Marijuana laced with fentanyl

Some of my contacts told me this is popping up more frequently. A quick search found this and many other cases. So much for weed not killing people.

"During the course of the warrant executions, law enforcement seized eleven guns, including nine handguns, one assault rifle and one automatic shotgun. In addition to the firearms, law enforcement seized 23 grams of suspect crack cocaine, 8 grams of suspected cocaine, 320 grams of suspected fentanyl, comprised in hundreds of pills, 6.8 pounds of suspected marijuana, 50 pounds of K2, 3.45 pounds of suspected marijuana laced with fentanyl and $22,464 in cash. Twelve individuals were subsequently arrested, including 26-year-old Michael Nesmith, 29-year-old Evion Smith, 20-year-old Stephen McCloud, 18-year-old Rasheen Ross, 18-year-old Zakiar Ross, and 22-year-old Promys Pressley. The remaining six arrests are being prosecuted by the United States Attorney’s Office."

https://www.dea.gov/press-releases/...shuts-down-violent-drug-trafficking-ring

Is meth not good enough anymore?

More reason to only buy from a legal dispensaries.

I remember when they tried killing us off with Paraquat. See how that worked out for them, We're still here

Are we really here?

You can legally buy CBD gummies now pretty much anywhere that a VERY potent. Some are made in Austin too. No need to buy black market now.

After March Oklahoma will be recreational and nobody around here will have to worry about it anymore.

Tainted Cheetos are next

the weed today is plenty strong without help.

Why would the weed dealers want to kill their customers?

This is what I don't get about the whole problem. Why would even the cartels want to kill their customers? Something doesn't add up.

The chance of them gaining another customer through addiction is worth it to them more than it is killing one. There are plenty of customers, losing a few thousand dont bother them.

Only Non-THC gummies are legal in TX

it actually improves their standing with the junkies. They know the product is better.

More reason to get weed legalized sooner than later.

I think the fentanyl fatalities have to be blown out of proportion. No, I don't have any experience with it and I don't doubt it's dangerous, but some the stories I have heard lately just seem ridiculous. A few weeks ago, there was a story going around about someone dying from just touching it? I don't believe that. A drug dealer wouldn't be able to sell a product that kills it's user with normal use, that drug wouldn't be used in a hospital either.

Look up Hometown Hero, it's live rosin and legal in Texas. Regardless of what it is/isn't take one and see for yourself.

It’s still not the weed killing people it would be the fentanyl it’s laced with.

Selective thinning of the herd.

It's not the weed, it's the Fentanyl that kills.

CBD is not the same as getting high from THC in pot. CBD is a joke. And it doesn't matter where the CBD is made.

In some cases it's not an intentional killing rather it's unintentional "tainting" of drugs.

No, I think Texas allows .03% THC. Maybe I'm wrong on the number, but the point is THC in almost useless amounts is legal.

That's a fact, And if it's not over 25% THC it's Reggie.

Its actually THC. You obviously have never tried any. I love it when people talk about things they have no experience with. At least do a tiny amount of research.

Pretty sure that say's real plain on the front-THC

There is some CBD that has THC. The amount is trivial though. Read what I wrote carefully. I didn't say otherwise. I've tried plenty of CBD including the lame Delta-X. I've done way more than a tiny bit of research with the lame CBD BS that people hype (including kroyal) and with pot. It's not the same. Not even close.

Straight from the evidence table. Homemade and sealed in an apartment. Do y'all think that dealer cares what goes in it or what age eats it? There is nothing good coming out of this.

You literally do not know what you're talking about. I would love to see you eat a whole live rosin gummy and 30 minutes later tell me it has zero affect

Oh dang, that's a sad bunch of aholes to do that

Don't **** with my Cheetos!

To break this down tardo-style since you literally cannot read and comprehend, I didn't say zero affect. I specifically wrote "It's not the same. Not even close.". Meaning legal-everywhere-CBD is not near as potent as pot. Read that as many times as necessary until you think what I wrote is understood. Then read it repeatedly, while thinking about it, for a for a while longer. Then research. At that point don't bother responding if you still think otherwise because you "literally do not know what you're talking about".

Maybe society does need to break down so something’s can be handled swift and permanently

I never claimed the two were the same. I try to offer an alternative to pharmaceutical pain relief when it’s illegal to get weed.

CBD does help a lot of people. I’ve probably smoked weed 5-6 times in my life. So maybe Delta-8 has a higher effect on me because I didn’t smoke all my life. Who knows but I can tell you the Delta-8 gummies we sell pack a punch. We also sell a 10:1 gummy which has 10mg THC9 and 100mg CBD. Such a high percentage allows us to put more THC9 in them. Some of the medical gummies you get from OK are 10mg each. So in reality the 10:1 gummy is equivalent to medical gummies from OK.

I have a lot of returning customers from this forum so my CBD must not be BS.

Again CBD isn’t a replacement for Weed. Weed will always be a more potent high, but majority of my customers are looking for pain relief or help sleeping. Not wanting the extreme high.

I’m sure the cartels will stop bringing it in once it’s legalized.

To be clear, I didn't say you claimed it was the same. I'm with you - there is value in it and it helps a lot of people. It simply is not potent like pot.

I’m with you on the potency

Id rather take my chances with the laced weed than 4th jab

HEMP is for kids.

I'll eat a whole darn bag of your Gummy's then be off to smoke a fatty and do a dab. Even real gummy's do nothing for me my metabolism doesn't process it.

I'm Ediblocked

The only way weed is going to kill people is through lung cancer after years of use.

Narcotics causing respiratory depression are still killing people. And there are multiple routes into the body for it to enter.

I'd be interested in the help me sleep part. I have to take melatonin and zzzquil every night

Cartels are attracted to anything that has a high profit margin. When you make anything illegal the profit margins are driven by the risk associated with bringing that product to market and are effectively detached from the cost of producing that good. Please name another consumer good where the end cost to the consumer is several thousand times higher than the production cost of that good. You can't name a good like that because outside of illicit illegal substances there is nothing on the planet that has that high of a profit margin. Illegal drugs are no different than orange juice or beef; they are simply a consumer good with a market demand that people are willing to pay for and sometimes they are very willing to pay a premium. The only thing the laws against drugs have accomplished is that they have made some very very very bad people very very very rich.

Despite having a War on Drugs for longer than I've been alive the supply of drugs is cheaper, better quality, and more readily available than it has ever been. You can find cocaine or any other illicit substance that your heart might desire in any bar in the United States in a very short amount of time if you're observant enough to spot the people that are selling and I mean every bar whether you know it or not. I should also point out that any teenager that has a little bit of snap could probably find and purchase cocaine, marijuana, heroin, or methamphetamines easier than they could obtain alcohol.

A simple illustration of how poorly the War on Drugs has fared is an economic one. According to the DEAs own numbers 1 kg of cocaine delivered in Miami during the Miami Vice era was $80,000 per kilo in unadjusted dollars. That same kilo delivered in Dallas Texas today runs anywhere from $15,000 to $18,000 despite 40 year plus years of militarizing the police, dissolving the Fourth Amendment, and arresting and imprisoning millions of people.

Rather than making drugs legal how about start lacing all drugs heavily with fentanyl and just wipe out their customers.

Anyone who buys drugs are spreading money throughout the Mexico drug cartels. Killing and displacing families, Military and costing your country millions of dollars in enforcement. Get ahold of yourselves.

