[Redbeard]

Very well thought out Skalenfehl, I feel special for being the focus of a post too

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Fascism is defined by Wikipedia as authoritarian nationalist political ideologies or mass movements that are concerned with notions of cultural decline or decadence and seek to achieve a national rebirth by exalting the nation or race, and promoting cults of unity, strength and purity.

First off, since this I'm guessing this is about the drugs I will go ahead and leave this be, I don't think it needs much of a response from me.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Because I don't believe anyone should do drugs is my prerogative as is someone's prerogative to believe that everyone should do drugs and that marijuana should be legalized. Where one crosses the line into Fascism is when one seeks to enforce this by totalitarian attempts to impose state control for example through a dictatorship and oppressive measures. Just because someone thinks it should be legal or doesn't think it should be legal does not make one Fascist. There is a difference between believing that nobody should or should not hurt themselves and then usurping power to enforce it.

While the first part of this paragraph is a little hard for me to understand (be nice to me, I'm on meds...) I believe what you are trying to say is: "The difference between a facsist and myself is while I don't believe drugs should be used, I am not going to try to change the law myself to have everything go my way."

Forgive me if I got that wrong, you may have to speak very slowly to me today

If that is what your saying, then kudos to you, I appreciate your open mindedness. If not, please clarify in 2nd grade language for me lol.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Liberty functions from the bottom up (we the people), not dictated from the top down. So if the majority of the people vote in a Democracy to legalize drugs, then that is the law of the land and we believe in honoring the law, though I will never do drugs, I'd have now be more careful of its exposure to my family. So yes, something should be legal or illegal because the majority voted this way (abortion, legalizing drugs, etc), though it doesn't necessarily make it right. The voice of the people have spoken. The point of this debate is does it affect someone else? My answer is yes! I have lived through the effects of someone else doing drugs that have affected both my boys who have done it all.

I agree, and while recreational drugs are currently illegal, I will not use them. However, just because a law is one way, does not mean that people should support it unquestionably. Remember, at one time slavery was the law, as was the lack of womens and other races rights. I am simply saying that people should not be held responsible for other peoples lack of judgement.

*off topic* I applaud you for adopting, you are truly a great person in my book for getting those children away from a bad enviroment, and raising them to the best of your ability! Thank you for your contribution to bettering the world, and I do mean that whole heartedly.
*back on topic*

I am not advocating that people who abuse drugs should have the right to do so and harm families. I am simply stating that if a person is responsible it should be no one else's business but their own what they do with their own body. If you have children, do not smoke around them, whether that be tobacco or canibis. If you drink achohol, do not drive, or abuse your family. I know many people who drink alchohol that have never drivin drunk, never abused family members, and never broken a law. Why should their rights be taken away because of a drunk driver who is not responsible? My same argument goes for people who smoke marijuana, If you are going to do it, make sure you are being responsible, nothing more, nothing less.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

There are many people across the country who smoke marijuana in the privacy of their own home unaware that the fumes make their way into the apartment above, where an elderly man lives or perhaps mixing chemicals to make meth while the ammonia fumes seep into the next room where a child is playing. There are countless meth labs in the country where something goes wrong and in an explosion takes out the criminal along with the neighboring family, who is barbecuing next door. There are countless children, including my adopted son who was born a crack baby because his biological mother chose to do every drug in the book and in an altered state of mind decided to sleep around and have many children. There is a supplier dealing right now without any concern for the consequences of who his drugs reach when he deals with someone who just wants to smoke it by himself without hurting anyone. Meanwhile the profit that he creates for his supplier, supporting his business is used to make more drugs, which end up at the elementary school down my street and into the hands of my neighbor's children who become addicted and pass it on to my children or my nieces and nephews.

That's a long one, I hope I don't miss anything-

First off, marijuana smoke going from one apartment to another? If there is not proper enough filtration to stop the smoke from going to multiple apartments, they should be condemmed , but out of all of the smokes out there, marijuana has continually been shown to be the least damaging (compared to fire/tobacco). The other point you brought up is meth labs. With legalized recreational drugs, drugs would be created and distributed by actual companies, being kept in check by the goverment. No more backyard meth labs .

