1

brb, treating a headache.

2 brb, doin' some blow

3 Snack vendors everywhere rejoice!

4 I am not against legalizing pot but I am against calling it medical. If you are going to do that you should get it approved by the FDA, if not why should any other drug get approved by the FDA?

5 brb ... got the munchies.  (Hey!  Nachos!)

6 Time to start "retraining" a lot of heavy equipment operators.

7 First comes pot, then comes welfare.

8 i was thinking of the carefree life of a gentleman farmer, then i kinda of forgot everything

9 O/T:  Ace, this goes with the previous post but can also go with this one.  "NOTHING ILLEGAL, NOTHING ILLEGAL"

Yesterday I heard Christie speak about this.  I don't remember exactly what he said but I remember what I thought after hearing him.  I thought "hmm, he thinks CA screwed this up, thinks it has a place and is going to show them 'how it's done'"

10 They should dispense with this "medical" use shit and just decriminalize it. (Note: decriminalization is different from making it legal).

11 First comes pot, then comes welfare.

Posted by: AmishDude at July 20, 2011 12:29 PM (T0NGe)

Then comes FLOTUS with her huge derrierre!

12 6 Time to start "retraining" a lot of heavy equipment operators.

Posted by: t-bird at July 20, 2011 12:29 PM (FcR7P)

Yep.  No firing because it's a "medical condition".  Soon we'll discover that pot is addictive because they'll have to claim it to make their illegal on-the-job pot use a disability.

13 3 Snack vendors everywhere rejoice!   Until Michele Obama has them shut down...   On my list of priorities, going after weed-tokers ranks right up there (rather, way down there) with going after people who fap to Christina Hendricks/Ryan Renolds/Shannon Tweed/Sean Connery, ect, ect pics...that is to say, not a priority at all.   The best pot (and drugs in general) lesson I've seen on TV comes from, of course, South Park:   My Future Self 'n' Me

14 "Sufferers" should be offered free injections of THC at clinics. Hey, it's medicine, right? Watch the number of takers decline.

15 got to move my stocks to hostess and lays

16 Christie 2012

17 Ace, have you read this article?

http://bit.ly/cLiKRn

"Rat Park showed that a ratÂ’s environment, not the availability of drugs, leads to dependence. In a normal setting, a narcotic is an impediment to what rats typically do: fight, play, forage, mate. But a caged rat canÂ’t do those things. ItÂ’s no surprise that a distressed animal with access to narcotics would use them to seek relief."

18 Many potheads are capable of living a full and productive life, but most of them can't. They either become useless hippies, bums or turn to harder drugs. And who pays for it? You betcha. Enable marijuana and you not destroy society (for which most legalization proponents obviously don't care about) but also the economy.

19

Pot control is, like gun control, people control.

This is another aspect to the central theme of Conservativism- The National government should leave people alone.

Vim Toot!

20 Pass the Soma, man.

21 I am not against legalizing pot but I am against calling it medical. If you are going to do that you should get it approved by the FDA, if not why should any other drug get approved by the FDA?

Posted by: robtr

 

Irony. Touting the use of a bullshit 'medicinal' designation and openly admitting it's bullshit right after posting about a lack of accountability in government. How the fuck are we supposed to demand any sort of honesty from a county worker when we can't even admit that pot heads want pot?

22 it's all starting to make sense now......

23 Hell, it's New Jersey.  I figure they gotta have something to cope with living there...

24 I really wonder if addiction is the wrong metaphor to use when people continue to use illicit substances.

25

But smoking pot can't be that much healthier either.

Nope - smoking anything is going to damage your lungs.

26 The law was passed under Cor-shit's admin. CC held it up as much as possible.

Christie was accused of trying to hold up implementation of the law, signed by former Gov. Jon Corzine on his last day in office. After a compromise on rules was struck, the administration selected who will sell and grow for the program.

27 Speaking of smoking in general, there's a group here in Austin pushing to make it illegal to smoke in your apartment or condo.

28 >>>I am not against legalizing pot but I am against calling it medical. If you are going to do that you should get it approved by the FDA, if not why should any other drug get approved by the FDA That's a semi-decent argument from the standpoint of pure consistency but the law is frequenly inconsistent, because real life is inconsistent. I know the next question is about steroids. Fuck it, who cares. If consistency requires me to be down the line in favor of legalizing drugs people get illegally anyway, then let's just recognize that reality.

29 14 "Sufferers" should be offered free injections of THC at clinics. Hey, it's medicine, right? Watch the number of takers decline.

Posted by: t-bird at July 20, 2011 12:32 PM (FcR7P)

I love this.  Great idea.

30 It isn't the pot smoking that bothers me.  Each to his own on that one.

It is the secondary effects. Driving under the influence.  The increased healthcare costs, the increased crime to support the habit.

It is the exact same story with alcohol, and it bring up the very same problems.  How do we allow this personal freedom and still mitigate the negative effect it has on other peoples lives?

We could have harsh penalties for crimes committed while under the influence.  In some places we already do.  But that doesn't really solve the problem, it just adds court and incarceration costs to whatever damage was already done.  I am not sure it is much of a deterrent (I might be wrong though.)

31

But if you do legalize pot, I want the same taxes, restrictions and demonization that tobacco products have in this country placed on pot. Why should pot smokers get preferential treatment while cigarette smokers get demonized.

 

This. Coming soon: Medicinal whisky makes a comeback!?! It's a disinfectant AND an anaesthetic!

32 But if you do legalize pot, I want the same taxes, restrictions and demonization that tobacco products have in this country placed on pot.

I wonder what the warning pictures on the packages would be.

33 Enable marijuana and you not destroy society (for which most legalization proponents obviously don't care about) but also the economy.

Here's a better idea:  Instead of obsessing over the weed, how about we concentrate on the pseudo-functional retards it reveals?  Who would still be, y'know, pseudo-functional retards without the weed, it just makes it that much more flamingly obvious...

34 "Christie's not here, man."

35 Gov. Christie to delay implementing N.J.'s medical marijuana law
http://tinyurl.com/3vg7fbb

36 Yeah, except that drug use is directly linked to crime. But let's ignore that for the moment in favor of individual freedom.

37 Pot control is, like gun control, people control. Posted by: Mica Vim Toot at July 20, 2011 12:33 PM (+zaUw) So is murder control, rape control, burglary control and public urination control. All laws control men and their actions, not inanimate objects.

38 We just passed the same foolishness here, too bad it forgot to tell people that employers can and will be firing people for having mary jane in their system(you know..those pesky drug tests)...but, but...the law says I can smoke it!!!!eleventy!!! The tears...so tasty

39 Finally!  A reason to back Chris Christie!

40 39 We just passed the same foolishness here, too bad it forgot to tell people that employers can and will be firing people for having mary jane in their system(you know..those pesky drug tests)...but, but...the law says I can smoke it!!!!eleventy!!! The tears...so tasty

Posted by: Red Shirt at July 20, 2011 12:37 PM (FIDMq)

It wasn't just passed. It was the previous administration.

41 Good.

If there is one things Democrats could actually do correctly, it would be to get rid of the ass backwards stupid war on drugs. Don't most hippies vote (D)?

The fact that Christie is on board only goes to show how awesome he is.

42 brb, I gotta... uhh.. wait.. what was I just saying?

43 "Patient is a 19 y.o. White Male. Presented with tie-dyed "Phish" t-shirt, white-boy dreadlocks, granny glasses and sandals. Patient complains of low energy, lack of ambition and persistent feelings of 'being fuckin' bummed.' Prescribed 1 oz. Of Tha Fuckin' Chronic. Patient immediately showed signs of improvement and expressed delight at the lack of seeds and stems as well as the presence of what he described as 'sticky buds.'" ANOTHER MEDICAL CRISIS AVERTED.

44 Seems sorta academic. We can't really afford to go after 'em. I mean, in terms of sheer dollars. Unfortunately, we can still afford the FDA. I mean, in terms of paying them to harass and kill private citizens.

45 I wonder what the warning pictures on the packages would be.

http://tinyurl.com/3g94p7m

46 signed by former Gov. Jon Corzine on his last day in office

This is why you don't elect Democrats.  They do this crap without accountability.

Whether it's right or wrong, it's clear that Corzine and the rest of his buddies don't want to be responsible for whatever laws they pass.  They never do this stuff under normal rules and in the light of day.  They just set off legislative timebombs.

47 I guess his dad didn't sit him down and make him watch "reefer madness"?

48 39...

If a person is trying to get a job or has one that has a zero-tolerance drug policy, that person should not use drugs (or at least not get caught).

People shouldn't be spending years in prison because they want to get high.

49 We just passed the same foolishness here, too bad it forgot to tell people that employers can and will be firing people for having mary jane in their system(you know..those pesky drug tests)...but, but...the law says I can smoke it!!!!eleventy!!! The tears...so tasty

Posted by: Red Shirt

 

This is like, an epic civil rights issue of like epic proportions...........man.

50 Yo Christie, my "organization" would like a word with you about your "transportation needs."

51 If there is one things Democrats could actually do correctly, it would be to get rid of the ass backwards stupid war on drugs. Don't most hippies vote (D)?

The fact that Christie is on board only goes to show how awesome he is.

Damn right.

52 Enable porn booze jazz spicy food comic books cable tv marijuana and you not destroy society (for which most legalization proponents obviously don't care about) but also the economy. Posted by: nati

53 'sticky buds.'"

brb - changin' the bong water.

54 if you do legalize pot, I want the same taxes, restrictions and demonization that tobacco products have in this country placed on pot. Why should pot smokers get preferential treatment while cigarette smokers get demonized.

Posted by: Mallamutt,


Prepare to be disappointed yet again.  From the NJDHSS FAQ:

Will the sale of medicinal marijuana by an ATC be subject to sales tax?

No.

55

I wonder what the warning pictures on the packages would be.

Uh, pictures of Pauly Shore and Stephen Baldwin from Bio-Dome?

/It's amazing how much that particular Baldwin brother has changed - he went from Bio-Dome, to several Skinemax-level flicks, and now he's doing Christian cinema. 

56 I'm trying to imagine driving in NJ actually getting worse . . . !!! pot plus traffic circles equals Darwin on steroids !!!

57 And let's put people in jail for texting and driving, but let them take a toke without any ramifications.

In fact, why don't we hook the next generation of potentially productive workers and encourage them to "medically"(wink, wink) use pot. Let's espouse them of the "value" and "benefits" of such activity. Even though we've spent the last I-don't know-how-many-years telling people that smoking in general is bad for your health. Added bonus with Obamacare; we now get to pay for their health treatment. HOORAY for legalized pot!

58 Guess I gotta beat up my bithces on the East Coast now.  Holla!

59 >>But if you do legalize pot, I want the same taxes, restrictions and demonization that tobacco products have in this country placed on pot. I don't think you are going to get a lot of push back from weed smokers on that one. The price of weed is artificially high now because it is illegal. Make it legal, tax it as you do cigarettes and the price will drop. Now lets work on getting the price of ding dongs and twinkies in line and we can get this economy roaring.

60 We're all missing the point.  That point being, when the high speed trains arrive, will the train engineers be allowed to smoke weed on duty? 

61 "And it's medical marijuana - it was prescribed to me by a doctor in California where I live. I told the cop that. He said, What did you tell the doctor to get a prescription for marijuana? I said, Well, the doctor said, Do you have any symptoms that marijuana helps alleviate? WelI, I said I get bummed when I run out of weed. Marijuana cures that." - Ron White

62 Gang of Six Strives to Release Landmark Funyun-Ding Dong Legislation

63
Also, the limits on purchases for "patients" is 2 oz every 30 days. 10% THC max.

Sweeeeet!

64 I think this sort of law winds up undermining respect for the law. It breeds cynicism. And as the "law" remains mostly a paper law while cops and prosecutors increasingly ignore it, it tends to teach a bad lesson: The law is ill-considered and immodest and mostly in place for purposes of hassling people randomly.

Ok, can someone explain posted 55 MPH highways to me then?

If you have a law that 95% of people disobey routinely...why do you have the law?

65 All drugs should be totally legal.

Also shooting tweakers and meth heads should legal too.  If you shoot somebody and they have PCP, Meth, or crack in their system...free pass in court.

66 62 We're all missing the point.  That point being, when the high speed trains arrive, will the train engineers be allowed to smoke weed on duty?  .         Absolutely.  All aboard the chronic train!!!

67 I am betting the Gang of Six had something to do with this.

Just speculation, of course.

68 I've often wondered about Tommy Chong being a big advocate for drug use, yet every character he plays is an idiot.

You think the irony gets through to him?

69 Being stuck in New Jersey should qualify you for some kind of drug therapy.

70 Oh, and on marijuana legalization - are they going to make sure people on government assistance are not eligible? Because this seems to me a damn important qualification on any legalization scheme you want to implement.

Its bad enough I subsidize people to stay home and watch soap operas all day. I don't want to formally subsidize stoners now too.

71 You wingnuts think I'm batshit crazy now?

72 Ok, can someone explain posted 55 MPH highways to me then?

If you have a law that 95% of people disobey routinely...why do you have the law?

"Speeding" ticket revenue.

73 Posted by: weft cut-loop at July 20, 2011 12:40 PM (/9Ezq) Since you admit you don't give a shit about the personal, societal and economic effects of drug abuse - why don't you push for making crack and heroin legal? Resident Ron Paul! followers will tell you vodka kills more people than heroin, so why not legalize it?

74 I'm sorry, but Christie has been hoodwinked...

"He [the activist] will view with strategic sensitivity the nature of middle-class behavior with its hang-ups over rudeness or aggressive, insulting, profane actions. All this and more must be grasped and used to radicalize parts of the middle class."

