Don Brash: "We should decriminalise marijuana"

[blackdog]

I just did. It was quite easy actually.

I will rephrase, since the blatantly obvious meaning of my sentence was seemingly beyond your comprehension level.

You would be hard pressed to describe it accurately as a narcotic.

[jonbuoy]

I will rephrase, since the blatantly obvious meaning of my sentence was seemingly beyond your comprehension level.

You would be hard pressed to describe it accurately as a narcotic.

You got to be kidding, maybe the mild stuff is harmless but the engineered stuff is pretty potent. Its like comparing a shandy with half a pint of Grappa.

[blackdog]

You got to be kidding, maybe the mild stuff is harmless but the engineered stuff is pretty potent. Its like comparing a shandy with half a pint of Grappa.

I'm not saying it isn't a potent or powerful drug, just pointing out the way the word narcotic is commonly misused. 'Drug' is not synonymous with 'narcotic'. Describing marijuana as a narcotic is as wrong as saying tobacco or sugar is.

[oneofsix]

I'm not saying it isn't a potent or powerful drug, just pointing out the way the word narcotic is commonly misused. 'Drug' is not synonymous with 'narcotic'. Describing marijuana as a narcotic is as wrong as saying tobacco or sugar is.

But isn't that the rub, or your point. In common use illegal drug is synonymous with narcotic due to the propaganda we have been fed. However, the way I read your post you are saying, by definition marijuana is not a narcotic.

[superman]

Vote for the Greens?

I know you directed your rant to someone else, but it's on the verge of trolling so I'm going to gladly answer your "sincere" questions.

You're being far too simplistic. It shows absolutely no lack of depth in the view points you seem to bring across, almost as though you have more of an "emotional" reason for your views rather than a well thought out process to come to your rants.

You are comparing marijuana to P... which is an absolute joke. P is a synthetic, highly addictive, mind altering drug.

In contrast... marijuana is about as addictive as alcohol. The effects are not mind altering to hallucination. Even bothering to compare it with things such as methanphetamine, acid etc is as clever of you as comparing alcohol with such hard drugs.


Lowering the drinking age to 18 I assume that's what you were talking about, was a fair decision. The binge drinking culture isn't the 18-20 year olds fault. And why should those who aren't raised to follow such a drinking culture not be allowed to enjoy a glass of wine with dinner? Or a beer after a hard days work?

If anything I'd back up lowering the age further for specific weaker alcohol such as beer, (similar drinking ages in Germany/Switzerland) where you can have beer, cider etc at 16. It's NZ's cultures fault, in many European countries kids start having wine at 5 for goodness sake (obviously very watered down). But if it's raised as a normality rather than taboo you might stop people binge drinking. In my experience parents of my friends drunk heavier than we did!


For "I bet you'd be happy for your kids to do drugs"

Define drug... mind altering? Stimulants/depressant?

Should we be as unhappy about kids taking coffee, P, marijuana, alcohol? It's not as clear cut as you make it out to be, all drugs really need to be analysed seperately. There's a continuum of drugs from their negative aspects in which I'm sure you'd agree coffee is low on the scale, alcohol in small quantities is a pretty moderate drug and P is up in the extreme.

Would you be happy with your kids having cough medicine? Or what about a harder drug maybe... morphine just after they've been in a car crash?

If anything any "mind altering" substance should have at least an age of 16 depending on how the education of the population can handle such substances. But would you really ostracise your kid if they wanted to use marijuana recreationally? That's up there with disowning sons that come out to be homosexuals... It's their choice, and if they are educated enough in the matter it should be their own choice.

For pregnant women... they shouldn't even be having caffeine apparently. But it's the womens choice, we'd hope the general population would be educated enough on the matter though quite obviously they aren't since babies are dying sleeping with parents in there beds. Or our great "never shake a baby" educational ads... because people need to be told that.

"P gets a bad rap"

P deserves a bad rap. The reasons behind that are obvious, any drug that leads people to scratching their skin off, grinding their teeth to nothing and wield machetes at people obviously is bad.

[imdying]

Superman, you can't mess with booze. Without it the young adults of New Zealand will have no way to prove how manly they are.

[sidecar bob]

Anyway dope heads, serious question time.
Obviously you smoke to change your perception of who & how you are, or similar.
Does that mean you are not happy with who you are & how you interact with people & arent entirely happy with where you wake up every day until you have a doobie?
Dont preach to me, ive probably smoked more dope than most of you back in the day, but I did something about my lot, & find im far to happy with who I am & where im at in life, to be bothered with a cheap kinda pathetic altered perception these days.

Edit, And an abusive red rep from imdying for this one, that clearly hit a nerve with him. If not needing pot to enjoy life makes me a wanker, then a wanker I am!! 'onya big fella, feel better now, or do you need a doobie for that?

[jazfender]

You do have problems answering questions don't you.
I remember our last discussion You are quite thick on rhetoric but real thin on Answers to what atre simple questions and revert to snide remarks.
If your point of view is able to withstand scrutiny. You would think you would be able to answer simple questions.

Oh yeah, sorry about that. I didn't want to get drawn into your whirlpool of unfounded statements, questions of little relevance (except for setting up strawman arguments) and overblown opinions.

