Do you think Marijuana should be legal? (US resident)

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The psychiatrist who diagnosed me recommended (away from my parents) that I try weed when I hit 16-18 to see if it helped me, and gave me explicit instructions on the various methods of smoking it.

So did the nurse that treated me when I had alcohol poisoning, she recommended I substitute marijuana for alcohol to avoid that wonderful several hours of dry heaving.

Marijuana at least is the no-brainer of legalization. Some other substances, particularly amphetamines and hard opiates are a bit dicey but the illegality of marijuana especially (and to a somewhat lesser extent mushrooms) seems mostly emotional.

That said though I've only heard one good argument against legalizing marijuana - that because it stays in your system for a month and there's no spot check to tell if someone's high it would be difficult to charge DUI's for people who are reckless in the ways they would be with alcohol. Still, I consider that a rather fine-point issue and I think its one they could find their way around pretty quickly.

Marijuana should be legal, but its use should be discouraged except in certain social contexts.

It is important to not understate the dangers of marijuana. Just like any other potentially addictive high, marijuana can easily ruin someone's life. But such a person should not be treated like a criminal. They should be treated like a sick person, because they are. They need help to remove their addiction, not condemnation.

I believe that a good way to not get addicted to something is to only do it at social gatherings. Context is important. A person isn't an alcoholic until they start drinking by themselves, and a person isn't a stoner until they start smoking by themselves.

I don't even know why this continues to be an issue in the United States (and elsewhere).

There is zero evidence whatsoever that marijuana is any more dangerous than the currently-legal alcohol, nicotine, and tobacco. And once you accept that, what other reason do you have to outlaw it that doesn't also exist for outlawing tobacco, nicotine and alcohol?

I also say don't even put an age restriction on marijuana. Seriously! What is the point of that at all!?

With all that being said, I tried it a few times and it was alright (the high was definitely interesting), but when I feel the desire to enter an altered state of consciousness, I actually prefer good ol' "liquid courage" as I prefer its effect on me over marijuana's, at least before the hangover!

Last edited by Magdalena on 09 Feb 2012, 12:03 am, edited 1 time in total.

You make great points here.



....and then you shoot your credibility in the foot.

I'd really recommend being careful not to say something like that around NT's. I'd have to agree with them at least on this - when you're a teen, especially an early teen, even pre-teen, you're getting the core of your life together and the directions it will be going. Will kids find ways to get alcohol and anything else they want prior to 18 or 21? Of course. That said though, especially when they're really in formative years, you need to at least make it enough hassle that they have to go bug someone older than them. A highschool grad or college student toking - no problem. An eight, nine, or ten year old - I can't imagine anyone not having a problem there.

If they made it legal and the regulated it like alcohol, I'm assuming they would have different grades, like you buy beer, then you can buy high proof liquor. I'm guessing there would be some kind of filler in a pre-rolled joint, and the most obvious filler would be tobacco, but then some people (like me) don't like cigarettes. What would be a possible filler alternative?

I think alcohol's a much better analogy. If you drink your fair share you notice that the purer the alcohol and the better grade of what your drinking the better and even cleaner and more lucid the 'drunk' feeling and the less sick you feel. Same with weed. If its crappy commersh weed you feel crappy, if its 'dank' you feel a much cleaner and more enjoyable effect, the Everclear extrema being hash where the feeling is a lot closer to bumping ketamine.

In essence you could figure that it would just like breweries contending over who has the best beer. Coffee shops would always be testing for new strains, coming up with a new flavor of the month, a new red or blue bud, a slightly different internal variation of internal chemicals for a different buzz, etc. Obviously in a pot legal society you could go out and buy the marijuana equivalent of MD 20/20, Wild Irish Rose, or King Cobra and feel similarly crappy. Top shelf would obviously be more expensive and of course fresher if partaken at the cafe.

I don't drink so I don't really know much about alcohol grades.
Supposedly for teens/young teens marijuana is bad for brain development, don't have a source though.

In the Netherlands they are making it so that it is illegal to sell marijuana that has a THC higher than 15%

I wonder what would be an alternative filler for people that didn't want to smoke tobacco? I don't know what smoking cannabis leaves is like, but I guess that could be an alternative.

