Sean Parker Contributes $9 Million As States Push To Legalize Marijuana (gazettenet.com) 255
Sean Parker has now donated nearly $9 million in his effort to legalize marijuana in California. An anonymous Slashdot reader quotes Billboard:
Whether it's founding Napster, guiding Facebook or investing in Spotify, Sean Parker has developed a reputation for pushing change forward, and now he's at the forefront of California's marijuana legalization movement... [A] competing proposal from the Coalition for Cannabis Policy Reform was folded into Parker's, making his the leading ballot measure, by default, for 2016 in a state with the largest medical marijuana market in the country.
The U.S currently has a hodgepodge of legislation, with marijuana entirely legal only in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, as well as in the District of Columbia, and in individual cities in Michigan and Maine. But with five more states now voting on legalization, pro-marijuana campaign ads are being broadcast in Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, California and Arizona. ("You decide who wins -- criminals and cartels, or Arizona schools?") And meanwhile, Slashdot reader schwit1 has identified one voter who's definitely opposing police efforts to hunt down marijuana growers: All that remains of the solitary marijuana plant an 81-year-old grandmother had been growing behind her South Amherst home is a stump and a ragged hole in the ground... Tucked away in a raspberry patch and separated by a fence from any neighbors, the [medicinal] plant was nearly ready for harvest when a military-style helicopter and police descended on Sept. 21...
The U.S currently has a hodgepodge of legislation, with marijuana entirely legal only in Colorado, Washington, Oregon and Alaska, as well as in the District of Columbia, and in individual cities in Michigan and Maine. But with five more states now voting on legalization, pro-marijuana campaign ads are being broadcast in Massachusetts, Maine, Nevada, California and Arizona. ("You decide who wins -- criminals and cartels, or Arizona schools?") And meanwhile, Slashdot reader schwit1 has identified one voter who's definitely opposing police efforts to hunt down marijuana growers: All that remains of the solitary marijuana plant an 81-year-old grandmother had been growing behind her South Amherst home is a stump and a ragged hole in the ground... Tucked away in a raspberry patch and separated by a fence from any neighbors, the [medicinal] plant was nearly ready for harvest when a military-style helicopter and police descended on Sept. 21...
Good (Score:3)
GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS!! OMG!! (Score:4, Insightful)
Oh wait.. nevermind, we like his position. Money in politics is good again.
Re:GET MONEY OUT OF POLITICS!! OMG!! (Score:5, Insightful)
Oh wait.. nevermind, we like his position. Money in politics is good again.
Getting money out of politics might (might) enable us to have laws based on science and reasoning, rather than propaganda and hysteria. The alcohol, tobacco and pharmaceutical industries all contribute and lobby hard to protect their businesses. At least people like Mr. Parker provide a countervailing force. Wanting to get money out of politics is not the same as wanting to do it unilaterally.
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You also forget the major organised crime drug dealers and their money laundering banks, laundering billions and taking a percentage. In reality they are the people skulking in the background keeping the drugs they profit from illegal because once legal they lose that profit. Now that is serious money and seriously debauched parties (they require evidence to take down any politician who accepts their money only to betray them) and serious pay to speak scams. Crime at the highest levels with collusion betwe
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You also forget the major organised crime drug dealers and their money laundering banks, laundering billions and taking a percentage. In reality they are the people skulking in the background keeping the drugs they profit from illegal because once legal they lose that profit. Now that is serious money and seriously debauched parties (they require evidence to take down any politician who accepts their money only to betray them) and serious pay to speak scams. Crime at the highest levels with collusion between those banks, organised crime gangs, terrorist organisations, certain three letter US government agencies and specific corrupted politicians to keep it all going and no one prosecuted.
Oh, I know quite a bit about that. Gary Webb told us something about that as I recall. And HSBC's troubles were more recent. But yes, it's a good point to make. Things are not all that they seem.
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You do realize that if marijuana was legal the pharmaceutical and tobacco industries would be all over it.
