By Is this what a legalized marijuana America could look like?:
Locals refer to the nine-block area surrounding the university as Oaksterdam—a hybrid of “Oakland” and the drug-friendly “Amsterdam,” where marijuana has been effectively legal since 1976. Nestled among what was once a rash of vacant storefronts, Lee has created a kind of urban pot utopia, where everything moves just a little bit more slowly than the outside world. Among the businesses he owns are the Blue Sky Coffeeshop, a coffeehouse and pot dispensary where getting an actual cup of Joe takes 20 minutes but picking up a sack of Purple Kush wrapped neatly in a brown lunch bag takes about five. There’s Lee’s Bulldog Café, a student lounge with a not-so-secret back room where the haze-induced sounds of “Dark Side of the Moon” seep through thick smoke and a glass-blowing shop where bongs are the art of choice. Around the corner is a taco stand (Lee doesn’t own this one) that has benefitted mightily from the university’s hungry students.
An education at Oaksterdam means learning how to grow, sell, market, and consume weed—all of which has been legal in California, for medicinal use only, since 1996. For the price of a half ounce of pot and a couple of batches of brownies (about $250), pot lovers can enroll in a variety of weekend cannabis seminars all focused on medicinal use. But “medicinal” is something of an open joke in the state, where anyone over age 18 with a doctor’s note—easy to get for ailments like anxiety or cramps, if you’re willing to pay—can obtain an ID card allowing access to any of the state’s hundreds of dispensaries, or pot shops. (“You can basically get a doctor’s recommendation for anything,” said one dispensary worker.) [Newsweek via @lisaling]
Read the rest of the Newsweek article, but the way I look at it is what is the difference between smoking a joint and getting drunk on alcohol? I thinked an argument can be made that drinking is more destructive activity than pot smoking. I can tell you from personal experience that soldiers who drink too much have given me far more problems in the past than ones who came up hot for marijuana on a urinalysis.
So what does everyone else think?
4:53 am on October 18th, 2009 1
Agree. Pot is definitely less destructive than alcohol. Most people who haven’t tried it still think its some evil addictive drug but its not. Like alcohol, anything can be addictive if not taken in moderation. Where I live, in California, there is a huge government deficit. Why not tax some of the pot sales to remedy this? As a side benefit food sales would go up from all the people getting munchies! Although I suppose it won’t help obesity as it does make people lazier. But then again, would it be more harmful than all the carbs in beer? hmmmm..
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5:46 am on October 18th, 2009 2
Well Americans elected a former coke/ crack/ dope head for their supreme leader.
Slippery slope fellas. First the dopers then the pill poppers… pretty soon the USA will look like an indian reservation. I hope Americans never treat their bodies the foul way Indians do.
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October 18th, 2009 at 9:23 am
“…pretty soon the USA will look like an indian reservation.”
The depth of your ignorance never ceases to amaze me.
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October 18th, 2009 at 1:45 pm
LOL
Funny how you toss out “throwaway” insults, but never back it up. Never back it up.
I have beat you down with FACTS. BEAT you DOWN. L O L
I guess, I COULD just say the same thing to your comments, but I am above that. No, I am better, so I will PROVE my comments.
GAME
SET
MATCH
How does that dirt in your mouth taste… L O L
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October 18th, 2009 at 5:19 pm
Racism is ignorance. There, I backed it up.
October 18th, 2009 at 11:20 pm
So you admit that it is YOU that is ignorant.
October 18th, 2009 at 11:26 pm
Man, imagine the hours fun we’d have watching you if someone tied a bell to the back of your belt. You’d be running in circle for days.
October 19th, 2009 at 12:13 am
Interesting how you love to toss your own monkey poo, but when I dodge it, and you end up stepping in your own monkey poo, suddenly it ain’t funny no more.
Let me give you some friendly advice. Back up what you say with facts instead of just calling anybody who disagrees with you a racist.
