[everdrive]

Marijuana legalization arguments were my first introduction to motivated reasoning. I was pretty inclined to agree that locking up non-violent drug offenders was a net-harm to society. But, the pro-legalization folks would argue patently crazy things: it cures cancer, the smoke isn't bad for you at all, there are no downsides! etc.

It seemed obvious to me that you could make a more realistic argument and just stick to an argument which states that due to drunk driving and domestic abuse, marijuana is less harmful overall than alcohol, but is treated as more dangerous. (and yes, the other side was a bit crazy too. "When you buy weed you're supporting the same terrorism that happened on 9/11")

Later research (such as this) has suggested a link between marijuana and psychosis, however the actual risk factors do seem difficult to nail down. (however, this is still a far cry from the claim that it's totally harmless)

What I ultimately learned is that in a pitched political battle, people actually damage their credibility because they're afraid to cede _any_ ground to the opposition, even when that means making unrealistic claims. A centrist (or just someone who is undecided) is not really taken in as much by these extremist argument, and to their eyes it damages the credibility of one or both sides.

[zug_zug]

Probably worth clarifying that when you say "But, the pro-legalization folks would..." you mean some stoners you met in college.

Because there are plenty of proponents who are not that... in fact 64% of Americans support making weed legal (2025), so it'd be really unfair to judge that movement based on those old experiences.

[cyanydeez]

Yeah, it sounds like hs confabulating arguments about pain reduction in cancer patients with "cures cancer" from some nebulous source.

Cherry picking is pretty much the same as motivated reasoning when making arguments.

[isx726552]

> But, the pro-legalization folks would argue patently crazy things: it cures cancer, the smoke isn't bad for you at all, there are no downsides! etc.

Who seriously claimed that it “cures cancer”? There have been some claims that it helps alleviate nausea associated with chemotherapy, which is quite reasonable and will likely be proved out by evidence over time.

Really … who genuinely claimed it “cures” cancer?

[brailsafe]

I've heard people who clearly had psychological issues claim things like this, but nobody actually credible. Problem is that people fall down rabbit holes that perpetually reinforce their own spiral.

The combination of actual drugs and grief and real underlying mental disorders is a powerful and scary mix.

[gosub100]

I took it as more of an exaggeration of "medical marijuana" - a phrase you could rarely get away from in the 2000s.

[troosevelt]

There are things like "Rick Sampson oil". I'm sure there are believers.

[yieldcrv]

all legalization frameworks in the US already limit legal age of purchasing possession and consumption to 21 and over, specifically as a form of seeding ground to the opposition, specifically for the previously only anecdotal link to psychosis and underdeveloped minds of minors

[AlexandrB]

It's weird to frame regulating cannabis the same way we regulate other recreational drugs as some kind of compromise. Is the ideal pro-cannabis situation that anyone can buy it at any age?

[aaomidi]

That’s not what that person was arguing?

[AlexandrB]

How so?

> all legalization frameworks in the US already limit legal age of purchasing possession and consumption to 21 and over, specifically as a form of seeding ground to the opposition

This plainly says that legal frameworks limit the age of consumption as a way of ceding ground to the opposition (implicitly the opposition to legalization). So I'm questioning, if there was no opposition to legalization, what would the legalization frameworks look like? Legal for anyone at any age?

Edit: To put it another way, what's the ground that has been ceded here?

[smithoc]

This seems like a lot of different people voicing different opinions and talking past each other. Roughly, I think you're jumping into the middle of a hypothetical conversation that went like this:

Person A: "It's bad that we throw people in prison for pot, and use possession of pot as a subtext under which to harass people, perform warrantless searches, etc. We should just legalize it."

Person B: "But it might be bad for children and teenagers if they get access to it"

Person A: "Okay fine, we legalize it for people over the age of 21, happy now?"

Person A could be said to have compromised or ceded-ground to person B here, even though they themselves might actually not even disagree.

[Teever]

The freedom of 18-21 year olds to consume cannabis legally and not be threatened with violence from the state for doing so.

[aaomidi]

I see. I missed that part sorry!

[leptons]

>But, the pro-legalization folks would argue patently crazy things: it cures cancer, the smoke isn't bad for you at all, there are no downsides! etc.

Using the most anecdotally crazy people you met to suggest that the pro-legalization movement is crazy, is frankly, crazy. I'm very involved in legalization and I don't know anyone that is for legalization that thinks any of those things, never even heard anyone say such garbage. I think you may be cherry-picking the crazy here.

[AlexandrB]

I don't think you can frame some of these arguments as belonging to a fringe minority. I remember watching an episode of "Penn & Teller's Bullshit"[1](2004) where they featured several pro-legalization advocates. These folks said or implied similar things (it's not bad for you, it helps cancer patients). These were not marginal "crazy" voices.

