Mass. Decriminalizes Marijuana
 

http://www.boston.com/news/local/bre...on_2_setu.html

"Massachusetts voters today approved a ballot initiative to decriminalize possession of small amounts of marijuana, making getting caught with less than an ounce of pot punishable by a civil fine of $100. The change in the law means someone found carrying as many as dozens of marijuana cigarettes will no longer be reported to the state’s criminal history board."

Thoughts?

I think it should go further and make it legal.

lets not get carried away lol! they are lucky this got passed...i am not a smoker, but i tell you one thing, if i had to try it to help with a disease...brownies anyone? lol! my grandmother passed a few months ago, and jokingly, we suggested she try it in brownies. she agreed, but ended up being sicker than we anticipated and never had the chance...

I've never touched the stuff and wouldn't even if it was legal here, but I find the way the U.S. drug policy to be utterly insane. We spend billions of dollars fighting a war that absolutely cannot be won.

Here in Oklahoma, when the Department of Agriculture/IRS or whoever does the satellite analysis of what crops are where based upon the reflected light (or whatever, I'm not familiar with the science) of the various crops, they also include marijuana in their analysis. This newspaper looks at that marijuana crop and analyzes exactly how much tax revenue the state is missing out on if it could just be sold at an ordinary sales tax.

Last year, they figured that enough revenue would be generated by that crop to fund common education. That doesn't even take into account the amount of cash which wouldn't be spent paying for private prisons and other enforcement measures.

michigan also approved the medicinal use of marijuana in the election yesterday. yay for progress!

Indeed.

Awesome to hear!! Super cool about Boston too!

GO NORML!!

My brother brought it up to my mom when she was sick with cancer - she said no for two reasons: 1. She knew my dad would FREAK OUT. 2. She said that she had no interest in returning to her college days.

We spend a ridiculous amount of money and time prosecuting drug users in this country, so I think this is great. I care way more about violent offenders getting their jail cell than I do the neighbor kid who smokes reefer.

It's been legal here for about 10 years, for medicinal purposes. But this is taking it a step further.

Good for them... it seems that we are becoming more progressive on marijuana decriminalization... hopefully this becomes a more popular stance.

It already is a popular stance. It's just that there is too much at stake financially for the private prisons, etc. for the current regime to just go away.

About time someone gets a clue...I've not touched it, but hey if the govt. can make a profit and offset all the money issues, why not?

I'm all for keeping other drugs illegal, but jeez, carting people off for smoking weed? lame. Now getting a DUI while high on weed is a different story though...

I don't use it but I still have to agree with you. Especially because I personally find it to be no worse than alcohol yet one is legal and the other is not.

Dood, they'll be too lazy to even find the key, let alone drive anywhere.

yeah, really. Just walk. It feels good.

If there was a way to field test whether or not somebody was high then I'm convinced that it would be legal.

Right. That's the problem, right? Alcohol..test the blood. Weed? It stays there for weeks. There's no way to figure out how recently you've smoked.

Decriminalizing it sounds fine to me, but how are you going to tax a product that probably couldn't meet any kind of FDA safety standards for use or sale?

It may not be worse than cigarette smoking, but I actually have a hard time imagining that cigarettes would be approved for sale if they were an entirely new product, which I kind of think marijuana would have to be evaluated as.

I've got no philosophical or moral concerns about legalization or taxation, just practical ones.

They can in a lab... 90%+ of marijuana is out of your system within a couple hours, a small amount can be stored in fat cells for weeks. They can't test it on the side of the road though like they can with a breathalyzer.

Its definitely worse for you than cigarette smoking unless you use a vaporizer.

I understand other states are trying to legalize it for medicinal purposes, but it becomes harder to talk to kids about being drug free when they hear stuff like this. Kids aren't thinking about medicinal purposes, they are thinking that if they make it legal for some to use then it must be o.k.

Based on what?

Even if you account for the lack of the filter, how do you account for all of the carcinogenic additives in cigarettes, not to mention the fact that I doubt many people (and I could just be really ignorant here) have the equivelant of a pack-a-day marijunana habit.

