911 call: TX man shoots robbers with shotgun

[Agent Orange]

[quote name='ThurmanMunster' post='602067' date='Dec 1 2007, 01:37 PM']


now you are an idiot. you are going to argue with someone actually in the medical field about not knowing what they are talking about? the united states isnt the only place that does testing. other places in the world have done studies regarding marijuana use. it is COMMON SENSE. maybe if you didnt smoke so much weed you would be able to comprehend [/quote]
I've done my own personal at home testing of the effects of marijuana for over 8 years now and I will tell you, I am more inclined to participate in dumb and reckless behavior when I'm under the influence of alcohol. About the only thing I'll do under the influence of marijuana is think too much. when you're drunk, you don't think enough.

and some one here or a few here, I don't know, made the arguement that because it's illegal, it's wrong and those who do it are stupid. So you're saying because the government has made it illegal, it's wrong? because it's a law, it's wrong? we all know there are stupid laws. your opinion is that because it's illegal, it's wrong. so what if you lived in say, Holland, where's it's legal to possess. what if you grew up there. would you think it was okay because it was legal?

[Agent Orange]

[quote name='rudi32' post='601287' date='Nov 29 2007, 08:14 PM']coming from my experience u are destined to end up in jail, dead, or both. [b]using a sybstance to help u function is an addiction[/b]....and marijuana is a drug[/quote]
He never said he couldn't function without it.

[USN Bengal]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='602211' date='Dec 1 2007, 10:33 PM']USN. In all of your posts, I have gone point to point, using my own logic, facts, and real world occurrences to respond to all of your claims. I've noticed you've left most of these posts untouched, but please, I implore you, do as I do. Take apart my posts point by point. Show this stupid pothead just how clueless he really is.

Of course, I happen to be actually interested in debating. You're interested in telling me how I'm wrong and how morally superior you are to me.[/quote]

CT, why do you keep up this facade?

You aren't interested in a debate at all. You refute every FACT and PROVEN thing about marijuana that is given to you, so that you have an excuse to believe only what you want to. Just on my own (not including rudi32 & LoyalFan's PROVEN facts) I've given you not only proven facts, but MY real world experiences based on almost 44 years of life and 24 years of being a drug & alcohol counselor.

You WANT to abuse weed and you WANT it to be legal.

Your defense is that you accuse me of wanting to tell you how morally superior that I am... although I have publicly acknowledged that I am NOT superior in ANY WAY to ANYONE!

Your defense is asinine, your continued IGNORING of facts is pure blind CHOSEN idiocy, and your "point by point" soliliquays are just the OPINION of an immature pothead who doesn't want to grow up.

You are the quintessential spoiled child... when given the facts on a silver platter you decide that you will do what you want IN SPITE of proof because just like the spoiled child says... "Because I want to".

Quit whining about "moral superiority" and "debate" when all you want is an excuse to be a juvenile fool.

Once again, it's called growing up and accepting things because it's the truth, the law, or just plain MORALLY and ETHICALLY right. You DON'T HAVE TO AGREE WITH IT, but eventually you WILL have to live it... or pay the consequences for getting caught.

[USN Bengal]

[quote name='Agent Orange' post='602396' date='Dec 2 2007, 05:35 AM']I've done my own personal at home testing of the effects of marijuana for over 8 years now and I will tell you, I am more inclined to participate in dumb and reckless behavior when I'm under the influence of alcohol. About the only thing I'll do under the influence of marijuana is think too much. when you're drunk, you don't think enough.

and some one here or a few here, I don't know, made the arguement that because it's illegal, it's wrong and those who do it are stupid. So you're saying because the government has made it illegal, it's wrong? because it's a law, it's wrong? we all know there are stupid laws. your opinion is that because it's illegal, it's wrong. so what if you lived in say, Holland, where's it's legal to possess. what if you grew up there. would you think it was okay because it was legal?[/quote]

So are you saying that something that has been proven to be bad for you, IS illegal, and can assist you in ruining your life is ok?

So are you also saying that something that has been proven to be bad for you shouldn't be illegal?

[i][b]As an edit... I have friends who currently smoke weed... and have for years. They smoke at their home, don't drive stoned, and I'm pretty sure they grow their own just for their consumption. They know I don't agree with it's use, but they also have admitted to the FACTS about weed. They KNOW it's bad for you and know the effects it will have on them.

I don't condemn weed use or people who use weed. It's illegal, so if you get caught, you get what you deserve.

I DO condemn chosen ignorance... because if you want to stay that way it's a choice... and I'd be willing to bet that you're ignorant about a lot more than just weed.[/b] [/i]

[CTBengalsFan]

[quote name='LoyalFanInGA v2.0' post='602360' date='Dec 2 2007, 01:33 AM'][url="http://www.ama-assn.org/ama/pub/category/13625.html"]AMA report[/url]



You can listen to Jimi, but you can't hear Jimi. You can't understand if you don't read the information. If you would take the time to educate yourself instead of making not only debatable, but unequivocally refutable statements then I wouldn't have to copy and paste for your benefit.

