So now that it's legal will it lead to increased use? And is that a good thing???

Don't we have enough issues with booze already?

I remember back in my youth, (the 1970s), when probably half the people under the age of 30 were smoking pot. I used to be a heavy user and I personally believe that it's a very easily abused drug that can have some serious downsides for *some* people.

Much like alcohol, the majority of users can take it or leave it and it does not negatively impact their lives in a significant way. Also like alcohol, it can have a positive impact, (enjoyment, relaxation and camaraderie), among people without addiction issues. Some of the side effects for the part of the population with substance abuse issues are similar to alcohol, ie. negative health impact, depression and effect on relationships and employment. Weed also has the insidious effect of sapping the ambition from (some) young people in a way that is pretty awful.

With all that said, it should be legal. No one should be sitting in prison for possessing or smoking weed. It's ridiculous. As someone else said, it's a matter of freedom and liberty, including the freedom to choose to do unhealthy things.

Also, as stated above, the side effects of weed do not include turning peaceful people violent or belligerent. More importantly, I've never heard of someone crashing their car and killing themselves or others when they were only high on marijuana. I cannot count how many people I've known or heard of who have died as a result of alcohol and driving. Pot simply does not affect a person's ability to drive in the same way as booze.

Is it preferable to have people driving high on weed? Of course not. In a perfect world, everyone would be sober, not distracted and a skilled and considerate driver. I'm just saying that the risk from people driving after smoking weed is not in the same stratosphere as drunk drivers. That's a fact.

Lastly, as to people smoking in restaurants, every halfway civilised state has banned smoking in public places quite a while ago. Especially restaurants. So I think that's a dead issue. :cool:

Do you think there's any difference today vs the '70's? Wasn't pot back then basically like pencil shavings compared to the genetically engineered strains that are sold today?

I'm not an expert but I think this is going to have very little impact at all.

If you were a regular pot-smoker or whatever before now, you either had a card or your ...supplier.

Why now would you abandon your regular supplier, even if they were 'illegal', and go to the store and pay 2-3x more for "legal" pot? It doesn't make any sense.


If you had a MM card, you can continue to go to the dispensary and purchase your 'medicine' tax free, or you can grow your own.

The legal pot stores will be for tourists and people who want to experience the novelty.

Aside from the fact that one might land you in jail, I would think that the sheer convenience would steer most people to the stores.
Do you have any basis for saying that store price is 2-3 times more than street price? Just wondering where these claims come from.

The news was running stories about 500$ per oz or similar yesterday. Im not sure what the underground price is normally but it was about half that when I was in high school. Still I don't think high prices are going to cause an increase in criminal marijuana traffiking.

I dont see a huge problem with illeagal cigarettes and they are teriibly expensive these days. I think that is sort of the point. Trafficing marijuana shouldent really be a criminal offence, or at least not to the degree it is today.

I really cant think of any reason to keep marijuana illegal. We all know it is no worse than alcohol. My one worry is that big industry we see the market potential and recruit the best horticulture researchers to come up with super potent strains. Hopefully there will be some regulation to prevent that.

I am not a user. I occasionally "experimented" a bit in college and high school. Everybody probably knows some closet users. Many of these people are doctors, lawyers, engineers, accountants.........not criminals.

Wake up and smell the bong water folks...

At 56 I think I qualify as an old fart...

Probation doesn't work... have we learned nothing from trying it with alcohol?

Is there a DUI test fro pot, yes.

Most places in the USA have baned smoking tobacco in public area, why the heck do you think people will be smoking weed in public?

Many thing are legal for adults... that doesn't mean it is OK for kids to do it.

Pull you head out of the 1950 for gosh sakes!

This.
I'm not sure why the legalization is not seen as more problems coming down the pike.

I have never smoked the reefer myself. I've always held jobs that required urinalysis, and I have never been willing to risk it. That being said, I voted to legalize it here in Washington. I firmly believe that the default setting should be "less-gubmint."

