DEA to reschedule marijuana?

[OutHouse]

Get back to me when you can explain to me why my examples aren't civil liberties and your example of cannabis use is.

its not and i never said it was. but are you actually arguing that having asbestos is a civil liberty freedom you are being deprived to toking some Strawberry Kush in your living room?

Honestly you are starting to sound like a 8th grader taking his first civics class.

lets get back to my other questions to you Doc

of the consumable items i listed, which one will not kill you?

do you know what civil liberties are?

 

[KMFJD]

Thank god the old archaic ways of thinking are dying out....

 

[Darwin333]

How does being naked in public affect other people differently than smoking marijuana in public? I'm offended by marijuana smoke far more than I'm offended by nudity.

I personally have no problem with you running around naked as a jailbird but lots of people would be offended if their kids see it. But I didn't say anything about doing drugs in public, again I don't personally have an issue with it but I am not lobbying for that. As an example, sex between consenting adults is perfectly legal and happens millions of times a day but we as a society expect you to do it indoors and not in public. Because people can, and sometimes do, have sex in public is not a good reason to outlaw sex.

And if your threshold for governing civil liberties is in that it may harm someone else, then it shouldn't be OK for me to drive a little drunk right? Like .07 drunk?

If you drive a little drunk and harm someone you should face severe criminal charges. We have laws on the books for that kind of stuff already.

If I want to build a house made from asbestos, I should be able to do that right? I'd be the only one living in it.

Shrug, I wouldn't mind as long as a big ass sign was posted, no one else was allowed in the house that didn't sign some sort of acknowledgment, no minors whatsoever since they can't legally enter into a contract and you prepaid the abatement costs so that it can be cleaned up after you die. Like I said, I believe that you own your body so if you want to willingly and knowingly fuck said body up what right do I have to stop you?


Anymore absurd and completely irrelevant examples that you would like to try out? I'm more than happy to answer.

Let me try an absurd example of what seem to be in favor of:

If the government has the right to stop us from "harming" ourselves from what we willingly put in our bodies then they should be able to use the force of law to restrict our food intake right down to our daily caloric intake, right? Don't eat your broccoli, you go to jail. Drink a soda, go to jail. Have an extra helping of mashed potatoes, go to jail. This would save and extend far more lives then completely eradicating drug use so it must be within the governments power to do so. Also tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine become scheduled drugs along with a host of other things people ingest on a daily basis.

 

[interchange]

As for your asbestos example, of course government should be able to regulate if it is used in construction. I'm not even remotely close to being a libertarian, btw. I'm fully in favor of regulations on the sale of marijuana as well, I just find that policies which make it entirely illegal are causing far more harm to our country than good.

Well, the argument is that I can't be a libertarian if I favor criminality of marijuana since if someone wants to incur the risks of using it, then it's their choice.

I contend that, if this logic holds true, then a libertarian cannot be in favor of criminality of asbestos since if someone wants to incur the risks of using it, then it's their choice.

 

[interchange]

If you drive a little drunk and harm someone you should face severe criminal charges. We have laws on the books for that kind of stuff already.

If I drive a lot drunk and harm someone I should face severe criminal charges. We have laws on the books for that kind of stuff already.

I'm a perfectly good driver at 0.15. Why are you taking my liberty away to prevent me from driving at that level?

If the government has the right to stop us from "harming" ourselves from what we willingly put in our bodies then they should be able to use the force of law to restrict our food intake right down to our daily caloric intake, right? Don't eat your broccoli, you go to jail. Drink a soda, go to jail. Have an extra helping of mashed potatoes, go to jail. This would save and extend far more lives then completely eradicating drug use so it must be within the governments power to do so. Also tobacco, alcohol, and caffeine become scheduled drugs along with a host of other things people ingest on a daily basis.

I said that the government has the right and responsibility to protect us from harm. The government also has a responsibility to protect our freedoms.

Guess what? Sometimes you can't do both at the same time. Therefore, you must choose how far to go in either direction. Such as, choosing 0.08 as the legal limit for driving drunk.

Because I am libertarian, I believe overall that we go way too far in trying to protect us from harm and in sacrificing protecting our freedoms.

