6 ms·

On the quiet, the US is legalising marijuana

32 points by Flemlord 17y ago

wheels 17y ago
This seems to be basically a "legalize it!" bent to rehashing an earlier Fortune / CNN Money article: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/11/magazines/fortune/medical_marijuana_legalizing.fortune/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/11/magazines/fortune/medical_ma...
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
auston 17y ago
I was approached by a friend who wanted to do a dispensary locator app for the iPhone and my thoughts were: "No way Apple will EVER let that through!" - he called me the other day to tell me about an app that got through...
- deleted 17y ago
  [deleted]
rms 17y ago
> In an online press conference with his younger supporters, the first question was about whether legalising and taxing pot would be a good thing to help raise revenues. That was Reddit. It seems insane that our last three presidents admitted to smoking weed yet thousands upon thousands of people are languishing in jail for doing the same thing. Cognitive dissonance much?
- dtf 17y ago
  The Release charity in the UK has a campaign called "Nice People Take Drugs", which aims to change drug policy to harm reduction and remove the stigma associated with drug use. One of their promotional tools is a deck of cards, each featuring a politician known to be tough on drugs, subtitled with a confessional quote of drug use from their youth: http://www.release.org.uk/nicepeopletakedrugs/deck-of-cards/ http://www.release.org.uk/nicepeopletakedrugs/deck-of-cards/ (you can click on each card to see the quote)
  - axod 17y ago
    I'm not sure that's an effective argument. Politicians occasionally break the speed limit also, but it's not a great argument for increasing the speed limit.
    - ugh 17y ago
      You don't go to jail for breaking the speed limit. And breaking the speed limit has quite a bit more potential of actually hurting other people.
      - axod 17y ago
        Not particularly. Driving at 80mph on motorways, where the limit is 70, is not dangerous. Motorways are the safest roads about. Majority of deaths happen on the quieter windier roads near peoples houses. There's a pretty clear evidence based case for raising the limit to 80, since everyone drives at it anyway, but doing so could be unpopular. So it's reasonably similar.
        ugh 17y ago
        I'm from Germany. Our motorway has no limits :) (Incidentally the refernce speed for German motorways is 130 km/h or pretty much 80 mph. Driving faster or slower is no misdemeanor or felony, but may increase liability.)
      - lallysingh 17y ago
        You also don't lose your student loans
    - dtf 17y ago
      I understand your point, although I would say that the speed limit is rather more directly related to harm to others. My view is that young people will refuse to be lectured on the dangers of drugs by politicians who themselves enjoyed drugs during their youth. Unless that politician's got some kind of personal horror story, such as "heroin killed my entire family", then their opinion will not carry much weight. Kids look at them, see a bunch of basically privileged people that had a wild time and enjoyed all sorts of illegal drugs at college, and then packed it all in when they finally got a good job. This is not a great platform to preach from. Young people ask, "if they can do it, why can't I?"
deleted 17y ago
[deleted]
ErrantX 17y ago
This rot always annoys me :(
- bbsabelli 17y ago
  rot?
  - ErrantX 17y ago
    All the guff about having legit medical purposes makes it safe for legalisation :) (how many other drugs are used for medical purposes that are not legal generally; pain medication for example) And the other thing about it being less harmful than alcohol (which is more of a case for banning alcohol really ;)). Round and round we go :) It's important to remember that by that Alcohol and Tobacco is NOT at all safe - it causes society and individuals no end of problems. Do we want to add another drug to that mess :P It's important to consider everything in perspective rather than just go with either the govt. line or the supposed experts line (for example we have one here in the UK on record saying ecstasy is no more dangerous than horse riding - which might be statistically true but, as most here will appreciate, is just sensationalism that ignores the obvious problems :D) EDIT: I should point out I am biased; one of my friends was killed after smoking marijuana and driving and another friend is now a dribbling wreck after 10 years regular smoking (one of the smartest people I know now has the intelligence of a 15 year old). I dont see how these problems wont be multiplied :)
    - steiger 17y ago
      Add another drug? Millions of people already smoke pot in America today, and legalising it will only make it safer. EDIT: Also, I feel sorry about your friends, but it is my view that this is not what happens with the majority of the users, and the laws should adapt to that reality.
      - ErrantX 17y ago
        Unfortunately no it wont. The 2 places it has been tried the experiment failed reasonably badly (portugal and amsterdam). There certainly wasnt an outbreak of drug deaths - but the situation didnt improve as much as people tend to claim. (sorry this is no place to have the discussion :) Ill shaddup) EDIT: thanks for the condolences. Unfortunately I disgree; through them I explored (but never joined thankfully) the drugs sub culture in Leeds (UK). If that is in anyway representative, and I see no reason to suspect otherwise, this is the norm. I also have a friend in his 40's who grows his own drugs and is fairly well adjusted (if a little air headed and often stoned). From my experience, though, he is the exception not the rule.
dtf 17y ago
Funny that The Times are running anti-prohibition articles during this whole furore about the sacking of David Nutt. They can't be a happy bunch at the Home Office this weekend.
steiger 17y ago
Too bad Carl Sagan did not live enough to see it happen.
Goladus 17y ago
I don't think "decriminalize" really means what the article is trying to suggest it means. It can still be a misdemeanor.
DanielBMarkham 17y ago
I support legalization of pot in the U.S., but I don't think it's going to happen like the article's title predicts. What will happen, and the article alludes to it, is a mish-mash of conflicting state and local laws that legalize or decriminalize pot to various degrees. The federal government will continue to be a wild card. Wholesale legalization is not in the cards. That's because the way pot was made illegal was illegal to begin with. When alcohol was made illegal, it took a constitutional amendment. Ever wonder why? After all, they tried making alcohol illegal other ways and the courts threw it out. The government got tired of all that constitutional stuff and decided that in the future substances would be regulated by administrative fiat. The DEA maintains a list which it adds and subtracts items whenever it feels like it. No president is going to completely pull something like pot from the list -- too much political hassle what with getting into why the list exists in the first place. Instead pot will be ignored to some degree, leaving the same big constitutional problem we had to start with to fester for decades. So the real news is that the people are tired of pot criminal laws, state and local governments are responding to them, and the federal government, having taken on itself to tell people what they can ingest or not, is stuck with a big bag of laws that don't meet the people's needs any more. That could take 50 years or more to work out (if ever).
awolf 17y ago
The war on drugs has always been a failure: there has been no measureable decline in usage. Legalization will eliminate a dangerous black market and free our law enforcement to focus on more serious crime. Most importantly - legalization will no longer label hundreds of thousands of otherwise law abiding citizens "criminals" for enjoying a substance that humans have been using for as long as we can tell.
patrickgzill 17y ago
The reality is that states are going to be asserting their rights against Federal ability. This is happening in gun-related issues as well, with Montana and Ohio, at the least, considering the passage of laws that ignore the BATF if the gun is produced in and sold in the state. This gets around the interstate commerce clause used by the Feds to claim jurisdiction.
stuartjmoore 17y ago
Let's not forget about Hemp: http://books.google.com/books?id=pkMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA15&dq=hemp%20henry%20ford&lr=&as_brr=1&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA15#v=twopage&q=&f=true http://books.google.com/books?id=pkMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA15&#...

