quote:

Originally posted by RAMIUS:
I think it's very misguided to equate legal weed with homelessness and vagrancy. As was previously stated, it's most likely due to the liberal social policies in each particular town or state.

Buying weed is not cheap, legal or not. I don't know where these vagrants are getting the money to buy it. I think some of you guys are also confusing the effects of weed with heroin...not even close.

Besides, weed as always been easy to get through other means.

If those bums want to get high, they can buy a gallon of cheap whiskey or some Nyquil from the local store for a few dollars.

Exactly. I know plenty of guys who make $500k + a year that smoke weed regularly and always have. They are successful, have families, and are otherwise law abiding.

quote:

Originally posted by Dusty78:
I know plenty of guys who make $500k + a year that smoke weed regularly and always have.

Yeh, they're drug dealers!

quote:

Originally posted by ccmdfd:

quote:

Originally posted by springnr:

quote:

Originally posted by Captain Morgan:
I am not an expert but when you inhale cigarette smoke it causes cancer. Why wouldnt marijuana smoke? Seems to me it will. Who wants to own that? I legalized smoking pot now you have lung cancer.

Cannabis is not tobacco, and does not have carcinogenic compounds found in tobacco. Burning plant matter does however cause toxic byproducts to form. Health conscience individuals ingest edibles or vape at temps below combustion. 392 degrees Fahrenheit is where toxic compounds start up.
NSFW? - Cannabinoid boiling point chart

Micro-dosing cannabis, less is more with cannabis as one does not build up a tolerance. Comparable to sipping a finger or two of fine scotch, one or two breaths of vapor is enough for enjoyable effects and medicinal properties.
NSFW? - Dr Dustin Sulak The Resensitization Process

American Lung Association states it contains many of the same carcinogens as Tobacco.

http://www.lung.org/stop-smoki...and-lung-health.html

We were taught in Med School that smoking one joint delivers roughly the same amount of toxins to the lungs as an entire pack of regular cigarettes.

cc

You don't have to smoke it. They make breath mints now. No shit.

So "what" aside, the question is do you want conservatives to become panderers and votr selle/buyers like the Dems-Libs? No.

Besides it won't work anyway. They still won't think like conservatives and still won't vote for them.

quote:

Originally posted by cas:
So "what" aside, the question is do you want conservatives to become panderers and votr selle/buyers like the Dems-Libs? No.

Besides it won't work anyway. They still won't think like conservatives and still won't vote for them.

It has nothing to do with pandering to voters, there's plenty of Conservatives that want pot to be legal.

One might argue that it reduces the opportunities available for government authority to be used in an intrusive manner. Up in Canada they had to fight off a Canadian Senate amendment to the marijuana legalization bill that would've provided for legal random traffic stops - which is basically the way "I smelled pot so I had probable cause for a search" works in the US.

Yeah, I know that cops generally have better things to do. It's the ones that don't that I worry about.

quote:

Originally posted by ccmdfd:

quote:

Originally posted by springnr:

quote:

Originally posted by Captain Morgan:
I am not an expert but when you inhale cigarette smoke it causes cancer. Why wouldnt marijuana smoke? Seems to me it will. Who wants to own that? I legalized smoking pot now you have lung cancer.

Cannabis is not tobacco, and does not have carcinogenic compounds found in tobacco. Burning plant matter does however cause toxic byproducts to form. Health conscience individuals ingest edibles or vape at temps below combustion. 392 degrees Fahrenheit is where toxic compounds start up.
NSFW? - Cannabinoid boiling point chart

Micro-dosing cannabis, less is more with cannabis as one does not build up a tolerance. Comparable to sipping a finger or two of fine scotch, one or two breaths of vapor is enough for enjoyable effects and medicinal properties.
NSFW? - Dr Dustin Sulak The Resensitization Process

American Lung Association states it contains many of the same carcinogens as Tobacco.

