Ron Paul co-sponsors bill to decriminalize Marijuana

Small my foot. Every drug addict will all of the sudden find themsleves with chronic pain.

 

Bye Bye Ron...Maybe

If that is indeed true then that is where I would have to disagree and possibly depart from Ron Paul. That is more of a Libertarian position and I believe contrary to sound Christian principles. It is a free country(for the most part) and if there is a legitimate medical use and need for that drug then it should be evaluated on a case by case basis as a medicine. To legalize the drug for medicinal use minus any "qualifiers" just makes it a picnic for people who have always used it recreationally. It is also one reason that I will NEVER support a Libertarian Candidate as long as legalization of drugs is a part of their platform or stated goals. If this is true then my respect for Dr.Paul as a Christian(which he clearly professes to be) will (sadly) slip. This is strictly MY opinion. The rest of you are equally welcome to yours. Here's a thought...keep wacky weed illegal and MAKE TOBACCO & ALCOHOL ILLEGAL as well!!!("Righteousness Exalteth A Nation"....ehhh?)

:tear: Greg Perry Sr.raying:

 

Ron Paul has some good points about not regulating everything. The Goverment could become out of control, as it is here in our County. Good people are arrested and charged with almost everything under the sun, especially DUI.

Every drug addict here seems to have chronic pain since Marijuana became legalized, though most of these folks smoked it prior to legalization imho. The bill was worded so ambigiously that it became a very misused drug, producing more drug addicts than it helped.

Now anyone with any type of medical ailement can request medical marijuana. IT seems to be the cure for everything from A-Z.

So...if they wrote the bill up correctly (5843), then there should be no problem. Legalize it for the one's who need it.

The Lord gave us alcohol, marijuana, penicillin, etc... to use to keep us healthy.

We have harmless stoners clogging up California jails while rapists are let free. If anything, we should go back to criminalizing alcohol. Now that is a drug which causes many people to become violent! Generally, marijuana has the opposite effect. It's what enabled the concert promoters to pull off Woodstock in the 60's. If they all weren't stoned, then there would have been riots.

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When did it become the government's job to save people from themselves? If people choose to smoke the stuff then why should I care? Now if they drive under the influence and put other people at risk that is a different matter. We have a huge prison population that is weighing down our economy and then we have all the crime that goes with illegal drugs. If they were legal and controlled by the FDA we would have a lot more control than we do now.

Let me ask you this, we have drugs that make you feel better. Some drugs help with a head ache, some help with upset stomache, but we have lots of drugs designed to help you feel better when your sick or hurting. Some of these drugs have side affects and should not be taken if you are driving or operating machinery. But we can still buy them over the counter and take them as we see fit.

Well what is the difference between that and a drug that makes you feel better when your not sick. Is there something wrong with taking a drug just because it makes you feel better?

 

You make some wonderful points NC Tentmaker, the government shouldn't be regulating everything under the sun.. If a drug makes you feel more "sober minded" then it is a medicinal use imo. But the side effects on our temple must be considered. Ye no one can be clear and sober minded if they live in constant depression, anxiety etc...
In our area, if they find you have an over the counter drug such as Benadryl, the authorities may write you up for DUI if you have been driving. It's getting so scary that to decriminalize drugs all together may be better for society as a whole, or at least in our area. It would result in less violence than the majority of non-criminals being thrown into jail with violent criminals. The TEA act (there are some numbers behind it but I forgot what they are, maybe 31) means the government matches all DUI's once a year but the states must come up with a specific amount of prosecutions once a year to receive the matched funds. It's an enourmous amount of money so DUI's are gold.

If they decriminalize drugs, then they will pick another topic to match the funds. Example: then everyone will suddenly become child molesters. Someone who watches a rated r movie with sensual content will be construed as a child molester watching a porn with a minor (which is considered s*xual abuse). That's just one example, but imho, they will get their matching Federal $$ in our County no matter what the cost.

 

Sorry, but as much as I'm against drug abuse, I do believe 'the weed' may have medicianal purposes which help those in pain or afflicted with nausea during chemotherapy, and possibly other therapeutic purposes.

Whether or not regualated by big pharma, we fool ourselves if we think keeping off the grass is going to prevent drug abuse and dependance. Futhermore, we are criminalizing many people and incarcerating them and paying for their legal, institutional and medical care at a time when we have more serious crime taking place and expenses against our tax revenue which we cannot meet. Not everyone incarcerated for possession and/or use of marijuana is guilty of more than having obtained it through illegal sources. It is these illegal sources which promote the black market and hidden economy of the drug trade and crime.