[1] https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Penn_%26_Teller:_Bulls...

[leptons]

"it helps cancer patients" is vastly different than "it cures cancer" which is what OP claimed he heard. And yes, it does help cancer patients as well as anyone else in pain. And the smoke is far less harmful than cigarette smoke, it has no additives at all (when grown in a controlled environment without pesticides). And you don't even need to smoke it, it can be ingested in an edible/pill, making most of the arguments against ingesting marijuana completely bogus.

[bluGill]

I know that I too say and heard those arguments a lot. You do yourside a disservice by claiming it doesn't exist

[andrewflnr]

Good thing they didn't claim any such thing, then.

[everdrive]

>Using the most anecdotally crazy people you met to suggest that the pro-legalization movement is crazy, is frankly, crazy.

This was over 20 years ago, long before "nut-picking" became impossible to avoid. This is what I was hearing from my peers on my college campus. They may have had had extreme views, but this was long before modern social media surfaced only the craziest people for any given position.

>Using the most anecdotally crazy people you met to suggest that the pro-legalization movement is crazy, is frankly, crazy.

Also, I disagree with this characterization. I am not crazy, it was unnecessarily rude to suggest otherwise. I'm repeating the arguments I heard from my actual peers. I'm not just finding extremists on the internet and painting the whole group by its worst members.

[leptons]

>Also, I disagree with this characterization. I am not crazy, it was unnecessarily rude to suggest otherwise.

You suggested the legalization movement is "crazy", without context. We are far from it. But you used the craziest shit to paint us as "crazy", so you get what you give.

Your original comment stated:

>"But, the pro-legalization folks would argue patently crazy things:"

Nowhere did you mention your peers, you specifically said "the pro-legalization folks", meaning the whole group, up to the most prominent people. That's the only way we can take your original comment, so if you don't like being called out like this, then be a lot more specific and say it was only your crazy friend group that was crazy, making it very anecdotal and not overly broad.

[buzzerbetrayed]

To be fair, the example they gave from the other side is far more fringe

> When you buy weed you're supporting the same terrorism that happened on 9/11

[smithoc]

That's not fringe at all. That was a claim made by anti-drug commercials that ran on TV across the US so frequently that it was satirized by South Park in 2002.

See the "Where did the idea come from" section here: https://southpark.cc.com/w/index.php?title=My_Future_Self_n%...

[ecshafer]

I am firmly against marijuana legalization. This is partially because of this insanity of the pro-legalization arguments. When I would see friends/family that started smoking regularly become noticeably less intelligent while pro-legalization proponents would argue there are no negative side-effects, or people who were obviously compelled to smoke every day or as often as they could.... like some sort of addiction, while pro-legalization proponents argued it was totally not-addictive.

The anti-legalization side had a few odd arguments as well, and some old claims that were unfounded. So no hands were totally clean.

[estearum]

> I am firmly against marijuana legalization. This is partially because of this insanity of the pro-legalization arguments.

this is also just motivated reasoning

The insanity of the fringe pro-legalization arguments has no bearing on whether legalization is a good idea or not.

> When I would see friends/family that started smoking regularly become noticeably less intelligent while pro-legalization proponents would argue there are no negative side-effects

This is also just ripe for cognitive bias which is why we should use science to understand these types of claims.

[raymond_goo]

I have two friends who started at a young age and they fucked their lives with this shit. It's not anecdotal at this point.

[tpm]

It's anecdotal - you have no way to know what would happen otherwise. I have seen plenty of young people smoke weed in their teens while gradually stoppping later and leading completely 'normal' lives, while a few didn't stop and went to heavy polydrug abuse etc. What exactly does that say about weed? Not much I'm afraid.

Similarly, I know of several persons that went schizophrenic after car accidents, but were the car accidents the cause?

[estearum]

That... is an anecdote...

Not suggesting people should smoke weed when they're young etc, but there's a reason that we do these gigantic, extremely complex, extremely failure-prone things called clinical trials to actually ascertain the effects of drugs in the body.

It's because we've found over and over and over and over and over that the "I know N people who X then Y" claims were wrong.

For example: Why did those two people start smoking weed so young? Were their lives, families, and personalities otherwise the same as everyone else? Probably not!

[pipes]

Did the people you notice becoming less intelligent ever recover? I'm genuinely interested. My biggest regret in life is early years drug use, smoked my first joint at 13. Mdma 18. Cocaine late tewnties. I personally think marijuana might be worse than mdma but not by much. And cocaine is really bad for cardio vascular system, probably physically worst of all of them that I tried.

