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COMMENT PAGE FOR: | |
US drug control agency will move to reclassify marijuana | |
galaxyLogic wrote 9 hours 34 min ago: | |
Why is it that in Amsterdam you have coffee-shops where you can sit | |
relax and smoke cannabis but nothing like that seems to exist in New | |
York City? Or elsewhere in America, is there? | |
yurishimo wrote 6 hours 54 min ago: | |
Honestly, it's probably mostly just a tourism thing at this point. | |
Most of the Dutch people I know tend to not care about weed but they | |
see coffee-shops as a thing for tourists or international students. | |
If you're a regular user in NL, then you have a hookup or grow your | |
own plants. | |
Also, anecdotally, I can smell a lot less weed in Amsterdam than when | |
I've caught a wiff of it in the US. You have to be walking right by | |
the shop before you smell it usually. I'm not sure if this is a local | |
regulation or what, but I suspect the Dutch would be much less | |
tolerant if their public spaces reeked 24/7 (but no worried about | |
the dog poop on the sidewalk)! | |
drozycki wrote 8 hours 20 min ago: | |
There are a couple of dispensaries with on site consumption lounges | |
in San Francisco. | |
ein0p wrote 9 hours 54 min ago: | |
Iâd rather the regime let Assange go, and pardoned Snowden. Allowing | |
something most states already allow is weak sauce as far as populism is | |
concerned. | |
te_chris wrote 8 hours 12 min ago: | |
This is a truly unhinged comment and I canât work out if itâs an | |
art project or not. Love it. | |
almostgotcaught wrote 8 hours 25 min ago: | |
do you know how many poor people get caught up on mj charges every | |
year in this country? not to mention this will lead to prior charges | |
being expunged from people's records. but sure let's prioritize those | |
two guys. | |
graphe wrote 8 hours 13 min ago: | |
Very short sighted thinking. If they beheaded Sam bankman fried | |
there will be a clear message to not commit financial crime, and | |
the aspiration and motivation would almost zero. | |
The gesture of the freeing these two brave whistleblowers is much | |
more important than you think. Noam Chomsky calls this censorship | |
flak of his five filters. | |
> If you want to challenge power, youâll be pushed to the | |
margins. When the media â journalists, whistleblowers, sources | |
â stray away from the consensus, they get âflakâ. This is t… | |
fourth filter. When the story is inconvenient for the powers that | |
be, youâll see the flak machine in action discrediting sources, | |
trashing stories and diverting the conversation. | |
ben_w wrote 7 hours 48 min ago: | |
SBF was willing to repeatedly take double-or-nothing bets at | |
50/50 odds even though the expected utility of each bet is the | |
same as not betting at all and the combined odds of bankruptcy | |
very quickly asymptotes to 100% with increasing rounds. | |
Literally beheading him won't put off the next person like him. | |
His current punishment is probably enough to put off anyone sane. | |
Assange isn't a whistleblower just by founding WikiLeaks any more | |
than Musk is a brain surgeon by founding Neuralink, he's the | |
figurehead. | |
Manning and Snowden get that title, but not Assange. | |
graphe wrote 14 min ago: | |
No he was not. You think he'd repeatedly do Russian roulette | |
with half the bullets? He had the odds with him with his legal | |
advisors. | |
Madoff's sentencing is why SBF's parents taught him to | |
disregard the law. If you don't understand the idea of | |
figureheads being important, what would happen if the president | |
was shot, or if Dali lama was chosen by china? America would | |
still keep going as would tibetan Buddhism. The leaks seems to | |
have stopped much more since assange is gone. HN is a platform | |
and I'm sure we'd still exist without it, assange definitely | |
does deserve credit. | |
almostgotcaught wrote 7 hours 49 min ago: | |
I can only remain bemused at how some people weigh things; | |
300,000 people were arrested in 2020 for possession of marijuana | |
[1]. There is nothing short-sighted about wishing the free so | |
many people of the misery of being under the same thumb (the | |
penal system) that you bemoan for Assange and Snowden. | |
1. | |
[1]: https://www.bakerinstitute.org/research/317793-people-we... | |
graphe wrote 19 min ago: | |
Where is the stats for 2023? | |
Weed offenses do not not precedent over unlawful spying, | |
espionage and the countless more lives it would save for their | |
actions. Unfortunately those people are overseas and you seem | |
dismissive of the American evils such as collateral murder. | |
[1]: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=HfvFpT-iypw | |
skrebbel wrote 8 hours 6 min ago: | |
But why not both? | |
aerophilic wrote 10 hours 15 min ago: | |
Question: If this change goes into effect, will it effectively open up | |
banking for all the cannabis related/cannabis adjacent companies? Seems | |
like a really smart move to bring them into the financial system. | |
nikkwong wrote 10 hours 18 min ago: | |
I think most people agree that weed shouldn't be a schedule 1 drug, but | |
I believe that the movement to decriminalize will have unforeseen | |
consequences on our society. Marijuana use leads to cognitive decline | |
and exacerbates psychiatric conditions even in healthy individuals, | |
full stop. The literature on this is clear. Whether the tradeoff is | |
worth it or not (the increased pleasure, for the decrease in cognitive | |
ability), should be up to the individual to decide. | |
The problem I have is that no one is talking about the potential | |
consequences when they're talking about legalization. My 70 year old | |
mom is going to parties with her friends where they all have a new | |
habit of smoking marijuana because "it's legal and safe". Regulators, | |
politicians, and advocates only hail the positive effects of marijuana | |
and no one is talking about the cognitive risks involved. | |
The reason probably is because I think most people agree that it's | |
stupid to send people to jail for smoking marijuana. But they're | |
conflating the idea that decriminalization is good with the idea that | |
marijuana then must not be bad for you. And this is wholly not true, | |
and I wish more people were talking about this. | |
Btw, I know I will probably get downvoted for this because marijuana | |
users don't want to face the fact that they might be dampening their | |
long-term cognitive potential but please go do a full review of the | |
literatureâyou will begin to share the doubt that I have. | |
phendrenad2 wrote 10 hours 10 min ago: | |
Can you provide some of your top resources for this argument? I feel | |
like if this were true it would be much more well-known. Maybe you're | |
misreading a paper? | |
nikkwong wrote 7 hours 45 min ago: | |
You don't have to look very far. | |
A systemic review of 26 studies [1] in 2019 found that: | |
"Although variability in the cannabis products used, outcomes | |
assessed, and study quality limits the conclusions that can be | |
made, modest reductions in cognitive performance were generally | |
detected with higher doses and heavier lifetime use." | |
The American Journal of Psychiatry [2]: | |
"Long-term cannabis users showed cognitive deficits and smaller | |
hippocampal volume in midlife. Research is needed to ascertain | |
whether long-term cannabis users show elevated rates of dementia in | |
later life." | |
This study published in JAMA [3]: | |
"...among 3385 participants with cognitive function measurements at | |
the year 25 visit, 2852 (84.3%) reported past marijuana use, but | |
only 392 (11.6%) continued to use marijuana into middle age. | |
Current use of marijuana was associated with worse verbal memory | |
and processing speed; cumulative lifetime exposure was associated | |
with worse performance in all 3 domains of cognitive function. | |
After excluding current users and adjusting for potential | |
confounders, cumulative lifetime exposure to marijuana remained | |
significantly associated with worse verbal memory..." [1] [2] | |
[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC7259587/ | |
[2]: https://ajp.psychiatryonline.org/doi/full/10.1176/appi.ajp... | |
[3]: https://jamanetwork.com/journals/jamainternalmedicine/full... | |
starspangled wrote 10 hours 28 min ago: | |
The greatest thing about tight, upcoming elections is that governments | |
actually start to do a tiny bit of what people want. Great result. | |
rsingel wrote 8 hours 1 min ago: | |
You are underestimating the time it takes to get stuff done in a big | |
bureaucracy AND the fear of the Congressional Review Act. It's the | |
nuclear option where Congress not only reverses an agency decision | |
but also ban the agency from ever doing that thing again in the | |
future. | |
But Congress can only go far back so agencies are racing to put out | |
regulations now so that a potentially hostile Congress in 2024 can't | |
undo what they did easily. | |
See for example net neutrality from the FCC, FTC regs, airline refund | |
regs from FAA and more. | |
Yes, all of this might help in the election, but if this were really | |
just about elections, you would see these announcements in September | |
and October. | |
[1]: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Congressional_Review_Act | |
starspangled wrote 2 hours 21 min ago: | |
I'm not underestimating that, I think the timing of this approval | |
was probably politically motivated. | |
Sure things can take a long time when people want to slow them down | |
or don't care about them. But things can move extraordinarily | |
quickly when it comes to moving billions of dollars into the | |
pockets of friends. That's basically my point. | |
rsingel wrote 7 hours 56 min ago: | |
Or shorter, given that this regulation is aimed at stoners who are | |
notorious for having memory issues, you'd release this 6 days | |
before an election, not six months before. | |
refurb wrote 8 hours 38 min ago: | |
Do you think thatâs driving this decision? | |
From what I gathered the DEA was looking at this over the past few | |
years. | |
It wasnât a Presidential decision. | |
starspangled wrote 2 hours 17 min ago: | |
I think it is driving the decision yes, and I think bureaucracies | |
are hopelessly politicized and corrupted. | |
romeros wrote 10 hours 14 min ago: | |
It leaves a bad taste in the mouth, doesn't it? Why haven't they | |
taken action until now? People aren't children to be appeased by such | |
gestures. | |
moomoo11 wrote 8 hours 44 min ago: | |
You have to keep some things in the bank to use in certain | |
circumstances. | |
Itâs all a game. The sooner you realize it and that there is no | |
option but to play the game, the better you and everyone else will | |
be. | |
And the game never ends and cannot be beaten. Any bs like âjust | |
donât play the game broâ ok then go live on Mars and make a | |
game there. Donât drive on the roads, donât use any utilities, | |
and try to self exile. | |
CynicusRex wrote 9 hours 28 min ago: | |
âPeople aren't children to be appeased by such gestures.â | |
Good one. | |
metamet wrote 9 hours 57 min ago: | |
We all prioritize things differently and I believe this process was | |
started on October 6th, 2022 [1]. This is just one of many things | |
the current administration has done over the last 3 years, though. | |
[1]: https://www.politico.com/news/2022/10/07/biden-weed-execut... | |
p1esk wrote 10 hours 18 min ago: | |
Unfortunately different people often want different things. | |
starspangled wrote 2 hours 19 min ago: | |
Yes they do, for example lobbyists and donors and buddies want to | |
get rich at the expense of the country and its people, and the | |
common plebs don't want that. | |
m463 wrote 9 hours 54 min ago: | |
Doesn't everyone want freedom, justice, fairness, etc. | |
(unfortunately everyone doesn't agree on the definition of these | |
terms) | |
(also: "But apart from the sanitation, the medicine, education, | |
wine, public order, irrigation, roads, a fresh water system, and | |
public health, what have the Romans ever done for us?") | |
portaouflop wrote 9 hours 46 min ago: | |
Romans have enslaved our children, raped our wives, desecrated | |
our holy places and burned our priests. They razed our villages, | |
slaughtered our herds, and forced our young men into their | |
military service. | |
So glad that they brought us civilisation! | |
drekipus wrote 8 hours 47 min ago: | |
Obligatory | |
[1]: https://youtu.be/Qc7HmhrgTuQ?si=ZcQQorNm5px-XoY_ | |
eru wrote 10 hours 27 min ago: | |
Governments actually do a lot of what people want, alas. | |
See | |
[1]: https://press.princeton.edu/books/paperback/9780691138732/th... | |
psychoslave wrote 7 hours 16 min ago: | |
LOL, the wisdom of the market mechanism to the rescue of the | |
irrational voters. | |
Der_Einzige wrote 10 hours 29 min ago: | |
What the heck is going on? This is literally top post on HN and the | |
comments look like a wasteland of nonsense and bots. | |
tempodox wrote 12 hours 7 min ago: | |
> ⦠and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of the | |
nationâs most dangerous drugs. | |
No, really, they're prepared to concede that water is wet? Shocker! | |
mulmen wrote 12 hours 28 min ago: | |
Will this open hiring options for government agencies? | |
Will nonviolent drug dealers be released from prison? | |
djur wrote 9 hours 38 min ago: | |
Most people convicted of nonviolent drug crimes are in state prisons | |
and cannot be freed by the federal government, but the administration | |
has been issuing pardons and commutations over the past several years | |
for the small number of people that have federal cannabis | |
convictions. | |
mulmen wrote 6 hours 31 min ago: | |
Ah interesting. So does that mean nonviolent prisoners may have | |
already been released in the states with âlegalâ weed? | |
sorwin wrote 12 hours 37 min ago: | |
Honestly, we should look to fix the issues that lead to people | |
depending on weed, alcohol, and other drugs instead. | |
These drugs are escapes for people - and a lot of them, especially | |
younger kids get completely hooked on the escaped from reality from | |
these drugs (including alcohol). | |
We should instead be limit the use of these drugs and have teams | |
dedicated to studying why people are turning to these instead. It's OK | |
to have them on the weekends, but most people I know who smoke weed are | |
on it the majority of the time. Alcohol isn't much better - most do | |
limit it to after hours / weekends, but there are a few who tend to | |
overdo it. | |
From a biased point of view, I've had a few young family members and | |
friends who turned to weed as their go-to for their daily lives, and it | |
has changed their lifestyle, made them far less willing to live out | |
their life and pursue actual goals. They definitely had both the | |
potential and backing of their families (mid to high class) to do | |
great, but chose to instead live a life of 'rotting away' in their | |
words. Out of them only one has turned their life around (still smoking | |
on weekends) citing that it made them not want to do absolutely | |
anything in their day to day life. | |
rdm_blackhole wrote 8 hours 50 min ago: | |
I think the long term effect depends on how your life is going. | |
Just like with alcohol, if your life is trash: bad job, no friends, | |
no relationship, then turning to weed or alcohol can be seen as an | |
escape from your life and eventually it will take over. | |
But if you are in a good headspace, then what is the problem really? | |
I can meet some friends and get plastered with them for a weekend and | |
not touch booze for a month after that because I have work/family | |
commitments that would make getting drunk impractical, | |
I am fairly certain that weed can be used exactly the same way. | |
Having a few drinks with friends or alone after a a hard day's work | |
is fun. Smoking a joint with friends while sunbathing on the beach is | |
fun. Getting high every day and drunk everyday is a problem but it | |
doesn't have to be that way. | |
dyauspitr wrote 10 hours 21 min ago: | |
It could just be as simple as itâs a lot of fun. I smoked pot for a | |
lot of years, not because I had a hole in me or anything, it was just | |
a very fun way to go about the day. I havenât smoked in a decade | |
because long term usage led to mild agoraphobia for me but went away | |
a couple of months after I stopped. | |
djur wrote 9 hours 43 min ago: | |
Yeah. I mean, it's a great accompaniment to some fresh fruit and | |
cheese on a sunny day, a good album, maybe the company of a loved | |
one. It never made me feel like a different person or like I was on | |
a vacation from reality like alcohol could. I've known lots of | |
people who smoke a little, or used to smoke a little and then | |
stopped (I haven't for a long time), and also people who smoke a | |
lot and seem to be doing fine, and also people who clearly smoke in | |
excess, to their detriment. But I have to say that the worst | |
potheads I've ever met seemed happy, healthy, and well-adjusted | |
compared to the alcoholics. | |
dyauspitr wrote 9 hours 6 min ago: | |
Yeah that paints a pretty picture but itâs also really fun to | |
do less picturesque things like just smoke and play your favorite | |
video game all day. | |
MSFT_Edging wrote 12 hours 13 min ago: | |
I know/knew a lot of people who smoke daily. It's honestly close to | |
50/50 where daily smokers excel and experience more than they would | |
have without, and daily smokers who stagnate. | |
A lot of them naturally moved away from smoking when its purpose was | |
served too. | |
samsin wrote 12 hours 24 min ago: | |
>Honestly, we should look to fix the issues that lead to people | |
depending on weed, alcohol, and other drugs instead. | |
It doesn't have to be exclusive or. People are looking to fix these | |
issues. In the mean time, we don't have to ruin people's lives by | |
convicting them as felons. | |
BenFranklin100 wrote 12 hours 51 min ago: | |
Thereâs been no strong studies on the harmful effects of weed due to | |
its illegal status. Now that is legal in many places, in 30 years we | |
will know a lot more as this natural experiment unfolds. I would not be | |
surprised if we see different but equally harmful effects. | |
Let the experiment begin. | |
sorwin wrote 12 hours 32 min ago: | |
The issue is the prolonged constant daily use of it. Unlike alcohol, | |
it's much easier to get by in the day with weed, and a lot of people | |
do use it as that. It offers them an escape from reality without the | |
full social repercussion of something like alcohol. | |
BenFranklin100 wrote 12 hours 25 min ago: | |
Thatâs a good point. Iâve known people who smoke a joint every | |
couple of hours and outwardly seem more functional than someone who | |
has had three or four drinks. | |
The long term effects remain to be determined. | |
1024core wrote 13 hours 10 min ago: | |
Democrats will dangle the possibility of marijuana legalization to | |
entice voters to turn out for the election. But I doubt legalization | |
will actually happen; I'd be delighted to be proven wrong. I'm just too | |
jaded, I guess. | |
djur wrote 10 hours 5 min ago: | |
It's already been legalized at the state level in 24 states, most of | |
those states governed by Democrats. There's clearly a lot of support | |
for actual action on this issue, including among elected officials. | |
unethical_ban wrote 11 hours 9 min ago: | |
Yes, I think you are too jaded. It's fine to be wary, but wrong to | |
think these two groups are the same. Don't forget that our Senate is | |
broken, so no legislation passes without an inordinate amount of | |
rural, conservatives states backing it. | |
So legalization may still be a political hot button, but give it | |
time. One party supports it, one party opposes it. Dan Patrick, Lt. | |
Gov. of Texas, is going to push the state to ban hemp-based Delta 8 | |
products in the next session. | |
One party is regressive, one party is receptive and secular. | |
int_19h wrote 11 hours 50 min ago: | |
Why wouldn't it, though? It's a massive new market that big corps are | |
itching to get into if only they could do so legally. And the fact | |
that some top politicians on both sides of the aisle are already | |
investing in weed (on state level, where it's legal) has already made | |
some news. | |
The only reason why it's not legalized yet is because 1) many | |
politicians are old enough to be brainwashed to believe in "reefer | |
madness", and 2) many voters are old enough to do the same, so | |
politicians who don't believe in it still have to pander to them. But | |
this is a problem that solves itself over time, which is why | |
supporting weed legalization becomes more socially and politically | |
acceptable. | |
I mean, just this year, 12 US senators wrote an open letter asking | |
DEA to legalize weed. This would have been unthinkable 20 years ago, | |
yet here we are. | |
If it's not all legal 20 years from now, I would be extremely | |
surprised. | |
cmrdporcupine wrote 8 hours 32 min ago: | |
Experience here in Canada has shown it's not nearly the massive | |
market that people thought it was. Tons of stores with excess stock | |
and people losing their shirts, production curtailed. Big | |
speculative wave when legalization was announced, and then it | |
collapsed. Take a look at e.g. Canopy Growth's stock price over 5 | |
years and you can see how the hype wave went. | |
qwerty456127 wrote 14 hours 13 min ago: | |
Great news. A very sound move. Indeed, marijuana is much less dangerous | |
of a drug yet considerably harmful in cases of chronic use in | |
unreasonably high doses therefore should be controlled some way. What | |
seems problematic nowadays is teenagers smoking too much. Also the idea | |
of stoned people driving cars sounds scary. To me it seems it should be | |
as available and legal as alcohol and cigarettes are, no less, no more. | |
What I'm curious about is how marijuana availability links to | |
consumption of other drugs including hard drugs, alcohol, tobacco, | |
tranquilizers and antidepressants. I hypothesize it may decrease these. | |
int_19h wrote 11 hours 55 min ago: | |
A typical stoned driver is someone who drives half as fast as the | |
speed limit allows. That's how the cops spot them usually. | |
I'm not saying that this should be legal or that it's okay to do it, | |
but it's really much less of a problem than one would think. | |
Certainly much less so than drunk driving. | |
psalminen wrote 12 hours 24 min ago: | |
Coming from a longtime marijuana friendly state, I've noticed that it | |
has also lowered the stigma of other "hard" drugs. Since weed is no | |
longer the socially-acceptable illegal drug, others like cocaine has | |
taken is place. | |
I've long wondered if this will be a trend across the country. | |
yurishimo wrote 7 hours 23 min ago: | |
This makes sense when compared to other legal drugs. Alcohol is | |
only seen as a problem if you get shitfaced in public. Cigarettes | |
were/are the more acceptable form of smoking when compared to | |
cannabis. Now that the line for cannabis is moving, it makes sense | |
that something else will come take it's place. | |
The real question though is, will more or less people who try | |
cannabis now that it's legal, know when to stop experimenting when | |
offered harder drugs? The fact that we don't see 15 year olds | |
making bathtub moonshine leads me to believe that there is a limit | |
somewhere for most people. Cannabis has not been difficult to get | |
in the US for decades if you have even a modicum of | |
self-determination. If everyone who has abstained until now | |
suddenly gets the urge to try cannabis, I doubt that will totally | |
destroy that self control after a few hits. Just like many people | |
can go to a bar and know when to stop drinking even though there | |
are likely somewhat inhibited by the drinks they have already | |
consumed. | |
anonym29 wrote 12 hours 25 min ago: | |
While no impairment is obviously ideal, I'd much rather share the | |
road with someone who's had a few puffs than someone on a cocktail of | |
legal psychoactive prescription medications like antidepressants, | |
SSRIs, amphetamines, hypnotic sedatives, etc. | |
xeonmc wrote 13 hours 52 min ago: | |
The biggest problem is not the self-harm aspect but rather the social | |
ramifications. | |
Regulations and social expectations of where you can smoke should be | |
as-strict as tobacco smoking, if not more since weed is just so much | |
more stinky. | |
eschaton wrote 7 hours 22 min ago: | |
We donât regulate where people can smoke tobacco because of the | |
smell, we regulate where people can smoke tobacco because of the | |
health impact of secondhand smoke. | |
dyauspitr wrote 10 hours 27 min ago: | |
Itâs hopeless. Both Washington DC and New York pretty much | |
constantly smell like weed even though people are not smoking on | |
the streets. Its not a particularly bad problem and doesnât | |
bother me but I could see some people being bothered by it. | |
bdhess wrote 13 hours 5 min ago: | |
Stinky is very qualitative. Maybe you grew up around tobacco | |
smokers and so donât mind the smell? I hate it. | |
Quantitatively, marijuana smoke is less carcinogenic than tobacco | |
smoke. | |
xeonmc wrote 12 hours 6 min ago: | |
I hate both. Hence I said it should be as strict, if not more. | |
BenFranklin100 wrote 12 hours 55 min ago: | |
The smell from marijuana smoke lingers and travels in a way | |
tobacco smoke does not. Most people other than users find it | |
significantly more offensive than tobacco. | |
Reubachi wrote 1 hour 38 min ago: | |
Any burning organics will be different sample to sample, and | |
any "smell" judgement of such will be subjective. | |
Almost objectively, we all have anecdotal memories of being | |
overwhelmed by tobacco residue in a car, room, clothing etc. | |
^ Not like "someone just smoked a cigarette in here, yuck" but | |
more like "this room is destroyed from 20 years of tobacco | |
smoke, we can't sell this". | |
I would suspect that very very few people have ever sat in a | |
car and said "someone has smoked cannabis in here for years, | |
it's destroyed." | |
BenFranklin100 wrote 1 hour 31 min ago: | |
I donât care about a car or home destroyed by tobacco use. | |
Those are easy for me to avoid. Sitting on my porch and | |
nightly taking in the smell of weed from a neighbor 50 feet | |
away is a different story. That doesnât happen with tobacco | |
smoke. The smell of marijuana travels in a way tobacco | |
doesnât. | |
mattmaroon wrote 12 hours 40 min ago: | |
Disagree. If youâre at a concert and someone smokes weed | |
everyone is like âright onâ. You smoke a cigarette and | |
people want to fight you. | |
BenFranklin100 wrote 12 hours 28 min ago: | |
What does this have to do with how the respective smells | |
linger? | |
bamboozled wrote 10 hours 37 min ago: | |
It's less offensive of an order as the complete shit that's | |
in cigarettes and it also doesn't stick to your clothing | |
and linger in the same way. | |
mattmaroon wrote 1 hour 12 min ago: | |
Subjective but I feel like it is less harsh on my lungs | |
secondhand too | |
riffic wrote 13 hours 45 min ago: | |
I'd say putting a very large class of people into "the system" has | |
produced a worse outcome than the drug itself would ever have had. | |
babyshake wrote 13 hours 55 min ago: | |
"Also the idea of stoned people driving cars sounds scary. " | |
Depends how stoned, but people routinely drive while using medication | |
that affects them far more than being a bit stoned. | |
insane_dreamer wrote 11 hours 0 min ago: | |
or texting or otherwise looking at their phone while driving ... | |
lambdaba wrote 12 hours 27 min ago: | |
In response to uninformed sibling comments reflexively fearing | |
cannabis use in drivers, see here: [1] > Cannabis users perceive | |
their driving under the influence as impaired and more cautious, | |
and given a dose of 7 mg THC (about a third of a joint), drivers | |
rated themselves as impaired even though their driving performance | |
was not; in contrast, at a BAC 0.04% (slightly less than two | |
âstandard drinksâ of a can of beer or small 5 oz. glass of | |
wine; half the legal limit in most US states), driving performance | |
was impaired even though drivers rated themselves as unimpaired. | |
> This awareness of impairment has behavioral consequences. Several | |
reviews of driving and simulator studies have concluded that | |
marijuana use by drivers is likely to result in decreased speed and | |
fewer attempts to overtake, as well as increased âfollowing | |
distanceâ. The opposite is true of alcohol. | |
I'd be more weary of people under the influence of anger, benzos, | |
or other psychiatric drugs. | |
In my experience, cannabis is a performance enhancer in these | |
cases, increasing awareness rather than decreasing it. After all, | |
it does improve ADHD symptoms. | |
[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2722956/ | |
BobaFloutist wrote 27 min ago: | |
Everything I've seen suggests that weed mimics or even | |
exacerbates ADHD symptoms, where are you getting that it improves | |
them? | |
spike021 wrote 8 hours 45 min ago: | |
Next we'll have studies seeking to prove drivers who drink enough | |
to reach the Ballmer Peak will have a mind in the utmost | |
condition for driving. | |
lambdaba wrote 6 hours 37 min ago: | |
I'm not surprised to see decades of propaganda and clichés | |
have done their work on many of us. | |
ineedaj0b wrote 10 hours 30 min ago: | |
