Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

Word!!!!

worked my fuckin ass off today and wish there was an MM clinic down the street for stress tbqf

for sure!
It’s really ridicules the conveniences of the clinics in LA now. I moved away from California right before things really opened up there

err ridiculous

I got pulled over by Oklahoma state troopers about an hour after smoking a joint in my car on Monday.
I didn't freak out because I knew that I'd really done nothing wrong. I told them that I had three roaches and nothing else.
They searched my car and let me go. Oh, I've got MS, so I played the shit out of that card.
Close one.

can i just...why do people smoke in their car? this is the easiest way to get charged with possession if you want it!

lol, also: today i had the unexpected opportunity to sit in on a state police forensic chemist's talk about how their lab works. at the conclusion of her talk she suggested ways that would help the lab work more efficiently and one was "advocate for making marijuana possession a fine-only offense." it was just me and some prosecutors and one said "boo hiss!" and i said "yay!"

harbl ive been told if you have w33d in your car you're best to have it in a bag in the trunk-- y/n?

Police currently are "going against the intent of the law,"

Pardon me if I cynically believe that the intent of marijuana prohibition laws have always been to give police a pretext to hassle mostly non-whites, but also non-conforming whites, who are predominately seen as dangerous elements of society who must be subjected to frequent doses of police power to keep them in line.

"intent" idk. It seems to me like sometimes these systems fall into place for variety of reasons and if alcohol prohibition is anything to go by sometimes the shitty broken law is backed by a bunch of well meaning psychotic suffragettes and moms. Still that's def the result even if not necessarily the intent. (did cotton peeps kill hemp??? That might be the true evil intent)

harbl ive been told if you have w33d in your car you're best to have it in a bag in the trunk-- y/n?

I would say that if you are going to, that would be the place to have it. Preferably in an airtight bag, concealed in a container of coffee grounds or some other aromatic which will help shield from the K9 unit.

But that's just what I've heard.

you some type of lawyer or something? someone important or something?

ehhhh i was more talking about the extra levels of sufficient cause that are needed for a cop to justify getting inside a bag inside your trunk.

where even if they went and did it and found it, your lawyer could argue "the officer had cause to search that car, and maybe the trunk, but not the bag inside the trunk"

f. lee bailey iirc xp

pretty sure tho that the thing to do if you get busted is smoke out the cop and then listen to some tunes together, this always works in movies

got busted smoking on the sidewalk a while back--last november--but case was dismissed for some reason that was made unclear to me. am i cynical for suspecting the evidence could not be produced cuz it had been smoked?

that's from the same movie where you smoke out the cop & listen to Creedence together in his cruiser

in real life a cop hassles you just for drinking Reed's Extra Spicy Ginger Brew on the sidewalk, because of the green glass bottle

conversely, if you are Devin the Dude, cops pull you over just to smoke weed with you

... but the best movie of all is the one where Devin the Dude *is* the cop, and he pulls you over to give you some ginger ale and good advice and a bong that he doesn't need anymore because he's decided to quit his job after this week and go backpacking across the country

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/05/27/us-dutch-cannabis-idUSTRE74Q64420110527?feedType=RSS&feedName=worldNews&utm_source=feedburner&utm_medium=feed&utm_campaign=Feed%3A+reuters%2FworldNews+%28News+%2F+US+%2F+International%29

(Reuters) - The Dutch government on Friday said it would start banning tourists from buying cannabis from "coffee shops" and impose restrictions on Dutch customers by the end of the year.

!

Wow, didn't see that coming. Flies against common wisdom of decriminalization not causing problems in Amsterdam. Looks like it's spurred on by right-wing xenophobia?

What's really weirding me out though, is that I actually think I know the guy in the photo on that story link - timeline fits too!

Depressing news.

:'(

they finally got sick of us huh

i dont really blame them tbh, backpackers are horrible people

lol xp

Last night one of my friends -sort of a local guru - kept telling me that on all Native American reservations it was legal to cheese down.

He also invented a term called "Top Chimp", which means 'someone that is so high they've reverted in evolution to a primordial state'.

Top Chimp sounds like basically the opposite of Terrance McKenna's Stoned Chimp theory.

Top Chimp sounds like a reality show.

shit is getting real here

Opponents of new restrictions on medical marijuana dispensaries submitted more than 46,000 signatures to the city of San Diego on Friday, halting a years-long effort to regulate the location of storefront operators and setting the stage for a possible referendum.

Citizens for Patient Rights, part of a coalition of patients and providers, needs 31,029 valid signatures from registered voters to qualify the measure. If the group succeeds, the City Council must either repeal the ordinance or put the question on the ballot.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/2011/may/27/signatures-filed-medical-marijuana-referendum/

http://www.theorangecountydefenseattorney.net/wp-content/uploads/2011/03/red-sd.jpg

http://tpmmuckraker.talkingpointsmemo.com/2011/06/global_commission_of_former_officials_says_war_on.php

The Global Commission on Drug Policy, which includes several former heads of state and UN officials, has released a report calling the global war on drugs a failure.

