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Speaking of tourism, what are the implications for tourists who go to, say, Colorado, and then come back to their state and end up facing a drug test? Since THC can be detectable for quite some time, this either puts unlucky souls in a poo poo situation or provides a convenient out when a person tests positive. I'm assuming there will be more instances of the former than the latter, though, and that's concerning to me, from both a privacy perspective and an economic perspective. Finally, if marijuana is legalized in most, if not all places, how will that affect drug testing? I could definitely see it being the case that employers will still test employees and use test results as a reason to fire or not hire people. To give this some context, I live in Kansas, and it is entirely legal for an employer to dismiss an employee if the employer discovers their employee is gay. Should we expect to see a similar situation with legalized marijuana? I'm inclined to say yes, especially when it comes to employers trying to find reasons not to hire minorities.
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Jun 10, 2013 19:22
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Powercrazy posted:You are deluding yourself if you think that just because it is legal to use, it won't disqualify you from employment, parole violation, or any of the other bullshit stuff drug tests are used for. This is exactly the problem, though. As has been recently mentioned, medical marijuana is basically legalization for those who can afford and arrange for a medical marijuana license, while continuing to allow the powers that be to harass and prosecute the economically disadvantaged and non-whites. However, even if marijuana is legalized, as you've pointed out, it will still be possible to harass people because of a decision that is arguably private and personal. It is interesting to me how well this parallels with gay marriage in the sense that proponents of both are inordinately focused on simply legalizing the championed activity, naively assuming that legalization will solve all the problems. In both cases, unless legislation exists that prevents individuals from being denied employment and other benefits based on personal decisions, this stuff will continue to be terribly problematic. Edit: I guess the solution is to curtail the power of right-to-work laws/at-will employment, but fat chance of that happening. LuciferMorningstar fucked around with this message at 20:10 on Jun 10, 2013 |
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Jun 10, 2013 19:55
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Broken Machine posted:It is up to a year in jail for a first offense in KS, and that's for any amount, even just a roach or a tiny bud. If it's a second offense it's a mandatory minimum 10 months in jail, and the fine is up to 100k. Seriously the Sunflower state is just a bad place to be driving around with weed, especially if you have out of state plates. The only good place to be in KS with weed is Lawrence, as they have decriminalized it in the city and Lawrence is cool. Really?  Edit: This is apparently untrue. Source. Admittedly, the cops might take it less seriously and the court is liable to be less lenient, but still... LuciferMorningstar fucked around with this message at 00:56 on Jun 14, 2013 |
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Jun 14, 2013 00:54
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Delta-Wye posted:Rereading, you are right. My reading comprehension makes me a terrible engineer Well... The way they frame it, there are two categories: prohibition-related death and "self-inflicted" death. A reduction in prohibition-related death is a big deal because it doesn't necessarily lead to an increase in self-inflicted death or harm. If anything, I contend that the gains made by eliminating prohibition would vastly outweigh any additional losses in the area of self-inflicted issues. This becomes evident when one considers how the demand for marijuana fuels Mexican cartels.
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Jul 10, 2013 18:47
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Rep. Barnhart posted:“The war on drugs has been lost and we need to come up with something that works for us,” Barnhart said. As much as it thrills me to hear more people admit that the War on Drugs is either lost or failed, I feel like it's a bad publicity move. Words mean everything and there absolutely has to be a better way to spin it than "Pack it up. We've lost."
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Sep 6, 2013 01:22
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brokowski posted:To who ever reads this, I am interested in expanding my perspective on this complicated issue, so feel free to point out anything you think that I am wrong about. I am constantly being exposed to an extremely narrow minded bias on this issue so any opposing opinions are welcome. I think you're discounting the extent to which companies are ridiculously good at minimizing costs while maximizing output. The most expensive piece of produce I can think of is saffron, which apparently runs for (on the high end) $5,000/lb. If you think growing weed is hard, take a look at the saffron growth and harvesting process. And mind you, it can be had for cheaper. Marijuana is nowhere near as difficult to grow. See also twodot's examples. Marijuana can be grown almost anywhere and I'm sure once some reasonably large companies have some time to gently caress around, they'll figure out a process that makes cultivation a breeze.
