Who’ll be the first to identify the significance of this chart that’s gotten some play in the past couple of days?
Also identify the three chart items…
- DrugWarRant.com, the longest running single-issue blog devoted to drug policy
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on Catholic bishops fear marijuana and freethinking: “An ancient Egyptian mug was found by a USF professor to have once contained hallucinogens: 15-Nov-2024–A University of South Florida…” Nov 17, 20:11
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on Marijuana potencies and transitioning to Schedule III: ““smoke rope instead of dope,” Is this a hemp revival?” Nov 15, 05:13
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The Patriot Act (a heinous and unconstitutional method of controlling the people) has been used 15 times for terrorism (wait! I thought that was what it was for, 122 times for fraud, and 1,618 times to combat the drug “problem”.
Patriot Act – 9/11 Encyclopedia
September 11 10th Anniversary – NYMag
Pretty good article; the comments, tho, are even better.
cnn marijuana legalization poll? yes, no, medical only?
http://globalpublicsquare.blogs.cnn.com/2011/09/07/debate-legalize-marijuana-and-a-look-at-demand-side-policies-in-the-u-s-war-on-drugs/
Thank you for voting!
Yes 94.78% (1,888 votes)
No 2.21% (44 votes)
Only for medical use 3.01% (60 votes)
Total Votes: 1,992
Dude it’s Fascism…
Censorship, disposable labor and cage the dissidents.
PATRIOT Ax Targeted Drug Offenders
@jhelion: That cnn article is full of wrong numbers: 1 in 7 have tried an illegal substance? Other stats show about 45% of adults have tried cannabis. Legalizing pot will cost the cartels 1/5 of their profits? Other sources put their profits from cannabis at 60%. In other words, more of the usual dreck.
Agree on your first point, their number is low partly because people, in general do not want to admit their use to anyone they do not know personally, tho I don’t doubt they fudged that number some, or maybe just took the ONDCP or DEA numbers without verifying them. But on the other, from what I know, most Americans get their product from a local grower, either directly or via a middle man (including dispensaries where such are legal), so I would agree with that lower number in the article, perhaps even put it a bit lower than that. The only thing that is going to kill those cartels (and much of the street gang problem in the uSofA) is full legalization of all drugs, treating them like any other open shelf product, including alcohol.
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The size of the domestic cannabis market is simply mind boggling, even to a guy like me that harbors no illusions that its size is any more than marginally reduced by the idiocy of prohibition. I think most of the regulars here are aware that the California Board of Equalization reported that in 2010 the State of California pocketed over $100 million in sales tax collected by the State’s authorized medicinal cannabis vendors. At 8.25% sales tax rate that’s well over a billion dollars of gross revenue. There is simply no way that this represents any more than 5% of the total California cannabis market, and based on my observations and experience would peg it closer to 2.5%. At 5% the California market alone is pushing $25 billion in gross annual revenue at 2.5% it’s pushing $50 billion. It’s been more than a year since the CBoE first announced the $100 million in sales tax number and I still fishmouth when I try to wrap my brain around this reality. I was sure it was substantial but I would have called $50 billion in gross sales nationwide substantial. California has 12% of the US population not counting their unregistered guests from around the world. We could realistically be looking at a market worth half a trillion with a T dollars. The adjustment required is that a billion dollars of medicinal grade cannabis weighs a heckuva lot less that a billion dollars of bunk weed. Regardless, it’s highly unlikely that $15 billion in profits to the Mexican bunkweed wholesale distribution chain is exaggerated. It’s more likely understated.
Did everyone hear about the 11,000 pound bust a few months back? That particular load was a railroad boxcar packed with bunkweed. It would be absurd to argue that the cartels aren’t smart enough to avoid putting all their eggs in one basket. One for the cops, one for the rippers, and one to make your nut is the general rule of thumb where I grew up. I could be convinced that the cartels don’t have the same problem with rippers that my friends did. They never did catch and and mail the rippers’ disarticulated heads back to their loved ones.
The first guy was correct. Pretty damn sad.
Off topic but a new article posted on Rawstory by Stephen C. Webster He gives lots of attention to the drug war and quite a few articles on Barry Cooper when he got arrested. I appreciate his work.
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Your guy at Raw Story is giving credence to the government’s cherry picked numbers. What the heck is so special about 2007? Why not 2002? In 2002 8.2% of youth aged 12-17 were “past month” cannabis consumers. In 2010 that number is 7.4%. In 2002 11.6% of youth aged 12-17 used “illicit” drugs. In 2010 that number is 10.1%. Of course this statistic doesn’t include drinking alcohol despite it not being arguable that it is in fact an illicit drug for youth 12-17. The claim that the 2010 statistics are an “increase” is only valid if we use a cherry picked starting line. Why not use 1954 as a starting point? Drug use has skyrocketed since then.
There’s no statistician worth his salt that would find data points oscillating around an axis as unusual or meaningful. Life is simply not linear, but it is a spiral.
It sure isn’t taking much effort to completely dismantle the bogus arguments made by the Know Nothing prohibitionists vis a vis the just released statistics from SAMHSA. It’s been over a decade since I learned that if someone is beating you over the head with a contract the best defense is to pick it up and beat him over the head with it. I’m asserting that the same rule of thumb is valid with Know Nothings and government statistics.
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I think I have a crop of wild or feral psylocibe cubensis in my yard. They sure look like the pictures in Google images. Anyway, if I stop posting you’ll know that they weren’t because it will mean that I’m dead from eating poison mushrooms.
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Well here’s yet another very interesting thing the drug czar didn’t mention. Mean age of first time cannabis use rose from 17.0 in 2002 to 18.4 in 2010. Hey, maybe I should be like the drug czar and use the 16.8 mean age of “initiation” because it makes my case a wee bit better?
Shouldn’t that number be going down if the kiddies are starting to enjoy cannabis more because of the existence of medicinal cannabis?
God I love SAMHSA. I really, really do. They really do produce the best clubs for beating Know Nothing prohibitionists about the face and head. When I think of how scared I used to be to look at their stats, that was the epitome of silly.
I suppose you can say he is giving credence to the governments’ numbers, I felt he was reporting on the governments’ reports with holding his opinion and just reporting. However I probably wouldn’t have known Barry Cooper got arrested as he was the only one reporting on it. This is the first article I ever noticed that I read of Stephen’s, and I appreciate his reporting on the drug war.
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http://www.icmag.com not only reported Mr. Cooper’s arrest, we were privy to the existence of his plan to be arrested while he was still setting up the police. Yes, probably mostly because icmag.com was one of Mr. Cooper’s primary venues for selling his DVDs more than icmag being on top of the news. I admit that I never heard the end of that tale, please share. Did he get acquitted? Convicted of felony charges for being a pain in the ass to sworn peace officers? Paid to shut up and disappear as quickly as he appeared? Made his dough and retired to Hawaii? Do tell.
Just voted YES!
Oh well, it looks like the North American cannabis glut that we’ve enjoyed for the last two outdoor growing seasons is coming to an end this year.