Jenos Ridan wrote:DaGip wrote:But what a slippery slope you climb when government intercedes as the moral authority on our lives. For the government (an entity whose only purpose was to protect our Constitutional rights as Americans and provide us with an army for protection) to become a moral-surrogate is only doomed to failure.
Who said the Federal Government was a Moral Authority? The physical and mental degradation of the citizenry is a Public Saftey and Health Issue.
True
Jenos Ridan wrote:Unless you want to see more people shot because their addiction compulsed them to steal whatever was lying around his neighbor's property and his neighbor shot him. Or, fearing that he'd get arrested for either trespassing or stealing, he waylaid his neighbor and either mained or killed him so he could pillage unchecked.
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REALITY CHECK! This is marahuana, not cocaine, meth or heroine.
Now, I don't smoke or otherwise use marihuana and won't. I have been exposed through wildland fires and such and saw the whole "war on marihauna" evolve.
Marihauna is not even considered physically addictive, though some say it is
emotionally addictive. Tobacco, on the other hand is HIGHLY addictive, responsible for large percentages of lung cancer, and fully legal! Alchohol can be used wisely, but causes more crashes every day than marihuana causes in a year. In fact, working with EMT's and such in the CA emerald triangle region, we did not see crashes from marihuana, but saw plenty from alchohol. (though some people do mix the two).
IN fact, it wasn't until the "campaign against marihauna" that we started seeing an escalation of the violance, began to see gangs and even mob involvement. Working on federal lands suddenly became dangerous up there because we had to watch for hidden "planations" gaurded by booby traps. That said, there were a couple of renegade towns up in the mountains. A marshall or FBI agent (can't remember which, but its a pretty well known tale) was murdered up in Denny. BUT that was remarkable because of the rarity. Corruption, idiots happen everywhere. It just so happens that in this case, it was marihuana and not prostitution, embezzlement or some other issue.
Did you read earlier about the REAL history of making marihuana illegal? I will just synopse a bit, but the REAL reasons it was made illegal was that it posed a direct threat to the timber industry (hemp was used for paper before the technology evolved to make it from wood pulp) and fuel industry (similarly, research to using hemp as a fuel source dead ended.. maybe it would not have gone anywhere anyhow, but who knows?)