According to Santana at a concert we went to several years ago, this is correct, along with lots of other problems just magically disappearing. 'Love it when musicians get into international politics, foreign affairs, etc. I'd love to ask Don Henley what he thinks about "this tired old man that we elected King." (The End of Innocence, at the time, referring to Reagan.)

The business I'm in has me poking my nose smack dab into the middle of everyone's personal lives because I go to people's houses once per week, and walk around in their backyard. Because I'm very observant and because my clients trust me I get to see a lot of things that other people do not see. You would be absolutely shocked at how pervasive recreational drug use is. I see it constantly from people you would never associate with drug use. According to the DEA more people use cocaine within a 90-day time frame then are users of tobacco in a 90-day time frame although I do suspect there is quite a bit of crossover between those two.

I will give some examples.

A former republican district attorney for a major County in North Texas who leaves a frisbee on her coffee table full of cocaine that she uses daily and she keeps the Frisbee because it's sentimental, it's the one she's been using since high school when she and all of the other cheerleaders would binge on the weekends.

A federal judge who every few weekends uses cocaine for a weekend and then walks away from it because his consumption is purely occasional and recreational.

Several County court at law criminal judges that are either recreational users or have a long-term habit that I have observed.

A well-known person on the County Commissioners Court that I have seen being a recreational user since my mid teens.

A well-known and prominent personal injury attorney who no one had a clue about his illicit drug use until it killed him.

I could go on so long about this that it gets boring but my point is how pervasive drug use is and how it has penetrated every single level of society.

PM sent sir.

Sure wont, but at least legalized pot will give consumers a safe route to get weed without it being laced with garbage.

Don’t believe for a second No one knew. Due to him being able to control it for a while they assumed he could handle it and like most drug users he was going to stop using drugs.

What about all the juveniles they won’t be able to buy it legally. So the drug dealers will always be in business.

Only way I’m for weed legalization is if the government just removes it from controlled substance list and does not regulate it. Once government gets involved the end user gets taxed to death then cartels are still moving product because bootleg is cheaper.

I assume you know who I'm talking about. When I say no one knew I meant the public at large. I knew, the people that hung out with him knew, his clients didn't know. Looking at him you would have never spotted it and it did not affect his day-to-day business. He wasn't a regular user, he used occasionally and when he did so he used a lot. If he was an alcoholic you could describe him as the guy that would buy a giant bottle of whiskey and throw away the lid once every 6 months.

Whom you talking about Brian Loncar?

Correct, we'll never stamp out the illegal drug trade. I just want a route to buy safe drugs, lol.

Just don’t buy drugs. Mind blown.

Yup, Grow your own.

Or consume alcohol, use tobacco, engage in promiscuous unprotected sex, ride a motorcycle without a helmet, drive too fast, eat poorly, don't exercise, don't maintain a healthy body weight, etc.


Part of being free is having the freedom to make really bad decisions for yourself. I seem to recall it taking a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol but I don't recall the amendment that was passed that gave the federal government the authority to outlaw illicit drugs.

FYI, I was raised a Mormon and really don't see much difference between Alcohol consumption, Tobacco consumption, and people using other drugs that are illegal. Alcohol and tobacco use and the associated health issues that come with consumption of those consumer products is the largest killer of people in the United States but Fentanyl is catching up but numbers wise it is still wet behind the ears when it comes to killing people.

Number 1.

I don’t smoke. I rarely drink if they outlawed it I’d move along just fine. Pouring money into the alcohol industry does make you think as you read about a drunk taking out a family driving home from the bar.

Number 2.

If you cannot see the difference in someone strung out on heroin and a guy dipping Copenhagen or smoking a Marlboro I do t know what to tell you. But Oregon has decriminalized all drugs if you think it’s a good idea I suggest you check out Portland as a great place to raise a family or maybe just look at the real time numbers at the decline of the state.

Number 3.

You being Mormon you forgot caffeine. Come on man!

Good luck with that.

Raised mormon, I haven't been an active participant in the church in 34 years. I'm also a caffeine Junkie and it is my personal drug of choice.

I was in Portland on the 12th of November last year and made a point of exploring the city. Some friends of mine also just moved from Portland in the middle of last year to get away from the mess. Their problems aren't caused by legalized drug use, it's much deeper and more pervasive.

My buddy's wife is a toxicologist with multiple phds and her specialty was researching the side effects of street drugs. Ironically enough heroin does absolutely nothing to a person. The decline that you see in a person stems from other issues that frequently go hand in hand with illegal drug use versus pharmaceutical grade drugs.

Meth causes irreversible changes to brain and body chemistry from the very first dose and she was able to link early onset Parkinson's to poorly manufactured ecstasy. She was ridiculed in the 90s for making that claim and then she isolated the cause and was able to induce Parkinson's in a monkey within about 3 weeks. Her research has been extensively peer-reviewed and she's published multiple papers. Just Google Dr Shannon Etheridge.

She said cocaine in small doses when used in moderation does absolutely nothing. Prolonged use of cocaine even in low doses eventually causes problems according to her research. Another interesting tidbit that she told me is that a typical person that has never used cocaine before could probably consume about five to eight grams in a day without dying but if they took two grams of caffeine it would kill them in a few minutes.

Edit: These are her words and not mine.

Heroin, legal or not changes you. The effects it has on society are not comparable to those of tobacco. It’s that simple I don’t need a PhD to tell me that.

That’s interesting concerning cocaine versus caffeine. Believable. My body goes through caffeine withdrawals very heavily if I do not get morning coffee. I’ve cut way back on my consumption and I’m trying to stop drinking caffeine.

I might have done dumb chit in life but drugs of any kind was not one of them. Winning! Carry on!

I’m calling based purely on your screen name lol

We’ve got something in common. Thank goodness just one thing.

Yeah, heroin isn't harmful to a person.....

I just like the character in the movie! LOL

...

Know what the Number 1 most addictive drug there is?










Nicotine

Heroin administered by a doctor of a known quality and a known dosage does absolutely zero to a person's body outside of constipation. The train wreck that you see and what is displayed in the photographs that you're showing is from the lifestyle that is involved with being addicted to an illegal and expensive product of inconsistent quality. This is how it was explained to me by someone who is considered a leading expert on the side effects of illicit drugs. I have no first hand experience because I've never used any, the people I have seen use it that bought street drugs were train wrecks. I have also known multiple anesthesiologists over the years that were heroin or other opioid addicts and there wasn't a single thing wrong with them outside of the poor decision to get high on their own supply. One of them is in his 80s, still a practicing anesthesiologist, and has been a marathon runner for the past 50 years. Still going stong despite his opioid addiction. Please don't get me wrong, I'm not recommending that anyone use any drug whether they are a doctor, or a street kid. I think it's a poor decision for your health but I also think it is a decision that needs to be left to the individual. Having dated multiple people that were either federal or state parole officers or people in law enforcement over the years I have and several of them have come to the conclusion that the laws against drugs cause more harm than the drugs themselves.

Edit: In a typical year in the United States nearly half a million people die from complications related to alcohol and or tobacco use. Even the worst street drug hasn't even reached 20% of that number yet. The left wants to ban guns because people sometimes kill themselves with them. And the right for whatever reason believes people are free to kill themselves with alcohol and tobacco but not cocaine, methamphetamines, or opioids.

How many of those examples are there for alcohol? If you have ever had a beer you can't say "I've never done drugs".

