Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Does legalization of Marijuana...

Actually I am very leary of edibles and feel they should be limited to medical use only. In general the more refined and concentrated a natural drug is, the more dangerous and addictive it becomes. Examples:

Opium, heroin, morphine
Coca leaves, cocaine, crack cocaine
Marijuana, hashish, edible oils

I don't know how many regulations were in place when alcohol was made illegal vs. how many were in place prior to and after it's prohibition, same as for tobacco.

But I look at it the same way - would we be better or worse off if possession and use of alcohol or tobacco in any form came with severe criminal penalties? If we would be worse off then why are we not worse off with the criminal penalties attached to marijuana?

And please don't finagle me about how "small amounts" of marijuana are already ignored or decriminalized in some states. Technically it is illegal at the state or federal level in all 50 states. Assume marijuana held the exact same legal status across the nation as alcohol or tobacco. Obviously some individuals would ruin their lives with it, same as some already ruin their lives (and the lives of their families) with alcohol or gambling or cheating on a spouse. My question is would the nation as a whole be better or worse off if marijuana had the same legal status as alcohol and tobacco?

And if the answer is that we would be much worse off, why then would we not be much better off to attach severe criminal penalties to the use and possession of a known highly addictive carcinogen and an intoxicant whose use has been responsible for more broken families, mayhem and violent behavior to even begin to list?

And once again, let me be clear about my position. I am NOT in favor of marijuana, it is an intoxicant with known or unknown possible long term deleterious effects to health.

But a known dangerous carcinogen and an extremely intoxicating substance are perfectly legal to "adults" and somehow the vast majority of Americans manage to avoid their dangerous pitfalls. If prohibition of alcohol was a horrible thing that had to be rectified then why the hypocrisy about marijuana?

Leave it to you to come along and make all the sense in the world.
Good post.

You make sense but legalizing MJ would mean law enforcement would loses much money so therefore MJ remains illegal.

GFY. He's a board-certified psychiatrist. People a f'ing dying and the the pot heads are out there talking about how safe marijuana is. Smoked pot. It's a drug and the risks are low. HOWEVER. Edibles are absorbed into the body much differently and in large doses can cause a psychosis.

http://www.thecannabist.co/2014/04/02/denver-coroner-man-fell-death-eating-marijuana-cookie/8519/

http://www.thedenverchannel.com/new...ting-marijuana-candy-charged-with-murder

http://www.newsweek.com/deaths-prompt-colorado-crackdown-pot-infused-food-251833

http://www.cpr.org/news/story/denver-emergency-room-doctor-seeing-more-patients-marijuana-edibles

Everything is just peachy and people like you continue preach how safe marijuana is.

http://www.aim.org/aim-column/media-continue-cover-up-of-marijuana-induced-mental-illness/

http://drthurstone.com/new-research-underscores-marijuanas-link-to-psychosis/

http://marijuana.com/news/2014/02/abc-news-claims-dabs-lead-to-psychosis-and-brain-damage/

Assume for the nonce that farming pot is as legal as farming corn or wheat. Further assume you have the proper soil and climate. Assume further that you could net, say, $100,000.00 annually.

How many here would not do it?

Be honest.

How many are dying from all types of marijuana abuse, compared to all those dying from cigarette and alcohol abuse...?

And how many who are opposed to the legalization of marijuana are also users of tobacco and alcohol...?

I can�t speak for all states but the ones with which I am familiar have a �per se� standard and a general standard to the effect of being impaired to the point of being unable to properly operate a vehicle.

The per se standard for alcohol is .08% BAC. Colorado adopted a �permissible inference� THC standard of 5ng/ml or higher, which is the barest minimum detectable in blood. The current issue is whether the 5ng standard actually correlates with the .08% BAC standard.



The standard field sobriety maneuvers work with THC intoxication as well as with alcohol. Right now here is no equivalent of the portable breath tester for THC. Lots of people are working on a minimally intrusive field test kit. Some are working on breath testers and I think that some are working on test kits similar to those used by diabetics. Aside from being a money maker for the person who patents the technology, it can be used by proponents of legalization because it takes away an �unknown� that can be used to oppose legalization. Of course, it will greatly assist the police as well when conducting maneuvers and determining impairment.



Don�t know about Colorado, but there is no �mandatory arrest� rule for federal violations by local police. A report can be sent to the feds or obtained by them and they can figure out if they want to do something with it. The feds are better at determining what their laws mean anyway, plus they have their own rules about grand juries and time frames for prosecution from time of arrest. The local police can certainly be subpoenaed to testify in a federal prosecution.



Can the license be used to hunt with archery gear? Does applying for a license to hunt establish probable cause or proof beyond a reasonable doubt that a person possesses firearms? It certainly seems relevant but may not be dispositive. The same issue arises with people convicted of domestic violence.

Other comments:

I have been trying to keep up with what is going on in Colorado because I live in a border state in which more than one quarter of the state population is within an easy drive of Colorado store bought pot.

I think that Colorado lawmakers got blindsided by the legalization. It was a ballot measure that got started as a grass roots campaign. The legislature probably would not have passed it. After the ballot measure passed, the legislature tried to clamp down on it by making it expensive and a revenue generator. (I don�t know about Washington�s situation.) Once people start growing their own at home, which is permitted in Colorado, I suspect that the tax revenue from state residents will decline.

