Any drug that has a medical purpose should be legal for such purposes. It should be taxed, regulated, and administered via medical professionals, just like any other drug should be.
Oh yes, viva liberty!!!! It is important to prevent federal interference in obtaining your drugs but it is just fine and dandy to have federal interference to make sure unborn babies are allowed to be butchered.
It is important to prevent federal interference in obtaining your drugs but it is just fine and dandy to have federal interference to make sure unborn babies are allowed to be butchered.
nausea and vomiting (helpful for chemotherapy and AIDS patients)
reduction of muscle spasms and relief from chronic pain (multiple sclerosis and epilepsy)
as an appitite stimulant which helps among other things, cachexia, the wasting away effect brought on by AIDS and chemotherapy.
each of these applications has been deemed legitimate by at least one court, legislature, and/or government agency in the United States at some point.
I have read scientific studies that suggest possible applications for brain injury and Alzheimer's cases as well as indications that it counteracts the cancer causing agents of tobacco smoke. Studies have found that it cures brain cancers in rats.
Marijuana has been used the world over as a medicine for centuries.
of course, since it's illegal, research has been severely curtailed if not outright banned...and since medicine is always advancing, the potential uses are as yet not completely known. I have read studies that indicate that it may help with brain injuries, Alzheimer's and may also combat lung cancer from tobacco smoke.
Also, aren't some medical mj users unhappy with the gov't grown stuff?
I'm friends with one of the remaining 7 (or 8?) people who get medical marijuana from the US government as part of the program that Bush I shut down. She says that the stuff they send her is crappy, and that it's got seeds and stems (both very nasty to smoke, and without medical properties) all mixed in with it. As far as I can tell, they shred full plants (as opposed to just the buds and leaves, where the medicine is) and machine roll tons of joints from that.
She has to rip apart all the joints when they come and sift through to get out all the unsmokable stuff. And the remaining stuff still isn't very good, apparently.
Still, it's pretty intense to see these big metal cans that our federal government mails hundreds of joints to these 7 (?) people in every month. I met another of those patients at a place where he gave a talk (introduced him, in fact, since I was the emcee :-)), and he brought one of the cans in. Pretty nutty. It makes the situation hard to compute -- to actually see the vessel our gov't uses to distribute this drug that they also shut down clinics for distributing, and arrest sick people for using.
I mean, I already knew there was this disconnect going on (I had known about those patients for years), but to actually see that can, and meet the patients, really made my mind go "huh?" in a very palpable way. There's understanding something, and then there's seeing it in front of your eyes, which is a whole different matter.
That's backed up by the major wake-up that our county's DA experienced when he actually met serious medical marijuana patients (including my half-blind friend, the federal patient). He said so himself in the forum he was at where he met her -- that his whole belief system about it was undergoing a shift-struggle right there at the forum.
If you call using drugs freedom I have a bridge I would like to sell you, drug use is Slavery end of story.
the freedom to use or not use is the freedom. the drugs themselves are just a substance.
drug use, like TV use or internet use or sex or gambling or anything else...is not "slavery"...they can be addictive, but they can be and often are used without detriment.
slavery is when you physically confine someone and force them to do or not do what they do not choose or choose to do.
to call drug use "slavery" is absurd rhetoric.
people have been doing drugs and living normal, productive lives since there were people. As long as they aren't hurting me, why should it be any of my business what someone wants to ingest?
and besides, where do you stop when it comes to telling people what they can and cannot do? If you think eating meat is harmful to people and causes them to be more aggressive and therefore pose more of a threat, do you then want to make a law against it?
if someone takes some viagra and rapes a person, do you outlaw the drug and assume anyone who used it is a rapist?
if bean consumption causes someone to fart in my air space, do we outlaw eating burritos?
drugs aren't this big, scary monster. they are simply substances that have various effects on people's bodies and minds. bleach is a substance that has an effect on people's body and mind, but just because someone drinks some doesn't mean that we should outlaw bleach. it's just a substance.
if you blame the substance for someone's stupid use of it, then perhaps you should reconsider your position on letting people have guns.
and besides, in your "drug-free" world, there would be no Beatles music...and that's just not acceptable.
and don't forget that most of the real problemsthat involve drugs aren't due to the drugs themselves, they are due to the drug laws.
you want slavery...it's not the drugs that create the salvery I think you are suggesting, but the laws that create a lucrative criminal underground. it's the drugs laws that create that.
you want "slavery"? check out the disproportionant numbers of blacks in prison by means of the selective enforcement of drug laws.
the way in which drug laws like the Rockefeller laws in NYC are being enforced is creating a situation in their penal system that looks very much like slavery.
slavery is when you physically confine someone and force them to do or not do what they do not choose or choose to do.
to call drug use "slavery" is absurd rhetoric.
