Ok , so you’re in the don’t legalize because it’s a gateway drug camp. Which, in my reading is different than just as illegal as heroin or meth. I read that to mean that it is equally harmful and should be punished equivalently to poss/sale MJ which is a large step beyond shouldn’t be legal. That’s not the case and should not be the case. Maybe I’m misreading your position though.

If you’re in that camp though, why draw the line at MJ? Why not Alcohol and nicotine other than societal inertia and the failed experiment of prohibition? I find MJ to be a lot closer to alcohol than meth.

I still don’t see the societal benefit of taking fucked up people on meth and then further stigmatizing them by locking them up and making them felons. Traffickers, cooks etc. I have less sympathy for, but frequently the line between the two blurs.

Ancecdotally, I have resolved hundreds of MJ and other drug charges over the last twenty years. Some of those people were hopelessly screwed up, many of them were simply in the wrong place at the wrong time. Almost to a T, the ones that were hopelessly fucked up were probably going to be fucked up on something.

One of the first serious drug cases I worked on was a 19 yo girl that was taken in as part of a federal meth conspiracy case. She discovered she was pregnant as part of the booking procedure. Her sin was being addicted to meth and supplying the cooks with precursors, in return for a hit to feed the habit. When I met her she looked a hard used up 40. She didn’t have a gateway drug, but rather a really shitty older relative that got her high on meth at 14 so he could molest her. I realize that situation is unusual, but also not unheard of. Per fed guidelines she did several years prison time, and is essentially a felon for life since expunging fed convictions is virtually impossible. This was all despite the benefit of a 5k1.1 motion, a somewhat sympathetic AUSA and a myriad of compelling factors for our downward departure motion. I think we as a society could have done a lot better by her.

I think the implied positioning of MJ as between those two is wrong. Alcohol is closer to meth than it is to MJ - it's the one in between. Alcohol abuse is incredibly destructive.

I don't use marijuana, and some who use it I find as kind of pathetic and ineffectual. But I've been around alcoholics and chronic marijuana users. And given the choice I'd much rather be around marijuana users. There's less violence, less screaming, fewer serious medical conditions. Much less total loss of ability to take care of themselves.

Is weed performance enhancing?

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“Read the transcript.”

I won’t argue with any of that. One of my friends from high school had a serious problem dealing with alcohol. Total meltdowns, violent outbursts and ,lots of babysitting from the rest of us. During college he pretty much stopped drinking and started getting high. No more meltdowns, no violent outbursts and no need to babysit every time we went out. It was incredibly refreshing.

MJ has screwed his life up so much that he is a Judge in TX these days. If he had continued drinking these last 30 years I can almost guarantee he’d be much worse off, if not dead.

*Edited to add: to my knowledge he never veered in to meth, coke, heroin or heavier drugs. He did eat shrooms with me once, but that was at a Dead show so when in Rome and such.

Does the NFL test because weed enhances performance?