Regarding the price difference, the folks running the show in WA and CO have to realize that capitalism will win. They have to find the right cost to make it so people prefer, or at least don't mind going to the state licensed store. I know when I was a tobacco smoker I didn't care where I purchased it. I had a local store that had competitive pricing, but if I was out of area, I had no qualms about shopping elsewhere. Same story with buying beer etc. If they had the license to sell it, and I wanted to buy it I didn't care where I stopped.

... more problems you say? More problematic than throwing people in jail for smoking some plant that grows in the dirt and gives them the munchies? The "problem" is inverted in states where that seems rational. Taboo busting voters realize this and the old thought line is going to the grave.

One of my favorite story 'bits' was about a burrito truck parked in front of one of the new pot retail outlets the last couple of days - he was selling something like 75 burritos an hour - and extremely happy, he said he was selling more in an hour than he often sold all day.

Trickle down... smile.

One of the biggest issues was about smoking outside on your own property - yes or no? Proponents stated that you can smoke cigs and drink beer on your front porch, opponents stated they didn't like the smell, and they thought that their property values would go down if someone interested in buying a home wouldn't, because of the pot smell wafting over from the neighbors... came down to 'yep, you can smoke it outside on your property'.

This country is so screwed.

The country is more screwed because of ignorance.

I think you meant prohibition, but you're still correct. I imagine the feds will come down on Colorado in much the same way they did on the medicinal marijuana industry in California - like a ton of bricks.

Why?

Putting on my tinfoil hat for a minute... I think it's time we acknowledged the pink 800lb gorilla in the room: the "war" on drugs, and more recently, the "war" on terror are simply mechanisms for certain groups to gain power; not for pure power itself, but for financial gain. With the demise of the commies, the defense industry needed to open new markets. Don't take it from me, do some googling on how much has been spent militarizing police forces and all these wonderful new weapons in the wars on drugs terror. Look up how the prisons in some states have been privatized, creating a profit motive for continued incarceration.

If pot gets legalized, the local PD's can no longer justify the full body armor, night vision equipment, assault rifles and an APC to execute a no-knock raid on some penny-ante stoner in the middle of the night.

No tinfoil hat required, what you are stating is well documented truth. The prison industry has seen massive growth because of the drug war.

Frankly, I think there is racial component to it as well. Plenty of college kids and suburban white kids smoking pot. Do they regularly get raided and thrown in jail? Do the cops do 'stop and frisk' operations in my neighborhood? Of course not. Drug laws keep a steady stream of minorities flowing into the prison system.

I have a serious question.

I smoked pot in HS and some of college, think mid/late 70's to early 1980's. I enjoyed it but stopped when I decided to try and fly for the Navy. I never lied about my use and it has been a recurring theme on security clearance interviews. The good news is I never lied about nor have a partaken in over 30 years. It has been a non-issue.

There will come a day when I will no longer require a security clearance. So my question is, how much stronger is the current stuff and, having preferred the less dense stuff of my youth, are there any precautions one needs to think about?

Don't laugh at the old man, gents.

DOH! Sorry hadn't had my morning drugs... I mean coffee before I posted that.

Along those lines many of you afraid of people jacked up on weed may want to take a long hard look in your medicine cabinets... worry about being on the road with people driving high? Newsflash, you already are... they are just jacked up on prescription drugs, pain killers, anti depressants, etc.

And for a little reality check, whether you approve of pot smoking or not, the hard truth is we have a limited amount of LEO's (due to a limited amount of money to pay their salary)
Which would you rather they spend their time doing... busting pot heads... or busting thieves and crack heads?

Look at the statistics in countries where it is already legal (and has been for a long time) short answer is no.

