posted 05-14- 01:24 PM               

What an unbelievably cruel and inexplicable ruling. This Supreme Court needs to get back in touch with reality. What possible good could come out of denying sick people relief from pain?

Of course most of the blame should go to our wonderful Congress. If it weren't for them, the Supreme Court wouldn't have had to rule on this issue.

posted 05-14- 05:13 PM            

In reality nothing has changed though. The court ruled and many law enforcement agencies will decide to ignore the ruling in favor of their local populaces demands that medical use be allowed. If you've got a prescription they will most likely leave you alone if they catch you. If you are growing and can prove you are selling only to those with the appropraite prescriptions in amounts consistent with treatment purposes you'll probably be OK in most cases as well. There is a small medicinal outfit in my county who grow a limited amount and keep impeccable records (heck, they applied for a health permit!) and because they have always operated "above-board" and there has been no observable increase in marijuana related problems the county Sheriff has already said he is going to ignore them (regardless of the ruling) so long as they operate in a responsible manner. I think this will happen in a fair number of counties across the state.

posted 05-14- 10:45 PM               

Well, I guess that's better than nothing, but it still bothers me that people who use grass for medicinal purposes MIGHT get in trouble or at the very least have to live with the fear of getting in trouble... all that on top of whatever ails them. It's just sick.

I'm also fed up with the double-standard we Americans have toward substance use. I don't smoke pot (I don't need comforts... well, except for a drink now and then), but I don't care if other people do... it's not any of my business. Marijuana, and any other drug for that matter, are no different from alcohol. So, if you're going to ban drugs, you might as well ban alcohol.

Of course drugs will never be legalized... we might as well accept that. The problem is that too many people have built careers for themselves fighting this ridiculous and futile "war" on drugs. The term "war on drugs" has filled too many misguided law enforcement types with all kinds of feelings of self-importance... soldiers in war... what a crock.

posted 05-14- 11:00 PM               

Oh for crying out loud... I'm not talking about the immediate effect on the mind and body... I'm talking about the effect on society. Marijuana and drugs aren't any more harmful or destructive than alcohol or cigarettes.

posted 05-14- 11:08 PM            

What the fuck? Some sick bastard can't toke up, yet the leader of the free world can do some blow and get away with it? That's bullshit.

Also, alcohol has more immediate health effects than weed. Hangovers for one...sick people don't need hangovers. Weed won't give you a hangover. Also, alcohol can lead to depression...ever see a depressed pot-head? I haven't.

Alcohol breaks down your immune system..especially in the short term. Sick people do not need their immune system worn down.

By the time the health issuse with weed catches up to them, they'll be dead anyway.

I could care less about people doing drugs and what not...more power to them. Like JT said, this whole war on drugs is about as silly as building a fucking missile shield around the country. Neither one of them will have much effect.

Why do people do drugs...who knows? Why do people smoke? To get off I guess. Why do people drink..? It's all for the same reasons...to escape reality.

They should legalize weed. Think about it...some big conglomerate could sell it for a reduced price...make a 100 billion dollar year industry...the Democrats could tax the living shit out of it. Then the Republicans could save money by not having to fight the 'war on drugs'. Then after about 50 or so years, someone can sue the drug companies for a ton of money, cause we all know that marijuana is about 6 times worse for causing cancer than tobacco.

posted 05-15- 12:37 AM               

They are all destructive...so why make more of them available?

Typical liberals...afraid to draw a line in the sand and say "enough is enough, we have tolerated behavior "X" but nothing more". And anyone who tries to establish standards is a "Dudly Do Right". What's wrong with trying to "Do Right"? You always want to push the limits of what is acceptable and non-destructive. It's thinking like yours that allows the creeping erosion of our society...the slippery slope to destruction. "Hey, if it feels good then it must be good...let's legalize it". You want to legalize marijuana, the next generation wants to legalize cocaine, then heroin - or some other "medicinal" drug which reduces pain and is "no more dangerous than alcohol or cigarettes".

