Talking about casual drug use

So good to see Nick Gillespie’s OpEd in Time: What’s So Bad About Casual Drug Use?

But in an age in which we are expected to use legal drugs (like beer) and prescription medications (Adderall) responsibly, it’s time to extend that same notion to currently illegal substances whose effects and properties are widely misunderstood. Indeed, the effects of coke, heroin and the rest are a mystery partly because their outlaw status makes it difficult both to research them and have honest discussions about them.

Yes.

And has been noted here in comments, there are some good discussions brewing in the comments at Time.

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67 Responses to Talking about casual drug use

  1. Jean Valjean says:

    Sorry to go OT so soon on this thread but, this one really got me in the craw….
    Melinda (hypocrisy is my middle name) Haag stoops even lower with this one:
    http://tinyurl.com/kl7to7o

  2. Frank W says:

    Wow, look at the comments for the TIME article. I might agree with some, but they remind me of Beerbohm-Tree’s maxim, “madmen write 8-page letters.”

    • Jean Valjean says:

      I think Malcolm and Clay may be wasting their time with Bumblebee….she(?) seems to be a logic-free zone

      • claygooding says:

        After awhile it soaks in that their is a shielding device within some peoples reasoning nothing can breach,,usually found in religious zealots determined to save you from you.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .

        I don’t argue with idiots with the goal of helping them to enlightenment. I argue with them with the goal of demonstrating their utter stupidity to those sitting on the fence.

        • kaptinemo says:

          Hear, hear! As in I wholeheratedly agree. There are essentially two kinds of prohibtches. (Wonderful term, by the way, I wish I had thought of it. It’s ‘elegant’, as my old physicist friends would have said.)

          There are the mercs, who in turn form a ring around the True Believers. The former will only stick around as long as there’s money in it. The latter serve as reminders of what Tom Paine said: “To argue with a man who has renounced the use and authority of reason…is like administering medicine to the dead, or endeavoring to convert an atheist by scripture.” – (emphasis mine -k.)

          You will not convince a die-hard prohibitch of the disaster which it is. Like ol’ Tom said above, ‘they have renounced the use and authority of reason’, acting mainly upon emotional impulses, and usually need someone slicker and smoother with words (significant look in Kevvie’s direction) to articulate their inchoate manias…and rationalize their prejudices.

          As the outer layer strips away, that will leave the hard-core, bed-bug crazy prohibs naked to full, public examination. And the realization will be that ‘not all the nuts are in the trees; not all the loons are in the lake’.

          Nothing like finding out your supposedly respectable source of information – and thus, policy – on drugs turns out to be a well-camouflaged raving Bedlamite. A Bedlamite who is also intent upon imposing his/her religious views upon the populace…’for their own good, of course. Prohibitions have always had a religious tinge, if not complete complexion. Nearly all demand abstinence from any psychotropic, including nicotine.

          A none-too-healthy fixation upon moral and racial ‘purity’ usually traipses along, hand-in-hand. Following behind them is Hell, as we found out with alcohol Prohibition and it’s more modern but no less lethal cousin. Because such thinking leads to other places, like the eugenics-inspired sterilization laws in the US, which Hitler admired and took to the logical, horrifying next step…with the same fixation on ‘purity’ as his American mentors the prohibs taught him.

          So…bumblebee and her ilk are only hastening their ideological demise, as public sentiment turns against these nosy, arrogant, barely closeted, holier-than-thou, self-appointed morals proctors. Nobody likes a prig.

      • Malc says:

        What duncan said.

      • curmudgeon says:

        Malc, Clay, and others did a nice job swatting the bumblebee, but she appears to be armored against logic and intelligence. It may be time to switch to chemical warfare; I think a volcano bag full might do it.

  3. NorCalNative says:

    After reading the comments by Bumblebee I have this overwhelming urge to consume something psychoactive to make that annoying buzzing sound go away.

    Casual Drug Use suggests that it’s NOT abuse. And, if there’s anything that this blog stands for it’s the freedom to use a substance responsibly.

    @Jean Valjean, I’m of a similar feeling about the “HAAG.”

    How do we still have these Bush appointees mucking the place up?

    I’ve been catching Kubby TV on Cannabis Culture’s website. He lives in South Lake Tahoe and says his community is crafting cannabis legislation that would make it illegal for city, county, or state law enforcement to assist federal DEA efforts under the “HAAG.”

    The initiative would make it a one-year prison sentence for all non-federal law enforcement officers helping the feds!

    • Jean Valjean says:

      “If they want to impose federal action against [Harborside] because we are helping children who are dying, bring it on,” DeAngelo said. “There is no way I will ever stop helping these kids, come hell or high water.”
      This may be Haag’s final act of hubris… the batkidz stunt smacks of desperation and a need to change the focus….

