CO & WA Legalize MJ

[Bible_Belt]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Amendment_64_(2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Initiative_502

I never thought I'd live to see this happen. Yesterday's election was a new chapter in the War on Drugs.

There's still a lot of questions about the future. No one knows what the Feds will do. They are fighting medicinal state laws by threatening to seize the real estate and bank accounts of everyone involved. They might expand those tactics.

My biggest concern is how much the states are going to screw things up by taxing everything until what is illegitimate due to being untaxed once again becomes very profitable. Then the black market never goes away, and we end up locking up just as many people for tax evasion as we used to under the old prohibition laws.

The states are after money, more than they are freedom, but there will be a lot of money in legalization. Whenever the medicinal laws passed, there was a 'green rush' of economic activity and people flocking to that state, trying to get rich. My first thought was industrial hemp, but no one must be interested in growing hemp - it's specifically exempted from CO's ballot measure. So now pot is illegal in CO if it doesn't get you high.

One thing I see that is positive out of this is it gives a large group of very ostracized (and paranoid) people who are very jaded about the political process a reason to believe again. It makes people vote who would never otherwise do so. Political scientists call the trait 'political efficacy,' and it basically means the feeling that you matter and that your participation can make a difference. That's something that has been going downhill in the US for a long time.

 

[Deep Dish]

Cynicism doesn’t equate with insight and I’m happy to see cynicism proven wrong. Six years ago, when I first started pot at the age of 26, everyone I talked to said it would “never” be legal. Little did anyone know, six years ago was the turning point when generational politics began to turn the tide of public opinion. It wasn’t long for “never” to turn into “inevitable.” The rate of change has been so rapid that sitting presidents of foreign countries are calling for legalization and Uruguay may soon start selling it.

My biggest concern is how much the states are going to screw things up by taxing everything until what is illegitimate due to being untaxed once again becomes very profitable. Then the black market never goes away, and we end up locking up just as many people for tax evasion as we used to under the old prohibition laws.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O0P41CRfYH0

Scroll to 55:00.

My first thought was industrial hemp, but no one must be interested in growing hemp - it's specifically exempted from CO's ballot measure. So now pot is illegal in CO if it doesn't get you high.

Hemp is now legal. The ballot language even says “Not later than July 1, 2014, the general assembly shall enact legislation governing the cultivation, processing, and sale of industrial hemp.” It will simply be that the commercial regulations for hemp will be tailored differently from marijuana.

 

[Down Low]

All bills and propositions are for the purpose of legalizing now-criminal acts. Why? Follow the money. Which businesses would profit from changing the law?

Now there'll be an explosion of legal farming for sale in other states (where pot will remain more expensive due to higher risk).

 

[Bible_Belt]

Several states have legalized hemp, but it has always been "pending DEA approval," which of course never arrives. Canadians can farm it, but without an explicit OK from the Feds, no US farmer is going to want to risk having the Feds show up and threaten the farmer with a million-year prison sentence, or more likely, seize all his assets and land.

The Canadians are only getting about 1/3 as much oil per acre with hemp, as compared to Canola, but they can sell it for $1,000 per 45-gallon drum to health food manufacturers. If the US Federal government would ever give the OK for hemp to be grown, we'd see Monsanto start playing around with the genes of the plant to make it more productive in a commercial sense. Biofuel is a promising energy idea, but making energy out of food is not that bright. We need a bio-fuel that is produced on land that can't or doesn't produce anything else. GMO hemp seed might be the answer.

 

[Married Buried]

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Colorado_Amendment_64_(2012)

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Washington_Initiative_502

I never thought I'd live to see this happen. Yesterday's election was a new chapter in the War on Drugs.

There's still a lot of questions about the future. No one knows what the Feds will do. They are fighting medicinal state laws by threatening to seize the real estate and bank accounts of everyone involved. They might expand those tactics.

My biggest concern is how much the states are going to screw things up by taxing everything until what is illegitimate due to being untaxed once again becomes very profitable. Then the black market never goes away, and we end up locking up just as many people for tax evasion as we used to under the old prohibition laws.

