Marijuana Legalized In Oregon, Alaska, and Washington DC 588
Robotron23 writes: Coinciding with the midterm elections yesterday were state ballots proposing the legalization of cannabis. All three territories where full legalization was tabled approved the measure, joining Washington state and Colorado. The narrowest vote was that of Alaska at a roughly 52% to 48% margin. Washington D.C. meanwhile saw the vote strongly tipped in favor of legalization, at about 69% to 31% opposed. Oregon passed its measure by a vote of 55% to 45%. Buoyed by the news, advocates of legal cannabis are already contemplating the next round of state ballots in 2016.
But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:5, Informative)
It's still Federally illegal. Even in any state that it is "legal" it can still be prosecuted. It won't be under the current president, but that can change in 2 years.
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It's still Federally illegal. Even in any state that it is "legal" it can still be prosecuted. It won't be under the current president, but that can change in 2 years.
Mod parent up. Even if it is legal in Colorado, Washington, Alaska, Oregon, and DC, it's federally illegal. I would be surprised to see the DEA crackdown on it, but legally, they could. Obama has stated that this issue is not of major concern to him and will not be seeking prosecution.
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:5, Insightful)
Obama has stated that this issue is not of major concern to him and will not be seeking prosecution.
That's what he's stated, but not what he's done. They've raided several marijuana dispensaries and farms here in Colorado.
How do you know when a politician is lying? When their lips are moving.
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Obama has stated that this issue is not of major concern to him and will not be seeking prosecution.
That's what he's stated, but not what he's done. They've raided several marijuana dispensaries and farms here in Colorado.
How do you know when a politician is lying? When their lips are moving.
To be fair, some of the places they've raided appear to have been selling, whether knowingly or not, fairly large quantities of pot to people who were then taking it to Kansas and Wyoming and reselling it, and interstate transport of illegal drugs is absolutely part of the Federal Government's job.
However, it's not clear to me how sellers can tell where the stuff is going, and why should they be required to? They're selling what's legal here, and it's not really their business what the buyers do with it.
Th
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But the more states legalize, the greater pressure there is for the DEA to back off. Since the public is energized on the police-procedures issue right now, viral videos will bring us the justice that courts won't.
After all, this election was largely about trimming federal power, which is why the Taliban lost on the issues. Last night Colorado expended reproductive rights and Arizona became the fifth state to pass Right To Try, giving terminal patients the right to buy medications that are in the FDA pipeli
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:5, Insightful)
Also remember many jobs will drug test you.
This is already being tested in the courts [npr.org]. There's not yet (as far as I know) a test for marijuana intoxication, only detection that you've used marjuana at some point in the past few days/weeks, so there's little justification for testing for marijuana when it's already legal for recreational and/or medicinal use. It's particularly controversial when an employee uses marijuana medicinally -- cough medicine is going to affect employee performance much more than smoking pot over the weekend.
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:5, Insightful)
What they're really doing when you get forced to take a pre-employment piss test is asserting their power over you, even before they start paying you. You're a criminal/drug addict until you provide a bodily fluid to "prove" otherwise (as urine tests have varying degrees of accuracy). With marijuana especially, they're asserting control over your body (as you could smoke on the first of the month and spike a positive for pot at the end of the month) even during the hours you're not working for them (although, if you're an "exempt" employee, there are no hours that are truly yours; being an "exempt" employee means that you trade having to punch a clock for a fixed salary, no overtime, and the possibility of being required to work 120 hours a week, all legal).
It's time we stood up to our corporate masters and told them "It's none of your fucking business what's in my urine."
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Interesting)
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Insightful)
Actually, what they are trying to do is find out if you are an addict and are going to be using at work. The rationale is that if you can't stop using any given drug for the 30 days it takes to clear your system, then you cannot control your additiction.
That is proving the GP's point for him.
Its an incredibly stupid rationale.
The first part is treating everything as an addiction. Its not, not everyone who has a toke of weed is instantly turned into a crack whore. It's an odd concept to some that quite a few people can control their habits.
