Because a ban on alcohol worked so well for the United StatesTheNamlessGuy said:I find it curious that you attack cigarettes, and not alcohol, when clearly the latter is the greater evil.
Because a ban on alcohol worked so well for the United StatesTheNamlessGuy said:I find it curious that you attack cigarettes, and not alcohol, when clearly the latter is the greater evil.
Cigaretters should not be illegal, Marihuana should be legal. That's how I see it. Yes, tobacco is more harmful than weed, so I think weed should be legalized. For those who smoke (I do too occasionally) good for ye. Everyone should get to smoke whatever they want.Link55 said:Weed is less harmful than cigarettes. At least weed help people in a way. That and it's natural unlike the thousands of chemicals in the average cigarette. And in what way does a cigarette help anybody. If you know a way please tell me. But they should just ban them without hesitation.
How so? I made a valid point about how things being illegal do not stop them from happening. Remember the prohibition of alcohol? Didn't work.Aprilgold said:Your not wasting your time because your post was stupid.
You are looking for a discussion, huh?2clueless said:I am looking for discussion. I am not looking for quotes and reversals that do not relate to the spirit of the argument.Calibanbutcher said:Now, we know that there are a lot of smokers.DrLoveNKiss said:First they came for the communists,2clueless said:I am going to take this an entire step further.
Not only should cigarettes be banned, people who smoke should be euthanized.
For the moment, ignore other drugs. I am also ignoring the impact on economy (taxes vs future extended care). Focus on the single aspect of smoking.
When a person smokes, he or she is knowingly pumping harmful chemicals into their body. They are putting themselves through incredible physical trauma to sustain what is or very soon will be their habit. All this simply on inhalation. On the exhale, you are now sharing all those particles and chemicals with the people around you, poisoning and inflicting upon them the same trauma you are doing to yourself.
To my eyes, smoking is akin to slow suicide, and attempted murder to those around you. With every cigarette, you are doing yourself and the people around you even more harm.
If you do not respect yourself enough and your friends, family, general public, to prevent and protect from widespread debilitation and harm, you should be put down.
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a communist.
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a trade unionist.
Then they came for the Jews,
and I didn't speak out because I wasn't a Jew.
Then they came for me
and there was no one left to speak out for me.
There are even more who do not smoke.
Of this majority, a few are truly ANTI-smoking.
Wouldn't it make more sense just to kill them?
There are fewer of them than smokers, so less people would have to be put down.
Is this an extreme view? Definitely. Am I willing to back off or concede a point or two? Certainly. I am sure their are plenty of smokers who are courteous and diligent enough to indulge their suicidal tendencies without annoying and endangering the rest of us, and so may be left alone. My real issues lie with the idiots and asshats who still smoke in the house with young children, who smoke next to malls, schools, hospitals, and all other busy public institutions. Fine them, restrict them, jail them, euthanize them, whatever it takes to stop the local pollution and danger to other people.
Are both of you smokers? Would you disagree that second hand smoke is poisonous? Do you enjoy harming others with your habit?
If you are both non-smokers speaking up for those who practice the habit, do you not get angry with every errant breath of carcinogen-laden cigarette smoke? I believe you should. I believe you should be seeking ways to be rid of such reckless public enadngerment, one way or another.
Didn't say it couldn't lead to psychosis, but I've met a lot more people who smoke weed and don't go crazy than do. Its only a small percentage of weed smokers who go on to getting psychosis. And most if not all of them have other problems as well.Calibanbutcher said:Soo, the people I met whilst working in a psychiatric institution who where there due to weed destroying their brain had no psychosis (well, psychotic episode WOULD have been the correct term, I admit).The Last Nomad said:"More often than not"?Calibanbutcher said:And weed really isn't all that harmless.
It might not give you cancer, but more often than not you can get yourself a bad psychosis.
I'm sorry to be the one to point this out but that's not true. "Far less often than not" would have been a better choice of words.
Interesting.
http://bjp.rcpsych.org/content/157/1/25.short
http://psycnet.apa.org/?&fa=main.doiLanding&uid=1935-04602-001
http://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S0140673687926201
Enjoy.
Sorry, I should've been more specific with my wording. I meant they start smoking young, they keep smoking and it just becomes a part of their life. This is also what I meant when saying people don't always understand how hard it is to quit, after doing it for so long they either see no reason to or can't imagine life without it. They may hear the ads saying how bad smoking is but because they've been smoking for so long and they haven't yet experienced any of the negative effects, it's all just white noise. Heck, I usually tune out when an anti-smoking ad comes on and I like them, I think they're the best way available to get the point across.solemnwar said:Don't know any better? Starting in bloody elementary school you're being bombarded by how bad smoking is for you. Teenagers are not stupid little kids who don't realise that their actions have consequences. They're not brilliant, hindsight makes me roll my eyes at myself hard enough to dislodge something, but give them SOME credit man! They had a choice, they made it.Nyaliva said:However, I hate the argument that everyone has a choice as to whether to kill themselves slowly because many start out in their teens and they don't know any better or find it too difficult to quit. You may tell them to suck it up but you won't know how hard it really is until you try it yourself.
And FWIW I think most people understand how hard it is to quit. Part of the whole being bombarded by how bad smoking is for you thing- they mention health risks and how hard it is to quit.