Smoking one joint, blunt, whatever your name preference is, is equivalent to smoking at least half a pack of cigarettes ( some sources say a whole pack) and alot of people don't know that marijuana has cancer causing agents in it.

http://www.usdoj.gov/dea/ongoing/marijuana.html

This site has some info. It varies depending on the source, but it is true that smoking one joint is like smoking a couple of cigarettes.

I stopped reading after "Marijuana is an addictive drug".

Marijuana, along with anything that makes you feel good can be addictive. Its not as addictive as cocaine or hard drugs but its addictive nonetheless.

...Really. You ARE a sheep, aren't you?

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0417193338.htm

This was the first result that popped up on a google search for "marijuana cancer".

And...

http://www.news-medical.net/?id=18122

First sentence: Despite popular belief, a new study shows that people who smoke marijuana do not appear to be at increased risk of developing lung cancer.

So..how exactly is it the same as smoking cigarettes again?

First the David Geffen School of Medicine just made me laugh, and second, are we sure that there aren't other health risks with marijuana? Cancer is just one of many health problems associated with smoking. It would really amaze me if you could smoke anything at a heavy rate of use over your lifetime with no ill effects.

Ridiculous sample size but:http://www.scienceblog.com/community...200001082.html

and

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases...0212184119.htm

ETA: I'm fine with decriminalization. I'm just not one of the hemp will save the world folks. I think it's going to be hard to have it completely legalized because I don't think it's a particularly safe product.

Actually I work with kids talking to them about the effects of drugs. I also talk about how adults make up dumb ass excuses to use them.:) I have been doing it for years and I always back it up with research, not hearsay. I am sure if you search really, really, hard that you could find an article that states that marijauna makes you smarter. So to answer your question ( and I knew someone would say it) no I am not a sheep. Any other questions??

Its the same as smoking cigarettes because you are inhaling smoke and tar into your lungs... that is bad for you. I didn't say that marijuana itself contained carcinogens, just the smoke.

Alright, I can agree with that.

Phrozen: Just because the government says something is bad doesn't mean it is. You have to think for yourself. And if the FIRST Google response to "marijuana cancer" is an entire page of articles on how it's NOT that harmful, maybe you should believe the science.

Ah yes, the Department of Justice.

That's exactly where I want to go for unbiased facts about drugs!

Heck... maybe I could also trust the F.D.A. to not allow drugs which could put holes in my heart to be prescribed.

Part of the problem currently with studying the effects of marijuana is that nobody knows what they're really buying when they're buying it off the streets. Dealers can cut anything into it to stretch the crop. With medical marijuana, licensed growers and a known entity, it would be easier to measure the ill effects, although only people who are sick with someone else is getting it then. As my mother's doctor and many of her health care workers said, while she was dying of COPD, "lung cancer is not the worst thing that can happen from smoking". It's much tougher to do studies on effects of long term of marijuana use than cigarette use. The thing is, many people who would use medical marijuana are dying anyway and it's more of a comfort care, or need it short term during chemotherapy so that they can get through the nausea and eat.

Really...thanks for clearing that up.:rolleyes:


Whatever you need to smoke,.. I mean get yourself through the day.:D

You missed the point.

.....and I'd say it's not as addictive as cigarettes and alcohol before immediately coupling it with the hard stuff. Comparing pot to something like blow and heroin is a little silly.

The "marijuana is an addictive drug" argument is played out and pretty much retarded. It seems like every anti-marijuana publication I read starts off with that statement. Dumb.

I honestly think it should be legal. Would put a lot of dealers out of business.

Yeah, the black market and everything that goes along with it would pretty much fall into self.

I think it should be like at the ABC store/liqour store. Maybe you have to be 16 or 18 or whatever to buy it, but just go, get what you want, and that way everybody wins. Well, everybody except uptight puritans who want to control what everyone else does anyway. But you can't please everybody.

Can you imagine the possibilities? Haha.

Pot farmers, working for the government, produce high quality product that they can sell at a government controlled price (which, I imagine, would be a decent amount less than normal street prices/gram) with a standard tax.

Sweet Jesus that shit would fly off the shelves.

Here and abroad. It's a virtual gold-mine. I have no idea why we aren't all over this already.

Perhaps this is the answer to our current economic situation!