will marijuana ever be legal???

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will marijuana ever be legal???

Yes
84
76%
No
13
12%
Not sure
13
12%
 
Total votes: 110

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Kraken
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Kraken »

It certainly belongs in the "Well, duh" bin but it's good to show people the numbers. If half the states legalize then American black marketers can easily supply the other half, and the exporting nations are SOL.

One wonders, though, what line of business the cartels will go into next. The market for other drugs seems to be fully supplied already -- it's not like they can just double down on coke and horse.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Jeff V »

Kraken wrote:It certainly belongs in the "Well, duh" bin but it's good to show people the numbers. If half the states legalize then American black marketers can easily supply the other half, and the exporting nations are SOL.

One wonders, though, what line of business the cartels will go into next. The market for other drugs seems to be fully supplied already -- it's not like they can just double down on coke and horse.
Well, they could just become a legitimate business, since they have a built-up infrastructure. The profits might be less massive, but there will also be less risk.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Max Peck »

Presumably this means that all the cool kids will be turning their backs on legal marijuana.

Microsoft to help track legalised marijuana sales
Microsoft has teamed up with California-based technology start-up Kind Financial, which helps businesses and government agencies track sales of legalised marijuana "from seed to sale". It is the first-ever partnership of its kind for Microsoft. Kind has been selling its marijuana tracking software to businesses and governments for some three years. The start-up will now be able work on Microsoft's government cloud. Kind's software, which is called Agrisoft Seed to Sale, "closes the loop between marijuana-related businesses, regulatory agencies, and financial institutions," a press release said.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Biyobi »

Max Peck wrote:Presumably this means that all the cool kids will be turning their backs on legal marijuana.
It's not even close to the coolness of Apple's iBake software.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Pyperkub »

DEA to reclassify MJ as Schedule 2?
An anonymous attorney from the Drug Enforcement Administration recently told a reporter that the DEA is planning on moving marijuana from Schedule 1 to Schedule 2 on August 1st. This move would free up research on the cannabis plant as well as allow all 50 states a free hand in deciding on their own medical marijuana policies without the threat of federal enforcement hanging over their heads. In other words, on a federal level, medical cannabis would be legal.

This is all great news for those who oppose marijuana prohibition. But a move to Schedule 2 is not without its drawbacks. As things stand now, the federal government does not regulate marijuana; instead the DEA enforces its prohibition. But under Schedule 2 cannabis could come under the purview of the Food and Drug Administration, something that could put the legality of the plant into a regulatory nightmare.
I remember going to see Bill Maher a couple of months ago, and his last joke string had to do with what he wanted Obama to get done before he left office - WEED!

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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

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The Stranger
A few weeks ago, an article in the Santa Monica Observer set the weed internet ablaze with speculation after it claimed that an anonymous source within the DEA had confirmed the agency’s intent to move cannabis to Schedule II under the Controlled Substances Act. Many pro-legalization blogs lapped it up, though others pointed out that the story’s sourcing was highly suspect.

The article was based on a single anonymous source: a DEA lawyer who apparently had a crisis of conscience when subjected to staff writer Stan Greene’s pointed inquiries, spilling the beans on the DEA's real legalization plans. ... In an interview with aNewDomain, an actual DEA spokesperson, Russ Baer, said the DEA had no firm plans to reschedule and was pursuing further study before making a decision.
...
That didn’t stop Greene from doubling down yesterday with an article entitled “DEA Source Confirms Schedule II Medical Marijuana is in the Works.”

Stylistically, the article is perplexingly terrible, with phrases like “he walked off into the California sun, like so many lawmen before him” and “He's a tall man, a tall blue eyed DEA lawyer. I'll call him ‘Deep Throat.’” There are also laughable typos, such as "TBD oil" instead of "CBD oil," that do not exactly evoke authority.
...
The article is based on an lunch interview supposedly conducted at the high-end hotel Shutters on the Beach. In it, Greene claims to have bought his anonymous source a $150 glass of wine. Chardonnay, specifically.

But when I called the hotel, a customer service rep by the name of Dallas said none of their wines are priced that high.

“There’s nothing like that here,” he said. “We don’t have a $150 glass of wine."