"To appeal to the middle class, Alinsky continued, "goals must be phrased in general terms like 'Liberty, Equality, Fraternity' [the slogan of the French Revolution]; 'Of the Common Welfare' [Rousseau]; 'Pursuit of happiness' [Jefferson]; or 'Bread and Peace" [the slogan of the Bolshevik revolution]."

75 I hear the weed is good for restless leg syndrome.

76 Ok, date nights will now be in Jersey.

Do you know how stressful president'n is? Let alone my date nights?!?

77

73 Oh, and on marijuana legalization - are they going to make sure people on government assistance are not eligible? Because this seems to me a damn important qualification on any legalization scheme you want to implement.

 

Never happen.  The welfare state will get their for free*

Free, of course, meaning "on us."

78

I'm on board with this.

Personally I think Marijuana should be legal or at the very least decriminalized.

We don't need our jails filled with a bunch of harmless pathetic potheads.

 

Also, I think ALL drugs should be available to doctors for use on patients. I know medical marijuana is just a vehicle pro-pot people are using to get it legalized, but I have no doubt in my mind that weed is actually helping people who need it.

People with cancer who have no appetite because of chemo or who can't take pain medication.

79

go Ace.    Morality police who claim to want limited government and liberty in 3....2...1...

80 I guess Christie can now comfortably go to that shithead Springsteen's concert and enjoy the aroma. Maybe even take the family.

81 "Speeding" ticket revenue.

Posted by: Waterhouse at July 20, 2011 12:45 PM (qAnal)

Indeed - and you'd be hard pressed to find a better reason to be cynical about government.

PS: Nice hash.

82 "Many potheads are capable of living a full and productive life, but most of them can't. They either become useless hippies, bums or turn to harder drugs. And who pays for it? You betcha.

Enable marijuana and you not destroy society (for which most legalization proponents obviously don't care about) but also the economy."

Got any source for that claim there? Or is that just your moralist opinion posing as fact?

Vim Toot said it best. Pot control is no different than gun control, or any other form of behavior control. It only works if the costs outweigh the benefits. The costs of the Drug War on American are clear and very much negative. The "costs" of legalization are negligible, and its benefits enormous.

Lets just cherry pick on of many unintended consequences the drug war has foisted upon us. As it stands, if you get caught smoking a joint and your in the middle class, kiss good bye to college. No federal student aid for you. Your a "drug user"

 (Gasp! DRUGS! Wait, don't almost all college age kids illegally drink? Never mind, move along, nothing to see here.)

The children of rich parents can still afford to go to college without federal aid. Its the lower and middle classes which get hit by this double standard. All for some pot, which is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.

Just legalize it, regulate it as we do beer, and move on. Stop ruining a bunch of people's lives and wasting the taxpayers money in the process. Being a conservative is not a pick and choose process. We belive in small government on principle because it is the best solution to all problems. Not because it happens to align with most of our knee jerk moralist preferences.

83 Christie just took a very sharp, pointy arrow out of the Democrat quiver and broke it over his knee.

Like a Boss.

The majority of potheads (libtards) now have no reason to show up in force at the next election because they got their legal dope.

No crazy right-wing bigot despicable Republican boogeyman.

84 Legal Pot, Gay Marriage, and RON PAUL!!!

85

Yeah, except that drug use is directly linked to crime. But let's ignore that for the moment in favor of individual freedom.

Drug use is directly linked to crime because criminals sell drugs.

And let's put people in jail for texting and driving, but let them take a toke without any ramifications.

I would say with almost 100% certainty that driving under the influence of drugs is illegal in every state.

86 If you are an adult, and want to sit around all day getting baked and being generally an unproductive person.....fine. As long as I and my fellow tax payers don't have to pay for it. Knock your self out.

Do you actually live in this country?  "As long as I and my fellow tax payers don't have to pay for it"?  Where is it that you think that's going to happen?

Maybe you picture some college kid who throws out his bong when he decides to get serious in his senior year or a trust fund baby who has nothing more in his life than getting high and spending his parents' money.

In the real world, it will be people with no jobs and no money who will be the ones who toke up en masse.

Think about the whole feminist crusade against marriage in the 60s and 70s (remember when marriage was uncool?).  Anyway, they thought that by deconstructing marriage, every woman would be liberated from her husband and if she had to raise a child, would do so in her nice townhome with her nice middle-class job.

What we got instead was an epidemic of poverty and broken homes.

There are consequences and the taxpayer will be paying through the nose.

87 The only tricky issue here is what happens next?  Like the gay marriage law, there will always be people who aren't satisfied with just making weed legal.  Next, they'll want heroin legalized . . .

88 From the FAQ:

Is medicinal marijuana covered by Medicaid?

Medicinal marijuana is not a covered service under Medicaid.


Bummer....

89 On my Honey Badger I-Don't-Give-A-Shit meter, I rate this at Eleven.

90 Getting out of here before the Saints and Martyrs of Almighty Weed come out of the bong water to pray.

91 73 Oh, and on marijuana legalization - are they going to make sure people on government assistance are not eligible? Because this seems to me a damn important qualification on any legalization scheme you want to implement.

Its bad enough I subsidize people to stay home and watch soap operas all day. I don't want to formally subsidize stoners now too.

Posted by: 18-1 at July 20, 2011 12:45 PM (7BU4a)

In Oregon we just got to vote on a measure that would have provided "free" pot to those who can't afford it...  I wish I was joking.

92  It would be very difficult for me to have any less respect for or be more cynical about the American legal system. There is currently no correlation between right and wrong v. legal and illegal. It's simply another fund raising tool.
But I do enjoy reading the hand wringing/apocalyptic comments of the progressive conservatives on every free choice/individual responsibility issue with which they disagree.
Nothing like a gay marriage/legal dope/circumcision/cop behavior post to separate the classical liberals from the progressive conservatives.
It's too early for popcorn, but it is wing-it Wednesday at Flannigan's. Well done.

93

Never happen.  The welfare state will get their for free*

Free, of course, meaning "on us."

Posted by: Wyatt Earp at July 20, 2011 12:46 PM (zgZzy)

Yeah, of course. I'm paying for your average Kos kid's internet access, education indoctrination, and medical care. Why not their herb? Oh, and I guess porn subscriptions will be next on the list...

94

Here in California we've had a glaucoma epidemic since medical marijuana was approved.

Ace, per your undermining respect for the law, there's a billboard in San Jose advertising a group that will get you a perscription.

 

95 The best revenue is on the highway to Atlantic City.  Every one of my friends has gotten a hefty ticket on that highway on their first trip there.  It's some weird new jersey law that all the new jersey people know about but the new yorkers get  caught.

96 Since you admit you don't give a shit about the personal, societal and economic effects of drug abuse - why don't you push for making crack and heroin legal? Resident Ron Paul! followers will tell you vodka kills more people than heroin, so why not legalize it? Posted by: nati

Are you practicing for some kind of county fair contest? Because I see a lot of strawmen and not much else.

97 Snack vendors everywhere rejoice!
Posted by: Tami
.....
Indeed!  I'm buying stock in Frito-Lay!

98 100 The best revenue is on the highway to Atlantic City.  Every one of my friends has gotten a hefty ticket on that highway on their first trip there.  It's some weird new jersey law that all the new jersey people know about but the new yorkers get  caught.

Posted by: curious at July 20, 2011 12:51 PM (k1rwm)

We call that the BENNie give back.

99 It's funny, while you might not be interested in placing your personal preferences on anyone else, I can't help but notice there's an entire political party occupying the Executive and Legislative branches dedicated to doing the exact same to you.

100 Right now I'm on a general small government/trust citizens kick.

 Econogeddon is upon us!
F* if you wanna take a few tokes at this point...What can I say to that guy? All that's really left in Western Civ is to enjoy the show as it falls so....smoke em if you got em.

101 I was gonna go look for a job, but then I got high. Was gonna go downtown and vote, but then I got high...

102 Posted by: George Lucas ripping off JK Rowling at July 20, 2011 12:48 PM (JxMoP)

Pot is a also a pathway drug and not just linked to crime because pot itself or the sale thereof is illegal. It is generally linked to other types of criminal activity and harder, more addictive drugs.

But NJ will find that out in a few years.

103

Yeah, of course. I'm paying for your average Kos kid's internet access, education indoctrination, and medical care. Why not their herb? Oh, and I guess porn subscriptions will be next on the list...

 

Dude, if that imprisoned child molester can get kiddie porn in his cell - true story - then the toads can get free weed. 

 

Again, "free" meaning . . .

104 Right now I'm on a general small government/trust citizens kick.

Meanwhile, the Libs in control are arresting lemonade-stand children, just in case. Wouldn't want them to grow up and be Terrorist Tea-Baggers!

105 Wow, look at all the new nicks the pot threads bring out.

106 Dude, I just finished hookin' up my 10,000 watt car stereo!  Let's check it out on the way to get some subsidized weed, Brah!

107 Smoking pot leads to more democrats.

Posted by: Jumbo Jogging Shrimp at July 20, 2011 12:50 PM (qjUnn)

Totally not true, dude.  I'm totally baked right now and I still think Obama is a sucker of cock.

108 I was going to run for president, but then I got high.....

109 Posted by: The Robot Devil at July 20, 2011 12:51 PM (136wp)

It's kind of dumb though cause then they opt to go see the Indians in Connecticut the next time and forget Atlantic city.

110 I wonder what the warning pictures on the packages would be.

Ahem

111 "I think this sort of law winds up undermining respect for the law. It breeds cynicism. And as the "law" remains mostly a paper law while cops and prosecutors increasingly ignore it, it tends to teach a bad lesson: The law is ill-considered and immodest and mostly in place for purposes of hassling people randomly.

"Right now I'm on a general small government/trust citizens kick."

Exactly right. That's what most malum prohibitum laws are for: Punish the enemies of the apparat, reward (via the Miracle of Selective Enforcement the friends of the apparat, and generate revenue.

112 why don't you push for making crack and heroin legal?

And meth, we can't forget meth.

113 All of you folks complaining about all the "problems" we will have if smoking dope is legalized; have you ever wondered why we didn't have those same problems before it was criminalized in the early 1900s?

The fact is ALL of these laws, particularly the federal ones (which are unconstitutional as hell) were a product of the "progressive era" when the nanny staters all started flexing their muscle.

114

In Oregon we just got to vote on a measure that would have provided "free" pot to those who can't afford it...  I wish I was joking.

Posted by: Lemmiwinks at July 20, 2011 12:49 PM (pdRb1)

So, if everything is so free, why do I have so little left after Uncle Sam takes what he wants from my paycheck?

115 New sign on NJ Turnpike;

Welcome to New Jersey.
Home of legalized sodomy and drug use. Perfect Together!

116 "But Alinsky understood that there was a flip side to his strategy of speaking the palatable language of the middle class and the reassuring parlance of morality. Specifically, he said that organizers must be entirely unpredictable and unmistakably willing -- for the sake of the moral principles in whose name they claim to act -- to watch society descend into utter chaos and anarchy."

117 >>>ince you admit you don't give a shit about the personal, societal and economic effects of drug abuse - why don't you push for making crack and heroin legal? That does follow, I confess. I guess my position is to decriminalize the least dangerous one, then see what the results are. If there's no Narcogeddon, we can talk about general decriminalization of more addictive and dangerous drugs.

118

73Oh, and on marijuana legalization - are they going to make sure people on government assistance are not eligible? Because this seems to me a damn important qualification on any legalization scheme you want to implement.

Its bad enough I subsidize people to stay home and watch soap operas all day. I don't want to formally subsidize stoners now too.
--

Instead of welfare, buy them some lights, and dirt and tell them to get busy growing. Thats what I'd do if it were legal. Laugh all the way to the bank.

I consider myself a kindrid spirit with the founders of the country.

119 Don't prosecute for use, legalize it, tax it, etc. That'd be fine, but then remove the taxpayer-subsidized safety net for abusers and let private enterprise fire employees without legal jeopardy (and with few questions asked) for working inebriated.

Action -> Consequences. Simple lesson to permit everyone the freedom to screw up but to limit the screwing to just those who partake in pleasure/relief to an uncontrolled state.

120 They make the laws so everyone is a criminal at some point. Then they can selectively prosecute according to political views. If you could stay out of legal peril simply by keeping your nose clean, the law wouldn't be very useful to politicians.

121

Fine, legalize it.  Then maybe we can get beyond the lie that it's harmless.  It's not.  For those who can use it recreationally, and still function fine?  Great, I say, have a nice life.  But there are many many people who can't, and are suffering from thinking they can control something that has devastated their lives, and continues to devastate them as they get older. 

Similar to alcohol, I suppose.  Sure, legalize it, but understand that society won't be better for it, just fewer nincompoops in jail, I guess.  Which they probably shouldn't be.

122 All of you folks complaining about all the "problems" we will have if smoking dope is legalized; have you ever wondered why we didn't have those same problems before it was criminalized in the early 1900s?

Because Uncle Sugar wasn't handing out SSDI checks like candy then?

123 Posted by: gadfly at July 20, 2011 12:47 PM (rv2x4) What's "Drug War", and why do you keep capitalizing it? And how will "lower and middle classes" benefit from drug legalization, if they are the ones most prone to hard drug addiction and have the smallest chances of rehabilitation?

124 I just need a scrip so I can get that trucker hat.

125 wow

126
Lets just cherry pick on of many unintended consequences the drug war has foisted upon us. As it stands, if you get caught smoking a joint and your in the middle class, kiss good bye to college. No federal student aid for you. Your a "drug user"

 (Gasp! DRUGS! Wait, don't almost all college age kids illegally drink? Never mind, move along, nothing to see here.)