32 points by Flemlord 17y ago

This seems to be basically a "legalize it!" bent to rehashing an earlier Fortune / CNN Money article: http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/11/magazines/fortune/medical_marijuana_legalizing.fortune/index.htm http://money.cnn.com/2009/09/11/magazines/fortune/medical_ma...

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

auston 17y ago

I was approached by a friend who wanted to do a dispensary locator app for the iPhone and my thoughts were: "No way Apple will EVER let that through!" - he called me the other day to tell me about an app that got through...

deleted 17y ago
[deleted]

rms 17y ago

> In an online press conference with his younger supporters, the first question was about whether legalising and taxing pot would be a good thing to help raise revenues. That was Reddit. It seems insane that our last three presidents admitted to smoking weed yet thousands upon thousands of people are languishing in jail for doing the same thing. Cognitive dissonance much?

dtf 17y ago
The Release charity in the UK has a campaign called "Nice People Take Drugs", which aims to change drug policy to harm reduction and remove the stigma associated with drug use. One of their promotional tools is a deck of cards, each featuring a politician known to be tough on drugs, subtitled with a confessional quote of drug use from their youth: http://www.release.org.uk/nicepeopletakedrugs/deck-of-cards/ http://www.release.org.uk/nicepeopletakedrugs/deck-of-cards/ (you can click on each card to see the quote)
- axod 17y ago
  I'm not sure that's an effective argument. Politicians occasionally break the speed limit also, but it's not a great argument for increasing the speed limit.
  - ugh 17y ago
    You don't go to jail for breaking the speed limit. And breaking the speed limit has quite a bit more potential of actually hurting other people.
    - axod 17y ago
      Not particularly. Driving at 80mph on motorways, where the limit is 70, is not dangerous. Motorways are the safest roads about. Majority of deaths happen on the quieter windier roads near peoples houses. There's a pretty clear evidence based case for raising the limit to 80, since everyone drives at it anyway, but doing so could be unpopular. So it's reasonably similar.
      - ugh 17y ago
        I'm from Germany. Our motorway has no limits :) (Incidentally the refernce speed for German motorways is 130 km/h or pretty much 80 mph. Driving faster or slower is no misdemeanor or felony, but may increase liability.)
    - lallysingh 17y ago
      You also don't lose your student loans
  - dtf 17y ago
    I understand your point, although I would say that the speed limit is rather more directly related to harm to others. My view is that young people will refuse to be lectured on the dangers of drugs by politicians who themselves enjoyed drugs during their youth. Unless that politician's got some kind of personal horror story, such as "heroin killed my entire family", then their opinion will not carry much weight. Kids look at them, see a bunch of basically privileged people that had a wild time and enjoyed all sorts of illegal drugs at college, and then packed it all in when they finally got a good job. This is not a great platform to preach from. Young people ask, "if they can do it, why can't I?"

