In fact, and honest study of the Dutch policy of harm reduction would be encouraging for the advocates of marijuana legalization in California.

You are correct. This article suggest there are some right ways and some wrong ways to minimize crime in marijuana trade. If the production, distribution, and taxation of the mj were similar to that of alcohol, then the criminal element would fade away. There would be no place at the marijuana table for them.

In the States, similar questions are being asked regarding people from other States purchasing marijuana (if it passes) then taking it back home. Perhaps if the capitalist control the sale and distribution of mj then there would be way less "marijuana moonshiners".

Bran T,

You hate them, don't you ? I mean the French.

By the way, it's a very good idea to learn a foreign language.

Not a warining to California. This article says nothing about how marijuana was a problem, but that criminals stealing from tourist, and criminals selling hard drugs had caused problems, and rival criminals had also commited crimes. Like any other group trying to distroy freedom the facts are twisted and perverted to their liking.

So true about the youth not caring. This doesn't go for all, (I am young and politically active) but I am willing to say most. Not a whole lot of them really care about what is going on in the world around them. They think it doesn't affect them. I look at my generation and am frightened. They are the future of this country, but what will this country be if its citizens don't give a damn about anything and don't bother to exercise their vote?

It's very difficult for some people to understand the view of people who are "pro drug"...but that is probably due to the fact that the people who find it difficult haven't had their brains affected by drugs.

Simply sad in this article: A legalized drug policy has STILL helped to attract crime.

Anyone disagree?

When there is only one legal distribution point for such a wonderful thing, for so many people, what do you expect? This shows just how much cannabis needs to be legalized everywhere! When everybody has it, it will become no big deal.

It's interesting to watch the the prohibitionists squirm and listen to their ignorant remarks as legalization gets closer and closer! Cannabis is proven to destroy tumors, kill MRSA, promote the growth of brain cells, inhibit Alzheimers, and safely treat autism, epilepsy, chronic pain, migraine, arthritis, fibromyalgia, anxiety, anorexia, lupus, tuberculosis, cystic fibrosis, diabetes, schizophrenia, glaucoma, asthma, emphysema, alcoholism, drug addiction, MS, ALS, OCD, ADHD, PTSD, herpes, Parkinsons, Huntingtons, Tourettes, Crohns disease, and more. Its seed is the single most nutritionally complete food source on earth, and, anything made from oil, coal, timber, or cotton can be made with it, over 25,000 earth friendly products!!! Hemp is at the very minimum four times more efficient per acre than corn for ethanol!

But we don't hear that, do we?

Instead, rather than talking about all the wonderful attributes the plant has, the prohibitionists try to brainwash the people into thinking were heading down the wrong road with any kind of rhetoric and negative publicity they can.

Food, fuel, shelter, medicine, pleasure, Spirituality, Unity!

Kaneh bosm, cannabis, hemp!!!! The Tree of Life!

boog a loo 22

As the article states, the Dutch do not have a comprehensive legalized drug policy, they have half a policy. It's legal to sell in your store but there's no policy on how the stores get their supplies. In addition, neighboring countries want to take advantage of the Dutch policy but not address the same issue in their own jurisdiction.

Besides, no one is saying the MJ is harmless, it just should not be criminalized and people shouldn't be throw in jail for it. It is a waste of resources and ignores the potential source of revenues available to states and the country.

A lot of this is an European Union problem, not a drug problem. As the EU seeks to create a "United States of Europe" they are trying to unite an extremely diverse patchwork diversity of languages, cultures, attitudes and laws. They would like to get to the point that they were much like the U.S. with completely free travel and trade between states.

The difference between here and Europe is that here we speak one language and have one general culture, admittedly with slight regional differences. In Europe, it is over 50 languages and cultures with a huge range of attitudes. And Europeans are developing a mindset of migrating to where conditions are best for employment, drugs, cheap wine, good clothing, etc. There is really no difference in kids or adults who pop down to Barcelona for a rock concert, to Rome or Milan for clothes and to Amsterdam for marijuana or Brits who take the Chunnel to France to get cheap good wine.

This is something unique to a changing Europe and does not translate to this country. And The Netherlands have had a free-wheeling attitude (and significantly lower crime and drug use rates) towards "soft" drugs since WWII. But Europe is suffering from a right-wing backlash to all this cultural migration. Nationalism is on the rise in most European countries and with nationalism comes the blame game --- everything needs to be blamed on someone else. If Maasterich stops the "drug tourism" they will also lose all the Euros that those tourists dropped in their country.

If the Netherlands was the only EU country selling cell phones legally you would have the same exact problem.

I'm not suprised no one noted the irony that this takes place in Maastricht.

It's not about drugs, it's about capitalism.

Dear onotoa,

So in order to resolve the problem there must be a comprehensive drug policy? Meaning regulation and rules for drug supply to the vendors? Meaning new government agencies? Meaning new oversight groups and departments within the government? Meaning bigger government and more taxes?

Meaning more shops closing, as was stated in the article, "But the Netherlands once had 1,500 of them; now, there are about 700. And every year, the numbers decline, according to Nicole Maalste, a professor at the University of Tilburg who has written a book on the subject. “Slowly, slowly they are being closed down by inventing new rules, and new rules,” Ms. Maalste said.

And why do people keep bringing up the "potential tax revenue of legalizing drugs", or marijuana, or whatever? Is that going to be the excuse used by all addicts?

Where does it end? If we legalize drugs will people push to legalize prostitution because it could bring in tax revenue? What about killing people? Couldn't the government raise a huge amount of cash if we could buy permits to kill those annoying bastards we come across every now and then? I mean $2,000.00 "a pop" would be something most people could afford and a number would be willing to pay in order to rid their world of one less A-hole. And then what? Child pornography? With all of the pedophiles that are apparently out there couldn't the government collect one heck of a lot of money by allowing these sick bastards to "legally" possess child porn?

Where does it end?

Sometimes "legal" is nowhere near "moral".

I'd rather "legal" stay closer to "moral".

Anyone else here want that?

Exactly! couldn't agree more with Fianchetto!

Chris,

Almost everybody in Europe below the age of 40 speaks English, German, or both... English or German is an obligatory foreign language taught in school in a lot of countries in EU since 4th or 5th grade. In most cases high school kids have to study 2 different foreign languages.

I went to a "good" (read: lot's of classes and homework) high school so I had to study 3 foreign languages: German, English and Russian. At this point in life I speak fluently only English as a foreign language and I might be able to get my German working in 6 months if I really had to, but when I was 18 I could freely communicate in any of the 3 languages mentioned above.

Of course I speak my native Polish as well :) :) :)

In short there is no "language barrier" in EU, people just live with the fact you may need to speak different language at a different business meeting or calling up different countries to confirm your hotel reservations for a cross-continent trip to Italy, France, Switzerland and Spain... :)

I dont hate the french,But if as you say france has won more wars and has more honors than why havent they become a super power, Our youth in the us may be a little lazy at times but who do you think are the ones fighting for american people as well as other countries rights, and as for education, What has france done to help anybody else in the past century, france is a place for love,art and romance, Oh yeah, and the food is outstanding,every country on the planet has lazy youth,But in most cases they are the minority, as for video game's, studies have shown that playing video games increases hand to eye coordination as well as the ability to make quicker judgment calls in hostile situations, hell the military uses video games(Flight simulators) to train thier personel,so dont knock what you dont understand, Have a glass of wine and go paint a sunset

Zman,

France is a very powerful country. They just don't get in the business of other countries as much as USA.

Also they do not get as much news coverage in the US, because why? They are not an enemy of the USA so there is no reason for the France to occupy front pages of the American newspapers.

France still has colonies and a pretty impressive nuclear arsenal. Also, according to wiki:

In total there are 81 commissioned ships in the French Navy, thus making it the third largest in NATO only behind the United States Navy and the Royal Navy.

The French Navy operates one nuclear powered aircraft carrier, two helicopter carriers, two landing platform docks, four air defence frigates (FFG), nine anti-submarine frigates and six SSNs. This represents the French Navy’s main war-fighting forces. In addition the French Navy operates five light frigates, six small surveillance frigates and nine corvettes.

Bran T educate yourself please, we don't need more narcissists like you in this country crying wolf.

rock-760945, I love how you sit there and call Bran T ignorant and continue to bash the US youth. The youth of America surely isn't slave-like and never will be. You are trying to say that they follow order's without asking questions for nothing in return. This is not the American way and never will be. Also, the French may have won more battles, but don't forget that the US is a very young country in terms of history and don't forget that WE THE US saved your French asses in WWII.

Rock I have been to France many time ,and IT SUCKS.

how did this turn into a us vs the frogs debate? they still owe us money from ww1 so maybe they need to take only 2 wks vacation and pay that off.

on topic, sort of, legalize pot the right way, sell it like booze, id required ect, take a source of income away from drug dealers, get the tax money and buy stock in betty crocker.

Brian your a goof..... This article and its entire contents are biased as this is an American article so just about anything it says is wrong and i would like to know where these statistics are coming from.... plagerism for not citing anyone?

Why would you kill an industry which not only provides jobs but also pays taxes? AND increases tourism to your country? thats political budget suicide.

Why dont you do the smart thing and higher more police to make their presence actually known as that last time i went to the Netherlands i saw cops only at the airport. Make tougher laws on the "black market" assosciated with the cafes and maybe open a national pot farm?

Politicians are so stupid they dont look at the root of the problem only the side-effects from the problems that they create themselves.

KEEP MARIJUANA LEGALIZED!!!

boog a loo 22

So in order to resolve the problem there must be a comprehensive drug policy? Meaning regulation and rules for drug supply to the vendors? Meaning new government agencies? Meaning new oversight groups and departments within the government? Meaning bigger government and more taxes?

It should not be a criminal issue it should be just a moral issue, you cannot regulate morality.

And why do people keep bringing up the "potential tax revenue of legalizing drugs", or marijuana, or whatever? Is that going to be the excuse used by all addicts?

Are you saying there is not a potential for revenue? You do realize that almost all other dugs must be broken down or mixed with some chemical or "cooked" or whatever to be made, but marijuana grows straight out of the ground? Marijuana is nothing more than having a beer after work but it is not as harmful. You cannot find one case of a marijuana-only related death anywhere, if the media had those bodies they would be parading it around the streets screaming about the harm of marijuana. Alcohol however, is directly related to countless deaths a year.

Where does it end? If we legalize drugs will people push to legalize prostitution because it could bring in tax revenue? What about killing people? Couldn't the government raise a huge amount of cash if we could buy permits to kill those annoying bastards we come across every now and then? I mean $2,000.00 "a pop" would be something most people could afford and a number would be willing to pay in order to rid their world of one less A-hole. And then what? Child pornography? With all of the pedophiles that are apparently out there couldn't the government collect one heck of a lot of money by allowing these sick bastards to "legally" possess child porn?

ahhh..there it is, the fall-back argument all people who are ignorant to marijuana use. Your comparing apples and oranges my friend. Im sure we cann ALL agree that child porn is sick and should never be allowed, and I doubt anyone is going to stand up and expose their necks protesting child porn being illegal. Thats just silly.

Im sure you have HBO right? There is a show on there that is alllll about a prostitution house and its all 100 percent legal.

Couldn't the government raise a huge amount of cash if we could buy permits to kill those annoying bastards we come across every now and then? I mean $2,000.00 "a pop" would be something most people could afford and a number would be willing to pay in order to rid their world of one less A-hole.

I should even reply to this because im sure you were kidding but....... comeon

Where does it end?

Sometimes "legal" is nowhere near "moral".

I'd rather "legal" stay closer to "moral".

Anyone else here want that?

How is marijuana immoral? What is so bad about marijuana? Have you even looked into the history behind it? Do you even know why or how it became illegal? You should look it up, it might change your views.

Wake up.

Dutch bureaucrats took their fingers out of the dike to jeopardize the Euro even more. Can they actually have an economic stimulant in tourism without the hooka? I was in Amsterdam back in 98 and I could have cared less about the windmills and museums. I was there for the smoke.

For those who're against deciminalizing drugs I suggest you google Judge James Gray. Read anything he has to say about the matter.

If it was decriminilize around the world then there's no need to be to go Holland.

I'm LMAO, rock.

France has won wars? Chech your history books scooter.
The only 'war' France has ever 'won' in its existence is the French Revolution when they fought against each other.

ROFL at your ignorance.

Absolutely brilliant Booger; Marijuana is the gateway drug to child molesting! Abso-friggen-lutely brilliant.

The article said....

coffee shops have other selling points: they pay 450 million euros a year in taxes and provide thousands of jobs.

Safe to place your bets on them NOT passing any laws that will dry up 450 million Euros... Money talks.

Maastricht is my favorite city in the Netherlands. The coffeeshop owners are always pleased to see an American passport, and they are quite courteous. I wish the city weren't going through this, I wish it the best in cleaning up the social problems that they face, and I hope the shops continue to operate.

I have been to Holland several times and always enjoyed my visit. Seeing an article about crime in Holland must be put into perspective. Holland has one of, if not the lowest crime rate in Europe. I felt perfectlysafe walking around the streets at 2 am in Rotterdam. The big issue they have is that while it is legal to possess marijuana or hash, there is no such law regarding the buying and selling, particularly in large quantities. This is the reason that they have always jokingly referred to it as 'Holland Homegrown' even though much of it is imported from the middle east. CA is taking the correct approach to avoid these problems by including regulating and taxing the supply side. The proposed law includes making it legal to grow in large quantities within the state. The current medical marijuana laws are a patchwork of local regulations that the proposed law will hopefully fix.

Yeah take note California. It's absolutely horrible when tourists swarm your tax strapped city and throw money at you.

