Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

oh wow. Are all precincts reporting? Recent polls indicated it would be much closer

welp RIP

lame Ohio

I'm considering the source while reading this, but this certainly *seems* suspicious. A small increase in the number of precincts reporting should not generally result in such a huge vote shift, assuming precincts are uniformly sized.

http://www.alternet.org/comments/drugs/was-ohios-marijuana-vote-stolen-tv-screen-shots-show-massive-number-votes-flipping

https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/local/wp/2015/11/11/veterans-drop-hundreds-of-empty-pill-bottles-in-front-of-the-white-house/

http://www.boston.com/news/local/massachusetts/2015/12/02/the-marijuana-legalization-push-mass-just-got-little-more-clear/ysj6Ow9JBCocrMRwERAEdJ/story.html

A possible 2016 decision about marijuana legalization in Massachusetts got less complicated this week.

Massachusetts voters had faced the prospect of answering two separate pro-legalization ballot questions next November. But only one group believes its question is still standing.

The Committee to Regulate Marijuana Like Alcohol said Tuesday it had submitted enough signatures to the secretary of state to advance in the long process of getting a proposed law in front of voters.

“People can see that our current prohibition policy isn’t working, and they’re taking action to replace it with a more sensible system,” CRMLA campaign manager Will Luzier said in a statement.

Meanwhile the leader of Bay State Repeal, the group behind a competing ballot question, conceded Wednesday night that it had not gathered enough signatures.

“We didn’t make it,” Bay State Repeal’s Steve Epstein told Boston.com.

The two groups have pitched very different approaches to legalization.

CRMLA, backed by the national Marijuana Policy Project, proposes a tightly regulated system including a new state commission and an excise tax on pot sales.

Bay State Repeal, led by longtime local activists, sought what it called the least restrictive laws possible, such as allowing most existing retailers to sell marijuana and dividing light oversight of the industry between several existing state agencies.

The contrast between the groups spoke to a divide in national pot politics about how marijuana should be regulated as legalization becomes increasingly common. With only one question still standing, Massachusetts voters will not be thrown into the middle of the fight next fall.

But the rivalry will persist, in a form. On Wednesday Epstein said he would “use every skill in my power” to oppose CRMLA’s question, which he called a “bad law” that supports “crony capitalism.” (That marks a change in tune from earlier this fall, when Epstein said he “might hold my nose” and vote for CRMLA if it were the only one to make the ballot.)

i'm happy about that

i was definitely worried there would be 2 initiatives on the ballot and infighting between different legalization camps would mess things up enough to prevent any initiative from passing

But the rivalry will persist, in a form. On Wednesday Epstein said he would “use every skill in my power” to oppose CRMLA’s question, which he called a “bad law” that supports “crony capitalism.” (That marks a change in tune from earlier this fall, when Epstein said he “might hold my nose” and vote for CRMLA if it were the only one to make the ballot.)

this is bullshit imo, just suck it up dude and support the one that made it!!!

i sent hillary a letter yesterday by post asking her to support medical marijuana explicitly (so far she has just called for "more study" on the issue). it's so weird to me that she won't just embrace it though - medical marijuana has a huge amount of support, not just among democrats but for the general pop.

i dont follow politics especially closely but it does seem there is a conservatism on the issue among boomer politicians with a national profile who prob remember vividly when taking any remotely pro-cannabis stance would tarnish them

I wouldn't be surprised if she is planning to "evolve" on that issue when it is politically convenient

I prefer Hillary on almost every issue except one and it's v conflicting. Hopefully they'll have worked out the nominee before I have to cast a primary vote.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-manchester-35587817

stoner parents are the future

still don't feel right being high around my kids. on the comedown side ok but otherwise just thinking about it makes me feel weird.

yea me too.

it's strictly an after-bedtime thing for me

i have no serious medical need for it though and if that were not the case it'd be different obv

also the weed comedown in general just kind of sucks so much if i have to be awake, i just feel so foggy and thick. going to sleep is the best solution

wow

http://fox13now.com/2016/02/19/utah-senate-votes-to-pass-marijuana-extract-bill/

http://i.imgur.com/LiYP4C6.jpg

feel like with all the attention opiate abuse is getting there's a strong case to be made for an effective painkiller that does not carry the potential side effect of overdose

you would think

nah i'm sure whoever decided doctors can prescribe opiates and not marijuana to patients had a really good reason for it

Not cannabis-related, but have you followed any of the recent coverage of kratom, either as an aid for people trying to kick opiates or a menace with its own addictive properties?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/paul-alexander/the-latest-target-of-regu_b_8178028.html

http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/03/us/kratom-an-addicts-alternative-is-found-to-be-addictive-itself.html

xp. have heard people speak highly of the analgesic effects of cannabis but it does nothing for me in that respect :/

it's not effective for 100% of patients but it is with enough that you'd think we'd allow doctors to have it in their arsenal before moving on to dangerous addictive opiates

this is not even getting into the fact that there are actual studies that have demonstrated cannabis having strong effects in a number of disorders but god forbid we should let dr's decide to do w/ such a dangerous plant. hillary's cowardice on medicinal ("let's see what the science says before doing anything") alone makes me want to vote for sanders.

oh all political opposition to it is obv based on idiocy or - as im sure in Hilary's case - doing what is politic by not scaring the puritans

At his last visit my 69-year old father's 70-something doctor was bemoaning the lack of medical marijuana in Texas to help my dad's back pain and diabetic neuropathy. I'm sure that it's partially my social/political bubble but I can't figure out how we're not more rapidly approaching the cusp of decriminalization nationwide if not legalization.

