Hi. Welcome to the blog for my IB English B class at Jur Hronec High School in Bratislava, Slovakia. Below you will find links to other websites and discussion questions. My students are required to comment on one of these postings every month and also respond to each other's comments. Feel free to add your two bits, but be aware that all comments are monitored before being posted.
Tuesday, November 1, 2011
Why grass does not make a slope slippery
What do you think about the Dutch policy on marijuana use? Is it hypocritical to make something illegal but to not enforce the law? Or to enforce it only for tourists and not citizens? Or to disallow advertizing for this product and not others? Do you think the author is right when she claims that the slippery slope argument does not hold in this case? That making marijuana more easily available does not lead users toward experimenting with harder drugs? Would such a policy work in Slovakia?
Alcohol and tobacco are legal in most of countries, but marijuana isn't. Why so? Marijuana is not as addictive as alcohol, you won't destroy public property after its use (in most cases) and you won't have greater urge to fight. But alcohol has been known for much longer and is part of culture of many nations, so it can't be prohibited that easily. Cannabis is more or less new, so people have prejudices. And this is the main problem of prohibition.
ReplyDeletePeople think that hallucinogens are all bad - no exceptions. Most of them are addictive or dangerous, and in this cases I agree. But it's not hallucinations what makes them risky- and people should consider that. Marijuana however is less addictive than alcohol and does less damage to your body and to your surroundings. So why not legalize it when it's clearly less danger?
In Holland, alcohol is also a part of culture. Therefore it can be advertised, bought in any amount and in every store. Marijuana is tolerated, but not as nearly as alcohol. I think, that its restrictions are mainly from the same cause as in many countries, even there are much less of them.
All in all, I think that legalizing marijuana - or at least tolerating it - would be much better than strict prohibition as in case of many hard drugs.
History of cannabis reaches all the way to the 3rd millennium BC. It has been studied countless times and numerous papers were published about the marijuana either usefulness or harmfulness. The modern world has decided to impose a ban on substances which affects our perception, except for alcohol. Why it is so, is a subject for a very long discussion, irrelevant to this comment. What I would like to address are the three major points of this article which consult whether the marijuana could not have, similarly to alcohol, an exception to the ban and how it should be done if it happened.
ReplyDeleteI find the Dutch way of doing things very appropriate. I see a very little difference between being illegal but not enforcing the law and being decriminalized. Both means that you are not acting against the law, but just that you probably should not do it. This way, they did not create an effect of “forbidden apple” which “tastes best.” This phenomena can be mostly seen in the younger groups which are the ones with the highest temptation to break the law. There were however concerns about the rapid increase in use of marijuana because of the legalization/decriminalization/not enforcing the law. These concerns were, I believe, assured with the statistics which clearly showed that the “slippery slope” did not occurred and the increase was only modest. Also since 1990s the use has been only slightly rising and falling “alongside the prevalence of retail outlet.”
I agree with the article on the fact, that one of the strong points, in fact a “key note,” in the Dutch policy is the prohibition of advertisement of marijuana. I have to say that I really like it. All of us are aware of the fact that good ads are responsible for the high sales. We cannot say we are immune to them as they may be found “on the each corner.” They try to crawl under our skin and persuade us what is best for us. Letting producers of marijuana do this, we would probably really see a huge jump of use. But this way people decide for themselves without being pushed to some direction.
What I see as a problem, is that people nowadays are way too much polarized. They are either for legalization or absolute prohibition. This approach resembles classical extremists with only exception, the extremists declaring prohibition are widely accepted. The article pointed out the problem of this topic being either black or white. Let me quote: “any talk about criticizing current policies is seen as an automatic endorsement of going to the opposite extreme.” Ideas in between are not favored by neither side and so the compromise is far from being achieved. And that is exactly what we would need.
