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the new jazz posted:... I wonder if a combination of complacency among casual smokers and opposition from the medical marijuana industry is going to end up killing this attempt. That's what happened in '08 in California, largely (along with upticket complications). I think CO stands a better chance of breaking the ice, but we'll see. If they pass it, legalization will follow in every west coast state within five years, and that will break the back of cannabis-as-Schedule1 almost immediately. I'm sure at least the DOJ and DEA will breathe a sigh of relief that they can divert their limited resources to more serious issues (though they will bleat a bit for the cameras), so I doubt there will be significant federal blowback on the enforcement front, but the legislative and judicial circuses will probably take another decade to subside after that.
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Oct 11, 2012 03:39
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showbiz_liz posted:This seems so ridiculous to me, at least on the part of the dispensaries. They already have the distribution channels set up, and legalization would only increase the market. Sure there'd be more competition too, but they are situated in such a way that they could be pretty dominant. But that would be too much ~work~ I guess I know a bunch of these people. They are nowhere near savvy enough to make that logical connection, and only see state-run weed stores as a threat to their small business. I've tried, and tried, and tried to explain to them why everyone including themselves stand to benefit from legalization, but it's like trying to convince the middle class that their tax dollars don't just disappear down a rabbit hole.
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Oct 11, 2012 04:34
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Loving Life Partner posted:How does that work in the whole federalist system anyway? They would be able to, but they won't. Federal enforcement agencies no longer have any desire to keep wasting time and money on cannabis (despite what we potheads generally believe), but they are duty-bound to do so at the present. Sure, there are a few True Believers left in the drug war, and they'll throw some wrenches into the process after the first legalization occurs, but mostly the DEA et al. would just really like not to have to deal with cannabis anymore. In the golden-goal scenario, all three states pass their legalization initiatives (a bit unlikely but not totally unrealistic given current polling), and the tide turns sharply after everyone generally realizes that the world isn't going to come to an end because of it. But I'm just going to watch CO for now, because their numbers are the most promising, despite the fact that Oregon's initiative is much better as a legalization paradigm. (Washington's is actually comparatively bad, if I remember the language correctly.)
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Oct 11, 2012 04:49
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Xeom posted:I expect after this the crack down by the DEA will be even worse. Nope, they're perfectly happy to let SCOTUS deal with the fallout, because their funding is limited and there are bigger fish to fry, and they know it. That's not to say there won't be bluster, because there will be. But jackboot thugs are not going to raid CO's first legal shop, it just isn't going to happen.
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Oct 11, 2012 04:53
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Xeom posted:They will wait for the shops to get nice big and fat and then raid them. Remember they are just after profits. Asset forfeiture my friend, asset forfeiture. Once these companies have enough money in the bank and enough weed that the DEA can make a good bit of money from raiding it, you best drat well believe they will. At that point they will have already lost the political process, just as gun-control proponents lost that process and are no longer a significant threat to firearm manufacturers and distributors. I see what you're saying, and my past experience tempts me to agree with you. But I don't think that would be either pragmatic or rational on the part of the DEA, and I think their leadership is clever enough to know that, no matter what they personally believe about the long game of legalization. It won't be happening in a vacuum. SCOTUS will hear it sooner rather than later, and that will decide everything, one way or another.
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Oct 11, 2012 05:05
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JollyGreen posted:I think you mean '10. I always had a hunch that part of the reason it failed was low voter turnout (for mid-term elections). It didn't lose by much, but with lower turnout I would figure the people driven by fear are more likely to show up than the people who support it but hey I can easily get a medical cannibis card as-is so why bother. You're right; I knew something felt wrong when I typed that post. It was certainly the worst possible time to put it on the ballot, but CA activism is not known for shrewd decision-making, and CA voters shouldn't be trusted to advance any cause of social justice at all.
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Oct 11, 2012 05:16
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Thundercracker posted:Detractors will say, of course, weed might make you dumb, lose short-term memory. But alchohol has those exact side-effect, and in higher numbers. Not to mention marijuana has legitimate and possibly radically-positive medical uses, that have also been recognized and patented by the United States government despite its continuing status as Schedule 1.
