Bill proposed to legalize pot in CA

[Looneybomber]

Dustin, you're talking about the daily use of a very addictive substance. The good that may come from drinking a small amount of alcohol everyday is far outweighed by it's history of abuse and it's severe negative impact on the body if consumed in the manner that 99.9 people do everyday.

I'm well aware of the dangers of alcohol abuse as the government did too when they established the prohibition. When used responsibly it can be a health aid. When abused...well we all know how drunk people act.

Thats cigerette smoke you retard. If you got some second hand smoke from a marijuana source you'd definitly NOT be depressed.

That's true. The small amount of THC entering a 2nd hand smoker's body should have only a minor effect, if any.

However, prolonged use of marijuana can cause depression due to a tolerance, which requires more and more weed to be smoked. That inability to get high along with the high doses of THC is what causes the depression, consequently causing addicts to seek out other drugs such as coke, meth, ect... That's why weed is called a gateway drug.

"The psychological effects of marijuana include depression, anxiety and personality disturbance"http://info.addictions.org/ind...juana/

I believe alcohol, isn't itself so much of a gateway drug primarily because it's effects are more potent than weed (I could be wrong about that conclusion, but it's still not as much of a gateway drug as is weed). An addict can drink the crap out of Jack and severly debilitate or even kill themselves, where-as weed smokers can't exactly get to that same point. How many people do you know of that have died from a weed overdose?

*edit*So, weed, in and of itself is safer than alcohol. But it's complementary effects of being a gateway drug can make it much more dangerous.

Weed, for users not cancer victims, isn't as useful as alcohol. There are other ways of relaxing. For example, meditation, walking, taking a long hot shower, ect... Besides relaxation, what other uses does weed have?
Modified by Looneybomber at 4:59 PM 3/6/2009

[breadbox]

http://info.addictions.org/ind...juana/

Besides relaxation, what other uses does weed have?

I hope didn't you read that link you posted and just googled it.

That is the weakest reference since quoting D.A.R.E. literature.

Besides relaxation what other uses does weed have?

Um...

http://www.letfreedomgrow.com/cmu/

http://students.ou.edu/W/Elici...p.htm

[Looneybomber]

I hope didn't you read that link you posted and just googled it.

That is the weakest reference since quoting D.A.R.E. literature.

You got a rebuttal?

Well I was trying to find information about weed causing depression and leading to other drugs, but I was boarderline late picking up my son, so that article had to do. Should I find a better one for your non-existant arguement?

Um...

http://www.letfreedomgrow.com/cmu/

http://students.ou.edu/W/Elici...p.htm

Ok so the plant itself can be used for various things, we all know that. I even own a couple hemp necklaces. But those noncancer uses of THC (which is what I was talking about, not the plant itself) are crap.

THC for uses with bipolar? That's like saying toilet paper can be used for doing dishes. Sure it could work, but there are much better tools.

How many useful things in those websites have you done with a joint?

Does anyone have anything useful to say about the topic of the Bill in Cali?

[480sx]

WD, you are the man. Thank you for finally doing what has needed to be done for the last week or two.

OP - Its a great move by Ca. You wont find many people arguing that position here. The thread has however evolved into a discussion about MJ's continued federal prohibition, simply because of what i just said.

You are on the opposing side of this argument, all alone in this thread i might add. The rhetoric you use has been used by every drug czar, every anti-pot lobbyist ever. If you keep using it people are going to keep shredding your 'arguments' it into pieces, as i will continue to do.

So your saying that any use of THC for anything other than helping patients undergoing Chemotherapy is 'crap'? Ever hear of Glaucoma? Just for starters.

What about people living with chronic pain? Usually they would be prescribed something like a morphine drip, or some pretty hard core pain killer which leaves people with a whole plethora of nasty side effects. When they could be prescribed weed, buy a vaporizer and deal much, MUCH better. This wont work for everyone, but it can work for some.

What about PMS? There are studies showing that the use of Pot helps women who are PMSing deal with the cramps, stomach pain, irritability ect. Uh, enough said.

What about people with Anorexia or other eating disorders? Smoke this and get a hold of yourself.

Off the top of my head i cant think of any others. WD laid down a pretty good argument for this subject as he usually does, i apologize if some things in my post were redundant i didnt read the whole thread.

You mention Bi-Polar disorder. I, have it. Let me tell you, from first hand experience, there is no better mood stabilizer than Marijuana. The s*** they had me on as a kid was horrible. They first tried Geodone. That froze up half my body, i had to go to the hospital and get a shot of antihystime and wait an hour to regain control over the right side of my body. Then, Zyprexia(anti psychotic) and Depakote(mood stabilizer). They tried some other stuff here and there but i rejected it with a quickness. I had to take like 2 horse sized pills of Depakote. I felt like a zombie. The fire was gone, the excellence and passion i possessed gone too. I was sluggish, slower to react, the list goes on. In addition, they wanted me to take that stuff for the rest of my life. Depakote kills the liver, i had to get constant blood work done to make sure my liver was handling it. My levels were always higher than they should have been, liver wasnt happy. I wasnt happy. Eventually i just said f*** this, and stopped, and just smoked. It worked out much better.

