Bud,Weed, Pot isn't bad for you?

[ClownMagix]

A lot of people say the maurjana isn't bad for you and a lot of people smoke it (especially in high school) and nobody has ever overdosed and has died on pot but it does kill people in fact hundreds of people die a year from it. I hope every one realizes when they buy pot they are largely contributing to Mexican Drug Cartels killing people for competition over running the drug trade.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N5fYq0vHEZk

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FhMobuDCzPQ

[sleepyboi]

Personally, I feel that once people start smoking it, they turn into assholes. They feel like they're automatically "awesome" for doing something illegal and "rebellious", despite the fact that it's not rebellious to do something that 90% of the population already does. They look down on anyone who doesn't smoke it, and say one wrong this and they get so butthurt. "WEED IS AWESOME STOP BEING A FAGGOT IT'S SO GOOD FOR YOU MAN I'M BEING PERSECUTED FOR MY BELIEFS/CANNABIS WORSHIP". Oh please. Give me a fucking break.

[linsee]

I think pot should be legal.

[sleepyboi]

I think it should be legal because if it becomes legal, people will stop acting like they're rebels for using it, since it's allowed. The cannabis activists won't be acting like "heroes" years from now, and it'll be commonplace. I admit though, the first year is going to be hell. Everyone will be high everyday. In 5 years, it will have died down though, and be no different from people buying alcohol (although plenty of minors do this illegally, but I'd rather deal with high people than drunks).

[ClownMagix]

More people drank alcohol when it was legal then when they made it legal it wasn't "cool" or "rebellious" any more"

[ClownMagix]

And there wouldn't be a black market for it so it would lower gang violence

[straightXed]

And there wouldn't be a black market for it so it would lower gang violence

A product being legal or not is not the only thing that contributes to a black market. There is a large black market for both alcohol and tobacco in this country and both drugs are legal.

[xsecx]

A product being legal or not is not the only thing that contributes to a black market. There is a large black market for both alcohol and tobacco in this country and both drugs are legal.

I honestly don't see it making that much of a difference. The black market would remain because anything that was legal would be regulated and the potency controlled. The cartels have too much money at play to let it just dry up from legalization.

[straightXed]

I honestly don't see it making that much of a difference. The black market would remain because anything that was legal would be regulated and the potency controlled. The cartels have too much money at play to let it just dry up from legalization.

Thats what i am saying, looking at legal drugs we still have a black market for those drugs and marijuana would be no different in that sense.

[xVeganAnarchistx]

Thats what i am saying, looking at legal drugs we still have a black market for those drugs and marijuana would be no different in that sense.

But the market would be less viable. If people could easily find drugs not tinted with the problems of a drug war they would be more likely to buy it. We could scale it more easily as well driving down prices versus the black market. Also, legal drugs are more convenient than finding a dealer.

[xsecx]

But the market would be less viable. If people could easily find drugs not tinted with the problems of a drug war they would be more likely to buy it. We could scale it more easily as well driving down prices versus the black market. Also, legal drugs are more convenient than finding a dealer.


there's a healthy market for legal controlled substances. Why would this be any different? Why do you think the cartels wouldn't just flood the black market to keep their existing market share? Do you think they'd just give up?

[xVeganAnarchistx]

there's a healthy market for legal controlled substances. Why would this be any different? Why do you think the cartels wouldn't just flood the black market to keep their existing market share? Do you think they'd just give up?

Don't understand your first couple sentences. But about flooding the market I never said i thought either way and i certainly don't think they would just give up but most people drink store bought alcohol, and at least here, it's legal to produce your own. If it was legal to grow your own or buy it from the convenience store or dispensary i find it quite unlikely that the drug cartels could compete unless they somehow get their product into the legal places.

[xsecx]

Don't understand your first couple sentences. But about flooding the market I never said i thought either way and i certainly don't think they would just give up but most people drink store bought alcohol, and at least here, it's legal to produce your own. If it was legal to grow your own or buy it from the convenience store or dispensary i find it quite unlikely that the drug cartels could compete unless they somehow get their product into the legal places.

Oxycontin and adderall are both legal controlled substances and there is a very healthy black market that supports them.

