Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

Just read a great article about race + marijuana arrests in New York by Mark Jacobson: http://nymag.com/news/features/58995/

I don't think there's another thread like this -- a place to discuss the current movements to legalize marijuana (medicinally or otherwise) throughout the United States (and anywhere else that interests people), and any other legal/political/racial issues involved.

Also, I don't know how it works, but if it makes people feel more comfortable maybe a mod can unindex this thread from google? (If not, can we move it to 77 or something?)

Cary Tennis' last column on Salon is called "How I Became a Pothead": http://www.salon.com/life/drugs/index.html?story=/mwt/col/tenn/2010/06/03/marijuana

Some other more recent stories:

Marie Myung-Ok Lee's "Why I Give My 9-Year-Old Pot" Series from Slate:
http://www.slate.com/id/2251174/

Marijuana inspiring Cuisine in NY Times:
http://www.nytimes.com/2010/05/19/dining/19pot.html

Jack Shafer telling NY Times they are ridiculous for writing that piece:
http://www.slate.com/id/2254397/

not sure i want to read "why i gave my 9-year-old pot" but.. hm..
intriguingly, my mom's position on weed has flipped--she used to bother me about 'becoming a druggie' and now she is all 'oh, i think pot should be legalized.' maybe she's been lighting up?

living in massachusetts i can openly smoke pot at my gay wedding, but good luck to the rest of you.

http://johngushue.typepad.com/photos/uncategorized/2008/05/19/bob_dylan_greenwich_village.jpg

Come gather round people wherever you roam...

I cannot help but conclude, after a lifetime of observation, that the present power regime in the USA will never consent to legalize drugs, even if it results in more rational regulation of these activities, a massively lowering of the costs of incarceration (both social as well as monetary), and a cutting off of the funding for huge criminal organizations.

There's just too much money at stake in continuing the drug war now. The cops are mostly in favor of it, because it gives them more power and money, and they get to look like they are saving society from a scourge, while they are just engaging in a lot of fruitless, showy, theatrical idiocy. The prison industry is all for it. And politicians love it, because hating on druggies is the opposite side of the coin from loving mom and apple pie.

Against such stupidity even the gods contend in vain.

Really? Cause the winds seem to be heavily blowing towards legalization.

Just became medically legalized in NJ, NY is currently looking to medically legalize it.

i hate the focus on medical though, no one should have to give a reason or be able to see a doctor to engage in freedom

Those winds of legalization will die away to a whisper in the South. If the Feds maintain prohibition, then the states will not be able to enact the kind of reform and regulation that will do a proper job of it.

I'm okay with that. I think that if it becomes legal (or de facto legal) in enough of the country, eventually that'll push things over federally too. You just need to build some momentum, and I see momentum all over the place.

If we could just strangle enough RRW Republicans, then maybe...

... but moral scruples forbid me to discuss this line of thought.

i hate the focus on medical though, no one should have to give a reason or be able to see a doctor to engage in freedom

― harbl, Sunday, June 6, 2010 3:14 PM (41 minutes ago)

idk, i agree totally about pot and think that all drug possessions should be decriminalized, but i wouldn't extend that 'freedom' to other illicit drugs or prescription medications obv

neither would i!

ha yeah i basically figured that's what you meant, i'm in lolcollege so i've had one too many conversations w/ ppl who are like yeah pot should be legal! fuck it all drugs should be legal!

penalties in ca may be reclassified (no longer misdemeanor)

http://blogs.ocweekly.com/navelgazing/cannabis-chronicles/marijuana-possession-less-than/

http://i561.photobucket.com/albums/ss51/tr_fudge/arnold_smoking-pot-thumb-300x238.jpg

if dude can hold the pen straight

i think the legalization ballot measure is going down fwiw, but the fact that it's a question is amazing even given the state of bud politics here.

vast majority of la dispensaries needing to ROLL with the punches meanwhile
http://www.dailynews.com/news/ci_15235255?source=rss

they're pushing to get full legalization on the ballot in oregon this fall

Also, I don't know how it works, but if it makes people feel more comfortable maybe a mod can unindex this thread from google? (If not, can we move it to 77 or something?)

