Back in February, we detailed how record numbers of Americans -- although certainly not yet a majority -- support the idea of legalizing marijuana. It turns out that there may be a simple explanation for this: an ever-increasing fraction of Americans have used pot at some point in their lifetimes. The following chart details marijuana usage rates by age as determined from a 2007 survey conducted by the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration:
The peak time for pot usage occurs at or about age 20 -- a period known to most of us as "college" -- before declining fairly rapidly throughout one's 20s and then plateauing from roughly age 30 through age 50.
More important to the policy debate, however, may be the fraction of adults who have used marijuana at any point in their lifetimes. This is a dual-peaked distribution, with one peak occurring among adults who are roughly age 50 now, and would have come of age in the 1970s, and another among adults in their early 20s. Generation X, meanwhile, in spite of its reputation for slackertude, were somewhat less eager consumers of pot than the generations either immediately preceding or proceeding them.
The key feature of this distribution is how rapidly lifetime usage rates decline after about age 55 or so. About half of 55-year-olds have used marijuana at some point in their lives, but only about 20 percent of 65-year-olds have.
There is not, of course, a one-to-one correspondence between having used marijuana and supporting its legalization; one can plausibly support its legalization without having ever inhaled, or vice versa. Nevertheless, I would venture that the correlation is fairly strong, and polls have generally found a fairly strong generation gap when it comes to pot legalization. As members of the Silent Generation are replaced in the electorate by younger voters, who are more likely to have either smoked marijuana themselves or been around those that have, support for legalization is likely to continue to gain momentum.
4.05.2009
Why Marijuana Legalization is Gaining Momentum
@ 7:33 PM
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The reason why I'm first is because the potheads were too stoned to post something before I did.
It, like everything else, is about the $$$. Prostitution should legalized over Marijuana imo.
Never legalize it. Its effects stay with you for years. For instance, I haven't had a spliff for about nine years, yet I just consumed a large pot of yoghurt and three Belgian chocolates at ten to one in the morning.
The steep dropoff around age 65 in the "lifetime use" line represents the era when pot smoking came out of the shadows and swept through the youth culture of the sixties. I grew up in Tucson, and in 1967 marijuana use in high school was so unusual (upper middle class school) that nobody knew what that smell was we went around with on our clothes. After our class (1968) came the deluge, when everybody knew about pot and other drugs and experimentation was widespread.
So those folks who are now 65 or so had already gone through high school and college before drug use became widespread, and saw little reason for getting involved in it after they had established themselves in jobs and with families to support.
I think both pot and prostitution should be legal.
I would like tobacco to be illegal, though. For me, it's not a 'let's legalize every pleasurable diversion' issue. It's more about exploitation-tobacco companies pump stuff into cigarettes to make them more addictive and produce ads targeting people who are easily manipulated-the poor, the young, the uneducated. were it illegal, I'm sure there would be a black market-and I doubt they could afford the labs needed to spike the addictive potential the way Big Tobacco does, and they definitely couldn't afford the advertising and market research.
Pot-it's a weed. Even if you kill every flower you've ever tried to grow in a flower pot, you could grow weed. It's a very hardy plant. If Phillip Morris tries to make $$$ off of pot, they'll have to compete with anyone who can get their hands on a few seeds, some dirt, water, and a sunny balcony. This makes it harder for them to exploit people with it.
As for prostitution, it's inhumane the way we treat sex workers, many of whom are just trying to put food on the table. Bust the pimps, sure, but leave the sex workers alone. If you,re a moralist and you want to keep it away from young eyes, restrict it to the Red Light district, the way we used to down in Storyville.
We're never going to stop the HIV epidemic unless we do so with the cooperation of the three groups that have always been the primary target for HIV, and yet have always been alienated, mistreated, and ignored to death-the gay community, sex workers, and injecting drug users.
Does that mean I want junk to be legal? No, but I'm okay with treating it as a public health issue and not a criminal problem. The jails are overcrowded, let,s open free methadone clinics everywhere and give them something they don't have to inject (and thereby expose themselves to HIV with), something that will let them function.
Cocaine, smack, tobacco, trans fats-ban em all. But leave the potheads, the hookers and the junkies alone.
Could there be a correlation between having smoked pot in ones lifetime and dying young? Not that it explains the obvious drop off, but it may contribute.
Pot is a very easy thing to get public support for, unless the public wholeheartedly supports Ronald Reagan.
Another point--
There's a difference between legalization and rational drug policy. Pushing for legalization of pot is going to stir up all the fundamentalist knotheads, with the result that the fight will go on for years. What is needed is a rational approach to the drug culture. If the wingnuts get all freaked out about legalization, then keep it illegal but reduce the penalties (while raising the taxes on it) and stop trying to go after the "traffickers".
In fact, this is the policy that should be implemented with all recreational drugs that are currently illegal. The age-old interdiction and "just say no" nonsense hasn't had a scrap of effect on the use of drugs in this country, but what it has done is create powerful murderous cartels who bring drugs in from other countries. (It has also fueled most of the crime in this country, and provided well over half the inmates in our prison system, all supported at taxpayer expense.)
So make illegal drug use like income tax evasion. Punish it with fines and probation, and stop pursuing the networks that distribute them. The cost of street drugs will go down, thus the criminality associated with it (e.g. robbery, murder, gang warfare) will virtually disappear, and who knows? Perhaps even drug use will decline in the population.
I did this same exact study a few weeks ago. I was going to tell you but I totally forgot.
Could there be a correlation between having smoked pot in ones lifetime and dying young? Not that it explains the obvious drop off, but it may contribute.
I think it has to do with a little phenomena called THE SIXTIES rather than premature death. Good lord, if it lead to early death, the anti-drug folks would be ALL OVER that. 30 years of searching for clinical evidence of pot's harm and about all they've come up with is a slightly increased risk of schizophrenia and mouth cancer.
I do have to take issue with the y-axis going from 0-60%, though. It's bad form and slightly misleading. I expect more from you, Nate!
You know why pot won't be legal for a long time in America?
Non-potsmokers such as myself aren't likely to put legalization on the ballot, even though I agree with legalization-it simply isn't a huge concern for me, so devoting the time and money toward getting signatures for it and advertising it and advocating for it in public debate-it's not something I'm inclined to do. Sure, I,d sign a petition for it, and I'd vote for it, but I got other issues that do significantly impact my life to spend my cash on, particularly now that I have to defend myself against ballot initiatives attacking my civil rights as a gay person in most states. faced with donating to either Lambda Legal or NORML, I'm going to pick Lambda Legal.
However, alot of potsmokers seem to not be that engaged in politics. I never see anybody gathering signatures for pot, and while I'm on ever liberal advocacy group's mailing list, I never get an action alert asking me to write or call Congress about pot. I get requests for donations from everyone from Sea Shepards to SPLC, and yet I never get anything from NORML or anybody else about pot.
If you don't stand up for yourselves, nobody else will either. You have to get off the couch and get the word out about your issue if you want anyone to care about it. Look, people criticize the gay community all the tiem about how in-your-face we are-but it pays off when the courts recognize our equality, and the only time it doesn't work is when we let up, the way we did in California. That's proof that you have got to bust your ass if you want to be free in this country. We may all be created equal on paper, but freedom only comes easy to the privileged classes. Everyone else has to fight for it.
So put the pipe down long enough to put together a listserv that send out action alerts about legalization. Get out there next to the grocery store and collect some signatures. When I see that you give a shit, I'll give a shit.
If we legalize pot and prostitution we can pay for healthcare - let's do it!
Hopefully one does not have to be a pot head to realize that our current policy is costing us severely.
Drug money supports some pretty nasty elements, that are rapidly becoming much more than just a nuisance along our southern border.
We spend hundreds of $millions a year fighting the drug wars, and $billions incarcerating our citizens on drug related crimes. Many of those that are incarcerated are released as hardened criminals prepared to do us real harm.
If we are going to outlaw recreational drugs, tobacco products should be at the top of the list. More people die from cigarettes than marijuana, alcohol, cocaine, and heroin combined. The cost to society is simply staggering.
Good grief! All President Obama needs is to be linked up with THIS issue -- what, the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, health care reform, etc. weren't enough? This can seriously wait.
Based on this data, Nate, when would you guess federal legalization or decriminalization will be seen? Would a fall off in self-described Christian Evangelicals speed up the process?
of course legalization will be another victory for the conservative/repulbicans.
once again a victory for small government.
once again a victory for capitalism over government control.
once again a victory for indiviual freedom over the government.
While I think this post is pretty fascinating (and logical, as usual), I have to pick a bone with the idea that age 20 is "a period known to most of us 'college.'" Really? Last time I checked (just one link from many), most of us DON'T attend college, unless by "us" Nate means white, middle- and upper-class folks here in the US. This is a bummer of a generalization considering that pot legalization may well significantly benefit underprivileged communities -- where perhaps, if not serving time for trumped-up drug charges, young people would have more opportunity to become part of that "us" who access post-secondary education (perhaps funded in part by taxes on pot?!).
If you're going to trust people to vote for the leader of the Free World, you have to trust adults to make their own decisions about pot, booze, and other harmful substances such as fast food and tobacco. Make all these harmful things legal, with an age limit. Forbid advertising them. And tax them to limit demand.
I would put cocaine in that category as well; from my own personal experience (now decades in the past), it is no more or less harmful than hard liquor, and arguably a lot more fun.
I am 40, I have never done any illegal drugs including pot, but I am firm believer in ending the drug war, thus legalizing all drugs including pot.
It seems obvious to me that much like the 18th Amendment that the drug war isn't working. I would much rather tax and regulate the hell out of drugs and thus put the money in the hands of our government and legitimate enterprises than have drug money go into the hands of black market mafiosos and terrorists in our inner cities, Mexico, Columbia, Afghanistan, etc.
Generation X, meanwhile, in spite of its reputation for slackertude, were somewhat less eager consumers of pot than the generations either immediately preceding or proceeding them.
I disagree with this interpretation. Unlike the 'Past Year' and 'Past Month' series, the 'Lifetime' series doesn't have a uniform denominator. The 'Lifetime' period for someone aged 70 is obviously substantially larger than someone aged 20. If, for example, you randomly distributed marijuana smoking events over a population, the Lifetime line would go up as older cohorts would have had more time (and thus an increased chance) to have such an event.
The upshot is that, I think, all else being equal the natural shape of the Lifetime line is an upslope. The two deviations from that upslope are the steep bump at 20-25 (and you can't just say 'that's college', because presumably the other cohorts had college in their life) and the steep decline at 50+. I think those are your generational effects. Gen X is just sitting on the line quite normally.
Legalize it, tax the hell out of it, use the $$$ to fund treatment centers for those who get themselves into trouble. Put the drug lords out of business, empty the prisons of non violent drug offenders. It's not perfect, but it's a hell of a lot better than the status quo.
A rational discussing of this topic needs to start with why it was made illegal, and what it was used for before that(and just after-the government hypocritically allowed farmers to grow it during ww2 to support the war effort).
Once that is in the open, legalization will be easy.
I think Generation X just saw that episode of Different Strokes with Nancy Reagan. Lucky for me, I was out that night.
"of course legalization will be another victory for the conservative/repulbicans."
Andy R, what? The modern conservative/Republican movement is NOT concerned with smaller government. Please. They want to control how you live your life. It would be a victory for civil libertarians.
SNW,
You are misinformed and more than slightly narcissistic.
There are a lot of local and national marijuana advocacy groups.
Good grief! All President Obama needs is to be linked up with THIS issue -- what, the economy, Iraq, Afghanistan, North Korea, health care reform, etc. weren't enough? This can seriously wait.
Legalizing pot would greatly assist in:
1. health care
2. economy
3. national debt
4. drug research
5. crime reduction and keeping violent offenders locked up
It would not help in minor ways, but in significant ways.
If you legalize all drugs as some seem to want, what do you do with prescription drugs?
Using the same arguments, shouldn't I be able to Plavix or Prozac if I want? Forget the fact that they may produce a side effect (like death) if taken when not needed.
When the US CIA was training, funding, and arming Bin Laden, Afghanistan shot up the list of biggest opium suppler.
