Glory Days;791121 wrote:its hard to get drunk/high responsibly/safely. you can use guns/knives responsibly/safely. getting drunk/high will have a negative influence on your decision making abilities. guns/knives doesnt effect your decision making. hmmm so if people do illegal/stupid things while drunk/high, why not eliminate what makes them drunk/high which would eliminate the illegal and stupid activity?

In 2005 there were 33,000 drug overdoses. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2008/mar/21/drug_overdose_deaths_are_going_t
In 2004 there were 649 unintentional firearm deaths. http://washingtonceasefire.org/resource-center/national-firearm-injury-and-death-statistics
Even if you add in all other firearm related deaths, its not as many as overdoses.

People can get drunk/high responsibly. Stay at home and do it, you aren't hurting anyone. Go to a bar, call a cab and get home safely; you are not hurting anyone. You can't regulate bad decision making and/or stupidity no matter how much you'd like to. It is not possible.

Glory Days;791121 wrote:its hard to get drunk/high responsibly/safely. you can use guns/knives responsibly/safely. getting drunk/high will have a negative influence on your decision making abilities. guns/knives doesnt effect your decision making. hmmm so if people do illegal/stupid things while drunk/high, why not eliminate what makes them drunk/high which would eliminate the illegal and stupid activity?

In 2005 there were 33,000 drug overdoses. http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/2008/mar/21/drug_overdose_deaths_are_going_t
In 2004 there were 649 unintentional firearm deaths. http://washingtonceasefire.org/resource-center/national-firearm-injury-and-death-statistics
Even if you add in all other firearm related deaths, its not as many as overdoses.

There have been 0 people in recorded history that have overdosed on marijuana...just sayin'

It's also impossible to do. (Well not technically but you'd have to smoke/ingest hundreds of pounds of weed in a short span of time to do it so it's basically impossible).

Bigred1995;791255 wrote: So, your only concern is the potential for individuals to harm themselves? I would think the potential harm and the infringement on the rights of others would be more of a concern! Lets take a look at those fire arm statistics again...


There are other great numbers at the site.

No that’s actually the least of my concern. I was just pointing out people are more likely to harm themselves with drugs than firearms.
http://www.whitehousedrugpolicy.gov/publications/factsht/crime/index.html
and on this site, it shows a quarter of a federal inmates and a third of state inmates were using drugs at the time of their offense.

I Wear Pants;791265 wrote:You're cherry picking the unintentional firearm deaths instead of using the full figure.

You didn’t read my last line, I just didn’t put the number. 29,569 total firearm deaths compared to 33,000 drug overdoses.

Y-Town Steelhound;791377 wrote:There have been 0 people in recorded history that have overdosed on marijuana...just sayin'

Cool story.

But those things are skewed. Because many times they consider any alcohol or drugs in the system to be drug related. And it's sort of a bullshit system even if they took only people drunk or high. Because being drunk or high was not the cause of them comitting a crime. Much like someone owning a gun does not drive them to commit a crime. Saying either does takes the blame and responsibility for our actions off of ourselves and puts them onto other substances and items. It's BS. Hold people, not chemicals, responsible for their actions.

"Drugs cause crime" is a bogeyman.

dwccrew;791322 wrote: You can't regulate bad decision making and/or stupidity no matter how much you'd like to. It is not possible.

Traffic violations, gambling, and some would say prostitution come to mind.

Glory Days;791469 wrote:Cool story.

Awesome rebuttal.

Y-Town Steelhound;792397 wrote:Awesome rebuttal.

Much research led me to that conclusion.

Glory Days;792319 wrote:Traffic violations, gambling, and some would say prostitution come to mind.

I think traffic violations we have found a happy medium with, gambling we also regulate on a state by state basis but do not entirely outlaw. And prostitution I'd say we don't really have an effective system in place. I'd look towards France for ideas in that regard (inb4 France joke). We do ourselves no favors with our policy in regards to prostitution. It still happens and while it's something I find distasteful as long as both parties are consenting adults I don't see how I or society should have a problem with it. That said we should take measures to lower the risk of STD transmission and try to take the violent crime out of it.

Glory Days;792319 wrote:Traffic violations, gambling, and some would say prostitution come to mind.

