Fighting marijuana… or reality?, by David Nathan at CNN, is a response to David Frum and really hits this point well
Cannabis is habit forming in a small percentage of users. Marijuana intoxication impairs driving, though the risk is similar to that of drivers with a blood alcohol level of 0.05%, which is well below the federally mandated legal limit of 0.08%.
So why can’t the opposition discuss these problems realistically?
It’s simple: Because the only rational conclusion is that the dangers of pot are not sufficient to warrant its prohibition. Yet those who have an ideological opposition to legalization appear immune to reason.
Immune to reason. Yep. That pretty much says it.
“Marijuana intoxication impairs driving, though the risk is similar to that of drivers with a blood alcohol level of 0.05%, which is well below the federally mandated legal limit of 0.08%.”
Plus, unlike with alcohol, the impairment factor tends to plateau regardless of how much is consumed.
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Jean I’m thinking that you don’t have much experience with edibles. I’ve certainly self suspended my driver’s license because I was just plain too fucked up to drive. One of the most vivid memories I have was a time when I miscalculated onset and dilly dallied in a Walmart. In particular a shelf full of Thomas’ Bagels which appeared to be on the verge of transmogrifying into either caterpillars or slinkies, or possibly both. I certainly wasn’t going to stick around to find out. I was stuck in that stinking parking lot for more than 5 hours by choice and then for two hours because I couldn’t recall where I hid my ignition key from myself. (disclaimer: there were no other substances involved unless you want to count the maintenance level of caffeine in my bloodstream)
Yes, it’s only when I’ve been enjoying edibles when I’ve been forced to confiscate my own car keys. But cannabis addled driving is most certainly doable.
Duncan, I know sarcasmically that there must be an immense amount of stress placed upon you from those down votes, but take one of them away as I missed with my clicker, and can’t seem to take it back. Thanks for the advice on the edibles, I haven’t had a chance to try any of those yet, and it looks like I should wait for an appropriate moment…
i used to specialize in curry substantially flavored with Afghan black hash… and you’re right, edibles do not, by definition, allow for the titration possible through smoking or vaping, and can lead to a mildly hallucinogenic experience… nevertheless, like you, I was acutely aware that I was likely impaired to drive… for me the most dangerous effect of alcohol impairment is the “certainty” that the drunk is unaffected and determined to prove it, usually by racing.
Just saw two people being carried out of a crashed vehicle on backboards…a reminder of what can happen when we’re not in the here and now
Short Frum and Sabet: HOW YELLOW IS MY JOURNALISM?
I love it when prohibs claim marijuana use doubles the likelihood of being in a traffic accident because driving 5 mph over the speed limit also double the likelihood of being in an accident,,,while not everyone understands what being high and driving is like everyone can relate to driving 5 mph over the speed limit.
Yeah, you can use statistics in such deceptive ways. Doubling risk seems bad if you don’t understand how the statistics work. Interestingly, there’s a commercial running today that says that distracted driving makes you 27 times more likely to have an accident…. makes that doubling seem kind of puny.
Something about giving people situations that they can personally relate too scares the hell out of prohibs.
Good read, for the MSM. They still have a hard time getting through an article without some appeasing of the dung heaps. Can’t just leave it alone with reality. Always have to bring up some probab-lies and seems logicals, like smoke is smoke and it is bad. The only report even hinting of bad smoke outside of gutter science of the drug worriers. Was the IOM falsely comparing Ganja smoke to cigarettes and not bothering to mention the hundreds of chemicals added to cigarettes, not in tobacco or Ganja. But the liberal and drug worrier take anything they can get attitudes are just as unrealistic and just as harmful. Lies about tobacco have already created a billion dollar black market who don’t check id’s. Vapes are still untested long term. Studies all indicate smoking does no harm and may even protect lungs and open bronchial airways. It has been tested and proven safe and non carcinigenic. So why hedge your bet? Or worse, feel sorry for the liars enough to give them plausibility. The same with driving. I’ve never heard of this less than alcohol dui number of 0.05% for Ganja. Ganja is not impairing or inebriating so why would they have to feel it necessary to toss them a bone? Ganja is safer than nervous ninnies and old people and especially drunks and prescription druggies driving. All in all I guess its better than what has been considered “fit to print” in the past. But it seems true reality isn’t as close as we might think.
