The latest of polls to now show a majority supporting marijuana legalization.
For the first time, the General Social Survey — a large, national survey conducted every two years and widely considered to represent the gold standard for public opinion research — shows a majority of Americans favoring the legalization of marijuana. […]
The strong numbers in the latest General Social Survey indicate that the issue isn’t losing salience with the public. At the national level, support for legal marijuana remains robust — and doesn’t show signs of wavering any time soon.
Does this mean the Post is going to stop publishing prohib scare stories? Ha ha!
Not likely.
This quote creates for me an image of the dwindling group of prohibs standing as still as possible in a tiny quicksand pit, refusing to accept any of the myriad rescue ropes, or helpful hands of the people who climbed out.
Where they are LOSING! Yea!
Kettle Falls defendants aquitted on all but one charge: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2015/03/03/washington-medical-marijuana-verdict_n_6795580.html
Wow, that’s really good news! I wasn’t confident of the outcome of that one.
They still have a minimum sentence of 5 years for “manufacturing” less than 100 marijuana plants. So it’s not the victory it might seem….
They will be able to mention Medical at their sentencing, though, but the judge’s hands are largely tied
“Medical Marijuana Growers Escape Mandatory Minimums
Jurors reject four out of five charges against the remaining Kettle Falls Five defendants”
http://tinyurl.com/k7syuyv
“The jurors, who deliberated for about eight hours, rejected the government’s attempt to count plants grown in previous years as part of the same cultivation charge, which would have raised the total above 100, the threshold for a five-year mandatory minimum sentence”
Oh good. Glad I’ m wrong on that one.
The only guy facing jail is a “friend” who took a plea bargain and turned states evidence. A fitting reward for a “friend” who would do this to a patient.
It is very telling of the mindset of the prohibs when you read this:
Still, after repeated losses at the ballot box legalization opponents are now turning toward the courts. The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma have filed suit against Colorado. Former DEA administrators and a DC-based tough-on-crime group advocating for harsher prison sentences have also rallied to the cause. Additional state-level lawsuits may be coming soon. (Emphasis mine – k.)
Only a fascist would be so dismissive and disrespectful of the very democratic principles expressed in the popular vote to re-legalize that they would attempt such a ploy.
True to form, the fascist wants to use the force available to The State in thrusting from the top down to quell popular movements that rise from the ground up. It’s always about force, not reason.
There is another, even more dangerous assumption being made by the prohibs: the idea that they can negate democracy courtesy of the vested interests , the prohib version of the ‘Good Ol’ Boys’ network they are counting on to press for a ruling in their favor.
The people of Oklahoma and Nebraska are actually having their resources taken from them (via taxes) and those resources are being used against them by the Prison Industrial Complex’s cat’s-paws, the (supposed public servant) AG’s of their respective States…to the prohib’s and the PIC’s benefit, at the expense of the taxpayers of the respective States. I’m no lawyer, but that looks to be a violation of the Hatch Act, a very clear one.
Neat trick, to attempt to disenfranchise all American voters (that’s what a ruling in favor of the prohibs would accomplish, as voting would be pointless after that) by using the taxpayer funds of the people of OK and Nebraska without using any PIC profits. What’s the phrase? “Socializing the risk, but privatizing the profits.” Same old game, same old game…
Speaking as an Oregonian, I hope it fucks them over good and hard.
Should not Colorado countersue for the costs it suffers to defend itself? IOW should not the people of OK and Nebraska be forced to pay double for the stupidity and cupidity of their representatives? After all, they rep the people of OK and Nebraska, not the people of Colorado, so it is logical to have the people they rep pay for their damages.
And the irony of a counter-suit is that no small amount of the funds used in doing so would come from legal sales…which are proving to be a revenue bonanza for CO.
‘Stupidity and cupidity’, indeed. The cupidity is what will be their Waterloo; it’s going to be harder and harder to hide the fact that the only ones speaking in favor of maintaining prohibition are its greatest benefactors, who do so at the taxpayer’s sufferance (in more ways than one.)
The stupidity…I won’t waste my remaining lifetime trying to catalog it, as that’s how long it would take, and I’ve got better things to do.
