Posted on 07/08/2014 11:00:17 AM PDT by PoloSec
BELLINGHAM, Wash. (AP) — Washington on Tuesday became the second state to allow people to buy marijuana legally in the U.S. without a doctor's note as eager customers who lined up outside stores made their purchases and savored the moment.
People began buying marijuana at 8 a.m. at Top Shelf Cannabis, one of two Bellingham stores that started selling the drug as soon as it was allowed under state regulations. Several dozen people waited outside before the doors opened at the shop in this liberal college town of about 80,000 north of Seattle.
The first three customers in line were residents of Kansas, in Bellingham for their grandfather's 84th birthday. Sarah Gorton, 24, of Abilene, Kansas, came with her younger brother Robbie, as well as her boyfriend.
"It's just a happy coincidence and an opportunity we're not going to have for a long time," said Sarah Gorton, a 24-year-old with dreadlocks and homemade jewelry. "I'm really thrilled to be a part of something that I never thought would happen."
Gorton's boyfriend, 29-year-old Cale Holdsworth, made the first purchase: two grams of pot for $26.50. As customers applauded, he held his brown bag aloft and said, "This is a great moment."
The start of legal pot sales in Washington marks a major step that's been 20 months in the making.
Washington and Colorado stunned much of the world by voting in November 2012 to legalize marijuana for adults over 21, and to create state-licensed systems for growing, selling and taxing the pot. Sales began in Colorado on Jan. 1.
Washington issued its first 24 retail licenses Monday. An Associated Press survey of the licensees showed only about six planned to open Tuesday: two in Bellingham, one in Seattle, one in Spokane, one in Prosser and one in Kelso.
(Excerpt) Read more at cnsnews.com ...
Based on news reports from Colo, there’s big money to be made providing security, since all the transactions have to be made in cash.
So why are we allowed to study opium and countless other toxic compounds but cannot touch cannabis? The “dope” issue is not the reason since countless Rx drugs are infinitely more impairing, toxic and addictive than cannabis. This is not for safety. It is an obvious scam to make money for certain people.
Of course plants that are symbiotic to humans like opium and cannabis can be used as dope. They naturally have powerful effects on the body. However, they can also be used as medicine and the research possibilities are endless.
I'm not even talking about recreational use. Banning an entire class of natural compounds from research and screaming "dope!" whenever someone looks at them is pathetic groupthink and a crime against humanity.
“There are 400+ compounds in cannabis that are very similar in structure to cannabinoids produced by the body.”
You don’t know anything about biochemistry, do you?
“As an aside, I know of meth users who are very conservative on every other topic”
That makes sense.
Amphetamines, opioids, alcohol, nicotine, do not affect the mental aspects of the brain in the way marijuana and hallucinogens, do.
These latter drugs change thinking and world view.
The New Left always ragged against alcohol and nicotine while advocating use of hallucinogens.
There was and is a reason for that.
We still see the exact same New Left garbage being thrown out here in certain posts extolling weed in contrast to the “demon alcohol”.
And you base this "truth" on......?
I don’t think that is true, either.
On a wider level, you can’t keep a coherent line of thought and are just factually wrong.
You seem to live in the doper make believe paranoid paradise.
Let ask you, what drugs do you use and how often?
What education do you have or are currently doing?
Have you ever passed a college level intro chemistry?
If so, have you passed organic chemistry?
Do you like old Freak Brother comics?
You can make that same argument for Opium derivatives, but not sure you want to. Endorphins ("endogenous morphine") are endogenous opioid inhibitory neuropeptides.
That ad hominem stuff isn’t very effective and is fallacious.
On the fact that people generally begin using regularly or not at all.
Occasional use is a transient phase.
What, though, the legalization will do and is meant to do, will increase the number of occasional users, increase the length of time one is an occasional user and ultimately increase the number of chronic high frequency users.
Washington state has all ready had huge numbers of users and the utter leftism and irrationality of their politics reflects this.
