Deal struck to legalize pot in New York

I see no affinity toward dictating what any consenting adult person voluntarily chooses to do or put into their own bodies so long as they cause harm to nobody else. Once you do get to the point of causing harm or putting others in harms way then now you are creating a victim, or if one is stealing to feed their habit. Drug use in and of itself is a victimless crime and I cannot for the life of me understand where lies any moral consistency in thinking prohibition is the answer to these issues. The amount of resources and tax dollars wasted on drug enforcement is an absolute joke and has done nothing to curb the issue. It's very good at creating extremely dangerous situations for officers and civilians alike though. I feel sorry for cops who have to enforce bad laws. You couldn't pay me enough to do that.

 

Yeah some people can’t and shouldn’t even try to handle it. That’s just how people are wired differently. Plenty of people can have 2-3 beers with dinner on a Thursday night and get up for work the next morning and function normally. Others won’t stop until they’re shackled in a psych ward. Doesn’t mean the rest of the casual drinkers should be barred from enjoying responsibly. Same goes for pot I believe. You’ve got your complete burnout crowd and you’ve got your more reasonable users that aren’t completely consumed by it.

 

Sure enough. I was a real bad drunk. Can't touch it or I'm a dead in two weeks. I know some folks can smoke a little weed, and be fine. Some hard users tell me they can't eat or sleep without it. I've noticed the weed addicts tend to get real skinny. The casual users not at all. Prohibition for anything will never work, whether guns or chemicals. Stupid opiates that the FDA allows to be passed out like skittles is a mess.

 

Same here. I can’t handle it. I could probably get away with weed for a short while but eventually it’ll lead back to the bottle. So I don’t need to entertain either prospect. Life’s been good to me without either vice.

 

I'm a one beer a night guy. I'm too cheap to take it further than that, since I do like fancy craft beer snob stuff. And weed I never really cared for anyway. I certainly never became well versed enough to know different effects of difference strains and all that other weed geek stuff. Also never even considered harder drugs, it's just not something that tempts me whatsoever and never has. I really do think for those who do get sucked into that hole, there is something wired much differently in their heads.

 

I work in Mass. where recreational marijuana is legal. Just this morning at a stop light I could smell a strong odor of weed. When the light turned green the car in front of me did not move, I gave a beep and they took off. As I passed the car the guy was taking a hit off a rather large joint without a care in the word.

 

Not surprising really. I see it from time to time too in CT. I also see plenty of people taking a pull off a bottle going down the road or drinking in their vehicle behind a liquor store. There will always be those types of characters regardless of what the laws are.

 

Is it common for folks to think that if a person is to use marijuana recreationally the will not be successful in life?

 

In some circles yes. I'm sure for a lot of people with no experience with pot they might put it in the same category as cocaine and heroin, something only the lowest of society does. I certainly don't believe that. I know quite a few pot smokers that are pretty successful, making 6 figures, raising kids, pay their taxes and are otherwise fine citizens. I also know a few straight edge people that never seem to get their crap together, financial problems, relationship issues etc.

 

expanding sin taxes counteracts rising deficits

 

That's only assuming they don't come up with 101 new ways to waste it all.

 

Nepotism and pension burden works

 

Fractional reserve banking will ensure they’ll never be out of debt

 

I think we have debunked that. That was that whole Beatles vs. Elvis drug war. Beatles did illegal drugs, Elvis did Dr. Prescribed drugs. Everyone was on drugs.

 

I am curious from an economic perspective what it does to the current illicit market. For example I think dispensaries would be attracting the types who really prefer to work within legal limits and so on, or have more money to spend on higher quality product maybe. Regardless, I'm curious what the likely high costs of entry for dispensaries coupled with mandated tax rates and other regulatory hurdles will do to the end price of weed and therefore how those legit businesses will compete with the street dealers. I also would imagine that since it legalizes home growing as well, that then there will be more street dealers in general. That could mean one guy who grows enough to share with his friends, or one household who grows enough to supply the people in his neighborhood, but the point being is I would think the tax rates of the legally distributed weed would have to be low enough for that market to undercut that gray market. Time will tell!

 

A gram a day keeps the doctor away.

After living in several states where it's legal, once the market is up and running, prices tend to be lower than they were in a black market environment, while quality and selection both improve dramatically. Note, when I say quality, I am NOT referring to potency, but rather to aesthetic appeal, flavor, aroma, smoothness of the smoke, etc.

It needs to be legalized federally ASAP (states should be able to determine individually if they want to allow recreational sales and/or cultivation, but criminal penalties for personal possession, transportation and cultivation need to go the way of the dodo).

It's preposterous that I can walk into a shop in Colorado, buy a couple of joints, drive a few miles east or west to Utah or Nebraska, and then possibly have to contend with a felony conviction and mandatory time in prison. The patchwork of states where it is legal is now too extensive for other states to treat it as harshly as they do. It's now possible to go from the Mexican border to the Arctic Circle while being able to buy legal cannabis the entire way.

Federal legalization in Canada means that businesses aren't forced to operate on a cash-only basis as they are in the states. Lots of recreational shops do hundreds of thousands of dollars of business per week, and because of federal illegality here, no bank will accept that money and the federal tax situation is a huge headache.

As a true "cannasseur" for many years, it's an incredible feeling to have a wide array of cannabis options to choose from, and then to be able to plunk down a credit/debit card to pay for it.

 

That's a good one BC Gold Burner errr I mean BCC_Burner

 

I guess what I'm trying to say is: I'm a fungi...

 

When the guvmet gets around to it, be sure they will tax the HE double hockey sticks out of it.

 

If you walk into a state where it's illegal, that sounds like a you problem.