It's safe to say that for every one person in history that has died from opioids probably 25 to 40 have died from alcohol or tobacco. Tobacco killed my grandmother and her tobacco use while she was pregnant with my mother is what is killing my mother today 70+ years later.

My buddy is a member of the Choctaw Nation and one day we were talking and I pointed out to him that the Red Man's tobacco has killed more white people than the white people killed red men. He laughed his butt off.

Everywhere drugs have been decriminalized it’s been a failed experiment. That’s a foolish statement. The real world reality doesn’t care about what a phd says.


Tobacco use killed my mother and I hate it. I wish nobody touched it,

The Difference between my mother smoking 2 packs a day was she was able to raise me. Show me a meth head, a crack addict or a pill addict that can say the same and you’ve found the exception not the rule. Yes even legally obtained pills. Given by drs. Likely phds in what started as controlled environment.

You know medical malpractice kills around 250,000 a year in America.

Death is inevitable. It’s the quality of life and the drain on society that I’m talking about.

To me, the physical decline associated with opioids and meth are secondary to the "selling of the soul". I've known some addicts over the years and to a person, they would all sell their mothers for the next high. No compunction against robbing friends, family, or strangers...all to get enough money to buy. Again, IMHO, there is nothing worse than a thief, and one that is driven by addiction is even worse. Unfortunately, for many, the addiction comes quick, even when they say they are just experimenting, or just a weekender, or recreational ... regardless of how they try to justify, eventually, and if not busted or dead first, many if not most will be doing something illicit to get enough money for the fix.

^^^ The ills that you are describing are the poor lifestyle that comes with using an illicit and very expensive product. The illegality and what it takes to be able to afford a product whose price is artificially inflated by prohibition type laws is what causes the majority of the damage associated with drug use. If a week's supply of heroin cost what a pack of cigarettes cost then you wouldn't have people selling their souls or stealing to afford it. Meth on the other hand really screws people up and it does measurable damage from the very first dose.

Let’s subsidize cocaine.

I’ve heard it all now

I don't think I or anyone else said that in this thread. I wouldn't advocate for subsidizing tobacco or alcohol to the end consumers either but I know we do subsidize both to the which I don't think is appropriate either. What I said is that the laws against cocaine or heroin cause more harm to society than the drugs themselves. If we are basing the illegality of a consumer product based on the harm that it causes then alcohol and tobacco should have been illegal decades ago. Give me a little bit to think about what stuff and I'll Outlaw half the stuff in the grocery store based on how bad it is for a person's health.

So if legalizing it cures that. Your words. Why is a legal bag of weed more expensive than an illegal bag of weed?

Again reality doesn’t care about your opinion. It’s failed everywhere.

The world you’re trying to paint doesn’t exist.

Isn’t legalization just to reduce the criminal element and regulate? Referring to prohibition and what occurred during that time.

Laws, mores, customs and other things which have come in to play over generations have developed for the smooth running of said society. How could we have been so wrong on this one? I am not sure the total decriminalization of drugs is the poison we should be choosing. Pick wisely.

In a free society people should be allowed to do whatever it is they want to do within boundaries.

He just said we need to lower the cost so Addicts don’t have to steal your stuff for a high. He said it’s expensive because it’s illegal.

Heroin made legally will be cheaper and wonderful soccer moms can pick it up at cvs and rainbows and unicorns and what not.

The rocket surgeons in Oregon decided to get away from enforcing drug laws and concentrate on rehab. Rehab numbers have not increased but drug use deaths certainly have.

The people that are using those drugs there and who are dying from those drugs certainly had a drug problem long before the state decriminalized them. I'm also quite happy to see fools who choose to do unhealthy things killing themselves with those unhealthy things , doesn't bother me in the slightest. The one thing the state didn't do was rein in the cost of those drugs so you are still required to engage in criminal activity to be able to afford those drugs and that's the real problem with drugs.

Edit: I feel compelled to point out one more time that despite the majority of illicit drugs being illegal since 1934 there has never been a problem with availability of illegal drugs and their availability is ubiquitous across the entire United States despite there being a declared internal war that was declared by Nixon on June 19th 1971 against drugs. The War on Drugs has had Zero Effect on consumer demand for drugs. In all likelihood the prohibitions against drugs has been the driving force in the market place. The United States has been engaged in the war on drugs for 52 years and it's explicitly clear that drugs won.

"you are still required to engage in criminal activity to be able to afford those drugs and that's the real problem with drugs."

^^^^ I don't know why that's so hard for people to understand. When we discuss a drug problem we're talking about two distinct issues. The first is the health issue. The second is the legality issue. Drugs are drivers of crime because people are hooked on them and their price is inflated because of prohibition and to be able to afford their habit they have to engage in illegal activities unless they are an incredibly high wealth individual. There are also many many more recreational users of some drugs that are not addicts and who do not have to engage in criminal activity. The only goal accomplished by the War on Drugs is making a lot of bad people very rich. That's it. Everyone in the United States who wants drugs can get drugs.

My favorite argument from the dopers...."Yeah coke/weed/heroin/crack/lsd is bad for you, but tobacco/alcohol is also bad."

That's a clown argument.

The drugs called alcohol and tobacco kill four times more people every year than all of the illegal drugs combined. It took a constitutional amendment to outlaw alcohol. Where is the Constitutional Amendment that outlawed all of the common street drugs? I'm not advocating for drug use because I don't believe it's healthy. What I'm advocating for is freedom from government intrusion into every aspect of our lives and not just some aspects of our lives. I know that freedom is scary to a lot of people but you need to be allowed to make up your own mind even if you make the wrong decisions.

Hunter approves this message

As long as I'm free to not pay for the care and feeding of the brain damaged druggies I'm good with that. But we know that's not how any of this works.

"Wrong decisions" of druggies often lead to deaths of innocent people.

What does how many people it kills have to do with anything?

Degradation of society is not measured in deaths only. I've never seen anyone rob a convenience store and steal Skoal. I've never seen someone kill a family of 4 because they were driving while dipping. I've never heard of anyone breaking into a home because they needed money for beer. Making laws to protect members of society is not entirely the role of the Constitution.

When one person's "wrong decision" has an effect on others, that is not a freedom you deserve to have.

Are there stats available that show tobacco deaths by age versus drug deaths by age?

I had a family member killed by a drunk driver so it's safe to say alcohol does the exact same thing but it can be purchased in every US state and US territory.

We are paying for those people now. Are you operating under the illusion that prison systems are operated with no tax dollars? How about the tens of billions of dollars spent every year to pay for the War on Drugs?

Pretty funny to watch the "holier than thou" preach about how bad drugs are only to later post in a bourbon thread

I’ve known people that try and toe that libertarian line of freedom to buy whatever drug you want. They generally grow out of it with age and wisdom

You don't hear of anyone stealing to afford tobacco or alcohol because the cost of tobacco and alcohol is not inflated by many orders of magnitude because of prohibition type laws. When we had prohibition that made alcohol illegal it was the pivotal and foundational moment that created organized crime in the United States. Prior to that organized crime consisted of regional gangs instead of nationwide affiliated organizations. I know of a Church Bus full of children who were all killed by a driver of an 18-wheeler just outside of Tyler Texas when he dropped his cigarette and was reaching for it. An attorney in Dallas named Frank Branson made history in the settlement of that case in the late 80s. There was also an incident with a Dr Pepper truck that smashed into a school bus and the cause of that accident was the driver accidentally dumping his spit cup in his lap. I think Dr Pepper forked out a couple of hundred million dollars in damages on that one and that was less than 20 years ago.