You are only looking at the surface of the problem, what about the poor kid that is forced by older gang members to sell the drugs on the street. Or the peasent in some third world country that is enslaved by the drug cartels and forced to plant, tend and harvest the drug crops. You may think you have nothing to do with this as you sit in your nice clean home and smoke or what ever you do but there blood is on your hands.
what about the poor kid that is forced by older gang members to sell the drugs on the street.
this is because of the prohibition, not the drugs.
Or the peasent in some third country that is in slaved by the drug cartels and forced to plant, tend and harvest the drug crops
so is this.
You may think you have nothing to do with this as you sit in your nice clean home and smoke or what ever you do but there blood is on your hands
the blood is on the hands of the people who allow these stupid laws to exist.
just as the blood created by alcohol was not because of the alcohol, but because of the prohibition and the criminal black market it created. When was the last time you heard about the CEO's of Budweiser and Segrams shooting it out in the streets?
the examples you list are just a few of the ugly side effects of the laws, not the drugs themselves.
The harm that the drug lawsdo far outweighes any harm the substances themselves may cause.
The harm that the drug laws do far outweighes any harm the substances themselves may cause.
The drug laws are the appropriate response to harmful substances. The drug lwas are in place through the free and legitmate political process. We fundamentally disagree on this. So is there any point of further discussion?
This discussion should go on until enough people realize that the War on Drugs is a lost cause, at least the way it's being fought now. I believe alcohol use has declined in this country over the last twenty years, and it was due to education and changing social mores, not prohibition.
The drug laws are the appropriate response to harmful substances.
what exactly do you think is harmful about marijuana?
it's the safest drug in the history of the world.
no one has ever O.D.ed on it. it's safer than aspirin. safer than milk.
if you think the laws are based on the harm a substance causes, you are mistaken. By any standard you choose, alcohol is far more "harmful" than all of the illegal drugs combined...and as a nation we celebrate it's consumption.
as I said, crabs, we have fundamental disagreement on the subject. it does us no good to discuss it. so as for me I won't discuss it with you any more.
I wish you guys would stop spewing this stuff all over the boards.
Back on subject:
Among progressives [and libertarians], critics of the War have claimed for years that the War On Drugs has been ineffective, expensive, an invasion of privacy, racist, ageist, classist, and an excuse for lost civil liberties and an enormous expansion of state power. But we've often failed to acknowledge that abuse of drugs (legal or not) really does hurt both individuals and communities. And therein lies the potential for a consensus that transcends ideology.
Prohibition begets violent crime, but so, at times, do the drugs themselves. Car accidents kill users and their victims alike. Lives waste away. Those of us who want people to be free to put whatever they want into their own bodies -- and that day is coming soon, whether the official War on Drugs ends or not -- have an obligation to also propose realistic, effective ways to prevent the harm that might result.
The answer must start with personal responsibility...
At last, a liberal is starting to make some sense.
The answer must start with personal responsibility, and expand into community support through notions like low-income health care and harm reduction models.
Wrong. It must start and end with personal responsibility.
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of whatever, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2004, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to race, creed, color, age, or sexual preference of the wishee. (By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good wishes for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)
I'm happy.
Any drug that has a medical purpose should be legal for such purposes. It should be taxed, regulated, and administered via medical professionals, just like any other drug should be.
I suppose if you really beleive there is a medical purpose....
it's not a matter of "believe".
it's been used as a medicine for centuries.
the ruling is a good start, but it's still illegal.
it's not a matter of "believe".
It is all about belief.
swell...I don't believe there are any drug laws...
great!
For once the Ninth Circuit rules in favor of liberty.
Oh yes, viva liberty!!!! It is important to prevent federal interference in obtaining your drugs but it is just fine and dandy to have federal interference to make sure unborn babies are allowed to be butchered.
you really need to smoke a joint, bodine.
it would do you a world of good.
Yeah Bodine! Smoke one. You'll be posting like crabs.
What exactly can CA Dr's prescribe medical mj for?
I understand it's beneficial for cancer patients but if a person comes in for a headache, does he/she walk out with a couple of joints?
possible medical uses of marijuana...
glaucoma
nausea and vomiting (helpful for chemotherapy and AIDS patients)
reduction of muscle spasms and relief from chronic pain (multiple sclerosis and epilepsy)
as an appitite stimulant which helps among other things, cachexia, the wasting away effect brought on by AIDS and chemotherapy.
each of these applications has been deemed legitimate by at least one court, legislature, and/or government agency in the United States at some point.
I have read scientific studies that suggest possible applications for brain injury and Alzheimer's cases as well as indications that it counteracts the cancer causing agents of tobacco smoke. Studies have found that it cures brain cancers in rats.