If it's regulated, it's going to be taxed, most likely heavily. That's where the black market flourishes. If your end game is to stop cartel related crime, legalizing marijuana isn't going to do it, they are going to find a way around the legalization and find a way to still get paid for their product, and if their product ends up in legal places, the problem still exists.

[straightXed]

Don't understand your first couple sentences. But about flooding the market I never said i thought either way and i certainly don't think they would just give up but most people drink store bought alcohol, and at least here, it's legal to produce your own. If it was legal to grow your own or buy it from the convenience store or dispensary i find it quite unlikely that the drug cartels could compete unless they somehow get their product into the legal places.

Even alcohol bought in stores can be black market. Particularly small stores that will struggle to compete with bigger buisnessess. As you can imagine its going to be tempting for a smaller business to cut its costs and not take into consideration the full gravity of what they are becoming a part of. The black market for tobacco and alcohol steadily grows and these drugs have been legal for a long time. Legalising marijuana would be contending with a full scale black market that is already established, the whole supply is black market and that is a very large scale operation to compete with. It would be, I think, much more of a struggle to police and tackle than the legal drugs that already exist on the black market. I think you would find it in stores and it would actually make the black market operation more scalable giving growth to other areas of the black market. I would say its a issue that isnt as simple as making it legal and the problems go away and it could very well make more problems aside from those mentioned here.

[xVeganAnarchistx]

Oxycontin and adderall are both legal controlled substances and there is a very healthy black market that supports them.


These drugs are not legal for me to just pick up like alchol or cigarettes. You need a doctors prescription here in wisconsin so that's a lot different than the likely legalization path weed will eventually take. In the between stage of medical marijuana a black market will exist, but it will be with crops grown from farms. At least that was colorado from the people i know. The only black market part was reselling legally acquired weed which stops the drug war shit that's bad about weed or harder drugs.

Again, the vast majority of alcohol is not black market.

[xsecx]

These drugs are not legal for me to just pick up like alchol or cigarettes. You need a doctors prescription here in wisconsin so that's a lot different than the likely legalization path weed will eventually take. In the between stage of medical marijuana a black market will exist, but it will be with crops grown from farms. At least that was colorado from the people i know. The only black market part was reselling legally acquired weed which stops the drug war shit that's bad about weed or harder drugs.

Again, the vast majority of alcohol is not black market.

the only movements to legalize marijuana are for medical usage, so I don't know why you think at this point it'd be handled any differently. Trying to draw parallels between alcohol and marijuana doesn't really make sense given the current world we're living in and what steps have been taken to legalize it, they're not the same.

I also don't understand why you ignored the second half of my post, since we're talking about the funding of cartels and not simply the legalization of marijuana.

[xVeganAnarchistx]

the only movements to legalize marijuana are for medical usage, so I don't know why you think at this point it'd be handled any differently. Trying to draw parallels between alcohol and marijuana doesn't really make sense given the current world we're living in and what steps have been taken to legalize it, they're not the same.

I also don't understand why you ignored the second half of my post, since we're talking about the funding of cartels and not simply the legalization of marijuana.

Do you actually think the medical marijuana movement is not as a group generally in support of legalization?

I don't understand at all what you mean by not drawing parallels between alcohol and marijuana. It's been like 70 years and you'd be hard pressed to find any significant black market of alcohol. Marijuana would take far less time as it's relatively easy to grow and the processing is minimal compared to alcohol.

I didn't mean to ignore it. If a crop is legal, its easier to grow by following the law then running borders. That seems to be the case with alcohol and cigarettes, other popular but legal drugs. (We may have to worry about reservations trying to avoid taxes like New York thought if you read the NYT last week).

[xsecx]

Do you actually think the medical marijuana movement is not as a group generally in support of legalization?

I don't understand at all what you mean by not drawing parallels between alcohol and marijuana. It's been like 70 years and you'd be hard pressed to find any significant black market of alcohol. Marijuana would take far less time as it's relatively easy to grow and the processing is minimal compared to alcohol.

They're for it, but there's no actual movement in terms of it happening any time soon, so talking about it as if it were bound to happen isn't realistic. The only thing that is realistic at this point is medicinal marijuana which means talking about it in terms of alcohol doesn't make sense.