Edit: I also have personally had an apartment broken into by people searching for alcohol. This was in Lewisville Texas in the early '90s and some teenagers were going to the complex and knocking on doors. If no one answered they broke in from the patio door and raided the refrigerator for Booze. Does seven counts of burglary of a habitation by a bunch of teenagers count as a serious crime in your book? The district attorney in Denton sure thought so. I also sat on a jury in Hood County in 1995 for a man charged with aggravated robbery when him and his buddies hit a beer store, grabbed a couple of cases of beer, and the guy on trial held a box cutter to the throat of the store clerk. We gave him 20 years.

Dude your argument that legal drugs would be cheaper is bs. you never answered my question why legal pot is more expensive than illegal pot stop dancing around the truth. It is right in front of your face stop closing your eyes. Your argument doesn’t work drugs are bad and they ruin peoples minds. Society will not work with legalize drugs. It is that simple.

Driving while drunk is illegal. Sorry to hear about your family member.

Legal weed is expensive if you buy it in a boutique store the same way Tiffany Jewelry cost four times more than the exact same stuff from a regular Jeweler. Just by keeping my ears open I know that a pound of Premium hydroponic Oklahoma grown marijuana can be had for $1,200 but when they sell it by the quarter ounce that same pound comes out to about 10 times that amount. Once marijuana is legal in the ubiquitous fashion that tobacco is it will cost only slightly more than tobacco does. Right now it's operating in a gray area because even legal weed is still illegal at a federal level.

Edit: to quote the founding Father of the legal weed movement in California I will say this. The biggest mistake you can make is believing that what you're doing is legal. If weed was legal the feds would not have just seized 48 million in cash from a man who had paid income taxes on that money and he was engaged in the business of selling hydroponic gardening supplies to marijuana growers throughout the United States. Tommy Chong of Cheech and Chong Fame did time in federal prison for selling glassware through the mail and that glassware was bongs to smoke weed. Maybe you've heard of Tommy Chong bongs before. Well the man did several years in the federal clink because of them.

Why is that funny?

Do you think having a drink of bourbon is as harmful to yourself and society in general as doing meth or cocaine?

The kid never has a single positive thing to post...ever...about anything. What a miserable life.

Recently I had to update my life insurance to make sure my new young wife is protected in case I'm no longer around. Want to know what they tested for? They tested for residue in your blood that is evidence of consumption of tobacco products and they also test your liver function to see if you drink more than you should. They also test your cholesterol levels to see if your diet is good and they also test your blood glucose levels and your A1C level to see what your long-term blood sugar levels have been. What they don't test for and could care less about are illegal drugs although they do ask about consumption of those items in the interview and I suspect that if you said you used any of them you might be rejected for coverage. You might want to ask yourself what the insurance companies know about alcohol and tobacco that you don't know. They also appear to be very concerned about fatty foods and excessive consumption of sugar. Considering they have literally billions of dollars on the line I'm pretty sure they put a lot of thought into the matter.

Call me skeptical, but I'll decline to believe any government agency suggestions of a problem which is tied to funding of said agency. dea.gov is a destructive, expensive failure and should be defunded and investigated for criminal activity.

It all does the same thing doesn't it? You are inebriated regardless. People during prohibition had these same lame arguments about how society would end if alcohol was legalized. It was legalized and we all aren't dead, yet.

$1200

glad I’m not the only one that notices that lol

What is the point of all this discussion?

Fentanyl is now being found in marijuana. People made comments about that and drug use in general and I relayed my views on that topic and it kind of spun off from there.

To

I have no first hand knowledge about that being true but that is what I have heard from people I'm pretty sure could come up with it if I said I wanted to buy it. From what I've heard is that Oklahoma is pretty much saturated and a lot of Growers are sitting on thousands of pounds that they can't move in the legal Market. They're getting in a bind because they have to cover their expenses and they're willing to sell their product on the illicit Market to get a quick infusion of cash. If you're in that market you need to do the leg work yourself because I don't want any part of it.

^^^^ There have been prostitutes since before there were illegal drugs. Cocaine and methamphetamines were perfectly legal in the 1920s during prohibition and whatever prostitutes were working weren't doing so to afford dope. There have also been people living on the streets on skid rows around the country for a hundred years. Early in our nation's history they were all drunks. Starting in the 1950s those bums started to transition away from alcohol as their drug of choice to heroin and today I think it's a mix of pretty much everything with meth being the lion's share in this part of the country but I could be mistaken. Another unspoken part of our homeless problem are the lawsuits filed by the ACLU starting in the 1960s and culminating in the early eighties regarding government's ability to institutionalize people involuntarily. Instead of being kept in an institution nowadays those same people are roaming the streets, living under bridges, and consuming any drug that they can get their hands on. Alcohol and tobacco use amongst them is pretty much ubiquitous as well.

If you ever have the time to make friends with someone that is in federal law enforcement that deals daily with drugs such as someone in the DEA do your best to get them to talk candidly and see what our Nations real policies regarding the drug trade is. If you can get one of them to talk to you honestly you will be absolutely shocked at what comes out of their mouths. You also have to look at our country's history of engaging in Regional power players who control drug trades in countries where we choose to wage war. Also look back in history and remember that the greatest drug pushers in the history of mankind was the British Empire who effectively subjugated China with opium. Just look up the Opium Wars and start reading.

No, I don't get inebriated after one bourbon drink, nor do most people. It is not the same thing.

You didn't answer the question.

Tobacco use can kill you. No one is disputing that. So can excessive drinking. Again, not sure why that is even in the conversation.

Why do the dopers insist on bringing up tobacco and alcohol in their argument literally every single time? If drugs aren't bad for society then use that argument on its own merit. I think we all know that is not the case, which is why the straw man argument comes out immediately.

Insurance companies play odds....you should try putting in there you occasionally snort coke and see if you get denied or pay a higher rate. I know a tobacco smoker won't get denied coverage for that reason.

Part of a life insurance policy is that if you lie to them you and die within the first two years they don't have to pay out. Because of that I wouldn't tell them that I use illegal drugs because I don't use any illegal drugs nor do I consume alcohol in any significant quantity.

I'm not a Doper at all and at this point my life it's not exactly something I'm going to pick up. Despite that I will argue until I'm blue in the face that the drug called alcohol and the drug called tobacco are just as dangerous and kill more people than all of the illicit street drugs combined. That is an absolute irrefutable fact. I've lost family members to both alcohol and tobacco through various methods but I have yet to lose a family member to an illegal drug. What you're really trying to say is that your drug is okay but the other ones aren't. What I'm saying is that I don't like the government telling people what drugs they can and can't consume and I also don't like the erosion of civil liberties that has occurred in the name of keeping adults from using a consumer good.

Edit: i will say this one more time and it takes a whole lot of critical thinking skills to even get your mind wrapped around this concept. The laws against drugs are more harmful and cause more harm to society than the consumption of drugs themselves. Name every single ill caused by drugs and I will show you how the laws against drugs are the cause of that. Before warned that it does take some critical thinking skills.

63% of Americans drink alcohol regularly vs. 13% who use illicit drugs. If 63% of Americans used illicit drugs regularly do you think that more people would still die from drinking?

That's like saying more people die from driving cars compared to people who die from motorcycle accidents. If the same number of folks drove both, the motorcycle deaths would greatly outnumber vehicles.

