Thanks to Massachusetts voters passing Question 2 on the ballot in November, possession of an ounce or less of marijuana is decriminalized as of Friday.
Now, getting caught with weed is like getting a parking ticket, or as the Globe puts it, a building code citation. If caught with pot, you’ll have to pay $100 or dispute the citation in court within 21 days.
Sounds like less of a hassle than getting arrested, if nothing else. Anyway, we’d like to declare January 2 Marijuana Possession Day in Massachusetts.
It’s a “token” holiday. Har!.
It should be totally legalized. Silly to “compromise” creating a position that makes no sense.
Just setting people up to get comfortable under State Law so they get hassled big time under Federal Law.
It would be more “legitimate” to license the smoking activity rather than leave it to cops as a bogus enforcement activity.
Stoopid Hoomans.
bobbo, I disagree. Weed is a gateway drug to jazz.
Seriously, anyone against the legalization of marijuana is just as dumb as the prohibitionists. How about this: We let marijuana users OUT of prison, and keep child molestors IN prison. Is that a good compromise??
The laws in New York city are similar but peoples lives are still being ruined.
You have a small amount of pot on you and instead of getting a ticket the cop says “make it easy on your self, let me see what you have.” Having the pot “open to view” is a major crime, so when do as the cop requested and take it out of your pocket you get in huge trouble.
http://reason.com/blog/show/126253.html
Never smoked when I was a kid. Never smoked in Nam. Never smoked until my health got so bad that my primary physician recommended it. Now I am California “legal”.
My first run in with the DEA came when accessing a “legal” dispensary. What a shame that the Feds want to get me instead of enforcing real laws.
Marihuana should be legalized AND have laws to restrict its use in the same way there are laws restricting alcohol consumption.
Let’s not forget the entire police state apparatus in MA fought this vote with EVERY DOLLAR they could squeeze out of the tax slaves in MA.
California could totally bail itself out of debt with legalization and taxation of a free plant. what’s the holdup?
I was gonna post something here but forgot what due to cannibis induced short term memory loss.
#8 chrisroxx
“what’s the holdup?”
Conservative, self righteous, moral imposing, bastions of family values and women too old to be trophy wives with too much free time.
We are trying to rid society of tobacco use because of the long term health damage and resultant financial drain on the health system, so Although I think it is wrong to criminalize it, there should be penalties for health services for those who choose to smoke it… except for those who need it medically of course.
From Wikipedia:
“A 2007 study by the Canadian government found cannabis smoke contained more toxic substances than tobacco smoke. The study determined that marijuana smoke contained 20 times more ammonia, and five times more hydrogen cyanide and nitrogen oxides than tobacco smoke.”
On the other hand, if you use a vaporizer…
“Smoking of cannabis is the most harmful method of consumption, since the combination of inhalation of smoke from organic materials such as tobacco, wood, gasoline and cannabis can cause various health problems. However, recent studies have shown that using a vaporizer for cannabis consumption appears to eliminate almost all of the health problems and objections related to cannabis use.”
If that’s true then I have no problem with potheads getting zonked in their own privacy, although why they would want to (other than for medical reasons) is another topic.
I feel an overwhelming urge to move to Beantown.
And I have full confidence in government studies, reports and actions. Why would they lie? Oh, they might be addicted to their funding for the war on drugs, but I believe them…
# 8 chrisroxx said, “California could totally bail itself out of debt with legalization and taxation of a free plant. what’s the holdup?”
The pot farmers already get away with it & HUGE profits. They aren’t about to pay taxes.
You’re SO naive.
#14 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>The pot farmers already get away with it &
>>HUGE profits. They aren’t about to pay
>>taxes. You’re SO naive.
Moonshiners got away with HUGE profits too, as long as they could stay one step ahead of the revenooers. That changed.
It must suck to be as knee-jerk as you are.
