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Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by rick888 on Saturday October 30, 2010 @12:45AM (#1850119)
"But you are paying, for drug enforcement and imprisonment. Plus increased taxation, because people who are incarcerated generally aren't working steady jobs, but are stamping licence plates or something stupid like that."

Generally, those people would otherwise have low-paying jobs and wouldn't be contributing very much anyway. The people in prison aren't your daily pot smoker. They are dealers and people who committed crimes while under the influence of an illegal substance.

50% of the population already doesn't pay federal taxes. If we are going to go after revenue, we should start with this.

"Would you fire someone who drank? or smoked? or was obese? They're equally addicted."

Smoking cigarettes and obesity don't get you high, which has profound effects on your state-of-mind. If someone drinks on a daily basis and comes in hung-over..then yes. All of these also shouldn't be under the same category as "discrimination" because they are choices you make (freedom can have consequences) not uncontrollable qualities that you are born with.

Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by prodigal_erik on Saturday October 30, 2010 @01:13AM (#1850164)
> The people in prison aren't your daily pot smoker. They are dealers[....]

That distinction has become meaningless. Anyone who gets caught with more than the "intent to distribute" threshold (which apparently isn't a lot) is simply presumed to be a dealer.

Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by rick888 on Saturday October 30, 2010 @01:20AM (#1850174)
"That distinction has become meaningless. Anyone who gets caught with more than the "intent to distribute" threshold (which apparently isn't a lot) is simply presumed to be a dealer."

It's more than just quantity:

"Anyway, several things can determine intent, including quantity. Other factors might include quality, packaging, what type of area the person was in and the time of day."

http://forums.officer.com/forums/showthread.php?77095-Intent...

If you are by yourself or with a few friends smoking a joint, the cops won't really bother you.

Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by rick888 on Saturday October 30, 2010 @10:46AM (#1850945)
I love the bias on HN. Anyone that has anything negative to say about your precious weed gets down voted. If you really believe in this, you need to come to terms with the fact that there are negative health effects to smoking weed.
Re:The quest for freedom and safety: Why I donated $100,000 ... by carussell on Sunday October 31, 2010 @09:56PM (#1855062)
Rather than whine about it, perhaps you should examine why you got voted down. There's only one comment of yours in the thread that's rated less than 0, besides this unsubstantial one.

I'd wager you were voted down for proposing that employees could be let go "[e]ven if it doesn't directly affect productivity", and then you subsequently abandoned it when you defended cigarettes and alcohol by taking purporting to take their effects into account.

If you're going to propose something like that, at least stick to it, and especially don't whine about it when people don't like that you've created an inconsistent system.