But they can and have damned themselves by word and deed enough that a few googles of their names alone will provide enough proof as to their mental abilities, emotional stability, and psychological maladies (like authoritarianism).
And, like I keep saying, the more they lose, the more unstable they’ll get, to the point of making a public display of such stunning stupidity (or malice, or both) that will prove such people cannot be trusted with power, and should be relieved of said power, ASAP.
Like test-tubes full of nitro, shake up the prohibs sufficiently and, with their Inner Loonies just aching to make a public debut, they’ll blow up very accommodatingly. It’s just a matter of time…
Yes indeed, Kap’n. I just came across yet another prime example of the hysteria of which you speak:
Now there’s a public display of stunning stupidity!
This DailyCaller article linked to Kev-kev’s twitter account, and I had to laugh when I saw Kev’s location set to “36,000 feet” https://twitter.com/KevinSabet
Within a matter of weeks the NE and OK suits may be dropped in favor of suing the Federal government for allowing NA’s to grow and sell marijuana in their states,,much less next door.
The CO suits are both being fronted out of DC and I have my doubts the courts will even hear them,,they are smoke and effect suits.IMO
Folks, it’s gonna get worse. For them.
They remind me of a scene in an old movie,The Enemy Below.
Actual movie is here Advance to 1:10:00. That’s them, in the U-Boat, at wit’s end, no way out, singing their defiance.
Only, unlike the U-Boat crew of the movie, there is no dodging their fate in a last minute ‘Hail Mary’ gambit. Prohibition was doomed the moment we went past the >50% population support mark.
Their reaction? Denial. The depth of that denial can be seen in those indefensibly stupid lawsuits of OK and Nebraska. The prohibs are so far gone mentally from residing in their own little reality bubbles for decades that they actually do think that they can override via litigation the politically expressed will of the people, manifested through the democratic process…without experiencing the kind of backlash that leads to revolutions.
After all, the result of their efforts would be to disenfranchise the voters of CO, and by derivation all voters around the country.
Now, is that sort of thinking that rational people engage in? The answer should be obvious.
Oh, and on a happier note: Once more, we’ve been proven right, again.. We have the numbers. And that means (paraphrasing He-Man activation sequence) “WEEEE HAAAVE THE POWERRRRRR!”
For those interested in the mechanics of what is happening on macro level, I wholeheartedly suggest you get your hands on a copy of the book, The Fourth Turning.
Published in 1997, long before the Crash, it predicted it in a generic way, and the nightly news these past 8 years has matched the book’s description of the social aftermath of such an event, particularly on the latest generation.
It has proven (to me, at least) to be a singularly prescient work, and by inference will explain why I am so confident that the prohib’s efforts are doomed from a generational standpoint.
I sure wish they’d read it and realize it’s ‘game over’, pack it in and go home; their thoroughly predictable stupidity is getting monotonous.
OT
I apologize Pete for going OT so early in the thread but I gotta get this off my chest.
Duncan suggested yesterday that GW Pharmaceuticals is practicing “GOOD SCIENCE” with the implication that the use of the “scientific method” proved his point.
I suggest that it’s much more complicated than that and here’s why.
Fact #1. EVERYTHING, and I mean everything about the GW business model and plan is based on PROHIBITION OF CANNABIS. That is, their business model puts POLITICS FIRST, and medical research second.
Fact #2. Because of this politically-motivated approach the delivery method chosen by GW for products entering the U.S. market (Sativex/Epidiolex) was designed to eliminate as MUCH of the THC-related psychoactivity as possible.
Oral cannabis (like the Rick Simpson Oil) is metabolized in the liver and delta 9 THC turns into the much more potent form delta 11 THC. The sublingual method avoids this trip through the liver and remains delta 9 THC.
Now, in a nod to Duncan I have zero doubt that the worker-bees at GW are pretty good and efficient at what they do. They MAY even be practicing “good science,” but I’m ALWAYS suspicious of research that’s POLITICALLY MOTIVATED FIRST.
You cannot remove the “stink” of prohibition or prohibitionists from the work of GW Pharmaceuticals.
And D, I happen to disagree on the awesomeness of Rick Simpson’s legacy. My dad’s Stage IV prostate cancer wouldn’t be improving from the use of full extract cannabis oil if it wasn’t for RICK SIMPSON and his documentary “Run From the Cure.”
