More states legalize Pot 8) when for Oz?

[Skids]

^ "I don't think it's necessarily clear that use will skyrocket upon legalisation."

So when it is "not necessarily clear" that's enough to accept all the risks. How the standards of evidence change when we want to believe something !

"Anyone who wants weed now can get it"

That would be true if you added the words "badly enough" between "weed" and "now". You have to actually seek it, find it, and be prepared to enter into an unlawful transaction. Quite different from popping into a shop (or getting an older kid to pop into a shop for you, as they do with booze). The nation's 15 year olds will no doubt be far better educated, better functioning, and live more fulfilled lives when they have easier access to dope. No amount of education will make that relatively harmless, in my view.

We obviously have different ideas on how it would be made available.

I would think it would be a lot tighter controlled than the way you're suggesting.

If it is more harmless than booze, as many are suggesting, why would that be the case, since we sell booze that way ?

Less harmful maybe

[Skids]

This is how prohibition works.....

Drug gangs turn private Perth rentals into grow houses

Gang members using fake identities have been renting homes in Perth and turning them into hydroponic cannabis farms, prompting a warning to landlords.

Consumer Protection said 21 homes in the past seven months had been rented by members of southeast Asian gangs based in the eastern states, with the growing systems causing $70,000 worth of damage at one property

https://thewest.com.au/news/wa/drug-gan ... b88436011z

[think positive]

A work colleague of my hubby's had his rental in Melbourne totally trashed this way too, ain't just Perth,


This is both good news, but also very disturbing


http://www.news.com.au/national/crime/a ... 1b8d1b9884

[stui magpie]

[David]

But quite mainstream jurisdictions already have, and it looks like Canada is soon to follow suit. I don't think it's such a hard sell really, though I think it will take longer here than elsewhere.

[Mugwump]

Funny, really, not one genuinely good argument in favour of it, yet everyone is certain it has to happen. Let's go through the arguments in favour again :

1. Doesn't hurt anyone else (well, psychosis, memory loss and traffic accidents don't hurt anyone do they ?)
2. It's no worse than alcohol (an utter failure of logical reasoning)
3. it's wrong to criminalise what many people do anyway (ie a law that I choose to break should not be a law)
4. Legal availability will not increase use (yeah, right) and will not be the thin end of the wedge causing wider availability on a par with alcohol today (right)
5. It's not bad for society to have a drugged population (uh huh)
6. it won't cause issues with our Asian neighbours (uh, yeah, man, they're cool about it)

[David]

[ronrat]

The Asian neighbours have a mssive problem with speed.And in other areas opium. They have not and should not have any say in how we run things. The dumb Corby would have got off lighter if her slag mother had not kept selling her out to the media. The Australian drug laws are not an issue here.

[Mugwump]

^ David, in order :

5) Some people are indeed stoned. I knew many of them as friends when I lived, as a late teenager, in the part of society where this type of thing was more common. Several are now strikingly cognitively damaged in their fifties, roughly in proportion to their level of usage.

4) I lived in The Hague for four years. The number of human blown fuses you see in the street - every one a life that might have had some promise - might surprise you. There are also surprisingly strict laws on dealing in Holland and plenty of serious drug busts. Holland is also the drug trafficking capital of Europe, and it has been tightening its laws ever since the 1960s because of the problems it causes. This is despite it having a Calvinist culture which is very different to Australia.

3) "Certainly wrong to criminalise victimless acts". Would you like to explain how that certainty relates to say, seat belt laws ? I think our state prohibition of poker machines was also an excellent law that was repealed in the grubby preparedness of our government to profit from misery. Just because something is, in society, does not mean that it should be. Much conventional wisdom is quite pernicious. Laws which protect people from their own ignorance and stupidity are a very legitimate thing for the community to legislate through parliament. Consider also consumer credit acts.