In fact, I also believe we go way too far in this regard from cannabis. Just because I draw that line short of decriminalization, doesn't mean it's not consistent with libertarian beliefs. I merely believe that the harm is sufficient to warrant some criminality as to deter its use in minors, and I believe that some criminality will help in that regard.

If you wanted to use alcohol as an analogy, let's say the legal limit was .02 (more criminal than it needs to be IMO). I am arguing for changing the limit to .08, and others are arguing to abolish the limit altogether.

 

[interchange]

its not and i never said it was. but are you actually arguing that having asbestos is a civil liberty freedom you are being deprived to toking some Strawberry Kush in your living room?

I never said they were comparable civil liberties. I merely said that each is a civil liberty. I was told I am not libertarian because libertarians do not support abridging civil liberties in any fashion whatsoever. I used it as an example. Thus far people have agreed that, in order to be consistent with the definition of libertarian I was told I must be held to, that all libertarians must agree with decriminalizing public nudity and asbestos.

lets get back to my other questions to you Doc

of the consumable items i listed, which one will not kill you?

All of them will. Water kills the least. It is not known if you can get fatal overdose from cannabis, but it seems unlikely, whereas you can get fatal overdose from all of the others. Of course, there are other ways to die from something than direct toxicity.

Nonetheless, it is sideways to any argument that I have laid. Here, let me show you.

Which one of these substances increases your risk of schizohprenia?
Tylenol
Water
Morphine based Prescribed drugs
Marijuana
Alcohol
Tobacco

 

[interchange]

I'm with interchange here guys - marijuana is hella dangerous, can't let the .000000000000000000000000000000000000000028739439824% risk of schizophrenia fuck the status quo up.

Gotta lock up all those dopers, it's the only way.

Now, where's my beer?

Schizophrenia is 1% of the population. That's > 3 million people in America, more than double HIV. In fact, I would very much rather have HIV in this country than schizohprenia.

There are ~200K people with asbestos related illness in this country. Since it takes ~50 years to develop illness related to asbestos exposure, that's probably close to its peak. And I would very much rather live for 50 years completely healthily and develop lung disease than have schizophrenia for 50 years. Actually, the likelihood is if I had schizophrenia I would die due to disease-attributable lifespan shortening before I could ever even develop asbestosis.

 

[interchange]

Interchange carefully cherry picks his information to make a point, & not a very good one.

If cannabis use were a cause of schizophrenia, then we should see a strong relationship between the two however we look at it. What we see is, in fact, a reverse correlation between cannabis use & schizophrenia-

schizophrenia-

https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Schizophrenia_world_map_-_DALY_-_WHO2004.svg

cannabis-

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Annual_cannabis_use_by_country

Now who's confusing correlation with causation?

Let me see...how reliable are 3rd world countries in diagnosis, treating, and reporting major mental illness? I'm gonna go with absolute crap. Plus, there are a ton of other risk factors for schizophrenia which are not attributed for in your "data".

Nonetheless, this is why we do epidemiologic studies, identify confounders, perform statistical analyses to look for and account for bias, perform meta-analyses to avoid being swayed by one cherry picked study, do systematic reviews to evaluate the quality of evidence, do funnel plots in our analyses to look for unpublished data, and have registries of clinical trials to ensure we aren't missing unpublished data.

Jesus Christ man. The studies are out there. Read them and then critique the methods of the studies if you want. But don't come to an academic psychiatrist and clinical researcher and tell me that I've done my job wrong without any experience yourself and without any shred of an attempt to try to do the job yourself either. It's being very horribly rude.

 

[dank69]

Well, the argument is that I can't be a libertarian if I favor criminality of marijuana since if someone wants to incur the risks of using it, then it's their choice.

I contend that, if this logic holds true, then a libertarian cannot be in favor of criminality of asbestos since if someone wants to incur the risks of using it, then it's their choice.

Use of asbestos poses real risks to other people besides the one using it.

 

[Jhhnn]

Now who's confusing correlation with causation?

Let me see...how reliable are 3rd world countries in diagnosis, treating, and reporting major mental illness? I'm gonna go with absolute crap. Plus, there are a ton of other risk factors for schizophrenia which are not attributed for in your "data".

