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OT: SC Medical Marijuana Bill

Forget medical uses. Marijuana is a naturally occurring plant. It requires no processing to use it, other than lighting it on fire. Keeping a law on the books that makes a plant illegal is beyond asinine.

It should have never been illegal in the first place. It was only made illegal because the cotton farmers knew hemp would put them out of business. It had absolutely nothing to do with the effects from smoking it.

It is the reason millions of Americans have gone to jail. Those people are in jail, not working, not being parents, and not participating in society all because of a plant.

It causes massive loss of life and untold other crimes due to the cartels and related human and drug trafficking.

And if it were legal, it would provide a massive tax windfall and a boost to our economy. Any of those are enough reason to make it legal, and why the vast majority of Americans support legalization.

Do not forget about the original individuals behind the "reefer madness" B.S. and prohibition in the first place, William Randolph Hearst (timber/paper tycoon) and Harry Anslinger (first commissioner of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics). Hearst worked with Anslinger to make sure that marijuana was made illegal by law. Also for the record, Anslinger was a known racist FWIW as well.
 
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"Republican Christians have no problem taking opioids or being prescribed them. These same people think pot is a dangerous drug and legalization would result is mass crime and deaths. All studies show there is a major opioid crisis and to no ones surprise the government isn’t doing anything to help. Instead more powerful opioids have been approved."

I'm not really sure what all of this means, but of course people are fine taking medications prescribed by their doctors. When people are prescribed opioids and use them as prescribed, they rarely become addicted or move on to abuse of illegal opioids (whether diverted prescription pills or street drugs like heroin). To say the government isn't doing anything about opioids is also awfully ignorant. There have been lawsuits by AGs, pill limits imposed, dosage limits imposed, bills introduced to make Oxycontin a Schedule I drug, physician education mandates, huge increases in funding to address the opioid crisis, huge increases in funding for prescription monitoring programs, prescription monitoring program mandates, DEA limits on manufacturing, and more. A large omnibus of opioid bills was passed by Congress and signed into law last year by the president. Some of these policies will hurt patients who need pain medication, but such is the actual attitude of most legislators and administrators in government.

So things are nearly the opposite of what you suggest when it comes to opioids. And yet overdoses have continued to rise. Maybe that's because the problem was more about people abusing drugs than it was about doctors prescribing opioids.

Dude you are obviously very informed, but you're talking out of your ass about opioids. Thousands of people absolutely do become dependent and addicted to opioids just by taking them as their doctor recommended. That's part of the problem.....opioids were and are being over prescribed big time, and a huge percentage of people who become addicted didn't do anything wrong and didn't take more than they were supposed to.

To say otherwise is ignorant. This is a subject on which I'm very informed.
 
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The most hilarious thing about all of this is that @camcgee posts all throughout threads like this and yet continuously tries to say he is not against marijuana legalization. GMAFB

Nowhere near as funny as you not even trying to understand the issue, or how it’s poseible to be ambivalent.
 
Dude you are obviously very informed, but you're talking out of your ass about opioids. Thousands of people absolutely do become dependent and addicted to opioids just by taking them as their doctor recommended. That's part of the problem.....opioids were and are being over prescribed big time, and a huge percentage of people who become addicted didn't do anything wrong and didn't take more than they were supposed to.

To say otherwise is ignorant. This is a subject on which I'm very informed.

Sorry, but you’re wrong. The highest end estimate of the proportion of people becoming addicted to opioids who were exposed for medical reasons is 26%. Better estimates say it’s more like 8%: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1507771#t=article. In one study, the rate of addiction for for short term use of opioids was between .12% and 1.4%. Another study found an addiction rate of .09%. So the rate of addiction is less than 1% for short term exposure, and around 8% for long-term exposure.
 
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Sorry, but you’re wrong. The highest end estimate of the proportion of people becoming addicted to opioids who were exposed for medical reasons is 26%. Better estimates say it’s more like 8%: http://www.nejm.org/doi/full/10.1056/NEJMra1507771#t=article. In one study, the rate of addiction for for short term use of opioids was between .12% and 1.4%. Another study found an addiction rate of .09%. So the rate of addiction is less than 1% for short term exposure, and around 8% for long-term exposure.

My experience in ground zero in the rooms of aa and na are different story than that. Some people need the pills but to say that the availability of opioids and over prescription of them isn’t a big problem is ignorant at best.
 