You're not changing any minds here. For me It's really not that hard - Just say no to drugs.

This dudes argument for the legalization of drugs is similar to the argument for socialism. “It’s not been done right before and the other thing is bad”

Here's what I do know...if I have a bourbon drink every day, maybe smoke a cigar every once in a while, or have some chew, I don't have to worry about overdosing because of it. Or having my heart stop, dying young, ruining my marriage, my kids, and my career, or ending up in prison.

If the dopers can say the same thing with as much confidence while they daily snort a line, inject some heroin, or pop oxy's, then I'll change my beliefs.

https://www.kten.com/story/48166382/affidavit-missing-oklahoma-girl-beaten-to-death-buried

I wonder if it was tobacco or meth that put these events into action?

The drug enforcement agencies number say that 60 million people consume cocaine within a 90-day period. They also go on to say that for all drugs combined about 120 million people consume an elicit substance within a 90 day period. I don't know how they came up with those numbers but those are the numbers that they give. You still can't get away from the fact that the single largest killers in human history for drugs comes from alcohol and tobacco.

I pretty much agree with that statement. What I don't agree with is the government telling people that they can't do what they want to do when it comes to consuming a product themselves.

Winston crazed killer just doesn’t have the same ring.

Think my grandpa started smoking about that age. Good thing he did not go nuts and start killing folks. Instead he died of prostate cancer at 86.

No, my argument is the exact opposite of socialism and it's purely in regards to limiting the reach of government. The government should not have the authority to tell people what to do to themselves in almost every instance. I believe in dangerous freedom.

I didn't even have to open the article and read it to know that meth is probably the cause. I also have to point out that the people did lots of crazy stuff on meth despite the fact that meth is completely illegal. The law obviously isn't doing anything and it's even safe to say that methamphetamine use has become more pervasive and more dangerous since it was first outlawed. It would be shocking for most to know that methamphetamines weren't even illegal until the early 70s. Do you remember those billboards with dripping letters that said speed kills? They weren't talking about going over 55 on the highway. It was in response to the new laws passed making amphetamines illegal. Prior to that you could buy them in the grocery store as pep pills or Diet aids. Do you remember dexatrim? It was little square caramel chews that had dexedrine in it. Have you ever heard of beanies that were a pep pill widely sold at convenience stores? That was methamphetamines called Benzedrine. Today we just buy a Red Bull. In hindsight I'm probably alive today because methamphetamines were widely distributed to the Marines in the Pacific in my grandfather told me that pet pills are what kept Him going at Guadalcanal.

I call BS on those numbers. Every reputable source has similar numbers. Do you have a link to the numbers you are quoting?

https://www.verywellmind.com/rates-of-illicit-drug-abuse-in-the-us-67027

https://www.samhsa.gov/newsroom/press-announcements/202110260320

https://www.cdc.gov/nchs/fastats/drug-use-illicit.htm

https://nida.nih.gov/sites/default/files/drugfactsnationwidetrends1.pdf

https://bjs.ojp.gov/drugs-and-crime-facts/drug-use

So 30% of the US population which includes infants to old folks home are doing elicit drugs? BS!!!!

You take <14 and >75 and it makes it basically 50% of US population. No way

Read what I said again. If you still don’t understand read it again.

I read and understood exactly what you said and I have to point out that the United States existed as a nation for 179 years before cocaine or marijuana was made illegal. I think they made opiates illegal at the same time.

I don't know how they came up with those numbers and I suspect it's just so they can get their budget increased but those are the numbers on the dea's website.

There is also probably a great deal of overlap in consumption of illicit substances and I wouldn't put it past a bureaucrat in government to double and triple count things.

I just realized something, I have had family members die from using illegal drugs. My mother remarried when I was 22 and I don't really know anyone from my stepdads side of the family but his youngest brother died from a heroin overdose and his oldest son was a lifetime consumer of methamphetamines and that killed him some years back. My sister was working in the ER when our step brother came into Harris in Fort Worth and told me the drug level in his system was the highest they had ever seen at that hospital. Technically pneumonia killed him but it was simply a complication brought about by a lifetime of drug abuse. He was a giant of a man and the laziest POS you will have ever met. He also had six kids with an illegal alien, all of them are as big and fat as a house but at least they're not the lazy person that their dad was.

I could really care less what someone drinks, injects, snorts or smokes. Make it legal (tax the chit out it) or make it illegal. ZFG!!! People should be allowed to make their own life choices, good or bad.

Just an FYI...if the government wasn't so hypocritical. Drugs are bad but nicotine is good?

Cigarette smoking is responsible for more than 480,000 deaths per year in the United States, including more than 41,000 deaths resulting from secondhand smoke exposure. This is about one in five deaths annually, or 1,300 deaths every day.

Unfortunately, that story is repeated over and over with illegal drug use. I had a patient who killed himself on a heroin overdose a few years ago. Poor kid was only 24, and I really enjoyed having him as a patient. Cool kiddo. His mother was devastated. So sad.

A lot of these arguments for hard drugs fall apart based on the fact that people who are addicted to controlled substances don't just stay to themselves. They burglarize homes, businesses, steal vehicles and equipment, commit robberies ect ect all to feed their insatiable habit. If they just sat alone and slowly killed themselves with dope, I would have no issue with it, but they don't.

This right here!

When I first started in business when a client lost a child it was either early cancer, Car crash, or a suicide. Now when I see a client lose a child it's more often than not an opioid overdose. Truth be told I feel a lot of contempt for people that kill themselves through their own stupidity but I would never voice that to someone who just lost their child.

I feel like I'm beating my face against a brick wall. They steal so they can afford the drugs that are super super expensive because they are illegal. If they were not illegal they would be very inexpensive. You can go to a shrink and get a prescription for Adderall which is meth and it is dirt cheap. Those same pills sell for a fortune on the illicit Market. $30 at the pharmacy, $1,500 on the street. The government processes hundreds of tons of coca leaves every year in New Jersey. They take the organic alkaloids out of it which is also known as cocaine and the syrup that they make that contains the Coca flavor get sold to the Coca-Cola Corporation. If cocaine were legal actual production cost for it would be about 10 to 14 times the cost of producing sugar but for some mystery reason it's several thousand times the cost of sugar.

How many meth heads can keep a consistent job? How many OxyContin addicts can keep a consistent job?

Most people addicted to hard drugs aren’t keeping a consistent job. If you can’t function with out the drug how can you work while not on the job. Potheads aren’t exactly overly ambitious at work…

You are comparing your successful life with health insurance to scumbags from the hood who don't. Small A-trains go for 10 bucks a pill without insurance from a pharmacy. It take a lot of those to get high.

Many, many convenience stores, anyone over 21 can buy tobacco, alcohol, high cholesterol foods, and all the sugar they want. Just in a convenience store!

When those stores begin also selling narcotics, cocaine, and methamphetamines on a regular basis. Insurance companies will also test for those substances.

Lacing weed is nothing new. Been happening for years. Primo weed laced with cocaine. Wet weed dipped in phencyclidine. Kids would do these and still just consider it smoking weed. Now they are doing it with fentanyl.

I thought primo was weed laced with PCP. It's so hard to keep up.

That’s what Hector gave Smokey… and he ain’t been right since

I thought it was what Alonso gave Jake in Training Day.