I find it far more likely it has not been studied to the degree | |
alcohol has been, and as a larger sample of users is tested these | |
results will change. | |
Iâve heard every drug under the sun affect adhd for people | |
lately, so I donât know if thatâs a divining rod for truth. | |
Had a guy say Fentanyl really helped his adhd⦠hm okay. I think | |
our definitions and condition criteria need to separate into more | |
discerning terms for a lot of medical conditions | |
joenot443 wrote 3 hours 20 min ago: | |
After reading through that paper, it's pretty clear the authors | |
were thorough in their research. They're referencing many of | |
dozens of studies with many thousands of participants. | |
You mention that "results will change", but given that it's a | |
lit review, I'm not sure which results you're talking about. | |
I'm sure you read the contents of the link, so I'll ask | |
directly - which study in particular did you find issue with? | |
What do you think they did wrong? | |
lambdaba wrote 6 hours 39 min ago: | |
Ethanol is a poison, what, outside of prejudice, would make you | |
find it more likely it's simply a lack of studies? Maybe it | |
simply hasn't reached me, but I never even heard about cannabis | |
being chiefly blamed on a car accident, mind you, people can | |
drive recklessly sober, but, again, if anything cannabis is | |
going to make them be more cautious. For one, surely you have | |
heard of the "paranoia" that cannabis users often get at higher | |
doses, where they feel distant objects are closer than they | |
really are. | |
mattmaroon wrote 12 hours 42 min ago: | |
Both of the above are illegal, though very hard to enforce. | |
jpsouth wrote 12 hours 49 min ago: | |
I think that also sounds pretty scary. Seeing the state of drivers | |
in the UK, without knowing what theyâre under the influence of, | |
if anything, itâs a pretty damning sight. | |
There is probably some form of bias here, as I donât remember all | |
of the good drivers, but not a day goes by where I donât see | |
drivers wandering into other lanes, performing dangerous | |
undertakes, lane changes, or generally being terrible drivers, and | |
you have to wonder why. | |
A lot of phone drivers, for sure, a lot of ignorant pricks too, but | |
Iâd bet on a lot of inebriated drivers given their conduct. | |
Example of a shocker I had today, I was turning right out of a resi | |
street, a car with no indication stopped to let me out on my right, | |
but it wasnât safe (very tight, little visibility) so I waved him | |
along. I stayed there for appx 30 seconds until I realised he | |
wanted to turn into the street I was pulling out of. He didnât | |
indicate once. Just a completely wild disregard for any form of | |
road etiquette, not to mention the Highway Code. | |
Iâll report it from my dashcam, but I doubt anything will be done | |
by my local police force. | |
I think we need far more stringent fines and forced retests (along | |
with removal of licence if they canât meet the standard of a | |
learner) for anyone committing a road traffic offence or blatantly | |
breaching the Highway Code out of sheer ignorance. | |
0xDEADFED5 wrote 13 hours 5 min ago: | |
i think driving is probably already dangerous enough without adding | |
cannabis or any other psychoactive into the mix | |
anonym29 wrote 12 hours 15 min ago: | |
The culture around driving in the US is the problem. Many states | |
will hand a license to pretty much anyone over 18 with nothing | |
more than basic reading comprehension and eyesight required. | |
Contrast this to say, the driving culture of Germany. There, | |
everyone (not only minors) must undergo a rigorous training that | |
is both broad and deep in scope. In addition to everything you'd | |
expect, they also learn vehicle maintenance, basic first aid, | |
performance driving skills (like the kind you'd pay to learn at a | |
racetrack in the USA), and above all else, a deep respect and | |
appreciation for the importance of following the rules of the | |
road, leading to rigorous adherence to driving laws and etiquette | |
that many Americans would find borderline anal-retentive. | |
However, the result is that I get to tell you fun facts such as | |
the US interstate highway system having a higher rate of | |
accidents and a higher rate of accident fatalities per | |
vehicle-mile traveled than the Autobahn, in spite of the fact | |
that hundreds of vehicles are hitting 180+ mph (300+ km/h) on a | |
daily basis over there, while American highways mostly tend to be | |
limited to 55/60/65/70/75 mph depending on state and road type. | |
yurishimo wrote 7 hours 32 min ago: | |
This has been my experience as well. | |
Heck, even the US adopting more of a Dutch/Belgian model would | |
be better than what they use now. The bar to get a license is | |
so low in the US that it's not really surprising how many | |
people die in car accidents over there. | |
I say all this as an American who got their license the day | |
they turned 16. I will never forget that during the driving | |
exam, I was given the option to skip the parallel parking | |
section in exchange for 1 point off of my score. The | |
alternative was, if I hit a cone marking the edge of the | |
course, I would fail outright. Of course I took the point off | |
and walked out with my license! This was suburban Dallas in | |
2010? Funny enough, in 2013 I moved to Kansas and worked in a | |
downtown area where parallel parking was basically a | |
requirement. I took me about 2 months to get comfortable | |
navigating into any spot on the street without rubbing my tires | |
or being insanely crooked. Now that I live in Europe, I'm glad | |
I had that experience because it's served me well regularly | |
ever since. | |
jazzyjackson wrote 12 hours 50 min ago: | |
well then i hope you lobby your representatives for bike lanes | |
and public transit because america is a highly medicated place | |
BurningFrog wrote 14 hours 53 min ago: | |
FWIW I asked ChatGPT how long the process would take from DEA putting | |
the rule out for public comment until it becomes an active rule: | |
> The entire process can take from a few months to several years, | |
depending on the complexity of the issue, the volume of public | |
feedback, and the urgency of the reclassification. | |
YeBanKo wrote 15 hours 11 min ago: | |
This change is not gonna legalize it, but will just make it âless | |
illegalâ acknowledging its medical use. While logically it make sense | |
to move in this direction, I am afraid that ultimate consequences might | |
be few large companies dominating the market completely and probably | |
growing stuff offshore. If it gets a pass for recreational use then we | |
will see weed induced soda in vending machines at school in couple of | |
generations. | |
fullstick wrote 3 hours 25 min ago: | |
Weed induced soda in vending machines sounds like a win to me. | |
sethd wrote 15 hours 24 min ago: | |
> itâll remain controlled substance | |
Got to make sure the doctors get a cut by requiring prescriptions. | |
tensility wrote 16 hours 41 min ago: | |
This is not good enough, in my opinion. It's hard to treat the justice | |
system seriously because of bullshit restrictions on victimless | |
"crimes" like this. I'll only be okay with this if alcohol gets | |
reclassified as Schedule III. | |
Nuzzerino wrote 14 hours 30 min ago: | |
It's not really victimless when you have cases of psychosis and other | |
health issues that negatively affect people around them, and put | |
strain on taxpayers and the health system. This is Should be strictly | |
prescription-only, and not with the rubber stamp model that "medical" | |
marijuana clinics use. But that isn't politically correct so it's | |
better to ignore the science and just drug the masses. [1] | |
[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/ | |
[2]: https://treatmentmagazine.com/cannabis-2020-this-isnt-your-d... | |
djur wrote 9 hours 50 min ago: | |
The evidence that exists suggests that heavy cannabis usage _at an | |
early age_ is associated with the development of psychotic | |
disorders. No state that has legalized cannabis has permitted | |
minors to purchase it. No evidence exists that cannabis usage later | |
in life causes psychosis. There is also a lack of population | |
evidence that increased cannabis usage among the public results in | |
increased rates of diagnosis of psychotic disorders. And nobody is | |
"drugging the masses" here. The government authorizing a product | |
for sale doesn't force you to consume it. | |
yurishimo wrote 6 hours 59 min ago: | |
To be fair, if it is legalized, that makes it easier to get for | |
minors. Look at how many high schoolers smoke/vape even though | |
you're supposed to be 18. I still don't think it's worth keeping | |
it as a schedule I drug, but this is a possible externality that | |
we need to account for as a society. | |
anonbanker wrote 16 hours 50 min ago: | |
Did nobody else notice that this is a story based on sources "Familiar | |
with the matter"? | |
Have we learned nothing from the Mueller Investigation? How are we all | |
still falling for unsourced stories 5 years later? | |
phendrenad2 wrote 18 hours 9 min ago: | |
Reminder that Marijuana was made illegal 90 years ago due to pressure | |
by a cartel of other drug peddlers (including opium and cocaine), and | |
also a culture of pervasive racism that painted Marijuana as a trap | |
that brown/black races had fallen into and must be outlawed for white | |
people. | |
Whatever you think about the effects of Marijuana on yourself or | |
society, it's clear that it should have never been outlawed in the | |
first place, and wouldn't have been outlawed if not for the factors | |
above. | |
It seems that the fentanyl crisis has finally defeated the archaic drug | |
policy in the states, but not in the way you think. If alcohol and | |
tobacco were outlawed in the US, it would immediately become impossible | |
to buy them without risking getting a deadly dose of fentanyl. | |
Legalization of marijuana, controlled legalization, is the only sane | |
answer. | |
(And this is coming from someone who doesn't partake) | |
ChrisMarshallNY wrote 18 hours 11 min ago: | |
I'm not sure how this will affect the current "mom and pop" weed | |
stores. I know that The Big Dogs are just raring to get in on the | |
action, and I'll lay odds they have done things like preemptively | |
register weed brands. | |
kinakomochidayo wrote 19 hours 11 min ago: | |
Great, let psychedelics be reclassified next | |
sorwin wrote 12 hours 31 min ago: | |
What we need is less drugs, and more fixing the issues on what causes | |
people to turn to drugs. | |
yurishimo wrote 7 hours 1 min ago: | |
Affordable healthcare being chief among these. If people could go | |
to the doctor without fear of bankruptcy, they might stop trying to | |
self medicate with potentially addictive substances. | |
I was listening to a podcast the other day and one of the hosts had | |
lost his job. He was thrilled to "only" have to pay $1000/mo for | |
insurance on the Marketplace for his family of 6. And he confirmed | |
it wasn't even a "Cadillac" plan! | |
If my back hurts, I'm probably going to reach for weed over a visit | |
to the doctor because $10/day is a potentially more affordable than | |
needing to shell out $8k for back surgery or physical therapy | |
treatments for years. Maybe I get lucky and the pain goes away, or | |
I can focus on finding a new job with better health benefits and | |
still come out ahead financially. | |
MSFT_Edging wrote 12 hours 9 min ago: | |
Humans have been using drugs as long as we've been human. From | |
caffeine to advanced hallucinogens. | |
I agree with the sentiment but it seems far more reasonable to stop | |
criminalizing something so human as a step towards the goal, rather | |
than put the goal before the metaphorical horse. | |
bbarn wrote 19 hours 33 min ago: | |
I really don't think this is a positive in any way, unless you oppose | |
recreational marijuana usage. | |
Making it a schedule III puts it back in "Doctor prescription" | |
territory, and since there's now a legal route to getting it, a lot of | |
these businesses that have operated with impunity are breaking a | |
different set of laws if it's schedule III. No doubt that laws and | |
decriminalization statutes would need to be updated to comply | |
federally. Banks may be able to be used, but only if you're a | |
registered pharmacy. It's really just a lot more questions and a lot | |
more people to profit on the chain to selling it. | |
Most of the world still treats it as an illegal substance. In the US | |
we have definitely allowed popular sentiment to make it appear much | |
less harmful than it is. I'm not sure it belongs in schedule I, but it | |
certainly doesn't belong OTC. | |
whitakerch wrote 19 hours 9 min ago: | |
Know that the reason why it's illegal in so many places to begin with | |
is because of the US. Weed wasn't really an "issue" anywhere. Until | |
the US drug war began and spread to other countries thru | |
international narcotic treaties. | |
Obviously there are outliers and certain cultures where domestic | |
policy was also heavily at play (Japan). But many European countries | |
didn't view weed as particularly problematic. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 19 hours 21 min ago: | |
> I'm not sure it belongs in schedule I, but it certainly doesn't | |
belong OTC. | |
How is it more dangerous than cigarettes or alcohol? | |
Prescriptions are basically a formality. There are a certain set of | |
symptoms you have to describe to a doctor in order to get any | |
particular drug, then you go to a doctor and get the prescription. It | |
has to be this way because many of the conditions have no | |
non-invasive tests to determine if the patient is lying and as much | |
as the DEA would like it to be the case, doctors are not supposed to | |
be cops and they can't be effective doctors if they have to play CYA | |
all day. | |
But at that point all the law is doing is propping up pharma profits | |
and inflating healthcare costs by routing recreational use through | |
the insurance system, and screw that. If you want to eat pot brownies | |
then you should a) pay the market price, not a tax to corporate | |
shareholders, and b) pay it yourself, not stick the cost on everyone | |
who buys health insurance. | |
ttpphd wrote 19 hours 25 min ago: | |
Supposed evidence of the harmfulness of cannabis compared to alcohol | |
shows that cannabis absolutely deserves to be OTC and available for | |
recreational use. Popular sentiment is popular precisely because the | |
supposed harm has never materialized to the point of justifying the | |
paternalistic and authoritarian control of social groups who tend to | |
use cannabis. | |
EA-3167 wrote 19 hours 28 min ago: | |
You seem to believe that a move from Schedule I (totally illegal to | |
sell) to Schedule III (legal to sell under some circumstances) is | |
going to hit the reset button on state laws around cannabis. That | |
seems unlikely, the states are already ignoring the feds on this, | |
this is just a step the feds are taking to bring the federal legal | |
landscape closer to the state landscape. The major changes will | |
simply be, as others have stated, to make it possible to travel with | |
cannabis (with an Rx) and for dispensaries and others to use FDIC | |
insured banking and transfer mechanisms. | |
Other than that, nothing is likely to change unless states walk back | |
the laws they've already passed. | |
Remember, it's already illegal on the federal level for these | |
businesses to exist, and that isn't stopping them. | |
hughesjj wrote 18 hours 52 min ago: | |
Imo the states get far too much revenue from recreational taxes and | |
I imagine the Fed doesn't want that to change either. | |
It's really just a few dinosaur pearl clutchers that are preventing | |
it from being descheduled entirely | |
bbarn wrote 19 hours 7 min ago: | |
Once there is a framework for legal sale, and regulations around | |
it, you think all these states will continue to just not comply? | |
EA-3167 wrote 18 hours 58 min ago: | |
They've been thumbing their nose at more more serious laws until | |
now, why would a downgrade in consequences suddenly make them | |
burn down industries that bring in billions? | |
par wrote 19 hours 28 min ago: | |
You'll be able to get a doctor rx super easily, think like all these | |
viagra and adderall rx mills. | |
ddp26 wrote 19 hours 40 min ago: | |
I did some AI-assisted research on this, and have come to the following | |
tentative conclusions: | |
1. The re-scheduling will happen (90%), the administrative hurdles will | |
be cleared. Only counterexample I could find was Kratom in 2016, which | |
was the reverse of this situation, and the DEA dropped the proposal at | |
the public comment stage. | |
2. Trump will not reverse it if elected (80%). He's been | |
pro-states-rights on cannabis (or outright legalization) going all the | |
way back 1990, and has criticized Biden on this. | |
3. Unlikely many US states that outlaw it will change, but I do predict | |
(75%) at least one major European country will follow suit within a | |
year, given Germany beat US to the punch | |
4. Effects in the US will be minor, outside of weed stores using the | |
banking system as another comment pointed out, since most enforcement | |
is state level. | |
5. But if there are changes, the best evidence we have on this comes | |
from state legalization, where the effects are estimated to be huge | |
(+3% state income, +17% substance use disorders). | |
ceejayoz wrote 19 hours 12 min ago: | |
And what did the AI cite as sources for these conclusions? | |
ddp26 wrote 18 hours 28 min ago: | |
These conclusions are mine, based on research the AI did. None of | |
these probabilities were directly output, it simply found lots of | |
news articles, made simple models, researched what people have said | |
& done historically. | |
Overtonwindow wrote 20 hours 2 min ago: | |
Just in time for the election. It baffles me why this took so long | |
given the number of states legalizing it. | |
YesThatTom2 wrote 20 hours 10 min ago: | |
Elections have consequences!! | |
ada1981 wrote 20 hours 16 min ago: | |
What an embarrassment to anyone in the DEA or public policy in general | |
that this is still a thing. | |
Not sure how the DEA can consider itself a serious organization. | |
sorwin wrote 12 hours 28 min ago: | |
Hard to judge the DEAs effectiveness off something like this. You | |
have very little insight on their actual effectiveness and workings | |
on everything, yet your comment seems to summarize the entire | |
organization off a completely biased political comment. | |
ugh123 wrote 20 hours 25 min ago: | |
America should have a long hard look at why it takes so long to do | |
something that would have been considered "reasonable" by most of the | |
country 15 years ago. | |
BobaFloutist wrote 23 min ago: | |
Our government moves slowly, by design. | |
Trust me, you don't want to see a fast-moving American government. | |
paulddraper wrote 17 hours 18 min ago: | |
But that's factually untrue. | |
Gallup polled support for legalization being in the minority, as | |
recently as 2010. [1] Now factor in the demographics of voters vs | |
adults in general, and the timeline is the opposite of surprising. | |
[1] New High of 46% of Americans Support Legalizing Marijuana | |
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/144086/new-high-americans-suppo... | |
marcod wrote 16 hours 22 min ago: | |
Since when is majority support the same thing as reasonable?? | |
hunter2_ wrote 15 hours 23 min ago: | |
What strategy is more reasonable? | |
underseacables wrote 19 hours 19 min ago: | |
I think it's the same with a lot of things that the American | |
government grapples with, they only do it when there is a politically | |
expedient reason to do it. Whether it's reducing student loans, | |
outlawing noncompete clause, or marijuana, elected officials don't | |
really seem to do anything helpful unless there's a clear advantage | |
for themselves or their party. | |
AndrewKemendo wrote 20 hours 48 min ago: | |
There you have it, the administrator themselves saying they believe in | |
myths about cannabis: Itâs a gateway drug; while simultaneously | |
ignoring that the drug killing people, fent has a perfectly causal | |
gateway drug in vicodin/percs | |
> Jack Riley, a former deputy administrator of the DEA, said he had | |
concerns about the proposed change because he thinks marijuana remains | |
a possible âgateway drug,â one that may lead to the use of other | |
drugs. | |
>âBut in terms of us getting clear to use our resources to combat | |
other major drugs, thatâs a positive,â Riley said, noting that | |
fentanyl alone accounts for more than 100,000 deaths in the U.S. a | |
year. | |
ip26 wrote 10 hours 47 min ago: | |
Or, he's a savvy guy talking to the people who do still believe it's | |
a gateway drug, and deftly explaining to them why this is good | |
without trying to tell them they are wrong. | |
whalesalad wrote 13 hours 39 min ago: | |
the difference between fentanyl and marijuana is like a nuclear bomb | |
versus a slingshot. | |
Jerrrry wrote 13 hours 55 min ago: | |
>Itâs a gateway drug; while simultaneously ignoring that the drug | |
killing people, fent has a perfectly causal gateway drug in | |
vicodin/percs | |
Cannabis IS a gateway drug, indirectly, by means of social contagion. | |
It's simply a catch-22 because the government (and media, and both | |
sides of the political spectrum) has completely destroyed their | |
credibility with the people. | |
Teenagers have had plenty of excuses, through loss of trust in the | |
self-anointed's reputation of exaggeration, to (rightly) assume the | |
government is | |
outright lying or masquerading the facts about all substances. | |
So when artistic pieces of blotter paper of unknown orgin start | |
making appearances in high school's around the world in 2014, | |
students had 0 reason to believe they were dangerous; after all, "cup | |
of orange juice man" had already long been debunked. | |
Many kids have died, directly because of this DIS-education. | |
Oxy/Hydro's are the actual gateway drugs; recreational/unfettered | |
use, alongside the constant social pressure, will (nearly always), | |
cascade into more dependent use of more potent opiates, then opioids. | |
When fent-laced pills finally starting working their way into the | |
aging supply of real Percoset in the hills of Appalachia, three | |
generations of drug addicted families had already resigned their fate | |
to a long, painful retirement of addiction. | |
By the way - these same, ("simple, flyover, farmer, uneducated" by | |
blue/'learned'/democract) people trusted their government to get | |
hooked on these, remember? | |
If it is a surprise to you that the vast majority of Americans | |
distrust the DEA, FDA, or CDC, or CNN, or even FOX then you have | |
never left the conform of your post-modern urban hell-scape. | |
source: i am veteran of the war on drugs | |
a13o wrote 16 hours 47 min ago: | |
I think these 'gateway drug' believers will be pleasantly surprised. | |
One reason it's a gateway drug is because of a line of thought like | |
this: | |
1) Govt says cannabis is the most dangerous drug. | |
2) I try cannabis, nothing bad happens. | |
3) So when the govt says drugs are dangerous, they are incorrect? I | |
guess I can't use their rating system and will have to base it on my | |
own experiences. | |
There is a trust penalty for over-classifying drugs. | |
And then of course picking up your cannabis from the popular pharmacy | |
chain means you never had a reason to introduce yourself to a dealer, | |
who may stock cannabis alongside other drugs. | |
Cannabis isn't intrinsically a gateway drug. All the gateway-ness | |
flows from the social structure surrounding its misclassification. | |
ClassyJacket wrote 15 hours 59 min ago: | |
This is precisely how my thought process went back when I used to | |
use drugs heavily. | |
I remember a teacher telling me drugs make hair grow out of your | |
teeth. I figured if drugs were really that bad they wouldn't need | |
to lie about what they do. | |
vehementi wrote 14 hours 14 min ago: | |
Not to go all Godwin but a lot of people have the same reaction | |
to news about Trump -- for some reason, people see the need to | |
lie about and misrepresent Trump. "If he's so bad, surely people | |
could just list off his crimes without having to try to trick me | |
right? Must not be so bad, it couldn't hurt to give him a turn as | |
president." | |
mmanfrin wrote 16 hours 17 min ago: | |
That or the other 'gateway' pathway: | |
1) Govt says cannabis is the most dangerous drug. | |
2) I find someone who will sell me illegal thing. | |
3) I try cannabis, nothing bad happens. | |
4) Vendor has other items for sale. | |
paulddraper wrote 17 hours 20 min ago: | |
Vicodin/percs also require prescriptions tho. | |
Not so much of a gotcha. | |
joshmarinacci wrote 20 hours 6 min ago: | |
It is a gateway drug. When marijuana is illegal you have to get it | |
from drug dealers, who have an incentive to upsell you to harder | |
stuff. Make it legal and that gateway goes away. | |
insane_dreamer wrote 10 hours 58 min ago: | |
In that case it ceases to become a gateway drug once legal. | |
IncreasePosts wrote 13 hours 4 min ago: | |
In my experience, the weed dealers aren't the same dealers as the | |
guys moving the harder stuff. If you can get meth from a guy, he | |
can probably get you coke too. But your weed guy probably can't get | |
you either. At least, IME with NYC dealers. | |
pixelpoet wrote 19 hours 53 min ago: | |
Anecdote: I've had countless dealers over 20 years in many | |
countries and continents, not once has someone tried to sell me | |
anything else (besides hash). It's always been some cheery barefoot | |
guy with dreads growing it in his closet. | |
Now that it's legal in Germany I'm going to grow my own, and | |
experience the (surprisingly common!) miracle of harvesting the | |
exact legal limit of 25 grams from 3 plants ;) | |
bogtog wrote 16 hours 2 min ago: | |
However, if you wanted something other than weed, you would have | |
someone who may be able to help you out | |
DonHopkins wrote 7 hours 52 min ago: | |
Sounds like you're the one who needs help. See a professional. | |
flawsofar wrote 10 hours 35 min ago: | |
Let it go. | |
tensility wrote 16 hours 31 min ago: | |
Same has been true for me in the US over 35+ years. This has | |
always been a stupid and false boogeyman narrative. | |
donatj wrote 20 hours 59 min ago: | |
We should legalize some of the less harmful mild uppers like khat while | |
we're legalizing depressants. | |
anonuser1234 wrote 21 hours 5 min ago: | |
For federal workers in legalized states, will they be able to use? | |
MaintenanceMode wrote 16 hours 17 min ago: | |
it's possible that there might be a move to cheek swaps instead of | |
urine tests for routine testing, making it possible to enjoy some | |
recreational pot during off times. | |
pdabbadabba wrote 19 hours 52 min ago: | |
Unlikely in the near term. As I understand it, rescheduling to | |
Schedule III would mean that marijuana (and marijuana-based products) | |
can be sold with a prescription. But, for a doctor to prescribe | |
something, it needs FDA approval. I don't know when/if FDA will | |
approve any marijuana-based treatments. And even if they did, this | |
would not authorize recreational use. | |
foolfoolz wrote 16 hours 29 min ago: | |
you can get a prescription for marijuana within 15 mins of walking | |
into a doctors office. we are past the peak of this, but 10 years | |
ago you used to be able to go to a doctor that did nothing but | |
marijuana prescriptions. and the line was out the door to the | |
office. you walk in, pay $100-$150, and walk out with a | |
prescription for 1 year | |
pdabbadabba wrote 16 hours 22 min ago: | |
> you can get a prescription for marijuana within 15 mins of | |
walking into a doctors office. | |
Not one that will work for the purposes of the Controlled | |
Substances Act, as I understand it. I believe permissible use of | |
a Schedule III has to be pursuant to a doctor's prescription for | |
an FDA approved drug. | |
See this useful report: [1] Moving marijuana from Schedule I to | |
Schedule III, without other legal changes, would not bring the | |
state-legal medical or recreational marijuana industry into | |
compliance with federal controlled substances law. With respect | |
to medical marijuana, a key difference between placement in | |
Schedule I and Schedule III is that substances in Schedule III | |
have an accepted medical use and may lawfully be dispensed by | |
prescription, while Substances in Schedule I cannot. However, | |
prescription drugs must be approved by the Food and Drug | |
Administration (FDA). Although FDA has approved some drugs | |
derived from or related to cannabis, marijuana itself is not an | |
FDA-approved drug. Moreover, if one or more marijuana products | |
obtained FDA approval, manufacturers and distributors would need | |
to register with DEA and comply with regulatory requirements that | |
apply to Schedule III substances in order to handle those | |
products. Users of medical marijuana would need to obtain valid | |
prescriptions for the substance from medical providers, subject | |
to federal legal requirements that differ from existing state | |
regulatory requirements for medical marijuana. | |
[1]: https://crsreports.congress.gov/product/pdf/LSB/LSB11105 | |
lemoncade wrote 20 hours 55 min ago: | |
not for at least like 20 years probably | |