I didn't mean to ignore it. If a crop is legal, its easier to grow by following the law then running borders. That seems to be the case with alcohol and cigarettes, other popular but legal drugs. (We may have to worry about reservations trying to avoid taxes like New York thought if you read the NYT last week).

The cartels exist in this country, so it's not just a matter of running borders. Magically making weed legal isn't going to stop their involvement or their desire to make money. It's not going to make their portion of it go away, it just shifts to getting their product into a new distribution network.

[xVeganAnarchistx]

They're for it, but there's no actual movement in terms of it happening any time soon, so talking about it as if it were bound to happen isn't realistic. The only thing that is realistic at this point is medicinal marijuana which means talking about it in terms of alcohol doesn't make sense.

You are wrong, and sooner than i thought. http://blog.norml.org/


The cartels exist in this country, so it's not just a matter of running borders. Magically making weed legal isn't going to stop their involvement or their desire to make money. It's not going to make their portion of it go away, it just shifts to getting their product into a new distribution network.

I guess i'm probably a little confused or something. As far as i know there hasn't been a slew of murders or coercion of weed farmers in say California. This is happening in other countries, specifically Mexico. These are the people i'm most worried about. I think drug dealers killing drug dealers is not a good thing, but i'm not worried about that.

Perhaps you could explain the problems of cartels in the united states other than border violence (which is obviously related to foreign drug trafficking). I mean i understand the amount of violence in any black market trade (and that's why i'm relatively pro legalization for harder drugs that are made even here by more willing participants such as meth, with different regulations than alcohol or marijuana). But the main problem for me is drug violence that affects people forced into that position more directly by poverty. Which just so happens to be developing world farmers in countries like Mexico for weed.

[xsecx]

You are wrong, and sooner than i thought. http://blog.norml.org/


Getting people to sign petitions doesn't equate to laws being passed. I did find it interesting that that this apparently isn't the first time it was attempted. It failed in 2006 and 2010 and this last attempt didn't get enough signatures initially. There aren't laws being passed or even drafted and there's no indication that the federal government will let it happen, especially in light of the DEA dispensary raids.



I guess i'm probably a little confused or something. As far as i know there hasn't been a slew of murders or coercion of weed farmers in say California. This is happening in other countries, specifically Mexico. These are the people i'm most worried about. I think drug dealers killing drug dealers is not a good thing, but i'm not worried about that.

Perhaps you could explain the problems of cartels in the united states other than border violence (which is obviously related to foreign drug trafficking). I mean i understand the amount of violence in any black market trade (and that's why i'm relatively pro legalization for harder drugs that are made even here by more willing participants such as meth, with different regulations than alcohol or marijuana). But the main problem for me is drug violence that affects people forced into that position more directly by poverty. Which just so happens to be developing world farmers in countries like Mexico for weed.

I didn't realize that the only thing you cared about was people in the US? I guess the innocent people in Mexico that are dying as a result of the greed of americans and their drug habits don't matter to you? Do you honestly think the only people are dying are other drug dealers? Also, there's no way to know where the dispensaries are getting their weed from so I don't really understand your point about california farmers. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to tell at this point that the weed being sold in dispensaries isn't funding cartels, that the growers in california aren't part of the cartels.

http://projects.latimes.com/mexico-drug-war/#/its-a-war to give you some reading materials to understand the human cost and how it's far more than just cartel vs cartel.

I guess the basic question to you is, what would you do to stop the cartels immediately?

I also find it interesting that as a anarchist you would be for any regulation of any kind.

[xVeganAnarchistx]

Earlier you said "the only movements to legalize marijuana are for medical usage,"

Which was flat wrong and i pointed that out and since arguments don't work i posted a link to actual blog entry about a ballot initiative that, whether or not it fails is "an actual movement" and doing things "anytime soon" because, now is soon.




I didn't realize that the only thing you cared about was people in the US? I guess the innocent people in Mexico that are dying as a result of the greed of americans and their drug habits don't matter to you? Do you honestly think the only people are dying are other drug dealers? Also, there's no way to know where the dispensaries are getting their weed from so I don't really understand your point about california farmers. As far as I'm aware, there's no way to tell at this point that the weed being sold in dispensaries isn't funding cartels, that the growers in california aren't part of the cartels.