Yeah, probably. What are you gonna do? Money in politics and the workings of American capitalism are much bigger issues than legalizing pot.
Hold on, let's think about this (Score:2)
You do realize that even being "all over it" wouldn't get them the same margins as the drug and alcohol sales they would lose, as pot doesn't just add to all sales, it replaces some sales?
You do realize that pot is an easily-grown weed, and a lot easier and less complicated to grow on your sun-porch than making something like beer or wine is?
You do realize that anyone having a few plants in the house or
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Yes, that was my entire point. :)
Comment removed (Score:4, Interesting)
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Welcome to the oligarchy that is our world.
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I am all for legalizing it.The issue I have is that people buy the laws. Because that way you end up in a pissing contest where only the rich decide what becomes law.
The money only buys advertising. It can raise visibility and work to convince voters, but it can't ultimately buy anything the voters oppose. If you want to bypass the voters' will, you need to focus on backroom negotiations and parliamentary tricks. Money can be useful there -- though it isn't strictly necessary -- but not open money like this.
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The Gateway: Myth or Fact? (Score:5, Insightful)
When we were growing up, it was all dope to our parents and probably misleadingly associated with the same risk assessment. It seems clear, even to the opponents of legalization, that this is not the case.
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Maybe in Europe. I've never really seen children given caffeine in the US.
Huh? You've NEVER seen a child drinking a Coke or a Pepsi? How about an iced [black] tea (e.g., Snapple, or any number of more generic brands)?
Hell, when I was a child, people still thought caffeine stunted growth.
Yeah, people have said that usually about coffee. I didn't know many kids who drank coffee when I was growing up. When I started drinking some around age 15 or so, my parents were still mildly concerned.
But iced tea, hot tea, various types of cola drinks, etc. were all incredibly common drinks among friends. I personally was never a fan of cola myself, but ice
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Criminalizing marijuana actually *contributes* to the gateway phenomenon by creating a false equivalence between marijuana and other drugs. People end up using marijuana relatively harmlessly and then discount the dire warnings given in equal measure to marijuana and all other drugs.
Since almost no single drug used casually for the first time results in catastrophe, they then begin to believe that occasional use of other drugs which have a greater intrinsic risk profile are equally harmless. They lied to
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It is only a matter of scale. Marijuana messes with your head and so of course it's a drug. We should lock up anyone in possession, no questions, no pardons.
How the fuck did you arrive at the conclusion that all drug users should be locked up? My OTC cold medicine messes with my head, and supposedly it's only a matter of scale.
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Chemically speaking, yes.
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Capable of passing the blood-brain barrier and altering the behaviour of the brain, as well as having a nontrivial effect on your nervous system, while at the same time not being essential to the body's functioning.
They fit the description.
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Pepsi. Coca-Cola. Tea. Coffee. Pretty sure all of those fit your specification for "drug".
So, should we make all of those illegal?
Good for him (Score:4, Insightful)
However I would be more sympathetic to the pot movement in general if they were at least demonstrably more honest than the people who want to keep it outlawed. The notion that schools will benefit immensely seems to be a slightly more realistic version of the old claim that legalized sale of pot would generate $599 godzillion in tax revenue per picosecond to the end of eternity. The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard.
(there are other dishonest claims from the pro-pot camp but this one directly ties to the summary)
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Informative)
You know... I could grow tomatoes in my back yard... but I don't... I buy them at retail.
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You know... I could grow tomatoes in my back yard... but I don't... I buy them at retail.
The operative word here being "could". Why shouldn't we be allowed to grow tomatoes, or even cannabis?
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Hell, I *do* grow tomatoes in my backyard and still buy them at retail.
Sometimes you just can't grow enough, or a crop doesn't do that well, or you're looking for the purple ones you didn't grow.
People like the OP seem to imply that all you need to do to garden is throw seeds in the ground and wait. It's a lot harder than that, and a lot more work then you'd think haha.