omgCPhuture wrote 21 hours 7 min ago: | |
The AP article has one critical thing wrong: | |
"The DEAâs proposal, which still must be reviewed by the White House | |
Office of Management and Budget, would recognize the medical uses of | |
cannabis and acknowledge it has less potential for abuse than some of | |
the nationâs most dangerous drugs. However, it would not legalize | |
marijuana outright for recreational use." | |
It is in fact because they were ordered to do so by the US FDA, who by | |
law decides what schedule drugs should be in. It started with MDMA, | |
then LSD, Psilocybin and marijuana. In that order. They signaled the | |
DEA to reschedule all those things because, in fact, they are | |
legitimate medicine and I cannot help to wonder if that started with | |
MAPS (maps.org) applying to do trials with MDMA for PTSD and being | |
*beyond* due dilligent. | |
The FDA will collect data from any relevant agency whenever something | |
(at least drugs( are applied for $whatever use. I have heard through | |
the grapewine that the FDA were downright furious to learn the DEA had | |
lied about MDMA for years while veterans are killing themselves daily. | |
Much of the DEA data supposedly showed a ton of deaths attributed to | |
MDMA just because a pill with a logo was being sold as if it was MDMA, | |
while in fact it was sooooo many other dangerous things. The US DEA | |
lies about just about everything. These substances are not | |
depency-forming like opioids. If the DEA of any US alphabet soup move | |
their lips they are lying. | |
The empathogen and psychdelics are not even habitforming: Do you know | |
what happens if you do LSD daily for a week? I do, You can lick an | |
entire sheet on the 7th day and hardly feel a thing, which I know | |
because I have. Israel has been leading the way in marijuana research | |
for decades. 90 year old holocaust surviors inhale marijuana vapor,for | |
PTSD. I find extreme relief from PTSD myself using marijuana vapor: The | |
nightmares stop, and suddenly I sleep 8 hrs a night, a few days of that | |
I almost forget I have PTSD. Then I moved back the "richest nation of | |
earth" (and it can go fuck itself) and essentially have to be a | |
criminal to get regular sleep to function keep a job and not live in a | |
perpetual nightmare. WE have Bedrocan / Bedrolight, but nobody can get | |
a script for it because of all the nonsense authorities and socialized | |
medicine/psychiatry thinks about it. Terminally ill cancer patients | |
have begged to try it and at least on one occasion die 6 days after the | |
news that he got denied died, in hospital from accute opioid poisoning. | |
THey kill cancer patients with opiods all the time. | |
And WTF are DEA doing with offices in Copenhagen, Denmark?! They set | |
up shop there and suddenly swedish police (SSI) has endless kilos of | |
cocaine to plant and don't want the labs analyzing it following swedish | |
law (the law say to destroy within 3 months of seizure and lab analysis | |
and it has been all over national tv in the Scandinavian nations they | |
Police active tried to stop them destroy man y many kilos of it, 9kg of | |
which they were caught planting.). Oh, and SSI police have a tendency | |
to become cocaine addicts. -All that cocaine with no oversightmakes it | |
an occupational hazard, I guess. | |
IMHO, if you go to war for me, you deserve the best treatment available | |
for your injuries. MDMA assisted therapy trials have helped veterans I | |
know personally. I stoppped drinking liquor & wine the first time I | |
tried marijuana, 20 years ago. The UN removed cannabis from the | |
narcotics list in 2020, for decades it was embarassing: None of its | |
cannabinoid components ever went on it as no narcotic effect were | |
demonstrated they were listed as psychotropic substances, along with | |
caffeine, psychdelics, nicotine, alcoholm etc. The original Opioum | |
conventions had a clause specifically permitting businesses to have | |
upto 500g for resale in small quanties to adults. That is how Dutch | |
Coffee Shios exist. The UN listedcannabis in the 1930's under the | |
__assumption__ of opium like effects, nobody what was in marijuana | |
until late in the 60s, many years after the 1961 Narcotics treaty. | |
I am still waiting for the war on tylenol, which has killed over 100k | |
in US a year for decades. Remember when opioids killed 100k a year in | |
the US? The entire world does, yet most people dunno about Iran's | |
struggle: almost half the afghan heroin ends up i Iran, has for | |
decades. Afghanistan makes about 80% of illicit heroin. | |
fxd123 wrote 19 hours 48 min ago: | |
> I am still waiting for the war on tylenol, which has killed over | |
100k in US a year for decades. | |
That is completely false: | |
"an estimated 458 deaths due to acute liver failure each year" | |
[1]: https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/15239078/ | |
jjulius wrote 20 hours 48 min ago: | |
I read all of that gigantic word salad and it's still not clear to me | |
what it is that you think the AP article got wrong. | |
jondwillis wrote 21 hours 8 min ago: | |
ironic use of the word "marijuana" in the title | |
bitxbitxbitcoin wrote 21 hours 12 min ago: | |
Major impact will also be felt at cannabis research at land grant | |
universities. Aka all the experiments to prove obvious stuff like | |
different cultivars affect different people differently can finally | |
happen at scale. | |
See cannabisstudieslab.com as an example of the kind of non plant | |
touching research that Cannabis Studies majors have been doing due to | |
the Schedule I status. | |
xp84 wrote 21 hours 13 min ago: | |
From the article: "Then thereâs the United Statesâ international | |
treaty obligations, chief among them the 1961 Single Convention on | |
Narcotic Drugs, which requires the criminalization of cannabis." | |
Ah, I see. Somehow I doubt that if the US announced it would withdraw | |
from this treaty, to be replaced by an amended version, we'd be invaded | |
immediately by all our (former) allies and be driven straight into the | |
sea. Like, I'm sure there are governments even more obsessed with | |
cannabis than we've been, but like, they'll have to get over it | |
sometime. | |
jjcm wrote 20 hours 47 min ago: | |
Canada got told "shame on you" when they legalized. That seems to be | |
about the extent of the ramifications: | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Narcotics_Contro... | |
cmrdporcupine wrote 8 hours 36 min ago: | |
Yeah the irony here is that it's been the US making the most | |
trouble on this topic. Border agents were pretty difficult for a | |
while, and in theory they can still ban you for life for admitting | |
you have consumed it here, even though it's legal. | |
I don't consume it really, but if I did I'd never pay for it online | |
with a CC processor or anything that goes through an American data | |
centre. The US is way too crazy about this stuff, and an | |
overzealous border control agent armed with information he | |
shouldn't have can ruin your whole day/week/life. | |
lukeinator42 wrote 20 hours 36 min ago: | |
I was curious if us Canadians were on that treaty, haha. | |
KenArrari wrote 21 hours 20 min ago: | |
Looks like Biden is really worried about re-election. | |
RyanAdamas wrote 21 hours 26 min ago: | |
Utter bullshit. Reclassifying schedule 1 Drugs requires the approval of | |
the Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the UN. Otherwise, they are just | |
reclassifying it under an already reclassified treaty structure as a | |
red herring. | |
The Psychotropic Substances Act modified the existing schedule, but | |
left other acts in tact - those other acts are the ones being modified | |
by this nonsense circus. | |
rezonant wrote 21 hours 6 min ago: | |
Well the UN has already done that, moving it from Schedule IV to | |
Schedule I. Note that the schedules are reversed in the UN's system. | |
So it appears that US rescheduling would bring drug policy closer | |
into alignment with the UN than before. [1] Now, there may be some | |
procedural red tape to go through, but it would be odd for the UN to | |
reject such a change when their own scheduling agrees with the | |
change. | |
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/02/world/europe/cannabis-uni... | |
RyanAdamas wrote 21 hours 5 min ago: | |
That's under a different treaty. You're falling for the bamboozle. | |
This is the origin of what you're talking about: [1] Which is what | |
this was based on: [2] Which was the impetus for what you're | |
talking about. | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcoti... | |
[2]: https://www.who.int/teams/health-product-and-policy-standa... | |
jjulius wrote 20 hours 31 min ago: | |
Help me out here, because I'm genuinely trying to grok your point | |
but, for whatever reason, it's not clicking for me. You | |
originally stated: | |
>Reclassifying schedule 1 Drugs requires the approval of the | |
Commission on Narcotic Drugs of the UN. | |
In response to the person above you in this comment chain, you | |
then suggested that their understanding was wrong and that | |
they're "falling for the bamboozle". I'm not sure how the NYT | |
piece is false or a bamboozle, given that it clearly states: | |
>The vote by the Commission for Narcotic Drugs, which is based in | |
Vienna and includes 53 member states, considered a series of | |
recommendations from the World Health Organization on | |
reclassifying cannabis and its derivatives. | |
So, at one point you say that the Commission for Narcotic Drugs | |
needs to be the commission to approve the rescheduling, but when | |
you're told that they did in fact do that, you then tell us that | |
that's wrong. I would love to be steered in the right direction | |
here, if you don't mind. | |
sanderjd wrote 21 hours 18 min ago: | |
I'm quite ignorant about how international law and treaties interact | |
with domestic policy. Could you educate me? What is the mechanism | |
within US law by which this reclassification requires approval by | |
that UN commission? | |
RyanAdamas wrote 21 hours 10 min ago: | |
[1] The above link is the Act that governs the USA's international | |
obligations based on our treaty with the UN to schedule specific | |
drugs and under those terms only allowed to reschedule Schedule 1 | |
drugs with the approval of the UN; often after a review of the | |
drugs medicinal purposes by the WHO. [2] The above is a "DEA" | |
schedule of drug classifications that the government can play | |
around with and bullshit us on. Many of Cannabis schedules have | |
already been reduced based on specific compounds of THC under other | |
treaties enacted before the 1978 alignment from above. These | |
domestic rescheduling may have an affect on legal charges or | |
banking, but cannot address the overarching classifier of Schedule | |
1 drugs which is the UN based on the 1st link. | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Psychotropic_Substances_Act_... | |
[2]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Comprehensive_Drug_Abuse_Pre... | |
jjulius wrote 20 hours 25 min ago: | |
>These domestic rescheduling may have an affect on legal charges | |
or banking, but cannot address the overarching classifier of | |
Schedule 1 drugs which is the UN based on the 1st link. | |
So, you're acknowledging that changes to legal charges, banking | |
capabilities and so forth are benefits that come from this | |
reclassification, but you're also calling this change "utter | |
bullshit" and a "red herring"? | |
aidenn0 wrote 20 hours 55 min ago: | |
The 1961 convention, which as far as I know has not been | |
contravened (w.r.t. cannabis) by the subsequent acts only bans | |
non-medical (and non-scientific) uses of cannabis. Schedule IV | |
would probably be sufficient to comply with the US's obligations | |
there, and Schedule III certainly is. | |
sanderjd wrote 21 hours 4 min ago: | |
Thank you for the links! | |
I'm hoping other knowledgeable people will also weigh in on this | |
topic. | |
byteknight wrote 21 hours 19 min ago: | |
Legitimate question: How is it nonsense if it is still treated, | |
currently, as a S1? If this changes anything it's not nonsense. | |
RyanAdamas wrote 21 hours 9 min ago: | |
I answered your question in the other comment. | |
mustafa_pasi wrote 21 hours 30 min ago: | |
Feels like they were keeping this card in their sleeves for when they | |
needed a popularity boost. | |
themagician wrote 18 hours 14 min ago: | |
They absolutely were. Between 25% inflation, the student loan relief | |
failure, two proxy wars and the current beating of college students | |
across the country, the current administration would have been facing | |
record low turnout in November. | |
I would be surprised if there is not some string attached to this | |
that doesn't take place until after November. That's a good thing | |
though, becuase it was seeming more and more like the current | |
administration was sabotaging itself. The Democrats need the youth | |
vote. | |
astrange wrote 16 hours 18 min ago: | |
Nobody cares about college protestors, even other young people. | |
It's the second to least important issue in recent polls. [1] Young | |
people always have bad turnout anyway, so it doesn't matter if they | |
find a new excuse to have it. | |
(Also they did do student loan reform via SAVE and have forgiven | |
about 9% of loans IIRC. Probably shouldn't have though, it's | |
inflationary, and as you can see from the above poll nobody even | |
appreciates it.) | |
[1]: https://iop.harvard.edu/youth-poll/47th-edition-spring-202... | |
apengwin wrote 21 hours 26 min ago: | |
It is a good thing for democratically accountable governments to do | |
good things that the people want! | |
IncreasePosts wrote 13 hours 0 min ago: | |
That logic doesn't really hold. I'll speak generally and not about | |
this specific administration: | |
If the was doing good things that the people wanted during the | |
entire term, then they would not need to resort to moves like this | |
alleged one when the vote is coming up. It's only if they're not | |
doing good things that the people want that they would dangle | |
something shiny to the electorate. | |
Nuzzerino wrote 14 hours 15 min ago: | |
The people want to be undisturbed and untaxed by rampant mental | |
illness too, but the average person won't acknowledge that | |
recreational marijuana use (with today's potency levels) | |
contributes to declining mental health. [1] | |
[1]: https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2424288/ | |
[2]: https://treatmentmagazine.com/cannabis-2020-this-isnt-your... | |
chucksta wrote 20 hours 55 min ago: | |
Tell that to all the people pissed off at Roe v Wade | |
ikiris wrote 16 hours 30 min ago: | |
Which party is part of which decision again? | |
plantwallshoe wrote 18 hours 18 min ago: | |
The political group largely responsible for this has been | |
consistently underperforming in nearly every election since it | |
happened, so Iâm not sure what point youâre driving at. | |
UncleMeat wrote 20 hours 14 min ago: | |
This is a directional error. Roe protected liberty. Federal | |
criminalization of weed impedes liberty. While ending both of | |
these things returns policy to the states, one necessarily | |
reduces liberty while one necessarily increases liberty. | |
umvi wrote 21 hours 20 min ago: | |
Yes, it's good for the government to not be tyrannical, but I'd | |
argue that when the majority of people increasingly and | |
collectively want things that are net negatives for society like | |
recreational drug use, it's a red flag that society is in decline. | |
MeImCounting wrote 20 hours 10 min ago: | |
I think recreational drug use is demonstrably good for society | |
and part of all succesful civilizations. Take caffeine, sugar, | |
alcohol and tobacco as the primary examples. All potent drugs and | |
all taken habitually and en masse by all the most successful | |
societies in the world. | |
minitech wrote 14 hours 38 min ago: | |
All the most successful societies have tobacco users, therefore | |
tobacco is good for society. Logic checks out. | |
MeImCounting wrote 9 hours 53 min ago: | |
More like all the most successful societies value personal | |
freedoms. Personal freedoms are clearly good for society and | |
a big one of those is recreational drug use of which tobacco | |
use is quite common. | |
Having a government which restricts personal freedoms too | |
much for the sake of "societal good" may work in the short | |
term or for specific issues but is clearly a negative in the | |
long and broad terms. See the "west" of today for evidence of | |
personal freedom combined with | |
not-overly-restrictive-legislation being the most successful | |
method of handling these things. | |
jMyles wrote 21 hours 6 min ago: | |
You seem to be conflating a distaste for demonstratively failed | |
policy, like as prohibition, with an appetite for what you are | |
calling "recreational drug use". | |
Do you acknowledge the failure of prohibition? | |
lambdaba wrote 21 hours 33 min ago: | |
Great, now do psilocybin, LSD and MDMA. | |
sorwin wrote 12 hours 26 min ago: | |
Yeah, no. We're already in a drug crisis as it is. We need to teach | |
people that doing drugs (of any kind) isn't the answer to problems. | |
Soft times seems to have created this problem where people would | |
rather escape their lives than live them out. | |
lambdaba wrote 6 hours 19 min ago: | |
You just reflexively replied with what you have been programmed to | |
believe about mind-altering substances (aside from those exempted | |
by the authorities). The use of "drug crisis" in reply to the | |
substances mentioned is a clear indication of your prejudice and | |
ignorance, given that MDMA has already been given breakthrough | |
status by the FDA as a treatment for PTSD, psilocybin for major | |
depression, and being studied for it's powerful anti-addictive | |
effects, same as LSD (which had great results with curing | |
alcoholism *in one session* when it was initially being studied in | |
the 50s and 60s). | |
This entire thread is full of people who seemingly feel compelled | |
to comment on things they are completely ignorant about, which one | |
would hope to see less of on HN. | |
nulld3v wrote 10 hours 18 min ago: | |
I don't think people do psilocybin and LSD to escape from reality. | |
I'm not even sure how that would work, given how I understand | |
tolerance works for those drugs? | |
lambdaba wrote 6 hours 15 min ago: | |
Of course not, the drugs to escape reality are available for free | |
(or nearly free) and en masse, because they are useful as a means | |
of control. | |
rabbits77 wrote 11 hours 37 min ago: | |
I completely agree. People in the US need to learn that happiness | |
cannot come from a purchase, whether it's chemicals to ingest or | |
whatever else is being marketed to them. It's amazing what | |
americans will do to their bodies and minds except get exercise and | |
eat fresh healthy foods. | |
lambdaba wrote 6 hours 16 min ago: | |
"we need to teach people" | |
"people in the US need to learn" | |
Maybe you should volunteer to teach them, you make it sound so | |
easy. | |
Meanwhile, try to inform yourself about the effects and | |
usefulness of the above substances. | |
tootie wrote 20 hours 41 min ago: | |
Also GHB. Sodium oxybate is currently schedule III, but it's | |
basically just a bit of chemical sleight of hand to allow GHB to be | |
prescribed. | |
epmatsw wrote 21 hours 3 min ago: | |
Please. It's insane that people are dying from fentanyl overdoses | |
taking molly, absolutely not the right societal trade off to be | |
making any more. | |
Nuzzerino wrote 14 hours 20 min ago: | |
[1]: https://www.cdc.gov/stopoverdose/fentanyl/fentanyl-test-st... | |
Extropy_ wrote 21 hours 15 min ago: | |
DMT and mescaline too. | |
junto wrote 6 hours 45 min ago: | |
DMT is a drug Iâd highly recommend everyone take once but only | |
once. | |
The experience of existing for a short time without the concept of | |
self, experiencing zero sensory filters, and finally having your | |
brain rebooted as it has a kernel panic (and going through the | |
brain kernel load process as it does so) is mind blowing. | |
Itâs enough to convince you that we live in a highly advanced | |
simulation. Or one could just be high af. | |
Also Iâm pretty sure it was based on an old version of Linux | |
because Iâm convinced I saw the kernel message âBased upon | |
Swansea University Computer Society NET3.039â. | |
QED God is a programmer. :-) | |
ProllyInfamous wrote 20 hours 52 min ago: | |
That Salvia divinorum is somehow legal (varies by jurisdiction) | |
always blows my mind... | |
My personal opinion is that most people won't be able to regulate | |
any large caches of the above-commented drugs... but after one or | |
two rides on Salvia most'll keep a wide birth [which I recommend as | |
"the worst experience possible; if somebody suggests you try Salvia | |
they're bullying you; try something else"]. | |
a_wild_dandan wrote 20 hours 52 min ago: | |
Do all of them. To me, government exists to mediate interactions | |
between parties. Not to get involved in personal choices. If | |
someone wants to rip fat lines of coke, good for them. Not my | |
business. | |
ct0 wrote 16 hours 5 min ago: | |
clearly you havent thought of the children /s | |
lambdaba wrote 20 hours 49 min ago: | |
We don't live in libertarian utopia, let's first focus on | |
substances that are *obviously* misclassified, the ones cited | |
before have actual benefits, the most obvious one being | |
psilocybin. | |
vips7L wrote 18 hours 35 min ago: | |
Do they need to have benefits? Whether they are beneficial or | |
not people are using drugs like MDMA. Making them illegal has | |
only caused harm. | |
lambdaba wrote 12 hours 52 min ago: | |
I'm just saying it's an easier sell, if we legalize these the | |
demand for harmful drugs will go down too. | |
krapp wrote 20 hours 49 min ago: | |
Do you think people who rip fat lines of coke will never interact | |
with society in any way that affects you? | |
Of course government gets involved in personal choices. Every | |
crime committed by a person is a personal choice. Interactions | |
between parties are interactions between people. The distinction | |
you're trying to draw here doesn't exist. | |
OkayPhysicist wrote 17 hours 52 min ago: | |
Legitimate crimes have a perpetrator and a victim. That's two | |
parties in conflict. Drug possession only has 1 party, the | |
person possessing or doing the drugs, and drug sales have two | |
parties who aren't in conflict. | |
ikekkdcjkfke wrote 21 hours 36 min ago: | |
Is the weed strength so strong these days that actually it should at | |
this class | |
coffeebeqn wrote 20 hours 41 min ago: | |
Should alcohol or energy drinks be re-classified because of distilled | |
spirits and unhealthy amounts of caffeine? | |
alistairSH wrote 21 hours 10 min ago: | |
Are most users smoking the plant directly, or using vapes or edibles | |
(which typically have a known dose)? | |
Regardless, stronger plant just means you smoke less to get the | |
effect, right? It's not so strong that a single puff puts you in the | |
ground. | |
itishappy wrote 21 hours 24 min ago: | |
> Schedule I drugs, substances, or chemicals are defined as drugs | |
with no currently accepted medical use and a high potential for | |
abuse. | |
Is it so strong it precludes medical usage? | |
paxys wrote 21 hours 38 min ago: | |
On one hand I'm very happy with all the recent policy changes coming | |
down from different federal agencies, but on the other there's a very | |
high likelihood that they will all be reversed a few months from now | |
if/when a new administration takes over. That is always the downside of | |
executive rule. With Congress unwilling/incapable of acting though I | |
guess this is the best we'll get. | |
treflop wrote 21 hours 20 min ago: | |
Maybe, maybe not. Support for the legalization of marijuana has | |
consistently only gone up for 50 years and even more than half of | |
conservatives supported it in 2023: [1] You typically see flip flop | |
rulings on issues that half the country actually does not support. | |
Abortion is probably the biggest issue and that's because a lot of | |
the country does not support it and this has not substantially | |
changed in over 50 years: [2] Another contentious issue has been gay | |
marriage but support for that has only risen over the years (although | |
much more slowly), so generally that is another issue that I don't | |
expect much flip flopping on: | |
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/514007/grassroots-support-legal... | |
[2]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx | |
[3]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/506636/sex-marriage-support-hol... | |
consumer451 wrote 20 hours 15 min ago: | |
> Abortion is probably the biggest issue and that's because a lot | |
of the country does not support it and this has not substantially | |
changed in over 50 years: [1] I'm sorry, am I reading the data | |
incorrectly, or your comment incorrectly? | |
> Do you think abortions should be legal under any circumstances, | |
legal only under certain circumstances, or illegal in all | |
circumstances? | |
> 2023 | 34(any) 51(some) 13(illegal) 2(no opinion) | |
According these data, the vast, vast majority of Americans support | |
the right to abortion, correct? | |
[1]: https://news.gallup.com/poll/1576/abortion.aspx | |
dingnuts wrote 19 hours 32 min ago: | |
the wording of the questions aren't good, but the states that | |
have recently banned it certainly seem to be catering to the 13% | |
who say illegal under all circumstances, due to the extremeness | |
of the actual laws passed | |
before Roe was overturned I would have considered myself pro life | |
because I don't believe in late term abortions, but with the new | |
legal landscape I've become effectively pro choice because the | |
new laws are so extreme that they ban life saving health care | |
that has little to do with the life of the unborn | |
I wonder how many are like me | |
cogman10 wrote 18 hours 48 min ago: | |
> pro life because I don't believe in late term abortions | |
So something that you'd probably be interested in are the turn | |
away studies. [1] The studies ask questions of people seeking | |
abortions who ultimately can't because the law prohibits their | |
abortion (usually because they waited too long). | |
One interesting finding of this study is that a big reason | |
people wait too long is because getting to an abortion clinic | |
is just too hard. In the Roe world, in some very large states | |
like Texas there were just 1 or 2 abortion clinics for the | |
entire state. | |
Late term abortions have never really been very common. That's | |
because as you get later in the process, just doing a c section | |
and adoption would generally be the more preferred route. When | |
they do happen, it's pretty much always due to non-viability of | |
the fetus. | |
And, this isn't directed to you, but another fascinating part | |
of the turn away studies is that it's fairly common for people | |
seeking abortions to be in long term relationships with | |
children. For those people, financially supporting another | |
child isn't really an option and adoption is really socially | |
taboo. (Imagine explaining why you aren't pregnant anymore and | |
why you don't have an infant child). | |
[1]: https://www.ansirh.org/research/ongoing/turnaway-study | |
tstrimple wrote 17 hours 15 min ago: | |
> One interesting finding of this study is that a big reason | |
people wait too long is because getting to an abortion clinic | |
is just too hard. In the Roe world, in some very large states | |
like Texas there were just 1 or 2 abortion clinics for the | |
entire state. | |
This is part of the strategy against abortion. Make | |
unreasonably short abortion windows (six weeks is often | |
before many women even determine that they are pregnant) | |
coupled with restrictive regulations designed to make the | |
process as difficult and long as possible including multiple | |
visits and mandatory waiting times. Throw on top of that the | |
attacks on the few places which provide these services and | |
you've got a situation that makes it extremely difficult for | |
anyone not wealthy to get a legal abortion. | |
consumer451 wrote 19 hours 28 min ago: | |
> I wonder how many are like me | |
I believe there are many, on "both sides." | |
I deeply appreciate your reply. This is extremely important. | |
The wording is what it's all about. When we put it into terms | |
like "pro-life"/"pro-choice" - it does nothing to address the | |
hard realities which need to be addressed when writing law. | |
We all keep getting played by yes/no, right/left, binary word | |
game slogans. The realities are so much more complex. | |
sanderjd wrote 21 hours 21 min ago: | |
This kind of rule should be made by an executive agency, empowered by | |
a congressional delegation of that rule-making power to that agency. | |
This is just the same principle as private organization boards of | |
directors delegating the minutia of running the organization to the | |
executives and their teams. If you think it would be madness for | |
hiring decisions on individual contributors to be made by board | |
votes, then you should support the delegation of rule-making | |
authority to executive agencies. | |
Yes, it means that changing the executive might change the rules. | |
Congress remains free to overrule the agencies by passing further | |
legislation, if they so desire. And voters remain free to replace the | |
