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800 Maynard Ave S, Suite 200, Seattle, WA 98134
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Then I realized it has nothing to do with helping people, or with morality in general.
The DEA feels so strongly about the war on drugs because it is their market. Without a huge group of people to go after, there is no reason for them to exist, no reason for them to have a job, no reason for them to collect a pension.
I don't give a fuck that most of the people these DEA chiefs know will lose their job if we start legalizing drugs. I care about the thing they started out claiming to care about: people, and I can tell you throwing them in jail and treating drug use like a criminal issue (as opposed to a health issue) is the wrong way to do it.
The DEA still has a huge and legitimate role to play in the medical world, but its role in the war on drugs should be over.
USA! USA! #1! ... In incarceration.
Where's the money for all that testing going to come from?
What about "false positives"?
Why?
"I'm no expert on the chemistry of urine analysis, but it is my understanding that drug tests are accurate enough to be considered a valid basis to fire people from their jobs."
Do some research, okay?
No test is 100% reliable.
Those tests are not free.
Why?
Is the end result of those hypothetical restrictions to keep fin-aid money from buying pot? The first year of college I bought a DSLR with my fin-aid money (decided to commute from Tacoma instead of taking out extra money to pay for dorms/rent in Seattle, ended up with a surplus). Don't think the poster store on The Ave doesn't make a killing each time fin-aid is disbursed.
Constitutionally it may be easier to pass a restriction of where funds can be spent, maybe attaching them to the magnetic strip to the student ID, like a debit card. BUT since it isn't a real debit card it will only be accepted where POS can support the transactions.
Or do you not care of fin-aid is spent on junk food, cameras, posters, or hotpants; but weed just get's your panties in a knot.
Don't forget that money is fungible.
If the goal really is to prevent financial aid money from being used to purchase marijuana then the only possible way is your idea with the student ID.
Otherwise, who is to say that the money did not come from the kid collecting aluminum cans?
Or that someone else shared theirs with the college kid?
So, "Ken Mehlman", answer the "WHY" question.
Beyond this, I-502 is too flawed.
Mr. Holden, you have been claiming through out this campaign to claim to thoroughly address all of the science.
Well here are three things which I have not seen you address.
One is that the very report which Norml uses to justify the 5 ng/ml limit ( www .canorml .org/healthfacts/DUICreport.2005. pdf), does also indeed mention that this limit may not be fair to regular or medical users:
"Background THC concentrations of regular users are also an uncertainty factor when estimating impairment based on THC blood concentrations."
The same report mentions that zero tolerance policies for youth are unrealistic, bad for designated drivers and completely recommended against:
"Extended or complete abstinence, as implicitly stipulated by a zero THC limit in blood, is not a realistic option, particularly for many younger drivers, who are the primary target for DUIC control. A zero limit also interferes with the concept of using designated drivers. A driver who used cannabis more than 12 hours before an event may still present with measurable THC."
Even this Fox affiliate in Colorado shows why 5 ng/ml is not fair.
( kdvr. com /2012/05/16/your-questions-answered-driving-under-the-influence-of-marijuana/)
If a Fox affiliate can even conclude that a 5 ng/ml as being unfair to individual rights, something is definitely wrong.
You keep mentioning racial bias in Washington State marijuana convictions. Where do you think those convictions are stemming from? From traffic stops.
You claim to have the science to refute these issues, then please I politely challenge you to respond to these issues in a way which makes I-502 still seem like the best policy. Because based on the above info, it just isn't.
Further more, people are saying your stance is biased because you never drive. Care to address this?
Thanks.
"Goal would be to prevent stoners from using public universities and financial aid to subsidize their lifestyle."
First off, how are "using public universities"? How?
Second, you disapprove of the action so you are trying to punish the people who engage in that action.
Third, you seem to have missed the point of this thread. It's about LEGALIZING the action that you disapprove of.
Which is why you are unable to answer any of the questions that have been brought up about your position. Such as, how do you know that the money came from financial aid? How do you know that the student purchased it at all? And so forth.
