As Violence worsens, drugs become cheaper and more available

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by mikey_the_redneck

Holy control freak......

You're going to test for drugs while alcohol, being legal (just as destructive to society) is fine to use outside of work? That is so hypocritical.

How many work place deaths are the result of drug use?
How many work place deaths are the result of alcohol consumption?

I highly doubt your plan is going to work unless you want to live in a totalitarian system. We have that pesky private property/business and all that.

I have to have drug tests in order to drive truck in your country. Peeing in a cup isn't a big sacrifice.

Now when I worked as a utility arborist removing hazard trees in close proximity to power lines there was no testing done. There was many incidences of drug abuse but, only a couple times someone came to work drunk. I only once seen someone drinking at work. Why? Because being drunk is harder to hide.

[Flash Walken]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Drug testing should be manditory for all employment. That would make work places safer while drying up the 95% of the money in the drug trade. It would then be managable for law enforcement to deal with the rest.

Another terrifying glimpse into the world of Calgaryborn.

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by Vulcan

Bank robbers steal the bank's money, there is a victim involved. Drug addicts mostly harm nobody but themselves, unless they need drugs and can't pay for them, than they become bank robbers. Putting people in jail for the victim-less crime of using drugs is stupid and expensive. Giving addicts access to their drugs, keeps them from robbing banks.

I'm in favour of legalizing pot and taxing it just for the financial aspects of it, never mind the moral aspect.

Controlling hard drugs through government dispensation would cut down on crime, also save government money and make our streets safer.

Drug addicts always harm others unless they became addicted after they have acquired enough wealth to sustain their habit to their death. That's like saying drunk driving is a victimless crime until a drunk loses control with another person involved. The first begats the second.

There is far more innocent deaths caused by drunk driving than drug addiction. Why not offer drunks government sponsered free cab rides since you see no need for personal responsiblity? Should winos and lysol drinkers be given free housing and an unlimited supply of their favourite poison as well?

[Mtt48]

@Calgaryborn: Why are you continuing to argue in favor of a system that has completely failed in every respect? You arguments against any of the sane suggestions given in this thread is to come up with a loose analogy that really does nothing to help reach any sort of conclusions or even be analogous to what you are arguing against.

You are of the opinion that drugs are wrong, are illegal, and having anything to do with drugs is a crime and you should be punished to the fullest extent of the law. That's fine. I just look at the facts and see that the type of drug policy you suggest has had little to no positive results over the past 40-50 years, so why do we continue on with it?

Also, you think that if pot were legalized there would be growops everywhere? The circumstances surrounding growops now is that growers need to drill into the foundation of the home to route electricity in a certain way so that insane amounts of electricity and power can be drawn but not reported to the vendor. This creates a huge danger and an extremely high risk of fire. This is where the danger comes from.

Why would individuals seeking to grow a small amount of weed for personal consumption do this? Do you think they would have massive growops, completely ruin their own home in the off chance that they can sell their product when a person can just go into any number of stores and purchase it over the counter with no problems? Why would anyone do that?

Do you really believe that if pot were legalized everyone would all the sudden start screwing around with their incoming power line and all of this other nonsense in the place that they and their families live? I doubt it. "Worst" case scenario is someone grows one or two plants in their home safely and what is the harm in that? You may have 1 or 2 lights drawing a proper amount of power. The risk of fire and harm here would be greatly reduced.

Lastly, you choose to see addicts as criminals. Again, that's a fine point of view. I see addicts as people with serious problems that act in certain ways because of the way they, as addicts, are treated in society. They are criminals for something they really cant help. They lose their families and friends and support group. They lose their jobs and everything. They have no choice but to turn to a life of theft to sustain this horrible way of life.

Addicts generally do not want to be addicts. But the way society treats addicts, by segregating them from the rest of society is just completely the wrong approach to take in my humble opinion. Why not take steps to incorporate them into society and try to help them?

I know this will not change your mind, but seriously, can you explain how your point of view will help the drug problem overall?

[mikey_the_redneck]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

I have to have drug tests in order to drive truck in your country. Peeing in a cup isn't a big sacrifice.

Now when I worked as a utility arborist removing hazard trees in close proximity to power lines there was no testing done. There was many incidences of drug abuse but, only a couple times someone came to work drunk. I only once seen someone drinking at work. Why? Because being drunk is harder to hide.

It's too bad you have to give a pee sample to work. I see that as a slight encroachment on your freedom/privacy under the guise of safety.