I think both mdma and marijuana cause anxiety and they mess with short term memory.

There doesn't seem to be a good answer to protecting kids from drugs. Heavily regulated legalisation might help or it might normalise drug use.

As an aside I personally think alcohol in very moderate use isn't really as harmful as other drugs. And is probably a net benefit for many. Even moderate use of illegal drugs seems to have bad affects on people.

Edit: added my thoughts on alcohol and something on cocaine use.

[tpm]

> I think both mdma and marijuana cause anxiety and they mess with short term memory.

OTOH MDMA never caused anxiety (and I had plenty of anxiety issues at the time) or memory issues for me, but of course drug effects are very individual.

[dec0dedab0de]

I am firmly in favor of legalizing all drugs, except maybe antibiotics where overuse is causing harm for everyone.

The thing is, I 100% agree with your reasons for why it should be outlawed. I just think those are reasons to discourage using it, especially chronically.

However, I wholeheartedly believe the government should not have any say in how anyone lives their life, and treats their own body.

[dontwannahearit]

…just so long as the government remains responsible for clearing up the mess?

[something765478]

I'm curious, do you also think alcohol and tobacco should be banned? I definitely believe that marijuana use can lead to negative consequences, but I still think it is less dangerous than either of those 2 substances.

[tuesdaynight]

They will say yes, but you will never see most of them defending that in any news about alcohol or tobacco. For some, it's just a way to ignore the hypocrisy corner.

[ecshafer]

Yes I do.

[whattheheckheck]

Can't have the billionaire sociopath fodder off in lala land... they must be 100% intelligent and productive to continue farming them resources

[aaomidi]

I never understand this line of thinking.

So the easiest way for an opposition to a good idea to get their way, is to go argue insane things on the opposite side?

Imagine if the oil industry starts paying people to go throw soup on paintings just to make the pro “let’s prevent climate change” people look stupid.

Oh. Wait.

[btreecat]

>I am firmly against marijuana legalization.

Is there an argument or data that could be presented that _would_ change your mind?

[ecshafer]

I would be for legalization of marijuana if there was evidence there was no negative effect on children or families from people taking marijuana.

[btreecat]

So in your mind, there is no acceptable risk.

Do you hold this position for everything or only some things?

If it's some things, how do you determine which things can have some level of risk that's acceptable and which things can have no acceptable risk? And if there is an acceptable risk for some things, how do you set that level?

[ThePowerOfFuet]

You should ban cars too, because they sometimes collide with children and families and injure/kill them.

[croes]

But why is alcohol legal then? It has worse side effects and more collateral damage.

[ecshafer]

I think prohibition was the correct move as well, the US was unwilling to truly punish people and make it illegal. You can't slap people on the wrists.

[whattheheckheck]

Are you also firmly for alcohol abolition? What about gambling?

[ecshafer]

Yes to both.

[throwaway27448]

> What I ultimately learned is that in a pitched political battle, people actually damage their credibility because they're afraid to cede _any_ ground to the opposition

This could be a person making a bad argument, or it could be that the individual is the opposition trying to poison the well. Cf COINTELPRO. Largely any movement has people with insane takes, and it's impossible to tell the difference between good and bad faith actors.

That, and sometimes people just aren't trying to be persuasive at all. It's extremely rare to actually see someone persuaded about anything political without enormous amount of effort, or more realistically a change in material interests.

[Teever]

Yes, what you observed is people making unrealistic and disingenuous responses in reply to equally unrealistic and disingenuous reefer madness type propaganda.

What happened is that the people making these disengenuous comments in bad faith did not realize that so many others would watch them and without understanding hte context woudl pick up those same disingenuous arguments and take them as truth.

This is all the long term consequences of allowing Reefer Madness tier propaganda be published and not repudiated immediately.

[btreecat]

TBF, if your paraphrasing others as "curing cancer" but what they claimed is "treats cancer" then the issue may be comprehension or activite listening.

Something to consider.

[tuesdaynight]

Honestly, I consider myself a "centrist", but I'm always frustrated how that means "do not take sides" for some people (not saying that is your case). In this case, not taking sides means that weed is illegal and people go to jail if they dare to use it. In the country that I was born, it's still illegal. I know stoners there and it's crazy how they could spent years in prison if someone told the police that they cultivate cannabis in their house. They do not sell and do not share with anyone, but they are one call away to be jailed.

I get it when people talk about society effects, but how are my friends dangerous while buying and drinking a lot of alcohol is totally okay? Taking no sides in this case is just maintaining status quo, which is not a "centrist position" when one side can be jailed for using weed.

[cwmoore]

Indeed. What an asinine result. Let’s see the same study with alcohol, tobacco, and prescription medications before putting out words that have meanings.