I have seen a few OxyContin addicts where no one knew there was an issue until they decided to throw heavy drinking into the mix. Had a client who took 40 to 60 of them per day until his wife found him passed out in the living room one afternoon. She had no idea that there was an issue until he got to the the hospital. He stopped after that. I still clean his pool and that was 15 years ago I think. If any of y'all know where Emmit Smith lived this is a house in his neighborhood.

Meth? Seen plenty of guys working oil fields on it but they burn out and I don't know what happens to them afterwards. Meth is a very destructive drug and in my opinion most people never come back from it.

Pot? I know plenty of other pool guys that are wake and bakes that put in 12 to 14 hour days 6 days per week year round. I couldn't do it but it works for them. I also know a few people in other professions that do the samething and one in particular has a net worth pushing 800 million from what I can read about him.

I don't know the drug lingo but I do know what Adderall goes for because I pick up scripts for a neighbor and her 60 pills cost 30 bucks per month. Never have taken one but it says amphetamine salts right on the label so I am assuming they get you wound up.

Scumbags in the hood have all of the drugs they want despite the laws against the drugs. Scumbags in the hood do all of the crazy crap that they want to do on drugs despite there being laws against the drugs and most of the crazy crap that they want to do while on drugs. I don't care about any of that at all. All that I care about is some over paranoid officer who is convinced that I have drugs in my car when I get pulled over and then tries to intimidate me into allowing them to perform a consent search and then going off their rockers when I tell them "Hell No".

Adderall

That’s a whole interesting subject .

Well now that you know more about it you can stop feeling like you’re beating your face against a brick wall.

Did you just make an argument to argue with yourself?

^^^^ If you're talking to me then the answer is no.

The prohibition Advocates say that drugs harm people so they should be illegal. My response to this is that they are already illegal and they're still harmful. The illegality also has spin-off effects on other aspects of society that I am adamantly opposed to.

The drug prohibition advocates say that drugs cause crime and while that is somewhat true the major driving factor of criminality that comes with drug use is the extremely high cost of the drugs and that cost is driven by prohibition. There is absolutely no correlation whatsoever to the production cost of illegal drugs and the end cost to the consumer. The high cost of illegal drugs pays for the risk associated with bringing those drugs to the market. If Dupont can make gunpowder that sells for $30 per pound retail then they could also manufacture methamphetamines for probably the same cost. What makes them expensive is that they are illegal.

The prohibition Advocates say that they don't want to have to be responsible financially for people that ruin themselves with drugs and my reply is that we already are spending that much money if not more in an effort to restrict drugs and to imprison people that ignore the drug laws.

My view is purely based on an economic one and a liberty one. I do not believe it is the place of government to tell adults what they cannot and can choose to consume even if it is extremely harmful to consume that product. I also know with an absolute certainty that as long as there is a very very very very significant profit motive to supply illicit drugs to Consumers then there will always be illicit drugs available to Consumers no matter what civil rights get destroyed in the process of law enforcement trying to stop that trade in illicit drugs. We have been fighting a war on drugs since the summer of 1971 and not a darn thing has changed. Drugs can be had by anyone who wants them anywhere in the United States with zero regulation or oversight.

So no laws, simply because people break them.

No, not that at all. There should be no laws that are ineffective, doubly so when the spin-offs from those laws cause egregious harm to people that aren't committing crimes.

When I was a little kid the thought of the police tearing apart someone's car on the side of the road to search for Contraband was absolutely inconceivable. Now I see it happening at least once per week and it has happened to me multiple times. The Fourth Amendment actually used to mean something and now it effectively means nothing. Because of the War on Drugs the police have taken an adversarial approach to the citizenry and with rare exceptions for people that I know personally I do not trust law enforcement one single bit. The War on Drugs has also been a war on the Civil Rights, immunities, and privileges of citizens that have nothing to do with drugs myself included.

One of my childhood friends and her husband bought a place just outside Durango quite awhile back, they said once pot was legal Durango became a place where a lot of pot heads started hanging out, crime went way up along with pan handlers and homeless people.

Yep, I can confirm this. I was through that area last summer, it's a "toilet" hole now.

I've never really considered that drugs are prohibitively expensive. Many folks who use them are poor, uneducated, and have little money. If they were so expensive how could they afford it? Homeless folks do drugs...how do we explain that?

As long as it is illegal criminal behavior will follow it. Contrary to popular belief so-called legalized marijuana is still highly illegal. Once you Legalize It the profit motive goes away and the criminal element outside of adverse reactions from long-term use goes away at the same time.

The people at the bottom who use drugs will usually either start selling drugs themselves so they can take a portion of what they sell or they resort to committing crimes to raise money to afford drugs.

Here are some of the wonderful benefits of legalization....according to Colorado....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913861/

Section I: Traffic Fatalities & Impaired Driving
Since recreational marijuana was legalized, traffic deaths in which drivers tested positive for marijuana increased 109 percent while all Colorado traffic deaths increased 31 percent.
Since recreational marijuana was legalized, traffic deaths involving drivers who tested positive for marijuana more than doubled from 55 in 2013 to 115 people killed in 2018.
This equates to one person killed every 3 days in 2018 compared to one person killed every 6½ days in 2013.
Since recreational marijuana was legalized, the percentage of all Colorado traffic deaths that were marijuana-related increased from 15 percent in 2013 to 23 percent in 2018.

Section II: Marijuana Use
Since recreational marijuana was legalized:

Past month marijuana use for ages 12 and older increased 58 percent and is 78 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 4th in the nation.
Adult marijuana use increased 94 percent and is 96 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 4th in the nation.
College age marijuana use increased 18 percent and is 48 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 6th in the nation.
Youth marijuana use decreased 14 percent and is 40 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 6th in the nation.

Section III: Public Health
The yearly number of emergency department visits related to marijuana increased 54 percent after the legalization of recreational marijuana (2013 compared to 2017).
The yearly number of marijuana-related hospitalizations increased 101 percent after the legalization of recreational marijuana (2013 compared to 2017).
Marijuana-only exposures more than quadrupled in the six-year average (2013–2018) since recreational marijuana was legalized compared to the six-year average (2007–2012) prior to legalization.
The percent of suicide incidents in which toxicology results were positive for marijuana has increased from 14 percent in 2013 to 23 percent in 2017.

Section IV: Black Market
RMHIDTA Colorado Drug Task Forces (10) conducted 257 investigations of black market marijuana in Colorado resulting in:
○ 192 felony arrests
○ 6.08 tons of marijuana seized
○ 60,091 marijuana plants seized
○ 25 different states the marijuana was destined
Seizures of Colorado marijuana in the U.S. mail system has increased 1,042 percent from an average of 52 parcels (2009–2012) to an average of 594 parcels (2013–2017) during the time recreational marijuana has been legal.

Section V: Societal Impact
Marijuana tax revenue represent approximately nine-tenths of one percent of Colorado’s FY 2018 budget.

^^^^ And I will take all of that and more gladly vs having an ever growing set of government policies and more restrictions on civil rigjts that are brought about trying to fight the endless problem of drugs.

What's not being discussed above is Colorado's population growth versus the number of traffic fatalities. Take that into account and the rate vs the pure numbers drop. Since pot is fat soluble it sticks around in someone's blood for I think about a month. Simply testing positive for marijuana use within the past month doesn't mean a traffic fatality was caused by marijuana use in the past month. I could believe it if it was within 24 hours but not 4 days much left the full length of time that a test can detect marijuana use.

I also have to point out that marijuana is still illegal in all 50 states and US Territories despite what any individual state says about it.

Tell me about all the other laws which should be done away with.

