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Why are we not talking about [Legal Marijuana] in multiple states and now for Vets?
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So anyway, I saw on Facebook that Colorado apparently can't put the pot money into a federal bank. I'm gonna see if I can find anything about that in a reputable news source.
Bullshit. If the feds want to seize that money they're going to get it, unless you put it in a coffee can and bury it in the backyard. Even if like, The State of Colorado has some sort of bank account at The Federal Reserve Bank with all their money in it (note: I don't think things actually work like that), the feds would still need some court order to seize the money, and that'd be just as good at any other bank.
fuck up once and you break your thumb / if you're happy at all then you're god damn dumb
that's right we're on a fucked up cruise / God is dead but at least we have booze
bad things happen, no one knows why / the sun burns out and everyone dies
As far as taxation - you can tax the crap out of it and people will still buy it and it will still be affordable. Regulation wise, I'd just like an elimination of chemical additives and local or partnership growing for each state, so places like New England could setup proper interstate trade, but there's not a lot of risk of some other state monopolizing production.
A Restauranteur has already release a weed pairing menu to go with some Sushi.
http://newsfeed.time.com/2014/01/08/high-class-dining-colorado-restaurant-introduces-weed-and-food-pairing-menu/
The point someone made about weed overdose is a good one. Alcohol poisoning/overdose is no joke and kills people every day. From my understanding you cannot physically OD on Marijuana. Is there a physical reason for that?
You need to take in about 40,000 times the amount of THC required for intoxication in order to overdose. Alcohol by contrast takes about 5-10 times the intoxication quantity to be lethal.
On top of that, marijuana self-regulates intake; the more you smoke, the less you want. Alcohol does not share this property.
EDIT: I knew somebody else must have already come up with the idea, but I wasn't expecting sushi. That's really cool.
You can totally overdose on MJ, but it's hard. Usually you pass the fuck out waaaay before it gets into dangerous territory.
There are stories of people having slept for over 20 hours from overdoing it with consumables, or had gaps in memory, but that's pretty much the worst thing I have personally heard of, and I know a fair number of people who have partaken.
Let's play Mario Kart or something...
Try effectively impossible.
Great. Thanks for the info!
When you get into the high-test oil derivatives etc. it can be done, but as you said - it still won't kill you. It's also less addictive than alcohol and recovery for addicts is not nearly as severe as alcohol or even nicotine.
Yeah, it's effectively impossible to fatally overdose on marijuana.
It's less impossible to overdose on THC itself - especially with things like hash oil where the THC is highly concentrated.
It's still difficult even with concentrated THC, but not impossible especially since the term 'overdose' is a broad term and doesn't necessarily mean fatal or even life threatening. 'Overdoing it with consumables' or 'Gaps in memory' would likely indicate some form of overdose, since that's more than would normally be recommended or ingested.
I wonder if it will come up in the next election since the next president could just instruct the DoJ to put the breaks on things.
Monsanto and Phillip Morris will lobby for a VERY highly regulated legalization with a LOT of tax, and get legislators on board with the promise of buckets of new $$$$ for the state coffers. Their goal will be to legalize and own the market all at once, never letting small businesses get a foothold.
You have to go to ridiculous lengths to call marijuana dangerous in any way that doesn't involve combusting it and inhaling incidental carcinogens, which is arguably just as dangerous as cigarettes. Edibles and vaporization are pretty damn safe, though we still need research on long-term effects of these methods of ingestion and intake.
Sure, this could happen, if they want to lose Colorado.
Once the tax money starts flooding in, even really dubious minds are going to change really damn quick.
EDIT: I mean seriously. Fucking with a state's tax revenue, especially when that revenue is set aside for building schools, would be huge national news and wouldn't look good.
I'm sure they will. I'm sure it'll be about as successful as the major beer company's attempt to do the same. Which is to say their lobbying probably will be effective at the start but will become less and less effective over time.
Even the first part isn't really the same guarantee since we already have people who conduct homes brewing or own micro breweries as a data sample.
The President can't out-and-out say "don't enforce this law"... this is all done with some sketchy 'prosecutorial discretion'. At any moment they could change their minds, they could selectively prosecute some people and not others...
There's no question of federal supremacy here - the FBI can walk out on the street and arrest any pot smoker they want, seize any dispensary they feel like seizing, and Colorado can do fuck-all to stop them. The problem for the current administration is that going against the states on this issue angers the progressive left, the libertarians, and the small government pro-state GOP wing. It's an unholy alliance they don't ever want to see deployed against them.
It's not wrong anecdotes. You'll note the study mentions previous studies did in fact conclude the opposite. It seems those had problems in their methods though, assuming an equal relative risk for most diseases other than the major ones.
I do wonder how this stacks up with the amount of taxes currently levied on cigarettes. In most of Europe it's about 75% and it nets a considerable sum each year.
But as I said already this isn't something I was advocating. Regardless of the economic costs it is still a good idea to try and reduce smoking. People are more than their economic worth.
Considering the way the tide of public opinion on legalization is rapidly approaching a huge majority in favor of, you also get a lot of collateral damage across other groups. Specifically ordering the enforcement of federal drug laws in opposition to Colorado's legalization laws would not necessarily be political suicide, but it's a pretty large step in that direction.
There's also the problem of, you know, the FBI having approximately seven million better things to do than arrest people for smoking pot. About the only thing I could see the FBI ever really cracking down is the dispensaries.