The children of rich parents can still afford to go to college without federal aid. Its the lower and middle classes which get hit by this double standard. All for some pot, which is less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco.

Just legalize it, regulate it as we do beer, and move on. Stop ruining a bunch of people's lives and wasting the taxpayers money in the process. Being a conservative is not a pick and choose process. We belive in small government on principle because it is the best solution to all problems. Not because it happens to align with most of our knee jerk moralist preferences.

Posted by: gadfly

This is utter bullshit. Students here who get busted for various drunk charges get suspended ad thrown out of the University of Delaware, and I'm not referring to underage drinking.

To believe this we have to buy the notion that inhaling tobacco is bad for you but inhaling pot is somehow "less dangerous".

You want to try the libertarian angle, go for it. Stop with the lies.

127 Drug use is directly linked to crime because criminals sell drugs.

No, there is something endemic to it.  Liquor stores get robbed all the time.  I think I read a CA (or maybe CO) marijuana shop got robbed recently.

128 I hate the crap. It is trumped up as so awesome. So much liberation. So much freedom. Took me many bad times to realize pot fucking sucks shit. It just sucks. Man, I had to drink a lot of beer to get that high our of me. If I want to feel paranoid and kind of gay I'll dress up like J Edgar Hoover. Hippies push the shit, tv pushes the shit, and ever time you  go snowboardering you got to get high because it is so fucking cool. I fucking hate pot.

But guess what, legalize the shit. No society has ever collapsed by legalizing drug use (cf. every major society has collapsed from over-taxation). You want to see its use tank? (well beside loser potheads who aren't going anywhere  anyway) Take away its luster. And the biggest thing to take away pot's charm isn't "education," it's pot itself. Smoke the shit and pay attention (well that's kind of hard, I guess) to how lame it is. Pot fucking sucks and is a massive let down. (yes, I know there was that time in '89 when you had the giggles in the back of Little Pete's Jetta, but that magic hasn't happened again, ever, has it?) 

129 I think there are two huge problems with these laws:

1) It creates a huge police state more so than ANYTHING in the patriot act that a lot of people complain about.

2) It has cost more money than just about any other program to enforce and it has been a total failure.

And yes there are thousands of other problems besides those.

130 Can I get a medical hit of acid anytime soon - and why can't my beer be paid for by my health savings account?  At least alcohol in moderate amounts has more medical studies proving medical benefits - marijuana not so much - that being said, i I ever get cancer I will be high on hospice baby!

131 Right now I'm on a general small government/trust citizens kick.

What we really need is to get Monsanto involved and cook up some GE MJ for large scale production. That combined with the efficiency of American farming and BLAM! we've got that trade deficit blown away.

132 100 The best revenue is on the highway to Atlantic City.  Every one of my friends has gotten a hefty ticket on that highway on their first trip there. ...

Posted by: curious at July 20, 2011 12:51 PM (k1rwm)

My God, New Jersey must have made trillions of dollars.

133 In complete agreement here.

"As I wrote I just no longer have any interest in using the coercive power of the state to impose my personal preferences on recreational drug use on anyone else."


If we can get more of the conservative movement to focus more of the fiscal conservative aspects than the social conservative aspects, I think the long term market for liberal ideology would shrink substantially.

134 Reconsidered the altDMA post, Ace?

135 Anyway, they thought that by deconstructing marriage, every woman would be liberated from her husband and if she had to raise a child, would do so in her nice townhome with her nice middle-class job.

Better example:  The Sexual Revolution (since that wasn't a matter of legality, it was simple moral laxity that had to come about).

They told us it would be a wonderland of freedom and beauty and we wound up with explosive illegitimacy, millions of abortions, STDs galore, teen pregnancy, and on and on and on, ad infinitum.

There are ramifications to everything-- anyone who suggests there is no downside to their brave new world is a liar.

136 OK. What just happened with the new post??

137 Because Uncle Sugar wasn't handing out SSDI checks like candy then?

Posted by: 18-1 at July 20, 2011 12:55 PM (7BU4a)

That is a separate issue. Quit handing out SSDI check anyway. I think about 90% of that is fraud anyway.

138

Fine, legalize "medicinal" marijuana.  It'll be sold on the street anyway.  And if they legalize marijuana in totality, also fine.  But if you go to work stoned, don't expect your boss to give a damn that pot's legal anymore than s/he will give a damn that liquor's legal in all 50 states.  You're ass is still fired if you show up drunk. 

And if you talk to me smelling of pot, don't expect me to respect you, you damned dirty loser.

139 And we have seen that now that the easily demonized products are, well, pretty well demonized (cigarettes) the left is now looking to demonize the harder to demonize products (soda, food, beer, liquor). The demonization of legal products is just another tactic to allow the government to dictate what you can and can not do.
And I wonder what it means when the Left doesn't demonize soft (and hard) drug use and even encourages it? Ooh, the colours!

140

That is a separate issue. Quit handing out SSDI check anyway.

Posted by: Vic at July 20, 2011 12:58 PM (M9Ie6)

If only it were so easy.

141 A long-term unemployed voter getting stoned on your dime is a happy voter...

142

And if you talk to me smelling of pot, don't expect me to respect you, you damned dirty loser.

 

 

And get off my damned lawn!

143 Posted by: Johnny Drama at July 20, 2011 12:55 PM (qAnal) Have to admit: your hash tag made me giggle.

144 >>> hate the crap. It is trumped up as so awesome. So much liberation. So much freedom. Took me many bad times to realize pot fucking sucks shit. It just sucks. Man, I had to drink a lot of beer to get that high our of me. If I want to feel paranoid and kind of gay I'll dress up like J Edgar Hoover. Hippies push the shit, tv pushes the shit, and ever time you go snowboardering you got to get high because it is so fucking cool. I fucking hate pot. Yeah it doesn't work well on me either. I just get fucked up in a not-fun way, and often paranoid. It doesn't help that the only times I've ever tried it I was already drunk as hell. >>>But guess what, legalize the shit. Yeah who cares.

145 118 All of you folks complaining about all the "problems" we will have if smoking dope is legalized; have you ever wondered why we didn't have those same problems before it was criminalized in the early 1900s?

(a) No welfare state.
(b) Smoking hemp wasn't a part of the culture.  Most of the population wouldn't have conceived of it or known how to obtain it.
(c) No welfare state.

146 OK. What just happened with the new post??
Dude! What new post?

147 144

Fine, legalize "medicinal" marijuana. It'll be sold on the street anyway. And if they legalize marijuana in totality, also fine. But if you go to work stoned, don't expect your boss to give a damn that pot's legal anymore than s/he will give a damn that liquor's legal in all 50 states. You're ass is still fired if you show up drunk.

And if you talk to me smelling of pot, don't expect me to respect you, you damned dirty loser.

--

Be right back :-)

148 It's OT, but somewhat germane to the issue of respect for the law, and it's slow erosion in society.

Our neighbor, in a row-home community has a veritable wilderness growing in both her front and back yards.
Our county has enforceable codes that directly address the issues of the piled and abandoned shrubbery, discarded plastic bags collecting rainwater, and visible mosquito larvae swimming in the trapped water.
It even has a code for the 7 foot tall weeds growing over the top of the privacy fence.

So....being the good citizen, and after our talks with the owner have failed to prompt action, I break out the county code book, and provide a letter to the county code enforcement office, with the specific applicable code numbers, and 8x10 glossy photos, with the violations circled and labeled.

My wife runs it into the Enforcement office, and the clerk looks at the package.

Clerk response is
Well, you didn't write out what the specific paragraph said, you just put the code paragraph number down next to each listed violation.
And we really can't do anything about the back yards anyhow.

But, I live in your neighborhood, so after work I would like to swing by and talk to you, and see what is going on.

I have to give the Clerk props for coming by the house, but what part of " An owner shall not allow" is debatable?

And of course, our 13 year old son is with us, and his take away is "Dad, why should I obey the rules if no-one is going to enforce the rules".

Now I have to have the whole "Son, we do the right thing because....it is the right thing to do" talk.

Sort of ties in with aces comment about Law Enforcement turning a blind eye to laws that they don't care to enforce.
Eventually, everyone becomes that 13 year old boy asking "Why should we obey the law".

149 That does follow, I confess. I guess my position is to decriminalize the least dangerous one, then see what the results are. If there's no Narcogeddon, we can talk about general decriminalization of more addictive and dangerous drugs.

Meh the US and our current USC will be long gone by then. We'll be discussing things like, "What should we do this time in article 1?"

150

Fine, legalize it.  Then maybe we can get beyond the lie that it's harmless.  It's not.  For those who can use it recreationally, and still function fine?  Great, I say, have a nice life.  But there are many many people who can't, and are suffering from thinking they can control something that has devastated their lives, and continues to devastate them as they get older. 

 

I agree that pot isn't harmless, but all legal intoxicants are harmful.

However, some are legal and some aren't.

I would rather they be legal.

 

151 Just curious, for those posters here who goes on about how people who use marijuana are idiots, and the MJ just makes them even idioticer (sic), substitute alcohol for MJ and ?  Hate to break it to you folks, no one sounds intelligent after a few cocktails, despite what you believe.

152 Marijuana is the only known drug that has no number on the amount it takes to kill lab rats...and it is illegal. 

Thanks, government, for looking out for me since I can't do it myself. /sarc

153

Posted by: nickless at July 20, 2011 12:58 PM (MMC8r)

at least Cronenberg killed the Sexual Revolution

154 Fuck all you pothead pussies! Meth is clinically proven to offset Alzheimers! When I'm tweaking, I get all KINDS of shit accomplished! No laying around eating Hot Pockets for me, I got shit to DO!

155 Yeah, except that drug use is directly linked to crime. But let's ignore that for the moment in favor of individual freedom.

Do you live in America? Pot smoking is functionally legal right now - the hundreds of billions spent on the War on Drugs has not made it hard to get or expensive. You don't have to be a pothead to make the observation that this prohibition effort was lost a long time ago.

156 125 Don't prosecute for use, legalize it, tax it, etc. That'd be fine, but then remove the taxpayer-subsidized safety net for abusers and let private enterprise fire employees without legal jeopardy (and with few questions asked) for working inebriated.

Well, get back to us when you do all that, 'kay?

Where do libertarians get this idea that personal responsibility will follow from pot legalization?  It's like putting a train of carts before a toy pony.

157 >>Because Uncle Sugar wasn't handing out SSDI checks like candy then? How about we fix the problem instead of the solution. Truth is weed maybe illegal but it is not hard to get. Anyone who wants to buy it now can, but as many have noted they run the risk of fines or imprisonment in various places around the country. There won't be some surge in weed usage if it is legalized nor will there be any surge in health issues. Again, there are plenty of people who are using it already. The only difference is that it can be regulated and taxed like cigarettes or booze, we will stop wasting money on a war on drugs that we will never win and on prisoners who shouldn't be criminals. You would also see a lot less violence on the US-Mexican border. That seems like a good thing.

158 153144

Fine, legalize "medicinal" marijuana. It'll be sold on the street anyway. And if they legalize marijuana in totality, also fine. But if you go to work stoned, don't expect your boss to give a damn that pot's legal anymore than s/he will give a damn that liquor's legal in all 50 states. You're ass is still fired if you show up drunk.

And if you talk to me smelling of pot, don't expect me to respect you, you damned dirty loser.

--

Be right back :-)

---

Ahhh

159 ace you've got an audience of statists. and they wonder why there is so much socialism.

160 Yeah, except that drug use is directly linked to crime. But let's ignore that for the moment in favor of individual freedom.

So is alcohol and cigarettes, your point?

161 Hate to break it to you folks, no one sounds intelligent after a few cocktails, despite what you believe.

After three beers, I'm witty, articulate, an excellent dancer, and become a quite good looking white guy.

Your mileage may vary.

162

Indiana had one of those WTF laws repealed a few years ago.

One could buy firecrackers but had to sign a waiver stating you would be taking them out of state to ignite them! Gee, I don't know, Tennessee...

163
And of course, our 13 year old son is with us, and his take away is "Dad, why should I obey the rules if no-one is going to enforce the rules".

No legal controlling authority! -- Al Gore

Now I have to have the whole "Son, we do the right thing because....it is the right thing to do" talk.

I've really started to wonder if doing the right thing in Obama's America is a sucker's game. Go to a job you hate so you can generate enough money for Peggy Joseph to pay her mortgage...yeehaw!

164

Terrible idea...but so New Jersey. Send your stoners to the Garbage State...then build a fence.

165

Can we stop this, "if we legalize weed we have to legalize heroin".

No. We don't.

 

If you're too dumb or ignorant to be able to differentiate between the dangers of weed and the dangers of say heroin, cocaine, crack, pcp and meth, then i don't know what to say.

Potheads are pathetic, but they're also for the most part harmless.

Do they occasionally do stupid shit while high? Sure.  But I'm willing to bet that number is exponentially lower than those who are drunk.

It's a waste of time, money and effort to keep marijuana illegal.

Where are all the personal responsibility and freedom conservatives on this issue?

Employers can stipulate employees not use it in the same way they can alcohol and cigarettes. So it won't affect workplace safety.

 

166

That is a separate issue. Quit handing out SSDI check anyway. I think about 90% of that is fraud anyway.

Posted by: Vic at July 20, 2011 12:58 PM (M9Ie6)

Are you high now?  Where is that "quit handing out SSDI check" legislation?  Did Corzine pass it on his last day in office too?

Well, that just solves the problem, just get rid of SSDI.  I guess I should expect that, when?  Tomorrow?  Maybe Friday.

167 118 All of you folks complaining about all the "problems" we will have if smoking dope is legalized; have you ever wondered why we didn't have those same problems before it was criminalized in the early 1900s?

nailed it... some people don't think past the end of their noses.

