Skeptic Project

If I just wanted that Matt, I'd move back to Holland. The reason I lived there for so long is because my Dutch mother moved us there at the age of 6 after she divorced my dad.

The advantages to legalising pot are numerous, first and foremost to stop demonising people who smoke it and stop filling out prisons with these folks who are by and large harmless and creating a HUGE tax revenue and many jobs with minimum downsides.

I'm fluent in Dutch & English, I have friends and family there who would be happy to accomadate me and family until I found a new job. My daughter is 11 months old, and my girlfriend who is an immigrant here in Ireland herself has been playing with the thought of emigration for years now.

I could pack my bags tomorrow if I was a selfish, juvenile pothead.

Just give me a bloody good reason why pot should remain illegal instead of trying to insult me.

^ Antagonist ;)

I think the top reason it shouldn't be a criminal drug is that it's the least harmful of any drug, in the sense that resulting death from using marijuana is almost 100% impossible. Unless you smoke it really bad and it gives you a mental disorder and you commit suicide or become Jared Loughner.

No its not a double standard.

Also I still don't even believe you have the money for a plane ticket to Holland, much less a place to live when you got there.

This is what pot does to your brain, folks.

Is that all ya got?

Senor: What are some of the benefits that legalization would bring? I looked through the thread and all I saw was taxation... but anything can be taxed and I don't feel that's a compelling argument in and of itself.

"Cannabis is a harmful substance that will cause changes in the brain with prolonged use."

Matt, do you have some sources on that? I'd like to read up on it some more.

Thought you might have had something off the top of your head.

http://www.nida.nih.gov/NIDA_Notes/NN0058.html</p>

Legalization will provide no substantial benefit in regards to tax revenue or stopping crime. The cartels who smuggle it would simply undercut the legal stores and continue doing what they do now.

Legalization proponents are just selfish shitheads who don't want to grow up.

The link was the information you requested.

The stuff about the cartels is just common sense.

Please, not the legalization debate AGAIN. *rolls eyes*

I really don't give a rip whether it's legalized or not. It won't make a damn bit of difference one way or another. There is virtually no issue in the Western world that could possibly be less important than whether pot is legal or illegal.

There is growing evidence that people with serious mental illness, including depression and psychosis, are more likely to use cannabis or have used it for long periods of time in the past. Regular use of the drug has appeared to double the risk of developing a psychotic episode or long-term schizophrenia. However, does cannabis cause depression and schizophrenia or do people with these disorders use it as a medication?

Over the past few years, research has strongly suggested that there is a clear link between early cannabis use and later mental health problems in those with a genetic vulnerability - and that there is a particular issue with the use of cannabis by adolescents.

Depression

A study following 1600 Australian school-children, aged 14 to 15 for seven years, found that while children who use cannabis regularly have a significantly higher risk of depression, the opposite was not the case - children who already suffered from depression were not more likely than anyone else to use cannabis. However, adolescents who used cannabis daily were five times more likely to develop depression and anxiety in later life.

Schizophrenia

Three major studies followed large numbers of people over several years, and showed that those people who use cannabis have a higher than average risk of developing schizophrenia. If you start smoking it before the age of 15, you are 4 times more likely to develop a psychotic disorder by the time you are 26. They found no evidence of self-medication. It seemed that, the more cannabis someone used, the more likely they were to develop symptoms.

Why should teenagers be particularly vulnerable to the use of cannabis? No one knows for certain, but it may be something to do with brain development. The brain is still developing in the teenage years – up to the age of around 20, in fact. A massive process of ‘neural pruning’ is going on. This is rather like streamlining a tangled jumble of circuits so they can work more effectively. Any experience, or substance, that affects this process has the potential to produce long-term psychological effects.

Recent research in Europe, and in the UK, has suggested that people who have a family background of mental illness – and so probably have a genetic vulnerability anyway - are more likely to develop schizophrenia if they use cannabis as well.

http://www.rcpsych.ac.uk/mentalhealthinfo/problems/alcoholanddrugs/cannabis.aspx

You're just fucking daydreaming man. You have absolutely no data to back up any of your positions.

Shut up.

Look at this dude conflating homosexuality with pot smoking. What a little dickhead.

I hope Muertos smacks the shit out of you for that, son. That is so beyond offensive. This is why legalization proponents are selfish assholes.

You done fucked up.

Loopy cunt, huh? Son, you best walk away from this thread.