Anti

No matter how you like to dress it up, a personal insult remains an adhominem tactic and does nothing to win debates.

Show where you believe Suze is wrong. I have. However, unlike you, I also understand from where Suze's quite valid POV is founded - she sees the worst results of drug abuse.

All you achieve is alienating yourself by arguing yourself into a corner. There are no open lines of communication left to you except to denigrate those with whom you disagree.

For myself, I know that in future I will read Suzeonline's posts with an open mind, because she has treated people with respect and presented her POV clearly and with understandable reasons.

You can't use intimidation on an anonymous forum, the way you can to people in your life. Just have a think about how, here, you cannot win people over to your POV with aggression and insult.

Severin:"Show where you believe Suze is wrong."

Already done so, thanks.

suzeonline:"POV is founded - she sees the worst results of drug abuse."

Appeal to emotion, also wrongly implying causation from correlation. Her POV may be valid, but the fact that some users abuse does not imply that all users do or that the drug in question is always bad. No insult here.

Severin:"All you achieve is alienating yourself"

Appeal to popularity and peer pressure. The fact that others may not agree with me does not make me wrong nor does their collective regard or otherwise make me wrong.

Severin:"There are no open lines of communication left to you except to denigrate those with whom you disagree."

Poisoning the well, bandwagon and ad hominem.

Severin:", I know that in future I will read Suzeonline's posts with an open mind, because she has treated people with respect and presented her POV clearly and with understandable reasons."

Wow, there's a job lot of fallacies in here: appeal to flattery, division, bandwagon, genetic, I'm not sure where to stop.

Severin:"You can't use intimidation on an anonymous forum, the way you can to people in your life"

Oooh, nasty, nasty ad hominem, as well as a sideswiping poisoning of the well on the way through. You're quite good at this fallacious reasoning stuff.

Severin:"you cannot win people over to your POV with aggression and insult."

False dilemma, bandwagon, poisoning the well.

Now, where were we? Oh yes, Suzie's wrong, now I remember...

Regarding the decriminalising of cannabis (and other 'soft' drugs), I totally agree with Cornflower, antiseptic, Severin and RObert.

I am also trying to understand why Suzeonline is against decriminalising these drugs.
As a past drug user I only saw the fun side of using. All of my friends were regular users of at least marijuana, but we used drugs on weekends only, for recreation. Nobody I know has had an addiction problem, all moved on and are now, like me, non users.
Suzeonline, you see the worst cases and it probably seems to you that the majority of marijuana users end up this way, but in my opinion it is only a tiny proportion of users who will have severe problems because of it.

Anti, up to a certain point we all take into account our emotions and past experiences when forming an opinion, and have their place.

I agree with Severin that keeping marijuana illegal will mean an increased risk that a person will move on to a hard drug.
Where soft drugs are legal, they are sold, just like tobacco and alcohol, from a retail outlet. There is no need to go to an illegal drug dealer to obtain these drugs. Therefore, one doesn't come in contact with a drug dealer who also sells the hard stuff, like ice.
There can also be warnings on packages, like with cigarettes, and if the drugs come in different strengths, like alcohol, this can be put on the label as well.
Special drugstores can also be an excellent point for drug education. Leaflets with drug warnings, effects and dosage, can be picked up from these outlets too.

As Severin mentioned, we have seen a decline in tobacco usage because of campaigns and education, and the same can be done for any other drugs.

We will all have to agree to disagree with this one.

The only other thing I will add to this debate before moving to another thread, is that there aren't many places in the world that have legalised marijuana to my knowledge.

Why would this be the case if this drug is not a problem?
Australia and other countries are quite happy to continue to legalise alcohol and tobacco (unfortunately tobacco!), even knowing they were damaging to people's health, but not marijuana.
Why is that do you think?

I believe that this is the case because drinking alcohol in moderation is not known to be too much of a problem. I think that tobacco should be banned because there is no safe level of nicotine inhalation (that's another thread though!), and passive smoking is known to affect others.

Yes, alcohol does lead to many hospital admissions too, but at present the drug 'ice' is causing the most problems in our Accident and Emergency rooms.
There was not one of these hard drug users that I met in the hospital system that had not also used marijuana (and I can guarantee that I have met more drug users than most on this forum).

We will just have to agree to differ on this one! :)

Celivia:"up to a certain point we all take into account our emotions and past experiences when forming an opinion, and have their place."

Of course we do. What I was objecting to was Suzie's assumption that her experience is more valid than mine. It isn't, especially when she is unable to back up with facts, the view she has formed based on an emotional response to her experiences.

Emotions are useful drivers of interest in a topic, but as many people here demonstrate all too frequently, they are not productive drivers of debate. It is quite fun to watch people ignore perfectly valid and useful points in favour of a response to a perceived efmotional trigger, then try to pretend that their response is "valid" and somehow makes the reasoned response "invalid".

Suzeonline:"there aren't many places in the world that have legalised marijuana to my knowledge."

That is largely because of the US' "War on Drugs", which was mostly the product of one man, Harry Ainslinger, in his role as Commissioner of the Treasury Department's Federal Bureau of Narcotics (FBN). The motivation for banning the drug was largely racial, since it was prominent among poor blacks. Ainslinger was in his job for over 20 years and created a culture that persists. Only those countries which are not significantly influenced by US policy (which does NOT include Australia) would be able to pass such a law. Parts of the Netherlands and Switzerland have done so and it is lightly policed in many others.

Besides, a lack of legislation is not a demonstration that the legislation should not exist. The legislation that banned the stuff is only quite recent, while cannabis has been in use for thousands of years. Using your "logic" that legislation should never have been passed, since it was not already in existence!

The traps that "appeals to emotion" lead us into are often deep and highly convoluted, aren't they?

Suzie:"at present the drug 'ice' is causing the most problems in our Accident and Emergency rooms. "

Well, I'd like to know where it's coming from. As a result of your comment I tried hard to get hold of some ice yesterday. None to be found anywhere for any money and I looked quite hard, as did some others on my behalf. Lots of poor-quality speed and some really dodgy pretend-eccies, but no ice at all. How many ice users presented to your hospital in the last month, say?

Frankly, Suzie, I think you're just gabbing with no idea of what you're talking about. Regurgitating the current scare campaign really isn't good enough.