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Well, I suppose I'm going to have to clarify myself, since people seem to have interpreted what I said in opposite directions.
I hate tobacco more than anyone here could probably imagine. I had to watch my mother die from lung cancer that had spread to her brain. This was not a pretty picture, folks. Smokers who tell me "Yeah I know, I should really quit" and then continue because of the addiction which has gripped their lives like a vise are beyond any help, since ultimately, they are completely alone in this. She was not my only relative affected by this addiction. My grandmother and granduncle were reduced to a most miserable existence by emphesema for the last decades of their lives, and my cousin died at 50 of the same disease. My uncle worked hard all his life, smoking away all the time, only to be killed by a heart attack right after he had finally retired. This affected me directly as well, since my system is intolerant of second hand smoke. I remember waking up every morning with acid churning away in my stomach from having to breath that shit which was (of course) distributed throughout the house by the central air conditioner. People thought I was making this up too, which angered me greatly. This was before second hand smoke had been frowned upon by society at large, and no one would have thought to go outside just to smoke.
And while they are making my family's lives a living hell, the human filth that profit from it sought ways to make tobacco even more addictive by adding ammonia and other poisons to the mix. They used various methods to make cigarretes appealing to young people, who were easily pressured to try stupid things, only to find that it was more than an experiment. Tobacco had gripped their lives like a pit bull through the addiction, and their equally weak friends forced them to make a tough choice.. either give up your friends or be constantly tempted by an extremely addictive drug. I went through this with friends and their younger siblings. They had no money so they stole to get cigarretes. I would dearly love to be absolute ruler of this country, if only to have the power to haul out the tobacco company execs and force them to die the kind of slow, miserable, torturous death they have forced upon so many. Would I ban tobacco? You'd better believe it. And anyone growing it or importing it would be immediately and very publicly executed as an abject lesson to everyone else who would even think of it.
This is why I have a problem with pot, and why I had such a problem with Dogbert's childishly simplistic choices above (sorry, Dogbert, but this is something that has to be taken seriously, and we should not be presented with a quartet of glib one-liners from which to choose.) The people who advocate legalization are not thinking clearly (whether pot makes people unreasonable or unreasonable people smoke pot is just a conundrum.) If we simply legalized it, pot would become just like tobacco, and I will bet you any money you want that the tobacco companies are the ones who would also produce marajuana cigarettes. Debate as you will the addictive properties of pot, these ruthless capatalists would make it moreso. The health risks are still there as they are with tobacco (smoke any drug and it's not a good thing for the lungs.. I've had friends who were non tobacco smokers but got into smoking pot heavily.. their voices got raw and they developed a serious hacking cough from it.) There is the principle of second-hand smoke here as well, though I personally find it less objectionable than tobacco.
How to treat it legally? Well if you ask most cops, they won't usually do anything about some individual smoking pot in his own home. Surprise! I support this attitude. People using it and posing no calculable danger to others in doing so should be left alone. (If some underage kids or others in the house are affected, that's a different matter.) This does not mean I support legalization. People who peddle the stuff now are pretty much small fry. If it were legalized, a whole industry would grow up around it. People with a vested interest in you toking up would be using all means at their disposal to shove it down your throat. And it is just not a healthy thing to be doing. There are debates about the longer term effects of pot on people, but in my experience it makes them less susceptible to reason in varying degrees. It is a fact that it remains in your system for up to a month after smoking it, and we all know how unreasonable people are when they are under the influence. The world is just too f***ed up already to be advocating screwing up people's judgement up any more.
If my views offend anyone, I'm truly sorry. It's a shame you can't explore the truth of such a matter anymore.. there are too damned many people who would rather shy from offending someone than face a problem. There are problems with pot that we just don't know about yet, or have not fully researched. All the stoners that want it legalized don't want to be branded as criminals any more than drunks are. The problem with both is, whether it's in the law books or not, if you abuse substances you abuse yourself and those you are in contact with. That's really not something to advocate.
