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Originally posted by HappyCamper
thanks Arioch!
I think it's in Sweden or Norway, that people register as addicts. And I know that in Amsterdam they have 'hash' bars, were you can go and get high! I'm all for both of those here in America!
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Canada even decriminalized it. You can go to a hash bar in Vancouver if you want!
My thinking is this... A pretty good chunk of the population smokes weed. (I've never seen any numbers, but I would say a minimum of 20%.) Now those people may lead great lives, go to school, go to work, whatever, but in the eyes of the law they are criminals because they like to smoke a joint when they get home from a long day of work. That's simply stupid.
The fact that it is currently illegal, yet so many people smoke leads me to believe that stiff penalties are not a deterent.
How about if our government pulled their fucking heads out of their asses for once and consider a change of ideas? Instead of arresting harmless potheads and then complaining about overcrowding in the prisons, why not legalize it? Register the users (18+ only), charge a tax (this could be used to reduce our enormous debt). Then, 'the man' would know who's smokin and how much as well as who's selling, not to mention taking in a tidy profit.
Now that's my view on recreational usage. Medical and industrial is an even easier arguement to make. Instead of bitching about people cutting down forests so much for paper products, let's grow hemp fields. Hemp is a faaaar more effective form of producing paper products than lumber. (Interesting side note: Reefer Madness, the movie that played a critical role in getting weed outlawed in the first place, was hugely endorsed by William Randolph Heart, who owned a newspaper company and had a good deal of interest in the lumber companies.)
The medical benefits of it are for anyone to refute. Surely you can't justify calling a deathly ill cancer/chemo patient wanting to hit a joint to ease the immense pain they are in, a criminal, can you? It has also been proven to help reduce glaucoma.
California has already semi-decriminalized it. Nevada won't be far behind, but how long until the rest of the country figures it out?