CALIFORNIA MOVES TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

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I saw on 60 MINUTES how California is in financial extremis
and seeks sales tax revenue from marijuana, with a bill to legalize it in its legislature.

The Founding Fathers and their generation woud have been AGHAST
at the concept of government controlling what a citizen ingests.
Even the King of England did not claim to have THAT jurisdiction.

The Founders woud have been so horrified at controlling what a
citizen can legally ingest, that this woud have seemed to them
as radically nightmareish as degenerating into communism or nazism.
Opium addiction has been around for a while. The Founders were literate historians.
Thay knew about it. Thay put nothing about it into the Constitution, except that
government had no power other than what had been granted to it.

Accordingly, control of what a citizen can legally ingest, for his own good,
is a LIBERAL deviation from the paradigm of freedom
bequethed to us by the Founding Generation, altho this abomination
can be supported by people who are conservative about other issues.
The Original concept for creating a government was to DEFEND
the individual from violation of his rights by others, NOT to interfere
in his own poor judgement, in which he is autonomous, living in freedom.
Now, impostors have stolen the good name of conservatives,
falsely alleging that the Constitution grants power to control a citizen 's liberty
to decide for himself what is his own good or indulge in self-destructive conduct.
Prohibition, or regulation, of drugs exists only by USURPATION almost
as severe as the usurpation of the power to control possession of guns.

In my vu, in my mind, addictive drugs are poison; for that reason,
I have always eschewed them, the same as tobacco.
Every citizen has a right to ingest poison, if such be his choice and he owns the poison.

Freedom is more important than life.

David

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Obviously, this will entail a conflict with federal law.
It remains to be seen how Obama will address it.

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@OmSigDAVID,

Cannabis had a tradition of use in pharmeseuticals and paper. Even Ben Franklin started the first paper mill that used cannabis indica as feedstock. He said it made a superior paper. The history of regulation of cannabis had as much to do with business competition as with some "liberal" politics. The HArrison Act and the Uniform Narcotics acts were all initiated in GOP administrations . Finally however, the Marijuana Tax Act was heavily lobbied for by W R Hearst whose own paper making ops were heavily invested in pulping mills from forest products.

Many times the story we want to tell is too good to be bothering with mere facts

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the government is letting go of the control in this instance, they're just going to profit from it, that's capitalism

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I would love to be able to go into a "coffee shop" and order some fine cannabis off a menu. I haven't done that since I was in Amsterdam.

Keep in mind, the hallucinogen Salvia Divinorum is still legal in most states even though it's a "dangerous" hallucinogen. It grows wild here in the mountains of California.

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

The Founding Fathers and their generation woud have been AGHAST
at the concept of government controlling what a citizen ingests.
Even the King of England did not claim to have THAT jurisdiction.

He taxed tea, didn't he?

1 Reply

@OmSigDAVID,

Quote:

Obviously, this will entail a conflict with federal law.
It remains to be seen how Obama will address it.

Aye, there's the rub.
The state can pass any law it wishes. If it conflicts with Federal laws, then Federal law enforcement agencies are free to ignore it and prosecute people who have broken no state law. And this, too, would give the Founding Fathers nightmares -- that the Federal government which, in essence, should be no more than an administrative unit, can high-handedly dismiss states' rights as irrelevant if they interfere with Federal policy. But, then, this has been going on for more than 150 years, at least since Abe Lincoln's day.

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@roger,

roger wrote:

OmSigDAVID wrote:

The Founding Fathers and their generation woud have been AGHAST
at the concept of government controlling what a citizen ingests.
Even the King of England did not claim to have THAT jurisdiction.

He taxed tea, didn't he?

That was to defray the cost of The French & Indian War,
not to dissuade the Colonists from drinking tea.
The King wanted them to drink it,
hence: the Boston Tea Party, in defiance.

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Seems to me with the economy the way it is the more liberal states viz a viz cannabis will lead the way for saner and more rational laws be set in place and cannabis will be made available to those folks that will benefit from it.

As for recreational use, none of my business.

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On one point, I have no information and woud welcome it, to wit:

does smoking cannabis have any effect different than smoking tobacco
while driving a car or operating machinery ?

Is it like alcohol ?

David

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@OmSigDAVID,

One average joint has a similar effect as a Capstan Full Strength cigarette after a week of stopping smoking. There is a considerable range of strengths.