In the world of cannabis therapeutics what’s missing for patients in need is access to a full-range of full extract cannabis oil ratios. The “main” problem with Rick Simpson Oil is simply that it’s a High-THC version of the oil without much if any CBD. Adding ratios that contain THC and CBD to the tool-kit will help more patients.
Everybody is different and even for the same disease there is often a requirement to experiment through trial-and-error to find the best ratio and best results, e.g., Dravet Syndrome patients.
Rick’s initial method for the oil was crude and dangerous. I don’t think there’s any arguments about that. However, Rick got the ball rolling and for that he deserves our respect.
I’m also totally confident in drawing my conclusions in FACTS #1 and #2 because I’ve READ EVERY STUDY published by GW Pharmaceuticals that they have on their website. Their business model is based on PROHIBITION! Read the studies for yourself and check out their website if you doubt my conclusions.
I’ve used both the Rick Simpson Oil and I’ve used the spray sublingual full extract oils that mimic Sativex and Epidiolex from a California company called “Care By Design.” I have personal experience with both types of oil and delivery methods.
I think Duncan was simply referring to their employment of the gold standard, double-blind research method to verify their results.
I will frame this carefully: I will say up front, I do believe in RSO for some types of cancer. The number of anecdotal reports cannot be ignored. BUT anecdotes are a very poor substitute for hard information. The problem with anecdotes is that dead people make for very poor anecdotes. The People who are actually helped will be around to tell you about their experience, the dead ones, not so much.
That being said, the number of people I have seen claiming to be cured or helped by RSO therapy currently outnumber the cancer survivors in my experience who chose traditional oncology. That is hard to ignore. Angel Raich should be dead right now. My facebook friends list is littered with people who have had the same death sentence postponed by RSO. But there is a problem with that evidence as well… When a physician makes a prognosis, they will often give the worst case scenario, so many survive well beyond their physician’s predictions.
See? There’s really no way to know with any certainty that you can point to that these people were cured by RSO. The double blind is the only real way to say for sure.
I think that was what Duncan meant, NorCal.
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So we disagree. I suggest that you’re suffering confirmation bias. But didn’t you know that the truth doesn’t give a candy apple crap about what you think of it?
Conspiracy theories are all but exclusively built by people who just can’t imagine that it just might be possible for people to honestly look at the same set of facts and then draw different conclusions, sometimes even mutually exclusive conclusions.
If the powers that be were in such total control of the citizenry as a lot of people seem to believe then Marie Antoinette would have been buried at a much later date and with her head still attached to her body.
The definition of good science is not how closely the results of a study mirror your own personal bias. But how about plugging in your crystal ball and tell us if it says that a decade from now exo-cannabinoid medicines for some unknown reason will still be dispensed using a system that should never have been regarded as anything but a stop gap measure or even more appropriately called one of the red headed bastard progeny of prohibition. Don’t worry though the California Compassionate Use Act will still be California law. The rest of the States will have rolled up their respective medicinal cannabis patient protection laws into their medicinal products and services delivery system. They’re not going to change everything, or even anything just because you don’t like or understand the system.
But you know that disagreement is what makes the equity markets work. That’s why you can choose to buy or sell. If someone didn’t disagree with your analysis there wouldn’t be anyone on the other side of the trade.
Wow. Getting ready to go down to the dispensary for some CO2 oil, and I just had a revelation. I normally will buy way more than I need, why? The damned REEFER DROUGHTS that never happen anymore. Those of us old enough will remember those. When you’ve scraped your last pipe for residue to smoke (for the third time) in July, and the earliest weed will not be available until September? ‘Member those years? Let’s all have an impromptu cheer for High Intensity Discharge lamps, shall we? I’ll send some psychic dabs down the couch.
I’m not old enough, but I do live in floriduh currently. So…
DC, I have lately been thinking along similar lines.
In high school during American History classes, I had thought about how the people who lived under alcohol Prohibition developed ingenious ways of circumventing the madness…just as we have had to. And how all these stories of life under the crypto-facsism of modern-day drug prohibition should be collected and written into a book, like what Tom Wolfe used to do, only instead of chronicling a decade, we have a century to work with.