168 Just wait until you throw in something that they can't measure.

Legal today, taxed tomorrow, regulated the next day, govt contracts worth millions for devices that actually can be used in law enforcement awarded the day after that.

169 What I like about weed is, its never too early to partake. There is no weed-thirty. Whereas beer cannot be drank till 10:30 AM.

170 172

Can we stop this, "if we legalize weed we have to legalize heroin".

No. We don't.

Potheads Drinkers are pathetic, but they're also for the most part harmless real assholes when loaded. 

But hey, it's legal!!!

171

They should dispense with this "medical" use shit and just decriminalize it. (Note: decriminalization is different from making it legal).

I understand why that's viewed as a pragmatic compromise, but what does "decriminalize" really mean?  That it's still illegal, but law enforcement is told to look the other way?  Are we a nation of laws or ain't we?

Legalize it or don't.  Doesn't much matter to me either way, but I get annoyed by the cutesy back-door legalization shams, be they legalizing "medicinal" marijuana or "decriminalization".

172 before it was criminalized in the early 1900s?

Dude one three letter word. Cars. Hell of a lot harder to be a menace on a horse traveling at 10 miles an hour.

You folks who want to legalize it need to come to grips with the fact in will need as much regulation as Alcohol.

173 --why don't you push for making crack and heroin legal? Resident Ron Paul! followers will tell you vodka kills more people than heroin, so why not legalize it?-- There are two separate, but central, issues that I see. First, marijuana is pretty common and accepted. That makes enforcement arbitrary enough for it to be a political tool. This is bad for laws and law enforcement. That's just pragmatism. Second, by allowing the government to dictate what people put in their bodies, you basically open the door to not just the drug war, but the war on tobacco, the FDA regulating people to death, and ultimately stuff like Obamacare. Or, rather, it's half of the two pronged attack: One side says "we have to pay for everything therefore we can control everything" where the other side says "we have to control everything therefore we have to pay for everything". Not saying it makes sense, but it seems to be the logic as it plays out!

174

George Lucas ripping off JK Rowling

dirty sock from yesterday

Pot is a also a pathway drug and not just linked to crime because pot itself or the sale thereof is illegal. It is generally linked to other types of criminal activity and harder, more addictive drugs.

Show me the data that proves that it's a pathway drug because the same thing could be and probably has been said regarding tobacco and alcohol.

As for it being linked to criminal activity, I also direct you to alcohol and cigarettes. How many criminals smoke tobacco? How many drink? I would suggest that most people who are going to commit serious crimes are probably going to use drugs because they don't care about the law, not because drugs drove them to crime. Addicts are a different matter, but I am not aware of marijuana addicts running around robbing or killing people to score some weed.

For the record, I am not a pothead and have never partaken of any drugs, but IMO it is a complete waste of time and resources to maintain the illegality of most these substances. Heroin, cocaine, meth need to stay illegal because they're extremely destructive to society. Most of the rest, no way.

175 But if you go to work stoned, don't expect your boss to give a damn that pot's legal anymore than s/he will give a damn that liquor's legal in all 50 states.  You're ass is still fired if you show up drunk.
Posted by: MWR




Actually, you can show up to work drunk and not get fired.  Alcoholism, as an "impairment", is covered under the Americans with Disabilities Act. However, employers can discipline or fire employees if their being drunk adversely affects job performance.

So if you can "maintain", you're in the clear.  At worst you get put on an "action plan" because the company is afraid of an ADA lawsuit.

Ain't liberalism grand?

176 How about we fix the problem instead of the solution.

Because legalization is likely to exacerbate the current problem? I'd rather we pursue a "grand bargain" sort of deal. Drug legalization comes with the elimination, or at least serious reduction, of welfare (by whatever name the government wants to call it). Why not use the leverage we have to get something of value?

Also, this sort of deal would put some interesting stress on the leftwing coalition...

You would also see a lot less violence on the US-Mexican border. That seems like a good thing.

Posted by: JackStraw at July 20, 2011 01:05 PM (TMB3S)

Actually, would legalizing just pot do that? I'm guessing it would have to be a much broader legalization - PCP, cocaine, heroin, etc...

177 The legalization of "medical" marijuana has done one major thing here in California and that is make the distribution of illegal marijuana much much easier on the drug cartels and everyone else.  People may not realize it but our public lands are being destroyed by growers who contaminate the land with extremely harsh pesticides, divert and drain creeks and streams and alter the public lands for their own good.  I run and mtn bike at a local regional park that has publicized two major busts in the last six months and after talking to a ranger about it, he said that there are many many more throughout the park.  He told me that he is hoping to survive until retirement because of the violence associated with protecting these massive money generating machines.  There is simply too much of an economic incentive for people to take a minor risk and get very wealthy.  A friend who is in the industry told me that if you set up a grow operation on public land you can easily make 1 million for one seasonal harvest.  The number of grow operations that are caught are very minimal and with less and less policing being done in form of park rangers or police officers, the incentive for out of work or virtually anyone to do a grow operation is huge.  Keeping marijuana illegal is having a tremendous detriment to society by ruining our public parks, filling the prisons with desperate, dumb people and as I see it, not too much of an upside for keeping it illegal.  If we were to legalize it and regulate it the same way tobacco is, it would eliminate a huge number of societal problems while generating relatively few, in my opinion.  As a disclaimer, I have never tried marijuana, don't want my kids to try it but keeping it illegal makes it so I can't go to parks with my family, I have to pay higher taxes to support the prison population and makes our world a lot less safe.

178

I got phone pictures of my fat sack.

P.S. I was just hacked. I'll hire someone to look into it.

179 179 before it was criminalized in the early 1900s?

Dude one three letter word. Cars.

ROFL

"You folks who want to legalize it need to come to grips with the fact in will need as much regulation as Alcohol."

Who here has said otherwise?  Frankly, there are all kinds of distractions while driving -- fiddling with the stereo, yakking (particularly on a phone), texting, being emotionally upset, etc.

180 For all of those "legalize it and tax it" people out there, it's called weed for a reason. Are there going to be licenses to grow it because the shit grows anywhere. And if so, how will that be enforced and who will pay for it?

181 gvt out of my stomach (salt and  i hate peas!) gvt out of my bedroom ( close your eyes and dream of..) gvt, out of my home (tell me where i'm allowed to smoke a cig) gvt out of my educational choices for my kids (may one home school or not)gvt, out of my vehicle choice (jeep or volt) light bulbs my choice!

 do i think it's wiser to not use alcohol or not smoke, uh hmm, but do i want to be threatened by big brother by anything more than what i am.
nope.
use same laws as with alcohol, sure you can, but you can't drive high, work high, unless you're GM employees. at home/property it's your castle.

182 166 ace you've got an audience of statists. and they wonder why there is so much socialism.

Posted by: PR at July 20, 2011 01:06 PM (QjguD)

I think Ace is way more libertarian than his audience.

183

You folks who want to legalize it need to come to grips with the fact in will need as much regulation as Alcohol

Yeah?

So what?

You can't sell it to kids under 21. You can't use it while operating a vehicle. You're employer has the right to say you can't smoke it(As some employers do with cigarettes and alcohol).

Etc etc

That seems reasonable.

184

I'm fully with ace on this.

That use of illegal drugs is correlated with crime is because (wait for it) sale, manufacture, and even possession of illegal drugs are currently crimes.

The libertarian argument in favor of decriminalization of drugs is obvious: the state should intrude on personal decisions only when necessary to protect the rights and safety of others. Furthermore, there is a strong (classical) conservative argument for it: history has shown that schemes like Prohibition do not work and make organized crime rich and powerful. Finally, there is an excellent fiscal argument for legalizing recreational drugs and taxing them: the costs of enforcing the law are eliminated while public revenues are enhanced without penalizing the productive members of society.

I do agree with those who consider the whole "medical" excuse disingenuous. But to expect politicians of any stripe to forego word games is to expect Utopia, and I live in this universe.

185

Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:02 PM (dZ756)

Agreed, SFGoth.  But that's why I don't tend to pal around with drunks (M&M's excluded, of course ^_~).  My college experience with people who would drink just to get drunk, or smoke just to get high, was not pleasant, and just reinforced my belief that anyone who feels the need to use chemicals to have fun is, well, dumb as a bag of hammers. 

Yes, yes, I know.  I sound like a sermonizing old Puritan.  I guess you could call me something of a teetotaler, but not a prohibitionist.  Much as I like to joke about the Valu-Rite like everyone else, I actually haven't had a drop of alcohol in... hell... a year?  I think a year.  I had a daiquiri in Vegas.  Twas pretty good. 

PS - And GET OFF MY LAWN!  ^_~

186 I love seeing the threads that pull out the new posters.  You see what motivates them.

Deficit?  Nah.
War on Terror?  Yawn.
Chronic?  ELEVENTY!

187 'Shrooms should be legal, too.

188 Truth is weed maybe illegal but it is not hard to get.

You people keep saying that, but maybe it's only true for you.  I wouldn't know how to get it without making a number of inquiries.  I'm pretty sure I know somebody who knows a guy, but if you aren't in academia, you might have to make too many discrete inquiries.  Young children certainly don't.  But they know how to get alcohol.  There is a difference when something is illegal.

A lot of people who like to point to "statists" only do so because of something that they want.  When it's all about stealing money and giving it to the indigent, then that isn't such a priority.  We'll do that later.

189

Can we stop this, "if we legalize weed we have to legalize heroin".

No. We don't.

 If you're too dumb or ignorant to be able to differentiate between the dangers of weed and the dangers of say heroin, cocaine, crack, pcp and meth, then i don't know what to say.

Potheads are pathetic, but they're also for the most part harmless.

Do they occasionally do stupid shit while high? Sure.  But I'm willing to bet that number is exponentially lower than those who are drunk.

It's a waste of time, money and effort to keep marijuana illegal.

We've just seen a litany of "pot isn't so bad" and well alchohol and tobacco is somehow worse. How the fuck is tobacco worse? Both are inhaled, and if you drop a joint or a cigarette in your lap while driving, both are a hazard. Just because some people here got a cheap high at a concert off of pot they didn't have to buy does not make pot smoke magically good when inhaled. It's still fricking smoke.

and as for the bitching about the law, we've already seen ideological sharpies whining about how crack convictions being more severe than cocaine convictions is somehow racist. YOu think that this won't play out with pot?

 

Posted by: Ben

190 Pot is a also a pathway drug and not just linked to crime because pot itself or the sale thereof is illegal.

The first part of that is probably demonstrable. That second part is pure speculation. Provide objective evidence that legal MJ would be more of a pathway than legal alcohol or I am just going to ignore the whole argument.

191 AmishDude: "Where do libertarians get this idea that personal responsibility will follow from pot legalization?  It's like putting a train of carts before a toy pony."

Frankly, I don't give a flip about "personal responsibility" kicking in for the user/abuser. It'd be nice but if that doesn't happen, it doesn't happen. No, the point is to insulate those who would be required to suffer fools. Empower them to protect themselves and the inebriated can go turn into a street vegetable; they're just not allowed to bring down everyone else with them.

192 Chronic?  ELEVENTY!

It's a wedge issue. Nothing gets the moron hoard fired up like a circular firing squad. We just loves them.

If you'd like to try it out...Just say "I hope he fails!!!"

193

173 Amishdude:

Are you high now?  Where is that "quit handing out SSDI check" legislation?  Did Corzine pass it on his last day in office too?

Well, that just solves the problem, just get rid of SSDI.  I guess I should expect that, when?  Tomorrow?  Maybe Friday.

I find your views intruiging, and would like to subscribe to your newsletter.

Seriously, I'm tired of the liberaltarian two-step, where they always get something that would generally be less harmful IF there were no welfare state in exchange for an actual limit on the welfare state to be enacted later, but that never comes.

I've reached the point where I'll respect other people's rights to be potheads when I get back some of my own economic liberty, but until then it's pretty much a prisoner's dilemna fail.

194 187 For all of those "legalize it and tax it" people out there, it's called weed for a reason. Are there going to be licenses to grow it because the shit grows anywhere. And if so, how will that be enforced and who will pay for it? Posted by: Hedgehog

Dude, do you scrounge around for fruits and veggies or do you buy really well-grown stuff from the supermarket?  Yeah, it's a weed and grows like one -- and if you smoke weed that grows like a weed, good luck getting high.  Check out any issue of High Times and marvel at their grow pics -- hydroponics, timed lights, formula, etc.  If you simply think that anyone can dump a pack of seeds in their backyard and grow the MJ equivalent of 17 y.o. Black Maple Hill rye, you're just ignorant.  The only recreational drug I'm aware of that grows perfectly perfect on its own is mushrooms.  As long as you know what you're picking, you can simply bend down, pick, champ, and go....  (Disclaimer: I've done shrooms a few times, but they're not my thing.)

195 Hahaha, yeah usually something that is a crime is linked with crime. For a refresher to all the banners at heart, see Friedmans opinion.

196 If there is a legitimate medical need for THC, then why not develop, document, and administer a THC analogue like any another drug. Is smoking something now an accepted practice for the delivery of therapeutic drugs? How can you stop me from taking my prescribed medicine in a public place? If you say in must be consumed on premise, are those premises subject to clinical standards and inspection, like abortion clinics should be? Can vitamin enriched cigarettes be far behind? Why break one system, FDA, in order to facilitate another desire?

197 Yes! Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Marijuana, & Firearms! Project Marijuana Runner coming up!

198

After 15 years, I suspect John Edwards and his ilk can bankrupt the makers of pot faster than the DEA, DOJ and all local and state law enforcement agencies combined.