So when you say that there are better ways to deal with it(medication wise), i say there are not. Why are you going to trust a medication passed by the same FDA who passed Viox, ect. It takes them 1-2 years to pass a prescription drug that are prescribed to patients for the rest of their lives. Yay for not being a guinea pig for Pharmaceutical companies. Id much rather trust something thats been cooking in nature for the last millenia than something some present day scientist cooked up in his lab.

I dont even smoke much if any anymore, just randomly when its around. I dont need to. It got me through the roughest times, and left me with a beautiful perspective on life. I doubt i would be here without it.

There are no legitimate reasons for MJ to be illegal. None.

[ishkabibble]

There are no legitimate reasons for MJ to be illegal. None.

Think of all of the unemployed cops, drug enforcement agents, pharma execs, and prison employees! What are they going to feed their kids? Pot brownies?

[480sx]

When i did the research 6 years ago, 50 percent of our justice system and jail's resources/space was used on non violent drug offenders. What a f***ing waste of OUR money. Its done nothing to curb the use of drugs, at all.

What prohibition(god damnit i hate saying the same s*** over and over in different threads) actually does, is create a whole criminal underworld. Prohibition sponsors drug dealers. Ect ect.. Argue it.

[breadbox]

Why the fed loves prohibition:

The DEA has an enemy as long as the drug war is on.Seized property from drug dealers. (sold at auction or used by the cops)Recovered money from drug dealers. (Property of the state)Confiscated drugs to bait more dealers with.When given the ability to lock up "criminals" who's only crime was on themselves, you gain quite a steady prison population. (Money from fed to private prisons, jobs)Big Pharma can keep patenting drugs you have no other alternative for.(money)

The reoccurring and underlying theme is money is to be made.

[EmKayThree]

The only reason why pot has not yet been legalized is simply because the government can't tax it.

I don't really care about people that do pot because I don't feel it really harms anyone else. Smoking cigarettes is way more dangerous than pot, the only reason why it's legal (just like alcohol) is because TAXES. And the fact it's much harder to produce cigs (and alcohol) than it is pot.

If this bill passes, the bill will surely fail because they can't match the same prices as the street. If the shops are going to charge $20, the street is going to charge $15.

[WDRacing]

If it were simply dropped down to Schedule 3, there could be actual research done on the effects and benefits of the drug. THATs why it is on Schedule 1 with Heroin and Meth...because if third parties had easier access to the drug they could prove and or disprove all the Gov BS. That and actually determine if there are really helpful benefits sitting there...waiting to be discovered. But no...lets make it illegal. One of the biggest reasons I'm a registered Independant.

[Rob.Vegan]

I don't smoke herb anymore, I still smoke cigarettes and drink once in a great while (yes I know my age)

The only time I smoke (weed) now is if I am going to stay at home, there is no reason for me to go drive anywhere, and if the weed was free (or really cheap). I use it to help me sleep in reality, I get really paranoid when I'm stoned and I don't like being around a group of people. I figure myself to have a sort of insomnia but have not been to a doctor to confirm, I just know that if I smoke weed I fall asleep (after munching out of course ) and when I don't smoke out, I can't sleep until like 4 or 5am

I say go for it, legalize weed and get some more money circulating

[DJ Raijin]

Legalizing Cannabis would be a huge boost to law enforcement agencies all over the country. Without the need to seek and destroy Johnny Skunkweed's forest in the middle of nowhere, they can focus on the TRULY DANGEROUS SUBSTANCES such as Cocaine, Crystal Meth, Crack, PCP, Heroine, etc. These are highly addictive, highly destructive substances with no use at all outside of destroying lives. Suddenly all those meth labs that were sneaking around are getting busted because cops don't need to worry about someone smoking a blunt.

With it legalized, crime rates for drug abuse will drop CONSIDERABLY. With no one getting arrested for using Cannabis, those stats will not be there and with the officers able to focus on taking down the really dangerous stuff, the use and flow of that stuff will slow down as well.

Legalization and Regulation will also take out the average street dealer. Have you ever priced some really good weed? You're looking at paying up to $20 a gram in some places, depending upon strain and availability. This will cut out the funding of gangs and cartels through the cannabis trade, basically forcing them into a corner with much harder drugs where the officers will be focusing upon much harder.