Its nice in theory, so is banning alcohol, but they tried that in the US didn't they? And it didn't work? (Isn't that how NASCAR was formed? Talk about side effects). Once something is made legal, criminalising it, is different to legalising something that was previously always criminal.Link55 said:Weed is less harmful than cigarettes. At least weed help people in a way. That and it's natural unlike the thousands of chemicals in the average cigarette. And in what way does a cigarette help anybody. If you know a way please tell me. But they should just ban them without hesitation.
I see this line of reasoning all the time, and I have to say... It's BS. Okay, it's cool in today's society to be all like "Freedom of speech yeah!" etc. etc.Phasmal said:Yeah, that.Daystar Clarion said:I dislike cigarettes as much as anyone, but who am I to tell people how to live their lives?
I do not wish to live in a nanny state, and neither should you.
Also, weed has potential harmful side effects in the same drunkenness has potential harmful side effects.
People do stupid things when drunk, so I can't imagine the number of 'heavy machinery' accidents caused by people who are high all the time.
I dont like smoking, people who smoke... stink. To put it bluntly. You don't notice it when you're around smoke but when you're not it hits you like a wall of gross.
But if people wanna do it then that's their choice.
Marijuana (cannabis as recreational drug) should not be legalised JUST because there is a demand for it that is being fulfilled by criminal gangs, as that would justify anything no matter how horrible and destructive or irresponsible. If there was a demand for slaves, that is no reason to repeal the 13th Amendment.chadachada123 said:Well for one, I wasn't talking about smoking marijuana. OF FREAKING COURSE IT'S NOT HELPFUL TO INHALE SMOKE.Treblaine said:Point 2 does not make the case that Cannabis should be freely distributed like coffee, but that is should be a controlled substance, so you have to go to a doctor to get a prescription who gives you a PRESCRIBED amount and it would be in pill form, purified to the active ingredient, not all the chemicals in Cannabis plant burned and inhaled. If a patient is in need of THC it must be administered in pill form where it has the analgesic and calming effect and less the high which many patients may not want and sick patients are likely to need a surgical operation. It is NOT helpful to have been inhaling smoke (any smoke) as it impedes the ability for wounds to heal, also how can you smoke in a hospital confined to bed when you cannot easilly pop outside.chadachada123 said:2) Lethargy is not a problem if you have pain and are already going to be sitting around the house waiting for the pain to ease (or waiting to DIE, in the case of inoperable cancers). The increase in appetite is DEFINITELY not a problem for people that are dying, as they need all the food they can get. It's also not a problem for people with eating disorders if it helps them eat and keep their food down. Even if it were a problem, that'd be something for users to deal with themselves, like with tobacco users having to deal with the loss of weight generally associated with it.
4) Not quite. The law should always be fair and unbiased. That marijuana is illegal while alcohol is legal is massively hypocritical, and must be fixed if the justice system is to be, well, just. It's not so much a slippery slope as it is a call for fairness, though I'd agree that his wording was a little fallacious. I'd take out video games, but I'd leave in 'dangerous' activities that can actually kill you, like dirt biking, etc, which are demonstrably far worse than marijuana as far as direct risk goes, and should thus be illegal if marijuana is illegal.
The case for medical cannabis is the same as the case for medical opiates. It adds NOTHING to the case for its recreational use and is in fact a good argument AGAINST its recreational use.
People with severe injuries are given Opiates, that is no justification that heroine syringes should be sold in the local 7/11 to people who are NOT in mind destroying pain.
That is fair.
PS: remember, America TRIED to ban alcohol and the Gangsters took over. When they banned weed at around the same time, not such a bad problem. They ban what they can. Alcohol is incredibly hard to ban as you just have to leave any nutrient juice to ferment anaerobically and you've got some hooche. America bans what it can. Maybe the drug trade could be sabotaged by legalising marijuana (I use that term to describe cannabis with the intention of recreational use) but I don't see how crack cocaine or heroine can safely or fairly sold to even 21 year olds.
But I fail to see how medical use (when used safely, like by not smoking it) is an argument against recreational use.
PS: When they banned weed, the exact. Same. Problems. Happened. I should know, I live near Detroit, where around 70% of the murders in 2007 were related to illicit drugs, well over half of those related at least in part to marijuana. Similar stuff is happening in Mexico right now because of their war against marijuana and other drugs, with a lot of that crime being related to the import of those drugs into the US.
Marijuana prohibition is causing the same empowerment of criminals, the same crime, and the same death as alcohol prohibition did. Crack and other drugs weren't part of this discussion (from what I can see), and while I certainly think that they should be legalized as well, those aren't nearly as hypocritical for being illegal as marijuana is.
I personally imagine part of the reason that marijuana prohibition isn't seen in such a negative light is that most of the crime, most of the victims, and most of the imprisoned gang members are poor (and black), as opposed to the rich (white) mob members of the 30s. 30s criminals appear to us as smart yet dirty, compared to modern drug dealing thugs seeming brutish and uncivilized.
If you want to huff irritants, don't let any of them come my way. I've stood down wind of a camp fire and gotten less smoke in my face as when I had to queue behind some smoker blowing smoke everywhere. He looked at me like I just asked to sleep with his wife when I discretely asked him not to do that as his tobacco smoke was irritating me. He used the "it's not going to kill you" excuse. Well I supposed if he spritzed me with tear-gas that wouldn't kill be either, but either way my eyes are bloodshot and watering.David Woon said:hey look i'm about to have a cigarette -puts cigarette in mouth and lights it- -puts up middle finger- DEAL WITH IT