The states are after money, more than they are freedom, but there will be a lot of money in legalization. Whenever the medicinal laws passed, there was a 'green rush' of economic activity and people flocking to that state, trying to get rich. My first thought was industrial hemp, but no one must be interested in growing hemp - it's specifically exempted from CO's ballot measure. So now pot is illegal in CO if it doesn't get you high.

One thing I see that is positive out of this is it gives a large group of very ostracized (and paranoid) people who are very jaded about the political process a reason to believe again. It makes people vote who would never otherwise do so. Political scientists call the trait 'political efficacy,' and it basically means the feeling that you matter and that your participation can make a difference. That's something that has been going downhill in the US for a long time.

Does this mean I can go on a vacation in Colorado and buy weed at the store?

 

[Bible_Belt]

That's probably coming, but we don't know the details yet. The governor of CO has 30 days to ratify the ballot and the changes won't become law until then. I think it will happen, though.

 

[Married Buried]

I want to order some weed while I am sitting down for breakfast at the bar. Only then will I believe it's really legal.

 

[Deep Dish]

I want to order some weed while I am sitting down for breakfast at the bar. Only then will I believe it's really legal.

That is politically impossible because people are worried about a rise in impaired driving. If it was sold at a bar then the concern would be some people would open the packaging and smoke up in the bar while enjoying a drink. While driving stoned is not too much of a concern by itself, mixing weed with alcohol is extremely dangerous for driving, as it amplifies the effects of both. Once people see that their worries about an epidemic of stoned driving are largely unjustified, maybe they will be open to a regulation for marijuana-only bars, but that would be at least 5 or 10 years from now.

 

[Married Buried]

That is politically impossible because people are worried about a rise in impaired driving. If it was sold at a bar then the concern would be some people would open the packaging and smoke up in the bar while enjoying a drink. While driving stoned is not too much of a concern by itself, mixing weed with alcohol is extremely dangerous for driving, as it amplifies the effects of both. Once people see that their worries about an epidemic of stoned driving are largely unjustified, maybe they will be open to a regulation for marijuana-only bars, but that would be at least 5 or 10 years from now.

I was hoping it would be like Amsterdam where you can walk into a bar and smoke marijuana. It's understandable that it won't work like that in the US.

I would like to buy real weed, not the fake synthetic **** I have 3 pounds of sitting in the closet.

 

[Deep Dish]

One very strange thing happening in marijuana politics right now is what’s not happening. In previous campaigns, the government made loud noise to scare voters into not voting for a measure. In 1996 when California was the first to state to vote on medical marijuana, three presidents campaigned against it. In 2010, with California’s Prop 19, attorney general Eric Holder threatened to ‘vigorously enforce’ federal law. This year? Complete silence. His office refuses to ‘speculate’. Now that the people have spoken their will, the DOJ is ‘reviewing’ the measures as if they didn’t know about it until last week, even though they had more than a year to prepare.

They are scared shït. The feds have no idea what to do.

Stores in Colorado will be able to open as soon as early 2014. For now, at least.

Malice:
I was hoping it would be like Amsterdam where you can walk into a bar and smoke marijuana.

You can smoke marijuana in an Amsterdam bar but you can’t buy it there. As of five years ago, the sale of beer and weed are mutually exclusive.

http://goamsterdam.about.com/od/barsmusicnightlife/f/coffeeshopbeer.htm

 

[Bible_Belt]

Universities in the two states are saying that they will still make mj prohibited on campus, because they are scared of losing Federal student loan eligibility.

I also read that a lot of prosecutors are dropping pending possession charges. Those are some damn lucky defendants. I've never seen that happen in criminal law.

 

[Deep Dish]

I’ve always wondered what’s the underlying connection with college and student loans. I’ve always guessed that Nixon didn’t want students to disseminate knowledge of a higher education, pun intended, since it’s been theorized that one motive to start the drug war was to alienate Vietnam protestors.

Yeah, I just read a few minutes ago about 220 dropped cases. If each case was $5,000 in retainer fees, that’s $1.1 million just in lawyers. However, not every case was dropped. In one Washington county, it’s only for adults over the age of 21 and, in another county, cases involving multiple charges will have the marijuana charge remain pending.

http://stopthedrugwar.org/speakeasy/2012/nov/09/hundreds_marijuana_cases_were_di

(I always wanted to go to law school but didn’t have good enough grades.)

