A Black man's opinion on LGBT rights...

[6502]

... LGBT rights are equivalent to the Civil Rights Movement.

And as a Black person, it is easy to see the connection.

LGBT rights is NOT equivalent to the right to smoke marijuana.

The right to smoke marijuana shares characteristics with the prohibition of alcohol back the day.

And you do not need to be Black to see the difference.

Why do I feel like I have to make this point?

One more time:

LGBT = Civil Rights Movement = Women's Movement = ... you see where this is going...
"Want to smoke weed " DOES NOT EQUAL "any form of civil rights"

I've noticed messages popping up on DU since Obama got re-elected suggesting that there is some kind of Civil Rights connection between LGBT rights and pot. It's like the weeders are trying to high-jack another unrelated issue to push their cause... to create a meme that pushes their cause.

And frankly, by doing so, essentially cheapens and reduces the LGBT Civil Rights issues, The Civil Rights issues of the 60s around race, and the Women's movement to the same level of prohibition of alcohol at best --- and the right to engage in the active sale, trafficking, and consumption of illegal substances.

I saw this play out on some Maher video on the site, but my browser crashed and I lost the link.

That was the last straw!!!!

As a Black man, I have to see this. LGBT rights is equivalent.
I wont go through the details of what qualities we share... I'm sure we all know.

It's these parasitic pro-drug types that, I think, know the difference, but care so much more about wanting to do their stuff anywhere they want, that they are willing to cheapen everything else around them to get it.

I've lost my patience today.

Anyway, that's it.

[Skittles]

1. I hear your point

but why the use of the word "parasitic" when referring to, say, people who think pot should be legalized? I guess I haven't read those threads yet.

[6502]

7. Actually, I do cruise the Weed/Drug threads... let me explain it...

Last edited Tue Nov 13, 2012, 06:40 AM - Edit history (1)

... apparently, I didn't go far enough. My intended meaning was "at least parasites". That means that they are not only parasites, but worse.

Anyway, let's get on with this. It goes like this:

* Weed is illegal.
* Mesc, coke, crack, meth... etc... are also illegal.
* The consumption, possession, sale, and trafficking in any of these and other illegal drugs will result in the following:

* imprisonment.
* loss of employment.
* if in college, expulsion... and recorded on your school record.
* during incarceration in may states loss of the right to vote.
* where the local laws apply this loss of the right to vote might extend even after release..
* unemployablity: nobody wants to hire anybody with a criminal record.
well certainly not anywhere were they would pay anything like a good wage.
* Weed is illegal.

Often, these people talk about developing support for medical marijuana. That it is like good for all kinds of things like:

* chemo-therapy to give people the munchies so they will eat.
* to calm down from stress or anxiety.
* helps with depression.
* helps them sleep.
* aches and pains.
* and the list goes on and on.... you know the list...

And they go on with these kind of reasons for why it needs to be legal.

Well, it turns out that for every issue, ache, pain, malady, condition or disease that they describe there is a solution:

* go to a doctor and get a prescription for what ails you

And the best thing is that all of the solutions are legal. Further, medicines are regulated in the US by the FDA --- that means everything from tracking research to doing their own and deciding what medicines can even enter trials or not... and definitely what passes to actual application within the US. The FDA aloing with the CDC there are statistics and research on follow ups to see how results fair over time. This includes processing raw data as well as integrating information about product non-performance, adverse reactions, complaints from citizens as well as from the doctors that use and prescribe the drugs.

* depression: legal anti-depressants.
* bipolar: legal bipolar specific medication.
* sleeping disorders: variety of legal over-the-counter and prescription medications.
* aches and pains: variety of legal over-the-counter and prescription medications from Ibuprofen to the highly regulated and strictly controlled Morphine (I had to use both: Ibuprofen is over the counter... horrible oral surgery where, due to complications, they had to turn off the antithetics mid operation and still fricken continue!!!!... that required the Morphine)

All are regulated. Safe. If anything goes wrong, investigations occur from questioning how the doctor used the meds or prescribed them. If the patient was responsible for taking it, did the patient following instructions correctly. Did the drug company do anything wrong. Were the issues within the published documentation recorded at the FDA from the trials and approval process. Does the CDC have any corroborating data showing a pattern of issues or issues that occur along side this. And on and on. Heck, they go all out like this even if someone has a bad reaction to over the counter Aspirin.

And with weed -- or any other illegal drug -- what do you get?