Must be a coincidence?
Using the same arguments, shouldn't I be able to Plavix or Prozac if I want? Forget the fact that they may produce a side effect (like death) if taken when not needed.
These are not natural drugs like pot. Prescription drugs are a separate issue. They also are very dangerous to mix and most druggies I know, don't mix.
Besides, you can get a prescription for any drug you want, whenever you want. I am not just talking about people going to Mexico to get reasonably priced American made pharmaceuticals.
beavis,
maybe there are, but I have never seen any of them gathering signatures, I have never once gotten a letter asking me to donate money from one, and I have never gotten an email from one asking me to call Congress and raise hell.
Somehow, liberal orgs from Earthjustice to Stop Mountaintop removal find me and send me stuff. My mailbox is usually full of donation requests, and I get bombarded with emails from all the mailing lists I'm on. None of them, not one, has ever come from a marijuana advocacy group.
How is it that all these environmentalists, pro-choice groups, GLBT rights groups, various unions from SEIU to the IWW all manage to find me and hit me up for cash or somehow get my email and send me stuff asking me to bug Senator Landrieu, and you guys can't?
Narcissistic? Maybe. And you're fucking lazy. The problem is that I can be a narcissist and contribute to meaningful political change, through donations, votes, and raising hell with Congressman Cao and Senators Vitter and Landreiu over the phone (which I do almost daily). You however are going to encounter less success being lazy but meek and humble than I will being narcissistic and active.
I suggest you get over your humble self and find that mailing list that's floating around with my name on it to the various NGOs that spontaneously hit me up for money and votes. You might have more success than you will from macrameing your ass to the sofa until you get the munchies.
Maybe pot does cause short term memory loss. Even so, you can still write the deadlines on the calendar to remind you. If AARP, with all those memory-impaired old grannies can find a way to remind themselves when it's time to raise hell with Congress, your hippie self can do the same.
"These are not natural drugs like pot. Prescription drugs are a separate issue. They also are very dangerous to mix and most druggies I know, don't mix"
That's ridiculous. Anyone who thinks "natural" things are inherently superior to "artificial" things really has no place discussing policy issues involving health or science. Though it's unfortunately true that this Luddism has seeped into government - you can put a certain additive manufactured one way into food and it's "natural flavor"; but a chemically identical substance manufactured in a different way is "artificial."
And no, you can't legally or semi-legally get a prescription for "anything you want." If you could, we wouldn't have a heroin problem, since junkies would all just get morphine prescriptions.
I don't argue my case from the 'natural' stance. Nor do I argue for the legalization of all drugs. You shouldn't make assumptions about what rationale motivates a person to be in favor of an issue.
I am, for example, in favor of marijuana being legal and making tobacco illegal. My rationale doesn't create any cognitive dissonance-it's just not the rationale you idiots are insisting that it must be, because it's the only thing you can think of.
Driving under the influence (NOT alcohol):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IdIdd_MePOk
Still sitting on the fence?
K wrote: "While I think this post is pretty fascinating (and logical, as usual), I have to pick a bone with the idea that age 20 is "a period known to most of us 'college.'" Really? Last time I checked (just one link from many), most of us DON'T attend college, unless by "us" Nate means white, middle- and upper-class folks here in the US. This is a bummer of a generalization."
Um, maybe by "us" Nate means "people reading this post." Presumably he is aware that every single person in the world does not read his every post.
(Incidentally, last I checked, the majority of people now coming of age DO attend at least some college (though last I check, less than half of people in this age group *graduate*). Your link is about 4-year colleges; it ignores community colleges.)
Right. From now on, if you suck at driving, the cop should make you smoke a joint and chill the fuck out before letting you get back behind the wheel.
How exactly is it that the English, who are world famous for being so repressed, are so much more relaxed about life than we are in the States? I mean, you can't touch the queen, but the cops are unarmed and can drink when you're twelve. And they're the repressed ones?
dale, its your body, if you want to screw it up why the hell should I care?
Get the F#(% outta My life, and I'll stay the hell outta yours.
Deal?
believe that if we do decide to legalize marijuana, we will see many benefits:
1 - It will instantly provide a multibillion dollar industry to the united states.
The state that legalizes will experience a big boom in their economy in just a few days.
2 - Medical users could then smoke freely instead of taking pain medicines that are damaging to their health.
3 - Non-medical users that smoke will face less liver-toxicity if they take when they have a headache than eating tylenol.
4 - 30,000 dollars a year is spent to keep a prisoner in prison. More if it is in a federal penetentiary, where several marijuana growers are spending hard time. Legalizing not only will provide an instant gain in the money that it normally costs to keep these people in prison, but will turn them into taxpaying members of society, or hell, maybe even entrepreneurs.
5 - It will reduce many billions of dollars that we spend fighting corruption in the United States caused by the mexican drug cartels, and the drug cartels themselves.
6 - It will reduce the national security concerns of the above as well.
7 - Hemp will be a big industry. Hemp will bring in much more money than other paper sources.
8 - Marijuana is good for the environment. It produces a lot of oxygen, and it is much more quickly grown than pine forests, which face heavy deforestation every year. It is a very renewable source of paper and tough fiber.
9 - It will make the people feel good about their government not intruding on their lives unjustly.
10 - Imagine the sort of coffeeshops, smoke bars, paraphernalia, etc... the peripheral market for marijuana will be amazing.
11 - It will eliminate 60% of the violent mexican drug cartel's funding directly. The other 40%, cocaine, will be significantly reduced due to the virtual death of the black market centering around marijuana.
12 - It will draw people away from alcohol and cigarettes, which are much more dangerous and deadly.
13 - Marijuana is actually carcino-suppressive, cuts your chances of getting lung cancer in half, and is neuro-protective, meaning that people who do drink on marijuana will possibly see less brain damage. Furthermore, as in point 12, who would drink all day when you could smoke weed all day? We may see less people drink alcohol as a result.
14 - It costs 500 dollars every time we arrest someone for Marijuana. That does not take into account all of the maintainence programs, drug rehab programs that we pay for when they are on probation, drug testing, and constant purchasing of equipment meant to find marijuana growers. This will save billions of dollars in legalization.
By the way, everyone should definitely be aware of the health affects of marijuana, and as in the spirit of Nate's diary, stay informed on the facts. Marijuana does not cause lung cancer, is not much safer than alcohol and tobacco, and could generate huge revenues.
In fact, these studies show that MJ is not only cancer free, but can be cancer-suppressive!
http://www.dailykos.com/story/2009/3/26/713472/-Daily-Kos:-Lets-have-an-honest-talk-about-marijuana-(Updated-with-more-stats)
(you can find the individual links at that above link)
The new findings "were against our expectations," said Donald Tashkin of the University of California at Los Angeles, a pulmonologist who has studied marijuana for 30 years.
"We hypothesized that there would be a positive association between marijuana use and lung cancer, and that the association would be more positive with heavier use," he said. "What we found instead was no association at all, and even a suggestion of some protective effect."
According to Ford, he thought he would find an association between marijuana use and cancer, but "that the association would fall away when we corrected for tobacco use. That was not the case. The association was never there."
Marijuana cuts lung cancer tumor growth in half, according to Harvard researchers:
Other studies disproving the Marijuana cancer link:
S. Sidney (September 1997). "Marijuana use and cancer incidence (California, United States)". Cancer Causes and Control 8 (5): 722-728.
J. Huff & P. Chan (October 2000). "Antitumor Effects of THC". Environmental Health Perspectives 108 (10): A442-3.
K.A. Rosenblatt et al. (1 June 2004). "Marijuana Use and Risk of Oral Squamous Cell Carcinoma". Cancer Research 64: 4049-4054.
Parolaro and Massi. 2008. Cannabinoids as a potential new drug therapy for the treatment of gliomas. Expert Reviews of Neurotherapeutics 8: 37-49
Galanti et al. 2007. Delta9-Tetrahydrocannabinol inhibits cell cycle progression by downregulation of E2F1 in human glioblastoma multiforme cells. Acta Oncologica 12: 1-9.
Calatozzolo et al. 2007. Expression of cannabinoid receptors and neurotrophins in human gliomas. Neurological Sciences 28: 304-310.
Ramer and Hinz. 2008. Inhibition of cancer cell invasion by cannabinoids via increased cell expression of tissue inhibitor of matrix metalloproteinases-1. Journal of the National Cancer Institute 100: 59-69.
Preet et al. 2008. Delta9-Tetrahydrocannabinol inhibits epithelial growth factor-induced lung cancer cell migration in vitro as well as its growth and metastasis in vivo. Oncogene 10: 339-346.
AOL,
Speaking of repressed, why is it that you can favor legalizing pot but you can't bring yourself to type the word 'fuck'?
Weill, fuck me, I say screw all you shitty pot mouth and your goddamn cursing. What the fuck is this shit? You can't just go around spouting some cunt shit cock fuck assholish foul language like that! You know what I think? If you curse, well fuck you, you son of a bitch!Who the fuck do you think you are, letting that god fucking dammit mother cock sucking ass wipe language out of your bitch whore cunt mouth?
Fuck cursing,t hat's what I say. What do you think this is, a goddamn free country or something? You think we have some bullshit freedom of motherfucking speech?
I mean, fuck. What the hell do you think this is? America?
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Lovely, yea, lets post links to research so the flat earth folks can attempt to feel some shame.
here is the list:
http://www.icmag.com/ic/showthread.php?p=2235657
Granny Storm Crow's list- 2009
How this list came about-
"If the truth won't do, then something is wrong!"
--snip--
Ok, since this obviously isn't a filtered blog obviously, I'll say it, FUCK YOU ASSHOLE!!
fuck you you fucking Waldorf piece of shit!
ASSHOLE!
"its your body, if you want to screw it up why the hell should I care?"
Fine, but promise not to sue anyone when you ignore warning labels and hurt yourself (or worse). Oh, and make sure you have bunch of money in the bank to take care of yourself when screw up your head. I don't want you on the public dole.
I have noticed A LOT of discussion about legalization of marijuana recently. Everywhere from MSNBC talking heads to editorial pages.
There is a huge amount of cultural buzz surrounding the issue RIGHT NOW. More so than I've ever seen before.
Seeing this post was another example. Legalization is definitely a TREND.
Massachusetts recently decriminalized by popular vote, I believe by more than 60% as well.
I don't smoke weed anymore. It makes me anxious. but I would be happy to stop spending my tax dollars on fighting it and have another revenue source for education military etc.
hey dale, thanks for a civilized reply.
would be interested in you providing reputable evidence of anyone having the effects you describe.
I have never smoked marijuana; but I would vote to legalize it in a heartbeat. While you are at it, pardon every non-violent offender in prison or on probation for pot possession in any quantity.
To add to Nate's discussion, it is a little harder to vote for prison sentences for friends and coworkers you know are productive, working members of society, providing for their wives and children, that happen to toke up instead of get drunk.
The idea is ridiculous. I don't smoke pot or tobacco or use alcohol or psychoactive drugs. But I don't make the mistake of thinking everyone has to be like me; I honestly think some people cannot function without the high. They are self-medicating, in the only way they have found that maintains some semblance of mental health. That does not become my business unless they lose control and turn to assault or robbery or some other victim crime.
PG
The video is pretty funny. That the driver smoked a large joint without sharing it with anybody is a) rude, in a humorous way, and b) a pretty big dose of modern-day marijuana. To me it suggests a degree of habituation consistent with the guy's presumed qualification to take the test.
The obvious comparison has to be with alcohol. You can probably get too stoned and be impaired somewhat as a driver, but as with alcohol, it's a matter of judgement and self-control which everyone deals with differently--though most deal with it successfully. Kids learn how to drink, if they're lucky, without incurring legal penalties for drunk driving or public drunkenness, and one must assume it is the same to some extent with pot.
It's not a black and white issue. Pot can be abused and some people who do it seem to do stupid things, but to severely punish people who do something radically less dangerous than alcohol or tobacco would seem to be wrong on the face of it.