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      Good luck to Mr. Kubby, he’s going to need it. The California State Constitution already forbids State and local authorities from choosing federal law over State law. A local ordinance is going to stop behavior where the State Constitution cannot? I’ll keep my fingers crossed.

      California Constitution Article III Section 3.5

      SEC. 3.5. An administrative agency, including an administrative agency created by the Constitution or an initiative statute, has no power:

      a) To declare a statute unenforceable, or refuse to enforce a statute, on the basis of it being unconstitutional unless an appellate court has made a determination that such statute is unconstitutional;

      b) To declare a statute unconstitutional;

      c) To declare a statute unenforceable, or to refuse to enforce a statute on the basis that federal law or federal regulations prohibit the enforcement of such statute unless an appellate court has made a determination that the enforcement of such statute is prohibited by federal law or federal regulations.

    • Howard says:

      Melinda Haag was a 2010 appointee of Obama (unanimously confirmed). Michele Leonhart, on the other hand, is a hold over from the Bush administration. Obama nominated her for DEA Administrator, also in 2010 (after she served as Acting Administrator once Karen Tandy resigned in 2007).

      It’s bad enough when elected officials keep the drug war going in spite of the well documented damage. Those same elected officials then burden us with appointees/nominees that are even worse than they are (if that’s possible).

  4. Servetus says:

    A new study shows reductions of marijuana use by adolescents in developed countries since 2002, effectively undermining claims by various prohibitionists that increasing access to marijuana by adults for recreational and medical purposes produces increased use among adolescents:

    The study looked at cannabis use among 15-year-old adolescents in thirty European and North American countries in 2002, 2006, and 2010. The overall results showed a significant decline in cannabis use. Affluent countries in Western and Southern Europe and North America (Belgium, Canada, Denmark, France, Germany, Ireland, Italy, Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, the United Kingdom, USA) showed a decrease in frequent cannabis consumption among 15-year-old boys and/or girls.

    But the emerging market countries that have recently experienced a rapid increase in their GDP showed stable or increasing cannabis use. In three of the twelve former communist countries in Eastern, Central, and Southern Europe, cannabis use increased among boys (FYR Macedonia, Latvia, Lithuania) and in one, it increased among girls (Russia). In the remaining nine countries, cannabis use among 15-year-olds appears to have stabilized over time. Adolescents from less affluent countries seem to have adopted consumption patterns consistent with their peers in richer countries.

    The original Addiction journal article can be found here. The study’s authors attribute the drop in adolescent marijuana use to public education/propaganda about marijuana. That can’t possibly be the case, however, as anti-drug propaganda is nearly always counterproductive. More likely the reason for the observed decrease rests with evolving trends in cultural adaptations and identity associations among teens.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      I think it’s more likely that it’s because the idiot prohibitionists in the U.S. put the spotlight on the issue and the Europeans have moved to a live and let live stance. It’s the hysterical rhetoric regurgitated by the prohibitionist parasites that promotes youth use of cannabis. Their blahblahblah about cannabis then promotes youth use of the truly deleterious drugs of addiction because when Junior figures out that he’s been lied to about cannabis it is the very nature of youth to jump to the conclusion that he’s also being lied to about the other popular substances on the naughty list. There’s a good reason why Benjamin Franklin said that honesty is the better policy.

      In the U.S. it’s just not uncommon to hear the prohibitionists waxing pathetic when some entertainer gets arrested for cannabis or is found to have the wrong color urine. But every day of the week a supermajority of these same “role models” use drinking alcohol. But we never hear that Joe Sixpack who pitches for the Milwaukee Brewers bought and drank beer after the game at Coors Field. Aren’t these entertainers encouraging our youth to use drinking alcohol?

      Anyway, I’ve got boilerplate:

      You might want to consider the fact that American youth use of cannabis is near a 30 year high, while youth use of drinking alcohol is at 30 year low.
      www2.potsdam.edu/hansondj/files/Teen-Marijuana-Use-Up-Drinking-Down.html

      Then there’s also the fact that when compared to 36 European countries:

      …only Iceland has a lower rate of use than American youth for both drinking alcohol and smoking tobacco.

      …only France and Monaco have higher youth use rates of cannabis than American youth. France has close to or perhaps even the most draconian penalties for cannabis in the bunch.

      For the rest of the popular substances on the naughty lists no country has higher youth use rates than American youth. None of the 36 countries are even close. We are #1.
      linky

      I really would like an answer: What about the children? Don’t the prohibitionist parasites care about the children? Why do they continue to embrace policies which are proven failure and reject those which have been proven effective?

