Legalize it!

[NoNukes]

So if a person is of a different opinion as yours, they have the problem. Interesting take.

The notion of taxing pot and creating these medical marijuana stores is stupid. An ounce of pot is worth around two bucks, so make it so it will cost around two bucks and everything will work out fine. If the person has a yard, they can grow their own without much trouble. Once they mix up some good soil, seeds and fertilizer is all they need.

Sort of like taxing cigs? A pack of cigs is, mostly tax. If you are stupid enough to inhale smoke into your body, then the government should tax your stupidity.

You do not have to inhale smoke to do cannabis.

 

[MikeK]

Seems to be an opinion of the local sheriff and as if he is speculating.

What year was medical marijuana made legal in Denver do you know?

When marijuana was decriminalized in New York City (in the 1970s) and was far more available than Denver's medical provision allows, the crime rate decreased. In the 1980s, after Ronald Reagan's escalation of Nixon's War On Drugs, including marijuana, the crime rate rose sharply.

Burglary, which is the crime the Denver police chief said has risen, is typically attributed to heroin addicts, not marijuana users. So Chief White is either looking in the wrong direction because he doesn't know better, or he has some personal issue with the medical marijuana program in his city.

So if a person is of a different opinion as yours, they have the problem. Interesting take.

When my opinion is supported by statistical facts -- yes. Here is just one example.

http://boingboing.net/2012/11/30/california-pot-decriminalizati.html

There are many more. If you'd care to do a bit of simple research you would find many more examples. But I don't expect you to do that because it doesn't accommodate your agenda.

 

[MikeK]

I posted something about the total dysfunction of Yemen due to its people chewing on Quat [or something like that] which has all the same effects as smoking of grass. It just might explain the dysfunction in our institutions of higher education which I have a feeling are similar.

I have no personal experience with khat but it's described by knowledgeable sources as a stimulant, similar to amphetamine, which is the diametric opposite of marijuana's tranquilizing effect.l So there is absolutely no comparison between the two.

Is Yemen Chewing Itself to Death? - TIME

 

[Mr. Shaman]

Pot doesn't really do it for me. I've tried it enough to know for sure.
That being said, I see absolutely no reason why it should be illegal, and quite a few reasons to legalize and regulate it.

Now that is a surprisingly objective and intelligently honest comment!

Thank you for raising the important but seldom mentioned issue that marijuana does not affect everyone in the same way. For the vast majority of users it is nothing more than a euphoric tranquilizer. But the neurochemistry of a small percentage of those who try it is such that it either has very little effect, or it has no effect at all, or in some cases it has a negative effect (paranoia, disorientation, or confusion). But there is no record of anyone ever suffering seriously negative effects from it -- except for that ignorant cop and his wife who tried baking pot brownies using several ounces of raw marijuana leaf, including ground up twigs and seeds. And even in their case the most serious effect they suffered was intestinal blockage and extreme disorientation, which wore off in a few hours.

Marijuana: A Primer​

"Cannabinoids have a relatively unique safety record, particularly when compared to other therapeutically active substances. Most significantly, the consumption of cannabinoids -- regardless of quantity or potency -- cannot induce a fatal overdose because, unlike alcohol or opiates, they do not act as central nervous system depressants. According to a 1995 review prepared for the World Health Organization, "There are no recorded cases of overdose fatalities attributed to cannabis, and the estimated lethal dose for humans extrapolated from animal studies is so high that it cannot be achieved by users."

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q3P1mQzBxmg]Zach Galifianakis Smokes Joint on Bill Maher: CA Prop 19 - YouTube[/ame]

 

[Dubya]

So if a person is of a different opinion as yours, they have the problem. Interesting take.

The notion of taxing pot and creating these medical marijuana stores is stupid. An ounce of pot is worth around two bucks, so make it so it will cost around two bucks and everything will work out fine. If the person has a yard, they can grow their own without much trouble. Once they mix up some good soil, seeds and fertilizer is all they need.

Sort of like taxing cigs? A pack of cigs is, mostly tax. If you are stupid enough to inhale smoke into your body, then the government should tax your stupidity.

If our government was taxing stupidity, you'd balance the budget.

 

[DNAprotection]

Your argument that plants are exempt from government regulation is ridiculous. A biological WMD weapon can be a plant.

It's unconstitutional in your own mine. Just remember, you can smoke all the tomatoes you want!

You haven't addressed the point and what you have posted is worthless to the conversation.
Why does that judge insist growing tomato plants is a constitutional right? Or more correctly stated how does the constitution protect such self evident rights?

