Marijuana Legalization/Decriminalization Efforts

[ringthree]

It'll be interesting to see how many states 'do it right' or whatever, and how many bottle all the revenue up neatly for themselves via ABC Liquors and things.

O/U @ 41.5 states go for the monopoly

Do it right? How is an ABC system inherently wrong? Unless you are making the argument for a completely unregulated marijuana access, which is never going to happen, and probably shouldn't anyway.

[Roranora]

the air quotes imply the gray haziness of the two sides, but generally speaking, a state-wide monopoly on a given industry is not in consumers' best interests

Edit: lots and lots of lines between completely unregulated mj access and erring on the side of a massive regulatory scheme, to steal Rep. Reykdal's words

“The entire 502 implementation plan has been a failure to date,” Rep. Chris Reykdal (D-Olympia) wrote to a constituent. “I supported the initiative, but nobody believed they were voting to harm medical patients . . . The biggest failure comes from the fact that we all wanted to reduce law-enforcement costs, but now the massive regulatory scheme is making it worse.”

[ringthree]

the air quotes imply the gray haziness of the two sides, but generally speaking, a state-wide monopoly on a given industry is not in consumers' best interests

Edit: lots and lots of lines between completely unregulated mj access and erring on the side of a massive regulatory scheme, to steal Rep. Reykdal's words

So, you are saying you like the CO approach over the WA approach? That's fair. It just seems to me that you are going to have heavy regulation here no matter what, and I can't say that there is any real evidence that non-ABC has some kind of immediately obvious benefit over an ABC scheme. The example you are giving is just a problem, not proof of a greater conceptual issue. People will make money off of marijuana, one way or another. Are you crying over the black market entrepreneurs that have been forced out of the market with legalization?

[Roranora]

Nah, and many of those types might actually deserve it -- being forced out post-legalization, if you will. It's the profitable raping of the medicinal system that led to No on Prop 19 in CA, anyway.

I don't really have a dog in the fight, and agree not much can be learned from just CO&WA, when soon enough, there will be handfuls of states' various approaches to marijuana legalization. If there's anything I want, it's people getting engaged in this discussion sooner, so their future legislation is better or more pleasing to people in that area. Most of WA won't have stores at all, and that's fine if that's how they want it. It's less fine if it's state representatives making it that way against the pulse of the people.

I'd rather cry about wasted resources and policing efforts, personally. I'm all for full legalization of pretty much any substance; cannabis is all I'll use either way, this is just my political stance I guess. It'd be easier and better for teamhuman(tm) to focus on drug addiction recovery, rather than filling up new prisons in TX. The US incarcerating the highest percentage of its population usurps the concern about state-monopolized marijuana shops.

[Roranora]

MSM and polls and bump.

Regardless of whether or not people support cannabis, they see its legalization as inevitable. (roughly 75%)

http://news.yahoo.com/poll-nationwid...150206513.html

Nationwide marijuana legalization seems inevitable to three-fourths of Americans, whether they support it or not, according to a new poll out Wednesday.

The Pew Research Center survey on the nation's shifting attitudes about drug policy also showed increased support for moving away from mandatory sentences for non-violent drug offenders.

The telephone survey found that 75 percent of respondents — including majorities of both supporters and opponents of legal marijuana— think that the sale and use of pot eventually will be legal nationwide. It was the first time that question had been asked.

Some 39 percent of respondents said pot should be legal for personal adult use. Forty-four percent of those surveyed said it should be legal only for medicinal use. Just 16 percent said it should not be legal at all.

The responses come as two states have legalized recreational marijuana, with more than 20 states and Washington, D.C., allowing some medical use of the drug.

[Mad Dog Ben Richards]

I smoke pot every day. I was just in Colorado a few weeks ago for a few days to snowboard. you can buy it across the street from the airport in Aspen. they have drop box to put your weed in outside the airport so you can get rid of it before you get on a plane. my guess is it's resold or someone set up a scam that's working wonderfully and its not really supposed to be there.... lol

I didn't even have to buy any though. it was like a rotation of people leaving and giving it away to new ppl coming in who then gave it away when they left. I got a huge bag from some random guy who couldn't take it with him on the 1st day I was riding.

and from what I saw, not a single person was smoking and blowing it it other people's faces or anything like that. everyone still minds their own business and smokes of the to the side of the trail or at the fire pit smoking section outside bars and shit.

I read an article in the paper while I was there that said 3.6 mil in pot tax revenue collected in January alone by the state. that doesn't count money spent in other businesses and sales tax on things like that while they are there. it's a gold mine for them.

[Roranora]

Yeah, the MJ 101 pamphlet thing I posted very clearly states at the outset that public use is unacceptable. Generally, people know it's frowned upon, and no one (or almost no one) is doing it in clear sight anywhere or in any disturbing fashion.

[Roranora]

On the other side of cannabis uses.. let's say drug / medicinal and other / industrial. On the hemp side of things, even CO is enacting some very stupid and incompetent legislation (WA having its own struggles..) setting terrible thresholds to disqualify a field of hemp. And yes, they will take/destroy your crop in its entirety right now. A garden out back or an 80-acre section out on the plains.

Unfortunately, there are zero 80-acre sections of hemp being farmed in CO, and the US as a whole. We're so far from helping our farmers farm, it's painful. But hey guys, you can take this shit down to the grain elevator, too, ya know. We just won't be able to for awhile; we'll watch Uruguay first, it seems.

