Don't get me wrong, I'm totally with the guy but his last string of questions made me think...

How much will our government have to spend on people who become addicted? I understand the argument that pot isn't physically addictive, but when you think about the additional costs to public safety, treatment programs, regulation (as with any other drug, like alcohol), it's not free. I think a stronger argument is how the black market funds masked players who are forced to operate outside the law to conduct their business. Money for the government is a good thing, especially in these times, but I think underlining the failure of the ability to enforce should be emphasized more.

Pot should be legal. I don't smoke, but I understand that smoking a joint in the evening after work doesn't make you a 'drug addict' any more than having a glass of wine with a meal makes you an alcoholic. If adults want to enjoy the occasional (or not so occasional) joint, what is wrong with that?
Of course, legalizing marijuana is logical....and logic is something a lot of politicians don't have.

To be fair, eating Cheetoes IS awful and unacceptable.

watchout @1- honestly i haven't done the math so I'm just speculating but I'm going to guess that if you weight the current cost spent "fighting" pot (jails, trials, law enforcement, etc.) vs. the possible public safety/treatement/regulation costs that you bring up AND you offset that cost by the possible tax revenue from legal sales you would come out with legal and regulated pot being a much better scenario.

compared to alcohol, which is legal and probably has a MUCH higher public safety cost than legal pot EVER would, it seems a no-brainer.

They ranged in ages from 25-75...I'm wondering what the raid on the house with the 75 year old pot grower went like. You know those dangerous 75 year olds...might go crazy on the devil weed and assault you with their walkers and spit hard candy at you...

The other side isn't recorded because reporters want to continue getting scoops with the cops. Anything that would question their judgement or shine them in an unflattering light makes it harder to get more information and stories out of the newspaper's sources in the future.

But to be fair, this article wasn't very long or extensive to begin with.

And they removed kids from the custody of their parents, over pot. Fucking nuts.

Still waiting for you to award one of these to Dom for his credulous post about Geoff Baker.

I won't hold my breath ...

In articles about murder, they never quote the pro-murder lobby either. It's bullshit!

Or maybe, just maybe, people with kids should consider how their illegal activity might impact said kids BEFORE setting up the grow house? You know, because grow houses, no matter the slowly changing social acceptance, remain ILLEGAL and tend to attract dangerous things like police raids, other drug dealers, robberies, guns, shootings...all things a responsible parent wouldn't want their kids to be exposed to.

But you're right, easier to just blame the cops for enforcing the law and for taking the kids out of the dangerous situation.

The debate over pot is an interesting one to me. This is because both sides have an interesting series of arguments to be made within differing contexts. Let me explain what I mean by that. The anti-pot arguments are often based on the logic that, even if pot presents marginal health consequences, it is still illegal and therefore wrong. However, the pro-pot side argues that the illegality of pot is wrong to begin with. It ends up boiling down to one of those political debates highlighting a fundamental disagreement over civil disobedience - is it right to violate a law if you think it is wrong? That seems to be the question people are asking most in this debate...

And yes, I did write this while high, so one might likely guess which side I generally support.

9: Not just pot; in some cases, they did it over fucking FANS, apparently. Since only a drug dealer would have fans in their house (although, with this weather, maybe...)

11: Gee, if only smoking a nearly inconsequential drug in the privacy of your own home were as bad as murder. Then you would have enough of a point not to sound like a complete idiot!

12: Maybe something shouldn't just be illegal because it's illegal because it's illegal because it's...

Maybe laws need to have valid reasons for existing in order for us to judge the people who violate them rather than the people who waste resources to enforce them nonviolent people. Weed prohibition is a "because I say so" law. Its only justification for its exisence is its existence.

Usually when you arrest someone for "breaking a law," you're supposedly not just arresting them for that. You're usually arresting them for harming society in some way. They "broke" an anti-assault law by harming someone's body. They "broke" anti-fraud laws by stealing someone's money. They "broke" traffic laws by endangering other people.

However, when you arrest someone for smoking weed, you're only arresting them for breaking the law. It's a technicality. There is no separate thing involved that actually harms society, and that inspired the law that you're arresting them for breaking. There are only two things making weed dangerous: 1) You have to buy it from drug dealers (sometimes), and 2) Cops might arrest you for it (as you point out). Those dangers are caused by its illegality, not by the drug itself.