My point exactly. Even though these are either regulated or still illegal in many states, the acts still occur. The fact remains that no matter how stupid an act is, people will still do it whether illegal or not. If it is not harming others, tax it and let people do what they want.

Glory Days;791121 wrote:its hard to get drunk/high responsibly/safely. you can use guns/knives responsibly/safely. getting drunk/high will have a negative influence on your decision making abilities. guns/knives doesnt effect your decision making. hmmm so if people do illegal/stupid things while drunk/high, why not eliminate what makes them drunk/high which would eliminate the illegal and stupid activity?

This might be the biggest "LOLFAIL" opinion I've ever read on this site. And that includes anything that people like Mtrulz, NCF, etc. have ever said. I got drunk tonight. After I hit "submit reply" I'm going to bed. I'll be up in under seven hours and go to work. I never left my house. I watched baseball on one TV and played video games on the other until the games were over. I then played music and bounced around the place for another hour or so. Then I got online and surfed a few sites, which led me to here. Yeah, it was really fucking "hard" to not, say, sprint out of my place, jump into my car and speed into a telephone pole or run over babies.

And I've gotten high a shit-ton of times with the only difference being the inclusion of watching some Monty Python's Flying Circus. AMAZINGLY, I've never gotten arrested for any of my heinous drinking/toking acts. Yeah, it's real fucking hard to be responsible/safe.

And yeah, guns and knives don't have any effect on a person's decision making. I've NEVER EVER EVER heard a story that results in someone winding up dead or in jail because their weapon of choice made them feel like they're a badass capable of "taking care" of someone causing them problems. Oh wait...let me guess...when it comes to things like school shootings, murder, etc...the problem is 100% caused by that person's mental health and not from the fact they have possession of a weapon that gives them a power trip causing them to be violently assertive against anyone they feel has wronged them...or is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. While anytime something negative happens due to a buzz, it's all because of the substance and nothing has anything to do with that person's actual mental state.

If you don't like drugs...cool. At least make the effort to form arguments that aren't completely idiotic.

Not really the "war on drugs", but a story I just came across.

http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2011/jun/07/men-charged-after-mistake-leads-marijuana-stash-ar-525764/

The guy essentially broke and entered into their garage (pulled the lock out of the wall), and then presumably went through their duffel bags/suitcase (not sure how else he would have ascertained the contents). Incredibly stupid to leave that much weed sitting around in your garage, but I would think that's some sort of invasion of privacy.

Why the fuck wasn't that guy charged too? Finding something illegal while doing something illegal doesn't negate the crime you comitted. B&A should be a crime, having weed should not.

Mulva;793119 wrote:Not really the "war on drugs", but a story I just came across.

http://www2.nbc4i.com/news/2011/jun/07/men-charged-after-mistake-leads-marijuana-stash-ar-525764/

The guy essentially broke and entered into their garage (pulled the lock out of the wall), and then presumably went through their duffel bags/suitcase (not sure how else he would have ascertained the contents). Incredibly stupid to leave that much weed sitting around in your garage, but I would think that's some sort of invasion of privacy.

I know what my defense would be, "Not my drugs! They must belong to the guy that broke into my garage!"

The Netherlands now wants to restrict drug use to Dutch citizens only.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/07/amsterdam.pot.shops.ban/index.html?hpt=hp_bn12

FatHobbit;793199 wrote:The Netherlands now wants to restrict drug use to Dutch citizens only.

http://www.cnn.com/2011/TRAVEL/06/07/amsterdam.pot.shops.ban/index.html?hpt=hp_bn12

been in the works for a while.

tcarrier32;793210 wrote:been in the works for a while.

I had heard about it, but not in anything official. Amsterdam doesn't seem to happy about it.

I don't mind that policy. Doesn't infringe on the rights of its citizens.

O-Trap;793392 wrote:I don't mind that policy. Doesn't infringe on the rights of its citizens.

I don't mind that policy either (although it won't help tourism $ any). I would think the tourists who might be traveling there exclusively for the lax drug policies would probably be the most likely to overindulge or do something stupid to begin with.