Morphine is a great pain killer too. Shall we make it freely available?

posted 05-15- 11:25 AM               

Typical Conservative... trys to convince us that anyone who argues against the drug war is really advocating drug use. You are against gun regulation, but you don't see me calling you an advocate of gun use. So stop distorting my arguments to suit your rebuttals. If your argument holds water, it will do so without you having to misrepresent my position.

Yes, legalize all of it. I'm already there. That doesn't mean I think drugs are good. It means that I don't care what people choose to put into their own bodies. There are lots of legal substances that aren't good for us. Unless you are for banning drinking and smoking, why be a gigantic hypocrite about it?

You speak as though this so called "war" on drugs is a smashing success. Well, it's not. It's a utter failure that has gone on for longer than any of us care to remember. The simple truth of the matter is that drug use and the drug trade have never been stronger despite the millions spent combating them... not to mention all of the lives lost on the "front lines" of this stupid "war".

Again, this is not an argument for drugs, but an argument against a futile war that costs in dollars and in blood. It's an argument against a futile war that only makes things worse. People addicted to substances have enough problems without having to face insurmountable legal problems. If we legalize, we will still have junkies, but at least we won't have junkies with criminal records.

Take for instance this recent gem from the Bush Administration...

"The Bush administration has decided to enforce a previously ignored law denying federal financial aid to college students with drug convictions.

Hundreds of thousands of applicants who did not answer a drug conviction question on their applications were not denied aid during the Clinton administration, despite the law saying they should have been.

Now, failure to answer the question will result in rejection of the application." Associated Press

Wow... brilliant, George Dubya! Deny people with past drug convictions any hope of bettering themselves! That is a great idea!

Can't believe some of you people voted for this guy.

Be honest Jerry... do you honestly believe law enforcement will ever win the "war" on drugs? Is it even possible to win? The answer is no, and that of course begs the question... why are you fighting a war that you can't possibly win?

[This message has been edited by JT (edited 05-15-2001).]

posted 05-15- 11:56 AM               

"Yes, legalize all of it. I'm already there".

From the nature of your posts, I'm not surprised.

"You speak as though this so called "war" on drugs is a smashing success. Well, it's not. It's a utter failure that has gone on for longer than any of us care to remember. I might feel differently about it if I saw that the "drug war" was putting a dent in usage, but the truth is that drug use and the drug trade have never been stronger despite the millions spent combating them... not to mention all of the lives lost on the "front lines" of this stupid "war".

Actually, drug usage is down, especially among the under 18 crowd. The rest of you have already rotted your brains so it's too late.

"People addicted to substances have enough problems without having to face insurmountable legal problems".

And you want to legalize drugs so more people can become addicted?

"The Bush administration has decided to enforce a previously ignored law denying federal financial aid to college students with drug convictions.

Hundreds of thousands of applicants who did not answer a drug conviction question on their applications were not denied aid during the Clinton administration, despite the law saying they should have been.

Now, failure to answer the question will result in rejection of the application.

Wow... brilliant, George Dubya! Deny people with past drug convictions any hope of bettering themselves! That is a great idea!

Can't believe some of you people voted for this guy".

Ah..so now enforcing a law is bad and ignoring a law is good...if the law keeps you from "feeling good"? Typical hedonistic liberal crap.

Bush didn't write the law, but it is the Executive Branch's constitutional obligation to enforce laws. Of course, what does the Constitution mean to a liberal like you and Clinton...it's toilet paper if it interfers with your fun and forces you to take responsibility for your actions.

Why should these "students" who want me to pay for their education have to obey the laws of the land? Why should they be held accountable for their actions as long as they do some good things elsewhere?

