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Radbot posted:But no one has been arrested for simple possession in Colorado for years. I suspect that you are wrong about the simple possession. I do know that there are daily or near daily cannabis production arrests in Colorado.
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Nov 10, 2013 23:11
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Radbot posted:But no one has been arrested for simple possession in Colorado for years.  You might be a bit wrong on that one. (Source)
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Nov 10, 2013 23:20
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Yeah plenty of people were getting arrested for possession right up until midnight when the law was ratified last December. Depends on the local PD/sheriff and whether or not they decided to care, most didn't and stopped ticketing people completely, but there were a few more conservative firebrand type sheriffs that didn't approve of legalization and kept on arresting people. In some areas it's been labeled as not a law enforcement priority and effectively decriminalized for far longer than that, I don't think anyone has been arrested in Boulder for possession since like 2005, alcohol is considered a much bigger problem. Pryor on Fire fucked around with this message at 04:16 on Nov 11, 2013 |
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Nov 11, 2013 04:11
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Isn't there a chance that those people who had previously been reliant on selling weed and living off the massively inflated profit margin are going to have to find other prohibited substances to sell? I mean it isn't like they are going to see any of the new jobs created once the agribusiness community takes over. I forget whether this has already been discussed, but isn't this a problem of only legalising one drug? Surely increased meth production (and maybe even consumption) is to be expected? VVVV This is kind of an aside, so bear with me. Maybe it is different in the US but here in Aus I get the impression that a lot of the cannabis is already grown locally due to ensuring better quality and less chance of detection (I don't think the police are quite as well equipped with helicopters as in the US) and that legalising weed would surely put these locals out of business, whereas we've had simply massive massive seizures of amphetamines recently by police who report that much more is likely to be making it through. Some of our politicians have recently been obsessing with pursuing (weed growing and fairly inconsequential) local motorcycle gangs, but I suspect this is only a distraction from the fact they seem incapable of dealing with the huge quantities of ice now arriving from SE Asia. What I am saying is that Australia's demand for high-quality cannabis is already being met by the black market at prices that the end user (cashed up FIFO bogans) is prepared to pay, and it may be the case that the highest profits are going to be from harder drugs. Kind of like black market trade diversion if you will. Flaky fucked around with this message at 07:00 on Nov 11, 2013 |
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Nov 11, 2013 06:35
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Flaky posted:Isn't there a chance that those people who had previously been reliant on selling weed and living off the massively inflated profit margin are going to have to find other prohibited substances to sell? I mean it isn't like they are going to see any of the new jobs created once the agribusiness community takes over. They might be I forget whether this has already been discussed, but isn't this a problem of only legalising one drug? Surely increased meth production (and maybe even consumption) is to be expected? Who precisely are you thinking of? The Cartels will make tons of meth sure, but they're already doing that. The actual dealers might or they might just be pushed out of the market because there are already meth dealers. The thing is that using marijuana doesn't necessarily* mean that you're into using any other sort of drug (and indeed of the people I know who do illegal drugs it's either underage drinking or pot). *by which I mean there could be a connection but I don't know that there's one and one doesn't inherently follow.
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Nov 11, 2013 06:42
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If anything, I think legalizing MJ will eventually reduce the usage of other drugs like coke/meth/etc. If a person wants to buy weed, they'll be buying it from a place that doesn't try to "upsell" any other kinds of drugs also which does occasionally happen under the current black market systems.
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Nov 11, 2013 08:29
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Chadderbox posted:If anything, I think legalizing MJ will eventually reduce the usage of other drugs like coke/meth/etc. If a person wants to buy weed, they'll be buying it from a place that doesn't try to "upsell" any other kinds of drugs also which does occasionally happen under the current black market systems. People who want harder things (and Weed is by no means hard) will buy harder things. That's never stopped being a thing. Other drugs have different effects from weed so the market for those drugs would be affected as much as the price and availability of Salmon affects the price and availability of Apples. Arguably, their presence in the black market might increase in order to fill the gap that legal weed left to recoup the losses made from one of their products suddenly crashing in price.
