i just need to vent this ..........the other night i went for a meal with my sis n her bf ,her bf started up a convo on drugs and it got down to wether pot should be legal or not .he was against it and of course i fought my corner .anyway to cut a long story short i completely made a fool out of him and he had no answers to my side of the argument and in the end all he could say to any point i made was " yeah your to high to see the truth " and "weed has brain washed you into thinking its a safe drug " grrrrrrrrrr that kind of thing really pisses me off, i knew that he actualy couldnt argue with anything i said and so did everyone else there .this is exactly what is wrong with our goverments they have been taught that weed is bad all there life and even when they have been faced with the facts and can no longer make a decent argument ,they still can not except the truth .it pisses me off so bad ,and to make things even worse this guy is sat there drinking jds n coke which is a far more harmfull drug than weed ,but he just excepts alcohol as something thats ok to take .alcohol kills 1000s every week.
i know i should just chill and smile at his ignorance but it just gets to me really bad .anyone else have to deal wit people like this ?

I refer to these folks as pod people or evangelicals.

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Reformed church of Jeebus Bonsai Tree

Virtually all of the US thinks this way. The government has actually "brain washed" the general public to hate marijuana.

We all have to deal with people that don't have all the 'facts on weed'. One thing to keep in mind. I don't know anyone that is for legalization, that is advocating that it be made mandatory. Perhaps, if you could ask some questions to expand on his knowledge it might help.
You can't argue your way to changing minds. When you argue you have to make the other person wrong. You say you did that and it was obvious to everyone there, that he was just flat wrong. Win the battle lose the war. Try sopmething like this when someone tells you what they know is wrong with pot.
"You know you are right to be concerned about this. It is an important question. Let me tell you what research has shown regarding that."
Now what have you done? You have taken his objection and turned it into a question, the brother is just asking for more information. Soo... help him out. Answer his question. Example.....
"marijuana is a Gateway Drug". You know Bill, you are right to be concerned about this, I have heard the same thing. So I had to ask myself why? Why is it a gateway drug? " Because thats how people get started on the other drugs".
Thats the same thing I heard. So I did some checking and I found out some thing that was amazing to me. According to LEAP, you know the group that is going around the country trying to get 'all' drugs legalized and controlled, you know LAW ENFORCEMENT AGAINST PROHIBITION a group of former law enforcement officials less of a percentage of marijuana users go on to try other drugs, then the percentage of people that never smoked MJ and do use other more harmful drugs. They say that instead of being a 'Gateway Drug' for most people that smoke MJ, it is a terminus drug. They start smoking pot, after having tried liquor and nicotene, and they stop right there. Less tahn 1 out of 100 potheads go on to other drugs, like Oxycodene etc. which are legal drugs. Of course those other legal drugs can be addictive, and according to LEAP MJ is not addictive. Thats why it is the cheapest drug, because its not addictive. Unlike alcohol which obviuosly can be addictive. I know it suprised the hell out of me. I thought the reason it was a gateway drug was because the criminals that sell it, know its not addictive so they might try to get you to try some other drug like coke that is addictive, so they could get you hooked on something ,more expensive. And when was the last time you heard of a drug dealer asking for ID, to make sure the person buying the weed is old enough to 'use it responsibly'. If MJ is a Gateway drug and if it does lead you to try other drugs, how come 14% of the population smokes it on a regular basis, at least 20 times per month and yet less than 2% of the population is addicted to the hard drugs, like crack and heroin. You'd think that after being around since the 'hippie sixties' everyone would be addicted to these other drugs, wouldn't you?
Well... didn't mean to ramble on. Just a few thoughts on Winning the War, not just a battle. VV

you'll never win the war on weed by trying to appeal to people's rational mind. the mainstream media and government propaganda and religious right (a.k.a. the main-government-right) has done their anti-marijuana campaign job well.

to win, we must appeal eventually to the greedy, money hungry, capitalistic scum fucks who run the country, and convince them that they will make a shit load of money in it's legalization and their other industries won't decline.

this is not democratic america, this is capitalistic america.

but if you're in a conversation with a normal citizen, might i suggest peer pressure to try it...they'll probably change their mind.
"c'mon, everybody cool is doing it..."

QFT (quoted for truth)

Word! Rep for the post!

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i n h a l e , h o l d , e x h a l e.

If Pfiezer could patent and profit from cannabis I'm sure it would be legalized tomorrow.

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A lot of people are ignorant and stupid. That sounds sad but it is true. People by nature are lazy and instead of actually investigating and learning what something is like (pot smoking); they just take an experts (his dad who never smoked) opinion on it. They don't want to check the facts, they just want to live their lives in the ways they feel are best being blissfully ignorant.

Some people like that dude you were talking about, probably like to be right. One the things they hate the most is when they are wrong and cannot admit it (like Cheney, Bush, Gonzalez) It sounds to me he lost the argument and resulted to ad hominem attacks on your character. That is not polite, and it does not make him anymore right. It just makes him an asshole.

If you really wanted to change his opinion that bad, show him people who he cannot argue with and not look like an ass. People like: doctors who know about pot, a researcher from the University of Mississippi horticulture department, his grandmother who is secretly taking pot to ease her pain but doesn't want him to know because he is dick, or a cancer patient. Trust me I think after he interviews the entire cancer ward at a hospital he will come to the conclusion that he is:
ignorant
arrogant
a tool
total douchebag.