SAM
Today I would like to issue an open challenge to Smart Approaches to Marijuana from http://learnaboutsam.com/, I will address the claims made in their PDF Ten messages against legalization.
I would love to hear a rebuttal from them on my points, but I don’t believe for one minute that they will respond to honest concerns in an open forum.
1.Marijuana legalization will usher in America’s new version of “Big Tobacco.”
•Already, private holding groups and financiers have raised millions of startup dollars to promote businesses that will sell marijuana and marijuana related merchandise.
•Cannabis food and candy is being marketed to children and are already responsible for a growing number of marijuana related ER visits. Edibles with names such as “Ring Pots” and “Pot Tarts” are inspired by common children candy and desserts. Several, profitable vending machines containing products such as marijuana brownies are emerging throughout the country
The former head of Strategy for Microsoft has said that he wants to “mint more millionaires than Microsoft” with marijuana and that he wants to create the “Starbucks of marijuana.”
No, it won’t, “Big Tobacco” is marketing an addictive poison that kills thousands every year. Marijuana has not killed anyone in all recorded history. Private enterprise thriving in America is a good thing, for Americans, it is a bad thing for Mexican Drug Cartels that by your own figures will stand to loose 25% of their American illegal drug market. Alcohol has “Lemonaide Icy Pops, Booze filled Chocolate candy, Rum Cake, and any manner of comestibles involving alcohol in some manner, why should much safer (by leagues) marijuana be held to such a vastly higher standard than a poison? Which Cartel has donated the most money to you for aiding them in their business?
2.Marijuana use will increase under legalization
- Because they are accessible and available, our legal drugs are used far more than our illegal ones. According to recent surveys, alcohol use is used by 52% of Americans and tobacco is used by 27% of Americans. Marijuana is used by 8% of Americans.
- When RAND researchers analyzed California’s 2010 effort to legalize marijuana, they concluded that the price of the drug could plummet and therefore marijuana consumption could increase.
By your logic we should immediately make alcohol and tobacco illegal and reduce their use by at least 30 to 40%.
Tobacco and Alcohol are both addictive, dependency producing drugs. Marijuana has some minor psychological addictive properties, (“Wow, I like this stuff, I don’t want to stop!”) but no demonstrated physical addictive properties.
3. Marijuana is especially harmful to kids and adolescents.
- Marijuana contributes to psychosis and schizophrenia, addiction for 1 in 6 kids who ever use it once, and it reduces IQ among those who started smoking before age 18
- According to data from the 2012 National Survey of American Attitudes on Substance Abuse, alcohol and cigarettes were the most readily accessible substances for youth 12 to 17, with 50% and 44%, respectively, reporting that they could obtain them within a day. Youth were least likely to report that they could get marijuana within a day (31%); 45% report that they would be unable to get marijuana at all.
Marijuana makes psychosis and schizophrenia easier to identify when it is already present, it does not contribute to it other than making cases easier to identify at an earlier age and therefore properly treat sooner.
Your whole access argument is a smoke screen not even worth addressing. If Kid’s get booze and cigs they get sick and puke or die. If they get Pot they get paranoid and eat too much Pizza. Am I advocating weed for kids? No, I’m telling you to stop holding them up like hostage shields.
4.Today’s marijuana is NOT your Woodstock weed.
- In the 1960s and ‘70s, THC levels of the marijuana smoked by baby boomers averaged around 1%, increasing to just under 4% in 1983, and almost tripling in the subsequent 30 years to around 11% in 2011.
As marijuana potency has increased so has the overall understanding by Americans that it has no true harmful effects. I have had marijuana that tested at 22% THC and it was quite delightful. Honey Oil is vastly higher in THC and again there has never been a death reported from the use of this concentrate. More is better, we need 80% THC and 90% CBD strains!
5. Marijuana legalization will increase public costs.
- For every $1 in alcohol and tobacco tax revenues, society loses $10 in social costs, from accidents to health damage.
Yea, and What the FUCK does that have to do with Marijuana?? Marijuana HEALS people, it does not hurt them.
- The Lottery and other forms of gambling have not solved our budget problems, either. Few people are currently in prison for marijuana possession (in fact, only 0.1 % of prisoners with no prior offenses) and current alcohol arrest rates are over three times higher than marijuana arrest rates.
Your figures, as usual, are manipulated and in gross error. “According to the US Department of Justice, 30-40 percent of all current prison admissions involve crimes that have no direct or obvious victim other than the perpetrator,” the report shows. “The drug category constitutes the largest offense category, with 31 percent of all prison admissions resulting from such crimes.” Nearly a third of all prison admissions are from non violent drug offenses!” I would address you next 5 statements but they are just as bloted with useless code as the first 5 and I don’t feel like spending another hour cleaning it up so I can post it here. If I do get any response to the first 5 I’ll consider posting the last 5.
In closing, SAM, you should be ashamed, lies, scare tactics, data manipulation to show things that are not actually there, you seem to be pulling every trick from the Third Reichs Disinformation Minister’s guide to creating a “truth” from lies.