Governor: Legalizing pot was bad idea

The Hill ^ | January 23, 2015 | Kevin Cirilli

[Cincinatus' Wife]

Colorado’s decision to legalize marijuana was a bad idea, the state’s governor said Friday.

Gov. John Hickenlooper, a Democrat who opposed the 2012 decision by voters to make pot legal, said the state still doesn’t fully know what the unintended consequences of the move will be.

If I could've waved a wand the day after the election, I would've reversed the election and said, 'This was a bad idea,’” Hickenlooper said Friday on CNBC's “Squawk Box.”

“You don't want to be the first person to do something like this,” he said.

He said that he tells other governors to “wait a couple of years” before legalizing marijuana as Colorado continues to navigate an unknown, non-existing federal regulatory landscape for the industry.

“There's a whole regulatory environment... that really regulates alcohol,” he said. “We're starting from scratch and we don't have a federal partner because [marijuana] is still illegal federally.”

In February 2014, the Obama administration released guidelines for the marijuana industry indicating the federal officials would not target financial institutions or businesses engaging in selling pot as long as those businesses were compliant with state laws.

Despite the guidelines, banks are reluctant to finance marijuana businesses in states where it is legal because federal law still lists marijuana as an illegal drug. Congress would need to pass a law removing that language.

Marijuana is legal in four states: Colorado, Oregon, Alaska and Washington. Congress has blocked the District of Columbia from legalizing pot after voters in November cast ballots that they wanted to make the drug legal.

[DiogenesLamp]

Who does post such comments? All I've seen is calls for changing some laws.

That's what the Homosexuals and the Abortion advocates say too.

[DiogenesLamp]

What matters is what the people who wrote and ratified the Constitution thought.

And I'm pretty sure they would have thought that transshipping dangerous narcotics across the border to hurt or injure our citizens would be considered a criminal act if done by individuals, and an act of war if done by a nation state.

That is axiomatic. You just don't like it because it disables your "NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO INTERDICT DRUGS!!!!" assertion.

[DiogenesLamp]

I have pointed out several.

Now i'm thinking you don't have a good command of English. I said:

You assert a laughably illogical statement, but you do not cite a particular statement and identify it as laughable nor your reasons for thinking it so.

Just what is it about one of my statements that you consider laughable?

To which you responded "I have pointed out several."

You didn't quote my statement, and you didn't explain why it was laughable. You just hand-waved it off as if you didn't need to respond to the point.

Had you had the guts to quote my statement and explain why it was "laughable", they I think you would have found yourself in the position of being unable to defend your point. But just for what it's worth, let us examine this statement which I suspect you consider to be "laughable."

It is this comment right here.

It doesn't stay in their homes, it keeps getting spread to the next generation.

Break the chain of contact, and we can start producing generations free of the attraction to use drugs.

Now this is a two part statement, but presumably you consider both parts laughable. Let us take the first part first.

It doesn't stay in their homes, it keeps getting spread to the next generation.

I asked "ConservingFreedom" how he came to learn about weed. He says "He read about it in newspapers and magazines". (Or words to that effect.) That is of course utter nonsense. He learned of it because other people in his community spread it to him. (Like a communicable disease, as I have pointed out numerous times.)

How then did it stay in the homes of the users? Did it not spread outside their homes? Did it not spread to the next generation of users?

Again, I see nothing laughable in that statement, it looks very straightforward and accurate. Perhaps you didn't object to that statement, and it is only the second statement you found "laughable." Again, had you simply said which statement, and *WHY* it was laughable, it would have saved a great deal of wondering.

So perhaps the second statement is laughable. Break the chain of contact, and we can start producing generations free of the attraction to use drugs.

This is funny? This is ridiculous? It also seems pretty straightforward to me. If the subsequent generation can be kept from being exposed to dangerous drugs, they will never develop an affinity for them. The same argument has been made regarding the Palestinians, who passionately teach their children to hate. If that chain of hatred can be broken, the future can proceed without it.

Now perhaps you are saying "that is too great a task to accomplish." ? I find this argument hypocritical from someone who is always pointing out the power of God.

Laughable, in fact.

[HiTech RedNeck]

God does not use worldly methods to solve spiritual problems.

If you do not grok that, this is your loss. Not mine.

[DiogenesLamp]

The strawmen are plentiful and you have multiplied them even more in your post.

I analyzed your last post, this one i'm not even going to bother with. For whatever reason, you have chosen to defend the dopers, and so there is no longer any reason to treat you as objective.

I am not concerned about convincing you. Can’t be done against your will.

My will has nothing to do with it. My ability to see events and consequences is your enemy here. My past experience and my knowledge of history is what you have to overcome. My will goes where my reason leads, and hand-waving and good intentions does not move it.

I am marking you with cautionary signs for others who are thoughtful.

