All in all, is marijuana a legitimate plant?

[bot7]

I'm just saying since weed doesn't help you, would Rx THC[Marinol], or anything else do the work>?

[Richard]

Oh I see, I didn't know you were asking about me. I don't know if Marinol would work. I never heard anything good about it. Right now I take a bunch of natural stuff that helps. The only prescription I take is Diclofenac. So far it's the only pain killer I found that doesn't make me feel tired.

[Ravvau]

Well, I wouldn't say it's the healthiest thing you can put in your body but it's safer than cigarettes or alcohol. So if cigarettes and alcohol are legal then pot should be too. Also it would be a huge boost to the economy. They wouldn't have to spend millions locking up people who get high anymore and they could tax it to bring in tons of new money. Also it would create ton of new jobs.

they spend millions locking people up because they make many more millions after doing it,,,  otherwise they would not do it




As an abstract term, prison is quite simple: it's a place where your freedom, movements and access to basically everything is restricted, usually as punishment for committing a crime. But for anyone who has ever done hard time, a prison is so much more: it's a place where dignity, privacy and control are given up to guards and prison administrators, where isolation and boredom can drive someone insane, and where the simplest of necessities seem like luxuries. In the United States, where more than two million people are in prisons and more than 400,000 work at them, prisons are big business [Source: U.S. Department of Justice].

Prison Image Gallery

[size="2"][size="1"]Photo courtesy U.S. Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division[/size]
Prisons are most commonly used to jail criminals, but they
have also been used to lock away political dissidents, the
mentally ill, prisoners of war and even people who couldn't pay
their debts. See more prison pictures.[/size]

Prisons have historically been used for a number of purposes. They are most commonly used to jail criminals, but they have also been used to lock away political dissidents, the mentally ill, prisoners of war and even people who couldn't pay their debts. The prison camps of the American Civil War were notorious in both the North and South for being unsanitary places with horrendous living conditions.



Overcrowding, disease and malnutrition lead to hundreds of deaths [Source: AltonWeb]. In the 18th and 19th centuries, people who couldn't afford to pay their debts were often thrown into jail, or used as forced labor. The time spent working or in jail was an alternative way to pay off the debt. Today, certain debtors still get sentenced to jail -- those who don't pay child support or tax bills can be convicted and given a prison sentence.


The cultural functions of prisons are more complex. A prison sentence is a punishment. In this regard, it serves both as a form of justice (we believe people who commit crimes should suffer some form of retribution) and as a deterrent(prison is unpleasant, so people are reluctant to commit crimes for fear of going there). Prisons often serve as a safeguard, keeping dangerous people locked away from society so they cannot commit any more violent crimes. In some cases, prisons are used to rehabilitate criminals and set them up for a new life with an improved education, job and social skills and a new outlook.





[size="-2"]Photo courtesy Federal Bureau of Prisons/U.S. Department of Justice[/size]
[size="-1"]U.S.P. Marion, located in Marion, Illinois, is one of two SuperMax, or high-security, federal prisons in the United States.[/size]­ U.S. prisons are broken down into three basic levels of security: maximum, medium and minimum. Minimum security prisons often resemble camps or college campuses. They are reserved for non-violent offenders with relatively clean criminal records, or prisoners who have served most of their term in a higher-security facility and displayed exemplary behavior. A medium security prison restricts the daily movements of the inmates to a greater extent, but instead of cells they usually have dormitories, and the prison is usually enclosed by a razor-wire fence.

Maximum security prisons are what most people think of when they think of prison. However, only a quarter of all prisoners in the United States are housed in a maximum security facility. These types of prisons are reserved for violent offenders, those who have escaped (or tried to escape) or inmates who could cause problems in lower security prisons. They are surrounded by high walls topped with razor wire, and armed guards in observation towers shoot at anyone who makes it "over the wall." We'll describe life in a maximum security prison in more detail in the next section.



When an incident occurs at a maximum security prison, all the inmates are confined to their cells for several days, with absolutely no freedom whatsoever. This is known as lockdown. In 1983, two guards at a federal prison in Marion, Illinois were murdered in separate incidents on the same day. That prison went into permanent lockdown. Since then, several prisons have been built and run under permanent lockdown -- they are known as SuperMax prisons. Most maximum security prisons have a SuperMax unit within the prison that has permanent lockdown status. Officially known as a Security Housing Unit (SHU), prisoners simply call it The Hole.

[Richard]

[user=1484]Ravvau[/user] wrote:

they spend millions locking people up because they make many more millions after doing it,,,  otherwise they would not do it

It's true they do make millions but in some states like California it's overwhelming the system and costing them more than they're making. That's why California wants to legalize it. They don't have the money to keep locking up people who smoke pot. It's also one reason why Michigan legalized medical marijuana. When the economy took a nose dive they could no afford to keep locking up people who smoke pot. The same is true for New Jersey and that's why they just recently legalized medical pot.

[Jona]

Well, a bit of green here and there is alright to an extent, definitely not part of your 5 a day or 7 a day I hear its called in the states correct me if I'm wrong.

I heard weed burns at a higher temperature than nicotine and police who used to come to my school to do presentations would say like 1 joint = 3 cigarettes

[Jona]

BTW what is OXYCONTIN they're talked about quite a bit in the states and sold like skittles i heard, but what are they???

[green plasma]

BTW what is OXYCONTIN they're talked about quite a bit in the states and sold like skittles i heard, but what are they???

It's a synthetic heroin. All the chemicals in this thread are hard substances and will get you hooked. Except maybe the weed

[Rod]

Oxycontin is a strong painkiller and not synthetic heroin. drugs that are given to people to get them off opiates (which is what oxycontin is) are 'stronger' than oxycontin, but also safer, and that is a mild drug compared to heroin.

Drugs such as suboxone and subutex which are used to get people off addiction are quite strong, but gets people off the other opiates.

[green plasma]

Rod,

I knew it wasn't actual heroin, but I usually just refer to things like fentanyl, or any of the hard morphine/opiate stuff as synthetic heroin, cause in a way, it is

[Rod]

I wasn't inferring that you did :). I was more on the par that there would be other harder drugs that i'd call 'synthetic heroin' than oxycontin. I suppose its a matter of perspective :)

On a side note, PURE heroin is actually quite safe (from my discussions with an ambulance officer). Pure heroin which is not cut etc.. does not kill apparently, i found it hard to believe but apparently so. Its the extras that is cut into them that gives the extra punch or quality degradation. Then there comes other opiate like substances, like as mention oxycodone/oxycontin and stronger subutex/suboxone.