executive the next time around, if they want to see different rules. | |
These are all features, not bugs. | |
There is certainly value in stability and predictability, but there | |
is even more value in having an executive branch of government that | |
is empowered to make decisions quickly and a short feedback loop | |
between the public and the government. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 19 hours 9 min ago: | |
> This is just the same principle as private organization boards of | |
directors delegating the minutia of running the organization to the | |
executives and their teams. | |
It isn't, because the board can replace the executive leadership at | |
any time, whereas the President can only be replaced every four | |
years and isn't elected by the legislature whatsoever, bypassing | |
checks and balances. | |
The proper way to delegate minutia to an administrative agency is | |
to have them propose rules that Congress then votes on. The rules | |
might be a thousand pages long and 99.9% uncontroversial, so those | |
rules get rubber stamped, but controversial changes have to go | |
through the political process because it gives Congress the | |
opportunity to refuse. | |
> Congress remains free to overrule the agencies by passing further | |
legislation, if they so desire. | |
But that's not how it works, because now you've inverted the | |
default. Before you needed a majority of the House and Senate and | |
the President's signature in order to make a change. Now you need | |
all that to undo the change a President makes unilaterally -- | |
implying that the President would veto it and the legislature would | |
need a veto-proof majority. It's not the same thing at all and is | |
handing too much power to the executive branch. | |
> There is certainly value in stability and predictability, but | |
there is even more value in having an executive branch of | |
government that is empowered to make decisions quickly and a short | |
feedback loop between the public and the government. | |
There is value in allowing the executive branch to remove bad rules | |
unilaterally, in the same way as the President can veto a bill. | |
Allowing new rules to be created without the appropriate process is | |
tyrannical. | |
rascul wrote 20 hours 38 min ago: | |
> voters remain free to replace the executive the next time around | |
Note that there are only either 538 or 100 voters, depending on | |
which position in the executive branch. | |
sanderjd wrote 3 hours 29 min ago: | |
No, the President exerts significant control over executive | |
agency policy, and is elected by many more people than that. | |
hughesjj wrote 19 hours 25 min ago: | |
Or 9 voters | |
Or, if someone gets his way, just 1 | |
paxys wrote 21 hours 14 min ago: | |
That only works if the rulemaking happens based on scientific | |
reason rather than politics. | |
sanderjd wrote 21 hours 3 min ago: | |
... no, it works in general, for the reasons I went into in my | |
comment. | |
colpabar wrote 21 hours 31 min ago: | |
What bothers me is that all these things are only happening because | |
it's an election year and the incumbent doesn't have great polling | |
numbers. | |
romellem wrote 19 hours 6 min ago: | |
This is misinformation. | |
Biden directed the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to | |
reexamine the scheduling of marijuana in October 2022. | |
Nearly a year later in August 2023, the HHS wrote to the DEA | |
recommending that marijuana be reclassified from Schedule I to | |
Schedule III. | |
A month ago, the DEA was still "writing [their] recommendation" on | |
what they should reclassify marijuana to (if any change was to | |
happen). | |
And just now, April 2024, the DEA agreed with HHS (as reported by | |
AP, DEA hasn't confirmed this yet). | |
So no, this isn't "just happening" now, this has been going on for | |
years. | |
[1] [2] | |
[1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releas... | |
[2]: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2023-08-30/hhs-cal... | |
[3]: https://twitter.com/DEAHQ/status/1772987478548287891 | |
0x5f3759df-i wrote 19 hours 36 min ago: | |
You obviously havenât been paying attention as these rule making | |
processes started literally years ago thatâs how much red tape | |
there is to get through. | |
And even if what you are saying was true (it isnât) isnât that | |
the entire argument for democracy in the first place? | |
âPoliticians make good policy because they want to get | |
re-electedâ is how we should hope things work. | |
hed wrote 18 hours 52 min ago: | |
It started in October 2022 (a month before midterms), if anything | |
a skeptic would say that's more confirmation timing is suspect. | |
hughesjj wrote 19 hours 15 min ago: | |
Bunch of Holden Caulfields imo who just refuse to 'vote for | |
phonies' and still haven't grown uo | |
BobaFloutist wrote 20 hours 42 min ago: | |
{{Citation needed}} | |
paxys wrote 21 hours 28 min ago: | |
Well, politicians doing what people want in order to get reelected | |
is kinda the point of democracy. | |
paulddraper wrote 17 hours 20 min ago: | |
Yeah, if only every year were election year.... | |
dgunay wrote 18 hours 21 min ago: | |
Yeah, but based on the guiding principle of democracy (govt by | |
the will of the people), you'd hope to see them do that | |
immediately instead of waiting years and years to do it when it | |
is most strategically advantageous. I know politics is gamey like | |
that by nature, but it sucks to see. The lag time between a | |
policy becoming overwhelmingly popular and it actually being | |
implemented is often long enough to radically alter the course of | |
millions of peoples' lives. | |
paxys wrote 4 hours 0 min ago: | |
If doing it at the end of his term gets him more votes than the | |
beginning, that means the voters want to see it done towards | |
the end. | |
yurishimo wrote 7 hours 9 min ago: | |
While this is true, I'm not going to look a gift horse in the | |
mouth. At some point, we decided as a nation to only care about | |
politics during election years. Participation rates for local | |
elections is near an all time low. If people were more involved | |
with the process, I would imagine that we would see more | |
movement in Congress as a reaction to the will of the people. | |
vuln wrote 20 hours 24 min ago: | |
They only dangle the carrot when they need something, ie | |
reelection. | |
colpabar wrote 20 hours 31 min ago: | |
There's no need to talk down to me. | |
My point was that they could be doing what people want for the | |
entire duration of their term, rather than in the last few | |
months. To use an analogy, it's like a student getting bad grades | |
all year and then doing a bunch of extra credit assignments when | |
they're worried about failing the class. | |
astrange wrote 16 hours 30 min ago: | |
They've been working on this for two years, it was announced | |
they'd do it in 2022. | |
infamouscow wrote 20 hours 25 min ago: | |
Your chief complaint is not new, it's nearly as old as | |
democracy itself. | |
Different forms of democracy have various trade-offs, what your | |
describing is the trade-off of representative democracy. | |
hughesjj wrote 19 hours 20 min ago: | |
Is also partly the fault of voters for being so darn | |
susceptible to recency bias. Do a lot of good at the start | |
and then reach a lull and everyone's gonna hate. Timing can | |
and has cost elections. | |
ehsankia wrote 21 hours 36 min ago: | |
At least it'll be one fewer "both sides" argument to be made. | |
dzonga wrote 21 hours 40 min ago: | |
however, the weed these days is much stronger, and not the one our | |
grandfathers smoked. | |
if something could be done about the thc content -- that will be nice. | |
weed isn't exactly harmful -- but long term it will be interesting to | |
see the consequences. now already a lot of people are paranoid due to | |
weed use. | |
wisemang wrote 20 hours 43 min ago: | |
One advantage to legalization (as implemented in Canada at least) is | |
that THC content needs to be measured and labeled, so if you want to | |
smoke something closer to your grandfatherâs level you have the | |
choice and arenât at the mercy of whatever your dealer happens to | |
have. | |
mannyv wrote 21 hours 50 min ago: | |
One major effect of this is that weed stores will be able to use banks | |
and payment processors legally once the regulators catch up. | |
dragonwriter wrote 13 hours 32 min ago: | |
Will they? Since it will be Schedule III, âweed storesâ that | |
aren't pharmacies distributing properly labelled drugs to people with | |
prescriptions will still be violating the Controlled Substances Act | |
and will probably have the same banking problems. | |
sambull wrote 12 hours 22 min ago: | |
I don't see how this anything but a mandate for the DEA to crack | |
down on recreational. | |
dragonwriter wrote 12 hours 17 min ago: | |
I don't see how rescheduling to a less-restrictive category is a | |
mandate to change the existing enforcement policy to a more | |
restrictive one. | |
meepmorp wrote 6 hours 42 min ago: | |
Obviously, weed has made OP paranoid | |
markdown wrote 17 hours 50 min ago: | |
Don't be so sure. Kava is regulated by the FDA as a food, but many | |
banks and payment processors refuse to work with businesses that sell | |
it. | |
m463 wrote 17 hours 55 min ago: | |
I wonder if this means more tracking of drug purchases. | |
Does alcohol consumption show up on credit card bills and filter back | |
to insurance companies? | |
red-iron-pine wrote 2 hours 39 min ago: | |
they might not be able to see the purchases if you're in a state | |
where you can buy booze in a 7/11 or grocery store; in that case | |
it's just a grocery purchase. but they sure as hell can see that | |
you have a charge from "CORNER LIQUOR STORE - $47.61 - 12 APRIL | |
2024" and can make guesses. | |
This also assumes that grocery stores aren't aggressively | |
aggregating and selling sales data, esp. those from Membership | |
Cards. Insurance companies would love to get a hold of that data, | |
not only for alcohol, but things like sugar and junk food | |
purchases. I'd bet my hat they're already doing so. | |
hyperbovine wrote 19 hours 15 min ago: | |
But will they be able to write off business expenses? Section 280E of | |
the US Tax Code is, as I understand it, is the major killer for the | |
whole industry right now. | |
Edit: yes | |
[1]: https://www.duanemorris.com/alerts/tax_implications_reclassi... | |
giantg2 wrote 20 hours 32 min ago: | |
"One major effect of this is that weed stores will be able to use | |
banks and payment processors legally once the regulators catch up." | |
Assuming banks/processors don't decide to restrict them for other | |
reasons. | |
feoren wrote 20 hours 26 min ago: | |
Wouldn't that be leaving money on the table? The bank that accepts | |
business with marijuana vendors is at a competitive advantage to | |
one that doesn't, no? | |
giantg2 wrote 20 hours 6 min ago: | |
Not necessarily. It depends on the risks, morals, and stuff like | |
ESG. We've seen this with stuff like alcohol, tobacco, and guns. | |
anigbrowl wrote 16 hours 27 min ago: | |
There is no liquor store in the country where you can't pay | |
with a card. Well, maybe not Uncle Ted's Moonshine Shack, but | |
realistically it's not something anyone has to worry about. | |
Different funds may not invest invest in those thing, payment | |
processors might charge some businesses a slightly higher | |
premium, but Visa/MC are not gonna police your legal consumer | |
purchases. | |
dghlsakjg wrote 19 hours 54 min ago: | |
But you can buy alcohol, tobacco and guns with just about any | |
payment method? | |
Jiro wrote 8 hours 44 min ago: | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Operation_Choke_Point | |
ryandrake wrote 18 hours 55 min ago: | |
Porn and gambling are probably better examples. They're | |
kryptonite to payment processors due to the chargeback risk. | |
ajmurmann wrote 8 hours 7 min ago: | |
Gambling is actually illegal trough, no? AFAIK porn is the | |
only proper example | |
giantg2 wrote 5 hours 31 min ago: | |
Gambling varies by type and jursidiction. | |
mannyv wrote 20 hours 33 min ago: | |
People are talking about schedule 3 needing a prescription, etc. From | |
the financial point of view that's irrelevant; the point is that you | |
CANNOT legally sell schedule 1 drugs commercially (with some | |
exceptions that I can't remember). | |
Schedule 1 -> banned from the financial system. | |
Schedule 3 -> OK to use the financial system. | |
How the DEA schedule and the financial system interact is still | |
unclear. The important part is that once regulations are updated weed | |
businesses won't be restricted from access to the financial system. | |
There may be some more regs around that access, but I'm sure they'll | |
be worked around. | |
lukew3 wrote 10 hours 35 min ago: | |
If it has been illegal to sell cannabis commercially, how have | |
cannabis companies been allowed to form and be publicly traded? I | |
would think that federal regulation to be publicly traded would | |
cause issues. | |
yurishimo wrote 10 hours 17 min ago: | |
Which US based weed companies are publicly traded? | |
refurb wrote 14 hours 57 min ago: | |
> Schedule 1 -> banned from the financial system. | |
This is not true. | |
Here is a legitimate business selling schedule 1 drugs: [1] | |
Regulatory Information: DEA Schedule I | |
With a schedule I DEA license, you can buy this product, and the | |
manufacturer can deposit your money into a bank. | |
That's why I'm not sure moving marijuana from schedule 1 to 2 or 3 | |
will really change much from a banking perspective. | |
Marijuana dispensaries will still be violating federal law, no | |
different than if they were selling sleeping pills illegally. | |
[1]: https://www.caymanchem.com/product/10801/mephedrone-(hydro... | |
mattmaroon wrote 12 hours 38 min ago: | |
Right. At the end of the day we need to just de-list it and | |
strike all federal laws on it. The ship has sailed and the states | |
won, letâs just do the inevitable thing and get on with it. | |
samtho wrote 19 hours 58 min ago: | |
> How the DEA schedule and the financial system interact is still | |
unclear. | |
You already answered this already :) | |
> the point is that you CANNOT legally sell schedule 1 drugs | |
commercially | |
Schedule 1 means illegal under (nearly) any circumstance, | |
commercial dispensaries fall under âany circumstance.â Drug | |
scheduling is just a tiered system for classification in order to | |
determine which rules to apply to its sale, distribution, and | |
possession of the substance. | |
bregma wrote 20 hours 46 min ago: | |
That's so sad. | |
Here in Ontario Canada I can walk into a local neighbourhood cannabis | |
store (one of many on every block, it seems) and make a purchase | |
using my debit or credit card. I'm not sure if any of them even keep | |
a cash float although I imagine they must, just in case granny comes | |
in "for medicinal use". Alternatively, I could just go to the | |
government-run web store and get home delivery through Canada Post at | |
no extra charge. | |
dgellow wrote 10 hours 29 min ago: | |
Iâve done it in New York City, in a really clean and hipstery | |
shop in park slope, Brooklyn. Paid with a debit card, the whole | |
process felt legit and professional, that was a great experience. | |
They also offered really fancy teas and coffees. | |
oooyay wrote 20 hours 40 min ago: | |
You can in the U.S. too. For instance, in Portland we have a | |
neighborhood shop and you can use a debit card there because each | |
transaction is classified as an ATM transaction. All the ban ever | |
did was making accounting and reporting more complicated, it didn't | |
stop state legal sales or transactions. | |
pempem wrote 18 hours 57 min ago: | |
Extended banking services are difficult. Finding a fdic insured | |
bank that will do business with a dispensary is hard. The | |
business, esp those that aren't already multinational or national | |
conglomerates with enormous amounts of cash | |
This is really exciting to see. | |
singleshot_ wrote 16 hours 53 min ago: | |
Will US Bankruptcy Court deal with a debtor that sells weed? | |
jkaplowitz wrote 20 hours 24 min ago: | |
The difference is in Canada it's actually fully legal at all | |
levels of government, so the transaction is a normal point of | |
sale transaction, it can also go through a credit card as a | |
normal purchase without being subjected to the expensive cash | |
advance interest rates, and so on. It can even be a | |
tax-deductible and reimbursable business entertainment expense | |
under similar conditions to alcohol. | |
bawolff wrote 19 hours 36 min ago: | |
Its super weird how america can make things half legal. In | |
canada the responsibilities are divided up between different | |
levels of government. None of this legal at one level but not | |
another level bullshit. | |
dghlsakjg wrote 17 hours 10 min ago: | |
The same is true in Canada. There are things that are | |
federally illegal that are not illegal at the provincial | |
level. There are also local laws that supersede federal law. | |
E.g. There is no federal law against woodburning for home | |
heat, but many local jurisdictions have banned it for air | |
quality reasons, and provinces also have pollution laws. You | |
can have something be illegal in one town, and legal outside | |
of it, or illegal province wide but legal in another | |
province. | |
What is going on is that not that weed is 'half-legal' in the | |
states. It is fully illegal. What is true is that the federal | |
enforcers have more or less decided to leave people alone | |
when the state allows the use of Marijuana. Pre 2017, the | |
exact same thing was happening across Canada where local | |
jurisdictions allowed cannabis use and sales, and the RCMP | |
basically turned a blind eye. Vancouver is the most obvious | |
example, where there was actually a decline in the number of | |
dispensaries after weed became federally legal. | |
bawolff wrote 13 hours 20 min ago: | |
> There are also local laws that supersede federal law. | |
E.g. There is no federal law against woodburning for home | |
heat, but many local jurisdictions have banned it for air | |
quality reasons, and provinces also have pollution laws | |
That's not what supersede means. | |
There is no federal law about wood burning stoves because | |
the constitution assigns environment to the provinces. | |
dghlsakjg wrote 11 hours 50 min ago: | |
If environment is assigned to the provinces then what is | |
the Canadian Environment Protection Act [1] . | |
AFAICT itâs the federal laws about pollution. | |
[1]: https://www.canada.ca/en/environment-climate-cha... | |
callalex wrote 18 hours 11 min ago: | |
Itâs easier to pull this off when the number of states fits | |
on one hand. | |
jkaplowitz wrote 3 hours 10 min ago: | |
If you mean provinces in Canada's context, then no, the | |
number of provinces does not fit on one hand. In fact it | |
barely fits on two, and that's only if you don't count the | |
territories as well. | |
A bigger factor is that the Canadian prohibition was only | |
controlled at the federal level in the first place, like | |
all Canadian criminal law, so only the federal government | |
had to legislate to change it. The provinces have however | |
done lots of subsequent legislation to regulate the details | |
(e.g. distribution channels and the exact minimum age | |
limit) in a wide variety of ways. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 18 hours 32 min ago: | |
It was supposed to be that way in the US but then populists | |
decided they wanted the federal government to do all the | |
things the constitution said it couldn't. | |
LgWoodenBadger wrote 20 hours 47 min ago: | |
I guess, but have you tried to gamble online using a CapitalOne | |
mastercard? It's impossible. Your only recourse is an ACH transfer. | |
defiamazing wrote 21 hours 5 min ago: | |
I donât get why they donât just use Bitcoin or Ethereum. | |
DonHopkins wrote 9 hours 2 min ago: | |
That's just because crypto shills just don't get obvious facts | |
about reality, not because obvious facts about reality aren't | |
objectively and provably true. That's just the way cults and | |
get-rich-quick pyramid schemes and fraud work, so stop being a | |
shill and wondering why nobody believes or respects you, because | |
there's a lot you don't get. | |
CyberDildonics wrote 14 hours 21 min ago: | |
Those two specifically have super high transaction fees which | |
basically kills their use as normal currencies. | |
[1]: https://bitinfocharts.com/comparison/transactionfees-btc-e... | |
callalex wrote 18 hours 8 min ago: | |
Nobody wants to stand around for several minutes waiting for | |
transactions to clear. | |
ErikBjare wrote 9 hours 8 min ago: | |
Ethereum average block time is 12s (with low variance) and high | |
chance of getting tx included in the next block. Still too long | |
for a point-of-sale payment, but its feasible. Then there's fees | |
that are too high on L1 (several dollars minimum). | |
L2s fix this (~immediate settlement, cents in fees), but it's | |
another layer and another account for users to manage (which is | |
annoying). | |
mr_spothawk wrote 19 hours 59 min ago: | |
Because you can't yet purchase electricity/internet with bitcoin | |
(directly). | |
kstrauser wrote 20 hours 53 min ago: | |
Mainly because your employees, suppliers, and landlord have no | |
desire to be paid in Bitcoin. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 18 hours 35 min ago: | |
What does that matter? You can convert Bitcoin into cash. But | |
then you can do that in an undisclosed location at your leisure | |
instead of keeping a mountain of cash in your publicly advertised | |
storefront location and becoming a huge robbery target. | |
Also, it doesn't seem like it would be that hard to find someone | |
to accept it as payment, since they can convert it to cash too. | |
And the sort of landlords/suppliers/employees willing to do | |
business with a dispensary seem like exactly the sort who would | |
accept Bitcoin. | |
dghlsakjg wrote 17 hours 6 min ago: | |
So if I as a consumer want to buy weed: | |
I show up and convert cash to bitcoin, presumably losing some | |
of its value to exchange fees. | |
Pay the merchant my bitcoin, who then has to convert it back to | |
cash losing more of its value to fees so that he can pay all of | |
his staff, suppliers, utilities, etc... | |
Why not just skip the bitcoin step and save time and money? | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 16 hours 47 min ago: | |
Because you don't have cash to begin with, you have money in | |
a bank account, which you have to convert to something else | |
to pay the dispensary. Converting it via cash instead of | |
Bitcoin just makes it easier for you to be mugged. | |
dghlsakjg wrote 15 hours 18 min ago: | |
To be honest, Iâm far more concerned about crypto scams, | |
wallet hacks, etc, than I am worried about getting mugged | |
for ~$100 at the dispensary parking lot. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 6 hours 44 min ago: | |
That seems like a weird set of priorities? If someone | |
hacks your crypto wallet with $100 in it, you could lose | |
$100. If someone mugs you when you have $100 in your | |
wallet, you could lose $100 and get shot. | |
Crypto scams are... completely unrelated? It's like being | |
worried about using a bank account because there are | |
ponzi schemes that use bank transfers. | |
paulddraper wrote 17 hours 22 min ago: | |
And for all that convenience, each BTC transaction costs only | |
$7 ! | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 17 hours 21 min ago: | |
So use Bitcoin Cash or any of the other alternatives with | |
lower transaction fees. | |
dghlsakjg wrote 17 hours 4 min ago: | |
The transaction fee for a cash transaction is $0 and no | |
time for the consumer. | |
That is the benchmark you are competing against. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 16 hours 48 min ago: | |
Cash transactions require you to make change and are a | |
target for theft. This is neither free nor zero time. | |
dghlsakjg wrote 16 hours 6 min ago: | |
> Cash transactions require you to make change and are | |
a target for theft. This is neither free nor zero time. | |
That's why I specified "for the consumer", who is | |
typically the person that is going to make a purchasing | |
decision. | |
Using crypto for dispensaries has been tried, and it | |
hasn't gained traction in the many years that its been | |
an option. If you introduce friction (by forcing people | |
to transact using a novel payment form), you are going | |
to lose customers. The fact that the very few | |
dispensaries that accept crypto continue to accept cash | |
and debit should tell you what consumers like. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 6 hours 49 min ago: | |
> That's why I specified "for the consumer" | |
It takes the same amount of time to make change for | |
the consumer as the store. Or more, because now you | |
have to wait while they make change for the person in | |
front of you, then for you on top of that. | |
And nobody wants to be at a store which is more | |
likely to get robbed. Not only do you lose your cash, | |
you could lose your life. | |
> The fact that the very few dispensaries that accept | |
crypto continue to accept cash and debit should tell | |
you what consumers like. | |
There are multiple consumers. If you can get half of | |
them to use Bitcoin, you have half as much cash on | |
hand to lose in a robbery, and on top of that half as | |
much incentive for someone to rob you to begin with. | |
kstrauser wrote 18 hours 1 min ago: | |
All of the legit Bitcoin-to-cash orgs will report that to the | |
IRS, and then you're back to square one: what do you do with | |
that wad of cash? Orgs that don't report to the IRS probably | |
aren't giving you a good exchange rate, and you're still left | |
holding the bag afterward. | |
If you're going through all that hassle, it's much easier just | |
to be a cash-only business in the first place. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 17 hours 21 min ago: | |
> you're back to square one: what do you do with that wad of | |
cash? | |
Keep it in a safe somewhere undisclosed instead of a retail | |
storefront everybody knows is holding a ton of cash, or spend | |
it. | |
The point is that it moves the cash from the publicly visible | |
location to somewhere nobody knows to rob. | |
buildsjets wrote 18 hours 2 min ago: | |
No sane person uses Bitcoin as a currency because it is a | |
fundamentally unsound ponzi scheme for suckers. I don't want | |
my salary to be subject to the vagaries and manipulations of | |
the Bitcoin exchange rate. | |
emptysongglass wrote 10 hours 26 min ago: | |
There are plenty of sane people who use Bitcoin as a | |
currency. Making blithe moral declarations like this doesn't | |
spark curiosity and is incredibly tired after so many years | |
(you're not the first). | |
"Unsound ponzi scheme" could just as well be applied to any | |
fiat currency. It has all the same rules (early entrants are | |
more privileged in "the game" and can invest to out-perform | |
younger players). It is very odd to hear people applying such | |
qualitative judgments like this when the alternative is a | |
currency that is actively debased by its issuers. Or do you | |
think the inflation we've all suffered under isn't a problem? | |
tensility wrote 16 hours 38 min ago: | |
Yes, and the drooling Bitcoin fans also haven't been able to | |
figure out that a speculative meme "investment" vehicle | |
doesn't make a good vehicle for a stable currency. | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 17 hours 18 min ago: | |
If you don't want to hold Bitcoin or be exposed to price | |
changes, you can set your hourly rate in dollars, be paid at | |
the current exchange rate and immediately convert it back | |
into dollars. The advantage of this over being paid in | |
physical cash is that it's electronic and then you're not | |
carrying two weeks salary in physical cash on your person for | |
somebody to mug you. | |
anigbrowl wrote 16 hours 21 min ago: | |
two weeks salary in physical cash | |
How expensive do you think weed is? You can get baked every | |
day for two weeks for $50, probably less | |
AnthonyMouse wrote 6 hours 59 min ago: | |
We're talking about their employees, not their customers. | |
If you can't get a bank account, you can't pay employees | |
with direct deposit. | |
coffeebeqn wrote 21 hours 8 min ago: | |
Hopefully this will also help internationally. Many countries are | |
just copying what the US is doing since they run a large part of | |
world commerce and finance | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 21 hours 18 min ago: | |
How? It's still federally illegal to sell schedule 3 to consumers | |
without a DEA licensed rx and dea licensing. The banks would still | |
be knowingly in conspiracy to transmit illegal drug money and a | |
litany of felonies for recreational or purely state-licensed | |
'medical'. | |
mannyv wrote 20 hours 59 min ago: | |
You can sell schedule 3 drugs to consumers. Pharmacies do this all | |
the time. | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 20 hours 56 min ago: | |
'without a DEA licensed rx and dea licensing' | |
Rx under DEA scrutiny is nothing like rec or laughable state | |
controlled medical 'recommendations'. You pull that shit as a | |
provider on controlled scripts and your charts get audited, your | |
DEA license gets pulled. | |
