Legalising Marijuana.

Corega

Let me get this straight I am not taking the piss, I consider this to be a serious topic and I hope I don't offend/insult anyone with this article, being a newbie it would'nt be a very good start.

My aim here is to see how many people of the general public would welcome the legalisation of weed, my other goal is to show the various advantages of legalising hashish.I won't bother with the disadvantages, there are'nt enough of them;)

n.b. I don't smoke weed on a regular basis and I'm not one of these "potheads" that have chains with marijuana symbols around their necks.

Here are the advantages=

1) In the likelihood of dope being legalised the government would no doubt buy it in bulk from Amsterdam/South America, the former being the most likely. Undoubtly they would buy it in vast amounts for the consumers and for a lot cheaper than the present going rate. The long term effect of this would be a general decrease in most taxes while maintaining a high rate of living.

2)Tourism would undoubtedly increase with all nations wanting to visit this wonderful isle.

3)It would take a large amount of drug dealers off the streets, it is debatable whether or not weed leads you on to harder drugs, but in my opinion it does not.

Any other advantages are welcome.

noog

I believe there would be less violence if Marijuana was legalised. People often fight when drunk, but when stoned they merely 'cant be arsed' to fight :-)

As for the 'bad' side of marijuana, I read a leaflet about all sorts of drugs, they had pages and pages of bad points about Drinking, Cigarettes, and other harder drugs, when they could only fill the Marijuana section with irrelivant waffle.

Free the weed!

red_ice

Originally posted by Corega
1) In the likelihood of dope being legalised the government would no doubt buy it in bulk from Amsterdam/South America, the former being the most likely. Undoubtly they would buy it in vast amounts for the consumers and for a lot cheaper than the present going rate. The long term effect of this would be a general decrease in most taxes while maintaining a high rate of living.

LOL no.

Im all for legalising weed - but get your facts right.

When we import, thats money going out of the country, not in.
When we buy this weed, we will charge a higer rate and tax will be through the roof!
The government has 3 relyables... Siggies, alcohol and oil.
the first two of the goods are a very inelastic good. When the price rises people will still buy the same amount. NO MATTER WHAT!
The last one is whats known as a giffen good. when the price goes up people buy more or at least maintane the same purchase rate.

the reason i said all that is because the government will make a fourth relyable... weed.

And for your information, taxes would stay the same, people SOL (standard of living) would fall and you contredicted yourself.



reD.

Monkey

"1) In the likelihood of dope being legalised the government would no doubt buy it in bulk from Amsterdam/South America, the former being the most likely. Undoubtly they would buy it in vast amounts for the consumers and for a lot cheaper than the present going rate. The long term effect of this would be a general decrease in most taxes while maintaining a high rate of living."

Why would the government buy hash? If it was legalized private businesses would supply it not the government, surely and wouldn't they start growing it here rather than necessarily importing it?


"2)Tourism would undoubtedly increase with all nations wanting to visit this wonderful isle."

Yeah, but not a good type of tourism. I'm not against the smoking of hash but during the Summer Dublin'd just be full of people stumbling about the place stoned all the time.
It would attract loads of unwanted people like drug smugglers trying to get hash out of Ireland to supply other countries. Plus it would cause loads of hassle when leaving the country. Customs would be giving Strip searchs to a lot more of the people coming out of ireland.

I still don't understand why it was ever made illegal.

TacT

although if we're importing it and money is going out and we're making a decent profit margin then surely we'd be making money

I reckon if it was decriminalised at the very least and household owner's were allowed to grow we'd be a much happier less nasty nation all around

just to be silly let's take a drunken driver vs a stoned driver
drunken driver carelessly slams foot down on pedal in rage and slams through his garage door and kills his wife doing the gardening :rolleyes:

stoned driver would more than likely barely apply any pressure to the gas and simply bump into the garage door, mebbe open it only to land himself in a fit of giggles cus the missus is out trimming the rosebush. Thus she see's him and puts him back in bed safely where he should have been all along :rolleyes:

back on topic, we could easily cultivate enough ourselves indoor's to satisfy the needs of our community/country while giving a few people a nice job and thus increasing the amount of people in employment

Corega

Stop taking the piss redser, Okay i was mistaken in that last statement however tac has set that right. But I think we can all agree there are many advantages more so than disadvantages.