After speaking to Dallas, I called the Santa Monica Observer to see if Greene had anything to say about this price conundrum. A rather gruff man who answered the phone informed me that "every journalist in the world is calling to speak to [Stan Greene]" and I wouldn't be the one getting through.
...
Unsatisfied with Lewis' explanation, and skeptical of the idea that the Santa Monica Observer would expense an $800 bottle of wine (even more than the idea of a high-powered DEA lawyer drinking a white with his filet mignon), I called Shutters again. Obviously, I'd fallen all the way into the most frivolous of rabbit holes at this point, but hey, sometimes the only way out is through. And, I have to admit, I was strangely determined to get to the bottom of the $150 glass.

Nora, a front desk agent previously employed at Shutters' restaurant, informed me that while there were some wildly expensive wines on their list, there were none that fit Greene's description.

“Definitely reds,” she said. “I don’t think I’ve ever seen a Chardonnay for $800.” After a brief hold, she confirmed that the most expensive bottle of white on their menu was a $485 bottle of white Burgundy, which they definitely did not sell by the glass.

To me, it appears that Greene exaggerated the price of a bottle of wine to impress his readers. That, I think, tells us everything we need to know here.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by AjD »

New study from Salk Institute reports marijuana cannabinoids remove plaque-forming Alzheimer’s proteins from brain cells.

Interesting stuff, for those of us of a certain age. The Salk Institute was founded by Jonas Salk (developer of the polio vaccine), and is one of the top biomedicine research institutions in the world. Here's the take-home (if you can't get past the Forbes paywall):
Researchers discovered that the main psychoactive compound in marijuana—tetrahydrocannabinol (THC)—and a few other active compounds remove amyloid beta proteins from lab-grown neurons. Amyloid is the toxic protein known to accumulate in the brains of Alzheimer’s patients. The compounds also significantly reduced cellular inflammation, an underlying factor in the disease’s progression. “Although other studies have offered evidence that cannabinoids might be neuroprotective against the symptoms of Alzheimer’s, [our study] is the first to demonstrate that cannabinoids affect both inflammation and amyloid beta accumulation in nerve cells,” said Professor David Schubert, senior author of the study.

The brain produces its own cannabis-like molecules, endocannabinoids, which seem to protect nerve cells from inflammatory amyloid damage. THC in cannabis activates the same receptors as the body’s endocannabinoids. “Inflammation within the brain is a major component of the damage associated with Alzheimer’s disease, but it has always been assumed that this response was coming from immune-like cells in the brain, not the nerve cells themselves,” said Antonio Currais, a postdoctoral researcher in Schubert’s laboratory and first author of the paper. “When we were able to identify the molecular basis of the inflammatory response to amyloid beta, it became clear that THC-like compounds that the nerve cells make themselves may be involved in protecting the cells from dying.”

Research on amyloid beta indicates that the protein accumulates for many years before the onset of Alzheimer’s, possibly over decades in some cases. If that’s true, then taking steps earlier in life to decrease its accumulation makes sense.
In a separate but related earlier study, researchers at Salk had found an Alzheimer’s drug candidate (called J147) removed amyloid beta from nerve cells -- while reducing inflammatory response of both nerve cells and the brain. This led directly to the discovery that endocannabinoids are related to the removal of inflammation and amyloid plaques in the brain.

The next step now is actual clinical trials -- with real THC/marijuana on real brains, I presume.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Jeff V »

So...now we should get stoned out of our mind to retain our mind? :shock:
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Kraken
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Kraken »

Amusing that THC is the active compound versus Alzheimers when so many cannabis compounds remove its "unwanted side-effects" (because real medicine isn't enjoyable). Here's hoping the study proves to be true.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Rip »

Kraken wrote:Amusing that THC is the active compound versus Alzheimers when so many cannabis compounds remove its "unwanted side-effects" (because real medicine isn't enjoyable). Here's hoping the study proves to be true.
Excellent, I have been treating myself for it for years and I haven't forgotten a thing....I don't think.....have I.


Sorry what were we talking about.


:D
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by hepcat »

Rip wrote:

Sorry what were we talking about.


:D
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by AjD »

Kraken wrote:Amusing that THC is the active compound versus Alzheimers when so many cannabis compounds remove its "unwanted side-effects" (because real medicine isn't enjoyable). Here's hoping the study proves to be true.
Yes, it's definitely funny! The cannabis conversation (at least in the U.S.) often gets stuck in a "getting well" vs. "getting high" debate (and which is the "true" agenda of anyone advocating legalization). We just don't seem too comfortable with the idea that pot could be an effective medicine that's also kind of fun.