A farmer tried to appeal having his wheat crop destroyed in 1940 on the grounds he was using it to feed his own chickens and the wheat wasn't used for interstate commerce. The Supreme Court decided it did involve interstate commerce, because his chickens would require wheat from elsewhere. If the Supreme Court is going to decide that about wheat, what are they going to decide about pot? What some Judge says about tomatoes isn't making case law of the land, so unless you can come up with a Supreme Court decision reversing previous case law, your plant defense isn't going to cut it. Judges can decide whatever, but that doesn't make it the law of the land. Only the Supreme Court can reverse their case law. The Supreme Court is not going to tell Congress that it can't make a law prohibiting a plant with obvious drug effects. There are wild plants that grow in America that are illegal to possess or intentionally cultivate.

The issue here is also one of property rights. Governments are allowed to prohibit ownership of certain properties, such as chemicals, animals, plants, bacteria and viruses. When a law is made prohibiting owning that property, you can't legally own it to claim it as your property. Even property that is legal to own can be deprived from a person by due process.

The law isn't about what you think it is, what you think it should be or what you want it to be. The law is what it is and the government does have the constitutional right to make pot illegal to own, just like coca or opium poppies. The issue with pot is whether it's worth making it illegal. Having pot illegal is making it worth hundred of times it's value and feeding a black market that wouldn't be there if it was legal. Quality pot is probably worth around $20 to $30 a pound. It can easily be harvested, dried and frozen to last a year. Having pot illegal is just a big waste of law enforcement and criminal justice efforts and has negative economic consequences. If it was easily available and cheap, it might deter people from using more harmful drugs and make Sergeant Joe Friday badge #714 turn over in his grave.

I know of the Wheat case and your leaving out that the farmer had signed into a government/usda contract and that is key info for the ruling in that case as far as i know.
The law isn't what you think it is either friend and from the way you write about the law it seems to me that you are way off base on many points especially the constitutional reach of gov authority and also in the area of how 'rights' are adjudicated etc.
Have you ever filed a civil challenge in effort to protect a certain right?
Or maybe more accurate to your wording you apparently believe you get all your rights from gov?
Either way you are quite wrong as are most of the posts I've read of yours.

 

[MikeK]

[...]

If someone has decided that drugs or alcohol is more important to them than keeping a roof over their head, then taxpayers should just give it to them. Set up facilities in isolated, remote areas in the US, like the desert or in the mountains for example, and give everyone their daily dose of whatever it is they want. In return, they live there, they undergo daily counseling and education, they're given opportunities to get their lives back together again should they decide they've had enough. The draw of free drugs will make them migrate on their own free will and in doing so, it will get them off the streets and into counseling where they belong. And if people never come to the decision they want to clean themselves up, well then so be it. What difference does it make? They either die on the streets or they die in the facility.

New approaches people. If the system isn't working, then it's time to change the system.

This is an excellent piece overall. But I'm focused on the above paragraph because I do believe it is the best and only viable approach to dealing with drug addicts. In fact I once addressed a suggestion to NYC's Mayor Ed Koch that Ellis Island be renovated in the form of a large single-room-occupancy complex with spartan but comfortable accomodations which drug addicts could voluntarily inhabit via self-commitment (similar to a voluntary psychiatric facility commitment) and be maintained on their drug of choice, dispensed in a tolerably gradual withdrawal regimen.

Addicts who are forced to steal and to live like rats would, as you've said, migrate and remain there rather than imposing themselves on the mainstream. And the cost would be considerably lower than the utterly counterproductive existing approach, which is thoughtless brute force.

Of course I received no reply, nor did I expect one.

 

[MikeK]

People who don't want to legalize weed are the same ones who claim to need a gun to protect themselves from government interfernce. You want to tell other people what to do, but you don't want anyone telling YOU what to do. Ain't Merrucans great?

Good point!

 

[MikeK]

You can't reason with potheads. You can only feed them Cheetos and hope they shut up.

No reason to put them in jail, though.

What exactly do you mean by "pothead?" Are you applying it in the same sense as drunkard, meaning one who drinks alcohol to excess and behaves obnoxiously? Or do you use it in reference to anyone who enjoys the effects of marijuana in the same way and for the same reason as some who peacefully and responsibly enjoy a few beers now and then?

You do know that everyone who uses marijuana doesn't conform with the Cheech & Chong stereotype, don't you?

 

[Katzndogz]

Not everyone who uses pot thinks they act like a Cheech and Chong stereotype. They act like a Ridgemont High stereotype instead. That's the way they should be treated too. A pothead is someone that currently uses or has ever used. If they used once the tendency is always there and they cannot be trusted.