 

Posted by: Mallamutt, RINO President for Life at July 20, 2011 01:16 PM (OWjjx)

imagine if the growers used a non compliant insecticide, or in a state where water use is practically forbidden  : or where  you are only allowed to plant an approved  landscape.

199 For all of those "legalize it and tax it" people out there, it's called weed for a reason. Are there going to be licenses to grow it because the shit grows anywhere. And if so, how will that be enforced and who will pay for it?

Posted by: Hedgehog

 

Considering that there's a booming black market of untaxed cigarettes, along with indian reservations selling tax free cigarettes, the tax it bit rings hollow.

Here's something: get rid of the laws concerning home brewing and I'll consider legalizing pot and it's magical healthy smoke.

200 Christie's so funky, if he moves in next to you, your  laundry will die !!

201

Funny that the great majority of posts on this topic are anti-pot.

Funny because these comments are being posted on a week day during working hours.

I wonder if the tone will change when the hard-working folks who just want to be left alone get home from work?

There are millions of working honest people who smoke pot.

The anti-pot cliches spat out here by people posting at home on a workday are false. Everything they know about pot they learned on their tv's. The tv never lies, right Conservatives?

I think that we'll see many more pro-pot posts after the evening commute.

Vim Toot!

 

202

Actually, would legalizing just pot do that? I'm guessing it would have to be a much broader legalization - PCP, cocaine, heroin, etc...

Posted by: 18-1 at July 20, 2011 01:12 PM (7BU4a)

Yeah, these legalization fantasies are getting out of hand.  There will be no effect on violence on the US-Mexican border.  Pot doesn't need the infrastructure of a narco-state.

#184 is an interesting take but I disagree with the regulation part.  There won't be any panacea.  If it's decriminalized, it won't be regulated effectively.

203

O/T sorry

Can someone piss on my face?

204

I think that we'll see many more pro-pot posts after the evening commute.

Vim Toot!

 Posted by: Mica Vim Toot at July 20, 2011 01:20 PM (+zaUw)

Wow, man.  Toot much??

205 AmishDude is exactly right, by the way. I want the government out of it all but I don't share the illusion that things will go back to the pre-1900s (imagined) idyll. We've had 50 years of pro-drug messaging. We have a "safety net" that guarantees a good life no matter how bad your choices. If drugs were decriminalized, it would totally suck. But, I think, it would suck slightly less than it does now.

206 Sfgoth. I know nothing of growing or smoking pot but you can grow great vegetables in your back yard without much "training". The point is who will regulate and tax and who will pay for it?

207

Eh – the problem with pushing these libertarian social issues is that the government financial-subsidy and welfare state structure is so built up at this point that youÂ’re going to wind up financially supporting stoners who are unemployable or grossly underemployed because of their chronic use.  You can say “let them smoke all they want, just let them live with the consequences” as if theyÂ’ll actually be allowed to starve to death because of their poorly managed priorities.  For every one who can handle regular recreational use and integrate it into a productive life, thereÂ’s another out there who is consumed by marijuana use.  Someone who meanders through a few credits at community college per semester to claim the occupation “student” into his late twenties without any real prospect of a degree or remunerative occupation.  The medicalization of pot is coming just in time for ObamacareÂ’s individual mandate/subsidy for low income individuals, so thereÂ’ll be even less motivation to get his shit together after getting kicked off of his parentsÂ’ plan at age 26.  (remember the cheers for  that?)

The medicalization is just the camelÂ’s nose under the tent with the endgame being full legalization and government sanction.  I assume that a prescription for marijuana entitles the state to insinuate itself between employers and employees and force employers to hire the stoners with enough motivation to seek employment?  In the time between medicalization and full legalization of course weÂ’ll have the corrupting of medical doctors and a part of the medical community – wonder if the diagnoses which entitle one to medical marijuana would double as a basis to seek SSI disability?  Of course because there is a prescription for pot, it would be viewed as treatment instead of the very cause and root of the problem.

 My buddyÂ’s girlfriend sits at home all day playing with photoshop and self-medicating her “fibromyalgia” with the herb. (my state has no medical marijuana law)  SheÂ’s actually a fairly talented hobby-photographer and a good conversationalist but her potential as a human being is more than a bit impaired, and of course her time and energy is sapped in the acquisition, hiding, transporting, paraphernalia, and consumption of marijuana, and then repeating the procedure.

I think weÂ’ll eventually have an institutionalized slacker class with the veneer of a medical basis for the need to reach into your pockets, and a political class who would gladly trade your money for their votes. 

208 The first part of that is probably demonstrable. That second part is pure speculation. Provide objective evidence that legal MJ would be more of a pathway than legal alcohol or I am just going to ignore the whole argument.

Posted by: MikeTheMoose at July 20, 2011 01:16 PM (0q2P7)

Hangovers tend to discourage alcohol abuse in the long term.  There's a similar effect with pot, but not the same.

209 Weed can be eaten too.  It's best to use kif or granulated hash (or grind up the bud really fine).  Then you cook it in grapeseed oil for 20-30 minutes -- that or you can buy brownies, etc.

You know what?  Every month I go to a Victorian-type ball.  I throw on my high-waisted trousers, my wing-tip collar shirt, my waistcoat (that's vest for you Americans), my frock coat, fancy cravat, and top hat, and head off to the ball where I waltz and schottische a bit though I much prefer the Regency era dances (quadrilles, English country stuff like reels, Duke of Kent, etc.), socialize, admire all the corseted bosoms.  At midnight, after a rousing chorus of God Save the Queen, sometimes when I get home, I feel like eating some weed, changing into casual wear, going down to my basement studio, and jamming along to B.O.C. or my own compositions, and sometimes I work on writing lyrics to some of the tunes that they play at the fancy dances.  I paid nearly 42% of last month's paycheck to taxes, so you know what?  Those of you who disapprove of my lifestyle -- first of all, if you can't do the Virginia Reel or the related Sir Roger de Coverley, you have no writ to complain about me since I can do both while stoned (though I don't) -- IDGAS and you can F.O.

210 >>Actually, would legalizing just pot do that? I'm guessing it would have to be a much broader legalization - PCP, cocaine, heroin, etc... It would certainly help. Marijuana is by far the most trafficked drug coming across the Mexican border. http://tinyurl.com/3c4ozm6 >>You people keep saying that, but maybe it's only true for you. I keep saying it because it's true. Do you think I am leading some sort of movement to legalize weed on my own? There are millions and millions of people getting stoned in the good ol' U S of A every day. This doesn't happen by accident. Trying to keep marijuana illegal is as fruitless an exercise as prohibition was and it will eventually end with the same result. Kids don't know how to get weed? Are you serious? I realize you teach at a school but do you have any idea what goes on outside your classroom? And not just universities but right down to grade schools. Schools are a veritable cornucopia of drugs and pot is a piece of cake to get. Not hard in the least. I don't think my situation is unusual. I think your's is.

211 Considering that there's a booming black market of untaxed cigarettes, along with indian reservations selling tax free cigarettes, the tax it bit rings hollow.

And is the 'tax it' cry an acknowledgment that it is, in fact, a vice?

212 Hedgehog. Look at Budweiser. They manage to sell a product you can brew at home.

213 Is smoking something now an accepted practice for the delivery of therapeutic drugs?
Posted by: Jean



Apparently.

In a related story, instead of being given Asprin, paitents will be told to go into the backyard and gnaw on a willow tree like a beaver...

214
  So legalize the shit, then you can deal with the consequences of attempting to function within society, much the same as people under the influence of alcohol do.

 Will there be a fine or imprisonment for DWH?  Or a lawsuit for working so high that reality isn't even a concept when you cause a horrific accident? Booze makes a good analogy here--so maybe y'all who conclude mj should be legalized should consider the similarities.  Along with any age limitations for usage.

215 BTW, I'm still for the free clinic THC injections.  Hell, there are plenty of home injection kits for just about everything.  I was on a psoriasis medication that required twice monthly injections of a biologic.

Nobody I've ever heard of has gotten contact drunk.

216 215 Sfgoth. I know nothing of growing or smoking pot but you can grow great vegetables in your back yard without much "training". The point is who will regulate and tax and who will pay for it? Posted by: Hedgehog

IDGAS.  Frankly, the Federal Government has no g-damn business regulating some green thumb who wants to get down and dirty and grow his own weed. 

217 221 Hedgehog. Look at Budweiser. They manage to sell a product you can brew at home.

Posted by: PR at July 20, 2011 01:28 PM (QjguD)

///

Who the hell wants to brew Budweiser?  The crap wouldn't even pass the Reinheitsgebot.  Now if I could brew Anchor Porter....

218

Posted by: Cheech or Chong at July 20, 2011 01:23 PM (UqKQV)

"Wow, man.  Toot much??"

No. Not at all. Cocaine sucks.

You learn everything you know from hollywood? Or did you just get you limp sense of humour from it.

Leave people alone. That's the conservative way.

Stop cheering when statists take away others' liberty.

Vim Toot!

219 Everyone knows that smoking is the healthiest and most efficient delivery method for drugs. Brb, have to go smoke some antibiotics.

220 Hangovers tend to discourage alcohol abuse in the long term.  There's a similar effect with pot, but not the same.

Strong physical addiction tends to encourage alcohol abuse in the long term. Given that alcohol is it's own best hangover cure. Number 2 as you become more physically dependent on alcohol, hangovers all but go away, what you get instead are DTs.

221

I think weÂ’ll eventually have an institutionalized slacker class with the veneer of a medical basis for the need to reach into your pockets, and a political class who would gladly trade your money for their votes. 

Posted by: Alec Leamas

I agree.

If legalization is such a great idea, why is the Netherlands backing away from it? They had this paradise, ad they're strarting to reverse it. Why?

222 228 Everyone knows that smoking is the healthiest and most efficient delivery method for drugs.

Brb, have to go smoke some antibiotics.

Posted by: Empire of Jeff, M.D. (Marijuana Dealer) at July 20, 2011 01:34 PM (lbo6/)

Everyone knows that we should force people to use the healthiest and most efficient delivery method.

Brb, have to go inject some vitamins.

223 >>You people keep saying that, but maybe it's only true for you.

I keep saying it because it's true. Do you think I am leading some sort of movement to legalize weed on my own? There are millions and millions of people getting stoned in the good ol' U S of A every day. This doesn't happen by accident. Trying to keep marijuana illegal is as fruitless an exercise as prohibition was and it will eventually end with the same result.

Remember, of course, that where I am right now, I would have to take a 10 minute walk outside if I wanted to smoke a cigarette.  Outside.

Kids don't know how to get weed? Are you serious?

If they want to, I suppose they could, but there's a world of difference between asking John, who asks Bruce who knows a guy who can get the stuff and walking into a WalMart and checking out via the self-checkout.  If you're not in the culture, dude, you're not in the culture.

I realize you teach at a school but do you have any idea what goes on outside your classroom?

I teach at a university so I know it's easy to find, but if you aren't in the culture, you aren't in a position to just try it once if you have a wild inclination to get it some night at 11pm.  That's the difference between legal and illegal.  If you want to have a shot of vodka once, it's quite easy and can be done quickly.

I think you really overestimate the reach of the pot culture.  It's certainly not a tiny fraction by any means, but a significant portion of the population simply isn't exposed to it.

224

"I think weÂ’ll eventually have an institutionalized slacker class with the veneer of a medical basis for the need to reach into your pockets, and a political class who would gladly trade your money for their votes."

Posted by: Alec Leamas

Lets not divert this thread to a discussion about Medicare/Medicaid, ok?

Vim Toot!

225 Who here has said otherwise?  Frankly, there are all kinds of distractions while driving -- fiddling with the stereo, yakking (particularly on a phone), texting, being emotionally upset, etc.

Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:13 PM (dZ756)

You left out masturbating.

226 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:27 PM (dZ756)

Would you call your seemingly responsible use typical? Common?

I don't give a rat's ass what people do in their private lives. But when they get stoned and crash into me or my family, or destroy property, then I care. Legalizing marijuana is not without a huge downside.

And...you can home-brew some incredible beers. Anchor Porter is easily duplicated. But why would you? The Anchor Steam Brewery can't be too far from you!

227 In high school, I bought extract of orange - wasn't carded and it was about $4 a bottle.  That little bottle was a 3oz, 180 proof screwdriver.

228 Frankly, the Federal Government has no g-damn business regulating some green thumb who wants to get down and dirty and grow his own weed. 

Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:31 PM (dZ756)

Where is this fantasy world that you live?  Michelle Obama pushed some legislation recently that had the effect of regulating...backyard gardens.

Again, you're putting the personal responsibility cart before the legalization horse.

229 Moses had to learn how to make bricks without straw but people here have no problem building men without straw.

I never said decriminalizing marijuana wold restore us to the "idealistic life" of the pre-1900s progressive era. I said we didn't have problems from people using before then, we will not have problems with people using it after the law is removed.

All of the so-called problems brought up are BS as well. Probably 95% of the people in this country have tried it and probably at least 75% use it regularly now.

The only thing that will change is that they will no longer be criminals and the State can quit throwing away money trying to enforce a law that people flaunt.

230 Posted by: Rosa Chong Parks at July 20, 2011 01:36 PM (6rX0K)

The Netherlands has a huge problem with hard drugs. They discovered that making it easy to get heroin creates a large class of people who...wait for it....take heroin!

But here in the US we know better. We will legalize marijuana but never, ever legalize other drugs no slippery slope here!

And I promise; I won't cum in your mouth.

231 Those of you who disapprove of my lifestyle -- first of all, if you can't do the Virginia Reel or the related Sir Roger de Coverley, you have no writ to complain about me since I can do both while stoned (though I don't) -- IDGAS and you can F.O. 1). You're not strengthening your case by tossing out the "Foppish Victorian Dance-Off" challenge. Seriously. 2). The weed use is anachronistic. Quit being a pussy and start hoovering up cocaine like Freud and Sherlock Holmes.

