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Texas legislators file bills aimed at decriminalizing marijuana

Ikari said:
And that it's legal in one case, and in that case a bunch of that money goes to the State. Consumer price with tax is pretty close to illegal prices, but it's a lot nicer not having to seek out a drug dealer and just going to a store instead.
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I'm sure.

I quit years ago but, if it were legal...

paranoia will destroy ya
 
WCH said:
From what I've seen, the price for decent stuff is around $20 a gram. Same as they charge in pot shops.[from what I've heard] The only difference is the variety.
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There is much more variation in both black market and pot shops than that, depending on quality, geographical location, and a whole lot of other factors, including the amount being bought at a time.

Anyway, one might note that we do have precedent for the legalization of a substance virtually wiping a black market out: alcohol. Precisely how many people have you heard of buying bathtub gin these days? Stolen liquor? Etc.
 
apdst said:
This will create one hell of a black market. The cartels are going to exploit the hell out of it.
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Yeah like they did everywhere it was legalized :doh
 
danarhea said:
Hells yea. That's what I want to see - Texas catching up with Colorado. Let's do this. :)

Texas legislators file bills aimed at decriminalizing marijuana | abc13.com
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Texas has already decriminalized it to a degree but its also up to the LEOs discretion. As for legalization in Texas ??? HELL NO !! Making marijuana out to be some healthy, benign alternative to alcohol is deeply misleading and highly irresponsible.

THC attaches itself to receptors in the brain that regulate everything from appetite to memory and studies have shown that chronic use causes substantial and irreversible changes to the brain that could affect a person for the rest of their life. Add to that that the marijuana available today is much higher in THC.

It is a dangerous substance and there's a good reason why its classified as a Schedule 1 substance and its misleading to push the narrative that getting high is comparable to and safer than drinking a beer. Its not. Consider some staggering statistics out of Colorado and ask why in the hell would any state want to follow their example ? Colorado now ranks third in the nation when it comes to youths between the ages of 12 and 17 who use marijuana and drug related school suspensions increased by 40 percent in 2013, compared with the 2008 school year and......

1) the majority of DUI drug arrests involve marijuana;

2) youth consumption of marijuana has increased;

3) drug-related suspensions/expulsions increased 32 percent over a 5-year period and a majority was for marijuana;

4) an increase in college users;

5) almost 50 percent of Denver arrestees tested positive for marijuana;

6) marijuana-related emergency-room visits increased 57 percent from 2011-2013; and

7) marijuana-related hospitalizations has increased 82 percent since 2008.
 
apdst said:
This will create one hell of a black market. The cartels are going to exploit the hell out of it.
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If it's legal, how does it become a black market? Do you know the meaning of black market?
 
Captain America said:
Doesn't Texas have a big prison industry?

They need to lock up as many people as they can to keep the money flowing so I wouldn't get too excited about this.

Just sayin'....
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Ahem. In Texas, it's called the Prison Industrial Complex.
 
poweRob said:
If it's legal, how does it become a black market? Do you know the meaning of black market?
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Being high on vanilla shakes from Sonic is much different than being high on weed. :mrgreen:
 
danarhea said:
Being high on vanilla shakes from Sonic is much different than being high on weed. :mrgreen:
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Maybe he typed something completely the opposite of what he posted but it got messed up by the wifi interwebz instead of being on the real internet.
 
TheGoverness said:
How are potheads sheep? Because they get high?
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Because she doesn't agree with them and thus must belittle them, reducing an entire group to the simplest of concepts and terms to make dismissing them all the easier.
 
Fenton said:
Texas has already decriminalized it to a degree but its also up to the LEOs discretion. As for legalization in Texas ??? HELL NO !! Making marijuana out to be some healthy, benign alternative to alcohol is deeply misleading and highly irresponsible.
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Who is claiming it's benign? That's what we call Straw Man.
 
poweRob said:
If it's legal, how does it become a black market? Do you know the meaning of black market?
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Dodging taxes and licensing; just like with whiskey and cigarettes. The black market cigarette trade is bigger than the drug trade. Legalizing dope isn't going to solve anything. It's only going to create a new problem.
 
Good! It should be decriminalized. It was criminalized because of race in the first place. Let's get rid of all these racist drug laws, starting with full legalization of marijuana.
 
Ikari said:
More states need to do this so people quit moving to Colorado. CA just legalized it, so I'm hoping they start staying in CA.
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the #1 thing, in all this, is if people can't stomach legalization, decriminalizing is so important, we can't be locking up people for this, it's absolute insanity and it always was.
 
Fenton said:
6) marijuana-related emergency-room visits increased 57 percent from 2011-2013; and 7) marijuana-related hospitalizations has increased 82 percent since 2008.
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Hospitalized for what? Excessive munchies? Laughing too hard at Seth Rogen? Listening to Pink Floyd?

Also, what did it increase to? Because saying it increased 57% is a bit misleading if you're not showing what it was before the "increase". If it goes from 100 to 157, that's not a big deal.
 
shagg said:
The best way to eliminate the black market is to make it compete with a legitimate one.
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It didn't work with alcohol and cigarettes.
 
apdst said:
The black market cigarette trade is bigger than the drug trade.
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Are you talking in the US or globally? I think we're gonna need some sources for this.
 
 
Fenton said:
Texas has already decriminalized it to a degree but its also up to the LEOs discretion. As for legalization in Texas ??? HELL NO !! Making marijuana out to be some healthy, benign alternative to alcohol is deeply misleading and highly irresponsible.
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There's that small government "off of peoples backs", leave it to beaver, trip back to the 50's I've been craving!
 
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