Tell me again how legalization is wrong....

[Luissa]

Sales of medical marijuana and marijuana-laced products in Colorado Springs — which topped $1.6 million in April alone — are generating tens of thousands of dollars in revenue for the city.

From January 2009 through April, Colorado Springs has seen a tenfold increase in monthly sales tax revenue from medical marijuana, from $4,000 to $40,000.

Last year, the city collected $111,000 total from the sale of marijuana and marijuana-infused products, such as brownies, lotions and teas



Read more: Medical marijuana tax collections taking off | marijuana, medical, products - Public Affairs - Colorado Springs Gazette, CO
Medical marijuana tax collections taking off | marijuana, medical, products - Public Affairs - Colorado Springs Gazette, CO

These next quotes are from a NPR story, link will be at the end.

A group of girls was trying to score tickets, and talking about scoring pot from "the clubs," or dispensaries.

"I haven't bought weed from anyone besides the clubs since I got my [medical marijuana] card a month and a half ago," one says.

Andreana, Rebecca, and Libby might be a pot dealer's worst nightmare -- college girls with disposable incomes and medical marijuana cards. (These students, and others quoted in this story, didn't want their last names used.)

"It's just way safer, it's better quality, and ... I don't know, it's just way easier," one of the students says

Dealers complain about a bad economy, about losing customers.


Until this week, Colorado had no statewide regulations for marijuana dispensaries or growers. And that led to a gold rush of entrepreneurs trying to stake their claim on the market. On Monday, legislators made it harder to get a doctor's recommendation. And the state is outlawing people with felony drug convictions from working in the industry. That could force some dispensary owners back into the black market.


NPR.org Marijuana's Black Market: Will It Stay Or Will It Go?
If Colorado succeeds in closing some of the loopholes in its medical marijuana law, it could be a mixed blessing for the state's dealers. They might regain some market share, but they may also have to fight harder for their piece of it

 

[RetiredGySgt]

Think of all the money we could make if we legalized burglary? We could require a license with a fee and then tax all the profits the burglar made.

No one ever gets hurt in most burglaries after all. And there are millions of them a year, we will never be able to get rid of them, rather then imprison all these people we can make them productive members of society.

 

[Epsilon Delta]

Think of all the money we could make if we legalized burglary? We could require a license with a fee and then tax all the profits the burglar made.

No one ever gets hurt in most burglaries after all. And there are millions of them a year, we will never be able to get rid of them, rather then imprison all these people we can make them productive members of society.

Yes, because stealing someone's property is the same as smoking a joint in the privacy of your own home.

 

[fyrenza]

VERY astute, Gunny!

As long as i can "bear arms" in my own home,

i DO think burglary SHOULD be "legalized."

Want my shit?

Come and get it.

Oh... Sorry. I'm NOT just packing heat,

i've got a couple of surprises, in the way of pistol grip x-bows, too.

NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU DIE.

And if you're some criminal person?

You won't even be missed....

 

[Luissa]

Think of all the money we could make if we legalized burglary? We could require a license with a fee and then tax all the profits the burglar made.

No one ever gets hurt in most burglaries after all. And there are millions of them a year, we will never be able to get rid of them, rather then imprison all these people we can make them productive members of society.

you are comparing apples and oranges.

 

[Mad Scientist]

VERY astute, Gunny!

As long as i can "bear arms" in my own home,

i DO think burglary SHOULD be "legalized."

Want my shit?

Come and get it.

Oh... Sorry. I'm NOT just packing heat,

i've got a couple of surprises, in the way of pistol grip x-bows, too.

NO ONE WILL HEAR YOU DIE.

And if you're some criminal person?

You won't even be missed....

If we could legalize and tax all forms of home defense, think of all the money that would be raised.

Money that could be put to good use, like in schools and mass transit as well as benefits for illegals.

In fact, that's the solution to all of our problems. We'll legalize everything so we can tax our way to Utopia and Prosperity!

 

[chanel]

Just think how much money we could make if we fined druggies for fucking up their kids.

 

[martybegan]

Think of all the money we could make if we legalized burglary? We could require a license with a fee and then tax all the profits the burglar made.

No one ever gets hurt in most burglaries after all. And there are millions of them a year, we will never be able to get rid of them, rather then imprison all these people we can make them productive members of society.

you are comparing apples and oranges.

Good point. Pot is the "diet coke" of drugs. We already discriminate between legal and illegal recreational drugs with having alochol and tobacco legal. It is just a question of "moving the line"

Some drugs, however should remain illegal, stuff like heroin and meth, and probably coke. They can have far more impact on a persons life than pot and say ecstasy.

The worst thing that happens to pot smokers is usually weight gain due to constant "dude i want white castle" cravings.