What has been done to your child because of his biological mother is indeed a heinous crime. But look at it this way- RIGHT NOW drugs are illegal, and his mother used them. Some people will use drugs irresponsibly whether or not they are illegal. How would keeping the drugs illegal change that situation? Stolen from a site (forget where...)
If drugs were legalized we would have-

1.) Purity assurance under Food and Drug Administration regulation;
2.) Labeled concentration of the product (to avoid overdose);
3.) Obliteration of vigorous marketing ("pushers");
4.) Obliteration of drug crime and reduction of theft crime
5.) Savings in expensive enforcement and
6.) Significant tax revenues

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

You are right. Guns don't kill people, knives don't kill people, ropes don't kill people. People kill people, drug dealers kill people. But guns are also used for hunting for food for survival, and also for sport and other recreational activities. Knives are implements used for a vast variety of reasons such as surgical procedures, cutting up food, or carving a sculpture and creating art. Ropes also have a wide range of uses, such as tying up packages or saving a life with a life preserver attached. Ropes are used for securing things to your car when you go on long trips or for construction. The list goes on and on

What beneficial uses does crystal meth have? Cocaine? PCP? etc? If someone wants to do drugs, they cannot intelligently believe that doing drugs does not have an effect on someone else because it does. They perpetuate the supply and demand which trickles down to the average innocent child because the hardened drug dealers do not care who ends up with drugs. Their only concern is the profit that it brings.

Yes, supply and demand, that if legalized would be regulated by the goverment! If drugs are legalized, why would we still have backstreet drug dealers? Alchohol and tobacco are illegal to minors under 21, but you don't see alchohol and tobacco dealers on the street corners do you?

As for medical uses of drugs, you can check those out for yourself, but the other use for recreational drugs is just that RECREATION. Is it something that I want to do for recreation? No, but other people do, as long as they are being responsible, why should we stop them?

For everyone else:
Medical cannabis - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Cocaine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Methamphetamine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Phencyclidine - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Many drugs are regulated. If marijuana has medicinal benefits then it should be regulated like any prescription drug that you buy at a pharmacy. If by some bizarre coincidence, crystal meth in a certain safe dose cures brain cancer, then by all means, let it be produced and regulated. The problem that I see here is that drugs have no beneficial purpose other than to harm, destroy or kill whether it's yourself or someone else and it's the someone else, especially someone else, that concerns me because someone else is always affected.

First off, just about every scientific journal has published the medicinal benifits of marijuana... But the point of drugs is not just medication. Some people want to get high once in a while. If they do so in a responsible manner, who are we to tell them they shouldn't be allowed to?

And just for examples sake, please indicate to me who is being effected besides myself in this SAMPLE (as in, never happened) situation:

I am sitting alone in my house, which I own. Not a duplex, apartment or anything else. I decide to smoke some marijuana which I have grown in my house in a secret lair (Just for clarification this is all an example...) I smoke the marijuana, and then lounge around my house watching Fox's Family Guy. I then go to bed, and wake up the next morning and go out to mow my lawn. The end.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

Regardless of what country or set of laws we live, we are all human beings living in the same world and drugs are not something that knows boundaries or borders. I will never vote to legalize something just because someone wants to do it to themselves, because that kind of irresponsible thinking does not see reason through. They simply aren't doing it to just themselves.

Um... some people do... How about the hash bars in amsterdam? When was the last time you heard of a guy going to a hash bar, then going out and shooting up a family? There are quite a few people in the world that lead incredibly productive lives, and still partake in recreational drug use. How do you explain that?

Erowid Character Vaults : Famous People and their Drug Use

Yes, there are people on that list who did not use them responsibly, and they are not the ones I'm talking about...

Amos, Tori
The Beatles
Charles, Ray
Churchill, Winston
Clapton, Eric
Clinton, William
Dickens, Charles
Dumas, Alexander
Edison, Thomas
Freud, Sigmund
Gates, Bill
Ginsberg, Allen
Gore, Al
Gore, Tipper
Grant, Ulysses S
Hemingway, Ernest
Harrelson, Woody
Jackson, Andrew
Jefferson, Thomas
Jobs, Steve
John, Elton
Jolie, Angelina

I'll go ahead and stop there, but you get the point.

Originally Posted by skalenfehl

This does not account for the countless children in elementary school who are being introduced to drugs in the form of candy who do not yet have a full grasp of the consequences, thereby affecting their agency. Even the most vigilant parents have very young children who are exposed to this terrible growing trend.

Once again, would not be a problem if drugs were legalized and regulated.

Anyway, hope all of that made sense, I'm still a little loopy, but getting better as the day moves on.