To those who say "why do we need another drug?" I suggest they take it up with a pharmaceutical company and stop persecuting potheads.
dale, I'm only talking about cannabis BTW, Interested in anything you have on that ..
the whole anything goes thing would obviously require a huge overhaul of liability law, and who knows how that would go, but I still would stick with the you do it, you take responsibility ... as long as what you are taking is regulated ... if producers lie, they are responsible of course.
if what you take (say, cigarettes) is documented to kill 2/3 of the people who use it as directed .. well, I would say the producer is responsible.
of course, If you take something that has never killed anyone, and you don't harm anyone, why should you be persecuted?
Its a simple question.
You can abuse just about anything that you can put in your body, except water. It's ridiculous that we spend so much time and money punishing people for using a non-lethal drug. Legalize it, or at least get the feds out of the anti-marijuana business and let the states decide for themselves.
Anthony X makes a lot of good points, but misses an important point in saying "The state that legalizes will experience a big boom in their economy in just a few days."
Many states are at various stages of legalizing pot, including my own state of New Mexico. The problem is the feds, who keep promising to swoop down and arrest everybody who has anything to do with its production or distribution, regardless of what the state law says. Maybe in eight years of an Obama administration and Democratic Congress we may see an end to this nonsense, but I have to agree with another poster who said it's not exactly at the top of the political agenda right now.
> You can abuse just about anything that you can put in your body, except water.
Incorrect! ;)
P.S. That video was pretty funny but, as the video itself points out, ultimately flawed. I think Hu Chi is correct in that this guy's habit probably helped. First time, of only a few times ever, I smoked up there is no way it would have been safe for me to drive. I was giggling like a school girl.
@Dale:
"Using the same arguments, shouldn't I be able to Plavix or Prozac if I want? Forget the fact that they may produce a side effect (like death) if taken when not needed."
Yes. If certain conditions are met (e.g., sane adult), and allowing for certain exceptions (e.g., antibiotics), then in general people should be free to determine for themselves what medications to possess/use. They should also be free, encouraged, and enabled to obtain proper medical supervision rather than behaving foolishly.
Now, the question for you: if the potential risk of death or serious injury (even through misuse) were sufficient cause to outlaw a product or activity--despite voluntary, informed assumption of that risk by a competent adult--what WOULD still be legal? It seems to me that most of what you own and do should be prohibited if "you could hurt yourself with that" were valid reason for prohibition.
Brown,
Yes, you can abuse water too
And it's not just stuff you put into your body-you can abuse yourself by gambling excessively, getting addicted to credit card debt, becoming an obsessive pack rat-all of these things.
Now, there are a few things that are even more addictive because of some chemical inside of them-like cocaine for instance. I tried it, I'll admit. Just once, though-because as soon as I had one line, i wanted more-wound up combing the carpet for anything white and particle like that might have been spilled coke. If something can do that to you the first time you try it, there's some kinda addictive chemical inside it that goes way beyond habitual addictions like gambling.
Now, marijuana, as far as the medical lit seems to indicate, is not addictive,any more than a behavioral addiction like gambling is.
Which is why I favor it's legalization but not cocaine's. You can exploit someone with cocaine-get em hooked and milk em for all you can get out of em. Pot? If I handed you a joint and then tried to do the same thing to you like with the coke, you'd probably tell me to go fuck off.
It's not about abusing your body to me. You can't really stop someone from hurting themselves, because there are so many gazillions of ways to destroy yourself. If creative self-destruction is your thing, you don,t need dope to do it. Jackson Pollack did it with a booze, Brando did it with food, John Holmes fucked himself to death. Laws against self-harm are the most ridiculous laws there are. The law banning suicide, for example, is the only law they can enforce if you try but fail, but cannot enforce if you succeed.
No, to me the crime lies not with the user but the provider of the substance. The dealer does harm by introducing the junkie to smack. The junkie himself is doing harm only to himself. The teenage smoker isn't criminally liable-but the shopkeeper and the tobacco company ought to be.
Like I said, though-pot's not a chemically addictive substance. That extra hook isn't there. So there's no crime being done by it's introduction-the user can, after all, walk away from it as easily as he could from legal activity such as gambling or food sex. Any chemical imbalance int he suer's brain that hooks him independent of the drug itself will manifest itself in other obsessions/compulsions, proving the lack of crime involved in providing pot to that user.
I draw the line with brains that are still growing-so legal adults only, folks. Beyond that, it's your brain.
Pot should definitely be legal. It's far less dangerous to users (and producers) than alcohol. The main reason it was outlawed in the first place was a corporate dispute over paper manufacturing, featuring William Randolph Hearst, who'd just invested heavily in wood-pulp paper manufacturing. The outlawing of marijuana had a lot to do with the shutting down of hemp paper manufacturing.
It is time to undo the Gordian Knot of prohibition and 1) legalize the use of hemp for fiber. Clothes, paper, seedoil, and the like could be made from the excellent renewable resource of hemp--and hemp for fiber isn't even smokable. 2) It is time to legalize, regulate, and tax, marijuana as a recreational substance, just like alcohol.
I remember a time when pro-legalization advocates met in Lafayette Park, across from the Whitehouse, and smoke up joints, bongs, and whatever before heading down the Lincoln Memorial for the 4th of July festivities. The "4th of July Smoke-in," as it was called, was a grand exercise in civil disobedience in response to outdated, Prohibition-era law.
Whether or not you smoke the stuff, it's time to recognize that smoking pot should not be a crime. Rather, growing hemp should be a taxable, legitimate enterprise. The results of legalization would include increased revenue, a better use of policing resources, a halt to federal conflict with state law, and a generally happier electorate. On both sides of the aisle. For every hippy you hold up who smokes pot, I can give you at least one redneck who does, too. This is an equal-party issue.
Yours,
J.
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When 50-60% have smoked and >7% are regular users for most age groups, almost everyone knows a user. I don't use: I have legal vices, but I know enough people who smoke pot to realize that their drug use poses little risk to the general public.
The only problem I see is driving under the influence and the lack of a quick test to determine if someone is too high to drive. That said, I prefer to drive with someone smoking than someone drinking.
I know it ruins the alliteration, but shouldn't it be "succeeding" instead of "proceeding"?
I think it's interesting that 4 year olds and 71 year olds have the same likelyhood of having smoked pot in their lifetimes.
SNW:
If tobacco is banned, it will turn into a crime problem as well, just as alcohol did during Prohibition. I think the best policy is to de-criminalize all these substances and treat them all as health issues.
Unfortunately, any politician who wants to de-criminalize drugs will be attacked by an extremely vocal minority as being "soft on crime". This will end his/her career for elective politics. My belief is that approval for de-criminalization will have to be substantially above 50% in order to fend that off; and it has not yet reached even 50%. So it will be awhile...
Dwight
When you got high (back in the day), did you think "Oh wow, I bet I'm a great driver now"? Probably not. More likely you thought "Jeez am I high!" and wouldn't have been likely to even try to drive.
That's one difference between marijuana and alcohol. As the driver in the video points out, he's "paranoid" enough to take driving more seriously than he otherwise might, and is able to deal with it. The word "paranoid" is probably an exaggeration in his case, but what he means is that he's well aware that he's altered his state of consciousness and thus (successfully) devotes more attention to a task that most people do more automatically. Alcohol drinkers think they are great drivers already.
Paul
Something like a field sobriety test should suffice for drivers suspected of being too high to drive. Potheads are at an extreme disadvantage when it comes to drug testing because THC is detectable in the system for weeks after using it, long after any measurable effects are gone. Drunk drivers must be tested immediately since alcohol leaves the body within hours.
California should by now have some pretty good records of driving infractions committed by people with medical marijuana cards. I would speculate that the records don't show anything too dramatic.
Incidentally, consider what would happen if you asked a non-cigarette-smoker to smoke a cigarette and then drive a car. No way. I'll bet not one in ten could walk a straight line after that. Many would be vomiting.
Tolerance is a big issue here, in both senses of the word.
Let's not forget that a lot of stoned driving and drunk driving happens because teenagers are allowed to drive but not to drink or smoke pot, so their cars are the only places where they can do it without being observed. That's true of sex as well, obviously.
Each of these three illicit pursuits calls for a different answer, IMHO.
Alcohol needs a more European approach, so kids understand how to use it properly by the time they're set loose to see for themselves.
Sex is a matter of education as well, though perhaps not of the hands-on, Monty Python and the Meaning of Life sort. My assumption is that sex needs to be talked about from an early age and that once the urge is strong enough, ethics, safety and contraception are of primary importance.
Unlike alcohol, which is often consumed in modest amounts by relatively young Euro kids at home, I believe marijuana is a more idiosyncratic choice that is better handled somewhat later. A thirteen year old having a glass of wine bothers me not at all, but the same kid smoking pot seems inappropriate.
Exactly what form of legalization are you guys thinking of? Clearly you're implying that it shouldn't just be a free for all... somehow it should be taxed and regulated. Well, if its taxed and regulated then you would expect a big price rise from the 'legal' growers. After all, now they'll have to be inspected, follow a set of health and safety rules, probably take out insurance for when someone sues them for the effects, and pay tax on the whole thing. And that's assuming that there isn't some kind of duty to be paid (which there certainly would be in the UK or Europe). Will people be willing to pay more for 'legal' pot?
I think any move to legalize pot needs to happen very carefully. It was decriminalised here in the UK about 10 years ago. The problem being that the pot that is available now is much stronger than when it was decriminalized.
Another problem is that the main growth area of pot usage has been in teenage groups. And there are scientific studies that show that pot usage before about 15 years old can lead to neurological and psychological problems. So I wouldn't go hog wild for legalization just yet, without thinking about how it is done.
If the federal government would declare this to be a states rights issue then there would definitely be states where it would be legal, and those states would probably get pot tourists from neighboring states, and the neighbors would eventually legalize it as it became familiar and so on.
@Statler:
The human brain isn't mature until the age of 22-24. At the age of 18, legal adulthood, it is still re-organizing and undergoing the last great myelin sheathing (doubles signal speed on neural fibers).
If you are opposed to drugs interfering with brain maturation (as it does), "legal adult" is a poor standard. Same goes for alcohol consumption; 21 is too low an age. But the chances we will change those ages is essentially zero.
In the last great myelinization, the sexual and emtional centers get super-charged first and the hormones flood for physical sexual maturation. The frontal cortex maturation, the site of rational thinking lags several years behind.
This is why teens are irrational, rebellious, constantly in love and in mating mode. It is an evolutionary drunkenness, the evolved strategy seems to be to suppress rationality to aid reproduction, and then let rationality re-assert itself to improve your chances of raising those kids to maturity.
Of course, this irrational, emotional, combative and for males testosterone and growth hormone fueled interregnum is the perfect time to recruit soldiers.
The military refused to give that up, and that is what forced the legal adulthood age to 18. It is not based on any kind of science.
Now I was myself enlisted military at 18, for two years, and I am not saying there are no rational reasons to join up. But if the minimum age for joining was 22, I think the military would have about 1/4 as many enlisted volunteers.
@Duncan:
Will people be willing to pay more for "legal" pot?
I have no survey but I would guess by anecdotal experience, hell yes.
I know professionals that smoke pot now and would pay double or triple to eliminate the risk of being randomly busted for marijuana possession.
Addictive substances create markets in which the simplistic supply and demand lines do not apply. Customers will find the lowest price, but higher prices will not change their demand. Addiction drives them to give up other things rather than their drug, including food and shelter. Or to commit crimes or engage in prostitution.
Statler is wrong, pot is an addictive substance, about as addictive as tobacco. Not as addictive as heroin or cocaine or alcohol.
But tobacco is the instructive model; my older sister smokes two packs a day, and she did when they were $2 a pack, and she does when they are $6 a pack, and she will if they are $10 a pack or $20 a pack. She has tried five ways to quit (for her health, she doesn't need the money) and cannot.
If pot is legalized I expect it to follow the cigarette industry, more or less. A difference is that pot really is a weed and can grow almost anywhere with little care; seeds dropped on the ground can thrive. So I'd expect a rather wide home industry of backyard pot gardens, or indoor varieties.
Debaters debate the two wars as if Nixon’s civil war on Woodstock Nation did not yet run amok. The witch-hunt against the half-a-million strong witches assembled in August 1969 hasn’t been, and can’t be, good for America, the world-leader in percentile behind bars. If we are all about spreading liberty abroad, then why mix the message at home? Peace on the home front would enhance credibility.
