New York Senator Liz Krueger will introduce a bill seeking to legalize marijuana for general use in New York state, she said on Sunday, hoping the recent passage of medical marijuana laws will help give the bill momentum.
Ms. Krueger, a Democrat representing Manhattan for more than a decade, said that in the legislative session beginning in January, she will fight for a bill modeled partly on cannabis legalization laws that recently went into effect in Washington and Colorado.
“I will push for taxation and regulation of marijuana,” she said at an unrelated campaign rally for Attorney General Eric Schneiderman. “I continue to work with experts around the country and to evaluate laws and regulations being put into place now.”
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Big_O
Big Pharma? Not remotely concerned.
What constitutes general use
I'd happily pay a 200% tax on the herb.
Is this true? Did the cost of weed go up in CO/WA?
http://www.komonews.com/news/national/Pot-seen-as-reason-for-rise-in-Denver-homeless-268733441.html
Driving or operating machinery while stoned is just as dangerous as driving drunk but we have no easy way to test for it. Currently its not socially acceptable to smoke weed in public or in the workplace but does anybody think that there won't be lawsuits for the right to smoke in public, on transit or at the workplace if this trend continues ? As the trend towards marijuana acceptance or even approval continues we're going to have the same problems with it that we have had with tobacco for decades.
I know the argument I'm going to get. Weed is safer than tobacco and probably safer than alcohol. My response is that we really don't know that. Mankind has been drinking distilled liquor for hundreds of years and wine for thousands of years. For the most part it has been safe. There are negative effects such a drunk driving and liver disease but they are well known and we have a lot of experience dealing with it. We don't know what the effect widespread marijuana use is going to be.
And then there is this: Ethyl alcohol is a small molecule that passes through your system quickly. You can go on the worst bender imaginable and in 72 hours or less your system is clean. THC ( the active ingredient in marijuana ) is a large molecule that stays in your system for weeks, even for a casual smoker. For a frequent smoker it keeps building and building. We don't know what kind of effect thats going to have on a large scale. Because marijuana has been not legal when a stoner comes to a bad end its been blamed on other lifestyle choices.
Once marijuana is legalized, accepted, encouraged and glamorized we are not going to be able to get rid of it. We may find that those "lifestyle" choices such as addiction, paranoia and graduation to harder drugs are an inevitable result of widespread use.
It's gonna be there regardless. Getting "rid of it" isn't gonna happen in either case.
The rest of your post is basically fear mongering slippery slope argumentation.
Yes, there are concerns with how to handle and detect drivers who use and then drive, but to suggest that people would be able to get to sue to smoke at work is silly at best.
Just as you're not allowed to drink at work, you won't be allowed to get high at work. That's not a hard connection to figure out.
And for career paths where getting high is a roadblock to performance -- employees still could be subjected to drug testing including for marijuana. The last company I was with had a site in Colorado post legalization, and guess what? The employees of that site cannot get high. If they do, and get caught, they lose their jobs.
What lawsuits for the right to smoke tobacco publicly? They simply do not exist, and where they exist, they fail. Tobacco use, private and public, is being successfully reduced everywhere in the country. CVS just stopped selling cigs altogether. You can't get em at supermarkets anymore.
You can't smoke in bars, restaurants, on planes, in hotel rooms...more public space is smoke-free than not, and the non-criminalizing approach has been overwhelmingly successful.
No one would oppose a ban on smoking while driving. That weed stays in the system longer than, say, coke, is a good thing. Makes it possible for employers to test for it...and for police departments to test for it.
The anti-pot hysteria is built entirely on speculation. It needs to go the way of the dodo.
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Is going to be a lot more expensive than the weed youve always bought on the street. I dont care whether they legalize it or not
I'd happily pay a 200% tax on the herb.