Secondly, it assumes that you cant keep something limited to your off time, for example I can choose to have a few beers over the weekend, that does not mean I drink 24/7. Now my employer absolutely has a right to expect me to be sober whilst at work during my prescribed working hours but after work, they dont get a say.
Fortunately where I live, pre-employment drug tests are illegal and drug tests during employment are only legal for certain areas (like mine sites, construction sites, factories and other places where there are real dangers, so not the office).
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Then they're lucky. Most places it's "These are the terms of the job, if you don't like them, fuck off."
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Insightful)
I agree. The pee test doesn't tell you that, and being around people smoking (but not smoking yourself) is enough to spike a positive.
You've missed my point. The issue is not whether or not I would pass the screen. The issue is that it's invasive, humiliating, and unnecessary. The issue is that it's one more way for your employer to control your life. The issue is that a joint on the weekends isn't going to make you a dangerous/bad worker. The issue is that it's not a crime in a lot of states. The issue is that it's none of their fucking business if it doesn't impact your ability to do your job, and it doesn't. We don't keep people from working if they drink a beer (or 17) on the weekends, and having an alcoholic on your payroll is worse than having someone who's used pot an indeterminant number of times in the last 30 days. But we don't test for alcohol.
But, keep buying into the Reefer Madness hysteria if you want. History will make a fool of you.
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Guess what I've never once seen. Now, guess what I see all the time.
Pot smokers are typically pretty considerate about when and where they smoke, and who they smoke around.
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I can't walk though downtown park without having second hand pot smoke, so no, I am not projecting.
And most people I know are courteous about smoking in front of others, because not everyone wants to smoke second hand. But those that don't aren't really friends in the first place, are they?
Anyone having gone to a concert and gotten high without smoking at all can tell you, many pot smokers don't give a shit about anyone else.
So ... not projecting. I think it is telling that you've never experienced inconsid
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Informative)
I already do. Most employers in my field have figured out that there's no reason to test if there aren't signs of a problem.
Not everyone that smokes pot is a "pothead". That's like saying everyone who likes a beer or two is an alcoholic.
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http://www.newapproachwa.org/sites/newapproachwa.org/files/I-502%20Factsheet%20-%20DUI.pdf (if you don't like to link directly to pdfs then do the internet search yourself you lazy pot-head).
Interesting accusation coming from the guy that's too lazy to use the tags to turn his link into a proper HTML link.
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but once you fail the drug test for traces opiates you are guilty until proven innocent
No, in post 1980s America, you are guilty of lots of things until you prove yourself innocent. And not "once you fail the drug test", because the test was given under the presumption you're guilty to begin with. Is testing for explosives residues on your hands a pre-condition for employment? Not yet, anyway.
Before Reagan promised to "get the government off the backs of the people", you didn't routinely find employers requiring drug tests. Nor did you have to prove up front that you weren't an illegal alien.
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There are employers now that are testing for nicotine and refusing to hire people who test positive.
My company has a "no tobacco" policy. We don't drug test, but we do tell people at the very beginning of our job application process, that we do not hire tobacco users. They are less productive (taking lots of smoke breaks), they are out sick more often, they run up health care costs, and they tend to be dumber than average. An employment law attorney told us that this is perfectly legal. Smokers have no rights.
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I'll save that comment. Just in case I ever feel tempted to work in the US.
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Informative)
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:5, Informative)
Yeah... ...and there is overlap in the above numbers. My state, MN, is in the Medical and Decriminalized category. We've been tolerant (Decrim) for longer than most states but our recently passed Medical law is the most restrictive in the nation. For whatever reason straight up legalization didn't end up on the ballot this year but when it does, at least according to recent polls, it will pass by a landslide. We'd have it already if it weren't for the prick we currently (just reelected grr...) and most recently before him had in the governors office.
5 = Legalization.
23 = Medical
18 = Decriminalized
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I demand more intelligent trolls! Why does /. only have stupid trolls?
Re:They're thinkin' Big! (Score:4, Informative)
B) We now have fewer laws.
Umm ... It doesn't really work that way. We (here in Oregon) now move from the realm of criminal law to regulatory law.
