<% ballot="33031" ' Check nothing is broken broken = 0 if ballot = "" then broken = 1 end if set vt = Server.Createobject("mps.Vote") openresult = vt.Open("Vote", "sa", "") ' Created object? if IsObject(vt) = TRUE then ' Opened db? if openresult = True AND broken = 0 then ballotresult = vt.SetBallotName(ballot) ' read the vote votetotal=(vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "yes")+vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "no")) if votetotal <> 0 then ' there are votes in the database numberyes = vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "yes") numberno = vt.GetVoteCount(ballot, "no") percentyes = Int((numberyes/votetotal)*100) percentno = 100 - percentyes ' fix graph so funny graph heights dont appear 'if percentyes = 0 then ' percentyes = 1 'end if 'if percentno = 0 then ' percentno = 1 'end if else ' summut went wrong frig it numberyes = 0 numberno = 0 percentyes = 50 percentno = 50 end if end if end if %> Votes so far:

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I have been smoking the last 10 years. I`ve been in work all the time, and has never done anything criminal. I think alcohol is much more dangerous. And it`s a myth that cannabis leads to harder drugs. I think most of the hard-drugs users started with booze or other kinds of alcohol. Who has the right to stop me smoking my saturday-night joint ?
Kristian Soltvedt, Norway

If the American Medical Association AND the British Medical Association both support legalising it, then legalise it! (And I hope you enjoyed my proper British spelling of "legalize")
Adam, USA

I think as adults we are capable of deciding for ourselves whether to use a relatively harmless substance such as cannabis.
It is time for common sense to prevail, for the government to call a halt to the 'nanny' state and to legitimise what is a much less harmful substance than alcohol or tobacco.
And I don't even use it myself.
John Clark, England

It seems a bit illogical to want to ban tobacco advertising while thinking about decriminalising cannabis. The evidence is that soft drug users go on to harder ones. I for one am tired of the plea in mitigation in court is "Me lud, my client committed this murder/rape (whatever) under the influence of drugs and drink." Condemned out of their own mouths.
Claire Powell, Belgium

Of course it should be. There are genuine medical benefits for sick people. Not only that, but hemp could finally be produced which would be healthy for the environment. All the "war on drugs" has done is make dealers wealthy and politicians self-serving.
Dan Wentzel, USA

Keeping cannabis criminalised is costly and immoral! It should definitely be legally available to everyone.
Steffen Mikalsen, Norway

Of course it should. I'd like to know why the Government thinks it has any right at all to decide what I can smoke. I'm satisfied I know the risks, and if one day I drop dead of it, it will have been my own fault and my own responsibility.
Sam, England

Yes, also recreational cannabis should be legalised and properly taxed (as much as possible to be still competitive with the black market). This would avoid some money going to the illegal traders, even if their largest profits come from hard drugs, hopefully it would make some of that money going into the state budget and maybe it would discourage people from using cannabis since the thrill of the forbidden vanishes.
V Riccardo, Italia

The only thing thats dangers about pot is the fear that you live with of getting busted. And the amount of jail you get.
Bic, Australia

During the last couple of years the home growing of hemp has increased enormously here in Finland. But also the police raids against it has increased. The results of this have been contradictory: recently one guy got 5 years and 9 months prison sentence for a green house full and at the same time two guys were sentenced for less than 2 years for dealing hard drugs like 500 grams of speed, some heroin and some ecstasy. So it looks like we are a long way from legalising cannabis not to speak from sensible drug politics!
Risto, Finland

YES YES YES It should be legal as it has been voted for here in San Jose. The people who are terminal or suffering with pain are allowed to purchase the drug with a note from their doctor at a declared Cannabis house that is also far away from any child related dwelling or establishment.
Ian Bailey, USA

Marijuana is not a threat to the mental or physical health of anyone, unless it is abused. Just like alcohol, most people can handle it, as long as they stay below excess.
Fifo Conavicte, Italy

The Netherlands shows us that "legal" use / possession is a far better situation than that caused by prohibition.
Frank, USA