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Nov 11, 2013 09:47
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Xelkelvos posted:People who want harder things (and Weed is by no means hard) will buy harder things. That's never stopped being a thing. Other drugs have different effects from weed so the market for those drugs would be affected as much as the price and availability of Salmon affects the price and availability of Apples. Arguably, their presence in the black market might increase in order to fill the gap that legal weed left to recoup the losses made from one of their products suddenly crashing in price. My point is that knowing where to buy harder things to begin with will be a little bit tougher after weed is legal and sold over the counter rather than by the same guy who also sells the harder stuff. I know plenty of people who have smoked weed and never moved beyond to anything else, but there are in fact people who have been talked up into coke by the people who they originally just bought weed from (I know it's anecdotal, but this describes a person I knew coming out of high school). I have no idea how big of a difference it will make, but I don't personally think it will be a non-zero number of people who end up steering completely clear of hard drugs as a result of simply never crossing paths with them to begin with.
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Nov 11, 2013 14:16
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Cocaine, Heroin(Fentanyl), and Methamphetamine are less restricted drugs than Marijuana. The DEA considers weed a "more dangerous" drug than all of those and spends far more of their budget fighting it.
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Nov 11, 2013 15:53
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That may be at least in part due to massively larger demand, to be fair.
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Nov 11, 2013 16:03
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Flaky posted:Isn't there a chance that those people who had previously been reliant on selling weed and living off the massively inflated profit margin are going to have to find other prohibited substances to sell? I mean it isn't like they are going to see any of the new jobs created once the agribusiness community takes over. I forget whether this has already been discussed, but isn't this a problem of only legalising one drug? Surely increased meth production (and maybe even consumption) is to be expected? This is all anecdotal, but there is generally not much of a profit margin on (high quality) weed for street-level sellers. Joe College Student that's buying an ounce at a time and selling 3/4 of that is mostly just covering the cost of his own smoking, and they're probably not selling anything else except for the occasional psychedelic or MDMA. The person buying a half a pound or more at a time and selling to Joe College Student makes a decent amount of money from it, but they'll generally be older and have a decent job anyways. You would be found out pretty quickly if you were paying your mortgage, car payment, and utilities with illicit drug money and didn't have a reportable income; weed profits will go to buying groceries and other incidental costs of living, big nights out on the town, and custom glass pipes if you're into that sort of thing. The grower will have the largest profit out of the entire chain, but they also have the risk of an entire grow operation, and not just a few big airtight jars stuck in the back of a closet in the house. I haven't bought cartel weed in years though, just stuff coming from California and grown under-the-table by licensed medicinal growers, so the cartel chain may be completely different however.
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Nov 11, 2013 16:06
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Look at the opening line of this article:quote:Slowly, Americans are beginning to realize what a mess our “War on Drugs” has been. We have spent billions of dollars and prosecuted millions of people, all to little real effect. Michigan has been front and center in this sad drama. Off to a great start... and then suddenly (next paragraph and out of the loving blue): quote:At the root of this failure is a simple error: We have treated narcotics as an issue of morality rather than business. Our efforts have been focused on punishing relatively minor actors through mass incarceration rather than on the very different goal of shutting down drug businesses. A starting point as we reconsider our efforts should be the simple recognition that narcotics trafficking is first and foremost a business. Say what?
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Nov 11, 2013 16:59
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KingEup posted:Say what?
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Nov 11, 2013 17:10
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KingEup posted:Look at the opening line of this article: This is actually not a bad article, it basically says "hey arresting small-time dealers and users is pointless and counterproductive and also we should probably be giving people more opportunities in life so they don't have to turn to dealing crack to make ends meet." It's just phrased in terms that can be easily understood by idiots who worship at the altar of ~business sense~
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Nov 11, 2013 17:11
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Preem Palver posted:This is all anecdotal, but there is generally not much of a profit margin on (high quality) weed for street-level sellers. The research backs you up on that one, as generally true for street sellers of whatever. Couldn't find a link to the study that was making the rounds in D&D a while back, but here is a quick link to what I did pull up.
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Nov 11, 2013 17:41
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showbiz_liz posted:This is actually not a bad article, it basically says "hey arresting small-time dealers and users is pointless and counterproductive and also we should probably be giving people more opportunities in life so they don't have to turn to dealing crack to make ends meet." It's just phrased in terms that can be easily understood by idiots who worship at the altar of ~business sense~ 
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Nov 11, 2013 18:05
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eviltastic posted:The research backs you up on that one, as generally true for street sellers of whatever. Couldn't find a link to the study that was making the rounds in D&D a while back, but here is a quick link to what I did pull up. See also this TED Talk: http://www.ted.com/talks/steven_levitt_analyzes_crack_economics.html (admittedly for crack, but still appropriate to the topic)
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Nov 11, 2013 18:06
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Warchicken posted:That may be at least in part due to massively larger demand, to be fair.
