Lothar121

Smoking Ballots
Students comment on Question 7 one week before Election Day
Nicholas Otis| Rebel Yell | 10/30/2006

The subject of marijuana has become an issue for public debate in recent years, though its use is not necessarily a recent occurrence.

In 2004, 771,605 people were arrested in marijuana-related situations, and many feel that these cases waste law enforcement agents' time that could be spent seeking out more "serious" criminals.

Because of this, politically minded individuals have placed initiatives on ballots to alleviate the situation either by legalizing or regulating it with the government's oversight.

Question 7 attempts to address the problem by regulating the sale of marijuana to persons 21 years of age or older. If passed, marijuana retailers and wholesalers will be required to acquire a license from the Nevada Department of Taxation, and half of the tax revenue earned will be allocated to fund programs that fight alcoholism, tobacco and drug use, while the other half will go into a general fund.

People 21 years of age or older will be legally allowed to possess up to 1 ounce of the substance, and the penalties for operating vehicles while under the influence of marijuana, as well as penalties for the distribution of the drug to a minor, will be increased.

Those in support of the ballot initiative say very bluntly, "Our marijuana laws do not work." The Nevada 2006 ballot guide cites 10,000 marijuana-related arrests in the past three years, and it says that despite state laws, the drug still seems to proliferate.

Supporters advocate a system of regulation and taxation that they see as a "sensible alternative" to the "free-for-all" that the marijuana market is now.

Matthew Hagen, executive director of the UNLV Young Democrats, reinforces this argument saying, "We (Nevadans) spend billions of dollars fighting marijuana use, and it's not worth the money."

He supports Question 7, even though he has stated that he is not a smoker himself. He admits that it is probably "a loss issue between Democrats" as there are different sides on the issue within the party.

President of the UNLV College Republicans, Ciara Turns, said of Question 7, "on the surface, it seems harmless." She agreed that, "obviously the Republican party is encouraging people to vote no," somewhat exemplifying the party penetrating issues involved in Question 7.

The opposition to Question 7 says in the ballot guide, "Nevada police made 460,000 arrests in the last three years; only 2 percent of those were for marijuana," in an effort to counter the argument that state law enforcement programs are wasted.

Their main argument revolves around use by minors, asserting that, "many experts believe legalizing marijuana for adults will likely result in children smoking marijuana as a sign of growing up believing it as a 'badge of adulthood,' much like alcohol and tobacco are today." They reinforce this by providing statistics about the 11 million minors who drink alcohol and the 50 percent of students who have used tobacco products. They also have said that, "marijuana was involved in more than 215,000 emergency department visits nationwide," and call attention to its health effects, stating, "marijuana contains 50 to 70 percent more carcinogenic hydrocarbons than tobacco smoke" and "smoking three to four joints per day causes as much harm to the respiratory system as smoking a full pack of cigarettes a day." Their argument also touches on marijuana users' statistical performance in the workplace, in that their absenteeism and probability for on-the-job accidents is higher than the normal worker.

Those in support claim that marijuana is much safer than already legalized alcohol. The ballot guide reads, "It appears no fatal overdoses from marijuana have ever been recorded, yet alcohol overdoses kill nearly 20,000 Americans annually."

Question 7's opposition says, "claims that we should eliminate marijuana because people use the drug is like saying we should remove laws for theft because people steal." This contrasts Matthew Hagen, who said, "Even Prohibition didn't work."

Many students have admitted that the campaign in support of Question 7 has been run well, and there is a good possibility of passage. Even with that, Ariel Xaubet, a sophomore economics major, said, "If it doesn't pass, something like it will be on the next ballot until it finally passes."

^_^truth

(Note I am going to skip around a little bit)

Wasn't a key-stone of conservativism to let the people decide from themselves what is good for them...something along the lines of the government has no place for telling people what to put in their own bodies.

That seems a little bit of a weighted statistic. But here is the catcher, Only 2 percent for marijuana. My question: How many arrests in the last 3 years were for murder? If their are more arrests for murder than MJ, then fine the system isn't lying and is just ignoring MJ for the most part; however, if murder (or homoside, etc...) are bellow MJ in stats, the point still holds, especially if the violent crimes are well below MJ in stats.

Oh and alchol is so much greater for our childern to use as their "gateway to adulthood." Bullcrap, the statement is already their in the text, teenagers are going to drink, teenagers are going to smoke, and I would bet you teenagers are doing weed as we speak. That's what is implied by that first portion of this section, and we all know it. We are not condoning MJ for teenagers, we are legalizing it for adults and for adults only.

The health facts have been argued before on this site, so I am not even going to bother looking those up (Just use the search engine). But I would like to ask all of you, how many joints do you smoke each day? Each week? Hell, each month? My guess is going to be no where near 4-5 joints a day, you can't compair that to a pack of cigs, if no one is even smoking that many joints. Oh and one more thing: MJ in the emergancy room, people are not being sent to the emergancy room due to THC overdoseages, they are going for panic attacks.

I want to see the statistics that show MJ users are frequently absent from work, lazy, and are more prone to accidents in the work place. Unless they have this statistics from people showing up "high" this just doesn't make sense.

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Ah how was that for my first time breaking one of these down.

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Insanity in individuals is something rare - but in groups, parties, nations and epochs, it is the rule.
Nietzsche

homemadebubbler

When adressing the comparison to alcohol and cigarettes, it should be noted that many studies (and my own personal findings) show that weed is MUCH easier to get then alchy or tobacco.

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When they took the 4th Amendment away I was quiet because I didnt deal drugs//When they took the 6th Amendment away I was quiet because Id never been arrested//When they took the 2nd Amendment away I was quiet because I didnt own a gun//Now they took the 1st Amendment and all I can do is be quiet...

Buzzby

If this were true (it's not because any mention of marijuana makes the visit "marijuana involved), the visits are not for any toxic effects of marijuana because it doesn't have any. People would be there for panic attacks and not being able to deal with panic attacks is mostly a newbie phenomenon. In my experience, most panic attacks are directly attributable to prohibition: people are scared of the legal and social consequences of getting arrested for marijuana possession.

Few marijuana smokers smoke that much. Most are not even daily smokers. Besides, there is no scientific evidence to support this statement. The primary danger of cigarette smoking is lung cancer and no credible study has ever connected marijuana with lung cancer. Recent studies have shown that marijuana users who don't smoke tobacco have lower incidence of lung cancer than people who smoke nothing at all. People who smoke both have a lower incidence of lung cancer than people who smoke only tobacco.

You can't base the laws on marijuana on the small percentage of users who are abusers, any more than you can base alcohol laws on the work performance of alcoholics.

Bad analogy! Theft harms other people. Using marijuana generally harms no one.

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