Say, isn't alcohol still illegal for many college students?
So if an under-age student has a blood alcohol level of ... ANYTHING ... then that student should be kicked out of college and face "revocation of all government financial aid".
And there should be random breathalyzer tests.
Right?
Do you now see how stupid that sounds?
How many highly tuned plans would you implement to safeguard fin-aid?
Would you also support having breathalyzers installed in every public university students' car (at taxpayer expense) too? Any alcohol content and they're locked in their car until they're picked up by police. They can all lose their loan money too. Hopefully they'll steer clear of cold medicine! Rich kids could get a free pass, either buying their way out of trouble via the family lawyer or just going to private schools instead. No skin off their back.
Hell lets just put cameras on any underage poor kids' heads, and monitor them. Build some software to analyze all the footage and if any suspected illegal activity goes on (like speeding when borrowing the car! Not stopping at a stop sign on their bikes!) we can take away all their futures too!
Smoking some weed never hurt anybody! Most people just ignore the law anyway. Conservatives should learn to live and let live.
"This means that people whose goal in life is to get stoned and watch TV tend to go to college rather than getting a job and stay in college as long as they can."
Yeah. That's going to go along with your other weird claims such as:
http://www.thestranger.com/slog/archives…
"I think this makes African Americans less inclined to follow society's rules."
"My proposal is that we drive the pot heads out of academia by making all financial aid contingent, among other things on, on passing regular urine tests."
Yes, you've posted that before.
You've still managed to refuse to explain how you know that the pot wasn't purchased with non-financial-aid funds. Or how you know that the pot wasn't given/shared with the student.
But you do know that colleges are where stoners are and lots of the teachers there are also stoners or were stoners and so stoners get an easy life in college.
And you don't like that.
I'm guessing that you didn't see how STUPID that plan was when "alcohol" was substituted for "marijuana".
You don't like marijuana use but you want to frame it as something else so you can demand a completely unrelated response to it.
You're an idiot.
"I think this makes African Americans less inclined to follow society's rules."
You are an idiot.
I'm going to help you out with testing theory since you're too lazy to lift a finger. EVERY BIOCHEMICAL TEST has an inherent level of sensitivity (the "false-negative" rate, or those specimens which pass the test although the test subject ingested the substance or otherwise matched the design parameter) and specificity (the "false-positive" rate, or those specimens which fail the test although the test subject never ingested the target substance or otherwise fell outside the design parameters). Both rates in commonly accepted tests can be surprisingly high.
You may think a pre-employment drug-screening test is no biggie, but what if YOU were the guy who's never snorted or injected heroin in his life, nor taken oral opiates whether prescribed or not, but fails the test because he ate a poppy-seed muffin at Starbuck's on the way to the lab? What if that was the only job offer you've received out of all the hundreds of applications you've submitted since 2008?
False positives can arise because of unique or unusual biochemical characteristics of the test subject, cross-reacting but irrelevant substances present in the specimen, defects in the test materials (a scratch in the test plate allows intermediate detection reagents to adhere through multiple rinsing steps), and many other reasons. Often these cases can be resolved by repeat testing. But ignorant people like you who have attained gatekeeper positions in HR and other arenas are unlikely to authorize a retest because there were dozens of other qualified job applicants who passed on the day your test was processed.
There are already adequate quality-control mechanisms present in academia—among others, the reputation of the school in which you matriculate, and the minimum-GPA requirements pertaining thereto.
You would also know that fin-aid is only available for three quarters per year and minimum load is 12 credits per quarter. Traditionally the quarter spent off is summer. Would you test everyone once a year? If students take winter quarter off would you re-test for spring & summer?
Also you would know that financial aid is tied to performance - there are minimum requirements of credits achieved per year to maintain fin-aid. If you do not meet the standard, fin-aid is revoke for following quarter/semester and you have to appeal for its return.