Re:But DC is different,no? (Score:4, Insightful)
Because that is the basis for ALL our government power, responsibility and authority.
It is arguable that the Feds for many years have overstepped those few enumerated powers they are supposed to have.
Many of us in the US feel it is time to reign in the Feds.
Wonderful (Score:5, Insightful)
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Sorry, I'm not completely familiar with the US legislative system. Does this election mean it is the law now, or it is just the expression of voters that politicians now have to form into new laws?
Re: Wonderful (Score:5, Informative)
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> The texts of the Bible express differing theological positions
As the disciple James says that was _intentional_.
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The US legal process is so unreasonably complicated.
Every region not only has it's own laws, but its own constitution defining how laws are passed and structured.
The simple, short version, is that in most states, legislatures can take things members don't want to be responsible for voting for, and put them on a ballot for the next election.
Some states have really dumb rules, like California that requires all taxes to pass a popular vote, but not all spending, and you can imagine how that lead to a catastrop
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Lets not forget there are also states, like my own, that often have "non-binding" questions, where the question goes to the ballot but its really people are voting to "instruct the legislature to enact legislation..." meaning, the people spoke, but its still up to the legislature to write and pass a law, which they are really not actually required to do and there is no garauntee they will.
That said I think unreasonably complicated is what it is not. If you remember that it is supposed to be a federation of
No worse than anywhere else (Score:2)
The US legal process is so unreasonably complicated.
No more so than any other major industrialized country.
Every region not only has it's own laws, but its own constitution defining how laws are passed and structured.
Every state has a constitution because they are by definition sovereign over that region. It's in the name: United STATES of America. The constitutions of each state are required to be compatible with the federal constitution and if there is a conflict the federal constitution wins. Local governments do not have constitutions typically though there are some exceptions. It's actually pretty straightforward in concept though law making everywhere is a
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No more so than any other major industrialized country.
Definitely more than some other major industrialized countries.
Some other constitutional nations actually standardize their processes for regional government too.
Like 60% of US states have unconstitutional provisions in their constitutions. It's not a maximally healthy legal environment when that happens.
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Welcome to the club.
Sincerely, your neighbors who paved the way,
Washington State and Colorado
Alaska was first, actually (Score:5, Interesting)
No, actually, possession and manufacture (growing) of marijuana has been legal in Alaska since 1975. [wikipedia.org] I've grown myself, and even had the attention of the authorities called to the matter, which worked out favorably. I've also had friends have growing equipment confiscated by the police, and subsequently returned with an apology. Nota bene: the legal protections applied (almost) exclusively in one's house or primary residence.
There are some cultural differences at work here; Alaskan marijuana was (semi-)legalized under a privacy clause, which mostly stems (ironically) from a far-right desire to be left the hell alone by everyone but especially the Government. Except in the form of pork barrel projects, which everyone knows are necessary in order to compensate for the state's underdeveloped "frontier" status.
Generally speaking, while it was legalized in the sense that cops were not going to bother one for private use, public consumption was strongly discouraged. This was not the first time full legalization has been on the ballot in Alaska, there were similar ballot measures in 2000 and 2004. It's a complicated situation; Alaska is almost ludicrously conservative compared to the other states which have legalized.
One must give credit where credit is due, I think it's significant that after years of effort and a long history of consumption in Alaska, this measure did not succeed until after Colorado and Washington. However, ultimately, I think that the most influential state in marijuana politics would be California: their medical marijuana dispensary system has paved the way for the de-demonization of cannabis. Now, the onus is on all of us to reverse the damage that the War on Drugs has caused, particularly in America's having pushed its drug laws on the entire rest of the world through the UN.
A side note on that: I suspect that this last part will involve the US pushing its drug laws on the rest of the world once more, but it would be nice if there were some process by which the international community could come to sane decisions about these drugs.
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Consider me more educated about Alaska, although I was aware of the goings on in California. Also, I hope folks realize I was just making a nonsensical, tongue-in-cheek comment just to indicate that Washington and Colorado have passed similar measures. I suppose I should have left out the "paved the way" part, because it was probably just a matter of getting their first more than anything else.
