Since og went down my site has increased in members looking for a place to grow. Shame all that great info is lost.

Did you know that sites like min and overgrow are actually causing a large drop in drug related crime, Mainly because people are growing there own and advoiding having to deal with criminals.

90% of Ganja smokers do not have a criminal record and never go on to harder drugs. I know smokers that are in the police and use cannabis to relax after a hard day shovelling people up from under buses.

21% of Drinkers become alcoholics

i think under 18s Should not be allowed to view forums such as mine or overgrow, and that they should stick to the freebie tour on porn sites or those sites where someones having there head hacked off with a carving knife , maybe even some of the sites that tell them how to make pipe bombs and fireworks. We dont want our kids to be junkies do we ?

Can you please provide a citation for those statistics?

Given that vBulletion is the forum of choice for terrorist organizations, I would think talking about pot would be the least of sins discussed on vB forums worldwide.

Good to see illegal practices shut down.

Ditto, ditto... Course, thats what smoking your own stash can do, "make ya stoopid". I don't smoke, and when I did experiment, I didn't inhale...
This probably all has to do with one country cooperating with another to get this kinda stuff off the internet. I wish they'd find that guy who's spamming me with Viagra and Penis enlargement emails and get him off the net.. Its only one person, but it would sure be a big help.

On a different note, the server seized.. was there "legitimate" websites on the server too?... Wierd if there was, would make you wanna know who you were signing up with as a host. Cause, yer legal but the other guy on the server wasn't.. but there goes yer stuff as well. Hard work, pictures, files, etc.. etc.. Not to mention maybe the fees you paid for a year's lease, or loss of income as your customer base (user lists) evaporate before your eyes, sales records?... gee.. a whole buncha stuff, gone up in.. uh, er.. smoke.

A simple thread like this, "server seized" can open a whole new can-o-worms.
I'm glad my host only allows pornograpy, everyone else?... :banana:

I'd be interested to here which ones, since the only ones I've come accross tend to use free software like YaBB, phpBB, and SMF.

Then you do not support free speech.

If something is illegal, and it should not be, how can you change it if you can't talk about it?

What if it was illegal to discuss freedom for black people in America? What if it was illegal to discuss women having the right to vote?

Would you have been in favor of discussing those or not? Black people could not legally become citizens, they were PROPERTY. Women could not vote. You would have been against that because it was speech discussing a topic that was illegal?

I personally do not smoke marijuana but have done it before.

I wish it was legalized in the United States. We spend far too much fighting against it and it is virtually harmless compared to alchohol, pain pills, crack, crank, cocaine, heroin, lsd, pcp, etc. etc. etc.

The government could regulate it and profit from it while at the same time keeping tabs on who grows and sells it. It would ease prison overcrowding and allow the police to focus their efforts on drugs that are REALLY harming people.

I didn't make it past the post of yours that I'm replying to filburt but I definately see some flaws in your logic...

If it were legal in the US then we would have that many more dope heads driving down the streets with the drunks...not a great idea imho ;) (and yes, I smoked it for many, many years and know what it does and doesn't do to your motor skills and perception of reality...thankfully I had enough brain cells left to realize what a stupid habit it is and gave it up 10 years ago).

I think the desire to drive is about a million times lower on weed and compared to alchohol, there really is no comparison.

I never got the urge to get high and drive around. I never got the urge to get high and get into a fight. I never got the urge to get high and do anything other than eat, watch TV, or talk about ridiculous stuff.

What does illegally driving while high on drugs have to do with whether or not a drug should be legalized?

Guns are legal, but people are shot with them.
Cars are legal, but people are ran over with them.
Knives are legal, but people are stabbed to death.

Clorox is legal, but you don't go serving drinks out of it.

There is no movement to make the use of chainsaws illegal because some people might use them to cut something other than trees with...

What might be done illegally with the substance should have little bearing on the legality of possession of a potentially useful substance.

Moderator status here and a quarter will buy you a dime cup of coffee. ;)

because it impairs you? Take a look at what you just wrote and tell me if it makes even the remotest sense. Plus, anyone who says smoking pot doesn't lead to harder drugs is either (a)a fool, or (b)didn't smoke it long enough to need something stonger. I smoked it for 25 years regularly. I felt the same way you do when I smoked it. I also got tired of it and moved on to anything and everything else just to maintain a decent buzz and it nearly killed me. Every drug addict I ever met (and I've known more than a few in my day) all started out smoking pot. Yes, legalizing pot is a cop out and just plain stupid.

no it's not. It makes total sense.

I smoked it enough times to know about it.

If you are an addict, maybe yes you will seek other drugs, but if you are looking to get high you're going to get high regardless of whether or not you smoked pot, took pain pills, or drank alchohol to get you started.

Just because you couldn't manage to keep from using other illicit drugs means that the rest of the country can't?

Personally, I believe that I ought to have the freedom do put marijuana in my body if I want to. I can chug a bottle of drano or other solvent type substance. I can smoke a cigarette. I can drink a beer. I can do a gagillion other things that might harm my body, and yet I cannot smoke some marijuana?