If keeping drugs illegal and more expensive stops one future user, it is far better than making them less expensive and legal with the outcome being only one additional user.

Rational people will sometimes fall prey to what they believe are rational arguments when attempting to sway peoples' minds. Then again, somes jus believe they are smarter than others. Continue on o' erudite one.

Pretty much every federal law outside of the ones dealing directly with the enumerated powers granted to the federal government in the Constitution. At a state level any one of them that attempts to put limitations on anything laid out in the Bill of Rights. Also at a state level the criminal code needs to be simplified. There's no reason to have 20 or 30 different charges that can be applied to the same crime.

you are taking care of the federal side which really has little to do with enforcement of drug laws. What about - "The powers not delegated to the United States by the Constitution, nor prohibited by it to the States, are reserved to the States respectively, or to the people." That little to the states wording can get you.

We have a bit of a chicken or the egg problem here. It could be successfully argued and it's probably true that drugs are more prevalent and available in the consumer Market because of their high price. There are people that have a vested interest in supplying a good that people can get hooked on because it is extremely profitable. Amphetamines didn't become a plague on society until after they were outlawed. Now meth is basically white boy crack that has destroyed rural communities the way crack ran through the black urban areas in the '80s. The laws against methamphetamines had absolutely zero impact on their popularity or spread.

When we see blue cities doing stupid stuff that causes problems and then they double down on those policies and still don't get the results that they thought that they would get all of us roll our eyes at their stupidity. The political right is doing the exact same thing in regards to the War on Drugs. It is a war that it has had disastrous side effects on people that have nothing to do with drugs while at the same time not doing a single thing to stop the availability of drugs on the illicit consumer Market. Right now there is nothing to stop at 12-year-old from buying cocaine or methamphetamines or heroin or ecstasy or marijuana. Underaged people can buy illicit street drugs easier than they can buy alcohol.

Doing drugs is not a "civil right". If that were true, your argument says that you should be able to buy fentanyl, propofol, or whatever else OTC. That's dumb. And where do you draw the line? Would it also be ok for men to have sex with 9 year olds if they consented?
Or for people to fight dogs for enjoyment? What about doing away with speed limits because they slow me down driving to work? I'm sure there are a whole host of "problems" we could solve by legalizing anything and everything, but no one should be so short-sighted to think that doesn't open up a whole new set of problems to deal with.

it's a libertarian mismatch of logic & reason.

Trust me, I know what's there and I support applying the 10th Amendment to every aspect of law. I've pointed out before a constitutional amendment was required to outlaw alcohol. If individual states want to outlaw drugs then more power to them and I say that because I fully support the 10th Amendment. At that point the drug trade simply becomes one of arbitage and the unreal profits will be whittled down to just fat profits. It would resemble the trafficking in cigarettes that is very common in the Northeast.

get over it - prohibition was repealed almost a hundred years ago. They haven't fixed the women voting thing though.

I never said that doing drugs was a civil right and I am adamantly opposed to drug use. What I said is I don't believe it is the government's position to be telling people what to do in regards to consuming and elicit habit forming and dangerous substance.

Regulating drugs whether they be prescription or over the counter needs to be left to the individual states. I suspect if the feds get out of it that a majority of the states would form an interstate compact and have Mirror Image laws from state to state. They may be similar to the existing federal drug laws or they may be considerably more liberal and mirror the laws we have restricting alcohol consumption. I don't know because I don't have a crystal.

I do not believe that grown men or women having sex with children is appropriate. Seeing as how the age of consent varies from 13 years all the way to 18 years in various States ( I just googled it) I would say that we need to come up with a more uniform definition of what a child is versus what a minor is.

I believe speed limits are best set by the engineers that design the roads, that should not be a political decision.

Last I recall most dogs really don't need all that much encouragement to fight amongst each other and some need no encouragement at all. Let dogs be dogs but I do find the thought of organized dog fighting to be quite distasteful and once it crosses over into the territory of animal cruelty it needs to be stopped.

My real problem with the War on Drugs is the spillover onto people that do not have anything to do with drugs such as myself. My civil rights and your civil rights have been eroded massively within our lifetimes and it's almost like no one even notices. The security state apparatuses of the government have virtually unlimited authority to implement any level of force against you including killing you all in the name of fighting drugs. They even do it to people that have nothing to do with drugs; sometimes deliberately, and sometimes by accident. I seem to recall some detectives down in Houston who falsified information about drug purchases just so they could inflate their arrest records. They served a warrant on a couple's house, killed both of the people, and one of them got shot in the process by one of their own guns. Last I recall both of those officers are up on charges for that incident but it took months for them to be called out for those killings and in the process it uncovered literally decades worth of abuse by one of the detectives. If you can guarantee that no mistakes will ever be made again by the police and no one's egos, corruption, or greed gets in the way of treating people fairly then I would accept the restrictions that are placed upon us in the name of the War on Drugs but you can never make that guarantee because it's not possible. That Mantra of "if it just saves one life" is also what the gun grabbers say repeatedly.

How about medical marijuana?

I could care less what other people do. I do recognize that the medical marijuana laws are simply intended to crack the door open for full legalization. You want to smoke, go ahead and smoke. I wouldn't dream of telling you not to do so unless you were sitting on my couch.

Edit: I also find it to be incredibly improbable that marijuana has any real medicinal values. The oils might but any high-grade plant oil would fulfill the same purpose and there's nothing magical about plant oils derived from cannabis.

Who cares if marijuana is laced with fentanyl?

[quote=DocHorton]Here are some of the wonderful benefits of legalization....according to Colorado....

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6913861/

Section I: Traffic Fatalities & Impaired Driving
Since recreational marijuana was legalized, traffic deaths in which drivers tested positive for marijuana increased 109 percent while all Colorado traffic deaths increased 31 percent.
Since recreational marijuana was legalized, traffic deaths involving drivers who tested positive for marijuana more than doubled from 55 in 2013 to 115 people killed in 2018.
This equates to one person killed every 3 days in 2018 compared to one person killed every 6½ days in 2013.
Since recreational marijuana was legalized, the percentage of all Colorado traffic deaths that were marijuana-related increased from 15 percent in 2013 to 23 percent in 2018.

Section II: Marijuana Use
Since recreational marijuana was legalized:

Past month marijuana use for ages 12 and older increased 58 percent and is 78 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 4th in the nation.
Adult marijuana use increased 94 percent and is 96 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 4th in the nation.
College age marijuana use increased 18 percent and is 48 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 6th in the nation.
Youth marijuana use decreased 14 percent and is 40 percent higher than the national average, currently ranked 6th in the nation.

Section III: Public Health
The yearly number of emergency department visits related to marijuana increased 54 percent after the legalization of recreational marijuana (2013 compared to 2017).
The yearly number of marijuana-related hospitalizations increased 101 percent after the legalization of recreational marijuana (2013 compared to 2017).
Marijuana-only exposures more than quadrupled in the six-year average (2013–2018) since recreational marijuana was legalized compared to the six-year average (2007–2012) prior to legalization.
The percent of suicide incidents in which toxicology results were positive for marijuana has increased from 14 percent in 2013 to 23 percent in 2017.

Section IV: Black Market
RMHIDTA Colorado Drug Task Forces (10) conducted 257 investigations of black market marijuana in Colorado resulting in:
○ 192 felony arrests
○ 6.08 tons of marijuana seized
○ 60,091 marijuana plants seized
○ 25 different states the marijuana was destined
Seizures of Colorado marijuana in the U.S. mail system has increased 1,042 percent from an average of 52 parcels (2009–2012) to an average of 594 parcels (2013–2017) during the time recreational marijuana has been legal.

