Progress on Marijuana Reform? Sort of.

Started by stromboli, August 12, 2013, 11:42:05 AM

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stromboli

Quote from: "Farroc"That people who smoke pot are unmotivated is a complete lie. When you're high on marijuana you can do everything you normally do equally well, you just realize it's not worth the fucking effort. There is a difference. Sure, you could wake up a 6am, go to a job you hate that does not inspire you creatively whatsoever, for the rest of your life, or you could wake up at noon, and learn to play the sitar. Pot just makes it easier to choose. And if the price you have to pay to enjoy your life is people calling you a lazy, worthless stoner, than so be it.

Yes and yes. I majored in English Lit and did serious writing while in that period. Problem is you don't write well stoned out of your mind, but as Carlin observed, a hit, no more, just to stir the ashes in your mind is very useful. Stoners I have known were people who would have been layabouts simply because of their nature. I got high with people who today are probably still layabouts, and high with people who went on to college degrees and success in business. I do not tend to equate drug use with success or vice versa- Samuel Taylor Coleridge, one of my favorite poets from the romantic period, was an Opium (Laudanum) user most of his life. Can't say my life has been ultra successful, but using Marijuana, in retrospect, never got in the way.

TrueStory

Increased heart rate and lowering of the intra-occular eye pressure are really the only 2 guaranteed results of smoking pot.  Lazyness seems to happen while doing nothing.
Please don't take anything I say seriously.

LikelyToBreak

About fucking time.   Oops stomboli said that.

The War on Drugs was started by Nixon to get the attention off of his failure in Vietnam.  And because old people vote, every politician got behind it and stayed behind it to keep those votes.  The CIA also was fond of it, as it increased their profits.  I don't know what the costs are now, but in the nineties, we were spending 8 billion a year on what was a 5 billion dollar a year problem.  Of course those numbers are fungible on exactly how you calculated them, still it shows the cost was more than it was worth.

I hope this is a step in allowing toward legalization of hemp.  Hemp was once a valuable crop in the U.S.  It is a valuable crop in Canada.  With increasing population and decreasing arable land, legalizing hemp just makes sense.

Of course, all the other things you other guys have pointed out make sense too.  =D>

Plu

Quote from: "stromboli"Yes and yes. I majored in English Lit and did serious writing while in that period. Problem is you don't write well stoned out of your mind, but as Carlin observed, a hit, no more, just to stir the ashes in your mind is very useful.

Alcohol, caffeine and most other mind influencing drugs work about the same way, I guess. I also enjoy a glass of mead before doing something creative, just to break away from the regular mindset a little bit and fire up the creative system. It works really well in moderation.

SGOS

Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"I know loads of pot smokers.  The vast majority have jobs, families, hobbies and manage to live a full life just like everyone else.  Yes, I know a few wasters, but they were wasters way before they got stoned. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in my experience most smokers aren't that different to anyone else.
This ^
Sending someone to jail for smoking pot is an incomprehensible reaction from society, I think.

Youssuf Ramadan

It's great for writing music too....  8-)

SGOS

Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"It's great for writing music too....  8-)
A $10 fine for pot smoking would be excessive as far as I'm concerned.

Jason Harvestdancer

Quote from: "stromboli"
Quote from: "Colanth"So Rethugs want to reduce federal spending.  And one way to drop a huge expense is to pardon everyone who's in a federal pen for non-violent pot possession.  Would the Rethugs go along with this?  I'm betting not.

Exactly what I was thinking.

That's how libertarians know Republicans aren't serious about reducing spending.
White privilege is being a lifelong racist, then being sent to the White House twice because your running mate is a minority.<br /><br />No Biden, no KKK, no Fascist USA!

Youssuf Ramadan

Quote from: "SGOS"
Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"It's great for writing music too....  8-)
A $10 fine for pot smoking would be excessive as far as I'm concerned.

Here in Britain, you'd have to be very unlucky to get more than a caution for possession of a bit of blow.  A mate of mine had a loft full of plants and managed to get away with it by saying it was for personal use.  It so happened that he was bullshitting, but there ya go....

Mister Agenda

Quote from: "mykcob4"I am all for medical marijuana. I don't like the drug culture at all though. Pot is a gateway drug and no ammount of justification will change that fact.

You know it wouldn't be a 'gateway drug' if people didn't have to buy it from drug dealers, right?
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

Mister Agenda

Quote from: "Youssuf Ramadan"I know loads of pot smokers.  The vast majority have jobs, families, hobbies and manage to live a full life just like everyone else.  Yes, I know a few wasters, but they were wasters way before they got stoned. I'm not saying it doesn't happen, but in my experience most smokers aren't that different to anyone else.

The stoners I used to hang out with 15-20 years ago all have something in common: They're now married with kids and make more money than me.
Atheists are not anti-Christian. They are anti-stupid.--WitchSabrina

Colanth

Quote from: "Jason_Harvestdancer"
Quote from: "stromboli"
Quote from: "Colanth"So Rethugs want to reduce federal spending.  And one way to drop a huge expense is to pardon everyone who's in a federal pen for non-violent pot possession.  Would the Rethugs go along with this?  I'm betting not.

Exactly what I was thinking.

That's how libertarians know Republicans aren't serious about reducing spending.
That's how Democrats know it too.
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.

Solomon Zorn

Gupta's report on CNN also had an interesting point that the driving reflexes of an occasional user are impaired after smoking pot, but surprisingly, the reflexes of a regular daily user were not affected by smoking it.

I had a friend (recently passed away) who used to spend about $100 a week on the stuff, and he ALWAYS had a job. I can't help but wonder how much better off our economy would be if people like him were allowed to grow their own, and put that $100 a week back into the system buying goods and services they can't afford now if they want to continue enjoying pot.
If God Exists, Why Does He Pretend Not to Exist?
Poetry and Proverbs of the Uneducated Hick

http://www.solomonzorn.com

stromboli

Quote from: "Solomon Zorn"Gupta's report on CNN also had an interesting point that the driving reflexes of an occasional user are impaired after smoking pot, but surprisingly, the reflexes of a regular daily user were not affected by smoking it.

I had a friend (recently passed away) who used to spend about $100 a week on the stuff, and he ALWAYS had a job. I can't help but wonder how much better off our economy would be if people like him were allowed to grow their own, and put that $100 a week back into the system buying goods and services they can't afford now if they want to continue enjoying pot.

Being an old man, I've never seen how me having a plant or two around the house and occasionally sitting on my deck and enjoying a toke and a buzz is going to cause the end of the world. And the whole paraphernalia thing- if pot were legal, Walmart would have a complete line of paraphernalia.

Colanth

Quote from: "Solomon Zorn"I can't help but wonder how much better off our economy would be if people like him were allowed to grow their own, and put that $100 a week back into the system buying goods and services they can't afford now if they want to continue enjoying pot.
$100 spent on pot and $100 spent on a new set of cooking pots is still $100 being put into the economy.  (Unless the guy selling pot puts the bills in his pipe and smokes them.)
Afflicting the comfortable for 70 years.
Science builds skyscrapers, faith flies planes into them.