lightedman wrote 13 hours 51 min ago: | |
"'without a DEA licensed rx and dea licensing'" | |
I know of several grocery stores without pharmacies or a local | |
Rx license selling 1% hydrocortisone/hydrocortisone acetate - | |
Schedule 4, 3, AND 2, simultaneously. | |
refurb wrote 11 hours 11 min ago: | |
1% hydrocortisone, at least in the US, is not a controlled | |
drug not do you need a pharmacy license to sell it. | |
No different than buying Tylenol at a gas station. | |
int_19h wrote 16 hours 29 min ago: | |
I think the point is that banks are no longer automatically | |
required to reject any customer that deals with weed, because | |
some of those transactions are going to be legal under the | |
federal law. Which basically allows them to look the other way | |
for all such transactions. | |
jkaplowitz wrote 20 hours 20 min ago: | |
But it does mean that it will actually, for the first time ever | |
in living memory, be possible for someone to fully federally | |
legally possess a THC-active form of cannabis without further | |
Congressional action. I'm not sure if a state-legal cannabis | |
supply chain could be fully federally legal in this context, | |
but imagine if a pharma company goes through the FDA approval | |
process for a THC pill and then doctors prescribe it for | |
patients based on their medical judgment that it will help | |
alleviate pain for some chronic condition like Crohn's disease. | |
(I expect both of those steps to happen in practice, over time | |
of course due to how many prerequisites exist for FDA approval, | |
to the extent they haven't already been begun.) | |
Imagine a noncitizen in that situation being able to tell a | |
border officer, or a citizen being able to tell a security | |
clearance investigator: "Yes, I do use THC. Here's my | |
prescription and the bottle from the pharmacy." and being | |
confident of no negative repercussions. Wonderful progress | |
compared to where we are now. | |
shkkmo wrote 18 hours 35 min ago: | |
> it will actually, for the first time ever in living memory, | |
be possible for someone to fully federally legally possess a | |
THC-active form of cannabis without further Congressional | |
action. | |
Interesting point of history, the Federal US Government has | |
actually been running a small medical program for almost 50 | |
years. | |
[1]: https://www.mpp.org/policy/federal/federal-governmen... | |
cogman10 wrote 19 hours 11 min ago: | |
> for the first time ever in living memory | |
My parents are still alive and they were alive when THC was | |
legal. | |
This is what's bonkers to me, THC being criminalized happened | |
very recently. | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 19 hours 5 min ago: | |
Very briefly. Until recent history the 10th amendment was | |
understood to constrain the government from going outside | |
enumerated powers, like intrastate commerce. This is why | |
they needed an amendment instead of law to federally | |
outright ban alcohol. Thus weed had an essentially | |
unpayable 'tax' that got overturned by Timothy Leary | |
Then it was legal for like a year until feds realized they | |
didn't need to follow the Constitution and they just | |
outright made it illegal, no matter if it's actually | |
interstate. | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 20 hours 15 min ago: | |
Agree with the sentiment but isn't legal marinol roughly | |
fulfilling that niche of THC pill? | |
You could already get THC script, in that context this seems | |
like a half hearted concession for flower to stall and poison | |
legalization efforts by giving a victory poisoned with DEA | |
licensing that inserts the nasty tendrils of the weed hating | |
DEA into medical flower. | |
jkaplowitz wrote 3 hours 14 min ago: | |
Fair point, yes. I was unaware of marinol when I typed | |
that. I assume something more than just synthetic THC is | |
being rescheduled, then. Maybe it will actually become | |
possible to be prescribed a joint and to receive it at | |
DEA-licensed pharmacies? Will the FDA be approving joints | |
as drugs after clinical trials? | |
andrewxdiamond wrote 21 hours 41 min ago: | |
A lot of them have wiggled around this problem by offering âatmsâ | |
at the cash register. You pay with a debit card, but itâs not a | |
normal transaction, itâs an ATM withdrawal! I donât understand | |
how the money is vended to the business, but it keeps it out of the | |
store | |
reshie wrote 15 hours 6 min ago: | |
Which most take off the couple of bills for processing fee's. | |
hirsin wrote 16 hours 46 min ago: | |
Business 2 owns the building and the atm, renting it to business 1, | |
the dispensary. B1 pays the cash as rent to b2 who puts it into the | |
ATM again. A SWAG but it's common enough in other business setups | |
to alter costs as I understand it. | |
loeg wrote 21 hours 4 min ago: | |
The ATM is usually registered to a different business around the | |
corner or something like that. | |
bobthepanda wrote 21 hours 9 min ago: | |
there is still a lot of cash on site due to the presence of an ATM | |
though, and in the cash registers. the primary problem is that weed | |
shops are incredibly attractive robbery targets due to being one of | |
the few businesses in 2024 that handle large amounts of cash. | |
leptons wrote 17 hours 21 min ago: | |
> the primary problem is that weed shops are incredibly | |
attractive robbery targets due to being one of the few businesses | |
in 2024 that handle large amounts of cash. | |
It's also the product that's the target much of the time - it's | |
got no serial numbers and it's light-weight, and easy to resell. | |
mattmaroon wrote 19 hours 26 min ago: | |
My brother supervises at a dispensary. They are not attractive | |
robbery targets at all. They have a lot of security. Like a bank, | |
they expect the amount of cash would bring trouble if they were | |
not prepared. Unlike a bank, they don't dispense much cash (just | |
petty change) so they don't even have to leave much in the | |
drawers, which are emptied frequently and dropped into a safe | |
nobody there can access. | |
They have cash-handling processes similar to a casino, but again, | |
they have much less than a casino or bank to take. | |
Employee theft is a much bigger problem than robbery, because you | |
can imagine who works at them, but even then, it's hard to get | |
away with. | |
You'd be much better off robbing a busy gas station or the like. | |
chimpanzee wrote 18 hours 20 min ago: | |
> Employee theft is a much bigger problem than robbery, because | |
you can imagine who works at them | |
This is lazy thinking. | |
Any business dealing in cash and desirable inventory will have | |
theft problems. In fact, the inventory doesnât even have to | |
be desirable. Consider office supply theft. Itâs rampant; a | |
cost of business to some degree. And part of the motivation is | |
simply the righting of perceived wrongs. | |
Employees will always take from their employers, in every | |
industry and at every class level. In industries where there | |
are no âthingsâ to take, the employees simply take back | |
their time. | |
yogurtboy wrote 18 hours 59 min ago: | |
That dig at employees of dispensaries is really low | |
millzlane wrote 17 hours 11 min ago: | |
I've known directors to steal from companies so the | |
stereotype doesn't really jive. | |
flawsofar wrote 19 hours 13 min ago: | |
> you can imagine who works at them | |
This is disgracefully elitist. White collar crime hurts more | |
people. | |
dragonwriter wrote 13 hours 22 min ago: | |
The federal illegality of the weed business (and downstream | |
effects of that illegality on working/business conditions) | |
affects who works there, and that includes white collar | |
employees (also investors, etc.) | |
mattmaroon wrote 5 hours 9 min ago: | |
Definitely. There are a lot of strange quirks to working at | |
one. | |
For instance, Fannie and Freddie donât recognize your | |
income, so getting a mortgage is difficult. | |
The pay isnât that great either, but they get a discount, | |
and for a lot of people weed is one of their bigger | |
expenses. | |
mattmaroon wrote 15 hours 17 min ago: | |
I see why you would say that, but you probably have not met | |
very many people who work at a dispensary, I have. My brother | |
got promoted to supervisor in a month for the simple reason | |
that he is the only person who could wait until after work to | |
get high. | |
Heâs told me quite a bit of what goes on there, and I am | |
sure different dispensaries are different, but in any state | |
where it is relatively recently legalized and there arenât | |
that many, itâs just the biggest stoners working there. You | |
would have to be kind of special to decide to steal things | |
with that much security around, they always get caught | |
DonHopkins wrote 9 hours 8 min ago: | |
Which is why if you want to steal from dispensaries, just | |
work in security, like your brother. Who's to say he's not | |
stealing, and simply not bragging to you about it? | |
mattmaroon wrote 5 hours 42 min ago: | |
I said heâs a supervisor, not in security. Heâs not | |
an idiot. Heâd be caught very quickly. Cash controls | |
are such that everyone is. | |
I donât know if every state is like mine, but here they | |
have to do complete inventory every night. You can steal | |
but theyâll know it happened by the end of the day and | |
then start checking the footage. It happens. | |
flawsofar wrote 2 hours 53 min ago: | |
Thank god he was smart enough to avoid becoming a | |
security guard, the natural path to thievery. | |
But he is high every single moment at work by your | |
reasoning, yes? | |
flawsofar wrote 13 hours 22 min ago: | |
I as a customer an hour ago had a long conversation with a | |
friend I made behind the counter. | |
Some software engineers do partake of the weed. So yeah | |
Iâve met them. | |
Tattoos, piercings? Theyâre just people. | |
Getting high isnât a sign of larceny | |
mattmaroon wrote 12 hours 47 min ago: | |
I didnât say it was. I just said employee theft is a | |
bigger problem than robbery. | |
kelseyfrog wrote 10 hours 14 min ago: | |
> you can imagine who works at them | |
You might want to be more careful then. This empty | |
space is a well known rhetorical device used to allude | |
that you're making a negative judgement about people. | |
rayiner wrote 5 hours 2 min ago: | |
If you smoke weed, why do you care if people judge | |
you negatively? Arenât you making the deliberate | |
choice to free yourself from societyâs | |
expectations? Judgment is societyâs very weak tool | |
for getting narcissistic individuals to behave in a | |
civilized manner. If you donât want negative | |
judgment, maybe try conforming to what society views | |
as positive? Or donât conform and just deal with | |
what people think of you. | |
flawsofar wrote 2 hours 57 min ago: | |
Donât bully people for smoking a plant. Easy. | |
mattmaroon wrote 5 hours 45 min ago: | |
What it meant was, if you work at a place with all | |
the cash controls of a casino, you have to be stoned | |
to steal petty cash from them. Youâre going to get | |
caught, and youâre going to get a felony over a | |
small amount of money. Nobody sober does that. | |
It was not meant as âall stoners are thievesâ but | |
as âyouâd have to be high to think thatâs a | |
good ideaâ. And since nearly everyone who works at | |
a dispensary is high all day every day, it happens, a | |
lot more than armed robbery which almost never does. | |
flawsofar wrote 2 hours 56 min ago: | |
This is like a tour of logical fallacies. How | |
about some data? | |
mattmaroon wrote 1 hour 9 min ago: | |
I donât think there is much data to be had, at | |
least public. But I can tell you in the 5 years | |
my brother has been there, they have had zero | |
armed robbery attempts, and several employee | |
theft attempts. And a quick Google about whether | |
dispensaries get robbed frequently will show you | |
people from the industry saying the same thing. | |
But no, no data, only anecdotes. Still, I feel | |
like only somebody who has never been in a | |
dispensary would think they are attractive | |
robbery target. Iâve been in them and maybe 10 | |
states, and they are all pretty tight Security, | |
because they know they have a lot of cash and | |
people would like to steal it. | |
Spivak wrote 18 hours 31 min ago: | |
Golden rule of customer service is you can not demand service | |
while simultaneously degrading the people who provide it to | |
you. | |
filoleg wrote 20 hours 59 min ago: | |
Often enough, it isnât an actual ATM. You pay at the counter | |
like you usually would using a card or an NFC payment method | |
(e.g., Apple Pay), but the payment reader processes it as an ATM | |
withdrawal transaction (hence an extra transaction fee of a few | |
dollars). There is no physical cash involved at any point in this | |
(at least not on the dispensary premises). | |
neilv wrote 18 hours 7 min ago: | |
Is the payment service operating in a regulatory gray area or | |
loophole? | |
bobthepanda wrote 19 hours 50 min ago: | |
Maybe this is a state by state thing? I have never observed | |
this in WA. | |
mikestew wrote 19 hours 48 min ago: | |
I've heard Origins in Redmond does this, IIRC. But I believe | |
that to be the exception, not the rule. | |
BobaFloutist wrote 20 hours 49 min ago: | |
Sure, for people that want to pay 5$ more for every | |
transaction. | |
Probably a good number of people don't. | |
Vegenoid wrote 20 hours 30 min ago: | |
Where Iâve been, they round up to the nearest multiple of | |
5, and the extra you pay is kept as credit on your account | |
towards future purchases. | |
millzlane wrote 17 hours 12 min ago: | |
That's kinda shitty. They just give us the 5 back cash. | |
CydeWeys wrote 21 hours 7 min ago: | |
I think the ATM isn't actually dispensing cash. You're doing an | |
ATM transaction for a certain amount of money, but what you're | |
actually getting is weed. | |
It's not just "You can buy with cash, and we conveniently have an | |
ATM available to get cash if you didn't go to your bank." | |
14u2c wrote 19 hours 8 min ago: | |
Nope, it's just a regular ATM operated by a 3rd party company. | |
You get cash from it then give them the cash. The store will | |
also often reimburse for the ATM fee. | |
CydeWeys wrote 16 hours 30 min ago: | |
Nope, see other comments. My interpretation is correct. | |
mikestew wrote 19 hours 50 min ago: | |
It's not just "You can buy with cash, and we conveniently have | |
an ATM available to get cash if you didn't go to your bank." | |
I have heard from a very reliable source that the ATMs in most | |
weed shops on the Eastside of Seattle dispense cash because | |
you're going to be required to pay with cash at the counter. | |
There are allegedly a few exceptions, but the majority of shops | |
accept only cash and the ATM dispenses bills. | |
hughesjj wrote 19 hours 36 min ago: | |
Out of the 15+ SWIM has been to in WA state, SWIM has never | |
seen a dispensary take anything but physical cash (bills and | |
coins). | |
ethbr1 wrote 21 hours 10 min ago: | |
Signs that times are a' changing -- you can buy illegal drugs with | |
a card now. | |
(Call me crazy and old-fashioned, but I don't think I'd want 50+ | |
illegally-correlated transactions on my financial record that the | |
government could lump into other charges...) | |
JojoFatsani wrote 16 hours 34 min ago: | |
Except theyâre legal drugs | |
somenameforme wrote 11 hours 35 min ago: | |
Reclassified, not legalized. As per the article it will now be | |
classified along anabolic steroids, ketamine, and other such | |
things. | |
red-iron-pine wrote 2 hours 43 min ago: | |
which is to say, still illegal, just that you won't get 25 to | |
life for a few plants. | |
DEA isn't kicking down doors to bust dudes doin 'roids, | |
mostly nailing low-hanging fruit like doctors who blatantly | |
spam fake steroid prescriptions | |
coffeebeqn wrote 21 hours 7 min ago: | |
Do they have jurisdiction to go and do that? | |
mattmaroon wrote 19 hours 24 min ago: | |
The Silver Platter doctrine prevents your financial | |
institutions from handing over that data unbidden, but they can | |
do so by request from law enforcement. | |
red-iron-pine wrote 2 hours 45 min ago: | |
which law enforcement can get, trivially, if they're | |
prosecuting a felony. | |
it's just a function of time and process, and while you can | |
dispose of plants and bury money in your back yard, you can't | |
undo old bank transactions. 20 years later those records may | |
not be a thing, but last year sure will be... | |
denimnerd42 wrote 20 hours 48 min ago: | |
sure they do. for example it's illegal to be in possession of | |
marijuana and a firearm. the purchase of said MJ would be | |
pretty good evidence that could lead to other warrants. That's | |
the Hunter Biden gun charge. | |
zoklet-enjoyer wrote 16 hours 41 min ago: | |
This is why I'm going to buy a gun to celebrate marijuana | |
moving to schedule 3 | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 20 hours 34 min ago: | |
It's oddly not. Only to be a user or addict with a firearm. | |
IIRC if you just like the way weed looks in your hand that | |
doesn't make you a user, and there's plenty of reasonable | |
doubt you're guarding it for grandma or whoever. | |
Of course people are still being convicted of weed and | |
firearm, but it gets recorded as gun law violation and nobody | |
cares, cuz left hates guns and right hates weed, so they'll | |
never repeal it. | |
somenameforme wrote 11 hours 4 min ago: | |
What you're saying is how people generally think the law | |
works, but it's not how it works in practice. This is | |
easily illustrated with possession of drug paraphernalia | |
charges. There's two types of possession, actual and | |
constructive - but both face the exact same charge. | |
Constructive just means something like 'could be reasonably | |
accessed.' | |
So imagine you're in a car, get pulled over, it smells of | |
weed so the cop executes a search, and he finds a pipe in | |
the glove compartment. You're getting arrested for PDP | |
there 100%. Even if it genuinely wasn't yours, you stand | |
very little chance of acquittal. Beyond a reasonable doubt | |
doesn't mean 'is there some other viable explanation' | |
because there literally always is. It means is it | |
reasonably likely that one of these other explanations is | |
what really happened. | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 4 hours 11 min ago: | |
What you're saying is how people generally think the | |
prohibited possessor law works, but it's not how it works | |
in practice. | |
It says nothing of drug possession, only gun/ammo | |
possession by someone who uses or addicted to illegal | |
drugs. There is plenty of reasonable doubt that | |
constructive or actual possession of drugs is not | |
accompanied by use, in fact this is the case for many | |
dispensary workers. | |
>922 g (3) ... who is an unlawful user of or addicted to | |
any controlled substance (as defined in section 102 of | |
the Controlled Substances Act (21 U.S.C. 802)); | |
int_19h wrote 16 hours 34 min ago: | |
The worst part is that the states are quite happy to help | |
the feds enforce this. E.g. Hawaii has both mandatory gun | |
registration and requires a state-issued license for | |
medical marijuana. And if you happen to have both, well: | |
[1] It should also be noted that while DEA is instructed by | |
the executive to not go after cannabis users in states | |
where it's legal for recreational use, there's no | |
equivalent directive issued to ATF. | |
[1]: https://www.leafly.com/news/politics/surrender-you... | |
denimnerd42 wrote 20 hours 24 min ago: | |
oh fair enough about the "user" vs possession. but my point | |
was they could possible use this info to get a warrant to | |
surveil you to catch you using it. | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 20 hours 21 min ago: | |
They don't need that. I was served a federal search | |
warrant after a detective wrote an anonymous officer | |
claimed an anonymous DOG accused me of wrongdoing. | |
When 3rd order anonymous interspecies hearsay is | |
sufficient for a warrant it means a warrant is just a | |
rubber stamp. | |
vkou wrote 19 hours 52 min ago: | |
Even a rubber-stamp warrant process serves a point, by | |
making the police identify who they are targeting, as | |
opposed to targeting everyone, and deciding who to | |
charge after the fact. | |
Warrants aren't supposed to be hard to get. They are | |
only supposed to stop the most blatant fishing | |
expeditions. | |
denimnerd42 wrote 20 hours 19 min ago: | |
fair. its not hard to get a warrant. but your info in | |
the database could still make you a target | |
ethbr1 wrote 20 hours 49 min ago: | |
If you get hit with a federal charge and they care enough, | |
federal prosecutors can absolutely dig into your financial | |
records. | |
That said, I imagine it would only get done if they really | |
wanted to throw the book at you... | |
biomcgary wrote 20 hours 43 min ago: | |
"For my friends, everything. For my enemies, the law." | |
NewJazz wrote 21 hours 11 min ago: | |
Does it actually keep cash out of the store? They might just have | |
to keep track of it at the back of house still. | |
justsomehnguy wrote 20 hours 55 min ago: | |
you answered it yourself | |
wnevets wrote 21 hours 20 min ago: | |
That's a fairly a common practice for cash only businesses, | |
normally a different company is supplying the ATM and its cash. For | |
example I've seen cash only ice cream shops with the same setup. | |
mattmaroon wrote 19 hours 32 min ago: | |
That's not what he's describing. In this case there actually is | |
no cash or traditional ATM involved on-site. It's connected to | |
the dispensary POS, not a physical ATM. (They often have a | |
regular ATM like you describe also, though.) | |
So you do an ATM transaction, but the money goes to the | |
dispensary somehow. I do not know how it works on the back end, | |
but I've used it as a customer. It's lovely and can even be done | |
over your phone. | |
cgriswald wrote 12 hours 8 min ago: | |
Isn't that how a traditional ATM transaction works? You use the | |
ATM and the money goes to the ATM owner (plus a fee). The only | |
difference here is you get weed instead of cash. | |
wnevets wrote 18 hours 35 min ago: | |
Oh interesting. Does it appear on your end as a cash advance | |
when using a credit card? | |
andrewxdiamond wrote 18 hours 29 min ago: | |
Nope. ATM withdrawal. My bank even reimburses the ATM fee | |
associated with it | |
czscout wrote 18 hours 22 min ago: | |
An ATM withdrawal with a credit card is a cash advance. | |
andrewxdiamond wrote 17 hours 18 min ago: | |
Oh my bad, read the question wrong. They just donât | |
support CCs. Debit only | |
swalling wrote 21 hours 21 min ago: | |
Yes this seems to be increasingly common, at least on the west | |
coast. The suboptimal part is that the buyer typically gets hit | |
with an out-of-network ATM fee for doing this, so the consumer is | |
paying $2-5 for processing per transaction. | |
ghaff wrote 21 hours 7 min ago: | |
Thatâs pretty small potatoes though compared to going to a bank | |
yourself and making a transaction for cash you donât normally | |
have around. Maybe thereâs an ATM down the block but thatâs | |
not the case for many people. | |
garciasn wrote 20 hours 52 min ago: | |
Use a credit union or bank that doesnât charge ATM fees; | |
thatâs what I do. Any CU-related ATM withdrawal is always | |
free and I get 10 ATM withdrawals a month with fees reversed. | |
hinkley wrote 10 hours 17 min ago: | |
Almost all CUs use the same company to provide the ATM | |
network. The fees between them get zeroed out in part because | |
the transaction stays in house. | |
Itâs probably better to say ânearly all CU withdrawalsâ… | |
because they donât have a perfect monopoly. | |
hunter2_ wrote 20 hours 27 min ago: | |
Unlimited fees reversed with Schwab checking. No monthly fee | |
to figure out how to avoid, either. | |
ada1981 wrote 20 hours 3 min ago: | |
So they just eat the fees? | |
CydeWeys wrote 16 hours 28 min ago: | |
They eat the fees because operating physical branches is | |
much more costly still. | |
And if you're truly abusing it and costing them massively | |
with fees, they can always close your account. | |
hunter2_ wrote 17 hours 27 min ago: | |
Yes, even exorbitant ones like on a cruise ship or | |
casino. Free checks, too. And mutual funds with lower | |
fees than Vanguard. But virtually no physical branches | |
(most locations are brokerage offices only) so not ideal | |
for depositing cash or getting a cashier's check... use | |
something else for that. | |
Semaphor wrote 4 hours 29 min ago: | |
The Neo-Bank I use in Germany (N26) works similarly. 3 | |
or 5 fee-eaten withdrawals per month, but the always | |
free option is supermarket registers. Thereâs a large | |
network of supermarkets that are connected to the | |
network, and I can generate a code on my phone, scan | |
it, and it registers the negative value (e.g. -50 â¬), | |
which I then get handed. Deposits work the same way | |
(scan code, generate positive amount that you then | |
pay), but at least for free accounts deposits incur a | |
fee. | |
filoleg wrote 20 hours 57 min ago: | |
And those ATMs around the block from a dispensary (or even in | |
the same buildimg) would still charge a fee for withdrawal | |
anyway (as they are always a third-party ATM and not a bank | |
one, so you get that big message on the screen about an extra | |
fee for withdrawal). | |
toomuchtodo wrote 21 hours 13 min ago: | |
You can use a brokerage account that reimburses atm fees. | |
kstrauser wrote 20 hours 54 min ago: | |
Or a credit union. | |
zoklet-enjoyer wrote 16 hours 36 min ago: | |
Or some banks | |
ncr100 wrote 21 hours 45 min ago: | |
THEREFORE they will be able to move CASH money out of their stores TO | |
BANKS, resulting in fewer "smash and grab" incidents ... aka, | |
"Hyundai meet storefront of weed shop." | |
Looking forward to this, silly to see so many Kia "boys" being used | |
for gross violence crimes when regulation changes could lessen it. | |
> [1] for example | |
[1]: https://www.king5.com/article/news/crime/seattle-pot-shop-cr... | |
danielscrubs wrote 11 hours 51 min ago: | |
The poverty and gangster culture is going to stay the same so this | |
seems like a weird kind of social take, I mean wont grifters just | |
find another way to hurt common folk? | |
I mean... I can leave a 2000 USD Macbook for a toilet break in | |
Starbucks over here without any issues and have done so regularly. | |
berniedurfee wrote 2 hours 7 min ago: | |
Which Starbucks? | |
leptons wrote 17 hours 15 min ago: | |
First line in your link: | |
>"The owner says around $15,000 of products and items were stolen | |
from the store." | |
It doesn't mention anything about cash. | |
"Smash and grab" in weed shops doesn't usually have much to do with | |
having piles of cash sitting around (though I'm sure that might | |
happen too) - it's the product that thieves want to steal because | |
it's got no serial numbers, it's pretty light-weight and easy to | |
run out with thousands of dollars worth of product, and it's easy | |
to resell. | |
If there's any cash in the register that's often secondary to | |
grabbing a few pounds of high-quality product. 3 pounds of high | |
quality weed can be valued at $20k. I doubt there's that much in | |
the cash register at the end of the day, and good luck getting into | |
the safe. It's much easier to run out with 3 pounds of weed. | |
pixl97 wrote 16 hours 3 min ago: | |
Cash has to leave the building at some point. | |
michaelt wrote 7 hours 29 min ago: | |
Up to the 1990s (and probably still to this day, IDK how | |
electronic payments have impacted this) there was a whole | |
industry dedicated to getting cash off business premises and | |
into banks. | |
For example, banks often had special "night safes" allowing | |
small business owners to drop off bags of cash outside of | |
branch opening hours. Some businesses would get daily armoured | |
car visits to collect the day's takings. There were even | |
supermarkets with a system of pneumatic tubes allowing cashiers | |
to transfer money to the back room without leaving their | |
stations, so their tills never had enough cash to be worth | |
robbing. You could also get safes with a deposit slot, so | |
employees could drop the takings into the safe, but didn't have | |
the combination needed to get anything out again. | |
Assuming these all still exist, there are options for keeping | |
cash secure, and getting it off the premises fast. | |
Of course, by similar logic they could store all the product in | |
a safe out of hours. Jewellery stores manage to store loads of | |
diamonds without getting robbed, after all... | |
leptons wrote 12 hours 23 min ago: | |
There's typically far more monetary value in product in any | |
weed shop than there is cash, likely by an order of magnitude. | |
Many of the purchases are done electronically, so there's not | |
as much cash as you might think in most dispensaries. | |
ajmurmann wrote 8 hours 28 min ago: | |
How are these purchases done electronically if the stores | |
cannot process credit cards? After there dispensaries more | |
commonly using crypto that I don't know about? | |
gwill wrote 3 hours 1 min ago: | |
they charge debit, so it's basically an atm withdrawal at | |
point of sale. | |
justinator wrote 19 hours 11 min ago: | |
I guess the weed can still be stolen | |
red-iron-pine wrote 2 hours 52 min ago: | |
Can't buy shit with weed. Gotta sell it. And that has time | |