1. The promise from your local dealer or head shop owner or medical marijuana dispensary that this week's "Mamba Rainbow Blend" is the purest weed and wont screw you up because this week's weed is blended the same way as last week's weed. I mean, you have his word on it. Nothing else. No trials. No research. No protections. So you buy it.
2. This week's "Mamba Rainbow Blend" is actually different and you smoke it and you get messed up. What the hell did they cut this weed with? Dunno. Were the plants some kind of super mutants with 1000% more THC? Dunno.
3. This week's "Mamba Rainbow Blend" is actually the same as before so you smoke it and you don't get messed up.
4. In #1, #2 and #3, you've committed a felony at the federal level. Please read the list at the beginning of this comment.

So, yeah... I've been your Weeder threads.

And none of you --- whether on DU, or on other boards, or face to face (yeah, I deal with your type nose to nose) --- not a single one of you could ever address this issue. And look at this... I haven't even gotten into the "cost to society" issue of having to pay for resources associated with the medical care given illegal drug users when they mess themselves up (care that is diverted from people who legally break a leg or 2 year olds that burn their arms on the stove)... and then after society has paid to get you well enough to stand before a court, since it is a felony you are going to jail --- and that is something like 30,000-40,000 a year for your upkeep and management in the prison system. This could include further care from your self-inflicted injuries.

Wow. The rest of the tax payers' dollars at work.

Prohibition:

And don't make the excuse that you should be free to do whatever your want.
That's why tobacco and alcohol are regulated today.
Before it was anything goes.
Prohibition was ambitious.
Alcohol got regulated.

Tobacco:

Tobacco was thought to be safe... benign.
Over time we learned the truth (no thanks to the tobacco industry... remember this point)
Deaths from tobacco.
People proclaiming their rights to do what they want including harm themselves.
Society sick of paying the health costs for these people.
Tobacco regulations flourished.

So, I wonder who is driving this. The users of weed? Or is it the sellers?
I mean, for tobacco, the smokers were adamant about their rights and needs to smoke.
And the industry was definitely pushing advertising to support that.
And, further, they did push for laws that would weaken regulations against tobacco.

Hmmm....

You get it.

So... no: NOT A CIVIL RIGHT.

Don't cheapen any of the Civil Rights movements with your desire, need, addiction, choice to violate federal law --- that clearly has enough backing its reason for existence.

Hey, and for giggles: You try to address all of these issues here. Conditions are:

* No circular logic.
* No use of logical fallacies.
* Use of only vetted sources that are directly referenced from the FDA (http://www.fda.gov), CDC (http://www.cdc.gov), or any other .gov website. They have statistics, trail data, incident data and more. (Since you will always find people who just make stuff up on .org and .com and .edu sites, you cannot use any of those).
* No cherry-picking data.
* Make your best argument that addresses the cost to society issue.
* Be warned, you cannot just hand-wavy say that something is true because you say it (that's circular).

Oh, and understand that the burden of proof is not on the society in this case. Society has already spoken and created the law of the land. It is your job to make a strong case using facts that we --- the society --- should change our position to be in line with yours. We will pay taxes and believe and support the FDA the CDC and other entities. If you don't use their data, your argument is lost --- no matter what else you say or want to say.

We are parents, LGBT and straight and everything in between. We want the best for our kids and see illegal drugs as something that could harm them and the environment they grow up in.... and would eventually work in. We are so opposed that we actually go as far as moving to a different town, city, county or state to escape it. I've seen people who were poorer than me up and move to the next town over because they got wind that the last bunch of druggies that were incarcerated were getting out of prison. I actually sold my house and moved away to escape them, too.

So, give it try.

Make your case.

But, I have no confidence that you could succeed.

I've never seen anyone that supports this stuff who could.

But, I am willing to listen.

Oh, BTW, have you seen the movie "Super High Me". It is a really interesting movie in support of weed where a fellow chooses to smoke weed in excess for 30 days to see what happens to him. If you haven't seen it I will give you a summary:

* Fellow smokes weed every day and lots of it.
* He is obviously high as a kite and quite happy throughout the movie.
* He takes different mind and motor tests during the adventure and seems to do somewhat OK. I think there were times of impairment as well as times where he appeared unaffected.
* He goes sees a doctor from time to time during his adventure.

So, I think it was like his last visit to the doctor or something. He asks the doctor about his opinion of medical marijuana as a professional doctor. The doctor's reply, in summary, was as follows.

It's total bullshit. Just made up shit by a bunch of people who just want to smoke weed. They noticed a crack in the legal system that allowed an entity to classify anything as a kind of medicine and used that issue as a kind of wedge to force an opening for legalization. But, that is in fact, a ruse. They do it because they just want to smoke their shit.

