Again, personal references (such as peanut gallery…thick skulls) are unnecessary and detract from a reasoned discussion. Please refer to rules #4 & #5.

I will reiterate so that the peanut gallery can get it through their thick skull or perhaps the cloud of marijuana smoke or bouts of hallucinations that public policy choices must be applied fairly to all persons. You can’t let one group of “mature and responsible” drug users get away with smoking pot in or out of their homes and bust some moron dope fiend for smoking it in or out of his home.

If people want to advocate for medical marijuana, go right ahead. If enough people agree with them, it will become enacted into law. If not, move to California and hope the feds don’t catch you!!! However, simply disagreeing with the analysis that moderate drug use is acceptable shouldn’t make room for ridicule. Persuade myself and other like minded folks that it can be done safely in or out of the home and it can be taken seriously. However, IMO, this is a tough sell. What people do behind the curtains of their homes does follow them out into society. I don’t want my kids bus driver smoking a joint in his own home before he drives my kids to school the next day. I don’t want my cab driver to be doing a line of cocaine in his own home and driving me to the airport hours later. It is not as simple as legislating acceptable drug use—because there really isn’t such a thing—no matter how much posters want us all to believe “they” can handle it, the debate is much more about how to shape public policy for all Americans not just a couple of recreational drug users on Idahofallz.com.

In Bundy’s ‘all or nothing’ comment that Guest and Guest_House (Comments #76 & #77) found so notable and amusing, respectively, that statement can be interpreted differently depending on whether you are applying it to the use of a legal or an illegal activity/substance.

If you want to apply it to an illegal substance used for a legitimate purpose, I believe it does then have a law that allows it to be legally prescribed as such, and again, in moderation. (Please correct me if I’m wrong.)

I see no reason to publicly ridicule another poster with exaggerations of their comments. While Bundy acknowledges (and I do also) that some people do certain activities to an extreme, such as drinking, eating, exercising, whatever, at times, it is their business to do so; it does not necessarily mean they are being ‘judged’ by others, and it doesn’t mean I don’t overdo it myself at times; it’s merely an acknowledgement that it happens. (Even you, Guest_House, said so in #77.)

Sure, because it is a strictly black and white world we live in, ehh?

Try to see the shades of gray in our real world. Then try to see the hues of color in our real world. You will see issues go much deeper and broader than the black and white world you see.

For instance, what about medical use of marijuana? Supposedly medical marijuana is the best thing for many ailments, but that would fall into the “black” part of your view?

As for moderation itself, what if we held this same view in the field of moderate use of alcohol….gee officer, I just had 2 beers. If your body weight is 2 beers and you weigh 120 lbs you are probably going to be drunk. Yet, if you weigh 220 lbs, and have 2 beers, it probably is not going to effect you as much to the point of intoxication. How about we have moderate use of abortion, or perhaps moderate use of capital punishment…..the point is, moderation is not a logical, constitutional, or acceptable public policy choice.

Arguments for acceptance of moderate use are fraught with problems from the starting gate. It either needs to be all or nothing. You can’t discriminate in this area. The rights and privileges at stake are too important to be left up to some subjective analysis down the road that is apt to fail and put individuals at risk, or for that matter leave it to be interpreted by some government bureaucrat who could care less about the freedoms at stake.

I also think our laws about driving under the influence, and various other ways we seek to protect ourselves from those who are impaired, should be enforced.

Just as with the concept of “if guns are outlawed, only outlaws will have guns”…..to me, if recreational drugs are desired, people will find them and use them, sometimes legally, sometimes not.

I agree that lots of drugs which are legal are far worse than some of the illegal drugs. However, having broken those laws in my youth, I have no desire to do that again. And, I’m not willing to do much in the way of experimenting with some of that stuff, because I’m no longer 10 feet tall and bulletproof, as I was 25 years ago.

So then you would not mind if anyone smokes in their home and does not engage in activities like driving or flying planes, right? So long as nobody is endangered, what’s the problem with anyone using drugs?

Starbucks coffee (caffiene) is a far cry from peyote or shrooms. Tylenol isn’t even in the same category as shrooms and peytote. As for the holier than thou attitude, that’s your attempt to label legitimate concern as some type of moralistic judgment of your desire to do drugs. You are correcto about making a reasonable judgment to prevent you and others from harming the community. Our society makes judgments all the time….it is called passing and enforcing a particular law that addresses behavior.

You may feel entitled to use drugs. Society feels entitled to protect itself. I understand that you don’t see it as a threat for yourself. Perhaps you feel that you can handle it, but we don’t pass laws that allow Artiste to use and some other guy who can’t handle it as well to do so. It is a clear cut expectation that does not discriminate. So, debate to change the laws if you feel so inclined, but it is a mistake to focus on supposed holier than thou arguments. People have a right to their opinion. I could easily accuse Artiste of being self-centered, narcissistic, and impulsive about wanting to use drugs. I could even make the argument that Artiste is exhibiting an even more dangerous holier than thou attitude because he/she wants license to use anything at anytime–perhaps because he/she feels they are uniquely experienced/qualified/or better than the typical drug user……that too would be a mistake. Debate it on the merits. As I said before, a study with 36 people doesn’t make the argument that shrooms are an acceptable public health risk. A shroom a day does not keep the doctor away!

“Fourteen months after taking the drug, 64 percent of the volunteers said they still felt at least a moderate increase in well-being or life satisfaction, in terms of things like feeling more creative, self-confident, flexible and optimistic. And 61 percent reported at least a moderate behavior change in what they considered positive ways.”

So, lets see 36% of the folks felt a lack of well being, and 39% felt less than positive behavioral changes. Gee, that sure sounds like a winner drug to me. Y’all just go on out and put mushrooms on your pizza with The Artiste. Maybe you won’t be the 40% that didn’t do well with the hallucinogens.

PS-Do y’all think that any one of these 36 folks they tested did drugs before the “studies” or did they get some people with no drug experience to partake? Perhaps those that already dropped out and checked out were craving to get in on free shrooms? This is the problem with studies like this:

1) 36 people is not a great number
2) If you don’t have an accurate sample of the public at large and only use drugged up hippies the study is meaningless–some people like to go around in a daze and think nothing of it. Some of us prefer to actually avoid mind numbing dope. If the only people you test on are folks that have used it for years then that ain’t sayin much for the supposed benefits of shrooms.
3) I have a friend who used shrooms in 1988. He isn’t the same guy now that he was before then. We both blame it on the funky mushrooms because he never did coke or other harder drugs.

SHROOMS, like this study, isn’t all it’s cracked up to be.