Oh, and I'm sure the huge alcohol industry has no interest in keeping weed illegal. ;)

All the way from this;
Weed Pioneers Look To Save Epileptic Kids With New Medical Marijuana Strain
The Huffington Post | By Matt Ferner Posted: 11/13/2013 3:10 pm EST | Updated: 11/14/2013 11:39 am EST

"Charlotte's Web" isn't just a classic piece of children's fiction, it's also the name of one of the most coveted medical marijuana strains that is being used to treat children with epilepsy.
The demand for Charlotte's Web is so high by families with children who have epilepsy that the Realm of Caring Foundation, a nonprofit group that six Colorado brothers founded to distribute their specialized marijuana to in-need patients, can't keep up, 7News reported.
The six Stanley brothers -- Joel, Jesse, Jon, Jordan, Jared and Josh -- started Realm of Caring to help people in need and say they resent the stigmas often associated with the plant.
"We are not a bunch of stoners," Joel Stanley said to The Gazette, "and we do not associate with the stereotypes of what people would like to associate with us. We care about what we do."
Their Charlotte's Web varietal of medical pot, named after 6-year-old patient Charlotte Figi who suffers from debilitating seizures as a result of a rare form of epilepsy called Dravet Syndrome, recently made headlines when Charlotte's story was highlighted in a CNN documentary.
Desperate for options to treat their daughter's condition, the family explored cannabis oil -- an unconventional treatment to be sure, but one that Charlotte's mom Paige Figi told KDVR worked immediately.
According to Paige Figi's blog, her daughter's seizures fell from 300 a week to around 3 over an 8 month period. She does note the program was first approved by a team of neurologists and pediatricians. Other benefits:

[Charlotte] is consistently eating and drinking on her own for the first time in years. She sleeps soundly through the night. Her severe autism-like behaviors of self-injury, stimming, crying, violence, no eye contact, zero sleep, lack of social contact ... are a thing of the past. She is clear-headed, focused, has no attention deficit. Charlotte rides horses, skis, paints, dances, hikes. She even has friends for the first time. Her brain is healing. She is healthy. She is happy.

"This particular plant has 0.5 percent THC and 17 percent CBD -- or cannabidiol -- the non-psychoactive ingredient [in marijuana]," Josh Stanley of Realm of Caring said about Charlotte's Web. "This plant is so important the CBD is literally stopping the progression of epilepsy."
CBD has been found to be effective at treating not just epilepsy but also at stopping metastasis in many kinds of aggressive cancer and at killing cancerous cells found in people with leukemia.
And just today, three Utah doctors, including the University of Utah's top pediatric neurologist, came out in support of families who want to use the high-CBD marijuana extracts to treat their children's seizures, The Salt Lake Tribune reports.
"That's why we call this the future of medical marijuana," Josh Stanley said.

To this from the High Times magazine;


The first “Elite Eight” strains listed herein tested highest in THC potency among the more than 300 varieties entered in the four Cannabis Cup events that HIGH TIMES held in 2011. They’re in the uppermost echelon when it comes to strength and reflect not only superior genetics, but also the best cultivation techniques possible in order to unlock their potential.


All of these strains, including the 16 others that round out the list, possessed the highest levels of THC, with each of them registering at least 20% when laboratory tested on gas chromatograph (GC) machines. Gas chromatography is used in analytical chemistry for separating and analyzing compounds. These entries were submitted from across countries in both North America and Europe and are currently the strongest strains on planet Earth. Don’t worry, we’ll be updating this list annually, after every year’s round of Cannabis and Medical Cannabis Cups!

OG Ghost Train Haze
Southwest Alternative Care
Denver Medical Cannabis Cup

The strain with the highest percentage of THC at any of the 2011 HIGH TIMES Cup events came from Denver, CO: It was entered by Southwest Alternative Care and was created and grown by Rare Dankness Genetics. But what exactly is the OG Ghost Train Haze? One might guess she has some OG and some Haze in her. But more accurately this strain has the Haze, as in Neville’s Haze, mixed together with some OG and Trainwreck. For those of you keeping score at home, the exact line looks like this: OG Kush x (Trainwreck x Neville’s Haze). Surprising? Not really. Strong? Tops in ’11.

the difference Seahawk....
beer and scotch..
be your luck thou..
when you finally light up after being good all those yr's..
you get a picture in the mail..
busted..
by one of your toy's..

Rika

Happy New Year