Home Forums Hunting & Shooting Hunter's Campfire Community Safety and Legalization of Dope

You keep saying "it" is a victimless crime. What exactly is the "it" you are referring to? I'm guessing your "it" is neither smoking nor selling pot. How do you know that the crimes you are actually complaining about are attributed to pot? Why couldn't they just as easily be attributed to another exponentially growing problem,Meth?

Uh oh. Now you did it.

Or opioids.
Or heroin. (heroine for some here. )
etc.

C'mon man. We all know drugs other than pot don't contribute to society's ills. The cause of ALL of society's ills is the legalization of marijuana. And before that, no one smoked weed, especially in OR, because it was illegal. Duh.

I believe the arbitrary legalization of a controlled substance with no oversight could cause an influx of stupidity into a given area.

But if that given area chose to legalize that controlled substance without considerations, wouldn't they be getting what they asked for?





Dave

In many cases, it's getting not what they wanted but what's shoved down their throats by a liberal state government in the small area of Portland/Eugene. From what I hear, most of the state wanted nothing to do with it.

A voice of reason....

Oregon did allow counties to vote if they wanted it legal or not... Our 2 democRAT county commissioners wanted it legalized and the one Republican didn't....they were claiming think of the added tax revenue!

But then no one seemed to notice that the first two 'grows' approved happened to be awarded to the two DemocRAT count
commissioners...

And as fairly mentioned above... What about Heroin, Meth etc...

Like any place, those problems existed already....

But then you all of a sudden, add 3000 plus "legalized grows" to the county..

which attracts gangs, and others from other states where dope isn't legal..

and with that added to the mix, what possibly could go wrong?

and lets face it....all of these out of state interests that have come into the county....

its not like we are received their most stellar citizens...

on the positive side, "Professional Criminals" who don't want to attract attention
are actually law abiding, helping the community in many ways.. and are taking
care of the gangs that attract local attention...

The Professional Ones, seem to be the older types, 40 and up..
and their products are going elsewhere...

The gang ones tend to be in their 20s or so...

but considering a place that has no real industry or jobs readily available
and the number of locals who never even finish high school, yet get involved
with Drugs.. get kicked out of their parents homes....the only way they seem
to support their addictions is thru crime...

and add all the others that have relocated here from places where dope isn't legal
they can't economically support themselves...

and the local welfare system can't support them... and our Salem democRATS
never set up anything for these types of problems.. that would cost money...

and it doesn't represent the things they want to spend money on... in Potland and Salem
no problem.. the rest of the STATE? we don't exist except for a source of revenue they
can take out of us all...

State funds were cut to this area.. and our sheriff's dept went from 90 plus deputies down
to a Sheriff and Two Deputies...in an large geographical area...

you don't think that doesn't attract crime... or cause those with no jobs, etc
not to head into crime when they county doesn't even have money to jail them?

They can't even enforce a warrant, when someone doesn't show up to court...
so what does a criminal have to lose? not much...

take those problems and add 3,000 dope grows.... yeah once again, what could go wrong?

Legalizing pot is pretty low on my GAF list but when I weigh everything about this issue I end up leaning toward legalizing it more than keeping it illegal.

At a recent city council meeting there were some less than productive members of society that plainly stated in the meeting that they had moved to this area, not only because medicinal marijuana was now legal, but also because the area is so rural there are no pesky lines at the distribution centers. This is a place that hits 100+ in the summer, and -30 in the winter. That leads me to believe places like Oregon and Colorado are experiencing the worst type of situation. They jumped the gun and their communities are going to suffer for it. Badly.




Dave

You provide your own point in your first sentence. Read AGAIN and you'll maybe get it, unless your like many around here and have a victim mentality.

More likely he is one of those who likes to smoke pot and thinks it should be legal.

If they would actually legalize it rather than simply regulate it through the state,all these gang related problems would go away.The problem is that the state is greedy and tries to maximize profits. The only way to take the crime out of it is to make it less valuable,to the extent that it's not worth the effort of big crime. Gangs don't deal in beer and whisky because it's too cheap and available. They did however when it wasn't,and there was the same kind of crime related to it when it was expensive and hard to get.