 

[Katzndogz]

The presidebt is an ideal example of a pothead who can't be trusted and should never have been trusted. Except by leeches and potheads.

 

[DNAprotection]

Not everyone who uses pot thinks they act like a Cheech and Chong stereotype. They act like a Ridgemont High stereotype instead. That's the way they should be treated too. A pothead is someone that currently uses or has ever used. If they used once the tendency is always there and they cannot be trusted.

This issue provides a perfect example for the definition of the saying 'fool me once' etc in that (being generous) we could say shame on the corporate gov for fooling us into swallowing laws that outlaw or tax plants into being effectively outlawed when we depend on plants and our interaction with such for our lives, but now after decades of such acceptance shame on us for going along with the furtherance of such laws under the label of 'legalization'.

The pro 'legalization' posters on this thread have a level of coherent understanding of this issue that reminds me much of this:

[ame=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eKgPY1adc0A]Bush "Fool Me Once..." - YouTube[/ame]

The anti cannabis posters seem to have an even less coherent understanding of this issue.

This issue is far deeper than either side will face up to imo, and the way it has and will continue to effect us all its a further tragedy that we go on in denial of the real issues and questions within this diversionary framing of the topic (here on this thread as well as in public) no matter how well intended your views are.

 

[MikeK]

Your source seems to be biased and stretching the truth. I can't find any record of Hearst being involved with 'Reefer Madness.' That nylon stuff sounds like nonsense too.

There is an excellent book by Jack Herer, called The Emperor Has No Clothes, (available from Amazon). It is packed with carefully researched and well documented information on the marijuana issue, including plenty of facts on Hearst's involvement and his close personal connection with Harry Anslinger. This is a fascinating little book and it's very easy reading for anyone with an interest in the subject.

[ame=http://www.amazon.com/The-Emperor-Wears-Clothes-Authoritative/dp/1878125028]The Emperor Wears No Clothes: The Authoritative Historical Record of Cannabis and the Conspiracy Against Marijuana: Jack Herer, Leslie Cabarga, Jeannie Herer, Roland A. Duby: 9781878125026: Amazon.com: Books[/ame]

 

[Dubya]

You haven't addressed the point and what you have posted is worthless to the conversation.
Why does that judge insist growing tomato plants is a constitutional right? Or more correctly stated how does the constitution protect such self evident rights?

A farmer tried to appeal having his wheat crop destroyed in 1940 on the grounds he was using it to feed his own chickens and the wheat wasn't used for interstate commerce. The Supreme Court decided it did involve interstate commerce, because his chickens would require wheat from elsewhere. If the Supreme Court is going to decide that about wheat, what are they going to decide about pot? What some Judge says about tomatoes isn't making case law of the land, so unless you can come up with a Supreme Court decision reversing previous case law, your plant defense isn't going to cut it. Judges can decide whatever, but that doesn't make it the law of the land. Only the Supreme Court can reverse their case law. The Supreme Court is not going to tell Congress that it can't make a law prohibiting a plant with obvious drug effects. There are wild plants that grow in America that are illegal to possess or intentionally cultivate.

The issue here is also one of property rights. Governments are allowed to prohibit ownership of certain properties, such as chemicals, animals, plants, bacteria and viruses. When a law is made prohibiting owning that property, you can't legally own it to claim it as your property. Even property that is legal to own can be deprived from a person by due process.

The law isn't about what you think it is, what you think it should be or what you want it to be. The law is what it is and the government does have the constitutional right to make pot illegal to own, just like coca or opium poppies. The issue with pot is whether it's worth making it illegal. Having pot illegal is making it worth hundred of times it's value and feeding a black market that wouldn't be there if it was legal. Quality pot is probably worth around $20 to $30 a pound. It can easily be harvested, dried and frozen to last a year. Having pot illegal is just a big waste of law enforcement and criminal justice efforts and has negative economic consequences. If it was easily available and cheap, it might deter people from using more harmful drugs and make Sergeant Joe Friday badge #714 turn over in his grave.

I know of the Wheat case and your leaving out that the farmer had signed into a government/usda contract and that is key info for the ruling in that case as far as i know.
The law isn't what you think it is either friend and from the way you write about the law it seems to me that you are way off base on many points especially the constitutional reach of gov authority and also in the area of how 'rights' are adjudicated etc.
Have you ever filed a civil challenge in effort to protect a certain right?
Or maybe more accurate to your wording you apparently believe you get all your rights from gov?
Either way you are quite wrong as are most of the posts I've read of yours.