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Interesting)
He's putting his money where his mouth is. However I would be more sympathetic to the pot movement in general if they were at least demonstrably more honest than the people who want to keep it outlawed. The notion that schools will benefit immensely seems to be a slightly more realistic version of the old claim that legalized sale of pot would generate $599 godzillion in tax revenue per picosecond to the end of eternity. The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard. (there are other dishonest claims from the pro-pot camp but this one directly ties to the summary)
It's happening right now:
http://www.denverpost.com/2016/05/26/marijuana-sales-tax-revenue-huge-boon-for-colorado-cities/
People buy beer even though they can brew it at home.
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He's putting his money where his mouth is. However I would be more sympathetic to the pot movement in general if they were at least demonstrably more honest than the people who want to keep it outlawed. The notion that schools will benefit immensely seems to be a slightly more realistic version of the old claim that legalized sale of pot would generate $599 godzillion in tax revenue per picosecond to the end of eternity. The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard. (there are other dishonest claims from the pro-pot camp but this one directly ties to the summary)
It's happening right now:
http://www.denverpost.com/2016... [denverpost.com]
Those numbers are not even in the least bit close to what the pot propagandists claimed would be instantly and eternally realized in tax revenue. Sure, it is greater than zero but it is not the huge numbers they promised.
People buy beer even though they can brew it at home.
That isn't even close to the same thing. Marijuana needs almost nothing to grow beyond what dandelions or any other plant need. I've seen plenty of places where it has grown by accident. You can't make beer by accident, you have to set out to make it. There are other spirits that can
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Those numbers are not even in the least bit close to what the pot propagandists claimed would be instantly and eternally realized in tax revenue. Sure, it is greater than zero but it is not the huge numbers they promised.
Okay, so some of them were wrong. Cities and towns are still getting more tax revenue, so what's the problem?
People buy beer even though they can brew it at home.
That isn't even close to the same thing. Marijuana needs almost nothing to grow beyond what dandelions or any other plant need. I've seen plenty of places where it has grown by accident. You can't make beer by accident, you have to set out to make it. There are other spirits that can be made by accident but beer isn't one of them.
People are manifestly buying instead of growing in Colorado (and other states). Your position is contradicted by current reality. Sure, some people will grow it for themselves. But that's not preventing the governments from reaping more tax revenue. Like I said, we don't have to speculate; it's happening right now.
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The problem is that a standard refrain from the propaganda pushers was that we would instantaneously - and for all eternity - see such an overwhelming influx of tax revenue that we would immediately be able to balance the budget, bring about world peace, colonize Mars, and cure all human diseases. We have clearly fallen far short of that, and will never reach it. As I said before, neither side is fully honest with their claims.
Do you have a citation for that? I think various people have made various predictions. Colorado ended up collecting a lot more tax than they expected to:
http://taxfoundation.org/article/marijuana-legalization-and-taxes-lessons-other-states-colorado-and-washington
This is all still very new, but I don't think things are really that far off from expectations. If you can provide a link to the contrary, I'd be interested to see it.
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The problem is that a standard refrain from the propaganda pushers was that we would instantaneously - and for all eternity - see such an overwhelming influx of tax revenue that we would immediately be able to balance the budget, bring about world peace, colonize Mars, and cure all human diseases. We have clearly fallen far short of that, and will never reach it.
Because it's hyperbole that you manufactured. Sure, some people have exaggerated the benefits, but to deny that it can increase tax revenues is silly. And this doesn't even take into account the savings from enforcement efforts; flying military helicopters over old ladies' houses is expensive.
Re:Good for him (Score:5, Interesting)
Have you ever tried "wild" marijuana? It's truly only useful as a fiber source.
A friend has a wild marijuana plant in his back yard that comes up every year -- he does nothing to cultivate it, it just reseeds itself every year. One year I tried what looked like the best part of it and it was awful. Not even remotely stoned. It can be relatively easy to grow moderately good marijuana, but it requires active cultivation -- you can't dump the seeds in the ground and come back 3 months later and expect anything useful for smoking.
