I’m in favor of decriminalizing marijuana, but this video was dumb.

Prohibition makes what is not a crime into a crime , to quote Abraham Lincoln.

Liberty cannot survive it. And it hasn’t.
More prisoners in the USA than ever, you say?

And now, from a time when marijuana was legal in the USA, and the American Army had all of 88 machine-guns in its arsenal:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D44pyeEvhcQ

I guess that in 1937 they needed something for all those G-Men to do, after the alcohol was permitted to flow again.
A make-work project for cops and the money-for-nothing drug dealers.

I understand that these are tangential issues but when you use fantasy to dress up fact, it becomes propaganda. I think legalization could be a good thing, but this is propaganda, and sends the message that people who need convincing are simple minded.

I agree with AgentOracle’s comment from youtube.

“It must be very sick of me, but I’m drawing parallels between this and… well.. between this and modern war…

Starts with a cheap shot, it’s met with a retaliation, ten escalates into a shooting war where the sad folks are hopelessly outclassed. The happy people end up bombing them, drugging them, and converting them (with a healthy radioactive glow).

Chilling.”

OK legalization types, listen up. The argument above? Not helping you!

I haven’t met the majority of Americans, so I can’t comment on their thoughts and opinions. But what do you think sets you apart from your “fellow Americans”? What sets you apart from a heterogeneous group of people with differing, sometimes faulty viewpoints? Is it because your viewpoints happen to be correct?

The video shows none of the upsides to cigarettes, coffee, or alcohol, which it implies as being something worse, and a side effect of not having legal pot. All of those things have addictive properties and have their own down sides, but claiming them to be worse than pot is truly the pot calling the kettle black.

Pot also only gets positive in the video. When I smoked pot, my driving abilities were just as bad as if I had been driving drunk. I’ve got lots of field experience on this topic, my apologies to all of the people I almost murdered through my irresponsibility. Pot consumption also seems to lea to a life of nothing. Everyone knows tht one guy or girl who smokes a bit of pot on the weekend and is a lawyer or a doctor and loves this person’s example, but I know for myself I spent a lot of time forgetting about all my friends who did nothing but work at the gas station to pay rent and buy pot.

Thumbs up to the styling of the video and the conveyence of ideas without the use of words (aside from a bit of print), thumbs down to propoganda.

Marijuana has downsides and can cause harm when overused, just like any other drug. If you want to discuss ending pot prohibition, OK: but let’s be realistic about the issues at hand instead of washing everything over in pretty colours.

I tend to agree with the concept that the mafias of the world, whichever groups you want to label that way, will change their focus of ways to fleece the populace and though that scares me, not more than walking down the street.

When your vices are legitimized, you will have to pay more for them in taxes, but you have more freedom to partake. Regardless, it’s still control either way; you’re either free to pay tax or free to chill in a cell for a while and work for “the man” for pennies on the dollar, (ahem) sharecropping for a tiny percent of your actual potential.

“Pot consumption also seems to lea to a life of nothing”. Are you aware that a lot of historical figures (artists, politicians, scientists…) did smoke it? Take for instance Carl Sagan. Do you think he led a life of “nothing”?

Also, how irresponsible can you be to smoke pot and drive?

It seems from your post, you have an addictive personality. You don’t seem to enjoy things in moderation. Don’t blame pot (or alcohol or whatever) for your inability to control yourself. Do some inner house cleaning.

They’re the same people who believe that cannabis causes mental problems and crime. They’re the same people who have a suit walk about, waving his arms in an animated way and shouting “It’s for the children! THE CHILDREN!!!”

Combat fire with fire, dontcha know.

GeekMan – Oxygen causes harm when overused. What’s your point?
So does coffee. And alcohol. And Vicodin.
And apparently komboucha, according to my state.

While smelling flowers to get high would be awesome, vaporizing is the way of the future for weed consumption. Vaporizers don’t damage the lungs, don’t release any smoke, don’t produce any smells, and don’t cause disorienting effects caused by smoke inhalation.

