Originally Posted by
old goat
You mean the grown-ups who let Big Pharma and the distributors peddle enormous amounts of opiates with impunity, killing 10's of thousands every year?
Prescription opiate use whether iniitally appropriate or not is the most common gateway to opiate abuse. While MJ use does make prescription opiate abuse more likely, enforcing proper prescribing of opiates and cracking down on the diversion of opiates to pill mills will control progression to opiate abuse for both groups. In fact, liberal marijuana policies will mean that for most marijuana users the drug will be purchased in a legal setting rather than from a black market dealer who also deals in other drugs, making progression to harder drug use much less likely. With liberal MJ laws, avoiding overtaxation, the only black market dealers will be dealing to children--not a comfortable place for most dealers to be. By reducing the need to enforce MJ laws, liberal marijuana policies will also allow LE to focus on hard drugs. Finally, eliminating the profit of illegal MJ sales will deprive the cartels of a lot of the income they use to arm themselves and kill people.
Prohibition taught us that you can only enforce laws when most people support the laws. When the majority of people support MJ legalization while it remains illegal you create a situation in which those violating the laws are not considered by most citizens to be criminals--thus promoting disrespect for the law and cynicism. And by selectively enforcing MJ laws against blacks and Hispanics you foster the persistence of a permanent underclass, with social and economic costs that entails.
Besides, there's nothing against MJ in the bible.