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Nov 11, 2013 18:18
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I fully trust people whose entire livelihood revolves around getting paid to aggressively hunt down people in a military fashion (complete with fully automatic weapons) for possessing a plant with making the decisions about which plants and chemicals are safe for human consumption.
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Nov 11, 2013 18:43
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NathanScottPhillips posted:No, the different Schedules are entirely about medicinal uses and the potential for abuse. Marijuana is Schedule I, which means no medicinal uses which is bullshit. Even if you accept that weed has the same potential for abuse as those other hard drugs, the fact that they don't admit it has medical uses is proof its scheduling is bullshit. It's not why it is scheduled where it is, but if you accept the (bad) premise that marijuana is harmful, then there is clearly a much larger ongoing epidemic than there is for cocaine or heroin. Given that, it makes sense to spend proportionally more on it. The reasoning in DEA budget allocation is sound once you get past the made-up premise.
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Nov 11, 2013 18:49
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Jeffrey posted:It's not why it is scheduled where it is, but if you accept the (bad) premise that marijuana is harmful, then there is clearly a much larger ongoing epidemic than there is for cocaine or heroin. Given that, it makes sense to spend proportionally more on it. The reasoning in DEA budget allocation is sound once you get past the made-up premise. Yeah, this is what I meant. Also, those other drugs ruin black communities just by existing, whereas marijuana needs law enforcements help.
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Nov 11, 2013 18:58
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Jeffrey posted:It's not why it is scheduled where it is, but if you accept the (bad) premise that marijuana is harmful, then there is clearly a much larger ongoing epidemic than there is for cocaine or heroin. Given that, it makes sense to spend proportionally more on it. The reasoning in DEA budget allocation is sound once you get past the made-up premise. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kFgrB2Wmh5s
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Nov 11, 2013 19:13
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I received an FAQ flyer from our local police (Breckenridge, CO) explaining the marijuana laws here. It's amazing to me to think that on 1/1/14 I will be able to lawfully walk into a retail shop to purchase marijuana. It sounds like the discussion here has moved towards drug testing. Speaking as a professional who would be subject to drug testing in the event of an accident at work, I am curious to see how employment laws will handle the firing of people for use of a legal substance when it can't be proven if someone is actually under the influence at the time of an incident. Barring more sophisticated tests, of course.
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Nov 11, 2013 19:28
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19 o'clock posted:I received an FAQ flyer from our local police (Breckenridge, CO) explaining the marijuana laws here. It's amazing to me to think that on 1/1/14 I will be able to lawfully walk into a retail shop to purchase marijuana. Out of curiousity, what is wrong with a saliva swab test, or blood work? Swab tests are only indicative for 12-24 hours and follow-up blood work would give you an idea of active THC and metabolites.
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Nov 11, 2013 19:32
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I would theorize that that is because there are moneyed interests involved in the prescription drug trade. They can afford better lobbyists than cartels and marijuana growers. I was generally comparing weed to cocaine and heroin, where it makes sense and the logic follows. The fact that street oxycontin was at some point legally sold to someone makes all the (business) difference.
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Nov 11, 2013 19:32
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19 o'clock posted:I received an FAQ flyer from our local police (Breckenridge, CO) explaining the marijuana laws here. It's amazing to me to think that on 1/1/14 I will be able to lawfully walk into a retail shop to purchase marijuana.
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Nov 11, 2013 19:47
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19 o'clock posted:It sounds like the discussion here has moved towards drug testing. Speaking as a professional who would be subject to drug testing in the event of an accident at work, I am curious to see how employment laws will handle the firing of people for use of a legal substance when it can't be proven if someone is actually under the influence at the time of an incident. Barring more sophisticated tests, of course. There's probably still going to be economic discrimination in right to work states for this very reason. Luckily both of my jobs are in industries which never drug test because they would never be able to hire anyone but there is also zero liability for me being stoned at work. If you're a truck driver or work in a distribution center or something you're probably still going to be subject to test and termination for liability's sake.
