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laserpig
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: Leahmon]
#10776170 - 07/31/09 05:44 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Leahmon said: But it is pretty redundant to have rehab readily available to people who can't even afford it. That shit is expensive
what?
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Leahmon
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: laserpig]
#10776239 - 07/31/09 05:54 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
laserpig said:
Quote:
Leahmon said: But it is pretty redundant to have rehab readily available to people who can't even afford it. That shit is expensive
what?
i was just rambling on about what i thought about rehab..
expensive?
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suburbanned
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: niteowl]
#10776313 - 07/31/09 06:06 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
niteowl said:

You act like this doesn't already happen. I know a guy that used to rob only drug stores. Because of the drugs, not the cash.
[/url]
I never said anything about this not already happening but it WOULD get worse if these drugs were made readily available at a store.
I agree you should be allowed to put whatever you want in your body trust me, I hate that the government says simply ingesting something is illegal. Some things you should simply have to sacrifice for greater man kind if you really wanna shoot dope you can still get it from your corner dealer, I don't want dope heads coming into the nearest walgreens holding up the lines cuz they're too fucked up to function
Although I can reason, I do believe "hard" drugs should be decriminalized. Not legalized.
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niteowl said:
There you go again making gross assumptions about something you know little about. I know MANY people that use meth. They have jobs and pay their bills. Just because a few people are addicts should the rest of the population suffer because of their addiction?
Just because you know a few productive tweakers doesn't mean that the majority of them are in the slightest. It is a drug that for a fact ruins lives .
Edited by suburbantoker (07/31/09 06:12 PM)
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laserpig
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Quote:
suburbantoker said: Just because you know a few productive tweakers doesn't mean that the majority of them are in the slightest. It is a drug that for a fact ruins lives .
My experience (just like everyone else's) is limited, but I truly do not believe that a drug can ruin anyone's life. The worst that can happen is that someone whose life is already in danger of falling apart happens upon a particular drug and uses it as their "out" to avoid taking care of themselves. Certain drugs are an easier out than others, and drugs in general are perhaps an easier out than other addictions like, say, gambling, or poor diet, or whatever, but that does not mean these drugs are inherently bad.
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Kada
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: laserpig]
#10776502 - 07/31/09 06:39 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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I hate this topic because so many people that want to post on this subject half understands what the problem is in the first place.
-------------------- ~The Cultivators Motherload~ "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." -Robert A. Heinlein "There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness."-Dalai Lama Live long and prosper.
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niteowl
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Quote:
Leahmon said:
Quote:
niteowl said:
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Leahmon said: Do you mean suffer in the sense that because their drug and our drug (assuming you're not a meth head) is grouped together and we get the short end of the straw?
I mean that our entire society suffers because of the war on drugs......not because of addicts.
The money that is spent on the drug war could be spent on education or health care.
It's a waste of resources to try and enforce drug laws.
Do you believe that addicts get better care from a prison guard or a Dr?
i'm completely on board with what you're saying. all our laws do is confine and inevitably release drug dealers/users without any help. On the other hand, a lot of misdemeanors get dropped because the person chose to go to rehab instead. But it is pretty redundant to have rehab readily available to people who can't even afford it. That shit is expensive
If the war on drugs were to stop today there would be enough money to send every addict to rehab, at no cost to the addict.
Quote:
suburbantoker said:
Quote:
niteowl said:

You act like this doesn't already happen. I know a guy that used to rob only drug stores. Because of the drugs, not the cash.
[/url]
I never said anything about this not already happening but it WOULD get worse if these drugs were made readily available at a store.
Where is your evidence that this will happen?
There is none, because it doesn't happen.
Look at Portugal.
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Some things you should simply have to sacrifice for greater man kind if you really wanna shoot dope you can still get it from your corner dealer
Thats part of the problem. Addicts are forced into hiding by society. Shouldn't addicts get their drugs from a qualified, controlled facility. That has the ability to counsel and advise the addict. Rather than just letting them wallow in their addiction, shouldn't we be trying to help ?