This self-fulfilling "danger" prophecy with weed is just ridiculous. Just as criminals are responsible for breaking laws, lawmakers (and law enforcers) are responsible for the existence (and enforcement) of worthless, harmful, shitty laws. This makes it really difficult for a fair person to focus on the stupidity required to break a worthless law over the stupidity of the people who waste vast resources enforcing a demonstratively worthless law. If the only thing making it stupid to smoke weed is the risk of being arrested, then question the intelligence of people who MAKE getting arrested a risk. It's not "righteous" to treat all established rules as equal and important regardless of actual validity; it's lazy.

I have approximately zero sympathy for parents who put their kids in harm's way. Even if pot shouldn't be illegal, the fact remains that it is and growing it/dealing it thus carries serious risks to everyone involved.

And the children were likely put in CPS's custody because their parents were being taken to jail.

Who's the credulous hack, again?

Thanks for the unfalsifiable justification Bonefish. You read like the addict you probably are.

Cue: "MARIJUANA ISN'T ADDICTIVE!!!!!!!!"

Except that it has been shown that many become addicted to it. And seek treatment for their dependency on it. Because addiction is about the self, not the substance.

@15

Nah, mang. There are some other dangers too, mostly from a person's consumption habits and his "high" mannerisms. For example, like alcohol, pot MIGHT make you act like a fool in mixed company. It MIGHT reveal just how shitty a person's music library is. It MIGHT make you eat all of your friend's food. It MIGHT make you forget to call someone at night - all of these are just minor dangers, though; nothing life-altering like getting arrested. I just wanted to point them out for the lulz.

17: Nope. I actually don't like weed. The things I'm addicted to (coffee, woodford reserve, tapatio sauce) are actually LEGAL, despite two of those being more addictive than weed.

Looks like you'll have to actually defend your views with a logical argument rather than conveniently deciding that if I disagree, I must be an addict (the cousin of the foil-hat "you must be ONE OF THEM!" argument).

Of course, to do that, you'd have to find peer-reviewed, valid studies showing that weed is dangerous and addictive. And the troubling thing is that these studies have an annoying tendency to objectively examine the properties of the drug along with their typical use, rather than looking at their "legal" vs "illegal" status and examining how weed-obsessed the characters in stoner comedies seem to be. So you're going to find that the majority of these studies disagree with both you AND Dick Cheney.

And yes, I am going to say it (because it's actually true): Marijuana is not addictive. When people get addicted to weed, it's the same mechanism as when someone is addicted to video games, or their morning shower, or a tv or radio show.

If it's "the self and not the substance," then banning "the substance" is absolutely pointless, isn't it? Because all those "selves" are going to just as easily get psychologically addicted to something else. Unless you want to ban the existence of people with addictive personality, but good luck with that.

I'm with Jeff @10.

The Stranger is pathetic. And Savage is the worst.

You all should be ashamed of yourselves.

And their parents are in JAIL because they were arrested for growing something that shouldn't be ILLEGAL to grow. If their parents hadn't have been arrested and put in JAIL, they wouldn't be in the "care" of CPS.

@21,

If those kids had been harmed in some sort of drug turf war, no matter what the drug or whether the drug *should* be legal according to you, you would have posted this as "Every child deserves a mother and father." You are a hypocrite AND a hack.

Here

Here

Here

Peer reviewed articles on the addictive nature of Marijuana are EASY to find.

In fact, here is a link to HUNDREDS of such articles.

Whelp, at least they didn't shoot any dogs like those cops in missouri. Dogs in kennels no less, over like 2 joints. I don't smoke pot and never have but I certainly couldn't give a shit about what people do in their home.

@21, their parents are in JAIL because they knowingly broke the law and got caught; right or wrong, the law clearly states that growing, distributing and possessing pot is ILLEGAL. Knowingly breaking the law and putting kids in an unsafe situation qualifies one as "unfit parent".

As soon as the social pressures convince the legislature (the branch who makes the laws) to make growing pot inside a suburban home a-OK then the parents can get on with it. Not before.

So let's not blame the cops for enforcing the laws and harassing some poor, innocent parents. They got what they were asking for.

And I'm sure those kids were well on their way to being productive members of the community with scofflaw role models at home.

Need i point out this to all those griping about Marijuana addiction? The point is that weed, like alcohol, is one of those substances that can be perfectly safe in moderate amounts, and it should be up to each individual to enjoy it responsibly. I would dare you to show me conclusive evidence that weed is more dangerous than alcohol for any other reason than "it is illegal."

@28

Thank you, dude. I honestly think that marijuana's very low level of addictive qualities holds no ground as evidence for it's illegality.

