socrateez
Stoned Philosopher
Joined: 01 Feb 2008
Posts: 1162
Location: I'm the person to your right.
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 Posted: Tue May 13, 2008 7:24 pm Post subject: |
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I had copy one of the comment posters here from the above referenced link.
"Consider this to be a double response, both to the Barney Frank article and the cited link on the legalization - or not- of marijuana.
This is an important debate. I don´t know if all generations thought this in their own time, but I think with the growing flow of information, we are walking towards change, and my guess is, unless some new evidence appears, it would be in the direction of legalization.
I would like to criticize a few of the points made by the researchers cited:
In the case of Mr. DuPont, I find it interesting that he weighs so thoroughly the costs of marijuana use, but doesn´t seem to bother to weigh the offsetting gains. When doing a balance, you have to show all sides, don´t you? I would also be interested in knowing the sources for the research, for instance, what proves that marijuana causes accidents? Is there empirical evidence to corroborate the conception that marijuana causes long-term mental illnesses? (I will go back to the mental illness thing in a second). Give me SOME evidence!
Even if you do agree that marijuana has adverse effects on people, it does not mean that a prohibition is necessarily the best way to regulate the situation. Of course, there is the textbook examples: holland, in which the legalization worked in decreasing the amount of marijuana consumed, and sweden, in which the exact opposite was true. It goes to show that it depends on a variety of factors.
Again, even if you consider it to be true that prohibition will bring down consumption, as Steven Landsburg said in his book “More sex is safer sex”, “i am certain that prohibiting people from driving cars would have an enormous impact on the number of accidents, but that isn’t a good enough reason to do it” (this was a completely free citation. I just got the general gist of his argument to back mine up). What I mean is, one has to weigh the pros and cons. Think of the people with glaucoma or a musical inclination!
Furthermore, I think that, in many cases, the causal relation is backwards. I have read, a long time ago, a study that showed that marijuana didn´t cause schizophrenia, it just increased the odds for someone who already had an inclination to the mental illness. And also, one could argue that it is possible that people with mentall illnesses tend to do more marijuana as a relieving method, and not that marijuana causes mental illnesses. The mental illness was already there, and that is what inclined the person to smoke in the first place.
Mr. DuPont was also unfortunate enough to use as an argument the fact that “we” (I´m not american) have been doing a lousy job in keeping alcohol and cigarettes away from children, and therefore marijuana would have the same fate. That can be easily criticized just by saying that the original intent of the law isn´t to allow children to drink and smoke cigarettes. It is forbidden. Whether or not it´s effective is a whole new issue. Prohibition hasn´t kept people from smoking until now, why would it matter to keep it up? What is so different about prohibiting the use for children (which, as he said, makes little or no difference) as in the case of alcohol, and prohibiting the use for all? Not to mention that, once legalized you can control it. You can tax it. If people will continue to smoke, I would rather they gave their money to the State (with a generous, but not excessive tax, otherwise the black market will arise again) than to a drug dealer. Control means we will have an organization to make sure that people aren´t putting other things in the marijuana (it is the case in Brazil, where drug dealers lace it with stronger - and more addictive - drugs, or just put tar or anything else to make it weigh more). We will have a federal organ dedicated to quality control, which will mean that the smoking population will be safer in doing something they would do already.
Why do I care so much since I’m not american? Well I would think it’s quite obvious. This is one of those issues in the international scenario in which the American governement has to take the first step, otherwise the rest of the world will not follow. I am, personally, tired of seing the amount of drug dealers that the drug enriches in brazil (although, if one was to take the “Why do drug dealers still live with their moms?” argument, it doesn’t really make that many people rich), it finances the weapons they buy to keep up the civil war happening in the ‘favelas’, it takes away jail space for serious offenders (Brazil has a severe case of jail overcrowding. Look it up.), it diverts the police who could be looking for murderers, rapists, robbers and CEOs (´tis a joke). In one sentence, in the words of Barney Frank, ‘Make room for serious offenders’."
— Posted by João Francisco |
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