Drug legalization thread

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Drug legalization thread

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

computer parts posted:

Nullification of federal law, essentially.

Can you explain this, because it doesn't make any sense to me? The nullification cases I'm aware of are either federal law making demands of states (and states can't ignore those demands by passing laws) or states trying to preempt federal action. I don't see any standing to complain that Colorado is only arresting people for marijuana possession if they are under 21.

# ¿ Oct 11, 2012 15:50

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 09:28

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

computer parts posted:

It's this one. Federal law states that a Schedule I drug, marijuana has no medical value and that it is illegal to make, possess, sell, etc it. By legalizing it, the states are saying that there actually is some value in it, and they're actually going to *tax* it as well, not just ignore federal law as is the status quo.

The tax portion seems attackable, especially given the history of the Marijuana Tax Act, but I don't see any conflict in declining to have laws criminalizing marijuana.

I live in Washington, and our code seems to define our own scheduling which may be different from federal scheduling (the board may place not shall):

quote:

(a) The state board of pharmacy shall place a substance in Schedule I upon finding that the substance:
(1) has high potential for abuse;
(2) has no currently accepted medical use in treatment in the United States; and
(3) lacks accepted safety for use in treatment under medical supervision.
(b) The board may place a substance in Schedule I without making the findings required by subsection (a) of this section if the substance is controlled under Schedule I of the federal Controlled Substances Act by a federal agency as the result of an international treaty, convention, or protocol.

http://apps.leg.wa.gov/rcw/default.aspx?cite=69.50.203

twodot fucked around with this message at 17:46 on Oct 11, 2012

# ¿ Oct 11, 2012 17:24

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Powercrazy posted:

It's much safer to buy drugs when you get to your destination then it is road-trip with them.

Is this true? If it's true at all, I would guess that it would come down to race. If you buy in a legal state, there is no chance of being arrested at purchase. Driving with marijuana is only dangerous if you both get pulled over and searched. I've never been in a car that was searched by the police and I've been pulled over exactly once, but my demographic is definitely less likely to be pulled over or searched.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 17:19

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Broken Machine posted:

Specifically with respect to Colorado, if you're travelling East, the LE in counties in Western Kansas (really the Western 2/3rds of the state) have nothing better to do, and a vested interest in pulling you over and arresting you for cannabis.

Even if I grant you this (and I'm not prepared to), this doesn't support the contention. The claim is that driving through western Kansas with marijuana is more dangerous than purchasing marijuana and driving home where you are going to (which, if you are crossing the border to purchase drugs, is presumably near Colorado, so very possibly, western Kansas). Even if random searches are more common around the Colorado border, we would need to compare that to random drug busts and random searches at whatever the destination is.

twodot fucked around with this message at 18:08 on Jun 13, 2013

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 17:54

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Powercrazy posted:

You are absolutely more likely to be pulled over then you are to be caught buying drugs.

Care to cite this? I wouldn't even know where to begin finding per mile likelihood of having your car searched versus percentage of drug buys that result in arrests.

# ¿ Jun 13, 2013 18:17

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Tim Selaty Jr posted:

Under the proposed rules, pot shops will have to be 1000 feet or more away from any videogame arcade. Because those exist still.

For people who don't live in Seattle, the only arcade I can think of that is open to minors is Gameworks, but there are numerous places in and around downtown where you can play arcade cabinets: Shorty's, John John, Raygun are all within walking distance of Gameworks.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2013 17:25

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

MixMasterMalaria posted:

So does this just apply to arcades open to minors or to all arcades?

Just open to minors, here's the actual text:

quote:

Per RCW 69.50.331, the board shall
not issue a new marijuana license if any of the following are within
one thousand feet of the premises to be licensed: Any elementary or
secondary schools, playgrounds, recreation centers or facilities,
child care centers, public parks, public transit centers, libraries,
game arcade where admission is not restricted to persons twenty-one
years of age or older.

# ¿ Jul 8, 2013 22:13

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

OwlBot 2000 posted:

Could Obama do a blanket pardon? "Everyone who has served over one year for marijuana possession, with no priors and no violent history, is hereby pardoned." Or does he have to list all individuals by name?

