<p>No, my parents are really conservative. They think weed is like heroin/cocaine.</p>
<p>Aww really? 10-15 years is such a long time.</p>
<p>^ But it’s the truth. Seriously, we can’t even get medical marijuana straightened out. All marijuana? Not a chance for a good decade.</p>
<p>Legalize and tax, end of story.</p>
<p>Legalize, tax the hell out of it, enact some laws regarding use, done.</p>
<p>Would legalizing weed increase or decrease its cost? I.e., how much more does it cost because it is illegal? Anyone have any idea?</p>
<p>In order for taxation and regulation to work, obviously weed would have to be cheaper than it is on the black market. However, underground weed sales are often pricier because of the illegality.</p>
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<p>You don’t have to smoke marijuana, but most people do (in my experience with it). My point stands - smoking causes chronic obstructive pulmonary diseases and lung cancer.</p>
<p>Cigarettes do too, and they’re perfectly legal.</p>
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<p>Even heroin isn’t really harmful to other people. Of course it’s much, much more harmful to the user than marijuana, but people on heroin don’t cause much damage to others. Now, crack on the other hand…</p>
<p>(Of course, I’m not supporting heroin’s legalization. That would be disastrous, but pretty funny…)</p>
<p>^ agreed. cocaine is scary, but even heroin isn’t going to destroy your life as long as you control it.</p>
<p>we did a model congress debate about this. i remember everyone was for the legalization of marijuana because a) quick buck for government b) 45% of all crimes in america are for marijuana related cases, i’d prefer not to pay taxes for such worthless causes in the future and c) why are alcohol and nicotine legal?</p>
<p>it’d be kind of weird though, because hollywood has this way of portraying weed as the gateway drug to teenage social life (that and alcohol) solely because it was badass. it’d be kind of funny if weed suddenly died out because it became legal.</p>
<p>Ahh, morality legislation.</p>
<p>“When one looks at our drug lawsindeed, at our victimless crime laws altogetherthe only organizing principle that appears to make sense of them is that anything which might eclipse prayer or procreative sexuality as a source of pleasure has been outlawed.” ~Sam Harris</p>
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<p>use a vaporizer</p>
<p>doubt this will happen in the next 50 years</p>
<p>Cigarettes and alcohol are only legal because it became clear that making them illegal was/would be a boon for organized crime and would cause more problems than it solved. The question with marijuana, or any other illegal drug for that matter, is whether the fact that it’s illegal causes the same problems to the same degree. Equating the harmful effects of marijuana to cigarettes or alcohol completely misses the point.</p>
<p>good call, onthefly</p>
<p>i have no problem with weed. yes i have smoked it/eaten it on numerous occasions and no, i am not a burnout. i also drink, but i am not an idiot who can’t control myself once it creeps up on me. i’m pretty indifferent to weed being legalized, i won’t care either way just cause i’m not dependent on it and i could definitely live without it.</p>
<p>I want complete legalization with no sin taxes for all recreational drugs.</p>
<p>^ We need a sin tax. It’s one of the ways we survive economically as a country.</p>
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<p>I assume by “we” you mean the government. </p>
<p>Our economy definitely does not need sin taxes. In fact, without sin taxes, consumers would save considerable amounts of money. Those savings would then be spent in other industries, spurring employment and more economic production. We, undoubtedly, do not need sin taxes to “survive economically as a country.”</p>
<p>The government may be currently relying on sin taxes, but by no means does even the government need sin taxes to “survive economically.” We could abolish all sin taxes and in replace, raise taxes across the board in a nondiscriminatory way. Or, better yet, reduce the size of government to compensate for lost revenue.</p>
<p>Or we could just keep sin taxes as a way to discourage people from doing stupid ****. I wonder if anyone’s thought of that…</p>
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<p>Sarcasm might sometimes be rhetorically effective, but other times it just makes you look like an *******.</p>
<p>Sin taxes, as the name obviously indicates, were originally instituted to do exactly as you said: deter people from things that the government deemed inappropriate. </p>
<p>But what about personal freedom? Applying outrageous taxes to something to raise the price is just as bad as outlawing it. It’s an incredibly conceited view to think that you know exactly what’s best for the populace and to think that you should use the government’s power to force people into not doing what you deem “stupid ****.”</p>