Marijuana has been used the world over as a medicine for centuries.
of course, since it's illegal, research has been severely curtailed if not outright banned...and since medicine is always advancing, the potential uses are as yet not completely known. I have read studies that indicate that it may help with brain injuries, Alzheimer's and may also combat lung cancer from tobacco smoke.
I'll buy into what you said crabs except for the curing cancer part. That's a stretch to say the least.
Also, aren't some medical mj users unhappy with the gov't grown stuff?
I've heard that the Canadian Government weed is pretty low-grade ditch weed.
as for the cancer
I'm friends with one of the remaining 7 (or 8?) people who get medical marijuana from the US government as part of the program that Bush I shut down. She says that the stuff they send her is crappy, and that it's got seeds and stems (both very nasty to smoke, and without medical properties) all mixed in with it. As far as I can tell, they shred full plants (as opposed to just the buds and leaves, where the medicine is) and machine roll tons of joints from that.
She has to rip apart all the joints when they come and sift through to get out all the unsmokable stuff. And the remaining stuff still isn't very good, apparently.
Still, it's pretty intense to see these big metal cans that our federal government mails hundreds of joints to these 7 (?) people in every month. I met another of those patients at a place where he gave a talk (introduced him, in fact, since I was the emcee :-)), and he brought one of the cans in. Pretty nutty. It makes the situation hard to compute -- to actually see the vessel our gov't uses to distribute this drug that they also shut down clinics for distributing, and arrest sick people for using.
I mean, I already knew there was this disconnect going on (I had known about those patients for years), but to actually see that can, and meet the patients, really made my mind go "huh?" in a very palpable way. There's understanding something, and then there's seeing it in front of your eyes, which is a whole different matter.
That's backed up by the major wake-up that our county's DA experienced when he actually met serious medical marijuana patients (including my half-blind friend, the federal patient). He said so himself in the forum he was at where he met her -- that his whole belief system about it was undergoing a shift-struggle right there at the forum.
If there's only 7 or 8 medical mj users left that are supplied by the gov't, why are "tons" being machined rolled?
Maybe to be planted on people (pun not intended) to throw them in jail?
Since no one has taken this 2000 Joe, I will!!!!
Hal9000 Joe!
posts moved from "war in Iraq" thread
the freedom to use or not use is the freedom. the drugs themselves are just a substance.
drug use, like TV use or internet use or sex or gambling or anything else...is not "slavery"...they can be addictive, but they can be and often are used without detriment.
slavery is when you physically confine someone and force them to do or not do what they do not choose or choose to do.
to call drug use "slavery" is absurd rhetoric.
people have been doing drugs and living normal, productive lives since there were people. As long as they aren't hurting me, why should it be any of my business what someone wants to ingest?
and besides, where do you stop when it comes to telling people what they can and cannot do? If you think eating meat is harmful to people and causes them to be more aggressive and therefore pose more of a threat, do you then want to make a law against it?
if someone takes some viagra and rapes a person, do you outlaw the drug and assume anyone who used it is a rapist?
if bean consumption causes someone to fart in my air space, do we outlaw eating burritos?
drugs aren't this big, scary monster. they are simply substances that have various effects on people's bodies and minds. bleach is a substance that has an effect on people's body and mind, but just because someone drinks some doesn't mean that we should outlaw bleach. it's just a substance.
if you blame the substance for someone's stupid use of it, then perhaps you should reconsider your position on letting people have guns.
and besides, in your "drug-free" world, there would be no Beatles music...and that's just not acceptable.
and don't forget that most of the real problemsthat involve drugs aren't due to the drugs themselves, they are due to the drug laws.
you want slavery...it's not the drugs that create the salvery I think you are suggesting, but the laws that create a lucrative criminal underground. it's the drugs laws that create that.
you want "slavery"? check out the disproportionant numbers of blacks in prison by means of the selective enforcement of drug laws.
the way in which drug laws like the Rockefeller laws in NYC are being enforced is creating a situation in their penal system that looks very much like slavery.
Those damn drug tests! What the hell are those insurance companies or employers thinking of crabs?
I mean, can't a crack addict be an airline pilot anymore? What's the world coming to?
Your anarchist world will never be.
slavery is when you physically confine someone and force them to do or not do what they do not choose or choose to do.
to call drug use "slavery" is absurd rhetoric.
You are only looking at the surface of the problem, what about the poor kid that is forced by older gang members to sell the drugs on the street. Or the peasent in some third world country that is enslaved by the drug cartels and forced to plant, tend and harvest the drug crops. You may think you have nothing to do with this as you sit in your nice clean home and smoke or what ever you do but there blood is on your hands.
this is because of the prohibition, not the drugs.
so is this.
the blood is on the hands of the people who allow these stupid laws to exist.
just as the blood created by alcohol was not because of the alcohol, but because of the prohibition and the criminal black market it created. When was the last time you heard about the CEO's of Budweiser and Segrams shooting it out in the streets?
the examples you list are just a few of the ugly side effects of the laws, not the drugs themselves.