Dan, I'm sure you'll remember this the next time you're tempted to post something equally stupid and credulous about Pit Bulls.

24: All you found out is that there are hundreds of articles containing the words "marijuana" and "addiction."

Now, try reading some of the ones in that very same search result that YOU linked to. They are not all articles that conclude that marijuana is addictive. Many are just examining WHETHER or NOT it is addictive, and concluding that it is not. Many of them examine marijuana's addictiveness alongside legal things like alcohol, cigarettes, and prescription drugs, and show it to be less harmful than all of these.

Some are on its respiratory risks (which nobody denies: smoking anything gives you respiratory risks, and one of the worst things for your respiratory system is legal). I found one that basically says that marijuana impedes motor control while you're on it (so it just confirms that marijuana gets you high). Lots of them just say that people who use dangerous drugs also use marijuana (which doesn't mean much- people who use dangerous drugs also use mayonnaise. You can't classify a drug as dangerous because ANOTHER drug is dangerous. An individual drug is either dangerous or not. Correlation =/= Causation. Etc).

Tons of studies only looked at "frequent" marijuana users, which is going to bias the study towards addiction. Studies that look at ALL marijuana users (which eliminates confounding factors) are even less likely to find that it's addictive.

And yes, a bunch found that marijuana addiction does exist. But like I said before, addiction to EVERYTHING "exists." Addiction to marijuana is a very low risk when you look at how many people use it compared to how many people develop an addiction. And marijuana is not the common denominator in that addiciton; people with addictive personality disorders are the common factor there.

So no, you did not find hundreds of studies concluding that marijuana is addictive. You just found hundreds of studies that mention both marijuana and addiction at some point.

Oh, and if you change your search term from "addictive" to "addictiveness," you will find more studies that examine the addictiveness of the drug, rather than studies that specialize on those rare and unique cases in which someone is addicted (two separate topics, as far as the science is concerned). And those studies overwhelmingly do not seem to be coming to your conclusion.

You need to read more than just their titles.

I'm not arguing that marijuana addiction is impossible; I'm arguing that it is not common enough for marijuana to be classified as an addictive drug. You can't classify something as dangerous because it's "possible" to get addicted to it psychologically (otherwise we'd have to ban shopping, cheese, exercise, chocolate, incense, sex, video games, suspenseful tv shows, pretzels, book series, and everything else that people have been known to develop addictions to; not to mention alcohol and tobacco). You ban things according to the risk of addiction, the harm of addiction, and whether or not the substance itself is the cause of the addiction (rather than just the subject of it).

And PA Native: "They Broke The Rules" is a lazy defense of wasteful arrests. Whether or not breaking a rule is wrong depends on the RULE that you break, not on the fact that it is a rule.

In order to deny this, you have to argue that all established rules are valid at the time that they are established. Which would mean arguing in favor of all sorts of history's nasty, once-official laws. Segregation? Those were the rules, and people violating them should have been ashamed of themselves for putting their children in danger. Anti-sedition laws? Same thing. Slavery? Those runaway slaves got what was coming to them; sure slavery shouldn't have been legal, but as long as it was, they should have known the punishment that they would get for running away.

This isn't to say that weed prohibition is as unjust as slavery, but you really need to be careful when arguing that all rules need to be followed until they are no longer rules. That argument has been shown to be wrong SO MANY TIMES throughout history, that it's really painful to see people who are still unable to apply its invalidity to modern situations.

It all comes down to whether or not a law is necessary and just. If it isn't, then the disruptive arrests resulting from that law are an argument against the unjust law, not an argument for unconditional obedience. The whole point of laws is to have a society that runs well, not to give authority figures excuses to arrest people for "being disobedient."

And by the way, 28: way to pre-emptively attack the kids of the arrested parents and assume that they're worthless to society anyway because of who their parents are. Really makes you look thoughtful enough to have your arguments taken seriously.

Again: you deserve punishment depending on whether or not your actions are harmful. Not depending on whether or not they are "allowed."

And to argue that its punishment makes it harmful and therefore makes it punishable is so circular that it's just pathetic that you believe in it. It's the same as arguing that Jaywalking should be punishable by death, because it's dangerous and stupid, because it's punishable by death. We can just make laws as harsh as we want, because the harsher the punishment, the greater the risk, and therefore the more justified the harsh punishment. It's the stupidest way imaginable to view the role of law.

Interestingly enough, the "press release" doesn't mention what other news reports include, namely, that the group being busted "had ties to Southeast Asia".