Personally, I'm against all drugs ......unless ABSOLUTELY necessary. We usually depend upon our doctors to make this determination. The Bible teaches us that God gave every thing we needed for healing in the vegetation with which he supplied in our garden on earth. Unfortunately, the FDA does an exceptional job of clamping down and removing from the public availability, the herbs which some herbalists have attempted to validate the use, safety, and effectiveness by their own independant and publically unfunded research: But the pharmaceutical companies can take the plants, isolate the chemical for a specific effect from the molecular biology which God made in the plant to be synergistic and supportive, manufacture a 'duplicate' in the lab.... which is not exact... it is a mirror image of the natural chemical...and then they fund their own research, and use the results to convince the FDA of their efficacy and safety. And...... when an agency (which is supposed to be a guard for our good) is funded (which processing fees are) by big pharma..... then it knows who butters its bread and cannot accurately said not to be influenced by those funds.

There are attempts which have succeeded in the UK, and Austrailia, (if I'm not mistaken) and recently was temporarially stopped in Canada, which make any use of vitamins, minerals, and/or herbs, dependant on a physicians supervision. This might not be a problem if the medical training of doctors and the research into alternative treatments, nutrition, and molecular biology and physiology was taught, funded and not obstructed: But as it is, the medical schools get the financial sponsorship and support by big pharma. Big pharma contributes substantially to the professional magazines which publish 'the scientific data', and big pharma subsidizes its own research in labs which are supposedly 'independant'. Additionally, big pharma has fraudentlly allowed and paid for the misrepresentation of data, buying the authorship of recognized names to attach to reports which were generated inhouse to promote their meds. Big pharm supports and sponsors the medical societies and their seminars for continueing education, and symposiums. Some professional journals are free subscriptions to some doctors, courtesy of the pharamceutical companies. As it is, our doctors are turned into pill pushers for the pharmaceutical giants. The people have been programmed through ads on t.v. and published, through reports by others, and through the expediancy involved in the medical practice to treat symptoms and get temporary relief as opposed to the timely and costly methods of diagnosising cause and treating for cures. Rather than healers, many doctors are reduced to prescribing relief and sustaining chronic conditions rather than healing and prevention (by supply and demand and the expense and restrictions by their regulatory boards to the 'accepted' standards of care).

When a person is in chronic pain all the time, and such was my late husband, lawfully, a person of his and my conscience is dependant on the medical community for help. Pain medication is not given out freely; it is potent and powerful, as developed and consentrated by the pharmaceutical companies; and pain medication is so highly regulated that most doctors require frequent and additional visits, costly to patients and insurance.....not necessarily to monitor side effects, but to insure they've (the doctors prescribing) met the requirements and have documented in the record to answer to any investigation which might arise from regulartory agencies.

Something is wrong in pain management when a person, such as my husband, is going for back injections every 2-3 months, and the first relief he got on the first injection lasted about 48 hours, and after that, less than an hour.....but his pain was so great even that less than an hour was a relief sufficient to accept the expense and inconvenience: yet twice monthly he had to see his pain management physician for the prescribed medications..... soma and voltaren, which never came to the maximum amount or strength allowed for severe pain... so taken as ordered it only blunted his pain. When he couldn't move his legs, and EMS had to pick him up off the floor and took him to the hosipital for treatment, and the nurses and the doctors delayed their examination, and delayed their response to my call for a urinal, and chatted about parties and sports games and their families at the nurses desk, finally to deliver a pain injection of demerol with phenagren, then delayed discharge for 3 hours at which, rolled to the curb in a wheel chair by a staff attendant..... so much had worn off, he could not bow enough to lower his head and haunches onto the seat of our car........... No! I don't believe or care that all that is 'professional medical' care is truely following the Hippocratic oath: (He was subsequentlly admitted by his doctors orders to that same hospital, and received some physical therapy as well as IV pain meds 'on demand' ...which the nurses told me he used less than that which was available to him. My husband, like myself, did not want a dependance on drugs to exceed his need for pain relief and pain tolerance. ) It was another EMS call and 2 MRI''s a few months later in which it was found a herniated disc..... later surgically removed, which was so big that the doctor said it was larger than his big thumb, impinging on the spinal cord! But in both cases, his visits at the emergency rooms, I saw the attitude among much of the staff, similar to the attitude I'd seen in psych care among some fellow clinical staff as being 'he's just seeking drugs'. The truth is, some people are drug seeking.... and some are really in pain and in desparate need for relief.

I don't see any good coming from making marijuana legal and available as tobacco or alcohol nor do I see the evil of making it legal as being as destructive as we've been told: All three have there destruction on the body. Alcohol destroys not just minds but lives on the nation's highways, homes by increasing abuse and associated immorality, and persons who have been assaulted by others under influence, and the self destruction of suicide which increases by persons while under its influence. Still, I think, alcohol can have a therapuetic use and benefit, in which its toxicity and side effects might be preferred and safer than the more potent and concentrated chemical substitutes.