In other words, what if it turns out that the compounds in marijuana that get you high are themselves the most medicinal? Maybe it's like eating apples -- they're both healthy AND delicious :D.

But seriously... dementia in my family goes back at least three generations (all the way to my great grandfather, and probably further). I buried my mother because of dementia (after ten horrible years of mental decline). If it turns out that cannabinoids clear out the plaques that cause Alzheimer's, I'll risk a little short term euphoria (and forgetting where I left my keys) in order to prevent my children from watching me die from that awful disease.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Smoove_B »

I am starting to believe a 100 years from now scholars in the medical field will marvel at how long we ignored marijuana because of recreational use and laws from the early 1900s.
Maybe next year, maybe no go
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Kraken »

The hits keep on coming: medical marijuana changes prescription practices.
The arrival of medical marijuana in Massachusetts and other states is changing the way doctors prescribe conventional medications, a study published Wednesday reports.

The study, one of the first to investigate whether medical marijuana laws alter prescribing patterns, analyzed data from 17 states and Washington, D.C. It found that after medical marijuana laws were adopted, doctors wrote fewer prescriptions for Medicare patients diagnosed with anxiety, pain, nausea, depression, and other conditions thought to respond to marijuana treatment.

That translated to about $165 million less spent on prescription drugs in just one year in the Medicare program, which provides health insurance for older adults, according to the study published in the journal Health Affairs.

Analysts said the findings are especially significant coming amid the nation’s opioid crisis and campaigns to reduce the prescribing of potentially addictive painkillers.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Zarathud »

Those figures say nothing about effectiveness for treatment or reduction in addiction.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by LordMortis »

Kraken wrote:Analysts said the findings are especially significant coming amid the nation’s opioid crisis and campaigns to reduce the prescribing of potentially addictive painkillers.
The opioid crisis is really starting to sound like an opioid crisis. That we can dole out Oxy and the like candy and now we're advertising on TV how to take more drugs to keep you intestines from locking up due to your opioid addiction while prescribe them and more is just scary. As a chronic pain sufferer, I'm impatiently waiting for the legalization train. I don't want anything anywhere near opioids for pain relief, where it doesn't do the job and yet my body craves it more and more or makes the pain worse. And yet I won't be pot smoker and risk my job, no matter whether I have medical of dubious value in a federal sense or not. If I can't pay cash for it and have to register to buy it, it's not really legal yet.
Zarathud wrote:Those figures say nothing about effectiveness for treatment or reduction in addiction.
As an alternative to opioids, I'd think it would reduce opioid addiction. Now the question for me would be what's the price? I, personally, don't think it would be that severe. I don't think of pot as any more of a gateway drug than I do alcohol. I think it's less dangerous than alcohol. As a once casual smoker who waits for impatiently for its legality, I think it's less addictive than Cigarettes or Caffeine. At the same time, it's mind altering. It's coordination altering. It judgement altering. And I don't doubt for one moment that it's harmful to the positive development of minors or that, like with any self medication treatment, there's nothing close to a 0 probability of forming a harmful or dangerous addiction. Effectiveness is another story entirely. I don't trust any study positive or negative until the US changes its study rules or another country steps up and shows they'll take on the serious studies and monitors of those studies if the US won't.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Enough »

Scotts Miracle-Gro is betting big on legalization. They are looking at investing half a billion in pot,
Hagedorn is backing up his big talk with serious cash. He shelled out $135 million last year on two California-based businesses that sell fertilizers, soils and accessories to pot growers, recently spent another $120 million on a still-undisclosed lighting and hydroponics equipment company in Amsterdam and promises to invest about another $150 million by the end of 2016. Altogether, the deals are bigger than the largest single acquisition in the history of Scotts Miracle-Gro, which takes in $160 million of profit on $3 billion in sales annually.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by LordMortis »

I'd think they have to. They're already behind in Michigan. Some company has been all over the airwaves advertising their superior indoor grow farm dirt.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Enough »

This local story might just have the legs to go viral:
Colorado town finds THC in its water, warns residents not to drink or bathe in it wrote:Hugo is a Lincoln County town of about 750 people that sits roughly 90 miles east of Colorado Springs and 15 miles southeast of Limon. There are no commercial marijuana operations in Lincoln County. The entire county has only 62 medical marijuana patients, according to the state Health Department.