deleted 17y ago

[deleted]

ErrantX 17y ago

This rot always annoys me :(

bbsabelli 17y ago
rot?
- ErrantX 17y ago
  All the guff about having legit medical purposes makes it safe for legalisation :) (how many other drugs are used for medical purposes that are not legal generally; pain medication for example) And the other thing about it being less harmful than alcohol (which is more of a case for banning alcohol really ;)). Round and round we go :) It's important to remember that by that Alcohol and Tobacco is NOT at all safe - it causes society and individuals no end of problems. Do we want to add another drug to that mess :P It's important to consider everything in perspective rather than just go with either the govt. line or the supposed experts line (for example we have one here in the UK on record saying ecstasy is no more dangerous than horse riding - which might be statistically true but, as most here will appreciate, is just sensationalism that ignores the obvious problems :D) EDIT: I should point out I am biased; one of my friends was killed after smoking marijuana and driving and another friend is now a dribbling wreck after 10 years regular smoking (one of the smartest people I know now has the intelligence of a 15 year old). I dont see how these problems wont be multiplied :)
  - steiger 17y ago
    Add another drug? Millions of people already smoke pot in America today, and legalising it will only make it safer. EDIT: Also, I feel sorry about your friends, but it is my view that this is not what happens with the majority of the users, and the laws should adapt to that reality.
    - ErrantX 17y ago
      Unfortunately no it wont. The 2 places it has been tried the experiment failed reasonably badly (portugal and amsterdam). There certainly wasnt an outbreak of drug deaths - but the situation didnt improve as much as people tend to claim. (sorry this is no place to have the discussion :) Ill shaddup) EDIT: thanks for the condolences. Unfortunately I disgree; through them I explored (but never joined thankfully) the drugs sub culture in Leeds (UK). If that is in anyway representative, and I see no reason to suspect otherwise, this is the norm. I also have a friend in his 40's who grows his own drugs and is fairly well adjusted (if a little air headed and often stoned). From my experience, though, he is the exception not the rule.

dtf 17y ago

Funny that The Times are running anti-prohibition articles during this whole furore about the sacking of David Nutt. They can't be a happy bunch at the Home Office this weekend.

steiger 17y ago

Too bad Carl Sagan did not live enough to see it happen.

Goladus 17y ago

I don't think "decriminalize" really means what the article is trying to suggest it means. It can still be a misdemeanor.

DanielBMarkham 17y ago

I support legalization of pot in the U.S., but I don't think it's going to happen like the article's title predicts. What will happen, and the article alludes to it, is a mish-mash of conflicting state and local laws that legalize or decriminalize pot to various degrees. The federal government will continue to be a wild card. Wholesale legalization is not in the cards. That's because the way pot was made illegal was illegal to begin with. When alcohol was made illegal, it took a constitutional amendment. Ever wonder why? After all, they tried making alcohol illegal other ways and the courts threw it out. The government got tired of all that constitutional stuff and decided that in the future substances would be regulated by administrative fiat. The DEA maintains a list which it adds and subtracts items whenever it feels like it. No president is going to completely pull something like pot from the list -- too much political hassle what with getting into why the list exists in the first place. Instead pot will be ignored to some degree, leaving the same big constitutional problem we had to start with to fester for decades. So the real news is that the people are tired of pot criminal laws, state and local governments are responding to them, and the federal government, having taken on itself to tell people what they can ingest or not, is stuck with a big bag of laws that don't meet the people's needs any more. That could take 50 years or more to work out (if ever).

awolf 17y ago

The war on drugs has always been a failure: there has been no measureable decline in usage. Legalization will eliminate a dangerous black market and free our law enforcement to focus on more serious crime. Most importantly - legalization will no longer label hundreds of thousands of otherwise law abiding citizens "criminals" for enjoying a substance that humans have been using for as long as we can tell.

patrickgzill 17y ago

The reality is that states are going to be asserting their rights against Federal ability. This is happening in gun-related issues as well, with Montana and Ohio, at the least, considering the passage of laws that ignore the BATF if the gun is produced in and sold in the state. This gets around the interstate commerce clause used by the Feds to claim jurisdiction.

stuartjmoore 17y ago

Let's not forget about Hemp: http://books.google.com/books?id=pkMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA15&dq=hemp%20henry%20ford&lr=&as_brr=1&as_pt=MAGAZINES&pg=PA15#v=twopage&q=&f=true http://books.google.com/books?id=pkMEAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA15&#...