Keeping drugs illegal only causes more problems, not less.
Look at Portugal.
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I don't want dope heads coming into the nearest walgreens holding up the lines cuz they're too fucked up to function
More blatant assumptions.
Quote:
Quote:
niteowl said:
There you go again making gross assumptions about something you know little about. I know MANY people that use meth. They have jobs and pay their bills. Just because a few people are addicts should the rest of the population suffer because of their addiction?
Just because you know a few productive tweakers doesn't mean that the majority of them are in the slightest. It is a drug that for a fact ruins lives .
Just because a drug has the ability to destroy lives is no reason to keep it illegal. Keeping drugs illegal only causes more problems, not less.
Just look at Portugal
-------------------- Live for the moment you are in nowDon't be bogged down by your pastDon't be afraid of what lies in your future
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laserpig
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: niteowl]
#10776790 - 07/31/09 07:37 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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I can't see Portugal from here.
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niteowl
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: laserpig]
#10776825 - 07/31/09 07:45 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Drugs in Portugal: Did Decriminalization Work?
Although its capital is notorious among stoners and college kids for marijuana haze–filled "coffee shops," Holland has never actually legalized cannabis — the Dutch simply don't enforce their laws against the shops. The correct answer is Portugal, which in 2001 became the first European country to officially abolish all criminal penalties for personal possession of drugs, including marijuana, cocaine, heroin and methamphetamine.
At the recommendation of a national commission charged with addressing Portugal's drug problem, jail time was replaced with the offer of therapy. The argument was that the fear of prison drives addicts underground and that incarceration is more expensive than treatment — so why not give drug addicts health services instead? Under Portugal's new regime, people found guilty of possessing small amounts of drugs are sent to a panel consisting of a psychologist, social worker and legal adviser for appropriate treatment (which may be refused without criminal punishment), instead of jail.
The question is, does the new policy work? At the time, critics in the poor, socially conservative and largely Catholic nation said decriminalizing drug possession would open the country to "drug tourists" and exacerbate Portugal's drug problem; the country had some of the highest levels of hard-drug use in Europe. But the recently released results of a report commissioned by the Cato Institute, a libertarian think tank, suggest otherwise.
The paper, published by Cato in April, found that in the five years after personal possession was decriminalized, illegal drug use among teens in Portugal declined and rates of new HIV infections caused by sharing of dirty needles dropped, while the number of people seeking treatment for drug addiction more than doubled.
"Judging by every metric, decriminalization in Portugal has been a resounding success," says Glenn Greenwald, an attorney, author and fluent Portuguese speaker, who conducted the research. "It has enabled the Portuguese government to manage and control the drug problem far better than virtually every other Western country does."
Compared to the European Union and the U.S., Portugal's drug use numbers are impressive. Following decriminalization, Portugal had the lowest rate of lifetime marijuana use in people over 15 in the E.U.: 10%. The most comparable figure in America is in people over 12: 39.8%. Proportionally, more Americans have used cocaine than Portuguese have used marijuana.
The Cato paper reports that between 2001 and 2006 in Portugal, rates of lifetime use of any illegal drug among seventh through ninth graders fell from 14.1% to 10.6%; drug use in older teens also declined. Lifetime heroin use among 16-to-18-year-olds fell from 2.5% to 1.8% (although there was a slight increase in marijuana use in that age group). New HIV infections in drug users fell by 17% between 1999 and 2003, and deaths related to heroin and similar drugs were cut by more than half. In addition, the number of people on methadone and buprenorphine treatment for drug addiction rose to 14,877 from 6,040, after decriminalization, and money saved on enforcement allowed for increased funding of drug-free treatment as well.