I'm not even through 1/4th of the article and already my fingers hurt from proving you wrong.

If only I had something for this damn arthritis pain.

Marijuana has adverse health effects just like tobacco and alcohol. It has some medically beneficial effects, also.

The powers that be have made tobacco and alcohol legal; marijuana illegal. I'm not debating that issue.

I'm debating, 'marijuana has no adverse effects' and 'marijuana doesn't inhibit brain function.'

When I wrote, 'You can't be this naive," it was because I thought you couldn't possibly believe that and were playing Devil's Advocate. You're doing an excellent job of proving me wrong and that you really are that naive. Congratulations.

[img]http://sidesalad.net/archives/JohnVernon.jpg[/img]

Dean Wormer once told me, "Fat, stoned, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."[/quote]


[quote]The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 labeled marijuana a drug of maximum danger and no redeeming value. This classification was immediately challenged by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, but the government simply refused to discuss it. In 1986, the DEA finally decided to hold the public hearings that the U.S. Court of Appeals had ordered seven years earlier, and the resulting parade of doctors, patients, professors, and lawmen left a two-year court record that is the most thorough review of the evidence in our time. In 1988, the DEA's administrative law judge stunned the agency by ruling for the plaintiffs: "Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man... One must reasonably conclude that there is accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision. To conclude otherwise, on the record, would be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious."
The DEA concluded otherwise. The administrator brushed aside the ruling and ridiculed the very idea of medical marijuana as a "dangerous and cruel hoax." Besides, researchers had finally figured out how to synthesize marijuana's active ingredient, THC, and it was now available in pill form as Marinol. Since there was obviously no longer any need for the crude natural product, DEA officials slammed the door on cannabis with finality in 1992.
Anyone who tried to approach the issue from the other flank - setting up a scientifically controlled test to see if the stuff actually worked - hit the same wall. In 1992, Donald Abrams, a professor of medicine at the University of California, designed a pilot study to compare the effectiveness of smoking marijuana with the synthetic Marinol as a treatment for AIDS-related weight loss. The plan for the study made it past each hurdle in turn - The University of California's Institutional Review Board, the state examiners, the FDA - and in 1994 Abrams applied to the National Institute for Drug Abuse, the country's sole source of legal marijuana, requesting a supply from the government's plot in Mississippi. The NIDA deftly moved him back to square one. They questioned the basic design of his study, and each answer he gave just provoked another question. Years later the project was still in limbo.[/quote]

[quote]Currently, one of the leading scientific lights of the marijuana prohibition movement is Dr. Gabriel Nahas, a hero of the French Resistance in World War II and a sworn enemy of the cannabis plant. As a consultant to the U.N. Commission on Narcotics, Dr. Nahas has been an adviser to the White House and to most of America's major antidrug organizations. Over the last quarter century, he has endeavored to supply a scientific rationale for the drug war, and while his efforts have been lauded by the prohibitionists, his colleagues in the medical profession seem less impressed. As one observer put it, "No drug-abuse scholar in recent history has been the subject of such scathing commentaries in the scientific journals." A review of his work in the New England Journal of Medicine called it "psychopharmacologic McCarthyism" peppered with "half-truths, innuendo, and unverifiable assertions." The JAMA, journal of the American Medical Association, noted that "examples of biased selection and omission of facts abound in every chapter." Contemporary Drug Problems was even less charitable: "meretricious trash." When Nahas recently published a paper in the Medical Journal of Australia claiming that a new research method proved marijuana was toxic, he was immediately attacked by pharmacologists from the University of Sydney who discovered that he was largely quoting himself and 80 percent of his references were misleading or distorted. Nonetheless, his work is still a primary source of scientific justification for the war on marijuana.[/quote]

The government isn't interested in studies that portray marijuana in a positive light. If they have given out actual marijuana for study since this article I took these two quotes from, then I am proven wrong on that small point, but not the overall theme being the United States government suppressing any sort of research that could portray marijuana in a positive light.

Oh, and I'm far from fat.

[CTBengalsFan]

[quote name='LoyalFanInGA v2.0' post='602366' date='Dec 2 2007, 02:01 AM']Do you and I need to travel to the sun and watch all the planets in orbit around it in order to say it is the center of our solar system?

Is it not possible to rate the relative effects of darvocet vs. vicodin vs. percocet vs. demerol vs. morphine vs. heroin vs. alcohol?