requirements and risks to you (including getting robbed | |
yourself). | |
Meanwhile these are cash-only businesses, so if you're gonna | |
steal then go for the money. Esp. since most dispensaries I've | |
seen do a reasonably brisk business. | |
sambazi wrote 7 hours 40 min ago: | |
then again, you can just grow it yourself w/o risk of being shot | |
NewJazz wrote 21 hours 12 min ago: | |
The poor San Bernardino Sheriff's department is going to need a new | |
funding source, too. | |
[1]: https://www.latimes.com/california/story/2022-01-28/mariju... | |
pests wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
Every dispo in my area (Metro Detroit) has concrete pillars | |
surrounding the building, usually every two feet or so. | |
One of the first to open a few years back got hit early and | |
everyone seems to have learned the lesson. | |
TylerE wrote 14 hours 31 min ago: | |
The ones in DC typically seem to be either on 2nd floors or in | |
basements. Security outside at the entrance to the steps. | |
Mountain_Skies wrote 13 hours 52 min ago: | |
The ones I've seen in the Detroit area seem to mostly be in | |
areas zoned industrial, which typically means single story, | |
stand alone buildings with few "eyes on the street". Going to | |
guess Michigan has restrictive zoning requirements for | |
marijuana businesses that keep it out of the public eye. | |
dexwiz wrote 21 hours 2 min ago: | |
Those short pillars are called bollards. | |
schoen wrote 10 hours 49 min ago: | |
Well-known to expert GeoGuessr players as a convenient way to | |
quickly tell what country you're in on a random rural road, as | |
different countries use mysteriously consistent different | |
bollard styles even when their road surfaces are otherwise | |
almost identical. | |
[1]: https://duckduckgo.com/?q=bollard+meta | |
jcims wrote 20 hours 54 min ago: | |
Every fan of physics is recommended to look up bollard test | |
videos. | |
nullhole wrote 10 hours 2 min ago: | |
The gravity of physics always brings me down. | |
(sorry!) | |
wallaBBB wrote 19 hours 24 min ago: | |
And one of the best Twitter accounts: | |
[1]: https://twitter.com/WorldBollard | |
LoveMortuus wrote 8 hours 34 min ago: | |
This is amazing, made me laugh out loud, have to be careful | |
though, as I'm currently in the office. :D | |
jpsouth wrote 12 hours 42 min ago: | |
âI donât even think it was my fault!â | |
Well the static, bright yellow pole didnât waltz into the | |
side of your car now, did it? | |
People are so ignorant itâs actually unbelievable. [1] | |
Edit: reminds me of my neighbour who dropped his motorbike | |
because a car pulled out on him from a fuel station. I | |
asked how fast he was going, he said with absolute | |
conviction he was doing no more than 5mph. | |
When I told him that was too fast he couldnât wrap his | |
head around it. | |
[1]: https://x.com/WorldBollard/status/1781394728899993... | |
xmodem wrote 3 hours 54 min ago: | |
Oh my god. As someone who can't see well enough to get a | |
license, but somehow can see bollards just fine as a | |
passenger: If you can't see them, you shouldn't be | |
fucking driving. | |
squigz wrote 17 hours 53 min ago: | |
I just browsed this far longer than I'd care to admit. | |
geph2021 wrote 15 hours 25 min ago: | |
same :) | |
yuppiemephisto wrote 20 hours 37 min ago: | |
Just did! =) | |
incomingpain wrote 21 hours 54 min ago: | |
Here in Canada, it has been rather eye opening the extent of cannabis | |
use. There are more cannabis shops then mcdonalds. You can grow your | |
own and most people do. There's online options. | |
A society which criminalizes something so popular and widely used; will | |
ultimately fail at their prohibition. | |
The next step for society would be to attempt at changing opinion, but | |
what are the unintended consequences? The answer is, bad news. | |
gwbas1c wrote 17 hours 41 min ago: | |
> Here in Canada, it has been rather eye opening the extent of | |
cannabis use. | |
When I visited Quebec in 1997, I saw a lot of people openly smoking | |
cannabis in public. Once I smelt weed, turned around, and saw a kid, | |
probably about 12-14, just sitting on a bench in public smoking a | |
joint. I wasn't in a shady part of town, either. | |
thegrim33 wrote 20 hours 49 min ago: | |
"A society which criminalizes something so popular and widely used; | |
will ultimately fail at their prohibition." | |
So .. all the countries in the world, e.g. Japan, China, Singapore, | |
UAE, etc., etc., where marijuana is very illegal, failed? It seems to | |
be working just fine for them. Since we can provide numerous counter | |
examples to your claim isn't your claim instantly invalidated? | |
josefresco wrote 20 hours 55 min ago: | |
I visited Montreal last year and finding a recreation cannabis shop | |
was not easy. Google maps is filled with "head shops" that don't | |
sell weed, and apparently at some point all shops became nationalized | |
(correct me if I'm wrong) which means there were private shops in | |
existence but then shut down further polluting online listings. I | |
eventually figured this out (after visiting what I thought was a | |
cannabis shop that was actually a deli) but as luck would have it, | |
they were all closed when I was downtown. | |
Coming from the US, Massachusetts specifically this was a major step | |
backwards. Granted we are spoiled, especially in my region where | |
there's 2-3 shops per town but I was not expecting it to be that hard | |
in progressive Canada. | |
Edit: I looked it up and only the "SQDC" (1) is authorized to sell | |
Cannabis. | |
1: | |
[1]: https://www.quebec.ca/sante/conseils-et-prevention/alcool-dr... | |
incomingpain wrote 1 hour 41 min ago: | |
>I visited Montreal last year and finding a recreation cannabis | |
shop was not easy. Google maps is filled with "head shops" that | |
don't sell weed, and apparently at some point all shops became | |
nationalized (correct me if I'm wrong) | |
Quebec is an oddball, they did provincially run them. They are | |
quite available still, search 'cannabis' in google/apple maps and | |
they'll be available. | |
pcthrowaway wrote 21 hours 25 min ago: | |
> You can grow your own and most people do | |
pffft... source? I know about 1 person who grows their own for every | |
100 who smoke. | |
tayo42 wrote 21 hours 19 min ago: | |
I grew weed durring covid, it's like taking care of a baby for weed | |
that's mostly OK. I sold everything after two attempts. I learned | |
alot about gardening though lol | |
davidmurdoch wrote 21 hours 44 min ago: | |
You think most people in Canada grow weed? | |
ravishi wrote 21 hours 21 min ago: | |
I read that as "most people [who smoke weed] grow their own". Also | |
a bold statement but way less absurd than "most Canadians grow | |
weed". | |
guyzero wrote 21 hours 53 min ago: | |
But there's as many shuttered pot shops in Toronto as there are open | |
ones. I think the industry is still shaking out and there's a lot of | |
volatility. | |
incomingpain wrote 1 hour 41 min ago: | |
>But there's as many shuttered pot shops in Toronto as there are | |
open ones. I think the industry is still shaking out and there's a | |
lot of volatility. | |
That's fair as well. Being invested in cannabis is a whole other | |
beast. | |
coffeebeqn wrote 20 hours 55 min ago: | |
Itâs not a particularly easy industry to value add. Growing | |
pretty good weed is probably less work than a brewery - and I have | |
a very hard time telling the difference between the hundreds of | |
different strains. | |
Then you have to have security, your staff is high 24/7, banking is | |
a mess.. | |
Growing might be more pleasant than running the shops but then you | |
better like agriculture | |
arecurrence wrote 21 hours 32 min ago: | |
While this is true, the remaining stores are continuing to capture | |
more business. Users who only make legal source purchases are over | |
70% of the market now | |
[1]: https://globalnews.ca/news/10367758/legal-cannabis-sales-p... | |
ceejayoz wrote 21 hours 49 min ago: | |
Same thing happened with cupcake shops and craft breweries. | |
jiayo wrote 21 hours 19 min ago: | |
Except cupcake shops and craft breweries are allowed to | |
differentiate (gluten free, superhero themed, we only sell wild | |
fermented German beers...) while the legal cannabis retailers in | |
Canada are more akin to owning a Subway franchise. | |
You must purchase your cannabis from a select set of suppliers | |
chosen by the government (yes, the very same ones your | |
competition must purchase from), you are not allowed to offer | |
discounts/freebies on cannabis products (only rolling papers or | |
similar non-psychoactive products). It is still illegal to | |
operate any kind of venue that allows consumption, so while you | |
can decorate your retail space like an Apple store or a Pier 1, | |
you can't run trivia nights or do movie screenings or anything | |
that might result in people patronizing your business over the | |
one next door offering the same product for $0.05 cheaper. | |
Pre-legalization, I could go to a store (not legally operated) | |
and look at the bud in the jar, smell it, and make decisions | |
based on something other than a sealed package with no artwork or | |
description on it. Some stores even offered consumption of "dabs" | |
which is a great model: those things cost a lot of money and | |
aren't really fun to have in your home and maintain, and it was | |
very competitive with "a pint after work". All of this went away | |
after 2017. | |
ceejayoz wrote 20 hours 46 min ago: | |
I'm referring more to the "several times as many as the market | |
can sustain get opened" phenomenon. Around here, every | |
just-out-of-college set of buddies decided they'd get into | |
brewing a few years ago. Probably 75% of them were gone in a | |
year or two. | |
akira2501 wrote 21 hours 49 min ago: | |
There's a common notion that I've noticed, which is that if you | |
just open up a "pot shop" that you'll make money hand over fist, | |
meanwhile, they're fairly complex retail operations to run and you | |
can loose your hat just as quickly as with any other business. | |
cynicalsecurity wrote 21 hours 59 min ago: | |
Normalising marijuana can have long lasting negatives effects on the | |
society. It doesn't make sense to celebrate getting people hooked on | |
yet another legal drug. A safe, productive and prosperous society | |
cannot be built by drug addicts. | |
seattle_spring wrote 10 hours 37 min ago: | |
It's disappointing that this guy can call cannabis users "drug | |
addicts" and get away with it, but we can't really respond in-kind | |
without breaking HN rules. | |
dukeyukey wrote 20 hours 48 min ago: | |
> A safe, productive and prosperous society cannot be built by drug | |
addicts. | |
Between alcohol, nicotine and arguably caffeine, every vaguely | |
successful society was built on drugs. | |
jjulius wrote 20 hours 55 min ago: | |
>A safe, productive and prosperous society cannot be built by drug | |
addicts. | |
Yet much of it has been, and continues to be built by, people who use | |
drugs. | |
astura wrote 21 hours 0 min ago: | |
They aren't planning on legalizing it for recreational use, this move | |
would just reclassify it from schedule 1 to schedule 3. | |
timbit42 wrote 21 hours 21 min ago: | |
> hooked | |
Tobacco and alcohol are much more addictive than weed, yet they are | |
legal. | |
vundercind wrote 21 hours 36 min ago: | |
Itâs a less-harmful alcohol substitute. I have multiple friends | |
whoâve gone âCalifornia soberâ and it has sure looked like | |
nothing but a good change. | |
Itâs by far the best sleep aid Iâve personally found. Practically | |
miraculous. Huge change for the better, Iâve gone several months at | |
a time without it on a couple occasions since starting and holy crap, | |
life used to be terrible. Extremely low-risk, doesnât leave me hung | |
over feeling like a lot of the legal sleep aids do. Plus, hell, | |
itâs a lot of fun to watch some MST3K while itâs kicking in. | |
Almost no serious interactions, so you can take it while ill and | |
having to take other drugs, to help (enormously) with sleep or | |
appetite or whatever. | |
For that matter, having a damn effective pain reliever and sleep aid | |
that you can just keep on hand for when you get the flu or something, | |
and not have to go suffer through a waiting room for a prescription | |
while ill, is a giant QOL boost. | |
btreecat wrote 21 hours 36 min ago: | |
Yet it's often claimed that civilization and brewing alcohol grow in | |
tandem. We certainly have evidence of its importance in Egypt, | |
Europe, and Africa come to mind as traveling along side cultural | |
growth. [1] . | |
Do you have evidence to support your counterclaims? | |
[1]: https://www.tota.world/article/1611/#:~:text=The%20first%20b... | |
lambdaba wrote 21 hours 38 min ago: | |
It's hard to know where to start when someone espouses this | |
mentality, but I suggest you start with looking up a chart of | |
addiction VS harm for different substances, you might be in for a | |
surprise. | |
kstrauser wrote 21 hours 39 min ago: | |
I bet a huge portion of the people here are physically addicted to | |
caffeine, a powerful psychoactive stimulant. | |
lambdaba wrote 21 hours 37 min ago: | |
As Terence McKenna used to say, caffeine is legal because it keeps | |
the worker bees working throughout the afternoon. | |
underseacables wrote 19 hours 12 min ago: | |
I think this is why North Korea allows marijuana and meth. | |
hansoolo wrote 16 hours 27 min ago: | |
Can you give some evidence for that? Curious | |
underseacables wrote 4 hours 22 min ago: | |
Google is your friend. [1] | |
[1]: https://www.nytimes.com/2019/02/12/world/asia/north-... | |
[2]: https://www.vice.com/en/article/nn4ywx/north-korea-i... | |
zingababba wrote 21 hours 14 min ago: | |
He said that while high on cannabis, most definitely. | |
lambdaba wrote 21 hours 10 min ago: | |
He was a self-confessed chronic user, granted, it was | |
old-school weed so I don't know how that would scale with | |
what's available nowadays. | |
bongodongobob wrote 21 hours 43 min ago: | |
Ok, only leafy greens and protein pills for you, plus 2 hours of | |
exercise per day and a mandated 9:30 PM bedtime. It's for your own | |
good. | |
snarf21 wrote 21 hours 43 min ago: | |
Serious question: Do you feel just as strongly about alcohol, | |
nicotine, gambling and sugar? Those all have an enormous societal | |
costs as well. | |
cynicalsecurity wrote 19 hours 50 min ago: | |
I've seen way too much harm done by alcohol than good. | |
Unfortunately, it's already normalised since ages, but I'm glad | |
it's getting regarded in a negative light more and more. | |
People complain about being sent to jail for weed as if this they | |
are suffering a political persecution, but people can get in legal | |
trouble for drinking alcohol in public places or illegally | |
producing or selling it as well. In some European countries, if | |
both parents are caught drinking alcohol at the same time, even | |
just beer, they'll be stripped of their parental rights. Imagine if | |
that would be a law in America for people who smoke weed. This | |
would be called a genocide or something along the lines of | |
political persecution, some absolutely laughable arguments. | |
Cigarettes are straightforward evil and harmful. The usage of | |
tobacco is extremely idiotic, it was normalised and promoted by the | |
tobacco companies for profit, despite all the known negative | |
effects. | |
Gambling must be strictly forbidden. It's pure evil and it's only | |
harming both people and society. In America, gambling isn't freely | |
available to people, same as in many other countries. Try to run a | |
casino in your back yard and get to enjoy the company of some | |
handsome guys in blue. Is it oppression? | |
Sugar should be limited, same as many other harmful components used | |
in the food production. Excessive usage of sugar leads to obesity | |
which again, is bad for everyone. European countries pretty much do | |
some really good job in this regard. | |
I'm really annoyed by the hypocrisy of people who so eagerly try to | |
promote and normalise weed as if this is going to help everyone. | |
It wouldn't. I really wouldn't want to see my children smoking it, | |
offered by some chavs who would be friends of their friends I would | |
not approve because of their low behaviour. Weed is same bad as | |
alcohol, nicotine, gambling and sugar you mentioned. It slows down | |
intellectual development of children and degrades the intellect of | |
adults as well. Yes, weed can be a good antidepressant or a | |
pain-relieving medication - if consumed for a short period of time | |
and strictly when it's necessary. This whole hysteria with | |
legalisation of weed reminds me of tobacco companies aggressively | |
promoting cigarettes through the media back in the previous century | |
or modern pharma peddling opioids. | |
hansoolo wrote 16 hours 23 min ago: | |
>In some European countries, if both parents are caught drinking | |
alcohol at the same time, even just beer, they'll be stripped of | |
their parental rights. | |
Which countries exactly? Never heard of that | |
bongodongobob wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
Of course not, those are normal. /s | |
ncr100 wrote 21 hours 43 min ago: | |
Sorta right, sorta wrong, premise is weak -- Weed is NOT PHYSICALLY | |
ADDICTIVE. It can be psychologically. | |
Beer / hard liquor IS PHYSICALLY addictive. Cigarettes ARE. Caffeine | |
IS. | |
lambdaba wrote 21 hours 5 min ago: | |
Sugar is! AND it causes great long-term harm, hard to quantify how | |
much since there is basically no control group, since it's given to | |
children early on, it's put in near everything, and it's cheap as | |
dirt. | |
dukeyukey wrote 20 hours 40 min ago: | |
I donât think sugar is physically addictive, as in your body | |
gets negative physiological symptoms from cutting back. | |
lambdaba wrote 20 hours 31 min ago: | |
True, I misread the comment, although for someone consuming a | |
lot of sugar quitting cold-turkey is going to be uncomfortable | |
physically. | |
triceratops wrote 21 hours 48 min ago: | |
> A safe, productive and prosperous society cannot be built by drug | |
addicts. | |
Historian Niall Ferguson has argued that the British Empire was built | |
on a collective caffeine and sugar high, from imported tea and cane | |
sugar from its colonies and trading partners. | |
sorwin wrote 12 hours 23 min ago: | |
Neither sugar nor caffeine has the same effects as drugs like | |
alcohol and marijuana. It's pretty asinine to classify them as even | |
being in the same category. | |
triceratops wrote 3 hours 16 min ago: | |
Are you suggesting the British didn't have alcohol during their | |
empire building phase? | |
ciabattabread wrote 21 hours 12 min ago: | |
Don't forget about tobacco and opium. | |
triceratops wrote 21 hours 0 min ago: | |
I don't think the Brits were using the opium when | |
empire-building. | |
causal wrote 21 hours 52 min ago: | |
I don't smoke tobacco, I seldom drink, and I don't use marijuana. | |
Those are habits I hope my kids avoid too. Nonetheless I would never | |
wish for a world where my kids go to prison for failing to avoid | |
them. | |
cynicalsecurity wrote 19 hours 39 min ago: | |
But they do. Your kids will be put to prison for drunk driving, | |
drinking in public places or you will go to prison for buying them | |
booze. Is it an oppressive world? Do you feel the urge of strongly | |
fighting against it and promote alcohol? I'm amazed how people | |
regard fighting for legalisation of yet another drug as some sort | |
of a freedom fighting act. | |
grzeshru wrote 21 hours 55 min ago: | |
Has society ever been safe, productive or prosperous? Iâd argue it | |
hasnât. I think smaller collectives have managed to eek out a bit | |
of solace but society as a whole has always been at each otherâs | |
throats. Our notion of productivity is mostly moved forward by one | |
hand not seeing the other. | |
hansoolo wrote 16 hours 29 min ago: | |
Common go back to Twitter already | |
golergka wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
Modern first world countries are incredibly safe, productive and | |
prosperous by any historical measure. You have to have a completely | |
skewed perspective not to see this. | |
CPLX wrote 21 hours 57 min ago: | |
Maybe some day someone will explain what ânormalizingâ means, | |
specifically what people mean by the âdonât normalize Xâ | |
construction. | |
Pretty sure between Dr. Dre and Willie Nelson weed got normalized | |
decades ago by any definition I understand. | |
umvi wrote 21 hours 38 min ago: | |
"Normalize" in this sense means "to make culturally acceptable". A | |
thing can be legal but still be taboo, for example, in Japan | |
tattoos are legal but you might get discriminated against at an | |
onsen if the owner doesn't want tattoos on display in their | |
establishment. | |
Weed might be "normalized" in some communities, but a large portion | |
of Americans will silently judge you if you are a recreational drug | |
user regardless of it is weed or cocaine or fentanyl. Contrast to, | |
say, beer or wine, which the majority of Americans will not | |
silently judge you for indulging in moderation. | |
CPLX wrote 18 hours 38 min ago: | |
Well yeah. But thats why the premise makes no sense. At this | |
point weed is as culturally acceptable as anything else as far as | |
I can tell. And I travel a lot, that's true in Texas and NYC and | |
wherever else. | |
jjulius wrote 20 hours 54 min ago: | |
>Contrast to, say, beer or wine, which the majority of Americans | |
will not silently judge you for indulging in moderation. | |
In point of fact, it's often flipped around. It's only been the | |
last few years that I can tell someone I don't drink and be met | |
with lots of, "Good for you!"s rather than silent judgement. | |
qup wrote 19 hours 18 min ago: | |
I never had a drink until I was 27, and at the time, I found it | |
easier to keep that a secret than to talk about it. | |
But you're right. I'm not drinking again, and people are way | |
less likely to question that choice now. I can't remember the | |
last time it was questioned, actually. | |
dev1ycan wrote 22 hours 6 min ago: | |
I'm sorry but after seeing how american gradually get into worse and | |
worse drugs, and seeing channel 5's video on people using tranq... yeah | |
I think complete ban on drugs for non medical reasons is the best | |
choice. | |
moomoo11 wrote 19 hours 2 min ago: | |
Make money for yourself and live your best life. | |
Thereâs no point in caring too much about anything or anyone else. | |
Free will and all that. | |
Not my problem. I have insurances and pay for services. | |
Iâve pretty much accepted that most people are just there to | |
destroy society. So I stopped caring about anyone but myself. | |
The only people I will get up and help are my direct blood relatives. | |
danielbln wrote 9 hours 48 min ago: | |
Ah, that American rugged individualism. That's why y'all can be | |
homeless in a blink or medically bankrupt. | |
moomoo11 wrote 8 hours 40 min ago: | |
Whatâs the alternative? | |
Itâs not like any other country in the world is any better. All | |
countries have problems. My friend is one of those rich liberals | |
who left the country for EU bouncing between Spain Germany and | |
Netherlands before settling in Germany. Now he complains about | |
life there and thinking about Singapore.. | |
Iâm from a 3rd world country. Corruption and people treating | |
others like ants is common. Itâs why I grew up without running | |
water or power there because of some asshole. | |
The best outcome is you try to win, because I didnât choose to | |
spawn into this hybrid RTS game with basically a free for all | |
rules GTA online server. | |
You need money, planning, and resources to ensure your safety and | |
prosperity. | |
jMyles wrote 21 hours 4 min ago: | |
In addition to prohibition being impossible (and a policy failure in | |
every case where it has been tried, without a single historical | |
exception - one of the most consistent policy outcomes in all of | |
political science), it also isn't cognizable to define the word | |
"drug" for the purposes of your calculus here. | |
Would you ban coffee? How about sugar? | |
denimnerd42 wrote 21 hours 26 min ago: | |
tranq is an adulterant added to fentanyl. I don't think that is | |
apples to apples here. The entire opiate ecosystem is honestly | |
insane at the moment. The only street drug available is fentanyl and | |
it's often mixed with the vet drug tranq which is horrible for | |
humans. It prevents wound healing. I would say there needs to be | |
some kind of harm reduction done in this space too because apparently | |
fentanyl cannot be stopped. | |
btreecat wrote 21 hours 35 min ago: | |
Ring ring, 1920s are calling, they want their prohibition back. | |
itishappy wrote 21 hours 38 min ago: | |
I've watched the same videos, and the impression I got was that the | |
main gateway drug for tranq was prescription painkillers prescribed | |
legally by a doctor. | |
Maybe we should consider banning drugs for medical reasons too... | |
aidenn0 wrote 21 hours 4 min ago: | |
Outpatient opiods being prescribed to the degree they were 20 years | |
ago was clearly wrong in hindsight. | |
kstrauser wrote 21 hours 43 min ago: | |
People wanna get high. There's a plausible hypothesis that we | |
invented farming to have a more reliable way to make beer. We have 2 | |
main options: | |
1. Attempt to ban it. | |
2. Accept that people are going to get high, and try to limit the | |
harm. | |
The first has been a complete and utter disaster. The second -- e.g. | |
applying the same rules about who can use it and where they can use | |
it as alcohol -- is the only sane option. | |
Prohibition is about as effective as abstinence-only education and | |
for many of the same reasons. We can either work with how we wish | |
people would behave or how they're actually going to behave. | |
booleandilemma wrote 21 hours 25 min ago: | |
3. Make our society so pleasant to live in that people want to | |
experience their day-to-day lives with their minds free from drugs. | |
UncleMeat wrote 20 hours 11 min ago: | |
Drugs aren't just an escape from suffering. I have a very good | |
life. I also like having a beer with friends or, yes, smoking | |
weed with friends. That amplifies an already positive experience. | |
If you magically eliminated all suffering in my life, I'd still | |
enjoy a beer at dinner. | |
alexilliamson wrote 21 hours 8 min ago: | |
This is the "limiting harm" part of 2. | |
kstrauser wrote 21 hours 11 min ago: | |
Why? Drugs are fun. I drank a hot cup of coffee this morning and | |
enjoyed the warmth, taste, and way it made me feel. Those were | |
all pleasant sensations that would be hard to get another way. | |
Why shouldn't I be allowed to experience them? | |
Roller coaster rides are fun and cause a release of adrenalin in | |
me, which leads to feeling hyperalert, excited, and energized. | |
That's fun! I don't want to live in a society that wouldn't let | |
me enjoy adrenalin releases. | |
This morning my wife told me she loved me, and I enjoyed a nice | |
wash of endorphins from it. What's wrong with enjoying that? | |
The common thread here is that there's not a clean dividing line | |
between "bad" drugs and "good" drugs. All animals enjoy certain | |
chemicals. We're evolved to. That's what makes us (in nature) dig | |
into food that's healthy for us, and drives us to reproduce. A | |
mind free from drugs is going to die of misery in relatively | |
short order. | |
Extropy_ wrote 21 hours 14 min ago: | |
In what sense is your mind free in a world where psyotropics are | |
prohibited? LSD and psilocybin aren't addictive or | |
habbit-building, think about that. Don't knock it 'till you try | |
it. | |
djbusby wrote 21 hours 53 min ago: | |
Which means ban tobacco and alcohol as well? | |
ChumpGPT wrote 21 hours 43 min ago: | |
Don't forget coffee... | |
dylan604 wrote 21 hours 59 min ago: | |
Yes, because Prohibition was such a ringing success. Just because | |
someone says you can't do something does not prevent someone from | |
doing that thing. If people want something badly enough, they will | |
find a way. When that want has progressed to being a literal need | |
from addiction, the ways found will become more and more bold/risky. | |
Hell, even if you added the drug that blocks the opiate receptors | |
into the water supply like fluoride so everyone is getting dosed, | |
addicts will just switch to bottle water. Legislation does not | |
prevent anything. It only increases those deemed as a criminal. | |
georgeburdell wrote 21 hours 44 min ago: | |
I downvoted you because while it may not have been successful at | |
getting Americans to stop drinking, it was effective at reducing | |
violent crimes caused by drinking, as well as the negative health | |
effects such as liver cirrhosis. The anti drug control crowd has | |
done a great job commandeering popular opinion on this topic. I | |
found this (non-academic) article informative to this end. [1] | |
Edit: to the downvoters, I look forward to future academics and | |
politicians being absolutely shocked when it turns out the absence | |
of evidence is in fact not evidence of absence and there are a | |
myriad of negative health and societal consequences from legalizing | |
marijuana use | |
[1]: https://www.vox.com/the-highlight/2019/6/5/18518005/prohib... | |
kstrauser wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
Well, minus the whole organized crime thing, which is a pretty | |
