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twizted_bud

Just thinking about *if* it ever happends.
19 sounds like a great age to legally buy marijuana.
*most 19 year olds are not in highschool, keep it away from the kiddies!
*It could keep college students away from the typical binge drinking that goes on.
*there would be no loss of financial aid if you're caught toke'n, which is a travesty when it happends.

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AnarchistBarbie

Why 19, and not 18? At least in the US, 18 is the age of legal majority [you can vote, join the army without anyone's permission but you own, make your own life decisions, mostly... and can't have sex with people under 18]. There are certainly some people in high school at age 18, but they are still legal adults.

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zongmaster

if it was 19, then we would have too many different ages for different things. 16 for driving, 18 for smoking tobacco, 19 for smoking weed, 21 for drinking alcohol. i really think its stupid. 18 should be the minimum age for everything, its pretty universal that when you turn 18 you are considered an adult, so you should be able to make your own choices at that age. as for driving, that should stay at 16

ikari

here in canada 19 is everything. tabacco, alcohol, everything. i assume they'd just tack on marijuana as well.

i understand why it's there, and i respect it (i don't at ALL like seeing 12 year olds smoking tabacco). However, it just drives up the curiosity. how many people below the legal age do you know who HAVN'T tried alcohol/tabacco? not too many probably...

it's the forbidden apple crap again... i wish human's weren't so predictable all the time

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vaya

I think it should be 18. I don't know why precisely, but it seems as if thats an agreeable age for most people.

Although, remember, we're all only dreaming here.

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commonsense

This is just some food for thought. I was looking at the U.S. Dept. of Health and Human Services website where they have all the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse data. There is some really interesting stuff there and a couple of charts make me wonder if age requirements don't work to some extent.

http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/NHSDA/2kNHSDA/chapter2.htm

http://www.samhsa.gov/oas/NHSDA/2kNHSDA/chapter3.htm

The above links point to pages discussing alcohol and illicit drug use. What I found interesting was looking at Figure 3.1 on the alcohol abuse section and Figure 2.3 on the illicit drug use section. Notice that the bar charts peaks out in a hump between the ages of 18-20 for illicit drugs and 21-25 for alcohol. Obviously, a fair amount of those older and youger than those age groups where using drugs or alcohol, but the highest use was in those age groups.

Please note that the illicit drug use chart is not specifically dealing with marijuana, but marijuana is the most commonly used of illicit drugs and the patterns tend to track fairly well regardless of the illicit drugs used. I chose that bar chart because it is easier to compare with the alcohol chart and there was no similar chart for marijuana use.

I wonder if this dynamic doesn't have something to do with the fact that the drinking age in the U.S. is twenty-one. I suspect if marijuana was legal and sold in shops where they check ID's, we might see marijuana use peaking at a later age than it does now because some would wait until later to try it and availability of marijuana would be the same as alcohol for underage persons instead of higher, like it is now.

This was just an observation and not something I'm putting out as fact. I would suggest checking out the data on the SAMHSA site though. There is some really interesting stuff that could be helpful in formulating and honing arguments for the legalization of marijuana.

Edit: An example of interesting data to use in a legalization argument can be found in Figure 2.15 in the illicit drugs chapter. This chart shows frequency of marijuana use reported by persons twelve and older in a year. Over a third report that they only used marijuana one to eleven times in the past year. More than half, nearly sixty percent, said they used only twelve to forty-nine times in the past year. That number included the people who said they used one through eleven times. Going up the bar it appears that approaching seventy percent report using less than 100 times per year, including the others already mentioned. Only a little over ten percent reported using 300 or more days per year and the rest fell between 100 and 299 days per year.

What this data says to me is over a third of all pot smokers are once in a blue moon smokers. More than half of them smoke an average of less than one time per week. The vast majority smoke less than two or three times per week.

Drug warriors like to paint all marijuana users as total stoners who smoke morning, noon and night. According to their own data, this simply isn't true.

Gypsumstack

Personally, I believe everything should be 18. If you can die for your country, elect a president, and pay taxes...the least they could do is let you have a damn beer(or joint as the case may be). But, from a civil standpoint, I would accept any legalization laws that passed and made the legal age 21. That would probably be the number anyway, since that is how it is with alcohol. So, just not to make too many waves, I would say go with 21...after all, getting busted for underage consumption of MJ would still be better than being busted for narcotics.

Of course, none of this matters to me cause I am already 21

Conine

I've said in many posts that I believe in one age of majority. Of course, I've also said that for the sake of getting pot legalized, I wouldn't object to the legal age being 21 for it. (I'd gladly compromise)

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AnarchistBarbie

I'd personally support legislation to change the age of legal majority [across the board] to 16. Most of the arguments against that don't have anything to offer that isn't also true of 17, 18, 19, 20 year olds. I was pretty much who I am now, at 16. Capable of making my own decisions [pretty much did]. Certainly physically strong enough to work for a living, knew right from wrong, had an idea of what I wanted out of life - as much as I did at any point in my 20's.

This country wasn't developed by men and women in their 30s. 'Go West young man!' wasn't a slogan targeted at middle aged men - the young men in question [often with families and several children] were often as young as 15.

We lost a lot as a nation when we put a stranglehold on the autonomy of young people.

Logos

I'd have to agree.

I have been reading a great deal about the native cultures lately, and adulthood came much earlier.

However, I don't see our curent society as grooming kids to be adults that young. I know some kids in their 20's that really can't be called adults.

A fundamental shift in our culture needs to occour before acquiring adulthood at that age would be prudent.

More education funds would be a good start.

I deal with a 14 year old girl now who wants the freedom of an adult with the responsibilities of a child. The best of both worlds. Children aren't generally taught the concept of personal responsibility, or for that matter, how to make good decisions in the first place.

Do as I say, not as I do.

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