A Disturbing Trend - Suggestions?

[uptheholler]

I have noticed a couple of disturbing trend in the media as it reports on the changes in marijuana laws in may of our states.

-The first is I have recently heard many attempts to link marijuana use and a continuing pattern of crime. I actually heard an attourney state that every criminal that he has represented "Started with marijuana".
In my opinion we need to point out the obvious and that is that many of these folks were only introduced into the justice system because marijuana was illegal. Once they are in the justice system it is a training center for how to become a lifetime offender in whatever your criminal enterprise of chooice happens to be.

-Secondly there have been many reports recently on the negative impact of marijuana usage by youngsters. We as a group need to be admament about our firm commitment to making marijuana usage by minors a crime except in documented medical needs cases. This is necessary and also the right stance to take. If anything thing it reaffirms the need to make marijuana a legal controlled subtance just like tobacco and alcohol. As a teenager it was much easier to aquire pot than alcohol simply because pot was illegal. Noone ever required that I show an ID when I was buying a bag. When we are confronted with this fallacy we need to turn that argument around and let folks know that by making the product legal with a regulated distribution sysytem we are at least
more able to control who has access to it. I understand that kids can and do still grow. But as a responsible parent, I could never condone minors using our plant unless under the guidance of a physician. In my opinion we as a community must stand firm in this resolve or we will be doing irreparable damage to our cause.

 

[Antics]

I have your answer, my friend.

I used to work in sales, and one tactic, if you will, was called 'reduction to the ridiculous'. This is basically where you break things down into pennies, or something stupid, and say "I'm sure you can afford 3 pennies a week, right?"

So why am I saying this? I'll tell you why.

How about a new link: "He started with drinking bottles as a baby"

So maybe anyone that isn't breastfed, starts with bottles, then it escalates to Cannabis. After that, it's a lifelong crime spree.

Their arguments are beyond stupid. It's a dumb as saying Cannabis starts from drinking carbonated beverages. These people need to get lives. So what, a criminal just HAPPENS TO HAVE to same enjoyment for Cannabis as a law abiding citizen. If Cannabis were legal throughout the world, some of those people would be shocked at who actually uses it. I've know people from all walks of life. Management, line cooks, high level bank executives, MMA fighters, your own neighbor, the guy that runs the whatever department at the local store, bank tellers, And this isn't even including all the SUCCESSFUL business owners who use Cannabis as well. If someone is that successful in life, and they've used Cannabis the whole time, OBVIOUSLY it's not the Cannabis.

Maturity and Responsibility. That's all it comes down to. You have folks in other countries that allow drinking as long as you're tall enough to sit at the bar. Then countries like ours.. 21 to drink. 18 to go die in war for your country. Seems a little off to me. He's FREE to make the decision to go defend his country, in a situation where his actions can DIRECTLY AFFECT the lives of others (in his squad/platoon etc), yet he isn't trusted to decide whether or not to consume alcohol.

I do agree that it should be regulated for those under a certain age. But I don't think it should be completely off limits, as I've read stories as kids as young as 11 months benefiting from the use of Cannabis oil.

At the same time, I do NOT think there should be any limits for law abiding, responsible adults. If a guy is heading up to his cabin for his vacation and he's got 1-2lbs of Cannabis on him, I believe that's his right to do so. Who the hell is the government to say how much he should or should not consume? As long as he's using responsibly, who cares?

Hell, I've seen people smoking Cannabis where it isn't allowed, in public, etc.. but if they're not causing trouble, and nobody is getting hurt, I'm not going to ruin someone's good day because I want to go on some righteous power trip.
Now if only the anti-Cannabis MINORITY would see it the same way. The world would be a much happier, and friendlier place, in my opinion, if more people were using Cannabis, whether it be medically, or recreationally.

And in my opinion, I'd say a safe age would be 18. Under that, should require parental permission first, or perhaps acquiring a 'card' of some sort, that allows the individual to purchase his/her own Cannabis for use.

EDIT: Alright man! 100th post!

 

[Buddy Ebsen]

Great Post UptheHoller,

I totally agree with your post.

Being incarcerated for minor to mid-grade cannabis offenses should decriminalized immediately. Offenders are sentenced & basically sent to college (Jail) and end up coming out with a Master's Degree in Crime.