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It’s funny how many people in this thread respond this way to somebody who’s actually correct. This is why I wonder if a lot of people just think marijuana is totally harmless.
I'm gonna go on record saying @camcgee and I seem to disagree on this issue, but people are bringing some bad debate against him and making it more difficult to defend my opinion.
 
I'm gonna go on record saying @camcgee and I seem to disagree on this issue, but people are bringing some bad debate against him and making it more difficult to defend my opinion.

My only real point in this thread is that we should probably be more cognizant of the dangers of marijuana. I’d prefer we keep the status quo just because I don’t see a big enough need to legalize it, but I also think it won’t be awful if we do legalize it as long as it’s well regulated.
 
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Stats are stats. The reason overprescription is a problem is that the extra pills get diverted.
And over prescription is over prescription. There are pill manufacturers shipping enough opioids to keep entire towns in Appalachia high all year. I standby by my beliefs that marijuana would solve more problems that it causes. Alcohol and prescription medication ruin more lives than pot.
 
Dude you are obviously very informed, but you're talking out of your ass about opioids. Thousands of people absolutely do become dependent and addicted to opioids just by taking them as their doctor recommended. That's part of the problem.....opioids were and are being over prescribed big time, and a huge percentage of people who become addicted didn't do anything wrong and didn't take more than they were supposed to.

To say otherwise is ignorant. This is a subject on which I'm very informed.
Bad medicine does not equal bad drug. What is being done to people who have been stable on opiates for years because of this current witch hunt is truly a crime against humanity.
 
I haven't read this thread so I've no idea where it's going/went. I'll just say that if everyone had some thc in their life the world would be a much better place. Hell a blunt and a couple hours with lawmakers locked in a room we could probably solve a bunch of ongoing issues that just need some common sense applied.
 
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My only real point in this thread is that we should probably be more cognizant of the dangers of marijuana. I’d prefer we keep the status quo just because I don’t see a big enough need to legalize it, but I also think it won’t be awful if we do legalize it as long as it’s well regulated.

The default assumption should be that people are allowed to do a thing. There should be a compelling reason to criminalize or ban something, not a compelling reason to let it be legal. I don't think the fact that it's the status quo is in any way compelling. That's effectively an appeal to tradition, and we all know how many shitty things we've done because it's the way it's always been.
 
The default assumption should be that people are allowed to do a thing. There should be a compelling reason to criminalize or ban something, not a compelling reason to let it be legal. I don't think the fact that it's the status quo is in any way compelling. That's effectively an appeal to tradition, and we all know how many shitty things we've done because it's the way it's always been.

This has already been discussed above. It’s fine to think the status quo isn’t compelling, but it’s still true that you don’t need to do anything for the status quo to continue.
 
He’s got zero clue what he’s talking about. Of course it happens all the time.

I even posted the stats, but I guess that doesn’t matter as long as you’ve read an article or know somebody. The truth is that it’s unusual for people to become addicted to opioids if they take them as prescribed, especially short-term. People who were prescribed opioids aren’t driving the addiction epidemic.
 
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I even posted the stats, but I guess that doesn’t matter as long as you’ve read an article or know somebody. The truth is that it’s unusual for people to become addicted to opioids if they take them as prescribed, especially short-term. People who were prescribed opioids aren’t driving the addiction epidemic.

You don’t know what you’re talking about. A big problem is doctors OVER prescribing them. People are directed to take too many per day for too long of an amount of time. You are reading one set of statistics that don’t tell the whole story.

Just stop.
 
You don’t know what you’re talking about. A big problem is doctors OVER prescribing them. People are directed to take too many per day for too long of an amount of time. You are reading one set of statistics that don’t tell the whole story.

Just stop.

You’re barking up the wrong tree with this.
 
If you’re not a doctor and if you don’t have first hand knowledge about this subject then you are barking up the wrong tree.

So you’re a doctor? I’ve been working on this subject for the last 2 years (and marijuana for the last year) on behalf of doctors. Over-prescription is a problem because of diversion, not so much because of patients becoming addicted.
 
So you’re a doctor? I’ve been working on this subject for the last 2 years (and marijuana for the last year) on behalf of doctors. Over-prescription is a problem because of diversion, not so much because of patients becoming addicted.

No I’m not a doctor I’m someone with practical first hand knowledge on this subject...not someone who has been reading studies and statistics. It’s a short jump from dependence to addiction and it can and does happen without illegally obtained pills.
 
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