Presidents have certainly attempted to issue blanket pardons in the past:

Buchanan posted:

offering the inhabitants of Utah, who shall submit to the laws, a free pardon for seditions and treasons heretofore by them committed; warning those who shall persist, after notice of this proclamation, in the present rebellion against the United States, that they must expect no further leniency, but look to be rigorously dealt with according to their desserts

Johnson posted:

I, ANDREW JOHNSON, President of the United States, do proclaim and declare that I hereby grant to all persons who have, directly or indirectly, participated in the existing rebellion, except as hereinafter excepted, amnesty and pardon, with restoration of all rights of property

As far as I'm aware neither of these involved people currently in prison, so neither actually made it to court, so practically speaking, with people who are already in prison, actually naming everyone is probably prudent (and as Iunnrais points out, functionally identical).

# ¿ Aug 12, 2013 21:42

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

computer parts posted:

I'm not talking about ratios, though, I'm talking about how many people are the "caught in possession of weed and sentenced to 15 years" type in federal prison? Or to put it more clearly, how many of the non-violent drug offenders in prison are there for reasons other than just possession (for example, distribution)?

Who cares about the exact number other than out of idle curiosity? If the number is 1, he should pardon that person, if the number is 1 million, he should pardon those million people.

# ¿ Aug 22, 2013 17:40

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

wilfredmerriweathr posted:

It would have to be limited to resorts wholly on private property, as most ski areas out west are on national forest land. National forest land = federal forest rangers = weed is a felony. In the current climate, the resort would definitely lose its lease if they so much as acknowledged that people smoke weed while skiing.

Which is of course extremely ironic.

Weed is still a felony everywhere in the state, national forest land or not. The only question is if federal forest rangers are more likely to enforce drug laws in national forests than the DEA is to enforce them everywhere.

# ¿ Aug 25, 2013 19:17

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

Saying "it's evil" is reductionist. The discussion doesn't end there: it's important to analyze and discuss what kind of evil we're facing. Is it active malevolence or simply banal institutional inertia, or some mixture, or something else?

Well, it's clearly not institutional inertia, because this kind of thing is stroke of the pen authority for Obama, this policy very much can be turned on a dime the moment he bothers to write his name on paper. I doubt it's active malevolence, since that would basically require him to be a super villian. It seems more likely that he just doesn't give a poo poo about the numerous lives destroyed by the policies he's implicitly endorsed, and it's easier to not sign your name than sign it.

# ¿ Aug 26, 2013 22:29

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

brokowski posted:

If the average price for dank indoor drops below 2k and dank outdoor below 800 bucks I'll eat my hat or something. One more point on the article, although I can't read the whole study (could you copy and paste or something?) they are not clear at all about what kind of an ounce you would get for 38 bucks. I can get ounces of dank popcorn nugs for 20 bucks or free, but they still wouldn't dream of letting me walk away with an oz of larger, better manicured nugs for that price.

Wasabi is hard to grow, it basically only grows near certain rivers in Japan. It's so expensive that 99% of things marketed as wasabi are not wasabi at all and just horseradish. You can buy it in America for ~$60 per pound. 800-2000 per pound is right around the price range for black truffles. Black truffles are so hard to grow that humans didn't succeeded in cultivating it until the 1800s. Even now, we literally have to harvest it by hand using either pigs or specially trained dogs, again so expensive that 99% of "truffle" products are actually just using synthesized compounds that were found to be some of the major flavor components of truffles.

It surely requires effort and skill to grow high end marijuana, but $800 per pound is an absurdly high price for almost any plant, and on the scale of difficulty marijuana is not anywhere near the difficult end.

edit:
I should clarify that I'm not saying that it's impossible for marijuana to cost $800 per pound in a legal market. I'm sure individual brands could find some success at that price point, much like it's possible to buy a bottle of wine for $800. The point is that if you could grow legally, you could do so at a very high level of quality at a price point well below $800 per pound.

twodot fucked around with this message at 00:40 on Sep 12, 2013

# ¿ Sep 12, 2013 00:37

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Install Windows posted:

It's a crime because you're operating with an altered consciousness state under the influence of a drug. Any constitutional change that says having an altered consciousness can never be illegal would on its face say that drunk and intoxicated driving laws can no longer apply.

You couldn't make it negligent when the negligent action (being intoxicated) has been made constitutionally a-ok.

Drunk driving would be basically no different from shouting fire in a theater, speech is protected by the Constitution, but not speech that endangers people, altered conscious states would be no different.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 19:26

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Install Windows posted:

Then in effect that new constitutional provision would do nothing to alter the status quo, making it pointless.