Stop throwing good money after bad. The witch-hunt doctor’s Rx is for every bust to numerate a bigger tax-load over a smaller denominator of payers. Spend more on prisons than on schools. My witch’s second opinion is to grow your own. More consumer discretionary dollars will stimulate the rest of the economy when they are not depleted by prohibition’s black market.
Only a clause about interstate commerce provides a shred of constitutionality. The commerce policy on the number-one cash crop in the land is no taxation; yes eradication. But money to frustrate enforcement grows on trees. Did the authors of the Constitution intend to divert Treasury revenue to outlaws? America rejected prohibition, but its back. Swat teams don’t seem to need no stinking amendment.
The demonized substances never had their day in court. Nixon promised to supply supporting evidence later. Later, the Commission evidence didn’t support, but no matter. The witch-hunt was on. No amendments can assure due-process under an anti-science law that never had any due-process itself. Science hailed LSD as a drug with breakthrough potential, until the CSA (Controlled Substances Act of 1970) halted all research. Marijuana has no medical use, period. Lives are flushed down expensive tubes.
The RFRA (Religious Freedom Restoration Act of 1993) makes an exception to the CSA, allowing Native American Church members to eat peyote. A specific church membership should not be prerequisite for Americans to obtain their birthright freedom of religion. Denial of entheogen sacrament to any American, for mediation of communion twixt the soul and the source of souls, violates the First Amendment.
Freedom of speech presupposes freedom of thought. The Constitution doesn’t enumerate a governmental power to embargo diverse states of mind. How and when did government usurp this power to coerce conformity? Legislators who would limit cognitive liberty lack jurisdiction.
Common Law must hold that the people are the legal owners of their own bodies. Socrates advocates knowing your self. Mortal law should not presume to thwart the intelligent design that molecular keys unlock spiritual doors. Those who appreciate their own free choice of personal path in life should not deny self-exploration to seekers. The right to the pursuit of happiness is supposed to be inalienable by government.
Simple majorities in each house could put repeal of the CSA on the president’s desk. The books have ample law on them without the CSA. Americans are already liable for damages when they screw-up. The usual caveats remain in effect. Strong medicine requires prescription. Employees can be fired for poor job performance. No harm, no foul; and no excuse, either. Replace the war on drugs with a frugal, constitutional, science-based drugs policy.
@Tony C
Two points - I would expect there to be significant price elasticity here. Raising tobacco prices has been a significant tool in various Government's anti-smoking campaigns, so there should be plenty of data for that "much more addictive" substance.
Secondly, I suspect that many of the illegal producers - not the mom and pop ones, but the seriously nasty folks - would see a legal market as more of an opportunity, not less of one. They would continue to produce and undercut the legal stuff - this happens in Europe where there is a huge market in smuggled tobacco!
@PorridgeGun
Just because driving and smoking up is a retarded concept does not mean it should be illegal to smoke up. It just means it should be illegal to DRIVE and smoke up. Just like it is illegal to drink and drive, but legal to drink alcohol - even though drinking without driving has harmful effects in its own right.
Last month the Economist weighed in for legalisation:
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13237193
http://www.economist.com/opinion/displaystory.cfm?story_id=13234157
Well worth a read for those of you not put off by the magazine's free-market ideology.
Antimonian's argument is perhaps the best argument for criminalization (which I oppose). A few flashes of lucidity but, overall, an incoherent set of arguments that are hard to follow and don't appear to flow logically.
In other words, a brain that shows damage from repeated use of tetrahydrocannabinol.
I think there's a major thing this analysis leaves out: press coverage of the drug war in Mexico.
I don't smoke and never have, but it seems like once or twice a week I hear about the hundreds of murders in Juarez and other cities in Mexico. All other arguments be damned, all this violence is almost directly our fault.
It's not like violence in some impoverished African country where our affects are indirect if they exist at all and my biggest guilt is not advocating it enough. Drug violence in Mexico is there specifically to satisfy the huge demand for marijuana in the US. The more the media covers this, the more sympathetic I am towards legalization.
Duncan, I don't think legalization would push the price up. Black market prices are very much inflated by the associated risk. There would be costs associated with regulated production, but they would pale in comparison to the cost associated with producing and distributing something an army of law enforcement agents were trying to stop you from producing and distributing. To a large extent, I think the production of stronger and stronger marijuana could be a byproduct of the fact that it's easier to smuggle and distribute a smaller amount of really potent drugs than a larger amount of weaker drugs. At any rate, with legalization, people could choose from a range of freely available products, rather than just taking whatever their dealer has for them.
And marijuana is much less physically addictive than tobacco, for whoever said that. It's only recently that people have scientifically demonstrated symptoms of physical dependency at all--for quite a while pot wasn't considered physically addictive among substance abuse treatment professionals. It's now known that it can be, for some people, but it appears that far fewer people are susceptible to that addiction than to nicotine addiction.
Obama is the most polarizing figure in recent pres history! Hmmmm, anyone else think this can be accounted for by the hate machine on the right, and the fact that only people still identifying as repubs are whipsaw crazy or southerners (or both).
http://www.politico.com/politico44/perm/0409/partisan_gap_9d8a6152-f6e9-4a1c-a684-03b1e3f99bfd.html
What is the cost of pot today? I just have absolutly no idea...
At the older end...
I'm spotting a trend of past users resuming on retirement, now that they need no longer fear workplace urine tests.
Went to see Shamikia Cop;eland's blues show a couple weeks ago, and was approached by 3 who hadn't used in 9, 13, and 23 years respectively, all asking for a turnon.
Dave-
I could not agree more - the entire push to put users in jail has helped ruin entire segments of the population. We need rational drug laws, badly.
About the price thing.
It's also important to realize that if pot is legalized and taxed and government-regulated, the regulators would not be able to set the price too high. If they did set weed prices considerably higher than the cost it is to get from a dealer/pusher, then the dealer still has a viable business, and the black market for it would still be relatively strong.
If the goal of legalizing pot is to, in some form, eliminate this black market (which is often used as the main imperative for doing so) then the regulators would have to make sure they keep prices low enough so people don't think getting the illegal stuff for cheaper is better than buying the legal, more-expensive, goverment (or corporate) ganja.
for example, if I can get 5 grams of marijuana from a pusher for <$50, would I really be willing to buy the same amount legally for $100+? Of course, some price increases are expected, but the regulators would have to be very careful not to go too far.
@Dave:
The one-liner is pretty simple; do what you want that doesn't endanger others, and when you start endangering others we will start limiting or controlling your consumption.
It isn't a bumper sticker, but that is essentially the message for alcohol and tobacco, isn't it?
Also I was wrong to say pot was as addictive as tobacco, it isn't a physical dependency like that. But I do have relatives that seem pretty firmly psychologically dependent upon it.
For all of you people who are playing on the "short-term memory, I forgot" pot prohibition culuter....
I'd like you all to have 3 margaritas in about an hour (or 3 strong drinks of some kind) and then see how good your memory is.
Yeah, no comparison is there?
Too bad so many people are depending on cannabis remaining illegal (Judges, Lawyers, Prisons for Profit, DEA Agents, and of course the Pharmacuetical Industry). Yeah, that's what Americans are up against - Big Corporate Brother.
@Duncan
Prohibition greatly escalates the costs of production and distribution.
Most domestic weed today is produced indoors under artificial lighting. In a post-prohibition environment this will move outdoors, using sunlight.
I could grow 50 pounds a year in my backyard, with a total of perhaps 30 hours labor. The same quantity indoors would involve 1,000 hours of labor, $3,000 in capital costs, $2,000 in electric bills, and rent.
Most compelling reasons are economic:
1) some $150 B yr currently spent enforcing marijuana laws;
2) immediately makes an underground industry of ($100 B ?) part of the taxable economy;
3) more suitable regulation -- police can focus on public safety aspects -- DWI etc.; prohibit minors from possession;
4) resources better directed toward medical information ( a la drinking, smoking, diet education);
5) removes a huge revenue source from organized crime.
---------
I match the survey profile (peak usage in teens/20s; have had a joint in the last 25 years)
Let us pursue decriminalization. Cost/benefit of he current system is out of balance.
What is the biggest difference between a drunk and a stoner?
The drunk will run a stop sign, while the stoner will sit and wait for it to turn green (so he can smoke it?)!
I support legalization of pot, but I have seen the effects pot has on people who smoke it to excess. To me, it ruins their ability to be taken seriously. If you want to rise to the top, you can't sound like stoner.
I've used pot, and it's ok. I don't have any interest in using it again and my peak use was in college unsurprisingly, but my alcohol consumption was much higher in college as well.
What I never understood was reckless drunk driving. Shamefully, I have driven while heavily buzzed but knowing the state I was in, I drove extremely cautiously. I'm not sure if I was in a correct state to judge, but I was pretty confident my awareness and driving skills were about normal, but I had to put my full concentration into it, which was easy because I was so paranoid.
I've never driven trashed and would never allow myself to do so, so maybe that's where the problem lies with drunk drivers.
The price of cannabis as obtained from a legal California dispensary is pegged to the street price for the same quantity and quality for a pair of reasons:
1) The dispensary is typically not able to grow their own supply and is dependent on outside vendors, and those vendors, regardless of the 'nice talk' about growing only for patients, always has the opportunity to sell their product through 'other channels'. So the price they charge the dispensary is roughly the same as they charge on the street, of course the dispensary is able to purchase in bulk - roughly $3,000 per lb, and then they in turn sell it for about $50 per 1/8 oz. That's a $3,400 per lb gross margin; they do have rent to pay and taxes.
2) Even is the dispensary is able to grow their own and sell it for less than the going 'street rate', they do not wish for that product to be diverted to non-patients, and so they sell the product at the same price as you may get it on a street corner. Bear in mind the dispensary is not (so much as the street corner) a fly-by-night operation - they have a reputation to maintain - so as a purchaser, you are safer purchasing through a dispensary in terms of the consistency, quality (and even quantity) of the product.
Now obviously, if a patient is able to scatter a few seeds in a sunny location of their yard, or convince a neighbor who may be in better health, to grow some, there is no money involved at all.
I equate it to home brewing. If you're doing it for yourself and friends and not selling it around, what's the harm?
I think it's pretty much inevitable that pot will be legalized sometime in the next 20 years. Not only is use widespread among young people, but it is very widespread among educated young people. I'm a college-educated guy in my mid-20s and that distribution seems right to me, except nearly everyone I know has smoked, most of them smoked regularly for a time (usually college), and many of those continue to smoke into young adulthood. These are professional, educated, well-informed people with good jobs, relaxing with an occasional joint on the weekend - I wouldn't call them "potheads" any more than I'd call them "alcoholics" because they like to have a drink sometimes, too. Fact is, for many twentysomethings these days, smoking a bit of pot is not materially different from having a couple of beers. It's a mildly mind-altering leisure activity consumed safely and in moderation.
That's not to say that pot can't be abused - it can. But most cases I've seen of abuse seem to be the product of circumstance, and when the circumstance changes, the abuse fades rather quickly. It's certainly much easier to kick a pot habit than a tobacco habit.
As for driving, driving while stoned is dangerous and should not be allowed. It's less dangerous than driving drunk, though.
Dwight
When you got high (back in the day), did you think "Oh wow, I bet I'm a great driver now"? Probably not. More likely you thought "Jeez am I high!" and wouldn't have been likely to even try to drive.
I guess it's fair to say driving didn't occur to me at all. What I was thinking was "ha, ha, ha". :) There is certainly usually a "risk taking" aspect to an alcohol high. Although there can be a breakdown with inhibition with pot too, it doesn't seem off to suggest it isn't one that would encourage people to go out and drive and drive fast.
The guy did mention that he felt things going slower, which is interesting. As long as the reaction to that is not "go faster" then it's OK. A agree with alcohol judgement is distorted in another way, you don't notice or don't even care about whether it is faster or slower.
Now what would happen when you smoked a LOT of pot, that's a bit more of a question. As well pot seems to have much more variable effects. For example some people they feel no effect at all the first X number of times they have some. Almost as though there is some sort of loading dose effect in play.