2) A poor equivalence. If dope comes to be used with the same frequency as alcohol, and to be promoted and integrated as far as alcohol, I think the medical and social evidence that we have, suggests it will be every bit as harmful. Comparing like with like, why would it not be ? And if you believe that it is less harmful, it'll be logical to sell it in supermarkets alongside booze, I suppose ?

Your (1) is a restatement of point (3), in effect.

Regarding legalisation in the region, given the sigificant penalties in Asia, I think you will find significant drug tourism (ask Amsterdam how that feels) and the real possibility that Australia will become the dope farm for Asia.

The issue of police resources is an old canard. It can be made about anything below grievous assault and murder. In the end, you have to decide whether, as a society, we want a doped population routinely using mind altering and mind-damaging drugs which strip the individual of judgement and moral reasoning ; and if not, then policing is the consequence, not the driver of policy.

Your occasional party puffs, and Skids' loungeroom spliff are not the problem. These are akin to the argument that "because I, a responsible driver, do not wear a seat belt on my short trips, then they should not be mandatory". A long time ago, about 1968, we implicitly decided as a society that drugs were somehow legitimate, in a coded kind of way. Since then, we have seen hard drug use, associated crime and personal destruction rise to levels that a previous generation would have thought insane. There are many reasons for this, but the implicit licensing of drug use, and its ability to dethrone ordinary moral reasoning and social functioning, seems to be a significant part of it.

[Culprit]

[HAL]

What happened to it?

[partypie]

We may as well ban alcohol too, because some people are damaged by it. Sorry Mugwumps, I don't buy your depiction of pot smokers as a bunch of damaged losers.

[Mugwump]

We may as well ban alcohol too, because some people are damaged by it. Sorry Mugwumps, I don't buy your depiction of pot smokers as a bunch of damaged losers.

Not surprising you do not buy it, because those are neither words I used nor a correct summary of my views.

My comment was that several (in fact, most) of the heavy dope users I have known are damaged, roughly in in proportion to their use. If you do not see this amid a similar body of data, then that would be interesting.

Alcohol does indeed cause dreadful social problems, from domestic violence, to child abuse, to road death, to liver failure and one-punch murders, and on. It is a good test case for the risks that emerge when a society licences substances which alter consciousness and moral sense. If it were not legal today, given the great damage it does, I would not advocate its legalization - though I use it today, like the rest of us. Alcohol is utterly impractical to ban because it is so entrenched in our culture that its use cannot be unwound. Dope is not yet there. Yes, it can be found but you can't buy it in Safeway.

Given what we know about alcohol, where is the logic in licensing another substance which has mind-altering effects at its very core ? There is already plenty of well-validated clinical evidence that it damages short term memory and can precipitate psychosis in vulnerable individuals, and I think reasonable people will concede that screwing around with the synapses and neurotransmitters, via a product that has demonstrably been linked with memory loss, is a patently unwise thing to do.

I know it is boring and unfashionable to challenge a substance which has been glamorized and energetically normalized as much as dope, but when we subtly started tolerating marijuana use in the 1960s we started down the slope towards making heroin, ice and other things subtly acceptable, with consequences that are today tragically clear.

Finally, on the question of liberalizing things that damage some weak and vulnerable people, I am not a libertarian. I apply the seat belt principle. If the costs are dreadful and the benefits frivolous, then there is no harm in laws protecting people from themselves, if it can be enforced.

[Skids]

It's fly out day today & boy, what a hell of a week!

I haven't had a smoke for about 2 weeks and to say I'm looking forward to kicking back with a cold beer and a nice big spliff tonight would be a huge understatement.
I'll have the best sleep I've had in over a week, the alarm will change from 0415hr to 0630, when I'll get up and hit the beach for a run and a sniff of that crisp ocean breeze.

And that makes me a criminal?! Ludicrous

[Mugwump]

^ good for you, mate, and I hope you enjoy it. In answer to your question, however, yes it does. The law has been enacted by parliament, and you are choosing to break it. But given the fact that it is not enforced with any rigour, I can well understand your lack of concern for it. When the government won't police its laws effectively, they bring the law into disrepute.