You mention not wanting to be shouted at in a post which includes capitalized words (i.e. "shouted" words) and I make reference to the fact that I shouted one of those words back at you, and I'm making a stretch?

If your goal was to avoid a debate here (like the one we are currently having), then you failed to achieve said goal.

You said this:

Since it was in response to a comment of mine, I naturally inferred that it referred to me. Was I wrong?

Look, I have no desire to get out the long knives and go at it with you, but I feel like you are attacking me and then pretending ignorance - please stop.

This is my problem with "medical marijuana" in the first place. While it has medical uses, its primary use remains getting stoned. In fact, its medical purposes are indistinguishable and inseparable from its recreational purposes, that is to say, the medical benefits it has are because it gets you stoned. In America, the idea of anything fun immediately stirs a bunch of blue-balled Puritan scum into seizures of rage. These brain-dead busybodies have been behind virtually everything wrong in this country since its inception.

The fact is that "medical marijuana" will not only attract people trying to game the system but that also there is no way to prevent its diversion into the recreational market.

The solution is simple. Quit trying to outlaw things people want to do just because a bunch of idiots can't stand the idea of anyone else having fun. All we've bought with these stupid policies is an illegal mafia selling illegal drugs and a legal mafia locking people up. It's a toss-up as to which of these groups of scum is more of a plague on society, but I'd say we should legalize pretty much everything and put both groups of crooks out of business.

The problem is there's an iron triangle, with a prison industry that makes money hand over fist, a "regulatory" apparatus in the Bureau of Prisons and a nearly innumerable group of state prison authorities that favor their own continued employment warehousing mostly nonviolent drug offenders and a corrupt legislature bought by the money from the prison industry. It's well nigh impossible to defeat such a triple threat.

That was for emphasis. If you want to strech that into shouting at you to win an internet argument that's your problem



No my goal was to avoid a debate on the legalisation of maruaghna. Your goal was to make me look like a fool or something.



Nope. As was clear from the context it was something about internet debates I had had on this before. But you sure as hell made a good job of proving my point.



Well if you respond in ways that make no sense whatsoever based on you taking everything I say in ways that were clearly unintended, and thereby passively aggressively attacking me while polishing your halo, don't be surprised if I simply say your responses don't make sense. Which by the way, is attacking your responses, not you. Or it could be attacking you if you would like every lawyer who has ever stood in a courtroom to be liable for assault. And yes, that is sarcasm.

Fine Suranis, I'm an unprovoked, passive-agressive fool who is misinterpreting your position and you've done nothing that could be construed as SHOUTING ON THE INTERTOOBZ nor have you made any less than complimentary references to me.

Not to wade into the rest of your argument, in which neither of you would be harmed by dialing it back a bit, but all caps on the Internet is generally interpreted as "shouting." Italics are preferable.

I love that site Loh! And I am dialing it back - I do want a debate (or at least preaching to the choir ) on reefer madness insane drug policy.

“The Budgetary Implications of Marijuana Prohibition”

Written by Jeffrey A, Miron, Visiting Professor of Economics at Harvard University in June 2005

Executive Summary:

· Government prohibition of marijuana is the subject of ongoing debate.

· One issue in this debate is the effect of marijuana prohibition on government budgets. Prohibition entails direct enforcement costs and prevents taxation of marijuana production and sale.

· This report examines the budgetary implications of legalizing marijuana – taxing and regulating it like other goods – in all fifty states and at the federal level.

· The report estimates that legalizing marijuana would save $7.7 billion per year in government expenditure on enforcement of prohibition. $5.3 billion of this savings would accrue to state and local governments, while $2.4 billion would accrue to the federal government.

· The report also estimates that marijuana legalization would yield tax revenue of $2.4 billion annually if marijuana were taxed like all other goods and $6.2 billion annually if marijuana were taxed at rates comparable to those on alcohol and tobacco.

· Whether marijuana legalization is a desirable policy depends on many factors other than the budgetary impacts discussed here. But these impacts should be included in a rational debate about marijuana policy.

More at the link
http://www.prohibitioncosts.org/mironreport.html

Ms. Daisy,

Thanks for showing us the size of the "peace dividend" for the war on pot. I wonder how much would be added by a pardon of all non-violent pot offenders in our jails... We could probably eliminate our prison overcrowding issues and let China retake the lead in imprisoning one's own citizens at the same time - killing two birds with one stoned, so to speak...

Good grief. Can't even discuss? outside the USA?
So if I'm in a cafe in London discussing my aches with a friend, and she suggests that I try one of her over-the-counter drugs that might be on a CSA Schedule in the USA, I'm committing a federal crime? Or chatting about her trip to Amsterdam? Screams Big Government, Anti-privacy, Not Getting the Feds Outta my Hair. The current Republicans are so far from being actual Republicans it's pathetic.

