I Smoked Pot; You Picked on Sissies

7 Comments

1. 

   Compound F on May 26, 2012 at 5:52 am

   You said it, bro’, but personally, I don’t think he makes it to base camp here, compared to peaks he has scaled before.  He’s done much worse than “intercepting a spliff.”  

2. 

   Oui on May 26, 2012 at 7:53 am

   .

   People v. Colvin Affirms That Dispensing Collective Members Are Not Required To Help Cultivate Their Medication

   In a major victory for medical marijuana patients, the California Supreme Court denied review of an important dispensary case out of Los Angeles. Rejecting calls from State Attorney General Kamala Harris and law enforcement to review the Court of Appeal ruling in People v. Colvin, the California Supreme Court upheld certain protections for medical marijuana patients and providers. The Attorney General had argued that some undefined percentage of patients were legally required to participate in the operation of the medical marijuana dispensaries in order to obtain medication from them.

   The landmark ruling in Colvin held that the Attorney General’s argument that member-patients must engage in unspecified “united action or participation” to qualify for protection under the state’s medical marijuana law would likely “limit drastically the size of medical marijuana establishments,” and provide “little direction or guidance to, among others, qualified patients, primary caregivers, law enforcement, and trial courts.” Furthermore, the Colvin Court held that the Attorney General’s requirement would “contravene the intent of [state law] by limiting patients’ access to medical marijuana.”

   Interview w/ US Attorney Haag on Pot Operations: ‘If it’s close to children, that’s a line we’re going to draw’

   • Barney Frank Criticizes Obama Administration On Medical Marijuana Raids
   • Young Obama had bad stoner etiquette

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."

3. 

   Superpole on May 26, 2012 at 9:57 am

   Putting people in jail for doing things you did yourself is bad form.

   Right.

   Marijuana should be reclassified as a Schedule 3 or Schedule 4 drug. I’d like to see this done in Obama’s second term.

   Agreed but doubtful this will happen. if this was not a priority in his first term, it won’t be a priority the second.

   The disconnect here is Obama in his interview with Robin Roberts recently stated gay marriage should be a “local issue”:

   And what you’re seeing is, I think, states working through this issue– in fits and starts, all across the country. Different communities are arriving at different conclusions, at different times. And I think that’s a healthy process and a healthy debate. And I continue to believe that this is an issue that is gonna be worked out at the local level, because historically, this has not been a federal issue, what’s recognized as a marriage.

   Yet California medical marijuana dispensaries are being busted by the feds.

   Thus pot is a federal issue (even in states where state legislation allows the use of medical marijuana), but gay marriage should be a local issue?

   Again, this is one more major policy issue where Obama and the democratic party are a massive failure.

   Another reason this is all absurd: California, once boasted as the “eighth largest economy in the world” is now running a gigantic budget deficit. One reason for that deficit? California’s prison system costs the state, the last time I checked, $15 BILLION dollars per year.

   The feds busting the owners of legal pot dispensaries puts people in jail who don’t belong there.

   http://articles.latimes.com/2011/oct/07/local/la-me-pot-crackdown-20111007

    

   • 

     BooMan on May 26, 2012 at 10:54 am

     that’s a lot of garbled reasoning.  

     The president can be criticized for treating gay marriage as less than a civil right that would be protected by the Constitution, but he’s woking with what the system will bear.  In talking to gay and lesbian friends and reading many reactions from LBGT writers, I sense an overwhelming sense of gratitude to the president, and nothing at all like a sense of total failure.

     As for marijuana, it’s a bit complicated because you can talk about it in a medical context or a strictly recreational context.  Marijuana is illegal on the federal level and the president doesn’t have the votes to change that.  He also can’t just ignore the law, although he has some flexibility in how the DOJ sets its priorities.  Probably the strongest thing the Executive Branch could do is to reclassify marijuana as a less dangerous drug with valid medical uses.  Yet, the president shouldn’t order this.  He’s not a scientist or a doctor.  But he could ask the FDA and HHS to look into it.  

     Finally, it’s hard to get more logically flawed than to say that things that aren’t a priority in the first term will not be a priority in the second term.  In fact, anything difficult that would be politically risky becomes much more attractive in a second term and much more likely to become a priority.  

     • 

       Superpole on May 27, 2012 at 9:25 am

       Garbled?

       IMHO what is garbled here is your understanding of how our system works.

       In fact, anything difficult that would be politically risky becomes much more attractive in a second term and much more likely to become a priority.

       The POTUS can do/say anything he wants regarding pot, but it’s Congress who proposes and passes legislation.

       Since you’re talking political risk, if the POTUS prefers to play it safe on this, what makes you think hundreds of congresspeople are going to take a risk to do what needs to be done?

       Please.

       And this is only one reason why pot will not be decriminalized nationally, let alone fully legal.

       • 

         BooMan on May 27, 2012 at 10:03 am

         Jesus.  Congress is hopeless on pot.  On that we are agreed.

         I’m talking about rescheduling pot from a one to a three or a four.  That’s something the Obama administration can do unilaterally.  However, it’s a medical/scientific decision like assessing the impact of climate change or the safe level of arsenic in drinking water.  The president should not order his doctors and scientists to classify pot the way he wants it to be classified.  He can, however, instruct them to take a fresh look at the topic and, thereby, send a clear signal about his preferences.  

4. 

   Oui on May 26, 2012 at 3:46 pm

   .

   U.S. prison population dwarfs that of other nations

   (NY Times) – Criminologists and legal experts here and abroad point to a tangle of factors to explain America’s extraordinary incarceration rate: higher levels of violent crime, harsher sentencing laws, a legacy of racial turmoil, a special fervor in combating illegal drugs, the American temperament, and the lack of a social safety net. Even democracy plays a role, as judges — many of whom are elected, another American anomaly — yield to populist demands for tough justice.

   Whatever the reason, the gap between American justice and that of the rest of the world is enormous and growing. It used to be that Europeans came to the United States to study its prison systems. They came away impressed.

   “In no country is criminal justice administered with more mildness than in the United States,” Alexis de Tocqueville, who toured American penitentiaries in 1831, wrote in “Democracy in America.”

   No more.  

   Soaring Costs For California’s Failing Prison System

   GOVERNOR ARNOLD SCHWARZENEGGER: 30 years ago, 10% of the general fund went to higher education and only 3% went to prisons. Today, almost 11% goes to prisons and only 7.5% goes to higher education. Spending 45% more on prisons than universities is no way to proceed into the future. So I will submit to you a constitutional amendment so that never again do we spend a greater percentage of our money on prisons than on higher education. (Applause)

   PENNER: How is the governor going to reverse the rising cost of operating the state prison?

   FARYON: Well, in his address he talked about privatizing prisons. He didn’t give a lot of detail. But really, after researching this issue for the past several weeks, I don’t understand how privatization will necessarily fix this problem. According to the numbers that we’ve been crunching, the data that we’ve collected, the issue of rising costs really seems to be the increasing number of inmates. Especially the increasing number of old and sick inmates.

   PENNER: Why are old and sick inmates adding to the cost?

   FARYON: Well, what happened in the 70’s, 80’s, and 90’s we was a series of laws., changes to the legislature that saw sentences increasing. And the Little Hoover Commission – it was a state commission – looked at some of these laws and there are quite literally pages and pages and pages of changes to the law that added time to sentences.

   Just how powerful is California’s prison guards union?

   • California Ordered To Reduce Prison Population  

   "But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."