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Pot Breaks The Age Barrier
Posted by CN Staff on March 30, 2010 at 04:19:16 PT
By Sandy Banks
Source: Los Angeles Times
California -- Its name might be its strongest asset: The Regulate, Control and Tax Cannabis Act, a marijuana legalization effort that goes out of its way not to say the word "marijuana."I suspect its organizers learned something from the failure of predecessors -- like the Inalienable Rights Enforcement Initiative, a name that sounds like it was dreamed up by a bunch of guys passing around a bong.
The Cannabis Act, which qualified last week for the statewide November ballot, ran its first radio ad Sunday: a former Los Angeles deputy sheriff explaining "why cops support Tax Cannabis 2010, the initiative to control and tax cannabis."Never mind that the state's law enforcement organizations are already lining up to oppose it.Supporters, bankrolled so far by an Oakland marijuana dispensary owner, plan to spend as much as $20 million to convince California voters that legalizing marijuana will help solve the state's budget woes and blunt the reach of drug cartels.The initiative would move the battle over marijuana modestly forward by making it legal for anyone 21 and older to possess an ounce of marijuana and/or grow whatever can fit in a 5-by-5-foot plot. It would allow cities and counties to decide whether to allow sales and tax the proceeds.That feels to me like a natural progression of California's cannabis policy, which essentially decriminalized possession 35 years ago -- an ounce gets you a $100 fine -- and in 1996 deemed pot to be medication.The premise of the proposed law: Marijuana has more in common with alcohol and tobacco than with heroin and cocaine.Or: Is there much really much difference between going home and smoking a joint and going home to a glass of Merlot?Polls suggest that mothers in their 30s and 40s -- who are likely to have teenagers at home -- might side with law enforcement against the proposal. I understand that reflexively. It's hard to say yes at the ballot box when you've spent years telling your kids to "just say no" to marijuana.But the reality is that any 18-year-old with a hankering for pot and $100 can head to Venice Beach and be legally smoking within an hour.Acne, anxiety, an ankle sprain -- virtually any ailment qualifies for treatment with medical marijuana."It's easier now [for 18-year-olds] to get cannabis than booze," said Dale Sky Clare, spokeswoman for the cannabis campaign. "Our current policies have failed to keep cannabis away from our kids or to educate them about the dangers of dependence."She's confident that moms will come around once "we make sure they understand your next-door neighbor is not allowed to turn into a grow operation. . . . And no more back-alley deals. You'll have a retail facility, someone who has a license -- and can lose it if they sell to your underage child."What about all those studies that say pot is getting stronger and more dangerous? I asked.That's fear-mongering by opponents, Clare said."We've got science on our side. And our studies kick their studies' ass."If moms are going to be the naysayers, I figured young people would be the initiative's biggest supporters. So I spent this spring break weekend chatting with my daughters and their friends, from 19-year-olds to mid-20s.They weren't as enthused as I'd expected. Most everyone knows somebody with a cannabis card."The kids who want it can get it," my 19-year-old daughter told me. On campus, it's hard to avoid it.It turns out that while pot smoking is dropping among teens, it's rising among baby boomers. Ten years ago, one in 20 pot smokers was in my demographic -- between 50 and 59 years old. Now the number is one in 10. And as we age -- and kids move out -- the number seems to grow.Drug policy experts say baby boomers have more invested in legalization because they are less likely to embrace risky options. They don't have a street connection or want to wind up listed on a dispensary's log.Still, they know that a little weed might make you feel young and giggle a lot, but it isn't going to ruin your life.Like it or not, their children know they know. A 20-year-old I spoke with was stunned when she went with her mother to an Eagles concert and saw "all the old people lighting up." My daughter told me she and her friends were once approached by an elderly woman in a beach parking lot who implored: "Do you have a joint? . . . Please . . . my husband is making me crazy."And young people who confessed to pinching a bud from their parents' stash years ago now worry the old man is raiding theirs.Maybe it's time we stopped pretending there's nothing odd about the fact that every gas station and liquor store has a giant display of Zig-Zag papers for something we're not allowed to roll, and "smoke shops" can sell water pipes if we all pretend that they're for tobacco.Come November, we'll see if a state too strait-laced to let gay people marry is open-minded enough to let us all toke.Source: Los Angeles Times (CA)Author:  Sandy BanksPublished: March 29, 2010Copyright: 2010 Los Angeles TimesContact: letters latimes.comWebsite: http://www.latimes.com/URL: http://drugsense.org/url/niS7gegPCannabisNews  -- Cannabis Archiveshttp://cannabisnews.com/news/list/cannabis.shtml 
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Comment #13 posted by rchandar on April 02, 2010 at 11:38:54 PT:
Gloovins
It's a good bill because they couldn't possibly enforce the federal law in a state that no longer enforces the law. It's so clear: the government has always depended upon state law enforcement to make the MJ laws punitive.Short of sending about 20,000 Feds, narcs and DEA agents above the ones already there, it's gonna be legalization for certain. You would also have to hire Feds to police the streets, pull people over (where most arrests happen), and spot them burning on the street, in the open, at parties and gigs...Our Czar said the idea was a "non-starter". It doesn't matter, once that hurdle is cleared by the people, you would never really have to worry again......peace.--rchandar
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Comment #12 posted by FoM on March 31, 2010 at 10:09:51 PT
November Vote May Only Cloud Issue of Pot Smoking
URL: http://www.dailydemocrat.com/news/ci_14777717
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Comment #11 posted by gloovins on March 30, 2010 at 17:27:53 PT
Speaking of cops...