How much heroin does the average user inject into their vein? Five to 8mg for beginners according to the American Academy of Pediatrics. If you inject 5mg of heroin in subject A and 5mg of Budweiser into subject B, who do you think will exhibit signs of acute intoxication? According to you, alcohol is the most intoxicating of drugs so the Budweiser subject should demonstrate signs of intoxication more so than the heroin subject. Yes?[/quote]

Not by volume, but then again, LSD is 5000 to 10000 times for active than mescaline, does that make mescaline a pussy drug? By average dose taken by people who drink alcohol vs. consume heroin, yes. I come from a small town, graduating high school class of about 170. That means you knew everyone. Everyone partied together because everyone got along. You had the valedictorian of our class, the athletes, the hot chicks, the loser drug user kids, all at the same party, everyone friends with each other. Now the funny thing about going to college, is when you go back to town for breaks and whatnot, you see how all these kids who haven't left the town have changed. And unfortunately for a lot of them, they got into heroin use. And these are kids I know rather well, and I've spent a lot of times talking about heroin and its effects, and to a T, they will all tell you that alcohol "fucks you up" worse than heroin. And that's BECAUSE OF THE HEROIN TOLERANCE. Maybe for YOU or I, someone who has never consumed heroin once, it would be more intoxicating than alcohol. But for a seasoned heroin user, [u][b]NOT EVEN CLOSE[/b][/u]. So YES, I'll take testimonials from people I personally know rather well who have intimate experience with the use of both substances than the opinion of someone in a lab.


[quote]I think obesity, whether chronic or acute (Whoa, I woke up this morning and somehow gained 20lbs overnight), has a profound effect on health insurance rates.

However, I don't think obesity has effected the insurance premium you [i]claim to pay.[/i]

I saw a peanut stand, heard a rubber band, I saw a needle that winked its eye.
But I'd be done see'n about everything when I see [s]an elephant fly[/s] a college student pay his own health insurance premium.[/quote]


Never claimed to pay my premiums, but you obviously have no problem misquoting me. I don't think I need to explain to such a smart person you pay for everything you receive, be it directly or indirectly.

[CTBengalsFan]

[quote name='USNBENGAL the Original' post='602463' date='Dec 2 2007, 11:05 AM']So are you saying that something that has been proven to be bad for you, IS illegal, and can assist you in ruining your life is ok?

So are you also saying that something that has been proven to be bad for you shouldn't be illegal?

[i][b]As an edit... I have friends who currently smoke weed... and have for years. They smoke at their home, don't drive stoned, and I'm pretty sure they grow their own just for their consumption. They know I don't agree with it's use, but they also have admitted to the FACTS about weed. They KNOW it's bad for you and know the effects it will have on them.

I don't condemn weed use or people who use weed. It's illegal, so if you get caught, you get what you deserve.

I DO condemn chosen ignorance... because if you want to stay that way it's a choice... and I'd be willing to bet that you're ignorant about a lot more than just weed.[/b] [/i][/quote]

I never said it was good for you. I said it's bad for you just like Big Macs are bad for you.

[LoyalFanInGA v2.0]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='602493' date='Dec 2 2007, 11:40 AM']The government isn't interested in studies that portray marijuana in a positive light. If they have given out actual marijuana for study since this article I took these two quotes from, then I am proven wrong on that small point, but not the overall theme being the United States government suppressing any sort of research that could portray marijuana in a positive light.

Oh, and I'm far from fat.[/quote]
I gave you a single article by the AMA (which publishes JAMA, by the way.) You've failed to read a single sentence of it for yourself.

I doubt if you regularly or infrequently read research articles regarding marijuana.

In fact, your previous statements prove you do not.

You wrote obesity is raising your health care costs. How much have you paid for health care in the past year? Or are we discussing your hypothetical health care costs?

Riddle me this, Batman. If you're having a brain tumor surgically removed, are you comfortable with your neurosurgeon smoking a blunt beforehand to help him think better during critical moments of the surgery or if complications arise? Is it safe for your pilot to smoke a bowl before take off and landing to help him with the stress?

[Agent Orange]

[quote name='USNBENGAL the Original' post='602463' date='Dec 2 2007, 11:05 AM'][b]So are you also saying that something that has been proven to be bad for you shouldn't be illegal?[/quote]

Yeah, pretty much. Alcohol is proven bad for you, and it's legal. Some things people should be able to do if they choose so, except for the obvious like murder, rape, robbery, etc. The government is not my daddy, nor should it try to pretend to be my God either.


[quote][i][b]As an edit... I have friends who currently smoke weed... and have for years. They smoke at their home, don't drive stoned, and I'm pretty sure they grow their own just for their consumption. They know I don't agree with it's use, but they also have admitted to the FACTS about weed. They KNOW it's bad for you and know the effects it will have on them.

I don't condemn weed use or people who use weed. It's illegal, so if you get caught, you get what you deserve.

I DO condemn chosen ignorance... because if you want to stay that way it's a choice... and I'd be willing to bet that you're ignorant about a lot more than just weed.[/b] [/i][/quote]

I never said I thought it WASN'T bad for you, just not nearly as bad as alcohol. I stand by that arguement because I have smoked it for years now and I contend that I am prone to reckless behavior moreso under the influence of alcohol, than I am marijuana.

and don't assume I am ignorant about anything just because of one belief. I would bet that we agree on quite a few issues, so don't prejudge me on an assumption. [b]THAT IS IGNORANT[/b].