Jesse Jackson's take on the War on Drugs:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/5805266-452/its-time-to-end-dismally-failed-war-on-drugs.html

I hate to agree with that dude but he's right.

Heretic;792836 wrote:This might be the biggest "LOLFAIL" opinion I've ever read on this site. And that includes anything that people like Mtrulz, NCF, etc. have ever said. I got drunk tonight. After I hit "submit reply" I'm going to bed. I'll be up in under seven hours and go to work. I never left my house. I watched baseball on one TV and played video games on the other until the games were over. I then played music and bounced around the place for another hour or so. Then I got online and surfed a few sites, which led me to here. Yeah, it was really fucking "hard" to not, say, sprint out of my place, jump into my car and speed into a telephone pole or run over babies.

And I've gotten high a shit-ton of times with the only difference being the inclusion of watching some Monty Python's Flying Circus. AMAZINGLY, I've never gotten arrested for any of my heinous drinking/toking acts. Yeah, it's real fucking hard to be responsible/safe.

And yeah, guns and knives don't have any effect on a person's decision making. I've NEVER EVER EVER heard a story that results in someone winding up dead or in jail because their weapon of choice made them feel like they're a badass capable of "taking care" of someone causing them problems. Oh wait...let me guess...when it comes to things like school shootings, murder, etc...the problem is 100% caused by that person's mental health and not from the fact they have possession of a weapon that gives them a power trip causing them to be violently assertive against anyone they feel has wronged them...or is just in the wrong place at the wrong time. While anytime something negative happens due to a buzz, it's all because of the substance and nothing has anything to do with that person's actual mental state.

If you don't like drugs...cool. At least make the effort to form arguments that aren't completely idiotic.

haha completely idiotic, nice. clearly because you can do it, everyone in this country can do it. right, good argument. anyways...

between a quarter and a third of state and federal inmates commited their crimes while on drugs. dont forget, people are commiting crimes like robbery and theft to feed their addiction to their drug of choice. something you probably dont have to deal with being upstanding citizen with a job.

and for your second argument, find me a person in jail because they said, "i've never wanted to hurt anyone, but one day i had a gun in my hand and i felt powerful, so i went out and killed someone". sorry, that hate etc was inside them long before they held their first gun or knife or whatever.

Pick6;793810 wrote:Jesse Jackson's take on the War on Drugs:
http://www.suntimes.com/news/jackson/5805266-452/its-time-to-end-dismally-failed-war-on-drugs.html

Jesse lost me right here.

The war on drugs turned, early on, into a new Jim Crow offensive against people of color.

What else would you expect from the father of the race industry. Way to shit on a good argument.

Glory Days;793887 wrote:between a quarter and a third of state and federal inmates commited their crimes while on drugs. dont forget, people are commiting crimes like robbery and theft to feed their addiction to their drug of choice. something you probably dont have to deal with being upstanding citizen with a job.

Between 3/4's and 2/3's of state and federal inmates committed their crimes while not under the influence of drugs. What do you make of that? What motivated them? Whatever it is should it be outlawed?

Glory Days;793887 wrote:find me a person in jail because they said, "i've never wanted to hurt anyone, but one day i had a gun in my hand and i felt powerful, so i went out and killed someone". sorry, that hate etc was inside them long before they held their first gun or knife or whatever.

Find me a person in jail because they said, "i've never wanted to hurt anyone, but one day i smoked some weed and did a line of coke i felt powerful, so i went out and killed someone". sorry, that hate etc was inside them long before they smoked their first joint or snorted their first line of coke or whatever.

Glory Days;793887 wrote: between a quarter and a third of state and federal inmates commited their crimes while on drugs. dont forget, people are commiting crimes like robbery and theft to feed their addiction to their drug of choice. something you probably dont have to deal with being upstanding citizen with a job.

One could argue that the reason they committed the crime in the first place is because the drugs are so expensive. They are so expensive because they are illegal. Decriminlizing drugs would likely lower the cost of them. This would likely lower the chances of someone needing to commit a crime to feed their addiction. Not in every case, but in a large percentage I am willing to bet. Think of prohibition and all the criminal activity that went on with distribution, manufacturing and consumption of alcohol. Pretty much eliminated all that crime once Prohibition was abolished.