On Mexico and the drug war/cartel violence i said earlier "If a crop is legal, its easier to grow by following the law then running borders."

Then you said "The cartels exist in this country, so it's not just a matter of running borders."

And i said "As far as i know there hasn't been a slew of murders or coercion of weed farmers in say California."

that's when you made that huge misinterpretation because you forgot what we talked about in the last three posts.

My point is that of the 5 or so people i know who are growing or have just came back to wisconsin from growing weed in northern California none of them worked with cartels, and they were not even supplying for dispensaries (except possibly one person). When we move to complete decriminalization of growing and or out right legalization, even more people will find growing free from cartels sifting off profits more attractive. It only make's economic sense.

To be sure, i'd bet some growers in Northern California (the only place i have any expertise) are involved in cartel stuff, but then, they really aren't being exploited like the folks i'm worried about in central america.


I guess the basic question to you is, what would you do to stop the cartels immediately?

I also find it interesting that as a anarchist you would be for any regulation of any kind.

Well, obviously nothing we do will stop cartels immediately. And i don't even understand why you felt the need to ask that question except for some sort of affect.

As for the second part there is nothing wrong with an anarchist balancing the pluses and minuses of certain state institutions. Do i support the State as a general matter, no. Do i want to work to dismantle state children's healthcare? (rhetorical, no i don't). Likewise, i prefer a regulation to a drug war despite both being tied to the state.

[xsecx]

Earlier you said "the only movements to legalize marijuana are for medical usage,"

Which was flat wrong and i pointed that out and since arguments don't work i posted a link to actual blog entry about a ballot initiative that, whether or not it fails is "an actual movement" and doing things "anytime soon" because, now is soon.


Sorry, I should have said the only movements with any success then. If it passes and actually becomes a law then you'll be right, but until then, my previous statements stand. It doesn't make sense to talk about it like it's preordained or eminent.




On Mexico and the drug war/cartel violence i said earlier "If a crop is legal, its easier to grow by following the law then running borders."

Then you said "The cartels exist in this country, so it's not just a matter of running borders."

And i said "As far as i know there hasn't been a slew of murders or coercion of weed farmers in say California."

that's when you made that huge misinterpretation because you forgot what we talked about in the last three posts.

My point is that of the 5 or so people i know who are growing or have just came back to wisconsin from growing weed in northern California none of them worked with cartels, and they were not even supplying for dispensaries (except possibly one person). When we move to complete decriminalization of growing and or out right legalization, even more people will find growing free from cartels sifting off profits more attractive. It only make's economic sense.

To be sure, i'd bet some growers in Northern California (the only place i have any expertise) are involved in cartel stuff, but then, they really aren't being exploited like the folks i'm worried about in central america.

You're making assumptions that the only pot that is or will be available is domestically grown. I don't see how this is a safe assumption since there isn't a single product that I can thing crop that isn't supported by import. I also don't see you talk about the damage the cartels have done, only talking about drug dealers killing each other and if pot was all grown here the cartels would be cut out.

I have to ask how people can really know who they're selling to and how they know the distribution channel unless they're only growing for themselves or dealing directly, which doesn't really make much sense. The entire point of my last few posts is that this is about a situation a lot larger than a handful of counties in calfornia growing weed. 2/3 of all the weed in the US is coming from cartels today. It is not a safe assumption that they are just going to give up that money just because it becomes legal, just like it wasn't a safe assumption that the mob would go away when alcohol was made legal again.





Well, obviously nothing we do will stop cartels immediately. And i don't even understand why you felt the need to ask that question except for some sort of affect.

Because I wanted to know what you thought would solve the problem.



As for the second part there is nothing wrong with an anarchist balancing the pluses and minuses of certain state institutions. Do i support the State as a general matter, no. Do i want to work to dismantle state children's healthcare? (rhetorical, no i don't). Likewise, i prefer a regulation to a drug war despite both being tied to the state.
You do realize how contradictory this statement is. There is something wrong about being an anarchist and supporting the idea of state control of anything. I don't see how your world view could be anything other than individual free will and the ability of the individual to decide what drug they can and can't take.



This op-ed piece actually sums up my point pretty nicely:
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/06/19/opinion/19longmire.html

legal weed if you want, but don't do it because you think it'll stop the cartels because it won't.