The thing about weed that bothers me the most is that it does affect others, the smell of it is horrible. I lived below a pot head for a few years and that smell was awful especially with toddlers running around. So yes, weed does effect others, unless you vape or eat brownies, then do you and don't harm others.
Taxes and fines are just one side of the financial coin. There's also campaign finance and lobbying which has a much greater impact on legislation. They can tolerate deficits but must get reelected. The drug war created a lot of "jobs" that won't be relinquished without a fight.
Your neighbor smells bad? Then where are the mandatory deodorant laws? You're free to move to a rural area with lots of fresh air.
Thankfully we did move. But even if we didn't his freedoms, shouldn't have effected our freedoms. In reality, I could have taken him to court since the condo did have bylaws stating that no smells from other apartments should have an effect other ones. But the board didn't want to get involved with an ex-con druggie, and we already had the moving process underway.
Ya I smoke a little bit I go out to the parking lot I will not smoke inside. My neighbors smoke inside and it smells the whole building up and I don’t like it.
So do dogs, cats, exotic pets, home based auto repair businesses, pig farms, racetracks, airports, etc, etc.
This is the biggest issue that's not commonly discussed. WOD is BIG, HUGE, YUGE money for PD's, Courts, Prisons and the Military/LEO Industrial Complex. While it's actually a huge drain on taxpayers, it's generally ignored because all that money gets spent on "fighting crime". It's the reason every podunk PD and Sheriff has a swat team equipped with armored vehicles, $10k sniper rifles, drones, and so on.
Is this a troll or are you just aggravated that you're not getting enough attention for your inane pious attitude? The whole point is that being "busted" with pot shouldn't be a thing. Its' archaic and stupid and doesn't protect anyone. We live in a country that purports itself to be free, and allows us to consume all kinds of things that will kill us. I can walk into a convenience store, hand over $10, walk out with a lethal dose of a drug called alcohol, and drink myself to death in my house without breaking any laws. On the other hand, If I get caught with a few grams of a different drug with literally zero risk of overdose and minimal side effects, I can wind up with a healthy fine and a mark on my permanent record that could get me fired or prevent me from getting a job. Shit, if I'm in an ugly custody battle like a good friend of mine, it could cost me the ability to see my children. How do you reconcile that?
What if the government made coffee a schedule 1 drug tomorrow? How many of the people supporting cannabis prohibition would be cool with that?
I got to check but I remember reading about a lawsuit against prohibition of weed. Since we are free did you know in the war on drugs the actual drugs itself is not what gets you the time. I got busted back when I was a bad lost little kid. I had a ounce of coke I was going to sell I got pulled over and it was found. When I went to court and got a break down of the charges and time. For the ounce I was looking at 3 months. The baggy it was in was gonna put me up for 7 years. That’s when I started to wake up to the insanity of our government. But back to my point they are suing because it is factual that the refer madness was a total lie. So you can’t enact a prohibition on a falsehood.
It's a very simple concept that you seem to not understand. Pot, while it should not be illegal, currently is not legal (in most states). If you've already been arrested for whatever other various crimes, and your stupid enough to have on your possession an illegal substance and get busted by the cops again, your not smart enough to participate in a civilized society. How that goes over your head is truly beyond my comprehension.
If you've already been warned not to offend the king, yet you still meet clandestinely in taverns and halls to discuss creating a free society, you're obviously not smart enough to participate in a free society.
Oh, my bad. I thought the title of the thread was "weed", rather than, "weed as it relates to people with two prior convictions on unrelated charges".
They should just keep going North to Vancouver. Of course the liberals in Cali would threaten the use of violence if they were all allowed to leave California. Wouldn’t want to lose anymore voting base. LOL Maybe @dsapsis could put them all up for a couple of months.
The standard responses in favor of legalization are also frustrating. They concede too much ground. "Legalize it and tax the shit out of it" Really? Why? It's not enough that I have to wait for the government to allow me to legally make my own adult decisions? Now I have to pay them a bribe? "It's no worse than alcohol, better than opioids, etc" Why do I have to start with the assumption that cannabis causes harm? It certainly does in many cases but there are also dramatic upsides. It truly has medicinal value. No it doesn't cure cancer or any of the other things potheads claim, but it's a completely safe and natural remedy in many cases. If you look at the net positive result of motorcycles being built, its completely obvious that the juice is worth the squeeze. No one would suggest that for the greater good of society, motorcycles should be banned. Weed is a bit less lopsided, but the positives still massively outweigh the negatives. We get very weird about the morality accociated with altering your conciousness through substances. If we find a mushroom that alters your nerve receptors to relive pain, that's cool because it relieves suffering for a few hours. But if we find a different mushroom that alters your consciousness and makes life awesome for a few hours, that's immoral. You're welcome to change your brain chemistry through activities you enjoy, intense exercise, love, sex, or adrenaline, and no one bats an eye. Do the same thing with THC and it's wrong. The fuck? "It's not addictive" Bullshit. Anything that alters your brain chemistry is addictive, including all that stuff I mentioned above. The problem is that it doesn't matter. Just because something is addictive doesn't mean it should be illegal.
