Why is pot criminalized like crack?
447717
they should both be legal and alcohol shouldn't
72317
"Making Marijuana against the law is like saying God made a mistake"\n-Bill Hicks\n\n\nit's only illegal because the government doesn't have the control over it like they do on every other substance that is legal.\nAlcohol is much worse for you than marijuana, yet it's legal. you do the math.\nIt has nothing to do with the harm that marijuana may have, yet that is what all the propaganda is based on.  Otherwise, how would you have propaganda being at all useful if it was just simply "the government cant control it, so don't use it". No, they want to lie and preach that it's actually harmful to you. That's the only way they get it to stay illegal, too many people think it's actually harmful so there's not enough to overturn the rule.\n\nIt's also not a matter of IF it can harm you at all. You can get harmed by anything taken beyond moderation. The fact is it has less harm than something that is legal. Therefore being nothing short of total hypocrisy and lies by the government.\n\nP.S.\nI'm not a pothead or a hippy, etc.. I don't use it and I never have. I know enough people and have seen enough information that I don't need to be a pothead to have a strong view on the matter.
194897
Why WOULDN'T pot be legal?  Lets talk about what is legal and what is not legal... Alcohol is legal - People can get drunk all they want.  The fact is when people get drunk, they often get violent, and alcohol is a leading cause of family violence.  With weed, the worst thing people do is get the giggles and crave fast food.  Pot is not like other drugs (IE coke or other chemical drugs).  Pot is not physically addictive.  Its a natural plant from the earth, not processed in any way.  How can a PLANT from God be illegal?
731463
Yes. High Times and many other large magazine companies have been doing stories on this for years. Cig Co's were preparing for pot to be legallized like it should be and had the equipment ready for years, then they realized that the government would never legalize another drug so they put there investment into action with "lady" smokes. But they would have made pot smokes into all sizes, I have seen a few of these packs and they range from skinny to downright huge blunts. I will never understand why pot is illegal, and don't much care being I have access to an endless supply.
4440
Wow, your message is not a good advertisement for legalizing pot!\n\nBut to answer your question, because they don't get it. They believe that pot is to blame for all drug use and that it leads to harder drugs.\n\nBooze and pot do different things, either one is real bad for you if not used in moderation. Some people are not capable of moderation with the use of their drug of choice.
642126
No, marijuana should not be legalized, but it should be decriminalized, like the rest of the world has done. Why make criminals out of pot heads? Answer: to take everyone's rights away.\n\nBecause of a little marijuana, they can seize your car, your bank accounts, your possessions; just load it all up and take it away, and redistribute your wealth elsewhere. That is forbidden by the Contitution.\n\nBecause of a little marijuana, they can search every crack and crevice of your body, search your car, gain access to open land, spy on you, record your messages, and start a dosier on you. \n\nIf they smell marijuana, good luck. But all they have to do is "say" they smelled marijuana, and all of the above applies.\n\nBecause of a little marijuana, they can give you more jail time than bank robbers, rapists, and even murderers, especially if the Fed gets involved, and they have filled their jails to overflowing and can't build them fast enough. And this is one of the most important reasons of all to decriminalize marijuana, is to get the Fed the hell outa here, and to stop the growth rate of the prison industry.\n\nBecause of a little marijuana, you want more marijuana. It is not addictive, but it is psychologically addictive. You spend a good part of your life high, or coming down, and the parties are for hours. Then you spend hours driving around looking for it and smoking more. Then you have to get some more money to pay for it. \n\nYou can spend an inordinate amount of your time "wasted," and watching life go by, or you can kick the drugs and get "in" life and live it, experience it, effect it, gain from it, experience joy and fulfillment and happiness, or you can sit on the couch and seek pleasure that fades after the last toke. \n\nBecause of a little marijuana, you will be lethargic and not do well in school, if you go at all. And probably because of marijuana, you will not succeed in life. It will choose your friends, it will choose your music, it will choose where you go, and you will live your life for a worthless lie called a drug.
977188
Marijuana was legal when Prohibition went into affect and saw a rise in popularity as people sought an alternative  for the alcohol they couldn't get anymore. Two factors combined to make Marijuana illegal, one, the liquor industry that didn't want competition and the other was the bureaucracy set up to suppress alcohol found itself out of business once alcohol became legal again. When has any bureaucracy ever dismantled voluntarily? They just created a new boogie-man to suppress.
304767
If it was just true marijuana by itself maybe it wouldn't be as bad as alcohol.  But now it's mixed with all the other stuff and then it's just a introduction to the true brain rot that's out there.  If people want to be human vegetables for the rest of their life take dope.  If you want to be healthy mentally and physically don't do drugs, period.  Good question.