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Sep 12, 2013 00:53
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You all may be interested in the work of American philosopher Alan Gewirth, which was summarized and applied to drug use by a guy by an Australian academic (I believe) by the name of Stevens. From a paper I wrote incorporating his discussion:quote:According to Stevens, Gewirth, in Reason and Morality, “provided a sound, universal basis for defining human needs, and therefore for defining rights and harms.” For Gewirth, people need freedom in order to achieve their own ends, and if one accepts that this applies to oneself, then one must also accept that this applies to others, as well. From this, Gewirth constructs a hierarchy of rights, where more basic rights cannot be infringed upon by less basic rights. The most basic rights are “basic rights,” which include life and good health. Harms to these rights are intolerable because they destroy agency. Next in line are nonsubtractive rights, which are meant to protect against objective partial losses, such as by theft. Finally, there are additive rights, which are those things that increase one’s abilities to fulfill goals. Stevens asserts that drug use is an additive right, and as such, we can use Gewirth’s argument to guide drug policy formulation (2011). And given that several studies, mostly from European countries where personal possession is decriminalized, have found that decriminalization/legalization is not related to increases in things like acquisitive crime, personal use, in a liberal society, at least, isn't particularly objectionable. Only when an individual's personal use impairs his own agency do things become problematic, and in that instance, because the individual has been denied his basic rights (probably primarily psychologically), the government is justified in intervening. I find Gewirth's conception of the Principle of Generic Consistency, which is what was summarized above, to be incredibly useful in discussions of values and entitlements because it provides a really excellent framework that is philosophically compatible with liberalism.
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May 7, 2014 01:11
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KingEup posted:Modern cigarettes are a highly engineered product designed to administer satisfying dose of pharmacologically active ingredients, including but not limited to nicotine, in a convenient, simple to use package which requires no written instructions and is deliberately marketed to appeal to peoples underlying psychological/social/economic insecurities/problems. Hahahahaha 
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May 12, 2014 17:36
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KernelSlanders posted:In other news, the NYT has an interesting piece on the [url=http://www.nytimes.com/2014/05/18/magazine/the-bud-light-ification-of-bud.html?src=twr&_r=1[economics of pot legalization[/url]. They do a lot of worrying about how the value plunge is unavoidable and, most importantly, bad for the businesses involved in producing and selling weed, but it seems like they're really just forgetting basic economics. The price is never going to fall to unprofitable levels because that would require the producers to basically volunteer to start losing money. If joints become as cheap as teabags, it will be because the producers figured out how to refine the process such that they still see a profit at that price.
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May 13, 2014 23:02
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KernelSlanders posted:Why does being a service industry matter? It's capital intensive and has high sunk and fixed costs with constant disruption. The point is selling that next seat is still better than not selling it even if it's still at a loss. This should never be an issue for marijuana, though. Growing may be capital-intensive to some extent, but it's also very easy to scale. If you go all-in on a bunch of stuff for a giant grow op, yeah, the stakes are higher, but if you start small and scale up as necessary, things ought to be okay. Production in Colorado right now is struggling to keep up with consumption, so there's clearly room to increase production.
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May 14, 2014 23:02
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KernelSlanders posted:Lets say (and I'm pulling numbers completely out of my rear end here) you spend a million dollars (in cash, no financing to keep it simple) to build a grow facility that you expect to last for 20 years. Your costs to operate it are $50k/year and you sell the crops for $200k. After your first year you book $100k in profits (200 revenue - 50 continued operation - 50 in depreciation). Next year, the price collapses and you can only sell the crops for $75k. Your choices are (A) run the operation in which case you have $25k net positive cash flow (75k - 50k) but book a loss of $25k (because of depreciation on the facility); or (B) don't run the operation, have zero cash flow, and book a $50k loss. That's why it makes sense to continue operating the business even at a loss. The loss of not operating it would be more. Okay, this is a fair point. I suppose it depends, to some extent, on the source of the price collapse?
