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More Dumberer Than Potheads

TUESDAY MARCH 25 2008 6:00 AM

Submitted by FearTheReaper. Edited By FearTheReaper.

TAGS: Medical marijuana, Barney Frank

Our pot laws in the US are so backwards and idiotic, it is astounding. It is unbelievable that arrests for marijuana violations are actually going up. But it seems everywhere you look, the US has its priorities completely backwards. We are some seriously stupid motherfuckers. But that all may change because of a fat, gay guy from Massachusetts named Barney Frank.

I’m for the legalization of all drugs. People are going to get them anyway, so there is no point in keeping them illegal. When I was growing up, I had no problem getting my hands on pot, magic mushrooms, LSD, cocaine, speed, or anything else I wanted. It is my understanding that heroin and meth have now been added to the list of easy access drugs. For me they were all one phone call away, or they would come to me at a party, or football game – hell, one time I got my drugs in a high school Spanish class. Muy bueno! The point is, if you want drugs, you can get drugs - especially pot.

Pot is the least dangerous drug out there, but the government keeps cracking down.


Police arrested a record 829,625 persons for marijuana violations in 2006, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation's annual Uniform Crime Report, released today. This is the largest total number of annual arrests for pot ever recorded by the FBI. Marijuana arrests now comprise nearly 44 percent of all drug arrests in the United States.


The government is seriously stupider than stoners. In the past 15 years, pot arrests have gone up 188%. You’d think the government would have something better to do, like sit around and diddle their balls. Or maybe they could punch themselves in the face. I would rather my tax dollars pay for that. The last thing I want happening is people, like Mary Ann from “Gilligan’s Island,” getting arrested.


Dawn Wells, who played Mary Ann on "Gilligan's Island," is serving six months' unsupervised probation after allegedly being caught with marijuana in her car.


WTF? That poor woman was stuck on an island with a bunch of retards for years. Dawn should always be high. She should wear a glass helmet with a tube attached that constantly feeds pot into her poor brain. By the way, awesome mug shot, burnout.

Six months probation doesn’t sound bad, but for many people it’s not just about the sentence. Their lives can be turned upside down.


Sanctions triggered by a marijuana conviction can include loss of access to food stamps, public housing, and student financial aid, as well as driver's license suspensions, loss of or ineligibility for professional licenses, other barriers to employment or promotion, and bars to adoption, voting, and jury service.


My wife is a therapist. If she smoked pot and was caught, she would lose her license to practice. The punishment for smoking a natural plant does not fit the crime – it more fits the crime of murder. If I were a student who lost his financial aide and was looking at a life working at Home Depot, I would go on a shooting spree. The California Supreme Court recently ruled that employees could be fired for smoking pot, even if it has nothing to do with the job.


The California Supreme Court weakened the effect of the state's beleaguered medical marijuana law, ruling Thursday that employers may fire workers for using physician-recommended marijuana while off duty, even if it did not hurt their job performance.


The pot laws vary from state to state. 12 states have passed medical marijuana laws. California passed a medical marijuana law in 1996. Now we have pot stores and even pot vending machines. But that does not stop the Federal Government from raiding our pot stores, because George Bush has a serious hard on for pot.


The gap between state and federal drug laws became apparent again Wednesday when federal agents raided 10 local medical marijuana facilities only minutes after the Los Angeles City Council placed a moratorium on new facilities so rules could be drafted to better regulate them.


And it doesn’t help that in 2005 the douchebags on the Supreme Court ruled that the Feds could overrule state pot laws.


The U.S. Supreme Court on Monday ruled doctors can be blocked from prescribing marijuana for patients suffering from pain caused by cancer or other serious illnesses.

In a 6-3 vote, the justices ruled the Bush administration can block the backyard cultivation of pot for personal use, because such use has broader social and financial implications.


Sweet. I know one of the “broader implications” is that people will be more relaxed. And more video games will be played. And quite a few more lemons may be stared at for over 10 minutes. Oh, and shows like Two and A Half Men may actually be somewhat tolerable. Actually, strike that. The creators of Two and A Half Men should be murdered.

As far as the “financial implications,” as a country we spend $7.5 billion annually enforcing pot laws. And that doesn’t include taking care of the poor fuckers who are in jail. Maybe we should act like adults, legalize pot and rake in the taxes from all the herb that would be legally sold. Hell, we could probably fund universal health care with the tax profits.

Thankfully, Barney Frank is on the case.


Rep. Barney Frank said he plans to file a bill to legalize "small amounts" of marijuana.