Cannabis use and Driving
ideology, racism, fear mongering and lies are a means to the end… profits
NeoConflicts of Interest
☮ MJ Research Cut as Support Grows
☮ Bush, Barthwell and Bayer. Koch cages and Pissquizzers.
☮ The Politics of Pot: Studies since 1894
☮ Policing for Profit
☮ Money Grubbing Dung Worriers
☮ Forfeiture $quads
☮ NRA Slavery: Another Fine Product Still Made in the USA!
☮ Got SqWAT?
☮ Religious drug treatment in Texas
☮ Kochroach & Aleech
☮ NRA Slavery: Another Fine Product Still Made in the USA
Legalizers, Common Sense & Wrong Dollars
The Official Story Debunking “Gutter Scienceâ€
* Wasting Time & Lives * Alcohol
☮ Doublespeak * Studies the Feds Don’t Talk About
☮ Brain Damage Reports * Coptic Study
☮ Nahas’ Studies * Jamaican Studies
☮ Lingering Effects * Costa Rican Study
☮ Lung Damage Reports * Amsterdam Model
☮ Radioactivity in Tobacco * Bush Strikes Again
☮ & So On * Corruption/Carlton Turner
More than Sixty Years of Suppression☮ Public Humiliation * Ongoing Injustice
☮ Ultimate Hypocrisy * Privacy is a Right
☮ Factories, the Navy * Dividing Families
☮ UnAmerican Policies * Media’s Stupor
☮ Surveillance & Seizures * Urine Testing
☮ LaRouche Against Rock * Feudal Law
☮ Police, Secrets, & Blackmail * Babe Ruth
☮ Paul McCartney/Band on the Run * DARE
☮ Entrapment, Intolerance, Ignorance * PDFA
Charlotte police kill unarmed man who may have been running to them for help
http://www.cnn.com/2013/09/15/justice/north-carolina-police-shooting/
(CNN) — Police in North Carolina shot and killed a man running toward them Saturday morning — but he may have just been looking for help after a car wreck.
Officers responded to a “breaking and entering” 911 call at a home in Charlotte.
The homeowner told dispatchers that a man had been knocking on her door repeatedly.
Police say that when they got to the scene, a man matching the caller’s description ran toward them.
One of the officers fired his stun gun, but it was “unsuccessful.” Another officer then opened fire, police said. ‘snip’
Over 7000 comments in 4 hrs and comments closed,,,people are getting very angry over our police being so militarized they see anyone not in uniform as the enemy that must be killed.
Thank you drug war.
Thank you drug war indeed, just as the drug war is itself the spawn of America’s history of race relations. He was on the football team so he was obviously a big guy, and you don’t have to read between the lines too carefully to know that he was black. So, a large, agitated (he’d just survived a serious car crash)black man “advances” on three presumably white officers. They draw their weapons and shoot him. Several hundred years of relations between Southern white men and African-American men just got played out here.
Perhaps it is time to emulate England and disarm our police. I suspect that would tend to make them politer.
And a lot less of them,,how about we Mayberry them and make them carry one bullet in their shirt pocket and garage sale their military gear
Prohibs always assume that legalizing cannabis will be an additional intoxicant, that it will add to the total level of “impairment” in society as a whole. It seems almost certain that it will have quite the opposite effect, displacing a great deal of alcohol consumption and presumably making the roads statistically safer.
Good article highlighting the insanity of the drug warriors. But this line: “Because the only rational conclusion is that the dangers of pot are not sufficient to warrant its prohibition” kinda bothers me. Is he suggesting that if pot (or any other drug) really were dangerous, it should remain illegal? No matter how dangerous a drug is, I think keeping it outlawed is the worst way to deal with it.
It actually appears that the more dangerous the drug,(alcohol, nicotine) the more likely it will be legal, compared to the less dangerous drugs like opium, cannabis, magic mushrooms and a host of other illegals.
