Legal Marijuana Is Almost Here, If Only Pot Farmers Were on Board
nytimes.com
nytimes.com
I think with legalization should come some kind of harsh regime for these pirates. Ruining public lands should be a serious felony.
Don't have a link handy, though.
I may shake my head at clear-cutting and overgrazing but I'll say that I've never been chased off public land by a rancher nor fired upon by lumberjacks. The marijuana growers are ... unique.
My hill walking dad curses the mountain bikers and their damage to the terrain - leave nothing but footprints, take nothing but memories.
Enjoy your lands.
"Should be a serious felony," is how we got into the police state we are approaching. Just because it's emotionally distasteful to uglify nature doesn't mean it warrants years in prison, never being able to work again, and never being able to vote again.
But to say, "they left trash everywhere, FELONY!" is a seriously emotional reaction. Criminal justice should be a rational not emotional thing. Is dumping trash the same thing as rape, robbery or murder? Certainly not. Felonies should be reserved for the harshest crimes against people, not littering or ingesting things.
The US has more people incarcerated, not only per capita, but as a total number than any other country in the developed world. This includes China. That statistic shows a serious, systemic problem with our justice system.
http://www.prisonstudies.org/highest-to-lowest/prison-popula...
The American prison system is massive. So massive that its estimated turnover of $74 billion eclipses the GDP of 133 nations.
https://smartasset.com/mortgage/the-economics-of-the-america...
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Capital_punishment_in_China#Ra...
The number of executions has dropped significantly since the Supreme People’s Court regained the power to review all death sentences in 2007; for instance, the Dui Hua Foundation estimates that China executed 12,000 people in 2002, 6,500 people in 2007, and roughly 2,400 in 2013 and 2014.
For actual numbers, we have 2.1 million people imprisoned and China has 1.6 million.
Suspecting ideology is maybe being substituted for objective reality?
The "line" is that we have so many people locked up because of unjust (racist, drugs, whatever) policies. And no doubt this is a very large component of the problem.
However, a very large number of people in prisons are dangerous or violent people who shouldn't be out in society at all and I don't think we could say their incarnation is discriminatory or unjust (although we could justifiably speak about how much of an anti pattern the current prison system.. but that's another topic).
Note: I don't say all, or even most in prisons fit this bill but many do.
I guess the point is a question. Why do we have such large number of violent and criminally minded people in the US? Do we have a larger number than China even taking into account population size differences? I bet we do.
TLDR, criminal justice system is broken in many ways, agreed. But I posit we (in the US) have a more violent and criminal population also. I think this is worth exploring rather than just parroting whatever anti-establishment line is in vogue at the moment.
Federal Drug incarcerations are a much higher percent, but this isn't low level users either.
When we ask, "why do we have so many people locked up?" we also should ask "why do we have so many people we need to lock up"? What the hell is our problem as a society that it's like this?
That just doesn't add up.
According to this, the US vs China has:
6 times the amount of robberies per capita.
4 times the amount of murders per capita.
8 time the amount of burglaries per capita.
and...83 times the amount of assaults per capita (??) <page 2 on chart>.
It also says the US has 30% more people incarcerated than China which at ~4 times the population is indeed ~7 times the per capita incarceration rate. But given the stats above (along with our massive drug use and propensity to lock people up for that) it's not entirely unbelievable either.
I don't think the US has the most violent people in the world, no. But I do suspect the US has the most violent people among the subset of countries with the resources and framework to prosecute and pay for incarceration for that many people.
I suspect it would be difficult to find an actual breakdown of crime stats in China. It would be useful to compare it with a country that is more transparent with that sort of information.
Here's a blurb from the site:
The actual crime rate in China has so far been difficult to assess and confirm. Official statistics from the Chinese government says that crime in China is significantly lower than that of more advanced nations, including and especially the United States. Official estimates say that murder rate in China, for instance, is 5 times lower than that of the US.
#3 is Russia, which I would guess to be equally difficult to get statistics on.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/shared/spl/hi/uk/06/prisons/html/nn2...
Also, looking at the US crime stats, they are spotty as well. The assault rate you noted is from 1999, near our peak. Even with that we aren't #1 on almost all of the compared countries.
http://www.nationmaster.com/country-info/profiles/United-Sta...