There is a cap to financial aid too, once you reach around 180 credits they start to put the squeeze on you so you cannot stay in undergrad forever. Most degrees can be finished up with under 200 credits. Astronomy and Physics class overlap so much most people go for the double major. Business is often times paired with foreign language minors. Stuff like that can put you over the top, but that is when you meet with an adviser and map out a agreed plan for graduation and then you can get the fin-aid back for those classes.
You cannot stay in undergrad forever on the pell grant, no matter how much you wanted to hate liberal arts students for doing so.
You're a nut case.
What false-positive rate would you think acceptable for a pre-employment physical? in order to keep your existing job, if you're one of the many people a single payday away from consumer-lending default? to avoid being given a death sentence for a murder you didn't commit?
I spent quite a few years as a professional business manager. Drunks are far worse. "Hung over employees are never productive. Give me a stoner and we'll still get the job
done. (I'm not advocating smoking at work....but the night(s) before no big deal.)
Your concept of pot heads just lying on the couch watching TV and consuming Cheetos is something you have learned from TV or Movie Comedies. Reality is calling in sick because of the "Irish Flu" and then lying of the couch. I know, I know.... conservatives don't need facts.
I mean. Re-invented!
Many "pot heads" I have known, are business owners, accountants, engineers, military officers, construction workers, realtors, sales, janitors, teachers, equipment operators ....the list goes on and on.
Attitude and perserverence are more important than whether you smoke pot. Why do you know so many lazy people? I ask again, which came first, laziness or Cheech and Chong?
I have a real life and my butt is sore. I'm ought here!
This is not to say that politicians do not do the right or wrong thing. Jimmy Carter was in favor of marijuana legalization during his Presidency. He was also accurately assessed the energy crisis, and was absolutely correct in his recommendations for how we should address it. As right as President Carter was on these and so many other issues, he did not get re-elected. The guy who replaced him was wrong on those issues, but he won and therefore got to implement his view of how they should be handled.
President Obama wants to win re-election. This is an election year. Polls show that Obama and Romney are neck-and-neck. And we all know that if Romney wins, not only will marijuana not be decriminalized/legalized, we know that the incoming administration will very aggressively prosecute marijuana users.
Knowing this, and knowing that supporting marijuana legalization/decriminalization, or allowing himself to be perceived as tacitly supporting such measures, it seems obvious that he will come out against them. Obama may very well have not brought the issue up before this, but now that the spotlight is on him, and he has to take a stand, it's no mystery as to which stand he will take.
Incidentally, Colorado resident here too and I will be voting to legalize, even though I'm not a pot-smoker myself.
Most ballot initiatives favor the status quo. Voters rarely vote in favor of a major structural change, unless the shit is really hitting the fan in a way that effects the majority of voters.
1) most people under 35 do not vote.
2) Groups of marijuana growers oppose legalization, since the status quo (dispensaries) artificially inflates prices
3) Anarchists generally do not vote.
4) Medical marijuana users already have the right to purchase, use and possess it.
So, the deck is already stacked against legalization. While medical marijuana users are significantly more motivated than 25 year old recreational users, they only benefit in the sense that prices will drop once it becomes legal for anyone to grow small amounts of the stuff. In every other sense, they are unaffected by the change.
And while the rest of us (myself included) do not want to see the 25 year old recreational user arrested for marijuana possession, we're not directly impacted in the same way that said 25 year old stoner is. And while the young recreational anarchist hippie punk stands the most to gain, s/he is likely not going to vote. Not standing up for your own rights at the ballot box does not translate into electoral victory, no matter how much those of us older non-stoners care about you and don't want you to get arrested.
Duuude, why bother voting when you can macrame your ass to the sofa and talk shit about everyone else? Being a lazy self-righteous asshole is sooo much easier than mailing in a stupid ballot form before the deadline. I mean, the reason why voter turnout in the primaries was so low isn't because people like you don't vote. It's because of the MAN. Keeping you DOWN. By making it so hard to get off your sofa and walk to a MAILBOX. Duuuude! Those fuckin' idiots who say you should vote are suuuuuch asshooooles! Duuuuuude!
