Print

Please login or register.
1 Hour 1 Day 1 Week 1 Month Forever
Login with username, password and session length

[Thad]

I've been to plenty of parties where people were smoking.  Not the same thing as going to a bar, but pretty much the same thing as going to a party where beer was served.

...though granted, I've been to parties with beer and no pot and can't say I've been to a party with pot and no beer.

Course, any party I go to is by definition a party where someone brings beer.

[Rico]

There's also much more pot use at bars than some of you may be aware of.

[Mongrel]

I've always maintained that private transportation should be outlawed (despite the awesome two-wheel turn I pulled out of the offramp this morning).  But that's another topic!

All my turns are on two wheels.

[Thad]

Now this is interesting: even the Cato Institute favors ending the War on Drugs.

[Mongrel]

Oh, I forgot to mention this the other day, but there's an interesting legalization wrinkle going on up here.

Okay, so backstory, the Liberal Party was smashed in the last election and is currently trying a very comprehensive rebuild. Their sorry state is making them open to all kinds of new things.

At the party convention last weekend, Liberal Party members voted to make full legalization of pot a goal and a campaign issue in the next election.

I'm posting this here rather than in the News from the North thread because if that actually went through, it would have a very noticeable effect on you guys. Though who knows what those effects might be.

[Thad]

VIRGINIA BEACH, Va. -- Religious broadcaster Pat Robertson says marijuana should be legalized and treated like alcohol because the government's war on drugs has failed.

...huh.

Well, strange bedfellows, but if he can get the evangelicals onboard then more power to him.  Just this once.

[Bal]

I've said it before, but at this point almost nobody seems to want marijuana illegal anymore except the federal government.l

[TA]

I've said it before, but at this point almost nobody seems to want marijuana illegal anymore except the tobacco and alcohol industries.

[Mothra]

I still can't believe tobacco ever managed to become a profitable crop. The abstraction we had to reach in order to make it desirable is actually really impressive.

[Mongrel]

I still can't believe tobacco ever managed to become a profitable crop. The abstraction we had to reach in order to make it desirable is actually really impressive.

Bob Newhart skit on Tobacco

[Mothra]

hehe

Ahhh the classics~

[Büge]

[Cthulhu-chan]

Ahaha, smooth

[Shinra]

How do you guys think the Obama administration is going to respond to legalization in CO/WA? If at all?

[Bal]

ATF will occasionally flex it's muscles and arrest a bunch of people on federal charges, and then other people will start up three new stores. Hail Hydra.

[Tefari]

I've said it before, but at this point almost nobody seems to want marijuana illegal anymore except the tobacco and alcohol industries.

Alcohol maybe but I imagine that the tobacco industry has plans set aside for if/when pot is legalized so they can swoop in and make (another) mint. They already have the infrastructure, it wouldn't be too hard to alter the contents of what goes into that white paper tube and mass produce it.

Anyways yey this is an awesome step towards a sane drug policy in the US.

[Shinra]

So how long before states bordering CO/WA start setting up checkpoints and border crossings to prevent the inevitable stream of pounds and pounds of marijuana?

I understand there's limits to how much you can technically obtain but legalization is going to make that shit a lot more accessible in those states. People already drive out of Oklahoma to buy high % beer, trips in to Colorado would be inevitable.

[Sharkey]

I've said it before, but at this point almost nobody seems to want marijuana illegal anymore except the tobacco and alcohol industries.

Alcohol maybe but I imagine that the tobacco industry has plans set aside for if/when pot is legalized so they can swoop in and make (another) mint. They already have the infrastructure, it wouldn't be too hard to alter the contents of what goes into that white paper tube and mass produce it.

Anyways yey this is an awesome step towards a sane drug policy in the US.

Yeah, my dad is always telling me how RJR had plans for this, and still have marijuana cigarette packaging and ad materials that've been warehoused since the 70s just waiting to roll out. The story usually comes up right after the car that runs on water, and right before the bit about how every atom is, like, a whole universe. Regardless, you're probably right about tobacco jumping on this shit. Hell, I actually kind of wish the stoned rantings were true. Rolling out anything resembling a 70s ad campaign would actually work spectacularly well at this point.

Anyway, it'll probably take a little while yet, but I'm calling this thing as inevitable, with some quibbling over just how long it'll take. The war on drugs is eventually going to be joining chicken pox on the list of things that make me feel old. Wish my grandfather was still alive so we could bond over polio and prohibition.

[Thad]

ATF will occasionally flex it's muscles and arrest a bunch of people on federal charges, and then other people will start up three new stores. Hail Hydra.

Pretty much this.  The Administration has been pretty hostile toward medical marijuana -- another broken promise from Barack -- but it's not so easy to crack down on civil disobedience when it's mayors, governors, and attorneys general engaging in it.

Anyway, it'll probably take a little while yet, but I'm calling this thing as inevitable, with some quibbling over just how long it'll take.

Well right, there's the rub.  It's inevitable, but it's been inevitable for 50 damn years.  My dad occasionally shakes his head and says how he always figured it'd be legal by now.

The arc of history is long, and something something something.


EDIT: It's interesting to go back to the beginning of this thread and see just how much this has shifted in just four years.  Despite Obama's best efforts to be a Democrat about it.

[Thad]

Obama: U.S. should not act on pot use in Washington, Colorado

"It does not make sense from a prioritization point of view for us to focus on recreational drug users in a state that has already said that under state law that's legal," he told ABC News in part of an interview released on Friday.

Note the phrasing: "should not", "does not make sense".  At no point does he say "won't".

It should bear adding that I trust Obama about as far as I can throw him on this; he already pledged not to go after medical marijuana dispensaries and then turned around and went after medical marijuana dispensaries.  If he won't pay more than lip service to allowing access to medicine for goddamn cancer sufferers, I see no reason to think he'll be sympathetic to recreational users.

Congress is also expected to weigh in soon. Senate Judiciary Committee Patrick Leahy on Thursday said he plans to hold a hearing soon after the next Congress convenes in January.

In a separate letter to the Office of National Drug Control Policy, the Democrat said lawmakers could reconcile state and federal laws, for example, by amending the federal law to allow small amounts of marijuana in states that have legalized it.

And then we get to play the fun game where Republicans try to reconcile their stated position on states' rights with their actual position on states' rights.