The forums he linked were pretty hysterical. With gems like:
"I've been depressed for months. I started smoking pot a few days ago. OMFG WTF IF I STOP WILL I ESPLODE!?!???!?"
how could we possibly ask if, maybe, this kid was a moron to start with and marijuana didn't make him a dysfunctional idiot.

Crackpot theories are not "evidence." You have no expertise on the subject. You cited pages where people made fun of people claiming withdrawl symptoms, on account of marijuana not being physically addictive.

Then you just rant incoherently.

"Your science time reports only so many heroin or cocaine users and a much larger number of pot smokers. This only supports my core  demonstration that it is an issue of percentages."

What? You're presuming some sort of causality with absolutely no basis. I'm not taking it on faith. "Take it on faith!" is not an argument.

"Your Eurika web link reports pot smokers who started in highschool were more likely to drop out and less likely to enter college (which supports me btw)."

Again you presume causality with 0 basis. Are people who would drop out, regardless of smoking, more or less likely to do illegal drugs? More likely. "Take it on faith!" is not an argument.

"Your ScienceBlog url actually supports making it harder to get pot... just thought I would point that out... because ease of access is why they try it instead of other stuff. If the ease of access was removed they may or may not try alcohol or smoking."

This ignorantly pretends it's as harmful and physically addictive as you claim. Which is not. The claim is laughable.

You keep presuming a causal relationship where there's no evidence of one. "Expertise"? hahahahaha made more hysterical by the fact that you continually post flat-out lies about marijuana. You continually presume a causal relationship without providing any actual evidence of one. That's not logical.

Disputes your 10% traffic fatalities claim, and rakes it over the coals in comparison to alcohol:
http://norml.org/library/item/marijuana-and-driving-a-review-of-the-scientific-evidence

http://healthland.time.com/2011/12/02/why-medical-marijuana-laws-reduce-traffic-deaths/

I know I'm getting sloppy with my sources, but I'm just clicking every link. 100% of them dispute your ridiculous claims:
(1% of fatal traffic accidents, and obviously this isn't ruling out other contributing factors:)
http://wiki.answers.com/Q/What_Number_of_traffic_deaths_due_to_Marijuana
Considering the amount of pot use in this country, that's a tiny number. And, if it's a problem, you could always cover it with DUI laws, even decriminalized.

When pot's legal people drink less. When people drink less, less people die because of drunk drivers. 1% of traffic fatalities attributed to pot (I'm not arguing driving while stoned should be legal), compared with a 10% drop in traffic fatalities when pot is legalized and less people drink? That's a very life-saving argument for pot. Thanks for providing it.

"Pot can be addictive, it can be destructive, it can cause you to have a harmful effect upon others, it can lead to mental health issues."

And the evidence of causality is...? Stop pretending there is any. Yes, unhealthy people are more likely to smoke pot. And drink. And to do all kinds of other things beyond moderation and excessively. This isn't any evidence that those things are the cause of those people being unhealthy. You're repeatedly claiming causality, yet you're oblivious to your complete lack of evidence of it. I've pointed this out. You're either pretending not to understand what causality is or why it's important or you legitimately don't know. In either case, you're not an "expert," and you're not making any sort of case here.

You're just making things up. Your claims are downright bizarre and I'm not interested in "discussing" this issue further with you, as you obviously attribute terrible things in your life to pot when it's clearly not responsible for them. It's awkward, and your claims are so ignorant it's embarrassing.

Edit: Oooo I just read this:
"Dismissing my evidence is of course your only recourse. Dismissing it is why you will always be frustrated by those of us who fight to keep it illegal. Show you are a reasoning, logical, intelligent man and actually read this stuff, and post about it."

You've dismissed 100% of my arguments and responded to 0, and yet these juvenile insults keep coming post after post after post. Grow up.

That you've refused to respond to a single one of my arguments is a concession that they're strong points in my favor. Presumably you believe your arguments are stronger, but since they're fictional propaganda lies disproven by science 100% of the time, that really wraps up the "debate."

Real reply? You never made a case. You called me names as if I'd disrespected you, whereas you're being very disrespectful to me.

You asked for my position in a recent thread. I gave it to you at some length. You haven't, in opening this thread (nor have you to this point), provided the least bit of a response to my arguments concerning failure to reduce usage rates, high costs of prohibition, and lives lost (both dealer v enforcement and collateral in dealer v dealer) due to drug prohibition.

It's not working any better than it did with alcohol. It's costing us billions. It's getting people, law enforcement and civilian, killed. All evidence points to it not reducing usage rates.

I made these points 23 days ago and here you posted a new thread, 4 days ago, without any response to my arguments/positions. And you're calling me names as if I've just now given a legitimate response? Give me a break.

"Radical" libertarianism? It's only radical if you're a COMMUNIST. Why do you HATE FREEDOM?

Jeeze you're a monster!

I dun liek it eether.