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Oct 11, 2012 17:26
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Hearst + Harry J. Anslinger. Those two guys basically toted about 95% of the responsibility for cannabis prohibition.
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Oct 11, 2012 20:47
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JollyGreen posted:Locking people up results in a net loss for both state and federal governments. But not for the private prison industry, which is not a marginal case to be glossed over. Edit: vvvv Also that, as well as pure institutional/cultural inertia. vvvv mdemone fucked around with this message at 22:56 on Oct 16, 2012 |
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Oct 16, 2012 22:31
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Base Emitter posted:I'm guessing you won't see federal legalization until a lot more states move, and they probably won't reduce marijuana's place on the schedule while they can use that as a stick to beat big smugglers with. Bang. And the rest of the west coast will move within a few years IMO, after a few percentage points manage to notice that Colorado and Washington didn't descend into utter chaos.
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Nov 7, 2012 17:31
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Edit: ^^^ I have learned something today; thanks. ^^^Murmur Twin posted:It's only my experience and I don't speak for anyone else, but I'm transgendered, and an everyday pot smoker/recreational drug user, living in a reasonably liberal part of the country. And when I compare and constrast how I'm treated for these things: Really great post, and as a straight white male who is also an everyday smoker, I must say that these sort of considerations have occupied some of my mental energy over the past several years. You drilled right down to the core of the issue vis-a-vis choice and discrimination, and it's not surprising to see that the typical bias against drug users rather neatly betrays the hypocrisy latent in that bias. Unfortunately, there isn't much to be done about that in the short term since people aren't rational actors. You're right to take the long view and act accordingly.
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Nov 9, 2012 20:37
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WA has a blood test for 5 ng/mL of active THC (not the metabolite). We covered this in the other thread in some detail.
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Nov 9, 2012 22:18
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RichieWolk posted:Mostly correct. It is possible to kill yourself with cannabis, but you have to really be trying. I think about 6 ounces of high-grade hash oil dissolved in 1 liter vegetable oil and chugged all at once would be enough to kill you. Hmm, this sounds a bit suspect to me. The theoretical LD50 for THC in smoked form (assuming typical THC percentages and 50% destruction although that doesn't matter) is like 1500 pounds of marijuana in fifteen minutes. It depends on what source you believe, but for an order of magnitude estimate that's good enough. There's no way you could condense that much into high-grade hash oil and manage to consume it in a short amount of time -- and even if you somehow did, this is still only a theoretical LD50 for large mammals, since it was quantified using rats who died following massive CNS depression, but dogs etc. have never been shown to suffer organ toxicity/failure from even this incredible amount (adjusted for mg/kg obviously). Edit: of course we should not forget the other psychoactives in marijuana, mainly CBD (cannabidiol; the one that makes you slow and sleepy and body-high as opposed to THC's energizing effect). But I don't know that specific CBD LD50 trials even exist. The long and short of it is that marijuana's psychoactives are very likely the most well-tolerated such substances known to exist on the planet. mdemone fucked around with this message at 20:22 on Nov 13, 2012 |
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Nov 13, 2012 20:16
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Torka posted:Marketers working for Big Weed would be insane not to take advantage of the popular idea of good weed vs. bad weed by selling different tiers of product (even if the difference in reality was only placebo). Such claims could be easily checked by consumers (in more than one way), and this could open up false-advertising issues if it were in fact a placebo difference. I'd bet instead, if anything, that they'll simply brand different strains as this or that, regardless of THC/CBD content (although those numbers would give them a way to "rank" their brands, despite each strain being equally "good", but having different effects, from a consumer's perspective).
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Nov 15, 2012 16:29
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Full Battle Rattle posted:What are the vegas odds on the Feds crushing this? With what army of federal enforcement agents can they accomplish what used to be done by state and local cops on the ground? How many people do you think work for the DEA, and do you think they have enough surplus manpower to pursue state-legal marijuana possessors instead of those in other states, or more important targets altogether?
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Dec 9, 2012 02:01
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SilentD posted:The federal government trumping the states has long been the lynchpin of liberal legislation, if it refuses to continue this and lets the weed issue go unchecked it's indulging in the fantasy of the right wing. Even if one is to assume this is true, how do you propose they go about "checking the weed issue"? Where are these armies of federal drug enforcement agents that are going to go door-to-door around two large states? And is that enough manpower to expand the operation when other large states follow suit over the next few years?
