Blecch. Tellwiddum. Bad for property values.

Thing about weed is, nobody smokes it for the taste... It's inherently inebriating.

I know I read that marijuana use was linked to the onset of mental illness of some sort fairly recently. I've seen nothing since. I'm a skeptic, but if that is true, it seems to be a valid reason to continue the prohibition.

Otherwise, sell and tax away. I'm busy running my life and I haven't the time to try to run yours.

Oddly, here in Israel a strong anti-drug stance coexists with lots of old North African Jewish grannies smoking the stuff in water pipes "for my rheumatism".

When drug busts are described, the term used is "marihuana". What grannies smoke is called hashish or simply "nargila" (=water pipe).

Attempts to find something seriously wrong with pot have been going on since at least the 30s. It's kinda like the circumcision debate - if no clear evidence has emerged after all this time, it's probably not a big problem.

Driving this stuff underground can cause real dangers. Some unscrupulous dealers here mix rat poison into the loose hash they sell, because the mild dose of nerve poison gives kids experimenting with water pipes more of a kick. The real stuff is too mellow, you see...

"...The reasons are stated, lamely and without support, in the preamble to the ordinance, with some jabber about crime, health hazards, and public safety and welfare. That jabber, as my Reason feature shows, is unsupported by any rigorous evidence beyond the petty complaints of a small number of very vocal citizens."

Hey, another example of "what I'm doing is right, and what you're doing is wrong, and you should be punised for it".

BATFE used the same argument to pull the licenses of thousands of registered gun dealers in the '90s. It did nothing, nada, zip to reduce either traffic in illegal gun sales or the legal sales thereof, but it was OK to hoplophobes and the uninvolved. It's more about the effort to monitor the dealers.

Nobody, but nobody, takes the lesson Martin Niemoller taught.

I had to look up "hoplophobes." Turns out it's not the fear of froggies.

Dispensaries are taking over here in Colorado. Those who argued that medical marijuana was that gateway to legalization are being proven right. I couldn't be happier, even though I don't use the stuff. I wish it had been available when my mom was going through chemo two years ago.

I work in law enforcement, and I was discussung with a co worker the other day about legalizing marijuana in California. We both agreed that we would have the richest state in the union, but he said that law enforcement doesn't want it legalized, because that means fewer jobs for deputies.

I'm sure his thinking is right, but I really think it could create jobs for law enforcement and social services. With the revenue problems, our uintervention programs for troubled and at-risk youths were the first to be cut, and I'd love to see those programs thrive again. Also, if deputies aren't running down dealers, they'll have more time to devote to organized crime and cracking down on very harmful drugs, like crack and coke and heroin. Maybe they could even start investigating the underbelly of child pornography, and the "massage parlors" with their sex slaves.

Anyway, just my pennies for thought.

This is all a consequence of the fact that the whole medical marijuana industry in California is one big nudge-nudge-wink-wink. Look, there is no way that even a city the size of L.A. needs 400 pot shops if the only customers are people who need it for medical purposes. We all know the real answer: most of the people getting it are doing so for recreational purposes. If usage were strictly confined to demonstrated medical need, there would be no reason to have the pot shops in the first place; regular pharmacies could have handled it just fine. After all, they handle more tightly controlled drugs (e.g., morphine) every day.

So the first step towards solving the problem is to get rid of the hypocrisy, fess up, and admit what the real purpose is: to effectively legalize without saying as much. Then, the decision comes down to should it be legal or not? If the answer is "make it legal" (an answer I'd support, BTW), get rid of all of the fiction, and then handle it through the usual zoning and licensing just like any other business.

Of course, the problem they will run into is that they will be defying the federal government by doing so. And that's what the "medical marijuana" fiction is really trying to work around, although I note that the federal government is fighting it anyway. Legalization would be a great case for an ambitious libertarian AG to take on the federal government on Tenth Amendment grounds. Unfortunately, California has put themselves into a position where they are vulnerable to federal blackmail: challenge Washington too visibly and you just may find that your access to bailout funding mysteriously disappears.

So we now have the perfect political storm: there is no action the city and the state can take that won't piss off a lot of people. If the intent was to legalize, it would have been a lot easier, in the long run, to do it the right way the first time.

MarkD - schizophrenia is the mental illness linked to marijuana use. It's a small proportion of users - as far as I can tell, it doesn't happen to just anyone, if you are already prone to the condition then grass can trigger it off. But a lot of the people in that position would have gone that way anyway for some other reason. It doesn't cause the illness, just exposes it. Like the way booze exposes assholes.

I recently visited Venice, and counted half a dozen or so dispensaries along the boardwalk, each with hawkers on beachfront walk advertising that the "Kush Doctor" was available to write recommendations on the spot (with obvious the implication that anyone was getting one). If I were a betting man, I'd say that the sheer obnoxiousness of these dispensaries is probably behind the crackdown, rather than the quiet, calm ones mentioned above.

I don't think that criminalization of pot serves any productive ends, and will be voting to legalize it if that ends up on the ballot. But people who are basically advertising pot for sale to anyone - with a mere wink at the medical aspect - have to expect some blowback.

Christopher's point is BRILLIANT...

If the shops aren't shut down, how long before the pretense of medical need will be set aside completely, and these fucking zombies move straight to "Hey man, I have the right to smoke dope..."

They'll never even remember how they pulled it off. If they could focus and deal with people rationally, they'd have changed the law 30 years ago. Fuckers can't concentrate.