Colorado and Washington are now experimental labs for how everything is going to work out in the long run. Data will become more readily available concerning the impact. Governments and business will learn the potential economic impact, whether from direct sales, taxation or things like additional tourism. The Denver Post has a section devoted to pot and pot issues. Because of the openness, studies are coming out every day concerning degree of impairment of alcohol versus pot versus cell phones. The issue involving edibles is mixed in there also. There are huge legal issues involving things like employment, lawyer regulation, financial institution money laundering rules, and housing laws in addition to DUI. These are largely caused or compounded by the fact that the stuff is still illegal federally. It is totally stupid to have the stuff illegal at one level and legal at another. The law should be consistent. Pick one, whatever the voters want, and stick with it.

I wonder what percentage of the nation�s population lives within an easy drive of Colorado or Washington? Unless the feds decide to put the hammer down again, it is really hard to stop people from getting the stuff at a store and creating the mental impression in the general public that it is no different than buying a Big Mac or a bottle of Jack Daniel�s. My perception may be skewed because of my proximity to over-the-counter sales, but it looks like to me like things are trending toward taking pot off Schedule I. Any politician of any party who wants to bring young people to the polls can use it as a campaign issue. Further, as more and more states �legalize� it either for medical or recreational purposes, it is going to be harder and harder for politicians to say that, when they get elected, they are going to shut it down. Don�t forget the campaign money or PAC ads from the businesses who profit from it directly or indirectly. That can go to the R�s as well as the D�s and L�s. Again, this is purely a personal perception, about like who is going to win an election or a sporting contest or how certain stocks will do (I am really bad at that), and maybe my perception is skewed.

By the way, I think that anyone involved in the manufacturing or sale of the stuff right now, including those in an advisory capacity and those taking money from them as service providers, landlords, etc. is downright crazy, as is anyone who openly flaunts using the stuff. Anyone who owns or possesses firearms and messes with the stuff for recreation or medicinal purposes is double crazy.

It is against the Law and anyone who uses or possesses Marijuana is a Prohibited person and is no longer allowed to own or possess firearms or ammunition.

No Thanks, I will do what I can to keep my Second Amendment Rights in tact. You go ahead and give up yours, no skin off my ass.

Add a zero and I still wouldn't do it.

Many, many things I wouldn't do for money. There is more to life than making money, how you do it and what you do with your time matters.

It would just be another commodity.

My grandfather on my mother's side raised tobacco as his main cash crop all of his life. He was a moral, church going man who raised 9 kids and put a few of them through college on that crop. Never smoked or chewed in his life that I know of, it was just what you raised as a farmer in North Carolina in those days.

I remember as a young kid visiting on summer vacation being pressed into "handing" duty, handing three tobacco leaves at a time to him to tie to stakes for hanging and drying in the tobacco barns, and how wonderful the inside of those barns smelled with the curing tobacco. At dinner and supper time we were strictly warned to wash our hands before eating since they would be covered with poisonous nicotine.

One of his sons (my uncle) took over the farm and with the market for tobacco diminished so much he and his sons now raise fresh cut flowers.

Just another farm crop like tobacco or hops or grapes for wine.

I'm replying to the original post only because I don't want to hurt some of our posters feelngs.

Anybody that believes decriminaliztion of marijuana by government control is a good thing is goofier that a shythouse rat.

People assume the marijuana today is the same as it was in the 60's. Then smoking 5% THC leaves in joints by hippy types was pretty harmless.

Modern marijuana can be highly concentrated using butane and the buds of the plants. People are producing 80%+ THC. Placing the concentrated butters and whats called dab into foods and now the big thing is e-cigerates. Think odorless "vaping" right next to you.

It is anything but the wild wood flower of yesteryear.

It took nearly 100 years to develop regulations of alcohol to an acceptable "leading cause of death in working age Americans."(link below)

Marijuana will require just as many regulations as alcohol production. To claim anything less is naive. One can make $100,000 a year producing marijuana but one can make $500,000 a year selling on the black market(illegal sales) what will some people be tempted to do?

To answer one other question, we do have a presumptive impairment amount of thc for operating a motor vehicle.

The leading cause of deaths comes from the cdc-http://www.krmg.com/news/news/local/alcohol-abuse-leading-cause-death-working-age-amer/ngTYf/

You absolutely missed my point. I said assume it was legal. It would therefore not affect your 2nd rights or any other rights.

It's always a chuckle when the dopes try to get all serious and rational about something.

Maybe you don't have values or standards, some of us do.

I understand the LE agenda--keep it either illegal (supports lots of LE jobs) or have .gov control and tax it (supports lots of LE jobs). If you read some of your links (the ones that work) you will see that other drugs may have been responsible for those few bizarre cases.

I should have addressed the original question in my first post. From a regulatory standpoint, prohibiting something takes less regulation than allowing it. Allowing something with medical and societal consequences will take a LOT more governmental regulations than prohibiting it, and you still need a mechanism and expenditure of effort for dealing with the people who violate the new regulations. So, legalization will not lift the need for enforcement, and you can expect regulations to increase as well.

The fact that the alcohol lobby can convince dopeheads that the cops are the reason weed is illegal is a testimony to how stupid it makes them.