Yes, the troublemakers in this world are the people OPPOSED to dope, not the dope smokers and pushers. I just wonder how many dope smokers you have encountered in your lifetime, and what became of them. I suspect you haven't seen the death and misery that i've seen from this "victimless" pastime, or perhaps you are just blowing along with the prevailing social winds.

[tacticalogic]

That is axiomatic. You just don't like it because it disables your "NO LEGAL AUTHORITY TO INTERDICT DRUGS!!!!" assertion.

You're still making shit up. I've never made that assertion.

[ConservingFreedom]

I do not post comments saying we need to *CHANGE* the existing culture.

Who does post such comments? All I've seen is calls for changing some laws.

That's what the Homosexuals and the Abortion advocates say too.

So no answer to my question.

What laws do abortion advocates want to change?

[DiogenesLamp]

Calling deep B.S. on this. No family, no friends, not even a church... even a sympathetic john who really does not want a dopey partner and thinks of his sister... all it takes is someone to care about one of these gals and the jig is up.

You pulling this out of your hind end.

And you are calling me a liar. You can chose to believe whatever you like. The events I described did happen.

You have no conception of the combination of charm, fear and apathy that kept anyone from turning him in. My friend had a reputation for beating the sh*t out of people when he needed to do so. He was unafraid of anything. I have to give him that, he was very ballsy. He would fight anyone, or several anyones at the drop of a hat. He once hit this man so hard that it broke *HIS* arm.

Apart from everything else, if one of the "street" denizens ratted someone out, they wouldn't be able to get dope from anyone, and the junkie's primary focus is on getting more dope. Street people are extremely paranoid about Cops and "Narcs". (People who "narced someone out" i.e. turned them in. If word got out that you had "narced" on someone, you were done, and you had better stay off the street or they would hurt you. No doper could stay away from the street, so the system worked pretty well.

Siblings? If they cared, they wouldn't have let their siblings, mothers, fathers, etc out on the streets to chase dope. They also couldn't prove anything.

The cops knew he was a dope dealer and pimp, but they could never prove anything. He transported his product by wrapping it in plastic and shoving it up his anus. He called this "@$$ packing". He got patted down all the time. He got drug dog searched all the time. They never found anything. He always carried small quantities so that he could eat it if he ever thought they were going to cavity search him.

He worked off of a pager. Dopers and Johns paged him when they wanted something, and he went to them. He never let anyone come to him. They would add extra numbers when they paged him so he knew what they wanted. Generally "20" meant I have 20 dollars to buy a rock. "911" meant they were desperate to get ahold of him. There were other codes, but I don't remember all of them.

I could post you his picture, (and the pictures of several other people in the dope smoking demographic from my town) because it is in the state database as are the pictures of all felons, but I have no interest in providing identifiable information. I have been attacked by Liberal/Democrat operatives in the past, and I have no desire to identify myself or where I live.

But what you are telling me by doubting my claim is that you DO NOT KNOW WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT. You haven't seen the drug scene on the street. If you had, you would know these things without me having to tell you about them. You would know about street life and how street culture works. You would know about the dope binges and the @$$ packing, and the orgies and all the rest.

For what it's worth, the man was born in Georgia, grew up in Detroit, (told me "Beverly Hills Cop" was filmed in his neighborhood when he was a young man.) claims that James Brown is his half-uncle, currently lives in North Carolina, his street name was "O.G." which stood for "Old Gangster", and he called me last year to tell me he had a stroke, but is recovering. His son, whom I had met a few times, Turned into a drug dealer like his father, and was shot to death last January, and "O.G." just couldn't take the stress of it.

He has another son, two daughters, (both doing better than the boys) which I have met, and he and his wife just had another child last year.

I like to think I was instrumental in getting him out of that life. Before he had the stroke, he was driving a delivery truck for a meat packing plant. He's pretty much gone straight at this point, but boy does he have some stories to tell.

And no, i'm not pulling any of this out of my @$$.

[DiogenesLamp]

The only affirmation desired is that of sound principle. Government is not God, when it tries to be God it enters the realm of trouble.

Interdicting dope is not being "God." It is just another law enforcement task.

[DiogenesLamp]

I suspect if humans ate an entire marijuana plant (as might a herbivore) they would probably walk off a cliff or sit in a pasture until the wolves got them.

Like many Drug Warrior suppositions, this one is wrong:...blah blah blah blah blah...

You think someone can eat an entire marijuana plant and be functional? What are you smoking? Never mind.

[DiogenesLamp]

Look up the “rat park” addiction experiments.

In a cage, rats would consume drugs until they starved.

In a happy, healthy environment, rats would avoid the drugs and addicted rats transferred from the cages would stop using drugs.

Well we all know our street people are perfectly happy in their lives which feels nothing like a cage to them.

That being said, the street people I knew would generally go on three day binges, after which they would collapse into a near comatose state and sleep for a day or so, after which they would eat everything they could get their hands on.