But some of your conclusions are right. The US incarcerates a lot for drug use, and incarcerates a lot longer for any crime. Furthermore, it's difficult to lead a normal life in the US with a record of incarceration which leads to more incarceration.
I do intuitively believe the US has a higher violent crime rate but 83 times the amount of assaults per capita seems a bit much.
How did all that help restore the ruined patch of land?
Really the problem isn't that people demand more and more felonies, but rather that they demand felonies for things that are already illegal.
That's what I'd like to see changed. This legal twilight zone isn't good for anybody.
Police in 2016 used a "military helicopter to descend on an 81-year-old Grandmother's home to seize a single marijuana plant."
"Mr Holcomb said he was told that as long as he did not demand that a warrant be provided to enter the property or otherwise escalate the situation, authorities would file no criminal charges."
So, give up your fourth amendment rights, or else? For having 1 marijuana plant?
Source: www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/national-guard-and-police-in-military-style-helicopter-descend-on-81-year-old-s-home-to-seize-one-a7348666.html
1. Legal weed is not almost here because of the 68' treaty that strictly prohibits it. That's the reason we see all of these "decriminalized" and "tolerated" scenarios. No one has yet to decide to just ignore the (very tiny) part of the full text that covers cannabis and no one is willing to step away from the rest of the text. Canada is showing signs they might do it, which will trigger a landslide, but at the moment that's only speculation. My country would have passed legalization months ago if not for this treaty :/. So the USA screwed everybody in 68' and they are still doing it.
2. The twilight zone is good for exactly one group of people: illegal dealers and growers. Imagine: the police don't prosecute you as aggressively anymore (or at all), the populous treats it as a legal substance, that's still incredibly popular (funny, it's culturally accepted, but still an act of defiance against the authority) ... and you have no taxes because you still can't buy it legally. I've personally seen dealers agents masquerading as pro-canabis campaigners derail political alliances that would have made realistic progress towards legalization.
Uruguay has fully legalized - not just decriminalized - cannabis, and they're a signatory of the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs, which I think you are referring to? (although it was adopted in 1961, not 1968)
Speculation? The federal government of Canada has passed a law to legalize cannabis as on July 1st, 2018. Implementation is left to the provinces, who can set target prices, who/how will sell it, how much it will be taxed, etc, but the law also explicitly allows shipping cannabis through the post across provinces, as a way to go around any restriction a province might impose. The effects are already very present on the stock market. This will have a very big impact on the US, one can suspect the same as the end of alcohol prohibition in the 30s (where Canada played an important role).
As I understand the US situation the federal level, the signatory of the treaty, didn't actually legalize anything. The states did, in breach of the federal law, but they are not signatories of the treaty.
American banks, including Bank of America, said that they would stop doing business with banks in Uruguay that provide services to anything marijuana-connected.
https://www.nytimes.com/2017/08/25/world/americas/uruguay-ma...
Here lies the unique situation in California; even before legalization in California, it was the home of not just it's black market cannabis industry but it was already a supplier to other parts of the country. It seems then that state level legalization will not be able to fully replace the illegal cannabis industry in California. This is a really interesting problem since other legal states are inclined to not push for legal interstate trade of cannabis.
If MJ was legal federally, what framework for trade would states be inclined to support? It seems it wouldn't be in most states favor to want trade since CA and a few large producers (or early legalizers) would capture the market. Perhaps weed that crosses state lines would be taxed in both states allowing states with shortages like NV to import weed initially while still giving local growers the advantage of a lower total tax rate.
Interstate cannabis transport legalization appears to be the hurdle to California's reaping tax benefits from the industry. How will legalization in a few New England states impact Northern California's economy?
Or do you think these laws were just after all?
(All of this is right from the article.)
Look, these people have been growing for a long time, illegally. I don't have a problem with the growing itself, but they've been making a mess of Mendocino County for years, and they're not exactly all nice people (violent crime rate up there is pretty high). Now we have a legal framework for growing, for actually doing it in a legal way. Sure, some of the new requirements will hurt. But overall we'll end up with a safer growing situation, and things will be done in a way that doesn't damage the land.