What's the point of this post? Maybe the specific wording presented wouldn't alter the status quo (it plainly would because public intoxication laws would fall), but even assuming that's the case it's obvious that we could construct a wording that would alter the status quo. The desired outcome of the proposal is obvious, and since we aren't passing an actual amendment, legal precision isn't helping anything. It looks like this post is just a lame attempt to dodge admitting your post about drunk driving was both dumb and a strawman.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 20:12

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Install Windows posted:

Reading the intent of what he's saying, that we don't do enough to make sure that having altered states of mind is legal, you can only either get:
1) no change at all, yet he implied the he wanted change

You realize that I only have to find one public intoxication law that doesn't reference danger to disprove this? It happens to be the case that using marijuana in public in Washington is a fine-able offense, normally I would find a better citation than this, but it's clear you are just attempting a dumb derail to distract from the fact your previous derail was even dumber:
http://lcb.wa.gov/marijuana/faqs_i-502

eSports Chaebol posted:

It actually isn't obvious at all that any particular wording would change the status quo by all that much in this case, however. I mean, the First Amendment has consistently failed since not long after its passage to protect all political speech, for example, and that's a lot more straightforward. Some sort of amendment to decriminalize all drugs would be a different story of course.

"All that much" isn't the standard being applied. "Any change at all" is the standard, and it's absurd to assert that the first amendment has had no effect whatsoever.

twodot fucked around with this message at 20:41 on Oct 27, 2013

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 20:37

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Install Windows posted:

That is using it actively. If you smoked up in your house and went outside still high you wouldn't be.

Well it's sure nice that no one ever claimed the first amendment protected all speech all the time? You're trying to claim I'm derailing when you're pulling that out?

You're beyond hope, but for anyone playing along: if we had a constitutional amendment protecting the right to be in an altered state of mind, any laws prohibiting the mechanism required to achieve that state of mind would be plainly unconstitutional. It's the sort of thing that wouldn't even get to the Supreme Court because it would get smacked down immediately. The legal system isn't composed of dumb robots, or Something Awful forums users unable to acknowledge when they are wrong.

# ¿ Oct 27, 2013 20:57

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

TenementFunster posted:

no, they absolutely wouldn't. what is it with this thread and radically ignorant views on the basics of constitutional law?

Can you cite a case where we have an amendment that protects the right to have X, but not the means of getting X? I've tried to think of an example, but the concept is so insane that I doubt one exists.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2013 18:26

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

TenementFunster posted:

Can I think of an amendment that doesn't confer an absolute right in every practical application? All of them.

I never asserted that the proposed amendment would confer an absolute right in every practical application, just that the proposed amendment would lead to striking down at least one law, and specifically it would strike down Washington's you are literally never allowed to use marijuana in public view law.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2013 18:33

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

TACD posted:

The Consitution confers a right to the 'pursuit of happiness'

No it doesn't, but if it did a lot of our laws would be in a sticky situation.

# ¿ Oct 28, 2013 18:50

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

BottledBodhisvata posted:

I'd argue that most companies should really have to fight a bit to earn the power to dictate to you how you must live your life, certainly your life off-the-clock.

I feel like you must have a much broader or much narrower argument than you are presenting here. Private employers currently exist and and currently make hiring and firing powers. We already have a variety of rules restricting on how they go about hiring and firing, and it's pretty clear that employers should have some sort of power to dictate how you live your life (no harassing fellow employees off work seems like a plausible example). If you want to argue that employers hiring/firing powers should be more limited than it already is, you need either a class of behaviors that employers can't consider when hiring or firing (off work drug use in this case), or a class of behaviors which are the only behaviors that employers can consider (job performance). The reason this is important is because your post looks a lot more broad than drug use, but if you are arguing that employers should have cause for firing, you've neglected to define what cause constitutes.

# ¿ Jan 6, 2014 21:19

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

WampaLord posted:

I find this extremely hard to believe, or I guess drug dealers really have adapted well to modern technology. Regardless, I doubt most people know how to access said catalog. Check your weed buying privilege.

Here's the primary Seattle marijuana delivery service:
http://www.winterlifecoop.com/daily-menu.html
I guess it's plausible that not everyone has heard of them, but it's not like you have to install Tor or anything to get to it, and local news have published stories on them. (I have also literally seen dudes on bicycles waving hats with marijuana leaves shouting "I've got weed")

# ¿ Jan 7, 2014 00:12

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

WampaLord posted:

That's in Seattle, where WA has medically legal weed for the time being and is opening retail stores soon. I was talking about in states where it's still fully illegal.

