Pffft, Florida...Follow

What are you talking about? Florida's 1/3 Canadians.

More like 1/3 rednecks, 1/3 Cubans, and 1/3 Northerns (including Canadians, but mostly New Englanders)

Again what does safer have to do with anything. I can tell you right now Ecstacy is worse for you then Weed, Meth is worse for you then heroin. The chemical based drugs are made by people who either want to get high or want to make money illegally. It is not a practice that has standards to follow like making an asprin. These drugs are made in tubs, in basements, garages. If you think that any of those are even close in safety to marijuana you most likely do not know very much about the illegal drug scene.

Also as I said before, if it was entirely based on safety, then why can I buy smokes and booze. Those aren't any more safe then drugs, yet they are legal.

How do you know that? They weren't in charge. Its easy to put potential blame on someone who isn't involved. Heck if they did reform it they would have just put more regulations on the banking system, they are leftists remember. Im not bagging on harper but he definitely was just in the right place, at the right time. He didn't do anything to save our economy, he also didn't do anything to ruin it, he is still more or less useless, but what else can you expect from an ex-reform party socialist nutjob turned conservative. (lol).

Because there were minor changes made to the mortgage system and when they were discussed, both parties pushed for more changes.

I'm just stealing your +1's.

You could have at least given the lolwiki a sidelong glace for some fact checking there. Coca-Cola moved to using spent coca leaves in 1904.

As for pot, do you honestly think that 3 gigantic industries would somehow be turned on their ear if their conspiracy to keep hemp out of the market suddenly was foiled? Is there suddenly going to be a huge upsurge in the demand for specialty coarse paper? Will cancer suddenly be cured by hempseed oil? Will hemp clothing rise to dethrone cotton as the king of textiles? I mean seriously, have you ever felt hemp cloth? It's burlap at worst and coarse linen at best.

Fuck it, you're an idiot. I'm going back to lurking.

I'm actually pro-legalization, not that I would ever use it. That said, there are plenty of man-made chemicals that are completely safe, and plenty of natural substances that are incredibly dangerous. That's really all that needs to be said. If you want to talk about recreational drugs, then judge them on a case by case basis by all means. Just don't go around spreading nonsense like natural=good, man-made=bad, because there is no such rule. Pot is fine, cocaine is not. Cold syrup is fine, huffing paint is not.

You probably ingest so many more man-made substances than you know, and don't experience a single harmful side effect. Many of them are chemically no different from a natural derivative.

Holy hell. My post went about 40,000' over your head.

Where to begin.

Well, first of all, you seem to have gotten some crazy notion that I'm against the legalization of pot. I honestly don't have a clue where you got that idea. I'm pro legalization. So yeah...wow. Reading comprehension.

All I was saying, was that if you want to make the argument for legalization, there are plenty of more fruitful paths to take than saying "It should be legal because it is natural." You could say, talk about its relative safety, especially when compared with legal drugs like alcohol. Or you could talk about potential revenue. Or you could make the ethics-based argument that we shouldn't legislate what someone does to their own body, if you wanted. Stuff like that. What you can't do, is argue an Appeal to Nature fallacy, because as others were pointing out, there are plenty of natural things that you really shouldn't do. Something being "natural" does not make it inherently good or bad. There is no correlation, and therefor, it's irrelevant to a discussion about whether a "natural" drug should be legal or not.

And no drugs are "illegal because they are natural." What an odd claim to make. I'd challenge you to come up with an argument to counter that, but you really shouldn't, because there is none. Pot is illegal largely due to a general perception that it's a more dangerous drug than it is. That it's a "gateway drug." That it makes kids accidentally shoot each other with their father's gun. It's based on emotion, and it's deeply ingrained. I don't think it's right, but that's the way it is right now.

Honestly, you wrote that all as if you were completely baked. It doesn't make an ounce of sense. It lacks focus and cohesion. And you completely misunderstood the point that I was making.

I think that legalization advocates would be better served if so many of them weren't making rambling, incoherent, emotional arguments for it. Perhaps that's asking too much?