5:59 am on October 18th, 2009 3
We had it all wrong on the war against drugs. Legalization is the path towards defeating the drug lords. If drugs were readily available and and supply were plentiful, this would drive down prices because of competition. Eventually, one of two things would happen, drug lords would form monopolies to control prices and keep them artifically high or they would have to increase volume to such an extreme that it would be nearly impossible to generate a high enough profit to be sustainable. However, we would still need to have a zero tolerance for drug use among employees due to the problem of their substance addiction influencing their decisions.
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6:20 am on October 18th, 2009 4
quasi, you are all wrong. Coke is 1$ or 2$ a gram in columbia, and 700$ a gram in new zealand. Guess which place has a bigger drug problem. Coke is dirt cheep in columbia and its still a huge problem. There are lots and lots and lots of producers and the government doesnt really care.
To end the drug problem is simple. Death to druggies. If it were up to me, I would round up each and every druggie and put them in a massive hole, drop them in alive. Then video tape the whole thing and show it to school children.
Laws need to be passed so that everyone is drug tested, and any drugs found in your system gets automatic punishment like your hand chopped off. Then you should have your kids and wealth taken away. The wealth should be used for new prisons.
This is the only way to solve the problem.
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6:25 am on October 18th, 2009 5
The ball had already started rolling in the direction of legalizing or decriminalizing the use of marijuana. Maybe within the next ten years.
I think most would agree that there are some professions where we will insist that the operators be sober; like for surgeons or airline pilots and traffic controllers. But that will be true whether the intoxicant is pot or alcohol.
So what will the military do when the rest of America says it’s OK to use pot? We gotta ‘be ready to fight tonight.’ I am reminded of the scene in the movie Apocalypse Now, where the character named Roach, who was obviously stoned, was able to zero in on the location of the VC shouting ‘F#@k you, GI’ and silence him with his grenade launcher.
Do we keep or remove cannabis as a disqualification on a piss test? I have no idea about the hangover effects of marijuana, but I think THC can be detected in your system after a much longer period of time than it has any affect on you.
One other point. I don’t remember where, but I once heard said that some of history’s greatest ideas and innovations had been produced by people in altered states experiences. Who knows? It may be a tool in our future think tanks.
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6:52 am on October 18th, 2009 6
I’m sorry, cocaine and pot are two completely different things. Pot is not chemically addictive where as coke is. Therefore, dangerous. If you say is right that in Columbia that the price is only a dollar a gram but it is 700 dollars in New Zealand, then it is incredibly profitable to export the substance to New Zealand. Why do you think drug cartels are so powerful? Its because they’re making killer money. Say if cocain only cost a dollar as well in New Zealand and is distributed by the government, why would the Colombians painstakingly export them over there? The problem we are discussing is how drugs add to “violent” crimes. If everybody had cocaine we would not live in a crime free society, so comparing cocaine to marijuana is plain irrelevant. We also have prohibition as a case study on how making certain things illegal produce more crime than prevent it. Contrary to what many think Amsterdam is doing fine. Here is Bill O’Reilly on Amsterdam and some statistics that says the contrary: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sTPsFIsxM3w
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7:13 am on October 18th, 2009 7
This could go on forever, but the case for legalizing pot has been made again & again ad nauseum as well as the case that the war on drugs has not worked at all.
Marijuana became demonized because it was popular with black jazz musicians and those who did not wish to just go along with the status quo and surrender to “accepted” authority figures- police, church, etc.
They blamed the weed for making people crazy and started demonization campaigns like “Reefer Madness” which over the years, unlike the war on drugs, was quite successfull. Many still believe that cannabis is an evil plant that is just as dangerous as cocaine and heroin.
That’s one of the major problemsi- classifying weed on the same level of controlled substance as cocaine & heroine as if it is just as dangerous. There is that association there that my parents believe- “if the government classifies weed on the same level as cocaine and heroin, then it must be just as dangerous”. It just assists in the false beliefs.
Stoners are dopey and lazy, but they are almost never violent and weed does not have ravaging effects on the body.