Oh, yes... "at least parasites". And further case can be made for a willingness to lie and deceive in the service of illegal drug use -- activities that are illegal at the federal level. There is everything from self-interest to psychological issues that can only be determined during a court trial, interviews while incarcerated, or frank interviews before an incarceration and, of course, psychological evaluations.

So, give it try.

Make a case.

And like I said before: I am confident that you can't do it... but, I am willing to listen.

[catbyte]

2. I actually agreed with S.E. Cupp when she blasted Andrew Sullivan about that on

Bill Maher's show. I would think that Sullivan, as a gay man, would've seen the difference. Smoking a joint is not even in the same league--the same ballpark--as the struggle for equality.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

6. Yea

I was surprised by that too.

But I think Sullivan supports libertarian ideas more than civil rights although he would probably deny.

[Prometheus_unbound]

3. But

I agree that there is little link between the two, and that trying to put them together may only help the weaker cause at the expense of the other. I also think that there should be some limitation on the use of addictive and incapacitating substances (much further down than weed, of course).

However, both issues are a matter of personal freedom. It just happens that LGBT rights are a far more important matter than the other.

[brush]

4. Agreed, but . . .

. . . alcohol is a legal drug that is regulated and taxed and the whole deal. It still causes many societal problems, including many traffic deaths and "mean' drunk violence. I say do the same with weed. You don't hear of many traffic deaths caused because of weed smoking. Also there are not too many "mean" stoners because it kinda mellows you out. I say legalize it, and it has no equivalence with the gay rights movement or the civil right movement. They should try equivalency argument with the repeal of Prohibition back in the day.

[6502]

9. No... if you want to go for the "equivalency argument"...

... it's up to you to show that there is truly equivalence.

To do so as just a kind of rhetorical device (as you tried to do in your comment) is quickly detected.

You see, you used a kind of implied hearsay as the foundation of your position.

Which means that what you said is useless and did nothing to further your argument. In fact, you've weakened your argument by making it.

Now, the majority of us our tax payers and do not support your position or views.

If you want to convince us, go the the .gov websites that have the actual statistical data on traffic accidents as well as data on deaths resulting from those accidents. Also, be careful not to be caught cherry picking or manipulating the data to fit your position. If anybody smells a whiff of that, your whole argument fails 100%.

I'll even help you out: try the ATF, FBI, FDA, and CDC for a start.

You can start with the websites, but I recommend that you actually try calling the agencies and be completely direct and open about your goals and how you intend to use the data. That will help them direct you to the appropriate sources for the data online.

This works. I did when research the claim that corporations pay lower tax rates than working people. I tried to find appropriate data, but it was overwhelming the quantity and variety of information offered online for free (our tax dollars at work).

I ultimately had to call the IRS main office directly and ask for help. They directed to the right needles in the haystack.

I also did the same with obtaining raw climate data from NOAA (National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration) and ended up with access to what feels like in Star Trek terms would be a GIGAQUAD of raw data from around the world.

So, when I had to talk with the Right Wing / Libertarian / Conservative / Plutocrat supporting types on tax policy and whether or not the current system is appropriate or not... I buried them... I didn't not just read the reams of tax data. I processed it and analysed it. I developed both a detailed sense and broad view understanding of how taxes payments are distributed throughout the US.

Same with climate data. It's tons of data and I started my analysiis... I still have to deal with my day job, and we're taliking GIGAQUADS of data. But be sure, even before I am done chewing the entire data sets, I will have developed an innate sense of how the climate has been changing since the fricken 1800s.

Yeah, that was no typo, I did type "1800s"... that's how NOAA rolls.

Tax dollars at work.

And thanks to Obama, all that data and much much more has been made free to access and search and download online. And I mean the federal government, on Obama's order, liberated the data the taxpayers had paid for and created a search engine specifically for finding that data.

So, get to researching.
Come back with real facts to back up your position... but only get it from the GOV sites or the federal agencies directly.

We'll all be waiting.

Oh, I must add. Even if your try, I am already sure that you can't make your case... without fudging or cherry-picking.

But, I am interested in seeing you try.

[brush]

11. What the hell are you talking about

If you're so good at research, show me the figures and not all this mumbo jumbo.

[6502]

16. Please... it's your responsibility to defend the position you support and proposed...

... clearly, you believe in it.

So, make your case.
Convince us.

But wait... I've already addressed this later in thread.

Click here: http://www.democraticunderground.com/1169353#post15

I'm sure you'll get the point after that.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

5. Agree Mostly

I agree but think you could make you case stronger by not including 'parasitic pro-drug types.'