The harm that the drug lawsdo far outweighes any harm the substances themselves may cause.
the drug laws create a black market economy that people like terrorists thrive on.
support for the drug laws is support for terrorism.
The harm that the drug laws do far outweighes any harm the substances themselves may cause.
The drug laws are the appropriate response to harmful substances. The drug lwas are in place through the free and legitmate political process. We fundamentally disagree on this. So is there any point of further discussion?
This discussion should go on until enough people realize that the War on Drugs is a lost cause, at least the way it's being fought now. I believe alcohol use has declined in this country over the last twenty years, and it was due to education and changing social mores, not prohibition.
what exactly do you think is harmful about marijuana?
it's the safest drug in the history of the world.
no one has ever O.D.ed on it. it's safer than aspirin. safer than milk.
if you think the laws are based on the harm a substance causes, you are mistaken. By any standard you choose, alcohol is far more "harmful" than all of the illegal drugs combined...and as a nation we celebrate it's consumption.
as I said, crabs, we have fundamental disagreement on the subject. it does us no good to discuss it. so as for me I won't discuss it with you any more.
you would actually have to start in order to discuss it more.
you would have to quit being an utter asshole for me to give you any respect, crabs. I despise you, you damn dip.
check yourself
If I am an asshole to you, crabs, it is because I despise you. Make no mistake about it. You have no qualities that I admire and a lot I despise.
Let go of the hate, Jethro.
let it go where? I thought that was what I ws doing-letting it go!!!!
nah...that ain't why.
stop blaming your problems on other people
I wish you guys would stop spewing this stuff all over the boards.
Back on subject:
Among progressives [and libertarians], critics of the War have claimed for years that the War On Drugs has been ineffective, expensive, an invasion of privacy, racist, ageist, classist, and an excuse for lost civil liberties and an enormous expansion of state power. But we've often failed to acknowledge that abuse of drugs (legal or not) really does hurt both individuals and communities. And therein lies the potential for a consensus that transcends ideology.
Prohibition begets violent crime, but so, at times, do the drugs themselves. Car accidents kill users and their victims alike. Lives waste away. Those of us who want people to be free to put whatever they want into their own bodies -- and that day is coming soon, whether the official War on Drugs ends or not -- have an obligation to also propose realistic, effective ways to prevent the harm that might result.
The answer must start with personal responsibility...
At last, a liberal is starting to make some sense.
Full article:
http://www.workingforchange.com/article.cfm?itemid=16015
The article goes on and says:
Wrong. It must start and end with personal responsibility.
I agree. "Community support" means government programs, which don't solve the problems.
I stand corrected -- the GI Bill has been good for our soldiers and our country.
rural electrification was a pretty good program
as was the interstate highway program
looks like Thailand is having a little trouble with it's drug war.
I see no trouble. Killing each other over turf wars? Sounds like a good thing.
Happy Whatever
Please accept with no obligation, implied or implicit, my best wishes for an environmentally conscious, socially responsible, low stress, non-addictive, gender neutral, celebration of whatever, practiced within the most enjoyable traditions of the religious persuasion of your choice, or secular practices of your choice, with respect for the religious/secular persuasions and/or traditions of others, or their choice not to practice religious or secular traditions at all and a fiscally successful, personally fulfilling, and medically uncomplicated recognition of the onset of the generally accepted calendar year 2004, but not without due respect for the calendars of choice of other cultures whose contributions to society have helped make America great, (not to imply that America is necessarily greater than any other country or is the only "America" in the western hemisphere), and without regard to race, creed, color, age, or sexual preference of the wishee. (By accepting this greeting, you are accepting these terms: This greeting is subject to clarification or withdrawal. It is freely transferable with no alteration to the original greeting. It implies no promise by the wisher to actually implement any of the wishes for her/himself or others, and is void where prohibited by law, and is revocable at the sole discretion of the wisher. This wish is warranted to perform as expected within the usual application of good wishes for a period of one year, or until the issuance of a subsequent greeting, whichever comes first, and warranty is limited to replacement of this wish or issuance of a new wish at the sole discretion of the wisher.)
Good one, Ian!
That was a good one Ian. Too bad it's actually coming to that.
Hey! Is that crabs in his back yard?
"Quit stalking me" - Torpedo-8
OK crabs. The same line for a week now. I see what I've reduced you to.
"Quit stalking me" - Torpedo-8