"The global war on drugs has failed, with devastating consequences for individuals and societies around the world," the report reads. "Fifty years after the initiation of the UN Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, and 40 years after President Nixon launched the US government's war on drugs, fundamental reforms in national and global drug control policies are urgently needed."

Full report: http://www.globalcommissionondrugs.org/Report

End the criminalization, marginalization and stigmatization of people who use drugs but who do no harm to others. Challenge rather than reinforce common misconceptions about drug markets, drug use and drug dependence.

Encourage experimentation by governments with models of legal regulation of drugs to undermine the power of organized crime and safeguard the health and security of their citizens. This recommendation applies especially to cannabis, but we also encourage other experiments in decriminalization and legal regulation that can accomplish these objectives and provide models for others.

Offer health and treatment services to those in need. Ensure that a variety of treatment modalities are available, including not just methadone and buprenorphine treatment but also the heroin-assisted treatment programs that have proven successful in many European countries and Canada. Implement syringe access and other harm reduction measures that have proven effective in reducing transmission of HIV and other blood-borne infections as well as fatal overdoses. Respect the human rights of people who use drugs. Abolish abusive practices carried out in the name of treatment – such as forced detention, forced labor, and physical or psychological abuse – that contravene human rights standards and norms or that remove the right to self-determination.

Apply much the same principles and policies stated above to people involved in the lower ends of illegal drug markets, such as farmers, couriers and petty sellers. Many are themselves victims of violence and intimidation or are drug dependent. Arresting and incarcerating tens of millions of these people in recent decades has filled prisons and destroyed lives and families without reducing the availability of illicit drugs or the power of criminal organizations. There appears to be almost no limit to the number of people willing to engage in such activities to better their lives, provide for their families, or otherwise escape poverty. Drug control resources are better directed elsewhere.

Invest in activities that can both prevent young people from taking drugs in the first place and also prevent those who do use drugs from developing more serious problems. Eschew simplistic ‘just say no’ messages and ‘zero tolerance’ policies in favor of educational efforts grounded in credible information and prevention programs that focus on social skills and peer influences. The most successful prevention efforts may be those targeted at specific at-risk groups.

Focus repressive actions on violent criminal organizations, but do so in ways that undermine their power and reach while prioritizing the reduction of violence and intimidation. Law enforcement efforts should focus not on reducing drug markets per se but rather on reducing their harms to individuals, communities and national security.

Begin the transformation of the global drug prohibition regime. Replace drug policies and strategies driven by ideology and political convenience with fiscally responsible policies and strategies grounded in science, health, security and human rights – and adopt appropriate criteria for their evaluation. Review the scheduling of drugs that has resulted
in obvious anomalies like the flawed categorization of cannabis, coca leaf and MDMA. Ensure that the international conventions are interpreted and/or revised to accommodate robust experimentation with harm reduction, decriminalization and legal regulatory policies.

Break the taboo on debate and reform. The time for action is now.

http://i51.tinypic.com/2wr0oe1.png

Tbh, I'm really shocked that they consider Solvents, LSD, Ritalin, Anabolic Steroids, GHB, Ecstasy and Khat less risky than Cannabis. On the other hand, OTM re Alcohol's actual risk placement.

Great paper and whole thing is worth reading.

Comparing Dutch and US Cities

A study by Reinarman, et. al. compared the very different regulatory environments of Amsterdam, whose liberal “cannabis cafe” policies (a form of de facto decriminalization) go back to the 1970s, and San Francisco, in the US, which criminalizes cannabis users. The researchers wished to examine whether the more repressive policy environment of San Francisco deterred citizens from smoking cannabis or delayed the onset of use. They found that it did not, concluding that:

“Our findings do not support claims that criminalization reduces cannabis use and that decriminalization increases cannabis use... With the exception of higher drug use in San Francisco, we found strong similarities across both cities. We found no evidence to support claims that criminalization reduces use or that decriminalization increases use.”

can i just...why do people smoke in their car?
Cuz long drives are boring. I don't do this in my hometown fwiw.

i am sure the cannabis risk value factors an assumed lung cancer risk, that's what makes it higher than the others

Only when smoked. Ingestion does not entail that risk.

ditto vaporization.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/05/25/AR2006052501729.html

The largest study of its kind has unexpectedly concluded that smoking marijuana, even regularly and heavily, does not lead to lung cancer.

not v surprising, imo

even the headiest of heads aren't cycling as much smoke through their lungs as a pack a day smoker, i would think.

It might even be protective bc THC apparently helps discard old cells before they can be cancerous!!

right after nate dogg died I went into a weed store where I guess they have pictures of people who frequented the store or people they admired or something and right under a picture of nate dogg someone has just tacked on a torn half sheet of binder paper with the words RIP scrawled in pencil

yeah but the vast majority of people don't vaporize or ingest cannabis

presumably there's a risk of lung cancer if you smoke spliffs, tho the extent to which that is from the THC or from the tobacco...

it is not from either THC or tobacco, it is from carbon combustion products

anyway i am familiar with that study and i think the jury is clearly still out on this one

anyway, if in fact the only risk is from smoking cannabis, doesn't it behoove us to teach ppl how to use it responsibly (ingest/vape/etc)?