Posted on 01/06/2014 8:16:32 AM PST by SeekAndFind
Launching 17 million “Rocky Mountain High” jokes, Colorado has become the first state to make the prudent choice of legalizing the consumption and sale of marijuana, thus dispensing with the charade of medical restrictions and recognizing the fact that, while some people smoke marijuana to counter the effects of chemotherapy, most people smoke marijuana to get high — and that is not the worst thing in the world.
Regardless of whether one accepts the individual-liberty case for legalizing marijuana, the consequentialist case is convincing. That is because the history of marijuana prohibition is a catalogue of unprofitable tradeoffs: billions in enforcement costs, and hundreds of thousands of arrests each year, in a fruitless attempt to control a mostly benign drug the use of which remains widespread despite our energetic attempts at prohibition. We make a lot of criminals while preventing very little crime, and do a great deal of harm in the course of trying to prevent an activity that presents little if any harm in and of itself.
Marijuana is a drug, as abusable as any intoxicant is, and its long-term use is in some people associated with undesirable effects. But its effects are relatively mild, and while nearly half of American adults have smoked marijuana, few develop habits, much less habits that are lifelong (in another context, we might write “chronic”). Compared to binge drinking or alcohol addiction, marijuana use is a minor public-health concern. All that being the case, the price of prohibition is relatively high, whether measured in police and penal expenses or in liberty lost. The popularity of marijuana may not be the most admirable social trend of our time, but it simply is not worth suppressing.
One of the worst consequences of marijuana use is the development of saucer-eyed arguments about the benefits of legalizing it. Colorado, and other states that may follow its example, should go into this with realistic expectations. If the Dutch example is any guide, then Colorado can probably expect to see higher rates of marijuana use and the use of other drugs, though not dramatically so. As with the case of Amsterdam, Colorado already is developing a marijuana-tourism industry — some hotels are considering offering designated marijuana-smoking rooms, even while smoking tobacco outdoors is banned in parts of Boulder — which brings problems of its own, among them opportunistic property crime and public intoxication. Colorado’s legal drug dealers inevitably will end up supplying black markets in neighboring prohibition states. Expected tax revenues from marijuana sales will amount to a mere three-tenths of 1 percent of the state’s budget.
The payoff is not in tax revenue gained but in losses avoided. A great many people will avoid being convicted of crimes for a relatively benign recreational indulgence — and those criminal convictions often have much more severe long-term consequences on pot-smokers’ lives than marijuana does. The business of policing covert marijuana dealers has been replaced with the relatively straightforward business of regulating them in the open. A large and fairly nasty criminal enterprise has lost its raison d’être, at least so far as the Colorado market is concerned.
Perhaps most important, the legalization of marijuana in Colorado — and the push for its legalization elsewhere — is a sign that Americans still recognize some limitations on the reach of the state and its stable of nannies-in-arms. The desire to discourage is all too easily transmuted into the desire to criminalize, just as the desire to encourage metastasizes into the desire to mandate. It is perhaps a little dispiriting that of all the abusive overreaches of government to choose from, it is weed that has the nation’s attention, but it is a victory nonetheless. Unfortunately, it is probably too much to hope that Colorado’s recognition of this individual liberty might inspire some popular reconsideration of other individual liberties, for instance that of a working man to decide for himself whether he wants to join a union, or for Catholic nuns to decide for themselves whether they want to purchase drugs that may work as abortifacients — higher liberties, if you will.
I remember when I lived in Montana buying a foreign car that only seemed to have a place to install one plate. So I displayed the other one in the window. The patrol got very upset about this. It was even hard to get your hand up in there to fasten the plate. I think somebody helped me with it finally but the dealer should have done it before I left the lot. Now I am wiser and would ask them to do so.
I’ll probably be sorry I asked this, but how did they smuggle it in?
Via visitation, mail, and free staff. Sometimes objects, like tennis balls filled with whatever, would be tossed over the fences into the rec yards or wherever inmates had free access. Weed and black tar heroin were the most prevalent substances, usually readily obtainable. I won’t go into details regarding visitation smuggling...use your imagination:)
National Review off their rockers again, did they pray to Saint Mandela about this??
