The question is, what is the alternative? Currently the alternative is that we throw people (predominantly minorities) in prison for drug use. If the options are 1) a handful of people choose to use it habitually and they get memory issues or 2) we as society lock up (and then pay upkeep on) huge numbers of non-violent people, I'll take option 1 any day of the week.

Decriminalization is an option which fixes 2) but doesn't entail condoning usage (which I imagine a lot of people are worried about).

I don't understand how decriminalization is a long term option. We're saying, it's ok for you to do this, but anyone who provides the service for you is breaking the law (not to mention if you try to service yourself by growing, that's also illegal). It just pushes the drug war up a level to the producers. The costs of the drug war would still exist and the funds wouldn't get put towards rehab programs or schools like they do where it is legalized.

Decriminalization still leaves a legal gray area, which given how racist and power-trippy local law enforcement tends to be does not sit well with me.

Chronic drug use is severely damaging to the user and their friends/family, that is true across the board for the vast majority of drugs (to include alcohol).

The policy to ban marijuana for everyone is the wrong answer because it clearly doesn't solve the problem of the chronic (ab)user in the first place. The better solution is to redirect the money spent fighting the 'drug war' toward positive things like rehab programs and therapy. You will always have a subset of humans who abuse whatever kind of drugs they can get, you can't stop this. So why punish everyone else who can use drugs in a responsible manner?

That we can agree on. But now substitute cannabis for tobacco or alcohol and see where it leads.

Both of those are as bad and in many cases worse than cannabis and yet use/possession of the one is a crime and the others merely tax revenues. (Unless you're underage, then selling to you is the crime.)

The problem is that it is an on-balance thing.

I don't see how we can make all drugs legal and just say "Hey, if you want to ruin your life with heroin then go for it" because then we have people being violent, robbing, etc. That is, the cost of enforcing is worth it, in a big way.

But with pot, the cost of enforcement is very high, particularly in people's lives disrupted, for a societal cost that is small. It seems to me, even as a non-user, that there are a great number of people who use at least occasionally, and attempting enforcement is sweeping back the tide.

Basically, when everybody does it, then we have effectively decided that it is a societal norm.

> "Hey, if you want to ruin your life with heroin then go for it"

The problem is with the "ruin your life" part, not the "heroin" part. If we really want government to get involved, they should get involved when people's lives are being ruined, not when someone is merely making, distributing, or using a substance.

People ruin their lives with drugs, already. But one reason they resort to crime is drugs are expensive (since we restrict them). Plus we fire people who use them on their own time, if they are the kind we can detect later. We don't differentiate between things that have worn off by work time usually. It's a different category to be drunk and driving, vs high last night but not now. White collar jobs like programmers are treated differently, no one cares if you get high, unless you work for the govt. Your work is what matters.

People are already ruining their lives with heroin. Part of the reason that this happens is because getting back on the straight and narrow is almost impossible when the police, the courts, the doctors (Under orders by the courts), and society is against you.

if someone wants to retreat into a bottomless void to avoid daily life - they can do it in any manner of way. Alcohol is arguably easier to fall and a damn sight harder to get away from. And booze will KILL you.

Weed may ruin your social life and career but booze can literally kill you and people around you.

It still boils down to what rights the government has to legislate something like this based on poor choices of a few individuals.

Besides lets not pretend there's any reason its illegal any more except for pharma, booze, casinos and probably cigarette mfgers

I agree with you one hundred percent, but I think it should be a person's own decision to wreck their life in such a way and not get punished or locked up for it by the government.

I've seen this in some cases, but I've seen far more people ruin and/or shorten their lives with videogames and food.

It's definitely a vice I think but vices can have positive benefits. Social alcohol consumption, stress management, the positive medical side effects of marijuana, etc. At its core, I think we've seen as a society that making it illegal is not good policy and we're better off legalizing and taxing it.

>I know I am in minority here, but I believe cannabis is not good for society and for individuals using it.

That's probably true, but it's not really relevant. There are downsides to making something illegal, so the question really is whether the harm the pot does is greater than the harm of criminalization.

At this point it's difficult for me to see that balance coming down on the side of prohibition.

Doesn't mean it's a good idea to criminalize/delegalize it if the negative effects are worse than those of cannabis itself.

You shouldn't be getting downvoted here because of your opinion. I hate that this place is becoming more and more like reddit because of abuse of the voting system.

His opinion - which is just an ambiguous lists of personal anecdotes - doesn't really further the discussion.

So in your mind the only thing that furthers a conversation is a discussion of absolute facts? Boring.