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Nov 11, 2013 19:49
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19 o'clock posted:I received an FAQ flyer from our local police (Breckenridge, CO) explaining the marijuana laws here. It's amazing to me to think that on 1/1/14 I will be able to lawfully walk into a retail shop to purchase marijuana. In anticipatory appreciation, I'll point out that A64 stipulates that it does not limit the existing ability of any employer to test and discipline/terminate an employee for testing positing for the presence of cannabis. This is found in Colorado Constitution Article XVIII, Section 16(6)(d). Edit: and yeah, right to work poo poo. You can be fired for any pretext. gently caress this state's "libertarian" corporatist bent TenementFunster fucked around with this message at 20:08 on Nov 11, 2013 |
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Nov 11, 2013 20:04
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Paul MaudDib posted:Out of curiousity, what is wrong with a saliva swab test, or blood work? Swab tests are only indicative for 12-24 hours and follow-up blood work would give you an idea of active THC and metabolites. I suppose I'm not aware of saliva swab tests - and would those only work for smoke ingestion? Does the swab test catch edibles that aren't rigorously chewed (????)? I suppose I have to read more about where tech is for determining active THC. As for as right-to-work goes I can believe that employers can always manufacture a reason that fits the bill. I'm waiting for an instance where someone challenges their firing asserting that it was on grounds of marijuana use and wins. From there is what I'm curious about. Going back to my need for more education on current testing, though, it may not be that interesting if influence can be proven and not just presence.
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Nov 11, 2013 20:07
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TenementFunster posted:I have a professional interest here. Think you could post a picture of the flyer? I'd like to know how a CO law enforcement agency is advising the public re: A64. Thanks! I'll post it tonight when I'm home from work.
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Nov 11, 2013 20:08
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19 o'clock posted:I'll post it tonight when I'm home from work. 19 o'clock posted:I'm waiting for an instance where someone challenges their firing asserting that it was on grounds of marijuana use and wins.
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Nov 11, 2013 20:19
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If anything it will be even easier to fire employees you don't like in CO now that it is even more of a destination for young professionals (it already was thanks to skiing, now it's an extra desirable place to live!) Don't like someone's attitude? gently caress 'em, there's plenty more where they came from.
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Nov 11, 2013 20:33
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NathanScottPhillips posted:Colorado is a Right-to-Work state, they can fire you for any reason or no reason as long as they don't specifically say it's because of race/creed/sexual orientation/gender. TenementFunster posted:Edit: and yeah, right to work poo poo. You can be fired for any pretext. gently caress this state's "libertarian" corporatist bent At-will employment, not right to work, is the thing where you can be fired for any reason. Right to work deals with unions. My pet peeve is seeing the two constantly be mixed up.
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Nov 11, 2013 20:33
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At-will employment is bullshit. It has to be at least a daily power. Yet it's still weird that CO has legalized weed and yet still has the (taking from the libertarian notebook here) the massive encroachment on personal freedom that is At-will employment. But hey, Libertarians apparently don't get irony or hypocrisy.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:00
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This is massively off topic for this thread so I won't really respond further but At Will employment is spun as the ultimate freedom! You have the freedom to quit your job any time you want, and your employer has the same right to terminate you whenever they want. Everything is equal! Don't mind the fact that there is little consequence for the employer terminating an employee or an imbalance in power dynamics or anything.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:06
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Rigged Death Trap posted:
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Nov 11, 2013 22:24
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Powercrazy posted:There is nothing hypocritical about being a libertarian and supporting weed legalization. WampaLord posted:At-will employment, not right to work, is the thing where you can be fired for any reason. Right to work deals with unions.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:37
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TenementFunster posted:advocating laws to legalize weed while advocating laws that make it such that you can be immediately fired for something that has zero effect on your work performance is, yeah, super hypocritical. what good is making something legal if you can lose your livelihood for it? typical libertarian wonderland blindness It doesn't really seem that different from the public/private divide of the First Amendment really.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:45
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To be honest it reflects on my own concerns about the future of drug legislation; here in DC for instance there are competing bills before the city council for decrim and legalization. The decrim wouldn't really do anything. I wouldn't be surprised if all this was resolved in a way that still gave the government plenty of ways to crack down on poor/minority communities while enshrining yet another effective loophole for elites.
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Nov 11, 2013 22:48
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I have this thing in my head and I need to bring it out so I can roll it around in my fingers and look at it: is weed legalization in the US coming about right now in part because corporate interests see it as another way to open up new markets and make more money? Tinfoil hat and all, but the pervasiveness of capitalism in all aspects of society these days keeps surprising me.
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Nov 11, 2013 23:00
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