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May 16, 2014 02:02
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KernelSlanders posted:I don't think the cause of the price collapse is necessarily the issue, although it's possible I'm overlooking something. What are you thinking in that regard? I think its the high fixed costs that hurts you here. I think the context of a price collapse ought to be considered. If weed is worth X now, and 1/2 X later, there has to be a reason for the decrease in value. We can ignore situations where weed just becomes illegal, because then the market ceases to exist. It also doesn't seem like a particularly plausible outcome. It seems more likely that value would decrease either due to too much product available relative to demand or due to a new producer devising a more efficient method of growing weed. If the former, then I suppose you have a point. That said, given the struggle to keep up with demand, I don't think it's a very likely outcome. It seems much more likely that production will ramp up to meet demand, and probably not overshoot it sufficiently to put a lot of producers in the red. The latter seems like a plausible outcome that could occur at practically any time, but in such a case, one can hardly claim that it was the fixed costs holding the "less innovative" producers out, when the reality is that they were simply outclassed.
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May 16, 2014 03:13
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Install Windows posted:So don't smoke pot. None of those businesses are likely to start being ok with you smoking pot even if it gets legalized federally. They're not testing you for smoking pot because of its illegality. This is an absolutely asinine sentiment. As long as an employee is able to adequately perform his or her job, it shouldn't matter what they choose to do in their free time. Advocating that people not do a given activity because businesses don't like it only further enhances the excessive amounts of power those business already have.
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May 26, 2014 03:35
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Install Windows posted:They didn't adequately perform their job if they're causing accidents leading to serious injury at work. When you say "So don't smoke pot," I take it you mean at all, whatsoever, because according to you, business hate pot regardless of whether or not it's legal.
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May 26, 2014 04:17
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KingEup posted:CO Governor, originally opposed to cannabis legalisation, is coming around: What is funniest to me about this is that studies from European countries in which drugs are decriminalized have already shown that these outcomes are pretty typical. Why, oh why, do we not make use of the knowledge we have accumulated thus far? 
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May 27, 2014 02:59
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hayden. posted:You quoted before my edit because I wanted to make it clear that isn't my opinion, but the opinion many managers I've met have had. Because that doesn't involve much critical thought on the part of the individual doing the hiring? I guess if you've got two perfectly equal candidates and a drug test is all that separates them, you could use that as a rationale, but what's the underlying reasoning? Failing a drug test alone doesn't necessarily mean anything. Would that same employer discriminate on the basis of tobacco or alcohol consumption? Why or why not? What is it that a drug test tells an employer about a potential employee? You mention responsibility as a potential issue, but aren't there other ways to make those evaluations? As someone who is a drug user and has a pretty solid academic record, if a potential employer tells me that he can tell I'm irresponsible or immoral or whatever because I can't pass a drug test, I'll probably kindly invite said employer to go gently caress himself. And like the above poster noted, a lot of the drugs that are more associated with negative stuff clear out of your system faster, so in reality, a drug test tells you very, very little about a person. If someone is hopelessly addicted and irresponsible, you'll probably be able to figure that out without a drug test. E: The real question is this: What does a drug test tell you about someone? I'd argue that it doesn't tell you much at all.
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May 28, 2014 03:26
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Mr. Nice! posted:"First off, gently caress you" is a very valid and poignant way to begin a rebuttal in debate. Sometimes it really is the most appropriate response.
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May 28, 2014 17:22
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Ulf posted:A glimpse at the sordid underworld of legal marijuana: http://www.vox.com/2014/5/27/5740568/colorados-director-of-pot-enforcement-thinks-legalization-is-going It's not just Colorado being quick, it's Colorado being smart, I think. People saw they had to move quickly, and instead of using their institutional powers to slow things down or whatever, they asked "How can we cope with what we've been given?" Honestly, adopting emergency rules and then revising them seems pretty brilliant and I love the approach. Make some broad, sensible strokes first, then revise later, and continue revising as the situation develops.
