Pat Robertson lumps Pot with Booze

He's also said the Republican party should stop taking extremist positions and stop catering to groups with extremist views.

 

I completely agree with Pat Robertson (never thought i'd say that). The punishment for marijuana possession is much worse than the crime in all respects. Not only is not more harmless than the legal drugs as has been said countless times, but the difficulties that will be added to your life in terms of employment prospects by having a drug conviction on your record is simply unjust, especially when you can legally use a much more damaging substance that study after study shows leads to a lot more negative consequences than marijuana. The whole "gateway" drug thing is utter nonsense, almost everyone of my friends is a pothead and none of them have ever touched anything else. If they legalized it the argument would be even less valid since it wouldn't be anywhere near the harder drugs anyways.

Oh yeah, and keeping it illegal doesn't do anything to stop use or availability. At all. Put me anywhere in the U.S and I guarantee you I can find it in less than an hour. In the case of marijuana, criminalization is a failed, hypocritical policy.

 

Well, hell, if Pat said it's ok, then I'm starting my own Bong making busines right now. Come on guys, we'll be rich!

 

Robertson is 81 years old. I suspect dementia.

 

The difference between murder/theft and marijuana use is that the last two have victims. You kill somebody or steal something, someone is always going to be affected. You smoke a joint in your house, nobody is affected but you. It's certainly true that down the line there could be negative effects shown that we are unaware of now, but from what I understand the research that has been done has shown that it actually has a great many positive benefits as well, and that the negative ones can be lessened by using it in other forms besides smoking (vaporizing, eating it in foods, etc). Also, alcohol and cigarettes are addictive in a way marijuana is not. If there were truly bad things that could come to the surface later, it would be a lot easier making it illegal again than it would be with the other two. I support it's decriminalization at least, or making its legal status up to the states to decide, that way if people wanted it legal they could have it and the effects of it's legalization could be studied.

 

Marijuana gives off carcinogenic vapors. Marijuana is also addictive, in very much the same way as alcohol (although not nearly as bad as tobacco). Both of these combine to make problems medically in the future -- along with the added expense to the tax payers for the medical costs. I think the jury is still out in the medical community whether or not any benefits of pot outweigh the negatives.

 

Honest question - what would be the difference between decriminalizing marijuana compared to legalizing it? I see them talked about as two distinct things, but if it was decriminalized, wouldn't that be making it ummm... legal? I mean, I get it won't be 100% legal - you'd have to be of a certain age, and you wouldn't be able to use it and then drive, but materially what's the difference between the two?

 

Vapors when you smoke it, right? That's why I was saying there are other ways to take it like eating it. There are also tons of carcinogens in every day products as well, and we're not making them illegal. Already there are costs associated with it the way it is now, from putting thousands of pot smokers through the legal system. It's hard to try to compare the costs of that with the idea of costs of medical bills later in life, but I would say the criminal way is more expensive since you aren't getting the additional revenue from selling it. I read in the book "The Science of Marijuana" that only 10% of smokers will develop some type of dependency, compared to roughly 15% with alcohol, so it's less than what you would get with booze. In my opinion though, the issue isn't so much a revenue one so much as it is an issue of rights. If i'm doing something that causes no harm to anyone else in my own private time, nobody should be able to tell me I can't do it and punish me for it.

Aldeth- Decriminalizing it wouldn't make it legal, but it would take away the criminal penalties. If you got caught instead of going to jail you would pay a fine in the same way you do for a parking ticket, with no criminal record.

 

I think Pat is advocating lessening the severity of crime primarily and then making a case for treating it like alcohol. By lessening the severity you could make use of marijuana an offense with only a fine associated with it -- no jail time. That would be reasonable.

But then I think users of drugs should be helped and not jailed.

 

Where are you getting that fact? I know other hard drugs have been linked to crime, but I haven't seen anything like that for marijuana. In fact, the ones I have seen show that there is no relationship and that it actually decreases aggression.

As for the parent smoking around the child, surely this can't be blamed on the marijuana itself. If all marijuana was eradicated (god forbid ) then the parent would most likely turn to another substance, if they were that lacking in willpower and decency. Who's to say that turning to another substance like alcohol wouldn't have produced a worse outcome?

 

There's also something to be said for quality of life issues for your neighbors. Just as secondhand cigarette smoke can be an intrusive irritant, so can marijuana smoke. Imagine a summer's night where your neighbor 15 feet away is smoking a joint on his patio. That stuff smells 10 times as strong as cigarette smoke and can give you a contact buzz. Why should you have to be subjected to that?

If a pot smoker lives in the wilderness, fine, but I'm not sure this whole "doesn't hurt anyone" thing doesn't have a few holes, even if they're just simple ones.

 

There is more to it. Take the above example where your neighbor is standing 15 feet away. By breathing it in, it can get into your system. What then happens if you get hit with a random drug test at work the next morning? Just because it is now legal here in the US, it might not be in say a country in Europe. I work for a company that has contractual agreements with companies located in other countries that require our employees to pass random drug testing all of the time. This type of practice is common in industries that do International business, especially the Aerospace industry. I would be pretty pissed off if I lost my job because I walked into a cloud of Pot smoke while walking down the street and got a contact high.

 

I've never heard of secondhand pot smoke causing a positive in a drug screening.

 

That's the key part. Marijuana is very cheap compared to other drugs, 20 bucks worth will get you through the week and 5 bucks would get you through the day (at least here, I don't know how it is in Slovakia), and there are no serious side effects of going without it even if you are addicted. Things like cocaine and heroin have been linked to crime pretty well, since they're expensive and create serious addictions, but not pot.

Not that part, the part about smoking it around their children and them growing up badly. Marijuana isn't like alcohol in that you start to lost control the more you do it, you still have full control of your facilities and thus the marijuana itself can't be blamed in the act of using it in from of kids. That was a choice by the parent.

 

Given my religion, it's no surprise that I oppose recreational drug use. yet even if I were to decide that God is merely an illusion, and that life is a one shot deal, I'd STILL oppose recreational drug use. I have seen too many families ripped apart (including portions of my own family) by alcohol and illegal drugs to think otherwise.

IMHO, recreational use is selfish and rarely does anything to strengthen family or social bonds. In serious cases, it puts the lives of others at risk, as well as the not insignificant risk to the user himself. It correlates strongly with criminal activities, even if (as in the case of alcohol) the drug is in and of itself legal.

I know there's a fair case for moderate, responsible use of many drugs, and of course, medicinal use (REAL medicinal use, not the "wink wink, nudge nudge I have glaucoma" medicinal use) but as soon as someone starts being irresponsible and reckless, not to mention criminal, then something should be done.

Final thought: being drunk or stoned should never be considered as a mitigating factor in the case of a felony. In fact, legal or not, I think it should be an exacerbating factor.