Yeah I don't ever see in this article the fact that if this passes and becomes law, cops will NO LONGER have the right to kick in your door, guns drawn & ready to kill you & take all you own.Gee, I wonder why law-enforcement is opposed....?
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Comment #10 posted by FoM on March 30, 2010 at 10:08:48 PT
Career Day in High School
When we had career day in school I knew the disposition of people by what they wanted to do for a living. Nursing or being involved in social service type jobs were nice people. Those that wanted to be a policeman were control freaks and not liked by others. They were jealous and acted like a little cornered dog. You can tell a lot about a person's character by the profession they choose in my opinion.
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Comment #9 posted by Hope on March 30, 2010 at 09:43:49 PT
Sam Adams
Oh my gosh! That's sickening."He told me that you could get rich - everybody on your beat gave you payoffs. UPS and Fedex guys, delivery vans, drug dealers, local merchants, everyone had to give you cash. That's why all these guys applied 2 or 3 or more times to become NYC cops and they were willing to wait 5 years."
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Comment #8 posted by Sam Adams on March 30, 2010 at 09:36:14 PT
HOpe
most of my comments come from MY high school. I was in a job where I worked with a couple guys who were in the process of becoming cops. You're absolutely right, my one friend was a cool guy. But all the others were jerks and not smart (to put it kindly)In my suburban Northeast town we knew who all the cops were because they chased us around every night and harassed us and stole whatever they could from us.  And some were beaten by them.During my time in high school the town had to pay 2 settlements to families who were beat up by police. In one of the cases they roughed up a kid's mother and threw her against a chain link fence. The town had to pay several hundred thousand to the family.90% or more of the students at my high school went on to college. The guys who couldn't make the grade became local police. They had extreme jealousy and envy of all the kids that went to college, so they took it out on current students. Very similar to the way the cops in my college town treated us. I knew people that were roughed up for throwing a frisbee by the local cops.Also in robberies and other crimes the police did absolutely NOTHING in my town. You should have heard what I heard. I worked with a guy who becoming a NYC policeman. He explained how all the guys from the suburbs dreamed of becoming NYC cops - it as the pinnacle of what they could hope for. He told me that you could get rich - everybody on your beat gave you payoffs. UPS and Fedex guys, delivery vans, drug dealers, local merchants, everyone had to give you cash. That's why all these guys applied 2 or 3 or more times to become NYC cops and they were willing to wait 5 years.This particular guy was also heavily into gambling and the books. do I need to say more?
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Comment #7 posted by Hope on March 30, 2010 at 09:22:42 PT
:0)
Well I still agree with that thing about some people actually worshiping the state as though it were their god, and getting a little too into perceiving themselves as that god's, apparently merciless, wrath towards others of his fellow human kind.
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Comment #6 posted by Hope on March 30, 2010 at 09:17:54 PT
 former high school football players
A lot of kids do that. They're not all bad characters. There's lots of them. Everywhere. In lots of professions.
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Comment #5 posted by Hope on March 30, 2010 at 09:14:05 PT
Some really do want to help 
the people being beat on by the bullies. Truly. They were a kind, big or heavyset, or the short wirey or short stocky, low center of gravity, low key, person that always would defend other people from bullies and were often "Peacemakers" among other children, even as children, themselves.Sometimes they were the bullies though and sometimes they were the ones bullied, and seething and focusing so heavily on the people that wronged them, the bullies, they almost become like those that taunted, hurt, or persecuted them once. They want revenge. On somebody. Plus, if bearing much hatred, they will judge people harshly that remind them in even the vaguest way of the childhood bullies they endured.
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Comment #4 posted by Hope on March 30, 2010 at 09:02:01 PT
Except
"Even though they're the dummies from high school that no one liked."I don't agree with that. Sure. Some of them but not all of them. Some, even a lot were people I liked and other people did, too. They usually weren't the most popular kid in school, but people liked them, and they weren't bullies.
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Comment #3 posted by Hope on March 30, 2010 at 08:59:18 PT
Sam Adams
I agree.
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Comment #2 posted by Sam Adams on March 30, 2010 at 08:44:53 PT
you must worship the enforcers!
>>>Never mind that the state's law enforcement organizations are already lining up to oppose it.Oh! the Almighty Chosen Ones in blue are against this! oh, I"m quaking in my boots! We must follow their Holy Way before we're struck down by the Almighty in His wrath!The rich elite and their corporate media want you to revere the cops like your gods.  Even though they're the dummies from high school that no one liked.Even though they became cops because they weren't smart enough to do anything else and they like beating on people.Part of the New Deal was wiping out the power of religion and replacing it with government as the new God. God will decide which drugs are wrong and which are right, and he'll send squads of steroid-pumped former high school football players to show you His Way! 
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Comment #1 posted by FoM on March 30, 2010 at 06:10:35 PT
Related Article From The LA Times
Backers of Pot Legalization Initiative Launch First Radio Spot***The ad airing in the Bay Area and L.A. features a former L.A. County sheriff's deputy who says that the fight against the drug has led to drug cartels. An opponent calls the ad misleading.By John HoeffelMarch 29, 2010 The campaign to legalize marijuana in California kicked off this week, just days after the initiative made the ballot, with a radio ad saying many law enforcement professionals know marijuana laws have failed and calling the measure "a common sense solution."URL: http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-pot-ad30-2010mar30,0,7781402.story
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