      {: I’d also like to hear how the heck Iceland keeps youth use so low. I think I’d have to use drinking alcohol if I was living on a block of ice. Cigarettes not so much. That might just be because they’re so hard to light in the middle of a blizzard. :}

      • Tony Aroma says:

        Not ALL of Europe is so enlightened. I just read somewhere (can’t find the link) that they just increased penalties for growing in Spain.

        • Duncan20903 says:

          .
          .

          You’re putting words in my mouth Tony and arguing from the from the specific to general.

          Someone posted the info about Spain implementing some heinous fines in this blog’s comments columns not very long ago. The fines were anywhere from €1,001 and €10,000. It actually might mean that Spain is broke.

          I think I could find a whole boat load of incarcerated growers who would rather have been in Spain. The clowns a few counties over from me gave a guy 10 years in the graybar hotel for cultivation not many moths ago. 10 friggin’ years for growing flowers.

          So Switzerland decriminalized petty possession and petty cultivation earlier this year, does that make up for Spain picking their growers’ pockets?

          Be that as it may it’s the spotlight part that was meant to be the key point in my post above. But after further reflection I feel compelled to acknowledge that the phrase “the Europeans have moved to a live and let live stance” could have been worded to express my thoughts much more accurately. So let me amend that thought to “the Europeans are moving to more of a live and let live stance.”

          The Spaniards might fine the heck out of growers, but do they have 1000 foot drug free school zones? Do they also steal the grower’s property? Are there any foaming at the mouth lunatics equivalent to Kev-Kev, Calvina Fay, Paul Chabot, Mark Kleiman regurgitating hysterical rhetoric in Madrid? Does Spain have a special section of their tax code reserved for “drug dealers?” “Do the Spaniards force an anal probe on citizens suspected of having a substance on the naughty lists? Are Spanish football players urine tested? Do the Spaniards regularly check the urine of their citizens to make certain that they haven’t been smiling on a cloudy day? When I said live and let live it was meant for all the peripheral bullcrap that the foaming at the mouth prohibitionists add on top of the criminal law in the U.S. It doesn’t have to be ideal in Europe to be better than it is here. The legal environment in Europe could just plain suck and still be head and shoulders above the public policies of the U.S. (that last assertion limited to the subject of prohibition)

          Nothing changes in a straight line. For any kind of societal move there’s almost always going to be the proverbial 2 steps forward 1 step back dynamic at work. So when I look at the statistics for per capita cigarette consumption in the U.S. it’s stunning because that statistic peaked in 1963 and has declined steadily year after year through 2011. It’s literally the only graph of a particular activity where the goal is to eliminate a behavior because it’s deleterious to health which has done nothing but go down. Remember the Surgeon Genera’s report on the health hazards of using smoking tobacco was published in 1964.

          Hey, can somebody find me a graph of the per capita use of cannabis for enjoyment starting in 1963? I’ll bet dollars to dirt that number is nowhere near ~ 70% lower in the same time frame.

        • darkcycle says:

          Duncan, Spain has a serious problem. Since austerity hit them, the Right wing has risen to power again. Think back and see if you remember who the “Right Wing” is in Spain. If it’s slipping your mind, the last guy they had in power was named “Franco”.

  5. Atomish says:

    Sorry for the OT and if this has been posted before but this was just shared with me and I found it hilariously awesome. I figured it would be something every couch dweller could appreciate. 🙂

    Pot Shop – Macklemore Parody

  6. Malc says:

    Just posted the following on the TIME comment thread:

    We have a lady on here posting under the name “Bumblebee” she clams she doesn’t support prohibition but continues to write in such a fashion that it’s very obvious that she damn well does. Here is just one of her statements;

    “I am not in favor of drug use unless it is the last resort for medical purposes.”

    Of course, most, at present, illegal drugs are already used for medical purposes.

    Methamphetamine is FDA approved and prescribed to children over the age of six.

    Kindly check their website:

    http://www.fda.gov/downloads/Drugs/DrugSafety/ucm088582.pdf

    Heroin (diamorphine) is also even given to children for medicinal reasons.

    http://www.bmj.com/content/322/7281/261.abstract

    Why is this person commenting on a subject she clearly knows nothing about?

    • N.T. Greene says:

      She could hardly say two sentences without contradicting herself.

      As usual, I counter with crunch… But as she said, she doesn’t care about the numbers.

    • Freeman says:

      Bumblebee couldn’t seem to put together anything resembling coherent thought. People like that are very difficult to engage in rational debate. All too often, their cognitive dissonance has them taking their inability to counter a point that they still can’t accept as a personal affront, and the discussion devolves into ad hominem, as it did in the comments section there. And it works both ways — it’s just a little too easy to point out how incoherent their argument is, and in exasperation infer that they are stupid and evil.

      Aside from the bb distractions, you made some excellent points, Malc!