No, they don't. Following that framework is admitting you are breaking a federal law. It bars you from being successful in businesses, make a lot of money and the feds have more reason to target you.
So, yes, I do think Rosa Parks should have been arrested (as she was). In fact, it would've been worse if she was left alone -- her defiance would've been a non-event.
I do not think you're too familiar with Rosa Parks story. here's a link to help you out: https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rosa_Parks
Lastly, I think it's rude to equate Rosa Parks to these rogue pot browsers. That said, I think we should bust these law breakers -- and if that upsets enough people, then we'll enact legal changes.
People living in those countries routinely broke the law without consequences, but those countries still managed to function pretty well as a society.
A mature society is one whose people can distinguish between behavior which is actually anti-social from behavior which is merely proscribed by the state.
The act of breaking bad laws - and supporting those who break bad laws - is central to a functioning and mature society.
We all can choose to break laws. Most of us break laws every day. But, when you break laws, you do so at risk of being punished.
Illegal growers chose to break laws in exchange for profit. Now, some are busted.
Other operators chose not to break those laws. Perhaps, instead, they worked to legalize growing, and are now complying and profiting.
That's life in society.
With the volume, breadth, and obscurity of the federal register, I don't think it's practical to "choose" not to break laws in the USA today.
> Sounds like you think your opinion of what laws are just outweighs the democratic process that established those laws.
I certainly don't think that the "democratic process" is some sort of fairy dust that you can sprinkle on laws which are contrary to nature and to the constitution and suddenly make them legitimate. If this is "my opinion," then yes, your statement is entirely accurate.
There are democratic traditions that are more akin to what you are describing, but in common law republics, the legitimacy of the law is constrained by the limited and enumerated power of the state and is not boundless unto whatever the "democratic process" may dictate.
> Other operators chose not to break those laws.
This is entirely a semantic turn - by saying "those laws" in reference to the State (capital S) laws in question in this article, you have intentionally ignored the fact that the US Government has its own (obviously illegitimate in light of the history of the 18th and 21st amendments) laws which also proscribe this conduct.
So there is no way to "choose not to break" the laws regarding cultivating of cannabis.
> That's life in society.
If you are holding high the state of drug policy in the USA in 2017 as evidence of "life in society," I want to encourage you to raise your standards somewhat.
Edit: but there is a connection between farming and slavery, however feeble today. Keeping drugs illegal creates opportunity for quasi-slavery on far away large scale farms, I imagine.
Regardless, the people of California have voted by majority to decide how pot should be grown, sold, and taxed. You can disagree with it all you want, but unless you want to change the minds of the residents of CA and get it changed, this is how it is.
Illegal pot farms have been damaging public and private lands in northern CA for years, and now we have a legal framework to let people grow in an environmentally-sound way. There's also been a ton of violence involved in illegal pot farming. A legal framework could, and most likely will, make that safer.
It would be great if growers could get their work done in a sustainable, non-violent manner, but apparently they can't. So they get rules. And I have no problem with those who don't follow them getting fined or jailed.
I've seen this exactly things in my country, Colombia, and plus the social issue of mafias and drug dealing are my only reasons, personally (i don't encourage to not do it or judge people who just don't care about it), against it's use.
In any case, the question isn't so much how it affects you while it's active, but how it affects you long-term. Transitory effects of any nature are not a concern, unless we're talking about rage fits or other behavioral changes that are actively and directly harmful to others.
It will take awhile for accurate research to produce hard truths
But that does not mean that we should not legalize it. I would even argue they are THE reason why we should legalize. A legal market is a regulated market, which lets you minimize the negative health effects by controlling what is actually being sold.
It's hard to make sweeping generalizations about its historical use but it's safe to say that the psychoactive contents of ancient strains of cannabis was much lower than today's and its use was, while not exclusively so, often restricted to rituals and people for whom the psychoactive effects were socially important (shamans etc.).
More recently, up through the 19th century, cannabis was recreationally used by plenty of people with no legal preventatives and it certainly doesn't seem like everyone were "potheads". But many of them weren't white, which, to the legal minds of the time, was just about as bad.