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=pla…
I think you'll especially love that it was produced by Al Jazeera. Anyway, interesting to see how people in other countries see us, no?
Dominick Holden has no shame in his knee jerk support for I-502.
The level of comment on this site accurately reflects the maturity
and intelligence of his readers, which is none to high, way too high,
or not high enough, as the case may be.
Oh, and while we're at it, crank up the punishments for driving drunk and high until they actually mean something. Especially if it takes someone's life.
For your second statement, that can be shared with ll Slog writers.
"Legalize it, market it, and tax the hell out of it."
I think it should not be marketed.
Instead, the packs or whatever containers it is sold in should be black writing on a white background with the quantity/weight and the registration number of the producer.
No pictures. No cartoons. No brand names.
No more "Joe Camel" campaigns aimed at kids.
Kind of like this was for beer:
http://www.pirate4x4.com/forum/attachmen…
Although I'd also get rid of the different fonts. You get one, boring, font in one size.
I think the goal should be to reduce drug-trafficking-related crimes by reducing the non-taxable profits from the distribution/sale of drugs.
But to do so in a way that does not encourage/entice/glamorize the usage of such.
So you are continuing to avoid the questions that have been asked.
"Is it possible that the relatively small number of heroin addicts is to some extent the result of the efforts of law enforcement agencies such as the DEA?"
And by "to some extent" do you mean 1 person?
Because spending all that money and time just to persuade 1 person to not try HEROIN seems like a bit of a waste.
Never mind that the discussion was about legalizing marijuana.
When you cannot win on the original topic, switch to something you think you can win at. Even if you have to abstract your argument to the point where your argument can be spending hundred of millions of dollars to convince 1 person to not try heroin.
You have no idea what you're talking about, do you?
Where is the money going to come from for testing all those college students? Those tests are NOT free.
That is a lie nothing can be done on this bill for two years except by Legislative action or a new bill. They will say anything to gut the medical cannabis community, and get this bill passed. I think it is convenient that the state legislature just passed a bill allowing police to be able to take you down for a blood test just because he has probable cause. they are already paving the way to make the 2 billion in 5 years all from DUI revenue, read it here http://www.ofm.wa.gov/initiatives/2012/5…
"During the 1920s alcohol prohibition was fairly effective at preventing people from getting drunk. It was abandoned because it doubled the murder rate ..."
And most people understand that being drunk is better than being dead.
Most people.
The other problem being that the additional murders were not in the same category as the previous murders.
It's one thing if criminals kill criminals.
It's a different thing if criminals kill police and other government agents.
And it did not stop anyone from getting drunk.
It just raised the price and the danger.
"Drug prohibition is expensive, brutal, and perhaps more trouble than it's worth, but it's a pretty effective way to stop people people from getting high."
You are an idiot.
Anyone who wants to buy marijuana can buy it.
It's not stopping anyone.
All it is doing is raising the price and the danger.
And it is only people like you (who have a problem with OTHER people using marijuana) who do not see the obvious problem there.
I'd rather a hundred college students used marijuana than one innocent person be killed because of drug-trafficking-related crime.
"So we could use some of the money we save by not throwing pot heads in jail to root out drug use among college students."
You do not know what "legalize" means, do you?
You are proposing that the savings from NOT prosecuting people for using X be used to PROSECUTE people for using X.
Not to mention that enforcement of marijuana possession laws are now the lowest priority in Seattle.
But you aren't happy with that so you want to change it and make marijuana usage an issue (for college students).
You have no idea what you're talking about.
It made me want to post a link to this: http://i2.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/orig…
(I refrained because I don't like to mix my internets too much, but you gave such a good prompt to do so)
Yes, Prohibition and taxes reduce consumption but heroin isn't used more because it's extraordinarily powerful and most people prefer lower levels of intoxication of all kinds!
Strict restrictions on advertising and availability should constrain use and be better for everyone than the current DEA preferred approach to reduce heroin use (btw, the overuse of opiate prescriptions kinda undermine the current prohibition of heroin, don't ya think?)
