alt Hacker NewsI am firmly against marijuana legalization. This is partially because of this insanity of the pro-legalization arguments. When I would see friends/family that started smoking regularly become noticeably less intelligent while pro-legalization proponents would argue there are no negative side-effects, or people who were obviously compelled to smoke every day or as often as they could.... like some sort of addiction, while pro-legalization proponents argued it was totally not-addictive.
The anti-legalization side had a few odd arguments as well, and some old claims that were unfounded. So no hands were totally clean.
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Did the people you notice becoming less intelligent ever recover? I'm genuinely interested. My biggest regret in life is early years drug use, smoked my first joint at 13. Mdma 18. Cocaine late tewnties. I personally think marijuana might be worse than mdma but not by much. And cocaine is really bad for cardio vascular system, probably physically worst of all of them that I tried.
I think both mdma and marijuana cause anxiety and they mess with short term memory.
There doesn't seem to be a good answer to protecting kids from drugs. Heavily regulated legalisation might help or it might normalise drug use.
As an aside I personally think alcohol in very moderate use isn't really as harmful as other drugs. And is probably a net benefit for many. Even moderate use of illegal drugs seems to have bad affects on people.
Edit: added my thoughts on alcohol and something on cocaine use.
I am firmly in favor of legalizing all drugs, except maybe antibiotics where overuse is causing harm for everyone.
The thing is, I 100% agree with your reasons for why it should be outlawed. I just think those are reasons to discourage using it, especially chronically.
However, I wholeheartedly believe the government should not have any say in how anyone lives their life, and treats their own body.
I'm curious, do you also think alcohol and tobacco should be banned? I definitely believe that marijuana use can lead to negative consequences, but I still think it is less dangerous than either of those 2 substances.
>I am firmly against marijuana legalization.
Is there an argument or data that could be presented that _would_ change your mind?
Are you also firmly for alcohol abolition? What about gambling?
But why is alcohol legal then? It has worse side effects and more collateral damage.
I never understand this line of thinking.
So the easiest way for an opposition to a good idea to get their way, is to go argue insane things on the opposite side?
Imagine if the oil industry starts paying people to go throw soup on paintings just to make the pro “let’s prevent climate change” people look stupid.
Oh. Wait.
> I am firmly against marijuana legalization. This is partially because of this insanity of the pro-legalization arguments.
this is also just motivated reasoning
The insanity of the fringe pro-legalization arguments has no bearing on whether legalization is a good idea or not.
> When I would see friends/family that started smoking regularly become noticeably less intelligent while pro-legalization proponents would argue there are no negative side-effects
This is also just ripe for cognitive bias which is why we should use science to understand these types of claims.