Aside from private prisons and cop unions, where is the support for blanket criminalization?

oh all political opposition to it is obv based on idiocy pharma companies and that's your answer milo

xpost to say nothing of using cannabis as a safe replacement for xanax, ativan, etc

(that's the basis of my prescription)

it's interesting that when they put the THC in a proprietary delivery system and call it marinol they're allowed to prescribe it

and by interesting i mean total fucking bullshit >angryface<

my cousin just got out of prison for a non-violent marijuana offense - he got the privilege of spending the last month in solitary bc his roommate was caught with contraband. there are so many reforms that would make the US a better country but none that seem as obvious, w/ a lot of voter approval, and capable of making a huge difference in a ton of major US crises from healthcare to incarceration.

This was very powerful (series looks to be pretty good!):

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RlNQMDcZHMo

Motherfuckers! Caught me with a fake movie. Anyway, the actual episode is great. I'll try to find it online.

Gotta have cable:
https://www.viceland.com/en_us/video/stoned-vets/56cdd0654e3a0a6d5eaa13c3

solitary confinement? that sucks.

nah i'm sure whoever decided doctors can prescribe opiates and not marijuana to patients had a really good reason for it

sadly opiates have been a constant in medical practice since at least medieval times. pretty sure they were adopted largely bc nobody had a clue about the human body and treatments were often more harmful than the malady, yet pain killers always did the trick of relieving suffering so they stuck w that.

my cousin just got out of prison for a non-violent marijuana offense - he got the privilege of spending the last month in solitary bc his roommate was caught with contraband

so fucked up, glad he's out

feel like it's important to make a distinction here w/r/t THC vs. CBD, the legal stuff that you can buy here in OR and WA that is "recommended" for pain (in scare quotes because oooh it's not real medical advice) is almost entirely CBD extracts in capsule form with very little THC content.

I'm really hoping for a Schedule 1 delisting within the next five years (obv that hangs on the election to a degree). That would open up a lot of research opportunities that haven't been public so far.

i think that's a fair pt and i'll add that I spoke to an Israeli researcher / marijuana cultivator who said that they think the ratio of THC to CBD makes a difference in terms of optimal responses to say seizures v. ibs v. pain treatment. obviously bc of the schedule 1 categorization the field is in its infancy (this researcher's country does allow medicinal + research). the truth is that (surprise) i think recreational marijuana should be legal as well but the moral/health case for medicinal is just so overwhelming to me that it's generally an easier one to make. there is an actual study that was published in Clinical Gastroenterology and Hepatology where researchers at Meir Medical Center had a 50% complete remission rate for patient's using prescription cannabis. this is a disorder whose strongest treatments (last i checked) come w/ a list of side effects and where complications can result in emergency surgery and in rare cases death. so 50% remission rate is a big deal! i'm sorry i kno i'm a broken record on this and i'm preaching to the choir as well.

(sorry i should specify the disorder was for crohn's. but there are many studies and lots of good if sometimes incomplete research that demonstrates serious medicinal benefits for a variety of issues)

i have crohn's and yeah cannabis has been extremely helpful and appears to have put me into remission. the heavy extramedical use i lapsed into has certainly attracted its own cluster of problems but nothing like what would have developed had i continued to pop black-market vicodin to get myself to class in the morning.

(also my relationship to it would probably have been different had i been prescribed the stuff in a medical context instead of becoming a stoner in an unrelated move and one day wondering why it had been so long since i shit blood)

wow @ all that, v interesting

HARRISBURG — The Pennsylvania House on Monday took up legislation to allow the medical use of marijuana in the state, beginning to prepare the bill to send back to the Senate later this week.

By a vote of 152-38, the House approved a comprehensive amendment from House Judiciary Committee Chairman Ron Marsico, R-Dauphin, that would establish a system of growers and dispensaries to provide marijuana to patients with certain conditions who receive certification from a doctor. The House considered a number of other amendments before adjourning for the night, with plans to continue today.

The plan now is for the House to pass the bill Wednesday, Republican spokesman Steve Miskin said.

Speaking on the House floor, state Rep. Ed Gainey, D-Lincoln-Lemington, said that if doctors can prescribe opioid drugs, patients should also have access to marijuana.

“Medical marijuana helps to relieve a lot of this pain, and we need to give the family every tool that they need to help them,” Mr. Gainey said. “For if we don’t, we have not done our jobs as leaders.”

halle-fucking-lujah

"Last night, the House added Autism to the approved list of conditions thereby increasing the availability of safe, medical-treatment options to more than 17,075 Pennsylvanians and 36,261 by 2020.

The House has also adopted the common-sense repeal of the arbitrary and capricious 10% THC cap (thanks in part to our friends in Israel who have extensively documented the therapeutic benefits of 23% strands- especially in the treatment of Crohn's Disease)."

House votes to legalize medical marijuana in Pennsylvania
http://www.wpxi.com/ap/ap/pennsylvania/final-votes-loom-to-allow-medical-marijuana-in-pen/nqmhX/

http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-court-marijuana-states-20160321-story.html