gigantic elephant in the room. | |
dylan604 wrote 21 hours 39 min ago: | |
Yeah, it seems pretty disingenuous to call Prohibition a | |
success because one stat went down. | |
RankingMember wrote 22 hours 6 min ago: | |
While it being moved to Schedule ~II~ (Correction: III) rather than | |
removed altogether is a bit disappointing, I'm not gonna miss the | |
forest for the trees on this one: this is a big deal after all this | |
time. | |
viccis wrote 19 hours 39 min ago: | |
I agree. To me this feels like Biden, who loathes cannabis and has | |
opposed its legalization at every turn, found a good way to still | |
sontewall legalization and move the goalposts to distract everyone | |
enough that they think he's done them a huge favor. | |
This will be nice for certain things, particularly payment processors | |
for dispensaries, assuming that card processors don't continue to get | |
in the way (don't see why they would). | |
But this won't fill the huge skill gap in public sector computer | |
security due to weed getting in the way of clearances, for example. | |
And for people in non-legal states, they will have to continue to use | |
black markets to get it or gray markets like the "THCA" loophole | |
(thanks unfortunately go to Trump for that one). | |
We shouldn't tolerate politicians delivering us half solutions when | |
it's on issues that don't need compromise due to popular support! | |
ThrowawayTestr wrote 21 hours 29 min ago: | |
At the very least researchers won't have to jump through as many | |
hoops to study it. | |
morley wrote 22 hours 2 min ago: | |
It's moving to schedule III, though the new company it's in really | |
highlights how it should be descheduled instead: | |
> It moves pot to Schedule III, alongside ketamine and some anabolic | |
steroids | |
Hopefully the first step but not the last. | |
7jjjjjjj wrote 21 hours 6 min ago: | |
Naturally occurring human hormones should not be scheduled at all, | |
they should be available over the counter to anyone over 18. | |
aidenn0 wrote 21 hours 8 min ago: | |
So now it is de-jure easier to get than ADHD meds instead of just | |
de-facto easier. | |
seattle_spring wrote 10 hours 54 min ago: | |
Seems reasonable, considering the abuse potential is worse with | |
things like Adderall than cannabis. | |
RankingMember wrote 21 hours 49 min ago: | |
Ah, good catch. Yeah, I'll take the progress even if it's not | |
exactly where I'd like policy to be ultimately. | |
RobotToaster wrote 21 hours 54 min ago: | |
At least according to one study, cannabis does slightly more harm | |
than both of those, although that harm is still tiny compared to | |
that done by alcohol. | |
[1]: https://www.researchgate.net/publication/285843262_Drug_ha... | |
briankelly wrote 21 hours 39 min ago: | |
They do score ketamine higher than cannabis in "harm to user", | |
but cannabis has a much higher "harm to others" score. | |
Liquix wrote 21 hours 55 min ago: | |
sure, marijuana shouldn't be considered 100% harmless, but it's | |
ludicrous to argue it does the same amount of damage to people's | |
bodies as ketamine (abuse can lead to kidney failure, bladder | |
cystectomy) or even some sched. IV substances such as alprazolam | |
(seizures from withdrawal can be fatal). | |
coffeebeqn wrote 21 hours 3 min ago: | |
Benzo addiction is very dangerous. Withdrawal can lead to life | |
threatening or altering outcomes. I have a hard time | |
understanding what property the scheduling is based on | |
cflewis wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
As someone who has taken ketamine for medical purposes and | |
marijuana for not, it is utterly off-the-charts bonkers that they | |
are classified identically. | |
A large dose of ketamine literally disconnects yourself from | |
reality. Weed makes you tired. | |
BobaFloutist wrote 20 hours 39 min ago: | |
You think a large dose of weed to someone who's not used to it | |
just makes them tired? | |
coolhand2120 wrote 16 hours 14 min ago: | |
It might make you high, but it won't kill you. It won't even | |
harm you. | |
ulrikrasmussen wrote 21 hours 21 min ago: | |
Why should subjective effects direct the scheduling of these | |
drugs? | |
chucksta wrote 20 hours 58 min ago: | |
What should they be based on? | |
ulrikrasmussen wrote 12 hours 20 min ago: | |
Actual harm, I think. I know that Ketamine has harm | |
potential, but it's my impression that the physical harm | |
only occurs with long term binge use, and that immediate | |
physical harm due to overdose is unlikely. That the | |
subjective effects during use are very powerful and | |
overwhelming is not and should not be relevant, I think. | |
roschdal wrote 22 hours 11 min ago: | |
It's a trap, you will be drug addict. | |
timbit42 wrote 21 hours 19 min ago: | |
Nicotine and alcohol are more addictive than weed. Why aren't those | |
illegal? | |
Rovoska wrote 21 hours 32 min ago: | |
Honest question, are you a bot? | |
NegativeLatency wrote 21 hours 55 min ago: | |
I can already walk down the block and legally buy weed in the US so, | |
in many places this is not really a change. | |
andrewxdiamond wrote 22 hours 20 min ago: | |
Weed being illegal on a federal level has had some interesting effects. | |
Because of these laws, all legal weed has to be grown, processed, and | |
retailed within a single state. So much industry and local employment | |
has been created by the legal barriers in place. | |
Itâs probably still a net positive to release the federal | |
restriction, but I hope all these small/mid sized businesses donât | |
get gulped up by big tobacco or other mega corps | |
ted_bunny wrote 2 hours 53 min ago: | |
Those restrictions are probably just more grist for lobbyists, gotta | |
keep milking it | |
tonymet wrote 11 hours 32 min ago: | |
it's another good reason to advocate for more state autonomy . | |
prior to 80s savings & loan crisis and then financial collapse, small | |
family run banks were thriving too | |
ranger_danger wrote 14 hours 34 min ago: | |
I think they would make so much MORE money by making it federally | |
regulated and generally accessible... the problem is that also takes | |
away some incentive to keep spying on citizens in the name of drugs | |
and related bad guys. | |
stevenwoo wrote 19 hours 48 min ago: | |
This discrepancy had the effect of jump starting the prominence of | |
large chinese gangs in the marijuana and fentany and money laundering | |
business in the USA, incidentally contributing to home shortage | |
because they bought homes in California to grow pre pandemic and in | |
Oklahoma now. | |
Thereâs lots of older articles about California but some recent OK | |
news | |
[1]: https://www.kosu.org/news/2024-03-18/gangsters-money-and-mur... | |
squigz wrote 16 hours 21 min ago: | |
Interesting use of italics | |
stevenwoo wrote 15 hours 29 min ago: | |
I thought it was of most relevance that gangs stepped in when the | |
comment I was responding to was more concerned with larger | |
companies and them being Chinese is a weird detail since one | |
would have expected one of existing gangs in USA already like | |
those with central or South American cartels instead. | |
sokoloff wrote 20 hours 2 min ago: | |
It's sometimes even smaller than states. Many waterways are federal, | |
meaning islands have to grow their own in order to avoid having to | |
transport weed from one part of the state to another part of the same | |
state across a federal waterway. | |
jajko wrote 20 hours 33 min ago: | |
Big tobacco means even more pressure to normalize it, globally, via | |
UN just like they pushed it down the throat of every nation worldwide | |
including those where its sacred plant for millenia like India or | |
Nepal. US reversed decades of severe oppression and is leading free | |
world (I know Canada, I know) so there is massive hope our idiots in | |
EU and elsewhere will seriously wake up, even if in some primitive | |
cargo culting effort. | |
I don't mean half-assed decriminalization here and there which still | |
feeds very healthy criminal ecosystem and for end user of say weed | |
doesn't change a zilch in anything, I mean same legal treatment as | |
tobacco and alcohol, we don't prescribe that for anxiety do we, its | |
all fun and chill and introspection (for me). Its 2024 FFS, and we | |
see idiocy live where politicians are lying in the cameras to please | |
old conservative folks for next elections. | |
I want to buy edibles, happy to pay any tax they slap on it. I want | |
to buy a single joint, of strength and power I want to choose. Or | |
vapes. Not some overpriced mediocre shit from paranoid desperate | |
illegal immigrant standing in dark corners of shady parts of cities. | |
Give that man an honest job on some weed farm or distribution system. | |
cryptonector wrote 20 hours 37 min ago: | |
Under Wickard even all-in-state marijuana trade would still fall | |
under the Interstate Commerce clause and be subject to federal | |
criminal statutes, regulations, and taxes. | |
AuryGlenz wrote 10 hours 1 min ago: | |
My one big Supreme Court wish is that Wickard gets shot down. I | |
could actually see it happen with the current court. | |
cryptonector wrote 1 hour 6 min ago: | |
Wickard does seem pretty gross. | |
giantg2 wrote 20 hours 9 min ago: | |
Yep, some people tested this same theory out for firearms (or was | |
it suppressors?) all produced and sold in one state in accordance | |
with state laws. Of course the Feds shut that down and the courts | |
agreed. The only reason they don't do this with pot is because they | |
don't feel like it. | |
cryptonector wrote 19 hours 56 min ago: | |
I believe that case is not resolved yet. | |
giantg2 wrote 15 hours 24 min ago: | |
Maybe it was the other case from that same state where they | |
said state law enforcement couldn't assist the feds in | |
enforcing federal gun laws. | |
MarCylinder wrote 20 hours 42 min ago: | |
Big corps are already an issue. They may not be able to move product | |
over borders, but they can move money and resources | |
joecool1029 wrote 21 hours 3 min ago: | |
> I hope all these small/mid sized businesses donât get gulped up | |
by big tobacco or other mega corps | |
Calling it: CVS and Walgreens will move into the medical market for | |
this. You think these little shops will be able to process health | |
insurance payments when that sector gets in on it? lol | |
gwbas1c wrote 17 hours 50 min ago: | |
I could see them carrying CBD in pill / gelcap form. (It pretty | |
much snuffs out my migraines.) | |
I don't think they'll carry intoxicating forms of marijuana, | |
though. (I've never seen a CVS with alcohol, but that could be | |
because of how my state handles liquor licenses.) | |
joezydeco wrote 15 hours 30 min ago: | |
CVS in Illinois definitely sells liquor. They seemed to switch to | |
it around the same time they publicly announced they wouldn't | |
sell tobacco anymore. | |
adventured wrote 17 hours 42 min ago: | |
Walgreens sells cigarettes, cigars, basic alcohol (beer, wine, | |
hard seltzers etc), occasionally liquor, nicotine patches & | |
packets, and snuff. They sell OTC Narcan, and now OTC birth | |
control. They moved into the last two items pretty much | |
immediately upon availability. | |
They'll definitely look at their options for the marijuana | |
business as they can safely do so legally. | |
hollerith wrote 20 hours 50 min ago: | |
I bet that in the US, no health insurer will ever pay for an | |
insured person's marijuana. | |
int_19h wrote 16 hours 26 min ago: | |
I bet that CBD will be covered very quickly, because it really | |
does work very well for so many things, so it shouldn't take long | |
to have enough studies clearly in support of it. | |
hollerith wrote 3 hours 26 min ago: | |
Magnesium supplements work very well for many things, too, but | |
are there American insurance plans that pay for it? | |
hollerith wrote 15 hours 40 min ago: | |
Are there strains of marijuana high in CBD but almost absent of | |
THC? | |
int_19h wrote 12 hours 47 min ago: | |
I'm not sure exactly how this works, but you can get CBD as | |
pills with no THC in them. | |
(Although anecdotally the best results are obtained from | |
taking mostly CBD with a tiny bit of THC; it appears that the | |
latter does something that makes the former's effect more | |
potent. So you see stuff like e.g. 20:1 CBD:THC pills around | |
- can't get high on that, but very effective at pain | |
management. However pure CBD pills are still more common.) | |
Red_Leaves_Flyy wrote 14 hours 3 min ago: | |
Yes but the trick is mostly just harvesting early. | |
grugagag wrote 14 hours 26 min ago: | |
Yes | |
SoftTalker wrote 18 hours 49 min ago: | |
I agree it's unlikely. THC may have some medical uses, but | |
smoking it certainly does not. | |
Perhaps gummies/edibles would be covered under some circumstances | |
-- but to be a prescription or even an OTC "medication" it has to | |
go through FDA approval to demonstrate efficacy and document the | |
side effects, and it will have to be manufactured to | |
pharmaceutical standards of potency and purity, which will make | |
it more expensive. | |
I think it will most likely be like alcohol: sold for | |
recreational use, age-restricted, and not medical. | |
Invictus0 wrote 20 hours 30 min ago: | |
I'll happily take the other side of that bet. | |
hn_version_0023 wrote 20 hours 59 min ago: | |
You described a worst-case scenario. Iâd rather smoke Marlboro | |
Greens, and I promised myself 20 years ago Iâd never spend | |
another penny with them. | |
jeffwask wrote 20 hours 41 min ago: | |
Marboro Green with 200 hundred additional chemical additives for | |
your enjoyment. | |
hughesjj wrote 19 hours 29 min ago: | |
Aka the 'backdoor removal of social security' | |
konfusinomicon wrote 20 hours 48 min ago: | |
the marlboro man has traded in his horse and cowboy hat for some | |
natty dreads and a gravity bong. Joe Camel now sports a wook | |
blanket and a heady crystal wrap. can't wait to see what the | |
overly happy and diverse Newport pleasure party goers have | |
adopted | |
DonHopkins wrote 8 hours 52 min ago: | |
"You've come a long way, dude." | |
selimthegrim wrote 13 hours 21 min ago: | |
You must not have seen the same Newport ads I did | |
shicholas wrote 16 hours 20 min ago: | |
lol | |
HeyLaughingBoy wrote 20 hours 53 min ago: | |
LOL @ Marlboro Greens :-) | |
They'd be insane to not go with that name. | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 21 hours 14 min ago: | |
Keeping in state doesn't help. It's still interstate commerce even | |
just picking a plant and smoking on site non-commercially. Just | |
walking an object within 1000 ft of a school, non-commercially, is | |
interstate commerce. | |
NewJazz wrote 21 hours 10 min ago: | |
According to a really old SC decision that rests on shaky | |
foundations at best. | |
beaeglebeachh wrote 21 hours 3 min ago: | |
They'll never give it up. It would mean the end of the civil | |
rights act, and tons of popular regulatory regimes that apply to | |
in-state only trade. And the return of in state over the counter | |
machine guns. | |
mr_spothawk wrote 19 hours 54 min ago: | |
Relevant case: | |
Wickard v. Filburn | |
United States Supreme Court case | |
Wickard v. Filburn, 317 U.S. 111, is a United States Supreme | |
Court decision that dramatically increased the regulatory power | |
of the federal government. It remains as one of the most | |
important and far-reaching cases concerning the New Deal, and | |
it set a precedent for an expansive reading of the U.S. | |
Constitution's Commerce Clause for decades to come. The goal of | |
the legal challenge was to end the entire federal crop support | |
program by declaring it unconstitutional. An Ohio farmer, | |
Roscoe Filburn, was growing wheat to feed animals on his own | |
farm. The U.S. government had established limits on wheat | |
production, based on the acreage owned by a farmer, to | |
stabilize wheat prices and supplies. Filburn grew more than was | |
permitted and so was ordered to pay a penalty. In response, he | |
said that because his wheat was not sold, it could not be | |
regulated as commerce, let alone "interstate" commerce. | |
[Wikipedia]( [1] ) | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wickard_v._Filburn | |
golergka wrote 21 hours 46 min ago: | |
> I hope all these small/mid sized businesses donât get gulped up | |
by big tobacco or other mega corps | |
Why not? Laws of scale would drive the price down while improving the | |
profit margins, both clients and investors would win. | |
peddling-brink wrote 20 hours 53 min ago: | |
There are more people involved than just clients and investors. | |
I think some inefficiencies are important, especially when scoped | |
to "who can do this thing the cheapest?" | |
bumby wrote 19 hours 40 min ago: | |
>I think some inefficiencies are important | |
To add a bit, the importance of some inefficiencies are lost when | |
viewed strictly through an investor lens. E.g., investigative | |
journalism is expensive and largely inefficient regarding the | |
profitability of a newspaper. Redundant inventory/equipment is | |
largely inefficient until low-probability events effect supply. | |
Small businesses may be inefficient but provide economic | |
stability to a non-urban center etc. etc. | |
RankingMember wrote 21 hours 47 min ago: | |
It's also made touching the financial aspect radioactive- none of the | |
big credit cards want to have anything to do with it so all | |
transactions are cash, which makes things more difficult/risky for | |
operators. | |
ehsankia wrote 21 hours 37 min ago: | |
Also made research very hard too. | |
ethbr1 wrote 21 hours 5 min ago: | |
The research component seems the biggest boon from this. I assume | |
Schedule III is much easier to get approved for. | |
Which in turn will increase the number of studies. | |
Which will in turn provide more support for eventual | |
legalization. | |
Research being blocked (often by the DEA) was one of the biggest | |
hold-ups. | |
cm2012 wrote 21 hours 47 min ago: | |
Being gulped up big corporations is good. They will much more | |
efficiently serve the market. SMBs are notoriously unproductive. | |
Though maybe you want your drug dealers to be unproductive, for | |
society's sake! I may take this back... | |
MarCylinder wrote 20 hours 37 min ago: | |
Corporate dispensaries, which are very prevalent, are notoriously | |
lower quality | |
ElevenLathe wrote 21 hours 24 min ago: | |
Even without nationwide economies of scale, Michigan regularly has | |
businesses selling weed vape carts for <$10 apiece. I don't know | |
how much cheaper we want the weed to be, honestly. It's already at | |
least 10x cheaper than the cheapest alcoholic beverage on a | |
buzz-for-buzz basis. | |
ehvatum wrote 21 hours 40 min ago: | |
What SMB has the luxury of being notoriously unproductive? | |
Economies of scale are very real and tend to make larger businesses | |
more efficient, it's true, but you'll find that causes SMBs to be | |
lean and mean to remain competitive. | |
cm2012 wrote 21 hours 17 min ago: | |
There are many many ways to look at this data, but here's one: | |
[1] . | |
Bigger companies can pay a lot more because they are more | |
productive. And further research has shown its the same pool/type | |
of people at each. | |
[1]: https://substackcdn.com/image/fetch/f_auto,q_auto:good,f... | |
ehvatum wrote 21 hours 1 min ago: | |
Your implied point that prices will drop with the introduction | |
of interstate competition and access to finance and interest by | |
mega-corps is well taken. You are certainly correct, there. | |
Notwithstanding grey-market limitations, people have their | |
motives for accepting the inefficiency of starting or staying | |
small. Potential, for example. | |
soperj wrote 21 hours 45 min ago: | |
Can't say I've ever felt that massive corps and the people that | |
work there are super productive. In many instances they seem less | |
productive than government. | |
astrange wrote 16 hours 31 min ago: | |
If the small companies were productive they'd be big companies. | |
DonHopkins wrote 8 hours 3 min ago: | |
Except the many that are productive because they're NOT big | |
companies. | |
int_19h wrote 11 hours 59 min ago: | |
This assumes that every small company wants to be a big | |
company. | |
notaustinpowers wrote 21 hours 49 min ago: | |
I've got my tinfoil hat on but I totally believe this to be due to | |
the lobbying efforts of big tobacco. Purely because cigarette sales | |
continue to decline and vaping is becoming more and more regulated | |
and, therefore, less profitable. | |
But marijuana enjoys high markups, pseudoscience "health benefits", | |
and is becoming more and more acceptable to Americans each and every | |
year. | |
pwillia7 wrote 21 hours 46 min ago: | |
I don't even think that's that tinfoil hat-y | |
What else will I spend my billions in revenue on if I can't | |
advertise and have to hide all my employees? | |
eyelidlessness wrote 21 hours 52 min ago: | |
A couple quick thoughts, having worked in the legal cannabis industry | |
(now a few years out): | |
- Consolidation is already happening in a lot of ways, in some cases | |
despite state laws designed to prevent it | |
- Consolidation by big tobacco seems less likely than probably other | |
major industry incumbents (in the long run, Iâd bet on companies | |
primarily oriented around alcohol) | |
- Federal posture since Cole (when first states legalized | |
recreational, partially rolled back under Trump/Sessions but | |
seemingly not as much as was feared at the time) is largely what | |
prompted strong local laws; itâs based in analysis of interstate | |
commerce; federal legalization could have a similar analysis without | |
undermining existing strong local laws; the tradeoff would probably | |
be large disparity of justice between states (on party lines) | |
- A much better outcome would be a central rule not just to legalize, | |
but to more strongly incentivize justice for people affected by | |
draconian laws in the first place. This is a pipe dream, but it | |
should be the focus because any compromise will start with that. | |
omgCPhuture wrote 20 hours 43 min ago: | |
Tobacco smoke killed ALL my grandparents, well, well one of them | |
would have died from alcohol use, as he was a fisherman and they | |
drink a lot. My uncle died from liver and bowel cancer, the liver | |
cancer stems from alcohol consumption, or rather it's metabolite, | |
acetaldehyde, which is _scary as hell_: It makes cancerous scar | |
tissue of whatever it touches, thats why alcoholics die from liver | |
failure: it becomes all scar tissue and cannot regenerate, which is | |
part of its function (the average adult has a liver 3 years of | |
average age). It is also what gives the alcohol buzz. He was not a | |
heavy drinker, but only drank wine and aqua vit/liquor, 1-2 times a | |
year he would get shitfaced -- he was a funny drunk. I miss him. I | |
miss all my grandparnts, they were the best and did not deserve | |
Emphysema , lung cancer and so forth. Grandma taught me soldering, | |
welding, basic ircuitry, how to ride a bike, composting, growing | |
veggies, all about berries in the wild and helped me save up for my | |
Nintendo NES,encuraged mt curiosity...I would beat the crap out a | |
tobacco exec if I crossed paths with one, a part of me wants to | |
torture them. | |
I smoked for 15 years, turns out quitting was easy, once you | |
undestood the way the addiction works, but nobody considers that | |
they developed oral fixation from sucking on a potennt noootropic | |
habit forming substance all day, | |
But then we have Silvy Listhaug (politician): Marijuana will | |
continue to be banned because she is a mom, she told the reporter | |
photographing her smoking cigarettes. I hope she gets lung cancer. | |
Personally, as a monkey with a lump of fat in my head called a | |
brain, I think drinking fat solving solvents are a bad idea for | |
that reason alone.fMRI scans shows white brain tissue in drinkers | |
literally dissolves over time. | |
The increase in marijuana use is mostly due to 3 factors: | |
* Nobody is hiding anymore. | |
* We become more people every day. | |
* More & more people realise alcohol sucks. | |
The UK and CAnada's offcial stance on alcohol is that there is no | |
such thing as a safe amount of alcohol consumption. | |
The war on drugs is going well in Norway: Cocaine & MDMA purity | |
averages above 80%, Racemic amphetamine is cheaper than hash now, | |
and the hash is good as anything you can find in dutch | |
coffeeshops. ..and it is all getting cheaper at the same time. The | |
war is being lost so bad the police have stopped issuing Narcotics | |
stats 2 times a year as mandated and dropped it to once a year. | |
Last year crystal meth averaged over 99% purity, 99.2%-99.6% | |
according to Kripos Crimelab!! 5000 mafia families in Europe alone | |
funds their organized crime with proceeds from the artificially | |
high price of cannabis caused by the ban, legalizing and taxing it | |
resoanbly would snuff out those and would be a massive blow to | |
organized crime. GHB is fueling a rape epidemic here. Oh and you | |
can legally buy poppy seed and grow them here... | |
jjulius wrote 19 hours 4 min ago: | |
... what? | |
kgdiem wrote 21 hours 55 min ago: | |
Yes really good point. Wonât it still be up to the states to decide | |
what the regulatory environment will look like â eg they can choose | |
to preserve these jobs through existing regulatory frameworks in the | |
same way that certain goods cannot be shipped to certain states | |
alistairSH wrote 21 hours 47 min ago: | |
Note, they're only planning to move it from Schedule 1 (alongside | |
heroin) to Schedule III (alongside anabolic steroids and ketamine). | |
So, it won't be fully legal in the same sense as alcohol. | |
Regardless, unless Congress does something to make it legal | |
nationally, we'll still have the state frameworks. Just hopefully | |
avoiding the most draconian criminal charges. | |
tialaramex wrote 21 hours 27 min ago: | |
One very important thing this does is get rid of a really glaring | |
error. As a Schedule I drug, Marijuana supposedly is completely | |
useless, its only role is as a potential danger and that's why | |
nobody must have any - except, we've known for many years a bunch | |
of people find it useful as a therapeutic drug, so that's clearly | |
wrong and the Schedule I status is an error. Perhaps there | |
shouldn't be any Schedule I drugs at all, the idea seems | |
misconceived, but certainly if there are Schedule I drugs, | |
Marijuana doesn't belong among them. | |
Meanwhile in Schedule III it's a judgement call. Schedule III | |
drugs like K or steroids are drugs we know are useful, your | |
doctor can prescribe them, your hospital pharmacy has them, but | |
we also know they get abused. That sounds much more like | |
marijuana, and, to be honest, alcohol. Can we justify Schedule | |
III for Marijuana and yet not for Alcohol? It's at least a | |
serious question whereas the Schedule I status was just nonsense. | |
alistairSH wrote 20 hours 21 min ago: | |
Yeah, I largely agree. Alcohol is broadly available/legal due | |
to historical quirks, not sane regulation in relation to other | |
similar (social impact, not chemistry) drugs. Same for tobacco | |
to an extent. | |
tialaramex wrote 19 hours 58 min ago: | |
Also booze is really easy to make. Marijuana is hardly | |
difficult but if you ain't got any plants somebody has to | |
smuggle them to you, whereas if you've got a bunch of say, | |
apples, or potatoes, or berries - which are just food - the | |
only thing that prevents you from having booze is constant | |
oversight to ensure you don't allow the food to be converted | |
into booze. | |
I can see tobacco becoming effectively a Schedule III type | |
substance, made only when it is deemed necessary for some | |
reason and not generally available - New Zealand tried to set | |
off on that path, the UK is attempting it now, unlike booze | |
(or marijuana) which has a population of people who say "Hey, | |
that's fun, don't take that away" the smoker are almost all | |
against smoking, they see it as an unpleasant mistake they | |
made rather than a choice they're glad to have taken. | |
saalweachter wrote 18 hours 58 min ago: | |
Shit, you can accidentally make alcohol. | |
kgdiem wrote 21 hours 35 min ago: | |
I read TFA after commenting. I think that is even more | |
interesting; itâll be very helpful for better understanding the | |
safety profile of marijuana. | |
Still curious to see how this may affect cannabis commerce. Will | |
CVS have cannabis extracts behind the pharmacy counter? | |
RobRivera wrote 22 hours 17 min ago: | |
'Time for them to perform due diligence and refactor their operations | |
to take advantage of the new legal landscape to retain competitive | |
pricing inorder for' all these small/mid sized businesses don't get | |
gulped up by big tobacco or other mega corps. | |
pm90 wrote 22 hours 9 min ago: | |
American corporations are great at retooling their business/supply | |
chains for different products (see how quickly everyone moved into | |
hard seltzers). | |
I do expect big tobacco to move in aggressively if weed is made | |
legal. | |
tensility wrote 16 hours 33 min ago: | |
Pabst already makes THC seltzers for the California market. Big | |
business is already here, folks. | |
chrisweekly wrote 21 hours 20 min ago: | |
Agreed -- but I think nobody knows quite how it'll play out. | |
I think of the thriving microbrewery scene (vs not just Budweiser | |
et al but so-called "premium" beers from megabreweries that don't | |
