produce combined savings and tax revenues of between $10 billion and $14 billion per year.

More than 500 distinguished economists -- led by Nobel Prize-winner Dr. Milton Friedman and two additional Nobel Laureates -- endorsed the report and signed an open letter to President Bush and other public officials calling for "an open and honest debate about marijuana prohibition," adding, "We believe such a debate will favor a regime in which marijuana is legal but taxed and regulated like other goods."

Using data from a variety of federal and state government sources, Miron concludes:

* Replacing marijuana prohibition with a system of legal regulation would save approximately $7.7 billion in government expenditures on prohibition enforcement -- $2.4 billion at the federal level and $5.3 billion at the state and local levels.
* Revenue from taxation of marijuana sales would range from $2.4 billion per year if marijuana were taxed like ordinary consumer goods to $6.2 billion if it were taxed like alcohol or tobacco.

Citizens Against Government Waste: Government Anti-Drug Programs Don't Work
The White House Office of National Drug Control Policyâ??s (ONDCP's) expensive drug control programs have failed to produce any meaningful results after 17 years, finds a May 12, 2005, report from Citizens Against Government Waste, a national organization dedicated to eliminating waste, fraud, abuse, and mismanagement in government.

"Up in Smoke: ONDCP's Wasted Efforts in the War on Drugs" shows how ONDCP wastes millions of dollars annually on media advertising and combating state-level legislation. The report's findings include:

* ONDCP "has morphed into a federal wasteland, throwing taxpayer money toward numerous high-priced drug control programs that have failed to show results ... Instead of curbing Americaâ??s drug problem, ONDCP has wasted $4.2 billion since fiscal 1997 on media advertising, fighting state legislation, and deficient anti-drug trafficking programs."
* Since Arizona and California passed medical marijuana laws in November 1996, ONDCP began campaigning against state medical marijuana ballot initiatives, which is "an infringement upon states' rights, a blatant misuse of tax dollars, and in contravention of ONDCPâ??s original mission. The White Houseâ??s drug office should use its resources to root out major drug operations in the U.S. instead of creating propaganda-filled news videos and flying across the country on the taxpayers' dime."
* "ONDCP burns through tax dollars by funding wasteful and unnecessary projects. Partly to thwart state efforts to regulate marijuana, the drug czar created a $2 billion national anti-drug campaign, produced expensive propaganda ads that failed to reduce drug use among Americaâ??s youth, and in the process, violated federal law. Furthermore, the office wastes federal resources by opposing any legalization of marijuana, including medicinal use, which has nothing to do with the war on drugs."

War on Drugs has Become War on Low-Level Marijuana Users
During the 1990s, the â??war on drugsâ?� was transformed to a â??war on marijuana,â?� with law enforcement officials shifting their focus to arresting increasing numbers of low-level marijuana offenders, finds a Sentencing Project report released on May 3, 2005.

"The War on Marijuana: The Transformation of the War on Drugs in the 1990s" finds that between 1990 and 2002, 82% of the national increase in drug arrests were for marijuana offenses, and nearly all of this increase was arrests for possession. Marijuana arrests now constitute 45% of the 1.5 million drug arrests annually.

As a result, significant policing resources have been dedicated to low-level offenses, with only 6% of marijuana arrests resulting in a felony conviction. One-quarter of people in prison for a marijuana offense are low-level offenders.

Despite the billions of dollars being spent annually on marijuana law enforcement, use and availability have not declined, while cost has dropped.

American Enterprise Institute: Prison is not an effective drug policy
American drug policy should focus on expanding treatment options and not on prison, says a new book from the American Enterprise Institute, one of the country's most respected conservative think tanks.

In An Analytic Assessment of U.S. Drug Policy (published in February 2005), Peter Reuter, a professor at the University of Maryland and a
senior economist in the Drug Policy Research Center at RAND, and independent consultant David Boyum use a market framework to assess
the effectiveness of anti-drug efforts ... and conclude that they have failed.

The authors note that while there is little evidence that tougher law enforcement reduces drug use, drug policy has become increasingly punitive -- the number of drug offenders in jail and prison grew tenfold between 1980 and 2003. They recommend the following changes:

* Law enforcement should focus on reducing drug-related problems, such as violence associated with drug markets, rather than on locking up large numbers of low-level dealers.
* Treatment services for heavy users need more money and fewer regulations, and programs that coerce convicted drug addicts to enter treatment and maintain abstinence as a condition of continued freedom should be expanded.