http://www.lung.org/stop-smoki...and-lung-health.html

We were taught in Med School that smoking one joint delivers roughly the same amount of toxins to the lungs as an entire pack of regular cigarettes.

cc

Dried dog poop smoke, credit card smoke, camp fire smoke, volcanic smoke plum, RCH smoke, tobacco smoke, cannabis smoke... i.e. inhaling combusted particles in smoke at 400 to 800 degrees into your lungs is a bad idea.

quote:

Originally posted by Captain Morgan:
I am not an expert but when you inhale cigarette smoke it causes cancer. Why wouldnt marijuana smoke? Seems to me it will. Who wants to own that? I legalized smoking pot now you have lung cancer.

The data have not borne this out. Large studies of cannabis users have not found an increased risk in lung cancer despite the fact that combusted cannabis produces just as much tar and carcinogens as tobacco (or more, depending what carcinogens we're talking about and method/technique - loosely packed joints have less filtration, the smoke is held in the lungs longer, etc.) The thinking is that the anti-tumor effects of THC and other cannabinoids are enough to offset the carcinogens.

As you might expect, cannabis smoke does result in signs of lung irritation/inflammation at the cellular level, but this hasn't been correlated with an increased risk of COPD or other lung disease, aside from an increase in chronic bronchitis that usually goes away when one stops smoking. Some studies have actually shown that cannabis smokers have greater lung capacity than non-smokers. Again, some of this may be explained by certain positive effects canceling out negative effects (e.g., THC is a bronchodilator in contrast with tobacco smoke, which is a bronchoconstrictor).

Here is a link to a review of the scientific studies done on marijuana's effects on the lungs, written by UCLA's Dr. Donald Tashkin, one of the leading lung researchers in the world. He too thought that smoking marijuana would increase the risk of lung cancer, until he started doing large, well-controlled studies on the matter back in the mid-2000s.

To sum it up, the risks for cannabis smokers aren't zero, but they're quite minor compared to smoking cigarettes, and as others have noted, eliminating combustion all together and vaping one's weed can ameliorate some of the negative effects.

I do not want a pot specific impairment test for police to use, I simply want an impairment test period.

Something black and white with a clearly defined pass fail. People impaired by lack of sleep are dangerous behind the wheel also. I'd like them treated the same as people impaired by drugs when driving.

As for the pot find, I'm completely in favor of legalizing it and most other substances, although I don't partake myself because I like being employed and my employer doesn't seem to like it.

The thing is, the war on drugs is just a money sink hole. You can throw all the money in the world at it and still not even make a serious dent in supply. Why? Demand. The only reason there are so many people willing to risk the penalties for creating and distributing drugs is the insane profit margin for doing so.

People get emotional about drugs, but it's just governed by basic economic principles not unlike any other product. Supply and demand. Period. If you can't reduce the demand or reduce the profit margin, there will be an endless stream of people willing to jump into the business to get in on the profit.

quote:

Originally posted by the_sandman_454:
People impaired by lack of sleep are dangerous behind the wheel also. I'd like them treated the same as people impaired by drugs when driving.

Right. Someone driving home from a double shift after a sleepless night dealing with a newborn should be treated like a drunk driving criminal.

Ironic coming from "the sandman."

I suspect support for marijuana legalization will be high.

No.

Yes,

quote:

Originally posted by ccmdfd:
American Lung Association states it contains many of the same carcinogens as Tobacco.

I would not be surprised. Burning dried leaves. Duh.

quote:

Originally posted by ccmdfd:
We were taught in Med School that smoking one joint delivers roughly the same amount of toxins to the lungs as an entire pack of regular cigarettes.

I believe the reason for that hypothesis is pot smokers tend to draw so deeply--far more deeply than the average cigarette smoker.

Smoking the plant matter is passe'. Current trend is doing "dabs". THC is chemically rinsed off of the plant material. Rinsing chemical is boiled off. The remaining pile of goo is ~85% - 95% pure THC. You then vaporize a "dab" of this goo.