The same can not be said for alcohol- we all know of the problems that alcohol causes. Yet, it is legal while weed is not.
The other problem is the myth of the schoolyard pusher- the old fallback of “we have to protect the children!”. That myth perpetuated in the war on drugs that there are actually evil drug pushers hanging around schoolyards trying to get hooked on drugs, so we must remain vigilant in fighting all drugs. This is ridiculous!
It is far past time for us to have a rational look into and reform of our drug policies that can focus less on punishing regular users of light drugs and working to help those who are hooked on seriously dangerous drugs.
We need policies that look to really solve some problems as opposed to continuing the bullsh*t that solves nothing and wastes our nation’s revenues, time and energy.
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7:16 am on October 18th, 2009 8
PS- I forgot to add one of the other problems associated with legalizing pot.
Alcohol is legal, but drunk driving is not.
What about driving under the influence of weed?
There is no breathalyzer for marijuana!
That’s one of the problems police would have.
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October 18th, 2009 at 9:50 am
Not a valid argument. Responsible pot smokers don’t drive and cops can demand a drug test…and, according to an official British government research, people high on marijuana aren’t exactly dangerous behind the wheel. Fact is, people on marijuana, unlike drunks, are aware that their abilities are impaired, and therefore concentrate much more on their driving than they would normally do sober. Have a look:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t3zou4F00Ic
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October 18th, 2009 at 2:03 pm
“Not a valid argument. Responsible pot smokers don’t drive ”
Spoken like a dealer or a doper. Listen cheech and chong responsible people don’t break laws, yet laws are broken. We have police and LAW because some people are NOT responsible. Dopers do drive. They do kill. They kill children and do it often. Mom dopers kill their own children. Yes dopers do that. DOPE KILLS.
Mommy muders 8 including her own kid.
http://www.nypost.com/p/news/regional/crash_mom_was_fully_loaded_l7gUjmGorGNAr28UklTtxM
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October 18th, 2009 at 5:21 pm
You sure love blanket statements. In many jurisdictions, medical marijuana users aren’t breaking laws.
October 18th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
Suddenly you are talking about medical marijuana? You are a very dishonest person. In any event, even medical marijuna uses should not drive, but they do. And driving under dope kills. oh, that is a ‘blanket statement’ that I “sure love”. but it is still true.
October 18th, 2009 at 5:46 pm
Anything that degrades your concentration is dangerous behind the wheel, be it Alcohol, cell phones or weed. And pot users do drive, I knew more than a few of them in high school. These jokers would end up in the next state with no clue how they got there but having a hell of a time on the way, and yet never a single lapse in concentration. Give me a break.
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October 18th, 2009 at 10:04 am
“The real reason for most people wanting to get marijuana legalized is that they just want to get high.”
That’s not true…and even if it was…What would be wrong with that? I drink coffee as a pick-me-up in the morning (organically grown fair trade coffee that I roast on my own). I feel like %$^% by late morning if I didn’t get some fresh brew. What makes some guy smoking weed he grew in his basement somehow less moral than I? We both support ‘fair trade’, after all.
“All the arguments these same people put forth is simply a deceptive deflection tactic from this fundamental truth.”
What’s more deceptive, using medicinal marijuana as a means to legalize the personal use of marijuana or using unscientific evidence to justify keeping it illegal?
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October 18th, 2009 at 10:06 am
This was meant at a reply to Fali…
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October 18th, 2009 at 10:06 am
I just love typos…
8:16 am on October 18th, 2009 9
The real reason for most people wanting to get marijuana legalized is that they just want to get high. All the arguments these same people put forth is simply a deceptive deflection tactic from this fundamental truth.