Thanks Ltw. I'm skeptical of these "studies" anyway, having lived through coffee, tea, vitamin C, Vitamin D, Alar... All going to kill or cure you, or not. You're adults, make up your own minds.

>>I know I read that marijuana use was linked to the onset of mental illness of some sort fairly recently. I've seen nothing since. I'm a skeptic, but if that is true, it seems to be a valid reason to continue the prohibition.

It isn't true. Since 1894, and the India Hemp Drug Commission, study after study shows society would be better off if we all used pot instead of booze. There is no evidence unadulterated pot does anything seriously bad. I tire of liars like those who claim some study showed pot is bad for you.

This is about big business. The big business of law enforcement confiscating billions of dollars in assets every year, in complete violation of the Constitution which prohibits taking anything from anyone without due process. And, a cop filling out a form is not due process.

"The big business of law enforcement confiscating billions of dollars in assets every year, in complete violation of the Constitution which prohibits taking anything from anyone without due process."

Which sort of reinforces my point: the existing system is a wide-open door for selective enforcement, as some of the dram shops are finding out now. If you're going to legalize it, stop messing around and legalize it.

"I'm sure his thinking is right, but I really think it could create jobs for law enforcement and social services."

Hey, you should go around breaking windows. It'll make jobs for window repairmen.

Just because you're paddling doesn't mean you're getting anywhere.

As one of those old guys who's always going on and on about how things used to be, I say, listen up, chickies.

When I was in college, in the late '60s, some of us smoked pot and some of us drank, and there really wasn't much overlap between the two groups. We stoners would sit in our rooms with the music playing and the lava lamps going and masking tape around the door frame, having a pleasant quiet time, and then about 1 AM the drunks would start coming home from the bars, yelling and hurling beer cans down the halls and throwing up here and there.

And yet, looking at the alumni news, you couldn't tell today which people were in which group. I just agree with Amy that zonked-out stoners make much better neighbors than loud drunks.

The way I look at it is craft the law so that if you grow your own, you have to have a tax stamp and the local zoning laws it has to be fenced off so that minors don't get access to it.

If you buy it is the same as buying alcohol (over 21, etc.). (The 21 rule is an argument for another day.) Then from there they sell rolled joints as pack or same weight as a loose amount for $20. You have $5 going to the manufacturer. You have $5 going to the state, $5 to the fed, and $5 going to a substance abuse program on demand.

It would marginalize the largest mafia money; give farmers a new legal cash crop; decriminalize a large segment of people (i.e. busted for pot but nothing else).

Why not do it?

> There is no evidence unadulterated pot
> does anything seriously bad.

Y'ever tryta talk to someone who was stoned?

"Y'ever tryta talk to someone who was stoned?"

It's better than trying to talk to someone on pain meds.

That's our only choice?

Know what I like? Inebriation! It's fun! I've been inebriated myself, and in each of five decades now, and in more ways that one!

But you don't have to about busybody counter-libertarian to think a society that encourages this with neon signsfor faux-"medical" parlors in residential neighborhoods is making a mistake.

Sorry, that should read "you don't have to BE A busybody counter-libertarian to..."

Honest to God, nothing stronger tonight than a glass of ice water.

It's better than trying to talk to someone on pain meds.

Posted by: Elle

Try carryin on a conversation while on morphine. Cant remeber a thing I said and 5yrs later my familly still laughs bout it and refuses to tell me

"Y'ever tryta talk to someone who was stoned?"

I don't know... my observation, from the days when I was around a lot of that, was that most of those guys were that way to begin with.

"It isn't true. Since 1894, and the India Hemp Drug Commission, study after study shows society would be better off if we all used pot instead of booze. There is no evidence unadulterated pot does anything seriously bad. I tire of liars like those who claim some study showed pot is bad for you.

This is about big business. The big business of law enforcement confiscating billions of dollars in assets every year, in complete violation of the Constitution which prohibits taking anything from anyone without due process. And, a cop filling out a form is not due process."

Point 1: You're not getting "instead of". You're getting "in addition to", because no one will give up alcohol.

Point 2: You're obviously using your own definition of "seriously bad". What, again is the user doing? What does that do to lungs? Is that better or worse than tobacco, for which filters were invented because of tar?

Point 3: In fact, it isn't pot that's doing anything "seriously bad", it's the users, who have decided that their getting high is more important than anything else that might happen, such as people being murdered and jailed. I tire of liars who claim that people who routinely break existing law will magically become responsible people. They won't.

Point 4: The misconduct of government agents is a seperate issue from those involving drugs. Nearly every venue has its story of indifferent-to-malicious police, seeking to enrich their selves or department. Do not engage in a "two wrongs" fallacy.

Now, all of you: don't be a damned hypocrite. If you claim that subsidizing single mothers validates and enables single motherhood, you cannot turn around and say that legalizing* drug use will reduce drug use.

* - whatever you mean by "legalizing". I suspect you haven't thought that out w/r/t American consumer protection laws.

Politicians and bureaucrats are the lowest forms of human life on earth, it seems at times, parasitically taking our tax money and using it to regulate us to death for our own good. It makes me think of that well-known quote by C.S. Lewis comparing robber barons and do-gooders.

Astra: I wish it had been available when my mom was going through chemo two years ago.

I wouldn't have minded some doobage during my chemo treatments 23 years ago. Spending six hours with my heart racing, either in bed or hanging over the toilet (with an empty stomach, no less), was not my cup of tea.