Warrior General Games

Originally posted by Tim Harper
Sounds like your friend can't handle the smoke very well. I was a daily smoker, live with roommates that smoke constantly and have plenty of friends that are daily smokers. Have you never heard of a functioning Pot Head? Just like functioning alcoholics, high all the time and you would never tell. Your buddy just sounds like a light weight, but everyone I know are the exact opposite of that. Which is why I am all for the legalization for marijuana, because it sounds like to me your describing an alcoholic.


Certainly a possibility. I can't say I know many pot smokers that fit your description... The majority of potheads depicted in pop culture more closely fit my description. Haven't heard many people declare that marijuana increases their productivity though. Most common things I hear about people and marijuana is that they can "mellow/zone out" or whatever. I think the fact that you had to ask me if I have heard of this unicorn called a "Functioning Pot Head" confirms that this demographic must be in the minority.

Originally posted by foofighter24
They brag for the same reason idiots brag about getting drunk every night. No real life.

The huge source of income would be consumed by the huge expense of funding rehab clinics, imo. If it was taxed, you wouldn't change anything. People would then grow it themselves to avoid the tax.

Personally I don't understand why it is any better to make pot illegal than it was to make alcohol illegal. It is a plant and it is no more addictive than alcohol. They should just make it legal and concentrate on policing drugs that are created in a lab.

Originally posted by Manhattan
Most common things I hear about people and marijuana is that they can "mellow/zone out" or whatever. I think the fact that you had to ask me if I have heard of this unicorn called a "Functioning Pot Head" confirms that this demographic must be in the minority.

Not really, they just tend to be the people who don't talk about it much. Smoking a bowl is pretty much their 2 beers a night, something they do but probably doesn't define them as a person. I've known more than a few functional pot heads and functional alcoholics, honestly I've always found the alcoholics easier to pick out.

BTW what is the difference between mellow/zone out and "take the edge off" other than the legality of the substance used?

Originally posted by steellithium
What a person chooses to do with their body shouldn't be anyone else's business. Obviously a person shouldn't be high, when driving or providing a public service. What a person does in their own home shouldn't be the government's business.

I agree, and I am not a proponent of busting down people's doors. The issue I have is that it doesn't stay in the home. It leaks out all over.

Originally posted by foofighter24

The huge source of income would be consumed by the huge expense of funding rehab clinics, imo. If it was taxed, you wouldn't change anything. People would then grow it themselves to avoid the tax.

Just like all the people who buy beer making kits to avoid alcohol taxes? Or all the people who grow their own tobacco to avoid cigarette taxes?


Originally posted by Thomas J O'Connell and Ché B Bou-Matar, "Long term marijuana users seeking medical cannabis in California (2001–2007): demographics, social characteristics, patterns of cannabis and other drug use of 4117 applicants," Harm Reduction Journal, (November 2007)

Analysis of the demographic and social characteristics of a large sample of applicants seeking approval to use marijuana medically in California supports an interpretation of long term non problematic use by many who had first tried it as adolescents, and then either continued to use it or later resumed its use as adults. In general, they have used it at modest levels and in consistent patterns which anecdotally-often assisted their educational achievement, employment performance, and establishment of a more stable life-style. These data suggest that rather than acting as a gateway to other drugs, (which many had also tried), cannabis has been exerting a beneficial influence on most.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53


On the downside, legalization always increases the potential for addicts; just like the legalization of anything does. Is that enough reason to ban McDonalds; just because someone chooses to continually eat their completely unhealthy food? Sure; if you're inclined to be a tyrant that is opposed to their freedom.

On the positive side, there simply would be a gigantic increase in tax dollars no matter which way you look at it. You also get rid of the funding that gangs get from their local monopolies selling drugs that are probably unsafe anyway. Prohibition of any drug is just like the prohibition of alcohol in the 20s; gangs/murders rule the realm. Prohibition did not work in the 20s, nor is it working now.

Ending prohabition brings these positive results, including:

- a gigantic increase in tax revenue
- a large reduction in actual crime like murder
- reduction in the income/funds of countless gangs
- a gigantic reduction of people incarcerated
- a gigantic reduction in tax dollars spent on people incarcerated
- frees up a gigantic amount of law enforcement resources so they can concentrate on actual crimes like murder, rape, theft
- regulation requiring the drugs as safe as possible

There are clearly more positives in the regulation of drugs than the positives in creating a black market for drugs.

Take a look at the recent homicide rate compared to the homicide rate during alcohol Prohibition:
http://www.csdp.org/edcs/page24.htm

Originally posted by "Pudney, Stephen, "Drugs Policy – What Should We Do About Cannabis?" Centre for Economic Policy Research (London, United Kingdom: April 2009)

Prohibition has two effects: on one hand it raises supplier costs, disrupts market functioning and prevents open promotion of the product; on the other, it sacrifices the authorities’ ability to tax transactions and regulate operation of the market, product characteristics and promotional activity of suppliers. The cannabis prevalence rates presented in Figure 1 show clearly that prohibition has failed to prevent widespread use of the drug and leaves open the possibility that it might be easier to control the harmful use of cannabis by regulation of a legal market than to control illicit consumption under prohibition. The contrast between the general welcome for tobacco regulation (including bans on smoking in public places) and the deep suspicion of prohibition policy on cannabis is striking and suggests that a middle course of legalised but limited consumption may find a public consensus.
http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/node/53