Don’t forget, Frum was the Bush speechwriter who came up with “axis of evil.” So expect that level of propaganda from him.
Tim, I hate to be the one to tell you but World War II called and is demanding that the phrase “axis of evil” returned to it’s rightful owner.
On the other hand, one of my most favorite songs is named “Asses of Evil” written by the Inhalers. By happenstance it’s also the name of their second album:
http://cps-static.rovicorp.com/3/JPG_400/MI0002/543/MI0002543220.jpg?partner=allrovi.com
the axis powers is a ww ii term. “axis of evil” was all bush’s hokey faux christianity tailored to appeal to the intellectually challenged by frum the propagandist.
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Fee Fi Fo Fum I smell the blood of that dum dum Frum!
Haven’t I heard someone say that prohibition is built on a platform consisting of nothing other than bald faced lies, half truths and hysterical rhetoric? Oh right, that’s my line. Carry on.
First the prohibs claim a legal marijuana marketing entity can’t compete against the black market in pot. Then the same people complain about a legit, corporate ‘big marijuana’, as if its existence is preordained. People like David Frum might be able to make up their minds if they had minds.
The days when tobacco companies could get away with marketing to children are gone forever. The idea that the marijuana movement is going to breathe life into the corpse of tobacco marketing techniques targeting kids is a zombie delusion. No basis exists for assuming that public scrutiny, as well as a self-protective scrutiny within the cannabinoid industry itself, would not exist.
Every danger the prohibs claim in their closet full of strawmen exists in one place,their minds but I am beginning to think people are not listening to them any more,,,it is time for someone to start sending that rant explaining where all the tall bridges or buildings are located at their articles again,,
I’ll get right on it 🙂
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The sycophants of prohibition are unable to differentiate between rape/murder/armed robbery and cannabis. Why in the world would you think that they are able to differentiate between legal and illegal? Between hysterical rhetoric and facts? Between night and day? Between future and past? Between dead and alive? Between…???
Conservatives often talk about being against welfare and government assistance programs, but they don’t seem to realize prohibition is one big welfare program. You put someone in jail, and the government must then pay for their food, clothes, housing, medical, etc. When they get out, or even if they just have a criminal record, they can’t get a job, and the government supports them. I never see this aspect of the drug war mentioned.
And if the incarcerated person has a wife and three kids even if the wife was working they probably live in govt housing on food stamos and welfare,medicare and any other assistance program available,,but of course as soon as he gets out they will have to move because he can’t live in govt housing..
And, as well, some of the prison guards, court personnel etc. are just another form of welfare; when they are not needed due to the end of prohibition, they will need to find employment in the real world. Unfortunately for them, their skill-set does not lead to employment in any other field. In the meantime, they are keeping unemployment numbers down.
Why, that’s…that-that-that-that’s just (long gasp!) (spoken with scandalized voice) socialism!
Or is it capitalism, because a profit is made off of caging human beings? Capitalism from providing socialism? (Best Monty Python ‘Gumby’ voice) Doctooooooor! My brain hurts!…
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There are a bunch of States where people with felony drugs convictions are disqualified from receiving food stamp, and a bunch more that disqualify them for a limited period of time e.g. for 10 years after being released from supervision.
Like the Federal bankruptcy code, the Federal “safety net” laws are another example of Federal law accepting significant differences from State to State. I’m just pointing that out for the folks who believe that Federal law demands uniformity of State law. I often run into that mistaken belief among outsiders.
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60 Minutes anyone?
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50155080n
http://www.cbsnews.com/video/watch/?id=50155047n
I caught Drugs Inc on NatGeo last night, the episode about drugs in Denver. One thing I couldn’t help notice was the interview with the gang member/drug dealer who said the weed business is getting too competitive now and he can no longer sell cheap Mexican weed. As he said, he’ll continue to smoke, but is no longer selling it. If i didn’t know better, I’d say that’s a perfect example of a legal industry eliminating a black market.