It's ridiculous. Pretty soon the government will deem it illegal to smoke tobacco because it harms you. Ten years later, NO CAFFIENE. What next?

I'd rather save that choice for myself.

It is a proven fact that marijuana is NOT PHYSICALLY ADDICTIVE.

I can understand cocaine and substances like that, where your body NEEDS the substance, and people steal, kill, etc. for the drug, but marijuana does not fit that category.

By your argument, it should be illegal to drink coca cola because the high the caffiene gives you will make you want to drink something even better and so you will then turn to beer, then to hard liquor, etc.

That is a personal problem. If you cannot control your own actions and keep from participating in HIHGLY illegal and harmful activities for a good buzz, then that is your problem, not socieities.

People who want to smoke marijuana are smoking it already. If I wanted to get high I could have weed in my hand in less than 30 minutes.

The only reason I don't smoke it is because it IS illegal.

I have two young girls and if I had to choose pot or booze for them to do when they get older, I'd choose pot every time. It is ABSOLUTELY the lesser of two evils.

The only negative impact I see of marijuana use in MODERATION is eating.

I would love to see some credible evidence backing up your claim.

geez...I hope you change your stance on that statement because if you do your job right, they won't want or need want either....

I certainly hope you are right and they don't want/need either, I was just trying to make a statement comparing the evils of the two.

I will look for the medical evidence regarding the addiction part but I wrote a paper on it in college and am 99.9999% sure :)

I hope so too...I have two young daughters as well. I don't know if I can make a comparison of the evils between the two as I never have been much of a drinker but drug addiction and alcoholism are both very destructive.

You may be right, but the mental addiction is real and the danger of experimenting with harder drugs is real as well...thats the greatest danger, imho, to making it that much easier via legalization, for people who might not otherwise experiment with it.

Name one biologically good reason for a healthy person to use drugs.

Ergo, argument over.

Because they are old and stupid like me and need something to keep them alive? ;)

I know I could use some pain killers right now. These wisdom teeth are killing me.

Emphasis on "healthy". If you need a drug to keep you alive you probably don't fall int othat category then. ;).

I have to disagree with that one. A person can be healthy and still require certain drugs to live, or at least prevent health issues later in life.

I am a prime example of this. If not for the pills I take for acid reflux I'd be looking at a much shorter life span. I also have to get vitamin B12 injections because my body does not process it correctly. I have to by-pass the stomach by injecting it into my leg, or arm if the nurse does it for me.

Believe it or not, it is drugs that keep human beings alive longer. It's not to say, however, that their longitivity ensures quality of life. See, drugs are nothing more than combinations of concentrated (natural) substances. The way they interact with with our bodies will vary since everyone has a different chemical structure. There isn't a science to it if man is involved in the process.

The same argument could be made for many currently legal things. :rolleyes:

He didn't state illegal goods, but instead drugs in general. Do you take medicine when you are well? When the body is healthy, why polute it with bad substances?

The same could really be said about tobacco, alcohol and whatnot. Given I don't smoke it myself, what one perceives as bad may be perceived as good to another.

Alcohol is legal and impairs your ability and judgement, marijuana is illegal and impairs your ability and judgement. When people drink, they normally smoke (cigarettes that is - most people, not all) so I honestly don't really see the issue.

Legal or illegal, people are still going to smoke marijuana. The government makes plenty off of the sale of alcohol, however, so illegalizing it would decrease their intake on taxes. Not everyone can simply produce their own alcohol, it'd be more expensive in the end. It's not that hard to grow a plant with a few seeds.

It'd be a bit harder to tax plant growth given it could easily be slung around everywhere (as it already is) given it's natural production and does not require intervention by man as alcohol does.

Maybe a bold statement, though I figure everyone knows the government makes a great deal from taxation of cigarettes and alcohol then turns right around and says don't drink and drive, smoking is dangerous, etc...Very contradicting to their method, however it sells.

consuming refined sugar, refined salt and hydrogenated fats is far worse for one's health than smoking cannabis...if one eats at mcdonalds on a regular basis ,for instance,they are a drain on the healthcare (diseasecare actually) system, maybe they should be forced to seek mandatory counselling for their habits of consumption...:eek:

Since when did the 'illegal' label equate to being 'bad' for you? It's like saying everything 'legal' is 'good' for you.

Illegal --> Caught --> Arrested --> Indicted --> Prosecuted --> Sentenced --> <if>Jail or Prison</if> --> Bubba & Big Leroy = Bad

that's unfair... over here in EU you can smoke in front of the police office and no one will ever say a word... you can get Extasy and LSD no problem, just ask a classmate... than people wonder why EU GDP is going down.

okay...lets see some medical research to back up this claim....

If we are discussing illicit drugs, anyone with even pathetic skills at infering data can realize that he is talking about illicit. Quit trying to play with semantics. We're not policy debating here...

you might want to read this little story here first:
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/...mment-opinions

then show us some incidences of people actually dying from smoking cannabis...

ever see that documentary 'super size me'?

what makes a drug "illicit"? Is it an opinion?