Shhh… the adults are talking.

Who gets the taxes? Who gets the prescriptions? Should it even be by prescription? If it causes people to be unsafe behind the wheel, how do we deal with that? Will there be consumption limits? Who grows it? What varieties? What safety standards are affected to protect consumers from unscrupulous producers? Is home grown fine? How much? What ages should it be restricted to?

I’m not stating my opinion on whether or not legalization is a good idea. I have two speeds on substance comatose and violent, so i’ll stick to my teas and go swiss on the argument. But all these questions are going to held on to by some group or another even when we surpass the “ZOMG! Evil!” knee-jerk majority and get onto meaningful discussion. It doesn’t mean don’t try to push or push back, it just means there’s tremendous inertia either way so prepare to deal with it.

If you start a debate by presuming that people don’t agree with your point of view because they are inherently stupid, there’s no point in wasting energy trying to have a rational conversation with you.

But, we both know that this isn’t the majority of Americans. Or even the ones who count. Most American citizens are reactionary dullards who were carefully molded by Ye Olde Public Schoole Systemme and listen very well to what their teachers say.

No need to be snide.

soongtype – Great point. I would also like to point out, before you get the obligatory “you’re irresponsible for driving high” comments, that people would probably crap themselves if they knew how intoxicated (with legal substances prescribed by doctors) their fellow motorists are.

Gutierrez – Thank you. I fully agree with your assessment of the hurdles we face with decriminalization/regulation/legalization/whathaveyou.

What is so excellent about the current movement in the medical-marijuana industry is that we are getting to figure this out in REAL LIFE (emphasis for my excitement, not shouting) rather than in a theoretical way. In fact, just recently there was a push for corporatization of supply for the dispensaries in California. What is more American than the struggle of a small business with a corporate giant?

There’s a fantastic book called Drug Crazy by Mike Gray that outlines many of the problems being faced, and the solutions that have already been found in real-world scenarios. Highly recommended reading.

As I pointed out in my last comment, I’m not talking about people who have well-formed reasons for wanting one or the other.
Many of my family and friends are pro-prohibition, but have completely understandable reasons for feeling that way. I support that, and I never push the issue.

The “people” I’m referring to are the knee-jerk reactionaries who are easily swayed by scare tactics. I guess I should have clarified…

It’s not my place, or desire, to convince people based on my convictions. I just desire rationality.

No need to be snide.”

Was that intended to be sarcastic? Because as far as I can tell, you just said that the majority of Americans are stupid and that most of them don’t count….and then proceeded to chide someone for being snide?

And I would like to point out that the negative reactions this video generated early on are not necessarily due to our opinions on MJ, but because some of us don’t like being fed one-sided propaganda pieces masquerading as art/entertainment.

The video paints MJ as this magic cure-all with no ill effects, which it explicitly contrasts to the evils of alcohol and caffeine. This is why I felt the need to point out that every drug has downsides.

If we’re going have a discussion about the legalization of marijuana (which American society indeed should), we need to address all the issues that Gutierrez brought up. Misrepresenting MJ as perfect and flawless while casting its detractors as black-clad fascist oppressors (as in the video) does very little to further reasonable debate, and instead reinforces partisan polarization.

That’s my beef.

I thought it was a beautifully made, thought provoking condemnation of prohibition… right up until the makers linked the message to the prohibition of one specific thing. That sort of disemboweled the entire argument for me, not least because the introduction of the text after the more stylized material seemed jarring and heavy-handed.

Thanks, Mark!

seeing the graph of the tax revenue bottoming out and then magically showing a prison confused me a bit. I guess that was a privately (no tax) funded prison?

Yeah, it’s pretty crazy to imagine a real-life scenario where the government would spend money building prisons for non-violent offenders at the same time they were running massive budget deficits.