The suffering my mother suffered while dying from cancer would have been much fewer and far between had she had access to legal prescribed Marijuana. It's prohibition is a crime against the laws of god.
Melissa Raikos, USA

The hypocrisy of public policy with regards to soft drug use should end. Nicotine and alcohol are "legal" highs despite their proven dangers. Why not recognise the comparatively benign nature of a drug used by millions of citizens around the world? I'm sure our governments would enjoy the savings in budget expenditures and new taxation income from marijuana. The worst form of civil disobedience to be expected from a recreational user? As opposed to the pub brawls and broken shop windows caused by irresponsible users of alcohol, the worst a marijuana user could do would be to eat all the bar snacks!
P. Tosh, Canada

It's time to shift the cannabis paradigm, The general population is with this issue, and the corporations and governments will just have to ease up with their control issues, and put more trust in the people!
Mark Bais, Canada

What we do with our own bodies that doesn't endanger the lives of others is not the governments, nor anyone else's business.
The outragous claims that resulted in cannabis being made illegal in most nations have been debunked. Its time to admit that we were wrong in making it illegal, and stop the madness of putting hundreds of thousands of people in jail for a personal choice.
Dan DeVoe, USA

Certainly it should be legal for doctors to prescribe. As for recreational use, it is doubtful, but not entirely out of the question, if care is taken to mollify the effects on society. It is already commonly used, although illegal, so it may not make much difference.
Alan Light, North Carolina, USA

Whatever is prohibited tends to be extremely attractive. There is no reason to believe cannabis is a threat to any nation's health. One can argue it can be detrimental for an individual's health. However, so can be tobacco and alcohol. On the other hand, it would be necessary to tax those profiting from cannabis trade quite heavily.
Alexey Cokin, Russia

I believe that to legalise cannabis would be ridiculous. All the evidence from Holland points to this being the start of a very slippery slope.
David Smith, United Kingdom

It's legal to kill a cow and eat it, and illegal to pick a plant and smoke it. This is not reasonable.
No-one has ever been reported to have died from cannabis, and the lethal dose is probably 40,000 times the effective dose. For alcohol the ratio is 10, for caffeine 100 and similar for the prescription drugs for which cannabis is used as an alternative. Banning a less harmful and less expensive alternative to patented medicines is not reasonable either -- except from drug companies point of view.
Petrus Pennanen, Finland

As you may know, if you follow politics in the US, California by means of proposition 215 legalized the use of cannabis for medical purposes. Although this is a long way from full legalization, it's a start.
The idea of full legalization of cannabis in California and the US as a whole is not widely accepted, though it should be. In the early 1900s an ammendment to the US Constitution illegalized alcohol, when it was realized that all this did was force alcohol consumption into a black market, the ammendment was reversed. The same applies to cannabis and other drugs. Regulation of cannabis and other drugs not prohibition is in my opinion optimal.
Daniel Bersohn, California

The countries of the world should consider legalization of so-called "soft drugs" such as marijuanna. This would allow law enforcement officials to concentrate on highly addictive drugs such as heroin and cocaine, and better yet, government tax revenues could be generated if it was a legal substance. Law enforcement dollars could be split between combating other drugs and educating young people about the pros and cons of its use.
John W. Plummer, USA

I believe the War on Drugs is an abomination.
It creates crime.
It creates child drug users.
It creates child drug dealers.
It persecutes innocent people.
It creates mistrust of the government.
It creates mistrust of the law.
It is an abomination.
Steven Proffitt, United States

A powerful medicinal plant. Sure it has side-effects, but it is a mercy drug. Nothing evil or illegal about nature.
Rev. MeO, USA

Legalize it, tax it, provide informed educational campaigns about it to those would-be smokers (12-18), and be done with it. The fact is, people are smoking it, massively, and they're not going to stop for politicians & War On (Some) Drug Hysteria.
Todd Brendan Fahey, USA

