BF2S Forums Ed Rosenthal convicted of 3 felonies, will serve no time

The US seems to have very contradictory laws...

A plant that naturally occurs in certain climates being illegal is a little stupid when you really think about it. Especially when tobacco and alcohol are legal but then I've said all this in other threads.

Cougar wrote:

As long as you are not selling, distributing or contributing to the delinquency of a minor, I don't see why people are not allowed to grow their own.

This coming from someone who has never smoked weed.

Braddock wrote:

A plant that naturally occurs in certain climates being illegal is a little stupid when you really think about it. Especially when tobacco and alcohol are legal but then I've said all this in other threads.

I know a saying... "He was a jurist and in other respects stupid too." (Translation rapes the subtle humour....).

mp30 wrote:

Braddock wrote:

A plant that naturally occurs in certain climates being illegal is a little stupid when you really think about it. Especially when tobacco and alcohol are legal but then I've said all this in other threads.

Under that argument then I assume you would think it reasonable to legalize heroin and other opiates, as well as   cocaine. The fact that something is a natural product and not one completely of synthetic processing does not delegitimize its negative aspects and need for overall control and containment.

My argument wouldn't be so much that cocaine and heroin etc. should be legalised but rather if you're going to ban one then ban them all ...alcohol and tobacco are every bit as bad as marijuana and possibly even worse in certain aspects, it's the hypocrisy that annoys me.

DBBrinson1 wrote:

I've wondered what would happen If all of the smokers went Johnny Appleseed and just started scattering all of the seeds instead of flushing/throwing them away.

Not a lot, first of all the seeds would have to be germinated first and then planted and even if they did that they still probably wouldn't grow that well because of the weather (in England anyway!!!).  It aint easy growing weed, not that I've ever done it but people I know who do say they will dies unless you get everything just right, it's not like growing watercress.

CannonFodder11b wrote:

mp30 wrote:

Braddock wrote:

A plant that naturally occurs in certain climates being illegal is a little stupid when you really think about it. Especially when tobacco and alcohol are legal but then I've said all this in other threads.

Under that argument then I assume you would think it reasonable to legalize heroin and other opiates, as well as   cocaine. The fact that something is a natural product and not one completely of synthetic processing does not delegitimize its negative aspects and need for overall control and containment.

No, not at all Cocaine and Heroin are the results of processing, Marijuana is not.
Granted people have tweeked some plants creating offshoot varieties, but marijuana as a whole does not require any type of processing other then pick, dry,break up roll, or stuff into a pipe and smoke, Tobacco on the other hand undergoes processing, before during and after its been grown. Yet its legal. I used to smoke weed religiously, not once have I seen someone smoke pot, and go off on a random tantrum, that led to a fight, or anything remotely violent.  For the most part people just smoke a J, hit the bong, and either sit on the couch and watch some random TV show, too lazy to swap channels, or gather a posse and rob the cabinets of anything edible.

Pot should not be illeagle, but its easier to grow then tobacco, and would be hard to tax. Thats why its not legal cause the US cannot find a reasonable way to tax the shit out of it.

I have personally experienced people fall to the unfortunate qualities of marijuana, and thusly have little interest in believing that it is harmless when I know that to be false. But, nonetheless, I am not concerned with that aspect directly.

More critically, why should chemical processing, even something as benignly difficult as purification or concentration (Which I do not mean to imply is always a simple process, but does not necessarily imply chemical alteration) be a means to deem something improper. The "natural" chemical properties of opium and cocaine are evident in the drug before they go through a process to convert them to the material form most commonly sold.

I am not interested in the debate over whether something of this nature is to be legalized or not. I just find it necessary to not allow an argument based on some thing's "natural" state to be a defining factor. There is nothing uncritically and irrevocably pure about a natural substance. Natural and unprocessed qualities do not imply purity, safety, and the promise of a healthy experience. And it is this fact, that makes me concerned when something is supported on such a basis.

I'm not going to waste anyone's time telling them about toxins and naturally occurring poisons of every variety, because that has been used to a cliched level of use, but so has the argument that marijuana is acceptable because it is "natural". Until a more thorough, comforting, and defendable argument is developed for the approval and legalization of marijuana, then the day in which it is available at your local coffee shop in the US will never take place.