Your assertion that alcohol abuse is more easily detectable than drug impairment is highly debatable. For example most people can tell if a person is stoned if they interact/make eye contact with them.

If I'm a business owner in the free world, I will hire the most qualified individual for the job. I don't care if he wants to blow his cheque on hookers and coke, as long as I never catch him using it on the job obviously.

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

There was many incidences of drug abuse but, only a couple times someone came to work drunk. I only once seen someone drinking at work. Why? Because being drunk is harder to hide.

Wow.

I should probably stop there or not even bother because I know better but just wow. Being drunk and drinking at work are two different things, so which one are you talking about? Because if you honestly believe that hiding drinking at work is harder than being stoned on weed, coke, crack, meth, and so on, you truly have no understanding about the world around you.

You say that the only reason the War on Drugs hasn't work is because of soft penalties which is completely false else the USA would not be spending $14 billion, yes billion, on finding, prosecuting and incarcerating people for marijuana, with 98% of them small possession offenses, yet still have a ramped drug problems.

Besides the illegal title what is the difference between Marijuana, Cigarettes and Alcohol, besides the latter two killing over 7,000,000 more people a year worldwide?

Forget that you think it is wrong personally, think about the money missed by keeping it illegal when it BC alone sales reach $7 billion a year for what any expert would tell you is a pretty harmless drug when you compare it to anything else legal or illegal. Take the taxes from that to pay for hospitals, schools, law enforcement for harmful drugs like meth and crack.

And making it legal would make it tougher for kids to get at. Do you think that drug dealer down the street cares about age, they only want the money. Sure kids will still get their hands on it but they get their hands on alcohol and cigarettes too, but most kids would tell you it is easier to get something like marijuana vs. alcohol or cigarettes because it's illegal and unregulated.

As for your drug testing policy, give your head a shake. Should you have to take a breathalyser on your way in the door every morning as well? Most people who use marijuana are not going to work stoned, clearly you have never smoked it else you would know the paranoia that most get from it. So unless they are working at the Mac's or the video store I can bet a doctor isn't going into work stoned even if he has a puff here and there. If they took pee samples from everyone who would run the government? How do you replace so many judges, lawyers, doctors, and so on?

You know what a drug testing policy tells people? Don't smoke weed because it stays in your system for 30 days, just do coke and crack and it's gone from your system within 48hrs (the weekend).

Also you have no idea about growing so please just stop, you're embarrassing yourself. BCBud is only one of the best marijuana on the planet and it has nothing to do with the laws. I've tasted that Alberta crap for many years and if it just depended on a room there would be a lot more places growing marijuana of this quality and shipping it around North America.

There are five main groups that don't want marijuana legal in Canada, those who grow it, those who deal it, those who are hired to track it down, those who incarcerate the people caught and the people who don't understand the drug for what it really is and why it is illegal in the first place. I know which one you fall into.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by nik-

Let the government sell weed and tax it.

It won't lower the number of addicts obviously (to be honest, I don't ever recall arguing this as a benefit of legalization) It might help addicts get easier access to treatment?

Number of arrests is such a horrible stat to use as a measure of success.

Weed isn't physically addictive. It is psychologically addictive, but everything is. There are people who are probably addicted to this message board. There are people addicted to cheeseburgers, sex, and organization a collection of spoons.

If someone says their life was ruined by weed, it wasn't the weed that did it, the problem was already there. The number of completely normal, high-functioning people who indulge in it is proof of that.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

The war on drugs hasn't worked because of the soft sentences handed out. Dealing and growing marijuana is very profitable. Right now if your caught it is a slap on the hand.

Because unless you're an actual gang member, you're likely not a threat. And there's no purpose served putting you in prison.

I agree, drug dealers should be prosecuted and arrested. They aren't nice people. But most stoners are REALLY friendly. Compare that to alcohol, which turns several of my closest friends into intolerable #######s.

The idea that pot is illegal in this day and age with all the research we have at our disposal is insane.

And one more thing. Conservatives, who supposedly want less government, individual freedoms, etc... Where does arresting someone for smoking a plant that makes you silly fit in with personal liberty?

Is it the best thing in the world for you? No. But we sell hundreds if not thousands of legal products that are demonstrably more devastating to a person that marijuana. If you wanna go catch the real criminals, fine. Do that. While legalization won't solve every issue, it'd go a long way to help. Someone posted that 27 percent of cigarettes are black market.. Okay. I've never encountered anyone who bought black market cigarettes. But 27 percent is a damn sight better than 100%.... My math's not great, but that seems like a 73% improvement, and if any police commissioner handed over an improvement record like that they'd make him king of his city.