Yes, you would be guilty of the crime of conspiracy. But on the bright side, you could always go to Kansas and relieve your anger by beating your spouse, or go to Florida and throw a few little people around the bar. Neither of which would be illegal.

You know, the extreme ignorance coming from actual legislators in this country is truly embarrassing.

If you wanted to force the nation and its lawmakers to face the question of whether and why we want to prohibit the recreational use of marijuana, perhaps the failure of a harsh Federal crackdown would be the stimulus.

You know, I thought of this, but I can't muster the hope to believe it...

Justice Scalia recently made some comments in a Senate Judiciary Committee hearing about federal drug laws and their effects on the federal judiciary. While I don't agree with his statement about diluting the quality of judges, I will agree with these two statements.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/chronicle/201 ... pe_federal

http://www.theatlantic.com/national/arc ... ke/246321/

Lemmesee...I get my indefinite leave to remain in The UK in March 2013, and apply for British Citizenship a couple years after. Ok, all is good, almost glad to see the back of the US, the way things are going.

Barney Frank schools George Will, Paul Ryan on marijuana legalization
http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2011/12/18/b ... alization/




Video at the link.
Is funny!

Ya gotta love Barney Frank.

If it were up to me, marijuana would be legal across the board.

However, in none of these stories have I been persuaded that the Obama administration is not following its stated policy of going after operations which are not in compliance with state law and/or some type of financial or tax hanky panky.

A lot of noise is made about the raids and so forth, but I see zero followup from the same quarters on the subsequent course of prosecution of these cases.

And, again, I see no reason why marijuana should be illegal in the first place, but if one believes that there is serious medical treatment being promoted by having stoned kids hanging out in front of places like "Dr. Ganja" or any of the various establishments along the Venice beachfront hawking "get legal!", then one is kidding oneself. With posters outside conveniently listing the various conditions for which marijuana can be prescribed, it's a no-fail proposition that if you go in for a diagnosis, then you are coming out with a referral. It is utterly clear that the point is to provide you with the magic words you need to say to the doctor inside in order to get your ticket to buy marijuana.

The way these places are run invites a backlash of some kind.

There is absolutely nothing better for crippling anxiety than medical edibles.

In Myneckofthewoods, CA, the authorities are going after the clinics who don't pay taxes or are otherwise not following the spirit of the law, let alone the letter, like the places in Venice with stoners out front. The more respectable clinics are happy about it. One clinic is cattycorner to a sheriff's station. Last year the sheriffs stopped a robbery in progress and now they are best buds. (groan)

In San Diego, I've heard, there is even a medicinal café. Things are changing.

I agree. Frankly, the only reason anyone should need to have for smoking pot is "I'd like to get high."



I don't completely agree with this, although I think a lot of the raids have, in fact, been against operations that are, frankly, not in compliance with state law and are operating for profit. However, I think more or less innocent operations are also being prosecuted largely for just being run by people who look weird and were perhaps a little sloppy and, in some cases, rather than being mercenary profiteers, actually managed to lose money selling pot.



I agree on that. While I agree on a general "right to hedonism," this kind of conduct threatens a more fundamental right that the "medical marijuana" concept protects: the right to medical care approved by a doctor that some people actually need. I have known several people with serious medical conditions that patented pharmaceuticals did nothing to help, but where marijuana was practically miraculous. One was a quadriplegic who couldn't move voluntarily but was subject to violent spasms that would knock him out of his chair and cause serious injuries. Pot completely stopped that. But he also got a buzz from it, so that's completely evil. The main "legitimate" use I've seen is just anti-nausea for people going through chemo. Having stupid displays in front of these outlets to make more money for Dr. Feelgood threatens those people's rights.

I have never liked the "medical marijuana" compromise precisely because it invites farces like that. It's completely transparent that the pursuit of these initiatives is basically an attempt to legalize marijuana entirely, using a compelling argument for limited legalization as a pretext for pot on demand. While it's good that this incidentally benefits the people who actually do have a serious medical need for marijuana, it simultaneously trivializes that need.

Worse, while this political farce continues, violent and murderous Mexican cartels still operate in this country, often in federal parks and other lands unprotected by our incompetent government that has been cut to the bone by decades of Republican mismanagement, to the point that illegal pot farms operate in California with near impunity. They even have barbed wire fences and armed criminals to threaten hikers. It's absurd.

Clearly, even the "liberal" laws in California for medical marijuana leave a massive market for the illegal sort and do not allow the huge tax capture that would be allowed by legalizing at a federal level.

I understand the politics that makes bogus compromises like this necessary. You can't run on "free weed for everyone" and hope the hippie vote carries it over. You need a bunch of doctors and lawyers and other people who stand to profit
to aggregate the issues and come up with a package that actually gets through a legislature. So you focus on more emotionally compelling issues, like the cancer patient who is so nauseated he can't eat for days after chemo and was skin and bones before medical marijuana. That may be good enough to get votes, but it doesn't alter the fact that the real issue is we are stupidly illegalizing a goddamn plant, and that regardless of how you try to frame it, there are going to be whacked out looking people hanging around in front of dispensaries being stoned and looking weird, and profiteers are going to swoop in to try to seize a chunk of the market currently inhabited largely by violent Mexican cartels, who can only make money in this market due to the general presumption of illegality.

