Calif. voters to decide whether to legalize pot

disneydude said:

Unfortunately...the mandate of the voters is in large part influenced by massive amounts of propoganda. Just look at prop 8. The measure was largely failing until the mormon church through million of dollars into a very deceitful campaign that scared and misled voters. I expect Mormons and evangelicals to do the same with this issue.

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I do wish there were some measure that could block out of state lobbies from injecting massive amounts of funds into a campaign to influence a state ballot measure.

I think after what the mormon church did, they should lose all tax exempt status and be treated like any other political lobby.

Erod said:

Ah, legalize them, too. We have Obamacare to pay for rehab now!!!

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The cost of rehab may be less that the cost of the War of Drugs.

Erod said:

Ah, legalize them, too. We have Obamacare to pay for rehab now!!!

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Didn't see that in the bill. Can you point it out to me?

reefedjib said:

I agree with you that soft drugs (low addiction rates) should be legalized as well as production and distribution. I am still struggling with hard drugs (coke, crack, meth, heroin). I usually say to decriminalize them, treat users as having a health problem and get them into rehab. But that does nothing to eliminate the criminal distribution networks. So let's think about legalizing (and regulating) them.

There are studies showing that the use of marijuana won't go up with legalization. Perhaps the same is true of hard drugs.

Addiction is a disease and one way of treating it is to give a hit. Perhaps this is a way to view legalization.

When you go to the DC (Drug Control) and buy your hits, you are automatically sent to rehab. You can do the hits, but they will be your last.

What is more important and valuable, reducing the harm caused by criminal networks or reducing the harm caused by personal use? For pot, it is clearly the first. For other drugs?

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I am limited on time, but there are studies which look at this, and there are examples. Portugal has decriminalized all drugs (it does not address the supply chain, but there is a whole intl. treaty issue there).

hard drug usage has decreased across the board, the key is education, and delaying the age of first use, getting it out of the hands of kids, and waiting until they are more mature and can make more reasoned decisions.

Just because we legalize drugs does not mean that we are condoning them, we can still press the message home hard that these drugs are extremely dangerous, and we can take other steps to monitor usage, and offer treatment options without a stigma or intimidation factor that is present currently.

After 9 years of decriminalization in Portugal, usage has gone down for every type of hard drug -most notably and significantly the decrease in hard drug usage is most pronounced in youth.

Marijuana use has gone up slightly since decriminalization, but this trend is true in all countries in Europe, and the % of increase in usage is lower in Portugal and their lax laws than it is with its more restrictive neighbors.

here is a link to a study on the results of Portugal's decriminalization of ALL drugs:

Drug Decriminalization in Portugal: Lessons for Creating Fair and Successful Drug Policies | Glenn Greenwald | Cato Institute: White Paper

Page 12 and 13 will have graphs which show usage has gone down across the board for school age children since 2001 when the policy was enacted.

Also I mentioned that marijuana use did go up, not among school age kids, just among adults, and further we have this from the report:

In almost every category of drug, and for drug usage overall, the lifetime prevalence rates in the predecriminalization era of the 1990's were higher than the post decriminalization rates

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It took me a while to warm up to the idea of legalizing everything, I was hesitant at first, but the positive results are a mere fraction of what they potentially can be unless you legalize everything, and then aggressively attack the problem from a medical, sociological, and educational standpoint.

There are solid models, and sound proposals and ideas out there that we can base our drug policy on that would be effective, it would discourage new users from even starting and/or becoming addicted, and it would give present addicts, and those who may still become addicts despite our best efforts the one thing that they need most to overcome their problem, and that is hope.

jamesrage said:

If this passes I wonder how much of the percentage of prescriptions for so called medical marijuana will drop?

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You wouldn't need it. So I would expect they would disappear. Seriously, do people get prescriptions for aspirin?

RightinNYC said:

That's quite convenient. You can make all the sweeping and unsupported statements about "right-wingers" that you want, and then whenever you're called out on it you just redefine the group to mean "not all of them, just the bad ones."

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I've never redefined the group. I said right-wingers...someone else said something about lumping in all Republicans. I said no...not all Republicans are right-wingers. There are moderates in the Republican party and there are some conservatives who are not right-wingers.

To me a "conservative" is someone who believes in small government and does not want a lot of governmental regulation.
"right-wingers" differ from "conservatives" because right-wingers talk about small government, but when it comes down to it, they advocate for very large governmental involvement in the social arena, be it gay rights, reproductive freedom, drugs, etc.

Does that clarify it at all?