Only his source of low grade brick weed,,the cartel medical marijuana is selling fine,,he just didn’t have the connect cause the dispensaries are buying most of that market up.
So you’re saying the legal market is NOT displacing the black market? That the cartels are now producing high-quality medicine and it’s being sold to the medical market (e.g. through dispensaries)? If that’s the case, and the black market continues to exist alongside the legitimate market, then the prohibitionists are going really enjoy saying, “I told you so.”
This would be very surprising to me and counterintuitive. The only way I could see this happening is if the black market significantly undercuts the legitimate market in price. I can’t think of any other reason someone would risk buying an unknown, illegal product when a safe, legal alternative is readily available. I’d like to hear more about the situation with cartel mmj.
Do you think Mexican growers can’t grow quality marijuana or that they can’t afford the seeds,,marijuana costs pennies on the dollar in profits,,legal market or black market. The first legal crop in both states isn’t even in the ground and both states are still adding regulations translating more production costs for a legal crop, more profits for the cartels because they won’t be paying those fees and taxes.
The goal of the federal government is to make sure the legal market doesn’t stop the black market,,through over regulation and over taxing,,using fear and greed to control prices through legislators,growers and distributors will keep the black market alive.
There was a recent report of greenhouses popping up all over Mexico,,in every state and province,,some speculation that they were MMJ grows but I think they were seed grows,,the Mexican cartels will have their thousands of already experienced growers producing Bubba Kush and Northern Lights in the same fields where brickweed was grown.
I have noted several times that the brickweed has reduced the seed content by 90%,,I have cleaned ounces with 2 or three seeds in them,,they are training their growers to pull the males and preparing them for the legal market.
If you were making 30>40 billion dollars a year selling brickweed what would you do to keep that market?
Clay, you’re wrong about a coupla things here…
First, dispensaries (at least in California, Washington and Colorado) are NOT buying cartel weed. At all. Ever. Most produce their own, or have partnered with professional growers (some pretty well known, like B.E. Smith, who I knew of well before the show on discovery channel). In Colorado, they are MANDATED to grow at least 70% of their own medicine, and most is of a quality way beyond what the cartel growers can do. Simply because you can do quality, or you can do quantity, and it’s hard to do both, too labor intensive.
Second, regardless of Washington or Colorado law, importation across international borders is illegal under both Federal law, and international treaties. And importation is the purview of Customs. A federal Agency.
Third. Marijuana just became legal in Washington and Colorado. There is currently enough domestic production in both of those States that “Mexican Brick Weed” hasn’t been a factor in the market for years (in Colorado’s case) or DECADES here in Washington. The very last joint of brickweed I ever smoked was somewhere on the road from Ill. to Washington, on my initial move here, way back in 1982!!! They haven’t been able to compete for ever. First, the influx of B.C. bud pushed them out way back in the eighties. Now, domestic producers control the market, and have since before MMJ came in. Cartels are locked into the markets where prohibition is the hard and fast rule, and that aren’t domestically fed.
And don’t start with the U.S. Government acknowledged fraud of “cartel grows in our National Forests”…remember they have already admitted that was a fiction.
i did not know the govt had admitted the fraud of cartel grows in the woods: http://tinyurl.com/jwc3a57 thanks for the headsup DC. i like the way they admit to lying just to get more funding, takes some chutzpah to tell the peasants to go fuck themselves.
I did not mean that all dispensaries are buying cartel weed but I will guarantee you that some of those dispensaries are cartel owned. They will be the ones not too picky about people having a medical card.
Producing weed for dispensaries with testing and thc/cbd levels on the package is not where they are competing,,their dealers are the gangs and street dealers selling good weed in every state and every city in the country,,they are teaching their growers too grow the better strains too compete with the recreational marijuana markets that will be putting out good weed,,in order too compete the cartels have to also provide good weed,,the cartel weed you are smoking occasionally in WA right now isn’t shipped in bricks and probably wasn’t even grown in Mexico.
More than likely the cartel weed sold in your part of the country is grown in houses and warehouses bought by the cartels while the real estate market was flat lined.