BTW, I think conservatives are starting to come around on the drug war, albeit slowly. I think many people are s
America is a RINO (Score:5, Insightful)
Yesterday's election was a message to Washington that America wants conservatives to represent them! Also, they want legalized pot, increased minimum wage, the right to have an abortion, insurance-provided contraception, and required paid time off at work!
Wait, what?
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Just one of the many contradictions that happen when you have a democracy that's made up of politicians who are elected by the people after having been bought by corporations.
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Not really contradictions though. This is what you should expect when the majority of such a large country is broken up into two big tent parties. None of these things is actually contrary to the core princibles that drive people to choose one party or the other. These do tend to be hot button issues that many individuals care deeply about and might choose candidates based solely on.... and one party may cater to or not....but really none of them is so big in and of itself to be a contradiction for a person
Re:America is a RINO (Score:5, Insightful)
No, yesterday's election message was "fuck Democrats", just as 2008's was "fuck Republicans". The system just doesn't really allow a message of "fuck BOTH of them", probably because the system was made by both of them.
Re:America is a RINO (Score:5, Insightful)
The system just doesn't really allow a message of "fuck BOTH of them"
It does. It's just that voters are retarded.
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If I had the mod points....
+1 to this. I voted purely Green & Libertarian (aside from where there was no option for such choices and depending on the specific issues). Then I saw my state's election results and realized how pointless it was for those two parties to even exist.
Has there ever even been someone voted to a major political office (i.e. Senator, House Representative, or Governor of a state) that wasn't R or D?
I experienced the full brunt of voter stupidity when a relative of mine asked me who
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"Has there ever even been someone voted to a major political office (i.e. Senator, House Representative, or Governor of a state) that wasn't R or D?"
George Washington, John Tyler (Independents) John Adams (Federalist) William Henry Harrison, John Tyler, Zachary Taylor, Milard Fillmore (Whigs)
Re:America is a RINO (Score:5, Insightful)
The system just doesn't really allow a message of "fuck BOTH of them"
It does. It's just that voters are retarded.
And apathetic. There were only about 15 people at my polling place yesterday when I voted and I, at 51, was the youngest there. The rest were probably like my mother, voting Republican because they despise Obama and the Affordable Care Act, while enjoying their Medicare - which, ironically, I pay for - or their Tricare. Or, also like my mother, don't want to pay taxes anymore, even though those taxes pay for infrastructure (road) repairs, the Police and Fire departments, etc... (sigh)
Democrats failed to inspire their base to give a fuck.
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I once, years ago, would have agreed with this, but I believe you are wrong.
I'm not. People still have a choice to vote third party, but they don't. They're afraid (consciously or otherwise, since I don't think they even think about any of this much at all) if they don't vote for the 'lesser' evil, the other evil will win. However, they're still voting for evil rather than someone they like, and they just ensure that the two parties can remain in power and unchallenged forever. No matter how futile it seems, trying it better than nothing, voting for someone you truly like is a good
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It all makes sense. I need a big minimum wage so I can buy good pot and pay for my girlfriend's abortion (if the pot wasn't so good, she'd remember her free pills!).
And after all that I need a vacation!
Re:America is a RINO (Score:5, Insightful)
It's a little more complicated than that.
The republicans gerrymandered the fuck out of the country in 2010. That's not to implicitly forgive any past gerrymanderings by democrats or anything, but the house doesn't even remotely represent the popular sentiment of the country. My states' 2012 elections were more than enough evidence of that. 51% of voters voted for democratic candidates, 9 out of 13 seats went to republicans, with another really close. Nothing has changed since then.
The senate, on the other hand, has always leaned a little disproportionately republican, because low-population, rural-as-hell states are overrepresented by constitutional design. Democratic control of the body is more a fluke than not, even though the soft majority of total votes tends to lean democratic.
The people of this country are more liberal than the government of this country. Not by a huge margin, but a bit.
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I find myself wondering how they managed that, since they didn't control all the State governments, nor did they control the Federal Judiciary.