Ikari said:

While I most whole heartily agree with you. They will evoke interstate commerce or some other BS thing to make sure they keep the power. The federal government isn't so keen on reducing its power; even the crap it just took.

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This will not go unchallenged, hopefully immediately upon passage it will fall under the current policy of not using resources in cases where Federal and state laws conflict (current medical MJ federal policy). What happens when we get a new president is another story.

There will be challenges, and this will hinge on the 10th.. but there is actually a case that hopefully will make it to the SC prior to the MJ laws which will have bearing on this issue, it is Montana and the challenge presented by their recently enacted Gun legislation, where if the Gun is made in Montana, and is sold in Montana it is not "commerce... ...among the several states", and therefore the Fed cannot regulate it. There are other hurdles, the commerce clause has been seriously weakened, and there are rulings that have set precedent otherwise (cannot recall off the top of my head, but there is a specific case that is a sizeable hurdle).

States' Gun Rights: The Next Constitutional Battlefield - TIME <-- Montana gun rights challenge, it is a story from last may, but the legal path is a slow one, it is still in the works, and several other states have passed similar laws (off the top of my head Wyoming?? nevada??, and I know Ohio has).

In the text of the proposed Mj law there is a section that specifically defines it as intrastate, and separates it from interstate, this is to give it a leg to stand on for 10th challenges.

disneydude said:

I've never redefined the group. I said right-wingers...someone else said something about lumping in all Republicans. I said no...not all Republicans are right-wingers. There are moderates in the Republican party and there are some conservatives who are not right-wingers.

To me a "conservative" is someone who believes in small government and does not want a lot of governmental regulation.
"right-wingers" differ from "conservatives" because right-wingers talk about small government, but when it comes down to it, they advocate for very large governmental involvement in the social arena, be it gay rights, reproductive freedom, drugs, etc.

Does that clarify it at all?

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Those would be social conservatives. And it's not about expanding government, it's about morals and not legalizing or giving rights to what many believe are immoral.

digsbe said:

Those would be social conservatives. And it's not about expanding government, it's about morals and not legalizing or giving rights to what many believe are immoral.

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You can try to define it anyway you like, but it absolutely is about expanding government. It is about huge government regulation and involvement into things that the government really has no business in at all. Its about expanding the government to legislate morality.

THAT is not a "conservative" principle. That is why "Social Conservative" actually makes little to no sense.

disneydude said:

You can try to define it anyway you like, but it absolutely is about expanding government. It is about huge government regulation and involvement into things that the government really has no business in at all. Its about expanding the government to legislate morality.

THAT is not a "conservative" principle. That is why "Social Conservative" actually makes little to no sense.

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It's not regulation to say something is illegal or not marriage. How is government any bigger due to criminalized drugs and homosexual marriages not being legal? By your reasoning are all laws for big government? So should all who support limited government also support anarchy and a lawless society? We have laws because of morality, so should murder and rape be legal to shrink government influence?

digsbe said:

It's not regulation to say something is illegal or not marriage. How is government any bigger due to criminalized drugs and homosexual marriages not being legal? By your reasoning are all laws for big government? So should all who support limited government also support anarchy and a lawless society? We have laws because of morality, so should murder and rape be legal to shrink government influence?

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There's a big difference between rape and murder and homosexual marriage.

Legislation should have common sense. Person kill Person = bad.

Man marry Man = None of our damn business. Not as if they're trying to force you to be gay.

digsbe said:

It's not regulation to say something is illegal or not marriage. How is government any bigger due to criminalized drugs and homosexual marriages not being legal? By your reasoning are all laws for big government? So should all who support limited government also support anarchy and a lawless society? We have laws because of morality, so should murder and rape be legal to shrink government influence?

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When you have the government coming in and regulating who can marry who THAT is increased government regulation in the same way ANY law is increased government regulation.

As far as your second point. I am not the one calling for smaller government. I am not a "Government is the problem" kinda guy. I agree with you that Government is important and that we need laws to govern our society. Laws governing murder and rape are proper governmental involvement because that laws involve preventing harm to another.

Laws governing personal relationships, drugs, etc are expanding government into areas that are best left to the individual.

disneydude said:

When you have the government coming in and regulating who can marry who THAT is increased government regulation in the same way ANY law is increased government regulation.

As far as your second point. I am not the one calling for smaller government. I am not a "Government is the problem" kinda guy. I agree with you that Government is important and that we need laws to govern our society. Laws governing murder and rape are proper governmental involvement because that laws involve preventing harm to another.

Laws governing personal relationships, drugs, etc are expanding government into areas that are best left to the individual.

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Actually, regulation would be going in and changing the laws to force the government to allow homosexuals to have marital status.

