Is there anyone who doesnt smoke cannabis?

nesf

JC 2K3 wrote:

No.....

How?

This drugs legalised = massive widescale deterioration of health is ridiculous.

No, he wasn't specifically talking about cannabis. He was responding to Mordeth's more general point. Or at least that's how I read it.

JC 2K3

I said "drugs" not cannabis.

Time Magazine

nesf wrote:

It is if it has negative or dangerous effects on other people or their property.

Or the people themselves.

Legalise not wearing a seatbelt!

Free the motorcycle helmets!

In fact, no to any health promotion strategies evAr!!1!

Time Magazine

JC 2K3 wrote:

We're supposed to live in a liberal society.

That's far more meaningless than you might think.

Think about it for a moment.

nesf

Ibid wrote:

Or the people themselves.

That one is debatable and not as clear cut as the others.

Blowfish

nesf wrote:

No, he wasn't specifically talking about cannabis. He was responding to Mordeth's more general point. Or at least that's how I read it.

Indeed I was. Mordeths general point could be applied to anything and lead to what Ibid pointed out.

The laws aren't there just to annoy us. They are there to try and protect us, liberal society or not.

nesf

Blowfish wrote:

The laws aren't there just to annoy us. They are there to try and protect us, liberal society or not.

There is an interesting division between laws that protect us from others and laws that protect us from ourselves. Imagine a legally enforced 3 drink maximum per night. It'd protect us (in general) from many things but would people stand for it?

JC 2K3

Ibid wrote:

That's far more meaningless than you might think.

Think about it for a moment.

My point was that we should be striving to make sure people can be allowed do as much as possible with their lives rather than just banning something out of ease like fascist governments of the past did.

I don't know about others, but I think we handle alcohol well enough. I don't think it's damaging enough to be illegal. Why not legalise less or equally harmful drugs?

JC 2K3

nesf wrote:

There is an interesting division between laws that protect us from others and laws that protect us from ourselves. Imagine a legally enforced 3 drink maximum per night. It'd protect us (in general) from many things but would people stand for it?

Laws should protect us from stuff that is just plain stupid and/or has no benefit to our lives.

A small amount of alcohol increases enjoyment in life for many, getting wasted is fun to many othes and other drugs increase enjoyment for other people also.

Now driving without a seatbelt doesn't make life any more fun and neither does drink driving. There is no reason why these should be legal.

What I don't understand is they'd sooner introduce a 3 drink limit than actually educate people on how to drink properly. They'd sooner ban any recreational drug that happens to be legal now than actually research them and see if there was a possible way to keep them legal.

nesf

JC 2K3 wrote:

A small amount of alcohol increases enjoyment in life for many, getting wasted is fun to many othes and other drugs increase enjoyment for other people also.

What about the problem of wasted or high people being more violent or being more likely to damage property etc? (am thinking more of coke than hash here with respect to being "high")

JC 2K3

nesf wrote:

What about the problem of wasted or high people being more violent or being more likely to damage property etc? (am thinking more of coke than hash here with respect to being "high")

Well firstly you educate people on how to use it safely and where is a safe setting to use it. If there is a big problem with high people causing damage/fights you illegalise use in public and only allow it in certain licenced premises, or if that gets out of hand then illegalise it in all public premises and only allow use in private. Why must it be banned outright?

Blowfish

JC 2K3 wrote:

Well firstly you educate people on how to use it safely and where is a safe setting to use it. If there is a big problem with high people causing damage/fights you illegalise use in public and only allow it in certain licenced premises, or if that gets out of hand then illegalise it in all public premises and only allow use in private. Why must it be banned outright?

What about resulting violence in private?

JC 2K3

It's unlikely. However, if any drug happened to have both widespread use yet have a significantly high tendancy to cause people to become dangerously violent in the privacy of their own homes and there were no regulations that could be put in place to curb this violence(such as only selling less potent versions of the drug and only allowing one purchase a certain amount at a time) I'd say ban it, but it alone, not other drugs.

Time Magazine

JC 2K3 wrote:

My point was that we should be striving to make sure people can be allowed do as much as possible with their lives rather than just banning something out of ease like fascist governments of the past did.

The aim of individual liberty is far too simplistic to adopt as a mechanistic approach. Shouldn't we enforce the wearing of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets? An equilibrium between liberty and common sense/common good must be reached.

This is an interesting case on the matter.

JC 2K3

Ibid wrote:

The aim of individual liberty is far too simplistic to adopt as a mechanistic approach. Shouldn't we enforce the wearing of seatbelts and motorcycle helmets? An equilibrium between liberty and common sense/common good must be reached.