Finally, your proposal for college students is leotarded! Why so much anti-pot and anti-student hate? Did the cool gay stoners make you feel like you missed out on all the fun in your college years? Go get some therapy and stop bothering these nice commenters on Slog!
That the DEA, criminalization of marijuana use, and concurring price increases are ineffective tools in impacting use rates is underscored by the fact that, according to this year's Center for Disease Control Youth Risk Behavior Surveillance System results, more high school students have smoked marijuana in the past 30 days than have smoked tobacco. This speaks to your argument @80 -- price manipulation is clearly an incomplete strategy since marijuana remains more expensive than tobacco by a factor of ten.
We've cut youth initiation of tobacco use in half in this state in the past decade not by criminalizing cigarette smoking (or conditioning young people's ability to attend college on successfully passing nicotine drug tests), but by investing in multimedia public health education strategies that help and encourage people to make better decisions.
@71 has it right: parents, schools, community groups and public health departments are the right tools. Pushing kids out of school due to a failed drug test only increases their risk of developing a substance use disorder.
"You think raising the price of an addictive drug doesn't stop people from using it?"
I know it does not.
Cigarettes are heavily taxed and people are still smoking.
"Nicotine is one of the most addictive substances known to man but cigarette taxes have been shown to be an effective way to make people quit smoking."
No they have not. People are STILL buying them.
"What I'm suggesting is that in some cases withholding government benefits, such as student financial aid, might be a more cost effective way of discouraging drug abuse than criminal prosecution."
No.
What you are proposing is that the government PAY for drug tests for an entire segment of the population.
And if someone in that segment should show as positive for drug X then that person would lose their financial aid for college.
You CLAIM that the money for that program would come from savings THAT DO NOT EXIST.
They do not exist because marijuana prosecutions are the lowest priority in Seattle.
"Putting a stoner in jail costs money, taking away a stoner's Pell Grant saves money."
Which is why Seattle made marijuana prosecutions the LOWEST PRIORITY. Why do you not understand that? Seattle is ALREADY not spending that money.
Therefore, that money is NOT available for your claims.
Therefore, MORE money would have to be spent to find the "stoners" that you keep claiming are taking financial-aid in college.
And what, EXACTLY, would be the goal of spending MORE money to save LESS money on a non-existent problem?
You are an idiot.
Great. That still doesn't explain WHY you think college students who have used marijuana should be stripped of their financial aid and expelled, basically ensuring they have no opportunities in life unless they happen to come from a privileged background. No, the unfortunate person experiences in your past, coupled with some tired stereotype of stoners playing Skyrim and hacky sack while barely skating by in their woman's studies courses aren't acceptable evidence.
"Yes, but not as many people and the people who do buy them don't buy as many as they otherwise would."
Your first point kind of contradicts your second point.
1. People do NOT buy them because they're taxed so high.
2. People DO buy them but in lower quantities.
Marijuana is VERY expensive (but inexpensive to produce).
Yet people still purchase it.
Which means lots of profit for the retailer.
Again, which CONTRADICTS your claims.
Anyway, on to that paper you attempted to site.
"Townsend, et al. (1994), for example, using data from the British General Household Survey, concluded that people in the lowest income groups were most responsive to price increases."
So that means that poor people should NOT be buying cigarettes.
"Over time, tobacco use has become increasingly concentrated in lower income groups and tobacco taxes paid as a share of income falls as income rises."
But poor people ARE buying the cigarettes.
So no, that does NOT support your claims.
You are an idiot.
And you STILL refuse to address the issue.
There is NO money to be saved from not prosecuting "stoners" because Seattle has ALREADY made prosecuting "stoners" the LOWEST PRIORITY.
Which means that MORE money would have to be spent to find the "stoners" that you keep claiming are taking financial-aid in college.
And what, EXACTLY, would be the goal of spending MORE money to save LESS money on a non-existent problem?
See?? Who says pot has no positive qualities? It gave you the ability to troll like no other!