[CTBengalsFan]

[quote name='LoyalFanInGA v2.0' post='602574' date='Dec 2 2007, 01:42 PM']If you're having a brain tumor surgically removed, are you comfortable with your neurosurgeon smoking a blunt beforehand to help him think better during critical moments of the surgery or if complications arise? Is it safe for your pilot to smoke a bowl before take off and landing to help him with the stress?[/quote]

I wouldn't have a problem with either, but I think this thread has become a sideshow, and I'm done with it.

[Agent Orange]

[quote name='ThurmanMunster' post='602719' date='Dec 2 2007, 06:40 PM']the sideshow is your posts.[/quote]
You're the type of person that truly believes his shit doesn't stink aren't you?

[|Bunghole|]

This has been an interesting pregame diversion guys, thanks for helping me kill some time.

[Agent Orange]

[quote name='Bunghole' post='602737' date='Dec 2 2007, 07:09 PM']This has been an interesting pregame diversion guys, thanks for helping me kill some time.[/quote]
yeah I never expected it to go this route. I thought at the very least it would turn into a discussion about racism.

[ThurmanMunster]

[quote name='Agent Orange' post='602726' date='Dec 2 2007, 06:55 PM']You're the type of person that truly believes his shit doesn't stink aren't you? [/quote]
not at all.

[LoyalFanInGA v2.0]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='602211' date='Dec 1 2007, 10:33 PM']Of course, I happen to be actually interested in debating.[/quote]

[quote name='LoyalFanInGA v2.0' post='602360' date='Dec 2 2007, 01:33 AM'][img]http://sidesalad.net/archives/JohnVernon.jpg[/img]

Dean Wormer once told me, "Fat, stoned, and stupid is no way to go through life, son."[/quote]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='602493' date='Dec 2 2007, 11:40 AM']Oh, and I'm far from fat.[/quote]

[quote name='LoyalFanInGA v2.0' post='602574' date='Dec 2 2007, 01:42 PM']Riddle me this, Batman. If you're having a brain tumor surgically removed, are you comfortable with your neurosurgeon smoking a blunt beforehand to help him think better during critical moments of the surgery or if complications arise? Is it safe for your pilot to smoke a bowl before take off and landing to help him with the stress?[/quote]


[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='602717' date='Dec 2 2007, 06:30 PM']I wouldn't have a problem with either, but I think this thread has become a sideshow, and I'm done with it.[/quote]

Clearly, Miss Lohan, in your world it is much better not to be fat than not to be stoned or stupid.

Maybe Lavar Arrington isn't too lazy to complete a simple homework assignment and read a single article by the American Medical Academay and then be interested in a debate?

[CTBengalsFan]

my reason to abstain from the thread isn't you fwiw. like I said, it became a sideshow, and I'm done with it.

[ThurmanMunster]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='603692' date='Dec 3 2007, 01:32 AM']my reason to abstain from the thread isn't you fwiw. like I said, it became a sideshow, and I'm done with it.[/quote]
thats a lame excuse. its still on topic and people are still debating. the only difference is agent orange jumped into the scene.

[Agent Orange]

[quote name='ThurmanMunster' post='603696' date='Dec 3 2007, 01:51 AM']thats a lame excuse. its still on topic and people are still debating. the only difference is agent orange jumped into the scene.[/quote]

sometimes you have to agree to disagree. I think that's what he's basically doing. the arguement could go on and on. some don't have the will or the interest to continue arguing.

[CTBengalsFan]

[url="http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew-cole21sep21,0,6041974.story?coll=la-promo-opinion"]http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/la-oew...a-promo-opinion[/url]

[quote]Jack Cole, executive director of [url="http://www.leap.cc"]Law Enforcement Against Prohibition[/url], visited the editorial board Thursday, along with L.A. Chamber of Commerce chairman David Fleming, for a discussion of his group's plan to end America's war on drugs. Some highlights:

A state trooper gets fed up

Jack Cole: I retired from the New Jersey State Police after 26 years there. And 14 years there I was undercover narcotics. I retired as a detective lieutenant. I started in the war on drugs at the very beginning. That's when I went undercover, in 1970. So I worked the first 14 years undercover. And of course I followed it ever since, because when I retired I felt so bad about my role in implementing what today I consider an unjust war on drugs that in 2002 I sat down with four other police officers and we decided we were going to try and do something about this thing. When we sat down we decided first, what should law enforcement people be trying to do? And when we boiled it down to the very essence it came down to we were interested in reducing the incidence of death, disease, crime and addiction. And sadly, folks, all four of those categories are just made infinitely worse by the war on drugs itself. So that obviously wasn't what we wanted.