232 234 Who here has said otherwise?  Frankly, there are all kinds of distractions while driving -- fiddling with the stereo, yakking (particularly on a phone), texting, being emotionally upset, etc.

Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:13 PM (dZ756)

You left out masturbating.

Posted by: Lemmiwinks

I did. ;->
///
235

Would you call your seemingly responsible use typical? Common?

For me, yes, both typical and common.  Is getting wasted on Jack and then picking fights with people typical and common usage?  Oh wait....

"And...you can home-brew some incredible beers. Anchor Porter is easily duplicated. But why would you? The Anchor Steam Brewery can't be too far from you!"
-----------
It's not, although I'm embarrassed to say I've never toured.  Did tour Gordon Biersch.  I know people who can grow/brew/distill anything.  I'm not one of them.  However, I work so that I can pay people to do that for me.  :->

233 Legal stoners in Jersey, oh well.

234 "Probably 95% of the people in this country have tried it and probably at least 75% use it regularly now."

Posted by: Vic at July 20, 2011 01:43 PM (M9Ie6)

Pure, unadulterated bullshit.

235 Probably 95% of the people in this country have tried it and probably at least 75% use it regularly now.

And 87.2% of statistics are 50% made-up.

236 Is getting wasted on Jack and then picking fights with people typical and common usage?  Oh wait....

That's a hell of an argument for prohibition, not much of one in favor of the legalization of marijuana.

237 Posted by: Empire of Jeff, M.D. (Marijuana Dealer) at July 20, 2011 01:44 PM (lbo6/)

And don't forget the time honored tradition of buggery in British public schools.

238 @243
Funny how people have their perception changed when they are involved in something.  I knew a guy who basically did Army basic training because he needed rehab, spent most of the time in the hospital and he told me that every single person I know does cocaine every day.  I told him that maybe every single person he knew did cocaine every day but that doesn't mean that everyone in the world does.  He claimed he sold to cops and judges and I'm sure he did but that doesn't make it all cops and all judges.

239 Probably 95% of the people in this country have tried it and probably at least 75% use it regularly now.

OK.  Thanks for that.  It's total bullshit but it really proves my point at the end of #234.

Now, I actually went to look for this.  The answer for those who have tried it is...41%.  Now that is very high for an illegal drug and it does argue in favor of legalization/decriminalization, but it goes to show that you have a widely inflated view of the reach of marijuana.  Its illegality also makes it easier to quit or just abandon it as part of the lifestyle.

You're like the Pauline Kael of marijuana.

240 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:45 PM (dZ756)

Um...Jack Daniels is legal. What's the point?

And I was asking whether your responsible pot use is typical or common among other pot users.

Anchor Steam was a great place to go. I used to go every Christmas, when some crazy potter from the North Coast would bring her spongeware down for a once-a-year sale. We would line up, buy some of the stuff, then get pleasantly plowed on Anchor Steam Christmas Ale. 

241 I do not personally use the ganja, but I also notice the similarities between marijuana laws and the Carter/Left federally mandated 55mph speed limit on highways when I was younger.   Where roads had "unofficial" speed limits of say 65 etc.. and most but not all cops went along with it.   Like Greece and their crazy high tax rates that almost no one follows and most subvert through a large underground network.  Whats the common denominator in all situations?  

Have any of you noticed how much more you all sound like libertarians since Obama got in office?  Here is quotes of awesome. 

http://tinyurl.com/4yk6rbk

Good people do not need laws to tell them to act responsibly, while bad people will find a way around the laws.
Plato

Good men must not obey the laws too much.
Ralph Waldo Emerson

We must reject the idea that every time a law's broken, society is guilty rather than the lawbreaker. It is time to restore the American precept that each individual is accountable for his actions.
Ronald Reagan

It may be true that the law cannot make a man love me, but it can keep him from lynching me, and I think that's pretty important.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

When the President does it, that means that it is not illegal.
Richard Nixon

No man is above the law and no man is below it; nor do we ask any man's permission when we ask him to obey it. Obedience to the law is demanded as a right; not asked as a favor.
Theodore Roosevelt

The life of the law has not been logic; it has been reason.
Oliver Wendell Holmes

An unjust law is itself a species of violence. Arrest for its breach is more so.
Mahatma Gandhi

The law . . . will not bend to the uncertain wishes, imaginations and wanton tempers of men. . . . On the one hand it is inexorable to the cries and lamentations of the prisoners; on the other it is deaf, deaf as an adder, to the clamors of the populace.
John Adams

"If the law supposes that," said Mr. Bumble, "the law is a ass, a idiot."
Charles Dickins
From novel Oliver Twist.

Nor shall any person be subject for the same offence to be twice put in jeopardy of life or limb; nor shall be compelled in any criminal case to be a witness against himself; nor be deprived of life, liberty, or property without due process of law.
Constitution of the USA

Hatred does not cease through hatred at any time. Hatred ceases through love. This is an unalterable law.
Buddha

Let justice be done, though the heavens fall.
Legal maxim
From the Latin 'Fiat justitia ruat coelum'. Usually attributed to Lucius Calpurnius Piso Caesoninus, Roman statesman and Julius Caesar's father-in-law.

You cannot make men good by law: and without good men you cannot have a good society.
C. S. Lewis

He can who thinks he can, and he can't who thinks he can't. This is an inexorable, indisputable law.
Pablo Picasso

If you have ten thousand regulations you destroy all respect for the law.
Winston Churchill

Of liberty I would say that, in the whole plenitude of its extent, it is unobstructed action according to our will. But rightful liberty is unobstructed action according to our will within limits drawn around us by the equal rights of others. I do not add 'within the limits of the law,' because law is often but the tyrant's will, and always so when it violates the right of an individual.
Thomas Jefferson

Only one thing is impossible for God: To find any sense in any copyright law on the planet.
Mark Twain

The law of love could be best understood and learned through little children.
Mahatma Gandhi

Laws are sand, customs are rock. Laws can be evaded and punishment escaped, but an openly transgressed custom brings sure punishment.
Mark Twain

That old law about 'an eye for an eye' leaves everybody blind. The time is always right to do the right thing.
Martin Luther King, Jr.

God created the law of free will, and God created the law of cause and effect. And he himself will not violate the law. We need to be thinking less in terms of what God did and more in terms of whether or not we are following those laws.
Marianne Williamson

Music is a moral law. It gives soul to the universe, wings to the mind, flight to the imagination, and charm and gaiety to life and to everything.
Plato

As long as I have any choice, I will stay only in a country where political liberty, toleration, and equality of all citizens before the law are the rule.
Albert Einstein

We are all full of weakness and errors; let us mutually pardon each other our follies it is the first law of nature.
Voltaire

Justice that love gives is a surrender, justice that law gives is a punishment.
Mahatma Gandhi

In tribal times, there were the medicine men. In the Middle Ages, there were the priests. Today, there are the lawyers. For every age, a group of bright boys, learned in their trades and jealous of their learning, who blend technical competence with plain and fancy hocus-pocus to make themselves masters of their fellow men. For every age, a pseudo-intellectual autocracy, guarding the tricks of the trade from the uninitiated, and running, after its own pattern, the civilization of its day.
Fred Rodell

Shame may restrain what law does not prohibit.
Seneca

The law does not concern itself with trifles.
Legal maxim
From the Latin 'De minimis non curat lex'.

What is hateful to thyself do not do to another. That is the whole Torah [Law], the rest is Commentary.
Hillel

It is the law of nature that woman should be held under the dominance of man.
Confucius

Be peaceful, be courteous, obey the law, respect everyone; but if someone puts his hand on you, send him to the cemetery.
Malcolm X

The best way to get a bad law repealed is to enforce it strictly.
Abraham Lincoln

A country is in a bad state, which is governed only by laws; because a thousand things occur for which laws cannot provide, and where authority ought to interpose.
Samuel Johnson

There is one kind of robber whom the law does not strike at, and who steals what is most precious to men: time.
Napoleon Bonaparte

Law and justice are not always the same.
Gloria Steinem

Law school taught me one thing: how to take two situations that are exactly the same and show how they are different.
Hart Pomerantz

No enactment of man can be considered law unless it conforms to the law of God.
William Blackstone

The law is reason free from passion.
Aristotle

Man, when perfected, is the best of animals, but when separated from law and justice, he is the worst of all.
Aristotle

The good of the people is the chief law.
Cicero

Criminals do not die by the hands of the law; they die by the hands of other men.
George Bernard Shaw

Love is the flower of life, and blossoms unexpectedly and without law, and must be plucked where it is found, and enjoyed for the brief hour of its duration.
D. H. Lawrence

The law an eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
Mahatma Gandhi

Whereas the law is passionless, passion must ever sway the heart of man.
Aristotle

But we know that the law is good, if a man use it lawfully;
Knowing this, that the law is not made for a righteous man, but for the lawless and disobedient, for the ungodly and for sinners, for unholy and profane, for murderers of fathers and murderers of mothers, for manslayers.
Bible
1 Timothy 1. 8-9.

Arms and laws do not flourish together.
Julius Caesar

Hard cases, it is said, make bad law.
Lord John Campbell

Where law ends, there tyranny begins.
William Pitt, the Elder

Law is not law, if it violates the principles of eternal justice.
Lydia Maria Child

A state is better governed which has few laws, and those laws strictly observed.
Rene Descartes

The laws are silent in the midst of arms.
Cicero

Equity follows the law.
Legal maxim
From the Latin 'Aequitas sequitur legem'.

Laws alone cannot secure freedom of expression; in order that every man present his views without penalty there must be spirit of tolerance in the entire population.
Albert Einstein

Laws are not masters but servants, and he rules them who obeys them.
Henry Ward Beecher

Laws grind the poor, and rich men rule the law.
Oliver Goldsmith

A verbal contract isn't worth the paper it's printed on.
Sam Goldwyn

The good need fear no law; it is his safety, and the bad man's awe.
Ben Jonson

One wrong does not justify another.
Legal maxim
From the Latin 'Injuria non excusat injuriam'.

The verdict acquits the raven, but condemns the dove.
Juvenal

Nor is there any law more just, than that he who has plotted death shall perish by his own plot.
Ovid

Ignorance of the law excuses no man; not that all men know the law, but because it is an excuse every man will plead, and no man can tell how to confute him.
John Selden

The gods have their own laws.
Ovid

No one can be judge in his own cause.
Legal maxim
From the Latin 'Nemo debet esse judex in propria causa'.

Still you keep o' th' windy side of the law.
William Shakespeare
Twelfth Night.

Laws are like spiders' webs which, if anything small falls into them they ensnare it, but large things break through and escape.
Solon

Let every man remember that to violate the law is to trample on the blood of his father, and to tear that charter of his own and his children's liberty.
Abraham Lincoln

There is a higher law than the Constitution.
William Henry Seward

The power of the lawyer is in the uncertainty of the law.
Jeremy Bentham

We must not make a scarecrow of the law,
Setting it up to fear the birds of prey,
And let it keep one shape, till custom make it.
Their perch and not their terror
William Shakespeare
Measure for Measure.

We all know here that the law is the most powerful of schools for the imagination. No poet ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.
Jean Giraudoux

The law hath not been dead, though it hath slept.
William Shakespeare

"You are old," said the youth, "and your jaws are too weak for anything tougher than suet; yet you finished the goose, with the bones and the beak. Pray, how did you do it?" "In my youth," said his father, "I took to the law, and argued each case with my wife and the muscular strength which it gave to my jaw has lasted the rest of my life."
Lewis Carroll

True, we build no bridges. We raise no towers. We construct no engines. We paint no pictures - unless as amateurs for our own principal amusement. There is little of all that we do which the eye of man can see. But we smooth out difficulties; we relieve stress; we correct mistakes; we take up other men's burdens and by our efforts we make possible the peaceful life of men in a peaceful state.
John W. Davis

While law is supposed to be a device to serve society, a civilized way of helping the wheels go round without too much friction, it is pretty hard to find a group less concerned with serving society and more concerned with serving themselves than the lawyers.
Fred Rodell

There is no better way to exercise the imagination than the study of the law. No artist ever interpreted nature as freely as a lawyer interprets the truth.
Jean Giradoux

The first thing we do, let's kill all the lawyers.
William Shakespeare
King Henry VI Part 2.

Necessity knows no law; I know some attorneys of the same.
Benjamin Franklin

What a cage is to the wild beast, law is to the selfish man.
Herbert Spencer

Law is a bottomless pit; it is a cormorant,--a harpy that devours everything.
Jonathan Swift

Ignorance of the law, which everybody is supposed to know, does not constitute an excuse.
Legal maxim
From the Latin 'Ignorantia juris quod quisque scire tenetur non excusat'.

Laws are like cobwebs, which may catch small flies, but let wasps and hornets break through.
Jonathan Swift

It is an honorable calling that you have chosen. Some of you will soon be defending poor, helpless insurance companies who are constantly being sued by greedy, vicious widows and orphans trying to collect on their policies. Others will work tirelessly to protect frightened, beleaguered oil companies from being attacked by depraved consumer groups.
Art Buchwald

To make laws that man cannot, and will not obey, serves to bring all laws into contempt.
Elizabeth Cady Stanton

The King can do no wrong.
Legal maxim
From the Latin 'Rex non potest peccare'.

The law will never make men free; it is men who have got to make the law free.
Henry David Thoreau

Nobody has a more sacred obligation to obey the law than those who make the law.
Sophocles

242

"Probably 95% of the people in this country have tried it and probably at least 75% use it regularly now."