This whole issue will revolve around medical use of marijuana. Those politicians with brains enough to see that the prohibition is causing the problem are (will) rapidly legislate medical use.
Legislating medical use is not about medical use. It is about culture change and acceptance and slowly getting the public used to operations like Oakland and other cities who evolve from true medical use, requiring a prescription, to more liberal interpretations which allow someone to sign a document that that they are ill and marijuana is necessary to ease their symptoms, to open marijuana stores.
All of this without the Feds formally legalizing marijuana but instead providing the basis for future legislation that will be based on something like, "well we already have 750,000 using it and buying it from stores so why not just legalize it?"
This is what will happen and what is happening right now. Keep your news eyes peeled for stories about medical marijuana. Everything will turn out all right.
Ron,
My problem with going backdoor like that is that it'll create an overly "it's for bettering your health and fitness" that isn't accurate in the general sense. Although there are a number of uses where it is clearly a net positive, it comes with some obvious drawbacks. Overall in the general public it seems extremely unlikely it is a net benefit for health.
Although I suspect the "it's healthy for you" misinformation is somewhat enivitable (as per the history of other vices and even some current talk around pot) I'd rather not take a route that maximized that.
Taxed and regulated... If you grow carrots in your back yard, or brew beer in your garage, should you send some cash into the government? Rigggghhhhtttttt.
This a fascinating survey. As a 44 year old daily user of marijuana (I first tried it when I was 14)who has tried a variety of drugs I have a few observations:
1) I personally find it to be very therapeutic. I suspect that's because it's one of the few drugs (illicit or otherwise) that raises serotonin levels. And unlike halucinogens it does not appear to damage serotonin receptors. For example, whenever I've been without it I am much more likely to drink alcohol and that's much much more detrimental to your physical and mental health.
2) Despite it's slacker connotations, there are a lot of very successful potheads out there. But because of its legal status they are very unlikely to reveal it. I myself went back to school in 2005 (I had been a high school mathematics teacher) and picked up a second BA (with a 3.92 average), an MA and am now finishing a PhD in economics. I'm a university instructor and very few of my students know or suspect that I am a daily user.
3) I can attest to the fact that the cohort that preceded me, those who graduated from high school from 1977 through 1980, were perhaps the most likely to pick it up and use it regularly. "That Seventies Show" captures the widespread drug culture of that era pretty accurately. Later cohorts were less likely to pick it up as Reagan and "Just Say No" swept the country. It's not supprising that those who are in their early thirties are the least likly to have ever used it among those between 20 and 55 since they were about 20 the year the Republicans took control of congress.
4) Although regular use falls off dramatically by the age of 30, there is a subgroup of users (such as myself) who seem to keep using for the rest of their lives. I remember a 1980 TV movie based on an Ursula Le Guin novel called "The Lathe of Heaven." It was set in 2002 and in one scene the main character had marijuana tea with his grandmotherly landlord. It was amusing to think that someday senior citizens would be regular users but judging from this study that is finally about to pass. And when a significant minority of grandmothers (and grandfathers) are using it regularly maybe it's time we finally legalize it.
Marijuana legalization will not happen until the people most directly affected by it get off their ass and push for legalization.
Go to the NORML website and compare it to the Defenders of Wildlife website. A few differences hit you right off the bat. One is that you can sign up for 'action alerts' over at the DOW- they'll send you an email when something comes before Congress or the President they need you to raise hell about. NORML? No action alerts. DOW will send you an email telling you there's a protest rally or a guest speaker taking place in your town. NORML? No protest or speaker invites.
I have seen DOW volunteers at the Rouses' grocery near my home, gathering signatures for ballot proposals. I have never seen NORML anywhere gathering signatures for anything.
DOW is much smaller than NORML. But they get shit done. NORML, on the other hand, talks about getting shit done.
Time to stop talking and get busy. If a scrappy little environmentalist group nobody,s ever heard of can pass legislation and your bloated budget advocacy group can't, you're doing it wrong.
Grant, the taxed and regulated thing can work in some ways and can't in others. Anybody can grow pot- a serial plant killer could grow a pot plant. I've found it growing in roadside ditches next tot he Crescent City Connection, and people dump garbage out of their car windows into those gutters. If this hardy little plant can survive a regular onslaught of still burning cigarette butts, beer, and decaying fast food/junk food with the accompanying wrappers, you'd have to really work at it to kill a marijuana plant.
And it's real hard to tax something anybody can grow in a flower pot.
On the other hand, if I were (and I'm not) a marijuana consumer and decided that I wanted pure pot, without any kinda additives or what have you, I'd be inclined to buy pot from the store rather than some shady bastard on a street corner. That stuff you can tax and regulate.
The Defenders of Wildlife Website offers you quick and easy tolls to raise hell with Congress All you gotta do is enter your name and addy and click 'send' to your Congressman and Senators-takes about a minute and a half, real convenient.
NORML does offer news article links, but that's all it offers They don't even ask you to do anything. There's nothing anywhere on the website that says, Okay, go bug your Senators to introduce this bill', or 'Tell the DHHS to treat drugs like a public health problem and not a criminal problem'. Nothing. They literally don't ask you to do anything at all.
That's the problem. You have to do something. Just whinging on annoyingly about how unjust it is without making an effort to change anything doesn't solve much. At least make it easy for your supporters to go to bat for you. Redesign your website so a person can quickly and easily contact Congress on your behalf the way the Defenders do.
Why should we care what those people who didn't go to college think? Assuming you are old enough to go, and with all the different schools you can attend and financial help you can get to go to school, why should we give a hoot what people who felt 18 was a good time to stop lurnin' think about issues?
so yes, early 20s = college years for the people we give a damn about.
I've got to think that the illegality of marijuana in the USA is a major artifical hurdle that prevents local growers from farming it, and that if there were no threat of fines or jail, agribusiness would quickly drive the cost of marijuana down to the price of lettuce or cucumbers, and it would be just as plentiful.
As Statler notes and I have seen myself, weed grows anywhere and would be a perfect fit for marginal land that lies fallow. Or as an interim crop between other cash crops, or in recovery fields, or whatever. I'm not a farmer, but I imagine even if it were selling at the price of lettuce, they would still plant it, harvest it, bale it and sell it.
@Duncan:
First of all, yes we cannabis users would be happy to pay a little more to carry out our hobby legally. I wouldn't even think twice about that one.
Secondly, it is by no means a certainty that prices would increase if legalization were to occur. Black market prices are notoriously inflated; the end customers are left to pay for the risks that the production chain incurs. Marijuana is surprisingly cheap and easy to produce; almost every dime of the price of a bag of grass can be attributed to its illegal status.
I think that, most likely, a taxation structure would be set up resulting in prices similar to those paid for high grade herb today.
Once Marijuana is legalized, almost anyone could grow it. The difference between growing tobacco and MJ is night and day. (It is clear that no one on this blog has ever grown tobacco.) Even the difference between truck garden crops and MJ is different with MJ being much easier to grow since it will thrive anywhere.
I suspect that once it is legal you will see more varieties and more specialty MJ grown by farmers and a huge market for those who would never be inclined to grow anything. Also, if history is precedent, you will be allowed to grow a certain amount a year for personal consumption and the big growers would have to pay tax.
So Nate, with this data by age plus the results from various state measures you should be able to model how rapidly support for decriminalization is growing, and when we would reach the tipping point. If we have data for pot usage by state and age, you should be able to give us the same kind of results you just did for gay marriage.
How about it?
What?? Pot is illegal? No way dude, tell me it aint so!
RT
www.anon-tools.cz.tc
Dwight I have no illusions about medical marijuana being "for bettering your health and fitness" and I seriously doubt it will evolve into that sort of public thinking.
As one who does not smoke it, but seriously wants it to be legalized, medical marijuana clinics are a good first step to "back door" it as you say. If I thought "front dooring" it would work (which I don't) I would petition my congressman.
Just keep an eye on state "medical marijuana" legislation over the next year or so.
A lot of social science data show that the loosening or tightening of restrictions on controlled substances correlates with race. Marijuana became a "bad" drug once it became associated with Latinos and blacks, but it is becoming more accepted as whites use and promote its usage more. The same type of data exist in other context, and it applies to formal criminalization and to policies short of decriminalization such as arrest, prosecution and alternative sentencing.
Ron,
Oh it does better your health, if you have a legitimate medical condition that can be helped by pot. HIV and glaucoma, for example.
Most of the people advocating for it are not HIV+ or suffering from glaucoma. I have no illusions about that point. They are nonetheless that it does have legitimate medical applications.
The thing of it is, I wish this weren't a back door issue, because I have friends who are HIV+, and it really sucks to see them suffer. I know that alot of the 'cannabis clubs' out there in CA are really open air pot markets. I've heard the stories about people faking medical conditions to get a scrip for it. I wish people weren't using my friends as an excuse to get high.
I have no problem with recreational users. I just don't like seeing people using my freinds' bodies as weapons in their conflicts over legalization.
I would like to see medical marijuana sold through a regular pharmacy, not a cannabis club-and if the docs are writing phony scrips, bust em the same way you would for writing phony scrips for Oxycontin.
Back door politics is dirty, nasty, and it exploits innocent people. Use the front door- there are plenty of us that will support you if you do things ethically.
Non-pot smokers can no longer afford to believe that they have no stake in this issue. Municipalities all over the country are talking about laying of teachers and other essential personnel but somehow we can afford to keep throwing good money after bad on the drug war. When our society is more invested in building prisons than investing in education we are all in deep trouble.
I'm an ex-cop, I do not do drugs and I've seen first hand that Drug prohibition doesn't work. www.djheavyd.com
Republican, church-going Mormon here, never smoked pot, never will. But I, too, think it should be LEGAL. Stop wasting money on incarcerating petty dealers, and start taxing the stuff so we can afford health programs and educational programs to handle the people who are already using it anyway.
At the same time I think DUI should be punished MUCH more severely.
Dwight I have no illusions about medical marijuana being "for bettering your health and fitness" and I seriously doubt it will evolve into that sort of public thinking.
I really wish I had a link handy for this, and maybe Nate's has seen gathered data and has better access to it, but I I'm pretty sure I've seen some evidence that it's already occuring.
To be clear I'm not talking about reasoned and reasonable understanding, I'm talking about myths that spring up around the rationalizing process that gets us from "medical use" to accepting "general use".
Anyway, without the data on hand (other than paging through magazines like High Times, especially letters to the editor sections ... just try it :) ) I'll just say that it is a concern of mine and leave it at that.
obviously, Doritos & Corn Pops are driving the research behind this data. Legalization = a windfall for the snack industry.
@Waldorf: As a recreational marijuana user, I completely agree with your point about exploiting the medical situation toward recreational ends. Medicinal use is a person with HIV smoking so he can hold some food down. It's not some guy who told a doctor he sometimes has trouble sleeping buying a bag and sitting down with the Family Guy DVDs.
The problem, of course, is that prohibition of recreational use will inevitably lead to users illicitly obtaining the substance through any means necessary. This will include medicinal marijuana avenues as readily as typical underground markets.
Medical advocates sometimes consider recreational use to be unimportant. From one standpoint that makes sense, since legitimate medical concerns are much more important than getting high. Still though, without legalization of recreational use, it's clear that any medicinal provision will be abused and misused, which truly is a sad thing.
Marijuana is one thing and Hemp is another.
While I agree that both should have their place place in society (as they have for the last 5,000 years), the economic outcome is profound.
Medical and recreational marijuana could challenge certain pharma industries and bring much tourism to the U.S, creating a maultitude of lateral markets and government revenues/savings.
Hemp would challenge a multitude of other industries. Hemp is the second strongest fibre we know of, providing superior quality in clothing, paper, building materials (no need for steel or concrete), hemp seed oil (highest protein in any cooking/food oil), superior bio-fuel, twine/rope and any other use we can think of.
It is no wonder people of position have outlawed the product, demonized it and only allowed government research to dictate minds via controlled and subjective research. It challenges the entire economic system they have put in place.