I was once told that it is a sign of intelligence that you can learn from watching others make mistakes and not repeat them, yourself. Historical precedent (such as alcohol Prohibition) obviously counts in the process.
Using this definition, by derivation, having had the benefit of education that included American History, the prohibs should not be allowed near anything more technologically advanced than a spoon, they’re that dangerously stupid. If they in their adulthood they still can’t learn from History, even as it is unfolding all around them right now, in the form of cannabis relegalization and continue to fight the inevitable, then there’s something seriously wrong…with them.
We ought to write that book, Kap’n. Us. On the couch. We were the ones who lived it.
Just wait till Melvin Sembler step in with his Partnership for a Drug Free America aka Straight Inc which set up so much Anti Cannabis Groups to try to dissuade public opinion
We don’t have to flush them out into the open, anymore. They’re doing that for us…and making it easier to draw a bead on their unsavory business practices regarding their incestuous relationships between government bureaucrats and industries that would not exist save for drug prohibition.
They might as well be wearing LED signs saying “DrugWar Profiteer”.
I regularly add a comment to Jeb articles I see and throw the names Mel Sembler and Straight Inc in there.
I notice the Anti Cannabis groups try to deny that more than 50,000 were abused at Straight Inc as well, its like when you tell that to the Prohibitionists, they get really p’ed off about it too
Anti cannabis groups can be compared to comfort women denialists
Well hunker me down and call me late to supper,,TX has a bill introduced to legalize marijuana like tomatoes,,,by a conservative Teabagger.
http://tinyurl.com/o2rnu48
“I don’t advocate the irresponsible use of anything,” said State Rep. David Simpson (R-Longview). “But it’s a plant God made, he didn’t make a mistake when he made it, and government doesn’t need to fix it.”
Speechless
whoa, that’s great Clay. i’ll be pissed at my lege if texas frees the weed before california. so pissed that i will continue to ignore the marijuana laws.
I expect,,barring any unforeseen event,like cannabis being removed from Schedule 1..this bill has about as much chance as a one legged man in a foot race,,however there is still that b-b that has now become a Boulder rolling around that the Texas marijuana market is worth close to $88 million according to population estimates based on CO earnings. (love having those statistics to throw in their faces)
PS:..TX has a pretty good Spring break crowd and a beach with legal weed will draw more tourists than a snow slope with weed,,tee hee
And I have been as busy as that same one legged man rubbing it in their noses,,,and I think even the alcoholic legislators are starting to get the writing on the wall through their ever present fog.
The powers for the gay agenda have alienated their base, the logical payback is to double down with support of legal pot. The fascist gas bag is too pressured and is leaking in unexpected places. O.K. you explain using the well accepted law of cause and effect.
When speaking of public displays of stupidity and desperation by the DEA you guys have to look at the latest. The DEA warns about stoned bunnies in Utah if they pass medical marijuana, oh my, oh my, oh my. Keep in mind that it has been known for millennia that the cannabis plant must be heated to release its psychoactive properties. Neither man nor beast can get stoned from eating raw marijuana leaves. Some of his colleagues in Georgia recently achieved notoriety by raiding a retiree’s garden and seizing a number of okra plants. This story would be even funnier if we had not already spent over a TRILLION dollars in our War on Drugs. That money allowed us to hire advanced scientific expertise such as this:
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2015/03/02/dea-warns-of-stoned-rabbits-if-utah-passes-medical-marijuana/
http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/wonkblog/wp/2014/10/06/heavily-armed-drug-cops-raid-retirees-garden-seize-okra-plants/
ROTFLMAO…
Them there is no ordinary rabbit in Utah…..
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=QM9Bynjh2Lk
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Nah, that’s the rabbit without cannabis.
How is it that these rabbits are getting high eating raw cannabis? Do these rabbits, and the DEA, know something the rest of us don’t?
San Diego Scientist: Every Medical Pot Study Showed A Benefit To The Patient
http://tinyurl.com/kxxpfbf
“Grant worked with scientists throughout the UC system to complete a series of small human trials. They sourced their samples from the only federally sanctioned grow operation, a pot farm at the University of Mississippi.” …
“Grant and his colleagues had to jump through lots of regulatory hoops to pull off the experiments. But once they were done, the findings surprised him.”
