Screw the pooch, Obama has finally done something I approve of, he pulled the DEA off of State approved medical marijuana growers, distributors and users. It’s about damn time somebody grasped a chunk of reality on this issue.
The government knows this plant has medicinal properties, hell, they allow pharmaceutical companies to whip up chemically replicated THC complexes and sell it under the name Marinol, a FDA approved drug, that by the way, does get you just as stoned as the real deal. Why should anyone be forced to buy the expensive laboratory version when can you grow your own authentic medicine for free?
I haven’t smoked a significant amount of dope in twenty eight years, I quit my taste when I became pregnant with my first child and never resumed the habit. I lost my grip on the bowl way back in the day, preferring the more controllable saturation point of bourbon and beer. I spent the years twelve through eighteen baked out of my ever-loving mind, smoking my way through every good day, riding a strident wave of adolescent wreckage.
After I cleaned up, I spent the next ten moving the rare load of silent reefer tonnage to North Carolina and the last thirteen living pure legal. Tell me, have you ever rolled naked in a hundred and fifty thousand dollars pulled from your safe for that express purpose? The money involved in moving pot is phenomenal; small, smart dealers live large, the big boys own yachts and multiple architectural masterpieces. All on a tight bud profit riding the back of a buying demographic swinging well under twenty five.
Although it goes against every last natural, self protective monetary instinct I own, I’m not gonna snow you, I believe marijuana should be legalized, controlled, licensed, taxed and sold in the same manner as many of our other, over the counter, legal drugs. There is absolutely no sane reason why weed shouldn’t be treated exactly like alcohol or tobacco.
The only people winning under current policy are dealers and law enforcement, the pot laws aren’t keeping you safe, they’re costing you money and fueling the production of more dope. The pot industry doesn’t want this shit legalized, they’ll be out of business quicker than shit if we start treating joints like shots of bourbon. Your kids will be less likely to get their hands on it too, more of them get stoned than drunk at this point, ever wonder why?
Obama made one small good move, it’ll take people willing to move three steps off stupid to change this insane policy of marijuana prohibition.
OK.
Really, James?
Sometimes adding is subtracting. Hell, I’m a savage; decriminalize it all and let ‘em drop where they drop.
A very good decision.
I’m glad that, at least in your case, the long-term damage seems minimal.
Would that that applied to some of my extended family.
Never heard of Marisol.
Google returns nothing relevant – do you have a link ?
Seems par for the course though – nothing is worthy of approval by the FDA unless and until it can be patented and profited from by a mega -corporation.
My bad, I misspelled it – should have been Marinol. I’ll correct it and here’s a couple of links.
http://www.solvaypharmaceuticals-us.com/products/marinolproductinformation/0,998,12413-2-0,00.htm
http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/ongoing/marinol.html
I disagree with the decision.
I think that medical marijuana is a sham – there are loads of other ways to relieve pain, and lots of the customers at these clinics are not sick at all
Skip this step altogether and just legalize pot and most other drugs without the medical play acting!
Yup, Peter Tosh was right. And tax the Hell out of it, too. The resulting cash inflow, while not a panacea, would go a long way towards solving California’s (and other states) budgetary problems. Not to mention reducing the prison population and assorted other good things… but this just makes too much sense, now, don’t it?
Ah… I can’t WAIT for Morgan to drop by, as he and I have been sparring in this space for a couple of years now. :D
Morgan will definitely NOT be on board with this idea at all, Buck. But I’d be happy to hear his opinion and debate the issue with him.
Phantom, I would be shocked not to find rampant fraud in the states with medical pot exemptions. But just because these programs are probably used by many healthy people as runarounds to the law doesn’t dismiss the real medical benefits marijuana gives to people suffering from MS, glaucoma, cancer, AIDS, etc.
I don’t think I’m on board with legalizing coke, heroin, meth or other hard drugs.
Smitty, I stopped getting high well before I reached twenty. There’s no doubt in my mind that drugs can (and do) ruin lives, but so do a lot of other things that people abuse.
I’ve known single women addicted to relationships with only married men. Most of them had pretty wretched, unsuccessful lives, too.
The government can’t save someone who’s hellbent on destroying themselves and they have never found a way to keep people from buying whatever it is they desire.
Oh come on Daphne! You don’t fool me a bit. I’d bet my next paycheck that when Gerard was in Austin a couple of months ago the spliffs were going around. And that’s fine with me.
Nope, but the tequila did flow. ;-)
Seriously, no dope in my system for many, many years. It stopped being enjoyable, I remember the last time I ever got high and wishing it would hurry up and go away. That was it for me.
Besides, being stoned isn’t compatible, at least for me, with raising kids.
Maybe it’s hypocritical, but over the past year I’ve socially cut out all of the adults I know who smoke weed that have kids my children’s age. These children are going to hit up their parent’s stashes within the next few years and I’d rather not have my boy’s exposed to known weed households.
Yaknow, I detect evolution going on here.
You heathen! ;-)
Yet…
The “known alcohol households” are ok.
Odd, that.
We agree.
Remove criminal penalties for the use of drugs and treat addiction.
Remove vast illicit profits and give Mexico back it’s soverignty.
Win. Win.
Yeah… I agree with legalizing it. Tax the crap out of it and make it legal. The government isn’t going to stop people wanting to alter their minds, days, moods, etc. People have been altering their perspectives for centuries – herbs, weeds, plants, liquids…licking frogs…
If there is a substance I would be most concerned about my kids (when I have them) getting into as kids it’d be alcohol. My husband had an…experimental and largely unsupervised childhood. He found alcohol at around 10 and by junior high was going to class drunk most days. He wasn’t alone – there was a whole crowd that did it. He didn’t mess much with drugs till high school and then it was mostly weed and horse tranquilizers. He drank and drove long distances – I got the ever charming “I threw up there” tour of his hometown when we first started dating. They are damn lucky no one died.
With weed at least you aren’t speeding when you hit the telephone pole. :)