We would have to restructure our economy as we know it. The mere drop in consumption of certain markets and less frequent purchasing patterns, due to longer lasting and more durable products; would enrage many inefficient corporate giants. The creation of jobs and subsequent revenues however, can outweigh the restrucuring cost(s) and eventual improvement of its utility (via R&D and the learning curve) would have a phenomenal potential.
My simple mind simply cannot be swayed to come to any other conclusion and as a university graduate with a background in organic chemistry and an MBA, I simply see the opportunity/gain, outweighing the risk.
Hey, the declaration of independance is written on hemp and our forefathers grew the stuff! You should have the freedom to choose here.
so many people are having trouble with the police from marijuana growing from seed being brought onto yheir properties by weather,birds,animals and who knows what and then there even has been other plants being mistaken for marijuana an d when proven different the police have been known to get hostile and will still insist marijuana was there and then if the home owners offer to just arrange for the police and their lawyer's investigator to search it has been known of police just going for a warrent and busting the door open,cutiing all locks,cutting open clearly marked meat packages,having things come missing such as jewelry,collector survival knives,money,and so much more only to find nothing drug related and these victims as they have become also pass their drug tests even yhe 9 layer hair panel tests which go way back.this type of police that terrorize these victims make the good police look real bad-what a shame!what a waste of tax money on fuel used for auto and aircraft,courts,prisons,manpower and the list goes on.all this for a god created plant intended for weaving material,rope,medicine,oils,and to be seen growing wild with all the other plants and weeds.gee the financial gain and the savings would be huge-wow maybe the moey from the taxes would then be used to help people instead of terrorizing the good people-what a wonderful change that would be-i am ready to see the legalizing and decriminalizing of marijuana -it is a plant so let's treat it as so.
@ qwert
It isn't quite that big. :) We grow hempseed for food up here in Canada. Have for a number of years now, and it remains a niche market. I only know one chain of 3 stores that sell it (that's actually a drop in the last year). :/
Also there are some certain soil nutrient requirements for it to grow to full potential (although it will grow like crazy). I forget exactly what my dad told me they were. High phosphate maybe?
So it wouldn't bring that massive of change immediately. Although out over the long term there would be some industries with pressure on them. Cotton for example.
That should read:
I only know one chain of 3 stores, in this city of a million people, that sell the hemp beverage (as well as hemp butter and a few other products). That's actually a drop of one chain from last year. :/
Honestly Slater,
It's not that I dont WANT to get out there and get signatures. Or go out in public and fight for marijuana reform. It's that when I do the police or authority in the area Immediatly start to harass me and my cohorts assuming that we are either "intoxicated in public", and yes they use the term "intoxicated" much like they would with alchohol, or that we are just some young "stoners", or the worst is when they assume we are "carrying" the "drug" with us and decide they REALLY want to harrass! Being out on the front lines for the agenda of the gay community is not easy and I would never begin to say it is, but you have one thing that we as proud productive pot smokers do not, you have the law behind you. Being "gay" is not illegal, and if you are attacked for being "gay" it is a hate crime. Marijuana is illegal, and if your attacked for smoking marijuana it's a "fight" and even when assaulted the "pothead" is still going to jail. So how do you propose we come out and fight if by putting our names in the ring we are condemming ourselves in our professional/political lives. Once a name is tacked on to marijuanan reform, no matter what that name endorces from then on out it is looked at as "that person who wants marijuana reform" and nothing more. I see this all too clearly being a citizen of Seattle. Our former cheif of police is a major member of LEAP (Law Enforcment Against Prohibition) and look at how he is viewed in the police community now, practically ostrisized!
Sorry for my defencive rants but my post comes down to this. I was offended when you said that you were out fighting for gay rights and never saw people fighting for marijuana reform, well it's because were fighting to reform the laws that get us arrested and keep us from fighting in the first place... You will never be arrested for being gay, but I already have and probably will be again for being a pothead.
Fellow potheads out there, let me just say to you, don't let that word make you feel bad. Wear that word with a badge of pride. Especially if you can say yes to all these things:
can you
a) hold a job
b) keep a place to live
c) hold a conversation with a perfect stranger and part without making them ask if youre on drugs?
Congratulations! You've passed the test! Hold your head high when you hear words such as stoner or pothead! it might be our best way of telling everyone else that we ARE in fact productive members of society!
@Devin:
a) Yes, as long as I'm not given a drug test without some prior notice.
b) Yes, as long as my landlord never learns about my little stash.
c) Yes, as long as I can keep myself from bringing up the drug issue in conversation.
That good enough? Haha.
More people die per year, per day even from alcoholism. This is not a dangerous or addictive drug. Know your facts, know the drug first hand before you dismiss it completely. This is america, the land of democracy. Should we not have the right to indulge in our own guilty pleasures as you do.
yes legalize and decriminalize marijuana that way the rest of us get some financial benefit from it insead of just the self selected ones and the corrupt police on the take that are making the good policelook bad and of course it would also be a lot less money for the drug dealers.legalize and decriminalize!!!!!!!!my goodness let marijuana grow with the rest of the plants and weeds as god created it it
Okay, so I am going to copy and paste my post from digg, by which I got to this article.
"Okay, so we all know the prisons in the United States are overcrowded. Anyone who supports drug prohibition supports the jailing of non-violent drug users, obviously, since drugs are currently illegal and in most states, they aren't decriminalized at all, meaning you face jail time. I crunched some numbers on my blog after doing research about the whole issue, and I posted a link to my blog about drug prohibition the other day. However, since I'm not a power user, no one else dugg my article. How unfortunate, because I brought up some interesting factoids about how much money it would cost to eliminate drug use in America without legalizing drugs. What is the only other way to completely get rid of drug use in our country? Lock up the 19 million regular drug users. As it stands right now, we have about 2,000,000 people in our prisons for various reasons. The average number of inmates per prison in America is 800. The cost to build just a single prison stands at around $476 million. How many new prisons would we as a nation have to build in order to accomodate 19 million new prisoners? 23,750. And multiplying this figure by $476 million per prison, the amount comes out to be $11,305,000,000,000, or over $11 trillion. Sound like a good idea, Prohibitionists? We'll let the taxpayers foot this bill. Yes, 138 million American taxpayers won't have a problem paying for the $11 trillion it costs for these prisons, right? After all, you don't like drug users, they're vile scum of the earth, and they should be locked away in jail! And how much does that amount to per taxpayer? $81,920. Yeah, sound good? You won't miss that money. Oh, and don't forget the $88 it costs per day to keep an inmate behind bars. So $88 x 19,000,000 x 365 = $610,280,000,000. An extra $610 billion per year to pay for all those drug users to be in prison? Sound good? That's also another $4,422 in taxes for each taxpayer. Yeah...so why don't we do that? If you don't support drug legalization, this would be the ONLY other solution to eliminate America's "insatiable demand" for drug use, and the only other way to destroy the massive profits the Mexican cartels make. The government has already tried the education approach and spending $1 trillion in the past 37 years, but that didn't work at all. Yet, they somehow think that spending more money to fight the war on drugs is magically going to work this time, when it hasn't worked, 37 years in a row? Wishful thinking..."
I'm also going to add a counter-argument to what many politicians use as a lame excuse for keeping marijuana illegal. And that is the following:
It would send the wrong message to our kids if it were legal. -Many politicians
No, it wouldn't. As it stands right now, we have two substances that are regulated and taxed by the government that are far worse than cannabis. One, is tobacco, which is manufactured by the Big Tobacco companies. It contains nearly 2,000 chemicals in it, many of which are carcinogenic and are added in the manufacturing process. Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known, and it has a relatively low LD-50. Over 350,000 people die each year from complications from tobacco use. Cigarette smoke is the number one cause of lung cancer in the United States. To compare this with cannabis, a study conducted by pulmonologists at UCLA found no coorelation between heavy smokers of cannabis and lung cancer. In fact, this study was ongoing for about thirty years, and no relationship was found. Those who had smoked an average of 11,000-22,000 joints in their lifetime were no more likely to develop lung cancer than in non-users. In fact, other studies conducted with cannabis have shown that it has anti-tumoral properties. In other words, it can prevent cancer. Also, in tests done with aggressive brain tumors in rats, injections of THC into the tumor resulted in complete destruction of the tumor.
Let's also talk about alcohol, which is legal to those over 21. Alcohol causes 88,000 deaths per year, due to drunk driving accidents, alcohol poisoning and overdoses, and complications of alcohol use (liver disease/cirrhosis). Alcohol is also one of the most addictive substances know to man. Many alcoholics can never quit. I've seen it firsthand, and if these people get carried away with their addiction, it can destroy their lives. Cannabis has never been shown to be physically addicting like nicotine or alcohol. In fact, most users of cannabis have no problem halting use of the drug. If you asked a cigarette smoker to try and not smoke cigarettes for just one day, they cannot do it, unless they administer nicotine in their body in some other form (patches, gum, etc). Fact of the matter is, they are addicted to a deadly and subversive poison.
So how the hell are we sending the right message to our kids? We're telling them that it's okay to use alcohol or tobacco cigarettes, both of which are far, far more dangerous than cannabis? That's not the right message at all!
And furthermore, by keeping a drug like cannbis illegal, it makes it EASIER for kids and young teenagers to obtain! Ask most junior high school kids what the easiest drug is to get and they will answer marijuana. In fact, nearly 85% of junior high and high school kids surveyed have said that marijuana is the easiest drug to get! This is because it's not legalized, regulated, and has no age-restrictions! Any shady pot dealer will sell their product to anyone of any age, because all they care about is the money!
I can't believe some people are so stupid to realize this! Especially a lot of our elected officials!
EPIC FAIL!!
According to your chart 20% of all 20 year olds have smoked marijuana at least once in the past month. Are you kidding me???? What is your source for that, Nate? I suspect the percentage is much closer to 50%. Why don't you check how many blunts and vanilla dutchies are sold each month.
I would be interested in seeing a graph just like this one for tobacco. I wonder if tobacco use is tailing off, maybe not in the lifetime category, but in monthly/yearly use. I know some people that have switched from the occasional cigarette to the occasional joint (or pipe, as the case may be).
Devin,
I live in Louisiana. The law isn't on my side, not here in the Deep South. Even if it were, cops down here are just as willing to disregard the laws on the books and enforce their holy book's laws. Up North, maybe in California or New York or New England, sure, it's safe there. But there is nothing safe about being gay in the Deep South. We just had an election this past weekend, and one of our state senators who was up for re-election made a campaign promise that he would ban all gay adoptions in the state. Thankfully, he lost-narrowly.
Our governor thinks I'm the Antichrist. One of my Senators blames Hurricane Katrina on me.
And those4 are just the elected officials and the cops. We also have to worry about these idiots.
You feel hunted? Come down here and I'll show you what its like to be hunted. The laws that exist on the federal level are a mere suggestion to these folks-suggestions they disregard when the opportunity presents itself.
SNW,
Way to over-generalize. Norml is not the only group around.
Your assertion that I am a stoner is amusing. I have never smoked pot, am a disabled vet and nearing a MS in computer science.
When you grow up and calm down, maybe then you will be capable of rational discussion.
I'll continue smoking till the day I die (or tire of it), regardless of legality. If the United States wants to declare war on me, so be it, we will be at war. If the United States decides to end the war, I will accept their truce and even pay taxes on my pot.
Beavis,
What I said about NORML is true about all the pro-legalization groups. Never seen a one doing much to effect real change, which is why real change hasn't happened, even when audiences were receptive to the idea.
Your military service and sacrifice are appreciated. And utterly irrelevant to the topic being discussed. I thank you for them anyway, and would urge you to refrain from the ad hominem attacks you so resent when they are aimed back at you. Being a disabled vet with almost an MS in Comp Sci does not exempt you from the standards you demand of others, nor does it make it impossible for you to behave like an asshole, or to be called to the mat for doing so.
Let's stick to the topic of the thread, shall we? People claim to be all sorts of things over the internet-anonymity means you could claim to be the President himself, and it would not be possible to prove otherwise-although I do take you at your word for lack of reason to do otherwise. I still see no relevance of your identity to the idea we are attempting to examine here, which is the competence of the pro-legalization organizations at effecting real change.
