Nope, not talking about the Showtime series. Just like the word.
Californians must look at science of marijuana by Timmen Cermak, president of the California Society of Addiction Medicine.
Cermak supports Prop 19, but is also full of crap, looking to promote marijuana addiction as a cash cow for his industry.
The question of legalizing marijuana creates a conflict between protecting civil liberties and promoting public health, between desire and prudence, between current de facto legalization in cannabis clubs and revenue-generating retail marijuana sales. […]
Physicians see many people who seek help in quitting marijuana. If Californians decide to legalize marijuana, who will pay for the additional treatments that will be needed? This question becomes profoundly more relevant if your own child has become devoted to smoking pot. If marijuana is legalized, a truly fair, socially just public policy would use tax revenue from marijuana sales to pay for increased treatments.
There are a small number of people who have addiction problems who also abuse marijuana. That has very little to do with the issue of legalization.
Legalizing marijuana is bad for California by Susan E. Manheimer, president of the California Police Chiefs Association, the group most likely to be hurt financially by the legalization of marijuana next to the drug cartels, despite what Susan would like you to believe.
The truth is the production and distribution of marijuana is already big business and controlled by violent drug cartels. Should this initiative pass, the cartels are well positioned and eagerly awaiting a greatly expanded marketplace. We need only look at the violence occurring among warring drug cartels along our border with Mexico to imagine what California might experience.
How corrupt do you have to be to try to sell this to the public?
Finally, in today’s Doonesbury, Zonker wants to go to Oakland…
I don’t blame him.
The truth is the production and distribution of marijuana is already big business and controlled by violent drug cartels. Should this initiative pass, the cartels are well positioned and eagerly awaiting a greatly expanded marketplace. We need only look at the violence occurring among warring drug cartels along our border with Mexico to imagine what California might experience.
This is so laughable. When cannabis is legalised nation wide(legal to grow your own) there will such a huge supply(just from regular Americans)that the cartels wont stand a chance in hell of making huge profits anymore and will most likely stop production on large scales.Think public land. Opps ,no more operations for law enforcement to “eradicate” cannabis from public lands.
The cartels ARE well positioned to profit because they are already in the business. But things will change.
First, some cartels will prove adept at the business, and they will be brought into the legal, legitimate market, and stop being criminals, if they haven’t already committed scores of murders by now.
Second, those cartels who can’t start legit businesses will simply be thugs competing in an industry without a black market premium. They will run out of money and have to turn to violence alone to finance their gangs. Victims talk, and bit by bit we will take these remaining gangs down.
One way or another, MJ legalization will reduce the cartels’ income and their power. The key to eliminating them altogether is legalizing all drugs, thus removing ALL smuggling opportunities and income.
Without money, the drug gangs will dry up and blow away. Those who turn to other forms of crime, like robbery and kidnapping will be caught. Legalization cuts the enemy supply lines, and without resupply we CAN and WILL hunt down enemies who won’t quit the field and restore law and order in the places where it has been lost.
“If marijuana is legalized, a truly fair, socially just public policy would use tax revenue from marijuana sales to pay for increased treatments.”
With an addiction level lower than coffee?
“If marijuana is legalized, a truly fair, socially just public policy would use tax revenue from marijuana sales to pay for increased treatments.â€
And that, as they say, is the ‘money quote’.
The ‘talking points’ were figured out by the prohibs long ago. Distract the public with what appeared to be a switch away from the punitive processes (which remain on the books) of drug prohibition to the much warmer and fuzzier sounding ‘treatment’. So the gravy train can continue merrily along.
Still the same old wine in a new wineskin. Still the same old jack-booted prohibition. The ‘smiley face’ mask just can’t help slipping off over the snarl it’s supposed to cover.
Oh, and BTW: since when are prohibs all that concerned about ‘social justice’? Drug prohibition is, by its’ very nature, an affront to the concept. The prohibs live so much in the world of politispeak and buzz-words, they act as if reality is affected by their fantasies. They figure that if they speak the magic incantations (blah-blah “soc-ial jus-tice blah-blah soc-ial jus-tice”) of the opposition, and they will automatically be fooled into following your agenda.
Sorry, we’re a lot smarter than that…and we’ve heard it all before.
The treatment industry likes to deliberately ignore research that shows two-thirds to three-quarters of ex [tobacco] smokers (we’re talking 10’s of millions of people) have stopped WITHOUT ANY TREATMENT WHATSOEVER:
http://www.plosmedicine.org/article/info%3Adoi%2F10.1371%2Fjournal.pmed.1000216
And they expect me to give a shit about “who will pay for the additional treatments” for a drug that is not even remotely near as addictive as tobacco.
“The truth is the production and distribution of marijuana is already big business and controlled by violent drug cartels. Should this initiative pass, the cartels are well positioned and eagerly awaiting a greatly expanded marketplace.”
Yeah! It is similar to when they were well positioned when Alcohol Prohibition ended!
Oh, wait. The violent “drug cartels” involved in distributing alcohol during prohibition lost complete control over that market when that prohibition ended.
Woo-hoo! I was hoping Doonesbury would chime in. Trudeau played a significant role in getting Prop 215 passed in 1996. One of the more precious moments of the campaign came in October 1996 when the California AG called a press conference to create a debate…with a cartoon character. His brother wanted Zonker put in prison.
http://tinyurl.com/25fp599
“Brian Lungren, the brother and advisor of Atty. Gen. Dan Lungren, tells us to take seriously his brother’s attack on a “Doonesbury” cartoon character. “Zonker’s a real person in our society,” he says. “He is not fictitious. And we should put Zonker behind bars.”
…and some claim that smoking pot will drive you insane.