Hemp is so useful… Okay, then why not push only for the ruderalis strain to be legalized? (Because we cannot get high off that strain, man)
But, but, but, the alcohol and the tobacco… Okay, then why not focus your efforts on curtailing the use of these substances? (Hey man we’re willing to overlook all the problems and death alcohol and tobacco cause and we will forever shut up about it if only you just legalize marijuana so we can get high)
People are suffering… Okay, then why not agree to legalizing marijuana for medicinal use and medicinal use only? (Because in reality we don’t care about sick people and we just use them to further our own agenda of just wanting to get high)
But the cartels… Okay, you think they will go away if marijuana is legalized? This this logic it means that the people who buy and use illegal marijuana are directly responsible for funding cartel activities. Why should anyone want to support your habit? (Hey man, we are just scapegoating the cartels as a smokescreen so policies can change so we can get high)
and so on…
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7:15 pm on October 18th, 2009 10
The 2 fundamental questions that everyone has to ask themselves are:
-Has the war on drugs worked?
-Have our drug policies done anything to solve the drug problems in the US?
Rational people would know that the answer to both is “No”.
The war on drugs is just like the Vietnam War except that we finally had the sense to get out of Vietnam.
Poor strategies/tactics based on false information/beliefs that lead continued failure and solves nothing of the “problem”. The solution strategy that if what you are doing is not working then the solution is to just do more of it. These are 2 of the reasons we failed in Vietnam and why the war on drugs continues to fail.
It will never work because no matter what people will always want to get f*cked up. If you eliminate all drugs, then they will huff gas/paint or do whatever they can to alter their reality.
Continuing a fight against these people and trying to eliminate what they choose to get f*cked up with will always be a losing battle.
It’s time to wake up and look at new ways to help people.
If you believe marijuana to be a highly dangerous drug that kills, then you choose to remain with the irrational and the ignorant.
Irrationality and ignorance only serve to perpetuate the problems and wasted resources/energy that will come to naught!
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7:21 pm on October 18th, 2009 11
Never tried the drug.
What you do in the privacy of your home / favorite coffeeshop should be your own business – so long as it’s not (or you’re not) bothering anyone else, let it be.
If legalized, I could see people falling into three categories:
The ‘nevers’: those that won’t touch it or have anything to do with it. Pilots, clergy, or other people whose jobs are mission-critical.
The ’sometimers’: those that might do it every now and then – your average office worker during the weekend, etc. While at work it almost certainly isn’t allowed, and presumably would require some new work rules.
The ‘all the timers’: your current potheads. Working jobs that either require lighting up or have zero problems with the weed. Writers, artists, musicians, and the like, although I shudder to think that I might be stereotyped in this category…
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12:03 am on October 19th, 2009 12
Hydroxyethane (CH3–CH2–OH) is a dangerous psychoactive drug that can render its user unconscious, and if present in high enough amounts can cause brain damage and even death. This chemical has a variety of use’s in industry, a large part of which is as a cleaner and dissolvant.
The scary part is this chemical is readily available to any adult and many children and is often used in recreational fashion to induce a chemically altered state of mind. It can make its user prone to depression and/or angry outbursts and often contributes to violent behavior and irrational decisions. This chemical is dangerous to us, our children and should be made illegal for personal use. Innumerable studies have shown that it is directly responsible for thousands of deaths each year, most amongst our young population. And ohh by the way, a more common name for this chemical is Ethyl alcohol which is available at a variety of establishments.
See I just demonized something by dressing up the words, but every single bit of that information is true. Yet it is perfectly legal, and some would say encouraged to partake of that chemical for its psychoactive effects.
Tetrahydrocannabinol (THC) is actually safer and has less severe effects on the human body then Hydroxyethane. It produces a relaxed peaceful state upon which the user is mostly unable to contemplate performing a violent act. In all lab test’s the subject (animal of course) would become lethargic and extremely lazy, but otherwise remain unharmed. There has never been a recorded case of overdose of from THC. THC has a toxicity rate of LD50, this means that an average human would have to smoke about 680kg of cannabis within a 15 minute period of time to achieve theoretical lethal toxicity. This puts it at 100 times less toxic then Hydroxyethane, 67 less toxic then cocain, and 167 times less toxic then heroine. Basically unless your injecting a large amount of pure THC, then its impossible to lethally overdose. We’re talking several kg of pure liquid THC.. through an IV.
