I'd rather it be criminal. At least then most people would try to hide their filthy habits.

...So... Pubs? Clubs? Bars? Work? The Bus Stop? Restaurants? Places people go to have a good time?

I smoke in bars/clubs if they let me (I'm usually there for a show), but I dont smoke inside my house.

And if I'm outside, I smoke away from people. Or at least 3 steps back if I'm with a group.

I remember one time in Georgia, I was smoking about 30' away from a movie theater ticket booth (wind was blowing the smoke away too) and some woman came up to me from the ticket booth after buying a ticket and said "Excuse me, your cigarette smoke is bothering me." I looked at her, looked over her at the ticket booth, and then responded "Well, it's killing me. Move away."

But in most cases I try not to force my cloud of smelly death upon people.

There's a difference between marijuana and cigarettes. Cigarettes have long been established in society, and thus have a much larger user base then marijuana. No government is going to enforce a ban on cigarettes when 30-40% of government servants are smokers.

Cigarettes also have legal and profitable corporations that manufacture, distribute cigarettes. Not only are these corporations closely tied to certain government factions/individuals through campaign contributions, friendships, etc., they provide the government with substantial revenue through sales and taxation (reasoning behind cigarette price hikes). In contrast, marijuana has bed ridden cancer sufferers and hippies.

Then you have the health effects and crime. Marijuana is classed as a drug, as it induces a state of psychosis, a proven fact. As such carries an extremely higher risk to both user and public, compared to cigarettes. Last time I checked there was a substantial list of drug-induced/cannabis related crimes committed then crimes committed from inhalation of smoke/toxin.

Even though cigarettes carry a substantial health risk, the big corporations shell out the big dollars to counter-claim all claims. See: 60 minutes vs Tobacco corporations.

you are an anime lone wolf, sort your life out

Haha, cannabis-related crime? I don't think a sudden and desperate urge for copious amounts of snickers bars is going to drive anyone to murder.
How many fights do you think break out in a hash bar? A stoner is the least aggressive of all mammals, second only maybe to a koala bear. They both remain motionless for about 18 to 20 hours a day.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1716412/posts
http://www.cannabis.net/violence/index.html
http://www.idmu.co.uk/canagr.html

The effects of cannabis differs from person to person. You might be riding an elephant over a rainbow, but Mr. Sparky might see evil clown midgets on roller skates out to get him.

Pubs, clubs, bars, work, restaurants: all private establishments that allow members of the public to enter, frankly the government should not be able to tell a private owner that their costumers are not allowed to smoke.

Bus stop: public service, up to the government.

see, the government has to get there hands in everything.. just like telling auto manufactures they have to produce less emissions in their cars b/c of California, oh and like this whole thing with health care.. the government telling club owners what to do is only another step.

Dude, read my previous post somewhere. I explained why the government has to be involved. For a very similar reason to cutting emissions, the government must be involved because business is never going to do it on its own. And don't even get me started on nationalised health care.

so, i guess that you will be ticked off to hear that smoking bans in clubs have been in a number of places in australia for over a year, and other public places it has been banned for over a decade, and nobody has realy complained. If it is that much of an effort to just go outside and smoke, then i realy think that you should SERIOUSLY consider quitting, or even just cutting back, as it seems that you are so addicted, that even a slight drop in nicotein is having a bad effect on you.

So... you'd fill up the prisons and create another crime industry so you don't have to watch people smoke?


If marijuana was legalized, the crime syndicates would almost immediately fall away in favor of more effective legit business. Most tobacco companies would probably start selling it. It could and would be taxed as well. Legalizing marijuana would make everything you just said about tobacco true about marijuana.


(EDIT for poor choice of words.) It's effects are far more mild than that of alcohol. It simply makes you happier and by definition, less motivated. It could be argued that it long term health risks are less than nicotine, because it's so much less addictive. So many people are drastically increasing their chances of getting cancer with cigarettes simply because they are too addicted to quit.

As for crime, what are you talking about. The effects of marijuana would, if anything, discourage crime.

And why would that situation not occur with marijuana companies?