It's your analysis of government authority that is way off. You act like government has no purpose to regulate an orderly society and our Constitution prohibited the federal government from doing so. Such things as making laws for the general welfare don't exist in your mind, because you believe you have a constitutional right to grow drugs, hence the plant defense. There are plants that are very dangerous and it's the job of government not to allow the general public to own them. I mentioned the ability to make WMD biological weapons from plants, but what about an invasive species. Does your plant theory only apply to plants that make drugs and why is it limited to plants? If you think people have the universal freedom to property rights, then all chemicals, animals, bacteria and viruses should be included. I guess people have the right to own nuclear weapons too.

A government that behaves the way you claim our government should and is suppose to behave isn't functioning. Your concept of government is anarchy, where it's prohibited from making common sense laws and gives unlimited freedom to it's citizens. According to you, the Constitution didn't give Congress the authority to make any law regulating human behavior, because you won't read what the Founders said. The Founders had enough sense to know people needed government or they wouldn't have bothered to form one. They knew laws were needed to regulate human behavior. Try reading what they said, before and after each part of the Constitution by doing some actual research and not lazily taking a viewpoint based on talking points from some extremist site. Here is our Constitution and Bill of Rights based on what formed it and the minutes of the meetings where it was worded. The link also contains the historical evidence prior to and after writing each item in the Constitution.

Founders' Constitution

If you people want pot legalized, why can't you use reason? You aren't going to convince people that our government doesn't have the authority to prohibit the possession of a plant. Pot is unique in that it can easily be grown, but drugs like coca and opiates aren't. You aren't going to get rid of a black market by legalizing those drugs. Drugs like meth also are too dangerous to be legal. It would be smart to decriminalize with treatment these street drugs, but it isn't smart to legalize them. Pot should be legalized, except for exports, so it's value will drop to it's production value. If someone wants to smoke pot, they should be allowed to grow all they want and only have a sales tax when sold. They can put the pot in tobacco shops and keep it from the general public. The fact is, they should do the same thing with cigarettes, including only having a sales tax. There should be excise taxes on these or liquor. If governments want revenue then progressive taxation on income is the method to raise it.

We aren't going to solve drug problems with legalization. Opium poppies can be grown in the US, but producing opium is too labor intensive for it to be produced here. It isn't like a heroin addict will grow his own drug for consumption. The same thing applies to crack, but I doubt we could sufficiently grow coca outside of Hawaii. Legalizing those drugs isn't going to stop the drug cartels or make the drugs cheap. Those drugs will be around as long as countries are allowed to produce them and they can only be stopped at the source of production.

It would be easy for the world to rid itself of crack, because the plantations producing it are easy to find. A coca bush takes about a year and a half to two years to grow. Only new growth leaves are picked and the bush will grow to tree size and live forty years or more. The point is the bush/tree can be easily cut down. Opium poppies are a different story and once an area is planted, it takes a sustained effort to remove that perennial plant. It's pie in the sky thinking to believe legalizing these or harmful drugs like meth will solve the problems associated with them. It's stupid too to claim efforts to stop such drugs aren't working, so we should stop trying. It may suit your libertarian fancy to think your methods would work, but legalizing those types of drugs would just make a bad situation much worse.

 

[Katzndogz]

How totally ignorant. It's a PLANT we can't make ingesting plants illegal. Sit down shut up and eat your foxglove cookies.

The problem isn't marijuana. It just sits there growing. The problem is that such a large number of people have to get high. They are people who mostly will never be able to function. Thankfully they tend to die young but until they do they get to burden the rest of us with their miserable existence. The obvious answer is to warehouse them. This is something they are doing in the Netherlands. They are using old boxcars. In China it's forced labor camps. That's the future of legalized marijuana. Pick one.

 

[Dubya]

How totally ignorant. It's a PLANT we can't make ingesting plants illegal. Sit down shut up and eat your foxglove cookies.

The problem isn't marijuana. It just sits there growing. The problem is that such a large number of people have to get high. They are people who mostly will never be able to function. Thankfully they tend to die young but until they do they get to burden the rest of us with their miserable existence. The obvious answer is to warehouse them. This is something they are doing in the Netherlands. They are using old boxcars. In China it's forced labor camps. That's the future of legalized marijuana. Pick one.

I've been around enough potheads to know that isn't true and they can function better than the average person. I've seen workers catch a quick buzz and watched their performance increase on the job. I don't claim it works that way with everybody who smokes pot, but that's been the case with people I've seen working. Pot can act as both a stimulant and tranquilizer depending on environmental circumstances. Maybe they lose their concept of time or return the award of a short minute or two break for a buzz, but their performance increased in the cases I've seen and these were skilled workers doing complicated tasks.

