AH Challenge:Make Marijuana Legal In As many Western Countries As Possible

You challenge, should you chose to accept, is to make Marijuana legal for all adults in as many western countries as possible, with a POD after 1960. To be clear, I consider a western country to be on in Westerrn Europe until the 1990's, when I would include Eastern Europe as well, North America, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and Japan if you feel like it.

And...go!
 

archaeogeek

Banned
A POD that late is annoying; if you can shut the Marijuana (and the cocaine, alcohol and absinthe) prohibitionist movements you can probably avert it altogether. The problem is there's probably going to be prohibitionism of something somehow somewhere :p
 
Even in AH I can't think of a single reason to do something so STUPID!

I truly hope you are attempting a joke

To the OP i can see it happening in a couple of European countries after it is successfully implemented in the Netherlands. Another good way would be one of the PIIGS sans Ireland making it legal while taxing it heavily hoping to attract even more tourists. Nevertheless i think it is very hard to see this happen as the relative drawbacks of marijuana use are deeply ingrained in people's minds despite some good reports recently
 
Hmm, a POD that late makes it difficult.

Maybe if the New Left comes out of the closet (by which I mean revealing themselves and their beliefs and opinions) less chaotically and more slowly and reasonably (no Hippies, but kids in suits and ties in the Peacecorp and civic programs and that deal) they could open up society without the overt reactionism they saw in the OTL and manage to get drug reform laws passed.

Alternatively, you could somehow have the New Left inspired radicals go to the extreme and take over governments.
 
I truly hope you are attempting a joke

With a very clear head I can say absolutely not. You go and try being a victim of the actions of a dope head (and I'm not just talking about violence) and then actually think before you type.

Drugs are illegal for a very good reason. They destroy the lives of people who would otherwise be good people. Fathers, mothers, children and friends. And they go on to destroy the lives of those around them. There is nothing fun about them. Drug dealers are one of the very few reasons I would campaign for a return to the death penalty here in Aus.
 
With a very clear head I can say absolutely not. You go and try being a victim of the actions of a dope head (and I'm not just talking about violence) and then actually think before you type.

Drugs are illegal for a very good reason. They destroy the lives of people who would otherwise be good people. Fathers, mothers, children and friends. And they go on to destroy the lives of those around them. There is nothing fun about them. Drug dealers are one of the very few reasons I would campaign for a return to the death penalty here in Aus.

Show me one single statistic that puts marijuana as worse than alcohol. One.

Then we'll talk. Unless you feel Prohibition ought to be brought back, in which case you have a totally defensible position.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
With a very clear head I can say absolutely not. You go and try being a victim of the actions of a dope head (and I'm not just talking about violence) and then actually think before you type.

Drugs are illegal for a very good reason. They destroy the lives of people who would otherwise be good people. Fathers, mothers, children and friends. And they go on to destroy the lives of those around them. There is nothing fun about them. Drug dealers are one of the very few reasons I would campaign for a return to the death penalty here in Aus.

Ohai, disproportionate retribution.
And drugs are illegal for a reason, just not the one you think. Most of the people around me smoke a joint every once in a while and this number includes respected academics, and even if it didn't most of them are still not the kind of people you seem to attack. Did you know one nobel prize in biology attributes his success to LSD?

Anyway I suggest you kindly tone down the excessive tone, because you're coming off as a prick.
 
Mako_Leader to believe that marijuana makes a good person evil is an interesting proposition, care to provide some scientific evidence? While yes allot of drug dealers are scum of the earth that is not because they smoke marijuana it is because they are scum of the earth. if marijuana was legal they would follow a different illegal "career". Furthermore i know marijuana users and sellers that are decent and successful people while i also know some that are losers. Use of marijuana is a choice people can make and should be able to make legally because there is no basis to its criminalization. Also i would support the death penalty for rapists and serial killers way before i support it for "drug dealers" doing the opposite would make my priorities rather stupid or should i say STUPID!
 
You know what I find hilarious, in the Netherlands you have less people who smoke Marinuana then in Britain or the US. rofl.

What the Dutch did was use reverse psycology by making Marijuana legal the fun is taken out cause you're not doing something illegal.


I find it extremly funny. Don't you guys think it's hilarious.:p I have statistics to prove this. Apparently 5.24 percent of the Dutch population smoke Cannabis. In the US that number is 12.3 percent of the population while in England 9 percent of the pop smokes marinuana. Hilarious IMO. I got these facts from Nationmaster.com. So pardon me if I am not accurate. Plz inform me if I am wrong about my statistics.:)
 
What the Dutch did was use reverse psycology by making Marijuana legal the fun is taken out cause you're not doing something illegal. :)

And there ironically is the ONLY valid argument to the legalisation of drugs. If I can be a prick by not pandering to people who try to claim drugs do no harm or are fun or just want to do it because they're lemmings and all the other lemmings are doing it then I've had a very good day. :D:D

But if legalising drugs will take the appeal away and people won't do them anymore because all they really want is a way to be "rebellious", then I'll go along with that. The thing that really concerns me though is getting through the period in which it takes for drugs to lose they're appeal.
 
