What do you think about the legalization of marijuana/should it be legalized?

Answer 1

yes. prohibition is an infrigement of our rights.

It's not a stretch to conclude that our draconian approach to drug use is the most injurious domestic policy since slavery. Want to cut back on prison overcrowding and save a bundle on the construction of new facilities? Open the doors, let the nonviolent drug offenders go. The huge increases in federal and state prison populations during the 1980s and '90s (from 139 per 100,000 residents in 1980 to 482 per 100,000 in 2003) were mainly for drug convictions. In 1980, 580,900 Americans were arrested on drug charges. By 2003, that figure had ballooned to 1,678,200. We're making more arrests for drug offenses than for murder, manslaughter, forcible rape and aggravated assault combined. Feel safer?
I've witnessed the devastating effects of open-air drug markets in residential neighborhoods: children recruited as runners, mules and lookouts; drug dealers and innocent citizens shot dead in firefights between rival traffickers bent on protecting or expanding their markets; dedicated narcotics officers tortured and killed in the line of duty; prisons filled with nonviolent drug offenders; and drug-related foreign policies that foster political instability, wreak health and environmental disasters, and make life even tougher for indigenous subsistence farmers in places such as Latin America and Afghanistan. All because we like our drugs — and can't have them without breaking the law.
--Norm Stamper, ex-police chief of Seattle

Answer 2

Drug laws are just another tool for government to control its people. What the naive never understand about irrational laws they are in place to give government ultimate control over its people. The government has no claim or control over an innocent man. If you make many laws and make them highly interpretive you have created a tool to be used to turn your citizenry in to the equivalent of a slave easily controlled by the threat of incarceration. Just living day to day the average person can break many laws and don't know it. Those laws are in place lurking in the shadows to be used against us at the government's convenience.

Marijuana is a tool the racist government has used against non-whites to keep control. It has now become a way to control people in general even now whites. Whites are now getting screwed as well because the government has to have the appearance of fairness to maintain its legitimacy. But drug laws still land more none whites in prison due to the economic disparity. You are far less likely to go to jail if you can post bail for the exact crime. If you are a non-white you still are more likely to go jail even when you do post bail. It is only a matter of time injustices are made public and the once protected racial group will start getting the same treatment because the courts will not admit their errors and make real changes. So we all take in the rear end in the end. So whites have to do most of the waking up before the institution of racism takes us all down.

The wealthy is always protected through hiring the best lawers. The spread betweet the poor and wealthy is getting larger therefore the middle class is getting smaller. This is the main reason whites are becoming more at risk with the current state of things.

The socially naive always think more laws will solve societal problems. Real solution will always come from public education and trusting them to do the right thing. Politician use this naivety to gain votes to keep their power. Fear and ignorance are great tools used to gain the votes.

Wake up people...

Answer 3

I think that legalization is the only answer. People who oppose legalization are in denial.

Prohibition simply has not worked. It's failed to contain the substance. Usage is higher than it probably ever has been.

Legalization would cut prison costs overnight. Why should we throw recreational users of marijuana in jail anyway? Is their habit worse than a person who's been addicted to cigarettes for 30 years? No. Is their habit worse than an alcoholic? Not by a long shot.

A tax on marijuana usage would clear up the budget deficit pretty quickly. Further, the legalization of drugs would cause gangs and crime syndicates to dissolve, since there's a culture of crime tied to marijuana that most users don't participate in directly.

So the answer is a clear yes. It's the only conclusion that any rational person can come to. Combined with the hypocrisy of standing drug law with regard to different substances, if you believe in legal consistency, then marijuana must be legalized. If you oppose the jailing of otherwise innocent people, you must support legalization. If you are intellectually honest, you must admit that marijuana prohibition has failed utterly to achieve its objectives, because its objectives are inherently impossible to achieve.

It's a failed policy that only has an upside to the DEA and the pharma industry. And that's why it's still illegal... there's a billion dollar industry surrounding drug enforcement.

Put bluntly, those suffering in jail to support the drug enforcement industry are economic prisoners.

Answer 4

Let's go one step further. Give all the seized drugs to whoever wants them as long as they are a registered user. They won't break into our houses to buy any then. When the drugs run out, we know who the users are.

More.....

I agree with leftist...we should produce and sell all the drugs out there. Talk about a balanced budget. Oh and those who are concerned about the people losing there jobs who are fighting the "war" on drugs....let them do the retail. Takes all the danger out of it too.

Answer 5

Yes - legalize it.

Tax it as heavily as cigarettes.

It's no more dangerous that alcohol.

Prohibition has never worked.

Money spent on eradication and enforcement is a waste - and could do much good.

Answer 6

Yes, I lived in Europe for a long time. It is legal in Holland, and the only people who smoke it there are American tourists.

Answer 7

you should watch this thing on the History channel, this program in segments talks about marijuana and cocaine and how they came to be illegal...marijuana was made illegal because it supposedly made the Mexicans stronger and want to work harder or something. And cocaine became illegal because it made the blacks mad and they raped white women b/c of the drug...so illegalization of drugs can be dated back to racism!

Answer 8

I think it should be for medicinal uses only.

Answer 9

definately yes. hey, you got any twinkies?

Answer 10

I subscribe to the "slippery slope" theory and don't think it should.