I heard it works great.

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Originally posted by Balzé Halzé:

quote:

Originally posted by the_sandman_454:
People impaired by lack of sleep are dangerous behind the wheel also. I'd like them treated the same as people impaired by drugs when driving.

Right. Someone driving home from a double shift after a sleepless night dealing with a newborn should be treated like a drunk driving criminal.

Ironic coming from "the sandman."

In a word: yes. Let me ask you this: are automobile accidents caused by tired drivers any less dangerous than automobile accidents caused by people impaired by other things? I don't believe so, physics still applies whether the driver's impairment is caused by alcohol, drugs, or lack of sleep.

Why are people in this country so unwilling to actually get on board with the idea that an automobile (aka kinetic energy weapon) which is mishandled is every bit as dangerous as a firearm?

In my mind, driving while impaired by lack of sleep is every bit as irresponsible, reckless and dangerous as driving with a similar amount of impairment caused by use of various substances.

Either you're too impaired to operate a dangerous piece of equipment or you're not. The cause of the impairment doesn't matter. You should not be operating while impaired.

Final thought: drunk driving is a criminal offense because of the potential for it to result in a danger to the public. Why shouldn't deliberately operating a vehicle while similarly impaired either due to other substances or simple lack of sleep be treated the same? It's an equally poor decision to drive while you're tired enough to be considered impaired.

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In your fatigued driver example, they weren't breaking the law. Stupid to drive fatigued? Yup. But not illegal.

This whole marijuana thing...IDGAS if it's legal or not. I can't see a MASSIVE uptick in marijuana usage just because it's made legal. People are either gonna smoke it or not regardless of its legal status. If it's all of a sudden made legal, that's not going to coerce me to start smoking a doobie. I say make it legal, tax the shit out of it, and let's move on...this country has waaaaaaaay bigger fish to fry. We're losing the war on drugs and spending BILLION$ in the process. People are going to have their vices whether legal or not.

I will say, however, that marijuana is a gateway drug. JMHO and if someone argues the point, my mind will not be changed, just as I won't change their's.

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^^
In your fatigued driver example, they weren't breaking the law. Stupid to drive fatigued? Yup. But not illegal.

My argument is that it should be treated equally. It is an equally dangerous decision. Impairment is impairment is impairment. Legally, my argument is we should boil everything down to one test: is the person in question driving impaired or is the person in question not driving impaired. The law shouldn't make a distinction for different kinds of impairment, but treat all impairments in a similar manner. All forms of impairment show poor judgement on the part of the participant.

If we did that, one unified test to determine whether a person is it is not too impaired to drive, then the bac arguments go away, all the "people are on pot but we have no breathalyzer equivalent test for it" arguments go away, and fatigued driving which is just as dangerous as other impairment would be treated as the dangerous activity it really is.

You're advocating opening a Pandora's box, sir. Not getting the recommend daily sleep isn't against the law. You want to punish someone for being impaired because they didn't sleep? What's next? Rifle squad for J-walking?

quote:

Originally posted by erj_pilot:
You're advocating opening a Pandora's box, sir. Not getting the recommend daily sleep isn't against the law. You want to punish someone for being impaired because they didn't sleep? What's next? Rifle squad for J-walking?

Absolutely not. I am not advocating making not sleeping illegal.

I'm advocating determining a baseline minimum parameter for things such as reaction time, concentration, and motor skills, which can all be quantitatively tested. I'm advocating making it illegal for anybody who cannot meet those minimum parameters for ANY REASON to operate a motorized vehicle on the public roadway system.

Somebody who falls asleep while driving and kills somebody didn't kill that person any less than if he or she had been driving while smashed or stoned. Why treat the impairments differently, when they're clearly all dangerous to the public with regard to impaired driving? In all cases, an impaired person CHOSE to break the law by operating a motor vehicle while impaired. That should be criminal.