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I'm an epidemiologist and I get called in to consult on study design and analytically approach occasionally. I got a call a couple of weeks back to talk about a spatial analysis an investigator was doing and it turned out to be related to this thread. The paper discussed how the various regulatory approaches taken by states regulating marijuana dispensaries played out in the real world. The authors applied the regulatory decisions of five states to the city and county of Denver and then looked at which census blocks the dispensaries ended up in. I'm way, way left politically so it pains me to say this but; the less regulation the more social justice. I'll back up a second; social justice is a concept that identifies positives and negatives and allocates them equitably. That applies to everything from taxes to liquor stores to roads to parks to coal fired power plants. The idea is that if negatives and positives effect everyone then we aren't exploiting people as badly. So the authors have an unpublished paper circulating asking the question; "is a marijuana dispensary a LULU?" http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Locally_unwanted_land_use The reason the paper isn't published is that reviewers appear split pretty much equally on the question so there is no consensus on how to edit the paper for acceptance. So we really can't say if a dispensary is a LULU or not so we can't say from a social justice perspective whether regulations are forcing them into neighborhoods that suffer and do not benefit from them. Regardless; Denver's approach which is the most libertarian of the five results in the least disparity as measured by placement in predominantly Hispanic neighborhoods and in neighborhoods with low median income. The next step is to bring together dispensary owners and do some focus groups with them to discover how they make decisions about placement, profit margin, population served and stuff like that. It's a really interesting time to look at legalization from the perspective of social justice and public health. Of course next year when we pass an amendment adding a tax to sales all of those potentially non-LULU dispensaries will very likely become liquor stores that are definitely LULU, will serve the local neighborhood and will do, well, pretty much anything a liquor store does to a location. Personally the only rational approach I see is to require consumers to use a dope ID and then track the users use. I only say that from the perspective of public health because it will let us understand from the very beginning the real costs of marijuana. I think that we'll be able to show that they are lower than alcohol. You use less and behave better while you're using it. We'll also find addiction genes down the road and potentially direct individualized health services specific to people who have trouble quitting when they want to. Stuff like that that we can't do with alcohol or cigarettes since the horse left the barn already. Our local governments are already rolling on intoxication levels, enforcement regulations and the other necessary parts off incorporating a new, well, vice for lack of a better word. Now that Hick has signed off and the feds are acting like it's a states rights thing (for now), the only real mess will be next years elections when the goddamn puritans will oppose legalization on TABOR grounds. Oh yeah, here's the mildly odd letter sent to faculty by the president of CU a few days ago; quote:When Colorado voters in November passed Amendment 64, which legalized small amounts of marijuana for personal use, it led to a number of questions. Most uncertainty surrounds the conflict between the new state law and federal law, under which marijuana remains illegal. Amendment 64 will be signed into law in January and take effect in January 2014. I wonder who edited that....
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Dec 11, 2012 19:44
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Bullshit they try to do anything about 4/20 anymore. I went by to gawk in 2009 or maybe 2008 and the police made a small perimeter around Norlin quad and basically ignored everything. Meanwhile a jazz string quarter played music and people mostly milled around. In the past they tried using sprinklers and whatever but people that are high don't give a gently caress.
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Dec 11, 2012 19:53
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He knows that Boulder is a party school, he just doesn't like it. Here's the thing though, on my campus students bring in $30m in tuition and fees. Research brings in $300m in grants and contracts. He knows that the research dollars are there because of serious scientists coming here because they like Colorado. What he appears to be missing is that they aren't going to leave because one of our campuses is a party school and has 420 celebrations - we don't give a poo poo because it doesn't effect us at all (and quite a lot of us support it). He thinks that opposing pot supports the research cash cow because he doesn't understand what motivates us. He's a business dude and he should really stick to university investments and leave the cultural commentary alone. We like it here, we're fine, just stop.
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Dec 11, 2012 20:04
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ChlamydiaJones posted:He knows that Boulder is a party school, he just doesn't like it. Here's the thing though, on my campus students bring in $30m in tuition and fees. Research brings in $300m in grants and contracts. He knows that the research dollars are there because of serious scientists coming here because they like Colorado. What he appears to be missing is that they aren't going to leave because one of our campuses is a party school and has 420 celebrations - we don't give a poo poo because it doesn't effect us at all (and quite a lot of us support it). He thinks that opposing pot supports the research cash cow because he doesn't understand what motivates us. He's a business dude and he should really stick to university investments and leave the cultural commentary alone. We like it here, we're fine, just stop. Uh, those scientists will absolutely leave if their $300m in federal grants cannot be accepted by the university.