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Dec 10, 2012 16:59
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SilentD posted:They can still crack down and arrest people. They could also pull what they did with alcohol. The entire "your drinking age is 21 and you'll like it" is enforced because if you don't do that the feds yank your highway money and you're straight up hosed. ... I obviously agree with the latter point. But I don't see this Congress making a legislative move designed to push back against cannabis, because it's a battle the Hill intelligentsia know would be lost over the long-term. Not to mention it would start a states-rights debate across the nation, and neither party wants that. It was a different political world when Congress pulled the drinking-age shenanigans; I'm not sure they can win that kind of fight anymore. NathanScottPhillips posted:The people we need to worry about are the US Marshals Service, these guys run their entire show off asset forfeiture and marijuana is highly profitable for them. They aren't under the direct authority of Eric Holder which is why they went in and cracked down in '09 when Obama said he wouldn't pursue MMJ. An excellent distinction to be remembered. mdemone fucked around with this message at 17:29 on Dec 10, 2012 |
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Dec 10, 2012 17:26
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SilentD posted:Really the only way out is federal level decrminalization/legalization, which would still end up handing it off to the states to do what they want, but would prevent any sort of states rights confrontation that could spill over into other areas. It's true that the reasonable endgame is de-scheduling of cannabis from the CSA, given that there is significant state-law precedent in various places. But so many states will have legalized by the time that becomes politically possible at the federal level, that it will be seen as tilting as windmills. I'm just not sure the political will exists among anyone right now to make this an issue when it's so very clear what the general direction of voter sentiment is taking. Chitin posted:Interestingly, there's an argument to be made that the DEA is overstepping their authority in the first place by keeping a substance on Schedule I when states have found that there is a medical usage: http://newamsterdampsychedeliclaw.blogspot.com/2012/10/madmen-rule-you.html The federal government also holds a patent on cannabis as an antioxidant and neuroprotectant.
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Dec 10, 2012 17:51
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Tab8715 posted:While Obama might not go after the users - will he stop the Justice Department? The DOJ and what army are going to pursue individual users across two (and maybe more) large states?
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Dec 19, 2012 19:53
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Tab8715 posted:They won't peruse individual users as it's not efficient but there's nothing stopping them from busting anyone who opens a dispensary. There hasn't been anything stopping them from busting every dispensary across all 20 states with medical marijuana laws. Oh wait, there has been something stopping them: it's the fact that it would be literally impossible for an agency of their size to make a quantifiable dent. All they can do is bust somebody for show, every now and then, and hope it changes the course of local policy and public opinion. Obviously, however, it's not working -- and these people aren't stupid. They know full well that state legalization is de facto federal in the particular case of cannabis, and they also know that there are bigger fish to fry for a drug-enforcement agency with finite resources. Edit: I've tacitly referred to the DEA here, but this goes for the DOJ too, mostly. mdemone fucked around with this message at 20:14 on Dec 19, 2012 |
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Dec 19, 2012 20:11
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Dusseldorf posted:So he's basically arguing that heavy drinking is a public health menace completely orthogonally to anything to do with cannabis? He's saying that since alcohol use and cannabis use are correlated, the legalization of cannabis could potentially cause an increase in the use of alcohol, and if it does so beyond a certain degree then the benefits of cannabis legalization would be neutralized. If there's anyone that starts drinking alcohol (or begins to do so more heavily) because they've just started smoking legal marijuana (instead of smoking or not smoking illegal marijuana), then I need to find that person and make a case study of their intoxication psychology. Otherwise this screams "correlation != causation" in my view. Alcohol use and cannabis use are correlated because people who want to intoxicate themselves are likely to use whatever substances are available to them. You could write an exact analogue to his blog post by substituting heroin for alcohol and every one of his points would still be applicable and stupid. mdemone fucked around with this message at 22:11 on Dec 28, 2012 |
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Dec 28, 2012 22:09
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eSports Chaebol posted:Just because Prohibition didn't work doesn't change the fact that alcohol is the most destructive drug in America. Somebody find that Lancet study and post the main bar-chart figure, if you would. I've lost track of the article and I'd like to know which of the "hard" drugs came in underneath alcohol.
