"i drink alot less beer when i'm smokin tree"
Amen. For me, its one or the other. Except for the one before going to sleep.
To the average non-smoking Joe, (like many here) a law reform would go unnoticed, and the effects on such individuals would be minimal at best. To the smoker, a law reform would create a much more enjoyable high for many through the minimisation of induced paranoia. To the patient, a law reform would provide another avenue of medication.
Hypothetically, if they legalized drink driving, I still wouldn't do it cos I know too many people and too many affected families who have suffered from such an action, maybe if I hadn't i'd think otherwise. Yes, I have been on both sides of the reaction.
If I found a concrete reason to to not smoke I wouldn't. Thus far I have no reason why I shouldn't.
Here's an account of the il-legalization of marijuana and other drugs. For those not bothered in reading it all, i'll copy/paste the best bit. The answerer is Douglas Valentine.
http://www.cannabisculture.com/articles/2602.html
"CC: What are some interesting facets of what you have discovered about the anti-narcotics agencies?
I've studied Harry Anslinger, the first drug czar, the guy who first demonized marijuana, and kept FBN alive from 1930 until he retired in 1962.
You have to understand that what the mainstream media tells you about the purpose of government agencies is usually a cover story. For example, we're supposed to believe that Anslinger and the FBN were dedicated to wiping drugs off the face of the earth for moral reasons and to protect Americans, right? Truth is, Anslinger was a private policeman for establishment interests who benefitted from making some drugs illegal.
When the Harrison Act in 1914 made heroin, morphine, opium, and other plant-derived medications illegal, it was primarily because America was becoming corporatized; the monied interests ? doctors, pharmaceutical manufacturers, pharmacists ? were becoming organized lobbies that manipulated public policy to achieve private gain.
Before 1914, poor people who couldn't afford doctors got relief through legal opiates and cannabis medicines. The businesspeople realized these plant drugs were a big threat to their profits. They wanted commercial control of opium and its derivatives so you had to pay them to get these drugs.
Another agenda was to make sure FBN only busted drugs and drug traffickers who weren't part of the corporate profit chain or serving other government interests.
For example, FBN had plenty of evidence that some Asian smugglers were the biggest drug smugglers in the world at the time, supplying dangerous drugs to the Mafia. But Anslinger had to prevent that information from coming out, because these particular smugglers were fighting the communists and the Japanese. If you were a poor Mexican or a black jazz musician smoking weed in Harlem, on the other hand, it was all out war against you.
That's why the US government has protected drug smugglers in Central America, Asia, and Afghanistan's Northern Alliance smugglers ? these people are America's proxy warriors; smuggling money finances wars that are "in the US interest.""
Its no fun until someone dies.
Cos I need to watch things die.