 

[Married Buried]

Anyone else thinking about moving to Colorado? I hear it's nice there.

 

[Deep Dish]

Wired magazine has a good article called “Is It Legal Yet? Photos Show Farming Pot Is Pretty Much Like Farming Anything Else.” It has a cool photo gallery in the same style as National Geographic.

http://www.wired.com/rawfile/2012/11/pot-farms/

“Farmers felt safer that their neighbors were doing what they were doing,” she says. “They were in a little bubble.”

This bubble, and a growing acceptance of marijuana (18.1 million people reported using the drug in 2011), allowed farmers to grow their plants outside with little cover. The community included the expected hippies still left around from the ’60s, she says, but there were also former dot-com-ers, more contemporary back-to-the-landers and people from a wide variety of backgrounds. They were all united, says Lee, by either a love of weed, farming, money or all three.

The group’s reaction to Proposition 19, which aimed to legalize marijuana in California during the project, was mixed. While many were obviously in favor of the measure, others were opposed because they feared their small-scale operations would be overrun by big-time growers.

“They thought the legislation would ruin them,” she says. “Who’s to say that R.J. Reynolds or some other big tobacco company wouldn’t come in and buy all these farms?”​

For what it’s worth, I’m not worried about Big Tobacco or Big Beer monopolizing the market with inferior product, because home growing, niche stores, and a smaller black market should keep the balance in check. Most people will prefer to buy marijuana in a store rather than grow their own, either because they don’t have the time, expertise, or interest, but people will eventually be able to legally buy seeds online, like from an Amazon.com of weed, and grow their own high highs. I foresee a market similar to Budweiser vs. microbreweries, mass market vs. niche markets, and similarities to the wine industry. Tourists will not only flock to Colorado for weed stores, benefiting airlines, hotels, and restaurants, but to the countryside to visit the flourishing fields just like aficionados and connoisseurs of wine travel wide and far to the vineyards of Napa Valley. Last year, the Chicago Sun-Times ran a story with the headline “User says her marijuana is ‘like a fine glass of wine.’”

Kate, 48, smokes about five times a week after work and on the weekends. Tom, 52, smokes almost as frequently. They both have high-paying jobs in the financial industry. And they see themselves as connoisseurs. “It’s like a fine glass of wine where you twirl it, swish it in your mouth. You savor it,” Kate said. “Some kinds are evergreen-smelling. Some are orangey, sticky. We like to try different strains and compare.”​

I’ve been wanting to move to Seattle for the longest time. Love the Pacific Northwest feel.

 

[Bible_Belt]

Seeds are actually legal to possess in the US, believe it or not. The DEA banned THC, but there's no THC in seeds. You don't see US companies selling them nationwide online, because the Feds would probably threaten and harass the seller out of business. Global seed companies used to operate mostly out of Canada and Amsterdam, but those governments began cracking down, and now the UK is the main place to order seeds online: https://www.cannabis-seeds-bank.co.uk/

 

[Married Buried]

Seeds are actually legal to possess in the US, believe it or not. The DEA banned THC, but there's no THC in seeds. You don't see US companies selling them nationwide online, because the Feds would probably threaten and harass the seller out of business. Global seed companies used to operate mostly out of Canada and Amsterdam, but those governments began cracking down, and now the UK is the main place to order seeds online: https://www.cannabis-seeds-bank.co.uk/

They may as well legalize it. I can pull up several sites right now that are selling bath salts and synthetic weed. The feds can't stop it and people are making a fortune.

 

[Married Buried]

Hell yeah!

http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/...t-go-after-states-where-pot-is-legal/1770483/

Obama will not go after states where pot is legal

 

[Bible_Belt]

This is the Key & Peele skit about Obama being a college stoner:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vlxkcewBEe0

I read that the part where he says "intercepted!" and grabs the joint is based upon interviews with his former college buddies. He did it so much that it was a running joke.

 

[backseatjuan]

cool!

I want to live and see the day Russia legalizes some drugs, like Marijuana and Cocaine. Provide people with legal and high quality alternatives and shut down illegal low quality killer chemical drugs.

 

[Married Buried]

How did we get such a cool President? This is great. Maybe Bush did serve a purpose after all. Without Bush, there would have never been Obama.