During the binge? They didn't eat much. They were all, without exception, quite skinny. Skeletal in fact. (This is one of the milder pictures available.)

No, I assure you there are many people in our society that feel like rats in a cage. The fact that they have all these other distractions does not relieve them of this feeling.

[ConservingFreedom]

Like many Drug Warrior suppositions, this one is wrong: "Along with other psychoactive cannabinoids, THC is a hydrophobic oil, meaning it is insoluble in water but soluble in lipids (oil/fat) and alcohol. Using either one of these to extract THC from cannabis is required to have the cooked product be psychoactive.[1] During preparation the cannabis or its extract must be heated sufficiently or dehydrated to cause decarboxylation of its most abundant cannabinoid, tetrahydrocannabinolic acid (THCA), into psychoactive THC." (emphasis added) - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_foods#Ingredients_and_effects

You think someone can eat an entire marijuana plant and be functional?

The available information says eating the plant won't get you high. Do you have better information?

[DiogenesLamp]

You don’t need a drug dealer for marijuana, you can grow in your backyard.

Two points.

1.A lot of people move on beyond marijuana. That's why it's considered a "gateway" drug. They will be eventually needing a dealer.

2. You can grow tobacco in your back yard too, but eventually someone from the government is going to show up and cause you grief. Perhaps that will be different for pot, but I shouldn't be surprised if they decide that only "authorized" pot can be grown.

[DiogenesLamp]

Did I harm the black person. Did they starve. Did they have no other options for food?

None of the government’s business.

So you are opposed to anti-discrimination laws? Brave position you take there.

So how about theft? Stealing is immoral. Should the government regulate this immorality?

[ConservingFreedom]

A lot of people move on beyond marijuana. That's why it's considered a "gateway" drug.

Lifetime use of marijuana is 44% but past month use of illicit drugs other than marijuana is only 3.3% - pretty narrow "gateway". (http://www.samhsa.gov/data/sites/default/files/NSDUH-DetTabsPDFWHTML2013/Web/HTML/NSDUH-DetTabsSect1peTabs1to46-2013.htm#tab1.1b)

[DiogenesLamp]

If you really want to bring crime into marketplace the first thing you do is make a desirable product illegal. Look what happened with Prohibition: they made alcohol illegal and set off a wave of organized crime across this country which we haven’t yet recovered from.

Comparisons between humanity's ten million year old association with alcohol and drugs are false on the face of it. Alcohol was completely ingrained in the culture, and it could not have been banned by passing a law.

Libertarians are always trying to say drugs are exactly like alcohol. They are trying to take a case with a specific and thoroughly engrained substance, and to assert that banning all other substances is exactly the same.

No, it is not. Drugs never met the percentages of usage and popularity that alcohol has always had. Drugs have been successfully kept down to level of 2% of the population which was the same as it was a hundred years ago when they first banned them.

[DiogenesLamp]

Nope — if it was within the Constitutionally delegated powers then we never would have needed an 18th Amendment.

Nonsense. Alcohol has been used by Humanity for 10 million years. It was accepted and long recognized as legal. Drugs are more deadly, and do not meet the standard of social acceptance that alcohol has always had.

[ican'tbelieveit]

That government is best which governs least.

[OneWingedShark]

>> Nope — if it was within the Constitutionally delegated powers then we never would have needed an 18th Amendment.
>
> Nonsense. Alcohol has been used by Humanity for 10 million years. It was accepted and long recognized as legal.

Oh, and given the title of this post, how old is the marijuana plant?
No — The War on Drugs is *NOT* authorized under the Constitution, neither under the commerce clause nor under the defense clause.

[DiogenesLamp]

I've never heard of even a single case of a drug "attacking" someone.

Have you heard of a single case of Sarin, or Anthrax, or Chlorine, or any other dangerous substance "Attacking" anyone?

Stop with the anthropomorphization. Some things are inherently deadly, and when someone deliberately brings them into contact with an unsuspecting populace they are either recklessly or deliberately putting them at risk of death. To say this isn't "attacking" is just playing stupid word games. It is the same as makes no difference.

"Returning to the people the right to consume those drugs (cocaine, marijuana) which were perfectly legal for most of this nation's history represents an attack on our populace."

Asserting that drugs "were perfectly legal for most of this nation's history" is a deliberate attempt to mislead people about the truth. Drugs were legal in the same manner that Sarin Gas and Nuclear weapons were legal. It is because few had any access to them, and few even knew about them.

It is pretty disgusting that people say this sort of stuff in an effort to mislead people into thinking the founders would have tolerated wide spread drug usage.

They didn't ban them because they weren't causing any problems. They didn't ban them because they weren't wide spread and they weren't widely known. Laws get passed in response to changing conditions, and the drug laws were passed as a result of large numbers of people dying from overdoses.

Stop trying to mislead people about the truth regarding American History and drugs.