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May 29, 2014 01:27
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KernelSlanders posted:I believe that's called governing, and I'm told there are still legislative and executive departments in some places in the world that do it on occasion. If only it were consistent...
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May 29, 2014 04:19
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AYC posted:http://time.com/2814282/marijuana-sleep-deprivation/ ...and then there's this: quote:The research team notes that the study was not designed to determined causality, so they cannot determine the exact relationship between marijuana use and sleep disturbance. Predictable.
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Jun 3, 2014 21:50
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Jago posted:Welcome to the wide world of manufacturing! Yeah, but given that this is manufacturing, it's only a matter of time before automated systems are developed and widely-adopted, right?
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Jun 14, 2014 20:38
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AYC posted:One of the few concerns I have with national marijuana legalization is the large-scale corporatization of the industry. I like the "Mom & Pop" Colorado rec shops, and I'd much rather choose from a variety of local dispensaries than buy my weed from Phillip Morris. That's hardly sufficient reason to argue against legalization, though, considering the harms association with marijuana's present status.
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Jun 19, 2014 04:36
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superjew posted:Sheldon Adelson has donated $2.5 million to the No on 2 campaign here in Florida because I'm sure he cares about the children or some bullshit. I really hope I don't watch "free speech" ruin progress here. Why??? I'm surprised he isn't lobbying for weed in casinos or something. It's not like anyone except prisons and the DEA really stands to gain from getting in the way of the weed train.
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Jun 19, 2014 22:00
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computer parts posted:It sounds like a petty distinction but it's a very marked difference. If you include that as "the cost of stopping people from using marijuana" you may as well include how black market prices are x% over a free market value and that's an additional cost to society. Additionally to what Spoondick said, we're primarily concerned with federal spending here. Those tax dollars could be allocated somewhere else to serve a more noble purpose. We're not trying to figure out the best way to make marijuana economically and legally available to society.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:11
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computer parts posted:Really, because that seems to be a major policy push ITT and anyone who wants to see marijuana discouraged but legal is called out as a prohibitionist. Well, there's really little need, I suspect, to go to extra lengths to discourage use beyond some basic regulatory measures not unlike those employed with alcohol. People who are arguing for significantly less than that can't really be taken seriously.
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Jun 29, 2014 21:52
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computer parts posted:Even if it was legalized federally I think there are still drug laws for the individual states that you'd have to repeal. It would probably come down to court rulings and financial incentives. The real issue would end up being the extent to which distribution is legal, since states could probably decide whether or not to allow stores and how much to tax.
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Jul 4, 2014 23:57
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Hog Obituary posted:So the City of Berkeley has proposed an ordinance requiring MMJ dispensaries to give 2% of their product to extremely low income folks for free What the hell is this? Does someone sincerely believe this is a good idea, or are they just going out of their way to feed stereotypes?
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Jul 5, 2014 20:54
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T. Bombastus posted:What stereotype does this feed, exactly? The main issue with MMJ (as discussed frequently, even on this page) is that it essentially becomes "legalization for the privileged." This is the first attempt I've seen to counteract that. "Those poors just want to get high and have us pay for it. This is socialism, etc, etc." It's not a true assessment of the situation, but you can't seriously tell me that it isn't obvious how this could be spun into something really negative-sounding.
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Jul 5, 2014 21:46
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That labeling looks really good! Assuming it's all accurate, that is.
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Jul 9, 2014 07:19
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Dr.Caligari posted:Since it is for consumption, doesn't it have to be? Is there a government body (FDA?) who oversee's this yet? The federal government still sees marijuana as illegal, so no, they have no present interest in setting up a body to regulate. Washington, Colorado, and the other medical states probably do have some sort of regulation going, but based on Colorado's edibles issues, the regulation is less than stellar. Washington may do a better job in that regard.
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Jul 9, 2014 19:38
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size1one posted:You. Unless you didn't mean anything you said. It sure sounded like you were giving your honest opinion. Even if he was giving an honest opinion, nothing he said was particularly libertarian. It's not like he ever suggested that the government shouldn't get involved.