It is insane for governments around the world to be locking up citizens for smoking a marij cigarette instead of a nicotine cigarette! The latter is the more dangerous!
Albert R. Dilley, Michigan, USA

Cannabis is a drug much like nicotine and alcohol, both of which are very much legal in most parts of the world. Indeed, both of the latter are integral parts of many countries' cultures. Yet cannabis (which has been proven to have a vastly lower incidence of addiction compared to nicotine) continues to be classified as an illicit substance, compared to tobacco and alcohol.
As a university student who recreationally and responsibly enjoys all three, I see little reason for the continued, artifcial and overly contrived distinction between cannabis and its long-legal counterparts tobacco and alcohol.
Aaron Chai, Canada

All drugs should be legalised and their use made a matter of personal choice. The money saved from ineffectual policing and raised through taxation should be spent on education and rehabilitation. Few, when given a properly informed choice, would take drugs like heroin but the benefits of bringing its use out into the open would be great.
John Dudmesh, United Kingdom

Tobacco kills 120,000 people a year in the UK - Cannabis kills 0. Yet the government spends 100 million pounds a year subsidising the tobacco industry. Sure, I think it should be legalised.
Brian Milner, United Kingdom

Neither side in the legalisation argument puts forward calm and accurate arguments. Neither side in the legalisation debate puts forward facts not tinged by their opinion on the subject. Those against are passionately against, those for are passionately for but those of us in the middle have no properly-founded idea of who is right.
Tommy, England

Well, this vote seems to suggest that most people who visited this page are in favor of legalizing pot (and that includes myself as an enthusiastic user of MJ). Or maybe advocates of prohibition are somewhat overwhelmed with apathy from all the compelling arguments.
Niek Sprakel, Netherlands

Most threatened by the legalising of cannabis are of course the huge vested interests in the tobacco and alcohol industries, not least the taxman. As for cannabis leading to other drugs, nobody smoked cannabis without smoking tobacco first. The Dutch approach has led to the separation of cannabis from harder drugs at the point of sale. I have teenage sons and I would much rather they used cannabis than alcohol or tobacco.
Mark Edmonds, Holland

The majority of people who know any of the facts about Marijuana can see that it is illegal due to intense lobbying since the 1920's by the drug conglomerates who do not want their market destroyed by cheap alternatives to their expensive drugs. Most people calling for it to continue be illegal are ill informed and form their opinions based upon the propaganda coming from these sources, and rarely have any direct experience of the drugs itself or first hand access to the research data.
Johnny Scott, England

Of course cannabis should be legalised. Why on earth would we want to prohibit something that can help so many people? It doesn't make any sense. The most harmful side effect of cannabis use is the cost of jailing these otherwise law-abiding citizens for trying to make their lives a little more bearable.
Shaun Hensher, Canada

Prohibition is not only a costly failure that escalates violence and corruption, Prohibition is also an IMMORAL policy!
Tom Bouril, USA

Cannabis remains illegal because of special interests that profit by keeping it that way. The pharmaceutical companies do not want a natural (free) alternative available at the expense of their patented synthetics. Law enforcement justifies ever larger budget requests in part by padding "crime" statistics with cannabis arrests. (Over 640,000 last year in the U.S.). Finally, consider the major industries whose profits would fall if there were A natural, low cost alternative to their products,( i.e.-competition) in the Form of cannabis Hemp. Paper, cotton, synthetic fibres, fuel, food, and the chemical giants whose chemicals help to produce these products. All of them major political contributors. Consider these points, and you can see why the government resists every effort to legalise cannabis. It would be biting the hand that feeds them.
Peter K. DeCamp, USA

A quick glance at the statistics for drug deaths show that cigarettes and alcohol cause far more harm than all other drugs combined. Why is it that a relatively safe drug such as marijuana is repressed? It is a natural human drive to seek out drug experiences. Why not encourage the safer ones? Marijuana use causes little harm to the individual, and none to the society. Marijuana prohibition causes great harm to individuals and the society.
Christian Gersch, Australia