Nonetheless, this is why we do epidemiologic studies, identify confounders, perform statistical analyses to look for and account for bias, perform meta-analyses to avoid being swayed by one cherry picked study, do systematic reviews to evaluate the quality of evidence, do funnel plots in our analyses to look for unpublished data, and have registries of clinical trials to ensure we aren't missing unpublished data.

Jesus Christ man. The studies are out there. Read them and then critique the methods of the studies if you want. But don't come to an academic psychiatrist and clinical researcher and tell me that I've done my job wrong without any experience yourself and without any shred of an attempt to try to do the job yourself either. It's being very horribly rude.

None of that matters when the researcher suffers from motivated reasoning as you do. You'll find a way to reach the conclusions you want.

Your dismissal of data from the third world is a great example. If anything, they'll under report the incidence of schizophrenia, something that further discredits your conclusions.

Cannabis use is highest in the first world yet the incidence of schizophrenia is the lowest. You can't fit that into the cause & effect relationship you claim to exist.

 

[Darwin333]

If I drive a lot drunk and harm someone I should face severe criminal charges. We have laws on the books for that kind of stuff already.

I'm a perfectly good driver at 0.15. Why are you taking my liberty away to prevent me from driving at that level?

I have never believed in the BAC standard of telling if a person is impaired. First of all there are all kinds of things that can cause a person to be impaired besides just alcohol. It would be very simple, something that a couple of guys from Anandtech could throw together in a month, to make something that tests reaction time on the roadside. See, being intoxicated or tired or whatever slows down your reaction time which is what makes you impaired and you are absolutely right. Some people are impaired after one drink even though they are under the legal limit. Some people can drive perfectly fine at .01 and driving tired has been proven to be just as bad if not worse then driving drunk. Why do sleepy drivers get a pass on DUI's when they are just as impaired as a drunk driver?

So basically I don't believe in bullshit arbitrary numbers when we could very easily test for the actual danger which is reduced reaction time.

I said that the government has the right and responsibility to protect us from harm. The government also has a responsibility to protect our freedoms.

Guess what? Sometimes you can't do both at the same time. Therefore, you must choose how far to go in either direction. Such as, choosing 0.08 as the legal limit for driving drunk.

Because I am libertarian, I believe overall that we go way too far in trying to protect us from harm and in sacrificing protecting our freedoms.

In fact, I also believe we go way too far in this regard from cannabis. Just because I draw that line short of decriminalization, doesn't mean it's not consistent with libertarian beliefs. I merely believe that the harm is sufficient to warrant some criminality as to deter its use in minors, and I believe that some criminality will help in that regard.

If you wanted to use alcohol as an analogy, let's say the legal limit was .02 (more criminal than it needs to be IMO). I am arguing for changing the limit to .08, and others are arguing to abolish the limit altogether.

You do know that kids, including myself many years ago, have far easier access to marijuana then they do beer and alcohol right? That is because marijuana is illegal and therefore sold on the black market where there basically are no rules and regulations. It was absurdly easy for me to get a bag of weed when I was in highschool. A 6 pack of beer otoh was a freaking pain in the ass. You had to find someones brother or friend that was 21 or somehow find someone willing to risk their jobs to get it for us. If I wanted weed I could have it delivered to me at friggen school before the end of the day. In just about every poll I have ever seen this trend holds true for all other kids. Since the war on drugs started the trend has been upwards of kids using drugs.

Bottom line, legalizing and regulating it will make it harder for kids to get not easier. Will there still be kids who get it and do it, of course just like some kids obtain and use alcohol. The "for the kids" line of reasoning has been proven bullshit for a long time by real hard facts even though I do think there was a slight decline or leveling off but that has been the exception as it is again on the rise. Furthermore we currently bullshit kids about drugs and they know it's bullshit. Legalizing them and teaching them the actual truth could very well lead to lower use, kind of like what has happened rather drastically with teen tobacco use which has plummeted. We didn't need to nor did we make tobacco illegal to get kids to stop using it, we just started teaching them the actual truth. Funny how that works, isn't it?

By your premise the trends should be reversed. Marijuana use should be plummeting and tobacco use should be on the rise or at least steady but we see exactly the opposite of that in the cold hard facts. So please, no more of this "think about the kids" bullshit because it's just wrong.

