Classic "I'm a pro drug guy" comments here. "I've never been that high so they must have been on some other drug". Guess what dumbass, everyone is different and reality is subjective. I've heard of many people having similar experiences on edible marijuana. Just because it didn't happen to YOU, does not mean it cannot be that way for others!! And how can you say "with confidence" about a situation you have no facts from? You can't. And to top it off you dismiss this person's experience by suggesting they could be mentally Ill. Pretty weak man.

The difference between smoking and say, drinking alcohol or eating unhealthy food, is that I can drink alcohol or eat cheeseburgers all day and I'm really harming no-one but myself.

"Ah, but people drive drunk and get in fights and do stupid things and cause all sorts of trouble"
Agreed, and we have laws against all those things. If you get drunk and kill someone, off to jail with you.

"Yes, but fat people are an enormous cost on the health system"
This is hard to discuss without going into the whole healthcare mess in the US, but as a broad point, it's nigh impossible to legislate against unhealthy behaviours to ones self. Where do you stop? Eating meat? Salt? Not exercising enough? What about people with disabilities?

But smoking? That directly and provably harms OTHER people in the same environment as you and they really have no recourse. If I walked into a public square swinging a sword around, it's not reasonable to say other people should just get out of my way.

So ultimately, as much as I dislike government legislating what you do to yourself (read my post history, I'm very pro-drug), I am ok with legislating that you cannot do something that harms other people in a public place.

Hell, I'd go further. I'm ok with government legislating that you can't smoke in your own home if, for example, you have kids. They didn't ask to live there, and it was your decision to have them, so sorry, no smoking for you.

And yeah, I'd say the same about alcohol. If your drinking is harming your children, then maybe you shouldn't have kids anymore.

You also might have heard that it was an extremely close election, and the balance was tipped by adding several anti-slavery states over the span of several decades once popular sovereignty became the political compromise to determine whether slavery would be legal or not in the new territories. I'm thinking it's a little late to go invade Mexico, carve it up into states that are pro-drug, and join them to the Union by now.

The issue of illegal drugs isn't particularly regional. IE, you won't win a bunch of states if you favor it at the cost of losing some. Prior to the Civil War, strongly opposing slavery would help you win Northern states, at the cost of the southern states. Then, it simply became how to turn a state or two left to win the presidency. If you favor legalizing drugs, there's little assurance you gain any states quite honestly, so it's not a viable campaign strategy.

And note that Lincoln won in 1860, not 1820. He'd never have been elected in 1820.

I don't mean a pro-drug legalization candidate will never win the presidency. I simply mean Obama, even if he did favor legalization of pot or other illegal drugs, knows it would seriously jeopardize his chances of winning. I also think he doesn't consider it a priority even if he did favor it. He's far more focused on the economy and foreign policy.

>> ^messenger:

Lincoln, so I've heard, was elected on a pro-slavery platform.>> ^heropsycho:
Obama, like any another politician, can't do jack unless he's elected. The US is not going to elect someone in favor of legalizing pot. This has nothing to do with what's the right policy.

>> ^Boise_Lib:

He has a very euro-centric view of world history.

Makes a change, doesn't it.

>> ^asynchronice:
And I'm sorry it's flat out irresponsible to imply that " Doctors LOVE to use the term 'baby in distress' to force people into have a caesar or force things along with drugs, or using suction or forceps or the like... because they know that without any other knowledge, if you suggest to parent's to be that their unborn baby might be in danger, you'll leap." Great idea, let's cause everyone to second guess their doctor on the assumption they want you OUT of the hospital more than they want a safe birth. That will end great. (on that note, anyone who works at a hospital knows what happens when a nurse tries to correct a doctor)

But experience with us, and many, many other mothers that we know and have read about time and time again here in Australia and overseas bears this to be true in far, far too many cases. It's not something you can just do if you have no support... you don't have the medical training to know otherwise, and they DO prey on that, we have many friends who have been forced down the path of intervention for no good, sound, medical reason. These types of doctors may think that they are doing what's best, but they're coming from the point of view of putting intervention being preferable to nature. Midwives take take the point of view of letter nature do its best, and ONLY if necessary intervene.