  7. Malc says:

    After tying herself up in knots, she slammed the door behind her. I replied with this:

    As you are an unashamed supporter of the longest, most costly, and most futile war in human history, you won’t be missed by anybody here. The prejudices and fears that you exhibit bear scant relation to reality. As a self-appointed hypocritical moralist, you have aligned yourself with terrorists, criminals and all the other scum of the earth—such as political demagogues, corrupt government agencies, fear-mongering, soulless media moguls, and all other forces of ignorance and arrogance.

    How is it even possible that you fail to understand that prohibition—just like it’s counter-part of the 1920s—has created massive amounts of destruction to all aspects of our society?

    How can you not desire a saner policy, one that’s based on facts rather than reefer madness?

    And how dare you refuse to help undo the massive amount of damage caused by this dangerous and failed policy?

    http://ideas.time.com/2013/11/21/trey-radel-scandal-whats-so-bad-about-casual-drug-use/

    • Jean Valjean says:

      Bumblebee says:
      “I am in love with someone who I met a year ago, who has also fallen in love with me despite his previous stubborn comments about not believing in love. He is one of the most wonderful people that I have ever known. The few times that I have seen him sober, he is incredible. However, he and all of the friends that we made at the beginning of the year, have chosen to use drugs quite often. ”
      She is a classic codependent family member of the sort to be found in alanon meetings. She is desperately trying to control the uncontrollable, even when she sees it is pointless.

  8. N.T. Greene says:

    I played over there at time for a little bit… And I have to say, it is a tough crowd.

    Some people refuse to be refuted.

  9. Nick says:

    It’s hard (for me) to persuade people on the internet the merits of legalizing drugs. I can argue every point flawlessly and many will still refuse to accept the failures of prohibition. Running into a person like “bumblebee” is infuriating, once you have made your case they go into this retarded circle of denial, personal attacks and pure fantasies. All higher functions impaired.

    I find it’s easier in person because they (usually) won’t lash out at you and are more willing to accept my arguments. I even persuaded my mother that legalization was the answer, and she was an extremely difficult person to get through to.

    • darkcycle says:

      Guys, the “Bumblebees” and the “Activist-1’s” will not be convinced. Never, ever, ever. There’s no way to burrow through the hysteria to get to the underlying stupid. If you can’t correct the “Stupid” the hysteria just keeps getting regurgitated.
      Like Duncan said. It’s the people READING the thread that will see through to the underlying stupid. Those are the ones we’re reaching. Direct your responses toward the prosecutor, but convince the JURY.

      In fact….I wonder at that handle “bumblebee”….sounds suspiciously like the “Modesto Bee”.

      • allan says:

        In fact….I wonder at that handle “bumblebee”….sounds suspiciously like the “Modesto Bee”

        I had just such a thought m’self.

  10. claygooding says:

    I had my “drug talk” with my dad within 1 month of my return from Nam when the TV was full of the war and reports of soldiers returning home addicted to heroin and using marijuana.
    He asked me if I had picked up any habits I couldn’t shake while over there and I told him I used marijuana when I could find it but hadn’t tried any other illegal drugs,,he didn’t say anything and just kept working on getting the head bolted down on my 6 cyl Chevy,,when he finished torquing the headbolts he looked at me and said that my grandfather was deeply angry over the FDA pulling hemp medicine off the shelves in 1942 and was angry about it until he died in 1958,,that was the end of the conversation.
    All the times I got arrested for possession,sales or suspicion of he helped me bail out if needed and never said a derogatory thing about it.
    My son didn’t start using marijuana until he was over 30 and my drug talk with him consisted of telling him how to make cookies correctly.
    We all curse the older generations because we see them as the anchors that hold progress back but in reality all of us returning potheads would have never over powered the government propaganda of the day if the older people during the 70’s hadn’t had memories of their parents and grandparents reactions to the start of hemp prohibition,,the old people of the day knew that cannabis didn’t harm them or their parents when it was legal.
    And it looks like FLA is going to pass their MMJ law because now the old folks found out how to be happy old and achy or not.

    • allan says:

      I had the talk w/ my folks when I came back from Thailand in ’74. Many years down the road my dad admitted he did try tea w/ some hobos when he was young and riding the rails.

      Our family doctor (hey it was the old days) told my mom weed would lead me to harder drugs and that thought tortured her for years (moms… they worry).

      Personally I suspect my travels thru the pharmacopeia had nothing to do with pot and more to do with me and my curiosity after I learned authority had lied to me about the demon weed.

  11. primus says:

    So now their retirement years won’t be so much ‘golden’ as the will be ‘green’.

  12. Freeman says:

    OT: Patrick Radden Keefe has a very well written 10-page article on Mark Kleiman at the New Yorker. Worth the long read.