Which are the parties actually responsible for defining legislative districts...
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They did have control of a substantial majority of legislatures when the redistricting happened.
Re:America is a RINO (Score:5, Informative)
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Yeah, gerrymandering is only allowed when Democrats do it!
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I'm pretty sure I made it clear as hell that I don't approve of that, and you can take your invented double standard and shove it up your anti-democracy ass.
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It looks to me like reform is the agenda, just not the reform Liberals like Lessig wanted. People are sick of Democrats at this point.
So, in Utah, a rich white male lost to a black female, guess which one liberals championed? So much for racist sexist Mormons , huh?
Re:America is a RINO (Score:5, Informative)
In most states over 10% of the voters register as Independent. How do you gerrymander those to vote Republican?
It doesn't matter what they're registered as. What matters is what they vote for and most will vote predictably.
Democrats cluster in large cities. How do you evenly distribute their votes out into Republican districts on the other side of the state?
You don't have to distribute the democratic votes in the major cities. You assign as many as you can to majority Republican districts and then fit the rest into a district that is as close to 100% Democrat as you can.
Imagine a state with 800 people. Let's ignore the geographical distribution for simplicity. 59% (470) of the people vote purple, 41% (330) will vote orange, and you are in charge of drawing 4 districts such that the orange politicians remain in power. How will you do it?
3 districts with 110 orange people and 90 purple people (that's a 10% lead in elections which is plenty).
1 district with 200 purple people.
Congratulations! The orange people get 3 seats and the purple people get 1 despite the purple voters being a clear majority of the total. Here is a good illustration on wikipedia [wikipedia.org] that also illustrates drawing the borders around geographically distributed voters.
Is this CO-style recreational, or just medical? (Score:2)
I would imagine Oregon and Alaska are recreational, but DC, too?
Let's hope the pace quickens over the next few years -- at 3 states every two years it'l take too long to legalize it everywhere.l
Re:Is this CO-style recreational, or just medical? (Score:4, Informative)
Washington, D.C.'s proposal, while scaled back compared to the Oregon proposal, allows for a person over 21 years old to posses up to two ounces of marijuana for personal use and grow up to six cannabis plants in their home. It also allows people to transfer up to one ounce of marijuana to another person, but not sell it.
(from cnn.com)
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Yes, DC has voted to legalize recreational use. Also, earlier this year the DC council voted to decriminalize possession, so it was already just a $25 fine or somesuch.
Make up your damn minds (Score:5, Insightful)
Let me guess: did the very same voters in these states also send people from the prohibition parties, to represent them in the federal government yet again? Right hand, you need to meet left hand some day.
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Because no one has nuanced policy opinions?
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Because voters are only allowed to care about one issue.
Wait, Washington D.C. WASN'T high before? (Score:3)
I always just assumed that most of the government there was already made up of stoners.
Vermont? (Score:3)
As a life-long resident of Vermont, I'm embarrassed that these other states have passed these referendums ahead of us.
Minnesota's medical marijuana law lame, too (Score:2)
The Democratic governor Mark Dayton is a dry drunk, so he has major cognitive dissonance and guilt when it comes to anything involving intoxicants and was in debt to police labor votes.
So instead of a groovy, California style medical marijuana we got some lame experimental thing involving cannabis oils or something.
But then again,. we can't buy booze in grocery stores or on Sundays, so maybe its a byproduct of our stern, Scandahoovian upbringing.
Money (Score:4, Insightful)
People use it anyway, whether it is legal or not. They have for thousands of years. Why not make some legal money out of it instead of letting the cartels have all the fun!
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Not to mention the money saved by not having to incarcerate nearly as many of the 45,000 state and federal prisoners currently serving marijuana-related sentences. Each prisoner averages around $30k a year to keep locked up.
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Except a lot of the revenue it generates is kind of bullshit and short term. Legalized cannabis just will not be expensive without some sort of serious artificial barriers to its production and distribution, kind of like what we have under prohibition.