You have no idea of what you are talking about, total legalization is still the best answer except then our politicians and and cops wont be able to get their kick backs.

“But the worst part is that this group, this enormous group, is such an attractive target for criminals who want to sell their own stuff, hard stuff, and they are here too now.” Cannabis isn't the problem, it's the hard stuff!

Dear Sickofthis123,

Obviously you have never done drugs, nor have you known anyone who has done drugs, nor have you seen the effects of drugs.

Obviously you have never, in your entire existence, ever heard of anyone in the universe having ever moved on to harder drugs after beginning with marijuana.

Obviously you have never seen a family destroyed by drugs. A father or mother abandon their children for drugs?

Obviously you have never heard of the term "Gateway Drug".

I have seen and heard of MANY stories about drugs or alcohol destroying families, people losing jobs, people losing their houses, people losing everything (including their LIFE).

Where in the hell are the stories where drugs saved a person's marriage? Where drugs saved a family? Drugs got a (law abiding and moral) worker a promotion or a job?

The closest, saddest attempt I ever heard was a guy who had a violent alcohol problem with his family. He traded the alcohol for marijuana and it "saved" his marriage. He didn't realize that he traded one addiction for another and that his family wasn't worth him simply becoming sober. He couldn't live with his family without medicating himself somehow. Counseling? Nah. Prescription drugs? Nah. Illegal drugs, first? Hell yeah!

Don't preach the partial sermon if you can't be honest with everyone.

Cheech and chong seem to have gotten a promotion from smoking weed boog a loo!

And as for becoming addicted to marijuana, you are completely wrong! You can not become physically addicted to it! Don't preach your partial sermon if you can't have facts!

I think there are many OTC drugs that are far more dangerous than pot. I'm not saying there is NO danger in pot (water can be very dangerous if you drink too much), but let's put things in perspective.

I say legalize it worldwide and move on. (I am not a user of pot, don't want to, don't like the smell, and have chosen caffeine as my personal poison... we all have one or two...)

For the record, the U.S. would not exist without the assistance of the French. (BTW: I am American and reside in U.S.). The French played a pivotal role in the American Revolution assisting the colonies to fight Britain.

The U.S. is only a superpower because the rest of the industrialized world was devastated after WW2 and we had a monopoly on industrial capacity when they needed supplies to rebuild. That monopoly has been short lived and the two most devasted countries (Germany and Japan) are some of our fiercest competitors.

The U.S. has not won any major conflict without a coalition. In other words, we win wars when we have allies. In that sense, we don't really have much to brag about. Unless we consider winning wars against thugs and terrorists a real fair fight.

As to drugs. I think poorly of drugs, tobacco and alcohol. However, clearly legislation against such activities has proven futile. In the case of drugs, we may ridicule those nations who have legalized it to some degree but we (the U.S.) have been "at war" with drugs for over 30 years while our politicians, actors, musicians, business executives and yes teens and inner-city drug addicts have been helping the enemy by purchasing their product illegally. Clinton, GW Bush and Obama have all confessed to experimenting with drugs. So even our won commanders in chiefs have aided the enemy. We, Americans, have no moral authority on this issue, at all.

The bottom line is if you want to try it you will, Marijuana does not lead to harder drugs. I used to smoke (MJ) up a storm but, I never tried anything else. I never wanted most of the people I hung out with were just smokers, some others 'wanted' to try other stuff fine do it but away from us. It is like drinking when in the service I drank whisky like it was going out of style (Viet-Nam Combat Vet). When I came home I became a beer man, my friend's still drink whisky and that's fine, I like a tall cold one... I tried cigarettes took me two weeks to smoke a pack so I quit, however I do light up a cigar once or twice a month.

What I'm saying is, don't say one thing leads automatically to the other, it does not, you have to want to go there.

boog a loo 22

Ok, before I waste my fingers on questions that you wont answer, even though I asked them in the last post, im just going to advise you to watch a documentary called "The Union"

Go watch that...THE WHOLE THING...THEN come back to the argument. You will see the points you make are just outright stupid.

Gateway Theory; There is certainly nothing in THC that makes one "jump" to a harder drug, if that were the case, then one can say that an alcoholic started on milk. I mean its just stupid. (they cover these points in the documentary)

Well boog a loo 22 do you have any more ridiculous things to say about marijuana legalization in California? I couldn't believe you equated marijuana legalization with child pornography and murder. Let me ask...are you a religious conservative who thinks you know what's best for everyone? I'm thinking you are over 55 and listen to Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and get your "news" from Fox News? Please set me straight because I'm curious as to what type of person sees fit to keep perpetuating a spectacularly failed costly drug war. A person who is willing to lock up people for just doing drugs and throw away the key because you don't see it as moral? But what if we don't agree with your morality and think it is ok to alter our minds? That's because you have been brainwashed into thinking that everyone who does drugs is a criminal. You will only be satisfied if everyone is as straight laced as you are and we all become robots, right? Heil Hitler! I'll be so glad when the self-righteous religious right wingers stop trying to tell everyone around them how to live their lives. Last time I checked, we live in a free country with free thinkers who should have the complete right to do what we want to our own lives and to our own bodies. And as far as legalizing prostitution I'm all for it because that's one profession that has been around for thousands of years and any law you are for against it will never stop it from happeneing. But because of making it illegal, like drugs, the laws have forced into the black market where there is organized crime and violence. Legalize prostitution and regulate it, tax it, and test the workers regularly for STDs. Who knows you might save some lives and keep the transmission of STDs down. But nooooooo, you won't see that as being moral, right? You'd rather keep it the way it is and keep people in slavery and keep people getting STDs, right? It's what they deserve, right? I can't wait for this rebuttal.

boog a loo 22

Obviously you do not know the difference between hard drugs and MJ.

Obviously you have never looked into the REASON why it is considered a "gateway drug" . . . please educate yourself.

I'll help you out. The plant does not contain ANY properties that cause you to move on to another drug. The DEALERS do. Can you understand that? The drug dealers are currently the ONLY ones with MJ. So they provide people with it, but also push the harder drugs because there is more profit there. They will make more money if they get you off MJ and on to something else. So the dealers are the gateway. So legalizing MJ will actually remove the dealers AND remove the large gateway aspect. Meaning that legalizing will help REDUCE all the issues of harder drugs.

By keeping it illegal YOU are maintaining the current "gateway" aspect, and YOU are helping destroy more families by keeping the dealers in business. Congrats, YOU are part of the problem.

Furthermore, alcohol is actually worse than weed. Alcohol leads to MORE violence and crime. Why are you not against alcohol?

Finally, just because it is legal DOES NOT mean everyone will use it. Tobacco has been legal for years, but I have never once smoked it. If weed becomes legal, I will not smoke it . . . but I do want the government to tax it. Are you so weak that YOU must do EVERYTHING that is legal? Are you afraid YOUR children are so weak that they must do everything that is legal? Do you lack willpower and the ability to make a decision?

Thank you Thoughts From Cali, spot on

WAKE UP BOOG, its hard to come to terms with yourself that you have been lied to for a while but I think you will eventually see the truth

OneDirtyRat, I completely agree.

boog a loo and other religious right wingers cause MORE problems than fix them. Being against legalization of pot and prostitution actually causes MORE issues. I hold them responsible for every family that gets destroyed by this.

A family down my street is full of right wing conservatives against any type of drug legalization. Their son is addicted to heroine and this has destroyed their family. They blame pot, and say that is how he got started.

I walked right up to them, and said this to their face: "No, pot did not cause this, YOU DID. He started heroin because his DEALER got him on it. He was going to the dealer because pot is illegal. YOU are keeping pot illegal and forcing your son to go to a dealer. YOU ARE THE REASON. If pot was legal, your son would have gone to the store to get it, not the dealer. The store would not up sell him to heroin, but the dealer does. As long as you keep it illegal, you force more people to go to dealers, and more people get pressured into harder drugs. YOU HAVE DONE THIS TO YOUR SON . . . YOU ARE THE PROBLEM."

Yes, the mother burst into tears when I told her this, but I could care less. It's the truth. If pot was legal, her son would have NEVER been introduced to heroin. I do not feel sorry for ANY family that goes through this, because the public has brought this on themselves.

You took the words right out of my mouth.

I understand there are a lot of druggies that want to legalize drugs...for whatever reason.

I also realize that druggies will come up with whatever reason to legalize drugs.

I also know that watching a family where all smoked your lovely MJ, they grew it, the stole it, they did all kinds of things to get money to get more...the youngest was nine and she was a "burn out" most of the time...I know that it was sickening.

I have heard it should be legalized. I have heard it is harmless. I have heard the arguments that refined sugar is worse than pot. So why should it be kept from children? If it is legalized, why would we need to restrict children from buying it? I have heard it should be regulated, but why?

IF IT IS SO SIMPLE, HARMLESS, NON-ADDICTIVE, NOT A GATEWAY DRUG, ALL-NATURAL, AND GOD WANTS YOU TO SMOKE IT...WOULD YOU LET CHILDREN DRINK STEM TEA AND SMOKE IF THEY WANTED TO? WOULD YOU LET THEM EAT MJ BROWNIES?

I hear the B.S., but give me a real answer now.

Where are all these stories about drugs saving marriages and lives?

Where are all these stories about drugs saving careers and businesses?

I've heard a lot about devastation drugs have brought. I never get to hear the inspiring and heart warming stories about what drugs have done for people.

Marijuana may be about the least of the chain, but it is a BEGINNING!

Have drugs affected brains so much that users can't see it will be only the beginning in order to legalize more and more drugs?

If a child of mine were to die from heroin I would blame my child.

However, if I had some self-righteous, unfeeling, inconsiderate a-hole tell me (or more particularly my wife) that crap I just heard from THOUGHTLESS FROM CALI #1.46 I think there would be a dead S.O.B. and I would have gotten off for temporary insanity.

Thank you for being another wonderful spokesperson and example, Thoughts.

There seems to be some misunderstanding about the availability of marijuana. Some of the posters here suggest that legalization would turn everyone into potheads. Pot is available to anyone who wants it no matter where they live. The black markets created by misguided vice laws are thriving and can supply a person with anything he or she wants. At first I was excited about the legalization vote in California coming in November, but the more I think about it the less I care. I like marijuana. I don't think I want the government involved in it at all. They've got a proven track record of making a mess out of anything they get involved in. Personally, I think the fight for legalization in CA is doomed anyways. There are people here who actually believe that "reefer madness" propaganda. There are a lot of them. The funny thing is that they don't know how lucky they are to be wrong. Anyone with any street smarts at all can be high as a kite and fully armed in a matter of hours if they decide they want to be.

To the people concerned about drugs destroying families: I understand and I feel what you're saying. When I was young my own family was torn apart by substance abuse. Alcohol. Good ol' perfectly legal alcohol.

I also find it amazing that so many are unable to live their lives without using drugs. Sure, anybody (any addict) can say "I'm not addicted. It's a choice." but that is just a line. A failure to live without it is proof that you must have it.

Alcohol? Big mistake. The 12-year-old that had the life knocked out of him and left in a ditch by a drunk driver for his family or a stranger to find. That was just over twenty years ago. Wonderful stuff.

Tobacco? I remember as a child having that crap puffed around me wherever I went. My family didn't smoke, but laws were lacking and every damn place was full of smoke, or so it seemed!

Lots of problems with wonderful, legal, alcohol and tobacco! Should we add to these problems with more crap legalized? NO!

A drug-affected brain doesn't have the same reasoning as it did before it got altered by drugs (particularly after long-term usage).

Ever seen an alcoholic that's been sober for more than 15 years?...the guy I knew was wanting to plug a 3-volt DC device into a 110-volt AC outlet.

Plenty of crap to deal with. Why add to it?

I don't believe legalization would turn everyone into potheads, but I do believe it would make it more "acceptable" in more kids' minds as time went on.

After all of the realization about how tobacco and alcohol targeted youth with grandiose and hilariously unrealistic images does anyone think that it wouldn't be the same with drug companies? Look at what dealers do now!

boog a loo 22,

What's wrong, can't handle the truth? I would tell you that, RIGHT TO YOUR FACE. Why? Because it's true. I am unfeeling, heartless, inconsiderate . . . damn right. I don't feel sorry for people who bring these things on themselves. I don't feel sorry for the holier-than-though people, like yourself, who feel the need to tell other people how to run their life. YOU want to maintain a system that does not work. YOU are the problem.

We are trying to remove the drug dealers that push harder substances, AND find an additional source of tax revenue. YOU want to keep the drug dealers that push harder drugs, and ignore a potential tax revenue stream. Did you know that these drug dealers that get kids on heroin or crack AGREE with YOU. They don't want to legalize pot because it will take away their customers. Congrats, you are no better than a drug dealer.

The funny thing is, I don't even do drugs. But I see the tax benefit, I see the problem with illegal dealers, and I see the opportunity to reduce the illegal dealers who push harder substances. I also feel that if someone wants to ruin their life with drugs, LET THEM. It's their life. It's called natural selection.

Perhaps the drugs have affected your ability to feel and care about others. Something you should maybe give so THOUGHT on...

If people really needed a "tax revenue" than why not simply fine the dog crap out of drug users, dealers, head shops that are already open? Increase fees for permits to open head shops! Why is there such a huge need for more "tax revenue" look at all of the assinine spending and try to make smart choices instead of always increasing taxes. Ever think of that? Drugs may be the problem there, too.

Does anyone think that it is difficult to get pot now? If it is so wonderful, why do so many people seek other drugs? Do people think that legalizing marijuana will negate the demand for other drugs?

Again, drug-affected thinking.