    From the article:

    …Still, I got a strong sense that his experience in Washington had not been entirely happy [….] For now, Kleiman will watch the rollout of I-502 from the sidelines, and blog about it. “It’s disappointing,” he told me. During one of our conversations, he paraphrased a famous joke about Hubert Humphrey: “Poor Hubert—he’s got solutions the rest of us don’t even have problems for.”

    That’s our Mark — he’s got solutions the rest of us don’t even have problems for!

    Good to see he doesn’t seem at all bitter or anything:

    Kleiman is happy to see prohibition end, and he hopes that legalization is a great success, but he is no longer optimistic. He told me, “I think commercial production and sale of cannabis is going to end in tears.”

    Tears. Yeah, no doubt. Whose tears? That’s the question.

    Now if you’ll excuse me, I’m off to see if I can find this gem:

    He was more forthcoming about psychedelics. He told me to look up a YouTube video that captures a raucous conference organized in 1990 by the Multidisciplinary Association of Psychedelic Studies. Kleiman, appearing alongside Timothy Leary and Ram Dass, wears a tie-dyed T-shirt and speaks about a future of “performance-enhancing” drugs.

    This I GOTTA see!

    • claygooding says:

      How long before factories add .005% attention enhancing chemicals to their water fountains,,or 10% cocaine to get the floor humming,,,If history could furnish statistics for the period when Coca Cola had 10% coke in it there was probably an impressive spike in productivity at the sewing factories.

    • strayan says:

      Someone really needs to create a repository of quotes from Mark:

      KLEIMAN:

      D.A.R.E. is a wonderful tool for police-community relations, particularly, in poor neighborhoods. Getting poor kids to meet a police officer, and getting a police officer to meet poor kids, on a civil, friendly basis, is a wonderful thing to do. Police officers love it, and police departments love it, and neighborhoods love it, and kids love it and parents love it and everybody loves it.

      http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/dope/dare/kleiman.html

      If people can see just how hopelessly wrong he’s been over the years, I’m pretty sure they’d stop listening,

    • Freeman says:

      I found the video here. 2 hours long. Kleiman’s on at 1:01:08 for about 4 minutes. Nice shirt.

      • allan says:

        and people wonder what’s so special about this particular infinitely long couch… it’s just never ending. So Mark’s a be here now kinda guy. Coulda fooled me. Hey Mark, I think the people w/ funny hats want to take a walk w/ you…

        and Allan’s media shock of the week finds Carol Burnett playing a mmj patient in Hawaii Five-O…

    • darkcycle says:

      When he wore that shirt, he meant it as a backhanded insult to the attendees. Nobody got it, but he has chuckled about it semi-privately ever since.

    • Opiophiliac says:

      That was a good article not only about Kleinman but about the forces at work in the implementation of I-502.

      So an eighth is going to sell for $42 legally, while the local black market price is $28. I’m sure some people will pay more for the quality control and legality, but I don’t see that decimating the black market. Especially for dedicated potheads who smoke a lot of weed, which is supposed to be the largest market share. I thought one of the benefits of legalization was lower prices? I suppose it depends on how you view pot use, for people who use marijuana lower prices is a benefit.

      Kleinman’s idea of beefing up cannabis enforcement seems absurd. Juries are already unwilling to convict on marijuana cases, will they be more willing to convict
      people who break the rules of the pot distribution business (as opposed to breaking a fundamentally unjust law)? Does he think the public will support a dramatic increase in arrests of black-market cannabis sales, or that those arrests won’t be racially discriminatory? Using the criminal justice system to deal with drug use comes with huge costs, both monetarily and in human terms.

      When the people voted for cannabis legalization, they voted to treat it like alcohol. When Prohibition ended, the bootleggers were not put out of business by the
      actions of law enforcement, they were put out of business because their product could not compete with what was being produced legally.

      I thought this quote summed up Kleinman perfectly:

      Ethan Nadelmann, the executive director of the Drug Policy Alliance, a national group that advocates the decriminalization of all drugs, is more skeptical. “Mark has always caricatured the drug debate as the hawks on one side and the doves on the other, and he’s the wise owl sitting in the middle,” he says.

      • claygooding says:

        People drive out $1 worth of gas to save 25 cents on a dozen eggs,,there will be a street dealer 1 block in every direction from every retail outlet that can raise his prices and still outsell the legal store.
        The real seller will be that the stores probably won’t be selling buds and the street dealer will,,how many people are deeply addicted to playing with their bud,,the ritual of cleaning a beautiful bud is almost as enjoyable as putting the match to the first pipe full.
        The bad side of that is the cops will know if you are carrying bud it didn’t come from a retail store. So either you got it from a medical dispensary or off the street. No medical card gets you charged with having illegal weed in a legal state..