And there ironically is the ONLY valid argument to the legalisation of drugs. If I can be a prick by not pandering to people who try to claim drugs do no harm or are fun or just want to do it because they're lemmings and all the other lemmings are doing it then I've had a very good day. :D:D

But if legalising drugs will take the appeal away and people won't do them anymore because all they really want is a way to be "rebellious", then I'll go along with that. The thing that really concerns me though is getting through the period in which it takes for drugs to lose they're appeal.

Mako i fail to understand your blatant disregard for logical arguments made by some of the posters on this thread. When you have undeniable proof that marijuana harms not only the individual user but also the society ( neither of those have been proven) then i will listen to your arguments until then try to read what other people say instead of nitpicking sentences to voice your absurd opinion.

I heard about the fact that Netherlands has lower consumption of cannabis but it might have to do with having a lower proportion of young people compared to the U.S.A.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
And there ironically is the ONLY valid argument to the legalisation of drugs. If I can be a prick by not pandering to people who try to claim drugs do no harm or are fun or just want to do it because they're lemmings and all the other lemmings are doing it then I've had a very good day. :D:D

But if legalising drugs will take the appeal away and people won't do them anymore because all they really want is a way to be "rebellious", then I'll go along with that. The thing that really concerns me though is getting through the period in which it takes for drugs to lose they're appeal.

You're still a sanctimonious prick though. Also, the lemmings are nobel prizes, tenured professors, successful academics, etc... Yep, clearly the scum of the earth.
 
Devi - put it down and have another read of your own post with a clear head.

archaeogeek - thankyou, you're most welcome. And WHAT you are does not always corrolate to WHO you are.
 

archaeogeek

Banned
Devi - put it down and have another read of your own post with a clear head.

archaeogeek - thankyou, you're most welcome. And WHAT you are does not always corrolate to WHO you are.

Indeed, some people, for example, can believe they're doing good, and instead are in fact sanctimonious pricks whose methods of arguing seem to be based around a mixture of dehumanizing the people involved and calling for disproportionate retribution while opening with anecdotes about how everyone should be aware that people who use drugs are, in fact, the scum of the earth. Because obviously when that person did something to you, and I'll feel free to doubt it because it's too generic, it was every single person who uses drugs who did this to you. Right?...

But please, keep up this beautiful argument for the prison-industrial complex.
 

LittleSpeer

Monthly Donor
Devi - put it down and have another read of your own post with a clear head.

archaeogeek - thankyou, you're most welcome. And WHAT you are does not always corrolate to WHO you are.
OK lets take a step back here. You cannot attack something with blind passion because of an emotional background. If you are to debate, you must go by what truly goes on, not just what happens to or around you. Yes the opposition against you is attacking but have some good points. Please if you wish to truly want to defend your opinion, bring some facts, studies, and statistics to the table and then we can have a real go at it.
 
If theres a POD before the prohibition of marijuana it's very easy, but after 1960 is almost impossible. The only reason it's illegal in the first place is because hemp makes better paper than wood does so the timber industry pulled strings and made the government make hemp illegal so they could continue profiting. You know why the declaration of independence isn't dust by now? because it's on hemp paper. Normal paper would be long gone by this point.
 
You challenge, should you chose to accept, is to make Marijuana legal for all adults in as many western countries as possible, with a POD after 1960. To be clear, I consider a western country to be on in Westerrn Europe until the 1990's, when I would include Eastern Europe as well, North America, Australia and New Zealand, South Africa, and Japan if you feel like it.

And...go!

Not particularly difficult. Marijuana has some pain killing and sedative effects that could well gain support from the medical community. THC is already a prescription drug (Marinol) so the PoD is pretty simple: get the pharmaceutical lobbies to agree to highly regulated sale of plant components.

I think smoking a joint is going to be hard to support: after all, secondhand smoke is hard to justify in what is supposed to be a medical application. But I could easily see MJ Extracts available over the counter.
 
I've always thought that, if the conservative resurgence of the 1980s were somehow averted, marijuana could very well be legal in the USA by 2010. Before 1972, marijuana was 100% illegal everywhere in the United States. Then, between 1972 and 1978, eleven states decriminalized marijuana, a large number passed laws to allow for therepeutic research programs, and the Shaefer commission recommended that Nixon totally decriminalize it with a mind towards eventual legalization (a recommendation he proceeded to ignore). Things looked to be liberalizing on a mass scale in regards to pot, then came the "just say no" Reagan 80s where drug law was tightened to absurd levels and propaganda about how marijuana would kidnap and deflower your only daughter was splashed across the airwaves 24/7. Public support for legalization didn't get back to the level of the late 1970s until the mid-90s, as a consequence.

Would a more liberal 1980s lead to a continued liberalization of drug law? Maybe, maybe not, but I'm leaning towards yes because I really can't think of any convincing reason why not. Of course, I'm sure someone else will probably be able to tell me EXACTLY why not, as that seems to be the nature of these forums.

If anyone wants to see the public opinion pattern I'm talking about, check this graph out. Note the massive gully after 1979:
 
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