I have never met anyone who had a psychotic episode while high. I'm more than willing to bet that there's another factor to your data, or that the same people had certain mental issues beforehand.

If anything, the positive affects of Marijuana are astronomical in comparison with the two or three negative things you might be able to say about it. If you've ever seen an MS patient go from barely coherent to speaking properly and demonstrating 20% higher function, your intolerant opinion of weed is drastically changed. If it isn't, you're the same person who thinks stem cell research is killing babies, so the fact that it could cure millions of people from their illnesses is irrelevant to you.

IIRC, it has something to do with the fact that smokers exhale deepley and expel all the smoke.

The government can't tell a business how to make their product (concerning the autos). If consumers do not want to purchase it or a state decides to make it a law that is a different story.

In that case shouldn't the owners be allowed to choose what age they sell alcohol to people at? I hear drunken 16 year olds are great for business.

you also need to remember that as most marijuana joints are made by organicly grown plants, they have far less chemicals than cigarettes, which in addition to all the stuff from tobbacco, also have nasty stuff in them from pesticides, stuff that makes them burn faster, poisons in them to keep pests away from the finished product and other nasty additives.

Also, dont just say there should be smoking sections, because there is no way that adjacent sections of an indoor area can EVER have total seperation of air flow. It would take full walls, either seperate airconditioning systems for the two different sections or some serious HEPA filtering of the air recycling out of the smokeing area and into the non smoking area, negatively pressureizing the smokeing section, and other extremely expensive stuff.

If you do not do those, then smoke will ALWAYS get into the non smokeing area, defeating its point entirely. Which is the reason the Australian govt. banned smoking indoors in most places.

as long as MADD (mothers against drunk driveing, who became a neoprohibitionist group a long time ago, which made its founder quit as she only wanted to raise attention about drunk driving, and not raise the drinking age) is around, the only direction the drinking age will take in the US is up. Also, alcohol is able to be easily processed by the human body, as long as you do not do it to excess, smoking puts things into your body that take ages to remove even after smoking once.

The effects of marijuana are open to debate. Just like 2nd hand smoke. I am not saying smoking cannabis will cause you to go into a rage like fit, these are open to many factors but you cannot deny that cannabis has differing effects on different individuals. This is why there is no definitive claim outlining the full effects of cannabis. I was just pointing out that there were situations where cannabis can exasperate violent behavior (NOTE: Exasperate - to increase the intensity, not cause).

I'm all for legalized medical marijuana on case by case purposes (ie. people who are suffering extremely). What I really hate, are those annoying high school, college students who think legalizing medical marijuana will mean that they can smoke a joint whenever they want. Marijuana for medical use is alright, marijuana for recreational use is non-productive. I'm also for stem cell research, provided the fetus has not developed human features.

I agree. I was pointing out the difference of why cigarettes are legal and marijuana isn't. In hindsight, alcohol and cigarettes have had the luxury of history on their side. They've been mainstream long before the health risks were identified and outlawing them were even considered. Marijuana on the other hand isn't mainstream. How many government servants smoke joints? In contrast how many government servants smoke and drink?



As I've mentioned before, the effects of marijuana is open to debate. Cannabis related crimes is a proven fact. There are many cases where "So and so had his mental state worsened by cannabis and thus killed so and so".

Around 1898, Bayer and Dreser were advertising this remarkable new 'cough medicine', heroin. You could buy it in pharmacies as heroin cough lozenges, heroin tablets, water-soluble heroin salts and a heroin elixir in a glycerine solution. There was also these little kits containing heroin, a set of syringes, and cocaine in a glass jar.

In 1914, when heroin production was banned, there were an estimated 250,000 heroin addicts in the US. By the 1990s, there were about 1.5 million. Banning the substance has done nothing to stem the tide of addiction. Interestingly, in 1898 the typical heroin addict was a middle-class woman in her 40s. Today's typical heroin addict is an 18-year old working class male. Class consciousness, eh?

Could you please cite these "many cases?"