Many of the large scale pot grower busts that have happened in this region in the past few years have targeted people of Vietnamese origin. They can't be the only ethnic group in the local weed trade, but they seem to get busted more prominently. Does the local DEA chief have some unresolved Vietnam Vet issues or something? What about the goddam Mexican drug gangs that are brutally murdering people?

Question to stoner SLOGgers: do you get your weed from the Viet-Bong? Are they really the biggest player here?

@32 You lost all credibility when you tried to equate drug production with the civil rights movement.

To clarify my other point: Knowingly running a criminal enterprise, and teaching children by example that you don't have to follow laws you think are unfair, is poor parenting. The kids are victims and I feel bad they lost on the parental lottery.

Except that you still have yet to point out any harm done by any virtue of the drug other than its illegality. If an action, legal or not, is not harmful, then parents don't have to be neglectful white trash to commit that action. It's not the same as smoking, say, meth when you have a kid because meth can influence your behavior and environment in ways that are harmful to the kid whether you get arrested or not. In the case of meth, an arrest SAVES the child from a situation that would be MORE HARMFUL without the arrest, since methamphetamine is quite harmful on its own. The child is made safer by the arrest.

In this case, however, the arrest is the THING that harms the kids. The marijuana is the excuse. The kids are not being saved from some other danger created by weed when their parents are arrested; they are only harmed by having their parents taken away. The fact that their parents lack the proper reverence for blind obedience might be enough to make you feel morally superior, but it is not something that harms children in any meaningful way on its own. It is something that only becomes harmful when they are arrested for it, which is harm that the state is doing. You are still making that same circular argument: they should be arrested because they're putting their kids in danger of having their parents arrested.

I say that if the biggest risk is that of arrest, then THAT is the dimension that should be removed- not the drug. A law having been passed doesn't make it valid- otherwise laws would never be repealed, and we wouldn't need a supreme court to determine their constitutionality from time to time. Looking at cases like this with a critical eye towards the law and the activity being banned is how invalid laws get weeded out and replaced with valid ones. Blindly assuming that "anyone breaking any law ever just deserves to get arrested because that's just what you get for breaking laws and so there must be somethin' wrong with them" is how a country's laws can get Orwellian and/or completely worthless and ridiculous. It's one thing not to give a shit that it happened; it's another thing entirely to try and argue that it's just because the government says so.

And I already pointed out that the magnitude of the civil rights movement was far larger. But the logic behind the arguments is the same:

A law needs to be useful and just before people should be required to respect it.

If people are being arrested for disobeying an unreasonable law, then the problem is the law, not the people disobeying it, kids or no kids.

The fact that arrests harm kids, if anything, is another reason to require rigorous standards for the harmfulness of activities that we are willing to arrest people for.

The reason I made the comparison is that this basic set of ideas is true both for huge causes like the civil rights movement, and for "small" causes like huge portions of the nonviolent US population being expensively jailed for no good reason so that there's no room to prosecute and jail actual violent offenders.

Apparently you can't answer to that logic and need to focus on a difference in magnitude that is meaningless to the argument.

And I'm still waiting for a proper defense of the idea that disobedience in and of itself is so horrible that people deserve to be jailed and lose their kids for it, and that the nature of their crime itself is irrelevant. I'm also waiting for a proper defense of your circular argument that risking arrest makes you deserve arrest because you're risking arrest.

Civil rights comparison or no on my part, it doesn't make your above arguments any less horribly invalid.

You need to work on making a succinct point or hire an editor. I didn't bother to read what you wrote (who has the time?) but again, my simple points:

People who produce and distribute drugs often get shot at, robbed or arrested; not the best choice of career if you have kids and definitely not a place for kids to live.

Equating societal discrimination based on the skin color one is born with to the desire of a few people to use recreational drugs is ridiculous and cheapens the efforts of many to achieve equality.

Bonefish, *I* liked reading what you wrote, so it wasn't a total waste of your time. It was very clear. Clear arguments are often a bit long.

I think a point is ... condemning and punishing the parents does nothing. Condemning the government policy on drugs could reduce the violence that might imperil the children as PA Native says.

It's no use getting righteously angry at a few players in a black market created by our government. You have to look past them, and what may even be a bad choice for their children— and see that the entire situation was avoidable.

(God, let's stop funding the baddies in Afghanistan and Mexico, right?)

Based on the fact that this writer has contributed 11 articles to the times, and contributed her first one on June 15, 2010, your attack on the "stupid fucking credulous hack of the day" was almost surely an attack on a summer journalism intern. Hope you're proud.