Absolutely there are cases that require intervention, but the figures bear out that intervention is far, far higher than it needs to be, ESPECIALLY in the private medical sector. In Australia we have public and private hospitals, and intervention and caesar rates are FAR higher in the private sector... just as an example, vaginal birth for public patients 72.6%, in private 49.7%, both numbers are far, far lower than they should be, but this study tried to remove all factors to do with actual risk (they were low risk births) and yet, look at that whopping difference in figures. There is NO NEED for so many interventions, it's bad for the mother, it's bad for the baby, but it's what doctors schooled in a particular way want because it's predictable. Not better, just predictable, they don't like the uncertain wait, it's more effort.


However, it doesn't take a whole lot of imagination to see the options laid out in front of you. C-section is less painful; is it right ? Well, up to you, the long term effects are minimally debatable. And my wife can attest the VAST majority of women who want no drugs and to have a natural birth are SCREAMING for drugs and threatening lawsuits if they don't get them come push-time.
Ahh, but you're looking at things in the wrong way, far too much the current society is moving towards 'why have pain if you don't have to'? Well, because it's not pointless pain, it's pain which women are built for, and as much as you'll probably scoff, it's amazingly empowering for a woman to give birth with no medical assistance. The feeling of power to be able to do that, to push through the pain, to give birth ALL ON THEIR own is something which stays with women for life. Take that away from them, repeatedly offer them drugs or an operation and deprive them of that experience is such a horribly narrow/short sighted vision on childbirth. The women who start on the natural path and opt for the drugs in almost all cases have a number of things against them:
* Ill prepared for the pain: My wife and I went to natural childbirthing classes where the pain is explained in full is not shied away from, but also prepared for. You are really shown how to get through it and grow from it (I almost guarantee you're rolling your eyes at this point at the 'new ageness' of all this).
* Ill prepared for the medical system: During our first birth which wasn't in a family birth centre (who are more geared towards natural births) due to the nature of our first born's heart condition, we had a doctor who would continually pop his head in and ask if she wanted an epidural. This constant dangling of 'you want the pain to go away' is enough to wear down the most ardent of natural birth advocates if you don't have others who instead of offering the drug relief offer other ways such as walking around, hot showers, back rubs, ice... etc. etc. Yes it hurts, yes it's excruciating, but after three natural births with no drugs, my wife for one wouldn't have had it any other way.
Poor support team: If you have people around you who aren't prepared to see you in pain and support you through it and help you, but are getting more worked up than you and are suggesting you take the easy way out, it's just such a hard battle. You need people who are in it with you who are there to support the natural method.

It shouldn't be that hard to have a natural birth, but unfortunately you need to come so, so forearmed these days because of how against it the medical system is, and that's a sad, sad indictment on the system as it stands.


And the health care system, ya it's flawed, but that's a whole other documentary. And besides, isn't a midwife working for profit in this system as well ? Does making less than a doctor make them more noble or even better ?

The midwife is working for profit in this model, well in our model because we had an independent one, but that's only because the vast majority of the free midwives provided in the free system are far too pro drugs, pro intervention. In New Zealand for example, you can claim the cost of your independent midwife and home birth costs, and they have much, much lower intervention rates than Australia. If the system provided training with natural being the first and best option over intervention instead of the other way round, then people like us wouldn't have to pay for a good midwife.

The bottom line is that intervention rates in countries like Australia and the US are far, far above what they should be, and countries where natural birth has a higher focus bear this out to be true. If a woman can give birth with NO intervention (not drugs, not surgery, not forceps or suction) then she should be given ALL and EVERY opportunity to do so, for if she does it will make her a much, much stronger woman. To be able to know that you, alone, gave birth to your children, rather than having that taken away from you and given to the doctors is the way it should be, and sadly isn't for so many women...

It's stuff like this that made me stop contributing here. Seriously, I'm willing to listen to both sides of the argument as much as the next guy but when people are constantly pushing anti-Christian, anti-American, pro-Drug videos without any opposing views I can't help but be disgusted with it.

Have whatever opinions you like but let's take a neutral look at both sides of the issue instead of being primarily extreme liberal/libertarian propaganda.

*I give it 24 hours before someone wrongly accuses me of supporting Bush, the War in Iraq, or being a fundamentalist prude*

Again from imdb

Fairbanks, who was a coke addict in real life, stars in this film. It's funny simply for the fact that it's an unapologetic pro-drug comedy, though if you don't find that kind of thing funny, you won't find this movie interesting at all. In fact it seems like the movie was made on drugs, the titles go by so quickly that you'd have to be a member of Mensa just to read them without pausing. The plot is nonexistent, it's just a series of cheap drug gags, in the vein of Cheech & Chong had they lived in 1915.