eating meat on Fridays used to mean hell and perdition; drinking during Prohibition in America meant the same, plus a criminal record here on earth. Same with mj. Our society is turning kids into criminals by maintaining its stupid laws about mj.

It's not the mj destroying the kids' future....it's the criminal record which the law and order wowsers in our community insist is imposed, which destroys any chance of overcoming youthful misadventure.

Hijacked

Lordy, Diver Dan. Your views on prostitution belong in the 19th century.

The reason the sex industry can't extricate itself from organised crime is because neo-puritans won't allow it any legitimacy. The idea that banning prostitution will eliminate brothels is as naive as believing prohibition has rid Australia of drugs.

There will always be prostitutes. The choice we have is between an open and accountable industry which protects the health and rights of its workers, and an illicit underworld of sexual and emotional abuse. The latter is simply what happens when the lives of individuals are sacrificed so that the self-righteous can live in an artificial bubble of virtue.

Sancho my man………Great criticism. I refer not to prostitution so much but to the decriminalisation of brothels. For the purposes of comparison between the soft approach on drugs and the soft approach on prostitution, I simply say to you , research for yourself the negative impact on our communities by decriminalised brothels. In short , Government sponsoring of prostitution by the act of decriminalising of brothels and the resultant exploitation of women and children in the illegal sector, which , as I stated above, has resulted in a fourfold increase in illegal establishments.
Sancho, Governments would love to be handed an easy way out of the drug problem. The same easy way out they chose in the past, to deal with crocked police and entrenched corruption in the police force.
These are the cemented “trio”, drugs, prostitution and organised crime. To the detriment of women and children, the Victorian Government lead the way in Australia , attempting to solve prostitution and organised crime (particularly within its police force) by simply legalising it. The final move for a facilitated life of ease for the Government is to legalise drugs. I am sure the mafia and other similar exploitive groups will be extremely happy sancho.
Be careful to not hand “soothsayers” the easy way out. It is the community “good”, your kids and it’s my kids, that matter in the end. Drugs, prostitution and organised crime are always to be discouraged. No more thinking needed.

Prohibition ,I think it causes a lot of problems basically ,why you might ask ,heres me take on it . Because Pot is Illegal it is risky to produce (risk of being caught ), this leads too the price being high (no pun intended ) and making it worth while too produce by the less savory elements because of the attraction of a quick buck.

Also as it is illegal and therefore the people who produce it want nothing to do with the police and legal system , they tend to take the law into there own hands when it comes to dealing with people who rip them off , this leads too violence ,turf wars etc .

I also think that as the price is high due too its illegality a lot of crime in the area of stealing to make money to pay for it (and other drugs) .

In other words could it be that some for of legalisation would 1. devalue it making it not worth while to produce by large criminal elements (resulting in less violence ), as well as reducing the rate of burgularys (no need too find the money for it as its realitively cheap) .

As for the harm of the drug itself ,education of its pitfalls is the key to reduceing its harm .

I'm at a point in my thinking and reading to agree that there is good evidence pointing to a number of serious deleterious psychological effects in the use of cannabis in some young people in addition to exacerbating latent illnesses. There may be tests soon to identify those most at risk. These tests could help in educational efforts and allow potential users to make a more informed choice provided that the tests are accessible.

In our increasingly authoritarian society one should realize that it is not in the states interest to 'decriminalize'. The 'war on drugs' provides yet another convenient pretext (smokescreen?) for increased police presence, the exercise of authority and intrusion into civil liberties.

An individual’s choice to inflict potential self-harm needs to be weighed against the cost to 'repair' harm. A regulated system could see a tax covering the harm but the cost of the product would be so high that it would in effect be prohibitive and most users would seek black market alternatives and the scheme would fail. This is unfortunate as it would be a progressive form of user pays. Such a scheme one could say is a pipe dream.

In absence of state regulated cost signals the impact of law enforcement on black market cost signals is a poor second alternative. Under a decriminalised model perhaps a licence fee for personal growing-I don’t think so in the current climate. A decriminalized approach for personal amounts with progressive civil penalties-fines, community service etc is certainly cheaper for the taxpayer.

The notion of dependency and addiction to cannabis is questionable. The issue about the modern strength of cannabis is a red herring as users titrate the dose to the level they feel comfortable with.

Objective, unbiased, informative educational campaigns and the predictive testing mentioned above offer the most cost effective and responsible course of action.

After saying all of this I wish there was someway that users could legitimately and safely experiment.

And he disappears in a puff of smoke….

Prohibitionist "leaders" want us to think no major studies have been done to inform us about the nature of marijuana. The truth is, there have been several exhaustive government studies - including the LaGuardia Commission in the 40s (U.S.), England's Wooten Report in 1968, the Shaffer Commission in the 70's (U.S.), Australia's 'Legislative Options For Cannabis' in 1994, and the 1999 Institute Of Medicine Report (U.S.). Canada has added it's tremendous efforts with the Le Dain Report (1970) and the recent Canadian Senate Report.

These are just the stand-out studies. There are more in these and other countries. So why don't they want us to know about all these prestigious government research projects? Because they all came to the same conclusion - that marijuana is far less harmful than alcohol, and, morever, has beneficial uses.

In the U.S., chief propagandist, ONDCP head, John Walters was right about one thing when he said their number one enemy was marijuana. That confession of their mad Inquisition over the least harmful recreational drug has America scratching it's head. The demonization has been effective (not hard with decades-long prison terms), so citizens have been intimidated to nervous silence - just like the subjects who were afraid to point out the emperor wore no clothes. We must end the fat bureaucrat's trading in the misery of peaceful citizens. We don't need any more studies to do the right thing and end marijuana prohibition. They're all right here:

http://www.druglibrary.org/schaffer/Library/studies/studies.htm