 

[Jon]

Think of all the money we could make if we legalized burglary? We could require a license with a fee and then tax all the profits the burglar made.

No one ever gets hurt in most burglaries after all. And there are millions of them a year, we will never be able to get rid of them, rather then imprison all these people we can make them productive members of society.

you are comparing apples and oranges.

Good point. Pot is the "diet coke" of drugs. We already discriminate between legal and illegal recreational drugs with having alochol and tobacco legal. It is just a question of "moving the line"

Some drugs, however should remain illegal, stuff like heroin and meth, and probably coke. They can have far more impact on a persons life than pot and say ecstasy.

The worst thing that happens to pot smokers is usually weight gain due to constant "dude i want white castle" cravings.

I don't really care if they were to legalize marijuana, because I'm not going to smoke it and I'm not going to sit around watching others do it. It's the same with tobacco for me.

But by legalizing marijuana, we set a standard of "moving the line," as you say. Once we move it once, others will want to move it again. We have drawn a line, and once we erase it, it will be hard to keep it intact.

 

[editec]

you are comparing apples and oranges.

Good point. Pot is the "diet coke" of drugs. We already discriminate between legal and illegal recreational drugs with having alochol and tobacco legal. It is just a question of "moving the line"

Some drugs, however should remain illegal, stuff like heroin and meth, and probably coke. They can have far more impact on a persons life than pot and say ecstasy.

The worst thing that happens to pot smokers is usually weight gain due to constant "dude i want white castle" cravings.

I don't really care if they were to legalize marijuana, because I'm not going to smoke it and I'm not going to sit around watching others do it. It's the same with tobacco for me.

But by legalizing marijuana, we set a standard of "moving the line," as you say. Once we move it once, others will want to move it again. We have drawn a line, and once we erase it, it will be hard to keep it intact.

We moved "the line" to make cannibus illegal in the first place.

Moving it back is a good idea.

Total waste of resources policing something so harmless as hemp.

 

[martybegan]

you are comparing apples and oranges.

Good point. Pot is the "diet coke" of drugs. We already discriminate between legal and illegal recreational drugs with having alochol and tobacco legal. It is just a question of "moving the line"

Some drugs, however should remain illegal, stuff like heroin and meth, and probably coke. They can have far more impact on a persons life than pot and say ecstasy.

The worst thing that happens to pot smokers is usually weight gain due to constant "dude i want white castle" cravings.

I don't really care if they were to legalize marijuana, because I'm not going to smoke it and I'm not going to sit around watching others do it. It's the same with tobacco for me.

But by legalizing marijuana, we set a standard of "moving the line," as you say. Once we move it once, others will want to move it again. We have drawn a line, and once we erase it, it will be hard to keep it intact.

I do not dismiss the "slippery slope" argument out of hand. One does have to remember that many of these substances were legal less than 100 years ago, so in a way we have moved the line before. Hell England went to freaking war over the desire to sell opium.

Most arguments involving social issues revolve around moving the line. abortion, same sex marriage, definitions of affirmative action and workplace harrasment.

 

[Big Black Dog]

You have to draw the line someplace when it comes to illegal drug use. The line happens to be drawn with pot. If you made pot legal, then that line would move to other more serious drugs and people would be bitching wanting that illegal drug legalized. I agree that pot is probably not all that dangerous but on the other hand, it's where the line for legal/illegal use has been drawn and I think it should reside there. If you want to smoke pot legally, I suggest you move to where you can do that legally. Unless you do that, then you are required to follow the laws of the land.

 

[dilloduck]

Is there a test to tell how fucked up someone is on pot while driving ? We might wanna have a good one in place before we legalize it.

 

[martybegan]

Is there a test to tell how fucked up someone is on pot while driving ? We might wanna have a good one in place before we legalize it.

Its the guy doing 25 in a 65 or 10 in a 30.

There should be a way to correlate THC in the bloodstream to intoxication. For drug testing as we do now all your are looking for is a trace, there should be a measurable concentration in the blood for someone who is actually high.

Plus think of all the volunteers you would get for the testing. "Here play this video driving game while you smoke up and we poke you with a needle every 20 min"

 

[dilloduck]

Is there a test to tell how fucked up someone is on pot while driving ? We might wanna have a good one in place before we legalize it.

Its the guy doing 25 in a 65 or 10 in a 30.

There should be a way to correlate THC in the bloodstream to intoxication. For drug testing as we do now all your are looking for is a trace, there should be a measurable concentration in the blood for someone who is actually high.

Plus think of all the volunteers you would get for the testing. "Here play this video driving game while you smoke up and we poke you with a needle every 20 min"

Too iffy for me---If we legalize pot I wanna damn hard line drawn to determine if a driver was stoned or not.
*waits for the " but I can drive perfectly when stoned" argument*

 

[jillian]

Think of all the money we could make if we legalized burglary? We could require a license with a fee and then tax all the profits the burglar made.

