Six Months After Legalizing Marijuana, Two Big Things Have Happened in Colorado

Mic.com ^ | 7/1/14 | Chris Miles

[Rebelbase]

$19 million in new tax revenue.

Marijuana-related arrests, which make up 50% of all drug-related crimes, have plummeted in Colorado, freeing up law enforcement to focus on other criminal activity. By removing marijuana penalties, the state saved somewhere between $12 million and $40 million in 2012, according to the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

According to government data, the Denver city- and county-wide murder rate has dropped 52.9% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January. This is compared to the same period last year, a time frame encompassing Jan. 1 through April 30.

[ConservingFreedom]

Where? Your accompanying claim that the researchers are "people who like drugs and alcohol" is not evidence.

Your usage of the word "Researcher" is itself a loaded claim. It implies that there is some objectivity going on when in fact, most of the cites I see from Pro-Drug people are from that vast armada of propagandists who want legalized drugs. Take the link for this topic thread for example.

You're misdirecting. I never did, and never would, refer to a news article as "research" - the research in question is at the link I posted in post #228, and was conducted by Mark Thornton, O. P. Alford III Assistant Professor of Economics at Auburn University.

[ConservingFreedom]

Alcohol has been a factor in human society for many thousands of years. It is part of many cultures and has a long history of acceptance despite the ill it causes for some.

Marijuana on the other hand, is a relatively recent addition to the available pharmacopeia, and while it may not be as bad as alcohol in some respects, it produces plenty of negatives for the society which has to put up with it.

So if the issue is still negatives and ills, how is cultural acceptance even relevant?

No answer?

We don't need another one. The one we have already causes enough damage.

And yet you say "Were I in a position to do so, I would not ban it [alcohol]" despite the ill it causes - that just doesn't add up.

As I said, I wouldn't ban alcohol, just regulate the usage of it better.

How does it follow from alcohol's greater cultural acceptance that we should better regulate it but ban marijuana?

It is insane that our society puts up with multiple offense drunk drivers.

I agree. It should be, at a bare minimum, mandatory one-month loss of license for the first offense and 30 days in the hole for a second.

[ConservingFreedom]

Anthrax can be self administered too.

But never is.

Not intentionally anyway, but has been by accident.

Which is not the reason we ban anthrax.

You just don't see how drug usage spreads in a similar manner (by contact with carriers)

Not similar - a heroin user can cough in my face all day long, and lick all my silverware, and he won't make me a heroin user.

Perhaps not doing that, but he can certainly spike your food and turn you into one.

Which is not the primary mode of anthrax transmission - still not similar.

Besides, laws are not all about YOU. They are about most people.

A heroin user can cough in most people's faces all day long, and lick all their silverware, and he won't make them heroin users.

Have you known any drug dealers? I have. I've known lots of them. They work at hooking people. You know why? Because when they get someone hooked, that's a slave. They don't care that these people abandon their responsibilities, what they care about is harnessing that earning power for themselves.

Have you known any anthrax dealers? Me neither - still not similar.

[ConservingFreedom]

"Victims", for the most part, only of your own bad choices. Don't want to take up their burden? Don't!

By "Victims", I mean WE TAXPAYERS who have to foot the bill for mommy and daddy who are too busy chasing drugs to work and pay their OWN bills

No, you taxpayers don't have to - you taxpayers chose, through the representatives you elected, to do so. Make different choices.

If you can pay your own bills, and don't have to take taxpayer money to indulge your habits, then you might begin to have an argument. Since this is seldom the case

Do you have any evidence for your claim that this is seldom the case?

[EricT.]

Marijuana is not an infectious disease. It is not spread through casual contact. It is not spread through any contact. This comparison is beyond ridiculous.

Prohibition brought us organized crime and widespread disrespect for law and order. It really never works the way prohibitionists think it will. The answer to drug problems (and alcoholism, gluttony, gambling problems, etc.) is education, not hysterics.

I am done debating you because I’ve got better things to do than waste any more time.

[ConservingFreedom]

Yes, all the drugs were legal back in Franklin's era, but there was not major and widespread abuse going on.

Exactly my point.

No, that isn't your point. In 1770 supply was severely limited. It was NOT POSSIBLE to support a large addiction demographic at that time.

That's liberal static economics - conservatives know that in a free market demand leads to supply. Opium existed - Americans were getting the amount they wanted.

Oh, so you mean the spread of addiction is NOT a simple matter of physiology, as you appeared to be claiming earlier? I agree.