This hundreds of dollars an ounce BS just is not going to hold up. All of the small time growers using lights in apartments who need those super high prices to stay in business are going to get put out of business by pure economics within a few short years.
In
Re:Money (Score:5, Insightful)
Legalization motivations can't so easily be tied to one factor.
There are many and people weigh them differently. There are just as people that think it's stupid to put people in jail for something that's less dangerous than alcohol as there are those that seek the tax revenue. There are other people that think laws shouldn't be intruding on what consenting adults want to do to themselves. There's another group that sees police resources wasn't policing cannabis use, not just in cost but time and the problems it causes with people respecting the law. And of course there is a group of people that just want to be able to smoke it. You just can't boil it down like you did.
Very few people realize that the war on drugs costs $12 billion dollars a year in police and incarceration expenses (without including court and societal costs, particularly the damage civil forfeiture does to the economy). Stop that expenditure and collect tax revenue on the transaction along with bringing all production back stateside and the economic benefits are tremendous but almost no one realizes it or in the case of the "think of the children" people even care about the cost. The hope is the frontier states like Colorado will show that legalization is not only safe but sane.
The counter weight is the media is doing their damndest to convince everyone kids are going to die BTW. How many times were you told on TV that marijuana edibles could be given out at Halloween and poison all the kids? Even though edibles have been available medically in many states for years now it's NEVER happened. You could even argue someone putting their $50 bag of THC gummies into some kids halloween bag is beyond reason, but the Media is playing this up for all it's worth. Think of the children damnit, cannabis is dangerous to them and some kid's going to end up dieing because cannabis is legal so we better hurry and ban it. Otherwise they might not have scary things to report about.
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For another motivation...
Right now, if I want to get some pot, I have to find somebody who deals in illegal drugs (or satisfy the Minnesota medical marijuana act provisions, which isn't happening). This means I'm encouraging and subsidizing illegal activity. It also means I'm in close contact with somebody who might try to sell me stuff considerably more dangerous than weed. What's important here is that there are so many people smoking the stuff that it creates a lot of illegal activity.
If we legal
Two predictions (Score:3, Funny)
Now that cannabis is legal in Washington, I think we can look forward to -
1. Much mellower politics
2. A massive increase in sales of snacks in the area around the Conress
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I'm sure the cocaine consumption will keep snacking at a minimum.
Re:Two predictions (Score:5, Insightful)
I know plenty of professionals (lawyers, surgeons, anaesthetists etc) that use recreational drugs. The chances of them getting charged with anything if caught in procession are pretty much nil. Drug laws aren't for the protection of society in general, the purpose is to establish control over people that are viewed as "trouble makers". Upper society members that use 'responsibly' need not worry. If they make a public scene, yeah, they'll be some kind of slap on the wrist, but in general if you are rich enough or respected enough certain laws don't apply. They are for the people beneath you.
Re:not quite.... (Score:4, Interesting)
Drug prosecution and arrest happen most often in poor communities. Joe Biden's son is an outlier, not proof of lack of class bias.
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Joe Biden's son gets punished *because* he's Joe Biden's son and he serves as a proxy for punishing Joe Biden and Joe Biden is too high profile to fix it without a scandal.
If Joe Biden was John Brown instead and some kind of law partner instead of a national politician, the son would skate with minimal punishment.
Fascinating juxtaposition (Score:2)
This is one of those topics where, if you go far enough left and far enough right, the two sides happen to meet on the same issue.
Great news again! (Score:4, Funny)
And I am aroused by the fantasy that all those republican victories were a negative response to the NSA and is going to revive the civil rights movement.
DC? Perfect. Now we can finally (Score:5, Funny)
Winston Churchill said... (Score:3)
Winston Churchill said that America can be relied on to do the right thing, after exhausting all alternatives.
Is this an example of that? Perhaps once every state legallises it, it will end up being legal federally. Then hopefully my own country will stop ignoring all the evidence and legalise it too.
The Fed could stop it easily if they wanted to (Score:3)
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now. (Score:4, Informative)
This is true. Hearst demonized marijuana because hemp fiber threatened his tree based paper products.