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Dec 11, 2012 20:14
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computer parts posted:Social stigma. I don't understand how this relates to your post. Social stigma has* no place in determining if a drug is medicinal or not. E: *should have
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Dec 11, 2012 20:21
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ChlamydiaJones posted:Personally the only rational approach I see is to require consumers to use a dope ID and then track the users use. Not only that but now you want me to put my name, address, and other personal info into some database which is basically admission that I am committing a federal crime? No thanks, that's why I don't have an MMJ card either.
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Dec 11, 2012 21:00
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Sylink posted:Bullshit they try to do anything about 4/20 anymore. This past year they cracked down hard and there was no 4/20 celebration to speak of on campus. There were also a shitload of cops everywhere, you had to show a student id to even step foot on campus.
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Dec 11, 2012 21:11
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Sylink posted:Bullshit they try to do anything about 4/20 anymore. They might not have done anything in 2008 or 2009, but the administration cracked down hard in 2012, especially since the 2011 celebration supposedly cost the university tens of thousands of dollars in damage and cleanup. There were police on every corner and you had to show a student/faculty ID if you wanted to enter most buildings or travel through areas with high foot traffic. Norlin Quad (where the celebration usually is) was coincidentally covered with fish fertilizer. Snuffy the Evil fucked around with this message at 23:51 on Dec 14, 2012 |
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Dec 11, 2012 21:26
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So what you're saying is: as Denver has gotten progressively cooler and more welcoming, Boulder has done the opposite? Good riddance, I like Denver way more than Boulder anyway.
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Dec 11, 2012 21:32
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Well, it was cool when the man was all like "Clean your room and no weed ever!" and you were like "gently caress you dad" *tokes up a bong*. But now that it's legal your dad's all like "Jesus, just put your bong up when you're not using it and stop dumping ash everywhere, is it too much to ask?" If the man's gonna be cool with it, then why even bother? Parents ruin everything. Seriously though, I don't envy that guy's position. There's still a whole lot that's up in the air with this, and losing that federal grant money is a pretty important thing to keep under consideration. It's also really disheartening for people to think this is license to go toke up on your local street corner. You can't chug a bottle of Old Crow on the steps of the county court house, what makes you think it's okay to consume a mind altering substance on the quad?
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Dec 11, 2012 21:39
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:So what you're saying is: as Denver has gotten progressively cooler and more welcoming, Boulder has done the opposite? I don't think the University of Colorado administration is 100% analogous with Boulder.
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Dec 11, 2012 21:45
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SilentD posted:Either it ends up that the federal government is supreme over the states in which case all legalization is screwed, or the states can reject federal laws and every right wingers wet dream is instantly realized. This is the most conservative supreme court in a long time, with several members of the federalist society who have come out and said poo poo like the commerce clause was all decided wrong. Maybe this will unravel things so severely that we can get some amendments in that will actually provide a sane and consistent framework for the basis of federal authority. Or, poo poo, maybe we could just go whole-hog, repeal the 10th amendment, and explicitly grant Congress its own form of parliamentary supremacy.
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Dec 11, 2012 21:55
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Farmer Crack-rear end posted:Maybe this will unravel things so severely that we can get some amendments in that will actually provide a sane and consistent framework for the basis of federal authority. Or, poo poo, maybe we could just go whole-hog, repeal the 10th amendment, and explicitly grant Congress its own form of parliamentary supremacy. Or maybe it'll just do what we're hoping for and force the Feds to deal things like "facts" and "data" instead of "wishful thinking" and "profits for private prison companies" Dammit, I'm dreaming again.
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Dec 11, 2012 22:01
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wilfredmerriweathr posted:So what you're saying is: as Denver has gotten progressively cooler and more welcoming, Boulder has done the opposite? The rest of the population is ranchers, old hippies that moved out in the 60s and 70s, or rich rear end right wing fucks from Texas or California.
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Dec 11, 2012 22:10
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I haven't seen this posted here, but breaking the taboo is online in it's entirety: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8UtNF-Le2L0
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Dec 11, 2012 22:20
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Full Battle Rattle posted:Seriously though, I don't envy that guy's position. There's still a whole lot that's up in the air with this, and losing that federal grant money is a pretty important thing to keep under consideration. It's also really disheartening for people to think this is license to go toke up on your local street corner. You can't chug a bottle of Old Crow on the steps of the county court house, what makes you think it's okay to consume a mind altering substance on the quad? There's no risk of them losing federal funding. CU Boulder is not about to allow weed on campus, they already don't allow alcohol. It's bullshit political posturing. Nothing in Amendment 64 says anything about forcing CU Boulder to allow marijuana on campus.