Taxpayers for Common Sense: Effectiveness of billions spent to stop marijuana use remains unknown
Despite the federal government spending tens of billions to combat marijuana use over the last three decades, use and perception of the drug has barely changed, according to an economic study released by Taxpayers for Common Sense, a national budget watchdog organization that targets wasteful and ineffective federal spending.

"Federal Marijuana Policy: A Preliminary Assessment," released June 28, 2005, finds that efforts to reduce marijuana use and supply cost federal taxpayers billions, despite no evidence that the programs actual work. "Despite sky-high deficits, taxpayers continue to watch their money go up in smoke funding expensive but ineffective government programs intended to reduce marijuana use," said a Taxpayers for Common Sense spokesman.

The report assesses the cost of the nation's anti-marijuana efforts and the effect those efforts have had on marijuana use and finds the program to have been a failure, noting that increased federal spending on marijuana has accompanied increased use.

The report singles out as particularly wasteful and ineffective marijuana arrests (which have not stemmed marijuana usage rates), the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy's youth anti-drug media campaign, and student drug testing programs.

"The ultimate measure of the drug war's worth is its impact on drug usage," concludes the report. "By this standard, the federal marijuana program has fared poorly. Rather than continue to spend billions of dollars on the problem, it would be better for the U.S. government to get out of the marijuana business entirely."

U.S. Department of Justice: Top cops say drug war is on the wrong track
The Justice Department's 2005 "National Drug Threat Assessment" concludes that not only is the war on marijuana a failure, but police officers overwhelmingly see methamphetamine as a much greater threat than marijuana. Asked to identify the greatest drug threat in their communities, only 12 percent of local law enforcement agencies named marijuana -- a figure that has been declining for years. In contrast, 36 percent named cocaine and 40 percent cited methamphetamine as the greatest threat -- despite the fact that marijuana use is massively more common and despite what the report describes as "marijuana's widespread and ready availability in the United States."

The report explains, "Such data indicate that, despite the volume of marijuana trafficked and used in this country, for many in law enforcement marijuana is much less an immediate problem than methamphetamine, for example, which is associated with more tangible risks such as violent users and toxic production sites." (Despite this, the White House Office of National Drug Control Policy has focused heavily on marijuana. In November 2002, ONDCP sent a letter to the nation's prosecutors declaring flatly, "Nationwide, no drug matches the threat posed by marijuana.")

The report also finds "no reports of a trend toward decreased availability" anywhere in the country ... Indeed, reporting from some areas has suggested that marijuana is easier for youths to obtain than alcohol or cigarettes."

FULL STORY: http://www.mpp.org/reports/index.html
(actually, you can see more of these stories here, but the entire page is here)
__________________
"I'm sick of following my dreams. I'm just going to ask them where they're going and hook up with them later."
- Mitch Hedberg

Smoking Pot increases melatonin levels 4,000%, yet when we have none, it's not long before we die. Can't we just keep promoting Melatonin production, the best way known to mankind, and live forever? Besides that, it multiplies brain cells and extends cell-longetivity.

He does not believe that does not live according to his belief . -Sigmund Freud

[chix4bud]

YESSSS HELL YES OH PLEASE GOD LET IT BE LEGALIZED YES YESYESYESYESYESYES DID I SAY YES :rasta:

[BlueCat00]

There were more than 695,201 marijuana arrests in the United States in 1997. This was the largest number in U.S. history. (Bush is the enemy)
Of these arrests, 87.2% were for possession -- not sale or manufacture. There have been more than 11 million marijuana arrests in the United States since 1965.

There are an estimated 15,668 people presently incarcerated in federal prisons for marijuana offenses, comprising about 12.7% of the total federal prison population.

Just think if we legalize it AND they let our enlightened cannabinauts go there might actually be room in the prisons for the murderers!

[chix4bud]

[
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Just think if we legalize it AND they let our enlightened cannabinauts go there might actually be room in the prisons for the murderers![/QUOTE]
What a concept :stoned: