Finally!

[FishinCricket]

I am glad to see the new law on the books. If you want to waste your life on drugs then go ahead and be my guest...just don't expect me to pay/help you do it. Legalize marijuana, tax the hell out of it and use thet taxes to help fund healthcare for the elderely and pay down the national debt. Let the drug users support us for a change.

:golf_clap:

[eric1978]

Lot's of people make those kinds of arguments and they're wrong too.

Just because it is "natural" doesn't mean it's safe or harmless. Tobacco is natural and it grows from the ground just like the curly weed. Both are bad for your lungs and your body, but due to the vastly larger numbers of tobacco addicts we know more about the harmful effects of tobacco. Peter Tosh will tell you weed is safe and even good for you, but he isn't a health researcher.

Opium is also natural as is uranium, snake venoms, puffer fish toxins etc.

I wish we didn't have to deal with the evils alcohol and tobacco either, but using weed makes you a defacto criminal. And while I'll agree that pot isn't as addictive as tobacco, there certain has been a lot of people that have thrown their lives away using it.

I'm not trying to make the case that pot is GOOD for you, I'm just saying it's statistically less harmful to users and society as a whole than alcohol, tobacco, high-fructose corn syrup and hard drugs.

If they'd stop adding hundreds of chemicals to cigarettes, they wouldn't be nearly as harmful (still not health food by any stretch).

I'm with stlfisher and the golf clapper. It needs to be decriminalized for a plethora of reasons. People are going to smoke it no matter what the law is...might as well pay off a little debt with it.

[FishinCricket]

I'm not trying to make the case that pot is GOOD for you, I'm just saying it's statistically less harmful to users and society as a whole than alcohol, tobacco, high-fructose corn syrup and hard drugs.

If they'd stop adding hundreds of chemicals to cigarettes, they wouldn't be nearly as harmful (still not health food by any stretch).

I'm with stlfisher and the golf clapper. It needs to be decriminalized for a plethora of reasons. People are going to smoke it no matter what the law is...might as well pay off a little debt with it.

Recently a choice had to be made between making cans of compressed air illegal or adding a bitterant to it to make it taste so foul that folks would quit "huffing" it... As if that's not sad enough, I met a young fella recently who stated "the bitterant ain't so bad once you get used to it!". Stupid sad, huh?

The fact is that people want to dull their wits, calm their nerves and (in some cases) even completely shut themselves away from reality.. We simply can't legislate our way around that... Personal responsibility has worked elsewhere, why don't we take LEAP's suggestion and try these other options? It's quite obvious that the "drug war" hasn't curbed people's appetites for an escape from reality ONE IOTA...

[gotmuddy]

LMAO I was actually gonna reference that line, but thought better of it. Thanks for being the bad guy for me.

someone has to do it

[Al Agnew]

Unintended consequences...

This is one of many ways in which we'd like to not have to pay taxes to pay people who are too lazy/stupid/addicted to hold a job or raise kids properly. It would be great if the only "welfare" money went to those who are fine, upstanding citizens that are just down on their luck and can't find work even though they are looking hard for it. The lazy, addicted slobs should be on their own. In a perfect world that's how it would be.

And perhaps it was a huge mistake to even start down the "welfare" road, because it undeniably "enables" some of the lazy/addicted to survive without worrying about changing their lives.

But...

Fact is that we HAVE gone down that road. And I'm afraid that as soon as we start cutting large numbers of people off their "welfare checks", the crime rate in this country is going to go through the roof. Because we all know how the job market is, even for those who have the education and experience to qualify for jobs. People have to survive. If they care about their kids they have to feed them. If they are addicted they gotta have their fix. And for many, the only viable way to do so is through crime.

Just food for thought. We're going to be paying for the kids one way or another. We're probably going to be paying for the deadbeat, drug-addicted adults one way or another. Just depends upon how we want to do it.

[jdmidwest]

Whoops, got into this one late. How about "survival of the fittest" and cut off all public aid to welfare? I personally write on my tax forms each year that my dollars I pay in are only for conservation use only....do not send any to welfare. Either pull your own weight or go somewhere else.

[eric1978]

I personally write on my tax forms each year that my dollars I pay in are only for conservation use only....do not send any to welfare.

Yeah, I'm sure the IRS takes that into serious consideration.

I generally agree with Al, but it just sticks in my craw to know I'm paying for someone's drug habit. I won't say something ridiculous like "cut off all public aid to welfare"...I'd bet my house JD has at least ONE relative on government assistance somewhere for some reason. But I do think it's a good idea to start drug testing welfare recipients, not so we can just "cut off" their aid altogether, but so we can instead throw that money toward their rehabilitation and CPS for their kids. Help them get a job at McDonald's flipping poop burgers if we're lucky...then they can have their kids back.

If the minimum wage was actually a liveable wage, that would help, too. There are millions upon millions of full-time American workers living in poverty...and a handful of billionaires keeping them there.

[Leonard]

Yeah, I'm sure the IRS takes that into serious consideration.

If the minimum wage was actually a liveable wage, that would help, too. There are millions upon millions of full-time American workers living in poverty...and a handful of billionaires keeping them there.

NOOOO....

Not in Branson....

I know of a few people that are trying to live on 2 full time paychecks...

1 part-time job... and are still barely making it.....

They work the butts off day in and day out... yet can barely pay rent/car payment/others bills...

fighting every week just to try to make a buck... then comes food for the kids/ gas for the cars

and they are living on $40-60 a week in food.... yet they still make to much monthly to qualify for assistance.

I think the last I heard you HAD to make below under $1200 a month with a family of 4...

this is one of the reason why ... once they get on assistance they try to stay there

[jdmidwest]

Living within your means always helps when it comes to paying the bills.

[Stephen Hall]

WHAT TO DO WITH UNJUST LAWS?

(1) obey them; (2) amend them, but obey until successfully changed.

Wherever you stand on the drug issue, the only way to effect positive change is through the proper channels. My opinion is based on a treatise by Gandhi, my own self inflicted pragmatic ideas and observation. I don't drug or drink... I'm too busy working and fishing. I believe the drug issue to be a medical one as recent studies show that addictive behavior can be genetically inherited as well as learned. Either way, statistically, incarceration has a poor rehabilitative record. Granted, the success via rehab isn't a whole lot better, it is better.

BTW, mushroom hunters just helped bust a huge grow ring in MO. *giggle, sounds funny at face value