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Dec 11, 2012 22:40
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mitztronic posted:I don't understand how this relates to your post. Social stigma has* no place in determining if a drug is medicinal or not. I'm saying a few things: A. People want to use Marijuana recreationally. B. The scheduling system is for medicinal items. C. Medicinal items generally aren't allowed to be recreationally used (eg, Vicodin), even if they're lower scheduled than Marijuana. D. Scheduling is (as far as I know) the only real restriction on Marijuana (at least on a federal level). E. People aren't going to like it if Marijuana has no (or at least fewer than alcohol) restrictions on it (this is the social stigma part). F. Therefore, dropping from scheduling doesn't seem like a likely outcome, and yet keeping it scheduled also seems to make recreational use illegal federally.
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Dec 11, 2012 22:59
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computer parts posted:I'm saying a few things: Ergo, making it Schedule IV rather than Schedule I would put the medicinal marijuana crowd in the clear, but Schedule IV drugs are still illegal to be sold over the counter for recreational purposes so the full legalization for recreational use crowd would still be outside the bounds of the law. Putting it on a lower schedule would absolutely help the ill, but it would also encourage a lot of the bullshit pseudo-docs handing out prescriptions to those not actually ill, a precedent I'm very uncomfortable with (how long until some homeopathic witch doctor who is legally allowed to prescribe medicine start prescribing heart medication to someone without disease and put someone in cardiac arrest?).
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Dec 11, 2012 23:40
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Patter Song posted:Ergo, making it Schedule IV rather than Schedule I would put the medicinal marijuana crowd in the clear, but Schedule IV drugs are still illegal to be sold over the counter for recreational purposes so the full legalization for recreational use crowd would still be outside the bounds of the law. Putting it on a lower schedule would absolutely help the ill, but it would also encourage a lot of the bullshit pseudo-docs handing out prescriptions to those not actually ill, a precedent I'm very uncomfortable with (how long until some homeopathic witch doctor who is legally allowed to prescribe medicine start prescribing heart medication to someone without disease and put someone in cardiac arrest?). The precedent is already set, though. Rescheduling and then just ignoring states that legalize it (though still probably shutting down any sort of open large-scale non-medical grow operations) would be a good move that's actually feasible.
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Dec 11, 2012 23:58
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The biggest tell for future progress is that there's been no huge outcry or backlash against legalization. Most people realize it's not the end of the world, and much like gay marriage, it'll be an easy way for politicians to score points with the socially liberal crowd. Oddly enough, I think the current Republican anti-government/Obama sentiment is helping matters. You haven't heard very much from the right wing about how Big Government should step in and shut this down. The federal government will most likely not do much about it except for a few token "opposition" moves that won't make much of a dent. In a few years once it's proven to not cause societal collapse, they'll quietly deschedule and leave it up to the states.
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Dec 12, 2012 00:06
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Patter Song posted:Ergo, making it Schedule IV rather than Schedule I would put the medicinal marijuana crowd in the clear, but Schedule IV drugs are still illegal to be sold over the counter for recreational purposes so the full legalization for recreational use crowd would still be outside the bounds of the law. Putting it on a lower schedule would absolutely help the ill, but it would also encourage a lot of the bullshit pseudo-docs handing out prescriptions to those not actually ill, a precedent I'm very uncomfortable with (how long until some homeopathic witch doctor who is legally allowed to prescribe medicine start prescribing heart medication to someone without disease and put someone in cardiac arrest?).
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Dec 12, 2012 00:07
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Like ProFootballGuy said, the smart thing for Obama to do right now is to stand firm on the Schedule I status of marijuana for now, but put out an executive order not to meddle in Washington or Colorado, allowing those two states to be test beds for the societal impact of legal marijuana. If the numbers come out that crime and prison numbers are significantly down in those two states in a few years, if I were Obama I'd deschedule marijuana as one of the last things I do in office, to vicious Republican outcries that I'm trying to cheaply influence the election for (Hillary Clinton/whoever) which I wouldn't give a single poo poo about.
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Dec 12, 2012 00:19
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Patter Song posted:Ergo, making it Schedule IV rather than Schedule I would put the medicinal marijuana crowd in the clear, but Schedule IV drugs are still illegal to be sold over the counter for recreational purposes so the full legalization for recreational use crowd would still be outside the bounds of the law. Putting it on a lower schedule would absolutely help the ill, but it would also encourage a lot of the bullshit pseudo-docs handing out prescriptions to those not actually ill, a precedent I'm very uncomfortable with (how long until some homeopathic witch doctor who is legally allowed to prescribe medicine start prescribing heart medication to someone without disease and put someone in cardiac arrest?). The whole point of the scheduling system is to regulate each drug according to its potential dangers. Heart medications are dangerous enough that letting New Age quacks prescribe them would be disastrous. Marijuana is not.