That last sentence should be taken out and shot, but I'm not going to do it myself.

Seattle, Tacoma, & Olympia Washington had about 19 "co-ops" raided as they were selling the medication without having a notarized doctor's statement. It seems they left the co-ops that play by whatever rules are passed by the local and state folks such as sales tax etc.

Parking the Viper outside the side of the building isn't necessarily a good idea. As they say...advertising makes it happen.



Not a Godwin...

I live in San Jose, California, and after my back surgery 3 years ago I ended up getting a card. In our city we have around 115 dispensaries, and the mayor and city council were trying to shut all of them down except for 10 and not only that, were told they'd have to cultivate everything they sold on the premesis! Needless to say, ain't gonna happen. We got the signatures for a referendum to stop it, which automaticly stops it, promting the mayor at one point to suggest "Then maybe we should just apply federal law across the board and shut them all down". Of course he isn't going that far and the furor has died down, but that's the kind of things happening in my neck of the woods.

That said, we have some fantastic local dispensaries But even I think that maybe 115 is too many for one city, heh.

There are issues with many dispensaries in San Jose and the Greater Bay Area. (I'm in Morgan Hill, BTC, and there are several more Bay Area fogbowzers...maybe time for a NorCal meet-up) I think San Jose is a bit over the top in their attempts to regulate (read that as abolish) medicinal Marijuana dispensaries. We have none here in the deep South Bay; the one that existed for a while in Gilroy was a rogue dispensary (Medi-Leaf ) and their legal issues are still pending.

I don't, generally, use marijuana myself. I did, recreationally, A LOT, in my youth and I've been known, now and then, to take a friendly toke, when offered, at a party or poker game. So, due diligence out of the way, I still don't get why pot is illegal. It really does help people with pain, anxiety, glaucoma, depression, stupid fucking relatives who insist on visiting when you'd really like to dump them in a Gods be damned wood chipper and...*ahem* I just know too many people who are, or were, for real and for true, helped by the use of pot. Medicinal or otherwise. It should be regulated, but it should be legal.

This is a little off topic, but.........

I used to support "medicinal marijuana", however, I now think it's a joke. I think Medicinal MJ would be wonderful for chemo patients and HIV patients on HAART therapy. These are chronic, serious (terminal), medical conditions where the effects of a relaxant, anti-emetic, and appetite stimulant would be beneficial.

However, California changed my mind. IMO, people basically were able to get a MJ script for all sorts of pathology. Most of it comes across as just a laughably flimsy excuse for people to legally obtain MJ. MJ to treat anxiety? Why not just medicate with booze like in the old days? I am being facetious, but the truth is that there isn't a lot of good evidence based medicine to support all the indications that MJ is being used for.

Underneath this all is the annoyance of dealing with drug seekers. It's bad enough with the narcotics. It would be really annoying with MJ. I didn't go to medical school to be someone's pot dealer.

At any rate, they should just legalize it and stop hiding behind the "medical" canard. I don't know why we have a problem with the basic notion of people wanting to get high.

Washington Tries to go Legal (NO, not that Washington!)

Marijuana legalization measure certified

By RACHEL LA CORTE | Associated Press • Published January 27, 2012

OLYMPIA, Wash. – A measure to legalize the recreational use of marijuana is likely to be on the November ballot, after the secretary of the state's office certified the initiative Friday, saying the campaign had turned in enough valid petition signatures.
Related Stories & Links

Initiative 502 now goes to the Legislature, but lawmakers are not likely to take up the issue during the short 60-day session that ends on March 8, meaning it would automatically appear on the ballot in the fall election.

"It's time to for a new approach to marijuana policy in Washington state," Seattle City Attorney Pete Holmes said in a written statement released by New Approach, the legalization campaign. "Passing this measure will free up law enforcement resources, allowing police and prosecutors to focus on violent criminals instead of low-level marijuana offenders."

But... I don't live in Washington!

At least sleep apnea is one of the conditions for which medical marijuana is approved in Michigan... I suspect you're right Old Grunt, but if I can smoke legally because of a condition I've been diagnosed with an extremely severe case of (which I find is ameliorated by smoking), I'm going to do it. As far as using pot to treat anxiety, until you can point to a methodologically sound study by an independent lab (preferably published in a reputable journal) that says pot doesn't help with anxiety, I'm going to trust my (considerable) anecdotal and subjective experience. I would have had a much worse time getting over my divorce without pot and I would have been much better off had it been legal (especially if my health insurance paid for it ).