And in terms of tax revenue, you have to remember the best government spending benefit of marijuana is from not enforcing marijuana prohibition. Billions of dollars are spent specifically on marijuana enforcement, especially in places with widespread outdoor cultivation.
Every dollar *not* spent on marijuana enforcement has a benefit greater than the equivalent tax increase resulting in an addition of a dollar of revenue. For one, there's zero economic penalty from repurposing existing tax revenue -- a tax increase has an additional drag on the economy greater than the additional revenue raised. It's like suddenly not having to pay your utilities anymore -- you didn't get a raise or incur the costs of taking a more demanding job, but you suddenly have more money to spend without working any harder to do it.
Look at Denver -- $29 million in tax revenue from marijuana -- positive revenue that they would have never collected in addition to the significant amount of tax revenue they would already collect that they no longer need to spend on marijuana prohibition enforcement.
I hope someone is working hard on actually quantifying the cost savings from not enforcing marijuana prohibition, although I suspect law enforcement probably doesn't want it known. If it was a *really* large number, they look bad for opposing legalization and essentially wasting money on a hopeless cause. Even a semi-large number could invite people to ask questions about law enforcement effectiveness. If your boss removed 5 hours of work from your responsibilities per week but your net productivity on other tasks didn't improve, it could prove embarrassing.
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What about all the tax money we're saving by not locking them up now?
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What about all the tax money we're saving by not locking them up now?
That is another argument that is generally lacking in honesty. Are there a lot of people in jail for possessing or using pot? Unquestionably, yes there are. The question though is how did they get arrested? They did something that attracted the attention of law enforcement. They did something that warranted a search or somehow gave away the fact that they had or used contraband. I have never heard of anyone getting arrested for smoking pot at home so long as they committed no other offense that caused
Disingenuous arguments (Score:2)
However I would be more sympathetic to the pot movement in general if they were at least demonstrably more honest than the people who want to keep it outlawed.
Agreed. My beef with them is the whole "medical marijuana" movement. I don't have a problem with people smoking pot as long as no one gets hurt. I think it is a stupid thing to do but it's clearly less harmful than lots of other perfectly legal activities. I also don't have a problem with people using pot to treat legitimate medical conditions provided there is actual scientific (not anecdotal) trials evidence of efficacy for the condition. There seems to be clear evidence that pot can be a useful trea
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Well perhaps with decriminalization/legalization we can get some scientific studies. Currently it is very hard for researchers to study the medical effects of marijuana due to the laws
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To be fair here, the "legal cover to use pot when they clearly have no actual medical condition" also covers a vast majority of the people prescribed Oxy/Hydrocodone for pain relief.
Pain is pain, and when you can mediate it people live a bit better with it. Unless of course you believe that 'pain' is a 'nonsense medical condition', but I can tell you the medical community doesn't think so based upon how many people are being medicated for it.
More fig leaf arguments (Score:2)
Pain is pain, and when you can mediate it people live a bit better with it. Unless of course you believe that 'pain' is a 'nonsense medical condition', but I can tell you the medical community doesn't think so based upon how many people are being medicated for it.
There are numerous and demonstrably effective treatments for pain which are perfectly legal. The use of pot "to treat pain" is a really nice way to pretend you have a condition when you don't since it isn't provable with current technology. I have seen no evidence that most if not all pot users would not be equally or better treated with other medicines if they genuinely are experiencing physical pain. Let's be frank. The number of people with medical marijuana cards hugely exceeds the number of people
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I don't have a problem with people smoking pot as long as no one gets hurt. I think it is a stupid thing to do
Out of interest, do you think drinking alcohol is a stupid thing to do?
Stupid vs harmless (Score:2)
Out of interest, do you think drinking alcohol is a stupid thing to do?
