Posted on 11/06/2012 9:36:26 PM PST by djf
I-502, a voter initiative designed to legalize the possession and personal use of Marijuana, appears to have passed.
With 50% of the statewide votes counted, the initiative leads with a 55% to 45% approval rating.
Up to one ounce of marijuana, grown at state-licensed facilities, and sold (and TAXED!) at state retail locations, will now be allowed.
There will be standards set for driving while impaired, as well as a zero-tolerance policy for persons under 21.
It is estimated it will take about a year for all the machinery to get set up before people can buy retail hooch!
Negotiations are expected between the state law and the federal level.
Common sense for one.
Were they marijuana cookies, or some other drug? What kind of a meeting would have marijuana cookies? Did you pull over and call for a cab? Did you talk to the host about it? How was the incident resolved?
Do you live in CO or WA?
Does that include using the mind-altering drug alcohol?
No.
How do we know this is so?
Common sense for one.
The battle cry of those too lazy to substantiate their claims.
Those teens grow up to be pot smoking adults, who are poorly equipped to take care of themselves. Too many teenagers get their pot from the jar that the parents keep on their dresser.
Teens started reporting several years ago that they could get pot more easily than they could get cigarettes or beer. It appears that the most effective way to keep a drug out of teens' hands is to legalize it for adults (which gives sellers an incentive not to sell to kids - namely, the loss of their legal adult sales).
The legality of marijuana would no more make such incidents common than the legality of alcohol has made the spiking of beverages common.
Legalizing it would not prevent the teens from getting pot. They’ve been taking from the jars on the parents’ dresser for years. The pot smoking parents are constantly heard, saying that they would prefer to have their kids driving high on marijuana than drunk on beer, as well as the remark, well it didn’t hurt me, so it won’t hurt them. It’s no big deal. It’s a mind set, that marijuana is harmless. It’s not.
I know someone who shared her home grown medical marijuana with a young man, who after leaving her house, ran over and killed a man and spent 3.5 years of his young life behind bars.
The point is that the war on drugs, as your posts also prove, has been a complete failure. Legalizing it here will be a cash cow and people smoke it anyway. Lots of them.
Should the money they spend to smoke it go to the mexican cartels or to our state?
In Washington we voted to keep the money in our state and not support violent gangs in Mexico. Bring it feds.
Legalizing it would not prevent the teens from getting pot.
I said "most effective way" not "100% effective way." Adult legality and regulation does a better job of keeping the drugs alcohol and tobacco away from teens than banning marijuana does in keeping that drug away from teens.
They’ve been taking from the jars on the parents’ dresser for years. The pot smoking parents are constantly heard, saying that they would prefer to have their kids driving high on marijuana than drunk on beer, as well as the remark, well it didn’t hurt me, so it won’t hurt them. It’s no big deal. It’s a mind set, that marijuana is harmless. It’s not.
I know someone who shared her home grown medical marijuana with a young man, who after leaving her house, ran over and killed a man and spent 3.5 years of his young life behind bars.
Nothing you say above distinguishes marijuana from the legal drug alcohol; do you support banning that drug for adults?
Alcohol doesn’t cause permanent loss of IQ and is not carcinogenic. Also there are clear standards for driving under the influence of alcohol that cannot be so clear for marijuana.
If marijuana is so easy to obtain for teen agers, it is even easier for adults. So, what’s the big deal? I don’t know anyone who smokes marijuana that has any trouble getting it.
I know that the Gateway drug claim is controversial, but I’ll will give you an anecdotal story about it anyway. A friend of mine, who has a very laissez faire attitude toward drugs, talked about her drug experiences openly with her kids and even allowed them to, or at least didn’t stop them, smoking marijuana and drinking beer at home, as long as they didn’t drive afterwards. Her son started using other drugs and eventually became a heroin addict. He called her one time, when he was contemplating suicide, and told her that she was the worst mother in the world because she made drugs sound so harmless and like so much fun.
As a matter of fact I know two mothers, with similar attitudes and similar results. Both of the boys were top students before the marijuana use. One of them who had been in advanced classes and a soccer star, dropped out of high school. I don’t know what happened to the other.
The feds will arrest and prosecute sellers. That's what it does now. The state can't provide immunity against a federal crime, and no state has offered to pay for the legal defense of somebody charged by the feds.