“I kind of expected, well, we’re going to have a few studies that say yes and a few that will say no, and then at the end of the day we’ll still be arguing,” Grant said. “But in fact every single study showed benefit.”
“The arrogance of power contributes to its own demise when confronted by persistent resistance […] the arrogance … blinds it to its own vulnerability. The ability of power to silence its critics encourages a false sense of self-confidence.†— John Raines, FBI office burglar and Freedom Rider, “What I Learned from Breaking the Lawâ€.
I’s been cypherin’. Always a dangerous thing. Using the Colorado numbers as a starting point and making some assumptions along the way, I derive a total US market of some 10,000 tons of cannabis a year. That’s a lot. Assumptions: Colorado’s legal sales of 6.9 tons total between medical and non-medical sales per month are half of the total market. Colorado is about 1/60th of the total US population, and one assumes that patterns of consumption will be much the same across the country. These are not wild assumptions, they are valid. Even if one believes that the legal market has already totally replaced the black market, one still arrives at the total of 5,000 tons per year. That is still a lot. All this assumes no increase in numbers of consumers or individual consumption. BTW 10,000 tons converts to over 9 billion grams. Even if they tax it a dollar a gram, that’s a lot of tax revenue. They will also tax the earnings of the workers and owners for even more government revenue. Once the pols see those numbers and crunch the tax implications, prohibition is doomed.
I think it will be even bigger than that because I believe like all their statistics the government is lying about the numbers of marijuana users in the US,,they could not afford to admit how many citizens were toking the weed.
That is one huge benefit of the states legalizing. Now that sales can be tabulated, and as more states are supplying numbers, the true scope of the market will become known. In the past we have had no hard data to work with. Everything was conjecture from the amount imported, grown, consumed, intercepted etc. as well as the potential tax amounts. Now, with firm numbers our case can be made even more powerfully. The only way the numbers in Colorado are this high is if the estimates we have been working with are low. Very low. Once it becomes known just how pervasive cannabis use is and how large the market, cannabis consumers will be seen as a much larger minority, one with political clout. The cannabists will also become more self-aware, which should help bring more out into the open, and achieve even more support. Let’s add it up as a politician sees it; many consumers with political clout, (as evidenced by the overthrow of previously invulnerable incumbents) many tax dollars to be gleaned, many taxpaying voters to be won over by ‘evolving’, and that evolution should be accelerated to the speed of sound. The elections of 2016 will be the death knell of prohibition. The turning point was the 2014 polls. Victory is in sight. Press the advantage. Don’t let them have respite. Call them out constantly on their lies and biases. We can win if we keep it up. Onward!
The cypherin’ gets even more interesting if we divide the total of 9,080,000,000 grams by estimated daily usage. If we assume a consumption average of 1 gm. a day,(12 oz. per year) that means there are about 25 million tokers in the US. That is almost 10% of the adult population. That is a huge block of voters. If we use 1/2 gram per day,(6 oz. per year, which is probably very close to the average) that doubles to 50 million voters. As these numbers become part of the societal consciousness, cannabists will be seen as mainstream, not aberrant. Cannabists will become more aware of their normality, more self-aware, and thereby more powerful. Isn’t arithmetic wonderful?
The prohibs can’t tell you. They always seem to have a problem with basic addition. And of course, there’s the old admonition of “Figures don’t lie, but liars can figure.” Prohibs have had lost of experience in that regard.
They’ve been under-reporting the amounts of interdicted contraband for years, possibly for decades, as the amounts are just too embarrassingly large to admit. They even go so far as to try to hide their inability to interdict saying it’s a matter of lack of infrastructure and manpower (of course, to try and wheedle some more out of the taxpayer), but nothing can hide the fact it is a fool’s errand from the get-go.
When last week’s “Biggest Bust Ever!” is superseded by this week’s, it gets kinda troublesome, and people start asking questions, like, “Why doesn’t this stop the cartels?” The prohib’s only answer is “Gimme more time, gimme more money, gimme more time, gimme more money…”
In short, a con-game. Plain and simple grifting, on a international scale. A DrugWar we didn’t ask for…but one we mean to end.