I am reminded of a discussion I had with a Vietnam vet on the subject of the Iraq War several years ago. I was, as I am now, opposed to it. He was in favor of the war, and attempted to use his status as a wounded vet as proof that his opinion was superior to my own. I believe he told me I had no right to disagree with him, since only a vet could understand.
I responded to him then as I do to you now, that every American citizen has not only a right to an opinion on current events, there also exists a responsibility to form an informed opinion. History has proven so far that his superior knowledge was anything but.
We must, all of us, think for ourselves-informed by the experience of others, and appreciative of their perspectives, we are nonetheless charged with a responsibility to think independently and critically about the issues.
I must therefore ask you to live by the same standards you would demand of me-this would include not making foregone assumptions about the superiority of your perspective-lest you, as the Vietnam vet above, be proven so painfully wrong.
Statler N Waldorf, you're not thinking your pot-advocacy theory through. Has it ever occurred to you that not all potheads are slackers who just sit at home and watch TV Land and play video games all day, but might in fact have jobs, that they like to have?
Has it ever occurred to you that the fairly irrational stigma given to marijuana use (thanks to knee-jerk attitudes like yours) might lead one to, say, CONCEAL one's support for the drug? So they don't, you know, get fired? You know? Right?
I'm sure the same thing was true of advocating for gay rights back in the day, but concealing homosexuality is soul-crushing. Concealing marijuana use is an inconvenience. However, the risk of having my entire life flushed down the toilet because people like you are just a-ok with the status quo is bullshit. Educate yourself.
Tony C., I don't have any particular problem with you but I did see you say that marijuana is as addictive as tobacco. That is somewhere on the spectrum between extremely misleading and 100% false. I don't know where you got that information.
Apparently there's a 40 year lag time between when young people start doing something and when old people support legalizing it. It's too bad progress is so slow.
Awesome, its nice to see the argument I've been presenting forever said by a third-party. The legalization of marijuana will be a matter of time and people.
As the drug more and more enters the common reality of the masses; it will be more and more accepted. For reasons of sheer mental saturation, though more importantly that groups of the population that might have once seen marijuana as a monstrously harmful substance will have now either tried themselves or seen others on pot; and its really not that big of a deal. Especially compared with alcohol, of which the comparison is not even needed.
A few points:
Bad analogy between pot and tobacco, I'd say. Most of the guys I knew who smoked it just stopped in their 20's or 30's--no effort involved, just a loss of appreciation for the effects or the inconvenience of it.
A few continued to smoke (mostly doctors and lawyers, go figure), but did so more episodically rather than habitually. Anyway, it doesn't sound like tobacco to me.
The presence of radically different strains and potencies of marijuana on the street is a concern, and argues for some form of regulation. The clear analogy there is with alcohol, which ranges from pure grain alcohol to light beer.
The wide range of potencies of alcoholic beverages is never cited as a reason to criminalize or restrict it. In the case of moonshine potability, not potency, is the issue.
If California boutique practices are to be believed, there's something of an analogy between wine and marijuana, in that claims are made as to numerous subtle distinctions between varieties. I leave that to connoisseurs, but again, it doesn't sound like tobacco.
Most serious is the youth abuse question, but like sex and alcohol it can't be solved by prohibition, only managed by education and parenting.
Statler, your tirade on the ineffectuality of marijuana reform is entertaining if a little baffling. I like the pep talk to the dorito-scarfing deadbeat angle, but the tone is more suited to amphetamine legalization than pot.
It's not as though mass disobedience of drug laws isn't practiced, and there are numerous 4/20 phenomena in the works as we speak, but the results of all that toking up won't be mass arrests and public attention, just cops looking the other way.
The enforcement of draconian dope laws is selective and rather random, and depends on who you are and where you are. The number of hapless potheads and low-level dealers in jail is a fit subject for civil outrage, and deserves more attention.
To go to a particularly puritanical part of the country and get yourself arrested for pot is not a great way of promoting change, IMHO. So what's left by way of protest or consciousness raising (sic)?It's not a bad question, but I don't see a great answer along the lines you seem to suggest.
I guess the bottom line is that for most people, their own pot use isn't as defining an aspect of their life as their sex, color, ethnicity or sexual orientation. It's too easy to ignore those who are locked away out of sight, or to imagine that they must have done something worse than smoke or sell pot to be where they are. So the ones who haven't been harassed don't act.
As with other criminalized beliefs and behaviors, it's all to human to think that if you don't do it it's not your problem.
all too human [alas]
Dougie,
How the hell did you get any of that from what I wrote? I never claimed any of those things about stoners. You made that up out of thin air.
I criticized the organizations pushing for legalization for not being active enough in pursuing their cause. Exactly how that translates into 'pot smokers are jobless slackers' I don't know.
Unless you doth protest too much, and are projecting your personal insecurities onto my posts.
Ah, I see you're a member of the rhetorical school of "allude something as clearly and loudly as I can, but never explictly say it, so I can deny it later." You would've fit in great in the Bush administration.
"...alot of potsmokers seem to not be that engaged in politics."
"You have to get off the couch..."
"...put the pipe down long enough to put together a listserv"
And you've ignored my main point, which is that the non-rational judgmental attitudes displayed by comments like yours are the reason that people are RELUCTANT to be outspoken about their use of/support for marijuana.
I saw enough buzzwords to get your implication (pot won't be legalized because potheads are too lazy to lobby for it). I'm retorting that the real reason you don't see that much active advocacy is that advocating for legalization hurts one's chances in the job market, significantly.
But then again, you think tobacco should be illegal. In fact, it looked like what you really wanted was greater regulation of ingredients, but you went ahead and jumped right to "it should be illegal." So I'm probably wasting my time.
You know, I was thinking.
The argument as to weather or not pot should be "legalized" is rather moot since there has never been a Federal law passed that makes marijuana itself illegal. Marijuana was simply added to a Federal list of "dangerous drugs" right along with heroin and cocaine. So the challenge is to simply get it removed from that list.
BUT
Getting pot removed from that list does not make it legal unless your state does not have or will not make a law against it. States can make it as illegal as the feds can if they want.
As for whoever said pot would never be legalized because potheads are too lazy to lobby for it is living in the dark. I don't smoke it and thousands like me want it legalized and will lobby to have it dropped from the fed list. Don't kid yourself.
Frankly, you DON'T seem to be that engaged in politics. You like to bitch piss and moan, but I never see the advocacy groups that ostensibly represent you doing anything to change things in your favor.
You instead get all oversensitive at any criticism "what do you mean, NORML isn't doing anything to push for legalization? Are you saying all stoners are lazy?"
You DO have to get off the couch and put the pipe down long enough to get things changed IF you want actual change. If all you want is to get lazy and self righteous, complaining but never trying to fix the problem, you will get ignored to death.
That's cold hard reality. My community tried waiting for other people to spontaneously realize the injustice being done to us in the late 1970's and early 1980's.. the result was they ignored us while hundreds of thousands of guys died from a disease that could have been prevented if research had been done establishing condoms as a useful barrier to infection years before hand.
And they'll do it to you, too. Instead of getting defensive "how DARE you insinuate that NORML isn't doing anything!" you need to get active, and yes, get off your asses and go collect some signatures, put some TV spots on the air, get the word out and start the discussion, stage a few demonstrations, whatever it takes.
I will say that I have never seen any sort of political agitation from anyone to push for legalization of pot. Never. And that's why its still illegal. If you're counting on non-stoners to get tried of your whining and do the work for you, you're in for disappointment.
If you don't stand up for yourselves, nobody else will either.
one can plausibly support its legalization without having ever inhaled
Indeed. I strongly support legalization, and have done for as long as I can remember, but I have never tried it, nor am I likely to.
SNW. Do you have ANY response to my assertion that people would be reluctant to advocate for legalization because of a widespread stigma with probable economic consequences?
Or, for that matter, a response to Hu Chi's point that the laissez-faire attitude police take at pro-legalization rallies keeps these events out of the headlines, while the next day they'll go into an ethnic neighborhood and cherry-pick a few lives to ruin? (And we know how the media likes to pick up garden-variety drug arrests in poor areas.)
And of course, marijuana reform DOES have active advocates despite those barriers, and you're just assuming it doesn't because of your stereotyping, which you cover with a throwaway line like "I never see it." Are you looking?
Maybe illegal Mexicans are "lazy" for not advocating for immigration reform. Or maybe they're afraid of getting deported. Do you see what I'm saying here, at all?
It would seem there's a lot of people out there worried about what dope might do to their heads. My blog's site meter tells me that the post that gets by far the most hits comes from google searches of "marijuana kills brain cells".
http://figmince.blogspot.com/2009/02/proof-that-marijuana-kills-brain-cells.html
Dougie, have you considered mental health counseling? Not for the pot, for the drama. Because you sure are putting on quite a little show here, and I gotta think that if this is how you spend most of your time, maybe having someone to talk to about your personal problems may not be such a bad thing. It can do alot of good to have someone you can vent on and get all that drama out of your system on without having to run around vomiting it onto the internet.
Seriously, look into it.
I have to agree with Dougie. But despite the stigma it can create, it seems like there are more and more activists getting involved and the conversation is going in the right direction.
States are passing more medical marijuana laws, like they just did in Michigan, letting people see that patients aren't just becoming "stoned slackers." Plus, Obama's new drug czar (former Seattle police chief), has made marijuana busts a low priority. I see the move to decriminalization way before actual legalization. In Ann Arbor, MI, possession of small amounts is just a $25 fine, like a parking ticket. That seems like a good starting point before seeing pot at the 7-11.
SNW, you're getting a little too worked up and personal. Sounds like you need some good weed.
So, no, Statler, you don't have any responses to those points I brought up. Just checking. I'm out.
According to the FDA website, pot is listed as a schedule 1 controlled substance (the most restrictive classification) for three reasons: 1) it has a high potential for abuse. 2) it has no currently accepted medical use in the United States. 3) it has a lack of accepted safety for use under medical supervision.
Doesn't tobacco fit very nicely into these categories? Aren't many currently available legal drugs such as oxycontin much worse that weed? It's all about money and control. Statler N Waldorf is right. It's time we got off our asses and took some initiative. Lets end this senseless prohibition
Fish in a barrel
Obama Plans Intensified Pot Arrests
President Barack Obama's Attorney General, Eric H. Holder Jr., in an interview with the New York Times in Mexico City asserted:
"And with marijuana sales central to the drug trade, Mr. Holder said he was exploring ways to lower the minimum amount required for the federal prosecution of possession cases."
On the price of legal marijuana people need to consider how cheap tobacco is on a bulk wholesale basis. Marijuana really shouldn't cost much more than tobacco to produce. A company like Phillip Morris pays less than two dollars a pound for dried and cured tobacco.
Government collect numbers on marijuana yields, the amount of saleable product growers are getting per acre. Yields in various countries tend to range from between 500 to over 1000 kilograms per hectare. The average yield in Mexico is now 1,200 kilograms per hectare, which works out to a little over a thousand pounds of dried bud acre of marijuana. That's a pretty significant amount per acre and you have to keep in mind that these fields tend to be out in the middle of nowhere and these peasants who produce it do not have the benefit of modern farm equipment and they probably are not using the most advanced methods. Our sophisticated corporate farmers ought to have no problem whatsoever achieving yields of a thousand pounds per acre or more.
High grade marijuana costs many thousands of dollars per pound. Mid grade pot tends to run in the thousands of dollars a pound too in most places. The lower grade stuff is cheaper, but it's still going to cost at least hundreds of dollars per pound no matter where you are in this country. American farmers ought to have no problem whatsoever producing a thousand pounds or more of mid grade or better pot per acre. So at current prices we're talking about millions of dollars per acre.
How much does it cost to grow pot? It costs Canadian hemp producers a few hundred dollars per acre to grow their hemp, which is basically low THC marijuana. They grow for the seed and their costs include the cost of drying the product and removing the seeds from the buds. It would probably cost more, maybe even a lot more, to produce an acre of dried and manicured buds meant for smoking. It shouldn't cost that much though. It costs something like $2,500 an acre to produce tobacco. It costs less than $5,000 an acre to produce hops, which are related to marijuana and it is the "buds" from the hop plants that are harvested and dried. Of course hops grow on "bines" that require trellising and it takes a hop plant a couple of years to really start producing well, and that’s a big part of the reason why it costs so much to produce them.