― Mordy, Sunday, June 6, 2010 12:37 PM (4 hours ago)

I've done this, though if it's kept to politics rather than personal habits, I don't know how necessary it was.

i hope it's not just a lolcollege idea to want to see see all drugs legalized. obviously we're not talking crack being freely available to schoolkids from the corner shop here; there would besome kind of sliding scale of control, e.g. cannabis as free as tobacco, e/speed/coke over the counter at the pharmacy, heroin perhaps only on prescription for registered addicts. i really don't see the benefit in having any substance completely criminalised. it does not effectively discourage use; it turns ordinary people into criminals - at best merely for usage/possession, at worst for having to commit crime in order to maintain a supply; it enables an enormous criminal trade; it means there is no control over substance purity. if drugs were under government control they would be clean and pure, they could be taxed to help fund treatment for addicts, and there would surely be a huge reduction in drug related crime.

ok maybe things wouldn't be quite that rosy. but it's clear the current system is a complete failure. and in general while i'm far from libertarian i am a strong believer in personal liberty and the idea of the government having such a strong say over what i choose to put into my body is anathema to me.

no i don't think the lolcollege thing refers to what you're talking about, just a certain type of libertarian thinking. i don't believe in drug criminalization either for the same reasons as you said, it has done a lot of very bad things to america in my opinion.

Full legalization is a LONG way away. The area of law I practice in, employment, is one of the areas where this is really clear: The California Fair Employment and Housing Act, or FEHA, recognizes the use of some prescription drugs, and mandates that employers, in certain situations, must accommodate the user of those drugs if the use of those drugs somehow limits their ability to do their job.

But it doesn't provide the same protections to medical marijuana. The way in which the Compassionate Care Act of 1996 was drafted, it addresses only the criminal aspects as it pertains to patients. It doesn't address employment aspects, or any of the other ways in which marijuana can impact lives. The CA Supreme Court ruled that employers do not have to accommodate compassionate care users for precisely this reason - the Act doesn't address employment law. Kind of a legal punt, but it drew attention to just how narrowly the Compassionate Care Act is drawn. There was an Oregon decision recently which arrived at the same rationale. Now, if two of the most pot-friendly states in the country have rulings like that on the books, the 9th circuit is not likely to hold another way if a case were to make it that far.

But the decriminalization has been good. And, in reality, no cop is going to bust you for a joint or a dime bag. Driving while doing smoking/stoned? Another story, as well it should be.

no cop is going to bust you for a joint or a dime bag.

if you have the right color of skin

I doubt we'll ever see pot legalized, though it would be so convenient if it was. OK, maybe not "ever," but I really seriously doubt it'll happen in the next 20-40 years, or so long as we have Mormons in the U.S.

Rev otm, and if you're in the "wrong" neighborhood, you'd be surprised how small an infraction you can end up in handcuffs for

no cop is going to bust you for a joint or a dime bag.

if you have the right color of skin

― donk quixote (The Reverend), Monday, June 7, 2010 10:02 AM (22 minutes ago) Bookmark

I used to work at a diner where for dishwashers we hired convicts who were trying to get back on their feet, and they were mostly black guys that had been in jail for years and years after being busted in this way. Legalization is in a large part a civil rights cause.

i think the legalization ballot measure is going down fwiw

why do you think this...? I haven't seen any authoritative polling to-date.

http://articles.latimes.com/2010/may/31/local/la-me-0601-poll-20100529

i just have a feeling. people don't pay attention to propositions, even this one, until the ads start ratcheting up and the opposition has a lot of boogeymen to unleash, not to mention opposing the measure more forcefully in the coming months is low-hanging fruit for both of the likely gub nominees. from what i've seen, trying to put myself in the shoes of the 'average voter' the pro argument as articulated feels kind of ad-hoc but that could change too.