Maybe that's the difference between a drug-affected mind and a drug-free mind. I would never go up to a family and say something so cold and callous about their loved one's death no matter where I stood in disagreement with them or their ideas. I might think it privately or discuss the sadness of the situation with others, but I could never be so void of empathy. Consider that drugs may have brought you to this sad state of being.

I understand there are a lot of druggies that want to legalize drugs...for whatever reason.

I also realize that druggies will come up with whatever reason to legalize drugs.

I also know that watching a family where all smoked your lovely MJ, they grew it, the stole it, they did all kinds of things to get money to get more...the youngest was nine and she was a "burn out" most of the time...I know that it was sickening.

I have heard it should be legalized. I have heard it is harmless. I have heard the arguments that refined sugar is worse than pot. So why should it be kept from children? If it is legalized, why would we need to restrict children from buying it? I have heard it should be regulated, but why?

IF IT IS SO SIMPLE, HARMLESS, NON-ADDICTIVE, NOT A GATEWAY DRUG, ALL-NATURAL, AND GOD WANTS YOU TO SMOKE IT...WOULD YOU LET CHILDREN DRINK STEM TEA AND SMOKE IF THEY WANTED TO? WOULD YOU LET THEM EAT MJ BROWNIES?

I hear the B.S., but give me a real answer now.

----------------------------

Where are all these stories about drugs saving marriages and lives?

Where are all these stories about drugs saving careers and businesses?

I've heard a lot about devastation drugs have brought. I never get to hear the inspiring and heart warming stories about what drugs have done for people.

Marijuana may be about the least of the chain, but it is a BEGINNING!

Have drugs affected brains so much that users can't see it will be only the beginning in order to legalize more and more drugs?

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If a child of mine were to die from heroin I would blame my child.

However, if I had some self-righteous, unfeeling, inconsiderate a-hole tell me (or more particularly my wife) that crap I just heard from THOUGHTLESS FROM CALI #1.46 I think there would be a dead S.O.B. and I would have gotten off for temporary insanity.

Thank you for being another wonderful spokesperson and example, Thoughts.

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also find it amazing that so many are unable to live their lives without using drugs. Sure, anybody (any addict) can say "I'm not addicted. It's a choice." but that is just a line. A failure to live without it is proof that you must have it.
Alcohol? Big mistake. The 12-year-old that had the life knocked out of him and left in a ditch by a drunk driver for his family or a stranger to find. That was just over twenty years ago. Wonderful stuff.

Tobacco? I remember as a child having that crap puffed around me wherever I went. My family didn't smoke, but laws were lacking and every damn place was full of smoke, or so it seemed!

Lots of problems with wonderful, legal, alcohol and tobacco! Should we add to these problems with more crap legalized? NO!

A drug-affected brain doesn't have the same reasoning as it did before it got altered by drugs (particularly after long-term usage).

Ever seen an alcoholic that's been sober for more than 15 years?...the guy I knew was wanting to plug a 3-volt DC device into a 110-volt AC outlet.

Plenty of crap to deal with. Why add to it?

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I don't believe legalization would turn everyone into potheads, but I do believe it would make it more "acceptable" in more kids' minds as time went on.

After all of the realization about how tobacco and alcohol targeted youth with grandiose and hilariously unrealistic images does anyone think that it wouldn't be the same with drug companies? Look at what dealers do now!

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Perhaps the drugs have affected your ability to feel and care about others. Something you should maybe give so THOUGHT on...

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If people really needed a "tax revenue" than why not simply fine the dog crap out of drug users, dealers, head shops that are already open? Increase fees for permits to open head shops! Why is there such a huge need for more "tax revenue" look at all of the assinine spending and try to make smart choices instead of always increasing taxes. Ever think of that? Drugs may be the problem there, too.

---------------------------------

Does anyone think that it is difficult to get pot now? If it is so wonderful, why do so many people seek other drugs? Do people think that legalizing marijuana will negate the demand for other drugs?

Again, drug-affected thinking.

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Maybe that's the difference between a drug-affected mind and a drug-free mind. I would never go up to a family and say something so cold and callous about their loved one's death no matter where I stood in disagreement with them or their ideas. I might think it privately or discuss the sadness of the situation with others, but I could never be so void of empathy. Consider that drugs may have brought you to this sad state of being.

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DID YOU WATCH "THE UNION" YET????????????????????????

HELLO???

WAKE THE @!$%# UP!

everything you said, all the points, "facts", and reasoning is complete garbage, you are officially retarded. Congrats

Apparently you also fail at reading comprehension, otherwise you would have read the line where I stated, "Funny thing is, I don't even do drugs." Sorry buddy, hate to burst your bubble, but I have never done any drug . . . AND I have never smoked a single cigarette. But, I could care less if other people do. Live and let live.

But yes, I am brutally honest with people . . . emphasis on the word "brutally". I don't lie to someone, or sugar-coat something, just to spare their feelings.

That being said, I am open to a REASONABLE and LOGICAL counter-solution. So Mr. boog, what is your answer? You seem to love shooting down other solutions, but where is yours? California is in extreme debt, and needs a revenue stream to pay it off. Legalizing and taxing pot is one solution. If you don't like it, give me another solution . . . and exact solution. None of this "stop stupid spending" crap, I want specifics. Stop spending on what?

Also, California has a problem with illegal drug dealers. Give me your solution. I say removing the customer puts them out of business, it's an economic solution that will NOT cost the tax payers money. You don't like it, so what is your solution? Again, give me an exact solution. I don't want to hear "more cops and prisons" because the state can not afford that (the debt issue). So come on, boog . . . how do we lessen illegal drug dealers without going further into debt with more cops and prisons?

So much gibberish from drug-affected people that little is worth reading. And if you haven't done drugs than perhaps there were issues during your gestational development that cause this problem. Nothing like drug-influenced babies.

However, as so much of what I have said has been misconstrued and altered why do you think I care about your small opinion?

Adolf Hitler was at least as certain of himself as you are. He was brutally honest, too.

As far as spending, do I really have to come to California? Californians wouldn't give me a copy of their budgets and wouldn't want to follow any suggestions anyhow.

But since you ask, how about the news article just in today about Bell, California paying it's city manager almost $800,000.00 a year. That's one hell of a lot more than any President of the United States has ever gotten. I guess a California city manager has far greater responsibilities and work than the U.S. President does. How about all of those really nifty prisons? Lock'em up and keep'em locked up. No free time. No outdoor time. No prison riots. No guard stabbings. No televisions. Oh, but we don't want to be cruel to our prisoners, not ever the lifers.

Check your news. If California is so great then why does it have such a huge deficit? It isn't exactly leading the nation as a model of efficiency. Lost Angeles has a $280,000,000.00 budget deficity forecast just for the school system this year (according to the national news [is CNN acceptable] that was broadcast earlier today)!

California has all of those rich people and supposedly all sorts of liberals believe that most everything can be taken care of if we just tax those rich people enough. So why doesn't California just raise taxes on the rich people? If any state deserves the wisdom of obama it is California. We must increase taxes and keep paying out more and more for everyone who wants/needs a hand(out).

If you are telling me that Cali is a model of perfection then get on another ride at Walt's place.

Here's a thought. What would happen if we legalized all drugs? What would the gangs and drug dealers have to get them their money? Would they just have to go to armed robbery, kidnapping, or murder to "make ends meet"? Would all of the crips and bloods go on welfare? Would they turn to the lucrative business of sex slavery? I guess stealing, beating, brutalizing, and pimping out our females even more so than what is already being done would maybe be fine as long as we can get our drugs easily.

Is it a waste of time to spend money on cops and prisons to free women from sex slavery? It's just going to continue anyhow. It will never stop and it is worse than it has ever been. Why should we waste money on women nobody cares about anyhow? Honestly, is that something you would tell these victims and their families because you are so brutally honest?

Consider the word retard: To cause to move or proceed slowly; delay or impede.

Isn't that the effect that marijuana usage has on people?

I would still be interested in hearing all of these stories where marijuana and/or other illegal drugs have saved marriages, lives, businesses, etc. etc. etc.

Are there any?

There are PLENTY of negative stories.

Well I see that you cannot reason inside your head. Your worthless. You and your wife.

Your so ignorant its pathetic and you cannot even make sense in your arguments. You can be against weed all you want, but your about to be steamrolled when the bill passes in California.

Good Luck!

P.S. if you want VIDEO PROOF of weed saving lives and helping people....THEN WATCH THE UNION IDIOT...HOW MANY TIMES DO I HAVE TO SAY IT

Anyone know of anywhere I can find all of these enlightening stories of life-altering, miraculous, illegal drug use? I keep hearing why people THINK we should legalize drugs and I have heard all sorts of stories aboug destructive results due to drug use...so where is the simplest example of why we should legalize drugs?

WHERE ARE ALL THE STORIES, TESTIMONIALS, EYEWITNESS ACCOUNTS, PERSONAL EXPERIENCES, ETC. ETC. ETC. OF ILLEGAL DRUG USE PERFORMING MIRACLES FOR PEOPLE?

ANYONE HAVE THE WEB ADDRESS?

A GOVERNMENT STUDY?

ANYTHING?

I STILL HAVEN'T HEARD IT!

ANYONE!

I loved the videos on "Super High Me" where people were upset, shouting, and protesting the raids of pot shops in California. They're stating that the shops are legal, that the police are violating the law, etc. Are these people to drug-affected to understand that a state law does not take precedent over the federal government? Just wondering if they could tell.

P.S. You can attempt to insult me, but considering the source and the disability of drug use I take anything you say, positive or negative as a compliment. So, thank you!

Wow! The Union was SOOO helpful! Not.

Can anyone give me a specific time mark in that whole biased, twisted propaganda video that shows all of these testimonials of family-saving and life-changing incidents that are supposedly in there? It sounds like just the opposite of Reefer Madness! Just because you get a bunch of people with the same opinion together and put them in a video together doesn't mean the perception is accurate. Anyone here of Farenheit 9/11? What about it's counterpart Farenhype 9/11?

I ask the simplest question in this whole debate and no one can supply all of these testimonials.

Forget all the other arguments whether pro or con.

Just compare all of the stories of devastation with (any?) the stories of wonderful redemption!

Now, so we don't continue to get WAY OFF TRACK again...I am never including medical use in this debate. However, the stories of devastation were never stories about medical use, either.

I do like the reasons why people need medical marijuana. One actual reason a prescription was issued: Patient claims depression when he cannot get marijuana to smoke.

Classy.

Do people in California realize that California is only a state and is still under the jurisdiction of the federal government? Maybe it's too hard to see through all the smoke.

ComradeChaos, ZMAN: both of you are ignorant; for starters, the French WON the revolutionary war for us while Washington dithered. They forced the British to surrender at Yorktown, Remember? In the war of 1812, which we did not win, (treaty) the French kept the British occupied all over Europe or we might not be a country today. They defeated the Russians in the 1850's in the Crimea; and the Chinese in the war over Indochina in 1885. Of course they held the Germans to a standstill in WWI for 4 years before the USA even thought of getting in...and this of course doesnt include a)Charlemagne, the greatest western King ever who drove back the muslim hordes cerca 800A.D., The Crusades that drove Islam out of Jerusalem, or the 100 years war where they beat the English, or of course the massive victories by the Bourbons and then Napolean, the master of all warfare, who beat Russia, Prussia, Austria, Italy, Spain and England repeatedly. If you want any other history lessons, feel free to display your lack of knowledge.

Just because you get a bunch of people with the same opinion together and put them in a video together doesn't mean the perception is accurate.

What?! so they need to get non smokers on the video to tell the stories of how all the marijuana they DIDNT smoke changed their lives????..........?!?!?! .....whats funny is half the movie shows the side YOUR on and then it proves YOUR "facts" wrong.

I do like the reasons why people need medical marijuana. One actual reason a prescription was issued: Patient claims depression when he cannot get marijuana to smoke.

You Lied. You said you watched The Union, you didnt see it at all or you would have seen the legit examples of patients who actually NEED marijuana.

Prove the documentary wrong! Watch it then PROVE that they are wrong. You can't.

Watch Farenheit 9/11 then watch Farenhype 9/11. If you don't understand the manipulation of facts, opinions, and data from watching those movies then there is nothing I can do for you.

Saying "prove the documentary wrong" is like me saying "prove all information ever accumulated shining a negative light upon marijuana including medical studies and information published within non-governmental magazines". It's like saying, "my dad can beat up your dad". It simply doesn't work.

I would still be interested in all of the testimonials from people about families in trouble, lives in crisis, and how using illegal drugs have brought the family closer together, saved marriages, saved businesses...because as I have kept saying I have heard a lot of testimonials, stories, etc. about marriages destroyed, families torn apart, jobs lost and businesses lost due to people using illegal drugs. I have heard this from drug users. I have heard from drug users in other countries where it is perfectly legal that the government should never have legalized drugs. Not everybody watches "The Union" video and believes it like you do. Just like not everyone was a fervent believer it Adolf Hitler. Not everyone wanted to drink Reverend Jim Jones's kool-aid drink. I won't be one to drink it, even at gunpoint. So shooting me in the back or execution style may be the only options for people trying to shove things (ideas) down my throat that seem to ooze lunacy from every pore and crevice.

P.S. I never said legitimate medical usage of marijuana shouldn't be allowed (as controlled by a competent doctor). I have said, however, that some of the reasons doctors have prescribed medical marijuana seem to exceed common sense. One man said, (note, not verbatim) "I get depressed when I don't have marijuana to smoke". One prescription for marijuana written to keep the person from getting depressed because he can't smoke marijuana. Does anybody who isn't straight see the humor in this?

