When weed is legal, what is something that I can put in it that will make people more addicted to it? I could soak it in nicotine extract. Hmm.
A small amount of any type of poison will do it. Strychnine, nicotine, taxine, cyanide, most pesticides, ricin. Pretty much anything other than heavy metals which will kill you by accumulation. Your body trying to rid you of the poison creates a withdrawl symptom when its finished and that makes you addicted.
Actually, research finds that legalizing marijuana might make the roads safer. It's surprisingly difficult to say that there's a correlation between pot use and accidents, according to the research I've found. So that argument is out.
Yeah, a source like that isn't a fact. Here's the exact opposite.
http://www2.potsdam.edu/alcohol/files/Marijuana-Use-Increases-Risk-of-Traffic-Crashes-and-Deaths.html#.VTPYpnl0yUkYou can deduce this by common sense. Are you going to be more likely to have an accident when you are high? Answer: Yes. Because it impairs your senses. That's the point of it. Might it reduce drink driving accidents? Possibly but they are very very rare as a percentage of accidents anyway. And will there be more accidents caused by people who are now high and otherwise wouldn't be drinking?
Finally, I'm not suggesting that making cannabis legal will reduce drinking, only that it stands a chance of addressing our alcohol-related violence problem. There are any number of ways it could do that, one of which is a reduction in the amount of drinking, but another could simply be that its relaxant properties help to suppress the antisocial behaviour associated with alcohol. As I said, we don't know for certain until we try it.
You can't keep flip-flopping. It's illegal, it's legal, sorry our mistake, it's illegal again. If you allow the public to use a narcotic for recreational purposes you have opened Pandora's box. Its not then very easy to put the evil back into that box. People will resist and break the law. After all, you got them using it by making it legal. Its not about "we have to try". That is completely irresponsible. People may be directly harmed by your changes in legislation.
Also cannabis is usually smoked with cigarette tobacco. I can tell you know, you will get more smokers. I had a friend at uni who just smoked weed. One day he was saying to me, "I really need a joint". I looked at him and said "No one needs a joint, what you want it a cigarette". He laughed and I gave him a cigarette as we were out of cannabis. He smoked it and the penny dropped. He was addicted to cigarettes and that was why he'd been using up my pot supply.
He became a full time smoker from that moment on.
Making cannabis use social and recreational is undoubtedly going to make more smokers. Call it a gateway drug if you like. But leading to smoking full time.
I want to clarify a few misconceptions about marijuana use:
Legalising cannabis to reduce drinking is like banning guns to prevent obesity.
I can only speak for myself, but marijuana is a huge part of the reason I don't drink. I like being intoxicated. I find it relaxing. I prefer marijuana to the exclusion of alcohol. Alcohol gives me hangovers and wrecks my ability to think and make good decisions. Pot lets me relax and still be a completely functional human being. But, if pot weren't available to me, I'd still want to be intoxicated, so I'd just drink instead of smoke.
What's more, I definitely know plenty of people who would make the same decision if pot was decriminalized and regulated like alcohol. They don't now because it's illicit.
I never met anyone who doesn't put tobacco in a joint. For a start, it doesn't burn well without tobacco and keeps going out.
Have you ever heard of a pipe? Or a vaporizer? I'm sure there are difference between American and European marijuana use, but most of the people I know smoke their weed in pipes, bongs, and vaporizers; not joints or spliffs. And if I think about it for a moment, I know hardly anyone other than myself in America who smokes spliffs and not joints. My experiences surely aren't universal, but it's definitely not the case that everyone who smokes pot mixes it with tobacco. Not even close, probably.
And by the way, how the hell do you smoke oils or resin in a joint without tobacco?
I smoke hash oils and concentrates by vaporizing them using a water pipe and a titanium fixture (called a "nail"). Think of a bong, but where the weed would go there's a titanium screw that you heat with a torch lighter to vaporize the oil.
If you go into a bar in Amsterdam to smoke, you buy a joint or two. They don't rush you out a bong or a vaporiser or a pipe. Its a social thing and you smoke socially. You aren't going to get wrecked as fast as possible by inhaling a bucket. Hash bars will sell joints. And they don't sell all kinds of paraphernalia that goes with it in those bars. It isn't meant to be a drugs den. People smoke because smoking is social as native American's I'm sure will testify. ;-)