Part 2:
ReplyDeleteThe third point I want to highlight is that marijuana actually works as some kind of prevention against “harder” drugs. The article informs us that people who smoke pot in Netherlands are less likely to experiment with other drugs then people in the U.S. and also mature out of marijuana faster than Americans. I think it results from the fact that people satisfy their “need” for a drug whatever the reasons were for it and so are not tempted to progress further into the “shadier region.” Because the difference between coffee shop and a drug-dealer is mainly in the fact that drug-dealer tries to maximize his profit and because he is already out of law, he does that by any means available to him. I still believe people are not that dumb and very highly value their lives that they would not hurt themselves consciously. And when they have sufficient mean of satisfying their tastes, they will not go to dark corner to buy from a person who absolutely does not care about their health.
Lastly, should I express my own opinion, I would be probably unrighteously considered a hippie or something. I think we should legalize almost every drug but put them under the jurisdiction of the state, and by that I even mean the distribution of them. The concept would be that the state-controlled places, for example ordinary drugstores, would be selling those drugs. This way it would be much more controllable, drug-dealers and in fact the whole drug business would be almost completely eliminated and people would not transfer diseases amongst them as they do through multiple time used infected needles. It is however based on another concept of “responsible society” which is, unfortunately, not yet achieved.
The drug policy of the Netherlands is formed by the policymakers who believe that it is better to try controlling the problem of marijuana and reducing harm instead of continuing to enforce laws with mixed results. In my opinion, there believe is in place. The article clearly provides us with information that there is nothing special about drug use in the Netherlands, and that the analyzed Dutch patterns of use are very typical for Europe. In my opinion people are making strong prejudices about the use of drugs in the Netherlands just because they are tolerant to marijuana. People often assume that Dutch drug use must be out of control, when it’s not.
ReplyDeleteMarijuana is not that addictive in comparison to other drugs, in fact it is not a hard drug at all. Tolerating a specified amount of marijuana, in my opinion, does not do harm to the country. In fact, people in the Netherlands smoking marijuana are less likely to develop their usage to a heavier habit or doing harder drugs. It is defiantly better to do soft drugs like marijuana, than hard drugs that are highly addictive. This is the beneficial result from the Dutch policy. I don’t think that it’s good to smoke marijuana, or that people should do it. It is just better for the country to tolerate people smoking marijuana in certain amounts, so that their people are not tempted to do hard drug.
I think that the law of enforcing marijuana for tourists and not for teenagers is nonsense. Why should people living in the Netherlands have less right to smoke marijuana, than people just coming for a visit to the country? The Dutch politics made this policy on marijuana so that the citizens of their country would obey and follow this policy. I also agree on disallowing advertising of marijuana. It doesn’t seem moral to me. People can be easily influenced by advertisements around them. Mainly young people or children that should not be exposed to such things may start thinking about smoking marijuana after seeing some advertisement that caught their attention.
In Slovakia, one politic party already attempted to legalize marijuana, but they failed. Marihuana is not tempting for me so I don’t necessarily support the legalization of it in our country. However, I do not say that I would mind having some coffee shops selling cannabis in certain amounts. The Dutch policy does have its negative and positive sides, and Netherlands are a country in which the limits of smoking marihuana may seem excessive, but there is no reason for us to assume that their drug system is out of control only because it is different.
The reason why the Dutch seem so astonishing to us, by disproving our presumptions that they would in fact smoke more weed than people in countries where the substance is banned, is namely because of that cannabis policy of non-enforcement. Since the drug is no longer prohibited, when consumed within the boundaries of the determined area, the so-called “coffee shops”, people tend to lack the urge to engage in experimenting with it out of pure curiosity or for other reasons. Whenever a ban is placed on something, people are immediately put in a certain mindset; Questions like “Why did they ban it?”, “What’s the fuss about? Should I try it out?” arise, which incite people to step ahead and go for it. By not banning the drug, the government has effectively rendered cannabis less interesting for people. That way the people perceive it as something casual and even reduce it down to a generic food item. Furthermore, by placing restrictions on the amount available to be consumed at a time, the government has devised an efficient way to tackle the addiction problem.