RasTa

listen i was over in amsterdamm 2 months ago
the **** is so ****in strong that you wont be buyin loads of it
about 1 or 2 grams would probaly last me a week if i wanted to
and that costs 10 euros
the quainity's and the goodness off the stuff over ther is just so much better than the stinking filthy hash we get over here,i dont want straight legal ganja yet cause that wont happen
we should doing it like england and at least have it down to a class C drug at least,so ppl who are found with small amounts just get a warning

cartman

weed shud be legalised i no an ammount of ppl who smoke and its stupid when they get caut
the police cudnt be arsed doin more than takin it off them and it takes alot of gaurds time when they cud be workin at more serious issues like heroin or rape or somit...
WEED shud be and will be in d next few years legalised.....

BeNdEr..

Corega

Lets face it Bender the guards could'nt be pissed doing anything these days. And there more than happy to confiscate hash as they bring it home for their own use.

Boston

Im all for it, more revneue for the goverment lower taxes

Chaos-Engine

I all for it. I was at the Bushie park carnival for legalising Cannabis yesterday. Excellent atmosphere and very family orientated. Lots of fun....

As for the effects of legalising cannabis on the general public.
In th epresent Economist(May 4th-10th) there is a special report on "The Netherlands". It boost statistics to show how Decriminalising and regulating something can actully lead to decresed usage. Examples include: "The Netherlands has the lowest usage of Opium based drugs in Europe". "The Netherlands has the lowest abortion rate in the World"....

The only medical problem arround Cannabis is the need to listen to Pink Floyd and Led Zeppelin...
Yes SMOKING Cannabis is 4 times more carsonagenic than tobacco. Therefore you will get lung cancer 4 times faster... Very true. So why not ingest it.
Cannabis has been proven to help suffers of MS in the longrun....
I'm no Cannabis Guru but everything tells me that the current system is seriously wrong....

P.S. Make that Drug/Cannabis board will u Dev

Monkey

"Yes SMOKING Cannabis is 4 times more carsonagenic than tobacco. Therefore you will get lung cancer 4 times faster" - yes but the average smoker smokes more cigarettes a day than the average hash smoker does spliffs. And there is less hash in a spliff than there is tobacco in a cigarette.

po0k

very good point Monkey, but smoking isn't the only way to take it.
Yogurts, hash tea, hash soup etc.

DeVore

I've spent many a weekend in Amsterdam and while its a very cool city I'm not sure I'd want Dublin to become like that, its effectively closed the city centre to the locals on the weekend.

That said, I see no reason why the possession of cannabis/marijuana should be outlawed in peoples homes or private areas.

Would certainly cut down on the number of drunk yobs smashing stuff up round town.

DeV.

po0k

Yeah.

Legalise.

Hellrazer

Definately should be legalised,while their at it they should also legalise heroin too(in a resticted way ie there are people out there who will never give up smak-and should be allowed to get it legally rather than going to some scum bag dealer) as Im a firm believer that if all drugs were legalised then the crime rate would drop to an all time low.
Its a proven fact that most crime is commited by drug addicts etc.
As for dope-jesus it should have been legalised years ago.

sisob

Originally posted by DeVore
I've spent many a weekend in Amsterdam and while its a very cool city I'm not sure I'd want Dublin to become like that, its effectively closed the city centre to the locals on the weekend.

I agree. I'd like to see it legalised world-wide but if it was just legalised in ireland then we would be another amsterdam and that couldn't be good

conZ

Originally posted by Chaos-Engine

Yes SMOKING Cannabis is 4 times more carsonagenic than tobacco. Therefore you will get lung cancer 4 times faster... Very true. So why not ingest it.
Cannabis has been proven to help suffers of MS in the longrun....

yes, smoking cigarettes is 4 times less harmful, but you wouldnt spark up a join ever half hour..
cannabis would probably only be smoked every few nights and you couldnt/wouldnt get addicted. so one mightnt be smoking for maybe a month on end.
anyways, lets just say if times were hard in a house,..
the people would def go out and buy fags if they were smokers, they couldnt last without them even if they only started smoking a few months before that.