That's a well written perspective and I thank you for it.

With that side of it said, I'd still hate to see it used even more commonly than it already is. I don't think it has any societal value other than maybe pain management for sincerely needy patients.

I would completely agree with you as to it's value. It's exactly like alcohol though in that you aren't going to stop people from using it simply by making it illegal,expensive,or dangerous to obtain. All that does is make it more profitable on the black market.

If you could walk into a store and buy a quarter ounce of pot just like a pack of cigarettes, and at about the same price, every bit of the crime associated with it would suddenly go away. No one is stealing for money to buy cigarettes. Gangs aren't killing each other over the illegal cigarette trade either.

You would regulate it just like alcohol, and treat being high on pot,just like being high on alcohol.

Another thing that would happen,that most here can't see,is that if you take away the forbidden fruit aspect of it, it would quickly loose a lot of the cool factor. When it was as easy to get as a pack of cigarettes,a lot of kids just wouldn't be interested in it any longer.

Washington legalized it and since then I’ve not seen the problems that Oregon claims to have. It’s no longer a black market drug and the nefariousness of its use has been tempered. Where’s the profit for gangs if you can walk into a store and buy it cheaper legally?

Like alcohol if you want to break the law or circumvent the law by manufacturing your own you can take that risk but for the other 99.9% of the people they’ll go to the store and purchase it legally. What they do with the alcohol or pot (or gun) after purchasing it legally is where the trouble for society begins. Some people can drink socially and never have trouble, while for others the simple act of consuming one alcoholic beverage sets them on an inevitable path of destruction. Alcohol has much longer lasting affects than does pot and is far and away more destructive in all its forms than pot. Alcohol is physically addictive, pot isn’t, and alcohol is destructive to organs and tissue in ways that pot could only dream of. Alcohol has almost immediate and long lasting effects on motor skills and fine motor movements, judgement, mental acuity and perception. By using alcohol as a baseline there’s very few drugs that shouldn’t be legalized since most have less intoxicating affects than alcohol.

Blaming pot or alcohol or guns or donuts for your neighborhood problems is a lazy, ignorant way out for unthinking morons. Like I’ve asked before, does anyone really think that if alcohol was up for FDA approval today, knowing what we know about alcohol and how it affects the human body, that the FDA would approve its sale and use? I sure as hell don’t.

Aces:

I think often of your previous comments that your area doesn't have the problems that this county seems to have, with Jackson
County having the same or worse, right next to our county....

23 of the 33 counties in Oregon, voted to legalize it in their counties...its not legal in the entire state to grow it..
it requires local approval. Jackson and Josephine Counties have the largest number of registered grows
within the state and also the most problems...that have dramatically increases with its legalization.

Not sure what Western Washington County you reside in, but it sure sounds like they could teach
a lot to the local county government down here...These two counties are experiencing what few other
counties in Oregon are...

I compare this with places I have lived in my younger days, where the county was dry.. no alcohol could
legally be sold in the county.... but those places also had a very strong presence of Moonshine being
available... and yeah we are talking the South. And each of those locations, corruption was the reason
why.

I am sure that is the biggest reason we are experiencing what we are here.... and then added to it,
is it is either overlooked or ignored in Salem... which tells me their is corruption going on there also..

because these problems are openly known to exist, but they are not being addressed locally or
by the State.....

From what you describe being the opposite of what we see here in Southern Oregon, sounds like
your locale is on top of managing the hemp industry, and without corruption.

When two of the largest grows in the County are owned by Two of the Three County Commissioners,
and were also the first two approved by the State.. how much more obvious does it have to appear?

I think it was St Helen's Oregon.. the city up there won't sell city owned property to developers.
But the recently elected Mayor, who is pro Dope... just leased a large piece of city property
to a dope grower....

Medford, has had issues since I've lived here, or people wanting to open liquor stores, after hours
bars, strip clubs etc, on property that was close to schools.. and have consistently shot the applications
down... there is some city ordinance that those type of places can't be within 300 to 500 yds of any school
property... because it might influence children in a negative fashion.. as the argument goes.