You have to imagine having billions of dollars to invest in your business that is making you billions of dollars a year.
Science for Potheads: Why People Love to Get High
There’s so much misunderstanding around marijuana.
Here’s what’s really happening to people when they smoke weed.
Occasionally something that happens make me question my (lack of) faith in gods.
Noted outdoorsman falls out of helicopter in California marijuana cleanup
Karma can be a bitch, depending on what part of the car you are under.
im sure his death was treated as heroic by the prohibs. died saving the chilluns no doubt
It’s better to be a live chicken than a dead duck. That’s my motto.
‘Immune to reason’
Yup. I’d say so, or maybe . . .
Ideally, what do we (they, anyone) expect/desire of our government regarding drugs?
Isn’t it at least harm reduction?
IDK (head scratching)
here’s a very logical woman who thinks that if more people smoke pot then more people would die from its effects. or something like that. she’s kind of hard to understand. http://tinyurl.com/nqopgbr
Obviously a case of brain damage caused by not doing drugs.
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I’m very sad because I used to think that there was such a thing as too stupid to live. But the darn sycophants of prohibition keep proving that wrong.
Has anyone else noticed that the number of comments under articles relating to cannabis law events have increased geometrically since the Feds announced their intention to not disturb the peace in Colorado and Washington? I swear I’ve never before seen a comments count into 5 figures but not only did I see that on HuffPo, the count was over 20,000.
Can legal marijuana keeps its counterculture roots?
http://goo.gl/AOu7vS
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Gosh I hope not. Sure, it appears to people that being a counter culture revolutionary is all puppies and sunshine but it’s definitely got a very real downside.
This may be the final straw that forces the government to legalize marijuana,,it appears marijuana prevents Facebook addiction.
DRUNK, LONELY, AND ANXIOUS? You’re probably using Facebook, Mizzou researcher finds
http://tinyurl.com/lbf5p29
But marijuana use predicts the opposite
Anxiety — and alcohol use — predict emotional involvement with Facebook, claims a doctoral student at the University of Missouri School of Journalism.
Russell Clayton surveyed more than 225 college freshmen about feelings and behaviors. Students who reported higher anxiety and alcohol use were more emotionally connected with Facebook. Marijuana use, however, predicted the opposite: a lack of emotional connection with Facebook. ‘snip’
I don’t know if it will do anything for Candy Crush addiction Pete.
Facebook is facing more problems, mostly due to the ripple effects of NSA/DEA surveillance disclosures:
http://online.liebertpub.com/doi/full/10.1089/cyber.2012.0323
“Psywar†[Documentary] (Video)
http://tinyurl.com/odeaegt
“Psyops: ‘Psychological Operations’ – Any form of communication in support of objectives designed to influence the opinions, emotions, attitudes, or behavior of any group in order to benefit the sponsor, either directly or indirectly.â€
—Department of Defense, U.S. Army Field Manual 33I
This documentary is a deep, richly illustrated study on the nature and history of propaganda, providing an insight into public relations and into the control of information and thought, with an emphasis on the elitist theory of democracy and the relationship between war, propaganda, and class.
It includes original interviews with a number of dissident scholars including Noam Chomsky, Howard Zinn, Michael Parenti, Peter Phillips, John Stauber, Christopher Simpson, and others.
There is even a link for a college degree in propaganda for CIA operatives. How convenient.
By this definition, the ‘leaders’ of our countries are engaged in ‘psy-ops’ using MSM as the vector of transmission. They lie to us to lead us to think and understand things in the way they want us to. I stopped watching/reading mainstream media long ago, so I don’t buy into their lies, but many do. Fortunately truth is being revealed through the internet. This of course is why the PTB want to control the ‘net.
By this definition, the ‘leaders’ of our countries are engaged in ‘psyops’ using MSM as the vector of transmission. They lie to us to lead us to think and understand things in the way they want us to. I stopped watching/reading mainstream media long ago, so I don’t buy into their lies, but many do. Fortunately truth is being revealed through the internet. This of course is why the PTB want to control the ‘net.