Can you not drive without a seatbelt or ride a motorcycle without a helmet on private property?

EDIT: Checked it up and I am correct. Road traffic law does not apply to private property.

nesf

JC 2K3 wrote:

Well firstly you educate people on how to use it safely and where is a safe setting to use it. If there is a big problem with high people causing damage/fights you illegalise use in public and only allow it in certain licenced premises, or if that gets out of hand then illegalise it in all public premises and only allow use in private. Why must it be banned outright?

I'm not arguing for it to be banned, I just find the whole argument about it and the debate over where to draw the line interesting. It's a relatively complicated thing separating what should be left to people to decide themselves and what the state should legislate for in society's interest.

Time Magazine

JC 2K3 wrote:

Can you not drive without a seatbelt or ride a motorcycle without a helmet on private property?

EDIT: Checked it up and I am correct. Road traffic law does not apply to private property.

What an entirely stupid distinction (on the government's part, not yours). Nonetheless, it's also trivial.

JC 2K3

I disagree. What people do on private property is their business alone as long as it has no external repercussions.

Time Magazine

The point of the motorcycle helmet example is that it's "impinging" on what only effects them. The law should apply to their own land, too. My point was that the principle of forcing someone to wear a helmet on a public road is the infringement, not the fact that they'd be doing it on their own land.

Secondly, the ECtHR case I referenced provides a pretty sound analysis (imo) on why private acts should not be given complete authority.

Thirdly there are externalities. Such as health "risks" (diplomatic term) that will be paid for by my taxes.

nesf

Ibid wrote:

Thirdly there are externalities. Such as health "risks" (diplomatic term) that will be paid for by my taxes.

I'm not sure about that tbh. If you want to go down that road we should apply an "externality tax" to everything that has a reasonable risk of causing you injury that will need medical treatment. At once you're paying taxes for playing or competing in many sports, activities, eating certain foods (a lot of them actually), living in cities etc etc.

Should there be individual repercussions for the use of public goods?

JC 2K3

Ibid wrote:

The point of the motorcycle helmet example is that it's "impinging" on what only effects them. The law should apply to their own land, too. My point was that the principle of forcing someone to wear a helmet on a public road is the infringement, not the fact that they'd be doing it on their own land.

Secondly, the ECtHR case I referenced provides a pretty sound analysis (imo) on why private acts should not be given complete authority.

Thirdly there are externalities. Such as health "risks" (diplomatic term) that will be paid for by my taxes.

The wikipedia link to the ECtHR case wasn't very clear as to what the infringements were exactly... Although they seem to be related to infringements against others rather than themselves...


Anyway, the obvious "my taxes are paying for their healthcare" point. I've pondered this in the past and often come to the conclusion that since drug use is not considered acceptable healthy behavior, drug users should perhaps be excluded from the public healthcare system, or perhaps they should pay higher taxes to cover their added risk. In any case, I'm sure there'd be no problem getting health insurance to cover them, though they'd have to pay a higher premium of course.

Then again, there is nesf's point,

nesf wrote:

I'm not sure about that tbh. If you want to go down that road we should apply an "externality tax" to everything that has a reasonable risk of causing you injury that will need medical treatment. At once you're paying taxes for playing or competing in many sports, activities, eating certain foods (a lot of them actually), living in cities etc etc.

which I agree with completely, although I accept it will not be accepted by society any time soon.

Time Magazine

The ECtHR ruling sums up my view in response to both of your queries quite well.

The three lads consented into beating the living daylights out of each other; hooks and other such things included. Should they be entitled to an NHS bed? Of course the f*ck not. That stuff shouldn't be legal. Should hurling be legal? Of course it should. Should there be penalty points for not wearing a seatbelt? Yes.

There's no contradiction here but rather a line of reasonability. The decision on where do they draw the line comes down to the State based on evidence.

There should be some fines for certain reckless activity, such as a charge for turning up in A+E hammered and using it as a hostel. But the fact that I'm such a softy means I cannot ever justify a situation where someone should face a fine for cancer treatment thus preventative as opposed to treatment-based measures should be in force.

JC 2K3

That's just your own view of sado machoism. It doesn't appeal to you so you don't think it should be legal. It did say in the wiki article that none of them required treatment. If they had and it had been serious then it should be looked into and they should be fined accordingly. On what grounds they should be fined is another matter, however.