Laws don't stop gays from having gay relationships, they just don't recognize it as marriage. Drugs are harmful and dangerous substances and there are wise reasons for their criminal status. I don't want to de-rail this thread, but moral legislation is not about giving government control, it's about ethics and not recognizing what many believe to be immoral as moral.

digsbe said:

Actually, regulation would be going in and changing the laws to force the government to allow homosexuals to have marital status.

Laws don't stop gays from having gay relationships, they just don't recognize it as marriage. Drugs are harmful and dangerous substances and there are wise reasons for their criminal status. I don't want to de-rail this thread, but moral legislation is not about giving government control, it's about ethics and not recognizing what many believe to be immoral as moral.

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No. If their were no restrictions on gay marriage there would be no regulation. Its not that difficult.

Laws have stopped gays from having gay relationships, in fact, some states actually have those outdated statutes on their books.
Government should not be involved in saying what is or what is not marriage. Its not the government's role. That is why "conservatives" like Barry Goldwater stayed as far away from the social arena as possible.

Drugs can be harmful, but it is a huge expansion of government to be involved in the arrest, trial, conviction , etc of simple possession, especially of something that isn't harmful, like marijuana.

Moral legislation is about HUGE governmental control. Control of things that are best left to the individuals that are directly affected. Absent harm to another, expanding the government to regulate them run counter to the very concepts of "conservatism".

digsbe said:

How is government any bigger due to criminalized drugs and homosexual marriages not being legal?

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DEA, ONDCP, and ~70 billion a year for the drugs, and those are just the most obvious ones.. that whole enforcement/incarceration thing makes the Gov bigger too ya know.

Edit: and there are plenty of other threads to discuss the Gay marriage thing.

digsbe said:

Drugs are harmful and dangerous substances and there are wise reasons for their criminal status.

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Ok, digsbe, let's keep the thread on topic.

Drugs are harmful to whom? How?

Drugs are dangerous to whom? How?

Give me the wise reasons for maintaining their criminal status.

What is the morality of drug criminalization?

Why is it better to criminalize drugs when the harm done from criminalizing them is greater than the harm done using them?

DrunkenAsparagus said:

Where's John Calhoun when you need him?

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In Texas history books, but you will have to ask Thomas Jefferson about that, if you can find him now. :mrgreen:

marduc said:

Although already answered by Danarhea, and the initiative does take necessary steps to deal with the supply chain issue, the effect on the cartels will still be minimal, since this is but one of 50 states that are funding the cartels, and marijuana is ~60% of their income (Mexican cartels that is), and other drugs are the rest.

Thinking that this will have a drastic effect on the cartels is premature, it would take numerous states following suit, which hopefully will occur once they realize the canary in the coal mine is singing quite happily.

What it will do is allow resources to be better focused on real crime, and it will reduce the amount of money going to local gangs, which in turn will have a negative pressure on gang allure and influence on kids.

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I believe that even if it were legalized in all 50 states we would still be fighting the war on weed and the cartels.

Legal weed will be taxed and probably at a rather high rate such as tobacco. So people will still be willing to purchase better quality/cheaper rates on the black market. So we will still be busting growers and buyers that try and avoid taxes.

I am curous. Since the most liberal states seem to push tobacco restrictions (can't smoke in public, around kids, ect.) will they make the same push for restricting pot?

Baralis said:

I believe that even if it were legalized in all 50 states we would still be fighting the war on weed and the cartels.

Legal weed will be taxed and probably at a rather high rate such as tobacco. So people will still be willing to purchase better quality/cheaper rates on the black market. So we will still be busting growers and buyers that try and avoid taxes.

I am curous. Since the most liberal states seem to push tobacco restrictions (can't smoke in public, around kids, ect.) will they make the same push for restricting pot?

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This is something that has to be done correctly, and there needs to be checks in place to evaluate the pricing, and to make sure that they can be adapted to accomplish the primary goal of rendering the black market obsolete.

There were 2 bills going through state legislation last year, one in CA, and one in Mass. The Ca bill proposal had a $50 an ounce tax rate, hefty, yet quite reasonable, and still leaves ample room for profitability while undercutting the black market. The Mass. Proposal had a sliding scale depending on THC content, and went as high as $250 an ounce, this threw red flags up for me, it is too much, and would still leave room for potential black markets IMO. Then I read the bill more, and there were mechanisms in it to regularly evaluate and adjust the tax rate accordingly to properly balance tax income versus black market eradication. I still fear with that particular piece of legislation lawmakers may try to get too greedy.