I think some make that analogy because they are coming from a libertarian perspective more than a civil rights perspective, without realizing that smoking pot at home is not the moral equivalent to being denied a job, or subjected to violence or a host of other distinctions we share as gays, women, blacks along with other communities.

[Prometheus_unbound]

8. .

6502,

1) Yes, marijuana is illegal. Your first argument is, basically: marijuana is illegal, so people who use it do an illegal thing, which is bad, so it should be illegal. Well, this is a bullshit argument.

2) Yes, there is no control over the quality of marijuana. That's because it's bloody illegal. If that's your issue with marijuana, make it legal and let it be sold and regulated and controlled by the fda like other goods are.

3) Yes, tobacco and alcohol are regulated. They cause physical damage, incapacitate the user and give addiction and, note this, BOTH ARE LEGAL. There is no reason why legal marijuana shouldn't be regulated. Just like you shouldn't drive drunk, you shouldn't drive high, and yes, there should be a minimum age. You call prohibition ambitious; well, I guess it was. It was also a complete failure that did not reduce alcohol consumption (but made people drink awful unsafe substitutes) and provided a strong impulse to organised crime and police corruption.

4) Yes, medical marijuana is a pathetic excuse. So what? Make it legal and no-one will have to make that pathetic excuse again.

For the record, I don't do marijuana or any other kind of drug, have never done it, and I do not intend to do them in the future.

[6502]

10. My God... this outcome was as I expected. FAIL.

Definitely FAIL, but I am impressed.

You, in the brief time after I'd posted, had performed the Herculean task of:

* successfully navigating through all of the related federal agency websites (none of the agencies are open for phone calls at this hour)
* found and downloaded the appropriate data
* performed a full analysis of the mountains of data cross-referencing data-sets and merging where appropriate
* taking the resulting mountains of computations and reducing to a smaller more general data-set
* reading through all of your results
* developing a concise position that could be expressed in words
* and ultimately coming up with a weak and irrelevant position that could be summed up as:

I agree that tobacco and alcohol are legal, so why not regulate marijuana the same way, because they are like, the same.

And I agree with you on other stuff, too. Just make it legal and the drug users will stop whining and making shit up.

To think that you put in all that impressive effort with all the research you did just to not use any of that data. I did have the hope that somebody would at least try to use the real data.

Oh, that's right... I did say "FAIL".

You, and all the drug legalization support types, all use the "oh, just legalize it so the government can regulate it". And there are always reasons why it would be better for society to do so. Things like eliminating the profit motive that drives drug trafficking and gang related deaths and stuff due to low prices and easy availability.

But, I have to say WOW... you were luminously creative with your excuse. It's like:

Make child above legal and you wont have to spend money on resources to manage it.

Creative... but wrong.

You see, you folks have a chicken and egg problem here.

You think that we should take something illegal and make it legal just so we can regulate it and allow folks to use it so we wouldn't have to spend resources on it as an illegal activity.

Seems to fit the prohibition model at the outset.

But that is the wrong model to compare it with. I have a feeling that drug users and the people who support this legalization actually know they are deliberately misusing the facts of history. Heck, you admitted as much. Thanks... I am sure that that alone has sunk your case with everybody else reading along.

But, let's continue.

The real model for marijuana and other drugs is tobacco. Tobacco is the successful model.

You see tobacco and alcohol are actually two different models.

Alcohol was a social and medical problem which due to its widespread availability resulted in the creation of the prohibition laws. People everywhere went to great lengths to obtain alcohol. The expense associated with policing it was too great. It was easier to determine what levels of use could be legal and what levels were not. Where and when was it legal and where and when not.

But, the goal was always eliminate the problem.

Tobacco: Considered acceptable and benign. Later found to have social costs. The expense associated with banning something that was already legal and accepted by society, along with fighting the tobacco industry was too great a task to take on in one lump. (That part sounds familiar, right... keep reading...) The goal was the same as prohibition, but a lesson was learned: if the majority of the population is doing something that harms them that is socially accepted and has monied interests backing the continuance of that thing, it is better to chip away at that thing with regulation after regulation and education on top of more education... until you get a majority of the population against it. When that happens, you can easily pass anti-smoking laws (not near hospitals, not in workplaces, not in malls, can't be sold to minors, can't be in areas accessible to minors, etc...) And after that you can keep piling more and more regulations and restrictions until eventually, it is gone from society.

Kind of like how there is no public acceptance of opium dens, today.

So, what's the point?