Portugal's case study is of some interest to lawmakers in the U.S., confronted now with the violent overflow of escalating drug gang wars in Mexico. The U.S. has long championed a hard-line drug policy, supporting only international agreements that enforce drug prohibition and imposing on its citizens some of the world's harshest penalties for drug possession and sales. Yet America has the highest rates of cocaine and marijuana use in the world, and while most of the E.U. (including Holland) has more liberal drug laws than the U.S., it also has less drug use.
"I think we can learn that we should stop being reflexively opposed when someone else does [decriminalize] and should take seriously the possibility that anti-user enforcement isn't having much influence on our drug consumption," says Mark Kleiman, author of the forthcoming When Brute Force Fails: How to Have Less Crime and Less Punishment and director of the drug policy analysis program at UCLA. Kleiman does not consider Portugal a realistic model for the U.S., however, because of differences in size and culture between the two countries.
But there is a movement afoot in the U.S., in the legislatures of New York State, California and Massachusetts, to reconsider our overly punitive drug laws. Recently, Senators Jim Webb and Arlen Specter proposed that Congress create a national commission, not unlike Portugal's, to deal with prison reform and overhaul drug-sentencing policy. As Webb noted, the U.S. is home to 5% of the global population but 25% of its prisoners.
At the Cato Institute in early April, Greenwald contended that a major problem with most American drug policy debate is that it's based on "speculation and fear mongering," rather than empirical evidence on the effects of more lenient drug policies. In Portugal, the effect was to neutralize what had become the country's number one public health problem, he says.
"The impact in the life of families and our society is much lower than it was before decriminalization," says Joao Castel-Branco Goulao, Portugual's "drug czar" and president of the Institute on Drugs and Drug Addiction, adding that police are now able to re-focus on tracking much higher level dealers and larger quantities of drugs.
Peter Reuter, a professor of criminology and public policy at the University of Maryland, like Kleiman, is skeptical. He conceded in a presentation at the Cato Institute that "it's fair to say that decriminalization in Portugal has met its central goal. Drug use did not rise." However, he notes that Portugal is a small country and that the cyclical nature of drug epidemics — which tends to occur no matter what policies are in place — may account for the declines in heroin use and deaths.
The Cato report's author, Greenwald, hews to the first point: that the data shows that decriminalization does not result in increased drug use. Since that is what concerns the public and policymakers most about decriminalization, he says, "that is the central concession that will transform the debate."
link
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AsAboveSoBelow
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: niteowl]
#10776856 - 07/31/09 07:50 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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It really makes sense to have this topic on this site, lul
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laserpig
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: niteowl]
#10776860 - 07/31/09 07:50 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Thanks , interesting read.
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niteowl
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Quote:
AsAboveSoBelow said: It really makes sense to have this topic on this site, lul

Seeing how it is one of the most active topics on the front page I think you may be wrong in your assumption
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Leahmon
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: laserpig]
#10777266 - 07/31/09 09:00 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
laserpig said:
Quote:
suburbantoker said: Just because you know a few productive tweakers doesn't mean that the majority of them are in the slightest. It is a drug that for a fact ruins lives .
My experience (just like everyone else's) is limited, but I truly do not believe that a drug can ruin anyone's life. The worst that can happen is that someone whose life is already in danger of falling apart happens upon a particular drug and uses it as their "out" to avoid taking care of themselves. Certain drugs are an easier out than others, and drugs in general are perhaps an easier out than other addictions like, say, gambling, or poor diet, or whatever, but that does not mean these drugs are inherently bad.
do you include meth/crack/etc
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niteowl
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: Leahmon]
#10777394 - 07/31/09 09:33 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Leahmon said:
Quote:
laserpig said:
Quote:
suburbantoker said: Just because you know a few productive tweakers doesn't mean that the majority of them are in the slightest. It is a drug that for a fact ruins lives .
My experience (just like everyone else's) is limited, but I truly do not believe that a drug can ruin anyone's life. The worst that can happen is that someone whose life is already in danger of falling apart happens upon a particular drug and uses it as their "out" to avoid taking care of themselves. Certain drugs are an easier out than others, and drugs in general are perhaps an easier out than other addictions like, say, gambling, or poor diet, or whatever, but that does not mean these drugs are inherently bad.
do you include meth/crack/etc
Of course.