Im going to have to break this down and feed you bits and pieces.....

Watch Farenheit 9/11 then watch Farenhype 9/11. If you don't understand the manipulation of facts, opinions, and data from watching those movies then there is nothing I can do for you.

*sigh* yes it is a fact of life that no matter what information is complied together, that information is obviously trying to promote whatever the person is promoting. YOU just hate Micheal Moore because back in the late 90's you jumped on the "hate Micheal Moore" bandwagon with everyone else. "The Union" makes some bold statements and I cannot find anything, anywhere that proves their info wrong. So why dont you make a documentary proving THAT documentary wrong like farenhype 9/11, I mean you have all your facts right?

Saying "prove the documentary wrong" is like me saying "prove all information ever accumulated shining a negative light upon marijuana including medical studies and information published within non-governmental magazines". It's like saying, "my dad can beat up your dad". It simply doesn't work

I know it takes a little bit of brain power, which can be difficult, but what I was trying to say was that all documentaries show facts....well in "the Union" they have facts and statistics that you youself can research and find different conclusions than what they found (called a debate) its actually no where near "my dad can beat up your dad"....no where near it.

would still be interested in all of the testimonials from people about families in trouble, lives in crisis, and how using illegal drugs have brought the family closer together

The Union, or any documentary on the matter. You really have to stop asking that because obviously no one on newsvine has those stories so that means your going to have to do a little research, how do you know there are NOT stories like that with MARIJUANA ONLY? We are not talking about crack or ANY OTHER DRUG BESIDES MARIJUANA.

because as I have kept saying I have heard a lot of testimonials, stories, etc. about marriages destroyed, families torn apart, jobs lost and businesses lost due to people using illegal drugs

ok? so what are the stories? Were they from marijuana use only? If they are not about marijuana use only then dont even bother. Do you know how many lives are destroyed by legal beer? Or legal cigaretts?

Tell us the stories and quit talking about them.

I have heard from drug users in other countries where it is perfectly legal that the government should never have legalized drugs

yeah maybe Canada...WITH HEROIN..................................................HEROIN

Not everybody watches "The Union" video and believes it like you do. Just like not everyone was a fervent believer it Adolf Hitler.

im not using The Union as a end-all argument for weed, I just honestly dont feel like typing all the facts and info to you when you dont even answer my questions with straight answers...you spitting out the same rhetoric means you are not a free-thinker, you are a follower, and you believe anything people tell you if its the first time you heard it.

shooting me in the back or execution style may be the only options for people trying to shove things (ideas) down my throat that seem to ooze lunacy from every pore and crevice.

Its actually only needed when people ooze lunacy from every pore and crevice..like yourself.

Boog, answer my questions

If you think that just because people started with marijuana and that it lead to them doing other drugs and destroying their lives isn't important then read no further. You won't get or understand anything that is being stated beyond this point.

A young couple. The man liked to smoke marijuana. A friend told him, "Don't let that take over your life." "I won't", he assured her. Years later, he had left his then wife and three children to continue to do drugs, living under a highway overpass with a toothless old woman. It all started with marijuana. Get it? Probably not. He got all the marijuana he wanted. He wasn't "forced" to get heroin from a dealer just because McDoogle's doesn't sell it with their freakin' Sappy Meals! He STARTED with MARIJUANA! No one has heard anything from him in more than a decade.

My nephew who couldn't have a relationship with his father because his father really liked his weed. Just weed as far as I ever knew or heard. His father was self-absorbed in his weed and his little weed world. It didn't matter that his super-relaxed demeanor bothered his children. Oh, he was one hell of a worker. He brought home a lot of money and always paid for everything. He just spent a lot of personal time smoking because he found it more important than his children. Because he did drugs and had friends who did drugs, his daughter eventually became acquainted with the lifestyle. Eventually she found her way into having two children out of wedlock with a loser. She eventually was arrested for selling meth. It all started with MARIJUANA! It STARTED with MARIJUANA!

Another girl that my wife knew way back in school started her drug career with MARIJUANA. She eventually added other drugs to her repetoire. She gave birth to a child with fairly severe birth defects. Facial deformities. I am sure that unless God himself showed you in writing (on stone tablets) that it was due to drug use, you probably wouldn't believe it. However, anyone who would assault a woman whose child just died might not care what God thinks anyhow.

See, there are a few people who can smoke marijuana and that is all. Good for them. But there are a lot of people that after a while don't feel that it works as well at getting them high as it did when they first started using. So they go on to other drugs. Can you understand this, or not?

Alcohol? Tobacco? Yeah, I have problems with them, too. PARTICULARLY alcohol. Ever been to a party with alcohol? My thoughts are that there are usually a set number of things that can happen at a typical "Hey we're having a party. We've got beer (or whatever) come on over. Bring some friends. Whatever." I'm not talking about a small gathering of select friends in a controlled environment where you have selected these individuals because you've weeded out all the idiots over the years. Several things that can happen: People get to drinking. Some people will start going through stuff in the house for no reason. Things will end up missing (stolen). Things can get broken. Somebody gets hurt (accidentally). Somebody wants to fight a person or EVERYONE. Somebody gets depressed and you have to spend a lot of time cheering them up and keeping an eye on them.

Now, put that little bunch of crap aside. The simplest reason I don't like alcohol and have been "dry" for more than 26 years (more than half my life and I quit drinking before I was old enough to drink legally).

I came across the scene where a drunk driver came up behind a 12-year-old kid on the OLD, secondary highway when the kid was riding his moped. The kid was left in the ditch for his parents, or whomever found him, to be discovered. The drunk came to work at the meat packing plant where I worked. It was the day after the incident and he told the gate guard that the damage on his car was due to hitting a deer. Later the gate guard while "walking the lot" decided to take a closer look at the damage. The child's blood and hair were still on the front of the car. Maybe for people who are unable to empathize this is no big deal. Maybe it's even stupid. Maybe the parents should have been yelled at that it was their fault the child was dead because they never should have had him to begin with. I can't understand the brutality of your aforementioned actions. For me, however, the incident is well etched in my mind. That kid should have been about 32 or 33 last year. Maybe he would have had kids and his parents then would have had grandchildren. Did you really want me to rationalize my views on alcohol? I can give you a laundry list of alcohol incidents from the stepdad who beat my mother (I didn't live with them except for 9 months, once) to the guy in my class that I had known for years who ate the windshield in his senior year in high school, was revived by my (now) sister-in-law on the ambulance crew, spent eight+ months in a coma, and came out with severe brain damage. His life has been spent smoking marijuana and drinking in excess for almost three decades now. You really think that because alcohol is around and causes lots of problems that I would then sign on to legalizing marijuana? After what I have seen and heard from reliable witnesses (at a minimum)? Think again.

Tobacco? Sure. Wonderful. Love to see all of the sick people. Underweight babies. Cancer. People with emphysema hacking up crap from their lungs that makes a person want to vomit. Sure. Great. Let's legalize marijuana...NOT!

Oh, the drug addict was not from Canada, but was broadcast on the BBC world news. He did not say they shouldn't legalize certain drugs. He said that they shouldn't have legalized drugs. Period.

I don't know how people get so far from simple thinking. I don't know why anyone who doesn't do drugs would spend so much time beating the "legalize marijuana" drum, to include watching documentaries, etc. Are you a dealer? Or looking to become a dealer? What is your motivation in all this? What kind of person assaults a mother that is having to bury her child and try to place the blame at her feet simply because they don't want to legalize marijuana? I would really like to know (seriously, I would) how you were raised. What the background of your family lineage has been, their personal habits and practices, your experiences in life...etc. etc. etc. Basically, what the heck produces a person of your caliber? You should be in one of those documentaries, or better yet, you should take the lead in the crusade to legalize marijuana. You should stand up on TV, youtube, etc. and shout with great conviction how you straightened that mother out when her son died from a heroin overdose. If you really think that what you did was acceptable, then really put it out there! I think it would do wonders for the "legalize marijuana" movement. Please do.

Now where are all those heartwarming stories about the beloved drugs performing miracles in people's lives?

Why don't we through in the one I got from one "let's legalize marijuana" druggie. "Refined sugar is worse for you than marijuana"! I suppose we could play that stupid debate game too, but I will leave that to others.

Now, if you think you will keep me from fighting people with the "let's legalize marijuana" scheme, you are more than dead wrong. And I would love to see this whole legalized marijuana in California, then maybe we can get more druggies out of the other states in the country and send them to live in Cali and really glut the welfare system there. It would be wonderful if we could move all of the drug habits and dealers there.

Sometimes backward thinking is so embedded in a person that no amount of logical discourse can sway them. Sick and Cali, we just have to be thankfull that boog doesn't hold any public office. Time will eventually return these people whose thoughts are fueled by hate and fear to the dust from whence they came. Boog, I've never met a pothead with a through process as screwed up as yours. Welcome to my ignore list :)

Grrr. That's THOUGHT process.... Haste makes waste they say.

Drug altered minds think alike. AA or NA, it's your choice.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THE OTHER POSTING.

I guess some people reserve the right to screw up, over, and under their children, family, friends and their lives. It's sad to see people screw themselves up, but it's so much worse when others are affected.

I will never believe that an active user can be reached (well, perhaps the slimmest of chances). I have heard the wisdom of the recovering addicts. Why should self-centered, self-absorbed, people whose only wish is to support their own addictions. People who enjoy spreading misery through their actions or inactions will always help to victimize the children of this each generation through their own selfish desires.

How people can move through this world with such thick blinders on is beyond my comprehension.

Then again, the video of the young teens smoking marijuana and get the 3-year-old child to smoke it is probably funny to the same people who support all of this. And the wisdom of the teens being prosecuted? "That's just how it is."

Amen. May God bless each and every one of you and bring you full circle.

Peace out.

Please visit Holland before making such as asinine comment.

Actually I've been there several times (military at the time)...are you telling me, that the "drug tourists" are not going to find middle men/women willing get drugs for them????

Sorry, I misunderstood you comment... mea culpa. You are absolutely right.

It already happens today. When I used to visit Roosendaal, teenagers used to come up to me and offer to sell marijuana within blocks of the coffeeshops.

That is why a change in policy would be stupid.

It's not like the US and the Cartels.They don't need mules to bring it into the Netherlands because they can grow it in the Netherlands.If you check the article,the criminal activity is related to the illegal trafficking of hard drugs.The main problem with the Marijuana tourists seems to be that there are so many of them.

“But the worst part is that this group, this enormous group, is such an attractive target for criminals who want to sell their own stuff, hard stuff, and they are here too now.”

Well boog a loo 22 do you have any more ridiculous things to say about marijuana legalization in California? I couldn't believe you equated marijuana legalization with child pornography and murder. Let me ask...are you a religious conservative who thinks you know what's best for everyone? I'm thinking you are over 55 and listen to Glen Beck, Rush Limbaugh and get your "news" from Fox News? Please set me straight because I'm curious as to what type of person sees fit to keep perpetuating a spectacularly failed costly drug war. A person who is willing to lock up people for just doing drugs and throw away the key because you don't see it as moral? But what if we don't agree with your morality and think it is ok to alter our minds? That's because you have been brainwashed into thinking that everyone who does drugs is a criminal. You will only be satisfied if everyone is as straight laced as you are and we all become robots, right? Heil Hitler! I'll be so glad when the righteous religious right wingers stop trying to tell everyone around them how to live their lives. Last time I checked, we live in a free country with free thinkers who should have the complete right to do what we want to our own lives and to our own bodies. And as far as legalizing prostitution I'm all for it because that's one profession that has been around for thousands of years and any law you are for against it will never stop it from happeneing. But because of making it illegal, like drugs, the laws have forced into the black market where there is organized crime and violence. Legalize prostitution and regulate it, tax it, and test the workers regularly for STDs. Who knows you might save some lives and keep the transmission of STDs down. But nooooooo, you won't see that as being moral, right? You'd rather keep it the way it is and keep people in slavery and keep people getting STDs, right? It's what they deserve, right? I can't wait for this rebuttal.

Boog,

Everyone else is making a good MJ case for me. There has not been on shred of credible evidence that MJ is more dangerous or as dangerous for you as alcohol. None of the evil myths the government tried to push off on us ever proved out as truthful. You know none of my male friends nor I have ever grown breasts. I don't feel the urge to take a LSD trip, however, I do have the urge to take a trip! Does that count? We could argue here all day long points of issue that you may have, but all the evidence for legalization is on MJ's side.

People should AT LEAST try to stay under the same post when addressing someone. It's not unlike leaving voicemail at the wrong phone number. Drug-related attention deficit disorder?

boog for your information I have not smoked weed. I can't explain why when I posted that earlier it went to the wrong vein of conversation, but I did re-post it under the correct vein of conversation. Sorry for the mistake but I guess I have to be perfect like you and not be human and make any mistakes. According to you humans don't make mistakes unless they are under the influence, right? Can I just say go F**K yourself on that issue?