I figure with legalized Cannabis, prices will drop down considerably and quality will go up as you now create REAL competition and business where there wasn't any before. Suddenly the shady guy down the road who was ripping you off for some mid-grade stuff at $35 for 3.5 grams ($10 a gram) that's riddled with stems and seeds, is out of business because that $35 can buy you some legal kine bud from the local smoke shop (possibly in a much larger amount). Unauthorized distribution of cannabis would still be illegal and stricter penalties would be pushed upon those dealing it illegally. Prices will be driven so low though, that street dealers will not be able to meet demands. When you are getting just short of 1 ounce of cannabis for $35, street deals will have to be insane to even make it worthwhile.

Now, here's how the real money gets made. I've been thinking about this for years now:Government controlled and regulated prices and quality.

Figure that for large growers, it'll cost them around maybe $0.15 to produce each gram that comes from their farm. Now figure they sell their harvest to a factory that would industrially grind up and roll/stuff into cigar wraps or cigarette papers. At this point there is maybe $0.35 per gram invested into this product. Said product is packaged in a pack of 20 just like cigarettes. After the box and cellophane and everything is printed up and packaged up, they have around $0.50 per gram. Figure about 20g per package. So to produce one pack of joints, it would cost them about $10. Now they retail this pack for around $20. There's 100% profit. The government slaps on a marijuana tax of around $5 to $10. Now for every pack of joints sold, the government makes $5-10 in taxes. We're talking some serious cash flow used for health care, education, law enforcement, road work, etc.

Now, we have people that want to grow and contribute. This would require a permit. A permit would be $100 per year and would allow up to 10 plants, plus an extra $10 per plant on top of that. Farmers and such would be allowed to apply for Production Permits which much much higher numbers. Now in order to enforce these permits, job positions would need to be created for inspectors to go around and check these legal growers out. When you are issued a growing permit, your name and address and permit regulation is put on a list and you will be checked out once a month by this inspector to ensure that you're not paying for a 10 plant permit but growing a whole field or vice versa. Permits are good for 1 year at which point they will need to be reapplied for.

Also, with it legalized, you now see privately owned coffee shops, smoke shops and head shops open up. You have now opened up a new business opportunity to the masses, allowing reinvestment into community in the form of shop renovations, development and new safe places for people to congregate. Coffee Shops and the such will have to pay a fee to apply for their Cannabis License yearly, in order to legally sell the product in their shops. I figure about $2000 a year or so for this permit would be a fine price. Maybe more. Now figure that large areas such as Los Angeles will have as many as 200 or more legal smoke shops paying their License fees yearly.

I haven't even begun to start calculating the pharmaceutical, medical, industrial and agricultural aspects of this yet but the numbers would be staggering to say the least.

Besides, Cannabis was originally outlawed on 2 basis:

First was because a certain big name industrialist of the time (whose name currently escapes me) bought senators' and representatives' votes to outlaw this plant on the basis that he had just spent 100s of millions of dollars building paper mills and the Hemp Plant would render them useless and put him out of business. This created a chain that lead to Harry J. Anslinger getting his position and creating all of the ridiculous propaganda that still lingers to this day.

Secondly was for deportation purposes. After the Great Depression, there was a large influx of mexican migrant workers, brought to the states by the government to help rebuild the shattered remains of the US. After their contracts were done, they didn't want to leave and the government was looking for a way to deport them back to mexico. Noticing that the vast majority of them smoked cannabis recreationally, it helped spur along the initiative to outlaw it just so they could deport them.

And is this Jacko guy real? Does he listen to himself speak? I think someone slipped LSD in his milk when he was in Kindergarten and never stopped tripping.

[breadbox]

Exactly

And is this Jacko guy real? Does he listen to himself speak? I think someone slipped LSD in his milk when he was in Kindergarten and never stopped tripping.

[DJ Raijin]

As for the issue of cannabis smoke damaging the lungs, I had read somewhere that it's damage isn't as bad as cigarette smoke due to the fact that it lacks the ammonia, cyanide, arsenic, fiberglass, etc that cigarette smoke does. But the tar in cannabis is supposedly a lot heavier.

It's damage only works on the weakened alveoli in the lungs, which are the ones more susceptible to lung cancer. Thus it actually helps to prevent lung cancer.

http://cancer.about.com/od/smo...a.htm

The damaging effects of cannabis smoke CAN BE AVOIDED though. The use of a water pipe helps filter the smoke a lot better than smoking through a pipe or a rolled device. Roor now has an option to add a carbon filter to their bongs. 6 grams of carbon in a chamber between the bowl and the downstem, enough to absorb 300 yards of smoke, which is further filtered by the water. Beyond that, if you have the money, you can move up to a vaporizer which is incinerate all the material into nothingness, eliminating the need to burn it, turning the active ingredients into a fine mist.

http://www.weedcity.com/shop/R...-1297/ ... efits.html

[audtatious]

How about we mandate that everyone have and use cannabis? That way we can all get along better and there will be far less depression in the world. We need to mandate that all fast food restaurants serve only good vegan food for we don't want everyone to get fat from their new mental awareness.