Alaska is the first red state to legalize recreational Marijuana

[saintmichaeldefendthem]

At this point it's no longer an issue of a tipping point being reached. Shove the druggies over the edge. Legalize it all and depolice drug use. There are so many really dangerous and deadly drugs, legalize them. Just cease stopping them or taking them in for medical care.

I doubt that socialized healthcare will be withheld from them.

Who is going to call to help the idiot?

Around here no one would call for help. Every so often there's a body in the street. It's hours before someone bothers to notify anyone.

so move out of the barrio....i would think a retired lawyer would be living up town....or is luddy right about you?....

Ummmm. I live in Beverly Hills. I moved from West LA near Brentwood last February. Beverly Hills has its own low life druggies. They leak in from Los Angeles to beg.

And I can see them leaving a dead druggie in the street for hours until someone bothers to call somebody. I would.

 

[Katzndogz]

When I lived on the westside, there were three pot shops in a two block stretch and a lot of all kinds of drugs, druggies, homeless and derelicts of all kinds. Bodies in the street were not uncommon. They could be dead or just sleeping. No one paid any attention.

Since I moved I saw only one woman in the alley who was agitated and screaming before she just dropped. It was just after 2 in the afternoon before anyone called and the body was removed.

The worst part is, if someone was having a medical emergency, a stroke or heart attack not one person would do so much as call 911. That person could just lay there until they died. It's just assumed that the person is on drugs. Even fellow druggies won't help beyond stealing their shoes.

 

[EverCurious]

Marijuana was legal in Alaska until like 1992, we'd fought off the Feds on criminalizing it for generations, but then the Fed's War on Drugs forced us to make it illegal by threatening to take away fed funds for roads so the state had no choice...

When I was a kid pot was no different than smoking, the teachers would cross the road during lunch at HS and share bowls with the kids, hell the gym teacher was one of the favored dealers. Matanuska Thunder Fuck (MTF) our Palmer/Wasilla grown pot crop, was a big source of pride for everyone and both foreign (Canadian mostly) crops plus ruining the purity (adding acid and shit like that) was hugely frowned upon. Almost no one was interested in Cocaine or any harder drugs, like I knew two kids in my whole city that did acid or crack and they were both kind of shunned because they got whacked at parties, starting fights and shit.

The rest of us kids, probably like 200 or so at the parties, just weren't interested in that shit, we were geeks or something... As I remember it we'd sit around huge bonfires on the Native land and drink, smoke pot, and talk about politics and technology (PC's were just starting to emerge) For a couple beers and a hit the Native elder would come and tell us stories; about how they got there, how the creek was formed, how the mountains were formed, etc. and sometimes we would debate the science/geology of it with them. (They mostly told us to shut up and give them another beer)

Almost everyone had a DD, drinking or smoking and driving wasn't cool, that was a local phenomena cause one of our big football players had died while drinking and driving so there was a big push (plus getting into the party spot wasn't paved, hell it was barely a "trail," you actually had to know how to drive to get back in there - pretty much every Friday and Saturday night we'd have to push or tow some Freshman who missed a curve or got high centered on a tree stump out because it wasn't even a car length wide and if someone got stuck no one got through.) Most of us quit smoking pot when we got jobs, we'd go to the parties as the DD's cause we had to work in the morning or some were working on base and they'd get random drug tests and shit. My circle of about 15 friends [aka nerds] all quit before it was made illegal, like 1989-90 or something, because our hobbies were not conductive to buzzes (We used to code viruses to eat each others hard drives and we'd try to code a "virus fix" before the system's had to be reformatted or we'd program D&D games/campaigns) so we formed up what we called the DFH (Driver's for Hire) and we'd drive people home in their own cars - it was mostly an excuse to go to the parties and not get picked on for being total dorks we were but pretty much everyone loved us

I suppose times have changed a bit in the past 20 years, but I know there is still a lot of pride in the local MTF crops. We've been talking quietly about re-legalizing since a whiff of it came on the news in the lower 48 (what 2005?) See it's actually against our state constitution to have pot illegal... Our state gov just didn't really want to go first because the Fed's had threatened to take away our road funds if we didn't make it illegal back in 92 and we didn't want them doing that again. I'd say somewhere around 2010 is when our officers kind of stopped enforcing it, I mean they'd tack on pot charges if you get brought in for something else, but general unless you had got some huge grow factory the Fed's would have to be involved in, they were like w/e. I think the Fed's got involved at over 25 plants or something like that.

Anyway, Alaska is just going back to the way we had it before the Fed's war on drugs. I just hope that all the gang banger wannabe's we've acquired in the past 10 or so years will have the same "pride" in MTF that most of the locals did/do, cause that'll keep the hard drugs out for the most part.

 

[BlindBoo]

Marijuana was legal in Alaska until like 1992, we'd fought off the Feds on criminalizing it for generations, but then the Fed's War on Drugs forced us to make it illegal by threatening to take away fed funds for roads so the state had no choice...