As our name implies, we decided we wanted to end drug prohibition, just like we ended alcohol prohibition in 1933. Cause as law enforcers we knew that the very day after we ended that terrible law, Al Capone and all his smuggling buddies, all the people at the very top, people we couldn't touch for all those years, they were out of business. They were no longer out on the streets, killing each other to try and control that lucrative business. They were no longer killing us cops trying to fight that useless war. They were no longer killing our children caught in crossfire and drive-by shootings: all the things we have today. So we knew that if we came up with a system of legalized regulation of drugs today we could take all the violence out of this equation. All of it. And if we treated drug abuse we could actually start helping these people instead of destroying their lives.

Let me give you an idea of what we mean: We've already spent more than a trillion dollars on the war on drugs, since 1970. And what do we have to show for that money? And by the way, it's $69 billion more every year that we'll throw down the same rathole. What we have to show for it is in 37 years we've made over 38 million arrests for non-violent drug offenses. We've quadrupled the number of people in our prisons in the last, in a twenty-year period. We've made building prisons the fastest-growing industry in the United States, which, there's something to be proud of, right? And to bring it down, so you guys can really understand it where you live, in ten years, you've increased the people on your staffs at prisons, guarding those folks in prison, by 25,000. At the same time you've cut your teachers by 8,000. Seems to me to be the wrong message we're trying to send to our young people. That's just for California.

Despite all this money spent, and all these lives destroyed, today drugs are cheaper, they're more potent and they're easier for our children to access than they were in 1970 when I started buying them as an undercover agent.

So that's a failed policy, any way you look at it.

War bucks

Jack Cole: I joined the New Jersey State Police in 1964. The War On Drugs was coined and created by Richard Milhous Nixon in 1968. Had nothing to do with drugs; it had everything to do with the fact that he was running for the presidency for the second time and he thought this time it'd be really nice if he won. [...] When I joined in 1964 we had a seven-man narcotics unit. Six years later, as the federal funding started pouring in, we went from a seven-man unit to a 76-person bureau of narcotics. Think what that means. When you increase any organization by 11 times overnight, you set up a great deal of expectations, and since cops are judged mainly on the number of arrests they make, the expectation with us, the expectation was that in the coming year we'd arrest at least 11 times as many people for non-violent drug offense as we did the year before. So after two weeks' training they designated one-third of us undercover, and I was one of that third so that's where I spent most of the next 14 years of my life.

We were supposed to arrest drug users: Not an easy job in 1970 for several reasons. First, we didn't really have much of a drug problem in 1970. Those of us old enough to look back to those times, we know the main problem was soft drugs: marijuana, hashish psilocybin mushrooms, LSD — the mind-altering drugs. The targeted us against young folks, folks in high school or college or in between, little friendship groups, because there were no drug dealers. And our bosses didn't know how to fight a war on drugs, which was a problem. But they knew one thing: They knew how to work that federal cash cow. They'd just hired 75 new troopers to replace us seasoned guy. So they had to make the war on drugs look like it was an absolute necessity. This was probably not the right thing to do. But we made it the right thing to do.

We started arresting everybody we could put our fingers on. I infiltrated a group of maybe 15 young people. Friday night, school's out, work's out, somebody'd say "You wanna get high?" And a few people would take them up on that, and of course I was always there to take them up on that. One of the friends who happened to have access to the family car and could go and get drugs — because I was working the suburbs and there just were no drugs in the suburbs; you had to go to New York City to get them — and he'd ask what do you want? One person says get me a couple joints, one says get me some acid, and when they came to me I'd put my order in too, for this tiny bit of substance. And an hour later they'd come back and hand this stuff out to their friends. And when they handed it to me they became a big-time drug dealer. And I would stay in that group until I got everybody in the group. Which was easy because whoever made the run before didn't want to do it again; they weren't even getting gas money. These were just young people accommodating each other.

We were working ten of those groups at the same time, and we had about thirty cops working cases like this, and when we had 90, 95 cases like this, and that took maybe a month, month and a half, we'd have a roundup. We'd sweep into the community, kick down the doors, arrest the people, drag them out in chains. And when we got down to the police station we'd call you folks, who would be there with photographers. And we'd run them through the perp walk where they'd have their pictures taken so they could have any respectability they had destroyed, and when we got them all lined up against the wall, our boss would come in and say to the media, "See that? That's 95 major drug dealers we took out of your community. We've got to do something to stop this. This is the worst thing that's ever happened to the United States. We need more money so we can hire more cops and make more arrests." In 1969 you could count the number of arrests for non-violent drug offenses in the tens of thousands. That first year when we started this campaign that number went up to 415,000. We just increased it slightly each year.

Drugs: faster, better, cheaper

Jack Cole: Everything that you should be able to look at to judge whether a program is good or bad is going the opposite way. If we were doing anything to interdict drugs, the price would go up, not down, right? The supply would go down, not up. Instead, when I was a young trooper in 1970, kicking down doors and executing search warrants a good seizure for a local cop might be an ounce of cocaine or a quarter-ounce of heroin. Look at what we're seizing today. In 2002, in a single seizure we seized ten tons of heroin and in another single seizure 20 tons of cocaine. I know you got 18 tons here, right off the coast of California. So things are going up, not down.