Edited, Feb 11th 2011 1:06am by Eske

Im always baked, so it is likely I was baked at the time. Or drunk, either way. Also you must not know me well yet, my posts always lack focus or cohesion. Now pertaining to the discussion.

If you think pot/coke/mushrooms are illegal because the Government thinks it is in the best interest of the people, you are sorely mistaken. They are illegal because companies push to keep them that way. Mainly pharmaceutical companies, but some other industries that I eluded to earlier do as well. If the government based their decisions on what people felt, tobacco products would be illegal not just heavily restricted (there is a very large industry that relies on tobacco consumption). All these drugs were used for medical purposes long ago, and when we began man making things that did the job they did they all began to become illegal. Only recently did one of these drugs crack that and become legal with a prescription.

No but it being natural is the reason it is illegal, because it is next to impossible to control things that people can grow themselves. The gvernment should not be able to tell me what I can and can not grow, or tell me what I choose to consume or not consume. These are personal choices that should be available to me to consume. I have a right to these drugs simply because I am a citizen of earth, and the earth naturally provides them for me to use.

However the reason I didn't include all drugs is because other drugs are man made with combinations of various chemical compounds, which are in turn combinations of various chemicals themselves. These are controllable as not everyone posses the capability to extract elements from objects and combine them with others, the chemicals themselves are generally controlled and controllable. Not to mention many of these chemicals can be used to actually harm people, outside of the drugs they create. Making the legal to produce these drugs could also lead to higher rates of chemical based assaults on the public. The fact that the base chemicals are controlled is the reason meth contains things like cough medicine and lithium extract from batteries. Easily accessible chemicals that are not controlled.


I may have missed your point but since all you did was quote lolwiki, I assumed you didnt have one.


Edited, Feb 11th 2011 8:11am by rdmcandie

Ignoring most of this post (which I feel is wrong but whatever), most outerwear these days is made of synthetics. The stuff that isn't is made from denim or wool and, as pointed out, hemp is no substitute for wool. It can be beaten into some sort of substitute for denim outerwear (I don't know that I'd want jeans made from the stuff) but the cotton industry is so huge that simple economies of scale say that they can crank out cost efficient jean jackets without worrying about the mighty hemp menace stealing their profits. Hell, even if you include jeans, I doubt it's a dent. There's a lot of stuff in this world made from cotton.

Okay, I think everyone is missing the point here. RDM is saying that pot is illegal because it's natural, which is the truth basically. You can't patent a naturally occurring weed, so there's little money to be made off of it by conglomerations, and much money to be taken away from companies that create marijuana/hemp substitutes. First, if we hadn't destroyed the industry, hemp would replace paper easily. It's grows faster than trees, which take decades to mature and when we farm them we destroy entire ecosystems. Hemp fiber is much more durable and lasts longer than tree pulp and cotton. My assumption that the higher cost to produce is caused by the lack of technological progression, where as with trees and cotton we've worked the entire past couple of centuries to make as efficient as possible.

Honestly, the hemp fiber is a small drop in the bucket, but pharmaceutical companies would hurt the most. A naturally occurring, pain reducing, anxiolytic, anti-nausea, blood pressure reducing, cancer treating drug is not compatible with making a dozen different chemicals to treat one disorder in a patient. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of pharmaceuticals that are in use that are specifically meant to target the same symptoms that are easily remedied by marijuana - and all of them have been known to cause death. Hell, Tylenol is a million times more deadly than marijuana, if just for the fact that it's easy to obtain and overdose on, and there hasn't been a single death ever been attributed to marijuana.

No, the point isn't that just because it's natural it should be legal. That is a dumb strawman. It should be legal because it's natural, safer that most of the other drugs we take, and just plain wonderful. I'll never understand people who take hundreds of pills every year and yet rally against the evils of marijuana. I know there are some people who refuse to take any sort of medication and just don't, which is wonderful for you, but not all of us are so lucky to be ailment free. Marijuana is basically a miracle drug and it's a crime against humanity that it's not readily available to people who could benefit from its use.