No one ever gets hurt in most burglaries after all. And there are millions of them a year, we will never be able to get rid of them, rather then imprison all these people we can make them productive members of society.

what an absurd argument. A burglary infringes on the property rights of others. I don't get high. It was never something that appealed to me. But I've also never seen anyone start a bar fight because they were high.

Instead of equating pot with 'burglary' which may be one of the more disingenuous analogies i've ever seen, it should be equated with alcohol use or any other happy pill people take to get them through the day.

Spending a fortune enforcing absurd laws and jailing people for violating those laws under overly punitive regulations like the Rockefeller laws is too high a price to pay to satisfy the pretend morality of people who go home and pop open a can of beer.

 

[dilloduck]

Think of all the money we could make if we legalized burglary? We could require a license with a fee and then tax all the profits the burglar made.

No one ever gets hurt in most burglaries after all. And there are millions of them a year, we will never be able to get rid of them, rather then imprison all these people we can make them productive members of society.

what an absurd argument. A burglary infringes on the property rights of others. I don't get high. It was never something that appealed to me. But I've also never seen anyone start a bar fight because they were high.

Instead of equating pot with 'burglary' which may be one of the more disingenuous analogies i've ever seen, it should be equated with alcohol use or any other happy pill people take to get them through the day.

Spending a fortune enforcing absurd laws and jailing people for violating those laws under overly punitive regulations like the Rockefeller laws is too high a price to pay to satisfy the pretend morality of people who go home and pop open a can of beer.

Myth-----if pot is legalized Americans will realize a huge financial benefit.

 

[martybegan]

Is there a test to tell how fucked up someone is on pot while driving ? We might wanna have a good one in place before we legalize it.

Its the guy doing 25 in a 65 or 10 in a 30.

There should be a way to correlate THC in the bloodstream to intoxication. For drug testing as we do now all your are looking for is a trace, there should be a measurable concentration in the blood for someone who is actually high.

Plus think of all the volunteers you would get for the testing. "Here play this video driving game while you smoke up and we poke you with a needle every 20 min"

Too iffy for me---If we legalize pot I wanna damn hard line drawn to determine if a driver was stoned or not.
*waits for the " but I can drive perfectly when stoned" argument*

How do you think BAC was correlated to intoxication? The data is mostly emperical, derived from testing as I described above. In general a person with a BAC of .10 or greater is intoxicated enough to impair driving, but not in all cases. As you really cant tell when an individual is smashed you set the number at some point where most people are impaired and make it a legal benchmark. Testing can be done to establish that "at 0.XX" THC you are too impaired to drive.

 

[dilloduck]

Its the guy doing 25 in a 65 or 10 in a 30.

There should be a way to correlate THC in the bloodstream to intoxication. For drug testing as we do now all your are looking for is a trace, there should be a measurable concentration in the blood for someone who is actually high.

Plus think of all the volunteers you would get for the testing. "Here play this video driving game while you smoke up and we poke you with a needle every 20 min"

Too iffy for me---If we legalize pot I wanna damn hard line drawn to determine if a driver was stoned or not.
*waits for the " but I can drive perfectly when stoned" argument*

How do you think BAC was correlated to intoxication? The data is mostly emperical, derived from testing as I described above. In general a person with a BAC of .10 or greater is intoxicated enough to impair driving, but not in all cases. As you really cant tell when an individual is smashed you set the number at some point where most people are impaired and make it a legal benchmark. Testing can be done to establish that "at 0.XX" THC you are too impaired to drive.

fine draw the line. If you wanna legalize pot, show me what your willing to do to insure stoned mother fuckers aren't driving.

 

[martybegan]

Too iffy for me---If we legalize pot I wanna damn hard line drawn to determine if a driver was stoned or not.
*waits for the " but I can drive perfectly when stoned" argument*

How do you think BAC was correlated to intoxication? The data is mostly emperical, derived from testing as I described above. In general a person with a BAC of .10 or greater is intoxicated enough to impair driving, but not in all cases. As you really cant tell when an individual is smashed you set the number at some point where most people are impaired and make it a legal benchmark. Testing can be done to establish that "at 0.XX" THC you are too impaired to drive.

fine draw the line. If you wanna legalize pot, show me what your willing to do to insure stoned mother fuckers aren't driving.

I thought I did. You would conduct testing to determine what B-THC-C consitutes impaired for legal purposes. Thats how BAC limits were created for alcohol. Once the test are done you set the level and create the laws. I would only legalize if this type of testing was established and in place. I'm sure some preliminary research has already been done.

I'm not even sure if legalization would increase use that much. penalties for having sub-dealer levels of pot are a joke, often not even a misdenmeanor.