What if the chemist who originally created Adderall intended for it to be used to just get super tweaked and strung out for days on end? What does the "intended purpose" have anything to do with responsible or ethical use?

What if you'd rather go for a hike after work, not get stuck in traffic, don't like having to avoid bums literally asking for beer money, don't want to worry about getting violently robbed at night, and would like to sleep with the window open without hearing traffic? Besides, if I want quality service at a business, I know I need to go to the suburbs. But maybe it's just because Milwaukee is a shit-hole.

Why do Americans constantly feel the need to push themselves to burnout? How would you like if your boss assigned you hours of work that had to be completed on your free time after already working 8 hours a day? Do people really believe that school is less effort and stress than work? Must be those rose-colored glasses.

Besides, I think a more effective change to the school year would be to take the three months of summer break, and distribute them through out the year, one month at a time. So kids would go to school for a couple months, then get a month break after every quarter, trimester, what-have-you. Then there is the crazy long 3 month break that TFA references where kids forget everything. And kids get to have more significant breaks more often so they can unwind and relax a bit more between quarters and start the next one refreshed and ready to go.

How does recreational use imply abuse? I abused adderall my last year of college and first year of full-time work for entirely non-recreational purposes and it pretty much ruined 2 years of my life. My recreational usage of psychedelics on the other hand has been entirely positive. I don't think that recreational drug use is inherently either good or bad. Drugs are tools. And like all tools, it's all depends what you do with them.

And why do people think that drug use is the result of some problem in people's lives or a vain attempt to be "cool"? Maybe people do drugs for the same reason they do anything else with their free time: simply because it's enjoyable.

"Drugs" are a hard thing to generalize. Remember, everything from caffeine and weed up to alcohol and heroin are labeled "drugs". Some are much more inherently dangerous than others, but to generalize "drugs are bad" is as naive as generalizing "food is bad" after walking through the candy aisle. And as far weed is concerned, it's far more benign than America's socially acceptable intoxicant, alcohol.

As a 24 year old software engineer who has smoked weed daily for the past 5 years and, as an individual, earns more than the average household income, I disagree with your statement. I know many other people who smoke as often as I do and are also arguably successful people for their age.

Yes, most stoners I know work near-minimum-wage jobs, but from what I've seen, this is because underachievers and unmotivated people are drawn to weed, not because weed necessarily makes you an underachiever or unmotivated. It does make you relax and more at peace with the world, which can lead to lower motivation (why exert yourself when you're already content with things?) and just wanting to chill, but it doesn't take much effort to keep yourself motivated and on track while maintaining a weed habit. In fact, smoking some weed after work is a great way to unwind, release stress, and prevent burnout.

Smoking weed doesn't make you stupid any more than drinking alcohol will make you abusive or drinking caffeine will make you a tweaker. Which is to say, it can if you let it, but it's pretty easy to avoid it with a little effort.

That said, I can certainly believe that smoking weed isn't a good thing for kids since they (in general) don't have the maturity to use responsibly nor the established lifestyle habits to prevent complacency in the face of weed's tranquility.

You spoiled the ending! I was half way through that book! Oh well, I found the character development of Sam I Am fairly lacking anyway...

That's the whole point most people have been making against the gateway theory to begin with: Of course most people who shoot heroin used marijuana first, marijuana is much easier to get than heroin (and more acceptable). This study just takes it one step further and says "before most people started using even weed, they started with alcohol." I bet if they studied further, they would find that caffeine is the real "gateway drug".

Pedantically speaking, the sun causes cancer, the air around busy roads contains many times as many toxic particulates as air in the woods, and drinking well water could expose you to radioactive Radon.

Marijuana has not been shown to cause cancer, and has a much lower correlation with lung disease than cigarettes. While you are correct that there are some potential harms in smoking weed, they are no where near significant enough to demonize marijuana over. No one brings up the fact that car exhaust can cause lung damage when discussing transportation. In both cases, the harm is there in theory, but isn't significant enough to be of concern in normal circumstances.

Yes, that's what we want, every idiot who doesn't want to bother getting informed about the issues being forced to vote. We may as well pick our leaders from a fucking hat!

As long as illegal drugs remain a multi-billion dollar market, cash isn't going anywhere. Besides, think about what cash really is. It's just the most liquid monetary vehicle available due to government decree that everyone accept it. If the government were to do away with cash there will still be other highly liquid goods for people to trade with similar efficacy as cash.

I hate the implication that people who don't have a problem with marijuana should stop using it just to prove to the world they are not addicted. Then even if someone quits for a month or two and then starts using again, people argue that starting back up is proof of addiction. I'll stop smoking marijuana to prove I'm not an addict after you prove to me you're not addicted to eating sugary foods, driving your car, watching TV, and reading Slashdot. Doing something repetitively makes it a habit. Doing something despite desperately wanting to quit makes it an addiction. I have known people who have wanted to quit marijuana for various reasons... and then they did so with no problem. That's more than I can say for cigarette smokers or regular Adderall users.

I don't know where you get the idea that someone in control of an army of amoral autonomous killing machines would have your liberty in mind.

The only thing stopping a government from using it's army to oppress its people is the fact that the army is made up of its people, and even that isn't always enough.

Next up, why do when continue to use wheels when we have jet engines? Why do so many people still use fire to heat their homes (gas furnace) when they can use electricity as a modern replacement? Why do people eat food when it would be more convenient to just get your nutrients pumped into you through an IV? I guess some people just don't want to keep up with the times...