The thing about organised sport such as hurling is that it has rules and a referee. Now I know there can be rules in S&M, but it is admmittidly a lot more reckless and impossible to know how self regulated the parties involved were. You could say drug use can be regulated by trip sitters, ie. sober people who look after those on drugs and harm can be lessened by educated, responsible use of them. However, again, it is impossible to gauge the level of responsibility or regulation that was involved should there be an accident. I fully agree that fines should be payed for reckless behavior, but how do you gauge what "reckless" is?

I think the solution would be that for certain activities such as extreme S&M or drug use a licence should be required. In the case of S&M people should have to pass a test showing they understand the limits of the human body and all the necessary precautions to take. In terms of drugs, anyone who wants to do a certain drug should have to take a test on it to receive a licence to give them permission to take it. The test would make sure they knew the risks, the right setting to take it in, the dosage required, the overdose limit, what to avoid while doing it etc.

Wertz

JC 2K3 wrote:

I disagree. What people do on private property is their business alone as long as it has no external repercussions.

Unless you want to imbibe prohibited substances in which case your private property means f*ck all and the same law applies.

On the health and safety issue raised and the old "boohoo my tax dollahs" chestnut, here's a small niggle of mine in relation to how we treat self inflicted "harm" in society.
Tomorrow morning myself and a few mates wish to go rock climbing, the weather looks a little dodgy but we're amateurs at this and it's all just a bit of fun to us.
We head off and within hours the weather has worsened, we've no provisions made for these circumstances and things are looking grim. One of our party falls and breaks a leg. Another is starting to suffer fromn hypothermia.
At this stage we've been on the mountain for 12 hours, someone's missed us and called the rescue services. Several people hed off up the mountain, a helicopter is called, a lot of expense goes on our rescue and a lot of people put their lives on the line to save ours.....yet all we were doing was mucking around on the mountain....it was unlikely to be of benefit to any of our group or society as a whole. But society should pick up the tab for it.
Next month our party intends to go sailing....without lifejackets.

How is the above scenario/analogy any different to any apparent self inflicted harm through drug use/abuse/misuse?


It's my personal choice to smoke. If I get stoned and decide to head off out in the car or do something dangerous at work, then that is illegal (and rightly so), but in the safety of my own armchair? Or in some other premises?
How is a prohibition on cannabis protecting me or society in general? Protecting us from what? Schizophrenia?
*insert long clichéed argument about health implications of alcohol*


As mentioned before if it's a monetary thing how about a nice fat tax/VAT windfall on the sale of currently prohibited substances? Sure half our healthcare budget* is already funded by tobacco and alcohol revenue.
Not to mention the drain on law enforcement resources caused by following up on smalltime dealers/smokers, the cost of court and jailtime...the list goes on.

As mentioned way back up the thread the only reason that cannabis is banned at all is because of heavy lobbying by American cotton growers and forrest owners, to ban the hemp plant itself under the guise of it's status as a mind altering substance....the only thing that worried the lobbyists (and therefore the US government of the day) was loosing out to a superior crop and the financial implications that would bring. Propaganda such as Reefer Madness soon followed and organised society has been demonising the plant ever since.



* Complete stab in the dark.

JC 2K3

Wertz wrote:

Unless you want to imbibe prohibited substances in which case your private property means f*ck all and the same law applies.

Well I meant ideally that it should be that way, not that it is that way.

Wertz

Oh I know that....the quote was more aimed at Ibid or whoever it was you were replying to with that point.

Bottle_of_Smoke

this has gone a bit off topic but to the OP - smoker & bank official

Fresh Breath

Yep i smoke cannabis probably twice a week at the least, and im in college doing a 4 year coarse and have never failed an exam since i started(A year ago)... So i dont see the problem with me enjoying life and doing good in life while not disturbing anyone else

greatgoal

ive been smokin a couple of spliffs every week since about 1976,whats all the fuss,ive never been tempted to try any other ****,and i own me gaff ,reared 4 kids,all doin well,2 grandkids ,and meself and the missus are as close as we were 30 years ago,so kept in context,no fuss.:)

Latchy

The thing is, if reports are to be believed cannabis is much much stronger and full of all kinds of chemicals today compared to yesteryear and we hear more and more reports of depression amoung younger people who consume large amounts of it .I was a regualr smoker for about 20 years ,mainly on the weekends to but some factors made me stop smoking cannabis and ciggeretes completely .One was becoming a parent and i suppose realising that being in a stoned state a lot at the time and consuming alcohol (not always together ) was not productive and it was time to curtail my drug /alcohol missuse .I just got older and wiser