Not saying it's right or moral, just noting that all power flows from the barrel of a gun, and the feds have superior firepower, and the will to use it.
Yeah, but if they ALL reduce their mental capacity by the same amount, 92 becomes the new 100, and there isn't any IQ change. ;-)
Just from the article (not looking at the law itself), the only legal pot is that supplied by the state. So, the answer to your question is "no."
Good. Maybe some of the suppliers and users from here will head there.
Since one can make their own beer and wine and grow tobacco without being taxed, I imagine that would change.
Marijuana and IQ:
'“Scientifically, these are extremely preliminary findings,” cautions Carl Hart, associate professor of psychology at Columbia University, who has studied the cognitive effects of marijuana in humans in the lab and was not associated with the research. [...] There are also other factors — such as child abuse or other trauma — that might lead people to seek escape in heavy marijuana use and could also affect brain function. Meier and her colleagues did not examine these factors but say it’s possible that such elements could explain the results better than marijuana itself.' - http://healthland.time.com/2012/08/28/does-weekly-marijuana-use-by-teens-really-cause-a-drop-in-iq/
Alcohol:
"researchers confirmed previous findings that alcoholism is associated with thinking problems and lower IQ" - http://www.ur.umich.edu/0506/Oct17_05/15.shtml
"heavy drinking may have extensive and far–reaching effects on the brain, ranging from simple “slips” in memory to permanent and debilitating conditions that require lifetime custodial care." - http://pubs.niaaa.nih.gov/publications/aa63/aa63.htm
and is not carcinogenic.
"Alcohol is a known cause of cancers of the:
Mouth
Throat (pharynx)
Voice box (larynx)
Esophagus
Liver
Colon and rectum
Breast
"Alcohol may also increase the risk of cancer of the pancreas." - http://www.cancer.org/cancer/cancercauses/dietandphysicalactivity/alcohol-use-and-cancer
Also there are clear standards for driving under the influence of alcohol that cannot be so clear for marijuana.
Roadside sobriety tests can fill the gap until we get biochemical tests in place.
If marijuana is so easy to obtain for teen agers, it is even easier for adults. So, what’s the big deal?
The big deal is that keeping marijuana selling illegal hyperinflates its profits and channels those profits into criminal hands.
I know that the Gateway drug claim is controversial
The gateway claim is nonsense - research shows that the correlation between earlier marijuana use and later use of other drugs can be explained by a "common-factor" model, that is, a third factor that causes both results, such as individuals' opportunities and unique propensities to use drugs, or mor broadly a social or psychological predisposition towards anti-social behaviour. (http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB6010/index1.html, http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hors253.pdf)
The study was done very carefully over a period of 30 or more years and included a group, who did not use marijuana. The Universities that were involved were top notch.
Since it was a longitudinal study, timespan was a minimum criterion and not a guarantee of being the last word.
and included a group, who did not use marijuana. The Universities that were involved were top notch.
Which still doesn't make it the last word. The researchers themsleves said it’s possible that such elements as child abuse or other trauma could explain the results better than marijuana itself.
The harms of alcohol to the brain are at least as well established, as I showed - so you have yet to present a reason why alcohol should be legal but marijuana illegal.
The gateway claim is nonsense - research shows that the correlation between earlier marijuana use and later use of other drugs can be explained by a "common-factor" model, that is, a third factor that causes both results, such as individuals' opportunities and unique propensities to use drugs, or mor broadly a social or psychological predisposition towards anti-social behaviour. (http://www.rand.org/pubs/research_briefs/RB6010/index1.html, http://rds.homeoffice.gov.uk/rds/pdfs2/hors253.pdf)
I see I forgot to mention that the same sort of correlation between earlier marijuana and later harder drugs also exists between earlier alcohol and tobacco and later illegal drugs - so if marijuana is a "gateway" so are alcohol and tobacco.
Yes, there are just as many parents who allow teenagers to drink alcohol. Many times, they are the same parents.
Each one of my kids had students in their grade school classes who brought marijuana to school to share and sell, that they had taken from the jar that their parents kept on the Dad’s dresser. The first time it happened, there was one girl bringing alcohol to school and another bringing marijuana and I reported both, not the names, just the fact that it was happening in the girls room. The principal told me that he would do something about the alcohol, but not the marijuana.
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