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Dec 12, 2012 00:23
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Cockmaster posted:The whole point of the scheduling system is to regulate each drug according to its potential dangers. Heart medications are dangerous enough that letting New Age quacks prescribe them would be disastrous. Marijuana is not. My point is that there's no Schedule for "stuff you can do recreationally". You'll need a prescription no matter the level.
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Dec 12, 2012 00:25
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computer parts posted:My point is that there's no Schedule for "stuff you can do recreationally". You'll need a prescription no matter the level.
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Dec 12, 2012 00:31
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ProFootballGuy posted:The biggest tell for future progress is that there's been no huge outcry or backlash against legalization. Most people realize it's not the end of the world, and much like gay marriage, it'll be an easy way for politicians to score points with the socially liberal crowd. A good portion of the right wing has been pushing for it because "states rights, the federal government should not interfere with the great state of blah blah blah, and we should be able to ignore laws we don't like" or "federalism, federalism, federalism". This is also why GOP governors are rallying behind it. "I believe that federalism is, first and foremost, a protection of liberty. And I would just hope that people who say they believe that would be consistent ... Without endorsing what they [Colorado and Washington] did, I think they had, under our system, a right to do it ... A lot of the worst problems we’ve got in this country, and some of the worst divisions we have, came when the right of citizens in community and in polities, like their state, had those rights usurped by the federal government. And having disagreed with it when it happened on other occasions, I sure wouldn’t call for it here," Mitch Daniels
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Dec 12, 2012 01:14
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SilentD posted:A good portion of the right wing has been pushing for it because "states rights, the federal government should not interfere with the great state of blah blah blah, and we should be able to ignore laws we don't like" or "federalism, federalism, federalism".
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Dec 12, 2012 01:31
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SilentD posted:A good portion of the right wing has been pushing for it because "states rights, the federal government should not interfere with the great state of blah blah blah, and we should be able to ignore laws we don't like" or "federalism, federalism, federalism". He doesn't want to risk a court case? Fine. Don't have one. He doesn't want to go against his base and the majority of the population by opposing weed? Fine. He doesn't have to. If anyone thinks Obama is going to do anything drastic here you're insane.
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Dec 12, 2012 01:35
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ProFootballGuy posted:Right. And this is great for Obama (who I guarantee is personally for legalization) because if he does nothing, he wins. If he does nothing, that's allowing a state to flaunt federal law.
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Dec 12, 2012 01:56
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Warchicken posted:If he does nothing, that's allowing a state to flaunt federal law.
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Dec 12, 2012 02:02
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ChlamydiaJones posted:Personally the only rational approach I see is to require consumers to use a dope ID and then track the users use. I only say that from the perspective of public health because it will let us understand from the very beginning the real costs of marijuana. I think that we'll be able to show that they are lower than alcohol. You use less and behave better while you're using it. We'll also find addiction genes down the road and potentially direct individualized health services specific to people who have trouble quitting when they want to. Stuff like that that we can't do with alcohol or cigarettes since the horse left the barn already. Apologies for snipping just a section out of a useful post, but I gotta take issue with this. It really sounds to me like you're missing potential downsides of compiling this information because the data are so useful in aggregate. It's too easy to imagine situations where the individual is prejudiced by the availability of this information to some authority figure in question, be it a boss, the police, or whoever. For example, I'd bet that the list of daily smokers becomes a prime go-to for who to check out or raid for other drug charges, whether or not its use for that purpose is officially acceptable. If you need a less speculative example: I am an attorney and our office handles some personal injury cases. Under a legal regime like that, we'd start routinely asking for that information during discovery, and if I found out someone smoked any substantial amount of weed I'd make drat sure to make an issue of it during settlement negotiations or trial. Even if a police report indicated a person wasn't intoxicated, it'd be worth bringing it up because of prejudice regarding cannabis use in my area. It's really hard to trust that compiled information about individual recreational use of anything will be kept only for benign purposes.
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Dec 12, 2012 06:49
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eviltastic posted:Apologies for snipping just a section out of a useful post, but I gotta take issue with this. It really sounds to me like you're missing potential downsides of compiling this information because the data are so useful in aggregate. It's too easy to imagine situations where the individual is prejudiced by the availability of this information to some authority figure in question, be it a boss, the police, or whoever. For example, I'd bet that the list of daily smokers becomes a prime go-to for who to check out or raid for other drug charges, whether or not its use for that purpose is officially acceptable.
