the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people.
lol..☺
Posted on 02/24/2017 2:29:00 PM PST by ColdOne
During yesterday's news conference, press secretary Sean Spicer says allowing recreational marijuana to stand is encouraging the abuse of other drugs.
"When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people... there is still a federal law that we need to abide by when it comes to recreational marijuana and drugs of that nature."
(Excerpt) Read more at kfiam640.iheart.com ...
No, I don't smoke pot. I don't smoke anything. I don't do drugs and I barely have a glass of wine during the holidays.
“When you see something like the opioid addiction crisis blossoming in so many states around this country, the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people...”
Marijuana is a replacement for opioids, and is not addictive.
Street marijuana is also the Mexican mafia’s number one cash cow.
the last thing we should be doing is encouraging people.
lol..☺
Is there a connection between legalized marijuana in Colorado and opioid abuse in West Virginia?
Do we have example of a guy in West Virginia going to his doctor and demanding a script for Oxycontin because pot is legal in Colorado?
Let slip Attorney General Sessions and order in our great nation shall be restored! Making America Great Again, Go Trump!!!
To me a key issue is that we have a contradiction between state and federal law on recreational marijuana use.
Are states allowed to override federal laws?
Does the federal government have jurisdiction over state drug laws in the first place??
But keep serving those margaritas at Trump casinos.
Im not a smoker but I really think Trump should leave this issue alone. If anything let the states decide. This is nothing but a lose lose.
In fact, opiod addiction and overdoses have fallen in States with legal medicinal and/or recreational marijuana. Not that it matters to Big Government Nanny Staters.
I would submit that marijuana is not nearly the gateway to drug abuse that prescription drugs are.
The Feds don’t pay attention to that stuff. If we had the government we have now back in the 30’s, alcohol would still be illegal.
Pro-pot groups thought the Feds would turn a blind eye to the cash cow of Fed fines and property confiscation to promote states’ rights (10A).... I mean, how stoned are you?
Until Congress changes the law, the tenth A argument is moot because the Fed likes power and money more than it likes you and freedom. Any argument against this simple fact is wildly wishful thinking.
If it were my decisions, which it’s not. I would tell congress you have 6 months to change the law or not. But at that time I will enforce the law as written. We are a nation of laws, not wants and emotions.
Feds might want to take a second look at trying to take this away from the states. total taxes & fees collected in just Colorado.
Year-to-Date......Year-to-Date
FY2016-17..........FY2015-16
$127,096,516.....$85,275,371
I agree. I am all for the Trump Administration going after addictive bad drugs such as crack, cocaine, heroin, meth, etc. The best advise I could offer the White House would be treat pot similar to alcohol and ferrget about it.
How is it that outlawing Booze at the federal level required a constitutional amendment to be ratified by a majority of states, but outlawing weed didn’t? I’m not saying either was a good idea or not, just that it’s curious.
No, but states don't have to mirror federal laws. Alaska cannot declare federal drug laws void in Alaska, but Alaska does not have to make marijuana illegal under state law just because Congress has made it illegal under federal law.
Does the federal government have jurisdiction over state drug laws in the first place??
Not over state drug laws, per se, but the Supreme Court held in Gonzales v. Raich (2005) that Congress had the power, under the interstate commerce clause, to ban possession of marijuana within the states, even if that marijuana never crossed a state boundary and even if it was never sold. (Raich grew his own marijuana in California, as permitted by California's medical marijuana law). (Interesting line up of justices in that case--Scalia, Kennedy, Stevens, Ginsburg, Souter and Breyer for the majority; O'Connor, Rehnquist and Thomas dissenting).
Subsequently, Congress, without repealing the federal prohibition on marijuana, passed a budget bill saying that the DEA could not use any of its budgeted funds to prosecute marijuana possession that was legal under state medical marijuana laws. But that budget bill says nothing about recreational marijuana, which is now legal under state law in eight states (Alaska, Washington, Oregon, California, Nevada, New Mexico, Maine and Massachusetts).
Overall, Colorado’s use of alcohol and illicit drugs is much higher than the national average. Charles Smith, the Director of the Behavioral Health Division of the State Department of Human Services, said, “It’s always worrisome when we look at Colorado and other mountain states for substance abuse and serious mental illness.”
According to a 2011 federal survey, 4% of the United States population 12 and older admitted to using any illicit drug – in Colorado, that rate was 11.3%. For further comparison, Iowa’s rate was 5.3%.
4.3% of adult Coloradans seriously considered suicide within the past year, compared to 3.7% of all US adults.
AND 'scripts
The problem is so widespread that recently, Governor John Hickenlooper recently played an active role in launching “Take Meds Seriously”, a public awareness campaign hoping to address prescription medicine abuse.
On average, 35 Coloradans die every month from unintentional prescription drug overdoses
Colorado is #12 in the country for the abuse/misuse of prescription medications
224,000 people in Colorado misuse prescription medications every year
According to the Center for Behavioral Health Statistics and Quality, deaths caused by prescription medication overdoses quadrupled 2000-2011.
2011-2013, 7600 Coloradans were seen in emergency rooms every year because of drug overdoses
86% were because of prescription painkillers
In Colorado, 18-25-year-olds overdose on prescription painkillers twice as often as the rest of the population
4 out of 10 Colorado adults admit to misusing medicine, primarily painkillers
One-third of those do so for recreational purposes Approximately one-third of Colorado citizens admit to using someone else’s prescription
In 2004, only 6% total treatment admissions were for prescription opioids, but by 2013, that percentage had risen to 7.3%.
AND
Robert Vaulk, Coordinator of the Colorado Consortium for Prescription Drug Abuse Prevention, says, “If you start out early, you gradually get to use more and more. And you get more hard-core over years and years. Then you move away from prescription drugs because they’re so hard to get after a while. Then you move to stuff like heroin.”
Among 18-24-year-old Coloradans, there has been a 27% increase in heroin abuse since 2008. In the last four years, heroin deaths in Colorado have tripled. In 2014, there were 151 fatalities due to an overdose of heroin. In 2000, there were only 37. A generation ago, in 1993, 1643 people were admitted to state drug treatment programs for heroin abuse. By 2013, that number had almost tripled, to 4556. In Colorado’s northeast corner, the increase during the same period was more than sixteen-fold, 32 to 524. Focusing on Denver – in 2014, heroin killed more individuals than any other illicit drug.
Finally
Lest anyone think this is made of whole cloth The link that so many here demand as 'proof'- so, here they are.
http://www.drugabuse.gov/about-nida/organization/workgroups-interest-groups-consortia/community-epidemiology-work-group-cewg/meeting-reports/highlights-summaries-january-2014-4
http://www.cpr.org/news/story/chart-colorado-among-states-growing-heroin-prescription-drug-abuse-problem
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27212493/marijuana-use-increases-colorado-according-new-federal-survey
http://www.9news.com/story/news/local/2014/06/29/alcohol-responsible-for-1-in-7-deaths-among-co-adults/11699461/
http://www.denverpost.com/ci_11630146
http://www.cpr.org/news/story/meth-use-colorado-has-police-and-outreach-groups-scrambling
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/03/25/spike-in-heroin-overdoses-prompts-a-closer-look-at-antidote/
http://www.denverpost.com/news/ci_27590433/hickenlooper-effort-targets-prescription-drug-overdoses-colorado
http://mobile.nytimes.com/2014/06/01/us/after-5-months-of-sales-colorado-sees-the-downside-of-a-legal-high.html?referer=
http://denver.cbslocal.com/2014/04/05/a-look-at-heroin-abuse-in-colorado/
Please have a sober weekend.
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