US Gun Laws

Now you are completely changing the question. The question you pose is one of the allowance of religious practices, which is under the First, Third Amendment.
In answer to the question: yes, if you could justify it and prove that it is a part of a ligitimate religion, you should recieve the go-ahead to do it.
HOWEVER. Remember always that there are limitations to that. If the practice that you are undertaking seriously disrupts or endangers others, it will either have to be nullified or stopped altogether. In nullify, there is the example of the Sikh boy how had to bear a knife at school as a symbol of his religion. The middleground found was that the knife was sown into the sheath to prevent the drawing of the blade. In stopping, take exorcism for example.
There are no laws that can outright deny people their rights, but there are limitations to the rights.

As I am sure that I have yet to come across any case in which an individual's judgement was questioned when he was in the possession of a firearm. That is to say, the firearm itself did not cause the impairment.
Be used for, but not the source of, illicit activities. The simple act of owning or using a firearm does not constitute that the individual will commit a crime. On the other hand, the use of illicit drugs have been shown to correlate to rises in crime [not including crime of possession of said illicit drugs].

The vast majority of people who want to legalize the drug are interested, not in the use of the drug for themselves, but rather for the money involved. The push to legalize in many states, particularly California, only have gotten stronger because the economy has gotten weaker and the taxpayers are under the impression, right or wrong, that the taxing of the drug will be a good patch to the state's massive deficit. In any case, any drug use is not generally viewed well in the US. Even legalized drugs usually come with a heavy tax to deter people from using them. Chicago leveled up taxes to the point that some packs of cigarettes cost $14. At the same time, as a direct result, the city saw a drop in smoking rates. And did you hear of any complaints? No, because the people generally viewed the practice of smoking as abhorrent.
The point? People don't like drugs. And they do not support the legalization of the drugs for the sake of use, but rather for the sake of taxing them.

Again, the tax will probably make it difficult to aquire and those addicted to it will seek the cheapest supply that they can.

In most countries, smoking has been made illegal in enclosed public areas, and being drunk and/or high in public is an offense here as well, if I remember correctly.

What I find strange is that you defend owning and using guns using their main purpose (as in, directly hurting and killing people), yet condone the use of alcohol and drugs because they might have the potential to make you do stupid things when in public.

Well the legitimate religion is my religion. The government can't tell me that one or the other is right or wrong, so if I make up my own religion they should not be able to stop me. (and thanks for the clarification)

But a gun can cause people "to do things they regret later." That's what you said.

And of course it should be taxed to the extent that the average consumer can afford it. There aren't really many addicts of Marijuana as it has no chemical compound that makes it addictive.(like nicotine) You can of course still get addiced mentally, but that doesn't happen a lot. Marijuana is actually less unhealthy and addictive than both alchohol and cigarettes.

Actually it would still be a lot cheaper to buy legal than illegal.

No problem.
It is true that the government has no right to dictate what is a true religion and what is not. Remember the 'Star Wars Religion' threads? If those individuals pushed for recognition, they would probably get it.
Actually, it depends on what you are doing. Again, if it disrupts or endangers others, they may impose limitations or outright banning on the practice. This is because, while the government has a responsibility to protect the rights of the individual, it also has a greater responsibility to protect everyone else too. If, for example, your religon demanded that you kill 10 non-believers [or even believers] to join or something, than the government has the responsibility to step in to stop you, in spite of your right to religion. They probably would not ban your religion itself, but they will probably ban that particular practice. For the safety of others.

That was actually in reference to the drugs, not the guns.
While that was a reference to drugs, it is true that it is possible for the statement to hold true for guns as well. An individual may become... disturbed and believe that the gun gives them the right to kill people at will. Then again, that person was distrubed to begin with and probably would have committed the same illicit actions, even without a gun.

Yes, and no.
There is no law in the US that I am aware of [I shall check later] that states that the government cannot level a tax that makes any product unreasonably expensive for an individual to afford. There are, of course, voter limitations to this. It would not make sense to level a tax that would never be paid because nobody buys the product. Indeed, as I pointed out before, such a high tax could drive addicts to buy from illegal sources, thus creating more problems than legalizing it solves. Remember my example of Chicago and the cigarettes? The voters there decided on a tax that just borders insanity. The reason there was to deter smoking [I am not aware if they also sought to solve any budget issues with it]. In the case of say, California, the taxpayers will be torn between leveling a high enough tax to deter the use combined with the ineffectiveness of a too-high tax and wanting to use the money to balence the state's budget. Most likely, right after the economy stabilizes, the voters will likely seek to make it illegal again.
Marijuana contains THC which can cause addiction. THC levels today are several more times stronger than those when the drug was outlawed.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/publications/infofacts/marijuana
Additionally, addiction rates and early usage have risen in the past years.
Just because it is less dangerous than smoking or alcohol [which is debatable, given that a high driver is little or no less dangerous than a drunk one] does not constitute a viable reason to legalize it. The people tend to NOT want their people to be using drugs, legal or otherwise. There are even reports now that using cold medicine can affect someone's driving equal to a number of drinks. And that will be considered by legistlatures in the future.