ReplyDeleteRegarding the issue with the increasing number of tourists, visiting the Netherlands only to indulge themselves in a bit of marijuana smoke, the government needn’t prohibit selling cannabis to foreign tourists as a mean to discourage them from using the drug. Instead, they could apply a more subtle approach, which might also prove to be very profitable to the country, namely by increasing the taxation on cannabis for foreign tourists. In case this tactic proves unsuccessful, the government has still the option to ban marijuana altogether, however, I consider that a last resort ace in the hole.
As far as advertising is concerned, prohibiting marijuana advertisements seems both quite logical and at the same time irrational. If we compare cannabis to alcohol or better yet tobacco, for the most part we won’t be able to spot any significant differences. They all damage the body and all come with their fair share of mind-altering capabilities. In that regard, seeing how marijuana isn’t that different from tobacco and alcohol, removing advertising rights for the product does not make much sense. However, with respect to the evident problems arising from the unrestricted use of alcohol and tobacco, the government is perhaps simply trying to avoid having to take care of yet another possibly very similar issue. If I have to put my two cents in, I fully agree with the decision not to allow marijuana vendors to freely advertise their goods.
Although the Slovak government could in theory borrow the concept and try to apply it in Slovakia, I don’t reckon the government has what it takes keep such policy up and running. Even though it is an effective way of combating underground drug trafficking, it is rather questionable whether the government even has the required personnel to enforce such law in disposition. Furthermore, it is uncertain how people would react within the first days of the legalization of cannabis. In my opinion Slovakia simply isn’t yet ready for this. Therefore, for the time being at least, I doubt that we could make much use of a drug legalization policy.
To Nina
ReplyDeleteIn my opinion the drug policy in the Netherlands is much more efficient than in other states in Europe. People think that marihuana is harmful and they can’t see any positive effect of it. However, as Nina mentioned, marihuana is not so damaging. We can compare it to alcohol. Alcohol is addictive, kills the brain cells and can cause significant problems in relationship. However, marihuana is not addictive and does not kill the brain cells. On the contrary, it increases their activity. I do not claim that we should start using the marihuana, I just want to show, that alcohol, which is in some ways much more harmful than marihuana is feely available and marihuana is not.
I’m not sure, if I’ve understood the Nina’s opinion well, but I think that Holland’s drug policy is right. Only citizens who are older than 18 years are able to buy the marihuana. And as is mentioned in the article, foreigners and stranger can’t buy any sort of marihuana. And there’s the ban on advertisement of any product made from marihuana as well.
The Netherlands is more liberal in some ways, and I think we should not denounce them for it.
@ Milan Smolík:
ReplyDeleteI agree with Milan's opinion that legalizing or at least tolerating marijuana would be much better than the strict prohibition of it, since tolerating small sales of Marijuana may prevent Dutch citizens from doing hard drugs. Milan’s statement about marijuana being less addictive than alcohol is true to some degree. On the other hand, marijuana can affect concentration, perception and reaction time up to 24 hours after it’s smoked. That is much, much longer than alcohol can affect behavior. I think we cant globally say whether doing Marijuana or drinking alcohol is better or less harmful for us.
I disagree with Milan on his opinion about people having prejudices about Marihuana just because it is “more or less new”. In my opinion people have prejudices because in their minds Marijuana is categorized as a drug. Even alcohol is a drug, but people don’t seem to realize it. Human prejudices are made by the fact that the selling of Marijuana is illegal in their country. It is something not permitted, unlike alcohol. Holland is permitting Marijuana to a certain limit. In my opinion, people living in Holland don’t have such prejudices against Marijuana. In their minds Marijuana is coded to be like alcohol:something that is permitted to a certain level. This Dutch regime of tolerating small sales of cannabis does not lead to a drug free-for-all and more or less prevents the citizens from doing hard drugs.