Well, I suppose I'm going to have to clarify myself, since people seem to have interpreted what I said in opposite directions.
I hate tobacco more than anyone here could probably imagine. I had to watch my mother die from lung cancer that had spread to her brain. This was not a pretty picture, folks. Smokers who tell me "Yeah I know, I should really quit" and then continue because of the addiction which has gripped their lives like a vise are beyond any help, since ultimately, they are completely alone in this. She was not my only relative affected by this addiction. My grandmother and granduncle were reduced to a most miserable existence by emphesema for the last decades of their lives, and my cousin died at 50 of the same disease. My uncle worked hard all his life, smoking away all the time, only to be killed by a heart attack right after he had finally retired. This affected me directly as well, since my system is intolerant of second hand smoke. I remember waking up every morning with acid churning away in my stomach from having to breath that shit which was (of course) distributed throughout the house by the central air conditioner. People thought I was making this up too, which angered me greatly. This was before second hand smoke had been frowned upon by society at large, and no one would have thought to go outside just to smoke.
And while they are making my family's lives a living hell, the human filth that profit from it sought ways to make tobacco even more addictive by adding ammonia and other poisons to the mix. They used various methods to make cigarretes appealing to young people, who were easily pressured to try stupid things, only to find that it was more than an experiment. Tobacco had gripped their lives like a pit bull through the addiction, and their equally weak friends forced them to make a tough choice.. either give up your friends or be constantly tempted by an extremely addictive drug. I went through this with friends and their younger siblings. They had no money so they stole to get cigarretes. I would dearly love to be absolute ruler of this country, if only to have the power to haul out the tobacco company execs and force them to die the kind of slow, miserable, torturous death they have forced upon so many. Would I ban tobacco? You'd better believe it. And anyone growing it or importing it would be immediately and very publicly executed as an abject lesson to everyone else who would even think of it.
This is why I have a problem with pot, and why I had such a problem with Dogbert's childishly simplistic choices above (sorry, Dogbert, but this is something that has to be taken seriously, and we should not be presented with a quartet of glib one-liners from which to choose.) The people who advocate legalization are not thinking clearly (whether pot makes people unreasonable or unreasonable people smoke pot is just a conundrum.) If we simply legalized it, pot would become just like tobacco, and I will bet you any money you want that the tobacco companies are the ones who would also produce marajuana cigarettes. Debate as you will the addictive properties of pot, these ruthless capatalists would make it moreso. The health risks are still there as they are with tobacco (smoke any drug and it's not a good thing for the lungs.. I've had friends who were non tobacco smokers but got into smoking pot heavily.. their voices got raw and they developed a serious hacking cough from it.) There is the principle of second-hand smoke here as well, though I personally find it less objectionable than tobacco.
How to treat it legally? Well if you ask most cops, they won't usually do anything about some individual smoking pot in his own home. Surprise! I support this attitude. People using it and posing no calculable danger to others in doing so should be left alone. (If some underage kids or others in the house are affected, that's a different matter.) This does not mean I support legalization. People who peddle the stuff now are pretty much small fry. If it were legalized, a whole industry would grow up around it. People with a vested interest in you toking up would be using all means at their disposal to shove it down your throat. And it is just not a healthy thing to be doing. There are debates about the longer term effects of pot on people, but in my experience it makes them less susceptible to reason in varying degrees. It is a fact that it remains in your system for up to a month after smoking it, and we all know how unreasonable people are when they are under the influence. The world is just too f***ed up already to be advocating screwing up people's judgement up any more.
If my views offend anyone, I'm truly sorry. It's a shame you can't explore the truth of such a matter anymore.. there are too damned many people who would rather shy from offending someone than face a problem. There are problems with pot that we just don't know about yet, or have not fully researched. All the stoners that want it legalized don't want to be branded as criminals any more than drunks are. The problem with both is, whether it's in the law books or not, if you abuse substances you abuse yourself and those you are in contact with. That's really not something to advocate.
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