Same for CA.
I’ve never read a study that showed this. Where are you getting your data from? What part of the brain determines philosophy and world view that cannabis effects particularly that other drugs do not?
How is any of that ad hominum?
It is not.
Why can proponents of dope smoking not have a straightforward conversation?
Nothing is fallacious that I have stated either.
How about you, what do you know about it?
How much dope have you smoked?
If any, did you quit?
If so, why?
Are you a Christian?
Atheists?
Other?
All of these things are relevant on fundamental issues such as use of mind altering substances in society.
It affects everyone. The last 50 years culminating in Obama as the first New Left doper President being the tragic truth.
If the drug revolution had not occurred in the 60’s this country would not have elected Obama and would not be in the dangerous state it is in now.
I’m wondering about you since since several of those questions have been answered in this very thread. Bye.
Use base this on?
Occasional use is a transient phase.
Once again....
What, though, the legalization will do and is meant to do, will increase the number of occasional users, increase the length of time one is an occasional user and ultimately increase the number of chronic high frequency users.
Maybe the 3rd (or 4th) time is the charm?
In other words, you make a lot of assertions with zero facts, stats, cites to back them up.
I thought only leftists did that.
"You" not "use", of course...
Endogenous opioids are another example of compounds that are also not similar to opioid drugs.
Endogenous opioids are small peptides. Morphine and derivatives are small molecules.
Cannabinoids are three ringed small molecules whereas endocannabinoids are fatty acids.
Structurally they are not the same.
This is in contrast to drugs like amphetamines and hallucinogens which are in the same structural class as their endogenous analogues, indoleamines and catecholamines.
The whole argument of the naturalness of drugs making them good is a variation on the same liberal argument of born this way.
In fact, plants evolved these compounds as a self defense mechanism. As toxins meant to keep animals from eating them.
The fact that humans are able to take toxins and poisons and use them medicinally and therapeutically does not change the fact that they are toxins and poisons.
This is based on my experiences in life.
Do you disagree?
Do you know any studies that address this?
I don’t really know what your point is, what you are arguing.
Other than pot is good. Or not harmful.
I find only disingenuousness with you.
I’m not sure it has been specifically studied, but may have been.
I do believe peripherally it has in studies on responses to drugs elicited different types of experiences considered spiritual. The drugs electing “spiritual” experiences being the hallucinogens.
Similarly, studies indicating and advocating use of hallucinogens for psychotherapeutic reasons. Studies advocating use of LSD, MDMA, psilocybin or other hallucinogens to change behaviors, habits, psychopathologies have been constant for 50 years or so now.
The more “earthbound” highs from amphetamines, opiods, alcohol, depressants, etc... Have not been found to be life changing.
Why does this debate always get personal and insulting?
If you must know, I extensively researched the topic almost 10 years ago to help several sick family members and friends. Specific strains of cannabis helped them on a whole different level while Rx drugs did not. In my old country, cannabis was grown openly before the WOD and has been used by villagers as effective medication for hundreds of years.
I earned an A in all chemistry courses: basic, industrial and organic. I don’t practice and have forgotten the semantics since then.
Anyway, if you are an expert please explain the following. I can’t find any explanation for this besides government corruption:
-Why should opiods be used for medications while cannabis should not?
-Why is research of the opium plant allowed and cannabis is not?
Also, why has there never been a single twin study showing ANY long term difference between animals exposed to cannabis and those who are not? If the brain effects were as toxic as you claim, this would have been shown decades ago.
You do realize subjective experiences are not the best "proof", right?
Do you know any studies that address this?
You're the one making multiple assertions with no stats, cites, etc. I'm thinking the burden is on you, as the one making the claims.
I don’t really know what your point is, what you are arguing.
That bold assertions need to be backed with facts, not "based on my experiences" fluff.
Other than pot is good. Or not harmful.
It's never a good idea to inhale anything that's burning.
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