"Legalize Marijuana" Claims Grandparents in a New Poll: 85% Oppose Prohibition of the Plant

GRAND Magazine's Poll on Pot: 85% of their readers prefer legalizing pot to prohibition.
GRAND, a website dedicated to today’s GRANDparents, and their GRANDkids, asked their readers to chime on on their thoughts about marijuana prohibition.
Overwhelmingly, their body of evidence being grand experience, they voiced their opinions positively towards legalizing pot.
According to their website, when asked the following:
Is it time to legalize marijuana?
GRAND Readers responded:
YES: 85%
NO: 15%
Here are some responses:
YES. “I have seen firsthand the good effects it had on people undergoing chemotherapy and those with certain other ailments that cause problems with nausea and eating problems.”

YES. “Personally, I think a cash crop might just be the way out of this hellish recession. Legalize it. Tax it. Take it out of the underground community. It’s time!”

NO. “An early effect of marijuana and hashish use is a progressive loss of will power [which]…weakens the ability to resist coercion, so that marijuana users too often fall victim to hard drug pushers, extortionists, and deviates.” [This quote, cited by the reader, is by Dr. Franz E. Winkler]

Do you agree with the majority? Email GRAND and tell us how you really feel!

Here are more responses from GRAND Magazine readers:

PRO
(IN FAVOR OF LEGALIZATION/DECRIMINALIZATION)

Legalize it. Decriminalize it. Separate kids who smoke from criminals.
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Taking it out of the criminal arena frees our police to attend to the more serious crimes, and forces the discussion of how/when/whether to use marijuana back to the family & the community.
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Logic, dialogue, experience, and thoughtfulness will replace the black & white issue of legality, behind which so many people hide, as they don’t understand what marijuana is and does. Its legalization should inspire discussions as to what our responsibilities are to ourselves and our community when deciding how/when/whether to use all of the lifestyle or occasional choices we face that involve our physical, mental and spiritual health. When adults respond from fear, or place blame, they miss a tremendous opportunity to explore the child’s experience, to understand what the child wants and obtains from smoking or eating marijuana.
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Marijuana can be a tool. If used in a purposeful way, it can help us explore our feelings, such as shyness. Under some circumstances it can be an insightful tool in specific, planned family discussions. It has been used by many cultures for self-examination in rituals. And self-examination, particularly under the tutelage of a wise elder, is sorely lacking in this society.
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We have so much to learn in order to make legalization work. We must explore our values – do we hold productivity above all else, or do we have room for poetry? The larger question is, how quickly can we attain the skills we need to work within the framework of legalized marijuana? How quickly can we become Wise Elders instead of merely informed old folks?
………………..
Sooner or later our representatives will have enough political rightness to vote Yes on decriminalizing marijuana. Why? It costs too much money to continually put folks in jail because they like to use marijuana in cookies or salad dressings. How much money are we willing to spend putting people in jail for possession? The revenue gained by the states and Federal government could help fund other things than war. We need to grow up.
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Yes. I have seen firsthand the good effects it had on people undergoing chemotherapy and those with certain other ailments that cause problems with nausea and eating problems.

Some strains out there are much, much stronger than when I was younger, being laced with all kinds of things, which may lead kids to try alternate drugs, but, in my opinion, if it were legalized and more regulated, it may curb some of the more highly potent varieties and put things on an more even keel.
………………..
YES. Decriminalize marijuana.

I am a 60 Something who lived through the counter-culture behaviors in my college years. I think we should legalize Pot. I know people who have ruined their lives with it. On the other hand, I have only tried it twice, finding it unimpressive. Of course, in my college days, the fraternity parties were a wild affair with lots of drinking, yet I rarely drank. I think Pot should be regulated in the same way alcoholic beverages are regulated. I don’t like the current trend of Pot shops masking as medical dispensaries, though I do think medical marijuana should be available – through a doctor’s prescription. In short, though people may abuse Pot, people also abuse alcohol, but it is legal – but regulated. Criminalizing the use of a substance that has less harmful effects than alcohol seems silly. Although I don’t use Pot, many upstanding citizens do use Pot on occasion, without going into hard drugs. Of course, people who use hard drugs may very well start with Pot – and also probably alcohol. Put, plenty of people use Pot and don’t use other drugs. Plenty more people abuse alcohol and become alcoholics….so, it’s not illegal.
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Yes, decriminalize marijuana now. What a waste of time and money to keep trying out “prohibition” again.
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In my opinion, not only should pot be legal, we should try to encourage marijuana use over alcohol as a recreational substance for adults. As cited in the promo to the question, we could save billions on investigation, court costs and prison terms. We could also gain revenues not just from taxing the product, but, because with it being legal the careers of those growing, transporting and selling the product would be legal and the income taxable.
………………..
Make pot legal.
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Personally, I think a cash crop might just be the way out of this hellish recession.
Legalize it. Tax it. Take it out of the underground community. It’s time!

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If you are a prohibitionist then you need to answer the following questions:

Why do you rejoice at the fact that we have all been stripped of our 4th amendment rights and are now totally subordinate to a corporatized, despotic government with a heavily armed and corrupt, militarized police force whose often deadly intrusions into our homes and lives are condoned by an equally corrupt and spineless judiciary?

Why do you wish to continue to spend $50 billion a year to prosecute and cage your fellow citizens and your own grandchildren for choosing drugs which are not more dangerous than those of which you yourself use and approve of such as alcohol and tobacco?

Why are you willing to waste another trillion dollars on this garbage policy?

Why do you need to wage war on your own family, friends and neighbors?

Why are you happy that America has the largest prison population of the whole planet?

Why are you helping to fuel a budget crisis to the point of closing schools and libraries?

Why are you helping to waste precious resources on prohibition related undercover work while rapists and murderers walk free?

Why are you also not concerned that many cases involving murder and rape do not get taken to trial because law enforcement priorities are subverted by your beloved failed and dangerous policy of prohibition?

Why are you such a fan of the prison-industrial-complex to the point of even endangering your own grandchildren?

Will you applaud when, due to your incipient authoritarian approach, your own grandchild is caged and raped?

Will you also applaud when your own grandchild, due to an unnecessary and counter productive felony conviction, can no longer find employment?

 

To read the original poll, click here.

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