Frank announced his plans late Friday on the HBO show "Real Time," hosted by Bill Maher.

"I'm going to file a bill as soon as we go back to remove all federal penalties for the possession or use of small amounts of marijuana," Frank, a Massachusetts Democrat, told Maher.





That would be awesome. It will never happen, but it sounds awesome. For whatever reason, America likes to cater to the most retarded amongst us – which turns out to be most of us. Although, we have been moving slowly towards legalization over the years.

Of course, the vast majority of people arrested for smoking pot are minorities – even though the rates of marijuana use are the same for whites and people who are not whites. Plus, we do like to keep our black people in jail and pot makes that easy.


Since it started in 1970, American law enforcement has arrested 38 million people for nonviolent drug offenses, nearly 2 million last year alone. The number of people jailed for violent crimes has risen 300 percent, but the prison population of nonviolent drug offenders has soared 2,558 percent.


Thank God. All those people were getting high and not doing anything wrong. Motherfuckers. Nothing is more infuriating than a guy going to a park and getting high. You may as well shit on the baby Jesus. An influential physician group recently called for pot to be declassified as a “Schedule I” drug.


The American College of Physicians, the nation's largest organization of doctors of internal medicine, with 124,000 members, contends that the long and rancorous debate over marijuana legalization has obscured good science that has demonstrated the benefits and medicinal promise of cannabis.

The group calls on the government to drop marijuana from Schedule I, a classification it shares with illegal drugs such as heroin and LSD that are considered to have no medicinal value and a high likelihood of abuse.


Holy shit. Pot is classified the same as heroin? Why not classify murder the same as trespassing? How about classifying rape the same as jaywalking? The people who first made pot illegal should be beaten about the head with a large wooden object. If they are dead, they should be dug up and set on fire. But they won’t be, because they have made billions of dollars keeping pot illegal. Plus, it would be weird to dig up a body and set it on fire. And I doubt anyone would understand the political statement. By the way, “They” are people like Du Pont and Hearst.

Corporations like Du Pont and industrialists like William Randolph Hearst were concerned that hemp would cut into their pulpwood paper and synthetic products profits. So, they launched a campaign.

In the '30s, Du Pont had just patented a new process for making pulpwood paper and was working on something called “nylon.” Du Pont financial backer and US Secretary of Treasury Andrew Mellon made sure his nephew was in charge of the new Federal Bureau of Narcotics and Dangerous Drugs. They combined with the Hearst newspaper business to create the new monster: Pot. Then came the "Marihuana Tax Act of 1937,” which was the end. Yay big business.

It’s amazing Barney Frank is actually going to introduce legislation to legalize small amounts of pot. It has no chance, especially in an election year, because the majority our politicians are spineless creatures, with no ability to take a strong stand. We are basically represented by sea cucumbers.

Even everyone’s great hope, Barack Obama, won’t come out for medical marijuana. He did a few months ago, but then recently backed off.


When a voter asked Obama if he was for the legalization of medical marijuana, Obama said that he wasn't in favor of legalization without scientific evidence and tight controls. Citing his mother who died from cancer young, Obama compared marijuana to morphine saying there was little difference between the two.


Really? Because I’ve experienced both and I’m going to go ahead and say there’s a huge fucking difference. Morphine is the great “pain go bye-bye.” Pot is, “hey, shit is weird.” And Obama’s statement that he can’t favor “legalization without scientific evidence” is pure bullshit. There is loads of scientific evidence that pot aids in the treatment of health ailments. And even if there wasn't, who gives a shit? Hemp and pot were a big part of the early days of America.

Both George Washington and Thomas Jefferson grew marijuana, and smoked it. Today, they’d be locked up in jail.


"If people let government decide what foods they eat and what medicines they take, their bodies will soon be in as sorry a state as are the souls of those who live under tyranny." - Thomas Jefferson


Whatever, hippy.

Let’s hope Barney Frank gets somewhere with his legislation. But I seriously doubt anything is going to happen. Because we are morons.

 

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SockPuppet

SockPuppet

I'm lost
July 2006

MAR 25, 2008 06:50 PM

TheRedBaron said:

SockPuppet said:

TheRedBaron said:

Uncognitive said:

TheRedBaron said:

SPOILERS! (Click to view)


Uncognitive said:
TheRedBaron said:
There's another factor here that all the "pro legalization" posts thus far have missed. Namely, the fate of drugs after legalization. Maybe drug laws are a failure as a deterrent, and maybe they're not as effective as we'd like at keeping drugs from being synthesized, but they are completely, 100% effective at keeping drugs out of the hands of corporations. I'm all for the legalization of pot (although I don't much care for it myslef) but I get a stone in my stomach when I think the private sector being allowed to produce, sell, and market something as profoundly addictive and destructive as heroin or meth. The drugs laws are worth keeping and cherishing this purpose alone.