High Society: Washington’s Love Affair With Marijuana
Medical marijuana is set to arrive in DC this summer. But the drug is already a much bigger part of upper-middle-class life here than you might think.
http://www.washingtonian.com/articles/pr…
Stiletto Stoners
They've got killer careers and enviable social lives. They're also major potheads. Why are so many smart, successful women lighting up in their off-hours?
http://www.marieclaire.com/celebrity-lif…
"Are you still saying taxing cigarettes doesn't result in fewer smokers?"
Did I not quote that exact point from the link you claimed showed that otherwise?
Here, I'll try to make it even clearer for you.
First off, you're saying "tax" when you really mean "cost". The taxes are rolled into the cost.
So if your claim was correct, there would be almost NO marijuana trafficking BECAUSE IT IS ALREADY SO EXPENSIVE.
So, no, taxing cigarettes does NOT result in fewer smokers.
If it did, you would be able to identify the price point at which 10 million people would give up cigarettes.
And the price point at which 20 million people would give up cigarettes.
And so on.
You cannot because you are an idiot.
Which is why you are trying to focus on something you think you can win instead of addressing the points that contradict your claims.
Raising the price means that crime related to that product becomes more economically viable AND it means that more of the disposable income of the users is tied up with it.
Do you need ANOTHER example?
By your "logic", Starbucks should be out of business. They charge 1000% more for coffee than it costs to make it yourself. So, by your "logic", no one should be buying Starbucks coffee because of the Starbucks "tax" on it.
But people DO spend 1000% more for coffee at Starbucks.
Did you get that yet?
Now, address the issues.
There is NO money to be saved from not prosecuting "stoners" because Seattle has ALREADY made prosecuting "stoners" the LOWEST PRIORITY.
Which means that MORE money would have to be spent to find the "stoners" that you keep claiming are taking financial-aid in college.
And what, EXACTLY, would be the goal of spending MORE money to save LESS money on a non-existent problem?
Nor do I base my argument on taxation. Since marijuana is so incredibly easy to produce, it will be as impossible to tax as it is currently impossible to stop people from growing it, despite it's illegality. Nor do i think it will be any more controllable if it's illegal than it is now that it's illegal.
I base my argument on the following premises.
1) If making marijuana illegal hasn't stopped anyone from using it, then the illegality of marijuana is ineffective and pointless.
2) An 18 year old kid who gets picked up on a minor possession charge. He then gets sent to prison, where he learns how to steal cars, break into houses, and kill people. Then he gets out, and finds that nobody will hire him since he has a felony criminal record. His survival instinct is just as powerful as ever, so in order to make a living, he now turns to the skills he learnt in prison. So you've transformed a teenage pothead into a car thief. You know, i think I preferred him as a pothead.
3) Drug cartels, gangsters, and associated sociopaths make a lot of money from selling drugs to otherwise law-abiding people. Said law-abiding folk must now interact with a segment of the population that will happily lace their pot with meth or other crap out of sheer disregard for human life. I'd rather the law-abiding potheads buy their dope from a store clerk, where the stuff is less likely to kill them, and the profits don't go to support the fucking Mafia.
Lest you try some ad hominem attack, I do not smoke pot or consume any other illegal drug. I am not motivated by a desire to get stoned and spend my whole life playing video games and listening to Deep Purple while munching on nachos. I support marijuana legalization because making it illegal to begin with was an incredibly stupid idea.
try breaking it down by age group, and you will find that more persons under 25 consume pot than consume alcohol. It's only as a person becomes older that s/he abandons pot in favor of alcohol, which is to say, people outgrow (forgive the pun) marijuana consumption.
In my mind, that's all the more reason to legalize it. I do not favor seeing our youth have their futures destroyed, their career prospects aborted, and their ability to become productive members of society ruined because they bought an ounce of pot at some point in their teens or twenties.
And does the illegality of pot prevent young people from using pot? Not on any college campus I've ever visited.