From a purely scientific / medical standpoint, THC is much safer and cleaner then Hydroxyethane. I’d rather be under the effects of THC then Ethyl alcohol.
And my last point of view, to those thinking THC intoxication would lead to car accidents, you obviously haven’t been seen people drive under its effects. Its hilarious because unlike Hydroxyethane, THC does not cause a loss of balance or coordination nor does it impair your judgment. The only serious effect is that you tend to drive really REALLY slowly. Instead of 50~60 Mph, they tend to travel at 20~30 Mph. This is because of their distorted sense of time. Time seems to travel much slower for people under the effects of THC so their actions are a direct reflection of it. Seriously … whens the last time we heard of a guy beating his wife and kids after smoking a joint?
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October 20th, 2009 at 5:06 am
Bla bla bla…. so it looks like a very long winded way of saying you are anti-alchol, and pro-pot.
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12:42 am on October 19th, 2009 13
From “marijuana kills” & “we have to protect the children” to “marijuana will cause traffic accidents”.
This is just getting sillier!
I remember a joint or two making those long interstate drives much easier.
Lordofe2 has no idea what he’s talking about- completely full o’ sheet!
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1:50 am on October 19th, 2009 14
For those who think marijuana is safer than alcohol, think again.
Yes, you can drive better while high than you can while drunk (since THC is a stimulant and alcohol is a depressant), but of course, neither is advisable.
But while alcohol is water-soluble and is processed out of your body in hours, THC is fat-soluble and takes days or weeks to get out of your system. That’s why some chronic users suffer memory-loss, because it accumulates in their brain faster than they can get rid of it.
Also, it’s simply unhealthy to smoke, period, even though the military still allows smoking (barely).
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October 19th, 2009 at 2:58 am
Please cite studies and medical research that provides for these facts. The most I could find was a few anecdotal findings done on a 20 person study group. That is far under the requirement for a scientific conclusion as your margin for error is too large.
THC doesn’t directly cause the effects, its metabolized into various other chemicals that do cause the effect, with the vast majority (50%+) of THC being contained in fecal mater without being metabolized into something else, and another 22% being in urine. This leaves a small amount that is actually metabolized then absorbed by the brain, specifically the receptors that control dopamine and neural stimulation (aka pain). The released dopamine is what gives the euphoric and peaceful feeling, it also cause’s the distorted sense of time.
And this is all without saying the real metric used to determine safety, which is toxicity factor. THC is simply less toxic then ethanol and is consumed in smaller amounts. Hell nicotine is less toxic then ethanol, although the method of ingestion of nicotine (inhalation through smoke) introduces carbons and other bad stuff into the body.
If there was such a huge medically provable / researched negative consequence to THC, then the prohibition crowd would be jumping all over it. There would be medical studies quoted with pictures of some guy in a hospital bed OD’d from THC. Or some brain dead dude talking his life story on how THC hurt him. Instead we get pictures of a guy in a hospital bed OD’d from heroine, meth, or LSD. A guy talking about his fcked up life from drugs, meth, heroine and other synthetic chemicals. And THC is lumped into with the rest of them because a politician was able to get it listed as a schedule I drug.
I’m up for debate, but please bring scientific and medical reasoning to the table, not moral arguments. And argument from authority is a logical fallacy.
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October 19th, 2009 at 4:09 am
http://www.drugabuse.gov/Pubcat/
Q: How does marijuana affect driving?
A: Marijuana affects many skills required for safe driving: alertness, concentration, coordination, and reaction time. Marijuana use can make it difficult to judge distances and react to signals and sounds on the road.
Marijuana may play a role in car accidents. In one study conducted in Memphis, TN, researchers found that, of 150 reckless drivers who were tested for drugs at the arrest scene, 33 percent tested positive for marijuana, and 12 percent tested positive for both marijuana and cocaine (1). Data have also shown that while smoking marijuana, people show the same lack of coordination on standard “drunk driver” tests as do people who have had too much to drink (8).