So boog, I will ask you again, what is your solution to the drug issue at hand? Do you remember alcohol prohibition and how that didn't work? Do you see the parallels with the drug laws of today that haven't worked for decades now and have cost the tax payers over a trillion dollars? Do you see how the drug laws have created a black market, gangs across the land, and violent cartels south of the border? Why do you want to keep perpetuating a policy that has spectacularly failed? I have done the research and I'm not going to go find it for you. You do the work yourself but you are too lazy to do that; you want someone to do the work for you while you sit on your ass and keep absorbing the propaganda BS disseminated by the government. Yes, I say legalize all drugs and end the Drug War. Other countries have experimented with different drug policies and programs that are working why can't we try the same here in the US? The drug laws DO MORE DAMAGE than the drugs themselves. Certainly there is a percentage of people who are affected negatively by using drugs and the lives of families are disrupted. But that is NOT an argument for keeping the same failed policy that is NOT working. What about all of the people who use drugs responsibly and it doesn't wreck their lives, should they be penalized because some can't? What about taking all the money spent on the drug war, on legal costs in prosecution, on incarceration and spend it on education and rehabilitation instead? What do you think of that idea? Why should we treat drug users as criminals when there is no victim? I agree that if a person commits a crime to get drugs or while on drugs, then charge them with that crime. And for those people who do become addicted shouldn't we treat them as medical patients? And what about the permanent mark put on someones record that will follow them for the rest of their lives? I guess once your a crack addict always a crack addict even if that person becomes rehabilitated? How does that help them? Again, I ask you boog, what other solutions can you put forth that would take the place of the "lock them up and throw away the key mentality" that you have chosen to stand by which DOES NOT WORK? You keep asking about what are the benefits that drug use has and if it has saved any marriages, etc? What does that have to do with personal freedom of choice and the fact that you don't have the right to tell people how to live their lives? I can think of many things in society that devastate lives and families but we don't outlaw them because of that. For example, why don't we outlaw all fatty foods. Isn't heart disease the number one killer of Americans in this country? No we won't because it's a matter of personal choice and freedom (not to mention the money involved). No one has ever died from just smoking weed. It's impossible to overdose on marijuana. Again, you look it up if you don't believe me. The facts are there and I'm tired from arguing with you so you do the work yourself. I'm saying this: before you come on here and say a bunch of nonsense and regurgitate lies and misinformation do some frickin research so you might know what the F**K you are talking about. Isn't it convenient how you decided to not include medical pot in this debate? Why is that? That's because you can't come up with any arguments against that issue. SO I WILL ASK YOU BOOG ONE FINAL TIME: WHAT OTHER SOLUTIONS CAN YOU OFFER OTHER THAN THE CURRENT FAILED POLICY?

I asked you a lot of questions but I'm going to predict you will ignore them, as usual.

And to give in to all needs and desires simply because the fight is what, too hard? I'm not the weakling type that gives up. I don't believe in simply giving up because it isn't going to change.

THE EXACT SAME MENTALITY CAN BE APPLIED AGAIN AND AGAIN WITH THE SAME RESULTS:

Why should we spend money, time, resources, etc. fighting sex slavery when it is OBVIOUSLY a losing battle?

There will always be sacrifice to fight for what you believe in. Those who do not serve might not understand. The policies right now are probably far too lenient. The gangs in Mexico are a prime example. They will do whatever it takes to remain dominant. Murder, kidnapping, men, women, or children...it doesn't matter to them. We are too soft on too many of the criminals. We don't have a successful policy because it is too weak.

However, just like fighting religious fanatics such as Al Qaeda (for example) we will probably never "win" and will only continue to fight these fanatics and their ideals until the end of time. We spend a lot of money in an attempt to stem the attempts at terrorism that many would perpetrate upon us. We cannot "win", but does that mean we should just give up?

For some people it isn't about dollars and cents. For some people there are higher moral issues at stake.

Take, for instance, the kidnapping that is currently occuring in Mexico. It is being perpetrated upon wealthy families and poor families alike. Children are being kidnapped and ransoms are set according to what the kidnappers feel the family can pay. No pay. Dead child. No big deal to them. This is something that is increasing, not decreasing, even though the government is doing everything it can to stem the violence. What should they do? Give up? Should everyone be allowed to save money on taxes and resources because the government cannot win against such simple brutality?

For some the sentiment is the same for almost any fight, even if the particular details are different. For some we simply do not give up or fold out of concern of getting hurt, or disturbing our personal lifestyle, or because it would save worthless dollars at any sacrifice of peoples' lives. I know that a lot of users cannot understand this. I know that our society has become even weaker and more self-absorbed in it's relentless pursuit of self-indulgence. Not everyone can be like that. Some were raised by people with older and stronger morals. I don't think I can explain the particulars of the difference to people who have never been taught what is truly right from wrong.

The fault of this "Me! Me! Me!" cult probably lies with many parents who believe(d) that giving their children everything they desire and being their "friend" was more important than teaching them older values of hard work, sacrifice, doing the right thing, loyalty, respect, etc.

I know a lot of the bloggers here cannot understand. I know that nothing I write will probably ever deter anyone seeking drugs or their legalization to change their minds. However, this is still America for which I sacrificed more than two decades of my life like so many others have for hundreds of years in defense of this country and freedom of speech is still intact.

The simplest argument against drugs is the one I should probably have resorted to in the first place.

I have heard all kinds of stories about people using different types of illegal drugs. A number of these started with marijuana. All the stories I have ever heard had sad outcomes and endings. Families destroyed by drugs. Mothers and fathers leaving their families to pursue drugs. Mothers whoring to make enough for another quick fix while their husband and child(ren) live in the car because drug use has taken so much of a toll that both parents lost their jobs, house, and belongings. Jobs lost. Businesses lost. Time lost. Life lost.

Where are all those sunshine and happiness stories where drugs saved a marriage, or a family, or a business? Real stories. Not crap about medical marijuana which I don't have a problem with as long as it isn't a bogus prescription such as (I get depressed when I can't smoke marijuana). What people have ever come out ahead because drugs fixed the problems in their lives? Screw all the "tax revenue" arguments and other crap. Just show me all of these miraculous fixes that drugs have brought into peoples' lives!

NO ONE HAS EVER SHARED WITH ME ALL OF THESE POWERFUL STORIES THAT WOULD POSSIBLY CHANGE MY MIND THAT LEGALIZING DRUGS OF ANY KIND WOULD POSSIBLY BE A BENEFIT TO SOCIETY!

Why can't anyone share all of these tales? Why hide them from everyone? Why not display them for the entire world to see? Why not attempt to show the exceptional power of illegal drugs to bring families together? Why not?

Give up?! Who said anything about giving up?

boog: Same old ignorant argument coming from a broken record. You just repeated the same things as before. You still haven't put forth any other resolutions except for being tougher on the penalties. You still haven't accepted the FACT that law enforcement WILL NOT WORK and that DRUG USE WILL NEVER GO AWAY! You are satisfied with the way things are and, you sir, are just as much a part of the problem. I'm through talking to you about this issue because my head hurts from banging it against the wall trying to get you to answer my questions.

Just so you know...marijuana will be legalized and there is nothing you can do about it. And the Drug War will never be won if the current policy is followed, even if the laws get tougher as you want.

Oh and BTW- my prediction came true.

BOOG

Im going to have to break this down and feed you bits and pieces.....

Watch Farenheit 9/11 then watch Farenhype 9/11. If you don't understand the manipulation of facts, opinions, and data from watching those movies then there is nothing I can do for you.

*sigh* yes it is a fact of life that no matter what information is complied together, that information is obviously trying to promote whatever the person is promoting. YOU just hate Micheal Moore because back in the late 90's you jumped on the "hate Micheal Moore" bandwagon with everyone else. "The Union" makes some bold statements and I cannot find anything, anywhere that proves their info wrong. So why dont you make a documentary proving THAT documentary wrong like farenhype 9/11, I mean you have all your facts right?

Saying "prove the documentary wrong" is like me saying "prove all information ever accumulated shining a negative light upon marijuana including medical studies and information published within non-governmental magazines". It's like saying, "my dad can beat up your dad". It simply doesn't work

I know it takes a little bit of brain power, which can be difficult, but what I was trying to say was that all documentaries show facts....well in "the Union" they have facts and statistics that you youself can research and find different conclusions than what they found (called a debate) its actually no where near "my dad can beat up your dad"....no where near it.

would still be interested in all of the testimonials from people about families in trouble, lives in crisis, and how using illegal drugs have brought the family closer together

The Union, or any documentary on the matter. You really have to stop asking that because obviously no one on newsvine has those stories so that means your going to have to do a little research, how do you know there are NOT stories like that with MARIJUANA ONLY? We are not talking about crack or ANY OTHER DRUG BESIDES MARIJUANA.

because as I have kept saying I have heard a lot of testimonials, stories, etc. about marriages destroyed, families torn apart, jobs lost and businesses lost due to people using illegal drugs

ok? so what are the stories? Were they from marijuana use only? If they are not about marijuana use only then dont even bother. Do you know how many lives are destroyed by legal beer? Or legal cigaretts?

Tell us the stories and quit talking about them.

I have heard from drug users in other countries where it is perfectly legal that the government should never have legalized drugs

yeah maybe Canada...WITH HEROIN..................................................HEROIN

Not everybody watches "The Union" video and believes it like you do. Just like not everyone was a fervent believer it Adolf Hitler.

im not using The Union as a end-all argument for weed, I just honestly dont feel like typing all the facts and info to you when you dont even answer my questions with straight answers...you spitting out the same rhetoric means you are not a free-thinker, you are a follower, and you believe anything people tell you if its the first time you heard it.

shooting me in the back or execution style may be the only options for people trying to shove things (ideas) down my throat that seem to ooze lunacy from every pore and crevice.

Its actually only needed when people ooze lunacy from every pore and crevice..like yourself.

I guess it's just the same old record on your player, too.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

I'm an addict and we need to legalize drugs no matter what.

The selfishness of some is not cause for common sense to be banished.

IN CASE YOU MISSED THE OTHER POSTING.

If you think that just because people started with marijuana and that it lead to them doing other drugs and destroying their lives isn't important then read no further. You won't get or understand anything that is being stated beyond this point.

A young couple. The man liked to smoke marijuana. A friend told him, "Don't let that take over your life." "I won't", he assured her. Years later, he had left his then wife and three children to continue to do drugs, living under a highway overpass with a toothless old woman. It all started with marijuana. Get it? Probably not. He got all the marijuana he wanted. He wasn't "forced" to get heroin from a dealer just because McDoogle's doesn't sell it with their freakin' Sappy Meals! He STARTED with MARIJUANA! No one has heard anything from him in more than a decade.

My nephew who couldn't have a relationship with his father because his father really liked his weed. Just weed as far as I ever knew or heard. His father was self-absorbed in his weed and his little weed world. It didn't matter that his super-relaxed demeanor bothered his children. Oh, he was one hell of a worker. He brought home a lot of money and always paid for everything. He just spent a lot of personal time smoking because he found it more important than his children. Because he did drugs and had friends who did drugs, his daughter eventually became acquainted with the lifestyle. Eventually she found her way into having two children out of wedlock with a loser. She eventually was arrested for selling meth. It all started with MARIJUANA! It STARTED with MARIJUANA!

Another girl that my wife knew way back in school started her drug career with MARIJUANA. She eventually added other drugs to her repetoire. She gave birth to a child with fairly severe birth defects. Facial deformities. I am sure that unless God himself showed you in writing (on stone tablets) that it was due to drug use, you probably wouldn't believe it. However, anyone who would assault a woman whose child just died might not care what God thinks anyhow.

See, there are a few people who can smoke marijuana and that is all. Good for them. But there are a lot of people that after a while don't feel that it works as well at getting them high as it did when they first started using. So they go on to other drugs. Can you understand this, or not?

Alcohol? Tobacco? Yeah, I have problems with them, too. PARTICULARLY alcohol. Ever been to a party with alcohol? My thoughts are that there are usually a set number of things that can happen at a typical "Hey we're having a party. We've got beer (or whatever) come on over. Bring some friends. Whatever." I'm not talking about a small gathering of select friends in a controlled environment where you have selected these individuals because you've weeded out all the idiots over the years. Several things that can happen: People get to drinking. Some people will start going through stuff in the house for no reason. Things will end up missing (stolen). Things can get broken. Somebody gets hurt (accidentally). Somebody wants to fight a person or EVERYONE. Somebody gets depressed and you have to spend a lot of time cheering them up and keeping an eye on them.

Now, put that little bunch of crap aside. The simplest reason I don't like alcohol and have been "dry" for more than 26 years (more than half my life and I quit drinking before I was old enough to drink legally).

I came across the scene where a drunk driver came up behind a 12-year-old kid on the OLD, secondary highway when the kid was riding his moped. The kid was left in the ditch for his parents, or whomever found him, to be discovered. The drunk came to work at the meat packing plant where I worked. It was the day after the incident and he told the gate guard that the damage on his car was due to hitting a deer. Later the gate guard while "walking the lot" decided to take a closer look at the damage. The child's blood and hair were still on the front of the car. Maybe for people who are unable to empathize this is no big deal. Maybe it's even stupid. Maybe the parents should have been yelled at that it was their fault the child was dead because they never should have had him to begin with. I can't understand the brutality of your aforementioned actions. For me, however, the incident is well etched in my mind. That kid should have been about 32 or 33 last year. Maybe he would have had kids and his parents then would have had grandchildren. Did you really want me to rationalize my views on alcohol? I can give you a laundry list of alcohol incidents from the stepdad who beat my mother (I didn't live with them except for 9 months, once) to the guy in my class that I had known for years who ate the windshield in his senior year in high school, was revived by my (now) sister-in-law on the ambulance crew, spent eight+ months in a coma, and came out with severe brain damage. His life has been spent smoking marijuana and drinking in excess for almost three decades now. You really think that because alcohol is around and causes lots of problems that I would then sign on to legalizing marijuana? After what I have seen and heard from reliable witnesses (at a minimum)? Think again.

Tobacco? Sure. Wonderful. Love to see all of the sick people. Underweight babies. Cancer. People with emphysema hacking up crap from their lungs that makes a person want to vomit. Sure. Great. Let's legalize marijuana...NOT!

