Congress to vote to legalize marijuana

[User 180565 is taking donation]

www.forbes.com/sites/tomangell/2019/11/16/vote-to-federally-legalize-marijuana-planned-in-congress/#7091380d201b

I can only hope.

[Bugme]

Hope not.

[dustys]

Pass on the pot.

I'm only ok with medical prescriptions.

[Retread]

I don't partake so I'm mostly ambivalent to this. However I do think drug laws don't work. They cost taxpayers Billions of dollars each year in enforcement, do very little to prevent drug usage other than to increase the cost and make drug cartels abundantly wealthy.

That said, the article in the link makes me laugh. "a new Cannabis Justice Office in the Department of Justice." Just what we need. More bureaucracy to dole out money for 'programs'.

[daniel]

I don't partake and it's almost every week that the stench of it annoys me somewhere, but I'll celebrate the government getting out of criminalizing this. Whatever your thoughts on your own use or not, the real damage is mass incarceration. It is not in the interest of public safety to arrest people over this. To the contrary, giving people criminal records like this actually *does* harm public safety as it stigmatizes them, causes the loss of economic opportunity- leading to crime that does harm others.

[Derek‽]

With the majority of states shifting toward legality—whether that’s full legalization, medical consumption, medical growth, or just reduced criminalization—it’s clear that public opinion regarding marijuana is changing. More importantly, action is being broadly taken at the state level and this engagement proves that it’s time for the federal government to step aside. It would be hypocrisy of the highest level for a person to claim to support states’ rights and small government while still supporting federal prohibition of marijuana. Anyone who opposes legalization is free to vote on the issue at the state and local levels, but they shouldn’t rely on the federal government to run interference and contradict the will of the people in other states just to get their way.

I do think the import of cannabis and related products should be strictly forbidden, and that’s as far as the federal government should be concerned. The capability of domestic suppliers to meet the legal demand is present in this budding industry (no pun intended), so there is no valid reason for any of it to cross our borders. This restriction would establish a domestic monopoly and prevent cartels from slipping dirty product into the legal industry.

I’m not particularly keen on the House bill’s handling of creating “equitable opportunities” for demographics affected by the war on drugs. Sentences will be commuted and records potentially expunged, and that’s great, but nebulous ideas about reparation to certain communities is pushing it a bit and will only prevent the bill from being signed into law. It’s really hard for anyone to get a licensed growth operation or dispensary up and running. I’m not sure how these opportunities would even manifest without reducing existing standards, but those standards are what have allowed the shift toward legalization to continue by assuring an otherwise uneasy (in some cases) public that the industry is tightly regulated and above board. Nor should we need a new office to ensure loans and business licenses are handed out fairly to all qualifying industry entrants.

[wildmaven]

Nov 17, 2019 10:36:06 GMT -8 daniel said:

To the contrary, giving people criminal records like this actually *does* harm public safety as it stigmatizes them, causes the loss of economic opportunity- leading to crime that does harm others.

But if they already knew it was illegal and chose to do it anyway, then they should accept the consequences should they be arrested.

[User 180565 is taking donation]

It's amazing how marijuana has been proven to help people with medical conditions for years while a lot smoke it just to get high, there's a lot of people that could benefit from it. It's been proven for years to help people, yet some still see it as a conjuring by the devil himself. If you dont partake you should still hope it does pass for people that could actually benefit from it.

[daniel]

Nov 17, 2019 14:28:01 GMT -8 wildmaven said:

Nov 17, 2019 10:36:06 GMT -8 daniel said:

To the contrary, giving people criminal records like this actually *does* harm public safety as it stigmatizes them, causes the loss of economic opportunity- leading to crime that does harm others.

But if they already knew it was illegal and chose to do it anyway, then they should accept the consequences should they be arrested.

Congrats, you just justified my dad being locked up and my mom deciding to keep him away from me. While *his* decision certainly wasn't the best it also wasn't dangerous. It didn't justify years behind bars. Nor did it justify damage to my sense of identity (it's hard growing up without a male role model, yo). Now take that one true story and multiply it by millions or tens of millions of kids for the past century. The suffering caused and damage to human potential is incalculable.

Accept the consequences you say? A just society does not impose such consequences for something that is not an acute danger. "Accept the consequences" without regard to the underlying morality of the law itself is a form of authoritarianism. You could insert any number of made up laws, or just look at present day reality or historical ones, and that point of view would defend grotesque abuse of vulnerable members of society by government or by those that control government.

