should weed be legalized and alchohol illegal?
108802
I can forsee many social impacts from the potential legalization of marijuana.\n\npros \nFarmers will have a viable cash crop\nTax monies can be collected from the sales\nCigarette companies could package it and promote less tobacco use\nLess criminals in an already crowded legal system\nMany drug dealers would be put out of business and foreign imports of the drug curbed\nLess need for other means of getting high\n\ncons\nFurther class separation\nWorkforce productivity impact and drug related injury increases\nAnother source for family breakdown\nGenerational dependency issues\nIncreased lung and heart disease incidents and other long-term effects of chronic usage
996643
No, if booze and cigerettes just came out today, they would be just as illegal as pot. They are all bad for you. Also, the government makes too much money by keeping it illegal. If they said it was ok, they couldn't keep all the money, cars, etc., that they took away from all the people that they catch.
1162716
I think it should be treated just like beer and unfortified wine are (in the US).  Taxed, sure. Age-restricted. Available through retail stores (not ABC/state stores).  Available in bars/pubs/etc. And, just like beer and wine, individuals should be allowed to produce up to a certain amount at home annually.  DWI laws already cover driving offenses.\n\nOh, and revenues would roll in from production and sales. Some depressed economies would turn around and become boom economies.  Tax revenues would be enormous.  PLUS!!!  We'd save billions on police, courts and jails by not arresting and jailing people for pot!!!!!!!!!
761198
Marijuana smoking should be legalised everywhere.\nIt is a simple natural herb, which provides pleasure and relaxation, and has many beneficial medicinal properties. It relieves stress, reduces pain, and certain studies show that it can disipate asthma, and be beneficial to alzheimer's patients.\nThe reason it was made illegal in the first place was because the oil from the seeds can be used to fuel an engine, and so the oil lobby, along with the media who were making profits from cutting down trees, found a way to make it illegal. The law was passed as a part of the tax law, which introduced the name marijuana, so that nobody would realise that they were restricting the use of hemp.
174777
They should, but it wouldn't pass that way.  The drug and alcohol companies would (and already do) lobby against it like a mother.  They should just do the right thing and end the prohibition of marijuana.  It would put all the drug dealers out of business and save the government BILLIONS of dollars every year. Marijuana is more readily available to teens as an illegal drug than alcohol as a legal one. Why? Because the fool at QT or anywhere else that sells alcohol doesn't wanna lose his job for selling to minors. Let them sell marijuana to people 21+ just like alcohol. \n\nHow many moonshiners do you know?  I don't know any, because alcohol is legal.  Make marijuana legal and the dealers will go away just the same.
253044
Yes it should be legal. For one, I have lived in a place where it IS legal and the differences are astounding. Children/Teens are MUCH less likely to smoke pot if it is legal. It doesn't have the "mystique" that illegal items do. Also, there are fewer Driving while Under the Influence charges per capita where marijuana is legal, because it is used more responsibly. Check your crime statistics, you'll find that I'm right. Marijuana is no more dangerous than a cigarette. In fact, it is NOT as addictive. Infact, marijuana is ONLY a psychologically addictive drug, not a physiologically addictive one. Cigarettes are both. Economically speaking, if it were legal it would be MUCH cheaper to get. This would help regulate quality of the drug, making it much less likely to be laced with other, more addictive additives like PCP. The sale of it could be governmentally regulated, like alcohol and other controlled substances, and TAXED. That would generate a HUGE amount of tax revenue........
1153668
I think it is something that needs to be done.  We have all sorts of highly addictive and dangerous drugs that are legal-vicodin, percoset, oxycotin....It may take longer for it to be legalized for recreational use, but is it really any worse than alcohol?  I know of MANY more lives ruined by alcohol than marijuana.
631126
I don't know if I qualify as Smart People or not, but...\n\nI disagree that it will soon be legalized.  There was a ballot initiative that passed here in my very liberal hometown of Columbia MO that decriminalized pot, and there was such an outcry from the community that it's almost certain to be repealed this November in the general election.\n\nHowever, I do believe that it SHOULD be legal.  It can be taxed and regulated, and then we'll have fewer people getting killed over it.  I agree...if you want to kill yourself by smoking tobacco, you're allowed to.  If you want to kill yourself by destroying your liver with alcohol, you're allowed to.  If you want to fry your brain smoking pot, you ought to be allowed to.\n\nPerhaps legalizing it would help weed out (no pun intended..ok, maybe it was) the "dumb people" that you speak of.
621511
if marijuana was legal it would make uncle SAM tons of money. one they would be able to tax it. hello that right there is some cash.  all those people sitting in jail waisting a tax dollars for having a few ozs they would be out giving uncle SAM more cash.  they could regulate it better its easier for underage kids to by weed than alcohol so if they sold it in a store you could check id.  Violence in inner city's would go down soon.  other country's like Holland have realized that legal green can be and is a good thing.  /even Alaska legalized weed for a short tI'me, and im not talking about just medical i mean it was legal to have so much on you and grow so much in your home as long as you weren't selling it.  i wish that the government would make it legal i think it would benefit our county greatly
151407
I think weed ought to be legal, the government could tax it and take all the money their spending on fighting marijuana and dump it into fighting the REAL drugs out there.
108428
Yes it should be legal. The prisons are overcrowded, and they keep sending people there for possessing drugs. In order to make room for these people, they let other more violent criminals out. Don't seem right to me. And a lot of people learn how to do worse crimes while there. They can regulate it and tax the he11 out of it. Think of all the money the government would collect, not to mention how much they would save from the so called "war on drugs" (which they are losing). \n\nLaws would be the same. You need to be 21 to buy it. Driving while intoxicated will still be driving while intoxicated. A previous poster said one drink donk impair you but one joint does. The laws say nothing about how much you consume, but how intoxicated you are. Employers can fire you for being stoned on the job like they can for being drunk on the job.
1156818
drunk drivers kill so many people every year - way more than the percentage of marijuana smokers driving and killing people.  if alcohol is legal, pot should be
55616
Legalize it, impose laws like drinking laws.  I'd rather be around someone high, than a nasty whiskey drinking drunk!
54240
The only thing I have to say is that alcohol is a very negative substance... if you look at it logically, alcohol is a downer.  May - Jane should be legal... 40 years ago.  Alcohol was made illeagal in 1919 ratified in 1920 repealed in 1933  The main motivation for this was easy taxation by the government.  History shows that if this is any indication to lagalize Marijuana, then the tax base would be sufficient to fund the war of the harder drugs that you mentioned.
1052388
yes I smoke weed every day.  I love it.. and it helps me relax and meditate and just enjoy myself..\ni don't understand why it's illegal.. especially for medicinal purposes.  also, compare the effects of alcohol to the effects of marijuana. just the fact that you can be physically addicted to one and not the other.. and overdose and die on one rather than the other.. it is just amazing that alcohol can be legal
373125
It should definately be legalized.  If alcohol is legal, then marijuana should be too! I don't think the death statistics for smoking a joint are near as high as the ones for alcohol.\n\nAccording to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration (NHTSA), in 2004, 16,694 people were killed in alcohol-related crashes - an average of one almost every half-hour. These deaths constituted approximately 39 percent of the 42,636 total traffic fatalities.
1123550
I don't think marijuana should have ever been illegal, I think it is just as dangerous as alcohol.  I think the issue was and always will be that alcohol was consumed by "white men" and marijuana was consumed by "Native Americans."  When we took control of what now is the US we shunned all Native culture, and marijuana part of that.  Currently Marlboro cigarettes already owns the rights to produce "joints" should marijuana be legalized.  I think it's about time that people changed their attitudes on this subject.