Sorry we never told you about hemp in American/US History in school, but we're damn proud you heard the word cotton. G Wash knew tho

[Mad Dog Ben Richards]

yeah i was a history major I know that about George Washington.

i watched a program on axs tv maybe a few months ago. it was a dan rather special on legal pot. not that i'm a big dan rather guy, but it was pretty good. they basicly tested a bunch of medical pot from California for pesticides and found residue for chemicals that you shouldnt be ingesting. the conclusion was there is no regualtion for like the FDA on pot. its not ilegal to spray your pot with pesticides that arn't approved by the FDA for food contact in Cali. at least at the time this aired.

so people are spraying cheap ass ortho and shit thats made for objects on pot to kill bugs. like for example legal for spraying on concrete to kill bugs but not approved for Food contact. and the more ppl jump in on the growing that dont know what they are doing or care about the botom line and use the cheap ass shit and don't flush their pot correctly.... the more the gov has to jump in and say hey you cant put this on the pot we are prescribing to chemo patients. so i can def understand how the state is getting bogged down in red tape.

[Roranora]

meanwhile, DEA Head is delusional

http://hemp.org/news/content/us-dea-...lerance-mariju

Leonhart claimed legalization would be "dangerous to pets" in Colorado and warned of a surge in veterinary clinic visits due to dogs consuming marijuana. Such fears are nonsense; cannabis is non-toxic to all mammals, and while it may cause dogs and cats to become disoriented or to fall asleep, it will not kill them. Other common ingredients, however, such as chocolate, can indeed prove fatal to pets.

[Salodin]

Damn DEA be like "yo don't take our jobs away we gotta protect the animals". Holy shit can't believe that's real haha

[Roranora]

oh yeah

Riffle said, "It’s frankly astounding to me that Ms. Leonhart is still employed and American taxpayers continue to foot her $165,000 salary to publicly campaign against the president’s policies."

[djzombie]

Riffle said, "It’s frankly astounding to me that Ms. Leonhart is still employed and American taxpayers continue to foot her $165,000 salary to publicly campaign against the president’s policies."

yea as if we can fucking do something about that.

[Sho]

Used to burn trees almost everyday. Feels good, man.

Not sure nationwide legalization will be a good thing at all. I mean yes it will be legal, but this means the industrialization of pot will be "out of our hands" so to speak. I mean at least here in Cali you could feel justified in finding a personal dealer for your needs, complete with background checks and all that. Industrialization takes out the grower and gives you a (usually clueless) middleman instead.

It would definitely be stupid not to do it, but I guess I can't trust the monopolization of it, I guess.

[RKenshin]

I don't know, seems it worked pretty well for alcohol.

I honestly don't see it ending up much differently, if it was legal. Walking into a 'pot store' would be like walking into an alcohol store; tons of choices, tons of brands, large variety of type/quality/use/mix/occasion/etc... it's an extremely competitive market, with a huge consumer base, very low cost/barriers to entry, and high profit margins. As I understand it, most of the legal stores in Colorado are already down that path. It's not going to be like shopping around for good blueberries.

[Quixon]

Dogs can die from ingesting large amounts of cannabis. My good friend is a vet and has seen it. Admittedly it does take an almost comical amount of weed, but it's happened. Not defending the ridiculous comment by the DEA, but it does have some truth to it.

My Boston Terrier got into my weed on a few occasions. While he is obviously no worse for the wear, it was not a good couple hours when he was stumbling around and shaking. It's not nearly as bad as some of the other crap we have in our house (dark chocolate), but at the same time you really should protect your animals from ingesting it.

My Boston Terrier will only eat clips from joints, and he won't eat the paper lol... just the weed. My Australian Shepard and my damn cat will only eat live plants. The cat destroyed a entire tray of clones in about 45 minutes, then vomited them all up. The cat and shepard never mess with buds though, just the leaves and stalks.... and clones -_-.

Haven't grown in a long time so I don't have to worry about this shit anymore lol.

[Roranora]

Some pet owners suck, some weed smokers suck. Cannabis is non-toxic to all mammals. To reach that lethal dosage of some cannabinoids, you really need absurd quantities by several orders of magnitude above a more reasonably understandable amount of weed. Most people don't have Swaziland-piles of weed in their living room, nor the stupidity required to let a dog die from gnawing on that pile. More dogs die from Hersheys.

Swazigold from other BG

Spoiler: show

Whenever Fireal is roommate, I imagine his cat(s) will be mostly indifferent about the 0-3 plants around at the time. No more entertaining than the pothos plant things and other potted plants are the pot plants, HURRRR.

[BaneTheBrawler]

you can die of water overdose. in fact, every animal that ever drinks water dies. it is a known fact. ban water.

[notorious bum]

Weedheads who aren't super paranoid about the safety of their guac aren't the type of folks I want to hang out with.

[Roranora]

Hey Tyche, come in here and talk, plzthx.

So, see img. Let's get some farms going in Kentucky, I dunno wtf in West Virginia. Plus, I know with no doubt that Kentucky would produce some incredible fields of hemp with the appropriate cultivars. (strains for hemp) 15-18 feet tall if not higher over 6-8 months.



I would also like a title change / amendment to either add hemp along with marijuana... or perhaps more simply, replace marijuana with just cannabis. We're gonna grow 80 acres of 12 ft+ crop outdoors, and it's not marijuana. But it's same legislation and legalization hurdle.