Comment removed (Score:5, Insightful)
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Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now. (Score:4, Insightful)
Read parent again. Nobody said paper would be discontinued.
But the claim is that it would be threatened. So... why doesn't hemp use threaten paper use where it's legal?
Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now. (Score:5, Insightful)
If hemp is so great, then why is interest in it so relatively low in the many other industrialized countries around the world where industrial hemp has always been legal and easy to grow, even state-subdizied?
It's a chicken and egg problem.
There isn't much hemp cultivation, so nobody is designing purpose built harvesting machinery.
And since there isn't any purpose built harvesting machinery, it's much harder to grow hemp on a large scale.
There's also a reality that even though hemp can be used in just about everything, it's not always the best (or currently the cheapest) option.
This could change if hemp harvesting and processing ever catches up on the decades of R&D that synthetics and cotton have received.
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Better then quoting a coward.
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Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now. (Score:5, Interesting)
No, it's always been about racism and moralizing. [rollingstone.com]
Du Pont really had nothing to do with it. And probably had more to gain from it if it were legalized because they had the capacity to grow vast fields of it. Same with Hearst. He only held minority stakes in paper mills. If hemp fiber could've out performed paper, moving his stock into hemp wouldn't have been hard.
Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now. (Score:5, Informative)
This. Not just this but this sort of moralizing and racism really goes well with jobs programs.
Lets not forget, when prohibition ended, it left a number of federal employees with budgets to burn and fuck all to do. They were not stupid, that is no recipe for job security. Harry Anslinger, one of the most vocal proponants of the marijuana laws of the day, was head of the FBN, the very people who were left with fuck all to do after prohibition ended.
Who better to justify law enforcement jobs than people who are seen as "immoral" or inferior and in need of being kept in their place? The thing about it is.... its a story so crazy you almost can't make shit like this up.
Good ole Harry spent years writting letters to police chiefs, asking them to keep their eye on "jazz musicians"....seriously.... claiming one day, they were going to have an operation to round them all up. One great quote of his that sums it all up:
This is from a man who testified before congress and was taken seriously.
Re:Well, let's criminalize Du Pont Nylon now. (Score:5, Informative)
I like the quote but it's pretty easy to prove that banning cannabis was race related when they gave it the Spanish name rather than the proper English term when referencing it in legal documents. See Marijuana is that scary stuff those dirty spics and negroes use, if they had called it by the proper English name, Cannabis, convincing the public would have been far harder because Cannabis was used to make hemp rope, the highest quality rope available at the time.
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You mean you don't want to walk around all day smelling like Bob Marley?
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As if anyone in Oregon, Alaska or DC has ever been given a ticket let alone arrested for blazing up. Unless you're moving shoeboxes of weed I doubt anyone's been bothered by the cops.
Or black, let's not forget that.
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Care to link to a study showing MJ smoke causes lung cancer? Because I'll link to one that shows it not only does not cause cancer, but in fact has been shown to inhibit lung cancer cell growth: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com... [wiley.com].
Or, were you just regurgitating old "reefer madness" inaccuracies for some unknown reason, since other people's usage in no way affects you?
Disclaimer: I'm a non-smoker, but a champion of facts and exterminator of ignorance.
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So far, all states that legalized it also regulate it, though usually more in a manner similar to alcohol (with which it has more in common, anyway).
Re:Skunk weed! (Score:4, Informative)
So what happens when my neighbor and his "friends" all start smoking weed and stinkin' up my home?
Same thing you would do today if they all start smoking tobacco and stinkin' up your home. You would tell them to stop, and if they don't, call the police and complain about public disturbance.
I'm still undecided whether now I'll have to contend with stoned people on the road
About as much as you would about drunk people on the road (and both would qualify as DUI, with all the legal penalties that entails). Having said that, stoned people are not as dangerous as drunk people - while both slow down reaction time, drunk people are not aware of that fact (and, in fact, often perceive it as improved), while stoned people are. In other words, a stoned guy is more likely to drive slowly and carefully to offset the influence of the drug, while a drunk guy is more likely to drive even more aggressively than usual.