You know, most places weed is one of the cheap drugs......so why the hell would they be lacing it with more expensive drugs? But yes you are right if it where legal there would not be any chance at all of that. Though you never know what might be added to weed if any major corporations got ahold of it. Also you cannot possibly know for sure whether there are any children in the Netherlands who smoke....maybe it's less common then other places but that is simply an impossible claim to make......at least in my opinion.

I do agree with you about it being ridiculous to outlaw a plant though.

Lol, I'm still lost. What's forcing people who don't want to smoke tobacco to smoke anything? If you don't want to smoke tobacco then don't smoke tobacco.

If someone specifically wanted to smoke something but also wanted to sort of 'club soda' their weed to make it last longer they could probably blend it with sheesha (sp?) which is pretty much Lebanese tobacco without the tobacco and essentially smoking fruit and spices. Alternately if they wanted to make some no-bake cookies to stretch it thinner they could just make a bigger batch of cookies with their weed and there you have it - much thinner dose (albeit you'd probably get pretty fat trying to catch a buzz). If they want to buy enough to make green butter they can put as much or as little of that on or in food as they please.

Last edited by techstepgenr8tion on 08 Feb 2012, 1:35 pm, edited 1 time in total.

Well smoking cannabis will help with the smoking part, however cannabis and nicotine have very different effects and from what I can tell cannabis does not make a very good nicotine substitute though it does help with that uncomfortable feeling someone who smokes gets when they have gone too long without a ciggarette..

Other then that there are apparently herbal ciggarettes which supposedly have an effect similar to a regular ciggerette but is a mixture of other herbs. Don't know that smoking them is any less damaging than smoking ciggarettes though.

I completely respect your opinion, as well as the opinion of everyone else who thinks that marijuana should be age-restricted. And thanks for your word of caution as to how receptive NTs might be of some of my remarks.

However, I think that the pro-age-restriction position enters slippery slope territory. I don't mean to walk all over cultural sensibilities with regard to age, but kids have access to things like, for example, sugar and fattening foods at all ages of their life, but those generally aren't outlawed for young kids, and most kids have not indulged in these foods to the extent that it has threatened their lives. It's just another form of chemical pleasure. The legalization of a substance for all ages doesn't necessarily mean that a kid is going to be hooked or developmentally annihilated as a result.

I'm not encouraging kids to indulge too deeply in any one form of chemical pleasure, either, as most of the time it is not conducive to a constructive and productive life. Nor am I encouraging anyone to use more than they can handle, or is healthy. But the age restriction does nothing meaningful IMHO, and exists for no good reason. Kids can be healthy without remaining completely free of pot. Also, I'm not encouraging any kids to break the law or to disobey their parents.

I'm saying tobacco might be a potential filler for a weed joint. But some people might not like tobacco as the filler.

Maybe some people would like to smoke a weakened joint filled with something other than cannabis, because straight marijuana is too much for them, even a weaker strain. It may seem strange to a cannabis user to consider, but when you're in the market, and not the black market, things could change in that direction if there is a market for it. It's like beer is a watered down version of whiskey.

I guess what I was saying - I can't imagine that being so universal that there's no other choice of filler, especially as negatively as tobacco is spotlighted these days. It seems impossibly unlikely.


They might do that - shisha as I mentioned before - or they might simply prefer to eat cookies or brownies. They could make milder strains and, say, go for flavor more than impact. Tea could be just as much an option as well. I guess what I'm getting at is, unlike tobacco, you've got tons of avenues and directions you can take.


...not really? Beer always has been beer, whisky was essentially a distillation from similar core ingredients. However the process really doesn't work in reverse - ie. beer is beer, water-down whiskey is still just watered down whiskey.

A lot of people that smoke MJ smoke tobacco, so there's your market.



Tobacco is one of the avenues.



I was talking more about a watered down version of the core ingredient that draws a person to it in the first place: Alcohol. Many people don't drink whiskey because it's got too much alcohol in it. I don't think many people drink alcoholic beverages for the taste of other core ingredients, although it can play a part in someone deciding which alcoholic product they choose. No one says "I like smoking joints because I enjoy the taste of the paper."