Posted by: Vic at July 20, 2011 01:43 PM (M9Ie6) "

Vic, people tend to project their personal experiences on to the larger world. Your numbers are wildly skewed.

That said, I envy you for your good choice in friends!

Vim Toot!

243 237 Frankly, the Federal Government has no g-damn business regulating some green thumb who wants to get down and dirty and grow his own weed. 

Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:31 PM (dZ756)

Where is this fantasy world that you live?  Michelle Obama pushed some legislation recently that had the effect of regulating...backyard gardens.

Again, you're putting the personal responsibility cart before the legalization horse.

Posted by: AmishDude
///
Hate to break it to you, but the Supreme Court ruled in the 30's that the Feds could bar you from growing your own tomatoes.  Guess I should give up the weed and get back into the real world.

///
240 Those of you who disapprove of my lifestyle -- first of all, if you can't do the Virginia Reel or the related Sir Roger de Coverley, you have no writ to complain about me since I can do both while stoned (though I don't) -- IDGAS and you can F.O.

1). You're not strengthening your case by tossing out the "Foppish Victorian Dance-Off" challenge. Seriously.

LOL, because you can't.  That's why most Civil War balls are set dances with maybe a few waltzes during intermissions -- because the tough guy soldiers can't dance.  Seriously.  I went to one at Gettysburg last year.  It was as if I was the only single guy (under 50 and sober) who could waltz and since I didn't have a date, I was a bit in demand.  ;->  Mostly it was just reels and easy couple mixers. 

I will say that "Strip the Willow" stoned is a lot of fun.

244

Here's something: get rid of the laws concerning home brewing and I'll consider legalizing pot and it's magical healthy smoke.

Which laws against home brewing are you talking about? State laws vary, unless you are referring to the federal laws, which IMO are done for two reasons: protectionism for the major breweries and taxation for the federal government.

If homebrewing is illegal in your state, I feel for you.

245 Yeah,

AZ passed a "Medical" Marijuanna and ballot initiative and I was agin' it.

First off, using putative "Cancer Patients" just pisses me off, no end.

If you just wanted to make smoking a joint legal, I could have voted for that.

But NOOooo, now we have to spend time and money defending "dispensaries" against the DOJ.

As if we weren't busy enough, getting our asses shot and and sued off by Eric Holder on behalf of the Zetas down Sonora way...

THANX! You Libertarian fucktards...

Fully open borders and free exchange of all peoples and trades must sound tres chique in New Jersey.

(Then again, you did give birth to Snookums or whatever the hell that skank's name is...)

I assure you, that less than 90 miles from Nogales, it don't work out so hot in practice.

246 Vic-- We're on the same side but this: --All of the so-called problems brought up are BS as well. Probably 95% of the people in this country have tried it and probably at least 75% use it regularly now-- Is silly. 95% of the people would have to include pre-teens. Hard to find stats but Time sez 42% (of adults) have tried pot: http://www.time.com/time/health/article/0,8599,1821697,00.html Presumably they're not all regular users. 5-10% of all adults then, maybe. It's enough to make enforcement impossible without it being the national pastime, as Time has it.

247 My made up statistics are no worse that your made up BS problems.

248

Legalize weed. Lower my taxes so I can pay for it. Is that good enough?

 

249

The other day I saw a sign on the side of the road in the Seattle area with a number where you can order "medical" marijuana for only $150.

I get the feeling governments are going to see the taxing of what are now illegal drugs as a solution to debt issues.  Now I am not strong one way or another in the whole outlawing or making it legal and taxing it issue.  I just think it needs to be well thought out before implimented.

I also have a problem with letting the public vote on medical marijuana.  Either it is a legit medicine or not and I, as a software engineer who has never used the product, has no idea if it is or not so I do not feel qualified to vote.

250 Is silly. 95% of the people would have to include pre-teens.

That was supposed to be adults. And I would bet that at least that many have tried it at least once.

251 Trust the citizen?

Responsibility and accountability for their personal actions is like an escalator direction switch by which peoples advance or decline.

In a free to succeed or fail society,  the first step is the hardest but all the other ones are quite tolerable.

In a fail and the burden gets forcibly passed onto someone else through welfare or media blame etc.. and the first step is the easiest and every step after is like falling down a jagged cliff face.

252 We would line up, buy some of the stuff, then get pleasantly plowed on Anchor Steam Christmas Ale. but you're worried a pothead will plow into you? drunks don't think too good do they?

253 Vic-- Really? =At least= 95%? That would make it one of the most universal experiences in this country. Possibly ahead of television.

254 My made up statistics are no worse that your made up BS problems.

I suppose the test - where each one of us falls on the issue of whether marijuana use should be normalized - is whether we believe that regular use makes the user more or less productive and successful or has a zero net effect.  My personal belief is that it makes the user less productive and successful.  You're apparently on the more successful and productive or zero net effect side.

Call it "anecdata," but I've seen a lot of regular pot users waste their human potential as life passes them by.

255 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:52 PM (dZ756)

Yes, but did your dancing skills get you laid that night? That's the only important thing.

256 Posted by: Vic at July 20, 2011 01:58 PM (M9Ie6)

Proof he is a closet commie. He is using made-up statistics to counter made-up problems.

257 264 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 01:52 PM (dZ756)

Yes, but did your dancing skills get you laid that night? That's the only important thing.
Posted by: CharlieBrown'sDildo (NJConservative)

That night?  No.  However, I did once bed a young lady in panniers (that's 18th c., not Victorian) -- yes, literally, she had not changed her clothes.  Fun!

258 Posted by: PR at July 20, 2011 02:04 PM (QjguD)

And then we took a cab to a good SF restaurant, at least the last several years we did it. Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't drive drunk.

Don't project your problems on me.

259 Heh,

Reminds me, that I started asking for (and getting!!!) hazard pay to go down to Nogales or Douglas, AZ over and above my mileage premium (designed to discourage hiring me to drive out to BFE, for trivial projects) about a year and a half ago.

Now, no-one and I mean no-one, is paying merchandisers to service the retailers in those two communities either by 1099 or by W-2...

260 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 02:10 PM (dZ756)

You do understand that nobody here has the slightest problem with your pot use?

The issue is the great unwashed who might take a relaxation of drug laws as permission to do even less with their lives. The government already pays any of them to do very little; giving them a pharmaceutical excuse might not be in the long term best interests of the country.

261 Our city turned down the "medical" use stores because the cops said that, yes, there will certainly be illegal activity going on there and around there (like selling to kids) but it would take most of the police force's time and manpower standing around the stores looking for it before they could make a dent in the crime.

So unless NJ plans on hiring a whole bunch of cops, this will end up like any drug site. Not good.

Until doctors can prescribe it, no city should take part.

262 267 Posted by: PR at July 20, 2011 02:04 PM (QjguD)

And then we took a cab to a good SF restaurant, at least the last several years we did it. Sorry to disappoint you, but I don't drive drunk.

Don't project your problems on me.

Which restaurant?  I agree that Anchor Christmas ale is awesome - and not having to drive afterwards makes it even better.

One thing I do not do is drink and then use MJ.  Nooooo, bad scene, toooo dizzyyyyy, gotta pass out.  Well, that's not to say I won't sip a half glass of wine while eating a cookie or sip on a (as in just one and no more) malty lager after I'm high, but I don't get drunk and high.

263 269 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 02:10 PM (dZ756)

You do understand that nobody here has the slightest problem with your pot use? (I disagree with that -- there are plenty of people here who are patently zero tolerance.)

The issue is the great unwashed who might take a relaxation of drug laws as permission to do even less with their lives. The government already pays any of them to do very little; giving them a pharmaceutical excuse might not be in the long term best interests of the country.

Then you either support re-criminalizing alcohol or you're just tossing unsupported terms around.  The biggest drug problem any society has is generally alcohol.  In fact, you hedge your own statement so hard, it seems to me that it's just your pet position and not something you've actually sat down and analyzed.  Frankly, your position sounds akin to "the more fun things we outlaw, the harder people will work".

264 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 02:16 PM (dZ756)

Jonty At Jacks was the last one, but alas it has closed. Florio once. And Zuni a few times. Bix too.

SF may be a sewer, but damn, the restaurants are spectacular.

265 There's a tiny, but very good and reasonably-priced fish place on Mkt/Church.  Crab Louie is the bomb.  Yeah, we do have some good eats, if you have $$$.

266 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 02:20 PM (dZ756)

I am actually pro-decriminalization. But I am not fooling myself that it will be an unadulterated good thing for society.

And I will correct my statement to: "You do understand that almost nobody here has the slightest problem with your pot use?"

267 Possibly ahead of television.

I think someone had a post on the other day that said 99% of the houses had at least one TV and something in the high 80s had two or more.

268 Anyway this thread is a waste of time anyway.

269 275 Posted by: SFGoth at July 20, 2011 02:20 PM (dZ756)

I am actually pro-decriminalization. But I am not fooling myself that it will be an unadulterated good thing for society.

And I will correct my statement to: "You do understand that almost nobody here has the slightest problem with your pot use?" 
//
Now I agree with you ("almost").  I think that some people have a huge problem with my dancing, but I think that's just cover for their own inadequacies.  ;->  To each their own.  http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8PyBqwVG1A8

I do not think that legalizing weed will be an unadulterated good thing for society either -- no more than for alcohol.  Ever been on the Tokyo subway at 11:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night?  Packed with drunk suits.

270 Could be. NYT: http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/03/business/media/03television.html Says it's down to 96.7%. I would guess about 20% of the population wouldn't take a recreational drug under any circumstances.

271 Ever been on the Tokyo subway at 11:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night?  Packed with drunk suits.

And that's the point of making the distinction between alcohol and marijuana.  Those same drunk suits will be sober suits on the return train at 7:30 A.M.  I don't know stoners to be quite so high-functioning. 

272 My point is to stop using the bullshit "tax it" or "it's medicinal" excuse.  Just say "we want pot legal so we can get stoned."  Simple enough.  As others have said (and I work in pharma and deal with drug delivery systems all the time) smoking a drug is not a common/accepted method of drug delivery.  As for the appetite stimulant bullshit in elderly/cancer patients, there are plenty of legal appetite stimulants that these people can take. 

Be honest "libertarians" and Paulbots and say that you want pot to be legal so you can get stoned.  Good luck...

273 As for the appetite stimulant bullshit in elderly/cancer patients, there are plenty of legal appetite stimulants that these people can take. 

Beer happens to be one of them.

274 280 Ever been on the Tokyo subway at 11:30 p.m. on a Tuesday night?  Packed with drunk suits.

And that's the point of making the distinction between alcohol and marijuana.  Those same drunk suits will be sober suits on the return train at 7:30 A.M.  I don't know stoners to be quite so high-functioning.
///
How many stoners do you know?  Stoners don't generally come in bleary-eyed and hungover the next day if they toke up in the evening -- which is why I don't eat brownies during the week.  Some of those suits will have been up for awhile yakking on themselves (or their wives).

275 You mean...it works on migraines?

276

I'm really not seeing this as a big deal.  Meth would be a totally different animal. I've known plenty stoners and none of them were bankrobbers, muggers, or any other sort of criminal (beyond the obvious drug use).

This is another case of punishing people on the basis of what might happen.  This is like drinking and gun owning.  People are being punished in advance of any wrong doing for something that probably won't happen.

Millions of people drink and own guns and only a small percentage will ever be convicted of any wrong doing associated with either.

Plus I strongly believe the it is not the place of the government to enforce morality. 

277

Those of you who disapprove of my lifestyle -- first of all, if you can't do the Virginia Reel or the related Sir Roger de Coverley, you have no writ to complain about me since I can do both while stoned (though I don't) -- IDGAS and you can F.O.

You can teach high-school students the Virginia Reel in five minutes. I have been to several dances in my youth in which the caller did just that - that is how I learned it in the first place. It is not a difficult dance.

278 I am for legalizing pot, but am very apprehensive about the hard stuff.

Taranto presented a libertarian/small government case for criminalization last week: Glen Greenwald was honest about how the additional junkies legalization would produce would increase the client base of Big Government.  There is reason to be circumspect about gung-ho, widespread legalization.

279 How many stoners do you know?  Stoners don't generally come in bleary-eyed and hungover the next day if they toke up in the evening -- which is why I don't eat brownies during the week.  Some of those suits will have been up for awhile yakking on themselves (or their wives).

Plenty.  I mentioned my buddy's girlfriend self-medicating her fibromyalgia with weed.  I could mention my step-brother, 28 years old, college drop out who works part-time as a barback.  I haven't seen him before 1 P.M. for years.  And then there was my college physics lab partner who did, in fact, show up to the lab bleary-eyed and unable to participate in the experiments.

 

280 286

Those of you who disapprove of my lifestyle -- first of all, if you can't do the Virginia Reel or the related Sir Roger de Coverley, you have no writ to complain about me since I can do both while stoned (though I don't) -- IDGAS and you can F.O.

You can teach high-school students the Virginia Reel in five minutes. I have been to several dances in my youth in which the caller did just that - that is how I learned it in the first place. It is not a difficult dance.

Exactly, which is why these dances predominate at Civil War balls. 

281 I've known plenty stoners and none of them were bankrobbers, muggers, or any other sort of criminal (beyond the obvious drug use).

You don't know any who steal or deal?

282 288 How many stoners do you know?  Stoners don't generally come in bleary-eyed and hungover the next day if they toke up in the evening -- which is why I don't eat brownies during the week.  Some of those suits will have been up for awhile yakking on themselves (or their wives).

Plenty.  I mentioned my buddy's girlfriend self-medicating her fibromyalgia with weed.  I could mention my step-brother, 28 years old, college drop out who works part-time as a barback.  I haven't seen him before 1 P.M. for years.  And then there was my college physics lab partner who did, in fact, show up to the lab bleary-eyed and unable to participate in the experiments.