        • Tony Aroma says:

          The real seller will be that the stores probably won’t be selling buds and the street dealer will.

          What does that mean? Is there reason to believe that recreational stores won’t sell the same kinds/varieties of products that dispensaries do now?

        • Windy says:

          Tony, it has already been determined that if medical is rolled into the rules for rec, there will NOT be hash, edibles, tinctures, oils, etc. available in those State licensed stores (the major reason most med patients are fighting so hard to prevent this move on the part of the WSLCB, the dispensaries are fighting it because they will be put out of business), so maybe there won’t be buds, either, just loose weed and pre-rolled joints. I prefer buds, though I don’t “play with” them, just pinch off a small load and put it in my bubbler leaving the rest of the bud intact. I do this because loose weed pulls through the bubbler without getting burned, what a waste of good weed, and I do not like smoking joints, too harsh on my throat and windpipe. I do not own a vaporizor, though I do have an O-Pen for which I will not be able to get cartridges if the intent to get rid of dispensaries and make med patients buy from the State stores becomes reality.

        • claygooding says:

          Tony,,if the goal is to remove the “nostalgia” and the hippies,,make no mistake,,hippies will always be a target no matter how much good we do,,from the marijuana market they must remove some of the traditional aspects of the illegal marketing and use of marijuana,,besides selling legal marijuana in a pipe cut and rolled joints forces the illegal suppliers to grind their buds up or roll it in joints or any of his customers caught walking around with buds is a potential lead back to them.
          Buds sell for more than manicured pot.
          It is also why eventually marijuana crops will be raised to produce seeds and fiber,,the cleaning process will remove the seeds and the package of marijuana you buy will probably have the numbers on it designating THC and CBD contents and the buyer will never realize the marijuana was grown for seeds and fiber as well as his smoke.

        • Tony Aroma says:

          It is also why eventually marijuana crops will be raised to produce seeds

          I don’t see that as a deal breaker, necessarily. The only real problem with seeds, from a consumer’s point of view, is they’re a PITA. The presence of seeds alone really has nothing to do with the quality or potency of the smoke, especially if THC/CBD content is provided. The only problem with seeds is for the grower, as a seeded crop will produce less smokable product. Actually, if people end up using the non-smokable parts of the marijuana plant like hemp, that seems like a good thing to me as there is less waste.

      • darkcycle says:

        Opie….Kleiman was asked directly about the racial disparity in enforcement and his call for increased arrests, and how those reconcile with a law that was supposed to reduce arrests. The fat, rich white guy sat there and blithely replied that the disparity was unfair, but it would be “worth it”. Yep. The wealthy cracker doesn’t mind the “New Jim Crow” system hardly at all. In fact, he’s calling for ramping the whole enchilada up once pot is legalized. That’s his prohibitionist fantasy, arrest MORE of the “wrong people” for victimless crimes AFTER legalization than before!
        That’s why I slipped from simply disagreeing with him to actively hate, hate, hating him.

        • Freeman says:

          DC beat me to it. Here’s a link to the article he references.

          Noting the history of racial disparities in marijuana enforcement, Councilmember Mike O’Brien said he’d be concerned that ramped up enforcement would “compound the problem.”

          Kleiman said that’s certainly possible because poorer people and racial minorities might be more likely to use street corners for illegal pot commerce, and be subject to enforcement, than affluent white people.

          “I think it’s worth taking the transition cost,” Kleiman said, in order to undercut the illicit market.

          That statement alone should have gotten him drummed out of the Progressive movement.
          I’ve brought up the point several times that behaving exactly like cartels by using organized armed force to eliminate competition, stake out turf, and increase market share seems inferior as a public policy recommendation to simply allowing price, selection, quality, and convenience undermine the illicit market naturally, as have others, and I’ve yet to see a response out of him.

          His stance on drug policy reminds me of a Thomas Sowell quote that I probably read here first:
          The difference between a policy and a crusade is that a policy is judged by its results, while a crusade is judged by how good it makes its crusaders feel.

          After 40 years of Drug War I’m pretty sure we have all the experiential data needed to accurately predict the results of Kleiman’s “crackdown surge” recommendation. He doesn’t even seem to grasp a basic understanding of why the public is pushing to legalize marijuana — we’re sick and tired of 40 years of crackdowns that haven’t gotten us anywhere but number one on the incarcerators list, all the while hypocritically bragging about the “land of the free”.

        • Opiophiliac says:

          Wow, the comments in that Seattle Times article are uniformly critical of Kleinman.

