One could argue that the completely contradictory laws of legalized selling and outlawed cultivation are to blame for their problems with an illegal drug trade.

and Washington State (city of Seattle) are doing their own experiments. Both allow Hemp Festivals with no issue from local Police.

California have their ‘medical marijuana’ laws, but go figure, what the heck is going on here in Seattle?

Unless I’m missing something…you can buy pot at clubs and sell it at clubs but you can’t grow it?

Where the heck else is it gonna come from if not criminal growers?

We’ll see what the long-term societal impact is there, and perhaps any public policy changes the US would take on could be based on a real-live case study. Seems to me that I read somewhere that the multi-decades-long experiment in promiscuity in Holland has taught some serious lessons.

than alchohol.

Seriously, people who drink in excess are dangerous to everone around them.

People who smoke too much pot never leave the house.

The French could exploit this shocking puritanism to their advantage by relaxing their anti-smoking laws and simply importing all the Dutch dope smokers and pot tourists.

Their cafe scene needs it badly:

The plight of Ms. Guérin is being replicated all over France, as traditional cafes and bars suffer and even close, hit by changing attitudes, habits and now a poor economic climate. In 1960, France had 200,000 cafes, said Bernard Quartier, president of the National Federation of Cafes, Brasseries and Discotheques. Now it has fewer than 41,500, with an average of two closing every day…
…
Daniel Perrey, 57, owner of the Café du Crucifix in Crimolois, blamed social change, saying: “Sadly, it is the end to a way of life. The culture is changing, and we feel it.”

They say that the new French yoof aren’t tuned into the cafe culture like their parents were, but one sure way to bring them in by the trainload full would be to make the cafes weed-friendly.

France may yet be able to resurrect its coffeehouse culture by ripping off the Dutch Weed Scene.

Why do I have to care about things like this? Europe is so…skeevy.

We should totally get the Federal Government involved.

I’ve never smoked pot in my life and I’m pretty committed to avoiding it until I hit the grave. I think it’s a foolish thing to take and it can reduce one’s ability to succeed in life.

All that being said, I have a hard time understanding why this should be illegal whilst vodka is legal. Yes, I know this sort of parallel is cliched, but people draw it because it makes some sense.

Yes, most of the stoners I’ve known will never get anything resembling a decent job unless they cut back on (or drop) the weed, but I’ve known some folks who smoke constantly and are professional people (one engineer, two lawyers). The engineer and one of the lawyers aren’t ever going to excel but they are able to do their jobs. The second lawyer is a pretty remarkable cat. He’s brilliant without the pot and seems even sharper with it. An outlier, I assume.

My point is it’s as close to harmless as these things go. If some percentage of the population wants to cut back on initiative and spend most of their time indoors watching Spongebob, why the heck should I care? Why should we, collectively, sanction that to the point where non-violent offenders spend years in prison (often non-violent dealers see more time behind bars than some who are convicted of manslaughter).

Any time the state wishes to diminish my personal freedom of action, that intrusion should be based on sound public policy at the very least. Are we trying to force people to lead healthier lives? Are we trying to engender a more industrious society? Can we just not stand stoners? It’s probably a mix of those reasons, and others. As far as I can see, though, it’s a pretty weak foundation for such heavy-handed sanction.

Have I known stoners who stole to pay for their crap? Yes. Not many, but yes. I’ve never known one to commit a violent act for it though, and I’ve known a LOT of stoners. Oh, and last I checked, the theft itself was already illegal, separate from the marijuana possession itself. Your mileage may vary, but in my own (admittedly anecdotal) experience, marijuana usage does not create enough crime to justify the sanction our society places on those who use it.

And again, I won’t touch the stuff. I find most stoners pretty annoying, and often a waste of my time (if not my oxygen). Not liking what (generally harmless) fun someone else is having seems like a crappy reason to send them to jail.

The libertarian in me says that this if alcohol and tobacco are legal, then so should be marijuana. If people want to ruin their lives, that’s fine. On the other hand, I have heard about people that I went to school with doing some pretty dangerous and wreckless stuff while high, so that makes me want to sanction it, or at least the usage of it.

I hope I don’t start another one of those threads where people futily argue their points about this topic that has been controversial here in the past on RS.

… on display in government regulation of alcohol sales & use vs. those criminalizing marijuana use as a Schedule 1 Controlled Substance is utterly mind-blowing. Alcoholic beverages are advertised in print, television, radio and their use has, in many ways, come to be viewed as a right-of-passage in our culture while marijuana use and/or possession continues to turn many otherwise law abiding citizens into criminals.

Several posters mention above the fact that several states, Mass. & Alaska as cited above (there are several others) now have state laws on the books either decriminalizing possession of small amounts of pot, or making legal it’s medical use and distribution. Allow me to remind you that Federal law and DEA enforcement overrides all state law pertaining to marijuana use & possession. Should the DEA decide to prosecute you, no state law will protect you.

One simple and common sense approach to the pot use/possession laws would be to grant government licenses to cultivate up to X number of plants for personal use only at any given time. If you want to smoke and are willing to put in the time, $ and effort into growing your own stash, then you would simply be required to pay a fee in order to obtain such a license. Those that distribute and traffic in the drug would remain subject to criminal prosecution. In the long run, this would nearly eliminate the black market trading in pot, satisfy those that still want to criminalize traffickers while allowing individual consumers to do so without the risk of criminalization while potentially providing a new source of government revenue.

I won’t spend too much time on my views about drugs. Suffice it to say, I am mostly libertarian on the issue.

However, this thread has been refreshing. This is why I enjoy reading Redstate more than the blogs/comments at Townhall. Most of the people on this thread were committed to individual liberty – even if that involves the liberty to be stupid.

Honestly, when I read the comments at Townhall I become convinced that most other conservatives want the government to run our lives just like the libs do. When I read the comments over at Reason I’m convinced that the libertarians have decided to become “liberals” out of spite.

In fact the only thing that could have made this thread better is for someone to have asked which portion of the Constitution allows the Federal Gov’t to tell an adult human being which chemicals are acceptable for use. Now that I’ve taken care of that, I’m happy.

Blog on!