Besides the Office of National Drug Control Policy, who funds opposition advertising? Someone said the cigarette companies spend a lot on opposition advertising, but I couldn't find any data to support that. Anyone here know?

cigarette companies are all broke I thought

I would not be surprised if it were religious people (cough cough Mormons). If there *were* a national vote, you bet the Mormon Church would do a Prop-8 style $$$$ push to shut that shit down. I promise.

are tobacco companies even allowed to spend campaign money? so many lawsuits/civil suits have crippled the industry

xp

If there *were* a national vote, you bet the Mormon Church would do a Prop-8 style $$$$ push to shut that shit down. I promise.

I can see this happening. at the same time, most of the country does not love Mormons, much less being told what to do by Mormons.

like what is the percentage that thinks Mormons aren't "really" Christians...? it's pretty high iirc

Well, sure, but it worked w/Prop 8, right?

And it's not like they would advertise, "WE, the MORMONS, want you to never smoke pot! And also we don't really have multiple wives. Brought to you by THE MORMONS."

Sponsored by the Mormons For Curtailing Your Fun Committee for America (c)

At any rate, this topic of converrsation ("will pot be legalized") always kind of feels like a mass funtime of projections of the speakers' pasts & desires. I, por ejemplo, would love for pot to be legalized, but grew up in a community where smoking weed was tantamount (in perceived riskiness & evilness) to smoking meth. This informs my perspective. I imagine someone who grew up in a less conservative area, or had pot-smoking parents, would have a more optimistic view. ANd someone who thinks weed is bad, and has never smoked it, would naturally be more inclined to say it's so not gonna happen. I feel in some ways like there's no way to know.

i suspect in my lifetime we will see the states where it's been cleared for medical purposes legalize it wholesale; everywhere else will be in sort of limbo between where we are now and full legalization

It seems to me that once it's become fully legalized in a few states, it'll be de facto legal everywhere. They can't exactly set up state border patrols to make sure you aren't buying in NJ and driving it up to NY, or whatever.

still pretty illegal in lots of europe, despite amsterdam

Europe's different

As far as I know, Prohibition was repealed everywhere all at once, but an interesting comparison might be individual state tax laws on vices. Technically, afaik, it's illegal to buy alcohol in NJ and then drive it into PA, but this obviously happens all the time, whenever someone in Cherry Hill picks up a bottle of wine and then drives to his friend's place in Philadelphia, and it's de facto legal. How can you enforce that kind of law?

wrt CA as an avowed pessimist the fact that they gathered the signatures still feels like found money, bottom line is i think the radius of 'public consciousness raising' for legalization hasn't extended nearly as far as the medical angle, which tbh still relies on compassion for the very very sick to get over (medical cannabis is not going away but it's still plenty begrudged among the majority of counties and municipalities). i mean i hope that's an antiguated view of how politics move in 2010 but yeah, prop 8. think we can just wipe away the culture of prohibition w/o at least will n' gracing it for a minute, it just can't be that easy, right?

yeah, i guess i would liken it blue laws around here. like, you would probably never ever be able to just pop by dispensary/ package store in the state of Tennessee and buy a nice bottle of wine and some white widow for your dinner party. but if you were pulled over and had an oz cops would just be like eh, whatever - as long as you aren't smokin & drivin (someone will obviously need to build some kind of breath-alizer for weed if it's ever to be legalized i'm guessing)

56% of CA supports legalizing weed as of a couple months ago

under different circumstances, there would have been mass smoke outs all across nyc in response to this but i dunno if i've even seen anything on insta about it yet!

One crazy provision is that w33d smoking is allowed in public where cigarettes are allowed

:O

lol

https://nypost.com/2021/04/01/nypd-gives-cops-new-orders-to-let-people-smoke-weed-in-public/

Specific guidance in the memo tells cops that people 21 and older can legally smoke weed “almost anywhere that cigarette smoking is allowed including on sidewalks, on front stoops and other public places.”

Wonder how NASWIPP feels about this

Marijuana prohibition is unproductive and unjust — and as the newly elected Board Chair of @NORML, I hope you will join me in putting an end to it. You can get on board right now at https://t.co/qdFr9TGHvx

— Rick Steves (@RickSteves) June 18, 2021

Loling at people just realizing he's been the squarest stoner around for years.

rick steves rules, i aspire to his level of quick-drying, money-belted self-confidence

Biden and the Democrats not even giving us decriminalized weed is just an incredible own goal.