OxyContin? Vicodin?

Corporations are currently allowed to produce, sell and market drugs that are profoundly addictive and destructive.



Those are medicinal and regulated. I thought we were having a conversation about legalization of drugs for recreational purposes.



I'd consider that changing the legal classification of "hard" drugs like heroin and meth from illegal under (almost) any circumstances to prescription only under strict government regulation would bring about most if not all of the benefits of ending prohibition without the negative impact of, say, allowing Coca Cola to bring back their original, original formula.



What on earth would heroin and meth be prescribed for?



Heroin? Pain relief. It is now, certainly in the UK. They don't call it heroin, though; they call it by its chemical name, diamorphine.

Meth? No idea. Apart from meth addiction, as livertarian said.



Really? I knew, of course, that it was developed as a fast-acting morphine derivative, but I thought it had fallen completely out of use with the advent of equally fast-acting pain killers which carry less risk of dependence. Interesting to know that it's still used medically some places.


_______________________________________________________
Yup. IIUC it's legally prescribable in Canada as well, under certain circumstances.

Strictly anecdotal:
Someone I know had a heart attack a couple of months back. He told me that a paramedic showed up, injected him with morphine, then diamorphine, which he'd never heard of. He said whatever it was, it had some interesting side effects. He was very very surprised when I told him that was heroin...

Also, which new fast-acting painkillers are you thinking of?

PointBlank

PointBlank

New York, NY
November 2004

MAR 25, 2008 07:23 PM

TheRedBaron said:

If it could not be sold legally, how does that help control quality?
If it could be made by pharmaceuticals, how can they distribute it without realizing my fear of an addiction dependent market?


Sold in a controlled environment, much the way that prescription drugs are now. Methadone, for example. If someone is caught with heroin, either "prescribed" or not, they aren't arrested.

I'm still not sure what your problem with legalization is, BTW.

The problem with a lot anti-legalization talk, in my mind, is that people hold it to such a high standard. I know that legalization comes with a series of problems, and there would still be plenty of addicts, but it would be better than the current system of locking up addicts and spending money on needless arrests.

PointBlank

PointBlank

New York, NY
November 2004

MAR 25, 2008 07:29 PM

Cash said:

PointBlank said:
Why do you think that legalization wouldn't reduce the number of basement meth labs? You realize that those basement meth labs could stay illegal if meth was legal, right? Maybe instead of spending $$ on busting people for possession we could use the money to stop people from making it in their homes. I'm not sure that any of what you said is an argument for keeping it legal. Even if I buy the premise that legalization wouldn't make residential meth labs more rare (and I find it very hard to believe), then the illegality of meth certainly hasn't stopped them either, so maybe it's time to do something new.



I don't think you got what I meant. I don't care if people do meth..I don't care what Joe Schmoe puts into his body. I just don't want meth labs to be legal. Meth labs are dangerous...and SHOULD be illegal.


Yeah. I know that.

Here's what I said, made a little more simple: Legalize meth. Keep residential meth labs illegal. Spend money that is currently spent locking up meth users on arresting people who have residential meth labs. It's like you didn't even what you quoted.

Gringo

Gringo

Liberty Lake, WA
May 2006

MAR 25, 2008 07:48 PM

SmellsLikeSciFi said:

Gringo said:
So back to this meth stuff. As you may or may not know MDMA/ecstasy is rarely pure. It's usually cut with other shit...

As it turns out, many of the batches have 1/4 or up to 1/2 parts of meth. Meth is very, very cheap.



uh...Dude. Hate to break it to you, but the "MA" in your MDMA

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

stands for Meth Amphetimine



So, in conclusion, your close friend Ecstasy isn't CUT with Meth. It IS meth. ALL THE TIME.


No, MDMA is (3,4-methylenedioxy-N-methylamphetamine), a semisynthetic member of the phenethylamine class of psychoactive drugs.

Meth is technically a component of ecstasy but the high is not the same, and with MDMA, you can only do it every week or two - otherwise it has no effect on you.

I've heard that meth addicts do it daily indefinitely.

Cash

Cash

I'm lost
OLD SKOOL

MAR 25, 2008 07:53 PM

PointBlank said:
Here's what I said, made a little more simple: Legalize meth. Keep residential meth labs illegal. Spend money that is currently spent locking up meth users on arresting people who have residential meth labs. It's like you didn't even what you quoted.