Jim Newton: Is that not, arguably, a success, if interdictions are going up, if they're seizing more and more drugs? Why does that not get counted as a measure of success?

Jack Cole: Because all that means...it would be a measure of success if we were seizing more and more drugs and therefore the price was going up. It would mean that it's harder to get on the street. But it's not harder on the street. On the street it's easier than ever [...] We're having zero effect on the things that are measurable.

Is pot still cool?

Jack Cole: If we look at other countries where they've lessened the penalties. In any country where they've loosened the laws, things get better.

Jim Newton: Well we've loosened the laws and lessened the penalties in California since I was a kid. I mean, I remember growing up, when I was in high school it was a felony to be arrested with marijuana; now it's not even a misdemeanor.

Jack Cole: In fact you've got legal marijuana

Jim Newton: Has the loosening of the laws in California had some of the effect you're describing.

Jack Cole: Yes it has. In fact the drug warriors are now bragging that in the last four years teenage marijuana use has dropped 11%. That's 11% from where it was four years ago; it's still up 50% from where it was at the start of the war on drugs, which should be where you start measuring. They say it's dropped 11% in the last four years. But in California, where you were the first state to legalize medical marijuana, it's dropped by 47%.

Tim Cavanaugh: Teenage usage?

Jack Cole: Yeah.

Lisa Richardson: What's the correlation of that?

Jack Cole: I think the correlation is it's not particularly cool to get together and smoke a joint when that's what grandma does to treat her glaucoma.

Tim Cavanaugh: Come on, it's still cool!

David Fleming: We ought to outlaw spinach.

Postwar society

Jim Newton: Let's talk about what this world would look like. We wake up January 1, drugs are legal. Seems like there could be manifold unintended consequences of that too.

David Fleming: It would be from a Class 1 to a Class 2 drug.

Jim Newton: So drugs would still be illegal?

Jack Cole: They would be regulated. Most drugs would be legal. And we believe the more dangerous a drug is, the more reason there would be to legalize it, because you cannot control or regulate anything that is illegal. But it doesn't mean it won't be regulated, harshly regulated. It just won't be a Class 1 drug anymore.

Jim Newton: So as a consumer, would I buy from a doctor? How would I get access to these drugs?

Jack Cole: That depends on the drug. And it depends on the policies we set up. If you're asking, and we don't recommend any specific policy. The first half of our talk is to convince people of the horror of the war on drugs. And the second half is to discuss what we'd like to see. [...] The only drug we've had any success in lowering the rate of use of in this country is tobacco. In the last 22 years we've cut tobacco use in half in this country. We didn't do that by making tobacco illegal, by arresting executives at R.J. Reynolds. The most effective thing we did was a massive education program.

Cynics and prohibition

Jim Newton: What ended alcohol prohibition in 1933?

Jack Cole: It ended when the public began to see the unintended consequences of this misguided law.

David Fleming: There's another part of that. At the time we were in the midst of a depression. Income tax revenues were way down, and the federal government said to itself, where were we getting our revenues before? And the answer was that a substantial portion of federal revenues had been coming from taxes on alcohol.

Jim Newton: David, you are a cynic![/quote]

interesting view point I came across for a class...

[|Lucid|]

I agree with this entire article.


And I would NEVER reccomend someone do drugs.

[oldschooler]

Clearly the guy was wrong for shooting at someone robbing his neighbor`s house.
Unless his neighbor was his Mom or some other family member.

As far as the drug debate, personally I am for leagalizing all drugs.
I know some are highly addictive, and are of no good. But people
are still able to get those same drugs now. So if they were legal,
at least the Government would have some control of them, as
far as age limits ect. And they could tax them ect. You could free
up the jail and court system. And have cops arrest people that
are actually committing crimes.

I have done a lot of drugs in my life. I smoke pot every chance I get.
Most people wouldn`t know it even if you met me in person, much less
on here. Most people thought I was some computer geek, and was
surprised when they saw what I look like.

Oh and as far as it`s wrong because it`s bad for you, or because
it`s illegal, I guess none of you do anything illegal like speed
or whatever, or mess with anything that`s bad for you ?

[LoyalFanInGA v2.0]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='602207' date='Dec 1 2007, 10:28 PM']They don't do controlled studies on marijuana use, bottom line. The government does not give out marijuana for scientific research, this is a fact, this cannot be debated. All they can use is volunteers who state their drug use history or monkeys.[/quote]
[url="http://www.hd.net/danrather.html"]Dan Rather Reports[/url] is available on HDNet, Channel 79, from DIRECTV.

[quote]Wed., Jan. 2nd 9:00 AM ET Medical Marijuana - Possession of marijuana could lead to jail time. But medical researchers are learning that it may also lead to significant advances in medicine. Dan Rather Reports investigates important new information on the plant that some researchers are calling the "aspirin of the 21st century".