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October 19th, 2009 at 6:10 am
.gov…As in from the US government. “May play a role”. Do you have anything better to offer than conjecture?
The study I mentioned was conducted by the British government. Yes, a real scientific study with cold hard facts.
2:27 am on October 19th, 2009 15
No one ever said it was healthy.
Also, not the best idea to drive while stoned.
However, to go on acting as if marijuana is far more harmful than alcohol is just ludicrous!
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October 19th, 2009 at 6:16 am
Exactly.
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October 19th, 2009 at 7:53 am
changing what you said again. Teabagger you are a liar.
Your words:
“Fact is, people on marijuana, unlike drunks, are aware that their abilities are impaired, and therefore concentrate much more on their driving than they would normally do sober.”
You are saying that dopers drive better, even suggesting that they drive better stoned then sober. You are nothing more then a dirty low down liar.
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5:54 am on October 19th, 2009 16
Well folks here is something else for you all to debate over:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091019/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/us_medical_marijuana
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October 19th, 2009 at 9:06 am
Slippery slope.
I honesty believe that if it were up to democrats, PCP, LSD, Cocaine and Heroin would be in the student lunch program.
It’s no coincidence that democrats want to disarm freedom loving American.
Take away their means to fight tyranny, drug them up, and make them dependant on the government. It will be a workers paradise, like the old soviet union or north korea. By the time, people are redy to rise up and fight back, they will be too high to figure out what is going on, and have no arms.
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October 19th, 2009 at 4:57 pm
I had read that this has been unofficial policy since the presidential change but it is nice to see it confirmed in writing. I imagine the pharmaseutical industry should be getting into the weed game now since they were the reason the Bush administration had been fighting medical marijuana so hard. Why do you think we can’t get goverment health insurance…. Medical industry lobbyist… 6 of em for each member of congress by some counts. These are also the people that reccomend what drugs should be illegal. It’s all about money and control and since they are finnally starting to realize that prohibition does not work it is time to make money.
I like how the Republican quoted in the article sites the Mexican drug war. There would be no “war” if the drugs were legal and you couldn’t make 250,000% ROI on a kilo of coke or H. Most of the quality weed is grown in the states or Canada anyway and trying to tie marijuana to the Mexican problem is just grasping at straws.
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9:51 pm on October 19th, 2009 17
Lordofe2: “I honesty believe that if it were up to democrats, PCP, LSD, Cocaine and Heroin would be in the student lunch program.”
What an absolutely dipsh*t ‘belief’!
Let me guess, you also think Sarah Palin would make a great commander in chief!
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October 19th, 2009 at 10:13 pm
Let me guess benicio74, you beat your children when you are high on dope. Listen, benicio, we can make guesses all day long but the facts are democrats are pro drug use. You seem like a pro-dope democrat right? So are you OK with people who are under 18 to use dope and other drugs.
Have some nutz and just answer the question doper.
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October 19th, 2009 at 11:17 pm
The democrat drug-doers always back down to a challenge. But to their credit, they are either too high to even understand or they are too stoned to remember.
L – O – L
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7:02 am on October 20th, 2009 18
“but the facts are democrats are pro drug use.”
Yet more dipshit spewing.
You, shit for brains, are hardly worth any sort of challenge!
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October 20th, 2009 at 7:44 am
Cop out. Changed the subject. Prolly a long haired democrat.
At least for the time being, it is illegal to sell dope to kids. Lets hope it stays that way, at least until dopers like benicio (mi Mexicano amiga) gets locked up.
Stay high mi amiga, stay high…
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October 20th, 2009 at 6:33 pm
Its best not to feed the trolls, it only makes them grow bigger.
On this board there have recently appeared many of these creatures, and currently their running roughshod over any sane poster. You can’t ever talk louder then them because this is the internet, they’ll just type more. Instead ignore them and don’t even bother to read what they post.
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