Life according to a liberal: Do all the drugs you want but I better not catch you praying in school.

posted 05-15- 12:00 PM               

Typical Conservative... trys to convince us that anyone who argues against the drug war is really advocating drug use. You are against gun regulation, but you don't see me calling you an advocate of gun use. So stop distorting my arguments to suit your rebuttals. If your argument holds water, it will do so without you having to misrepresent my position.

posted 05-15- 12:02 PM               

If the government chose to enforce all the arcane laws on the books you would have police setting up sting operations to stop adults suspected of having "deviant" consentual sex with each other. Can you imagine... police busting down doors of bedrooms. Shades of 1984.

Not to get gross, but to really drive the point home... did you know that sex toys are illegal in Alabama? Really... I'm not making that up! ( http://abcnews.go.com/sections/living/HealthyWoman/healthywoman_47.html ) Should the government enforce that too?

I'm starting to think you would be more comfortable living in China or Iraq, Jerry.

posted 05-15- 12:53 PM               

quote:

---

Originally posted by JT:
>Ah..so now enforcing a law is bad and ignoring a law is good...if the law keeps you from "feeling good"? Typical hedonistic liberal crap.

Typical Conservative... trys to convince us that anyone who argues against the drug war is really advocating drug use. You are against gun regulation, but you don't see me calling you an advocate of gun use. So stop distorting my arguments to suit your rebuttals. If your argument holds water, it will do so without you having to misrepresent my position.

---

First of all, if your memory hadn't been wasted by drugs you would know that I am not against gun control. Typical liberal, use a paint brush to catagorize everyone.

Second: So....you're against stopping the flow of illegal drugs but you're not advocating the use of drugs. Color me confused. You want drugs to be legal and available to everyone but you don't want people to use them? (By the way, the Coast Guard seized 13 tons of cocaine today..and you say the war on drugs isn't working?

Third: My quote is mearly a restatement of your position that it is good that Clinton ignored a law and bad that Bush enforces it. How is that misrepresenting what you said?

posted 05-15- 01:05 PM               

JT, we aren't talking about "all the arcane laws on the books". Were talking about one "requirement", one "standard of behavior", not a law, that convicted drugies will not receive taxpayer handouts to finance their education. My guess is, since we're talking about a federal handout, that the conviction has to be of "federal" law, not some local ordinance.

posted 05-15- 01:08 PM               

I also think bungy jumping is a bad idea, but you don't see me trying to stop that. Why is this so confusing for you? Just because I personally wouldn't use something doesn't mean I'm going to try to stop everyone else from using that something.

>You want drugs to be legal and available to everyone but you don't want people to use them? (By the way, the Coast Guard seized 13 tons of cocaine today..and you say the war on drugs isn't working?

Wrong... It's not that I want or don't want people to use drugs.... it's that I don't care if people-- I should say adults-- use drugs.

Yes, the Coast Guard seized 13 tons... your point?

>First of all, if your memory hadn't been wasted by drugs you would know that I am not against gun control. Typical liberal, use a paint brush to catagorize everyone.

Well, ok... I should have said, you are against banning guns... right? Just because you are against banning guns does not mean that you are for gun use. Get it?

posted 05-15- 01:11 PM               

This is true. It fluxates from year to year (which is where Jerry is getting his numbers), but the overall trend since as far back as the 60s is that drug use has skyrocketed.

Bottomline... who cares if it's up or down this year or that year when it's so high in the first place... no pun intended.

>Besides... who ever got killed by marijuana? Who ever got in a car accident over marijuana? Who ever fried their brain because of marijuana? Alcohol is a FAR bigger danger to society than marijuana ever was and ever will be... Shit, Advil is more dangerous than marijuana...

Yes, it's such a double-standard. You would think that people like Jerry who take such a hard line against drugs would also take a hard line against alcohol and tobacco, but they don't.

posted 05-15- 01:41 PM               

Huh? Of course it's a law. We are talking about a law. Once again...

" The Bush administration has decided to enforce a previously ignored law denying federal financial aid to college students with drug convictions. "

See... it says "ignored law", not "ignored requirement" and not "ignored standard of behavior".