Oh, the drug addict was not from Canada, but was broadcast on the BBC world news. He did not say they shouldn't legalize certain drugs. He said that they shouldn't have legalized drugs. Period.

I don't know how people get so far from simple thinking. I don't know why anyone who doesn't do drugs would spend so much time beating the "legalize marijuana" drum, to include watching documentaries, etc. Are you a dealer? Or looking to become a dealer? What is your motivation in all this? What kind of person assaults a mother that is having to bury her child and try to place the blame at her feet simply because they don't want to legalize marijuana? I would really like to know (seriously, I would) how you were raised. What the background of your family lineage has been, their personal habits and practices, your experiences in life...etc. etc. etc. Basically, what the heck produces a person of your caliber? You should be in one of those documentaries, or better yet, you should take the lead in the crusade to legalize marijuana. You should stand up on TV, youtube, etc. and shout with great conviction how you straightened that mother out when her son died from a heroin overdose. If you really think that what you did was acceptable, then really put it out there! I think it would do wonders for the "legalize marijuana" movement. Please do.

Now where are all those heartwarming stories about the beloved drugs performing miracles in people's lives?

Why don't we through in the one I got from one "let's legalize marijuana" druggie. "Refined sugar is worse for you than marijuana"! I suppose we could play that stupid debate game too, but I will leave that to others.

Now, if you think you will keep me from fighting people with the "let's legalize marijuana" scheme, you are more than dead wrong. And I would love to see this whole legalized marijuana in California, then maybe we can get more druggies out of the other states in the country and send them to live in Cali and really glut the welfare system there. It would be wonderful if we could move all of the drug habits and dealers there.

Now, if you think you will keep me from fighting people with the "let's legalize marijuana" scheme, you are more than dead wrong. And I would love to see this whole legalized marijuana in California, then maybe we can get more druggies out of the other states in the country and send them to live in Cali and really glut the welfare system there. It would be wonderful if we could move all of the drug habits and dealers there.

but you LIVE in California?

Honestly, this isnt worth my time. I def see where you are coming from which is why I know you hold firm to what you believe because you have this OTHER fear that is besides marijuana and thats why you have so much hate for it......the key fundamental element that you have left you is human nature, those people chose to do those things can only blame themselves, you cant blame the drug. I guess guns kill people without people too huh?

Go ahead and put your gloves on because negotiations are over, talks are over, head to the voting booth and vote against it....but like I said, your about to get steamrolled out there in California and your world is about to be turned upside down.

Good Luck!

If you lived in a society that was ruled by boog people wouldn't be able to have the freedom of choice to do anything that had negative consequences. You wouldn't be able to drink alcohol, smoke cigarettes, drive a car, eat fast food, or smoke a joint, etc. Thousands of people die every year of heart disease which happens to be the number one killer in the US. In boog's world McDonalds, Burger King, etc. would be outlawed because of the fatty foods they serve and contribute to heart disease. That would also mean any food that wasn't good for you, like ice cream or cookies or candy, would all be illegal because you might get heart disease and die. And forget driving a car in boog's world because in reality tens of thousands die every year on our roads while driving a car so that would be outlawed, too. Anything that might lead to you getting sick or die would be illegal in boog's world. And forget about drinking alcohol in boog's world because in reality thousands die from drinking alcohol alone in the US every year so that would be outlawed as well. And you can forget about smoking weed in boog's world because in his reality everyone who smokes weed is destroying their lives and will go on to use cocaine and meth and heroin....

Heil boog!!! (puts hand up in a Nazi salute)

I guess some people reserve the right to screw up, over, and under their children, family, friends and their lives. It's sad to see people screw themselves up, but it's so much worse when others are affected.

I will never believe that an active user can be reached (well, perhaps the slimmest of chances). I have heard the wisdom of the recovering addicts. Why should self-centered, self-absorbed, people whose only wish is to support their own addictions. People who enjoy spreading misery through their actions or inactions will always help to victimize the children of this each generation through their own selfish desires.

How people can move through this world with such thick blinders on is beyond my comprehension.

Then again, the video of the young teens smoking marijuana and get the 3-year-old child to smoke it is probably funny to the same people who support all of this. And the wisdom of the teens being prosecuted? "That's just how it is."

Amen. May God bless each and every one of you and bring you full circle.

Peace out.

You leave me speechless...........

Why is that? I am relating first-hand experience over a 6 year period.

The reason that crime is up has nothing to do with the coffee shops and everything to do with the Turkish & Moroccan population explosion in the Netherlands.

Right on, Brian! GbA - yer an idiot!!

So you noticed GBA as an idiot too...

Incredable, I noticed it too, and I don't even do drugs....

Never knew that about Portugal - interesting though.

The question is does the legalized drug business with the associated “coffee shops” contribute to increased crime observed in Dutch cities that close enough to the board to attract high volumes of tourist traffic who frequent the “coffee shops’ because drugs are illegal in the tourist home country? Comparison of the crime rates in other Dutch cities of similar size that are located different distances from the boarder, and thus less convenient for drug tourists, is the correct comparison for the question being asked. For this question it would be invalid and irrelevant to compare to other cities in other countries that do not have a drug tourism industry.

As Eddie izzard said: If being stoned makes you 'stupid' how come most Dutch people speak at least 4 languages then?

I am Dutch. There is a lot wrong with my country but i regret how the Netherlands only seems to get the US news/interest when it involves their drug policy. Just like to state that most Dutch people I know never ever smoked pot in their lifes and maybe that is because it is not such a big deal (kids tend to do things that is specifically forbidden).I am for one proud of living in such a free country with f.i. low crime rate, more middle class than low or high class, the lowest rate of teenage pregnancies in the western world, where people are allowed to marry persons of the same sex. We seem to do quite well for a country of 41.528 square meteres and 16,5 million inhabitants.

Absolutely! I live near Maastricht now and I love the Dutch way of life!

Conservatives in the US have rarely travelled abroad and often never leave the confines of their church community but yet have the answer to all the world's perceived problems.

There is an ice cream shop near a coffee shop here and I take my kids there all the time without worrying about crime. There are churches in some neighborhoods in the US that I wouldn't be caught near after sunset.

So maybe we should try to follow an example of a system that actually WORKS better than anything in the US before criticizing it.

Mind altering substances like alcohol and cigarettes?

Mind altering substances like alcohol and cigarettes?

Sorry about the repeat comment. The first time around was told the comment did not post. No mind altering substances were involved. :)

The crime rate in Holland might be lower than in the USA . What I also can say is that crime pays in Holland and that why it maybe looks that way.Prisons might be full in the USA but that's because we give out long sentences( well deserved most of the time).In Holland you rarely get a long sentence.While I lived in Holland I've seen stoned people even some of my friends.It was sad to see they felt they needed to get high just to have fun.The same for people today.They should just ban the shop, I know that's my opinion, too many kids and adults get into dangerous situations because of drugs, some might not even remember because they were so high.

this is for anyone comapring American apples to European Union oranges, first off geniuses, America as a cooperative union is little more than 200 years old we-- are still finding away. many eurpoean countries and vastly older and smaller leaving for efficient management. For all you critics saying American teens are complacent and lazy barely looking up from their xboxes, you should be ashamed!!! prejudice is never ok... cultural arrogance is never ok... on another note... there are multiple concurrent drug flows into Holland, abiding proprietors of the coffee shops follow guidelines closely, cost of legitimate cannabis increases-- to accomidate tax, overhead, manhours, etc.. but the traffikers who wish to get a piece of the action simply have to hang around outside coffee shops and wait for patrons to exit, and sell the cannadis for a fraction of the price... gram for gram cannabis is almost as valuable a commodity as gold..just over 920 euros an oz... 1200 usd... how much security does gold transport cost?? crime-- centers around gold, and generates crime and crime capital.. maybe we should work on banning gold too...(ridiculious sounding isn't it) ..... thousands upon thousands of drug tourists each year flood into Holland, generating billions of dollars accumulated legitimately, for tourism.. If Holland did nothing to improve through-put or efficency or an effective enforcement then thats unfortunate for them... but there is saying in the u.s. that fits well. "don't throw the baby out with the bathwater".... the presence of "bad apples" (criminals) should not provoke change...

Owl hit the nail right on the head. The fastest way to increase the consumption of anything is to make it illegal.

God bless America1

Brian, the crime rates are compared to other Dutch cities because the story is about how these drug "cafe's" are increasing crime in Dutch cities near the border as compared to Dutch cities not near the border.

Your use of mind-altering drugs (as you described them) has rendered you incapable of rational thought.

You didn't notice the crime and violence because you were too stoned.

This article shows that the argument that legalizing drugs will decrease crime is totally wrong, false, and dangerous.

Have you looked at the history behind making marijuana illegal in the first place? I mean you honestly look like a fool buying into the same rhetoric that is being spewed out of the mouths of the liars that are in power here in the United States. You follow, without question, anything the government tells you and all their propoganda worked because you fell for it hook-line-and-sinker.

wake up.

Crime is up in the Netherlands, because the authorities have lost the will and thelost the knowledge between right and wrong.There are fewer inmates in their jails because crime is simply not punished anymore or they get only a slap on the wrist. We know, afamily member retired from the ciminal system and even the (former) chief of the police in Amsterdam said in Elsevier that he dared not walk in this city after dark.

While I lived in Holland I've seen stoned people even some of my friends.It was sad to see they felt they needed to get high just to have fun

dutch in USA,

Kinda like people that need to get drunk to have fun? Or people that smoke tobacco all the time? Or people that eat into obesity because they love food? (Obesity kills more than drugs) Or people that sleep around to have fun?

This is not a drug issue, it's a personal issue. These people have no control of their lives, and drugs are not the cause. They are weak, pathetic individuals . . . and no amount of laws will change that. If someone wants to do that with their life, LET THEM. It is their life.

Yea, let's go have a beer!

and some ciggies and Red Bull!

Alcohol, the killer of our youth....

Carl D.; I am repeatedly amazed when participants in these threads appear to believe they are proving their superiority to those they disagree with by issuing insults. I expect your next post will include special characters indicating deleted expletives. For an individual as intelligent as yourself, you exhibit the emotional maturity of an underdeveloped teenager. Having begun my professional career with the repair of 3084 and 3090E mainframe IBM computers, that still sell for ten million dollars each, down to the discrete component level with a ninety-two percent first cycle accuracy and continually advancing to higher levels of responsibility before illness caused my physical disablement, I am unable to accept your learned evaluation of my intellectual abilities as stupid. Although it is not my usual form of response to an others opinion, I feel that the fit and proper answer to your post is ... I KNOW YOU ARE BUT WHAT AM I?

LOL Now that was funny as sheet.

Ric Deez,

That is really a ignorant comment. If the Repubs an Dems really had the nations interest at heart we would be doing ok. The fact of the matter is including the so called president we have there are about 489 politicians/lawmakers with the power to make things right, you know get this country on her feet and out of debt. So far so few people with so much power can't get together to get it right and haven't been able to in almost a hundred years.

So, really it doesn't matter who's in the white house, it looks like they are in it for them selves, not for us. The people really do not matter!

Pot's not legal in France,it's the alcohol that's responsible.Did you know that cannabis has recently been proven to stimulate the growth of new brain cells?

Your comment is funny Bran T, especially about the "french youth". But I don't think that California youth are lazy. That is because I have seen no study indicating that you are right. It seems to me that you are complaining about the state of the youths just like many old men do. Just as they have for untold generations. It's an old saw, a corrupt interpretation of reality that has become conventional wisdom. In fact all of your opinions in your post are like that. Which got me to thinking that you are just being a good natured comic. If that's the case I like your work.

SonofMollyM, come on son of Molly, do you really expect us to believe that MJ grows new brain cells. Where do you live the moon or Jupiter on in never never land?

Actually, MJ has lots of known benefits that the vodka-swilling naysayers will never allow themselves to believe. As for kids - they'll get it when they want it anyway, irrespective of medical MJ laws, and that's absolutely guaranteed by keeping it otherwise illegal and unregulated...

"Faultfinders will always find fault." Right, Bran?

You scared little republicans and tea baggers scare me that you have a vote.

Brian what are you talking about comparing California to french youth? That is odd.

You sir sound like a Bible thumper and fear monger and I believe you are the problem.

on a side note..

Id like to know what high crime rates are in Holland compared to our country? I bet the Dutch cities that have legal MJ have lower crime rates than any US city.

In the US we have the highest murder rate in the WORLD. Looks like all those prisons and lock up policies are really working to deter crime.

STOP THE FAILED WAR ON DRUGS. How about using some of that money for SCHOOLS?

How about taxing MJ and taking the money for SCHOOLS?

How about stopping these endless wars and support for other governments and taking the money back for our SCHOOLS.

How about letting the Bush tax cuts for the rich expire on those that make $250,000 or more and taking the money for our deficit that Bush created and give the money to our SCHOOLS.

......and I thought that GBA was stupid. Brian if something is legal you don't need cops to police it...

The crime wave you refer (no pun) to is alredy in california due to pot being illegal..

Other than a few robberies iin dispensaries what crime has increased since medical mJ was legalized there?

None, so WTF are you talking about..

Besides just talking out of you ass get the facts before spouting retoric.

You speak of future events based on no known past, how big are your crystal balls?

Brian if something is legal you don't need cops to police it...

Driving is legal, and you still need cops to police it.

Banking is legal, and you still need cops to police it.

Alcohol, tobacco, and firearms are legal. And yet we have the ATF.

I think you see where I'm going.

Bran...yer an idiot.

boog a loo 22, Brian T and God Bless America, you are all complete dooshes living in glass houses on top of a very slippery slope. Who are you trying to convince that French Californians are causing the earth to be drug down into the pits of hell? Yourselves or everyone else in this discussion actually making rational arguments and statements?