So...where are we disagreeing?

papawheelie

papawheelie

Fisty, KY
February 2003

MAR 25, 2008 07:55 PM

I believe I read that much of todays x has been turning out to be instead large quantities of dextromethorphan so it's basically like drinking a bunch of robutussin

Gringo said:

SmellsLikeSciFi said:

Gringo said:
So back to this meth stuff. As you may or may not know MDMA/ecstasy is rarely pure. It's usually cut with other shit...

As it turns out, many of the batches have 1/4 or up to 1/2 parts of meth. Meth is very, very cheap.



uh...Dude. Hate to break it to you, but the "MA" in your MDMA

SPOILERS! (Click to view)

stands for Meth Amphetimine



So, in conclusion, your close friend Ecstasy isn't CUT with Meth. It IS meth. ALL THE TIME.


No, it is "methylamphetamine." Not methamphtamine.



Gringo

Gringo

Liberty Lake, WA
May 2006

MAR 25, 2008 07:57 PM

papawheelie said:
I believe I read that much of todays x has been turning out to be instead large quantities of dextromethorphan so it's basically like drinking a bunch of robutussin


I've pretty much given up on finding any clean X. It's almost as if it is a "thing of the past." The highs aren't cool and mellow any longer - which is why I ended up getting a testing kit.

I'm pretty much phasing that drug out of my life. I'm still down with pot and 2ci though. At least I know that stuff's clean. biggrin

strangekitty

strangekitty

Binghamton, NY
February 2006

MAR 25, 2008 08:29 PM

m_n_m said:
im gonna go smoke a bowl right now...in defiance of these moronic laws...anyone else? biggrin



you better believe i've been sitting here smoking whilst reading through all this...


SmellsLikeSciFi

SmellsLikeSciFi

Houston, TX
April 2004

MAR 25, 2008 08:31 PM

2ci is intense like WOAH! love

IrFu

IrFu

Loxley, AL
December 2006

MAR 25, 2008 09:06 PM

FearTheReaper said:
I'm going to assume you don't drink alcohol, or smoke cigarettes, or eat french fries, or ice cream or really anything else that is bad for you.



You got me, I got drunk off french fries, got in my car, and ended up killing a family of four. And you know those ice cream companies, living large off the deaths related to their product. Great comparison.

FearTheReaper
LOVE IT OR LEAVE IT, right bro? The final refuge of the village idiot who is unable to sustain a logical argument.



When it comes to drugs, I see no point in bitching about legalization, so yea, either get over it, or move on. Oh, ouch, you called me a village idiot...how old are you, again? Is that how intelligent people sustain a logical argument?

FearTheReaper
As I recall, you kids in Alabama did try to leave once, back when the rest of us wanted to free black people. Maybe your relatives should have taken your own advice and moved to a country where they could own other humans.



WTF? I wasn't born in Alabama, and my parent's aren't even from this country. Please, come join me in my "world of wrong", you'll fit right in.

TheRedBaron

TheRedBaron

Cambridge, MA
November 2003

MAR 25, 2008 09:16 PM

SockPuppet said:
Also, which new fast-acting painkillers are you thinking of?



Can't actually remember the name. They hit me with it when I got shot a while back. I told them there was opiate dependence in my family and that I'd rather not take any risks; they told me what they were giving me was mild but fast-acting and never caused dependence. It worked pretty well.

TheRedBaron

TheRedBaron

Cambridge, MA
November 2003

MAR 25, 2008 09:25 PM

PointBlank said:

TheRedBaron said:

If it could not be sold legally, how does that help control quality?
If it could be made by pharmaceuticals, how can they distribute it without realizing my fear of an addiction dependent market?


Sold in a controlled environment, much the way that prescription drugs are now. Methadone, for example. If someone is caught with heroin, either "prescribed" or not, they aren't arrested.



I am starting to get a clearer picture here. So you are assuming that f we allow its manufacture everything sold on the street will be 'diverted' drugs made legally rather than black tar heroin coming over from wherever?

So, in the environment, the drugs would be available to only to those prescribed it, correct?

PointBlank said:
The problem with a lot anti-legalization talk, in my mind, is that people hold it to such a high standard. I know that legalization comes with a series of problems, and there would still be plenty of addicts, but it would be better than the current system of locking up addicts and spending money on needless arrests.