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Dec 28, 2012 23:08
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Thanks for those papers, TACD. Exactly what I was looking for, and the later studies were new to me as well. Interesting, if not totally surprising, to consider that a reasonable scientific assessment finds that alcohol is the most dangerous drug of all.
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Dec 29, 2012 20:53
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breaklaw posted:I'm saying that I'm afraid that if it were legal more people would try it and become addicted Just because a substance should be legalized doesn't mean it should be sold without regulation in your corner supermarket.
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Jan 23, 2013 22:48
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312 posted:It will, it's only a matter of time till broke states like Illinois realize we could be getting in on those sweet tax dollars rather than busting people smoking CO weed. Even Pennsylvania has a couple of state legislators who can walk and chew gum at the same time, and have thus managed to keenly discern the fact that the earth has apparently not yawned open to swallow Washington and Colorado down into hell. They're planning to introduce legalization bills, which will get about as far as down the hall before some (combination of) assholes begin to squawk loudly around in circles like Domestick Fowl in Perplexity and the whole thing gets poo poo-canned for another decade at least. Hell, you can't even buy beer at a gas station in this godforsaken state.
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Feb 18, 2013 21:04
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Jeffrey posted:For the record, I think a pack of cigarettes is about 0.7 grams/cigarette * 20 cigarettes, or 14 grams of tobacco. This is a half ounce. There are certainly people who smoke two packs a day, I find it hard to believe that anyone smokes an ounce of weed a day. (That's a challenge goons get on it.) I don't know how much a heavy user would smoke a day but I imagine the highest(snicker) would would be ~1/4 oz a day, and that's still insane. Well, there is an unexpected societal benefit to that level of smoking: if you take down a quarter of an ounce in one day, you aren't going anywhere except to the pantry. Stimulates the grocery economy. Half an ounce per day would basically be incapacitating.
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Mar 19, 2013 18:43
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b0ng posted:In actuality, the USPS is probably the way to go since there is a warrant needed to open their mail. From what I understand there is no such need for a warrant for FedEx or UPS to open up packages. Correct. Always use USPS for anything you do not want tampered with (and also because the private carriers are a little more likely to outright destroy your package through negligence).
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Jun 13, 2013 17:26
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Space Gopher posted:Yes, good doctors can exist under this system; acknowledging that is not moving the goalposts in a structural critique. But the strength of your point is contingent on the fact that bad doctors do exist. I have some unfortunate news for you regarding the prescribing patterns of health-care providers. Doctors who abuse their position to the detriment of patient health did not spring fully-formed from the forehead of medicinal cannabis. Space Gopher posted:Or you could just follow in the footsteps of the two states who have already legalized marijuana. *nods furiously* mdemone fucked around with this message at 18:15 on Jul 24, 2013 |
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Jul 24, 2013 18:11
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Fados posted:I guessed it's kind of obvious. Energy levels drop down when you smoke weed. You can't breath as deep, and you get tired faster. I have seen this everytime with everybody I smoked with. People don't tend to go for a jog after smoking weed. I have actually tried to go for a run and even went to the gym once while stoned with hilarious results. Stop smoking cannabis indica. Start smoking cannabis sativa. Clean your house to a spotless shine.
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Aug 24, 2013 21:26
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Fados posted:I've heard a lot about the difference between these but never really got around to see the difference. Where I live I get hash most of time which is really a numbing experience for the body. There are two primary psychoactive ingredients in cannabis (and a few others in trace amounts): tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) and cannabidiol (CBD). They have very different effects; THC is what gives you the crazy mental activity and thought processes, and gives you a feeling of energetic well-being and often, a focus on creativity. CBD is the "body high" that relaxes anxiety and induces couch-lock. Strains are characterized by their THC/CBD ratio. The higher that ratio, the more active you will likely be after smoking it. Sativas have high THC/CBD, indicas have relatively lower THC/CBD. Of course most strains now available are hybrids to at least some degree, but you can trace the genetics (and the physiology of a particular plant) to determine how much of a sativa it will be versus indica. There are some pure strains around that are one or the other, but it's not common. Hash is generally high in CBD, because the process of making hash tends to destroy relatively more of the THC, so using hash is basically like smoking a strong indica (like OG Kush or something) and it is going to put you on your rear end.
