It is not wise for us as a community to "accept" that we have cannabis for good so it should be legalised.

Have a look at Amsterdam, its a hell hole.

Do people have any idea of the problems cannabis causes in the community? Car accidents,violence and mental illness to name a few.

The most effective way to deal with the problem is to drug test workers and motorists. This will be introduced within two years. This type of testing in itself will reduce cannabis use more than all the "education" on earth.

Atman – I think you’ll find the problems that cannabis causes are quite overblown. Amsterdam is a good example of relaxed drug laws not resulting in any significant rise in crime.

I strongly resent myself, my friends and family being considered criminals because of a personal choice to smoke marijuana. I am a pacifist, and it’s absurd to say marijuana causes violence. Drug induced car accidents are 99.999% alcohol related (note: not a real statistic, but still). Mental illness has less to do with cannabis, and a lot more to do with, well, mental illness.

I’m not saying it’s not an issue, I’m saying keep it in perspective. I have a job, and if I was asked to do a drug test I would refuse, because it is a gross invasion on my privacy. I smoke weed and drink beer in my own time, not at work. There is no reason why it would ever impede on my work performance.

Drugs (legal and illegal) are here for good, whether you ‘accept’ them or not. Legalised drugs would have so many benefits – quality control (to avoid extra health risks) for one. Another would be it would sweep the carpet out underneath the dealers collective feet, eliminating all sorts of drug related crime. Prohibition in America didn’t work – no one actually followed a law against alcohol because it was a stupid law. The result – an underground crime ring was born, most commonly known as the Mafia. The law doesn’t stop people taking drugs, it just creates more ‘criminals’.

The hypocrisy is unbelievable. There are better drugs, and better drugs for you than alcohol. But that’s a nice taxable drug, so it’s socially acceptable. It is a complete and total injustice, and an attack of every single human beings personal freedom. And these laws are justified through scare campaigns that demonise users and blame drugs for everything from poverty to terrorism.

This madness has gone on for too long, and I'm sick of it.

Spendocrat you got in before me and said everything I wanted to say (but so much more eloquently)...consider this: unlike alcohol, cannabis stays in the body's sytem for much longer (days, weeks even?). So Atman, if you don't indulge yourself but hang around friends that do, you may find yourself charged one day for working/driving under the influence of cannabis. I don't know how they're gonna deal with that one.

I'm a bit worried about Atman.

I'm very worried about our society.

Thanks for the example, spendocrat. Your use of the false statistic and the "but still" shrugging excuse of same, highlights the fact that you, a regular user, are quite willing to use a factoid that you know to be false in support of your entrenched belief.

I, too, fear for society. But it is a fear of people who can sit calmly accross a table, or in a policy forum, while fact after fact is presented, without a word of contest, and then repeat the sloppy generalisations that they started the meeting with.

This capacity to exclude information that does not support their entrenched beliefs, and a capacity to conceptually leap over a number of key steps in a logical sequence, has been most prevalent amongst green representatives and captured bureaucrats. Having been raised in a Pot culture, it has been easy for me to recognise the subtle indicators of past heavy use, especially by bureaucrats who think they do a good job of appearing straight.

This is not to say that this kind of thinking is not present in the broader community, far from it. But the MRI scans show that it is most prevalent in association with heavy teenage use of canabis but less frequent use also alters cognitive functions in that direction.

And the net result is an increasing set of politically active people who do not fit the definition of reasonable men and women. They are people who are capable of acting on factors that resonate almost entirely within their own heads, without proportionate regard for the facts of their situation.

Cute, Perseus. You’re essentially saying that even those who engage in ‘less frequent’ use ultimately cannot be reasonable people. And you say I’m the one acting on factors entirely within my own head?!

My use of ‘but still’ was my way of conceding I don’t have an exact statistic with me, but that any reasonable person would know that marijuana related car accidents are negligible at best in comparison to alcohol related ones. Hell, driving is dangerous altogether, that’s why I don’t do it. I want to start my own health campaign: ‘Don’t get in cars, ever! They’re really, really dangerous!’

If my beliefs are entrenched, then so are yours. If you are able to keep ignoring the scientifically verifiable facts about marijuana, to keep focussing on the tiny minority of examples that ‘prove’ how bad it is, then it is you who have little regard for the facts of the situation.

What I know about marijuana are the facts. I’m not saying it’s a wonderful safe lovely happy substance – it has its dangers. Which is why heavy use is not a good thing. Like I said way back in my first post, neither is heavy consumption of fried chicken. But damn, it’s tasty! Imagine a world without fried chicken!

What I’m saying of course, if it’s not obvious enough, is that there is an endless list of activities we engage in that have dangers and risks and health connotations. This particular activity, which does not rank very highly at all on the risk factor, is singled out, and that is what is called hypocrisy.

How about this instead: Taking drugs is a personal choice. And every person should have the right to make their own personal choice, so long as it does not impede on the freedom of someone else’s personal choice. Good old fashioned Logic.