Posted by: Alec Leamas at July 20, 2011 02:51 PM (mg08E)

///

Nowhere in there do you mention seeing them toke up from 7-11pm and then hit the sack.  Your buddy's GF is probably high close to 24/7 (though you don't say whether she wakes up hungover.  Why would you see a barback before 1pm?  Why are you in a bar before 1pm?  As for your physics lab partner, how close to the class was he getting stoned?  Devil is in the deets.

283 It's either "small government, trust citizens" or "big government, trust politicians". 

Diffusion of authority throughout society is best: no businesses too big to fail, no government big enough to sell our freedom.

284
Pot laws exist to arrest assholes for an easily provable offense. That's all. Ever since the courts started to throw out the "Breach of Peace" and disorderly conduct laws, cops have simply flipped the assholes and busted them for the weed they were holding. Real simple. Buncha pricks standing on a street corner blasting a boom box and getting ugly with passers by, cop just nails 'em for the smoke.

Medical Marijuana continues that trend by allowing peaceable stoners to spend more and get high quality weed while still allowing cops to bust goons for holding.

It's a compromise.

285 293
Pot laws exist to arrest assholes for an easily provable offense. That's all. Ever since the courts started to throw out the "Breach of Peace" and disorderly conduct laws, cops have simply flipped the assholes and busted them for the weed they were holding. Real simple. Buncha pricks standing on a street corner blasting a boom box and getting ugly with passers by, cop just nails 'em for the smoke.

Medical Marijuana continues that trend by allowing peaceable stoners to spend more and get high quality weed while still allowing cops to bust goons for holding.

It's a compromise.

Posted by: Ronzoni at July 20, 2011 02:59 PM (UFJvm)

Fucking brilliant.

286 Nowhere in there do you mention seeing them toke up from 7-11pm and then hit the sack. 

I have seen this.  I can't say whether they smoked in the morning, though.

Why would you see a barback before 1pm? 

Because his nephew was being Baptized.  Seen one kid dipped, seen them all I suppose.

Your buddy's GF is probably high close to 24/7 (though you don't say whether she wakes up hungover.

Probably.  And she'd be one of the first to get a prescription, I'm sure.  She's one of those people we're talking about. 

287

Call it "anecdata," but I've seen a lot of regular pot users waste their human potential as life passes them by.

Which is unfortunate.  Has pot being illegal helped them in any way?

288 My step daughter completed high school last year. She knew many fellow students who drank, and some who did pot and other drugs. She named off over half a dozen who dropped out; all of them were pot users. One wound up in jail for burglary to support various drug habits ( he appears to have done pot and other drugs. the menu is lacking. Go figure). None of the drop outs she knew dropped out because of alchohol or tobacco. Yes, she did know pot users who graduated.

289 295

Probably.  And she'd be one of the first to get a prescription, I'm sure.  She's one of those people we're talking about.

Technically, no state can allow dox to write prescriptions since federal law does not recognize MJ as a medicine.  They can write recommendations since the USSC held, a few years ago, that recommendations fall within the 1st A.

296

Call it "anecdata," but I've seen a lot of regular pot alcohol users waste their human potential as life passes them by.

I hate that too.  I've had a few friends drink their lives away.  (Ironically, one of my friends who was a bigger toker quit cold turkey, got a job in a high stress office, and took up cigarettes.  Go figure.)

290 Which is unfortunate.  Has pot being illegal helped them in any way?

About as much as the laws against murder, I would say.

I would suppose, however, that if pot became medicalized and de facto legalized, the chances that they would medicalize their own use and thereby remain stoned and never realize their potential as a productive member of society would be much greater.  As it stands now with pot being illegal, and therefore not their prescribed medicine, their loved ones can make a compelling argument that their illegal activity is the cause of their problems.  With a prescription for a make-believe malady, that becomes much harder to accomplish. 

291

She named off over half a dozen who dropped out; all of them were pot users.

I know someone who first started smoking pot... several years after he dropped out of high school.

He never got his GED but the pothead still makes more than I do. And he does like pot.

This is how they come up with BS statistics in the first place - pot is a 'gateway drug' because 75% of heroin addicts admit to trying pot first.

If 83% of bank robbers admit to smoking pot does that mean smoking pot leads to bank robbery?

High school dropouts are a self-selecting sample. I bet you find elevated rates of use on everything.

Dropouts are probably more likely to show up late for work too - because dropping out makes them more likely too, you think, or does it just correlate without causation?

What if you find that people who drop out of highschool and show up late to work all the time not only are more statistically likely to smoke pot by a wide margin, but are less likely to excercise regularly by a large margin?

Shall we start mandating physical fitness, since being a couch potato has been shown statistically to cause pot smoking, truancy, and armed robbery?

Statistics show almost negligble use of pot among Olympic gold medalists! So if we make all those hippies run 10 miles a day they'll stop smoking pot... right?

292 And if we legalize 'jane, then the state will get out of everyone's business, dude!

293 Statistics show almost negligble use of pot among Olympic gold medalists! So if we make all those hippies run 10 miles a day they'll stop smoking pot... right?

AHEM!!!  cough cough

294

AHEM!!!  cough cough

I said almost negligible. An example of 1 single instance would be entirely negligible.

Come up with 3 or 4 more (you can!) and you'll have... proven me to be accurate.

Realistically - it's probably quite high. Hell, I bet if you look at Olympic snowboarders they're probably 85% potheads.

But, for reasons Phelps can attest, most of them manage to pass their drug tests and so are ostensibly 'not on pot'.

Even potheads will tell you you have to be a fucking moron (or else have no iota of self control whatsoever) to fail a scheduled drug test.

295

I'll believe it isn't addictive when some people I know who have been using it for decades can go without it for a month.

 

But if you want to legalize this junk, legalize it all.  We should clean out the gene pools of all the losers in a decade.

 

The world would be a better without these losers.

 

Obama/Christy in 2012.  Where a dope meets a dope.

296 304

I'll believe it isn't addictive when some people I know who have been using it for decades can go without it for a month.

But if you want to legalize this junk, legalize it all.  We should clean out the gene pools of all the losers in a decade.

The world would be a better without these losers.

Posted by: Molon Labe at July 20, 2011 03:46 PM (g5MrG)

How do you view alcohol?

297 How do you view alcohol?

Maybe that's your problem.  You're supposed to drink it.

298 anyone who smokes pot at all, is a pothead, and anyone who drinks at all, is a drunk, and anyone who believes this is a retard.

299 I'm opposed to legalizing marijuana for recreational use, but I think it's clear there are therapeutic benefits to folks like chemo patients to marijuana.  Those benefits, for those people (many of whom are terminal), outweigh the risks.  So I have no problem with granting prescriptions for its use. 

The fact that people abuse it -- just as, ahem, a gazillion people abuse the handicap hang tags and license plates they magically seem to obtain -- is not a reason to disallow the medical use of (and research into) marijuana. 

300

High school dropouts are a self-selecting sample. I bet you find elevated rates of use on everything.

Dropouts are probably more likely to show up late for work too - because dropping out makes them more likely too, you think, or does it just correlate without causation

 

The point that's been bandied about above has varied from it's harmless, no worse than alcohol or better than alchohol. I noted from this one vantage point that all of these drop outs had several common elements; drug use (pot) being one of them. There were no examples of someone dropping out because of alchohol alone, even though we know that such cases exist in adults. The impression that she had on all of them was that they were stoners.

Hell, I'm still waiting for the explanation on how pot smioke is somehow healthy and tobacco smoke is the farts of Satan? Or why this HAS to be smoked, and not injected?  If it's medicinal and all.

 

301 Can we please agree on just one thing: that if pot is legalized it should be supplied by private industry?

302 This is a good move by Christie, Why? (1) Tobacco and Alcohol are just as bad for society. (2) Just like prohibition was a abject failure, created a crime wave, so has our "war" on pot. (3) The revenue stream of drug lords will be reduced. (4) It cost more money to enforce than to treat and regulate. (5) We have bigger issues to deal with, therefore it removes this issue from the table. (6) Just remember folks the same reasoning for banning pot is used by control freaks to ban salt, meat, cars, gas, light bulbs, happy meals, you name it. This important because it moves the goal line back a little for ban happy folks in this country. That way the idiotic hippies can fry their brains, like they had any to begin with, and I can eat my cheeseburger in peace without some idiotic health nut telling me I going to hurt myself, and children....always the children....

303 309

Hell, I'm still waiting for the explanation on how pot smioke is somehow healthy and tobacco smoke is the farts of Satan? Or why this HAS to be smoked, and not injected?  If it's medicinal and all.

Pot smoke is not healthy, but I think the difference is in the difference between marijuana and tobacco, with nicotine specifically.  http://www.webmd.com/cancer /news/20051017/pot-smoke-less-carcinogenic-than-tobacco

Not all medications are injected -- pills for instance?

304 You know what I think is a real problem.... WINE!!! Proof: Most wine is consumed in the northeast and left coast, all the left wing nut states, and the rest of the country, mostly red drinks beer. Plus how else can you explain the behavior of France... See I have just made argument that wine should be banned...there must be some chemical that distorts reality if you drink too much of it...

305 "I just no longer have any interest in using the coercive power of the state to impose my personal preferences on recreational drug use on anyone else."

AKA me and my buddies toke on occasion and I want to be able to without being hassled by the man.

306

After reading all 300+ comments here, IÂ’ve come to some conclusions:

 

1.  Pot use correlates to behavior just as much as “human nature” correlates to behavior. That is, being a deadbeat and being a productive member of society is not changed by pot use. It has to do with who you are. The deadbeats would still be deadbeats with or without pot.  Same for the productive

 

2. The belief that legalization will lead to more people sucking on the welfare tit is absurd on its face. You have to make the wild – and wrong – assumption that they are not already smoking up and that it is hard to get in the places that welfare recipients live. See (1) above.

 

3. The belief that legalization will lead to more people driving\going to work high is absurd on its face. You have to make the wild – and wrong – assumption that they are not already smoking up and that it is hard to get in the places that productive members of society live. See (1) above.

 

4. No political affiliation has a monopoly on hypocrisy or cognitive dissonance.

 

5. The reasons that I – and most productive members of society that smoke - don’t tell most everyone I know and associate with on a daily basis that I partake in the kind weed on occasion should be obvious with all the naïve intolerance being shown on this thread. . We are more than you prohibitionists realize.

 

6. No political affiliation has a monopoly on passing blame on human nature onto something besides the individual. See, little Jonny canÂ’t help itÂ… heÂ’s the VICTIM of that eeeeeevil weed! We MUST outlaw it. FOR THE CHILDREN! (Sound familiar?)

 

7. No political affiliation has a monopoly on the use of the Precautionary Principle for social engineering.

307 What post 315 said EXACTLY.

308 Tim Linceum is pitching today.  Before the noise last year about his smoking weed, he won 2 Cy Youngs.  Now, after the scrutiny, well, today he's got 7Ks in 7 but has given up a dinger.

309 I'm too old and self-righteous to smoke myself, but I'd love to become the party of stoners. Watch leftist heads just fucking explode.

310 This thread needs this cartoon.

311

Legalize all drugs but make the state sell them.

 

All the druggies will die waiting online for their next fix.

 

The gene pool will be cleaned up in ten years

 

The druggies will demand a return to the higher quality product and service from the school yard vender.  Capitalism will be vindicated and distrust of the government will grow.

 

As for the louts on welfare give them drugs for free.  They will OD faster and increase the rate of gene pool cleansing.

 

You can always identify a druggie/libertarian.  Their main concern in the world is unrestricted access to drugs in the name of "FREEDOM."

No doubt the last Romans would have agreed with our druggies.

312 "Legalize all drugs but make the state sell them.

 All the druggies will die waiting online for their next fix.

As for the louts on welfare give them drugs for free.  They will OD faster and increase the rate of gene pool cleansing."

A lot of the production will still go into the black market.

And people OD only because of uncertain purity. I think the gov can atleast assure a constant strength, if nothing else.

313 I wonder what the warning pictures on the packages would be.

Stills from old Cheech & Chong movies.

314 The worst thing about these laws is that it makes it legal for those smart enough to game the system, but for poor dumb black kids or stupid highschoolers, they get the full weight of the law on them. So, Mchipster is enjoying legal dope while high school drop out is buying illegal.

315 Lol @ all the prohibitionists saying they "don't want to pay for 'druggies'' drug habits!!!1"

First of all, yeah, you do. We know you do because you're doing it already to the tune of $20,000,000,000 per year--it's called the war on drugs--and you're totally cool with it. And that's just the federal cost. Add in the state cost and it shoots up even more.

Anyway, does anyone have the unemployment rate among people who have smoked weed? I'd like to know what it is. I want an idea of what kind of correlation we're really talking about here, and whether I can even take it seriously on its face. Oh, and be sure you can demonstrate a consistent, one-way, causation too. That's kind of important. I don't want drug-related anecdotes about some guy you know. Every prohibitionist out there has a drug-related, this-guy-I-know anecdote that acts as an affirmation of what he already believes. Big whoop. I've got those too. Everyone does. No, I want the actual unemployment rate among people who have smoked weed.

Also, I'd like to know how exactly you get unemployment for smoking weed. How's that work? To get unemployment you have to be unemployed through no fault of your own. If you're too high to show up for work, and you get fired, that's not being unemployed through no fault of your own. So, yeah, that person won't get any unemployment bennies. It's the same as if you get fired for being drunk on the job.

316 <snark>Too busy to read through the thoughtful and courteous comments.</snark> But not too busy to leave a link to my own mindful "medical marijuana" webwork, for yr edutainment: Allergies