[nick_riviera]

Anecdotally watching my sister-in-law destroy her life and brain with the stuff and having a car written off because someone was fucked up on it and crashed into me, I'd rather it stayed illegal. Also it's not other people's right to inflict the rancid shitty smell upon me is it?

(Yes I know that goes for smoking and alcohol too and I'd be quite happy to do away with them as well)

Edit: downvoters, please explain rather than leave a cowardly silence. I'd love to see people's down votes named on HN.

[k-mcgrady]

I didn't downvote you.

1. The person that crashed into you (sorry, that sucks) could have done the same thing after drinking alcohol. It's legal. Do you also recommend prohibiting it? I think most people would agree driving under the influence of marijuana should be illegal. Punishments should be severe. But even now with prohibition that doesn't stop stupid people doing stupid things. Illegal or not, the world is full of idiots and there's very little we can do about it.

2. I don't mean to be insensitive but your sister-in-law made that decision. It's her right. You have no right to enforce your views on her. I have seen many people addicted to alcohol and it's horrible. But they have an excuse - it's highly addictive. Marijuana isn't. It is less addictive than caffeine meaning that if she is choosing to spend her days on the couch, high, it's a choice she's making.

[nick_riviera]

1. Yes I do think that it should be made illegal on the basis that it causes a number of deep social problems in the UK. If you've ever seen an English town after closing time, you'll know what I mean.

2. I completely agree with you but do you think that legalising it is going to reduce the health impact? No, it's going to make it socially acceptable.

Shit or get off the pot: Cite your sources regarding addiction.

Edit: Ask for proof/sources = down vote. Hey everyone, fuck science.

[ScottBurson]

"This thing causes problems. So, let's make it illegal."

That isn't the obviously good idea you seem to think it is. Outlawing things that people like also causes problems: it criminalizes responsible use as well as irresponsible use; it creates a black market which feeds organized crime; it has been a major factor in the militarization of our police departments, so that now there are lots of little towns with SWAT teams, which do get misused.

There are costs to making these things illegal, and so the question you have to ask is whether the benefit outweighs them. In the case of marijuana, it is increasingly clear that it does not.

[cobrausn]

Because you basically just advocated prohibition of alcohol, drugs, and tobacco, and included in your list of reasons 'I don't like the smell'.

Never mind that prohibition was already tried and already failed.

[nick_riviera]

Well I'll add one more:

The physical and mental health problems and associated healthcare burden.

This is not insignificant and totally shrugged off by the "pro-legalisation" side of things.

[llllllllllll]

I'll explain it, though I didn't downvote you.

Marijuana is illegal right now. That didn't stop that bad stuff from happening to you or your sister. Turn it into a public health issue and people like your sister-in-law will have more resources to get help.

I also have skepticism that marijuana caused someone to crash into your car. It has not been proven that weed has much if any effect on driving ability, especially for those experienced with the drug.

[nick_riviera]

You are quite clearly an absolute dire example of a complete fucking moron if you think that smoking weed doesn't affect your driving.

It affects your judgement, your motor skills, slows your reaction time and so can the withdrawal symptoms.

I'm not even going to link a page because it's that easy to find supporting information that is credible.

[ufmace]

I didn't downvote, but I will say that what worries me far more than the effect of any drugs is your apparent desire to use the Government to impose your personal tastes and opinions on the population. Stoners will occasionally crash cars and waste their lives (at least in some peoples' opinions - is it not their life to live as they choose?) and that can be terrible for the people affected. A widespread desire to ban things that you don't like based on scant evidence and enforce those bans with increasingly military-like police forces is what leads to things like the US imprisoning a greater percentage of the population than actual police states.

I ask that you reconsider your desire to impose your views of how other people should behave on them, using Government force if necessary. People who lead their societies down that path have a nasty tendency to find the things that they personally like get banned next.

[techsupporter]

That sounds an awful lot like collective punishment, something I almost always oppose.

On the other hand, I definitely sympathize with the smell, the obnoxious behavior, the litter, and even the smoke itself. Were I a supreme dictator with no care for the needs of my subjects and having some method of enforcing 100% compliance, I'd ban all smoking and public displays of alcohol and sleep soundly at night.

Unfortunately (nah, fortunately) for the two of us, life doesn't bend to such whims. In any society where I'd want to live, I'd much rather the individuals who cause harm (minor, like litter, or major, like property damage or personal injury) be slapped and slapped hard by the law, but those who are responsible and cause no negative external effects are free to do what they like.

[nick_riviera]

Yes I know this is idealist. I'd like people to act responsibly and consider others but to be honest this is beyond a not insignificant proportion of the population. I live in the UK. This class of drug is banned and it should stay so. The police don't go around locking people up - they do slap wrists and that keeps it under control.

When it gets too much or puts people in danger, through drug driving or mindless paranoia caused violence, they have the power to say "stop - that's enough" and solve the problem there and then through the courts. If legalised, that power diminishes into a non-absolute method of control.

We have laws against drinking and smoking in certain places as well already and things have improved massively since these were introduced.

The deep problem we all know, and this is written in many a paper freely googlable, is that smoking, alcohol and drug consumption have observable and statistically obvious negative health effects and negative effects on society. In the UK, this means healthcare budget being sucked up.

[ivanca]

You need to have an extremely addictive personality or have some completely lack of self control to become addicted to marijuana, meaning in your logic we would have to ban coke (the black drink), donuts, cooffe and one hundred other substances that can kill you if you abuse them hourly.

[obituary_latte]

Luckily it's not your right to inflict your views on the rest of us. It is your right to vacate an area that has an odor you disagree with though.

[techsupporter]

In this case, I disagree. A couple of opposing views:

- What if I was in an area first, say a park? Does the right to light up trump my right to be somewhere in that case?

- What if I have to be there? Does the right to light up mean that I miss my bus because I'm walking to another stop or do I just have to live with it if there is no other nearby stop?

[nick_riviera]

Let's use an analogy:

What if someone was burning a tyre in my neighbour's garden directly affecting my health?