Re: will marijuana ever be legal???
Posted: Thu Feb 23, 2017 5:58 pm
And education. And public health. And state sponsored religion. And...Enough wrote:I see. State's rights new federalism is good when it comes to transgender rights
That is not dead which can eternal lie, and with strange aeons bring us some web forums whereupon we can gather
http://www.octopusoverlords.com/forum/
And education. And public health. And state sponsored religion. And...Enough wrote:I see. State's rights new federalism is good when it comes to transgender rights
stessier wrote:Religion?
Recreational marijuana use could be legal in Canada by 1 July 2018 under coming legislation, according to reports.
The federal government will table legislation to legalise marijuana by April, public broadcaster CBC is reporting.
Sources told the CBC that members of the governing Liberal party were recently briefed on the timeline.
The party has long promised they would have legislation ready by spring.
The CBC said the new regulations would broadly follow recommendations released in December by a federally-appointed pot task force.
Those recommendations included proposals that Canada should permit the sale of recreational marijuana to people over age 18 and tax pot products based on potency.
The task force also recommended adults be allowed to grow up to four plants and possess 30 grams of dried cannabis.
According to the CBC, the federal government will oversee the supply of the drug and continue to license producers, while the provinces would determine its means of distribution and sale.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau's promise to legalise recreational marijuana has fuelled investment and speculation in the cannabis sector.
Cultivators like Aphria, OrganiGram Holdings, and Canopy Growth, currently Canada's largest medical marijuana producer, have become stock market darlings.
Medical marijuana has been legal in Canada since 2001 and is grown by 40 federally licensed producers.
Canadians, especially the young, are among the world's biggest users of marijuana.
Ottawa says legal pot under a new strict regulation regime will make it easier to keep it away from young people, to pull profits from organised crime, to reduce the burden on police and the justice system, and to improve public health.
If the law is passed, Canada will be the largest developed country to end recreational marijuana prohibition.
Foreword
When the Task Force first assembled in June 2016, we each brought a range of individual perspectives on cannabis. Over the months that followed, we came to appreciate the collective importance of our varied viewpoints and to recognize the potential impact of our work. This report is the result of a truly national collaboration, and we are proud to have been involved in it.
We have discovered that the regulation of cannabis will touch every aspect of our society. One of the predominant features of our deliberations has been the diversity of opinions, emotions and expertise expressed by those who came forward. People and organizations gave generously of their time and reflections. We explored the issue in remote corners of Canada as well as outside our borders. We heard from parents, patients, practitioners, politicians, police and the media. Our focus ranged from global treaty obligations to the homes and municipalities in which we live. We heard anxiety about such things as driving, youth access and "sending the wrong message," but we also heard a desire to move away from a culture of fear around cannabis and to acknowledge the existence of more positive medical and social attributes. Meanwhile, as we went about our mandate, dispensaries continued to challenge communities and law enforcement, new research findings emerged, new regulations appeared, and the media shone their light on issues of quality and regulatory gaps.
Because of this complexity and diversity of input, and the challenges associated with designing a new regulatory framework, we recognize that there will be much discussion around the implications of our recommendations. However, like scraping ice from the car windows on a cold winter morning, we believe that we can now see enough to move forward.
The current paradigm of cannabis prohibition has been with us for almost 100 years. We cannot, and should not, expect to turn this around overnight. While moving away from cannabis prohibition is long overdue, we may not anticipate every nuance of future policy; after all, our society is still working out issues related to the regulation of alcohol and tobacco. We are aware of the shortcomings in our current knowledge base around cannabis and the effects of cannabis on human health and development. As a result, the recommendations laid out in this report include appeals for ongoing research and surveillance, and a flexibility to adapt to and respond to ongoing and emerging policy needs.
This report is a synthesis of Canadian values, situated in the times in which we live, combined with our shared experiences and concerns around a plant and its products that have touched many lives in many ways. For millennia, people have found ways to interact with cannabis for a range of medical, industrial, spiritual and social reasons, and modern science is only just beginning to unpack the intricacies of cannabinoid pharmacology. We are now shaping a new phase in this relationship and, as we do so, we recognize our stewardship not just of this unique plant but also of our fragile environment, our social and corporate responsibilities, and our health and humanity. This report is a beginning; we all have a role to play in the implementation of this new, transformative public policy.
In closing, we recognize and thank all those who contributed to our work, in particular our colleagues on the Task Force, the Secretariat and Eric Costen, who provided outstanding leadership. We formally acknowledge Prime Minister Justin Trudeau for his vision in initiating this process and for seeing it through. Finally, we thank the Ministers of Health, Justice and Public Safety for trusting us to prepare and deliver this report. On behalf of all Canadians, we now place our trust in our Government to enable and enact the processes required to make the legalization and regulation of cannabis a reality.
