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Pohl posted:A lot of those are suicides. http://www.cdc.gov/homeandrecreationalsafety/overdose/facts.html This link doesn't have the breakdown of number of illegal opiate overdose deaths, so it's hard to compare. The Wall Street Journal (link below) cites a CDC claim of 3094 heroin overdose deaths in 2010, vs a prescription opiate death rate of 16,651. That means heroin is responsible for only 16% of opiate overdose deaths, but there are also deaths from other illegal opiates. The 2/3rds figure seems conservative, if anything. http://online.wsj.com/news/articles/SB10001424052702304851104579361250012275942 For people not interested in clicking the links, 38,329 people died in 2010 from drug overdoses. 78% of these were accidental, 14% were suicides, 4% undetermined. 60% of these were related to prescription drugs. Among those who died via overdose of prescription drugs, 75% used opiates, 29% used benzodiazepines, 18% used antidepressants, 8% used anti-parkinsonians or anti-epileptics. A lot of cases used multiple drugs, hence these numbers are over 100%. Some of this data is from the link below. http://www.drugwarfacts.org/cms/Causes_of_Death#sthash.pSatzEae.dpbs
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May 1, 2014 14:17
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peengers posted:Well, that's certainly some hard-hitting science there. I'm glad that fact-based medicine has pointed this out, I'm going to give DARE a call and volunteer to help ban this devil weed. The study is crap and JAHA is a fifth tier journal. We're giving it far more attention than it deserves.
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May 1, 2014 14:18
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KernelSlanders posted:The study is crap and JAHA is a fifth tier journal. We're giving it far more attention than it deserves. 
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May 1, 2014 15:15
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I didn't see this covered in the thread, but it looks like a Virginia (Republican!) representative introduced a congressional bill to make cannabis schedule II, so that states that pass medical laws don't have to have that whole conflict of federal and state law thing going on. http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs...ct/?tid=up_next The optimist in me says that it should be embraced by all because it only drops it to schedule 2, and doesn't allow anything else on the federal level, but the realist in me says that it will die in committee or something along those lines. I'm guessing that this would have a better chance after November, but do any of you guys have any thoughts on whether this actually does have a chance?
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May 1, 2014 17:12
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SgtScruffy posted:I'm guessing that this would have a better chance after November, but do any of you guys have any thoughts on whether this actually does have a chance?
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May 1, 2014 17:59
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Elotana posted:No. It will be referred to the Subcommittee on Health and Joe Pitts (Chairman, R-PA) will ignore it, same as he did with Barney Frank's MMJ bill in the 112th. Or maybe it's different this time. By legitimizing mmj at the federal level, it gives the doj more latitude to go after recreational users in WA/CO.
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May 1, 2014 18:51
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KernelSlanders posted:Or maybe it's different this time. By legitimizing mmj at the federal level, it gives the doj more latitude to go after recreational users in WA/CO. I've said this before in here, but: them and what fuckin' army? They already have the degree of latitude that they need, and the federal government already recognizes the medicinal uses of cannabis (they own patents on one, and there are already federal MMJ patients, albeit a very small number of them). The reasons they aren't going after recreational users can be usefully debated. The reason they can't do so in a meaningful way is because the horse done hopped out the barn. The chickens have flown the coop. The genie has farted out of the bottle. Federal prosecution of recreational cannabis users is dead, and California will drive a stake through its heart in 2016.
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May 1, 2014 19:00
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As for users I think you are right, and I should have been more careful with my terminology. As for growers and distributers, why are you so sure a new AG won't decide to resume enforcing federal laws that are still on the books?
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May 1, 2014 20:24
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KernelSlanders posted:As for users I think you are right, and I should have been more careful with my terminology. As for growers and distributers, why are you so sure a new AG won't decide to resume enforcing federal laws that are still on the books? Assume you've spent your whole life getting to the office of Attorney General. Do you throw away your entire career and commit political suicide for the sake of enforcing a federal law that there is almost no support for? Seriously, you'd get dogpiled by the pro-Marijuana people, the small government people, the state's rights people, and likely the elderly who are increasingly more on-board with the MMJ. It's one thing to stonewall legalization, it's another to tell people who already legalized it that they're not allowed to govern their own policies on the matter. If the Obama administration had moved before these laws took effect they could have minimized the damage, but at this point, I don't think anybody has the political capital or likely ever will. Legalization is here to stay in WA and CO. That's just life. Mirthless fucked around with this message at 20:45 on May 1, 2014 |
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May 1, 2014 20:41
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Mirthless posted:Assume you've spent your whole life getting to the office of Attorney General. Do you throw away your entire career and commit political suicide for the sake of enforcing a federal law that there is almost no support for? Assume you're a tough-on-crime Southern governor and established culture warrior who comes in second in the GOP primary and is given the AG job in exchange for bowing out early to protect the nominee's war chest. You'd like nothing more than to go smack up some hippies on the West Coast who think the federal government should tell you how to run your schools and elections, but openly flaunts the law when it tells them not to be selling drugs. Maybe you're feeling particularly generous and give them 30 days notice rather than going in guns blazing. I don't doubt that the no-enforcement scenario is more likely than one in which there's a crackdown, but I'm surprised by the amount of confidence people have that a new administration couldn't possibly reverse course.