 

[MikeK]

Remember the couple who ate too many brownies and called to report they were overdosing? They were sick, but it could have been the brownies. I think injesting too much pot would make you sick, just like injesting too much of anything.

That couple clearly had the wrong idea about how pot brownies, or any other pot-laced baked products, are made. Briefly stated, creating these edibles involves careful processing of the plant material to extract and render a by-product known as pot butter, which is then mixed with the cake ingredients. Doing this properly calls for experience and for knowledge of the potency level of the marijuana used (very important). But what these ignorant, inexperienced people did is grind up two full ounces of marijuana, including twigs and seeds, stir it in with a box of brownie mix, and bake it.

First, burning marijuana plant material, as in a cigarrette or pipe, releases a level of THC which is capable of producing the desired euphoric tranquilizing effect. Properly extracting pot butter from the plant material produces a concentrated source of THC-bearing matter. The baking further enhances the potency, which is why it takes just a few small bites of a properly baked pot brownie to commence the desired effect.

Doing what these two did by just grinding up and baking two ounces of plant material is radically alter and intensify its chemical composition and its potential. Also, the way to eat a pot brownie is take two or three bites, put it down -- and wait. It takes from ten to twenty minutes for the effect to develop. But according to what I read, these two gobbled two large brownies right down.

Try to imagine brewing a pot of coffee using twenty times the appropriate amount of grind, boiling it for hours, then pouring some into a large cup filled half full of sugar, mixing it up and drinking the whole thing. You probably would end up in an emergency room, too. But the experience does in no way reflect on the proper use of coffee.

 

[GuyPinestra]

People who don't want to legalize weed are the same ones who claim to need a gun to protect themselves from government interfernce. You want to tell other people what to do, but you don't want anyone telling YOU what to do. Ain't Merrucans great?

Good point!

Not really, it's a generalized assumption. I know LOTS of Libertarians who are staunch believers in the 2nd Amendment AND an end to this ridiculous 'drug war'.

Smart people they are...

 

[Katzndogz]

How totally ignorant. It's a PLANT we can't make ingesting plants illegal. Sit down shut up and eat your foxglove cookies.

The problem isn't marijuana. It just sits there growing. The problem is that such a large number of people have to get high. They are people who mostly will never be able to function. Thankfully they tend to die young but until they do they get to burden the rest of us with their miserable existence. The obvious answer is to warehouse them. This is something they are doing in the Netherlands. They are using old boxcars. In China it's forced labor camps. That's the future of legalized marijuana. Pick one.

I've been around enough potheads to know that isn't true and they can function better than the average person. I've seen workers catch a quick buzz and watched their performance increase on the job. I don't claim it works that way with everybody who smokes pot, but that's been the case with people I've seen working. Pot can act as both a stimulant and tranquilizer depending on environmental circumstances. Maybe they lose their concept of time or return the award of a short minute or two break for a buzz, but their performance increased in the cases I've seen and these were skilled workers doing complicated tasks.

I've seen enough families evicted because the wage earners couldn't rouse themselves enough to go to work. Enough divorces, enough dead children because their parents forgot, enough homes burned to the ground because someone was to sotted to put out a candle or unplug the iron. The one person I cannot forget is the 13 year old boy who went to court to get custody away from his pothead father and given to his grandmother instead. I remember all those cases, but somehow I can't forget this child's face as he pleaded with the judge to get him away from his pothead daddy. Skilled workers, yeah sure, and they leave the baby on the roof of the car as they drive off.

What can happen is that the United States becomes another Yemen, but bigger. Or, it can divide even further, potheads can be rejected, marginalized, separated and like rocks in a stream, the rest of us can go on around them and over them, until they die, which hopefully will be like, Mindy McCready, Whitney Houston, Janis Joplin, Jimmy Hendrix and all the rest, long line that is, while they are still young and haven't done so much damage.

 

[Katzndogz]

A month ago, or maybe a bit more than that, one of my neighbors, a woman in her 70s came by to visit, high on pot, offering me a cookie then eating it herself. She had a card, it was okay, she "needed it". I told her to leave, after arguing that she had a major buzz and wanted to sit down, I told her in no uncertain terms to get out. She was in her 70s! She fell, and could not get up. I opened the door, grabbed her ankles and dragged her out in the hallway. I put a note DRUG ADDICT on her and left her there to call for help. I think a couple of guys from the next building over showed up and helped her stand. Should people who know they are unsteady on their feet expect that their performance will be improved with pot? HA.

That's how to treat addicts. Don't give them an inch, not a millimeter.