          This just reflects on the problem at large, the morally dubious claim that it is okay to destroy the lives of one group of people in order to save another group of people from themselves. When the burden of our drug law enforcement has always disproportionally affected poor people and racial minorities, its hard to take Kleinman’s statement as anything other than implicit support for the “New Jim Crow.” (like DC said)

          I agree that using state-sanctioned violence to control market share and protect tax revenue is an inferior policy option than simply allowing the legal marketplace to undermine the black market through competitive pricing (and the other perks of legalization).

  13. Malc says:

    “Third, even on those rare occasions where Kleiman does not endorse prohibitionist policy, his analysis is infused with a prohibitionist morality. In his often superb chapter on marijuana, his evidence forces him to consider alternatives. Yet he is reluctant at every turn. He brings himself to admit that the costs of the current prohibition (e.g. each year 350 000 arrests and up to 10 billion dollars in enforcement costs and lost revenue) are probably too great for the ‘benefits’ received. But he still conceives of the alleged deterrent value of prohibition as a benefit, and again implies that he believes marijuana use is in itself somehow ‘bad’.”
    —Prohibitionism in Drug Policy Discourse by Craig Reinarman, University of California, Santa Cruz,
    INTERNATIONAL JOURNAL OF DRUG POLICY, 1994. VOL 5 NO 2.

    “He also bases his support for prohibition on the fact that the criminal justice system does not do a good enough job of preventing drug-related crime. Most informed observers, however, trace many of the problems in our criminal justice system to the burden and corruption placed on it by narcotics prohibition. Finally, I would note that even Mr. Kleiman realizes that only a small percentage of the population develops abuse problems with any specific drug and that we do not know what makes a given person have an abuse problem with a given drug. Why then does he recommend a nationwide policy that is oppressive, impersonal, and ineffective?
    —Mark Thornton, Auburn University.
    A Review of Against Excess: Drug Policy for Results, 1992.

    Make no mistake, Mark Kleiman is a typical parasitic-gravy-trainer who has spent his whole life leeching off the government (our) purse. Do not expect him to do anything to derail his own gravy train!

    “Kleiman is a tee-totaler sado-moralist who believes intoxication is a disease.” —Allan Erickson, The Media Awareness Project

    “I’ve been going around the country trying to convince people that knowing the unsatisfactory results of marijuana prohibition doesn’t prove that any specific implementation of legal marijuana will turn out to be an improvement.” —Mark Kleiman, 2013

    “I’ve been going around the country trying to convince people that knowing the unsatisfactory results of alcohol prohibition doesn’t prove that any specific implementation of legal alcohol will turn out to be an improvement.” —Mark Kleiman’s grandfather, 1933

  14. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    This one is from the “take two ibuprofen so you don’t forget to call me in the morning” category:

    Painkillers May Curb Memory Loss From Medical Marijuana
    /snip/
    Medical marijuana can alleviate pain and nausea, but it can also cause decreased attention span and memory loss. A new study in mice finds that taking an over-the-counter pain medication like ibuprofen may help curb these side effects.
    /snip/

    Quite frankly I prefer my daily megadose of lecithin but also think it might be a good idea to throw the pharmas a bone.
    ————————————————–
    If you haven’t looked at the Time Magazine comments column today the sycophants have brought in a battalion of sock puppets for reinforcements. It’s really precious that they think that they can fool people like that. Prohibitionists often have no compunction about telling bald faced lies about this issue. What a bunch of stand up citizens.

  15. allan says:

    Nice slapdown of the AZ Republic:

    Arizona’s medical-pot program actually works like this

    Thanks Kirk! (Kirk Muse is not only MAP’s #2 LTE writer, he is also one of MAP’s top newshawks)

    Please, Republic editorial board, do readers a favor and use your platform responsibly. The editorial was sloppy journalism even as an opinion piece. If you disagree with how the Arizona Medical Marijuana Program works, you can at least make a respectable argument instead of throwing around judgments, accusations and raunchy references to pop culture.

  16. strayan says:

    Uh oh, the prohibitionists are going to have to ban tylenol: http://ije.oxfordjournals.org/content/early/2013/10/24/ije.dyt183.abstract

  17. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    Today is a very sad day. Peter Lewis passed away yesterday. He was 80 years old. I may have to pry myself out of my cave and pay my respects in person if his family offers that opportunity.

  18. claygooding says:

    Is Sabet stepping down or forced to sit down?

    Patrick Kennedy heads up group fighting to stop marijuana legalization in Mass.

    Effort begins to block pot legalization ballot question, Kennedy claims marijuana contributes directly to mental illness

    http://tinyurl.com/lr7l2nv

    I wonder if they finally realized how bogus it sounded for a rehabilitation doctor trying to convince the people to have the government continue sending him customers?

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      I reiterate my analysis that Mr. Sabet is losing his mind. I do mean that literally, as in some manifestation of organic mental illness, not rhetorically as I might be heard saying about any prohibitionist when commenting on their regurgitated prohibitionist dogma. He’s probably too old for the onset of schizophrenia, but bi-polar disorder is very possible.