Drugs are not bad in and of them selves.
I have done cocaine (powder and crack) and meth. I have smoked, snorted and injected said drugs and don't have a problem with them.
I have only done meth perhaps 20 times in the last ~15 years. Coke I tend to only do once every 4-6 weeks....if I have the extra cash I have never became addicted to any of it.
Personal responsibility is up to the individual.........not the government.
-------------------- Live for the moment you are in nowDon't be bogged down by your pastDon't be afraid of what lies in your future
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Leahmon
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: niteowl]
#10777496 - 07/31/09 10:00 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
niteowl said:
Quote:
Leahmon said:
Quote:
laserpig said:
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suburbantoker said: Just because you know a few productive tweakers doesn't mean that the majority of them are in the slightest. It is a drug that for a fact ruins lives .
My experience (just like everyone else's) is limited, but I truly do not believe that a drug can ruin anyone's life. The worst that can happen is that someone whose life is already in danger of falling apart happens upon a particular drug and uses it as their "out" to avoid taking care of themselves. Certain drugs are an easier out than others, and drugs in general are perhaps an easier out than other addictions like, say, gambling, or poor diet, or whatever, but that does not mean these drugs are inherently bad.
do you include meth/crack/etc
Of course.
Drugs are not bad in and of them selves.
I have done cocaine (powder and crack) and meth. I have smoked, snorted and injected said drugs and don't have a problem with them.
I have only done meth perhaps 20 times in the last ~15 years. Coke I tend to only do once every 4-6 weeks....if I have the extra cash I have never became addicted to any of it.
Personal responsibility is up to the individual.........not the government.
They don't have crack and meth laws to relinquish our personal freedoms, they do it to protect people. Eating mushrooms once a week will do far less damage than smoking meth once a week. I have dabbled in my fair share of crack/coke and heroin but I still don't think it should be legal. Just because you and I have practiced moderation and responsibility (if that's what you would call it) doesn't mean other people are. I don't and will never categorize recreational or long-term entheogen use with prolonged crack/meth use. It's just not remotely the same physically, mentally, or emotionally.
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niteowl
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: Leahmon]
#10777671 - 07/31/09 10:45 PM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Leahmon said: They don't have crack and meth laws to relinquish our personal freedoms, they do it to protect people. Eating mushrooms once a week will do far less damage than smoking meth once a week. I have dabbled in my fair share of crack/coke and heroin but I still don't think it should be legal. Just because you and I have practiced moderation and responsibility (if that's what you would call it) doesn't mean other people are. I don't and will never categorize recreational or long-term entheogen use with prolonged crack/meth use. It's just not remotely the same physically, mentally, or emotionally.
You don't understand that making any drug illegal is not going to stop people from using.
I really doesn't matter what it is is.....you can become addicted to it. Should everything that is addictive or unhealthy be made illegal? You can become addicted to fast food, it is very unhealthy and can kill you in the long haul.
Should we make fast food illegal?
Of course not.
It is up to each individual to choose a healthy diet. The same thing applies to drugs. I should be able to go to the store and buy a 8 ball of coke (or a gram of meth) for the weekend if I want. Just like I can eat a greasy hamburger if I want.
Drug laws restrict my right to choose.
-------------------- Live for the moment you are in nowDon't be bogged down by your pastDon't be afraid of what lies in your future
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Leahmon
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: niteowl]
#10778522 - 08/01/09 02:42 AM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
niteowl said:
Quote:
Leahmon said: They don't have crack and meth laws to relinquish our personal freedoms, they do it to protect people. Eating mushrooms once a week will do far less damage than smoking meth once a week. I have dabbled in my fair share of crack/coke and heroin but I still don't think it should be legal. Just because you and I have practiced moderation and responsibility (if that's what you would call it) doesn't mean other people are. I don't and will never categorize recreational or long-term entheogen use with prolonged crack/meth use. It's just not remotely the same physically, mentally, or emotionally.