Dooshes like you were the ones yelling "First its drinking whiskey and then next thing you know you are screwing my plow donkey" during the alcohol prohibition era (not to be confused with the current prohibition era we currently live in). And what did the prohibition of alcohol cause? Guess what, a drastic rise in the crime rates when the mob became the supplier of people's booze instead of legal companies.

Did you guys even read this article? Or, were you unfortuneate enough to be educated in the French district of California where reading class was replaced by a class on getting stoned and lazy? The article clearly says that the increase in crime is due to the fact that other countries on the border of the Netherlands who still have a repressive, prohibitionist policy towards a drug much more harmless than either alcohol and tobacco (both legal in the blessed USA) are causing their citizens, and the criminals who profit of the illicit status of drugs, to bring their problems and issues into a country that, for the most part, eliminated these problems and criminals by legalizing a virtually harmless plant.

The article also clearly states that other similarly sized cities away from the borders of the country (who also have legal marijuana sold and taxed at coffee shops) don't have the issues with crime like the border towns. So, if it is the crazed pot heads legally smoking weed and not having to go through crime organizations to get their drugs that are the cause of the crime, why is the crime higher in areas bordering countries where crazed pot heads who can't legally smoke marijuana live?

As for California's economic and fiscal policies, talk all the trash you want about the way the Californians run their state into the ground and bankrupt themselves, but realize that if it weren't for the tax revenue of a plant that causes not a fraction of the problems of alcohol and tobacco, that the state would already be bankrupt instead of holding on by a thread. Weed tax is the only thing keeping California alive right now.

thinker, do you really think this is a dem vs rep thing? try thinking again.

People high on weed don't go on a crime spree. Unless they have no money and need cookies really bad.

When debating the correct path to go forward, we should look around to see how others are doing that have already chosen certain paths. Our young nation has taught Europe some valuable lessons. That doesn't mean modern Europe has nothing to teach us. Such arrogance is costly and foolish. We must also look to our own past to choose the way forward. Prohibition and the lawless, deadly gangs it produced are not that far removed from today. As we see strong evidence of more and more deadly gangs today that started with criminalizing marijuana use, the path should be clear. Remove the criminal element to a product has been falsely demonized for decades and our streets will be much safer for all. For the record, this child of the 60's has never (and does not now) use marijuana.

I would tend to agree that Bran speaks with emotion and fervor with little first hand knowledge to back up his statements. Opinion is fine and everyone not only has one but is welcome to it. I would also agree that "thinker" doesn't and because of that affliction, injects his/her own brand of political dogma into any discussion. Thinker exhibits the worst elements of antisocial behavior in our society. Rigidity, intolerance and a complete lack of civility, respect or empathy for anything or anybody but himself.

Lowensteez,

I don't care if you use alcohol or drugs, just stay away from my plow donkey!!!

A smart man learns from his mistakes, a wise man learns from the mistakes of others. One thing they make clear in the article is that the Netherlands doesn't have comprehensive regulation on the supplier side. That being the case it would be wise to take that into account when developing policy elsewhere. When people can't look back to Prohibition in the 30's and learn anything about how NOT to make policy, then you're going to end up with the same stupid sh!t that we have today.

It appears to me that thinker-2226260 stopped to think...and forgot to start again.

SonofMollyM, care to provide any proof of you claim on pot creating brain cells, I never heard that one before.

If you want the whole marijuana business ruined, the best thing you can do is to legalize it and let the government run it...It will be destroyed in no time.

It's going to happen with cigarettes too. They are making them so expensive, that it will go back to the old mob days of robbing trucks. They get tons of taxes from cigarettes, so quit raising the prices even more making people have to quit! You are losing tax money! The new pact act is making it to where you can't ship cigarettes through the mail anymore either.

I agree with bae1980, marijuana actually calms your ass down. If their is anybody that goes on crime sweeps, Its the crack heads & tweakers!

The crime wave is not from the pot smokers....the crime wave comes from the people fighting to get their share of the new pot market AND the crime wave from the non-pot smokers taking advantage of all the stoned people because they are easy prey.

Sorry I didn't make it clear about stating the pot smokers weren't the ones committing the crimes...

All we have to do is look at the crime wave in the mexico border towns to see how important the control of the marijuana market is. Even if it was in legal stores...there would be black market drug dealers who would clearly sell it cheaper than the stores....because its off the books, there are no taxes, and you don't have to have an accountant/store to sell it off the street.

Don't worry, maybe it will become socially acceptable in america someday, and Walmart will jump on the bandwagon :P It offers convenient one-stop-shopping and the lowest prices that can't be beat. Problem solved

It's not marijana that the mexicans are trying to smuggle in to the USA that is causing all the border violence.

Keep it all illegal, maintain those huge profit margins for the traffickers, and as a consequence, you'll ensure that violent crime persists indefinitely. Simple as that.

Brain the wave is illegal because it is based on an illegal substance, history has shown (most) that prohibition leads to the crime of smuggling, and trafficking of the prohibitied substance...

Just read your history books or google the mafia.....or better yet Josef Kennedy...

"Kennedy made a large fortune as a stock market and commodity investor and by investing in real estate and a wide range of industries. He never built a significant business from scratch, but his timing as both buyer and seller was usually excellent. Sometimes he made use of inside information in ways which would later be made illegal, but regulations were lighter in his era. He later became the first chairman of the SEC. Kennedy was associated with various mobsters by their own account, including Sam Giancana and Frank Costello. According to some accounts, Kennedy was associated in the "Bear Raid" that precipitated the 1929 stock crash, as well as much of the bootlegging activity that was current at the time. When Fortune magazine published its first list of the richest people in the United States in 1957 it placed him in the $200–400 million band ($1.55-3.09 billion today^[4]), meaning that it estimated him to be between the ninth and sixteenth richest person in the United States at that time"

Now that was a real criminal...

Bran T, you are not only a Francophobe and a racist, you are totally clueless about even the simplest precept of economics.

If marijuana were legal in both the US and Mexico, the black market prices for the drug would plummet. Legal pot would be sold at a tiny fraction of what it costs to buy on the street. Legalization would hurt the gangs financially, because they would lose the massive profits from dealing in illicit marijuana.

Even if it was in legal stores...there would be black market drug dealers who would clearly sell it cheaper than the stores....because its off the books, there are no taxes, and you don't have to have an accountant/store to sell it off the street.

I know, Bran T. That happens with alcohol all the time. People would rather buy from the local bootlegger than go to the liquor store. NOT !

Please give it up. You have no idea what you are talking about and are digging yourself deeper into a hole with narrow minded views and lame excuses for them.

M. S. said:

Don't worry, maybe it will become socially acceptable in America someday, and Walmart will jump on the bandwagon :P It offers convenient one-stop-shopping and the lowest prices that can't be beat. Problem solved

Only if China legalizes.

who would want to smoke the bunk mexiweed when the best is grown here in state

...and a cigarette. Teabaggers know no humor, btw.

Yea pour your self an eye opener it 5 pm somewhere....

Thank you......you said it all.

Don't give them any ideas,exporting their conservative moral values to third world countries leads to things like these wars we're in.

I am a big believer in holistic medicines and alternative therapies - so I am definitely open to the possibility of cannabis being helpful. However, what I have seen is everyone and their mother going and getting their license. NONE of these people have ANY pain issues whatsoever - They are all 18, 19, and 20 years old - and they freely admit it! I was in a bad car crash a few years ago, with scars to prove but no pain. If I had the attitude of others I know, I would have been at the doctor saying "It hurts here Doc :(((( " The way I see it, these types are the biggest threat to themselves. They would like it to be completely legal, but they are unwilling to actually go out and fight for it. Instead they fake pain and give everyone who really uses it for pain a bad name.

My husband has seizure disorder and traumatic brain injury. Without medical mj his speech is halting and he has to take higher doses of dangerous pharmaceuticals. If all you do gooders want to hurt him rather than take accountability for inappropriate childrearing and education of our youth generalizing comments to blame marijuana for our cultures collapse ... go ahead. Arguing with individuals that use mj as their excuse to perpetuate their anger is absurd. As California bails out of financial ruin thanks to taxation of mj other states will follow. This is nothing to do with morality or the danger/non-danger of pot, it is about money and money always wins. blah blah blah ....

This great country you speak of was built on laws governing our actions so that EVERYONE would have freedom. That means that mean living with some laws that we don't ALL agree with but most of us agree with. That is a democracy. And it falls apart when people "pick and choose what laws they will follow and which ones they will. When the majority agrees to change the law there is a process to do it. So if you really LOVE this country follow ALL of the laws. If pot smoking really makes you smarter and gives you more energy; get out there with all your energized pot heads and change the law. Until then quit being a part of the problem.

my god, do any of you actually have anything inteligent to say,the problem isnt if we legalize or dont legalize,if people want something, thay are going to acquire it by whatever means thay need to, right wrong or indifferant, people who don't smoke think people who do are doing something wrong,people who do, think the don'ts are idiots, medical mj is a fact,studies have proven that mj is beneficial to cancer sufferers(that might be spelled wrong) as well as pain management,instead of putting people down, maybe people should try to understand the value of mj,studies at berkley in the late 70's showed a decrease in violent behavior,and increased brain activity as well as decreased muscle spasms,i smoke medical mj,and i can tell you it it helps a great deal,think about all the other painkillers or muscle relaxers and how many side effects they have that can kill you, studies have proven mj has few detrimental side effects,no cancer or emphazema, stop putting everyone down, people are the problem, not mj..............................

Ah, and all those laws, i.e. the Constitution and the Dec of Independence, were written by pot smokers! Washington had one of the biggest hemp plantations in the colonies.

Seriously, medical use of cannabis will put big pharma out of business; so, that is the problem. NORML doesn't have the lobby money that pharma does. Pharma wants us all sick; right to work states want us all to die of over work; big oil wants us all to drive gas guzzlers - see the pattern?

And California still has the 8th largest economy in the world. Granted, that is down from 7th, but, come on, how did a bunch of lazy people end up with this kind of pull in the world?

Legalize everything, tax it and get us out of this economic hole.

In 2009 YOU and I spent $446 every second, of every day trying to curb the availability of drugs like marijuana...

It's not working in the slightest

How much more are YOU willing to spend?

Another Trillion?

For what?

Check out this interesting infographic - http://bit.ly/afgAT8

James Owens-1128509...you pretty much nailed it...

The reason people go there for marijuana is because it is legal. It's because there isn't the persecution and stigma attached to marijuana like in many other countries. It's because many people wished that their own countries would have the same or like view of marijuana use. But to your feeling of "eh"...I'm wondering why you feel this way. Just what makes you get that "eh" feeling? Is it really because you just don't like the tourists? They don't live up to your standards? Or is it really because they smoke weed and you just don't approve? I'm starting to get an "eh" feeling about you. I'm sure the Netherlands has many things to offer in the way of museums, architecture, history, etc. But the reality is that country offers what so many don't...and you can't blame people for taking advantage of that opportunity. People wouldn't go there for that reason if they could have the same thing wherever they came from.

Are heroin and cocaine users even capable of being functioning, contributing members of society? I could see so many things go wrong if we were to actually dispense these drugs.

Really? How many homicides have you investigated? Or rather, How many have you seen? First hand, not on the nightly news. Please rethink this with reality, not personal emotional attachment

I just retired from 30 yrs of law enforcement, working the streets in Philadelphia. Just from my experiences alone, I see nothing good coming from drugs and alcohol. They erode communities and rot the brains of the users. Weed is not the magic drug that all these well funded studies try and portray. I rely on what I have witnessed first hand, day and night, week in and week out.

Its just not what people want to hear, so they point to studies. None of these academician, mental masterbating, wing nuts ever spent as little as one night in the 35th or 19th districts."

Thanks for your input!This great country you speak of was built on laws governing our actions so that EVERYONE would have freedom. That means that mean living with some laws that we don't ALL agree with but most of us agree with. That is a democracy. And it falls apart when people "pick and choose what laws they will follow and which ones they will. When the majority agrees to change the law there is a process to do it. If pot smoking really makes those people smarter and gives them more energy; they should get out there with all ytheir energized pot heads and change the law. Until they quit being a part of the problem. I have never met anyone who smokes pot or drinks heavly that seemed to benefit from it mentally or emotionally. My wife is a recovering drug user. She has never been arrested, but has been harmed by the effects. Go to her NA meeting and you will see the devastation the drug use has had on people and their families. To legalize drugs would increase these groups exponentially!! Pot smokers are high when they try to convince us that this would be a better counrtry if we legalize pot. Then it will be meth, then why not 8-balls.

Don't lump all the muders you made your living off of into others homes. MILLIONS use marijuana and NEVER have so much as a parking ticket.

Your Mental masterbation mentality is a result of crimes commited by people that would be criminals if crayons were illegal..

Sorry people have always pick and choose which laws they want to obey. Its happens in every facet of our society. From companies defrauding customers. To local governments trying to endorse one particular religion, to even speeding. People have always made a choice when it comes to laws. No one says Cannabis makes your smart or gives you energy. But do you really think that jail would be necessary for your wife to get over her problem. No it wouldn't if I were to go to a AA meeting there are people who have problem with alcohol. But we don't go back and make it illegal for everyone else. We know the problem with cigarettes but we don't make them illegal. We educate people on the true harms of tobacco. Even though our country was founded on hemp (cousin of Cannabis) and regardless of all the people who have a debilitating disease that it helps. Sorry the proof is in the pudding it not the drug that harms people its the laws.

pitty76,

I heartily agree. My wife watches those shows where they interview the inmates of different prisons. When they're telling the story of their crime, nine times out of ten that story starts with "I was drunk ..." or "I was high ..."