Corega

Apologies people for my provocative pic earlier on. I hope this one dose'nt offend the general public:)

Wook

well just to point that 'smoking' is pretty harmless...a friend of mine left a allnighter with weed involved and drove away with his heavy motorcycle, we followed him and for our entertainment he had to stop in front of a red light...he fell sideways 'he totaly forgot to place his foot' as support

How silly does that look ?

Monkey

He shouldn't have been on a motorbike in that state, that's pretty irresponsible

Clintons Cat

i agree with monkey.

if he was so drunk he fell off his motorcycle,it probally wouldnt be considered such a big joke.

Jambo

legalise it !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

bleach

I say we legalize drugs, such as canabis, or even other harder drugs, even go as far as let everyone have the right to have a gun, the people who are vunerable to get addicted,will get addicted and eventually die off, making the world a better place.

The same with guns, i say let all the scum kill them selves off either by drug addiction or by letting them shoot each other off!

Thus making the world a better place for us! Then we can get stoned in peace!

Amen

papashiv0

That would be the funniest thing ever, getting your hash with a harp branded onto it with one of those tax stickers that they have on cigarette packs. Maybe they'd start selling it in post offices. The possibilities are endless

Samba

Legalise it, dont criticise it



Tho the weed in Amsterdam is complete crap compared to what can be acheived in Natural Sunlight



And you would be surprised what is possible in Ireland (pssst get a green house)

Kali

Originally posted by Wook
well just to point that 'smoking' is pretty harmless...a friend of mine left a allnighter with weed involved and drove away with his heavy motorcycle, we followed him and for our entertainment he had to stop in front of a red light...he fell sideways 'he totaly forgot to place his foot' as support

How silly does that look ?

I honestly can't believe i've just read that. seriously.
I mean are you ****ing mentally retarded or something?
Do you usually let your "friends" drive off in such a state?
Do you usually follow them for "entertainment"?
How ****ing "silly" would it look if he caused a major accident?

My god I've nothing at all against dope, but thats just ****ing ridiculous and irresponsible.
Harmless yes. But not when ****ing tools like you use it.

Apologies for the asterixes.. but you need your head straightened.

Kali

Originally posted by Samba
And you would be surprised what is possible in Ireland (pssst get a green house)

you dont particularly need a greenhouse.. it'll grow almost anywhere as long as it gets a little bit of light, although i'm sure the end results are far more rewarding.

Makaveli

Originally posted by bleach
I say we legalize drugs, such as canabis, or even other harder drugs, even go as far as let everyone have the right to have a gun, the people who are vunerable to get addicted,will get addicted and eventually die off, making the world a better place.

The same with guns, i say let all the scum kill them selves off either by drug addiction or by letting them shoot each other off!

Thus making the world a better place for us! Then we can get stoned in peace!

Amen

Yeah that'll work.
No actually it wont, stupid.

Makaveli

Originally posted by Kali

you dont particularly need a greenhouse.. it'll grow almost anywhere as long as it gets a little bit of light, although i'm sure the end results are far more rewarding.

Yeah like in a cupboard with an halogen light (or something) and a fan, not that I'm speaking from experience.

fisty

Originally posted by DeVore
I've spent many a weekend in Amsterdam and while its a very cool city I'm not sure I'd want Dublin to become like that, its effectively closed the city centre to the locals on the weekend.

That said, I see no reason why the possession of cannabis/marijuana should be outlawed in peoples homes or private areas.

Would certainly cut down on the number of drunk yobs smashing stuff up round town.

DeV.

well - i just came back from living in rotterdam for 10 months.
and while i do believe hash should be decriminalised like in holland if you do push for it be prepared because there IS a lot of baggage that come with decriminalisation/legalisation. - Be prepared for a rise in street crime, an influx of immigration (btw - hollands main opposition to immigration was murdered for his views last week) I think if it was legalised it would be great but our society couldn't handle the baggage in my opinion.
What I say is wait until Britain and a few other countries legalise/decriminalise first, because if we don't mark my words 'our levels of crime will soar'


There is a reason crack and cocaine usage is rampant in holland.
and in my FIRST HAND opinion - its the decriminalisation of cannabis.