Wed., Jan. 2nd 6:00 PM ET Medical Marijuana[/quote]

Since you seem too lazy to read a single article by the American Medical Association detailing double blind, placebo controlled, clinical studies of humans involving marijuana provided by the US government; maybe you could muster enough energy to sit on a couch a watch TV?

As an added incentive, learn how you can get a prescription for marijuana for your dog. I'm not kidding. That should get your attention. Maybe "CABengalsFan" in the future, eh?

Can we debate how wrong you are?

[CTBengalsFan]

Yea, ok, ask the government for marijuana to test the effects of getting high, not its medical attributes. See what they say.

Anyway, I already addressed this before...

[quote]The Controlled Substances Act of 1970 labeled marijuana a drug of maximum danger and no redeeming value. This classification was immediately challenged by the National Organization for the Reform of Marijuana Laws, but the government simply refused to discuss it. In 1986, the DEA finally decided to hold the public hearings that the U.S. Court of Appeals had ordered seven years earlier, and the resulting parade of doctors, patients, professors, and lawmen left a two-year court record that is the most thorough review of the evidence in our time. In 1988, the DEA's administrative law judge stunned the agency by ruling for the plaintiffs: "Marijuana in its natural form is one of the safest therapeutically active substances known to man... One must reasonably conclude that there is accepted safety for use of marijuana under medical supervision. To conclude otherwise, on the record, would be unreasonable, arbitrary, and capricious."
The DEA concluded otherwise. The administrator brushed aside the ruling and ridiculed the very idea of medical marijuana as a "dangerous and cruel hoax." Besides, researchers had finally figured out how to synthesize marijuana's active ingredient, THC, and it was now available in pill form as Marinol. Since there was obviously no longer any need for the crude natural product, DEA officials slammed the door on cannabis with finality in 1992.
Anyone who tried to approach the issue from the other flank - setting up a scientifically controlled test to see if the stuff actually worked - hit the same wall. In 1992, Donald Abrams, a professor of medicine at the University of California, designed a pilot study to compare the effectiveness of smoking marijuana with the synthetic Marinol as a treatment for AIDS-related weight loss. The plan for the study made it past each hurdle in turn - The University of California's Institutional Review Board, the state examiners, the FDA - and in 1994 Abrams applied to the National Institute for Drug Abuse, the country's sole source of legal marijuana, requesting a supply from the government's plot in Mississippi. The NIDA deftly moved him back to square one. They questioned the basic design of his study, and each answer he gave just provoked another question. Years later the project was still in limbo.[/quote]


[quote]Currently, one of the leading scientific lights of the marijuana prohibition movement is Dr. Gabriel Nahas, a hero of the French Resistance in World War II and a sworn enemy of the cannabis plant. As a consultant to the U.N. Commission on Narcotics, Dr. Nahas has been an adviser to the White House and to most of America's major antidrug organizations. Over the last quarter century, he has endeavored to supply a scientific rationale for the drug war, and while his efforts have been lauded by the prohibitionists, his colleagues in the medical profession seem less impressed. As one observer put it, "No drug-abuse scholar in recent history has been the subject of such scathing commentaries in the scientific journals." A review of his work in the New England Journal of Medicine called it "psychopharmacologic McCarthyism" peppered with "half-truths, innuendo, and unverifiable assertions." The JAMA, journal of the American Medical Association, noted that "examples of biased selection and omission of facts abound in every chapter." Contemporary Drug Problems was even less charitable: "meretricious trash." When Nahas recently published a paper in the Medical Journal of Australia claiming that a new research method proved marijuana was toxic, he was immediately attacked by pharmacologists from the University of Sydney who discovered that he was largely quoting himself and 80 percent of his references were misleading or distorted. Nonetheless, his work is still a primary source of scientific justification for the war on marijuana.[/quote]


The government has its agenda against marijuana, and they aren't going to let research on the effects of recreational use get in the way of that.

[LoyalFanInGA v2.0]

[quote name='CTBengalsFan' post='614197' date='Dec 27 2007, 04:08 AM']Yea, ok, ask the government for marijuana to test the effects of getting high, not its medical attributes. See what they say.

Anyway, I already addressed this before...

The government has its agenda against marijuana, and they aren't going to let research on the effects of recreational use get in the way of that.[/quote]

I'm going to operate under the assumption you're not being facetious.

I think if I asked the government for a supply of marijuana and funding for a clinical research project to study the "effects of getting high" due to recreational cannabis use in humans I would receive the same answer if I asked to conduct the same study using heroin, cocaine, crystal meth, LSD, ecstasy, etc. I don't believe I would be able to get funding to study the effects of recreational amoxicillin use, for that matter either.

Do you mean marijuana's stimulating effect upon appetite? Oh, wait...research is being done upon how this could medically benefit chemo patients. Silly medical research. What about how marijuana affects the central nervous system? Research has and is being done with MS and epilepsy patients. Well, crap...that isn't the type of information you want. You probably want to know how many brain cells you're killing with each toke. Something important like that, right? Maybe we could do a large multicenter, double blind, placebo controlled study investigating the effects of recreational marijuana use upon the fetus in pregnant women?