Society's obligation to respond humanely to the small fraction of drug users who are really addicted does not justify enforcing total abstinence on all the world's citizens. Most of the currently prohibited pleasure drugs have both pro-social uses (medicinal and psychotherapeutic) and innocent 'social' uses. People have a right to use these drugs for innocent and beneficial purposes. Blanket prohibition causes far more harm than good. Legalize and regulate!
Paul Bischke, USA

I don't know how Tony Blair can look at the results of 60 years of U.S. prohibitionist drug policy and want to copy it. You wisely decided not to copy us when we tried alcohol prohibition; I hope you'll be equally sensible about cannabis. Copy the Dutch example instead! It makes much more sense.
Steve Wellcome, USA

Cannabis users experience a fraction of the physical harm caused by the legal recreational drugs, and suffer virtually none of the social costs. It makes absolutely no sense why it is illegal anywhere.
Jeff Runfeldt, U.S.A

Marijuana is a herb. Sometimes I smoke the herb. Sometimes I drink mint tea. Sometimes I take powdered golden seal root. Sometimes a little camomille tea. Sometimes I put aloe vera on a burn. Sometimes put a comfrey leaf on a sprain. Where is the crime?
Anonymous

I feel that current attempts to simply prohibit human behavior out of hand are woefully misguided. Prohibition creates problems worse than the ones the policy is meant to solve. In such a case, a rational re-evaluation of policy is clearly in order.
Bo Lawler, USA

What's more dangerous: guns or marijuana? Here in the USA we have a constitutional right to own guns, yet marijuana is outlawed. And, largely to drug prohibition laws, we incarcerate a larger fraction of our population than red China. It doesn't make any sense to me. Seems like the drug war, USA-style is the witch-hunt of the 90s, much akin to the red scares of the 50s. What should be outlawed is irrational mass hysteria.
L L Williams, USA

Dozens of official reports from around the world, as well as common sense, all conclude that trying to prohibit cannabis causes more problems than the cannabis itself ever could.
Hugh Robertson, Scotland

How can one justify the relentless persecution of those whose only "crime" is the ingestion of a politically incorrect substance? I have asked this question literally hundreds of times- and so far no one has ever been able to provide a rational answer. Any takers?
Ken, USA

It is so unfair that decent people who have chocen cannabis as their recreational drug over alcohol (which is far more dangerous) get prosecuted and labelled as drug addicts. And there are so many studies of cannabis and almost all of them have concluded that cannabis doesn't cause any harmful effects to body or mind and that it doesnt cause addiction or lead to hard drugs. Legalize it!
Erno Koitere, Finland

Yes, cannabis should be fully legalised. Most importantly, everyone must have the right to grow lovingly reared, organic plants in the comfort of their own home.
Sarah Nelson, UK

More nations should stand up to American bullying over drug policy. The totalitarianism our "War on Drugs" has engendered should be enough to warn other nations not to yield to the economic and diplomatic extortion which is an avowed policy of the United States. I hope it is clear to other peoples that few national policies here reflect the public will. The vast majority of Americans are deeply disgusted and alarmed at the growth of the police state and the government's contempt for their welfare.
Andrew Turner, USA

Marijuana is less harmful than TV. I can prove it. Just give me one competent scientist.
Simple C, USA

The horrific human suffering perpetuated by the drug war (largely conducted by the US government) should be of great concern to all peoples of the earth. It cuts across racism, poverty, health, economy, personal freedom,and security to name a few areas affected by it. I am personally ashamed when I see how my government treats other countries when it comes to drugs. We in America would be outraged if another country came in and dictated how we should be handling a problem. In particular, I am ashamed at the pressure my government has put on your heroin maintenance program in Liverpool. This program has been nothing short of miraculous in its results. Even the Liverpool police have validated it with their own study on crime associated with heroin addicts. It just points out the insanity of drug prohibition. Keep up the hard work. Someday soon, we can all celebrate freedom!
Bruce Rideout, USA

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