But I wonder what made weed illegal in most countries? I assume it happened not so long ago. Perhaps a century.
Is it really the case? I know it comes up in every discussion about cannabis but I'm wondering if it is really the case. Cannabis (and most psychoactive drugs with the exception of alcohol) are banned in most countries in the world and it has nothing to do with harassing minorities.
And yes, cannabis was banned because of who was using it - as well as how USEFUL it was in disrupting other industries (such as paper) - not because of its effects. There are countless documentaries which discuss this - a simple Youtube search will yield results.
The same administration that pushed hard to get Cannabis classified as schedule 1 in the UN convention on drugs, as claimed by Canadian archive documents.
For those that banned it later, it's usually because they signed one of the global drug control treaties:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/International_Opium_Convention
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Single_Convention_on_Narcotic_...
Both have been heavily pushed by US (indeed, it effectively organized the first one), and in both cases US was the one that targeted cannabis specifically. In the Single Convention, US was the one that demanded it to be placed on the most restrictive Schedule available.
Here's a good read about all this: https://www.tni.org/en/publication/the-rise-and-decline-of-c...
Not really-really.
https://pointsadhsblog.wordpress.com/2016/08/09/the-real-his...
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Harry_J._Anslinger#The_campaig...
I wonder too, but I believe not. Apparently cannabis has been used here and there at various point in history, but I didn't find mentions of widespread use or a pothead culture. It's surprising given how easy it is to grow and consume this plant. Maybe people at the time had other prerogatives or they had more fun with opium and alcohol?
Haha who knows. I guess a global cultural/and social change probably made people less "responsible". So this mandated a ban? Doesn't look so sound.
I guess there are some issues which most people don't wanna touch on. The constant demonisation made it a taboo. If some people feel there's some vested interest behind it, we don't have solid proof. But feelings/intuition doesn't need such proofs ;)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Indian_Hemp_Drugs_Commission
"In regard to the physical effects, the Commission have come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs is practically attended by no evil results at all. ...
In respect to the alleged mental effects of the drugs, the Commission have come to the conclusion that the moderate use of hemp drugs produces no injurious effects on the mind. ...
In regard to the moral effects of the drugs, the Commission are of opinion that their moderate use produces no moral injury whatever. ...
Viewing the subject generally, it may be added that the moderate use of these drugs is the rule, and that the excessive use is comparatively exceptional. The moderate use practically produces no ill effects. In all but the most exceptional cases, the injury from habitual moderate use is not appreciable. The excessive use may certainly be accepted as very injurious, though it must be admitted that in many excessive consumers the injury is not clearly marked. The injury done by the excessive use is, however, confined almost exclusively to the consumer himself; the effect on society is rarely appreciable."
But if it weren't so taboo?
In Kansas where they produce more wheat than anywhere in the world, what do you think would happen if Marijuana became to legal to grow here? Farmers struggling to survive on bushel pricing of wheat would move all their land to Pot because of the money. Wheat availability would crash through the floor.
A loaf of bread, and flour, would be sky high.
Lol. “High.” However seriously if wheat prices rose, more farmers would grow wheat and prices would return to equilibrium — people being paid subsidies to grow nothing would suddenly find it profitable to grow wheat. Supply and demand works. The real problem is that farming is so heavily subsidized that actual supply and demand doesn’t always result in correct prices.
If there was scarcity of wheat, be assured we'd cover it.
BTW, we can cover scarcity of pot as well :) (it's legal here)
We all think of CA as this true-blue state, a bastion of progressive thought. But once you get out of the SF bay area and LA, you see a lot of red.
MJ isn't lettuce. It's a drug, just as tobacco and alcohol are drugs (yes, I know they have different effects and safety factors; that's irrelevant). It would seem unsurprising that it would be regulated in similar ways.
If your position is that tobacco, alcohol, etc. shouldn't be regulated at all, then ok, that's a fair position to have, but it's an entirely unrealistic one to expect the populace of any state in the US to get behind.
In theory, exemptions can be made, like only taxing people who grow for commercial use while not taxing people who grow for their private use. But such a system is prone to abuse and thus needs lots of control and enforcement.