To summarise - Legalise, but hang back until other countries do it first - otherwise ireland will become another european portal for drug smuggling.
The unfortunate thing is the same people that will sell you cannabis will just as quickly sell you crack cocaine or heroin and thats the inherant problem.

Think about it or visit holland and see the problems their culture has because of their liberal laws.

My two cents.

mayhem#

Originally posted by fisty

The unfortunate thing is the same people that will sell you cannabis will just as quickly sell you crack cocaine or heroin and thats the inherant problem.

Think about it or visit holland and see the problems their culture has because of their liberal laws.

My two cents.

Having lived in the country for 28 years I could not agree more...

SheroN

have no problem with legalisation if it's a blanket legalisation accross europe....not just ireland.....ireland becoming the playpen for the world's scum doesn't sound appealing to me.

Ajnag

Holland has a generaly more tolarent stance in reguards to everything, hence the all the dudes on the corners.

what I would propose is that with legalisation we change the agenda for the gardí, control taxing can be handled by costoms fairly strictly to remove the gilligan/scumbag elements, while the gardi could use the extra time and resources freed up to persue dealers and bigtime boss's, tackeling the problems of other drugs from the top down.
in addition to this we involve health boards in relation to those who develop problems eg heroin maintainence.and in relation to education instead of crappy websites like www.coolchoices.ie, hows about getting ex-addicts of all things to speak on the nature of addiction-discouraging use in an honest way.

Obviously any approach would have to be more complex then the above outlined, but done right, use of drugs could down dramaticly without having to criminalise or bully the population as is being currently done.also although holland is a bit scary their stats show less heroin addicts and less young dutch people trying drugs.if their approach was refined we might be more succesful!.

just a few thoughts.

Chad ghostal

yeah, it becoming legal in other countries first would be much better..

did anyone else see that prog on the beeb last night about the guy who opened a hash/weed caffee in bournmouth in england..
he got the weed from amsterdam and sold it on the sly in the caffee ..
he opened it in an old warehouse..
cnn and all the other news channels were talkin to him about it..
it seemed to go pretty well and it was only raided once..
(nothing came of it)

i was wondering did anyone hear of anything like that here??

the garda dont seem to be bothered to much about people having it ..

Corega

As I'm sure I clearly pointed out one of the main advantages of legalisation is the lowering of taxes, however I would like to ask anyone whos ever been to Amsterdam if the standard of living is high or if the taxes there are lower than they are here. That was a question by the way without the question mark

fisty

less taxes is no trade off for more streetcrime.

Originally posted by Ajnag
although holland is a bit scary their stats show less heroin addicts and less young dutch people trying drugs.if their approach was refined we might be more succesful!.

its not the dutch that are the problem its the people who have carved a life on the streets that are the problem - mainly people with little or no education from eastern europe flocking there (Holland) because they make big bucks in drugs.
Yes you are correct - Heroin isn't the big problem over there but CRACK is - I was offered crack by junkies more times than I can remember, most of them were pretty okay but they're the users. Again it's the dealers that will be the problem.
I felt sorry for one junky, I met him outside a bar when he tried to sell me a bicycle for 10 euro which he stole from the central station.
The poor bastard was addicted to crack andhe was 19, 19 ffs! from The czech rep.
And he had been stealing bikes and shoplifting for 2 years to support his habit. I asked him what brought him to holland and he said "he started off as a courier bringing crack cocaine into holland from lybia" at 17.
anywhere that becomes known for its liberal take on drugs will end up being a cesspit for criminals wanting to fence the harder stuff because

1. theres more money in class A's than herb
and
2. because the market (drug users) will be in said place.

Drugs sicken me and while hash may be pretty harmless you will never be able to separate it from the rest of the drug family no matter how many coffeeshops you build.

Corega

You have made some very good points there Fisty, however I must point out that Holland and the authorities in Holland have a very laid back approach towards not only the use of marijuana but also the use of other drugs, also take into account that Holland has legal brothels operating. There is no way in hell I would want Ireland to stoop to that level, but Holland has been like this for years and I must point out is getting worse. I would hope that if it were to be legalised the Gardai would not adopt the same stance as thier Dutch counter-parts. I guess the only real certainty is that we would only know the effects it would have on our society if it was legalised, as for my first comments on tax-deductions and so on that was mere speculation but educated speculation.