Again, it depends on the tax. With legalized purchase, the drug dealers may seek to compete and sell their product just lower than the tax-inflated price of the legalized brand.

As for the rise in THC levels in marijuana, is that for the illegal drugs? In that case, if the government had it grown, they could check and maintain the levels themselves to make it less addictive, while still making the price low enough to "compete" with the illegal market.

Legal and illegal, as far as I know.
Also, there is a problem with the mere fact that the drug is addictive. They don't allow for addictive substances on the market in foods for a reason, you know.
The problem is that the government is not trying to make a market out of the drug. Its usefulness will extend only until the economy stabilizes and the voters feel confident enough to outlaw it again, as its tax revenue will inevitably fail to outweigh the negatives of having it legal.

That's in the US, I suppose? Here, you can still get cigarettes and alcohol in supermarkets (no drugs, though).

Making a market out of it worked quite well over here, and opened up a lot of tourism. Yes, it might not be the best tourism, but undoubtedly brought a lot of tourists to the Netherlands.

Technically speaking, alcohol and cigarettes ARE drugs.
In any case, if you want to get drugs, you can go to a pharmacy. In retrospect, it is probably better to get your drugs from a trained professional than a behind-the-counter salesperson, isn't it?
And remember, there ARE huge movements to combat their usage. The people who want to reduce/eliminate the use of cigarettes and alcohol are liable to vote against legalizing any illegal drug, as they do not need more on their plate.

Interesting [really, it is].
I never thought to legalizing drugs to bring tourism...
In any case, I doubt that legalizing it in the US would be good for the Netherlands' tourism, huh? Then you would have international competition and probably recieve no money from the US.

Yeah, of course, I should've worded it more carefully, as I myself count alcohol and cigarettes towards drugs myself.
But yes, trust is another factor in buying marijuana and other sorts of those drugs. If a government controlled organisation produces them, you know for sure they're "clean". When buying from random dealers on the street, you don't know what's in it. They put some seriously messed up stuff in it. And by that, I don't just mean drug-like stuff, but things like washing powder and ground up glass as well.

While it's probably not the reason to have legalised it here, it certainly has attracted tourism. And yes, if other countries start legalising, it would probably hurt tourism in the Netherlands.

True. But what do addicts think about more?
Getting the maximum amount of drugs at the lowest price or making sure that their drugs are 'clean'?

Of course, it won't matter to addicts. But more "casual" users, especially of marijuana (as other drugs are of course way more addictive), will probably care a lot more about their product.

Well the quality of the drugs also matter to the addicts. Glass doesn't exactly get you high.

Tolerance. You are familiar with the concept, yes? There may be "casual" users, but they do not stay that way.

True. But what else is in there? Stronger drugs.
There is also the "gateway" affect of aquireing drugs from illegal sources.

No people who use marijuana are usually casual users and stay casual users as marijuana is not very addictive.

Which may be true [I have never heard of that], but either way, people tend to look down on drug users. The fact of the matter is that marijuana is considered a 'gateway' drug and has been shown to cause individuals to move onto other drugs after prolonged use.

Generally, this isn't the case for marijuana. I personally know quite a few people who smoke once every few weeks or so, and there are a lot of people who are the same. Of course, there are people who're addicts to anything they can get their hands on, but then we're really talking about the exceptional cases.

Or it could be the reverse, in which these people that you know are the ones who are the exceptions.

No, not really. If 90% of all people who use marijuana are heavy addicts, it would've been illegal here a long time ago.

Oh, yes, I forgot that you live in the Netherlands.
Well, what can I say? There are a number of factors that could be influencing your people that prevent a plura of heavy addicts.
I do know that addiction in European countries that have legalized it are lower than in the US, who has not, but at the same time I do not believe that its legalization will lead to the same occurring in the US.
Among other things, your people's addiction rate may be influenced by the public outlook on the drug/drugs in general.
Also, your people may have a different total outlook on how life should be lived.

Oh there are definitely differences in lifestyle, which undoubtedly play a factor in this issue. Especially (to get back on topic a bit) favouring the legalisation of marijuana instead of guns. It's a completely different way of thinking, I can't really put my finger on any details right now (I blame the fact that it's 2:35 am here).