When I was a kid pot was no different than smoking, the teachers would cross the road during lunch at HS and share bowls with the kids, hell the gym teacher was one of the favored dealers. Matanuska Thunder Fuck (MTF) our Palmer/Wasilla grown pot crop, was a big source of pride for everyone and both foreign (Canadian mostly) crops plus ruining the purity (adding acid and shit like that) was hugely frowned upon. Almost no one was interested in Cocaine or any harder drugs, like I knew two kids in my whole city that did acid or crack and they were both kind of shunned because they got whacked at parties, starting fights and shit.

The rest of us kids, probably like 200 or so at the parties, just weren't interested in that shit, we were geeks or something... As I remember it we'd sit around huge bonfires on the Native land and drink, smoke pot, and talk about politics and technology (PC's were just starting to emerge) For a couple beers and a hit the Native elder would come and tell us stories; about how they got there, how the creek was formed, how the mountains were formed, etc. and sometimes we would debate the science/geology of it with them. (They mostly told us to shut up and give them another beer)

Almost everyone had a DD, drinking or smoking and driving wasn't cool, that was a local phenomena cause one of our big football players had died while drinking and driving so there was a big push (plus getting into the party spot wasn't paved, hell it was barely a "trail," you actually had to know how to drive to get back in there - pretty much every Friday and Saturday night we'd have to push or tow some Freshman who missed a curve or got high centered on a tree stump out because it wasn't even a car length wide and if someone got stuck no one got through.) Most of us quit smoking pot when we got jobs, we'd go to the parties as the DD's cause we had to work in the morning or some were working on base and they'd get random drug tests and shit. My circle of about 15 friends [aka nerds] all quit before it was made illegal, like 1989-90 or something, because our hobbies were not conductive to buzzes (We used to code viruses to eat each others hard drives and we'd try to code a "virus fix" before the system's had to be reformatted or we'd program D&D games/campaigns) so we formed up what we called the DFH (Driver's for Hire) and we'd drive people home in their own cars - it was mostly an excuse to go to the parties and not get picked on for being total dorks we were but pretty much everyone loved us

I suppose times have changed a bit in the past 20 years, but I know there is still a lot of pride in the local MTF crops. We've been talking quietly about re-legalizing since a whiff of it came on the news in the lower 48 (what 2005?) See it's actually against our state constitution to have pot illegal... Our state gov just didn't really want to go first because the Fed's had threatened to take away our road funds if we didn't make it illegal back in 92 and we didn't want them doing that again. I'd say somewhere around 2010 is when our officers kind of stopped enforcing it, I mean they'd tack on pot charges if you get brought in for something else, but general unless you had got some huge grow factory the Fed's would have to be involved in, they were like w/e. I think the Fed's got involved at over 25 plants or something like that.

Anyway, Alaska is just going back to the way we had it before the Fed's war on drugs. I just hope that all the gang banger wannabe's we've acquired in the past 10 or so years will have the same "pride" in MTF that most of the locals did/do, cause that'll keep the hard drugs out for the most part.

Mmmmmm tales of Matanuska Thunder Fuck.

 

[Harry Dresden]

At this point it's no longer an issue of a tipping point being reached. Shove the druggies over the edge. Legalize it all and depolice drug use. There are so many really dangerous and deadly drugs, legalize them. Just cease stopping them or taking them in for medical care.

I doubt that socialized healthcare will be withheld from them.

Who is going to call to help the idiot?

Around here no one would call for help. Every so often there's a body in the street. It's hours before someone bothers to notify anyone.

so move out of the barrio....i would think a retired lawyer would be living up town....or is luddy right about you?....

Why do you ASSume her comments mean she lives in a bad neighborhood?

"every so often there is a body on the street".....figure it out.....

 

[HenryBHough]

Could the legalization have had any impact thatbtoday led Alaska's biggest health insurer to announce a 38%+ rate increase...

 

[EverCurious]

You mean Blue Cross/Blue Shield? They're increasing rates across the country as I hear it, some places as high as 40%.

Even if it were localized to Alaska though, I'd lean more toward liver transplants than pot related medical issues as a reason for any increases up here. Drinking is a far bigger problem up here. We need to make everyone watch the Mythbuster's episode that showed that, contrary to popular belief, drinking does /not/ keep you warmer...

 

[aris2chat]

God won't care about a religion or denomination. It will be the good vs the bad. The deserving vs those who are not yet ready for a heaven or afterlife. Those who can move forward for the next thousand years of more and those who will only hinder or destroy a peace.

It won't be what building you pray in or what book you read, but what is in the heart.

 

[aris2chat]

Alaska certainly did not need it to be legalized, it was a staple for many to get through the winters. It was easily accessible.
There was no way possible for the state to keep it out of people's hands. Too much wilderness where it could be grown and too many avenues, mostly by boat, for it to be brought in or out to the urban areas.