I wouldnt. Id hope my contacts keep their prices or im done. Im not paying double than ive paid my whole life for the same high. It would be great to have it legalized, but unless you live in certain neighborhoods its tough to get busted. You really have to try hard. Peace of mind isnt worth that much in taxes to me, im not worried about a swat team beating down my door
im speaking selfishly though. There are plenty of positive reasons for legalization
Tobacco use, private and public, is being successfully reduced everywhere in the country. CVS just stopped selling cigs altogether. You can't get em at supermarkets anymore.
You can't smoke in bars, restaurants, on planes, in hotel rooms...more public space is smoke-free than not, and the non-criminalizing approach has been overwhelmingly successful.
And how long did it take to get us to that point ? The dangers of tobacco were well known in the 1950's. Its only now, more than half a century later that tobacco is on the way out. Up until about about a decade ago you couldn't walk into a bar, casino or many restaurants and not come out smelling like an ashtray. TV advertising wasn't banned until 1970. Other advertising persisted into the 1990's and use in bars and restaurants into the 2000's. The problem of course was that too many people were making money from tobacco and it wasn't until the cost of health problems from tobacco outweighed that cost that restrictions were implemented.
On the other side of the coin how long do you think it will be before some group of stoners sues under ADA for the right to smoke wherever they damn please ?
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Is going to be a lot more expensive than the weed youve always bought on the street. I dont care whether they legalize it or not
Is this true? Did the cost of weed go up in CO/WA?
Just found this article from forbes in january, its possible that things may have changed slightly over the past 8 months. But if we were to see increases like that, illegal dealers of today will still have a healthy business. I dont use nearly as much as I did years ago, but the little money I do spend would probably go to the same sources
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Seriously though, legalization of something that is WAY less harmful than alcohol and keeps people rather calm instead of drunk and rowdy is a no brainer. You immediately reduce crime, health care and law enforcement costs in your state. What's not to like?
Just found this article from forbes in january, its possible that things may have changed slightly over the past 8 months. But if we were to see increases like that, illegal dealers of today will still have a healthy business. I dont use nearly as much as I did years ago, but the little money I do spend would probably go to the same sources
Sounds like prices were temporarily inflated due to limited (legal) supply. If prices drop to the medicinal marijuana range quoted in the article ($20-$25 an eighth) they'll be comparable to the "street" prices there ($225-$300/ounce or $28-$38/eighth).
Knowing that some dumb schmuck wasn't arrested, processed, tried, and possibly jailed for possession would have to be worth the money.
In the current environment in which tobacco smoke is banned from public areas, the same laws protecting people from 2nd hand smoke would cover pot, under the same policy. Pot smoke may not be as unhealthy as tobacco smoke, but it does have tars in it that could have a deleterious effect on others. Plus the policy against alcohol consumption, walking around with an open container, etc., would apply.
Used to be that you could smoke cigarettes in concert halls and movie theaters...and restaurants. Somehow we've all managed to do just fine without all that.
Your claims about how long it took to regulate public consumption of tobacco are totally inapposite. Tobacco was LEGAL and deeply "implanted" in the American economy, culture and society, due to its importance and deep history as cash crop in tobacco growing states and the ignorance as to its deleterious effects. That is no more. Tobacco has been moving from a place of legality to illegality, minus total prohibition. It is actually a case study in successful reduction in consumption, without prohibition.
Pot is in an opposite situation. Pot is starting from a place of illegality and total prohibition and moving into a highly regulated situation. Yes, people will be able to buy and grow it, but civil and criminal laws plus workplace and other private sector restrictions will keep it within safe boundaries.
Stoners will sue to be able to smoke publicly. Really. Let them lose their money on legal fees. It's a loser of a case and utter hysteria to worry about such a thing.
To SPECULATE about some horrible effect has yet to be discovered is what speculation is: a counter factual excuse for peeing your pants over nothing that actually exists. Fear-mongering based on made-up possibilities, unsupported by evidence, is the true pussification of America.
Pretty sure they are under no legal obligation to avoid driving while stoned.
Fact is if they were ever tested they would test positive. The state has chosen not to restrict their driving privledges