Yet on the West Side of Medford on the Jacksonville Rd, there is an elementary school, that has probably
been there for 70 to 80 years....looks like it covers 5 acres give or take....but next to the school, on the same
side of the road, is a pot grow, that looks like it covers twice the acreage of the school property...

Never recall any fight over that being put in....you can certainly smell it this time of year when you drive
past it....and then past the dope grow are older family homes on nice sized lots....

Corruption is probably the core problem of this entire fiasco down this way.....and I'll bet ya
that most of it can be traced to the offices of the local DemocRATS....

I don't blame products for behavior but I can also acknowledge that in 2017 the majority of habitual marijuana users are less than productive members of society and not somebody we would typically want as a neighbor. The randomness of states legalizing a product that is prohibited at the federal level is going to cause those less than productive members of society to move into that area. I don't know where you live but it could be that the area you call home is cost prohibitive to Joe Schitbag and his girlfriend. Meaning, they're moving into your state just not right on top of your particular area. I admit this is a guess.

As far as crime, I think the few states dabbling in this experiment are going to continue to see an increase. If I can manufacture widgets legally, and that widget is still illegal in 40+ other states, then guess where I'm going to set up shop and start manufacturing and distribution?




Dave

And there lies the real issue at hand, the extensive revenue from a locally legal product...which is shipped out into an illegal black market in a neighboring state. No different than the Mexican Cartels have done for years here, a cheap effective way to make a lot of money...and if enough money is involved than crime is sure to follow. The growers in these states would never stay in business, if they had to rely on the local economy as their consumers...the retail pricing in their area is very very low, because of the large availability from growers.

Example: Large growers in California and Colorado get about $800-1000 a pound, but if they ship their same product to New York or Boston they get $4000-4500 a pound. Anyone with a U-Haul truck and the a connection make significant money by shipping East. The legal states are just a haven for the production process, unimpeded from the law by claiming medical/legal usage...if the state would monitor production quantities vs sales, and stop the export the money would dry up.

Federally it's illegal to ship across state lines, but it's forced upon local neighboring states to enforce trafficking to stop the flow in their area...that's an expensive venture to attempt to stop. The legal states make enough money from the legal dispensaries to wet their beaks, and don't care where the "surplus" product is disappearing to.

there's that invisible hand showing itself again, self-interest. local little "wet" towns draw in all kind of business from surrounding dry counties. the roads are run bare by the traffic. nothing much new under the sun, just have to be willing to exploit the laws.

Gus exactly,
So while legal states are pizzed at "weed", non-legal states that abide by federal law are pizzed at states like Oregon for shipping their wares our direction....but money "made" them do it, their local government is as dirty as the hippies growing.

There are a few things I'd like to clear up here. First of all, alcohol is not physically addicting. Neither, as far as we know, is weed. But they are emotionally addicting. Which for all practical purposes is just as bad to those who are inclined to abuse them. Tobacco, BTW, is not only physically addicting, but the worst of all, including the street drugs.
Second, all mind altering substances, that includes addicting pain meds, do alter ones attitudes and emotional makeup. Long term use literally alters one's out look and attitude(s) towards life in general. The more they are used, the worse it gets.
The relationship between crime and excessive use of drugs, including pot or alcohol is beyond question. Over 80% of all auto accidents involve drinking or drug use. Over 80% of the robberies are committed by people on something, etc. The list goes on and on.
Last of all, when comparing drugs to crime rates keep in find that crime rates are what the law enforcement officials say it is. Nobody audits crime stats..... So it depends on how honest the officials are.
90% of the crime we have falls into three general types. Drug crime, black crime and gang crime.
Legalizing pot eliminates the problems ? Criminal gangs don't deal in alcoholic beverages because they are legal ? Sure they do. They can sell in cheaper to retailers because they don't pay the high taxes on such things. Boot legging isn't what it once was, but it still goes on a lot more than many realize. E