B) Claiming various kinds of intoxication or substance abuse are different because it feels different to the user is asinine. Snorting coke and shooting heroin are different highs, is one more acceptable?

C) All users are selfish, especially if they’re parents. The money she spent on drugs should have gone to her kids.

D) If pot is so different than other drugs why do you people cry so much when someone criticizes it? Why can’t you admit (as all drinkers would) that you don’t act rationally when you’re high?

This is someone who wants to get trashed and have a good time and is only thinking of herself. Do you seriously believe that her marijuana use caused her to be this way? There are a lot of rotten mothers and fathers out there that never laid a finger on marijuana, and you can bet that high horse you’re on that there are just as many good mothers and fathers that have.

I can tell from the discussion that none of you have very much experience with pot or pot smokers. Some pot smokers enjoy smoking themselves into oblivion while others will maintain a level head and enjoy themselves responsibly. The same can be said for alcohol.

Instead you will focus on the extremes and extrapolate that to form a polarized view. That is what this article was, isn’t it? We all must agree with you in light of this shining example. You fail to realize that people who abuse substances are a subset of people who use substances and should not be used as a basis for any conclusion about users in general.

Also, it’s rediculous to state that the same rules should apply to marijuana as those that do to alcohol. That’s like saying the same rules should apply to alcohol that apply to heroine or meth or pain killers. Each substance has different effects on the body (regardless of their local legal status, btw) and very well should have distinct regulations regarding them.

This goes back to my point that none of you have any world experience with about which you speak. The effects of marijuana and alcohol are entirely different. In fact, in some ways they are opposite and they impair (at certain dosages specific to the indvidual) different functions. I would very much prefer that my taxi driver smokes marijuana before he picks me up than he down a fifth of vodka, although as a responsible smoker he would leave that to himself at the end of his shift.

In essense, your view is simplistic, and in fact dangerous. I say dangerous because you casually eliminate the distinction between substances.

I personally think people who do any kind of drug, alcohol included have something seriously lacking in their life.I simply think that the dangers of marijuana are blown out of proportion..

I saw a headline in a newspaper. It said “We had a war on drugs but forgot about alcohol”. That just about sums it up. I just wish Keith Whitley had smoked pot instead of drinking booze. The country music industry would have been richer for it as he would still be alive or at the very least he would have released more songs before he died of something else.

Just like the Peyote church I support the people who use substances for religious purposes. I’ve never run into a LEGITIMATE pot smoking religion aside from Rastafarianism but if there was one I’d not care. I do however think that it’s interesting that Rasta’s do tend toward abusing weed while Pagans are not more likely to be alcoholics.

I fully support murder charges for drunk drivers who kill someone by the way. I also support passing a law that makes bars on hghways illegal. After all that’s just a set up for drunk driving.

And I agree that drug users, *all* drug users, including those who abuse alcohol usually impact others.

And as for the 70 percent who committed violent crimes being found high or with drugs at the time, I’ll agree. But if you think that drunk driving, or for the political correct crowd, driving under the influence isn’t a violent crime, you’re smoking more powerful dope than the crackheads. That behavior kills, maims and seriously injures a lot of people. And not just the ones who indulge in it. I’m glad to see them crack down hard on it. As for dealing the stuff, the reason they do is because it’s illegal. What if someone were making and selling moonshine. I guarantee you the feds would crack down hard on him or her. Why? Public health? Don’t make me laugh. Because they aren’t getting any revenue from it. There might be some truth to the claim they are acting for the public welfare, but make no mistake. The main reason is money.

I’m not sure what’s wrong with skinny jeans, but I do agree that child porn is abominable and those who make it and those who support it should go away for a long, long time. Like forever. I’m not really saying pot is better than alcohol. I’m simply saying it’s safer as you can overdose and die from alcohol, but you can’t from smoking cannabis. Amd yes, you have a point about the slow erosion of mental and emotional well being. But you get the same with alcohol and it’s legal.

And I agree with promoting honesty. You say you are against the state dealing to the masses as a way to control them. What about booze? I’m simply saying that if you have one drug that can cause death from overdose legal, but another drug that you can’t overdose on, illegal, then the only reason I see for the physically safer one being illegal is to line the pockets of the companies that manufacture the legal, more physically dangerous one. And the pharmasutical companies and the ones who want to keep it illegal so they can make more money.

Truth be told, I’d like to see them all, alcohol included be classed the same legally. Whether it’s legal or illegal is immaterial to me. They are all drugs and they should be treated the same. Not that it matters. Some people are going to ingest mind altering substances no matter what the law says. I’m just saying don’t be hypocritical. Drugs and alcohol? Why add the four extra syllabes? Just say drugs. That what it comes down to.

My point isn’t that alcoholics are better (they aren’t) but that Marijuana isn’t harmless. No drug use is. Drug users, like alcoholics, think they are not impacting others but that’s usually not the truth.

It also isn’t the truth that recreational drug users get long prison terms. Sorry I’ve been there, Ive seen people get tickets for having weed etc. Most people with drug charges in prison went down for dealing and most were involved in other crimes first. A study was done last year (I have to find it but I know it’s on Red Alerts somewhere) in which they found that 70% of people arrested for violent crime were found high or with drugs at the time. I put forward that many of these people are the “innocent drug users” NORML claims infest our prisons.

As for dying of overdoses that’s not my point. People can’t overdose from child porn or skinny jeans either but neither are acceptable for people to indulge in. As I said to someone else in another thread if pot is so much better than other drugs explain the 420 for “dates” ads on Craigslist. The harm of getting high isn’t the immediate death of an overdose but the slow erosion of mental and emotional well being. And you’re right that people who get drunk are no better.

What I promote is honesty. I’m not for or against legalization, I’m against the state dealing to the masses as a way to control them which is frankly what the pot proponents are working for. My Victimless Crime File category is here to highlight one simple truth, chronic users of any substance cannot take care of themselves and cannot be trusted. Why does the government and the left want people, then, to be chronic users?