Stem cell researchers use embryos left over from in vitro fertilization. They are not yet a fetus. As I recall, the stem cells in a fetus are already far too differentiated to be of any use. If said embryos aren't used, they eventually expire.

The only people who are against stem cell research are people who either don't know what it is or think saving lives is a bad thing.


You are way overestimating the difficulty of making an isolated smoking section. You don't need complete isolation, only enough such that the smoke is of very low concentration. Given the ventilation of most facilities, it's not an issue. You don't need separate air conditioning, only separate exhaust. You can pump the same air into all of the areas, you just need a separate exhaust for the smoking section. It's not that expensive at all.

There's a Denny's near me that has a fantastic smoking section. The entire place is isolated with glass walls, and the entrance is an airlock, made possible by a rotating door. It works wonderfully. Sure, some smoke gets out when the door cycles a lot, but not enough to matter. It's not even enough to smell unless you're standing right next to it, which isn't an issue since said entrance is far away from all the other tables anyway.

It's kind of ironic since every other Denny's I've been to has catastrophically awful separation of smoking sections. It's just like a four foot tall wall with a two foot tall decorative window above that.

What do I look like? a librarian?

Google: Thomas Palmer, Victor Lacata, Doug Gray, Meredith Kircher, William Woods, with the words cannabis and murder. Of course the names are subject to spelling.

And before anyone starts claiming: "oh noes there iz no proof cannabis r cause those murderesz", I'm not implying cannabis was the cause, I'm associating crimes with cannabis (heavy use, withdrawal, etc.) to show the disparity between cigarettes and marijuana. Please note: I'm not arguing if marijuana should or shouldn't be illegal, cause I really couldn't care (It's a non issue in Australia and we don't have many proactive "hippies" or prohibitionists).

Stem cells, fetuses, spider eggs, elephant nostrils, all the same thing to me. I'm not a scientist, so I don't really care for technical detail.

If you're going to make an argument, cite your sources. "Google it" is not an acceptable answer.

You gave me names, great, but that still means I have to sort through all the results, all the hyped media garbage, to find what you originally used to make up your argument, which means I don't really know if I'm seeing the same thing.

Do you also want me to give you a word count, and 1.5 spacing?

How about a URL, smartass?

Okay, let's try it your way. Here's my argument: "Marijuana in absolutely no way effects mental or physical health."

Here's my proof: Google "marijuana is good for you."

Haha! I win the debate!!1

Government has to be involved because people won't go into smoke-free clubs on their own? So? That's a tough business lesson for the club owners that switched to smoke-free, but that's their problem, why get taxes involved in that?


Me saying the government has no place in telling a business owner that their of-age customers are no longer allowed to smoke in their privately owned establishments isn't exactly the same as saying owners should have the authority to change national drinking ages.

There's also the element that the smoking ban can be seen as further health and safety legislation; protecting pub and club workers from secondary smoke inhalation which really will have a major impact on them if they have to spend so much time in that environment. In the Victorian era, factories didn't cover machinery with safety guards because that costed extra money and got in the way when it came to repairs. Workers who got mangled could be fired and sometimes given completely inadequate compensation. It took government legislature to get them to put guards in place.

Pub workers won't even be able to sue their workplaces, much like the unfortunate situation now for sufferers of asbestos-caused cancer which they'd gained from working in industry. Since nearly all of them worked for different companies during their working life, they have no way of knowing exactly where they inhaled the fatal asbestos fibre. Similarly pub workers will not be able to pin point any particular pub for respiratory illnesses. So the government needs to step in and ensure that employers are not creating a work environment that is inherently unhealthy and in the long term, very dangerous. This is one of those situations where the market won't magically fix it for everyone.

And it's one of those situations where either there is an outright government ban, or all establishments will allow smoking in some form. There is no inbetween. In the highly competitive area of pubs and clubs, a single establishment cannot afford to suffer the loss of their smoking customers. The principle that 'owners of the establishment should choose for themselves' sounds wonderful, but the reality of the capitalist system is that you actually have much less choice than you percieve to have.

I don't see why not, the only difference between 2 national laws is one hasn't been implemented yet.