There is ample room to tax heavily, and STILL undermine black market prices. marijuana does not take much money to actually grow, and the cartels are making their money off from relatively low quality seeded marijuana grown outdoors, the quality will most assuredly go up, just as the quality currently available for medicinal marijuana is way above your typical mexican brick weed.

It is a necessity to out compete the black market, fortunately, this is extremely easy to do.

What's gonna happen is, when CA legalizes weed, they're gonna stop growing oranges and then my orange juice prices will skyrocket!

The price of a Screwdriver will double overnight. :rofl

Captain America said:

What's gonna happen is, when CA legalizes weed, they're gonna stop growing oranges and then my orange juice prices will skyrocket!

The price of a Screwdriver will double overnight. :rofl

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You still got the OJ, it comes from my neighborhood here in Florida (well Brazil too, but that kind of talk around here is blasphemy).. Ca is mostly about the eatin oranges.

Anyhow, the bulk of recreational cannabis will be almost certainly grown indoors and in greenhouses, both for quality purposes (avoiding pollination and seeds), and also to keep a kid from straying onto the pot field and picking a few buds.

marduc said:

This is something that has to be done correctly, and there needs to be checks in place to evaluate the pricing, and to make sure that they can be adapted to accomplish the primary goal of rendering the black market obsolete.

There were 2 bills going through state legislation last year, one in CA, and one in Mass. The Ca bill proposal had a $50 an ounce tax rate, hefty, yet quite reasonable, and still leaves ample room for profitability while undercutting the black market. The Mass. Proposal had a sliding scale depending on THC content, and went as high as $250 an ounce, this threw red flags up for me, it is too much, and would still leave room for potential black markets IMO. Then I read the bill more, and there were mechanisms in it to regularly evaluate and adjust the tax rate accordingly to properly balance tax income versus black market eradication. I still fear with that particular piece of legislation lawmakers may try to get too greedy.

There is ample room to tax heavily, and STILL undermine black market prices. marijuana does not take much money to actually grow, and the cartels are making their money off from relatively low quality seeded marijuana grown outdoors, the quality will most assuredly go up, just as the quality currently available for medicinal marijuana is way above your typical mexican brick weed.

It is a necessity to out compete the black market, fortunately, this is extremely easy to do.

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I agree $50 a oz sounds reasonable to me given the prices out there but I remember reading the MA propsosal and thinking that this may never work. A $250 tax is crazy imo that is 1/3 the price of alot of whats in the streets. Not to mention cartels would probably lower there prices to compete. I agree with you that lawmakers may get greedy (when do they not?) and continously raise the taxes just as they have done with tobacco and alcohol.

Many will of course pay extra just to be able to do it legally. However I suspect the fight will never go away. Look at alcohol for example. We still raid and jail people for home stilling. With home growing (low quality) being alot cheaper and alot easier then home brewing I feel we will always have a black market.

Im not a consumer but I fully believe that it should be legal. I just feel that alot of people believe that once its legal that all law enforcment in the matter will disappear.

digsbe said:

It's not regulation to say something is illegal or not marriage. How is government any bigger due to criminalized drugs and homosexual marriages not being legal? By your reasoning are all laws for big government? So should all who support limited government also support anarchy and a lawless society? We have laws because of morality, so should murder and rape be legal to shrink government influence?

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digsbe said:

Actually, regulation would be going in and changing the laws to force the government to allow homosexuals to have marital status.

Laws don't stop gays from having gay relationships, they just don't recognize it as marriage. Drugs are harmful and dangerous substances and there are wise reasons for their criminal status. I don't want to de-rail this thread, but moral legislation is not about giving government control, it's about ethics and not recognizing what many believe to be immoral as moral.

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Okay. Digsbe, you and I are generally on a similar wavelength, since (unless I've misread you) we're both theologically conservative Christians. But, I have a different perspective on the drug legalization issue, and I'd like to explore a few concepts here.

The War on Drugs: this has been an expensive "War", it shows no sign of ever ending, and it has been an abject failure. I would know; as a former LEO I was a footsoldier on the front lines and I can tell you we will never enforce drug abuse out of existence.
Furthermore the WoD has been used as an excuse and a means to dramatic expand police powers, police presence, police militarization and at least arguably infringements on various Constitutional rights, namely against unreasonable search and seizure, and asset forfeiture before conviction.