Edit to you personally: I am not one for political labels so I honestly, and no insult intended, don't care if you call yourself a "libertarian" or part of uncle joe bobs political party. I think all intelligent people should have at least some views that cross all political spectrums if they are honest, informed, intelligent and free thinking people. You couldn't get a quarter of the population to agree on a movie but somehow that same group holds the exact same political ideals across the entire spectrum? Basically, imho, if you hold the exact same beliefs on a vast majority of the issues as any very large group you are probably being spoon fed the answers and told what you should believe in. Personally I take in all the information I can on a subject, let it roll around in my head for a while and then come to my own conclusion regardless of what side of the political aisle it falls on. Others seem to be trying to do that to you as far as being a libertarian then you must believe in XYZ, I am not one of those people. So you have no need to defend your political affiliation with me, just your actual position on the specific issue.

 

[Ns1]

Schizophrenia is 1% of the population. .

1) what sub percentage of that is caused by marijuana smoking?
2) how many people smoke marijuana in this country again?

1 / 2 = .0000000000000000000000000000000000000000287394398 24%


it's too early for this shit man. now, where's my beer?

 

[Anubis]

was interchange molested by someone smoking a joint when he was young? where does this baseless hate come from.

 

[Phynaz]

What would the benefit be to the DEA?

There's your answer.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Now who's confusing correlation with causation?

Let me see...how reliable are 3rd world countries in diagnosis, treating, and reporting major mental illness? I'm gonna go with absolute crap. Plus, there are a ton of other risk factors for schizophrenia which are not attributed for in your "data".

Nonetheless, this is why we do epidemiologic studies, identify confounders, perform statistical analyses to look for and account for bias, perform meta-analyses to avoid being swayed by one cherry picked study, do systematic reviews to evaluate the quality of evidence, do funnel plots in our analyses to look for unpublished data, and have registries of clinical trials to ensure we aren't missing unpublished data.

Jesus Christ man. The studies are out there. Read them and then critique the methods of the studies if you want. But don't come to an academic psychiatrist and clinical researcher and tell me that I've done my job wrong without any experience yourself and without any shred of an attempt to try to do the job yourself either. It's being very horribly rude.

Wait, are you trying to correlate marijuana and schizophrenia?

Fuck off.

Hey, I see that whenever people are dehydrated, they want water. Therefore, water makes people dehydrated.

 

[TechBoyJK]

You are using wikipedia as a reference source in a scientific argument? Really?

But what is even clearer is that you didn't read the damn wikipedia page other than the opening line (citation, WSJ, a real quality medical journal). LOL. If you omit the first line, you could hardly have picked a better source to support my claims.

Nonetheless, I did chose my words poorly. I'll rephrase it a little more precisely to my intended meaning: that schizophrenia and cannabis use are related is well understood. The causality element of the relationship is supported by higher quality epidemiologic medical evidence than almost any other bit of medical knowledge that relies on epidemiologic evidence.

I'm not going to address the rest of your post. I have stated clearly that the only con to legalization of marijuana use that compels me to want to prevent it from being legalized is its association to risk of development of schizophrenia. That I have listed other cons because I was requested to do so is not important. I don't believe that the other cons outweigh the pros.

It is also my belief that criminality of marijuana is an important deterrent. I recognize, as you do, that it is impossible for any criminal or civil legislation to prevent people from using cannabis. I wish it were possible, but since it is not, I have settled on the idea of deterring its use among at-risk youth in the most cost effective manner that is least intrusive on the liberty of people who have legal capacity to use it, and I certainly do not want to prevent it from being used in any medical application which is merited. In medical application, I wish it to be held to a standard of benefit, risk, and purity that is required by the FDA for any other drug.

You're so full of shit this must be a troll account.

hey 1980's called and they want their Nixon era delusions back.

Talk about showing your ass. You're totally brainwashed.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Although, I am puzzled as to why so many people clamor for it to happen. Legalization of an addictive substance benefits who exactly?

What a stupid question. You're puzzled because your bubble distorts reality.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Your experience treating addictive disorders is what exactly? The opinions of any actual medical organization on the addictive potential of marijuana are what?