Without putting too fine a point on it, as a general proposition yes I do think drinking alcohol is a stupid thing to do. Usually harmless but not rational or a smart thing to do. There are some pretty tragic downsides to drinking recreationally and the only meaningful up side is that it apparently makes people feel good. I don't really see much benefit in taking drugs that make you stupid, clumsy, and potentially a danger to others no matter how good they taste or how good they make you feel. If people
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Well I disagree that it's dumb. People do things all the time just to feel good. No really, JUST to feel good. They don't learn anything, they don't help anyone... anything. Like eating chocolate, or horse riding, or reading fiction, or watching movies, or masturbation, to name a few. Unless you think they should all be banned, I fail to see why THEY'RE ok for feeling good, but vaping some pot isn't. The principle is identical.
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However I would be more sympathetic to the pot movement in general if they were at least demonstrably more honest than the people who want to keep it outlawed.
I agree that some in the marijuana legalization camp are prone to over-promoting the medical value of marijuana, which is little understood and could vary between being moderately useful to extremely beneficial but is best categorized honestly as "don't really know because prohibitionists won't even let us run studies". But the real intellectual dishonesty in marijuana legalization comes from opponents who make a false safety argument -- basically, because marijuana isn't as neutral as purified water, it i
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The problem with either claim is that it assumes that legalization would cause people to want to buy at retail what they and their friends could grow in their backyard.
Just look at the Netherlands. People buy it legally, it's a very big business despite it also being available on the street. Best thing is when you buy it legally you also know exactly what you get.
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Growing is quite an operation. I doubt most consumers don't grow marijiuana just because it is illegal, some yes, but I doubt the number who are interested is over 10%. You have to have the space, money, time, blessing of your landlord, etc.
You can literally have a grow inside a large PC case (and many people do exactly that for purposes of stealth). That removes the "space" and "blessing of your landlord" from the equation.
Well... (Score:2)
Re:Well... (Score:4, Informative)
I think that marijuana is going to be the sequel to tobacco. Smoking different stuff isn't healthier. Around the 2030s we will probably see lung cancer and throat cancer go up again along with everything else as the second anti-smoking campaign begins. Or, you know, we could just try to stop it now.
Do some research. Pot smoking is not linked to lung cancer or COPD.
https://www.hellomd.com/health-wellness/marijuana-found-to-shrink-aggressive-brain-cancer
In fact, marijuana has been shown to have an anti-tumor effect. From the linked article:
Marijuana really is medicine. It just so happens that it's also nice to enjoy recreationally.
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Those are tissue culture studies. Pretty much anything can be shown to do something good / bad / earthshattering in a tissue culture study. In fact, those are the kind of crappy studies that were used in the 1970's to implicate marijuana as a causative agent for various cancers.
It is virtually impossible to do decent medical studies on marijuana. You can use Marinol (delta-9-THC) but that isn't marijuana and good luck finding anybody to pay for that.
While I'm OK with marijuana being completely legal - t
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I think that marijuana is going to be the sequel to tobacco. Smoking different stuff isn't healthier. Around the 2030s we will probably see lung cancer and throat cancer go up again along with everything else as the second anti-smoking campaign begins.
Amateur!
Ingesting THC from MJ has 5 x the potency compared to smoking. Why is anyone smoking that stuff?
zero till the feds change it (Score:2)
Escalation? (Score:5, Insightful)
So now asking that police follow the law is "escalating"?
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Pathetic little men with guns and no redeeming value to society.
Schedule status is complete BS (Score:4, Insightful)
Getting a realistic categorization based on facts and not propaganda will help to pave the way for legalizing it on the federal level.
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The problem with this "medical" angle is proper dosage. Marijuana is still a natural product and as such subject to considerable variation in "quality" so to speak. Now, overdosing isn't that big an issue (as far as I know, at least, don't quote me on that), but as with every drug, the perfect use is still using it with a steady, controlled dose per unit.
This said, I'm all for legislating it, if only to make research in this area possible. There are so many other drugs that should at the very least be de-de
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Marijuana use aside (Score:2)
This is exactly how the new "people for the people" democracy works: Wealthy people or corporations use money in bribes to influence legislature bypassing unbiased education and disclosures of facts for voters.
