> Viewed scientifically, legalizing alcohol and prohibiting marijuana is complete and utter nonsense, balderdash and poppycock. It simply makes no sense, considering the effects of both drugs. While I myself don't smoke (neither this nor tobacco; nor do I drink; yes, I'm boring), I can't stand such idiocy in legislature. (I'm not accusing *you* of being stupid; you have every right not to know about these things, since you haven't got anything to do with them) I don't know the details about what exactly is happening in Canada there, so I'm going to take an example I'm more familiar with, namely German law.
> A few years ago, the Federal Constitutional Court (or the Federal Administration Court, I'm not exactly sure which) decided - based on the advice of experts, of course - that treating cannabis users as criminals is illegal if you're not doing the same to those many millions of people who drink alcohol; and that, at least, the possession of small amounts for personal use should be legal. However, the reasons cannabis was prohibited in the first place are still in effect: its users are viewed (by conservative politicians and very incorrectly by now) as associated with "hippies", the rebellions of the 70s and the RAF (Red Army Fraction, a German terrorist group of that time). These prejudices still haven't disappeared, as little sense as they make now, and thus country governments looked for another way to get at cannabis users, and still manage to do it through traffic law; I'm not going to explain the details here (unless you ask for them), but it allows taking people's driver's licences *without* the option of ever getting it back for almost no reason whatsoever (and it takes a lot for that to happen with alcohol), and forcing them into humiliating, unnecessary and expensive urine tests. Additionally, local officials often ignore what legal barriers there are and go beyond what they're entitled to do; and communal and country courts play along and at times construct absolutely ludicrous arguments in their support, against the spirit (if not the letter) of the law, and against the results of all scientific studies in that field. Nevertheless, this is an issue too few are at all concerned about, unless they themselves come in contact with it.
> Sorry for going off on a tangent about a subject that doesn't even apply to me, but injustice is injustice, whether I suffer from it or not.
>
> Fuzz"also, very sorry for hijacking your thread"pilz

No problem. I find that very interesting. I agree that it is unjust to criminalize an activity for such flimsy reasons as mere prejudice. I find no reason to criminalize marijuana, if there is a way to use it that would not be abusing it, that is, getting high with it. That is the same problem I have with alcohol. Criminalizing a substance merely because someone might abuse it is foolish. My point was (or rather, my new point is) that legalizing it will almost certainly increase its rate of abuse. Melanie seems to think that I am wrong about this, and cites the end of prohibition of alcohol as an example. I hope that she is right. I do not see, at this point, that the use of marijuana will be illegal in Canada for much longer.

Frum