Pot Prohibition is harmfull, it is time to end it.

Date:   3/21/2009 5:32:35 PM ( 15 y ago)

Pot Prohibition - reasons why not

It is almost certainly true that prohibition of drugs is more harmfull to society than the drug use is. There is a monetary cost to enforcement, propaganda, prisons, and the overall agencies that run the drug war. There are also a lot of personal and societal costs that are difficult to measure, such as alienation of users and other barriers between people over drugs, plus that the basic dialogue over drug use is stunted due to prohibition stigma.

There are lots of different issues with the various drugs being prohibited, but for now I just want to write a couple things about pot.

Without prohibition in effect, people could talk about marijuana more openly. We could get a realistic dialogue going and help youth to learn when it is appropriate to use pot and when it is isn't. As it is now, we just say "no" and hope it sticks, like fixing stuff with glue or tape, which rarely works out well. They just might find out that they DON'T really want to be high all the time, because life is actually better when straight. But all we have to offer now is "just say no". Duh, no wonder they don't want to listen to their parents.



MUSIC:
For example, teachers could talk to students about how smoking the night before an exam generally lowers test scores, and especially if marijuana is used just before an exam.

Some sexua| dysfunctions are worse when high, maybe just because of performance anxiety and that pot heightens a lot of anxieties and feelings, which is why pot is good too - it can make boring or ordinary things really fun, like waterslides or skiing.

In general, pot "makes us feel more of what we are allready feeling". That is one general truth that just never gets talked about, but it would help people enjoy pot more and have fewer bad effects from it. Chronic users don't often come to terms with this, and it can have a big effect on their lives.

For me personally, one lesson I wished some of my marijuana-using music teachers would have felt safe enough to talk to me about is how marijuana can affect the way we hear. It is especially important to know this when learning music [as compared to just playing it, which marijuana can greatly enhance] because it can become almost impossible to learn "ear training" when high, or even from recent use. Marijuana affects the brain pathways that helps us hear, then sing back, any particular pitch, which is what we do when "ear training". The concept of being "tone deaf" is complex - it is usually a case of various degrees of learning how to hear, and then sing back, a pitch. When I had difficulty with that, I just assumed I was "tone deaf" and that it was a life-sentence... so I could really have used a little information from someone who might have said "its not permanent, its just the pot - try laying off it for three days, and then work on the pitch-recognition exersizes, and you will see that you CAN do it, almost everyone can with a little work and no roadblocks like pot or some other medications.



HEALTH ISSUE:
It may also be true that pot is contributing in a major way to EMPHYSEMA, the condition where the lungs become "hyperinflated" and cannot fill the little sacs with air to exchange the oxygen and CO2. If only we could find out from emphysema patients who are now unwilling to admit to smoking pot, and if it is true, then if we could have a more open discussion with our kids without them thinking it is just "drug war lies to scare us". If prohibition ended, we could be saying "don't inhale so deeply, that is when it does the harm, just take smaller tokes and more of them because now that prohibition is ended, pot is not too expensive". But we just don't know, and prohibition keeps us from knowing. Prohibition is doing real damage.

Ahh, pot prohibition - what are you still doing here?? We are a much more mature society now, we can handle it if prohibition were repealed. Prisons are overfull, Usage Rates are higher in USA than Netherlands where pot prohibition ended 10 years ago [despite the lies you may have heard from the drug war that their rates are up], and there is guns involved in selling pot, and major criminal organisations involved, whereas none of that should be the case with pot, because people should just grow their own or buy it from licensed, taxed, retailers.


There is a movie called "Walk Hard", where Dewie Cox is about to try pot for the first time, but is hesitant - {the "You don't want any of THIS" scene}-

The newbie says:
"Well, I cannot afford to have a hangover" - but the reply is: "There is no hangover with pot!"
"Well, I don't want to spend a lot of money" - but the reply is: "Pot is the cheapest drug there is!"
"Well, I don't want to get addicted and have to go through withdrawals" - but the reply is: "Pot isn't physically addictive, no withdrawals!"
"Well, I don't want to ruin my sexua| experience" - but the reply is: "Pot makes sex BETTER!!"

.... and so on, it is very funny. It is true. Pot is almost harmless, and yet very potent in certain ways, and the worst thing about it is that it is illegal to have. Prohibition is all wrong, it does more harm than pot smoking does, and we are a mature society, ready to repeal prohibition of pot.


 

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