Angel the bad news about pot is the only test they have for it only tells if you have used it in the last 48 hours.The good news is I am going to have a toke to celebrate.
# 15 Mister Mustard said, “Moonshiners got away with HUGE profits too, as long as they could stay one step ahead of the revenooers. That changed.”
Go live in NoCal. There are no revenooers tramping through the remote forests. The farms are huge.
#17 Paddy-RAMBO
>>The farms are huge.
That’s not the point. If the goverment legalizes and taxes it, it will be taxed. The fact that the farmers may get their panties in a twist makes no nevermind. They’ll be selling the stuff in Circle K’s and Seven Elevens, and it will be taxed.
# 18 Mister Mustard said, “That’s not the point. If the goverment legalizes and taxes it, it will be taxed. ”
Nope. If the gov’t can’t find them now, they can’t tax them in the future.
#19 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>Nope. If the gov’t can’t find them now, they
>>can’t tax them in the future.
Of course they could find them, if they were really looking.
And once they go on sale at the Seven Elevens, you can bet your boots they’ll be taxed. Why do you think there are no secret tobacco fields, growing illicit plants for tax-free cigarettes and cigars?
# 20 Mister Mustard said, “Of course they could find them, if they were really looking.”
You’re funny. They do look, very hard. You must live back East and are clueless of the real size of the wilderness in the West.
#21 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>You’re funny.
No, YOU’RE funny, P-RAM. Do you call having seven drug-enforcement agents available to police the 20 million acres of federal forests in California “looking very hard”? That’s 0.00000035 agents per acre.
Why should they bother? To prevent a bunch of stoners from getting high?
If you think the government can’t mobilize the resources to collect on the amount of tax revenue (for comparison, sales of hard liquor alone [no beer, no wine, no spritzers, no hard cider] were about $25,000,000,000.00 in 2007), then you’re beyond funny. You’re hilarious.
# 22 Mister Mustard said, “No, YOU’RE funny, P-RAM. Do you call having seven drug-enforcement agents available to police the 20 million acres of federal forests in California “looking very hard”?”
You’re ignorant, as usual. Fed agents are a TINY fraction of the law enforcement personnel who work on finding the farms.
Where do you live?
#23 – Paddy-RAMBO
>>You’re ignorant, as usual. Fed agents are a
>>TINY fraction of the law enforcement
>>personnel who work on finding the farms.
Someone is ignornant here, RAMBO, but I’m afraid it’s not me. Who else ya’ll got looking fer them pot farmers on federal land? Roscoe P. Coltrane? Erik Estrada and the boys from CHIP? Agent 99? Rogue vigilantes?
As to where I live, that would be my business. I’ve lived a number of places, including the west coast, the east coast, and the midwest. So I think I have a general idea of how much space there is.
Dave’s not here.
Its pretty easy to find bulk wholesalers of MJ. Just take an ATV out on any dirt road and drive around until you run into skinny guys with guns. You can smile and wave, or stop and negotiate.
Course in CA, the big thing now is remote controlled observation and people are around only quickly to water and harvest. Lose a crop===grow another one.
Silly Hoomans.
Paddy, Mustard is right because if MJ is legalized and taxed, most consumers would switch to the legal source and pay the taxes, if not just for the convenience. Growing MJ would no longer be illegal (like tobacco), just unregistered sales. Huge profits for growers would dwindle as the market quickly saturated. Of course there would be illegal weed sales but on the scale and price of cigarettes IMO.
Cig tax revenue in 2005: 20 Billion.
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/17170991/
I am a firm believer that pot should be legalised for medicinal use and dispensed by precription only.
I am full set against pot as a recreational drug. Just as I am against all drugs used for recreation.
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#29–Cursor==thats just great and exactly what you should do.
Now: what justifies you turning your own personal preference into a LAW that puts other people into jail for violating.
Compare and contrast with what (should have been) was learned regarding prohibition.
What of living a life free of infringing authoritarian restrictions?