Mistakill

(1) They should legalise it in a limited dosage like a restriction on no more than 7 or 8 grams a week.

(2) Prescription. its ment to help ease the pain for people with arthritis.

darthmise

Legalise the whole lot.

You can't seperate hash from the rest because what ever drug is considerd the next least harmless will take the palce of hash as a gateway drug to harder things.
Leagalise all drugs and tax the lot.

At least then people wouldn't be dying as regularly from impurities in the harder drugs. Tax it. Make it safe. Take it out of the hands of criminals who don't give a **** what happens to people as long as they make a profit.

But it would have to be right across europe, i've been to Amsterdam and i won't be going back there in a hurry. It's by far the sleaziest place i've ever been.

The only fear i would have for legalising all drugs in this country is as a nation we have an addictive personality.

Corega

I think I can say this from experience, hash does not lead you on to harder drugs, the only reason people go on to harder drugs such as coke and heroine is because they begin to take ecstasy and lsd and all that sh1t. I would'nt even think of campaining to legalise them and nor do I condone their use. As far as I can see marijuana is about as harmless as smoking cigarettes and in some cases has been known to be therapeutic i.e. back pains.

smalltalker

Originally posted by Corega
As far as I can see marijuana is about as harmless as smoking cigarettes

So, not particularly harmless at all, then.

If not smoked with tobacco it is probably quite harmless, though, and should be legalised.

The idea of legalising all drugs is a little premature - people use marijuana for quite different reasons than others use heroin. Hash, tobacco and alcohol are used across boundaries of social class but heroin is almost exclusively a problem for deprived areas. I think that merits a different approach.

Corega

Yeah fair one. I should'nt have said the word harmless however I think less harmful is a better way to describe it.

phreak

i dont know how anyone can begin to compare marijuana to heroin. Marijuana is more like alcohol or tabacco than it is like heroin. Heroin is the worst possible drug in the world, and any country that legalisd it would have to be off their heads.

I agree that Marijuana should be legalised for most of the reasons already mentioned before, but mainly because i believe people should have the choice to do what they want as long as they don't affect others in the process.

swan13

the reason it was made illegal in the first place was because, many years ago, prob about 100 i suppose, the mexicans were hated by americans but the yanks couldn't do anythin about it so they outlawed cannabis as all mexicans used it and it's stuck ever since. there's now "REAL" reason for it. check out cypress hill c.d booklets for info. the black sunday booklet gives loads of good arguements

Bob the Unlucky Octopus

There is no such thing as a legal gateway drug- cigarettes and alcohol are both addictive- cigarettes especially so- yet how many smokers do you know that turn to harder drugs for a fix? None- because they prefer to be law-abiding citizens, if cannabis were legalized, pot-smokers wouldn't go anywhere for their fix because they could get it legally. Because it's in the criminal world, and the two sets of providers are worryingly close to each other, it is easy for young people in particular to be tempted by hard-core physically addictive drugs. Legalize it, allow people to get it reasonably cheaply- and you've solved the "gateway" problem.

Occy

l3rian

i heard that england are legalising it next year sometime, anyone know when? will they be exporting?

BuffyBot

Originally posted by Kali


I honestly can't believe i've just read that. seriously.
I mean are you ****ing mentally retarded or something?
Do you usually let your "friends" drive off in such a state?
Do you usually follow them for "entertainment"?
How ****ing "silly" would it look if he caused a major accident?

My god I've nothing at all against dope, but thats just ****ing ridiculous and irresponsible.
Harmless yes. But not when ****ing tools like you use it.

Apologies for the asterixes.. but you need your head straightened.

Agreed. Thats just plain stupid.

I honestly don't think it's any big deal - in fact I'd nearly predict usage would go down if legalised. Half the users I know are just doing it because its "bold" for want of better words.

TBH it's not all that much and a bag of chips - plenty of better drugs about which don't feck up your lungs.

(edit) How many times has this been discussed already on boards? (/edit)

Corega

Won't somebody please think of the children, I was almost beginning to forget this thread, let it die a quick death

strat

Monty - the one and only

Topic closed.