On Nov 15, 2011 4:05 PM, "Biju Chacko" <biju.cha...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Mon, Nov 14, 2011 at 10:14 PM, ss <cybers...@gmail.com> wrote: > > On Monday 14 Nov 2011 4:40:51 pm Eugen Leitl wrote: > >> DIY meaning starting completely from scratch, with the green plant. > >> > > Green plant? Why use tobacco?
> I've always thought of pot as fairly harmless (though I may be wrong > -- facts welcome), It appears to be relatively harmless according to the British Government's scientific advisory body on relative harms or various drugs. > but I'm in two minds about whether it should be > legalized. On the one hand, I don't see why alcohol and tobacco are > any different from pot -- they can be addictive and they have long > term consequences to ones health if consumed in excess. According to that report alcohol and tobacco are relatively harmful. If you want to use a pure harm model either they should be illegal, or a great many other drugs should be legal (or both.) However that does not factor in the costs and dangers of prohibition which are considerable. > And why should > the government interfere with an individual's right to choose what he > does to himself. > > On the other hand, why stop at weed? Why not e? crack? heroin? Or > should we just ban tobacco and alcohol too? These are objective questions with objective answers. From a pure harm viewpoint cannabis and hallucinogens should be legalized immediately. From a relative harm viewpoint, e, opiates and MDMA should be legalized. From a harm reduction viewpoint all drugs should be legalized with treatment, education, and harm reduduction programs instituted. See Portugal's example. > Perhaps messing with the > status quo is a bad idea -- a move in either direction seems to have > more pros than cons... Hardly. The arguments for legalization of cannabis are compelling. (And I am objective in this matter, being a user or alcohol, a non-user of cannabis or tobacco.) -- Charles