      I actually think that putting Mr. Kennedy in charge of SAM will benefit our arguments. The man is an utter dimwit. If he really wanted to promote the continued embrace of the proven failure of public policy which we call the war on some drugs he would shut up and go away at the very least. I think that this is very good news indeed.

    • Servetus says:

      Googling ‘Jody Hensley, Mass. SAM Director’, led to this character; Dr Chris Thurstone, an addictions and sports physician, and another name to be added to a long list of prohibitches. Note Thurstone’s site allows comments (within limits).

    • darkcycle says:

      No clay. He’s still there. Remember, Kennedy is their “name recognition/public face”. Jus’ cause Kev-Kev hasn’t been quoted doesn’t mean he’s gone away. People like Kevvie never “just go away”.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        .
        .

        Rats. I knew it was too good to be true.

        DC, it is in the nature of a parasite to attach itself to a host and not let go until fully bloated. It is also in the nature of a parasite to require a stunningly large effort to pry the creature loose at any time before its bloodlust has been satiated.

  19. Servetus says:

    Eric Sterling blasts drug prohibition for killing capitalism in eleven ways, which it does.

    It’s possible to add a few more ways prohibition lowers profits, like complicating international trade and travel for people of different drug persuasions.

    The drug laws of any province act like a general tolerance litmus test. Who wants to vacation among prohibitches in chemically paranoid wacko-fiefdoms like Singapore, Malaysia, Saudi Arabia, or Utah when travelers can choose from a far more tolerant world? No sir, I will not start up a corporation within the tribal vibe of your gloom-and-doom fairy tales and propaganda, thank you very much. The nation that destroys its people destroys itself.

    • Duncan20903 says:

      .
      .

      I never once have had any problem getting a credit card. Back in the day of 0% interest promos and money market accounts that actually paid better than 2% in divvies I was pocketing a really nice chunk of change every year. The more I borrowed and paid back, the more the issuers would fall all over themselves to lend me more money at 0%. Sure I knew it meant that one day it was going to make the issuers implode but while it appeared to me that they were letting me babysit an ungodly pile of their money it still wasn’t even the equivalent to me hocking a lunger into the Pacific Ocean. They got their benefit when they securitized the debt to sell to the bagholders because our FICO scores increased the average FICO score of the securitized debt they sold which got them a better price, at least until the stupidity blew up in their face. If a schmuck like me knew the inevitable end game I think it’s safe to presume that all of those MBAs either knew or should have known that. But all those assholes cared about was their annual bonus. The more they loaned the bigger their bonus. Sorry folks, that game is history since 2008.

      I just don’t know why so many people think that a past felony keeps someone from getting a credit card. It’s not in your CRA file and I’ve never seen the question on an application for credit. I never fibbed about it for any loan I’ve ever taken, they never asked and I’m not interested in collecting any more felonies. In this instance Mr. Sterling is just plain wrong.

      • Jean Valjean says:

        Credit card applications raised a doubt for me too, but most of the rest are true hidden costs to business, passed on as a result of the sheer impracticality of the drug war. I’m glad someone has singled out WOD costs to business, as that’s the only way to get the attention of the twin business parties that run America, the Republicans and the Democrats.

  20. Duncan20903 says:

    .
    .

    I’ve often wondered what causes the munchies and cottonmouth. This one is from the “I learn something new everyday whether I like it or not” category:

    The Physical Effects of Marijuana on the Digestive System

    /snip/
    Munchies and Rushes

    Munchies and rushes happen for three main reasons:

    1) The warm to hot, drying and dispersive nature of marijuana dries up the digestive fluids.

    2) The spice and poison of unbalanced marijuana can confuse the Middle Jiao and compromise the integrity of the spleen system. The body will do anything to normalize the spleen system to get back in balance. Eating is the quickest way to do it.

    3) The body wants to dilute and antidote marijuana’s poison. The fastest way to do that is by eating and drinking, hence the munchies and cottonmouth.
    /snip/

    Poe’s Law is in full force. I can’t for the life of me tell whether or not that website is so extraordinarily hilarious by design or by happenstance.

    • darkcycle says:

      File that under “WTF????”.

      • Duncan20903 says:

        Actually, I think I prefer moving it to the “we’re not laughing with you, we’re laughing at you” category.

        Hey wait a second, there’s no rule that says it can’t be all 3. As a matter of fact there aren’t any rules since it’s my filing system and I prefer anarchy in my file cabinets. If you ever got to see my desk you’d realize that anarchy is an understatement. One of the great mysteries in life is how the heck have I managed to make my computer’s desktop so closely resemble the condition of my analogue desktop?

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