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This is exactly how the new "people for the people" democracy works: Wealthy people or corporations use money in bribes to influence legislature bypassing unbiased education and disclosures of facts for voters.
This is a ballot measure in California. It's direct democracy. What are you on about?
It is going to be a tough battle (Score:2)
The alcohol lobby does not want the recreational use competing against their alcohol sales and the pharmaceutical lobby does not want the medicinal use competing against their drug sales.
So much for a free market.
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You're kidding, right? You can bet your last bong hit that both groups of businesses are covertly and actively following this very closely.
There's gold in them hills.
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Around here (BC) the private alcohol sellers along with the government alcohol sellers union are really pushing for it, along with them being the legal place to buy. Their theory being they have practice selling stuff to adults only.
I'm for this, and I'm not a user (Score:2)
I don't understand why people don't see that trying to curtail the supply of drugs and locking people up doesn't work. You're never going to convince people who use drugs that they shouldn't. Look how hard it is to get the hardcore cigarette smokers to quit -- our state has the highest tobacco tax in the country, and you basically can't smoke anywhere anymore, and there is still a cohort of people who will do it until they die. It's way less than it was in, say, the 50s where absolutely everyone smoked, but
Re: It is hard (Score:3, Funny)
Re: It is hard (Score:2)
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You know, I sort of hope you don't smoke weed, because otherwise you're not doing your argument any favors. You wrote a sentence that made no sense, then your correction isn't even correct. You didn't write "out now", you wrote "out know".
.... he's obviously had one joint two many ... oh weight
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Or, you know, I had just woken up moments before and my eyes were too blurry with sleep to navigate the stupid-ass autocorrect on my phone... ;)
Oh, and for what it's worth: I am neither the stoner-type nor am I all that successful; I'm not sure what that implies... :)
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In a world where the majority of people have tried or at least smoke occasionally it's easy to expect a subset of people to also have a majority whether it's successful people or unsuccessful people. Don't reach for straws.
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to legislate against stupid. Marijuana is for burnouts.
Yeah, so the obvious thing to do would be to put them in prison and ruin their lives.
We wouldn't want them wasting their lives, now would we?
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Re: It is hard (Score:3)
The above is utter bullshit.
That may well be true but none of the hot air you followed with even remotely backs-up your claim. Parent: 1; You: zilch
Re:What the actual fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
How is this related to slashdot? There's not even a cursory connection to tech/science.
Sean Parker, a tech entrepreneur, is investing in bringing our drug laws closer to sanity. I'd say that qualifies as a cursory connection.
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So let's see this as it is, another wealthy capitalist bent on becoming even wealthier,,,
Re:What the actual fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
"bringing our drug laws closer to sanity"
For sanity read: "The way potheads like me want them to be so we can buy and smoke our sorry little losers narcotic without being bothered by the police".
And for "potheads" read "about half of Americans".
Not that I'm pro-pothead, necessarily, because I've known my share, and so I can safely say that I like people way better when they aren't high. But continuing to outlaw an activity that 150 million people support seems kind of dumb, not to mention a failure of democracy. See: Prohibition.
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...I can safely say that I like people way better when they aren't high.
Agreed, but if I had to choose, I like people who are high way better than people who are drunk. I used to be on the fence about this issue because I have seen first-hand how excessive pot use can ruin people. But the same can be said of alcohol and many/most other things that humans consume for pleasure.
I think the biggest driver for anti-pot legal enforcement is/was the privatization of prisons. It would not shock me to hear that private prison companies lobbied hard to push for mandatory incarceration fo
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I do believe in my heart of hearts that you have some habits that are a lot sadder than smoking weed.
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justify your sad little habit.
That's interesting. As someone who lives in the Netherlands I see nothing sad about people enjoying a recreational joint. Now there are a myriad of other legal activities that have people circling down the hellhole into a decrepit state of anti-social welfare dependence, but we don't criminalise those either.
