Legalization is a matter of when, not if. It might be very sudden, or might be long and drawn out, but it'll happen eventually.

No love of marijuana here, but prohibition is a stupid and ineffective way to deal with its harms. It'll be long overdue when it's finally treated as a health issue rather than a criminal issue.

Although I don't smoke anything myself and never have (or ever will), I fully support legalization of marijuana.
At the same time, I also fully support a complete ban on smoking anything in public spaces. Imho the public does not include bars, if you as a bar owner want to allow smoking you should be able to do so and I'll happily avoid giving you any business if there's even one single person smoking inside. But it should be the owners decision, a bar is not a public place as far as I see it.
Smoking around non-smokers is completely egotistical and asshole behavior, especially if it's your kids who can't get away from you and your nasty smoke. Smoke from regular cigarettes being 10 times as nasty as smoke from a joint.
Just because your grandpa/grandma/whoever lived to a hundred years as a chain smoker does not mean it's not harmful, some people just get luckier than others. If you want to smoke in a place where you're only surrounded by other smokers or in the confines of your own home, by all means take a smoke.

Just a rhetorical question; "just WHAT could possibly make someone, want or even worse, NEED, to take something in order to *get high*"?

Question is serious and i expect serious answer(s) in return...

As far as I am concerned, I prefer it when there's "smoking spots" (Raucherinseln) in public places.

Smoking on railway stations in Germany is now generallly banned. If there's a spot for the smokers to go to, it works nicely. If there's none, people will just smoke anyway, standing anywhere, and throwing the butts all over the place. So, I'd say confinement works better, and gives the non-smokers a way of avoiding the smoke.
Not sure if the question IS serious, but - don't you know anyone who drinks alcohol? Because that "gets you high" as well ;)

In all seriousness, it helps with all sorts of recurring severe pain, several locomotive degenerative diseases such as Parkinson's for example and potentially several neurodegenerative diseases (though studies are a bit inconclusive as of now in that regard).

--> Soylent Green is marijuana!!



Yes, of course. I fully agree with that. Having confinement areas where possible is the ideal solution but if it's not possible, smokers are just going to have to grit their teeth and bare with it, same as they do on long distance flights. And if they break the law, fine them.

One law to rule them all, one law to fine them and with penalties bind them! Fine the Hobbits, fine them!

Well, once upon a time, one advertised smoking as a preventive measure protecting your lungs from inhaling the filth of big industrial cities. Then of course the main proponent of that theory died rather painfully. Then smoking tobacco , rather than chewing it, gained popularity because of some long waiting time in trenches and some weird need to compensate frontline induced stress. I guess stress compensation and boredom still play a role with other smoking habits. As far as I am concerned, I prefer not inhaling any fume when I can avoid to. As for govts being in bed with anything that looks like a juicy source of money, yeah, that's a common occurence. There might be differences between our countries and yours as to what's in the juice, but any govt pretending it's virgin milk and innocent honey is just probably exagerating slightly the benefits of its governance structure...

I beg to differ. Allow me to clarify, then. Alcohol is not primarily consumed with intention to get high, but for social occasions, events (merry events mostly), etc. Drugs, narcotics and those foul substances, though, ARE consumed in order to make someone high, and with THIS primary intention; even at the risk of ruining health and/or brains.

So, can i have an answer, please? Allow me to rephrase, then, to make it more easy; "What could drive a SENTIENT (supposedly) being, to actively want or passively need, to consume a narcotics-class substance, with primary intention to get high, even at the risk of putting own health/condition in danger??

I will beg to differ then, as well.
During my wild days, for a time I went partying with friends every weekend, and we would get absolutely shitfaced. Sure, it was irresponsible, but partying all night and being heavily drunk felt absolutely awesome. And that is quite a high.
I can't speak for everyone, of course, but I'd say the abundance of (especially rather young) people drinking themselves stupid is not because Friday night is such a special occasion, but because "it feels so good" (of course, there is a social aspect to that as well, but the same could be said for smoking or use of other drugs). As one friend of mine put it "for a time, it felt like I was a lot more myself when I was drunk then when I was sober".
Obviously, I am not saying that is a good thing, just want to point out alcohol is not to be underestimated, both as a stimulant and as an addictive substance.

Drugs are for Losers

I actually voted against legalization in Oregon, but this last time around the measure finally managed to pass nonetheless. Oh well. It's not like people didn't have an easy way to get around that law here before anyway. I'm not looking forward to more dazed potheads though. *shrug* On the bright side, at least it should bring in some more tax money for the state, so I guess it's not all bad.

And I call bullshit to people who say MJ is not addictive in any way. Hell, I did have a conversation not long ago with a couple of people who do frequently peruse and they themselves readily admitted that it can be just addictive like anything else, i.e. regular cigarettes, or alcohol.

And we'll soon see Buds Mckenzie on TV spots.

I think people should have fun with things that has less negative impact.

Why do drugs when you can play games?

I don't care that much since i dont use it anymore,but anyone who says it isn't addictive-bullshit..people saying i can stop but dont want to-thats what addiction acctualy is.