The county sheriff’s office said in a Facebook notice that the compound was detected Thursday afternoon by Hugo Public Works.

The sheriff’s office said in a tweet that at “this time health officials believe it is THC marijuana related.”

“We are asking everyone on Hugo water to avoid drinking, cooking and bathing in Hugo water,” the alert said. “At this time, Investigators are assessing the situation with state and federal authorities. Bathroom usage is still safe, but until more information is known to us, out of an abundance of caution, avoid drinking Town of Hugo water. Fresh water is on the way to our community.”
And thus began tens of road trips to Hugo. :D :ninja:
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by GreenGoo »

It's good to know that you can still poop in it safely.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

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WashTimes
Thirteen percent of adults surveyed by Gallup last month said they currently smoke pot, up from 7 percent only three years earlier.

While Gallup stops short of directly attributing the nearly 100 percent increase on any particular trend, the spike with respect to adults who openly admit marijuana use follows a years-long legalization effort that has successfully reduced or eliminated criminal penalties for pot smokers in several states with potentially more to come.

“States’ willingness to legalize marijuana could be a reason for the uptick in the percentage of Americans who say they smoke marijuana, regardless of whether it is legal in their particular state. Gallup finds residents in the West — home of all four states that have legalized recreational marijuana use — are significantly more likely to say they smoke marijuana than those in other parts of the country,” said Gallup.
...
Despite the nearly 100 percent increase with regards to adults who admit currently smoking pot, the number of adults who say they’ve smoked marijuana at one point or another — 43 percent — is just one percentage point below last year’s figure.
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LordMortis
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by LordMortis »

The moment it both legal, paid for with cash without scanning an ID card, and is not listed as prohibited by my company's policy, I'm becoming a pot smoker or pot consumer. It should happen within my lifetime but then who knows how long we get to walk this earth.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Sepiche »

I'd hazard a guess that the majority of that increase was just people who were afraid to admit they smoked previously willing to admit it now that laws are starting to soften.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Alefroth »

DEA says not yet.
CSM wrote: In a letter in the Federal Register, the DEA said marijuana should remain as a Schedule I drug, a class that includes drugs the regulator says have a “high potential for abuse” and “no current accepted medical use in treatment in the United States.”
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

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I expect the eventual parsing of their records through FOIA requests to come across with as many bombshell revelations as the docs from the tobacco companies.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Kraken »

"No accepted medical use...." Half the states beg to differ. At what point does medical use become accepted?
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

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Kraken wrote:"No accepted medical use...." Half the states beg to differ. At what point does medical use become accepted?
Roughly six months after the old guard retires.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Isgrimnur »

We hit 38 states, and we can get an amendment.
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

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Kraken wrote:"No accepted medical use...." Half the states beg to differ. At what point does medical use become accepted?
When it's not something you can grow in your closet.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Jeff V »

Isgrimnur wrote:We hit 38 states, and we can get an amendment.
Call it "The Reefer Madness Act."
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Record high 60 percent of Americans back legal pot, poll finds
A record high 60 percent of American adults support legalization of marijuana, according to a new Gallup poll released three weeks before voters in nine states decide whether to expand legal access to pot.

When Gallup first asked about this issue in 1969, 12 percent of Americans supported legalization. By 2000, support had increased to 31 percent and has continued climbing since then, reaching 58 percent last year.

Recreational use of marijuana is currently legal in Alaska, Colorado, Oregon, Washington state and the District of Columbia. Depending on the Election Day outcome, they could be joined by Arizona, California, Maine, Massachusetts and Nevada.

Three other states — Florida, Arkansas and North Dakota — will be deciding whether to permit marijuana for medical purposes. Montanans will vote on whether to ease restrictions on an existing medical marijuana law.

According to Gallup’s new poll, released on Wednesday, 67 percent of Democrats support legalization, compared to 42 percent of Republicans and 70 percent of independents. Support among adults aged 18-34 was 77 percent, compared to 45 percent among those over 55.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Kraken »

Looking forward to legal weed in MA. All of TPTB have predictably lined up against it, but Question 4 currently enjoys a 15-point lead despite them (55-40; the other 5% giggled too hard to answer).