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Jul 11, 2014 19:28
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Jeffrey posted:I'm not crazy about sin taxes at all and WA's seem pretty absurd. I know WA doesn't have income tax but I'd rather they introduce that than gouge low income folks with a flat sales tax. I can see a place for sin taxes where consumption of a product leads to increased costs (as with tobacco and health care), if the sin taxes are used primarily to deal with said increased costs. Beyond that, if people want to do things like fund schools and whatnot, the whole community should carry that "burden." And if funding education is seen as a burden, well, I don't really know what to tell you.
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Jul 12, 2014 04:26
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Xandu posted:Well he's right, the answer is just to legalize it and develop domestic production. But then the cartels will come here!!! Don't you know they're already running the show in Colorado, which is now a lawless wasteland??? 
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Jul 12, 2014 23:49
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Xandu posted:Well, the theme of the piece is really that we can't view it (or substance abuse in general) as a law enforcement problem. That's pretty impressive progress. Not really. The whole response is almost entirely garbage. quote:We agree that the criminal justice system is in need of reform and that disproportionality exists throughout the system. However, marijuana legalization is not the silver bullet solution to the issue. Thanks for acknowledging the problem and not doing anything about it. There is no silver bullet to racism, and eliminating legal avenues through which non-whites and the non-affluent can be persecuted is probably a pretty good thing to do, especially when things like drug laws seem to be rooted at least in part in keeping the non-whites from getting to rowdy. In short, the problem is being acknowledged and then nothing is being done about it. We could allow some people to independently choose to take on a self-chosen disadvantage by consuming marijuana while reducing the unchosen disadvantage of being non-white in the U.S., but apparently that's just not acceptable. This is the core issue. No one has to consume marijuana, but they could choose to do so. In a liberal society, which the United States claims to be, this should be an okay thing, since consumption generally doesn't negatively affect others. That debate is wholly ignored. quote:While law enforcement will always play an important role in combating violent crime associated with the drug trade, the Obama Administration approaches substance use as a public health issue, not merely a criminal justice problem. So what are you doing about it? Drug trade is hardly the same as drug use, and let's be honest, how much of the marijuana trade is violent? I bet, relative to other drug markets where the cartels operate more prominently, violence is a lot more problematic. Thus, it's dishonest to associate violent crime and "the drug trade" with the marijuana legalization debate. quote:Marijuana is addictive. Estimates from research suggest that about 9 percent of users become addicted to marijuana. This number increases to about 17 percent among those who start young and to 25-50 percent among people who use marijuana daily.[4] Okay. Lots of things are addictive. If this is a serious core issue for any administration, they have a whole hell of a lot of hoops to jump through to explain why marijuana is bad because its addictive, but other things aren't. If this is all about "weed is bad for kids," then fine. No rational individual should dispute that. We try to keep alcohol and drugs away from kids, we could do the same with marijuana. quote:Drugged driving is a threat to our roadways. Marijuana significantly impairs coordination and reaction time and is the illicit drug most frequently found to be involved in automobile accidents, including fatal ones. This is some shady wording right here. People, I suspect, will read this and assume that marijuana is as much as, if not more of a threat than, alcohol right now, and that's not the case. Alcohol is a massive roadway threat to, so if this is another real basis for keeping marijuana illegal, then alcohol really ought to go to. Or we could just expect everyone to not drive while impaired. Such a difficult concept, I know. quote:But we as policy makers cannot ignore the basic scientific fact that marijuana is addictive and marijuana use has harmful consequences. Increased consumption leads to higher public health and financial costs for society. Addictive substances like alcohol and tobacco, which are legal and taxed, already result in much higher social costs than the revenue they generate. The cost to society of alcohol alone is estimated to be more than 15 times the revenue gained by its taxation. So now we're being rational and playing it all by the numbers now? If an administration is going to play "follow the science and data!" on this issue, I expect them to do the same thing with other issues, which means Obama had better be ready to change a whole lot of inefficient and costly policies. Except that's hard and keeping weed illegal is (relatively) easy, so they'll just go with that. If we're really trying to minimize "costs of society," then let's revisit the keeping non-violent drug users out