If it costs as much as $10,000 an acre to grow pot, and it shouldn't cost anywhere near that, farmers would only have to charge about $10 a pound to break even. Farmers growing legal crops usually don't make more than a few hundred dollars an acre from their crops. If they are averaging a couple of hundred dollars an acre in profits they are doing extremely well compared to most farmers in this country. If they were able to make $10,000 an acre in a competitive legal marijuana industry, and they wouldn't make anywhere near that, they'd be selling their product for $20 a pound.
Pot should be dirt cheap in a legal environment before taxes and excises and regulatory costs and profits for distributors and retailers are added in. Those other costs would have to absolutely astronomical for pot to be as expensive for consumers as it is today. With a competitive legal market we'd have to tax the absolute crap out of it to keep prices anywhere close to where they are today.
If I were in charge I'd legalize pot. I'd start out with nothing but regular sales taxes so that we kill the black market, and then we'd slowly add in excises until the price came back up to somewhere in the neighborhood of what people pay today. It will take a few years for legal producers and distributers to hit their stride and become about as efficient as they are going to get. Pot won't cost just a few dollars a pound in bulk wholesale at first, so these proposed $150 to $250 an ounce taxes included in pending Massachusetts legalization legislation are way too high. But within a few years of legalizing marijuana there will be all sorts of room for high taxes before we get to the point that legal marijuana costs as much as people are paying today on the black market.
I think Nate Silver is dead on in his analysis. I agree with him that “as members of the Silent Generation are replaced in the electorate by younger voters, who are more likely to have either smoked marijuana themselves or been around those that have, support for legalization is likely to continue to gain momentum.” I would add that it’s not just the elder electorate that are being replaced by younger people, but we are seeing the same thing happen in our lawmaking bodies. The average age of a committee leader in Congress and the Senate is up their in the late sixties. Many are people in their seventies. Seniority is extremely important in our federal lawmaking bodies. The old guys have the most power and influence. They set the agenda. They dictate what the “party line” will be. And right now these most powerful lawmakers are people who statistically speaking are very unlikely to have even tried marijuana before. As the years go on they will slowly but surely be replaced by people much more likely to have smoked marijuana and much less likely to be particularly afraid of it. Our most powerful lawmakers will be much more likely to be open to legalization in the coming years.
If you look at Nate’s chart you will see that adults from around 55 years of age and younger are more likely than not to have smoked marijuana. Adult males are more likely than females to have smoked marijuana. The disparity between the sexes in this regard shrunk somewhat over the years, but in the past when people in their fifties and older were young pot smokers there was a pretty significant disparity between the percentage of males and females who had tried it. I don’t have the numbers in front of me but I think it is safe to say that half or more of all males at least a couple of years older than 55 have smoked marijuana before. It may even be that half of all 60 year old males have smoked marijuana before, especially when you consider that there has to be at least some small percentage of people who will deny past criminal conduct to government workers who come to their homes asking questions. Most of our lawmakers are males, so it won’t be too many years before we get to the point that it is likely that around half of our most powerful lawmakers are people who have smoked marijuana themselves. Most are college graduates or at least have some college. Most are social creatures that drink some alcohol at least. These are all things that increase the likelihood that they have tried marijuana, at least according to the national statistics.
The old voters and lawmakers who most oppose legalization are slowly but surely dying off and being replaced by people who do not tend to be as afraid of marijuana. Our government is buried under crushing debt, and that will only get worse in the coming years. The economy is in shambles. Mexican cartels are causing all sorts of problems and it is becoming common knowledge that they make the lion’s share of their income from marijuana sales. Support for legalizing marijuana is growing and has likely already reached a majority in some states. We will see more and more politicians calling for legalization or at least suggesting that we look into it, and that’s going to bring even more people on board with the legalization movement. It’s going to be legalized. It might take ten or twenty years, but it’s going to happen.
I have been cannabis free for years, but recently began to read everything I can about this issue, like many Americans. The history lesson is shocking; Congress allowed perjury during the hearings in the 30s, lied about what the Doctor representing the A.M.A. said in his testimony, and even today continue to mislead the public. People have become so brainwashed that I personally have seen people just shake their head and look away when I quote actual facts and figures from professional reports. They refuse to listen, even to the experts. You have to be prepared to have an open mind and learn from all sources. I watched a debate between actor Stephen Baldwin and Rep. Ron Paul, and the first words out of Mr. Baldwin's mouth were: "I don't care what anybody else says..." If you refuse to listen, you refuse to learn.
@Tony C:
"Statler is wrong, pot is an addictive substance, about as addictive as tobacco. Not as addictive as heroin or cocaine or alcohol."
Um, alcohol isn't even remotely addictive for most people (i.e. non-alcoholics); and from knowing the people I know, I would say pot is certainly less addictive than tobacco - although still addictive.
"That's cold hard reality. My community tried waiting for other people to spontaneously realize the injustice being done to us in the late 1970's and early 1980's.. the result was they ignored us while hundreds of thousands of guys died from a disease that could have been prevented if research had been done establishing condoms as a useful barrier to infection years before hand."
I'm confused by this. Were latex condoms not available back then? Or were people simply not willing to *try it* ahead of the scientists?
I accept this site why because I learn more information from this site
correspondence courses
Pot is not the least bit physically addictive. Anyone who says otherwise is speaking from ignorance. Really. It is pleasant to use, and safer for the body than alcohol, and MUCH safer than cigarettes. For a while, I was taking a *single* toke at night, and watching a comedy just before I went to bed. It was very enjoyable.
I stopped for a job, and have not started again because my wife does not want it in the house. I'm fine with that, although I do miss the effects while watching comedies.
It should be legalized, taxed and regulated. Actually, our jails would be fairly empty, and the drug situation in this country would be much better if ALL drugs were legalized, taxed and regulated. Do the research, the worst physical part about taking drugs is what is put into them to cut them. I have never tried anything stronger than pot, and never intend to, so I am just pointing out that I want to other drugs legalized because we have already seen that prohibition DOES NOT WORK.
Here's why it will remain illegal. When congressional hearings are held, the "evidence" of its danger is presented by DEA employees who make their living off its illegality.
The only possible counter to this biased, yet accepted-as-expert testimony would be the testimony of the staggering numbers of respected, industrious, Americans who smoke, do their jobs and pay taxes.
But all those people are afraid
to stand up because it's illegal and will affect some part of their non-psychoactive life adversely.
Ed(I'm Outting Me) Feldman
We need to pick this topic apart by starting at the very beginning- WHY WAS MARIJUANA MADE ILLEGAL? If marijuana WAS made illegal for illogical reasons then we have ourselves an argument for its legalization right off the bat. I also agree with Ed Feldman about the FACT that the DEA does provide their "EVIDENCE" at congressional hearings that are EXTREMELY biased.
Legalize it...
Don't criticize it...
I'll advertise it...
With the ever increasing political tension that is beginning to arise over the gun rights issues, the legalization of Ganja makes even more sense.
The growing problem with the Mexican drug cartels, and their need for weapons in which to defend their turf, is created almost exclusively by the copious amounts of grass we desire to smoke. If the client doesn’t need the product you’re selling, they will not return to your business. Without the business, the purpose for the violence (and thus the illegal selling of guns to Cartel mules), will have no financial motivation.
The financial resources that were required to maintain control over the Mexican drug importation problem will be diminished greatly. Wonderful added savings come from the time and energy resources that are used in maintaining the illegality of MaryJane. Less money needed to focus on finding the smoke being snuck into the states, and more resources for more serious security threats (i.e. small radiation bombs, higher percentage of shipping containers being able to be examined, and health related importation issues.
What about the tax revenue for the locally grown resource? No longer having to see American currency shipped outside of our own economic system (or at least some amount of cash), there would be a nice addition to the internal cash flow in the States.
The taxing of American produced Pine Biscuits will gladly be paid buy the smokers. Revenue coffers will see a nice infusion of gold chinkets, and social programs can be afforded.
So, by legalizing the Kind Bud, pressure is taken off of U.S internal political arms rights. The violence and crime associated with the Mexican drug cartels (which again are mainly fueled by Pot), will no longer have a financial motivation. Yes, the drugs they get into the country may change, but one step at a time.
We also have increased revenues based on the Cannabis Tax of 2009 (ha ha). But seriously, tax revenue is increased by billions. We use fewer resources maintaining the illegal nature of Funk Bud.
Well, if you excuse me, I have to go take a tube hit. Peace!
Wow, man Great fuckin' idea!
What was the question?
Will people be willing to pay more for 'legal' pot?That's just it, no matter how much you tax and regulate it the price won't (and cannot) be more than current street prices. Current street prices reflect the reality of the criminalization of drugs. Risk of arrest in transportation is enough for anyone to demand 60 bucks for an eighth of the kindest of the kind. Legalize it, all the risk disappears and the price can only drop.
If it's taxed to high, you simply create a black market (or sustain the one that already exists). Look no further than cigarettes for proof of that.
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現在、100世帯の分譲マンションのうち、20世帯ほど賃貸してます。不動産管理会社に委託しているのですが、大田区以前お願いしていた会社が倒産し、今は別のところへお願いしています。
先日10年賃貸 北区んでいた方が引っ越しされる際、敷金を返金して欲しいと言われました。賃貸 江東区よくよく契約規約を見ると「敷金は返金しません」という事が記載さ れておらず、賃貸 品川規約と違う…との事なんです。その規約を作成したのは以前の不動産会社で、賃貸 渋谷チェックしなかった私共も悪かったのですが、どうにかならないもの でしょうか？金額は15万円ほどです。10年も住んでおられたんで手直し箇所も多いです賃貸 新宿。どうにかならないものでしょうか？よきアドバイスをお願い致しま す。
敷金は本来、賃貸 杉並賃料の未払いに備える担保であり、未払いなく契約が終了したら原則として返却すべきものです。
賃貸借では、賃貸 世田谷家主は建物を貸す賃貸 中央区借家人はこれを賃料を払って借りる、貸すことに伴う通常の賃貸 千代田区消耗は賃料の中で計算して処理するというのが本来の賃貸借の原則です。
建設省の方針などでも、賃貸 池袋今後の消費者保護の流れでも、賃貸 中野こういう内容の明確化を進めないといけないと思います。
ですから、賃貸 文京区敷金は未払いがなければ原則返却という事を前提として、賃貸 港区消耗分は賃料の中に入れる方向で賃貸 目黒経営を明確化していくべきだと思います。
そうでないと賃貸 新築とのトラブルが増えるし、社会的賃貸 ペット可にも理解を得られなくなると思います。
住宅ねっと相談室の「賃貸 楽器可」にもありますが、建設省のホームページの賃貸 手数料なし住宅における「賃貸 保証人不要」もご参照ください。 賃貸 駅5分以内マンションの更新料支払いを義務付けた契約条項は消費者契約法に違反するとして、京都市の男性が貸主に支払い賃貸 部屋探し済みの更新料など約55万円の返還を求 めた訴訟の控訴審判決が27日、大阪高裁であった。東京 部屋探し成田喜達裁判長は「更新料は消費者の利益を一方的に害し、無効」との判断を示しデザイナーズ 賃貸、一審・京都地裁の判決 を変更し、更新料など45万５千円を返還するよう貸主側に命じた。賃貸 分譲仕様貸主側は上告する方針で、最高裁の判断が焦点となる。
「入居２年で家賃２カ月分」賃貸 中央線といった更新料の設定は、首都圏や京都などで商慣行化しており、対象物件は100万件に上るとされる賃貸 京浜東北線。同種訴訟では７月、京都地裁が別の事案で更新料を無効とする判断を示し貸主側が控訴中だが、賃貸 京王線高裁レベルでの無効判断は初めて。
訴訟は「消費者の賃貸 東横線利益を一方的に害する契約は無効賃貸 丸ノ内線」とする消費者契約法の規定に、更新料契約が該当するかどうかが主な争点だった
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