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Thats just a number you plucked out your backside
http://www.politico.com/story/... [politico.com]
http://prospect.org/article/ma... [prospect.org]
https://www.washingtonpost.com... [washingtonpost.com]
There you go. There's three references. One a university study, one from a polling company, and one from a government organisation. Those were just the first 3 links on Google in order. Let me know how far down you get before you find one that suits your agenda.
Re: What the actual fuck (Score:2, Informative)
So you don't drink any alcohol then do you? If you want to talk drugs. Alcohol and tobacco are 1000s of times worse for your body than any amount of weed. There is no reason at all that marijuana should be treated any differently than alcohol or tobacco. You are just spouting off a stereotype and nothing else.
You'd be surprised at how many very productive people smoke weed and I'm no talking about artists or musicians either. I'm talking about CEOS and other very powerful people.
It is impossible to OD on
Re:What the actual fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
"bringing our drug laws closer to sanity"
For sanity read: "The way potheads like me want them to be so we can buy and smoke our sorry little losers narcotic without being bothered by the police".
Ah look, another stranger on the Internet who thinks he knows me.
Full disclosure: I smoke pot. Fuller disclosure: I do so with minimal risk and without the attention of police. You know why? I'm white and upper middle class. I am a senior systems admin at a global company, make a professional salary, drive a nice car and live in a nice apartment. I have good, quality relationships with my friends and family. I exercise and watch what I eat.
As you can see, I am not a "sorry little loser". But this is the Internet and I could be a dog for all you know. So it's really neither here nor there. No, the real reason I want marijuana legalized is so we can stop wasting lives and resources by locking people up for smoking it. By the logic of our current policy, society would be better served by putting me in prison rather than leaving me free to help run a large computer network for a productive company. But as I said, I am discreet and do not fear arrest, so this isn't about me. My concern is for those whose skin color or socioeconomic status prevent them from enjoying the freedom I do. We ruin their lives, waste our resources and have very little to show for it. It's stupid, whether or not you think pot is okay to smoke pot. Our current policy has nothing to do with taking care of people or helping them stop using pot, and everything to do with punishing them and making them unemployable. Like I said, stupid. Way more stupid than smoking pot could ever be.
Re:What the actual fuck (Score:5, Insightful)
"As you can see, I am not a "sorry little loser". "
So you say. More than likely you're a functioning pothead just holding on like a lot of functioning alcoholics. And the common trait of both is that neither recognise they have a problem.
Yes, as I said, I could be making the whole thing up. I might not even smoke pot! But I have nothing to prove to you, so you can think what you like of me.
"We ruin their lives,"
They ruin their own lives. No one is forcing them to smoke weed.
Not too strong in the logic department, eh? It's not the weed smoking that's ruining their lives; it's the punishments of prohibition that do that. The question is not whether or not they will go to jail of caught smoking weed. The question is whether or not that is proper. I maintain that it is not proper. We ruin their lives, over and above the effects of pot smoking, by putting them in prison and a felony on their record. That doesn't help anyone, not even you. It is quite clear that the war on drugs has failed at its stated goal of eliminating drug use. It hasn't even reduced it by any measurable degree. It is a waste of money, lives, time and resources. It should be ended.
You will go right ahead thinking that pot smokers are all worthless burnouts. I cannot disabuse you of that notion. But the failure of prohibition is a fact, not an opinion. It's time to stop locking people up for non-violent, victimless "crimes".
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They ruin their own lives. No one is forcing them to smoke weed.
Smoking weed may make them unmotivated or spacey, but at its worst will do nothing close to the harm to their lives that arrest, incarceration, and a felony on their record will do. Further, just like there's a difference between hardcore alcoholics and people who enjoy a beer every now and then, not everybody who smokes post is stoned every waking moment of their lives.
Full disclosure: I don't smoke pot, but I know people who do. You sound like the sort of person who would be surprised to learn who around
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More than likely you're a functioning pothead just holding on like a lot of functioning alcoholics. And the common trait of both is that neither recognise they have a problem.