Secondly, I believe Alco*ol is much more dangerous to society than cannabis, especially to our youth. The same laws that regulate Alco*ol, should be enacted to keep cannabis out of the hands of the under aged in society. Yes, they are still going to grow it, possess it and smoke it, but I believe that if it is restricted and closely regulated that the distribution to our Tweenies & Teenies can be controlled.

If anyone is in need of "Cannabis Medication" they should be allowed by law to have it prescribed to them by a physician or grow it themselves.

Recreational use should also be regulated & everyone is keeping a close eye on Colorado to see what type of problems they may encounter or more yet, how much Tax Dollars Uncle Sam can pocket!

I'd rather give my Tax Dollars to Uncle Sam than a Drug Lord

Just my 2 cents!

!

 

[420 Warrior]

Wow, that sounds like something I'd wright and reminiscent of things I have written in here in the past.

Here's the thing, it always comes down to a lack of education where Cannabis is concerned. These people will open their mouths and say things like this without having all the facts and are totally going off of what they have been conditioned to believe by other people who think they have something to loose, ie...money, power and control.

You are exactly right, prison is nothing short of crime school, where even if you walk in there for something as harmless as growing one single Cannabis plant, you'll walk out of there knowing how to move large quantities of any drug for your local syndicate or maybe even worse crimes, up to and including murder in worst case scenarios, and why? All because you tried your hand at something simple like gardening a simple plant for your own personal enjoyment and the authorities found out about it? How does this make sense?

This ideology of thinking that prison time is always the best answer is just plain ludicrous at best, when in fact it's the worst thing you can do to an otherwise productive tax paying member of society, because now you've given them the resources and connections they need to commit crimes in the first place...how does that help anything?

What about the fact that maybe some people are just destined to be criminals in the first place, maybe it's their background that causes this like, poverty, bad parenting, genetics, mental illness or what have you? Some people are just plain going to do bad things no matter what, Cannabis users or not! Do you think Jessie James, Billy the kid, Bonny and Clyde or even Hitler started out their criminal activities because of their use of Cannabis? I'd be willing to bet a dime to a doughnut that these people didn't even know what Cannabis was back in those days, so how can someone say that crime starts with Cannabis?

Bottom line is, anyone who would make negative statements without having all the facts are either really naive or they have something to loose, but either way, what they don't seem to get is that we're here to stay and Cannabis is not going anywhere no matter what tactics they use, period!

 

[CareStaker]

Jail teaches some things....what it is best at - is teaching hate.

 

[420 Warrior]

Jail teaches some things....what it is best at - is teaching hate.

Right, my point exactly...So now you've taken an otherwise peaceful gardener and turn'd him/her into something they were never going to be in the first place, all because of a plant that would have never hurt anyone. I just don't understand how they can see the justice in that?

 

[BrokrnEyes]

This argument is actually his oldest time, it just takes a different Element in society at the time and blows it out of proportion. Anyone hear from United States who's done any semi-decent comic book collecting when they were a kid probably came across some comics that had a certain "Seal of approval" stamped on it (we're talking about back in the day), The name escapes me at the moment but this seal was put in place because a commission was formed to monitor the so called "Laurel content" of comic books. This commission itself was founded on the presumption made by a psychiatrist who, after interviewing people in asylums in which he asked what did they do all day, read comics, drew the conclusion comics could cause insanity. This led to a huge public outcry against comics which was backed by groups who difnt like comics (teachers, businessmen who thought they took away from productivity, etc) and got to the point that and the only way comics could be successfully released was with that seal. Forbad any come writer talking about sex, drugs, negative political issues, etc and was so, fanatical, that it led to some awkward framed. (An example of this I recall is 2 cells on a page. The first cell shows the man hugging a woman looking in each other's eyes and the next cell is the mans gun in its holster on the cloths rack, the original cell was they were just kissing). The artist commented on the forced change saying the "accepted" cell was far more sexually suggestive then the original could every be It took I believe Stan Lee darling to do a comic about drug effects and not getting the seal on it to break the trend.

