[manasecret]

Originally posted by gekko
Except for the fact of how much fact that is based on. And yes, the money goes all the way back to the cartels in Columbia, and the middle east. Why did some people get pissed when our soldiers burned poppy field in Afghanistan? Because it's the people's only source of income, and it's a large percentage of the countries total income.

Maybe because we get 75% of gasoline from other regions of the world. Maybe because it doesn't have that big of link to terrorism.

Perhaps I should have worded bull**** better.

Money used to buy hard drugs goes to drug cartels like you said, but that's hard drugs and not so much marijuana. But my problem with the commercials was that the government essentially called a bunch of Americans terrorists because they buy drugs.

But did these Americans fly planes into the WTC? Do they bomb American buildings? Of course not.

Now, with that said, I find your support for the drug commercials while being against oil commercials hypocritical. So that 25% of oil coming from the middle east doesn't count? Just because percentages are different it means it's ok?

Well, if that's what you believe then ok. I don't support either commercial, because I think calling Americans terrorists because of indirectly supporting terrorists is extremely unfair.

Please tell me you're not serious. Please. You sound like a foreigner trying to talk US politics, only you're a US citizen.

Oil companies of course do heavily support politicians and political parties through donations, which creates a heavy influence and I shouldn't have to prove that.

I don't have proof on hand for drug associations supporting political parties and politicians in the same way as oil companies, so I'll retract what I said. I was told that by someone whom I'd trust to have a credible source, so until he gets back to me, I agree that what I said isn't true.

Oh, that'll do a lot to help the world.

No, that's not how it works. Common weed will be avaliable, but no common person buys weed. Drug addicts buy weed, no one else. And if you know your drugs, you should know about the many different types of weed out there. No one would want the government stuff, in the same way no one wants normal cigars. There's different qualities of weed, and they give you a different effect. All you would do is cause the price of illegal weed to increase, and cause more drug users. Great, what a way to improve society.

And weed isn't as dangerous? I guess you forgot that weed leads to use of hard drugs.

"In Amsterdam, both marijuana use and heroin use went *down* after marijuana was decriminalized -- even though there was a short rise in cannabis use right after decriminalization."

As for the price of illegal weed going up, the only illegal weed you could be talking about (assuming weed was legalized) would be the ones with other illegal drugs added in, and most weed users don't use that. Strong natural weed isn't something that couldn't be grown outside of where it's grown now.

Also, drug addicts aren't the only ones buying weed. Yes, they are the ones buying it to get high, but hemp has been used for thousands of years all over the world and up until the 1930's in the U.S. for hundreds of uses. Hemp can be used for most everything that trees, cotton, and fossil fuels can be used for, while doing a much better job in most cases, and it doesn't hurt the soil, use as many chemicals, or hurt the environment like the other stuff does.

And marijuana does not lead to the use of hard drugs. That is completely unproven and just propaganda. If anything, legalizing marijuana would lead to a decrease in use of hard drugs because buyers wouldn't have to go to a place that sells hard drugs to get weed (as is said in the quote above).

http://www.hempfiles.com/faqs/hempfaq.shtml#1-1

There are probably a hundred sites like that now with huge faqs. This one has a bibliography of sorts citing numerous books, so I chose it.

Actually, we do research of weed. There is a legal marijuana farm in the United States.

And there should be hundreds more, and other huge farms to provide hemp for all its other beneficial uses.

But I meant hard drugs in particular. Absolutely no research is allowed on hard drugs while there could be a lot of potential in them as medical drugs.

Great economic plan. Now everyone has even less money due to increased gas tax, something they really can't avoid. And you want them to go out and spend thousands more to buy a new car. The auto industry would do well, but every other industry would do horrible because no one has any money.

You're right, and that's what I meant to point out in my second to last paragraph. It most likely would hurt our economy quite a bit.

But perhaps a gradual tax increase would do exactly what we need. It's not as if Americans couldn't recover; they did exactly that back in the 70's or whenever it was when gasoline prices hiked to alarming amounts for back then. And we could easily do it again, we would just have to adapt.

The middle east will basically have oil until we have new gasoline and power sources. We could kill them off now, we don't want to. The middle east needs to have money, and we need to buy oil in the middle east in order to have peace.

They need money to have peace? They have money now yet there is no peace. I'm not really arguing, I'm more interested in what you mean by that.

Seems to me if they have no money they would be another Africa, where they have nothing so nobody cares about them.

I have a feeling more people would have the government if we said that.

I'm not sure what you're saying. More people would be mad at the government or praise the government or what?

If they have the money for a $40,000 car, they can afford the gas.

Exactly my point.