I had no idea about Rick Steves' weed evangelism until that long New Yorker profile of him a few years back. Interesting dude.

Minnesota voice: “And he’s a good Lutheran”.

https://i.redd.it/3ahmie7re9te1.png

Of course they’re not playing, they never kid

medical marijuana use has been legal in utah since 2019 but i have only just gotten my card (on 4/20 naturally lol) so i'm pretty late to the party. but i just had to post somewhere that it's pretty awesome to hit a dispensary on state street to and from work now on an as-needed basis. it's really one of the only government decisions in my lifetime that feels like a unilateral good thing. but then government was the perpetrator of its illegality in the first place, so it all depends on one's pov. as far as i can tell, all of the edible brands here are unique and made in-state, which is interesting - none of the brands you see in cali/nevada/colorado are available. i believe everything is farmed in-state too but i'm not sure.

Meanwhile in Tennessee they're rolling back the legalization of THCA, which is the bedrock of "legal hemp" here, and all the vape stores are totally freaking out. It's going to leave people who insist on buying legal product with just delta 8/10 type stuff.

Mississippi legalized medical marijuana and required cities to opt-in rather than opt-out as far as dispensaries/sales. Tupelo opted in, my little town opted out...but the stuff has to be grown somewhere, right? So there's a weed farm right outside the city limits here, and the owner and his merry crew like to come to our restaurant and spend big and tip big. All good, we like it the money. I do feel a little uncomfortable when they loudly brag to anyone listening that they're the biggest consumers of electricity and water in the county...plus the main dude is extremely foulmouthed and much of our clientele are Ma and Pa Kettles.

i am upset about the TN rollback

All states require production in-state afaik - it is illegal to ship weed across state lines even if both states have legal marijuana. That's also why it usually takes a long time to get stores open after legalization as the production infrastructure takes some time to ramp up.

I don't trust the unregulated markets (THCA, Delta whatever) enough to partake. Texas is probably going to pass the same kind of hemp rollback because Republicans are just shocked creating a multi-billion dollar unregulated drug industry has a few negative side effects.

All states require production in-state afaik - it is illegal to ship weed across state lines even if both states have legal marijuana. That's also why it usually takes a long time to get stores open after legalization as the production infrastructure takes some time to ramp up.

― il lavoro mi rovina la giornata (PBKR), Monday, April 21, 2025 8:36 PM (two hours ago) bookmarkflaglink

this is interesting. i'm curious if anyone knows how that works with brands like camino or wyld - i've seen camino in cali and i think it's available on the east coast too. wyld is in cali, nevada and colorado. do they just produce separately with the same "formula" and branding in each state?

i'm sorry to hear about a rollback, that's really shitty. i rarely get the chance to feel weirdly proud about my state but i guess i sort of am about this. they require you to meet with a 'pharmacist' before your first time purchase, which i thought was going to be patronizing, but the guy was really knowledgeable. he had some kind of medical cannabis textbook open to a section about terpenes. pretty cool!

obviously i know it's greenwashing but the dispensary i purchased from claims they're making an attempt to be as low-resource as possible. i'm sure that's not very low-resource.

I'm seeing way more cardboard type packaging in general, I approve

this is interesting. i'm curious if anyone knows how that works with brands like camino or wyld - i've seen camino in cali and i think it's available on the east coast too. wyld is in cali, nevada and colorado. do they just produce separately with the same "formula" and branding in each state?

I assume they are the same companies or parent companies, who get approved as a producer in each state, probably due to their track record in other states.

lol TX

Not a fan of the free for all model but zero surprise at the Lege responding in the stupidest possible way.

What's the free for all model, the unregulated delta stuff or whatever?

Yeah, vape shops turned into dispensaries selling edibles/tinctures/extracts of questionable quality, no testing for pesticides etc.

Similar thing with “magic mushroom” products - they claim to have amanita muscaria (which seems risky to me to start with) but when tested they pop for psilocybin or psilocybin-like research chemicals or god knows what.