Prison for non-violent offenders and petty drug possession is absurd, and it only infringes on our liberties as Canadian citizens.

I don't WANT to have to buy pot from some weirdo. I'd like to be able to support the local convenience store and help out a small business. Better yet, just decriminalize it, allow one plant per household, and if you actually sell it to someone, THEN you get nailed. Have a registry or something, I don't care. But stop wasting our money and our cops' time trying to arrest innocent people who aren't hurting anyone because YOU can't sort out the Hell's Angels.

[GreenLantern2814]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Drug addicts always harm others unless they became addicted after they have acquired enough wealth to sustain their habit to their death. That's like saying drunk driving is a victimless crime until a drunk loses control with another person involved. The first begats the second.

There is far more innocent deaths caused by drunk driving than drug addiction. Why not offer drunks government sponsered free cab rides since you see no need for personal responsiblity? Should winos and lysol drinkers be given free housing and an unlimited supply of their favourite poison as well?

If you legalized marijuana and could buy it at Mac's, you could afford to implement that program. It's not a bad idea.

And really? how do they ALWAYS harm others? Where is this rash of potheads beating up gay kids in our schools?

Alcohol is legal. Cigarettes are legal. Marijuana is demonstrably less harmful to you than either of those products. Explain why it isn't legal.

[MrMastodonFarm]

Welcome back, Hoot.

[Street Pharmacist]

Originally Posted by MrMastodonFarm

Welcome back, Hoot.

Yay HOOT!

/thread

[Frank MetaMusil]

52 posts and nobody has busted out one of these yet?

[Flames_Gimp]

B.C. medical health officers join call to legalize pot

B.C.'s medical health officers are joining a powerful coalition of health, academic and justice experts calling for an overhaul of Canada's anti-drug policies.

In a written statement, the Health Officers' Council of B.C. says it has unanimously passed a resolution to support Stop the Violence BC. The council includes all medical health officers throughout the province as well as physicians, researchers and consultants.

http://www.cbc.ca/news/canada/britis...marijuana.html

[RobotTalk]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

[/FONT][/COLOR]

Other than a brief operation in Granada I'm not aware of any Reagan wars those noble Hippies were needed to stop. As popular a President Reagan was I doubt that he felt threatened by Hippies.

Reagan obviously seen drug use as harmful to Americans and a waste of ones life. I agree.

I'm surprised no one else hasn't jumped on this statement yet. Reagans policies towards Central and South America were tantamount to genocide. There's the matter of the support for the Contras in Nicaragua which was state sponsored terrorism, breaking the US own laws (Iran-Contra). The International Court of Justice actually found the US under Reagan guilty of breaking international law for their actions against Nicaragua.There was support for death squads in numerous different countries throughout Latin America, propping up and supporting murderous dictators/regimes, amongst many, many other atrocities. So ya, there was more than a few things for "Hippies" to be angry about.

Reagan wasn't as popular as you think either. In fact, at many points during his term he was quite unpopular with a much lower approval rating than Kennedy or Eisenhower; often polling at numbers closer to Ford and Carter.

http://www.fair.org/index.php?page=1192

[Calgaryborn]

Originally Posted by HOOT

Wow.

I should probably stop there or not even bother because I know better but just wow. Being drunk and drinking at work are two different things, so which one are you talking about? Because if you honestly believe that hiding drinking at work is harder than being stoned on weed, coke, crack, meth, and so on, you truly have no understanding about the world around you.

Once I witnessed someone who was drinking while at work. A few times I witnessed someone coming to work probably still buzzed from the night before.

Drugs on the other hand were quit common. "Creating a smoke screen so you could sneek up on the trees" was a common expression among the crews. It meant smoking marijuana before beginning their work. I didn't allow it on my crew but, I'd say that it was standard procedure in about 80% of the crews.

Originally Posted by HOOT

You say that the only reason the War on Drugs hasn't work is because of soft penalties which is completely false else the USA would not be spending $14 billion, yes billion, on finding, prosecuting and incarcerating people for marijuana, with 98% of them small possession offenses, yet still have a ramped drug problems.

Maybe you should pay more attention to what I say. Soft penalties in Canada caused the grow ops to move north of the border. Also, the southern border has never been secured, so hard drugs easly enter the States through it. Urine tests for drugs should be a requirement at the start of a job and randomly afterwards. This would be a great determinate for recreational users who are the ones who graduate to addicts.

