Should Marijuana Be Legalized?

[Johnny Hughes]

I am for de-criminalizing small amounts, under two ounces. Marijuana is just not destructive like the other drugs, including alcohol.

Drugs are substitue products and compete with each other. If marijuana were the cheapest and least risky drug, this would help drive meth from the market. It would also free up law enforcement resources to concentrate on other drugs and more severe crimes. It would reduce the prison population in the U.S. which is the largest in the world.

For drugs, I use the analogy of Woodstock and Altamont, two of the best known huge concerts in the late 1960s. Woodstock had marijuana and a half-million people. There was no violence or police style problems. Not even a fist fight. Peace and love, baby.

At the time of Altamont, Nixon had Operation Intercept closing the Mexican border. This created a huge shortage of marijuana nationally. At the Altamont conert, the crowd had turned to speed. There was a great deal of violence and three people killed. This concert and good ole Charley Manson radically changed opinions at the end of the Sixties. Hitch hiking got really hard.

If the name "Woodstock" has come to denote the flowering of one phase of the youth culture, "Altamont" has come to mean the end of it. (1)
Altamont is regarded as the warning of what might happen if Woodstock is taken too literally. (2)
A young black man murdered in the midst of a white crowd by white thugs as white men played their version of black music - it was too much to kiss off as unpleasantness. (3) I copied this paragraph from the Internet.

Some might think the epidemic we now have of speed and meth started with the absence of marijuana in the summer time.

What do you think? Kowboy, Ice, Wild Bill as well as the young folks.

[JJSCOTT2]

[EscapePlan9]

[WildBillHickok]

[WildBillHickok]

[EscapePlan9]

[Pozzo]

[emmasdad]

[EscapePlan9]

Last semester my friend Jon and I tried watching Reefer Madness after we smoked. We didn't like the horrible quality of it - old black-and-white with poor sound recording - and it heavily interfered with us enjoying it. I think we ended up playing Street Fighter 2 instead. However, I watched Reefer Madness later while sober and found it more enjoyable.

[iceman5]

[ua1176]

[Felonius_Monk]

[adamh]

[Beavis68]

[EscapePlan9]