prop. 19 was voted down in California (legalization of marijuana)

<rant>

A lot of stoners are going to be sad pandas today. I believe those that voted against the legalization of marijuana belong to one of three groups: old religious people, drug dealers, and law enforcement (which will be gotten into later in the post). Old religious people voted against it because they are ignorant and view all mind-altering things as demonic. Those people that profit from marijuana being illegal obviously voted against it (otherwise they are out of job). I bet that around 10% of those that voted against the legalization of marijuana, did so because they stood to lose financially.

There are people out there that genuinely believe that if marijuana was made legal, that society would fall apart. But the ignorant cannot be blamed for being what they are. Those that were in favor of this prop. should have done a better job at educating the public—along with making sure people got out in vote—they have no one to blame but themselves.

The majority of the people celebrating today are the ignorant and the thugs (drug dealers). I'm not saying that ALL drug dealers are 'thugs', but the vast majority of them are, just like Al Capone was (parallels between prohibition and the criminalization of marijuana are obvious).

While I believe the two main groups responsible for voting this down were the ignorant and the thugs, we must not forget about another group. Many of those in law enforcement voted this down as well. Not because they believe the decriminalization of  marijuana is harmful to society, but because it is harmful to their job security. If marijuana was made legal than law enforcement would lose out on A LOT of money, and would be forced to shut down many prisons and lay-off many workers (shame if they would have to get real jobs).

The main point here is that people are going to smoke pot whether it is legal or not. If marijuana is illegal, then only the criminals are making money off it.

</rant>



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I would like to see the following experiment:

Have one person get completely trashed off alcohol every day for a few weeks, and have another get stoned every day for the same duration. Compare each of them  psychologically and physically. I would bet that the alcohol drinker would be in much worse shape than the pot smoker. This experiment would need to be done by professionals that could safety monitor the health of each test subject (as well as staying within the law).

>>>DISCLAIMER<<<
Don't do this experiment at home! In other words, the actions and outcome rest on those who do it. And also I am not condoning any activity which is illegal. For studies, professionals can be allowed to do things like this without violating the law.