[superman]

Anyway dope heads, serious question time.
Obviously you smoke to change your perception of who & how you are, or similar.
Does that mean you are not happy with who you are & how you interact with people & arent entirely happy with where you wake up every day until you have a doobie

People reliant on any type of drug have issues. You could take the statement you've made and replace it with heavy drinkers. Yet alcohol is still legal, people who have mental issues shouldn't be taking mind altering substances in the first place, they should be seeking counsel.

[superman]

Superman, you can't mess with booze. Without it the young adults of New Zealand will have no way to prove how manly they are.

For people who need to be "manly" there's always...

[imdying]

And an abusive red rep from imdying for this one, that clearly hit a nerve with him. If not needing pot to enjoy life makes me a wanker, then a wanker I am!! 'onya big fella, feel better now, or do you need a doobie for that?

Clearly hit a nerve? What, you think I save up red reps for special occasions? All cock suckers get them, you included.

You got a red rep because your argument is tripe. It appears you can't handle weed, and thus nobody else should be able to try it. Spouting your bullshit is what got you a red rep, not your attitude to others freedom, although that would've been reason enough. The other reason is that there's so many holes in your statement that it's basically not worthy of public debate so it was left to the rep system.

But since we're here, this here would deserve as much derision from me:

Anyway drinkers, serious question time.
Obviously you drink to change your perception of who & how you are, or similar.
Does that mean you are not happy with who you are & how you interact with people & arent entirely happy with where you wake up every day until you have a drink?
Dont preach to me, ive probably drunk more piss than most of you back in the day, but I did something about my lot, & find im far to happy with who I am & where im at in life, to be bothered with a cheap kinda pathetic altered perception these days.

People who can't handle their choice of poison are everywhere, but I don't see why one group of wasted idiots has any more or less right to be wasted idiots than another. Particularly when the oppressed group could never cause the destruction of the socially acceptable group. Sheeple that think they're alright Jack cause they're following the rest of the heard are pathetic.

Ya hear that bob, nice n simple for ya, you are pathetic.

/edit: I do however agree with you on the context of abuse in general. You can get counselling options for your booze or gambling problems from watching the adds on TV. It seems unlikely that by ignoring the problem and throwing money at trying to control something which clearly is not going to be controlled, that abusers of marijuana will be able to get the help they need. It's no different from booze, it should not be treated any differently.

[imdying]

For people who need to be "manly" there's always...

Lets be realistic here... nobody in their right mind is going to play a game in which one of the objectives is to physically hurt other people without booze.

/edit: Sorry, no, money would do it too.

[oldrider]

In my early twenties I was a fairly big time pot head & I could also set up & pedal a race bike fairly well, probably for the same reasons this group use it.
I found it affected other parts of my life paticularly negatively & I see those negative things being played out in other heavy pot users lives today.
Every pot head can point out the same old cliches & flawed reasearch that justifies their habit, but for me, its based on expierence & I will never go back there again.

Freedom of choice in action .... the law makes no difference and costs a lot to enforce ... is it actually worth continuing down this current road?

We are virtually in the same position with this topic as we were with legalising/decriminalising prostitution.

I was in favour of that so now we have moved on, what has been the result of that change?

What have been the benefits or losses in community standards etc ... did it achieve it's stated goals?

Should we rush back to where we were before? Probably not!

I think there is a parallel with that change and this change but it wont effect me directly as I am not directly involved with either activity!

Those that are will be involved regardless of the law anyway and as long as they are not impinging anyone else's rights or freedoms, why not?

Change the law?

[SPman]

Anyway dope heads, serious question time.
Obviously you smoke to change your perception of who & how you are, or similar.
Does that mean you are not happy with who you are & how you interact with people & arent entirely happy with where you wake up every day until you have a doobie?
Dont preach to me, ive probably smoked more dope than most of you back in the day, but I did something about my lot, & find im far to happy with who I am & where im at in life, to be bothered with a cheap kinda pathetic altered perception these days.

Edit, And an abusive red rep from imdying for this one, that clearly hit a nerve with him. If not needing pot to enjoy life makes me a wanker, then a wanker I am!! 'onya big fella, feel better now, or do you need a doobie for that?

I used to find it funny, that, with my brother in law and his mates, we'd often climb Taranaki to about a 1000 ft above the Policeman, with our snowboards, then sit and enjoy the view before coming down. The others nearly always pulled out a joint so they could relax and enjoy the scenery! Then would go full speed, straight down the mountain!
I could never figure out why they needed dope to appreciate the wonders of nature...(and bugger going straight down - after expending all that energy it was the long, meandering way down for me)

[Usarka]

I see that the narcotics haven't affected your reasoning then, I guess?
Have you ever read Preebles or Rodger Douglas's books?
Did you even realise they came from the Labour party?
I am not talking the joints your mum was smoking during pregnancy either.
Shit lowering the drinking age was a good idea in your world too, I guess?
I bet you would be happy for your kids to do drugs as well?
I suppose P gets a bad rap in your opinion as well?
Tell me Rhode scholar whats your occupation?
Does the idea of drug testing of beneficiaries offend you?
Drugs sure have not done you any harm after all, aye.

I'll be quite surprised if you can answer all these questions truthfully.

The vast majority of cocaine users are highly paid professionals.

How does that stack up with your "logic"?