Hilarious "reefer madness" anti-legalization ad -- now that's a dystopia I can get behind! :lol:
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

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Also On Ballots: Legalizing Pot
After tomorrow, recreational marijuana may be legal in a huge swath of the United States. Voters in California, Arizona, Nevada, Massachusetts, and Maine will be deciding on ballot proposals legalizing pot for recreational use. According to a summary at NORML, the pro-pot advocacy group, recent polls suggest a win for legalization in all of those states.

Most of the western United States may soon have legalization. Marijuana is already legal in Washington, Oregon, and Colorado, so pretty soon you might be able to take a road trip from Seattle to Portland to Los Angeles to Las Vegas to Denver and never touch a marijuana-prohibition state. (Two caveats: for the foreseeable future it will still be against federal law to transport pot across state lines, and your journey would require you to get out of your car at Four Corners Monument and carefully step from northeastern Arizona into southwestern Colorado.)

It’s not too surprising that liberal states, like California, or libertarian states, like Nevada, are ready to embrace legalization. The interesting question is whether pot will become an issue like same-sex marriage, which went from politically taboo to widely embraced in a few years, and where opposition is gradually crumbling as the population ages, or more like abortion, where the electorate remains evenly divided on the issue decades after the Roe v. Wade decision.

While it’s true that legalization in California, with a population of almost forty million people, is likely to have an enormous impact on the national debate, to get a sense of where this issue is headed, pay attention to the red and purple states that have marijuana ballot proposals tomorrow. Marijuana legalizers have pursued a gradualist strategy whereby they first push to legalize medical marijuana and then, after it succeeds, they move on to legalize recreational use. (California has had medical marijuana for years and is now making the leap into recreational.)

Voters in Florida, Montana, Arkansas, and North Dakota will all be making decisions about medical marijuana. Florida is a large and closely divided state, and Montana, Arkansas, and North Dakota are deep-red states. It’s not too surprising that the West Coast is about to embrace legalization, but if marijuana prohibition starts crumbling in places like Arkansas it will be a sign that the issue may have transcended the partisan divide.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by tgb »

Here in AZ Prop 205 doesn't have a chance. When I fast forward through commercials I see a lot of anti-legalization ads, and no pro. I'm assuming the anti campaign is being funded by some unholy legion made up of the religious right, the liquor industry, and the medical marijuana industry.

tlr got a medical marijuana card last year, and at the time it was ridiculously expensive, but the price has been coming down. We went to a dispensary a couple of weeks ago for the first time in about 10 months, and bought a 10 pack of 20mg gummy bears for $30 total. tlr had a quarter of one on Saturday and I ate a half and we were both pretty fucked up.
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by $iljanus »

I was very amused by the anti pot ad in Massachusetts with a mom with young daughter on a block with a never ending series of pot shops with young folks walking around smoking, a display with "pot-laced" snacks and a kid walking out of one store and the mom says "Kevin?" and the kid answers "Mom?". Hysterical!
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Rip »

$iljanus wrote:I was very amused by the anti pot ad in Massachusetts with a mom with young daughter on a block with a never ending series of pot shops with young folks walking around smoking, a display with "pot-laced" snacks and a kid walking out of one store and the mom says "Kevin?" and the kid answers "Mom?". Hysterical!
I think it would be funnier with the mom walking out of the shop and the kid looking up and saying "Mom?".
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Fitzy »

$iljanus wrote:I was very amused by the anti pot ad in Massachusetts with a mom with young daughter on a block with a never ending series of pot shops with young folks walking around smoking, a display with "pot-laced" snacks and a kid walking out of one store and the mom says "Kevin?" and the kid answers "Mom?". Hysterical!
That's a pretty accurate portrayal of Colorado now. So sad.
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tgb
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by tgb »

Fitzy wrote:
$iljanus wrote:I was very amused by the anti pot ad in Massachusetts with a mom with young daughter on a block with a never ending series of pot shops with young folks walking around smoking, a display with "pot-laced" snacks and a kid walking out of one store and the mom says "Kevin?" and the kid answers "Mom?". Hysterical!
That's a pretty accurate portrayal of Colorado now. So sad.
The anti commercials here have been Colorado-centric, with various officials offering up dire warnings of candy stores selling edibles to kids and money not going where it was supposed to (education).
I spent 90% of the money I made on women, booze, and drugs. The other 10% I just pissed away.
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Isgrimnur
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Re: will marijuana ever be legal???

Post by Isgrimnur »

money not going where it was supposed to (education)
Soo... politics as usual, then?
It's almost as if people are the problem.
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