I've smoked marijuana before. Can't say I liked it all that much, or that I think it was very addictive. It certainly never turned me into a dangerous asshole like alcohol does with a lot of people. I do have a problem with nicotine and caffeine though. They don't turn me into a dangerous asshole either. An extremely strong argument can be made that alcohol and nicotine are both far more dangerous than marijuana. They are legal, while marijuana is not only illegal, it is a schedule 1 drug but has demo
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For sanity read: "The way potheads like me want them to be so we can buy and smoke our sorry little losers narcotic without being bothered by the police".
I'll read what he wrote, thanks all the same. Uptight weirdos like you notwithstanding, everyone with a shred of sense knows that mary jane is demonstrably less harmful, both to the individual and to society, than alcohol. Hypocrisy seems to be a virtue nowadays eh.
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More than half of the coders and engineers I know use cannabis at least once in awhile.
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I have written some of my best code while high, although later I have to clean it up by changing function names from things like 'manthesedoritostastegood' to something more professional.
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You don't smoke weed and code?
Somebody around here sure the hell does.
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I don't care what people do as long as I don't have to pay for it. My primary objection is that I find many people to be adequately stupid without chemically exacerbating the situation.
Well, you're currently paying to incarcerate these people. So get on board.
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Hyperbole much?
Many people don't know who Sean Parker is.
Some people don't even remember what Napster is anymore. C'mon. One sentence.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
FTFY.
Re:Not legalization. (Score:5, Informative)
Wake me up when a state actually means legalize when they say legalize, as in you could grow it yourself. From everything I've seen what they mean when they say legalize is to decriminalize it's use and build/protect an industry. I'm OK with the first part the second part is really kinda disgusting.
Phase two after decriminalization never seems to be legalization, what it ends up being is a bunch of people swooping in to corner the grow/supply market and once they are in place they tend to lobby for laws that make it that much harder for competition to move in. Even if that perceived competition is the average citizen growing their own marijuana for personal use.
Hey, wake up.
https://ballotpedia.org/California_Proposition_64,_Marijuana_Legalization_(2016)
From that link: "An individual would be permitted to grow up to six plants within a private home, as long as the area is locked and not visible from a public place"
Colorado's laws are similar; one is allowed to grow a limited number of plants. When they say legalize, they mean legalize. Consider me your alarm clock.
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Think beer and wine. The average person is allowed to produce X amount for personal use. They are not allowed to sell it but no-one cares if you give a few bottles away or even do a friendly trade for labour, as in help me do this and there's a beer in it for you.
The industries also have a relatively low barrier to entry. There's tons of craft beer producers now and wineries likewise. Sure there's regulation but as long as it is low and applies to everyone equally, that's fine.
Wickard v. Filburn (Score:2)
what you're saying is so flagrantly at odds with reality that making sense of it requires invention. Private citizens are not competition for large growing operations
That invention is so old its patent has expired several times over. Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111 (1942).
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$9M? That'll barely get you a cheap house in Beverly Hills.
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That crap fucking stinks. Like we hadn't enough stink from the tobacco smokers already.
Yeah, you're right. We should keep putting people in prison so you don't have to smell something unpleasant.
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Willow bark has been used for thousands of years [umm.edu]. Once modern medicine came around, the active ingredients (salicin and flavonoids) were characterized, and one of these was refined into Aspirin (acetylsalicylic acid). This was practical because there wasn't nearly as much federal red tape associated with research on willow bark as there is today with research on Schedule I controlled substances.
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If you look at who is against it - it's mostly law enforcement and people who want to keep the broken system going.
I doubt it will pass, but if it does, it should be interesting to see what the DEA does when people can legally grow X amount of plants but still not allowed at the federal level.
You can see what they are doing now. Colorado, Oregon, Washington and Alaska all allow private cultivation. The Feds are basically quietly doing nothing.
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