Comment by mannicken | Hacker News Reader

Comment by mannicken | Hacker News Reader

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Perhaps it is advocated for a lot of disorders because it, well, let me put it this way -- actually helps those disorders? To my knowledge, one of the reasons behind making it illegal was extensive lobbying from drug-corporations who were afraid of an easily-grown, non-addictive fun competitor.

For your second point, yeah, it's probably a good idea to research anything before you ingest/inhale/inject it. High-fructose corn syrup, I'm looking at you :)

Your example doesn't bring anything new to the table. I know people who function well in spite of playing World of Warcraft and I know people who temporarily ruined their lives playing WoW. Was it WoW's fault? Should we make WoW illegal? Should we make everything illegal because it might lead to devastating consequences?

In process of experimentation, I created two rules for myself: a) You can't blame your fuckups on the drug, even if you were under the influence. b) You don't have to mention that drug helped you, if you created something good.

Let's restate those rules of yours:

(1) You cannot blame the drug if something negative happens while you are taking the drug

(2) You can give the drug credit if something positive happens while you are taking the drug

I wonder why you come out with only positive feedback....

>I wonder why you come out with only positive feedback....

It's a mystery to me as well :)

I also like your formulation better. The main point is the first one anyway -- about blaming this or that on "I was drunk/high/whatever".

I'm cool with people using and growing Marijuana for their own private use, it's 100% legal in the country where I live, even if it isn't beneficial to them.

I'm not cool with advocating such on a public forum, and WoW is legal everywhere Marijuana is not.

What people do in the privacy of their own homes is their business entirely, but I don't think it's ok to start advocating illegal stuff just because it is either legal where you do it or because you are getting away with it.

So let me get this square:

You shouldn't advocate illegal activity even if the legality of said activity is dubious at best?

The only reason Marijuana is illegal in the United States is due to two things: Hearst Publishing and white people's fear of brown persons.

Hearst wanted to protect their paper based publishing empire, which hemp paper directly challenged. Hearst started an anti-hemp propaganda campaign focused on race to get the ill-educated white folks to jump on board.

So to be clear, it's not illegal because it's dangerous to your health, it's illegal because it was dangerous to the paper publishing empires of yore.

And for every supposed negative health consequence, mental or otherwise, I will give you ten fold citations that state the opposite. Marijuana is very well studied, it's efficacy for a variety of things are very well documented.

So I have no problem advocating it in any forum whatsoever.

The problem isn't whether or not it should be illegal... It's that it is actually illegal. Not just jaywalking illegal, it's possibly go to jail illegal. Some places don't really care, or it is quasi legal, but some places still care.

When I was younger, I lived in a place that cared, and a friend of mine got busted, and was poor and didn't have a lawyer who could just get him a good deal. He didn't have to go to jail, but it remained on his record and he could not go to Canada, or quite a few European countries, it showed up on a background check, limiting his employment opportunities, and so forth.

So even if the law is wrong, the fact is that it's still a crime in many (most?) places in the US to possess and use MJ, and getting caught could have a real, negative effect on your life.

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