“They do not perceive themselves as doing anything wrong.”

Come on! They don't see breaking the law as 'doing anything wrong'? Using “marijuana for recreational purposes”? Using mind-altering substances because they can't handle life is what they are doing. And, it's not criminals that the average person has to worry about: it's weak, pathetic drug and alcohol users who are the biggest threat to us, mainly on the roads. RBT police are not testing for marijuana for the fun of it. As many, if not more, drivers are being pinged for marijuana use as they are for alcohol.

This business about illegality not controlling the use of drugs is is piss weak; legalising it is going to solve the problem – how? The government will tax it, and just like alcohol, there will be even more of it around. Governments will be encouraging it for the money, while still hypocritically talking about 'moderation'.

As for the medicinal properties of marijuana – bulldust. If there was any truth in it, pharmaceutical companies would have tied up licences to produce it in prescription only form years ago.

Marijuana is a very, very dangerous substance, up there with alcohol, which is legal, and we see every day the havoc that wreaks on innocent lives because it is poison to the brain.

And dropkicks like Di Natale want another legalised life and home wrecker; and he has dropkick supporters. No, they are more than dropkicks, they are evil.

Hi Joe, throwing in those red herrings is nonsense, it might deliver a degree of smugness for you, but does nothing to deal with the growing problems caused by a prohibition on marijuana. To be consistent you must support a prohibition on alcohol and tobacco. The harm cause by those two legal drugs is irrefutable, so strong legal measures need to be taken to stop their use. Agree?

"Rape, murder and bank corruption seem to be ineradicable" the majority of perpetrators are caught and punished, not the case with dope suppliers or users.

Why not use the same argument for speeding on the roads? Most speeding offences are never prosecuted, those that are, are relatively few in number, and many road users continue to speed. The fact is the government believes the amount of resources put in to combat the crime is appropriate to the desired outcome. That is not an over excessive amount of speeding, and not overly costly enforcement, fines see to that. A happy balance, not the case with marijuana. Not to mention the community outrage should you decriminalise those offences you put forward. Again not the case with marijuana.

One positive that would come from the decriminalizing of marijuana would be the removal of the necessity for legal hunters in State Forests to report finds of crops of the drug to police.

As it stands at the moment when a hunter coming across such a crop, he (she) is in the horns of a dilemma; if the crop is under surveillance then he is going to be asked why he didn't report the find.
The hunter, therefore, takes a position reading on the Satnav and phones the relevant police (providing that there is coverage).

'Tis said that this is one of the reasons that the Greens oppose hunting in State Forests, it harms their mates' productivity.

Dear Paul,

My older brother had smoked pot all of his life.
He used to be have his own band in the sixties,
(made several records) -
and the Bee Gees were once his back-up singers.
He was a very strong part of the early music industry
in this country. He now lives in Byron Bay.

Anyway, to make a long story short - he gave up
smoking pot a few years back,
because he'd developed a heart condition.
He's had a triple-by-pass, and today suffers from all
sorts of ailments including sleep apnea.
His health is not the best and it concerns me greatly
as he's such a lovely gentle bloke.

Perhaps now you will understand my concern about having
marijuana legalised. It does appear to have consequences.
I think that any drug that is addictive - be it on
prescription or not - should be monitored and used safely
under the care of a medical professional

//Interesting logic//

Interesting logic indeed, Joe. Your position would seem to be that prohibition of grass is a fine thing because grass is potentially harmful, albeit only directly to the user, and we should prohibit things that are harmful. Which is not an unreasonable position to take.

I just don't understand why you don't think alcohol should be prohibited in the same way, given that from a medical point of view it carries considerably greater risk of harm for the user than marijuana, and also that, like the drug 'ice', makes those intoxicated considerably more prone to extreme violence and risk-taking behaviour.

Is it possible that the reason you think alcohol shouldn't be prohibited in the same way is because they tried that in America last century, and it was a dismal failure? That rather than stopping people from drinking, it just stopped honest businessman from turning a profit on it and allowed gangsters to line their pockets instead, with the knock on effect of making the gangsters more powerful. It did, however, make the alcohol that people were drinking more dangerous: without government regulation you can sell people any old rot-gut, because there are no standards to stipulate that your moonshine must contain less than x% methanol, and no regulation to ensure that those standards are being met. But hey, at least you're sending out a tough message on crime... sort of, if you ignore the bit where you're actually aiding & abetting organised crime.

And therein lies the crux of the problem, Joe: that by attempting to curtail the harm caused by a drug by criminalising it, you actually ending causing more harm than would be caused by legalising and regulating it. Now surely if the role of criminal law is to prevent harm, and criminalising something increases harm, the sensible thing to do is not criminalise it?

//Anyway, marijuana just makes you a bit more relaxed and dopey, a bit like quaaludes, you know, the date-rape drug.//

Ludes? Seriously? Have you been frozen in a block of ice for the past 40 years or something? Ludes aren't a thing anymore, Joe.

'The' date-rape drug these days in rohypnol. But just as with quaaludes, it's use as a date-rape drug is dwarfed by that of the most popular date-rape drug - your friend alcohol.

I've never tried ludes, but I doubt they'd have a similar effect to marijuana. Ludes are a depressant, like alcohol, and I'd make an educated guess that their effects are probably closer to alcohol intoxication - hence their popularity as a date rape drug. Pot doesn't render one insensible in the way that high dosages of depressants do.