You've stated, "they don't do controlled studies," "the government doesn't give out marijuana for scientific research," "Alcohol is the only drug that [i]inhibits[/i] brain function. Others overload pleasurable neurotransmitters." False, false, and let me check...Oh, yes, false. The government grows, distribute, and conducts research involving marijuana and you think you've been proven wrong on a [i]small[/i] point? I don't think our government's involvement with an illegal substance is a small point. I think it is rather a very large point that our government wouldn't completely shut the door on this topic, but continues to 'deal' marijuana to researchers who could eventually tell the government, "Oops, you're wrong, Big Brother."

If you think the government's agenda is to treat marijuana as an illegal substance, you're right. Is the government going to tightly regulate to whom they distribute marijuana for research? Absolutely. Why? Because if they didn't the system would be abused. Bogus research groups would be clamoring for marijuana much in the same way a dog got a prescription for medical marijuana in California. You're actually surprised or outraged that the government would control access to an illegal substance for research purposes?

Now as to the two quotes you posted from an "article." I don't know what article the quotes came from, but they are from [url="http://books.google.com/books?id=a8g7QptAUtwC&pg=PA175&lpg=PA175&dq=the+controlled+substances+act+of+1970+labeled+marijuana+a+drug+of+maximum+danger+and+no+redeeming+value+this+classification+was+immediately+challenged+by+the+national+organization+for+the+reform+of+marijuana+laws+but+the+government+simply+refused+to+discuss+it+in+1986+the+dea+finally+decided+to+hold+the+public+hearings&source=web&ots=AQgSmUEQmz&sig=3ALc5ZzU7viApU6kKla4XcmsjKg#PPA174,M1"]Drug Crazy: How We Got Into This Mess And How We Can Get Out by Mike Gray.[/url] The first quote can be found on pages 174 and 175. The second quote is found on page 175.

Dr. Donald Abrams has published:

Carter, G.T., Weydt, P., Kyashna-Tocha, M., Abrams, D.I. (2004). Medical cannabis: Rational guidelines for dosing. Idrugs, 7, 464-470.

Abrams, D.I., Hilton, J.F., Leiser, R.J., Shade, S.B., Elbeik, T.A., Aweeka, F.T., Benowitz, N.L., Bredt, B.M., Kosel, B., Aberg, J.A., Deeks, S.G., Mitchell, T.F., Mulligan, K., McCune, J.M., Schambelan, M. (2003). Short-term safety of cannabinoids in HIV infection: Results of a randomized, controlled clinical trial. Annals Internal Medicine, 139, 258-266.


Kosel, B.W., Aweeka, F.T., Benowitz, N.L., Shade, S.B., Hilton, J.F., Lizak, P.S., Abrams, D.I. (2002). The effects of cannabinoids on the pharmacokinetics of indinavir and nelfinavir. AIDS, 16, 543-550.

Abrams, D.I. (2000). Potential interventions for HIV/AIDS wasting: An overview. JAIDS, 25, S74-S80.

UConn has a library, right? Would you be a good little boy and look up these articles for me? I'd like to know who sold Dr. Abrams and his co-authors the Chronic they used to conduct these studies? Thank you.

[quote]The JAMA, journal of the American Medical Association, noted that "examples of biased selection and omission of facts abound in every chapter."[/quote]

I like to look things up for myself. It's a character flaw. JAMA lists 11 articles with "Nahas." I'm unable to find that quote. I am unable to view Mike Gray's bibliography online. My local Barnes and Noble doesn't have a copy of Drug Crazy in stock and I damn sure ain't buying a copy. So one more favor, I'd like to know which issue of JAMA contains this quote so I can read the entire article for myself.

Like I've stated, I'm not debating the legality of marijuana. If the government legalized it I would expect a very similar situation towards alcohol post-Prohibition.

I'm not debating marijuana's vs. alcohol's health effects. Alcohol causes cirrhosis, pancreatitis, fetal alcohol syndrome, alcohol poisoning, addiction, etc.

You've made some false claims. I've tried to get you to educate yourself by providing you with 3 references for you to read. Is it that damn hard? Is the American Medical Association that untrustworthy? May I suggest researching PET scans of the brain in marijuana users? I guess I could suggest it, but you've already got quite a few incomplete homework assignments already.

[DICKMAN]

[quote name='ScarletKnight' post='600081' date='Nov 26 2007, 08:43 PM']Yeah, im glad you line up real life with a video game. Just remeber to grab the rifle and not the x-box controller...pressing those buttons won't do it.

This wasn't the guys house, it was his neighbors house....there is a difference.

Hey when my grandfather was about 65 someone tried to rob his house and he chased them out with a baseball bat, there ARE alternatives to killing people.[/quote]


SO.... GTA?


edit: wow 9 pages? carry on.