There are externalities that are more important in the grand scheme of morality. By which I mean that a law's moral standing depends upon the legitimacy of its creation and its impact to society as a whole. This is especially true when narcotics legislation was almost always tied back to the suppression of minority or impoverished groups. You cannot divorce the existence of narcotics laws from racial animus or the desire to disenfranchise voters. In light of such truth, defense of said laws is not necessarily a moral good.

[Daedra Gem Doppler]

Nov 17, 2019 14:28:01 GMT -8 wildmaven said:

Nov 17, 2019 10:36:06 GMT -8 daniel said:

To the contrary, giving people criminal records like this actually *does* harm public safety as it stigmatizes them, causes the loss of economic opportunity- leading to crime that does harm others.

But if they already knew it was illegal and chose to do it anyway, then they should accept the consequences should they be arrested.

The same could be said to justify any conceivable crime. My grandma smoked it for her pain before we got medical legalized here. She could barely walk. Should she be arrested? I knew a woman with MS who said it worked better than any pill they gave her. She needed a shopping cart to walk around the store. Should she be arrested? What about when segregation was legal, should African Americans have just not stood up for their rights? It's not exactly the same thing, no, but marijuana prohibition was founded on racism and black people are disproportionately jailed for this.


Anyway, I don't know if it's time to try this yet. If the vote doesn't go through who know how long it will be before they try this again.

edit: This wasn't supposed to sound angry, as I'm not, I was just trying to relate how I've seen it help people the best way I know how. Statute is passed so I'll just say that I smoked with the woman with MS and she hadn't really for some time and she was telling me how she could move her toes again. As for me, I will not confirm or deny smoking, but I will say it slows down the racing thoughts and allows me to more easily form words when speaking verbally. It also has antipsychotic properties, which believe me, are a godsend.













Also, @180565 , is this in any way related to the Wendy's thread/petition? Because if congress passes this, you should recirculate that petition at that time. XD

[Bugme]

Marijuana is a proven gateway drug. It was for me and nearly destroyed me when I was young. So no, I am not for across the board legalization.

[Daedra Gem Doppler]

Nov 17, 2019 22:44:24 GMT -8 Bugme said:

Marijuana is a proven gateway drug. It was for me and nearly destroyed me when I was young. So no, I am not for across the board legalization.

It's a gateway to the black market. If liquor stores offered heroin then it could be argued that liquor is a gateway drug. Even then it's only a gateway for people who are depressed and don't care what sort of harm it causes.

edit: I've been down this road. I never got hooked on anything, but I also wouldn't have tried a lot of these things if I didn't already have black market connections. I quit other things and continued to smoke.

[endo]

I don't smoke it, but the people that do will smoke it if it's illegal or legal. Might as well legalize it and regulate and tax it just like alcohol. Put the same penalties on it for smoking and driving as drinking and driving.

Don't like it, don't smoke it, I don't. Just like if you don't like drinking, don't drink.
I don't see the big deal.

[wildmaven]

Nov 17, 2019 18:39:07 GMT -8 daniel said:

Nov 17, 2019 14:28:01 GMT -8 wildmaven said:

But if they already knew it was illegal and chose to do it anyway, then they should accept the consequences should they be arrested.

Congrats, you just justified my dad being locked up and my mom deciding to keep him away from me. While *his* decision certainly wasn't the best it also wasn't dangerous.

It sucks that you had to go through that. However, it still doesn't excuse the fact that he broke the law. It is our job to follow the laws and, if there are those that need changing, to work to change them while following them until the change is in place. 

[daniel]

Nov 18, 2019 8:02:05 GMT -8 wildmaven said:

Nov 17, 2019 18:39:07 GMT -8 daniel said:

Congrats, you just justified my dad being locked up and my mom deciding to keep him away from me. While *his* decision certainly wasn't the best it also wasn't dangerous.

It sucks that you had to go through that. However, it still doesn't excuse the fact that he broke the law. It is our job to follow the laws and, if there are those that need changing, to work to change them while following them until the change is in place. 

History has many examples where this point of view is morally lacking.

Law should be in the service of morality, not the other way around.

It's not enough to handwave "it's the law." Genocides and massive injustices have happened, and continue to do so, under legal authority. 

I deleted a longer reply, as it had some emotional response. I find it very surprising and disappointing that the WM I've known for so long would be sort of callous to the scale of damage these laws have done. These laws should never have existed in the first place. It's flippant to say, "our job is to follow the laws" when those laws damaged or destroyed countless innocent lives. The least we can do is acknowledge the injustice and that it should not have happened.