Is marijuana an "illicit" drug? If so, how why is it one?

Also, to correct a poster from earlier:

Not all drugs are concentrated natural substances. Many drugs are synthetic.

I was referring to prescription drugs, but I thought of one horrible drug that fits that category and that is crank, or methamphetamine. People are making that $#!+ out of clorox, psuedophederine, annyhdrous ammonia, etc. That's nuts.

Marijuana is a naturally growing plant, kinda like shrooms, that is essentially harmless when used as mother nature intended.

The marijuana plant also has some pretty phenomenal uses.

As far as the government losing money on alchohol tax because of pot, that's simply a misguided statement. Alchohol tax would likely not be affected at all.

Regarding regulation and taxation of marijuana and it not being feasable, again misguided.

If the government legalized it, cigarette companies would likely become the main distributor. There would be competition on a large scale and the cost of pot would go WAY, WAY DOWN. People wouldn't waste their time growing pot and smoking it or selling it on their own...at least on a scale large enough to make a difference. It would simply be cheap enough not to go through the hassle of doing it yourself. PLUS, it would remain illegal. The legal aspect, combined with the decreased cost, would rule out any reason to do it yourself.

The federal government could add on a 50% tax and you could buy a box of 20 marijuana cigarettes for say, 10 dollars. 50 cents a joint.

The population of the U.S. is almost 300 million, correct? (irrelevant really, but I'm guessing about 25% of people over 18 smoke pot (see: college) Let's say roughly 50 million people, just for fun. A hell, let's go a different route...

(searching for fact)

found:

Police arrested about a quarter of a million people in the U.S. for mary jane in '04, 771,608 to be exact.

Using ONLY THOSE PEOPLE for estimates now:

If each one of them spends 200 dollars a year on AVERAGE then that equates to:

77 million dollars in tax revenue. While that is certainly not enough to balance the budget, it is DEFINATELY a huge increase in the amount of funds we would use to fight the war on other drugs, or towards anti drug campaigns.

Now lets assume, yes, we are assuming, but we aren't being outlandish by any means, we're likely UNDER ESTIMATING...that only 25% of pot smokers were arrested last year.

That number just went to about 310 million dollars.

Now, let's estimate that only 10% of pot smokers were arrested.

Now we are looking at 3/4 of a billion dollars in tax revenue.

If the average dollars spent per person per year was twice my 200 dollar (random number) now you are looking at 1.5 billion dollars.

You can do a lot with 1.5 billion dollars.

Apply it towards healthcare, education, police budgets, social security, whatever you apply it towards, you have now made a SIGNIFICANT difference in that aspect of our society, all by putting a tax on a product that is already being used in MASS QUANTITIES.

Sure, these numbers are based on NOTHING, other than the number of arrests in '04, and loosely on that, but surely that gives you some kind of an idea of the possibilities.

One person is arrested every 41 seconds or something like that.

89% of those arrests were for POSSESSION ONLY.

We WASTED OUR TIME arresting almost 700k people last year simply because they had mary jane in their possession.

What is the cost associated with one arrest? You have the opportunity cost in terms of man hours being used up on that when they could have been doing something else; the time it took to arrest someone, search a vehicle, paperwork, etc.

They could have been doing something productive towards society like arresting REAL CRIMINALS who hurt children and the elderly, sexual predators, violent criminals who shoot or stab people, POSSIBLY FOR MONEY FOR CRANK OR HEROIN OR some kind of REALLY HARMFUL ADDICTIVE DRUG.

REALLY think about it.

We aren't talking about people driving while high, or people harming others.

We are talking about people who were simply in possession of the substance.

Anything man-made (synthetic) comes from natural substances.

syn?thet?ic (sĭn-thĕt'ĭk) pronunciation
adj.

Chemistry. Produced by synthesis, especially not of natural origin.
Not natural or genuine; artificial or contrived: ?counterfeit rhetoric that flourishes when passions are synthetic? (George F. Will).
Prepared or made artificially: synthetic leather. See synonyms at artificial.

refer mainly to the ESPECIALLY NOT OF NATURAL ORIGIN part.

:banana:

wait, did it say, "especially not of natural origin"?

OH! I think it did!!!!!!!!!!

don't get mad at me, I'm just being an ass.

He never said it occurs naturally, only that is created from something that does occur naturally ;)

And that is something you can't disagree with - If it didn't occur naturally at some point in the ingredients then there would be no ingredients to make the synthetic substance :p

Chris

@ shortbus1662: Substances that are chemically produced come from natural sources. Break down all elements and they will point to a natural origin.

Chris knows the deal. :)

What I said but with a more direct and scientific tone :p

Chris

I give you that. I didn't realize that you posted until I did mine. My hats off to you. :)

"Chris knows the deal. :)" was included after I had posted the original message. :D

well nothing on this earth came from something not of this earth (yeah, moon rocks, mars dust, whatever, but let's not get that picky)

Sure, it all came from something that was once natural in some form or another, but you people are arguing semantics here.

It's not a matter of interpretation but stated facts. So in a sense I'm arguing syntax rather than semantecs. :)