Yes, it *is* a simple matter of physiology. The stuff is addictive and it will addict. The only role culture will play is HOW FAST IT WILL HAPPEN. It will happen regardless of culture, but culture may slow down the infection or speed it up depending upon what that group of people believe.

Again, the available evidence is that U.S. opium addiction was low and declining when it was legal. Pooh-poohing that evidence is not a substitute for better evidence nor does it win you the argument.

What it proves to me is that legalizing sale and use in one small area will concentrate sale and use in that area, which is almost certainly not a desirable outcome.

This is the argument that communists used to explain why communism didn't work. It's because it wasn't universal. If you would just make it universal, it would work, but it can't work piecemeal.

Not the same argument - the word "concentrate" apparently escaped you. Incentivizing sellers and users to go to a certain small area to sell and use increases not their number but their density, with the obvious problems. Nobody ever argued that the non-universality of communism concentrated it nor that any such concentration made it fail.

[ConservingFreedom]

If the goal of debating were to make him see reason, you'd be wasting your time. My goal is to use him as a demonstration of the bankruptcy of the prohibitionist position - YMMV.

[DiogenesLamp]

You're misdirecting. I never did, and never would, refer to a news article as "research" - the research in question is at the link I posted in post #228, and was conducted by Mark Thornton, O. P. Alford III Assistant Professor of Economics at Auburn University.

If you are suggesting that I am lumping you in with all the other hacks out there, then you are correct. My own experience has taught me that this simply saves a lot of time in the long run.

I have argued this subject with another persistent pot head on another site for over six years, and my patience for looking at biased research articles has long expired.

[DiogenesLamp]

So if the issue is still negatives and ills, how is cultural acceptance even relevant?

You are not grasping that the one is a fait accompli.

How does it follow from alcohol's greater cultural acceptance that we should better regulate it but ban marijuana?

We do not have to ban marijuana. We can regulate it too. But making it completely legal and non regulated is just utterly stupid.

[DiogenesLamp]

Which is not the reason we ban anthrax.

No, we ban it because it's deadly, same as hard drugs.

Which is not the primary mode of anthrax transmission - still not similar.

Anthrax is exactly similar in that they both follow the same logistic growth pattern, albeit drugs do so more slowly. Drug addiction spreads by years, not by days. It is a very slow progressing infection.

Have you known any anthrax dealers? Me neither - still not similar.

You aren't grasping the similarities because you are too busy focusing on the dissimilarities.

Rabies and Cholera produce very different symptoms, but they are both pathogens and they both follow the normal pattern of disease spread.

[DiogenesLamp]

No, you taxpayers don't have to - you taxpayers chose, through the representatives you elected, to do so. Make different choices.

I do not so chose. It is the nature of what our system has become to allow the fools and parasites to have equal say as the contributors, and they have come to outnumber us.

There *IS* no free will involved about being forceably deprived of your money for the purpose of supporting these parasites. You cannot resolve this problem by voting differently. It is beyond the individual's power to affect.

Do you have any evidence for your claim that this is seldom the case?

More than you care to hear about and more than I care to tell. It has become so ubiquitous that it is not even worthy of dispute.

[ConservingFreedom]

the research in question is at the link I posted in post #228, and was conducted by Mark Thornton, O. P. Alford III Assistant Professor of Economics at Auburn University.

If you are suggesting that I am lumping you in with all the other hacks out there, then you are correct. My own experience has taught me that this simply saves a lot of time in the long run.

I have argued this subject with another persistent pot head on another site for over six years, and my patience for looking at biased research articles has long expired.

That, lurkers, is the intellectual cowardice of the Drug Warrior in a nutshell.

[DiogenesLamp]

Marijuana is not an infectious disease. It is not spread through casual contact. It is not spread through any contact. This comparison is beyond ridiculous.

Your inability to grasp the point does not make it false. So tell me, how does Marijuana usage spread?

Prohibition brought us organized crime and widespread disrespect for law and order.

We had organized crime before, and much of their success in bootlegging alcohol was based on the fact that a significant portion of the populace never supported that law in the first place. It is the disagreement with the law that brought about disrespect for it.

Laws should reflect the will of the majority, not those of some temporary minority that manages to grasp power for a short time. As Edmund Burke said:

The use of force alone is but temporary. It may subdue for a moment; but it does not remove the necessity of subduing again: and a nation is not governed, which is perpetually to be conquered.