I trusted the 30-year old selling me ecstasy and acid under the counter at an ice cream shop so much more than any Delta 8 company with a Linkedin psycho/hustle culture CEO.

So instead of implementing a legit regulated market they are just going back to full on prohibition which will definitely stop anyone from having access to these substances. Problem solved!

that shit is irritating because two products with the same dosage can hit totally different, a few times I've been tricked into thinking my tolerance for the real stuff is higher than it actually is. that said I think some of the products are pretty legit, you just have to find something you like and stick to it, unfortunately everything that I like winds up off the market a few months later.

I've tried some of those mushroom products. they're so cagey about what's really in there. but some of them can feel pretty nice. not sure if I wanna keep taking them though.

Tennessee didn't go as far as Texas, but it did just ban all THCa products — which, I mean, it is pretty ridiculous to have weed illegal but THCa legal. Of course, the right answer is just legalize it! But that doesn't seem to be on the horizon here any time soon. (Polls show it would probably pass if you could get it on the ballot — but we don't have citizen-initiated referendums here either.)

So now all there will be here is the lame-ass delta 8 stuff.

D8 edibles are nice! you have to double the dosage but I think it's roughly the same effect, maybe a little longer lasting too. the D8 flower on the other hand sucks and the vape cart I got made me cough so much I just tossed it

never really understood what THCa was though I've heard when you smoke it it's basically the same thing

I've had OK D8 edibles but I'm not a huge edible fan in the first place and ... yeah, just not quite the thing. It's all just so silly.

I know its like uhhh can you just spare a few extra molecules bro

i didn't realize the citizens' referendum is just not allowed for half the country! it seems more common in the western states. part of 'western culture' i like. it still feels wild to me that medical is approved in utah, where the lds church sways everything. i feel like there's something there about how utah's lds culture has some "outside the law" roots.

Utah and Oklahoma tied for “wtf legalish weed” states

Virginia too, nothing but the fake crap

They cut down on a bunch of weed shops in DC when Ed Martin was interim whatever and all the traffic spilled into my store in MD by the border. The parking lot is mayhem.

i didn't realize the citizens' referendum is just not allowed for half the country! it seems more common in the western states. part of 'western culture' i like. it still feels wild to me that medical is approved in utah, where the lds church sways everything. i feel like there's something there about how utah's lds culture has some "outside the law" roots.

ha i'd be interested in more info about that, if you read it somewhere. they do tend to be depressed.

It was a clip from a podcast talking with an lds member in Utah. She was saying ketamine therapy was getting quite popular in the state and is being accepted by the church for the most part which is kinda cool.

nice! thx for sharing.

Ketamine and psychedelic therapy is wellness influencer/essential oils adjacent, it’s kind of in the Mormon wheelhouse.

Talked about the latest in cannabis legalization in the South in the latest podcast episode. Short version: Legislatures getting even more invested in prohibition, even though legalization polls over 60% pretty much everywhere.

https://sites.libsyn.com/576820/ep-6-weed-whackers-in-the-south

Liquor lobbies are strong down here. That's a big reason why what's happening in Texas is happening now.

so dumb - "who wants free tax money anyway?"

Yeah the liquor lobbies are also gaming the legislatures in states other than Texas, by requiring stuff like Delta 8 to be sold only in places that are 21-and-over OR in places with an alcohol/liquor license. So in Tennessee e.g., the wine stores that already all have displays of "hemp THC" by the register can keep them, but gas stations/grocery stores/etc. can't.

The new Alabama law is the most brazen in that regard — it bans anything smokable outright, and allows edibles only in places with a liquor license or 21-and-over dispensaries. But it also allows THC beverages in grocery stores, and topical/sublingual products in pharmacies. So basically every retail sector gets a cut of the business.

good podcast piece, tipsy, ty

minor correction: Georgia does have legal medical marijuana, though under highly restrictive terms

Ah, thank you! It didn't show up on the lists I could find of "medical marijuana states," but I guess that's because of its restrictions. Probably depends on what people count as "available."

Figuring out the state by state rules is super confusing, especially because they keep changing.