I thought he was talking about Colorado, but regardless I should note that the business I posted is operating illegally. They do business with people who don't have medical marijuana cards, and no retail licenses have been given out yet. They claim they're legal, because they claim to be charging for the delivery process, and not the marijuana, but this is obviously wrong. The reality is the police (and the DEA) just don't care enough to prosecute them.

edit: Oh wait, I think they are now claiming that literally every resident of Washington qualifies for medical marijuana. In any case, the point is that they are operating illegaly no matter what excuse they give.

twodot fucked around with this message at 00:26 on Jan 7, 2014

# ¿ Jan 7, 2014 00:20

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

GuyDudeBroMan posted:

This is "works as intended" right? You would defend the states right to ignore federal civil rights legislation, even if you disagreed with them?

States don't get to ignore federal legislation. If the VRA says that states have to conduct elections in a certain manner, then states have to follow those rules. States are not responsible for enforcing federal legislation that creates requirements for individuals. If I break a federal law, states are not obligated to help the federal government arrest me. If a state breaks a federal law, the state is obligated to change their behavior, but arguing the state should assist the federal government arrest itself is sort of odd. Requirements on governments (you are not allowed to ban abortion) are different from requirements on individuals (you are not allowed to grow marijuana).

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 21:13

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

GuyDudeBroMan posted:

Explain how "you are not allowed to have an abortion" is different from "you are not allowed to grow marijuana"?

What about "you are not allowed to teach evolution in school". Is that different too?

They use different words that consist of different letters, so they are definitely different things. If you want to argue we should treat different things the same, I think the burden should be on you to tell us why. In any case, these three things are similar in that they are all laws that would place requirements on individuals. They are different in that the Supreme Court tells us that the Constitution forbids us from creating the first, allows us to create the second, and hasn't spoken on the third to my knowledge (though I think the Supreme Court would be ok with states doing it, and not ok with the federal government doing it).

What does any of this have to do with my post?

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 21:37

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

GuyDudeBroMan posted:

Just wanted confirmation that you are supporting the "its good when I want it, bad when I don't want it" argument.

Huh? Do you think my posts have confirmed that? I mean I agree that things I want are good, and things I don't want are bad, this is true by definition. It also happens to be the case that leaving enforcement of bad laws to the federal government results in good scenarios, but this has nothing to do with whether or not the federal government can force states to enforce federal laws (it can't).

quote:

So just to clarify. If the federal government says:

"it is illegal to grow a plant" - State law trumps federal law
"it is illegal to have an assault rifle" - Federal law trumps state law
"it is illegal to deny black people service at a white's only lunch counter" - Federal law trumps state law

If the federal government wants these laws enforced then the federal government has to enforce them, no one is being trumped. (Though I would advocate that states help out in the enforcement of bans on white's only lunch counters).

quote:

"it is illegal to deny an abortion" - Federal law trumps state law

Yes and you'll note the federal government enforces this requirement, it would be nonsensical to expect the state government to enforce it on itself.

quote:

"it is illegal to teach creationism in public school" - Federal law trumps state law
"it is illegal for homosexuals to get married" - State law trumps federal law

Federal government has no authority to make such laws, these don't work because they're unconstitutional, not because anything would be trumped. (edit: Forgot about Dover temporarily the creationism item should be moved into "Yes this trumps state law, and the federal government is still responsible for enforcing it")

quote:

"it is illegal to harbor fugitive slaves" - State law trumps federal law

The answer to this depends on when the question is being asked, it's nonsensical in modern context, so I'll just ignore it.

State law never trumps federal law. There are matters where the federal government gets to make laws, and there are matters where the states get to make laws (and overlap). Where the federal governmet has control, the federal government is responsible for enforcing its own laws, and doesn't get to compel assistance from the states.

edit:

Arakan posted:

Here's a D&D tip: Before responding to someone click on their post history, read some of their previous posts, then determine if you should respond to them or not.