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May 1, 2014 21:00
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Mirthless posted:Assume you've spent your whole life getting to the office of Attorney General. Do you throw away your entire career and commit political suicide for the sake of enforcing a federal law that there is almost no support for? Yup. I agree with you. But I don't think it will ever be 100% legal in the US. Ever.
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May 1, 2014 21:01
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Yup. I agree with you. But I don't think it will ever be 100% legal in the US. Ever. In fairness, even in just this thread we can look back earlier at posters who insisted that absolutely never would any US state legalize recreational marijuana.
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May 1, 2014 21:06
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KernelSlanders posted:Assume you're a tough-on-crime Southern governor and established culture warrior who comes in second in the GOP primary and is given the AG job in exchange for bowing out early to protect the nominee's war chest. You'd like nothing more than to go smack up some hippies on the West Coast who think the federal government should tell you how to run your schools and elections, but openly flaunts the law when it tells them not to be selling drugs. Maybe you're feeling particularly generous and give them 30 days notice rather than going in guns blazing. There's not going to be another administration for another 2 years at which point a couple more states will have legalized including the most populous in the nation. By that point, I expect Colorado and Washington to have been proven a success which should further increase public support for legalization. And the GOP is going to face a serious demographic challenge as its base of ornery white folk dwindle and are replaced by black and hispanic people. For the GOP(or the Democrats for that matter), a crackdown will also mean giving up Colorado for good. And there's simply not the public support for a marijuana crackdown: a solid majority of Americans support legalization and even more are opposed to the federal government sabotaging the states' legalization programs. Even Pat Robertson thinks pot should be legal. Things could always change and a hard shift to the right could undo the progress we've made, but I just don't see that as a likely scenario.
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May 1, 2014 22:28
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Yup. I agree with you. But I don't think it will ever be 100% legal in the US. Ever. I'm not a betting man but if you're going to make a prediction this dumb I'd happily put money on it. I'd say this is like saying 10-15 years ago that we'll never have gay marriage.
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May 1, 2014 22:36
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Yup. I agree with you. But I don't think it will ever be 100% legal in the US. Ever. Define 100% legal? If you mean untaxed and unregulated, yeah, I agree with you, that will never happen in the USA. If you it they will never become a recreational substance regulated like Tabacco and Alcohol, I think you are probably being a little too cynical. We have made more progress in the last six years with Marijuana legalization than were made in the previous thirty. The tide is shifting towards legalization and the wider state legalization spreads, the more the federal government will be pressured to follow suit.
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May 1, 2014 22:40
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Washington won't be a roaring success in the sense Colorado will be. I doubt it will be actively harmful or anything but I-502 implementation has been a turd sandwich and the courts and legislature seem bound and determined to kill MMJ dispensaries which are addressing a large part of the current demand and will put further strain on the max square-footage. You'll probably see window prices north of $15/g which won't compete very well with street prices.
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May 1, 2014 23:41
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Elotana posted:Washington won't be a roaring success in the sense Colorado will be. I doubt it will be actively harmful or anything but I-502 implementation has been a turd sandwich and the courts and legislature seem bound and determined to kill MMJ dispensaries which are addressing a large part of the current demand and will put further strain on the max square-footage. You'll probably see window prices north of $15/g which won't compete very well with street prices. In a lot of areas this will be just fine for residents. Do you think the people working in Redmond care if cannabis is 50 dollars a gram? They just want to be able to buy and use it legally and I think its more important to get non-violent possession offenders out of the penal system then making cannabis actually available to people.
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May 1, 2014 23:52
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Yes, amazing progress has been made in 2 states (lol) since cannabis prohibition. Unfortunately the pharmaceutical industry, prison industry, and alcohol/tobacco industry have nearly unlimited amounts of money to spend against legalization, and they are succeeding far more than any wimpy cannabis lobbyists. I mean, I don't doubt many states will have legalized recreational weed, but it will never be 100% legal. There is just too much money being made off it's illegality to make it come true. Call me cynical.