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Dec 12, 2012 06:54
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I wonder what the head of the DEA's real opinion of these states passing legalization measures is. Not the media soundbyte token response, but the real thing that was said when they heard the news.
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Dec 12, 2012 09:18
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"poo poo. We're gonna have to start doing real work someday."
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Dec 12, 2012 14:05
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Full Battle Rattle posted:I wonder what the head of the DEA's real opinion of these states passing legalization measures is. Not the media soundbyte token response, but the real thing that was said when they heard the news. A lot of former DEA types and drug warriors have come out and said that pot and other drugs aren't really worth their time. The real concern is poo poo like meth. The drug war is really complicated. The DEA has been able to wipe out some drug use (see quaaludes which are all but non existent now compared to years ago) but been an abject failure at others. If something is chemically complex enough to manufacture they can have an impact by working with other governments to cut the supply of the ingredients off at the source. Stuff like pot, mushrooms, or cocaine where it grows on it's own, or what you need to make it grows in the wild is a fools errand. They can't come out and say that while they are part of the DEA though. The real issue is the prison industry, police unions, and correctional officers unions. All of which depend on high arrest rates and high prison population rates to justify their salaries and ever growing funding. Combined with the fact that we've decided regular labor is just to expensive for things but prison labor is not.
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Dec 12, 2012 14:52
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computer parts posted:My point is that there's no Schedule for "stuff you can do recreationally". You'll need a prescription no matter the level. This isn't precisely correct. Schedule V drugs (basically, codeine cough syrup) do not require a prescription in some states. In this case, some states decide to require scripts (PA, for example), and some permit over the counter purchase by adults (Ohio). There might be regulation on the states that permit over the counter sales (limits on single purchase, limits on purchase in a 30 day period, etc), so Schedule V isn't a blanket approval for recreational use. It's inaccurate, though, to say you must have a prescription for Schedule V drugs. In some states you do, and in some you don't.
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Dec 12, 2012 16:43
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But even schedule V chemicals are considered therapeutic; if you go to a pharmacist in a state where codeine cough syrup is over the counter and say "gimme that drank, I'm gonna get my lean on" they're not going to sell it to you. It's a bit confusing because MJ is "prescribed" medically in a number of states. But given that WA and CO have completely legalized it, doing any sort of scheduling would not make sense. You don't schedule chemicals that are legally accepted as recreational.
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Dec 12, 2012 17:14
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NathanScottPhillips posted:Whatever, they already do it. How many people get Oxy scripts for BS reasons? A whole lot fewer here in Kentucky, ground zero of the oxycontin epidemic. Prescription opiate abuses kill just about as many people as cars do. That's a statewide statistic, county by county it can get even worse. They finally stopped with the "voluntary reporting" bullshit and now require that every prescriber and pharmacist register with KASPER, a statewide database. Every patient has a record of who writes what scripts and who filled them and when. Providers are now liable if they provide a pain pill script to a patient who's seen three other doctors that week so database checks are now part of the medical record. They run checks on patients before wheeling them into surgery now. They also limited take-home scripts to a maximum 30 day supply. They're trying to get it so that you can't have freestanding pill mills anymore, "pain clinics" will have to be run in collaboration with a hospital instead of being freestanding businesses. It's done a phenomenal job of driving up the prices and shriveling up the supply. The change was literally overnight, something like half of the pill mills shut down within days of the changes being implemented in July. Kentucky looks like it's going to be a model for cutting back on prescription drug abuse. We're not talking about doctors that are giving you a couple of dozen tylenol IVs for your sprained ankle; this is poo poo like family medicine practitioners with no certification in chronic pain management slinging over half a million pills a year to less than 4000 patients. So, in short, things are changing with regards to "BS Oxy scripts".
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Dec 12, 2012 17:54
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I wonder how long that fix will last though. Opiate based drugs aren't all that hard to make on your own. I remember when they cracked down on sudafed and ephidrine because you could turn it into meth pretty easily. It worked for a while, and then Mexican and other criminal cartels simply started making it on their own and the supply came back. However honest people can't buy cold medicine now without landing on some sort of list.
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Dec 12, 2012 18:06
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SilentD posted:I wonder how long that fix will last though. Opiate based drugs aren't all that hard to make on your own. That's still a net positive because residential meth labs are serious problems for communities.
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Dec 12, 2012 18:25
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