The point is that people like you who support legalization of marijuana and other drugs represent an insignificantly small part of the population. You yourself, by indicating that there is an equivalence between alcohol, tobacco, and marijuana when it comes to bad outcomes harm to self and society --- even going as far to admit that marijuana is addictive just like alcohol and tobacco.

Look real carefully at that paragraph up there.
Do you see it?
Look again.

Ok... let me help you: The lesson learned from the era of alcohol prohibition that was applied in the tobacco wars is FIRST GET THE POPULATION OF PEOPLE WHO ARE AGAINST TOBACCO TO BE GREATER THAN THE POPULATION OF PEOPLE WHO SUPPORT TOBACCO. AFTER THAT EDUCATE AND REGULATE IT UNTIL IT GOES OUT OF EXISTENCE.

The beauty here is that the population of people who support the legalization of marijuana --- oh hell, let's go for the gold here --- the population of the people who support illegal drug use is tiny. Like fart in a wind storm tiny.

Your numbers have already met the government's first condition. All children are educated with the idea that drugs are bad and that users and sellers and all parts of the chain are bad, illegal, must be avoided. Your pro-drug message is not part of that education, so with every wave of children coming up through elementary school, more and more start off against drugs.

Furthermore, it will never be part of education. Any teacher that tries to teach that message will receive a phone call from every parent of every kids in every class that teacher teachers as well as other concerned parents demanding that that teacher be removed. Have no doubts about that. And there is the possibility that criminal charges could be brought up against that teacher --- like a violation of child endangerment laws.

They did this with tobacco, too. If your as old as me, you remember the early years of this process. If you're younger, then youreceived the already established lessons.

The result, a majority of kids coming up in each wave have a smaller and smaller group of kids that even start using drugs.

There's peer pressure from the start to share that view.

So, you're already tiny and getting smaller.

The last step is make it illegal and keep it illegal.

Increase incarceration and make the rules more strict. The goal of these rules is not to protect people who are already using drugs. The goal is for it to act as a negative reinforcement of the education that was drummed into their heads through K-12.

And anybody they catch and incarcerate only helps to add more real-life negative reinforcement by showing that the consequences are real.

See... and you missed all of that after your Herculean feat of performing all of that research in an hour. I just can't see how you missed this.

Anyway, please keep supporting the drug users... I believe you when you say you are not a user.

But, I believe in the system. And the system needs grease to keep the grinding gears of the machine moving smoothly.

And the drug users, the sellers, the traffickers, all involved that they catch and incarcerate whose lives are publicly destroyed are the grease.

Keep supporting them... the machine needs grease.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

13. Tie It Back to LBGT Rights

Please..one way or the Other.

[6502]

17. I did... click the link in the body of this post....

... it will take you to the response I posted answering your very question:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/1169353#post15

[fightthegoodfightnow]

19. Nah

Off topic...has no tie in to anything related to LBGT Civil Rights. Not making sense (to me).

[Prometheus_unbound]

12. qwfrg

No, I have not managed the herculean task of reading, cross-referencing and analysing all relevant data. I seriously doubt that you have held yourself up to your standard, either. You act as if the data supported you, but I haven't seen a single figure yet.

Yes, it may be possible to contain drug usage -and, mind you, I am talking about marijuana when I say drug- through harsher penalties, more policing and greater incarceration. I see two main problems with this.

1) Current penalties are already harsh, harsher than in most other civilized countries, and the U.S. incarceration rate is not only historically high, but the highest of any country in the world. Currently around 2.5 million americans are incarcerated (and Black men are disproportionately more likely to be incarcerated than others).

2) WHY? Yes, you probably can reduce marijuana usage with draconian penalties. I see about as much point in doing so as in, say, outlawing basketball.

So why again?

[fightthegoodfightnow]

14. Tie It Back to LBGT Rights

One way or the Other Please.

[6502]

15. No problem, here comes the cut...

You see, if you can't create even the slightest reasonable, valid, coherent explanation for why your pro-drug position could even exist, then clearly no-one in any camp can be expected to even begin to consider your claim that your pro-drug stance is some kind of civil right.

And let me elaborate on the Herculean task you're faced with:

Your case just on the pro-drug stance is unacceptable to a super-majority of LGBT, Blacks, Latinos, Women, Asians, Native Americans, White folks... yeah... caught you off guard there? Well, look at the the stats for what percentage of White folks voted for Obama and Romney... that's a lot of people there.

And you can be damn sure that that whole super-super majority (you can be double-damn sure you ain't getting any Republicans on you side) won't agree that a pro-drug position has anything to do with civil rights.

Get it.

[fightthegoodfightnow]

18. My Case?

For what?

You have me confused with someone else...quote?