Moral vs Legal; law and morality. I agree with you that all law is, ultimately, based on morality. Murder is illegal because we believe it is wrong; that is the very definition of moral values because it is a judgement of rightness or wrongness.
Yet, not everything that is legal is moral; nor is everything that is moral, legal. Nor is everything that is legal, wise to do. In other words, there is not and never has been a 1 for 1 congruence between morality and law... and I expect there never will be. Part of the reason being a lack of consensus on morality.
--- Now, hold the phone a minute. You probably believe there are moral absolutes, based on the commandments of God in the Bible... you know what, so do I.
The problem, often pointed out by non-Christians, is that those of us who claim His name, have some trouble agreeing on a good bit of what is moral commandment and what isn't, even within our own ranks.
For instance, I don't work or do business on Sunday, except in cases of emergency. I have a sister who is very devout who sees no problem with going out to lunch at a restaurant after church; in fact her whole church goes out together, including the preacher. There are other people on the other extreme who would tell me that even in an emergency I should not buy, sell or work on Sunday. Others say that since Saturday was the "original Sabbath" that we should keep Saturday and not Sunday.
--- The folks holding these viewpoints all proclaim themselves Christian, and all seem to be sincere and honest in the position they take.
Who is right? If we're making morality into law, whose position do we make into law?
If we did, how far do we take that, BTW? Do you get a fine, or do we go OT and stone violators?
My point in all that was morality and legality are never fully congruent, because it depends on one's perspective. If the 7th Day Adventists ruled the country and forced me to keep Sabbath law from sundown Friday to sundown Saturday, that would be moral to them but an infringement on my conscience to me. See my point?
A lot of things are legal that many think are morally wrong: abortion, alcohol, various forms of gambling, etc.
Some things are illegal that should not be.

Back to the drug thing...
Are there any verses in the Bible that explicitly forbid the use of drugs? I don't know of any offhand. There are cautions about wine and strong drink, and harsh condemnation of being a drunkard (a habitual drunk, and alcoholic), which could be interpreted to apply to all things intoxicating. There's "the body is a temple" thing too, but that one has been stretched several miles beyond its original context already.
I know a guy who claims to be a Christian, and seems to be pretty devout, who thinks there is nothing wrong with smoking weed and who does so regularly. I don't agree with him but if imbibing alcohol in moderation is okay then I don't have much scriptural firepower to bash him with. Having been an ex-cop I don't think weed is any worse than booze, if it is even as bad. The difference is in legality, and that is only mala prohibitum and a circular argument.

I don't drink or do drugs of any kind myself... well unless you count caffine and nicotine...which some people do, oops. :mrgreen:

Now I'm finally meandering around to my point here...

There isn't much argument that murder is immoral, so hardly anybody has a problem with it being illegal.
There are people who would like to see Prohibition (on booze) tried again, including some of my fellow Baptists. There isn't much support for the idea though, even among Christians, and the first time we tried Prohibition it didn't work worth a darn... backfired, even.

See, even if you think people are better off not to drink alcohol, it would appear that banning booze just makes the problem worse and adds other problems too (see Al Capone).

Many of the same arguments apply to drug legalization.

There is a difference between banning something that is widely deemed to be morally evil, mala in se , like murder... and banning something that lacks a similar widespread moral concern, like weed.

I'd like to close with a quote from C.S. Lewis, that highly reputable author of the Narnia books and many works in Christian apologetics:

C.S. Lewis said:

"Of all tyrannies a tyranny sincerely exercised for the good of its victims may be the most oppressive. It may be better to live under robber barons than under omnipotent moral busybodies. The robber baron’s cruelty may sometimes sleep, his cupidity may at some point be satiated; but those who torment us for our own good will torment us without end for they do so with the approval of their own conscience."

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Baralis said:

Many will of course pay extra just to be able to do it legally. However I suspect the fight will never go away. Look at alcohol for example. We still raid and jail people for home stilling. With home growing (low quality) being alot cheaper and alot easier then home brewing I feel we will always have a black market.

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There will always be a small black market yes, but the important thing is the scope of the blackmarket. How much of a problem is moonshine currently, do we have a problem with street gangs dealing it, or selling it to our school kids? How did the bootleggers fare post alcohol prohibition? They were out of business, and what was left was very limited in scope, and scale, a scale that is manageable and not deleterious to soceity.

marduc said:

You still got the OJ, it comes from my neighborhood here in Florida (well Brazil too, but that kind of talk around here is blasphemy).. Ca is mostly about the eatin oranges.

Anyhow, the bulk of recreational cannabis will be almost certainly grown indoors and in greenhouses, both for quality purposes (avoiding pollination and seeds), and also to keep a kid from straying onto the pot field and picking a few buds.

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I know Bubba, and FL oranges ARE the BEST! But it's all about supply and demand. But, now that I think of it. Even though orange prices will go up, pot prices will go down

In the end, I'm better off, I suppose. :mrgreen: