quote:

Originally posted by Flashlightboy:
The view that the feds/states want to make MJ legal for revenue purposes is not going to happen.

CA tried that after they approved MJ use.

Maybe, but California isn't an example of how to get a whole lot done correctly. Not much better, but they made it work in Washington state. From what I remember reading, it's taxed three separate times at 25% each time before it gets to store shelves. Prices are a little higher than they were on the street, but supply is constant and varied, so people take the tradeoff unless they know someone who grows. That's always going to be cheaper, but like JlJones has said many times, law enforcement will simply shift from drug enforcement to revenue enforcement, so the legal risk of walking into a store vaporizes vs getting caught with large quantities of untaxed dope, and if you're buying from a grower, you're buying a quarter pound and selling ounces to get a free ounce for yourself anyway. Then you're looking at catching distribution charges... or, you just go buy an ounce once in a while and take it home.

Buying at a state run store is quick and easy. From the time you step out of your car to the time you get back in it, it takes no longer than prepaying for pump gas at the corner store - maybe there's that one asshole playing scratch off tickets at the counter holding up the line, but sometimes you walk in and you go straight to the counter. If you know what you want and they have it, you ask for it and they ring you up. That's it. There's no endless text exchanges, no goofy power dynamic with people you wouldn't otherwise hang out with but for the hookup, no rituals where you're expected to smoke up your supplier out of your stash when you go to pick up, no having anxiety attacks because it's time to drive 30 minutes home with a sheriff's deputy behind you while you're high as balls. No, the people saying the state stores absolutely can't compete with private enterprise clearly haven't spent any appreciable amount of time in this world, or if they have, for sure not in recent years.

They'll figure out how to work it at a federal level. Your opinion that it won't happen is as valid is mine that it will. There's one thing that isn't debatable: they want the money, and they're trying to figure out a way to get it.

For what it's worth, I voted against the initiative in Washington that passed and "legalized" it. Not because I didn't want to see it happen, but because it was bad legislation and a raw deal. I didn't want to see the state get all that money, but there was all kinds of state and local law enforcement behind that one, because they were going to get their budgetary end out of it. What did it buy them? More work, undoubtedly, but they got those bigger budgets out of those weed taxes. Uncle .Gov is taking notes, have no doubt.

You know, they’re so concerned about Fentanyl you’d think they’d want to regulate and sell or tax marijuana, especially considering the increase of fentanyl laced MJ. Won’t be long before that’s what most street purchasers get is fentanyl laced pot. At least federal controlled pot would in theory be a safer choice for users as opposed to buying it from Joe Blow.

Regarding laced dope, I'm gonna say this:

I've never actually seen it happen, never encountered it, never smoked with anyone who professed to have it happen to them, or someone they'd witnessed it happen to. In this figuring is more than a few Baby Boomers, so we're talking several centuries worth of combined experience with weed.

I'm not going to say laced dope can't happen, or that it doesn't happen, but I will say that I think the incidence of it is probably far overblown to the point where I view it as more urban myth than a reality. There's only a few reasons I can think of to lace dope with something like fentanyl:

1) You have a customer you want to kill.
2) You have more fentanyl than you know what to do with so you just start treating it like Frank's and you put that shit on everything.


If door number one, there's probably better ways to do it because a seasoned smoker is going to see, smell, or taste something off about weed they've purchased. Door number two doesn't make sense from any perspective I can think of - people will buy fent because it's fent, not because you need to hook dope smokers on opiates.

I don't disagree with this decision. It probably doesn't need to be Schedule I...sched III is probably a more appropriate classification. It does still cause impairment, though, and let's be honest, most people aren't after it for the "medicinal benefits", they just want to get high.

I don't get why people are so obsessed with and dependent on chemical substances (to include caffeine and nicotine). I've spent the past three years eating basic food, taking no OTC or prescription meds besides insulin, and drinking nothing but water. My life has been just fine, and my overall health has been better than ever. Legalize it, don't legalize it...makes no difference to me personally as I won't be using it.

I just don't understand why access to intoxicants is so incredibly important to so many people. I'd say this country has way more important issues that need addressed, but maybe that's the problem...as a society we're more concerned about getting buzzed than fixing them. Biden's quote from the article in the OP kinda illustrates my point:

quote:

Criminal records for marijuana use and possession have imposed needless barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities,” Biden said in December.

What he should have said was: "Needless marijuana use and possession has resulted in criminal records and barriers to employment, housing, and educational opportunities."

What's the worst case scenario if they didn't "schedule" it anything?

Except for taxing the poo out of it, take L.E. out of the equation.


Let cops go after the illegal crap.

The demand is high for people who want to kill themselves,
If history has taught us anything,

It's you can not beat demand.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
It does still cause impairment, though, and let's be honest, most people aren't after it for the "medicinal benefits", they just want to get high.

100% correct. Though, I will say again here like I've said before in other threads, after extensive research into this, I've found one legit medicinal benefit to it, and one I would like to be able to pursue, but don't out of fear of prosecution and loss of 2A rights: Topical THC extract rubs are fantastic for pain. CBD creams don't do shit for me, but the medical creams and pastes I've tried that have high concentrations of both absolutely do kill pain. Icy Hot and Tiger Balm and all that merely override or provide enough different simuli to result in the nerves being confused about what's going on. THC rubs actually stop arthritis pain. It really does work. You get zero buzz of any sort, and after a few applications, it immediately and completely stops the pain. It's amazing. Smoking weed to cure anxiety would be better treated with psychotherapy of some stripe. Self-medicating with intoxicants tends to lead nowhere productive, in my extensive experience and observation.

quote:

Originally posted by 92fstech:
I don't get why people are so obsessed with and dependent on chemical substances...

It goes back through nearly all of human history, as best we know from anthropological and archaeological study. The desire to alter one's mindset is so widespread and for so long, it could be said it's nearly a universal condition. Some people to this with breathing techniques, some read books or tell stories, some people focus on religion and spiritual avenues, and some people have found it's as easy as ingesting a chemical that rapidly takes them from this plane of existence to another. It's very simple. But for those of us wired for addiction, I may as well try to explain the color blue to someone who was born blind as try to explain it in a way that makes sense to someone who isn't. I can talk with another addict and we instantly "get" each other. You folks who weren't blessed with these genes don't know what you're missing out on and that's to your benefit. I personally wouldn't bother trying to understand it any further than "we seek and can't find."

This issue for me, is fundamentally one of personal freedom and the government being limited in what they can compel you to do or not do with your own body. People who aren't wired for addiction should absolutely be legally able to fire up a fat spliff a couple times a year or a couple times a week if they want to without legal repercussions for the act itself. They shouldn't be punished because some people do stupid things while impaired and they shouldn't be punished because some of us can't help ourselves. As gun owners, I tend to be surprised when we don't immediately embrace this (and I'm not saying this directed at you, just at the 2A community in general), because the same basic arguments against legal drugs get levied against firearms. If you know enough about both, you know how silly these arguments are.

To your point about this country having other more important problems, I agree. But anyone who's ever gotten stoned has looked at what our government has done in regards to this plant for right around a century as absolutely bone-stupid, and would agree that this needs to be a complete non-issue at the federal level. Let the states figure it out.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
What's the worst case scenario if they didn't "schedule" it anything?

Worst case? People would be faced with personal responsibility. Our society is repeatedly showing we don't want to move in that direction and the government is happy to oblige.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Except for taxing the poo out of it

We really need to stop parroting this. High taxes on it help who, exactly? The alcohol lobby? The pharmaceutical lobby? Government? They don't help the citizen. One could easily make the same argument about taxing the poo out of ammo. Fuck that.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
Let cops go after the illegal crap.

If we tax the poo out of it, they'll be going after unpaid poo taxes.

quote:

Originally posted by bendable:
The demand is high for people who want to kill themselves

Surely you're not saying what I think you're saying here.

quote:

People who aren't wired for addiction should absolutely be legally able to fire up a fat spliff a couple times a year or a couple times a week if they want to without legal repercussions for the act itself. They shouldn't be punished because some people do stupid things while impaired and they shouldn't be punished because some of us can't help ourselves.

I'm all for responsible adults making their own choices, provided the consequences only affect them. The problem is, even in their own homes, there's usually wives and kids and the dad/mom who comes home and gets stoned or hammered drunk every night is typically doing a shit job of covering his/her responsibilities in the household, and then society gets to absorb to consequences of their domestic altercations and feral rugrats. It's absolutely real...I see it every freaking day at work.

The other problem is all the retards who won't just do it at home and stay home. They go out and drive, or go to work and operate machinery, etc. A lady at my son's work ran a 1/2" lag bolt all the way through her hand while operating production machinery high. Thankfully she only hurt herself ..imagine if she'd been working on something that could have injured others (specifically my kid!)? Traffic fatalities have increase drastically everywhere marijuana use has been legalized...more people using it overall means inevitably a higher number of idiots, and that brings real life consequences to innocent people.

I'd say just prosecute the hell out of existing impaired driving, public intox, and domestic violence and neglect of a dependent statutes...but drug impairment is much more difficult to detect and test for than alcohol. The existing law enforcement infrastructure is still heavily geared towards alcohol detection and lacks comparable resources to detect other drugs. I actually just took a two day refresher course on roadside impairment detection last week, so I'm pretty current on where we're at.

In my opinion, the approach needs to be social as well as legal. You compared marijuana to the second amendment. I think the 2A community by and large does a good job of policing our own, and a culture of responsibility prevails. The doper community needs to start doing the same. To be fair, I deal with a particular subset of the drug community, but "responsibility" is definitely not a term that one would apply to any of them. I get a lot fewer "idiot with a gun" calls than I do "idiot with drugs" calls, and usually if we do have a problem with a gun, substance abuse was a precursor.