I really think that in a system where there was no penalty to possessing it (and thus more accepted), and it became 'safer' that you would see a HUGE upsurge in dependence. Are there problems with the current system? Sure. Bu why nott reform the system in a way which won't bring about untold millions into the fold of addiction. It's just not the answer to the question of "what do we do with a malfunctioning legal system?"

BGage

BGage

Los Angeles, CA
February 2004

MAR 25, 2008 09:38 PM

Zebulingod said:

d20 said:

StarBelliedBoy said:

FearTheReaper said:
People are going to get them anyway, so there is not point in keeping them illegal.



That can be said for anything that has been made illegal.


In fact, that can be said about any law in general. Why do we even have laws? People are just going to break them.



not quite the same actually... there are acts that we've made illegal and goods that we've made illegal, and they're very different.

murder is illegal and benefits no one. pot is also illegal, but since it's a salable product people continue to make money off of it -- usually unsavory people, since they're the only ones willing to traffic something illegally.



I would disagree that murder benefits "no one" since someone is obviously getting something out of it.



All that aside, I'm a little unclear why we should be caring about $8 billion spent fighting drugs when we're spending how much overseas in a war that no one but our government seems to want...

I don't agree that marijuana should be classified the same as heroin, but I'm not entirely sure I'd want it to be completely without some sort of control. Hell, as long as it's illegal, I have the option to avoid people smoking it, unlike all the fucking smokers lighting up in the streets and blowing their carcinogenic crap all over the place.



Poor baby. If only secondhand cigarette smoke were half as lethal as people think it is I could have one in peace once in a while.

BGage

BGage

Los Angeles, CA
February 2004

MAR 25, 2008 09:41 PM

Cash said:

livertarian said:

Cash said:
I'm for legalizing anything in its natural state. I think it's completely moronic that I can smoke a tobacco plant but not a marijuana plant. I can chew mint leaves but not cocoa leaves.

I do not support the legalization of manufactured or refined drugs.

Meth, for example is extremely dangerous to make and injures innocent people in the process. I don't really care if some tweaker blows himself up in the middle of the desert...but we all know (or should) that meth is cooked in residential neighborhoods as well.

Decriminalization of meth would not stem the production of it...so I am not for the legalization or decriminalization of any drug like meth.

I do, however, think you should be allowed to grow as much pot as you can...so long as it's for personal use.



I agree with you on pot. But I disagree about other drugs. They should all be legal. The current system proves to me, without a doubt, that the threat of incarceration is not a deterrent to what people put in their bodies, nor is it a deterrent to the criminals who traffic drugs. Lots of kids in shitty neighborhoods think that drug dealing is their only option. What if we took away that option?

All drugs are a public health issue. The only way society will learn to steer clear of the hard stuff, or maturely manage the light stuff, is the usual way: parenting, friends, and to a lesser degree, public education. The law has failed miserably on this matter.



I'm not talking about drug laws as a deterrent. There is almost no such thing as a deterrent as far as drugs go. I say almost because if not for the fact that I could lose my job...I might fool around with some of the softer stuff. Same things as...I don't drink & drive because it's dangerous and I could lose my job. That fear deters me from certain behaviors.

I think it was Chris Rock who put it best...and I'm really paraphrasing here...but he said something to the effect of "You could get rid of every single drug in the world...and there would still be some guy in his basement with a jar of gasoline & some lima beans...trying to figure out a way to get high"

What I'm talking about are substantial public safety hazards. Meth labs explode. Meth labs aren't just trailers in the desert...and they aren't just in bombed out demilitarized zones. Meth labs are in residential neighborhoods...and they explode and they kill people...innocent people. The pose a threat to everyone in the vicinity.

Legalizing meth would not make that go away. I have no moral opposition to the ingestion of meth...it's the jacked-up tweakers who blow shit up in the effort to produce it that I have an issue with.



If it were legal, there wouldn't be jacked-up tweakers blowing shit up. When's the last time you heard about an explosion at a moonshine distillery? 1932?

livertarian

livertarian

Fairfax, VA
February 2008

MAR 25, 2008 09:44 PM

IrFu said:
When it comes to drugs, I see no point in bitching about legalization, so yea, either get over it, or move on. Oh, ouch, you called me a village idiot...how old are you, again? Is that how intelligent people sustain a logical argument?



Our drug laws are both immoral and illogical. I think that was the point of this article. What was your point again? Everything is cool? Fuck innocent people with addictions? Screw people who just like to get high after work? What was your stance on alcohol, by the way?

I am fine with dissent, but your flip dismissal of a thoughtful argument makes me want to to expose you as a hypocrite.

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