1039809
I think it's more a matter of self control. I used to smoke pot and I smoked it a few times a day. I quit a couple months ago and I haven't touched it since. Some people just have no self control when it comes to things like that. It's kind of like people that cheat. All people that cheat either have no self control or no respect for themselves. Even when I smoked pot, I didn't HAVE to have it. If I couldn't afford it, I just wouldnt buy it. Still, there are some people that think that HAVE to have it but don't have the self control to go without
95932
I could not possibly agree more with you. People are so reluctant to legalize marijuana because it has such a bad reputation. Of course, it gets that reputation because it is illegal and people pass judgment on it based solely on that fact. If you stop looking at the actual legality of it and just think about it morally it is a vice no worse than many others that americans find perfectly acceptable. Anything can be abused. People abuse alcohol, cigarettes, fast food, gambling and countless things which are perfectly legal and socially acceptable, but somehow so many people think smoking weed is just wrong.\nI can hardly see how continuing to make it illegal will benefit anyone. It only allows drug dealers to set the standards of production/regulation etc. all the while evading taxes. Making it illegal probably does not really curtail the use of the drug either. Did prohibition curtail the use of alcohol? nope. did it increase crime? yes.\nLegalize it and regulate it. Everyone wins. The potheads won't have to worry about getting locked up. The government can make some more cash. And we won't continue to whaste our time prosecuting potheads and enforcing rediculous laws that combat marijuana use at the expense of taxpayer's dollars.\n\naside from these reasons, weed just isn't that bad. It is not physically addictive (as is alcohol/tobacco), it does not have the reputation of making people violent/abusive (as does alcohol), it is not as closely associated with recklessness (as is alcohol) and when was the last time you threw up or had a hangover from smoking some weed? never.\n\nLegalize it!!
310667
Alcohol is more harmful to the human body. Marijuana is illegal because it is a drug and the government can't make any money off of it. If it were legalized, the revenue from it would be the releif that this country has been in need of for too many years. We have many legal drugs that are way more harmful and yet they are used every day. Pot makes you mello. I think it should be legalized, and sold like cigarettes. This would eliminate the drug dealers and make things safer. The gov must be in with the drug dealers... we go to jail and they are at fault for allowing this to happen.  Any body think this is true?
236411
I think pot usage was wider spread back then before the government dug in with all the anti-drug campaigning and subsidies to law enforcement.  The taboo of it has been softened too.  Coke was off the hook back then, really just getting started...but I don't think it's any worse than today, considering how strong the growing darker forces of the Columbian Drug Cartel have become.  So, all-in-all, the same...basing that on information from the media and the occasional creepy book or two covering the subject from Barnes & Noble....
211900
The fact is that scientists have no way to duplicate the medicinal effects of marijuana. Unlike cigarettes, studies have shown that there is only one type of person that gets 'hooked' on pot... for some reason, those predisposed to alcoholism are prone to marijuana addiction, too.\n\nGovernment/Pharmaceutical Conspiracies aside, there is no reason in the world that marijuana should be any more illegal that alcohol or cigarettes. Cigarettes would be illegal now if it were not for the taxes that the government takes in. But, that is another question to ask...