Well, if you don't want to trust the experts on addiction, you could at least trust the experts on getting high:
http://www.hightimes.com/read/5-signs-you’re-smoking-too-much-marijuana

You might then want to look at the DSM-5 criteria for cannabis use disorder and be shocked to find out that everyone agrees, pot can be addictive.

World of Warcraft can be addictive. So can indoor rock climbing.

Fact is, cannabis has less potential for chemical dependence than caffeine. You ready to sign my petition to ban coffee and throw people in jail for 20 years? Ready to imprison the CEO of Folgers for life?

 

[TechBoyJK]

Please. Being caught with marijuana would be bad to me because of my licensure. Possession of a usage amount of marijuana, in absence of any other criminal suspicion, is exceedingly unlikely to encounter legal attention, and if it does, has very low consequence.

You're a doctor? Holy shit. That's embarrassing for you. I feel bad for your patients. I wonder how many people have died because of your incompetence.

 

[TechBoyJK]

You're a physician? I think my 8th grade health teacher explained the difference between psychological addiction and physical addiction on a level that even middle school kids could comprehend. First, drugs can be both. But, are you denying that there are addictions that are little more than cravings, while there are physical addictions that without continuing to get that drug, the patient will literally get very sick?

I really don't think this guy is a doctor. He's so full of shit and misguided that it really isn't funny.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Which kind of brings me to the point about cannabis overall in terms of what it does. I do not want to discount its effects. It is anxiolytic, analgesic, anti-emetic, and sedative, and lots of people have stress, pain, nausea, and insomnia.

Ok doctor.

What strand of cannabis are you saying causes all of those things? You realize you need to be more specific right?

If you can't say which strands cause those effects, then we'll all know you're full of shit.

Your point is false, vague, and not specific enough to have any meaning. ie.. you're so used to peddling drug war bullshit you don't even realize when you're spreading lies.

 

[TechBoyJK]

You are regurgitating nonsense.
1. The link between schizophrenia and cannabis is not poorly understood. It is quite well understood compared to virtually every other epidemiologic risk factor in medicine. It is not completely understood, and I would like more research to make it better understood. Nonetheless, because it is not fully understood does not make it unimportant. I don't care if you feel that the amount of risk and amount of certainty of that risk makes it outweighed by other factors. It is, however, idiotic to say that it is irrelevant.

2. I disagree that legal restrictions on marijuana use, production, and distribution are wholly ineffective at deterring teen use of marijuana. I agree completely that the current laws are horribly bad at reaching this goal, and horribly expensive to enforce. It's a compelling argument to change them. It doesn't necessitate a stance that no laws regulating marijuana as criminal can be effective. My stance is that they can be, and that it ought to be the approach we take. I might be wrong. No way to know for certain without trying one or the other and living with the results.

3. I find your argument about origins of cannabis laws flawed, but admittedly I am not well researched on this, and I don't particularly care. Cannabis has been illegal for a long time. I only care about whether a. the pros of legalizing cannabis outweigh the cons and b. the reasonableness that the intent of laws surrounding cannabis (criminal or regulatory) matches the effect

No, you're a close minded wanna be authority that is spouting bullshit and acting like you know better.

There's plenty of quack doctors out there, and you're clearly one of them. This entire thread is calling you on your shit and you keep talking like you're some kind of an authority. You're not and you can go pound sand.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Wow.. Sorry for the repeat posts, but this interchange quack has shit nonsense all over this thread and it was too hard not to reply to it.

Must be a troll.

 

[OutHouse]

Interchange. if you are ever in Colorado let me know. you are more than welcome to come over and to enjoy some world class craft beer and burgers and when when it gets dark ill light the campfire so you, me, my friends and neighbors can sit around the fire get stoned and enjoy a beautiful Colorado evening with good people and awesome views. I promise not to play any john denver either. it will be a good time so keep it in mind.

 

[TechBoyJK]

Interchange. if you are ever in Colorado let me know. you are more than welcome to come over and to enjoy some world class craft beer and burgers and when when it gets dark ill light the campfire so you, me, my friends and neighbors can sit around the fire get stoned and enjoy a beautiful Colorado evening with good people and awesome views. I promise not to play any john denver either. it will be a good time so keep it in mind.

He'd probably have a nervous breakdown and call the feds.