[Lemmy]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

How about this, curtman...because you feel your choices and those of others don't affect anyone.

How about we legalize all drugs here in Canada and the US.

When it comes down to getting health insurance, you pay a much larger amount if you're a drug user or found to be a user upon diagnosis. Same goes right now for smokers so let's apply that to any type of drug If you lie, use drugs and get sick, you get the bill. use.

In Canada, if you're diagnosed with an illness due to your drug use, you're responsible for paying a premium for your care or require special "drug user" insurance to cover where our system won't pay.

I'll support that, with provisions: You tie risk to actual, scientifically proven costs and damages. That means we bill fat, lazy people 100,000 times more than fit, active people who smoke pot.

Next, we bill people for riding motorcycles, scuba diving, living in cities, and every other social and recreational choice that affects costs.

Oh, and of course we also have to screen people for every conceivable genetic predisposition to anything. Why should I pay the same as the person who has cancer in their family when none of my ancestors ever have had it?

If you want to play the "risk-cost" game, let's get the real, actual risks and costs rather than the costs you perceive out of your moral outrage over drug use.

Sorry, dude, but the real drags on your health taxes are fat people and cancer patients, not pot smokers.

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Curtman Curtman:

What I care about is stopping the violence from the drug trade. The rest doesn't interest me much.

No need to bullshit.

It's funny that you just have to believe that there is some ulterior motive for legalization. That's it in a nutshell. I don't secretly believe that everyone should snort cocaine every day. I've never even tried the stuff myself. I've seen enough people do it to know that it makes you into a complete idiot very fast. I don't think it should be for sale to children like it is now under prohibition. And I don't think children should be selling it to other children like we have now. Addicts are sick, and they should get treatment, not prison. The system that supports gang related violence by creating a black market for them to thrive, needs to be shut down.

You, who will defend anything the Harperites do for the sake of it think I bullshit?

[OnTheIce]

Curtman Curtman:

The system that supports gang related violence by creating a black market for them to thrive, needs to be shut down.

That's a pipe dream. Legalizing cigarettes & booze hasn't stopped the black market at all. Where there's money to be made, items will be sold on the black market.

Curtman Curtman:

You, who will defend anything the Harperites do for the sake of it think I bullshit?

I don't defend everything, not even close. Come to the table with facts, not misguided jabs.

[Unsound]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

That's a pipe dream. Legalizing cigarettes & booze hasn't stopped the black market at all. Where there's money to be made, items will be sold on the black market.

Anyone else remember the big DuMurier shoot-out of 2010?

[raydan]

Unsound Unsound:

Anyone else remember the big DuMurier shoot-out of 2010?

No... but I kinda wish Curtman and OTI would have one.

[OnTheIce]

Unsound Unsound:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

That's a pipe dream. Legalizing cigarettes & booze hasn't stopped the black market at all. Where there's money to be made, items will be sold on the black market.

Anyone else remember the big DuMurier shoot-out of 2010?

Out of sight, out of mind. If it doesn't disrupt your city with gunfire, it can't be too bad of a problem.

[andyt]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

Out of sight, out of mind. If it doesn't disrupt your city with gunfire, it can't be too bad of a problem.

Agreed, tho let me amend it to "can't be nearly as bad a problem as the drug trade." Govt loses some revenue seems to be the main problem.

And of course with cigs there are very concrete steps the govt could take to vastly reduce the problem, if they had the balls. As for alcohol, are there really a bunch of illegal stills running in the country?

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

That's a pipe dream. Legalizing cigarettes & booze hasn't stopped the black market at all. Where there's money to be made, items will be sold on the black market.

Scroll back up and take a look at that graphic again. Let me know where the violence from the booze and cigarette market is increasing. The quantity of tobacco smoked daily in Canada is larger than the amount of marijuana being smoked. The black market should be astoundingly large. Larger than the 9 billion dollar market that exists in BC alone for marijuana. The solution years ago to the gangs trafficking cigarettes was to lower the price, and use economics to lower the profit margin. It was extremely effective AND less people smoke today using regulation.

[OnTheIce]

Curtman Curtman:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

That's a pipe dream. Legalizing cigarettes & booze hasn't stopped the black market at all. Where there's money to be made, items will be sold on the black market.

Scroll back up and take a look at that graphic again. Let me know where the violence from the booze and cigarette market is increasing. The quantity of tobacco smoked daily in Canada is larger than the amount of marijuana being smoked. The black market should be astoundingly large. Larger than the 9 billion dollar market that exists in BC alone for marijuana. The solution years ago to the gangs trafficking cigarettes was to lower the price, and use economics to lower the profit margin. It was extremely effective AND less people smoke today using regulation.

So just because it's not reported in your fancy graphic, means it doesn't exist or isn't a problem?

[Curtman]

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

So just because it's not reported in your fancy graphic, means it doesn't exist or isn't a problem?

You tell me. Where is it a problem, and why isn't the media reporting it? Tell me why there's millions of smokers who have no problem going to buy $15 packages of cigarettes, and why they don't go buy them from bubba in the back lane for $2?

[andyt]

If legalizing drugs will result in the same level of gang activity that booze and cigs do, I'll take it. Any day.

[OnTheIce]

Curtman Curtman:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

So just because it's not reported in your fancy graphic, means it doesn't exist or isn't a problem?

You tell me. Where is it a problem, and why isn't the media reporting it? Tell me why there's millions of smokers who have no problem going to buy $15 packages of cigarettes, and why they don't go buy them from bubba in the back lane for $2?

Don't have to look far past a Native reserve to find a problem with either smokes or booze being run through....a sensitive subject for any media to cover.

However, the National Post did a big story a few years back....a quote:

$1:

The RCMP has estimated that 175 organized-crime organizations are involved in the tobacco trade, conceding that some are “mom-and-pop” operations, but also established groups like the outlaw bikers and Eastern-European mob.

The New Big Tobacco: Inside Canada’s underground tobacco industry, a five-part series
http://news.nationalpost.com/2010/09/18 ... rt-series/

[BartSimpson]

Curtman Curtman:

The escalation of violence is a direct result of prohibition.

Fine. Canada has problems with Mexican cartels now so you legalize pot, coke, meth, and heroin first and then we'll talk.

[Thanos]

Unsound Unsound:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

That's a pipe dream. Legalizing cigarettes & booze hasn't stopped the black market at all. Where there's money to be made, items will be sold on the black market.

Anyone else remember the big DuMurier shoot-out of 2010?

Didn't that happen about the same time as the massive car-bombing campaign between the Jim Beam Bloods and the Jack Daniels Crips broke out? The real outrage of the time was when the Mike's Hard Lemonade Triad started beheading people with kitchen knives and kept posting footage of it on the internet.

[andyt]

Thanos Thanos:

Unsound Unsound:

OnTheIce OnTheIce:

That's a pipe dream. Legalizing cigarettes & booze hasn't stopped the black market at all. Where there's money to be made, items will be sold on the black market.

Anyone else remember the big DuMurier shoot-out of 2010?

Didn't that happen about the same time as the massive car-bombing campaign between the Jim Beam Bloods and the Jack Daniels Crips broke out? The real outrage of the time was when the Mike's Hard Lemonade Triad started beheading people with kitchen knives and kept posting footage of it on the internet.

andyt andyt:

If legalizing drugs will result in the same level of gang activity that booze and cigs do, I'll take it. Any day.