Look, growing up is a process, not an event. And for a period in one's late adolescence/early adulthood, marijuana is something that is very popular to use. The illegality of this substance does not inhibit it's use. Maturity inhibits its use.
Look, when I was 8-12 years old, the best thing in this world was grape flavored frozen ice pops. I consumed the hell out of purple ice pops during that period of my life. I haven't eaten one in decades, and nowadays they don't seem very appealing. The same thing happens with young people and pot. So leave those young people alone. Let them grow up, and don,t ruin their lives because they acted like juveniles when they were in fact juveniles.
"Oh please, nothing is that clear cut in the social sciences."
And yet you seem to be claiming exactly that.
Even when you are presented with facts that contradict your claims.
"Price is only one of a multitude of factors that determine how many people smoke and how much they smoke."
You're an idiot.
Before you were saying that the price DOES affect it now you're saying that there are "a multitude of factors".
And you are still avoiding the issue.
There is NO money to be saved from not prosecuting "stoners" because Seattle has ALREADY made prosecuting "stoners" the LOWEST PRIORITY.
Which means that MORE money would have to be spent to find the "stoners" that you keep claiming are taking financial-aid in college.
And what, EXACTLY, would be the goal of spending MORE money to save LESS money on a non-existent problem?
Your first reference is simply an account of the position of one person -- Nora D. Volkow, MD, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, a federal research institution. I wouldn't regard NIDA as a credible source for marijuana science -- I don't think it's a stretch to suspect that NIDA's subordinacy to the federal government leaves it susceptible to political manipulation. (NIDA actually spawned a synthetic THC analog called "Spice", which is now itself a controlled substance and yet another focus of the drug war.)
And according to your second reference, marijuana "addiction" is of little concern:
To whatever degree that there is a discrepancy (almost certainly smaller than the one you cite), I would say that prohibition simply makes it harder to acquire, and most people would rather deal in quantities they can buy in simple exchanges over counters in well-lit areas.
Of course, I'm pretty sanguine about the notion of a bump in marijuana use among adults. Those whose function is impaired will likely lose their jobs over poor job performance, or their driver's licenses over driving infractions; responsible, moderate users would be as invisible as responsible, moderate users of alcohol.
So when I say I think marijuana should be as legal as those things, I leave it to you to determine whether that adds up to "100%". I support licensing vendors, checking IDs for age, regulating potency, amount that one can buy at any one time, and field sobriety tests for individuals pulled over for driving infractions.
You are still avoiding the issue.
There is NO money to be saved from not prosecuting "stoners" because Seattle has ALREADY made prosecuting "stoners" the LOWEST PRIORITY.
Which means that MORE money would have to be spent to find the "stoners" that you keep claiming are taking financial-aid in college.
And what, EXACTLY, would be the goal of spending MORE money to save LESS money on a non-existent problem?
Given that alcohol and cigarettes are age restricted and come with health warnings, what "exemptions," exactly, am I answering for? You may be surprised both at what kinds of regulations I would allow for all consumer goods, including alcohol, tobacco, marijuana, opiates, etc., but also refined sugars, aspartame, bleached flour, GMOs, and the like, as well as what regulation I might oppose (that is, I don't think anything should be made unavailable, and am ambivalent, leaning hostile, to the notion of using the tax code to punish or encourage behavior). But I'd need it in front of me to make that call.I'm not sure I would support that. Then again, I don't have such an example; we're talking about a substance that, while hardly "harmless", is considerably less addictive and linked to far fewer health effects than tobacco.
I also think that we should be able to buy cheese made from unpasteurized milk; we're the laughing stock of Europe because we can't.
"Would you want to hard drugs legalized?"
You're just going to run all over the place because you cannot address the issue.
There is NO money to be saved from not prosecuting "stoners" because Seattle has ALREADY made prosecuting "stoners" the LOWEST PRIORITY.
Which means that MORE money would have to be spent to find the "stoners" that you keep claiming are taking financial-aid in college.
And what, EXACTLY, would be the goal of spending MORE money to save LESS money on a non-existent problem?