Originally Posted by HOOT

Besides the illegal title what is the difference between Marijuana, Cigarettes and Alcohol, besides the latter two killing over 7,000,000 more people a year worldwide?

But the fact that it is illegal is the point. Why introduce another blight to society. There is no benefit from legalizing marijuana that would compensate for the harm easier access would create: More of the drug and a larger percentage of the population useing would mean more youth would experiment and more often. That means more brain damage. It would factor more often in traffic/work related accidents. Productivity would suffer in the work place. Impairing the brain is impairing the brain.

Originally Posted by HOOT

Forget that you think it is wrong personally, think about the money missed by keeping it illegal when it BC alone sales reach $7 billion a year for what any expert would tell you is a pretty harmless drug when you compare it to anything else legal or illegal. Take the taxes from that to pay for hospitals, schools, law enforcement for harmful drugs like meth and crack.

There are things that are more important than a new tax.

Originally Posted by HOOT

And making it legal would make it tougher for kids to get at. Do you think that drug dealer down the street cares about age, they only want the money. Sure kids will still get their hands on it but they get their hands on alcohol and cigarettes too, but most kids would tell you it is easier to get something like marijuana vs. alcohol or cigarettes because it's illegal and unregulated.

Marijuana is easy to conceal like cigarettes and gets you high. There is no way it would be tougher for kids to get if it was legalized. Make it as common as beer and it will be hard to find a sober/straight kid.

Originally Posted by HOOT

As for your drug testing policy, give your head a shake. Should you have to take a breathalyser on your way in the door every morning as well? Most people who use marijuana are not going to work stoned, clearly you have never smoked it else you would know the paranoia that most get from it. So unless they are working at the Mac's or the video store I can bet a doctor isn't going into work stoned even if he has a puff here and there. If they took pee samples from everyone who would run the government? How do you replace so many judges, lawyers, doctors, and so on?

First you say that pot smokers are too paranoid to come into work stoned and then you say if we did take pee samples there would be no one to run the government and a shortage of judges, lawyers, doctors, and so on.

If notice was given and people knew their jobs/pensions were at stake I'm fairly confident that they would largely chose to find a different choice for recreation. It's not like the drug stays in your system for ever.

I've known people who have quit marijuana because they were going to start working in the coal mines and knew there would be drug tests. It would work.

Also, teens would be less likely to try marijuana if they knew it meant they wouldn't be able to get that summer job.

Originally Posted by HOOT

You know what a drug testing policy tells people? Don't smoke weed because it stays in your system for 30 days, just do coke and crack and it's gone from your system within 48hrs (the weekend).

Any job that has a drug testing program also does random testing on a continuous basis.

Originally Posted by HOOT

Also you have no idea about growing so please just stop, you're embarrassing yourself. BCBud is only one of the best marijuana on the planet and it has nothing to do with the laws. I've tasted that Alberta crap for many years and if it just depended on a room there would be a lot more places growing marijuana of this quality and shipping it around North America.

I live in the central Kootenays and worked all over the West Kootenays. Marijuana is easily the biggest industry around here. I know quite a bit about the industry.

B.C. hydroponic operations sprung up as a result of the "war on drugs" Reagan started in the 80s. Washington and Oregon used to be the hub of hydroponic grow ops in the States due to their relative small populations and proximity to California. Because of the pressure and penalties in the States B.C. became the center of production.

Originally Posted by HOOT

There are five main groups that don't want marijuana legal in Canada, those who grow it, those who deal it, those who are hired to track it down, those who incarcerate the people caught and the people who don't understand the drug for what it really is and why it is illegal in the first place. I know which one you fall into.

I think you suffer from the same failing as my co-workers. You think the smoke screen is impeding others when it is actually you that can't straight.

[SHOGUN]

Honestly, I see weed as medicine rather than drug.

[GreatWhiteEbola]

Until a couple months ago I was on a cornucopia of drugs to control nerve pain, help me sleep, control my mood, control my appetite, etc. I was sick of taking meds. I was never really keen on the use of marijuana, most of my friends are avid users, me, not so much.

My girlfriend has a friend, who is a medical marijuana licensed user and grower. He asked that just give it a try. I agreed to try it for a week.

I am happy to report that I no longer take the meds for sleep, appetite and nerve pain. I have a one hitter and I smoke one puff just before I go to bed. My sleep now is amazing, no waking up in the middle of the night, etc. My mood has improved, I have virtually quit smoking cigarettes (not sure if there is a correlation, more to do with Champix, although I am more apt to add a new med if I'm not ingesting 5 others).