1021616
marijuana is the most commonly uses illegal substance in the United States. it is used by many people, most of which aren't your stereotypical "druggie", with no life agead of them. Many of them hapen to be very successful, good people. Think about it almost if not every person who reads this paper will know (even if they don't realize it) at least one if not several regular users of marijuana. Its often made out to be much more harmful htan it really is, unfortunatly not every one realizes this. \n\nWhat many people don't realize is marijuana is much less harmful than alcohol or tobacco. Yet it's the one of the three that gets a bad rap and is illegal. Marijuana isn't even physicaly addicting. You certanly don't see meetings for marijuana like you do with alcohol and AA. Unfortunatly due to American culture the less harmful of the three is illegal.\n\nThe most common reason why marijuana can be harmful is that people can often come across laced marijuana without realizing it. Marijuana can easily be mixed with other more harmful drugs with out the buyer realizing it, until they have already used it. This is a dangerous thing that causes many people to do more harmful, hard core drugs without realizing it. If it were to be legalized the government could provide guide lines, like it does with alchol  to insure that people knew what they were putting into their bodies.\n\nMarijuana actually has many helpful benefits toward diseases / sicknesses. Marijuana can reduce nausea, vomiting, and loss of appetite caused by AIDS. It can Reduce interlobular pressure, which alleviates the pain and slowing and sometimes even stopping the progress of glaucoma. Common side effects of chemotherapy are nausea, loss of appetite, and vomiting, all of which marijuana would help. It can limit muscle pain and relieve tremor nad unsteadiness of gait for multiple sclerosis patients. Marijuana can help prevent epileptic seizures in some patients. It can also alleviate chronic, often debilitating pain caused by myriad disorders and injuries. Each one of these applications have been deemed legitimate by at least one United States court, legislature, and/or government agency.\n\nDue to these reasons and many others many people are going to jail/prison on a daily basis due to simply smoking a little pot These aren't dangerous criminals that would kill or rape someone. Many of them are teachers, lawyers and respected members of their communities. But yet we still pay thousands of dollars of tax payers money to lock up non dangerous "criminals" yearly even though most aren't going to stop after they get out of jail. Don't you think the money spent here is a waste? Couldn't it be going to more useful things such as hospitals, disease research, or better schools? These are the things that would benifit the people of this country. Certanily you would rather benefit the people more than throwing a non violent pot head in jail who was only trying to smoke a joint and relax after a long days work in jail. There is up to forty million regular (note thats just the regular not occasional users) drug users in the United states. If we were to throw all of them in jail it would cost $500,000 per million people, plus the cost and space of building many more prisons. Couldm't that money be spent on building hospitals? There's already about 1.5 million people tax payers are paying to keep in jail over drugs. From 1990 to 2003, nearly 5.9 million people had been arrested for smoking marijuana. Thats a greater number than the entire population of Alaska, Delaware, The District of Columbia, Montania, North and South Dakota, Vermont, and Wyoming combined. This country simply can't afford to put 40 million more in jail.\n\nMarijuana should be legalized. It has many uses such as helping sick patients. People are going to smoke it no matter what the government sais, and with out govenment guidelines this can b
100981
Marijuana is less harmful then cigarettes and alcohol,no one has ever gotten cancer from it or any other illness for that matter, the only reason the government will not legalize it is because they make more money from it being illegal. Everytime a big bust is made they take everything, money,cars,homes ect. because they claim these things were bought with the money they made from selling Marijuana, it is not addictive like cigarettes and alcohol and it does not lead to harder drugs, if someone is doing harder drugs it is because they chose to ,not because they may have smoked marijuana first. native americans use to smoke it all the time and they lived to ripe old ages .
522707
think about it this way... i feel marijuana should be legalized due to the fact we are putting away pot heads for possession and stopping this drug from being on the streets and spending all of this money putting them away when there are TONS of cocaine dealers, crack dealers, meth heads, pedifiles, murderers etc still out there... yet our government is so convinced that marijuana is this horrible gateway drug... what about alcohol? in most cases kids now a days are more suseptable to drinking and then smoking pot than it being the other way around... but anyways. do you often read about people gettin arrested for being stoned out of their mind and killing someone from smoking and driving??? it happens occassionaly, but not as often as being being drunk and driving... do you hear about pot heads robbing gas stations to fund their habit? noo... usually that is cocaine addicts and meth heads... if the government was to legalize pot, they could put their own tax on it, and it would be just like alcohol, except for the fact you cant get "marijuana poisoning" well...you can, but to receive a lethal dose of thc you would have to consume 900 joints in a day... sure it causes cancers, but so does alcohol, so does smoking cigarettes...  so based off of how much we are spending on sending pot heads to jail, as well as keeping this so called "drug" off the streets we would make twice that if it were legalized... so yes, i feel people in the states should have full rights to smoke marijuana as they do in amsterdam.  but our government is to damn stupid to realize this potential and is just continually spending our tax dollars on throwing these TERRIBLE people, aka pot heads in jail...
1084926
I have theories, but they're just theories. Cigarettes and alcohol are legal because they bring big dollars to the government. And they are entirely too common. Marijuana legalized would bring big bucks too, but they would rather use it for keeping the prisons full. The towns that have prisons, typically the prison is their primary source of income. More prisoners equals more free labor, and more jobs within the prison for town residents.  There's also the race thing. Minorities are the ones caught with marijuana charges. After being imprisoned, they're lives are over. Possession of marijuana is grounds for denial of financial aid for college and for employment. Therefore usually after being released they are found doing the exact same thing all over again, or worse. And the cycle continues. There are deeper reasons why marijuana is kept illegal, your proof lies in the fact that cigarettes remain legal no matter what. Several cities are banning the indoor smoking in all public places because of the hazards of secondhand smoking but the thought of making it criminal to smoke at all never came up.