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Aug 24, 2013 21:39
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Warchicken posted:Yes, you're still wrong. There is nothing about being high that stops you from being productive. If you don't want to be productive, you won't be, simple as that. It has nothing to do with being high. I tend to find that people who have these misconceptions about productivity & weed, are the same ones who have only ever smoked indica-dominant. Go vaporize a gram of a Haze-related sativa and get back to us.
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Aug 24, 2013 22:39
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Fados posted:Again, I'm talking about physical fitness, and my experience is that weed does make it more difficult to do serious physical work, like say, running a marathon, that would otherwise be easier or achievable with greater results. And yes I might be wrong about that, but just stating so doesn't make it so. No, actually being wrong makes it so. You said yourself that your experience is mostly with hash, and I explained to you why that has influenced your perception of cannabis intoxication. Feel free to google and confirm my claims about THC/CBD. Also please note that hash is very resinous and affects short-term lung performance far more dramatically than smoking cannabis, and that the act of smoking itself is far less efficient in psychoactive delivery than something like vaporizing, which has virtually no effect on your physical state at all.
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Aug 24, 2013 23:22
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Yes, very true. I have a suspicion that in something like hash, the large dose of CBD winds up overwhelming the THC effect (despite the similarly large dose), such that you're really stoned but also couch-locked. Don't know if that is borne out by research, but hash/resin always has that effect on me, and most people I know.
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Aug 25, 2013 01:41
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Blind Melon posted:As to why tobacco companies don't support legalization, I suspect it has something to do with a cottage industry of Marijuana growers, and how quickly it becomes economically viable to grow your own. You can set up a decent grow for the cost of a single ounce, there are numerous educational resources out there, and if you grow your own you have all the trimmings and whatnot to manufacture with if you are so inclined. If marijuana were legal to grow, most of the heavy smokers I know would at least grow some. Eh, I agree that lots of people would grow, but don't underestimate the factor of convenience. If it were federally legal, I'd have a couple plants, but also I'd be buying it frequently just as a matter of ease. And also because you gotta have something to smoke while the plants are growing, because running a cycled grow operation takes a bit more time and effort than I would probably be willing to invest.
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Aug 26, 2013 18:02
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Miltank posted:I would assume it is to keep dealers from buying from dispensaries and then exporting it. This is correct. DEA assumes that low unit pricing (as reported on dispensary tax returns) indicates a black-market arm of the business. I know an owner who got hassled because he ran a lot of specials one year and suddenly became very interesting to the Feds.
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Dec 30, 2013 16:45
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showbiz_liz posted:They will once a competitor realizes they can undercut everyone else in town by charging less, but probably that will have to wait until everyone is reasonably sure that the DEA isn't gonna arrest every legal weed store in Colorado or whatever. Yeah, we really need to table the pricing discussion until late spring when the emergency yields are hitting shelves and general paranoia has receded a bit.
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Jan 8, 2014 17:46
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Pryor on Fire posted:There is no supply problem, there is not a single shop that is out of anything in the entire state. I don't know where this silly piece of media fiction came from but it's completely false. Regardless, we can't really talk about price discovery until supply and demand are a little more comparable. And it's good to hear that stores are still stocked. *clicks on Priceline.com*
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Jan 8, 2014 19:29
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JohnnySavs posted:He said that it's a serious concern and claimed that like cigarettes, pot is addictive. Is there a peer-reviewed study anywhere that backs that up quote:or is he just lying to the public? Yes. I assume he meant physiological addiction. drat near anything can be psychologically addictive, including cannabis.
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Jan 13, 2014 18:06
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Thanks for pinch-hitting for me there, WampaLord.
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Jan 13, 2014 19:48
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What if that guy had claimed that "gambling is more addictive than cigarettes"? That rings a bit weird, and for the exact same reason. No physiological withdrawal symptoms have ever been recorded for cannabis; apparently my earlier flippant post was obfuscatory, for which I apologize.
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Jan 13, 2014 19:59
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