My point is you have "doctors", really just people in lab coats, that say something that they can't entirely prove and then they build their career around that statement. Other groups then you go out onto what the doctor said who they themselves have a problem with something in particular and they can then claim legitimacy by saying "now we have a doctor backing what we have been saying!" And the public goes with it and it leads to The politicians then having to make laws against the subject at hand.

The only true counter to this is public awareness of the fact but also more to the point the public willing to except the truth over what they are being told by people on TV. This can be truly difficult as the tendency for most people is not to care about something unless it directly impacts them, which is often why groups that are opposed to something often use fear tactics "don't want your children drink alcohol, it turns boys and to gamblers and girls into whores! Don't let kids play video games, it zaps their brain! Don't smoke pot, it's a gateway drug that will lead to nowhere!"

I myself this past few weeks have seen News reporters refer to weed as a narcotic in response to a idiots posting a video in which he taught his toddler how to smoke weed, never mind the fact that we can't possibly be classified as a narcotic or the fact that my state just recently opened up it's first medical cannabis dispenseries.. It will always boil down to what people are willing to believe first and what is true second.

 

[420 Warrior]

So in not so many words, people by nature only want to believe what their led to believe without digging deeper and getting ALL the facts and then they run their mouths and spread more fear without any real facts to back up their statements. It's a case of the blind leading the blind (not a pun in your direction BrokrnEyes, your one of us) But history has taught us that propaganda is a very efficient tool designed to spread fear without gained knowledge of fact. Rumors and deception put out in the world and banking on the fact that humans will by nature not dig deeper for themselves to learn anything different than what they're being told to believe. It's our overall inherent laziness to just go along with the flock in which ever direction we're being herded, while the few of us that actually do seek the truth and are willing to put the time in to look further at the facts are just out numbered.

The thing to remember here is that lies only last so long before the truth finally emerges and comes to the surface and I think that shift in the truth about Cannabis is finally surfacing now...It took over 70 years for it to surface but it just goes to show that the old saying stands true, "The truth always comes out eventually". It's just a matter of time before it becomes common household knowledge that Cannabis propaganda was all just a big a government funded lie for all these years and that people bought it hook line and sinker. We have the invention of the internet and places like this to thank for this shift in what people believe to be true.

For doing your part in bringing truth to the masses.

 

[BrokrnEyes]

Oh don't worry about phrasing around me, a very large number of us (blind, disabled, etc), all we want is not to be treated differently, there Is the occasional ass who likes being treated differently, the rest of us will just say jokes to get you to laugh. You double over laughing if you ever could meet my buddy, fellow pot smoker and ace funny guy, he really should become a comedian.

But your dead on with what you said, many people just accept what they're told rather then question policies and practices that in the end do more harm then good to us. I think with the advent of the net, and thus the ease of information access, future generations will be more willing to question what their told, at least I hope so.

 

[420 Warrior]

Oh don't worry about phrasing around me, a very large number of us (blind, disabled, etc), all we want is not to be treated differently, there Is the occasional ass who likes being treated differently, the rest of us will just say jokes to get you to laugh. You double over laughing if you ever could meet my buddy, fellow pot smoker and ace funny guy, he really should become a comedian.

But your dead on with what you said, many people just accept what they're told rather then question policies and practices that in the end do more harm then good to us. I think with the advent of the net, and thus the ease of information access, future generations will be more willing to question what their told, at least I hope so.

Word brother, I'm just glad to have you on the team my friend.

 

[OlderGrower]

But your dead on with what you said, many people just accept what they're told rather then question policies and practices that in the end do more harm then good to us. I think with the advent of the net, and thus the ease of information access, future generations will be more willing to question what their told, at least I hope so.

This is why so many people are having a hard time believing that MJ could possibly have any medical benefit. Groups like the AMA and the ACI tell everyone that the only viable treatment for cancer is either surgery, chemo or radiation therapy. And everyone knows they would never lie to us, so why would I believe some dope smoking hippy?
I know the real reason why they make statements like that, it is because they only favor treatments which can be patented and they can line their pockets with. But many just can not believe anyone would do such a terrible thing just for money.

As for the trend of lying to the public to favor their position, well they learned it from the best of the best, they learned it from watching our government do it to the public.