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May 2, 2014 00:01
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It'll never be 100% legal because municipalities can ban it at will. But that's probably not the definition of "100% legal" you mean.
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May 2, 2014 00:04
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:they are succeeding far more than any wimpy cannabis lobbyists.
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May 2, 2014 00:06
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twodot posted:What metric are you using to come to this conclusion? I'm not aware of any state where marijuana laws are tightening, which for me would mean that cannabis lobbyists are unambiguously succeeding more, since there are multiple states taking steps towards legalization. Let me know when the DEA changes it's stance on cannabis, or it gets re-scheduled from S1.
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May 2, 2014 00:13
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Let me know when the DEA changes it's stance on cannabis, or it gets re-scheduled from S1.
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May 2, 2014 00:29
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twodot posted:Like when they changed their stance to not raid medical marijuana places in compliance with state law? You didn't answer my question directly, are you saying the only way you would consider "cannabis lobbyists" to succeed is if policy change happens at the federal level? There are many activists (most probably) that aren't even attempting to effect change there, measuring their success by that metric seems foolish or done in bad faith. They are still, to this day, raiding cannabis businesses in many states. Yes, I mean to say that I doubt the federal government will ever make cannabis legal. Meaning that under federal law, cannabis will never have the chance to be regulated and treated like alcohol.
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May 2, 2014 00:42
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computer parts posted:It'll never be 100% legal because municipalities can ban it at will. By that definition alcohol isn't 100% legal. e: right. That was your point. 
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May 2, 2014 01:27
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:They are still, to this day, raiding cannabis businesses in many states. Following that then, do you think that more states will legalize? I suppose the alternative is that no one else manages to pass it and the experiments in CO and WA fail due to pressure from inside and outside of the states. If more states do legalize, how could the federal government ignore it?
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May 2, 2014 01:28
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Inspector Hound posted:Following that then, do you think that more states will legalize? I suppose the alternative is that no one else manages to pass it and the experiments in CO and WA fail due to pressure from inside and outside of the states. If more states do legalize, how could the federal government ignore it? I think a few states will legalize it, it's inevitable. I would be very surprised if only 2 states out of 50 legalized cannabis. However, you're forgetting how much resistance and inertia exists in the US regarding this issue. Like I said before, there are just too many industries that depend on keeping it illegal for cannabis to be regulated by the free market. e: I mean, we have a president who was a literal stoner fail to do any meaningful changes in the federal government to it's cannabis policy, and it doesn't look like there are gonna be many contenders for 2016 that have this as a top priority. It just doesn't look like anything is gonna change. 
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May 2, 2014 01:49
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:e: I mean, we have a president who was a literal stoner fail to do any meaningful changes in the federal government to it's cannabis policy, and it doesn't look like there are gonna be many contenders for 2016 that have this as a top priority. It just doesn't look like anything is gonna change. At the height of the Carter administration's push to liberalize drug laws, public support for legalization barely cracked 30%. Support is now over 50 percent and support for MMJ is over 75%. And whereas the post-Vietnam America of the '70s had extremely strong hang-ups about marijuana use(because it was associated with uppity blacks and subversive hippies), that's no longer the case, especially given the success of medical marijuana. And while the alcohol industry and the pharmaceutical industry are both opposed to pot legalization, I don't think they see this as a live-or-die issue and I think the alcohol industry in particular sees it as an inevitability.
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May 2, 2014 02:59
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:I think a few states will legalize it, it's inevitable. I would be very surprised if only 2 states out of 50 legalized cannabis. However, you're forgetting how much resistance and inertia exists in the US regarding this issue. Like I said before, there are just too many industries that depend on keeping it illegal for cannabis to be regulated by the free market. That's some nice editing by NORML. Here it is with a bit more context. He is coming out for decriminalization at the federal level, but not necessarily the states, and certainly not legalization. Jimmy Carter posted:Therefore, I support legislation amending Federal law to eliminate all Federal criminal penalties for the possession of up to one ounce of marijuana. This decriminalization is not legalization. It means only that the Federal penalty for possession would be reduced and a person would received a fine rather than a criminal penalty. Federal penalties for trafficking would remain in force and the states would remain free to adopt whatever laws they wish concerning the marijuana smoker.
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May 2, 2014 03:02
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http://www.bizjournals.com/seattle/blog/2014/05/one-day-to-lottery-results-entrepreneurs-wait-to.html Washington will award its 334 state licenses on Friday. I still think capping the number of stores is silly and that Washington's rules are needlessly esoteric.
