Posted on 01/23/2015 7:13:21 AM PST by 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.
Oh, that’s right.
We voted against it.
As the feds put the screws tighter to law-abiding citizens being able to get their necessary pain medications. But they loosen the screws on recreational drug users. It makes no sense to me, as my husband is enduring concurrent chemo and radiation for inoperable cancer.
Too bad the left hasn’t been that respectful of all the states which passed propositions, some more than once, opposing the legalisation of sodomite “marriage”. Instead they ran to sympathetic judges to have them overturned in the courts.
Not true. Dry Counties are very successful.
When more states abandon pot prohibition, there will be no incentive for homeless addicts to migrate for that reason.
Sure. They will self create a sub-culture; an underclass of dopers who can't get work and are sponging off Welfare.
Normally I would agree with you regarding a dim...but not in this particular case. He actually SHOWED he knew what he was doing in regards to legalizing pot since he was against it in the first place. I thought it was a bad idea from the start and said so....but he's not a dictator and he let the people have their say...
Sometimes people have to be allowed to screw up.
This was a ballot initiative by citizens.
It looks like the big push will be to get pot legal on the federal level. As if that is the only reason their little experiment isn’t working
Having worked around pot-heads in my life...the guys and gals who smoke pot at least three or four times a day....it may not be brain cells destroyed, but motivation to do anything is dissolved. The guy becomes worthless in the shop, and won’t do anything to support the family. The guy who smokes weed once or twice a week....I don’t care about their issues, and they can handle it. The other folks who need a bit at 7AM, noon, and 5PM....every single day? No....they’ve gone to the abuse level and can’t live a normal life.
Please note...for the folks in serious medical issues and don’t have to work/operate equipment....I’m all for them getting all the pot they need to control the pain. You just can’t convince me though that 300 million Americans need medical marijuana.
Absolutely mrsmel. States rights are only for liberals. Sodomite marriages prohibition and the rights of the unborn do not fall under the purview of states rights because conservative people are not nice and need to be punished. Or so it seems.
We already have a huge legal underclass of dopers, they are simply kept fed and out of sight. To see some of them, look in front of a small pharmacy at opening time. It is not as bad as it used to be since most pharmacies deliver now but you can still see them.
They get free dope, free housing where they sit home doping all day and free food paid by taxpayers. These legal Rx drugs are all more toxic, impairing and addictive than pot. We have countless people addicted and driving on Xanax, vicodin, ambien etc. We already have legal heroin but in a packaged marketed form.
The synthetic drugs also cannot be easily home-grown like pot so an addict must continuously fork up money.
Big Pharma makes billions selling their chemicals to legal addicts. Doctors are bribed to prescribe more addictive drugs. "Pain clinics" and pharmacies make big money acting as the dealers. The law enforcement and private prison industries make incredible money from pot prohibition.
Legal pot that anyone can grow at home would destroy all these gravy trains and that is the ONLY reason for prohibition
From psychiatric times:
Many studies have explored the link between cannabis and psychosis (Table). In a systematic review, Moore and colleagues10 surveyed the literature on this topic. They looked at population-based longitudinal studies as well as nested case-control studies that assessed the impact of cannabis use on the later development of psychosis. The “psychosis” outcomes required the diagnosis of a primary psychotic disorder or affective psychosis, or the occurrence of delusions, hallucinations, or thought disorder during the study period. Results from 7 cohort studies showed a 40% increased risk of psychosis in cannabis users compared with nonusers. The data also revealed a dose-response effect—the risk of psychotic symptoms was increased approximately 50% to 200% in those who used cannabis frequently compared with nonusers. - See more at: http://www.psychiatrictimes.com/schizophrenia/cannabis-psychosis-link/page/0/2#sthash.UXUqJI4W.dpuf
You can say the very same things about cigars, cigarettes, alcohol, prescription medications.
We learned a very valuable lesson with alcohol prohibition. Yet we think it will work with “illicit drugs.” When really, all that approach does is create a police state where our law enforcement views all of us as criminals, rather than neighbors.
Enough already. If someone is going to use drugs, legal or otherwise, they are going to do it.
Someone who smokes pot all day will obviously be impaired and unmotivated. Just like someone who drinks or takes pills all day. The difference with pot is that it is non-toxic and only mentally addictive so an addict who resolves the mental addiction will not have permenent damage. It can also be grown almost for free so there is no need to steal.
What about the people who can't work due to addictions to booze, video games, porn, facebook, etc?
Should we ban everything that is potentially addictive to a few percent of the population?
I live in CO. This concern about the effects of legalization on the population are way over exaggerated. It has not affected my day to day life at all. I still get up and get dressed in the morning, go to work, come home, have dinner with my family. Nothing has changed other than we are not spending my tax dollars to enforce the unenforceable.
So your kids are grown?
The guy smoking pot to the destruction of his life/his family’s life is no different than the guy drinking alcohol to the the same point. But one we find socially acceptable. Because of their lobbying machinery in Washington.
What difference does that make? Do you think your kids aren’t going to be tempted by illicit drugs in Texas? Are you fooling yourself?
The founding fathers grew hemp, which is slightly different than pot. And the reason they grew it is because it went into the manufacture of rope which was used in navy ships of the line. They grew it because it was a strategic military need.. Any attempt to paint the founding fathers as a bunch of “wake ‘n bake” potheads is just silly.
CC
I asked a question can you answer it?
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