Since it's clearly been established that we are talking about laws, my statement still stands... If you're going to make a big stink about enforcing all laws on the books, you'd better be talking about ALL LAWS. But that's clearly not what the Bush Administration wants. They want to pick and choose what suits their agenda.

That's not sidestepping... that's getting to the heart of the matter... hypocrisy.

posted 05-15- 02:29 PM               

Careful now... thanks to Jerry and George Dubya, you can lose your chance for financial aid for school if you get caught with a joint.

posted 05-15- 02:51 PM               

I still say that the student aid question is NOT a law as commonly defined. If the student refuses to answer the question or answers yes, he/she is not fined or jailed because they "broke the law". They are just denied tax payer money. To not have a drug bust on your record is to me is a qualifying requirement for aid, not a law which can be broken. Just because JT's source used the word "law" doesn't make it so.

Let's face it...student aid money is finite. Would you rather it go to a student who has shown some responsiblity, played by the rules and obeyed federal law, or to a drugie? Living with the consequences of your actions and your poor choices is something that too many people (read Liberals) can not accept.

posted 05-15- 03:34 PM               

Well, ok... right back at you then... cell phones... those have been shown to cause accidents. Should we make a law prohibiting cell phone use while driving? What about tuning the radio. Lots of accidents have been caused by people messing with their radio while driving. Should we make car radios illegal?

Speeding... to be honest, I don't think your analogy works. If you are going to draw an accurate analogy between drug-use and speeding, it should go like this... Making certain drugs illegal, while leaving tobacco and alcohol legal is analogous to making speeding illegal except for those driving a certain kind of car.

posted 05-15- 04:15 PM            

As to the rest of the argument. I think
people should be allowed to do what they want
to do as long as they don't harm others. We
have lost a lot of freedoms in the last 100
years. I hate to see the "behavioral laws"
enacted. I think it amounts to responsibility.
Whether you drink or do drugs you should be
responsible for your actions. If you break
laws in conjunction with your behaviour
alteration use then you should have to pay
the price.

This, I believe, is the real problem. We make
a law, say against murder. We say if a person
commits murder they may be elegible for the
death penalty. Then when someone gets drunked
up or doped up and commits murder we sit and
ring our hands and look for every excuse we
can find not to exicute the bastard.

Let people do what they want to do, but if
they break a law that harms other people then
enforce that law to the fullest extent.

posted 05-15- 05:02 PM            

BAHAHA...what a lame ass you are Jerry. By what you just said, our own PRESIDENT is a druggie and not deserving of financial aid. He broke the law more than once. I don't know what planet you are from, but everyone makes mistakes...especially young kids. So, if kid tokes up one time, he is not worthy of a collge education? Bullshit. Your whole conservative argument is flawed. It's time you faced reality..people are human and do make mistakes...Just look at the fool in the White House. Is this guy a model citizen? I think not.

posted 05-15- 05:47 PM               

OK, if Bush has been convicted of a federal drug law and the student aid requirement is a clean rap sheet then Bush shouldn't get student aid. Who he is shouldn't make a difference. It's what he's done that should be rewarded or punished. Everyone should be held accountable. So what's your point?

We aren't talking about a kid toking up one time being denied an education, you moron. We're talking about someone who has been convicted of a federal drug law being denied "taxpayer money". You can "toke up" all you want but don't expect me to reward your behavior with a handout of my money. If you can afford drugs then buy your own education. If you can't obey the law, whether you agree with it or not, buy your own education. Most "kids" don't carry juvenile convictions, especially misdemenors, into adulthood anyway. Their records are locked.