Being stoned makes operating machines easier because time slows down. The danger is caused by the mind wandering inside the synaptic galaxies created by some stray thought.

I think good tackle puts about 30 points on IQ so you can see why it's banned. You don't seriously think there's any way to manage 300,000,000 Americans with IQs of 130 do you?

I've experienced Proust sentences like tabloid headlines.

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@spendius,

Thank u

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@spendius,

what is tackle and why does it add 30 points to iq? are you saying that pot makes you more intelligent or am I completelly off base?

1 Reply

@Sglass,

As an occasional user I must disagree that pot adds anything to one's IQ. Nor does it diminish it. However, when I smoked frequently in college many years ago I found it affected my memory.

And I must reiterate SGlasses comment -- what is tackle?

1 Reply

@NickFun,

Good tackle is an expresion for top of the range. Savannah ganga is good tackle in the field under discussion. Sun dried. It means efficient.

It does affect memory. What happens is that the brain forgets the white noise and concentrates on insights. On connections between things. The self disappers in the fascination with the patterns in the sensory other. And not deliberately.

It renders a person hopeless in pub quizes but interesting on the psychology and dynamics of the quiz mechanism itself.

Nicotine does it as well. Which is why non-smokers are boring. They leave tea or coffee type choices on the This or That game for example. I once tried a few 6 bag cups of tea. The guy who wrote Clockwork Orange was on that. And lettuce has a reputation for providing sweet dreams. Cheese for wierd dreams. David Lynch binged on sugar before shooting. I don't know but I presume grouse shot in startled flight enhances the predatory impulse. A pal of mine had a dog so vicious that he called in the vet. He put it on a vegetarian diet and it was like a lamb a week later. It's a very complex business. But never inject recreationally.

Overdosing is the danger. Shamans overdose.

BTW--I didn't mean IQ in relation to those tests people take.

Aldous Huxley's Doors of Perception is interesting.

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Recently a friend and I were high on some top shelf ganja and we were engaged in a very interesting conversation. Something distracted us for a moment. I asked, "what were we talking about?"

He replied, "Um, ****, don't do this to me man".

We both knew the conversation was intriguing and we had more to contribute but neither of us could recall what we were talking about. This is why I do the stuff very sparingly.

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@NickFun,

The correct answer to "what were we talking about?" is "when?" Then "before". Then "before what?" Then "before you asked what we were talking about."

It's quite normal. You were only conscious of not knowing what you were talking about. If it worried you it suggests you are worried about how your body works. If possibilities are expanded it doesn't mean impossibilities are conjured. The effect you describe is well known and it should interest a curious person scientifically.

I don't think discontented people should take marijuana. It exacerbates mood. And discontent is a function of expectations. In the main.

1 Reply

@spendius,

I've had those 'what were we talking about' moments for probably my whole life, with or without benefit of alcohol or drugs. It happens to some of us non-linear thinkers, whom other people know as "scattered". It even happened yesterday, and I figured out what the connector was an hour later, too bad.

On California and marijuana, this is already a sparklingly well developed industry (need I mention the Dr. Kush article in the New Yorker again?). I'm all for legalization, et al.

However, I do read in my old most interesting local newspaper, the North Coast Journal, a Humboldt County paper (no immediate citation but from a fairly recent issue) that local folks are irate about new scary thuggish types moving on in, or up, as the case may be.

I'm not a smoker, haven't for many years, but I retain the rights of others on that, and for myself, the possibilities of some future brownies, whatever.

I'm not as sanguine about all drugs, but on this one I'm, er, relaxed.

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@OmSigDAVID,

OmSigDAVID wrote:

On one point, I have no information and woud welcome it, to wit:

does smoking cannabis have any effect different than smoking tobacco
while driving a car or operating machinery ?

Is it like alcohol ?
David

Not at all. Driving stoned, while I don't recommend it, is an entirely different beast than drunk driving.

Cycloptichorn

1 Reply

@Cycloptichorn,

Perhaps a very different beast though I would still say 'not safe'. I have been driving while stoned and suddenly become totally lost. My judgement at traffic lights is decreased.

I would rather be straight when driving.

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CALIFORNIA MOVES TO LEGALIZE MARIJUANA

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