You're referring to two different theys.Daehawk wrote:I like how they claim to worry about the unknown dangers to health yet they'll sell cancer sticks and car killing liquids that eat your liver.
The Dallas City Council voted on Wednesday to move ahead with a cite-and-release program for marijuana.
If you’re caught with less than 4 ounces of marijuana and live in Dallas County, you will receive a citation and a court summons.
The ordinance was made possible by a 2007 state law that gave municipalities the flexibility to allow certain low-level misdemeanors to be handled via a ticket and not an arrest and a trip to jail.
...
The measure, which does not decriminalize marijuana possession, is set to take effect October 1.
Similar programs started in Austin and Houston earlier this year.
After the vote, Dallas police tweeted a reminder that possession of marijuana in drug-free zones like schools is not eligible for cite-and-release.
April 18, 2017 11:57am EDT
JUST IN
Homeland security chief warns against marijuana: It's a "gateway drug"
While it's unclear what direction the Trump administration is going to take in handling marijuana legalization in US states, Department of Homeland Security secretary John Kelly was rather clear about where he stands on the issue.
And like Attorney General Jeff Sessions did earlier today, Kelly sounded the alarm against trans-national crime organizations.
"And let me be clear about marijuana. It is a potentially dangerous gateway drug that frequently leads to the use of harder drugs," Kelly said in a speech he's giving now at George Washington University. "CBP will continue to search for marijuana at sea, air and land ports of entry and when found take similar appropriate action.”
DHS personnel will continue to investigate marijuana’s illegal pathways along the network into the U.S., its distribution within the homeland, and will arrest those involved in the drug trade according to federal law.
So far, seven states — including Washington, California, Colorado and Massachusetts — have legalized recreational use of marijuana. And a total of 27 states in the US have legalized medical marijuana.
Isn't Christie on some opiod abuse task force?Chris Christie said that marijuana is a “gateway drug” while arguing for enforcement of its federal status as an illegal substance. Though there are correlations between marijuana use and other drugs, there is no conclusive evidence that one actually causes the other. The science on this topic is far from settled.
...
Though studies of large populations of people have indeed found that those who smoke marijuana are more likely to use other drugs, these studies show a correlation without showing causation — a commonly misunderstood phenomenon in science. In short, just because marijuana smokers might be more likely to later use, say, cocaine, does not imply that using marijuana causes one to use cocaine.
A 1999 report from the Institute of Medicine, which is part of the National Academy of Sciences, laid out this issue clearly (see pages 100-101): “In the sense that marijuana use typically precedes rather than follows initiation into the use of other illicit drugs, it is indeed a gateway drug. However, it does not appear to be a gateway drug to the extent that it is the cause or even that it is the most significant predictor of serious drug abuse; that is, care must be taken not to attribute cause to association.”
We spoke with several experts and reviewed the available scientific literature on gateway theory. Christie’s definitive statement is unsupported by evidence — there is some evidence in favor of a gateway effect, but the scientific community shares no consensus on the issue and there is little evidence on the underlying cause of that effect.
...
In fact, despite the recent rise in adults’ consumption of marijuana, nationwide use of most other illicit substances, particularly cocaine, has fallen dramatically. Moreover, surveys of legal cannabis consumers consistently report that they often substitute pot in place of other psychoactive substances, specifically alcohol and prescription pharmaceuticals like opioids — behavior that indicates that the herb is utilized more often than not as an ‘exit’ drug rather than as a gateway to substance abuse.
Attorney General Jeff Sessions is asking congressional leaders to undo federal medical marijuana protections that have been in place since 2014, according to a May letter that became public Monday.
The protections, known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, prohibit the Justice Department from using federal funds to prevent certain states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."
In his letter, first obtained by Tom Angell of Massroots.com and verified independently by The Washington Post, Sessions argued that the amendment would "inhibit [the Justice Department's] authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act." He continues:Sessions's citing of a "historic drug epidemic" to justify a crackdown on medical marijuana is at odds with what researchers know about current drug use and abuse in the United States. The epidemic Sessions refers to involves deadly opiate drugs, not marijuana. A growing body of research (acknowledged by the National Institute on Drug Abuse) has shown that opiate deaths and overdoses actually decrease in states with medical marijuana laws on the books.I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.
That research strongly suggests that cracking down on medical marijuana laws, as Sessions requested, could perversely make the opiate epidemic even worse.