Dan, you're getting financial aid because you served in the military right? This is proper. Good behavior should be rewarded. Do you think some of your student aid money should go to the kid who made the "mistake" of not going into the military? Should society ignore all mistakes just because humans aren't perfect? Liberal tolerance of "mistakes" is what's going to eventually destroy us. The mere definition of "mistake" means that there must be some standard of correct behavior, otherwise who would know when a mistake is committed? So why are liberals so hell bent on removing standards? I guess that way they can never be accused of making a mistake. That will make them all "feel" good, like the educators who don't want to harm the self-esteem of students by giving them bad grades...another liberal pile of shit.

posted 05-15- 05:48 PM            

Indeed Bush would not be eligible for Federal aid.... but then again he never asked for any. The question is in regards to a conviction for drug realted offenses in a federal court of a felony nature... not a misdemeanor. This means trafficking or intent to sell or distribute...not just smoking a joint. Previously aid was being granted to folks with a felony drug conviction... which IMO is not right.

posted 05-15- 06:20 PM               

Yes, manual cell phone use while driving should be prohibited and many legislatures are looking at doing so. It has been proven that one's driving ability while talking and holding a cell phone is about the same as being legally drunk. Car radios, probably not. A car radio doesn't require you to drive with one hand for minutes at a time or divert your attention for minutes at a time like a cell phone does. If they do, or the driver can't wait for a safe traffic situation to change stations, then the driver is a moron and it's not the radio's fault.

The speeding analogy is closer to having tighter speeding limits in school zones than on the highway. There are restrictions on alcohol and cigarettes, just not as tight as the restrictions on other drugs.

Besides, I never defended the use of alcohol and cigarettes. They can and do cause a lot of harm, especially cigarettes. But the fact that so many people still use and abuse alcohol and cigarettes after all we know about the harm they do is proof that many people are weak-willed or ignorant or selfish or self-destructive or just plain stupid, and need to be protected against themselves...so why do you want to add more substances to our culture so even more people can destroy themselves and their families? Don't give me the liberal crap about people should be able to do what they want to their own bodies, either. The families of alcoholics or of cancer patients also pay the price of their loved one's mistakes. And society often bears the financial cost of their treatment.

posted 05-15- 10:46 PM               

Well, yeah... he never asked for any because he never needed to. :-)

>The question is in regards to a conviction for drug realted offenses in a federal court of a felony nature... not a misdemeanor. This means trafficking or intent to sell or distribute...not just smoking a joint. Previously aid was being granted to folks with a felony drug conviction... which IMO is not right.

Yes, but in most states, the intent to sell is inferred from the amount in possession. This means that people who have a certain amount in their possession-- and I think it's a surprisingly low amount in most states-- can get slapped with dealer charges regardless of whether they are caught distributing or not. In most cases, this is a good way to catch dealers without having to catch them dealing, but in some cases it means that mere users get unfairly tagged as dealers.

Did you know that in some states, if you are merely a passenger in a car that is found to be transporting drugs, you could face criminal charges regardless of whether you knew about the drugs or not. That means you could go to jail for the rest of your life for merely riding with the wrong people.

Hard to believe that this stuff goes on in this country.

posted 05-16- 07:24 AM            

Wow, Jerry, that idea is the foundation of facsism. I wonder if you apply it equally? For example, do the weak-willed and ignorant law-makers need to be protected against thier own bad judgement? How about the weak-willed and ignorant voters who elected them?

posted 05-16- 07:41 AM               

"Reefer madness" springs to mind lothar

Mad Dog has a copy and its damn funny.

I personally think it should be legalized.

I don't smoke it, never have, and I don't drink and havn't smoked ciggs since I was 14.

But I respect peoples right to kill themselves or escape from reality or enhance an experience in any way they see fit.

And I feel it does society more harm then good to wage this expensive, bloody and unwinable war on it.

Hey jerry, you going to be the first guy to take a tax hike to pay for more "war on drugs" and more prisons to lock up these people?

You feels its your right to enforce that tax hike on the rest of your country?

posted 05-16- 11:35 AM               

Voters throughout the US have approved measures to build more prisons over the last decade, along with stiffer penalty laws like "three strikes and you're out". It's not just a coincidence that our crime rate is the lowest in 40 years and our prison population is at an all time high. Most criminals are repeat offenders. You lock up the worst 20% and reduce crime by 50%.