The "statistics" I'm reading about MJ on this thread are nothing short of amazing. Apparently, it cures cancer and male-pattern baldness, all while giving the wax job on your car that extra sheen and leaving your breath minty fresh. On the negative side, it also -- apparently -- makes you extremely guilible.

Hey pitty76: SO what is your answer to solve these problems? Stay the course and full speed ahead? Don't you think for one second that because there is violent crime associated with drugs it's because of the DRUG LAWS? Murder can be associated with ANYTHING! You are saying, that BECAUSE of drug use, there is violent crime. BS! Your first hand witnessing...um...your job was a cop...don't you think you will always see the bad in everything because...um...that was your job? You didn't respond to calls about good things, did ya? Because your view has been tainted you associate all of your bad experiences to be the same with all drugs users. I don't think you came into contact with all of the millions of drug users, right? So you might be wrong in your biased limited view, maybe? And let's just disregard any scientific studies done on marijuana because of what you "witnessed first hand". I think your career as a cop rotted your brain. You are the mental "masterbating" right-wing nut in this case.

And lago Steele: Actually IT DOES CURE CANCER but I never heard it cures baldness so your out of luck, baldy. It might actually do something for your car's wax job, but I recommend Altoids for your halitosis, Mr. Stink Breath. The only person who is "extremely guilible" is you listening to your wife watching a prison show where they probably edit it to show only the cases where drugs and alcohol were involved OR the inmates were coerced into saying a bunch of BS to appease the propaganda BS of the government and law enforcement.

Really, if perpetuating the spectacularly failed costly drug war is your only answer to solving the organized crime, gangs, and violence that has plagued this country, and others, now for decades...then you are as much apart of the problem.

Watching reality TV shows is addictive,you should send your wife to rehab before she starts violating the copyright laws by watching bootleg back episodes of Survivor on Chinese websites.

You're DUTCH... but really, you're NOT NEUTRAL. I lived in Belgium for 4 years & can't count the number of times I've been in Holland visiting the coffee shops and red light districts. The "crime" is indeed low...and is not related to the legal sale of soft drugs and prostitution. Dutch cities are peaceful & the people tolerant; except for yourself, YOU seem very "unDutch", you're just other religious NUT. Religion is the root of all evil.

Yeah I think I was 18 when I went and I felt very safe - I did not see any crime or anti-social behaviour.

The only time I did feel uneasy was when I went to look at the red light district - I didn't stay very long.

I also have friends who visit more often actually comment about how good natured their police officers are as well. I think that is a nice touch.

I went for New Year's and there was a lot more than pot for sale though, there where so many cocaine dealers coming upto me. I went to a public fireworks display as it turned 12o clock and listened to dance music with alot of other people. As the night wore on less people were there as they went home and the coke dealers were trying to sell to each other - I found that really funny.

Oh Boy. Here we go again with the "LORD & GOD" crap. It just reaffirms my perspective that it's mainly self-righteous religious nutjobs from right wing political views that are against legalizing the evil weed marijuana.

Look, I'm all for freedom of religion, but PLEASE DON"T PUSH YOUR RELIGION ON ME!

Maybe a real zero tolerance law should be instituted. DUI, summary execution, speeeding, summary execution, jaywalking, summary execution, adultery, summary execution....etc...

Yep - that works for me. If I want to visit Holland and get high in a coffee shop as a non-citizen, why can't I as long as I follow the rules? Seems ot make more sense than preventing visitors partaking. If I'm from outside Holland, and I want coke or herion (against the law) make the punishment more severe than that of my home country.

Why punish all the good non-resident pot heads for the few bad ones?

ramfan79: You would make Hitler proud. You Nazi SOB.

Sorry over 5000+ years. They have shown Cannabis to be useful. Sorry first hand accounts from people who have never tried it before the day they got cancer, MS or some other debilitating disease. Says it does help and is quite effective with those symptoms. In your 30 years of law enforcement. You have failed to even come close to stopping drugs from coming into your city. There are more drugs in the US then ever before. The illegal markets make any illegal drugs too profitable. Until you can take the money out. It will never stop. The prohibition creates the crimes of people trying to hold on to territory and eliminate the competition.

Sorry Mick if you make drugs illegal the gangs and cartels will simply invent something that IS illegal. Additionally, the popular opinion that taxing drugs will bring revenue is false. Inorder to ensure taxation you have to enforce the law. That means more police. The cost of enforcement will drive the tax rates up and provide an opening for criminals. Cigarette cargo containers are hijacked regularly from our ports. Criminals sell these items to small vendors who make an even greater profit. Legalizing drugs will also cause an increase in driving fatalities and an increase in police cost to reduce it. The U.S. is a car culture far more than Europe. Additionally, more and more employers are screening for drug use. They are not reacting to government pressure. They are doing this because they realize that employees under the influence of drugs are a huge liability. Do proponents think laws should be made to force employers to accept dazed and drugged employees? What of the liability for their actions? Drug use can be legalized but the consequences of crime and tragedy can not be controlled. Marijuana is a gateway drug. Many will argue that it is not but the drug dealers everywhere are aware of the connection.

Mickey. Can it also. Cure my. Inability. To properly use. Periods. ?. Or help me recognize the difference between a. Sentence. And a. Phrase. ?.

I think even Pitty76 can recongize the fact that it's useful for treating the symptoms of many diseases. And I think there's a place for medical marijuana in the Standard of Care. I'm not even entirely against legalizing it, but I know that legalizing it is going to open up a whole slough of new issues. While rumrunners may be a thing of the past, drunk drivers are very much in vogue. Getting drunk and beating your spouse/children is the height of fashion.

If they do someday legalize marijuana, we're not going to sit in a circle and sing Kum-ba-yah. We're going to get high and start doing the same crimes we do when drunk or high, because marijuana makes the stupid among us even more stupid.

I'm okay with that, because I'll be drunkenly bashing in some pothead's skull with a bat. Not that I have anything against potheads, I just do crazy things when I'm drunk. However, I understand and sympathize with people who do have a problem with it.

pity and eels, you people are so wrong it hurts.

pity..everyone knows 90% of law enforcement is for illegal mj. because it gives you POWER and it makes your job EASY to justify and claim all the good busts you do is helping society and then you can confiscate the mj users car...house...money( most mj busts are fun easy bust with a rush of adrenaline...kinda addictive in fact.. like a tv movie; and justifies your existence to the ignorant masses and gives an easy story for the news with some figure thats is 100 times what the real worth of the drugs street value was.) and then you get a raise and the cops throw a party with the profits or buy a helicopter or waste tax money some other way to benefit your salary in the guise of doing good.even when you are giving some kid a LIFE TIME CRIMINAL RECORD for some herb which could keep him from getting into medical school or becoming an engineer later on. instead he is reduced to a lifetime criminal is some cases. More harm comes from your efforts than good.........read john stosstle he is 100% correct.Of course it means we need more cops and lawyers and courts and prisons to lock up these supposed drug fiends that are supposed to be harmful to society when in fact locking them up does twice as much harm in the long run and cost twice as much.

alcohol is 100 times more of a problem to society and is tolerated. as far as more police as a result of legalizing herb is just plain stupid. driving on herb is not like drunk driving and it is happening whether its legal or not and why not ban bad drivers from driving if you really want to make the roads safer(ie if you have two wrecks in 4 years or if so on so on). I know when i'm legally drunk(.08 ) i can out drive a large majority of the morons out there driving sober,(dont tell me your lies that this is not true) not to mention the old folks that should be denied a license without completing and passing a driving course. the reason employers screen for drug use is to get a discount on insurance rates , its profitable to the bottom line. And it also tramples on the constitution and should be illegal.

POWER is the drug of choice of law enforcement, and it's no less addictive and no less destructive than any chemical you can put into your body, and it's just as attractive to the addiction-prone personality.

Pitty - you never popped me or my rotted-out brain for possession. Maybe the dumbness comes from the individual and not the cannabis.

Alright Larry!

That is Amsterdam though, a large city, and at night none the less. If you go to the smaller towns in the country (there are tons of those) it is perfectly safe to be riding a bike or walking around at 12, 1'oclock in the morning. Plus, it isn't like America where you have to worry a lot about someone having a gun. In the Netherlands, the gun laws are much more strict, and it is rare that you see someone who owns a gun, or even wants one (except for hunting)

I live in Amsterdam, and I go out in the city center at night. I never had an issue with violence or being attacked or anything. \

Saying that Holland was very dangerous because of your experience for a few hours in the city is ridiculous. You know NY - so what? Amsterdam and New York are very different places.

Btw, were you attacked? No - you just saw 2 guys whose look you didn't like. Fair enough. To say that they wanted to rob you or anybody else is projecting your own fears onto them. You have no idea what they wanted.

Don't criticise a place where you have never lived, especially based on a few hours there.

You can go to alot of cities in the US and if you are buy yourself, late at night. You can expect criminals to target you. The difference is when you are a tourist city. There are alot of tourist with cash on them. So they will be a target. This isn't rocket science.

While in New Jersey at a truck stop I was approached by a very unsavory looking pair of differently dress youth they had tattoos and looked like they wanted trouble.

the largest meanest one stepped up first and said "Are you from here? can you tell us how to get to the Holland tunnel?" I said. " No I am from Arkansas." Whereupon they exclaimed. "We are too!"

We said good bye and good luck, and nothing happened..

What a coincidence...

He was not attacked. He saw 2 guys whose look he didn't like. He made the right move by removing himself from a potentially dangerous situation.

To go and extrapolate that Holland is 'very dangerous' is extreme. First Holland is a country. He only was in Amsterdam. Second, he doesn't know the intention from these 2 guys. I know a lot of people who have been tourists in Amsterdam, none of them as felt unsafe or unsecure.

I also have been a tourist in many places (the US, Asia, Europe). You need to look after yourself in a different environment. Feeling threatened because you are not familiar with the place is no reason to call a place 'very dangerous'.

scir91onYouTube...this was back in August 2010??? This is August 2010, I think you were there longer than just a layover

so YEAH, holland was very dangerous and i am not sure if these kids were looking to rob someone to buy some drugs or for just the sake of being a violent criminal, but it sure isn't a safe place like one of the comments states.

So No. You encountered what you thought were "two hoodlums" in a train station late at night and that makes the whole of Holland "very dangerous" ?

You live in NYC and this situation you were in in Holland was threatening to you ?

I think you need to bring your Teddy Bear with you on your next trip.

Been to A-dam dozens of times without the first incident or suspicion that I might be a target of criminality. You should have smoked a doobie and chilled out a little bit.

Yea let us know how that's going...and if you run out of ammo I got a box I can spare...

steve you make complete sense

So true. Don't knock it until you try it! Most of the people that do knock it, go home and throw a couple of beers back and kill just as many, if not more brain cells. They think "Alcohol is ok, because it is legal". I have news for you, more people die from dui's from alcohol then weed. If anything people that drive stoned, go slower and pay closer attention to the road then most of the crazy people texting or talking while driving. The stupid ban over greed of marijuana needs to end. It is just ridiculous.

In Dutch we say: "Van het ene komt het andere!" And that means that from one thing comes the other. Which means that making marijuana legal in Holland for small scale consumption automatically crime, prostitution, hard drugs and criminals will follow to these Dutch cities!Maastricht is a perfect example! Holland has open its doors for thousands of immigrants and politically prosecuted persons of the world and between these people you have harsh criminals who had roll in the lucrative drugs business. Left wing dutch politicians has defended this policy for many years, but now the nasty consecuences follows for the dutch society.Now that Europe has open its borders for the EU citizens, Holland must deal with the demand for drugs and ofcourse criminal activities will follow.Right wing extremists like Geert Wilders are gaining sympathy among the dutch people when they look how the foreigners with a different mentality then the dutch came to Holland and make their new homeland a criminal hotspot. The legalisation of drugs is wrong just lookng at the fact how many people in the world became addicts and became criminals in the society. The price is too high to pay for every society. Mexico is a wake up call how drugs can put a country of 110 million on the edge of a civil war where not even the army has the power to stop the killings especially the border states in the north. Drugs money is a venom that has spread in every society in the modern world and the only way to fight it is to educate the youth and make stricter laws to punish for those responsable for the trafficking in drugs.

Travis

Than, not then. Of course I type like s**T so feel free to ridicule my posts.

Affair girl,

Steve makes complete "sens"

suave: It is the War on Drugs that has created the criminal element, not the use of drugs or the drug users. To keep enforcing the same policy and/or making the punishments harsher will not in any way solve the problems of criminal activity and violence associated with drug trafficking. When are people going to wake up and realize that it's the laws that create the criminals. The Dutch laws have created the problem by not regulating the manufacture and distribution of weed therefore putting it in the hands of criminal drug traffickers. Your philosophy is flawed.

schwag is schwag ... the quality control and consistent availability for the medical product will not lead people to the 'cheaper' product and the dangers of acquiring it. Do your research before condemning California. I wouldn't want to be under the scrutiny of the co-ops. Good for all of you on the ground floor taking the risk and making a difference.

Please drugs have been just as popular during my parents in their 20's as it is now. Maybe you forgot about Eric Claptons "Cocaine"or The Beetles "Get into my life" Now while I agree with my parents that was some great music. Nothing has changed. If the majority was 40-60 year olds coming in buying cannabis would it be as big of an issue. Probably not because they have more money to spend.

: ) I proper laughed when I read that!

a voice of reason...how refreshing. I agree it doesn't have to become big business and save the country. Just allow ppl to grow it