of prison thing. Costs to society from marijuana consumption are chump change in the grand scheme of things. quote:the Obama Administration and the Office of National Drug Control Policy remain committed to drug use prevention, treatment, support for recovery, and innovative criminal justice strategies to break the cycle of drug use and associated crime. This approach is helping improve public health and safety in communities across the United States. "This approach is helping improve public health," is it? Really? These innovative strategies are happening right now? Please, tell me more about them and show me data about them. I would love to hear about how you're keeping black kids out of prison while also ignoring drug policies in the country. quote:Research also indicates that policies making drugs more available would likely not eliminate the black market or improve public health and safety, as promoted by marijuana advocates. This is wrong as far as I can tell. "Would likely not," is a far cry from "empirically demonstrated to not." I've seen some European countries where possession is at least decriminalized, and guess what? General consumption goes down. The black market doesn't disappear is dealing is still illegal, but it's not like that should shock anyone in any capacity. Similarly, drug availability generally does not cause an increase in acquisitive crime, so that shouldn't be a factor here in terms of safety. I also would like to know what "black market" means. If the black market is some guy in Colorado growing some poo poo in his basement and selling in to friends, then please, tell me why I should care because I'm really struggling. If it's a cartel/gang issue, then sure, but if distribution is legal, then the gangs and cartels literally have no reason to continue operating on an illegal basis. Prohibition should be really informative, and people seem to enjoy ignoring it. quote:Any discussion on the issue should be guided by science and evidence, not ideology and wishful thinking. 
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Jul 29, 2014 23:34
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Py-O-My posted:Yes, please listen to the wisdom of Peter Bensinger and Robert L.DuPont. If marijuana is legalized, then workplace testing for marijuana might become less common. And that would cause Bensinger, Dupont & Associates to make less money from drug testing services. We can't have that. Hahahaha of loving course.
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Aug 2, 2014 00:42
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SedanChair posted:*every Crip I've ever known vanishes into thin air* People around here (painfully white upper-middle class brats) call it "getting crossfaded." Definitely a thing.
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Aug 2, 2014 01:24
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Here's what I don't get: Why are people totally comfortable saying "Look how bad tobacco is! We don't need something else like that! Oh but let's not do anything about tobacco, okay?" I mean, what the gently caress people? How does this get rationalized? If it's something like "Well it's already legal can't change that nope," then lol.
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Aug 3, 2014 05:57
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computer parts posted:Tobacco is already being slowly smothered though. Well, sure. Everyone is figuring out that tobacco is bad news. But if we know that tobacco is bad just like we "know" cannabis is "bad," then why not just wipe it all out? Every second we don't act to eliminate the consumption of tobacco products is another second a child could be putting his or her first cigarette between his or her lips!  Elotana posted:The current "smothering" tobacco regulations would be several orders of magnitude better than cannabis prohibition. Tobacco's decline is mostly a function of successful, long-term education because it is actually a really awful drug (at least when smoked). And then there's this, too. What's that? Regulating a product and making people aware of what it does or does not do helps people make informed decisions?
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Aug 3, 2014 08:13
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KingEup posted:
You've got to be kidding. You promise you didn't just whip that up in paint?
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Aug 11, 2014 09:04
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Brave New World posted:Tip O'Neill once said "all politics are local". I've often thought that one of the best courses of action for the anti-War On Drugs camp would be to fight for decriminalization bills in every municipality possible. I think it would go a long way towards showing how most Americans really feel about the issue, instead of a bunch of politicians owned by the PIC presuming to decide for us. This might not work at well at all. I suspect that in states that have a state government hostile to decrim, those state governments would shut down any and all local efforts to effect change. In states where the state government is at least tolerant of municipalities demonstrating some autonomy, many municipalities would reject the movement, leading to the illusion that things are highly contested in some states.
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Sep 9, 2014 23:44
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