You don't understand that making any drug illegal is not going to stop people from using.
I really doesn't matter what it is is.....you can become addicted to it. Should everything that is addictive or unhealthy be made illegal? You can become addicted to fast food, it is very unhealthy and can kill you in the long haul.
Should we make fast food illegal?
Of course not.
It is up to each individual to choose a healthy diet. The same thing applies to drugs. I should be able to go to the store and buy a 8 ball of coke (or a gram of meth) for the weekend if I want. Just like I can eat a greasy hamburger if I want.
Drug laws restrict my right to choose. 
I completely understand where you're coming from but I disagree. You seem to be making it very black and white: Make all drugs legal (which would increase the usage by tons and will result in much more drug related violence and death) or keep certain extremely harmful drugs illegal (crack and meth) and stay at the rate we're at. I'll say it again.. I don't think mushrooms, pot, lsd, dmt, and certain other drugs should be illegal. I can access it easily anyway (and even grow/manufacture my own) so it is SO not worth the extra lives universal drug legality could inevitably ruin just because I get the impulse to hit a crack pipe one evening. There are responsible people who dose in moderation, but the fact is that most are not. If I were given the ultimatum of everything illegal or everything legal, I would rather be inconvenienced by tight ass drug laws than endanger idiotic or vulnerable people who may or may not let the drug ruin their lives. It is selfish rationality that just because you can use in moderation means every single person should have access to that product when you know it will harm people.
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AsAboveSoBelow
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: Leahmon]
#10778542 - 08/01/09 02:51 AM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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How many times are people going to say that making all drugs legal will increase usage? Evidence? Yeah There is No Evidence, Thanks For Playing
As Niteowl just said 100 times - Portugal
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You're gonna get hurt real bad They that sow the wind, shall reap the whirlwind
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niteowl
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: Leahmon]
#10779228 - 08/01/09 10:01 AM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Quote:
Leahmon said: Make all drugs legal (which would increase the usage by tons and will result in much more drug related violence and death) or keep certain extremely harmful drugs illegal (crack and meth) and stay at the rate we're at. I'll say it again.. I don't think mushrooms, pot, lsd, dmt, and certain other drugs should be illegal. I can access it easily anyway (and even grow/manufacture my own) so it is SO not worth the extra lives universal drug legality could inevitably ruin just because I get the impulse to hit a crack pipe one evening.
There you go again making gross assumptions about something that has NEVER happened.
Every country that has decriminalized drugs noticed that there was NO INCREASE IN DRUG ABUSE.
You argument holds no water.
Your fear mongering has NO BASIS IN REALITY.
NONE WHAT SO EVER.
So please stop using the same tired argument that drug abuse will go up when all evidence points to the exact opposite.
I have shown proof that legalizing drugs does NOT cause an increase in drug abuse.
Please show me evidence that drug use would go up if drugs were legalized.
Not your 'opinion'. I want evidence that your theory is true.
-------------------- Live for the moment you are in nowDon't be bogged down by your pastDon't be afraid of what lies in your future
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Kada
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: niteowl]
#10779250 - 08/01/09 10:09 AM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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Niteowl makes some damn fine sense.
-------------------- ~The Cultivators Motherload~ "I am free, no matter what rules surround me. If I find them tolerable, I tolerate them; if I find them too obnoxious, I break them. I am free because I know that I alone am morally responsible for everything I do." -Robert A. Heinlein "There is no need for temples, no need for complicated philosophies. My brain and my heart are my temples; my philosophy is kindness."-Dalai Lama Live long and prosper.
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niteowl
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Re: Drug Legality Poll [Re: Kada]
#10779270 - 08/01/09 10:15 AM (14 years, 5 months ago) |
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-------------------- Live for the moment you are in nowDon't be bogged down by your pastDon't be afraid of what lies in your future
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