Heh, This will actually hurt his Majesty. There is no small amount of support he gets from rural growers of medical maryjane and really the ability to continue to grow unmolested by government is all they really care about.Max Peck wrote:When you think about it, a War on Drugs® eventually has to escalate to a War on Sick People -- because who uses more drugs than sick people?
Jeff Sessions personally asked Congress to let him prosecute medical marijuana providersAttorney General Jeff Sessions is asking congressional leaders to undo federal medical marijuana protections that have been in place since 2014, according to a May letter that became public Monday.
The protections, known as the Rohrabacher-Farr amendment, prohibit the Justice Department from using federal funds to prevent certain states "from implementing their own State laws that authorize the use, distribution, possession or cultivation of medical marijuana."
In his letter, first obtained by Tom Angell of Massroots.com and verified independently by The Washington Post, Sessions argued that the amendment would "inhibit [the Justice Department's] authority to enforce the Controlled Substances Act." He continues:Sessions's citing of a "historic drug epidemic" to justify a crackdown on medical marijuana is at odds with what researchers know about current drug use and abuse in the United States. The epidemic Sessions refers to involves deadly opiate drugs, not marijuana. A growing body of research (acknowledged by the National Institute on Drug Abuse) has shown that opiate deaths and overdoses actually decrease in states with medical marijuana laws on the books.I believe it would be unwise for Congress to restrict the discretion of the Department to fund particular prosecutions, particularly in the midst of an historic drug epidemic and potentially long-term uptick in violent crime. The Department must be in a position to use all laws available to combat the transnational drug organizations and dangerous drug traffickers who threaten American lives.
That research strongly suggests that cracking down on medical marijuana laws, as Sessions requested, could perversely make the opiate epidemic even worse.
Latest news is that the vote was postponed, but if it passes as reported, it achieves two things: Legal weed will be as expensive as/more expensive than black market weed, and it will be less convenient to buy if retail shops are few and far between. If you have to go out of your way to pay more, that pretty much guarantees that the black market will persist.In a sweeping rewrite of the voter-passed marijuana legalization measure, House leaders will advance a bill Wednesday that would more than double the total tax on recreational pot and give municipal officials — instead of local voters — the power to ban cannabis shops and farms.
The legislation immediately faced blowback from advocates, who said “it insults voters,” and from elected officials, who said the bill would ensure that the illicit market would continue. But it drew praise from a key lobbyist for cities and towns, and the measure is far from the final step as legislators rewrite the law.
Hits from the baaaaong
Not to mention all the money Christie and both the GOP and Dems have taken from Big Pharma. You know, the ones who stated that Oxy wasn't addictive.Daehawk wrote:Really tired of the Government trying to stick their dicks in everyone to save them. Saw where Chrustie..errr Christie wants a National Emergency declared for opiates. Ya lets hurt the ones who need it so the dumb can continue to kill themselves eve more with off the street crap.
You can smoke it or eat it, and now in Canada, you can trade it in your stock portfolio.
The $120 million Horizons Marijuana Life Sciences ETF (HMMJ.TO) - the first exchange traded fund in North America that focuses on the legal marijuana market - launched in April on the Toronto Stock Exchange. There are no U.S. competitors, at least initially, as federal law prohibits the drug, making it difficult to set up a fund.
Canada is on track to legalize recreational marijuana by July 2018 after the government put forward legislation in April that will allow it to regulate production but leaves the details of how the drug will be sold up to the provinces.
At least one detail of the new ETF has already changed: in June, its Canadian-based fund sponsor dropped “medical” from the fund’s name in anticipation that recreational marijuana will soon be legal in Canada.
With positions including marijuana grower Aurora Cannabis Inc (ACB.TO), medical marijuana companies such as GW Pharmaceuticals Plc (GWPRF.PK), and fertilizer company Scotts Miracle-Gro Co (SMG.N), the fund attempts to capture the full extent of the Canadian marijuana industry, which Deloitte expects could grow to $22.6 billion if the recent bill to legalize recreational use is successful.
Maine Gov. Paul LePage (R) on Friday vetoed a bill that would legalize recreational marijuana, nearly a year after residents voted to set up a system to sell and regulate the drug.
In a letter, LePage said the law would set up a bifurcated system of recreational and medical sales — which are legal in Maine — of marijuana in the state. Allowing all adults to purchase marijuana would also violate federal law, LePage said. The governor said that while the Obama administration said it would not enforce federal marijuana law, the Trump administration has said it has concerns about legal marijuana. LePage said he sought guidance from Attorney General Jeff Sessions on the matter.