Really? That's funny, because of the eight local clubs here, three of them have never allowed smoking. In fact, one of those clubs is for a more straight-edge crowd, so not only no smoking, but no drinking. But, if you say that all clubs would be forced to allow smoking under the influence of the mighty dollar, and that there's no market for pubs, clubs, or restaurants with smoke-free environments, then by golly, you must be right.

Baconfish, sure, fair enough, I don't exactly agree with drinking ages anyway, but I'm just saying allowing someone who can legally smoke in your country to smoke in your own private establishment isn't exactly the same as allowing someone who cannot legally drink in your country to drink in your establishment.`

;_; no one believes that the evil clowns on rollerskates are still out to get me.

It one thing if you make a passing comment and don't really want to make a point, but if your making an argument, don't half *** it. It looks bad.

Weed or tobacco? Weed being criminal only hurts us taxpayers, honestly. It costs billions for legal fees, incarceration, and processing of the supposed "criminals" who do nothing but decide they like getting high.

If you're talking about tobacco then just lolwut?

Either way, everyone in this thread either shut up or light up

You, my friend, are an uneducated lout if you think any of what you say is true.

I have never, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, ever, EVER ever met a stoner who gets angry when he gets stoned. EVER. I've known a LOT of people who get stoned, I've gotten stoned a lot, been all over the US and gotten high and everyone I know who gets high is chill as ****. Stoners listen to reggae and dub music mainly. The fact that this music is associated with peace love and happiness should have at least some kind of impact on your brain on exactly how marijuana works.

It does not induce psychosis either--unless smoked in ridiculous amounts with ridiculous potency to the point where you're basically trying to do it, and it's never a "rage". It's simply a "oh holy **** I smoked too much" feeling that, after you pass out, is gone.

Marijuana is summated in 3 words: Hungry, Happy, Sleepy. That's all it does. It does **** with your vision a bit if you're not used to it (I can drive fine high if needbe, hell I can function all DAY high, at work everything if it comes down to it), and can easily exacerbate (not exasperate) HPPD, but none of this is necessarily bad and the lattermost of which is only stimulated by previous drug use.

I really do not think you know anything about marijuana. You claim these kids think medical marijuana will allow them to smoke whenever they want--people know things come in steps. Denver, Colorado decriminalizing up to an ounce, that's a step. Medical Marijuana popping up more and more, that's a step. Once people begin to see that pot has a LOT of positives and less negatives than legal alternatives (alcohol just makes you irrational, obnoxious, and stupid, cigarettes give you cancer), then one of these days it will be legal. I'd love to see that day.

I'm not saying legalize all drugs, but marijuana has plenty of reasons it SHOULD be legalized, and not many it shouldn't.

Well...there is evidence showing that it can increase your chances under certain conditions, such as existing predispositions. And as I recall, the evidence is for psychotic episodes, not full psychosis.

It doesn't really matter considering how rare it is, and it's not that much different than say, alcoholism, which is far more common.

Psychotic episodes is extremely vague though. Do they mean hallucinating? That's a lot different than psychosis. And all hallucinagens have a chance for psychotic episode inducement, but marijuana simply isn't powerful enough to give you a chance to go into psychosis, I don't care how much you smoke.

The Wikipedia article summarizes it well. Most of the studies aren't very reliable, but there is some evidence that it can increase the chances of psychosis or psychosis related symptoms in some cases. The thought that smoking a joint will make you immediately schizophrenic and go on a rampage is completely ridiculous, however. The only way for that to happen is if the marijuana was laced with something else.

Just like any other drug, you should simply be careful when using it, and stop if you start to notice any changes in your mental health.

But like I said, even if the evidence were concrete, it's only in very rare cases, and is nothing compared to the negative effects of alcohol.

Yeah, and alcohol has more of a chance of inducing psychosis anyways.

Also, if it doesn't have a chance of inducing psychosis, which marijuana doesn't from everything I remember, I'd say go for it. So what if you go through a few hours of an episode? Stop smoking, take a day off, something, it's not like it's addictive anyways (well not physically).