I’ve got a layover in Denver in a few weeks. Can I pick some up at the duty free shop yet?
Sorry, I meant the “duuuuuuuuty free” store. Along with some cheetos.
Just because they are not policing it does not mean there are no laws to break with this experiment. There are many. That is a win win situation.
This is going to be very interesting to watch.
Cannabis has been available for medicinal and other use for a couple hundred years in this country. It didn’t get the recreational use or come up in the public dialogue back then as now, it was not a major issue in our culture
It became a focus in our culture first with it’s prohibition, which made it forbidden fruit, and then with the 50’s 60’s revolution when it became a rebellious thing to do. So in a way it was making it illegal in the first place that made this part of our culture.
I see the same people who lack discipline in other areas of their lives turn into slackers on this drug. That’s the downside. A lot of soft and easy people turn escapist and get mentally dependent. But there’s folks who use it more responsibly, too.
I like the story of oil field workers who all use off duty but kick the asses of guys who aren’t sharp on the job. Maybe we can do that on a national level. Skip the middleman, just start kicking screwups in the butt. Save the jail cells for Obama and his cronies...magic wand?
“a state with about million people.”
5 million.
“People forget that pot has been legal in Colorado for about 10 years. This is old hat.”
Pot was NOT legal in Colorado until recently. Possession of less than a ounce was still subject to a civil fine. All other activities, including production and distribution were felonies.
Federal laws are still in force though, but rather than having Congress change them, obama has elected to abrogate his sworn duty to uphold the Constitution and the laws of the U.S., just like he has illegally chosen to do so with enforcement of immigration law and anything else that strikes his fancy. He should be impeached for any one of those abrogations, but the Republicans have no balls, could care less about what’s right for this country, and care about only one thing: being elected at any and all costs.
“I wouldn’t support that. Those two drugs are a result of manufacture. Marijuana is just a plant, not taking one form of it and turning it into something else entirely. “
Except that in Colorado, all extracts, concentrations, products and other manipulations of the plant material are legal under the new state laws.
“Does the new law at least require that buyers must be 21 years of age as we do with alcohol or tobacco use?”
Yes, but good luck with that. Just a couple of days ago a Longmont couple took their baby to the ER because they say she ingested a pot cookie the baby “found” on the ground( like pot cookies are just lying around everywhere on the ground around here like they were manna).
“I don’t know how CO is handling this stuff”
Banks here still won’t touch pot businesses because of their federal charters and the serious legal issues of laundering drug money. But not to worry. Obama is riding to the rescue as he is proposing “exemptions” for this purpose right now, though I doubt seriously if he has the legal authority to do that. But, hey, has that ever stopped him before?
“but what they can’t control is the fact it can be grown in your back yard”
Under Colorado state law it is now legal to grow pot for your own use (tax free even).
What about federal law? Weren’t the CA “medicinal” growers getting hassled by the feds?
You have to smoke it all there.
Something that some don’t realize is that if one is retired military, collecting retirement pay, the UCMJ still applies to them so they technically can’t partake.
Testing proves an IQ drop of about 9 points that is permanent in teenagers. That is significant.
You know those e-cigarettes that you hear talked about all over the place? Well, most of them can be used to vaporize marijuana or any other drug of choice. They even have marijuana vaporizers that look like an asthma inhaler. So, kids can take a puff in public without anyone knowing.
There is a whole industry growing up of all types of marijuana vaporizers. No one will know what you have in your device and no one will be able to stop it, without banning the sale of the devices.
So, what is your solution to avoiding hospitals full of druggie doctors and nurses, pot head bankers, who can’t add, train engineers, who fall asleep on the job, etc
Pot makes you stupid. it reduces your cognitive abilities and that effect lasts long after the high has worn off. So, what is your solution to avoiding a society full of druggie losers creating danger for all of us.
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.