I came here hoping to learn how it is beneficial/necessary. I ams teh waitins.

epic

I don't think this is an important point to debate. I'm far too intoxicated and I find the level of debate here to be far too juvenile to motivate me to search out numbers and citations for % of "anarchist" groups and their actual motivations/political philosophies.

But the first thing I think of is "anarchists" in Britain in the recent riots. 100% were communists. This is the same as the "anarchist" protests to the G20. 100% communist.

It's entirely a matter of semantics. They believe that there should be no "government." BUT, they believe, people should live in harmony with one another. Everyone should own everything. Everyone should just "naturally" live in harmony. It's a lot like the "communist" vs "socialist" equivocation. Whereas the rhetoric is all about "the people," in actuality "the people" need an actual system in place and that system inevitably means "government." While anarchists obviously believe in less "government," they invariably state the desire for something just like government--a very powerful one--just by a different name. I detest dishonesty in discourse, and this is why I so harshly criticize references to "anarchists" as anything other than communists equivocating over labels.

If you can refer me to any events in which "anarchist" groups weren't acting at the behest of overtly communist groups, I'd be interested to learn more. But I've no knowledge of actual organized groups who aren't effectively communist groups. Nobody but 12-14 year olds think "anarchy" is a desirable/possible state. Any adult acknowledges that 0 situations of anarchy have persisted for more than moments in the history of the planet. I hope I don't need to explain the mechanics and rationale of that statement.

I don't care about anyone's self-description. When "anarchist" groups show up to do anything, it's in support of 100% communist causes. That your bother and some forum poster describe themselves as "anarchists" is irrelevant. There are no groups of these people. I'm speaking about the vast majority of people who describe themselves with the term. I'm speaking about the groups that organize and show up to break and steal things. They're 100% communist.

There is not a huge difference between them. The difference IS semantics. Anarchists describe the same thing with very different language.

Psh. I'm obviously the only cool kid here! There's not enough of me for a group. YET. With my high level of income and modern cloning science advancements, it's not unreasonable to think it might happen!

Well that's not a problem. Many in Amerika want to open our borders, making us the only nation on earth with no immigration laws!

^ What Zarf pointed out.

I'm not against safety-net programs. Not everyone has a family/friend support network which can save them from some of the terrible stuff that happens in life. It's moral to want to help people, and it's not even [very] economically costly to do so responsibly (because people back on their feet produce more [lower prices] and pay more taxes).

My problem is with safety-net programs designed to buy votes, not help people. My problems is with safety-net programs which reward irresponsible/wasteful behavior, rather than discourage it. My problem is with our corrupt, wasteful, and unaccountable government running these programs, potentially resulting in less aid to the poor and certainly more waste than if they simply didn't exist.

If our populace was responsible enough in their voting, if our government was responsible enough in their governance, I might not be as against the form of most of our current safety-net programs. Government *could* be everywhere and government *could* help people that don't have the fortune of local organizations and programs helping them out with what they need when they need it.

But our government in the USA isn't. It's clearly massively wasteful and doesn't provide the needed help, let alone in a reasonable form. Not only does it not help those who need adequately, but it's on a path to bankrupt the entire nation and impoverish future generations with massive debt and a collapsed economy.

In my opinion, anyone that wants to help the poor needs to do some things:

*Volunteer your time (knowledge/expertise/labor) and/or money to worthy causes. I'm tired of intellectual lightweights pretending it's government or nothing to help the needy. Most of these people have never helped a soul with their own hands/sweat and just want to feel like moral people purely by paying taxes. Most of these people earn enough that an extra few thousand dollars in taxes is irrelevant and just support a nanny-state to feel better about themselves because they're too lazy to give a damn about their fellow man and actually help him/her.

*Support government reform and stop voting for whoever the Republican/Democrat political machine hands to you. Most of them are scum. Until enough people stop voting for them and vote for alternatives, however, we're just going to get more of what we've been getting. Rampant corruption. Massive deficits. Huge debt. Impending collapse.

I can respect the motivations of people who want to help the poor and think government is the only solution. But government programs are plagued with fraud and waste. Government programs often disincentivize production and result in higher prices for everybody; hurting the poor. And eventually they'll contribute to an economic collapse (NOBODY argues what we're doing is sustainable), which will harm the poor far more than anyone else. "Give more money to the poor through government" is NOT a responsible course of action, nor is doing so a responsible position.

Perhaps, with a more informed and responsible populace voting for better people, government could handle helping the poor better. But our government isn't anywhere near capable of such a task at the moment. And giving them more money for this supposed purpose can easily lead to more harm than help for the poor.

Because they're egotistic and elitist. Their philosophy revolves around governments being smarter and more capable than people. They overtly claim to know better than others, even in decisions which only affect the people making them. They justify slavery to the state, as if the state is capable of efficiently helping the disadvantaged. It takes a MASSIVE ego to justify slavery.

The "right" is frequently guilty of this as well, but their opponents usually choose to label them as crazy rather than egocentric and elitist.

And this explains the view and the disparity! You're all a bunch of egocentric elitists. Maybe you don't belong in my workplace, my home, or my bedroom. Think about it?