marijuana, revisited

I have read lots on the beach...especially play-boy-on-girl magazines, how-to-surf-without-drowning, the-abc-of- resuscitation-on-beautiful-still-breathing-girlies, girlies-are-prone-to-drowning-because-they-have-more-holes and how-to-tan-without-appearing-black.

http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/06/22/new-bill-ending-federal-ban-on-marijuana-to-be-introduced-in-congress/

New bill ending federal ban on marijuana to be introduced in Congress

Reps. Barney Frank (D-MA) and Ron Paul (R-TX) will introduce legislation on Thursday to the U.S. House of Representatives that ends the federal prohibition on marijuana.

The Oakland Tribute reported that the bill would limit the federal government to enforcing cross-border or inter-state smuggling laws, and allow people to grow, possess, use or sell marijuana in states where it is legal to do so.

Although over a dozen states have legalized the use of marijuana for medical reasons, it is still outlawed under the federal Controlled Substance Act.

The legislation authored by Frank and Paul would allow each state to propose and enforce its own marijuana laws without federal interference.

Democratic Reps. John Conyers (MI), Steve Cohen (TN), Jared Polis (CO) and Barbara Lee (CA) are co-sponsors of the bill.

"The human cost of the failed drug war has been enormous -- egregious racial disparities, shattered families, poverty, public health crises, prohibition-related violence, and the erosion of civil liberties," Lee said Wednesday. "And of course the cost in dollars and cents has been staggering as well -- over a trillion dollars spent to incarcerate tens of millions of young people."

"I co-sponsored this bipartisan legislation because I believe it is time to turn the page from this failed drug war."

Rep. Cohen, another co-sponsor, called last week for an end to the 40-year war on drugs, which he said had spent trillions of dollars to incarcerate millions of people for non-violent crimes.

The End Times have arrived...I support a Barney Frank bill!

The War on Drugs has been a hopeless failure.

That is a GOOD thing. The usurpation of power did not succeed.
Government was NEVER granted authority
to interfere with citizens' self destructive conduct.





David

This is probably a place where a2k posters of different views can get together, vehemently, but me, I think it is 40 years too late. The cartels have their feet in my last home area (I think) and certainly do in my present one.

What causes cartels? Opportunity. In my view - re priced value from proscription, as a start.

One of my last best arguments with the dys was that the cartel stuff couldn't happen here, his view, re our law enforcement network, our general protection against this stuff. I was aggravated because - past strongly disagreeing with him, he was incessant, perhaps twenty minutes on a given call. I started a thread on it, not mentioning the subject, but about differences in wanting to argue. I remember being roundly pounded.
Dys wanted to win.

My testament to Bob is that we will always talk in my mind.


I think it is sweet sap to think that if drugs are suddenly legal that our world will improve. What we'll have then is a frantic very large number of people dependent on sales moving along to the next thing.

This is already obsolete, re gangs in the u s and the cartels.

I am for leagalizing pot but not hard drugs. You can get it on any street corner in the states anyway.

How is THAT different than hard drugs ?

the Law of Supply and Demand

Pot is less dangerous than cigs. and alchaol. But you knew that when you posted this. In some cases it is even benificial.

Hear ye! Hear ye!

Marijuana is now sold legally in bodegas. How do I know this? A teen the other day indicated they'd bought "legal pot" it was obviously legal because it was sold in a bodega.

I wonder if they can purchase "legal crack" and "legal acid" as well.

I don 't mind the odor of it.

I am aversive to the stench of cigarette tobacco smoke.





David

We do agree on the stench of cigs., dident realize how bad it was until I quit smoking. One can smell it on clothes for a week.

I have been psychosomatically aversive to the stench since age 4,
when my mother offered the opinion that it was not good for my father to smoke; sounded plausible.
I coud see where sucking in dirt was not necessarily a good idea.

I silently plotted to stop him from smoking.
( I knew not the concept of addiction. )
When he came home, I falsely represented to my father that
he was stinking me out with his tobacco smoke; I thought that he 'd stop.
That did not prove to be the case.
I was taken aback.
From that day forward for many decades in 2 centuries,
I actually became aversive to that smoke,
which had never meant anything to me b4 then.





David

I continue to be unclear on my thinking on drugs. This is one place where I'm pretty libertarian, in addition to thinking the war on drugs has been a counterproductive waste. At the same time I think that way, I've seen a lot of destruction by drugs. Sometimes it's hard to separate my distaste for the thug culture that surrounds some drug scenes - arguably a result of all the proscription - from my discomfort with the effects of some drugs, that I have an instinct for protecting people from.

Unfortunately it is only possible to protect those who want to be. If a person wants to acquire drugs they can because like booze it is easy to make and buy. All the present drug war does is make crooks rich.

Do you believe that the only way, or the most effective way to "protect" people from recreational drugs is to make them illegal and put them in jail if they use or sell them?

Surely you realize it hasn't worked.

It has worked very well to trigger an explosion of violent crime.

A perfect example is Mexico.

Oh, no..... that's the opposite of what I think. Sorry if that wasn't clear. Not only do I not think recreational drugs should be illegal, I think that having them illegal all these years has only fortified/multiplied the whole negative aspect of what is currently going on with drug distribution, re gangs, cartels, and so on. But this has all played out before with prohibition, so it is dumbfounding that we are facing all this in this new century.

I've written about this before, but I shouldn't just figure people remember my every opinion.

Where I am unclear is whether, and if so how much, that drug sales should be regulated given my wish that they be legalized. My old home town area (Eureka/Arcata, California) was trying to figure out the amount of regulation back when I started this thread - and my reading about that was the impetus for it.

I also admit to some flimflams about meth but my flimflams don't tell me to be proscriptive re legality, though I might change on that and maybe about some other stuff I read about recently, some name like black tar heroin from afghanistan (no link).

All in all, I fear that we have the drug production culture we caused and that just making drugs legal again won't solve the 'criminal element' problems.

Adds, I gave a good link long ago about the mexican cartels, so I'm quite aware.

I just caught this news - Barney Frank and Ron Paul introducing legislation to make marijuana legal -

http://blogs.laweekly.com/informer/2011/06/legalize_marijuana_america.php