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May 2, 2014 03:16
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FreshlyShaven posted:At the height of the Carter administration's push to liberalize drug laws, public support for legalization barely cracked 30%. Support is now over 50 percent and support for MMJ is over 75%. And whereas the post-Vietnam America of the '70s had extremely strong hang-ups about marijuana use(because it was associated with uppity blacks and subversive hippies), that's no longer the case, especially given the success of medical marijuana. And while the alcohol industry and the pharmaceutical industry are both opposed to pot legalization, I don't think they see this as a live-or-die issue and I think the alcohol industry in particular sees it as an inevitability. And what does public support for something mean to a politician that only listens to the highest "donor"? Sorry dude, I get what you're saying, but the truth is no one is going to legalize it any time soon.
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May 2, 2014 03:17
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:And what does public support for something mean to a politician that only listens to the highest "donor"? Sorry dude, I get what you're saying, but the truth is no one is going to legalize it any time soon. Federally, no, but the that's the beauty of state-level legalization. The big shift will come when a state legalizes it legislatively, rather than with an initiative.
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May 2, 2014 03:19
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AYC posted:Federally, no, but the that's the beauty of state-level legalization. And that's exactly what I'm arguing, the federal government is not going to legalize anything any time soon. Maybe the majority of states (but never in the south, sorry) will legalize it. But the DEA is never going to say "marijuana is ok".
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May 2, 2014 03:22
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:And that's exactly what I'm arguing, the federal government is not going to legalize anything any time soon. Maybe the majority of states (but never in the south, sorry) will legalize it. But the DEA is never going to say "marijuana is ok". Then the question becomes "How high will support have to be before a President is willing to openly defy the DEA and back marijuana legalization?" I think it'll happen sooner than you think. The dye has been cast, and there's no way marijuana is going to be re-legalizes.
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May 2, 2014 03:45
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AYC posted:Then the question becomes "How high will support have to be before a President is willing to openly defy the DEA and back marijuana legalization?" How soon do you think is "soon"? People have been saying the poo poo you're saying now since 1960.
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May 2, 2014 03:48
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:How soon do you think is "soon"? People have been saying the poo poo you're saying now since 1960. Marijuana wasn't legal to sell in two states in 1960.
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May 2, 2014 03:54
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AYC posted:Marijuana wasn't legal to sell in two states in 1960. Yea, this will have a measurable effect, but not to the people that matter. We're always going to be electing the same kinds of politicians because that's how the system is rigged. I mean the head of the DEA has been talking trash about the white house's lack of response regarding this, and nothing's gonna happen to her. In fact, if I remember correctly, she said that she and the DEA will fight against legalization efforts even harder. Sorry dude, but the federal government marches to another song.
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May 2, 2014 04:00
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Yea, this will have a measurable effect, but not to the people that matter. We're always going to be electing the same kinds of politicians because that's how the system is rigged. I mean the head of the DEA has been talking trash about the white house's lack of response regarding this, and nothing's gonna happen to her. In fact, if I remember correctly, she said that she and the DEA will fight against legalization efforts even harder. Sorry dude, but the federal government marches to another song. It's generally bad policy to fire people in the government for disagreeing with you on policy. In fact, that's sort of the kind of thing that dictators do.
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May 2, 2014 05:21
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:I don't think it will ever be 100% legal in the US. Ever. http://m.youtube.com/watch?v=C2wrtp1QVdQ
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May 2, 2014 05:23
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Tight Booty Shorts posted:Yea, this will have a measurable effect, but not to the people that matter. We're always going to be electing the same kinds of politicians because that's how the system is rigged. I mean the head of the DEA has been talking trash about the white house's lack of response regarding this, and nothing's gonna happen to her. In fact, if I remember correctly, she said that she and the DEA will fight against legalization efforts even harder. Sorry dude, but the federal government marches to another song. Given that the DoJ has explicitly given banks an OK to work with marijuana businesses on some level if they're following state law (link), how do you feel justified in making a blanket statement that the entire federal government will not change on this issue in the foreseeable future? I mean, people like Leonhart whose job to some degree depends on being drug warriors are not really surprising when they take a negative stance on legalization. That doesn't mean that they control what's going on, though. Eletriarnation fucked around with this message at 05:40 on May 2, 2014 |
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May 2, 2014 05:38
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Eletriarnation posted:Given that the DoJ has explicitly given banks an OK to work with marijuana businesses on some level if they're following state law (link), how do you feel justified in making a blanket statement that the entire federal government will not change on this issue in the foreseeable future? We live in a capitalist society, there is just too much money being made in CO for banks not to make a profit on it. And do you really think the for-profit prison industry, which is incredibly powerful, is just going to let legalization happen? Do you think that there are any viable presidential candidates that have marijuana legalization as their top priority? How many years do you think it will take for the DEA and the fed government to regulate cannabis like alcohol?
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May 2, 2014 15:08
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