Meatwad said:
You're hopeless. Answer me this, how many people die a year from tobacco? how many people die a year from smoking marijuana? Here, I'll answer that for you. Tobacco - 435,000 Marijuana - 0 Even 7600 people overdose on Aspirin a year.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/causes.htm
this is a poor example my friend....
tobacco users (overwhelming majority of which are cigarette smokers) are smokers who consume a lot more carcinogens daily than marijuana users... even the most frequent marijuana users might be once or twice a day. Some hard core cigarette smokers can smoke up to two packs a day. So, even though cigarettes yield less pollutants, people smoke more of them. To top that off there are millions MORE tobacco users than marijuana users..... so you have a poor comparison simply of ratio of users here.
Marijuana is simply worse for you than cigarettes. Nobody smokes it more though, so its not perceived as bad.
another point - you say no one dies from smoking marijuana - aside from my case i just made, you are
excluding the people that have died from being under the influence of marijuana. I've had two friends die from such incidents, and having impaired judgement due to being under the influence of a controlled substance was the reason. argue that all you want, but this is the truth i have seen with my own eyes on my own friends. Who's not to say how many other people this has happened too.
Point 3 - marijuana is already legal in Amsterdam. Two things about this: if you love it so much that it affects your daily decisions, feel free to move there and enjoy it. Second thing - I have been there and have seen first hand how this drug has ruined that society and polluted the streets and museums. Its sad to be standing in the Museum of History of the Netherlands and not be able to be in any room or exhibit without the pungent aroma of marijuana. The whole city reeks of it, and quite frankly it gets old. At first glance Amsterdam sounds like a weed lovers paradise, but trust me, it tires quickly.
If marijuana was legal here can you imagine what it would do to our landscape/image/cities? As "cool" as it may be to appear on the pro-weed side of the arguement, it just doesn't make sense in more ways than one. You can still smoke it if you want to now, so leave it at that. If it was so great and harmless as a lot of you like to think it is, use your brain - it would be legal already. Don'tcha think the government would LOVE to tax the hell out of it and make more money - but they don't b/c it is really a lot worse than it is made out to be.
Being a plant from the ground does not mean its good for you or harmless. There are plenty of poisonous berries that you don't go around picking and eating, and they come from the ground. The "just a plant" arguement is lame and would even be considered so by anyone at High Times.
Comparisons to alcohol are apples to oranges. Keep in mind alcohol is a centuries-old legalized substance. When prohibition was attempted, it resulted in chaos and more crime than when it was legal. Marijuana was late to the game, only introduced recently to the US. By now its too late. We can not legalize marijuana just like we cannot outlaw liquor.
Whats the difference anyway? If you want to smoke weed, you can anyway. so who cares? its YOUR decision, and everyone that does is aware of the consequences. They choose to take that chance, so let them deal with it (i.e. Ricky).
-tex