Legalization is pretty much inevitable regardless of how any of us feel about it. But I'd definitely feel a lot better if I could trust the majority of users to be responsible about it, stay home, and not be out there doing stupid stuff in public while baked out of their minds. Unfortunately, that's far from the case.

I think the reclassification of marijuana to Schedule III could change some things, but when it comes to firearms, I’m not sure how much it will help. As it stands, federal law still prohibits marijuana users from purchasing or owning guns, and since weed will still be a controlled substance, I’m guessing that restriction might stay in place. Hopefully, as regulations evolve, we’ll get more clarity on that front.

Personally, I’ve been using weed for a while, mostly for relaxation and sleep. I found same day weed delivery Toronto and GTA super convenient with prices around $40 for some good quality stuff. It’s been a smooth experience so far, and the fast delivery is a plus!

This message has been edited. Last edited by: Phelen_Kell,

Been in 12 step program since 1992. The biggest problem is alcohol. It’s on almost every street corner in America Liscensed by the State and Federal Government. And it’s cheap. But people will say “I drink liquor but I ain’t never done any drugs” Alcohol is the drug of the people. It’s usually involved in domestic violence cases also. So yeah lets give out more Liquor Licenses.

A) +1 on it causing a lot of traffic accidents.

B) Selling to minors/selling the “stuff” in vapes, needs to carry the death penalty. In 20 years, a large percentage of the middle aged will need to be warehoused, the way their parents tend to warehouse them now.

The teenage pot head, who started vaping at 12-14, and getting high multiple times a day, during development, is barely/may not be mentally competent enough to hold a job.

It will take a medical breakthrough to get their brains to heal. (Any intoxicant would be dangerous, with that usage, but kids can’t afford/get access/physically take getting drunk 4-5 times a day)

C) One buddy suggested that everyone picked up for possession, PI, should be dried out, before release. (As he said, they don’t let you out of prison while you’re still drunk.)

D) Every addict talks about how they have to find their bottom, to be able to get sober.

I fail to see why we shouldn’t make them as miserable as possible, while using, so that they find their bottom, sooner.

Aglifter, I'm just going to say it: You don't know jack shit about addiction, or weed.

Well donchaknow we HATE double standards here Smudge, except when we DON'T.

The majority of people are medicated in some fashion, and the fear mongering about weed is rediculous.

There are plenty of idiots and losers here, but the state is not burning down because of amendment 64.

It's burning down because of liberal policies, but hey let's keep telling boogyman stories about Willy Nelson's favorite pass-time and stay nice and distracted from our real problems.

Very entertaining.

It's me. Dave. Open up.
______________________

Edited to add: We'll be voting against Florida Amendment 3.

People opposed to it point out that it is written in a way that will solidify a few corporations' stranglehold on the market.

On TV, the pro ads claimed it will provide a huge windfall to the state's educational system.
Its not needed anymore. Legalized gambling voted in a few years ago provided all the funding needed for our schools.

https://ballotpedia.org/Florid...ve_(2024)#Opposition

This message has been edited. Last edited by: RichardC,

quote:

Originally posted by RichardC:
It's me. Dave. Open up.

**************
Dave's not here.

.

Who is it?

quote:

“It is time for the DEA to act,” the lawmakers wrote. “Right now, the Administration has the opportunity to resolve more than 50 years of failed, racially discriminatory marijuana policy.”

^^^^ AAAHHHHHH!!!!
There's what I call "a clue".

Like abortion and guns, government trying to regulate a social issue.

"With great freedom comes great responsibility."
With legalizing weed in my state, we quickly found far too many people can't handle responsibility. Can't drive anywhere without encountering people smoking while driving. State police says(not publicly) DUI accidents are up crazy amounts like 400%. They're also under unofficial orders not to arrest any for it if at all possible, don't want the gov to look bad, they want those tax dollars too baldy. (which has kind of been a flop as well)

The biggest problem with legalization is that folks (ie- those that don’t imbibe or don’t bother to educate themselves) seem to think that today’s THC products are the same encountered in the 70’s. Some of the available concentrates are very close to 100% refinement and are extremely intoxicating- every bit as much as alcohol. I have personally seen the effects at social gatherings and the level of intoxication is indistinguishable. As is the case with alcohol, the users lack of responsible post-use is where problems arise from. While I don’t think medical or even legal recreational use should be a firearm ownership disqualifier any more than alcohol, the fed is not going to agree no matter how low on the schedule weed ends up. The left is invested in taking guns from legal owners and they will NEVER change their minds. They are not interested in what the will of the people support. They want to disarm the country- it’s as simple as that.

It’s important at least to cancer patients to have something that alleviates or, makes symptoms more endurable other than prescribed medications which, can have really bad side effects.

Cancer sucks, sucks more not to have thefreedom to alleviate certain conditions like nausea and utter lack of appetite without the threat of perjuring oneself on a federal form.

All the best wishes to all
Billy

quote:

Originally posted by P220 Smudge:
Aglifter, I'm just going to say it: You don't know jack shit about addiction, or weed.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7027431/

I’ve seen the “loving support” kill two family members.