Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Legalized pot is making America’s lower class poorer and less responsible

Poverty has causes. Sometimes it's poor health. Other times it's a lack of resources. And still other times it's due to poor decisions - like a decision to buy pot instead of save.

The states that are for legalization, do not care who buys, as long as they get the tax money.
It is always about the money.

Sounds like somebody neglected to inform them that marijuana is a "I can take it or leave it" non-addictive non-drug.

Yup.

"The effects of these new laws have been immediate. One study, which collected data from 2011-12 and 2012-13 showed a 22 percent increase in monthly use in Colorado. The percentage of people there who used daily or almost daily also went up."

I wonder if it occurred to these researchers that once the activity was no longer illegal more people would be willing to tell a pollster / researcher that they smoked pot? Ya know - since there is no longer a threat of the criminal justice system destroying their life and all...

I think the people responsible for the article were stoned.

Your comment convinces me your screen name ought to be "tokin"

I see your point. Since there's not a tongue in cheek smiley thingy, I guess I ought to have at least put some crazy-wink-whistle-grin smileys.
Oh, well...

Consequences and unintended consequences.

How much money is now going into state coffers - and accounted for - that used to find its way up the ladder to criminals and thence into the hands of police and politicians as bribes?

Not saying that none of that money doesn't find its way into extralegal channels but given the option of doing things legally or illegally, or no option but to do things illegally, I'd say it was a pretty safe bet the average entrepreneur is going to stay on the legal side.


For a history lesson, just look at what happened across the USA when prohibition was repealed. People that didn't drink because it was illegal (damn few of them by 1933) probably had a drinky-poo or two just because they could, then after the novelty wore off they were either drunks or went back to their former sober lifestyle. Speakeasys dried up only to be replaced by legitimate bars selling a product of known ingredients; gangsters had to find other means of making money. Drinking overall probably didn't change much, but the avenues of revenue from drinking changed a lot.

Oh sure, it sounds bad when you say it like that.

That is a crap article on a crap study. You really have to be careful of buying into the results of any study these days. There is so much pressure to get a result that will be popular and publish those skewed results. There is relatively little pressure to verify results.

Bro...

I was in a dark place. Why you gotta bring up old schit?



Dave

"How much money is now going into state coffers - and accounted for - that used to find its way up the ladder to criminals and thence into the hands of police and politicians as bribes?

They cut out the middleman I see.

i was talking to a guy today about his son, getting ready to go to a college i graduated from in the 70's. where some friday nights you could get high just walking through the hallways, blue clouds hanging over the dorms.
And I have known more than one long term pot smoker. Not all of them went to harder drugs, but it is a gateway drug.
one thing i can remember is some of these guys in the 70's were stoned almost 24hours a day. Their lives didn't end well, and they didn't accomplish much.
I kind of feel the same about alcohol.
I didn't have the gene to get hooked on it, most of my family did. And it destroyed families. Just like abuse of just about anything will.

is Pot a good hiccup cure ? I have been trying to find something for a long time.
Persian.

Basically, yes.

Worked real well for .gov in the late '60's, early '70's in SEA.

There's a pressure point above the last knuckle and about at the cuticle on the side your middle finger. Press it on both sides and hiccups will disappear. Sometimes it has to be pressed on both middle fingers at the same time. A bit hard to do for some, probably more if you're stoned, but it works.

Did you go to Cal Poly San Luis Obispo by chance?

The 'gateway drug' argument has been shown to be a fallacy. Correlation is not causation. If it were, then oxygen is the original gateway drug, because everyone who goes on to become a heroin addict breathes oxygen. Same for drinking water.

For all the talk about how pot is no worse than alcohol, respectfully that's bull. I know very few people that don't drink a beer or a glass of wine every now & then, and the ones that won't drink are the strict southern baptist types, they're teetotalers because their religion demands it. There are some drunks but the vast majority of people I know drink small amounts of alcohol on a recreational basis and are well functioning members of society, some of them really high achievers.

I don't know any occasional recreational pot users, every pot smoker I've ever known has either quit cold turkey or gone on to become a lethargic leech on society. Some of the ones that wouldn't quit the pot eventually moved on to cocaine or meth. Some I knew are dead from it.

I know it's chic and fashionable nowadays to equate pot with alcohol. Looking at the Malia Obama thread about her smoking pot and the "it's no big deal" responses shows that there are many here that want to downplay the dangers. Ironically, from a libertarian point of view I agree with legalizing it, I don't think it's any of the government's business what someone puts in their body. From a societal point of view, however, we're in for a lot more social problems as pot becomes more accepted. Just like when unwed motherhood became socially acceptable we ended up with a huge welfare roll, uncontrolled pot usage is going to result in the same situation. I already know about a half a dozen "disabled" people around my community that are milking the welfare system for all it's worth. Their only real disability is that they sit around stoned all day.

We live 30 miles from Colorado and since legalization I can't tell the difference around here. In our small population, we have a large segment of "poor folks". Almost all of them are poor because they won't work. Couples with kids may have one or the other work some, but almost never both of them. The drug supply was always here. Anything these folks spend is too much, whether it is pot, meth, alcohol, etc. Amazing how many of them are "disabled".