For what it's worth marijuana has changed my life for the better, I am glad I changed my opinion after so many years for resisting it.

[HOOT]

Originally Posted by Calgaryborn

Once I witnessed someone who was drinking while at work. A few times I witnessed someone coming to work probably still buzzed from the night before.

Well if you only witnessed it once, than that sounds scientific enough for me. I'm sure it has nothing to do with it being easier to hide drinking, which is why you never see it.

This would be a great determinate for recreational users who are the ones who graduate to addicts.

Marijuana isn't addictive and people don't turn into addicts because they smoke pot. 1 in 100 marijuana users use cocaine, 1 in 104 use crack. What an epidemic!

Despite easy availability, marijuana prevalence among 12 to 18 year olds in Holland is only 13.6 percent - well below the 38 percent use-rate for American high school seniors. Dutch officials consider their policy a success because the increase in marijuana use has not been accompanied by an increase in the use of other drugs. For the last decade, the rate of cocaine use among Dutch youth has remained stable, with about .3 percent of 12-18 year olds reporting having used it

There was another study, which I can't find right now, showing that marijuana being illegal actually increases the change of using harder drugs because normal people are forced into the hands of a drug dealer instead of an establishment.

But the fact that it is illegal is the point. Why introduce another blight to society. There is no benefit from legalizing marijuana that would compensate for the harm easier access would create: More of the drug and a larger percentage of the population useing would mean more youth would experiment and more often.

http://www.time.com/time/health/arti...893946,00.html

The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.


The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.

That means more brain damage.

Marijuana doesn't cause brain damage. Maybe step back from your blind hate for the drug and information you learned in the 70's and see what information is out in 2011 about marijuana and it's effects on the brain and body.

Marijuana is easy to conceal like cigarettes and gets you high. There is no way it would be tougher for kids to get if it was legalized. Make it as common as beer and it will be hard to find a sober/straight kid.

Yes smelly Marijuana is harder to conceal than booze in a bottle. Try again. Smoke a joint and walk past one and tell me how conceal it is compared to sneaking in a sip of vodka.

You also have zero trust in the youth of our nation if you honestly believe legalizing marijuana will somehow turn them into alcoholic drug addicts because it's legal. What a stupid stance to take, when studies have shown otherwise.

First you say that pot smokers are too paranoid to come into work stoned and then you say if we did take pee samples there would be no one to run the government and a shortage of judges, lawyers, doctors, and so on.

Do you think drugs go out of your system as soon as you wake up the next day? If someone smoked pot on Friday, got tested on Monday, they wouldn't be "clean" so they would be fired. I'm not saying these people smoke on the job.

Some of the smartest and most successful people on the planet smoke/smoked pot. It has no harm to society, unlike the drugs they ignore that cause addicts and problems in our society. The only reason marijuana is a problem is because the government makes it one, inflates the cost of it and puts money into organized crime.

Spend as much money as you want tracking it down (the USA has tried spending $53,000,000,000 since the war on drugs was introduced), put people in jail for longer and you are only playing into growers and dealers hands and giving them more and more money. Ask the police chief in Kelowna how his fight is going, it is estimated that they could bust a grow house every day for a year and not even put a dent into the problem, do you think stricter penalties would solve that problem? I don't!

But take away their profits by offering it like alcohol and cigarettes and you see that number drop drastically. Of course you will still see some underground things like cigarettes but the profits won't be there. I know someone who sells illegal cigarettes and makes pennies compared to the tens of thousands a grower makes.

I get it, you support organized crime, you encourage higher penalties increasing the profits for them. As I have said in the past I don't care either way, it is readily available for me legal or illegal, I have tons of friends who make their living from it who otherwise would have to pay taxes for money made if it was legal, or maybe get a real job. They have no problem making $30k every 2 months for watering some plants.

The War on Drugs has never worked, will never work and it is nothing more than the government wasting our tax money chasing something they can't control. It's a plant, god put it on the planet for a reason, no?

[Cecil Terwilliger]

HOOT I honestly thought you had been killed in the riots by some dbag Vancouver fan.

All it took was a weed thread to get you out of hiding.

[bubbsy]

i really don't understand why weed gets bundled into discussions regarding "Drugs" still. As as been pointed out by other posts, it's effects are in and around the same as booze and tobacco.

legalize it already, grow it (that way control the inflation of THC we've seen over the past several decades), tax it like they do tobacco, and continue to throw the book on grow ops.