From what I've observed, the major influence of marijuana, is primarily one of apathy...... and sort of amnesia ( not ture amnesia.....but a distortion of time, and a limited focus and memory) by those in its influence. I've never 'done it' .....and my observation is limited to the few and rare times when I had opportunity to see its influence on collegues, or patients who were admitted while under the influence: As to alter judgement like alcohol does.... I never saw evidence beyond the apathy it tends to induce.... but I'm not an authority on any of these chemicals. Apathy can be a serious problem, but I see that in people all the time who are not influenced by marijuana but are annesitized by other escapisms.....like entertainment. I do believe it may have beneficial therapeutic qualities, God designed, which are of benefit, and is probably safer and less destructive in its natural form than isolating, concentrating, and patenting its effective chemicals in some lab, and then dispensing as a pharmaceutical with increased potency, toxicity, side effects, and potentials for dependancy and abuse.

I'm distrubed more on Ron Pauls' tolerance of the gay agenda more than by his stand on legalizing marijuana. Of the two, I see the former (the homosexual agend) as being an outgrowth of the sexual revolution, which we were sold, beginning with the Kinsey and Mead and similar 'scholarship' as accurate, fact, and sophisticated..... when, in fact, it was destructive to the morality of our society, the stability of our home, and fed into the women's liberation movement which actually bought their bondage into single parenting, working mothers, competition in relationships instead of support..... and the breakdown of the family. In my estimation, no amount of marijuana could produce the apathy I've seen as society and the testimony of the church backs off for fear of offending the pc crowd: Even in my own sweet SS class, the stand on evoluntion vs scripture is tentative so as not to offend any visitors of different persuasion, rather than being a firm stand and inspiring an investigation into the arguments and proofs of both sides, and suggests the hesitation on taking other substanial stands on issues which are clearly Biblical.

 

Windcatcher if his cancer re-occurs and he is again in torment, it might be better to fly to California.
It is not the Lords will anyone be in excruciating pain, that story is horrific.

 

Genesis 9:3 Every moving thing that liveth shall be meat for you; even as the green herb have I given you all things.

 

This is a Baptist board right? I haven't slipped into the twilight zone, or spy ware hasn't misdirected me to a faux baptist board, Right?

Because it seems like a lot of the posts favor recreational drug use.
This is against BB policies.

Ban the drug. It is illegal, it should stay illegal...

Only in CA would you have banned cooking oil, banned Micky Ds but have legalized pot, and legalized homosexual marriages.... Something is wrong out west.

 

huh??? Medicinal use = recreational use now?? I never said that.
If a person is in horrific pain as windcatcher's husband was due to cancer, or has a pretty impaired lifestyle due to severe depression or anxiety, why is using this drug for medicinal purposes wrong/sinful? Why anyone would ingest any drug for recreational uses is beyond me.

Where did you get that cooking oil and McDonalds Resturants are banned in California?

 

This thread is wobbling between some different topics, which is okay, so long as we keep them straight.

I would offer the standard libertarian defense of their decriminalization stance: the results of legalization are preferable to the results of prohibition.

This position does not address the question of whether or not drug use is moral or beneficial in any way. All it claims to do is argue what role the government should have in the question.

I'm a former freak. I abhor drugs and the whole culture that surrounds them. I suspect that Ron Paul, as a Christian, feels the same way. But if Prohibition hurts the nation more than legalization would, then somebody needs to make the government stop hurting us.

 

Yup. Not to mention the laws prohibiting their use has created the organized crime that now supplies it.

TT, please don't be hatin'

I am a fromer pot smoker. When I went thru chemotherapy, & radiation treatments, marijuana was a miracle cure for nausea, and I could eat, after smoking even just a little bit. There has to be a reason God provided it for us, and instead of a ban, perhaps we should study it.

 

For the most part , I do agree with this statement but although it has been very many years ago since I used the drug I fail to see how it would be an answer to relieving anxiety and depression. Certainly a subject worthy of debate.

 

Some of the remarks here simply amaze me. Maybe it's time to leave.:tear:

 

Is there anyone who can say with a straight face that this is NOT just one step to MORE govt intrusion? The govt simply will have one more item they can regulate, tax, and approve/disapprove. More bureacracy, more govt waste, more taxation, more Big Brother.

This is sponsored by Barney Frank, btw, not Ron Paul.

 

People should be allowed to grow it for themselves. Just like people can brew their own beer.

It's not just pot. This rediculous law covers hemp, as well. We pay money to import a product that we could grow with almost pure profit.


Where does the bible ban any plant ? Moreover, are we not commanded to subdue this planet ? I say God gave it to us, for a reason.

 

Goodbye! :wavey:

 

When reliable people "simply amaze" you, that's a warning light on the dashboard.

There's always the temptation to consider people to be either knaves or fools when they differ with you on a topic. But until you can state their arguments at least as thoroughly as they themselves can, you don't really understand what you're objecting to.