As for prohibitions in general, it would appear to me that the fallacy of their effort was the speed and means by which they pushed it. It was all at once, and draconian.

Efforts to slowly strangle off tobacco usage (and thereby produce a defacto "prohibition") are showing more promise. Had the prohibitionists utilized similar tactics, they may have achieved their objective without all the negative results.

[DiogenesLamp]

That's liberal static economics - conservatives know that in a free market demand leads to supply. Opium existed - Americans were getting the amount they wanted.

I want to know if you are intelligent enough to comprehend this chart.

See that beginning section? That's where we were in 1770.

.

Again, the available evidence is that U.S. opium addiction was low and declining when it was legal. Pooh-poohing that evidence is not a substitute for better evidence nor does it win you the argument.

And what evidence do you have that it was declining? That same web link that said it was skyrocketing? For someone always talking about evidence, you are pretty d*mned loose with the requirements of your own.

Not the same argument - the word "concentrate" apparently escaped you.

Yes, all those drug addicts would have been a lot more beneficial spread evenly throughout the populace.

Give. Me. A. Freakin. Break.

[DiogenesLamp]

That, lurkers, is the intellectual cowardice of the Drug Warrior in a nutshell.

No, that is the loss of patience with the endless stream of biased articles and false claims all pushing the same agenda.

The Pro-Drug crowd has long ago pioneered the tactics used by the Global warming cult.

[ConservingFreedom]

We do not have to ban marijuana. We can regulate it too. But making it completely legal and non regulated is just utterly stupid.

I favor roughly equivalent levels of regulation for marijuana and alcohol.

[ConservingFreedom]

Anthrax can be self administered too.

But never is.

Not intentionally anyway, but has been by accident.

Which is not the reason we ban anthrax.

No, we ban it because it's deadly

To others - self-administration is not the reason. Conversely, the theoretical possibility of slipping drugs to others is not why we ban them.

Anthrax is exactly similar in that they both follow the same logistic growth pattern

Except when they don't. From 1980 to 1995, consumption of the legal drug alcohol dropped by 23%, and from 1973 to 2006 consumption of legal addictive cigarettes dropped by 59%.

[ConservingFreedom]

No, you taxpayers don't have to - you taxpayers chose, through the representatives you elected, to do so. Make different choices.

I do not so chose. It is the nature of what our system has become to allow the fools and parasites to have equal say as the contributors, and they have come to outnumber us.

Are you claiming that a majority of Americans are too drunk or drugged to pay their own bills?

If you can pay your own bills, and don't have to take taxpayer money to indulge your habits, then you might begin to have an argument. Since this is seldom the case

Do you have any evidence for your claim that this is seldom the case?

More than you care to hear about

Wrong - I'd love to hear whatever you've got.

and more than I care to tell. It has become so ubiquitous that it is not even worthy of dispute.

So you have no evidence and you hope enough huffing and puffing will obscure that fact.

[ConservingFreedom]

That's liberal static economics - conservatives know that in a free market demand leads to supply. Opium existed - Americans were getting the amount they wanted.

I want to know if you are intelligent enough to comprehend this chart.

See that beginning section? That's where we were in 1770.

Clearly the underlying model doesn't apply - free markets don't take centuries to respond to demand.

Again, the available evidence is that U.S. opium addiction was low and declining when it was legal. Pooh-poohing that evidence is not a substitute for better evidence nor does it win you the argument.

And what evidence do you have that it was declining? That same web link that said it was skyrocketing?

Yes, the DEA found some data but wasn't bright enough to correctly interpret it - much like how none of your charts and figures, though presumably correct, actually support your conclusions.

Not the same argument - the word "concentrate" apparently escaped you.

Yes, all those drug addicts

There's no evidence that the number grew as a result of Needle Park.

would have been a lot more beneficial spread evenly throughout the populace.

Make that "less detrimental" and you're right.

[ConservingFreedom]

the research in question is at the link I posted in post #228, and was conducted by Mark Thornton, O. P. Alford III Assistant Professor of Economics at Auburn University.

If you are suggesting that I am lumping you in with all the other hacks out there, then you are correct. My own experience has taught me that this simply saves a lot of time in the long run.

I have argued this subject with another persistent pot head on another site for over six years, and my patience for looking at biased research articles has long expired.

That, lurkers, is the intellectual cowardice of the Drug Warrior in a nutshell.

No, that is the loss of patience

<snicker> Sure thing. You know where the door is.