GuyDudeBroMan is dumb, but there are definitely people playing fast and loose with the rule of law, so I think it's worthwhile making the case for why letting states ignore certain federal prohibitions is legally consistent.

twodot fucked around with this message at 22:46 on Feb 10, 2014

# ¿ Feb 10, 2014 22:33

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

GuyDudeBroMan posted:

* "it depends on if the ban on X is currently being enforced by the federal government. If yes, then it should remain illegal. If no, then the state can do what it wants"

This is wrong. If the federal government says something is illegal, it is by definition illegal. Regardless of whether the federal government enforces it, the state can do what it wants, enforcement of federal laws is the responsibility of the federal government. If the federal government declines to enforce it, it is practically very similar to being legal, but not the same since the government could change its mind and without any warning show up and arrest you and take your stuff. Answering the question of "Should the federal government enforce a particular ban" should require examining the particular ban (the ban on marijuana is dumb).

Hieronymous Alloy posted:

I need the marijuana to bear up through chemotherapy and stay alive. Worrying about consistency in that situation is arguing about how many angels can dance on the head of the proverbial pin.

This seems wrong. A person who needs marijuana to survive would be very concerned about their access to marijuana, yes, but their access to marijuana, and whether or not the government should be bound by a set of principles are not very related things. I should hope such a person wouldn't provoke a constitutional crisis, when they are less drastic means to getting marijuana.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 00:10

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Prosopagnosiac posted:

And then Jackson is like " Mr. Holmes has made his decision, now he can enforce it"

If Jackson did say this, he probably would have been addressing Marshall, and to my knowledge there isn't good evidence he did say this. He did note that the Supreme Court lacks an enforcement arm in a case where they overturned a conviction and Georgia ignored them for some time, Worcester v. Georgia.

# ¿ Feb 11, 2014 17:07

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

rockinricky posted:

Wouldn't marijuana have to be de-scheduled entirely in order to legalize it for recreational use? I thought the scheduled drugs, except for Schedule 1, were prescription only.

Schedule V simply requires:
edit: http://www.law.cornell.edu/uscode/text/21/829

quote:

No controlled substance in schedule V which is a drug may be distributed or dispensed other than for a medical purpose.

To my knowledge this doesn't require a prescription necessarily, but states have their own schedule system (that typically mirrors the federal one), and I believe states sometimes require prescriptions. As an example, Washington allows purchase of Schedule V drugs without a prescription, but there are a bunch of rules that you have to follow found here:
http://apps.leg.wa.gov/WAC/default.aspx?cite=246-887-030

# ¿ Feb 13, 2014 23:45

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Full Battle Rattle posted:

Is alcohol scheduled at all or is it handled seperately entirely? what about tobacco? I've often wondered this. Could cannabis simply be placed in the same category as caffeine, nicotine, or tobacco?

Neither alcohol or tobacco are on the scheduling system whatsoever, they have entirely separate legal rules. Cannabis could easily occupy a similar category, but it would require both the federal and state governments to move it off of the scheduling system first.

# ¿ Feb 14, 2014 04:12

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Pyroxene Stigma posted:

California is still along the lines of "my back hurts" depending where you live. WA used to be pretty strict (had to have a medical diagnosis) but with the legalization push might have changed.

Even in Washington, there were edge cases where you could get a recommendation without having a specific need. The major one is "I had cancer in the past" since while someone may be completely cancer free (and off of treatments entirely), doctors will just consider you in remission for a substantial period of time. Of course the correct solution to this is just to legalize it.

# ¿ Feb 27, 2014 07:13

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

LeJackal posted:

How many of them are 'possession of a gun while being drug dealing scum'? There are a lot of ancillary crimes that vanish without the 'intent to distribute' or possession charges.

If we project January's sale tax figures over the year (unlikely, but it's a number) we get an income of ~30 million. The 2013-14 budget for Colorado's Department of Corrections was 753 million, to match the sales tax income, we would need to free up 4% of the budget for the DOC. I'm not saying making prisons cheaper isn't a good or significant thing, but assigning it priority number 4 seems pretty reasonable to me (behind the benefits of: not putting people in prison, local economy stimulation/not sending money to the cartels, and more tax revenue for the state).

twodot fucked around with this message at 22:55 on Mar 11, 2014

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 22:51

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

LeJackal posted:

Budweiser and Heineken don't have shootouts over the beer-dealin' corner bar.

Somewhat ironically, the main exception to Washington state's prohibition on carrying guns in bars is that owners and employees of the bar are allowed to have guns.