I agree that it would be a terrible idea for someone, but it would be an interesting question for the republican primaries. The conflict between being tough on drugs or deferring to "states rights" would be something I would like to see.
Counterexample: Vermont's entire microbrew industry put on hold because regulators couldn't authorize new products during the government shutdown. I think you're right that effectiveness will wane over time but do you really want to start with the pot version of Blue Laws and Bud Lite, and work our way back to today over the course of 50 years? When we could create an instant explosion in local industry right now by simply not diving headfirst into draconian regulation and insane taxes?
This could absolutely happen, but especially if this comes after 2 years of legal weed not being any kind of problem in Colorado, this would really come back to bite them in the ass and hard.
I'm really, really hoping that these first two years go well for Colorado. I can't imagine anything huge occurring under legal marijuana that would actually be worse than things happening under illegal marijuana, but I really want a slam dunk, "Look, nobody died, Reefer Madness never happened" kind of example to point to.
Nicotine is water soluble, THC isn't (very) water soluble. Hash oil is the equivalent to your nicotine drink.
LD50 of THC is ~1000 mg / kg, Nicotine is ~30 mg / kg.
Back of the napkin says a typical (150 lb) person would need roughly 100 grams of hash oil (60% THC content which is typical) - or about a half a cup, assuming hash oil has a similar density to water.
So...a hell of a lot, but not an amount entirely beyond the realm of possibility.
But yes, you are right. Sorry, should have indicated it - just wanted to put the amount of THC it takes to kill you into perspective and figured I'd share my work.
As for overdose, that can mean different things. You are not going to die from consuming too much marijuana in one sitting, full stop. Consuming too much to the point of discomfort is entirely a possibility, whether it's "I am tooooo high right now" or even the aggravation of anxiety or depression. Smoking is also self-limiting; eventually you just will not get any higher (the mechanism at work here is little understood). Edibles are not affected by this and YOLOing a whole plate of brownies is a good way to have a Bad Time.
I'm split on the threat of takeover by big pharma/tobacco/alcohol companies. On the one hand, yes they do have a lot of advantages (lobbying, existing production and distribution chains). On the other, there is already a strong 'craft' culture with marijuana as with craft beer, and generally people have been trending away from the mass-produced products. Not that the market won't come to be dominated by corporate contenders, but it should be less severe than with cigarettes.
Sure I'd prefer they didn't. But if it happened I wouldn't really be all that torn up about it either. Assuming a 1950s style situation I'd probably just suck it up and grow my own and trade batches with the other organic local trade hippies.
I don't think anybody wants that outcome. Even if it is, though, it's still better than what we've got now.
I mean I would really, really like to have a big open marketplace that allows for new growers and specialty products, because it will create jobs and be better for the consumer. And I would be unhappy if it didn't happen. But a "big growers only" situation would still be a massive improvement on "no growers ever" and I will take what victories I can.
Romney's Colorado campaign manager was quietly, water-testingly pro-legalization in the 2012. I think 2016 might be the year we see a prominent national Republican take the plunge.
There's no guarantee it'd still be legal to grow your own under that regime, or to trade it openly. Also, you might be able to do that but it'd suck for most people.
This really is the time to get on board the low-reg, low-tax train and make it legal the right way.
Not too sure about this.
While public opinion is, without a doubt, strongly in favor of legalization, Republicans are still very much opposed to it in just about every poll I've seen. I linked one earlier in this very thread and I think it was something like 39% of Republicans are in favor of legalization. It'd put you out of the primaries in a lot of places.
One of the major advantages of marijuana is how easy it is to grow. Growing it properly is another matter entirely, but still. Tobacco requires some serious gardening experience and a lot of growing conditions that marijuana isn't subject to.
This all points to marijuana being a much easier point of small-guy entry into commercial growing than tobacco, for sure.
There's no guarantee, no. But way back in the day the cops weren't going to be busting down the door of some guy who brought home a bag of hops either.
And you'll excuse me if I think there's a range of options between corporate oligarchy and the invisible hand.
Ehh, I don't believe the polls in that case. And it's going to have to start in the north, where revenue from drug busts is lower and there are fewer Baptists. But I could see, say, Chris Christie committing to respecting state law and not prosecuting. That'll be the angle... "I respect the rights of states to make the decisions that are best for their citizens, and strongly oppose the federal government meddling in their affairs".
Shitting on the fed is one of the things we love to do most!
nsfw
me too! I just want more invisible, less oligarchy. I mean, the ATF's job is to literally kick down your door and break your moonshine still, and they do that shit all the time.
Light regulation for health and safety, sensible taxation. That's what I'm advocating. Let's treat it like caffeine, not like alcohol. The product we should be hoping to emulate is the Grande Mocha, not the Marlboro Light.
The south is the Republican stronghold, though. It's like opposite New York for Republicans. If you can't make it there, you can't make it anywhere. And southerners are still firmly opposed to legalization.
Anyway, "not prosecuting" is not the same thing as coming out as pro-legalization. It's a sufficiently vague stance that would allow both sides of the debate to justify voting for you in a primary, sure, but it's hardly "taking the plunge" as you proposed.
I'd much rather treat it like modern day alcohol than caffeine. I don't want kids freely using this stuff. Frankly the only regulation issues I have with alcohol are the current age limit and the pants on head distribution system.