Originally posted by Manhattan

Culturally speaking, the one thing I hate about marijuana is that it turns people in to idiots. Potheads only talk about pot. They are boring as hell. All they talk about is being high or acquiring money to get high, and then bugging people for rides to fast food joints. I can't stand potheads. They think they're freaking brilliant but they just talk about nonsense and give you dumb shit-eating-grin looks all of the time or talk gibberish. My friend Tony isn't a pothead, but he smokes regularly, and it is annoying when we (my friends) all go out and he smokes and he just checks himself out of the evening. Doesn't talk to us. Stares into space and occasionally giggles about stuff. He says "Well I'm having fun" and I say that he isn't part of the fun, he is just having fun with himself, to which he says "isn't that the point?". That's what I hate about potheads. They are never part of anything, they don't offer anything, they just take up space and don't realize they are acting like jackasses. It is like they have special treatment. If that same person wasn't high, nobody would want to hang out with them and they wouldn't tolerate being with him. Instead, you can just say, "Oh, he's just high, that's why he is being an anti-social bastard".

F***. That. S***.

If this isn't made up, your "friend" is just a douce, and a rarity.

Smoking pot is more often a social activity. Heck, most pot smokers fall into one of two categories. Ones that don't buy it but partake when their friends have i,t and those that buy enough for the people they're going to smoke with. I've met A LOT of potheads and I don't think I can recall a single one that keeps just enough on hand for themself. It is a social drug.

Originally posted by baumusc
Personally I don't understand why it is any better to make pot illegal than it was to make alcohol illegal. It is a plant and it is no more addictive than alcohol. They should just make it legal and concentrate on policing drugs that are created in a lab.

Very true. In fact regulating legal drugs is much easier than illegal drugs. Any kid in high school can score a dub sack easily but oddly enough buying alcohol is much more difficult. Drug dealers don't card.

Originally posted by baumusc
concentrate on policing drugs that are created in a lab.

why?

Originally posted by Manhattan
Certainly a possibility. I can't say I know many pot smokers that fit your description... The majority of potheads depicted in pop culture more closely fit my description. Haven't heard many people declare that marijuana increases their productivity though. Most common things I hear about people and marijuana is that they can "mellow/zone out" or whatever. I think the fact that you had to ask me if I have heard of this unicorn called a "Functioning Pot Head" confirms that this demographic must be in the minority.

for starters, not all cannabis users are "potheads"... and not all potheads are teenagers that overdo everything to the point of absurdity (alcohol, fashion, etc).

again, i generally classify anything over a quarter-gram per day to be veering towards abuse -- and as any smoker knows, making your eighth last a month means you're really not smoking that much. but it's the people (typically adults) that do so that are your classic "Functioning Pot Head", so to speak -- and the fact that you aren't aware of them doesn't necessarily mean they don't exist. most of them are just that good.

sidenote --
as a person who has smoked/grown/dealt for years (but not anymore), i wish the conversation about cannabis was quite a bit more balanced. scare tactics are counter-productive, but it can be a gateway drug. smoking is never good for you, but cannabis is obviously medicinal. i see absolutely no reason why it shouldn't be decriminalized, but for those thinking that its widespread abuse would be a good thing, i've got some people for you to meet.

Originally posted by tjnight
Very true. In fact regulating legal drugs is much easier than illegal drugs. Any kid in high school can score a dub sack easily but oddly enough buying alcohol is much more difficult. Drug dealers don't card.

go to florida and score some oxy.

i can get a grand worth of hillbilly heroin faster than i could get anything comparable on the street.

Originally posted by Catullus 16
Originally posted by tjnight

Very true. In fact regulating legal drugs is much easier than illegal drugs. Any kid in high school can score a dub sack easily but oddly enough buying alcohol is much more difficult. Drug dealers don't card.

go to florida and score some oxy.

i can get a grand worth of hillbilly heroin faster than i could get anything comparable on the street.

If I really wanted, here's the availability of drugs in southwest VA:
1. Marijuana
2. Oxycodone
3. Methodone
4. Heroin
5. Cocaine

Now, let's do southern PA:
1. Marijuana
2. Methodone
3. Cocaine
4. Heroin
5. Oxycodone

Originally posted by cdcollins
If I really wanted, here's the availability of drugs in southwest VA:
1. Marijuana
2. Oxycodone
3. Methodone
4. Heroin
5. Cocaine

Now, let's do southern PA:
1. Marijuana
2. Methodone
3. Cocaine
4. Heroin
5. Oxycodone

by "methadone", do you actually mean 'crystal meth'? methadone is nowhere near as available as meth out here on the west coast.

and by "cocaine", you're including crack, right?

Originally posted by cdcollins
If I really wanted, here's the availability of drugs in southwest VA:
1. Marijuana
2. Oxycodone
3. Methodone
4. Heroin
5. Cocaine

Now, let's do southern PA:
1. Marijuana
2. Methodone
3. Cocaine
4. Heroin
5. Oxycodone



No offense, but this looks super messed up, where are you getting these stats from?

Originally posted by Bushido Zin
why?

Police drugs that can kill you in one dose. Just like you can't get morphine on the streets legally you shouldn't be able to get heroin. I don't see the problem with making marijuana legal though because like alcohol it is much harder to kill yourself with it.

Originally posted by baumusc
Originally posted by Bushido Zin

why?

Police drugs that can kill you in one dose. Just like you can't get morphine on the streets legally you shouldn't be able to get heroin. I don't see the problem with making marijuana legal though because like alcohol it is much harder to kill yourself with it.

Not the point. What you do with your body is none of the gov's business imo.