hold a candle to the local stuff). | |
I also wonder about the degree to which psilocybin might be | |
following THC's path, wrt state vs federal laws.... | |
jerlam wrote 21 hours 56 min ago: | |
Hopefully, the small/mid sized businesses hold a niche in the | |
same way that craft brewers have maintained their existence | |
(until they get acquired). | |
Scoundreller wrote 21 hours 57 min ago: | |
Hasnât really happened in Canada. I think a small-player | |
alcohol company did move in, but only after the bubble popped. | |
Turns out legalization of a drug doesnât lead to massive | |
increases in consumption. Who knew. | |
Definitely kneecapped the black market though: most moved to the | |
legal side and black market prices cratered. | |
jiayo wrote 21 hours 27 min ago: | |
Big tobacco might have stayed out of the fray but since | |
legalization the vape giant JUUL owns and operates | |
dispensaries. | |
dbtc wrote 15 hours 46 min ago: | |
> Altria Group (formerly Philip Morris Companies), acquired a | |
35% stake in Juul Labs for $12.8 billion on December 20, | |
2018. Altria is the largest tobacco company in the United | |
States. | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Juul | |
rascul wrote 20 hours 59 min ago: | |
Juul is Big Tobacco. | |
The_Blade wrote 21 hours 35 min ago: | |
Denver definitely had perverse consequence. people eking out a | |
living selling weed on the street quickly turned to... harder | |
substances. people will get their dollar and people will get | |
their high | |
mminer237 wrote 21 hours 49 min ago: | |
Marijuana use has massively increased in the US as states have | |
legalized it. | |
Users have doubled: [1] Use among users has also increased 20%: | |
[1]: https://www.statista.com/statistics/264862/cannabis-co... | |
[2]: https://www.eurekalert.org/news-releases/962353 | |
grobgambit wrote 12 hours 31 min ago: | |
I have had my first legal weed experiences in the past year | |
in New York and even the lowest THC % at the legal weed store | |
is stronger than anything I use to get on the black market | |
when weed was illegal. | |
Then there are these incredible 10mg THC infused lemonades | |
that are amazing. | |
On the other hand, the novelty of legal weed only lasted | |
about 4 months for me. Because the store was there and there | |
was this selection I never had access to before I wanted to | |
try different things and was smoking more than I would have | |
normally. At the end of the day though it is all still just | |
weed. It is fun for me but only once a month at most now. | |
I also don't know a single person that didn't smoke weed | |
because it was illegal and now they do because they can go to | |
the store and purchase it legally. | |
I think that the polling has doubled for users because people | |
can answer the poll honestly when weed is legal. The idea | |
that weed being illegal is keeping 50% of the potential weed | |
smoking population from smoking is utterly preposterous. | |
If anything, what is interesting is how many people who would | |
never try weed when it was illegal, will still never try it | |
when it is legal. They may say it is because it is illegal or | |
they don't want to smoke but you can't sell them on 10mg | |
legal lemonaid either. | |
pseudosavant wrote 21 hours 19 min ago: | |
I'd bet alcohol use went way up after prohibition too. Both | |
in number of people consuming, and on how much they consume | |
on average. | |
I've personally known people with terminal cancer who | |
wouldn't use marijuana to manage pain and nausea because it | |
is federally illegal. They suffered more than they should | |
have. Is lower use always good? | |
otherme123 wrote 21 hours 23 min ago: | |
If I could face consequences for using drugs, I will deny it | |
even after being positive in a test. Of course, once | |
legalized, I'll have no problem saying that I used in once or | |
twice a year. Being it legal, safer and out of the dangerous | |
black market, there will be some new users. | |
Same happened after alcohol prohibition: more people consumed | |
after the ban was lifted, but consumption was safer. But | |
rarely people that didn't consume during the prohibition went | |
on alcohol binge after the end of the ban. They just drank a | |
couple of beers per week, maybe even a glass of bourbon twice | |
a year, now that they can buy and consume it safely. | |
Thus the stats you linked doesn't necesarily show a "massive" | |
increase in use, but many people using it sparsely now and | |
many people now admiting to use it that were using | |
previously. In fact, while statista.com shows a 100% | |
increase, the second and more controlled study shows only a | |
~20% increase that makes more sense (far from massive). | |
Retric wrote 21 hours 31 min ago: | |
20% increase in consumption isnât exactly what I would call | |
massive. | |
Looking at historic trends the point where pot was first | |
legalized for recreational use isnât obvious. If anything | |
the long term upward tends started long before legalization | |
which didnât seem to have significant impact. | |
[1]: https://bmcpublichealth.biomedcentral.com/articles/1... | |
ghaff wrote 21 hours 23 min ago: | |
Iâm surprised itâs not more personally if the numbers | |
are accurate. A lot of pretty casual users in professional | |
jobs were mostly not going to find a friend of a friend to | |
do an illegal transaction with. But theyâll go into a | |
dispensary now and then. | |
But you really see that reflected in the doubled number of | |
users which is probably the more relevant number. | |
cooper_ganglia wrote 21 hours 50 min ago: | |
Lobbyists don't care about uncapturable black market money. The | |
legal market has led to massive increase in legal, taxable | |
money, so now is exactly the time for big tobacco to start | |
salivating over the idea of capturing all of those | |
transactions. | |
Germanion wrote 22 hours 26 min ago: | |
Finally! | |
Then hopefully the f... UN can do that too. | |
I'm totally shocked that the UN has such a hard and shitty drug policy. | |
Alupis wrote 22 hours 9 min ago: | |
Forgive my ignorance, but why does anyone care what the UN thinks | |
about this subject? They cannot, and will not do anything about | |
anything anyway... | |
cess11 wrote 21 hours 4 min ago: | |
It's a matter of treaty law. States punched out a treaty on drugs | |
and then promised each other to stick to it, pressuring other | |
states to buy in. | |
Leaving a treaty means you change your relation to the other | |
signatories and possibly a regulatory body that took part in | |
developing the treaty. Sometimes it's cheap, sometimes it's been a | |
justification for horrible atrocities over decades and decades. | |
In this case the latter is true. Ditching the UN convention is | |
almost like saying you owe a lot of people restitution for the | |
nasty things you did. | |
Which is why the UN needs to take the blame for the convention on | |
drugs to go away, the signatories most likely won't. | |
vmchale wrote 22 hours 20 min ago: | |
SE Asia/East Asia at least have much harsher attitudes on drugs. US | |
is pretty forgiving to drug users &c. | |
HeatrayEnjoyer wrote 22 hours 0 min ago: | |
US is only lenient when compared to even more severe steamrollers | |
of human rights. Executing individuals for drug possession is | |
absolutely unconsciousable and unacceptable. Incarceration being | |
less diabolical does not mean it is not still highly diabolical. | |
Countless lives were and continue to be destroyed. | |
pwillia7 wrote 21 hours 44 min ago: | |
The state killing people is always unjustified since you can't | |
prove 99%+ really did the crime. In fact, we can show the states | |
and feds have put to death many of their own innocent citizens. | |
HeatrayEnjoyer wrote 1 hour 5 min ago: | |
Hard agree. | |
akira2501 wrote 21 hours 50 min ago: | |
Selling hard drugs for a profit is diabolical. It also ruins | |
lives. | |
HeatrayEnjoyer wrote 1 hour 4 min ago: | |
That is not what we are talking about and you know it. | |
creaturemachine wrote 21 hours 38 min ago: | |
Yet alcohol remains legal. | |
akira2501 wrote 20 hours 42 min ago: | |
You're welcome to start making your own alcohol and then | |
selling shots on the street. I'm sure you'll notice the | |
difference very quickly. | |
fragmede wrote 20 hours 36 min ago: | |
Compared to selling hard drugs on the street? Technically | |
what you're describing is against the law, but given that | |
people are selling hard drugs on the street, I doubt you | |
could get the cops to care. | |
latchkey wrote 22 hours 7 min ago: | |
Thailand legalized it. | |
Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, it may be illegal, but it is everywhere, | |
along with everything else. | |
Singapore is restrictive, but that's across the board anyway. | |
Let's not forget that betel nut is everywhere... another plant | |
based drug. | |
djbusby wrote 21 hours 56 min ago: | |
Tobacco too | |
latchkey wrote 21 hours 52 min ago: | |
You're not wrong, but I'm thinking more about the things that | |
are marked as illegal today. | |
spaduf wrote 22 hours 22 min ago: | |
Wasn't that a project of Reagan's? | |
aaronbrethorst wrote 22 hours 18 min ago: | |
I believe the concept of drug 'scheduling' was introduced in the | |
Controlled Substances Act under Richard Nixon: [1] . | |
Reagan had his War on Drugs, which resulted in the imprisonment of | |
an order of magnitude more nonviolent drug offenders: | |
[1]: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_cannabis_laws_in... | |
[2]: https://www.britannica.com/topic/war-on-drugs | |
skhunted wrote 22 hours 9 min ago: | |
There was a debate in the early 80s on whether the country should | |
concentrate on treatment or enforcement. Reagan introduced zero | |
tolerance policies. He usually chose the wrong approach. | |
Alupis wrote 22 hours 6 min ago: | |
> Reagan introduced zero tolerance policies. He usually chose | |
the wrong approach | |
That doesn't seem to clear cut with the recent failed (and now | |
backpedaling) experiments regarding decriminalization and | |
legalization of most drugs. | |
mholm wrote 21 hours 50 min ago: | |
The approach promised in Oregon failed because the original | |
intent of the decriminalization was to also increase support | |
for rehabilitation. This never ended up happening, so drug | |
users were thrown back into the situations that got them into | |
drugs in the first place, instead of being given a way out. | |
NegativeLatency wrote 21 hours 53 min ago: | |
Those policies were not well funded or implemented, we should | |
keep trying alternative solutions to the status quo. | |
In contrast to the "war on drugs" which has been extremely | |
well funded, and implemented to the cost of our own | |
liberties, tried for years and has not been successful | |
either. | |
Alupis wrote 21 hours 47 min ago: | |
> tried for years and has not been successful either. | |
What's the measurement for success? | |
It seems, from a casual observer's perspective, we have | |
fewer people trying hard drugs when the consequences are | |
strict and known. We have more people trying hard drugs | |
when the consequences are removed. | |
Neither system will achieve 0% drug usage - so which policy | |
results in fewer people trying hard drugs? | |
Hasu wrote 21 hours 29 min ago: | |
> What's the measurement for success? | |
It's not "the number of people who try hard drugs", which | |
isn't a particularly interesting or meaningful number | |
(lots of people, including myself, try hard drugs but | |
never end up hooked on them and are productive members of | |
society). | |
Try "the amount of harm caused to society". The drug war | |
destroys more lives than hard drugs. It's a policy | |
failure. | |
Alupis wrote 21 hours 21 min ago: | |
> The drug war destroys more lives than hard drugs. | |
It's a policy failure. | |
Again, this does not seem as clear as you attempt to | |
present it. | |
In areas with decriminalized hard drugs, drug usage | |
dramatically increased. It has a direct impact on the | |
lives of the users, and also secondary impacts on the | |
lives of everyone around them and/or has to deal with | |
them. | |
Drug usage is not the so-called "victimless" crime some | |
position it as. It has a lot of effects on society as a | |
whole. | |
NegativeLatency wrote 16 hours 3 min ago: | |
Are you familiar with prohibition and its effects in | |
the US? | |
It wasnât successful and massively contributed to | |
the proliferation of organized crime. | |
Hasu wrote 19 hours 27 min ago: | |
> In areas with decriminalized hard drugs, drug usage | |
dramatically increased. It has a direct impact on the | |
lives of the users, and also secondary impacts on the | |
lives of everyone around them and/or has to deal with | |
them. | |
Absolutely. I'm no stranger to the impact of drug | |
abuse, as I've had family and close friends become | |
addicts. | |
Even so, the drug war is way worse. It adds violence | |
and danger to drug use, making it more dangerous for | |
users and those in their proximity. It increases | |
policing and police militarization and violence. | |
Punishments for possession destroy families and | |
career prospects. | |
Every ounce of prevention bought by the drug war | |
costs a pound of pain. | |
> Drug usage is not the so-called "victimless" crime | |
some position it as. It has a lot of effects on | |
society as a whole. | |
Responsible drug use is pretty victimless. Drug abuse | |
has victims. But that's no different than alcohol, | |
and banning that also caused way more harm than it | |
prevented. | |
neuronexmachina wrote 21 hours 59 min ago: | |
What does that have to do with treatment programs? | |
Alupis wrote 21 hours 56 min ago: | |
Well, enforcement is a form of treatment - just not the | |
form some might want. | |
We're trying the other way and failing right now. Perhaps | |
we should figure out why... | |
superb_dev wrote 21 hours 44 min ago: | |
Enforcement is not a form of treatment, regardless we've | |
been trying enforcement since the 70s and it's been a | |
disaster. Why would you want to double down on that? | |
Alupis wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
> Enforcement is not a form of treatment, regardless | |
we've been trying enforcement since the 70s and it's | |
been a disaster. | |
This is often said - but what do you actually mean by | |
disaster? Hard drug usage is objectively lower in | |
strict enforcement areas vs. non-enforcement areas like | |
Portland was briefly. | |
skhunted wrote 20 hours 50 min ago: | |
....but what do you actually mean by disaster? | |
Our prisons do a horrible job at rehabilitation. Our | |
prisons themselves contain lots of drugs. Our | |
prisons are, in my opinion, immorally run. As a | |
nation we believe in retribution and are fine with | |
prison rapes and other abuses that occur there. | |
The drug war has been a disaster in terms of | |
cost/benefit regarding how much we've spent on it. | |
It's been a disaster in terms of civil liberties. We | |
Americans like to think we are free but walking | |
around with $10,000 in cash will, if found out by | |
police, result in it being seized. Civil asset | |
forfeiture has caused many innocent people to be | |
punished. It has been a disaster in terms of our | |
national incarceration rate. Incarceration for drugs | |
targets poor and minorities. Rich people rarely go to | |
jail for drug use. For example, Rush Limbaugh got a | |
fine and drug treatment. | |
superb_dev wrote 20 hours 53 min ago: | |
There is a lot that I could talk about, but America's | |
prison population comes to mind first. America has | |
the largest prison population in the world, and | |
they're essential a slave class. They get fewer | |
rights and are forced to work for whatever company | |
wants their labor. | |
asveikau wrote 22 hours 4 min ago: | |
It's more like the stuff that doesn't work is being pushed | |
again. | |
Alupis wrote 22 hours 2 min ago: | |
On it's surface it seems to have worked better than these | |
experiments. Otherwise the experiments would not be getting | |
rolled back... | |
There's very few if any fans of what played out in | |
Portland, for instance. Overt drug usage exploded and | |
became a much worse problem. The exact opposite of what | |
proponents had hoped. | |
Some will say "but they didn't do it right" or similar - | |
tired arguments we hear every time pet policies fail. | |
asveikau wrote 20 hours 51 min ago: | |
You strike me as the type of person who doesn't know that | |
US urban crime decreased in 2023. | |
The novel thing in world of illicit drugs is that | |
fentanyl is very hard to dose correctly, so death rates | |
are higher than before. That new fact on the scene makes | |
long term comparisons difficult. But, I would say given | |
the dropping crime rates of the last 40 years, we're | |
doing better than the previous waves of "tough on crime" | |
policy including drug wars from the 1980s and 1990s, | |
despite incarcerating a lot fewer people. So I think | |
these "experiments" absolutely are working. That | |
effectiveness may however be overshadowed by the specific | |
dangerousness of fentanyl in the illicit market. | |
NegativeLatency wrote 21 hours 48 min ago: | |
This is a very un-nuanced take on what happened in | |
Portland, and lines up with what the uncritical and | |
uninformed national reporting about Portland has been | |
saying. | |
It was not successful, but it was also never effectively | |
funded, not implemented well, and rolled out in a rush. | |
andsoitis wrote 21 hours 40 min ago: | |
Bad execution undermines otherwise good policy. | |
Ideas donât execute themselves and when someone | |
doesnât deliver the goods, it is human nature to | |
question their decision making ability in the first | |
place. | |
Being defensive or arguing nuance is fine in theory, | |
but in practice bad outcomes tend to reinforce biases. | |
I would prefer fully baked ideas that are rigorous and | |
practical rather than purely utopian and just hoping | |
for the best. One does not roll out underfunded | |
programs that play with safety and health. | |
Alupis wrote 21 hours 36 min ago: | |
And... when dealing with humans - policies are often | |
not enacted like we thought they would be in our | |
head's under ideal conditions. | |
Policies are implemented by politicians and | |
government drones, are beholden to budgets and | |
meandering political sentiment of the population, | |
etc. ie - they will never be implemented "correctly" | |
- so we should pick the policies that are the hardest | |
to get wrong and/or have the least negative side | |
effects. | |
Alupis wrote 21 hours 46 min ago: | |
> It was not successful, but it was also never | |
effectively funded, not implemented well, and rolled | |
out in a rush. | |
So... like almost every government program? What makes | |
you convinced it can actually be achieved in reality? | |
With real people, real politicians, real budgets that | |
get robbed for other pet projects down the line... | |
Even if it was achieved in reality - let's pretend to | |
wave a magic wand - what is the expected outcome? Fewer | |
people doing hard drugs than before? That seems | |
difficult to accept given all consequences will | |
effectively be removed... how many celebrities (with | |
effectively unlimited resources) struggle their entire | |
lives with drug abuse - in and out of rehab, etc. It | |
seems it's better to prevent people from becoming | |
addicts in the first place, vs. attempt to | |
treat/mitigate addiction after it has formed. | |
NegativeLatency wrote 21 hours 13 min ago: | |
> What makes you convinced it can actually be | |
achieved in reality? | |
It may never be achieved, regardless of my or your | |
personal views on the subject at hand I think | |
reasonable people can agree if you try and do | |
something but do it poorly, and it doesn't work, | |
that's not necessarily a failure of the thing but | |
more a failure of the execution. | |
ex: I'm bad at welding so therefore welding is not a | |
good way to hold two pieces of metal together, is an | |
invalid/incorrect conclusion. | |
vkou wrote 22 hours 27 min ago: | |
It's actually wild what the executive can get done in an election | |
year... With the side effect of dangling bait for legislators to take a | |
contrarian, nationally unpopular position. | |
romellem wrote 19 hours 2 min ago: | |
It has been a multi-year effort to get the DEA to reclassify | |
marijuana, starting in 2022. It starts with the President telling the | |
HHS to provide a new recommendation to the DEA, and the finally for | |
the DEA to decide what to do on that recommendation. | |
- | |
[1]: https://www.whitehouse.gov/briefing-room/statements-releases... | |
gabesullice wrote 8 hours 12 min ago: | |
The President is the chief executive of both agencies. He didn't | |
need to have one agency recommend it to the other for consideration | |
over a multi-year timescale. It could have been executed within a | |
few weeks to a few months. The office of the President knowingly | |
chose a prolonged approach. | |
I feel it is misleading to call it an "effort", as if the President | |
was struggling against the very agencies that he was elected to | |
lead, decisively. Congress is supposed to be the slow-moving | |
deliberative rule-making body. | |
If he really did struggle, it would say a lot about the growth of | |
the administrative state and would highlight a constitutional | |
health issue. | |
Overtonwindow wrote 20 hours 0 min ago: | |
I think it dovetails with the Administration's recent pausing of | |
outlawing menthol cigarettes which has been reported as adversely | |
effecting African Americans. It's blatantly political, which giving | |
the people what they want and all, but it's disingenuous when these | |
things only occur at election time. The President could have done | |
this on day one. | |
nerdjon wrote 20 hours 54 min ago: | |
In fairness we do also see the opposite, which is kind of a problem | |
with the 2 term system. | |
In a presidents first term they are incentivized to do just enough to | |
not piss of the other side enough to get some crazy numbers out but | |
do enough to appease the current voters that they tried. | |
But then in the second term any worry about being re-elected goes out | |
the window. | |
Like I am still convinced that Obama was in support of gay marriage | |
before he publicly said it, and just waited until after he was | |
re-elected. At that point what was he going to loose? | |
throwup238 wrote 22 hours 11 min ago: | |
The bureaucratic process will take about two years. It's definitely | |
not getting done in time for election. | |
gnicholas wrote 21 hours 47 min ago: | |
If it takes multiple years, then it gives voters a reason to | |
support the candidate that will support the process post-election. | |
Basically, vote for Joe if you want Mary Jane. | |
segasaturn wrote 22 hours 13 min ago: | |
Election year and not to mention that the President's numbers are in | |
shambles with younger voters. This move feels extremely transparent | |
to me. | |
laidoffamazon wrote 21 hours 11 min ago: | |
Yeah, he's doing something that's reasonably popular among | |
everyone. How dare he? | |
thegrim33 wrote 20 hours 53 min ago: | |
A third of the population, 111 million citizens, do not want it | |
legalized. I wouldn't consider that "popular among everyone". | |
[1]: https://www.pewresearch.org/short-reads/2024/04/10/facts... | |
triceratops wrote 20 hours 45 min ago: | |
Your own link says it's 70% in favor of legalization and 29% | |
against. 29% is as close to "a quarter of the population" as it | |
is to "a third of the population" - 400 basis points. | |
Putting it another way nearly 3 quarters of citizens want it | |
legalized. That's massive. It's as close to unanimous consensus | |
as you can get on a hot-button issue like drugs. | |
thegrim33 wrote 16 hours 20 min ago: | |
So, just to clarify, you're actually taking issue with me | |
referring to 29% as one third, while you have no issue | |
referring to 70% as 100%? Either way, there's still over a | |
hundred million human beings living in your country that | |
disagree with you. Call it whatever you want but don't | |
dismiss it. | |
triceratops wrote 15 hours 52 min ago: | |
> while you have no issue referring to 70% as 100%? | |
And you have no issue putting words in my mouth. I said it | |
was close to three-quarters, is "massive" and that you | |
can't get closer to unanimous than that. | |
> Call it whatever you want but don't dismiss it. | |
29% want to lock up the other 71% for consuming a plant. | |
And we don't know for sure that all of that 29% are | |
entirely clean themselves. | |
So why not dismiss it? Why does the 29%'s opinion matter | |
here? If 29% of the population said you should jail people | |
for premarital sex, or smoking, or wearing shorts, or | |
whistling in elevators, would you take them seriously? | |
A simple majority or supermajority is more than enough to | |
legalize or abolish anything. Pretty much no issue requires | |
100% of everyone to agree. | |
Optimal_Persona wrote 21 hours 16 min ago: | |
Honestly the biggest uptick of weed use I've seen in my peer groups | |
is in the >= 50 set for pain management, sleep, and...fun. | |
aidenn0 wrote 21 hours 6 min ago: | |
Yeah, now that it's "windows open" weather, we are smelling it a | |
lot; source is definitely in the over 50 demographic. | |
jimbob45 wrote 22 hours 6 min ago: | |
My favorite was the cancellation of a ban on menthol cigarettes | |
because it would turn away black voters despite the NAACP ardently | |
encouraging the ban[0]. | |
[0] | |
[1]: https://www.cnn.com/2024/04/26/health/fda-menthol-cigarett... | |
flawsofar wrote 22 hours 9 min ago: | |
Well I mean: doing things that people want them to do to get | |
elected. Not the worst problem? | |
vuln wrote 21 hours 35 min ago: | |
Itâs pandering and on the edge of buying votes. Unlike Student | |
Loan âforgivenessâ which was a direct purchase of a vote. | |
And no I doubt this will rouse the pot smokers to vote, perhaps | |
mail in, as they donât have to do actually anything. | |
7jjjjjjj wrote 21 hours 3 min ago: | |
It's wild to me that people think "buying votes" is a bad | |
thing. The whole point of democracy is to align the interests | |
of the state's leaders to its population. If anything, | |
politicians don't buy votes often enough! | |
cheeseomlit wrote 20 hours 26 min ago: | |
Politician runs on a platform of 'Hey 51% of the population, | |
if you vote for me I'll take the other 49%'s money and give | |
it to you!', proceeds to win by 2%. Democracy in action! | |
flawsofar wrote 21 hours 29 min ago: | |
If everyone buys votes using one issue or another, using | |
cannabis to buy votes should be the least concern of anyone. | |
While you can make some amount of case that the timing makes it | |
a manipulation, is this really the manipulation that bothers | |
you? | |
I would rather there be no manipulations. But in a country | |
that divides itself on infantile identity politics, fight fire | |
with fire. | |
It is not a fair game. You canât demand perfect intentions | |
around this issue when politics is full of much worse actors. | |
vuln wrote 20 hours 29 min ago: | |
The timing is complete bullshit. Politicians âpocketâ | |
issues like this and pull them out during an election year | |
âlook how much I care about you!!! Vote for me!!!â They | |
could have and should have done this a very long time ago. | |
Itâs obvious to everyone that the democrats are losing | |
their bread a butter voters, young people and black folks. | |
This gets waved around for the nth time and everyone gets | |
excited. | |
flawsofar wrote 19 hours 15 min ago: | |
are you really going on a downvote revenge spree? lol | |
philipkglass wrote 19 hours 9 min ago: | |
On HN you can't downvote a direct reply to your own | |
comment, so vuln did not downvote your reply. | |
segasaturn wrote 22 hours 4 min ago: | |
Of course not, that's how democracy works! | |
My actual issue with this is: | |
a) it should have been done sooner. Waiting until $election_year | |
to do something popular has severely damaged the growth of | |
cannabis industry | |
and b) it's another executive branch rule by decree that could be | |
reversed as soon as 6 months from now after election day. | |
sevagh wrote 21 hours 23 min ago: | |
>as severely damaged the growth of cannabis industry | |
Do you own weed stocks or something? How is the growth of the | |
cannabis industry supposed to be the mandate of a government? | |
segasaturn wrote 21 hours 7 min ago: | |
Regulation shouldn't cause harm for causing harm's sake. We | |
already know prohibition doesn't work, so why did they drag | |
their feet on repealing regulation that is both harmful and | |
ineffective, is my concern. | |
Also to answer your question about weed stocks: I used to own | |
cannabis stocks but dumped them about a year ago. Big | |
mistake! They've doubled in price over the last week | |
presumably from this news. | |
2OEH8eoCRo0 wrote 21 hours 56 min ago: | |
> it should have been done sooner. | |
Not everyone agrees though. I don't want it legalized or | |
normalized more. | |
kbelder wrote 18 hours 42 min ago: | |
I wish it was completely legal and completely non-normalized. | |
itishappy wrote 21 hours 42 min ago: | |
What about reclassification? | |
flawsofar wrote 21 hours 59 min ago: | |
Ah, I agree. It is a good move with a side of bullshit. | |
jborden13 wrote 22 hours 11 min ago: | |
Similar to paying off random citizen's student loans? | |
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