# ¿ Mar 11, 2014 23:17

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Xandu posted:

I see what you mean, but I think we can still draw a line somewhere. If you get involved in an illegal activity knowing that it requires the potential use of violence (which at the end of the day, is what a gun is, whether you end up shooting someone or not), that's on you.

And at this point we aren't really even talking about marijuana anymore, but drugs in general.

Virtually all illegal activity that generates resources requires the potential use of violence to protect those resources, since you can't reliably use law enforcement to protect them (even when law enforcement defeats the robbery, they still take your stuff). I can't see why taking otherwise legal steps to prevent you from being robbed would be substantially worse merely because the activity which generated the resource which might be stolen was illegal. I'll call back to my earlier point that, at least in Washington state, people who sell alcohol specifically have greater legal rights to carry guns than other people (presumably to protect them from being robbed).

edit: This should be considered distinct from felony murder type laws, where you knew ahead of time that generating the resources whatsoever might potentially require violence (like robbing someone at gun point).

twodot fucked around with this message at 08:11 on Mar 12, 2014

# ¿ Mar 12, 2014 08:07

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Jeffrey posted:

I could conceive of a drug harmful enough yet desirable that legalizing it ends up being worse(due to easier access), even if putting adults in prison over personal choice is something I find distasteful.

Can you describe the properties of a drug such that putting a person into the US prison system is preferable to them using the drug? Literally the only thing I can think of is a magical drug that automatically causes people to commit crimes meaning that they would end up in prison anyways.

# ¿ Apr 16, 2014 21:53

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Telephones posted:

Edibles should be legal just not sold in stores. A lot of people imagine them as a non-threatening and good for beginners when they're in reality really really intense. There's just too much of a chance of someone having a terrible experience on them and panicking and possibly doing something nutty.

This is bad reasoning. Edibles aren't inherently "really really intense", people just (sometimes) make them that way for whatever reason. Even if you think making people avoid intense edibles is a sensible policy goal (I think this is questionable), the correct thing to do would be to establish an acceptable level of intensity, and either forbid them or require substantial labeling over that intensity. Everclear is a fairly dangerous substance, and it has a bunch of labels alerting you to that fact, it seems to work ok. (edit: if we followed this reasoning generally, the existence of a sufficiently intense plant would warrant forbidding the sale of all marijuana, which is dumb)

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 03:52

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Install Windows posted:

Normal Everclear's also illegal in 14 states and not illegal but not salable in a 15th. So yeah, I suppose that's "working ok" for Everclear.

What's your point here? Do you think Everclear being illegal in some states is good evidence that it should be illegal? In the majority of states where it's just as legal as any other bottle of booze, is there an epidemic of people causing harm due to Everclear consumption?
edit:
And even if banning Everclear were a good idea, how does that affect my reasoning about a total ban of edibles being nonsensical, much like a total ban of liquid alcohol would be dumb based on the idea that Everclear is a bad idea.

# ¿ Apr 22, 2014 03:58

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

they are succeeding far more than any wimpy cannabis lobbyists.

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.

# ¿ May 2, 2014 00:06

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Tight Booty Shorts posted:

Let me know when the DEA changes it's stance on cannabis, or it gets re-scheduled from S1.

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.

# ¿ May 2, 2014 00:29

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

AYC posted:

Eh, I oppose the drug test obviously, but if it was a choice between having a job and not having a job I'd go with quitting weed. It's probably not going to be federally illegal for more than a decade, anyways.

The people the FBI are trying to hire are almost certainly not chosing between a job and not having a job. Assuming they are GS payscale jobs, the FBI is also likely underpaying for the people they want.

# ¿ May 22, 2014 22:52

Adbot: ADBOT LOVES YOU

# ¿ May 16, 2024 09:28

twodot: Aug 7, 2005; You are objectively correct that this person is dumb and has said dumb things

Jeffrey posted:

if given a choice of any sort of restaurant taco they want for free, people will by and large choose taco bell?

This doesn't look like a fair argument. If we take a population of people who have been eating at Taco Bell their whole life and ask them would you rather eat a taco at the local combined Taco Bell/Whatever or Restaurant X They Have Never Heard Of Before, of course they'll chose Taco Bell. I do think if you did a double blind of Americanized-taco restaurants, that Taco Bell wouldn't rate high enough to justify its popularity.

# ¿ Jun 19, 2014 18:35

The Something Awful Forums > Discussion > Debate & Discussion > Drug legalization thread

«‹›2 »