Section V: Societal Impact
Marijuana tax revenue represent approximately nine-tenths of one percent of Colorado’s FY 2018 budget.[/


Sounds like Sodom and Gomorrah.

"I do not believe that grown men or women having sex with children is appropriate." No one arguing that. The reference is that this is not a good thing and therefore illegal, although some out there may want to exercise their rights and engage in it.

"I could care less what other people do." You limiting this only to someone else's usage of medical marijuana or how far would you apply this statement?

Your assertions over cost and people's rights are akin to someone during a flood indicating they only need more water. go up and turn Oregon around and then come back. Those people know what they are doing, but something has gone awry. They could use some help. You know what they say about "like minds".

blkt2 must have a heck of a post count by now.

Pretty darn far. If you're not harming another person or taking their stuff I pretty much don't care about anything that someone else does if it's not connected to me.

Please explain to me exactly what the War on Drugs has accomplished? Have drugs gone away? Is cocaine not for sale in all 50 states and us territories? How about heroin? How about meth? How about marijuana? How about ecstasy? After 50 years of warfare and a few hundred billion dollars spent fighting that war you would think that at least a difference had been made but if it has I sure can't tell because drugs are everywhere, crime is rampant because of it, and the police arrest people every single day for drugs and it seems to have no effect.

I was just being facetious with those examples. Obviously I don't think any of those things should be legal, even though they could be considered an intrusion on a person's "liberties". Some laws, even though restrictive on individual choice, are for the greater good of our country and mankind.

I can't believe Hud, DnB, and myself are all on the same side of an argument....let me look outside for pigs flying.

I remember in a bunch of States small businesses being forced to close while large corporations were allowed to keep their stores open, for the greater good. Once you start to determine or let politicians determine what restrictions can be placed on people for the greater good than there is no limit to what they can force you to do or not to do because after all it's for the greater good. There are certain restrictions that we can all agree on such as not banging children, stealing other people's stuff, not assaulting other people or murdering them, things of that nature. But once it becomes an opinion that one person holds and another person may not hold and the only reason the act or the substance is bad is simply because you feel that it is bad then those laws need to go away. The same urge that makes people want to ban a gas stove because it's for the greater good is the same urge that people on the political right use to justify the War on Drugs. The left uses the same argument trying to outlaw firearms or countless other things. As founded our nation was never intended to have an omnipotent government that's had its tentacles into every single aspect of our daily lives. I challenge you to look around the room that you are sitting in and pick up a single object that doesn't have page after page after page of regulations written about it. It's not supposed to be this way.

Edit: I have pointed this out previously but no one seems to understand why I pointed it out. When this country was founded there were only nine things that were felonies. That's it. Now there are so many felonies that no one even knows what all of them are. It's even worse than the federal tax code.

Just like whiskey though that is an exaggeration as I have never seen anyone high on pot act as screwed up as I have seen drunk people get. The just like whiskey comment means you can drink responsibly or smoke responsibly.

Your edit is wildly out of touch. There is tons of proof that substances found in the pot plant are both safe and useful for many ailments.

I've got a buddy out in West Texas who's in his early 80s and has been a career prosecutor since he graduated law school. He is still working and will probably work until he drops dead in the courtroom. He told me all the crazy violence that he sees today from meth is the same stuff he saw 50 years ago from people drinking. Bad people are always going to be bad. Bad people are always going to harm other people. Trash is always going to be trash. It doesn't really matter what their drug of choice is that day but I believe that long run alcohol abuse probably isn't as harmful as fast as meth very obviously is.

The Chinese are in it with the cartels and they want us dead.

Id really like 2 things happen, legalize weed and be able to purchase a suppressor and walk out with it same day

I don't think that is asking too much

In my opinion meth/speed or whatever it is nowadays is the most societal destructive substance introduced into our society. When they outlawed diet pills it was just like alcohol prohibition, the black market stepped in and made things worse. I agree alcohol is minor league compared to Opiates, fentanyl and meth. I never knew anyone who had a problem with cocaine or that I noticed anyway. Crack never crossed my path either.

I concur.

It would be funny to watch a doper using the silencer as a pipe

^^^^^ Dear god, you are killing me. Funniest thing I've seen all day but today was a crappy day anyway.

Fully agree.

So let me get this straight - provide for societal acceptance and everything will be better? Is that it?

Was in Colorado last summer, took the fam to a Renaissance festival outside Co springs. Upon entering there was a celtic group playing inside the entrance. We stopped to watch, the guy standing next to us was smoking a joint bigger than my thumb. Nobody cared,nobody got hurt, my kids were not traumatized.

I would have moved my kids away from that individual.

Cool

I's just that if a parent doesn't move them away from it, then the kiddoes won't move themselves away from it later when the parents aren't there. Just a thought.

I watched way too many of my friends smoke that weed, seems to take your drive away from life and dull your intelligence

For me I can't stand the stuff, and the skunk weed smell upsets my stomach, one reason I hate Las Vegas the smell is everywhere there outside

That's called desensitization.

Seems that could be called relaxation.

Odd really used to be Nevada had very strict drug laws. I have done a lot of trapping and the smell of skunk isn't a big deal to me.

I've always likened marijuana use to a hold button for your life. With rare exceptions whatever you were doing when you began smoking weed is pretty much what you're going to be doing years down the road if you're still smoking it.

There was a line in a movie where a man was complaining to his girlfriend about her smoking weed at 10 in the morning and said that it will steal her ambition. She looked at him and said not if you're ambition is to get high and watch TV.

And vote demrat.......

This was an interesting nearly 2 hour read. Got to learn a little more about people on the forum.
Carry on.

^^^^ In the movie she didn't get to vote for anybody because she got killed.

I know a lot of guys that are sole Proprietors in their businesses that smoke from the moment they wake up until they go to sleep. The one thing they have in common is they all vote Republican.

Weed has its uses. I have a dog with aggressive bone cancer that is dissolving the bone in her hind leg. I bet she only has a week left in her before we have to put her down. My neighbor gave me a great big peanut butter cookie that is an edible last night and we've been giving her chunks of the cookie as opposed to the painkiller/sedative the vet gave us that was making her barf and convulse and we are stuffing chicken nuggets and french fries down her throat as fast as she wants to eat them. Her last few days are going to be very pleasant ones if we can help it.

?

If that was directed at me I don't understand what you were asking.

Drugs being illegal tends to show a societal distaste for them. It tends to work that way with punitive measures. Making them legal would show an acceptance many would not appreciate.

Seeing as how gross sales of illicit drugs in the world excides the gross sales of General Motors by nearly 4 to 1 every year I would say that drugs are pretty well accepted.

Then the votes to do as per your desires should be easy enough to obtain.

I don't recall having ever voted on a law.

Quit playing word games. You just can't be that ignorant. Through the representatives you vote for, laws get passed all the time on the local, state and national level.

Interesting...


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^^^ Above is the example of what I mean when I say that people should have the freedom to make their own decisions even if those decisions are very bad for their health. Legal or illegal people are going to do whatever they want to do whenever they want to do it and simply face the consequences later.

The flaw in your logic is you are ignoring what it does to society what it does to children what it does to neighborhoods. You keep acting like no one else has done it right, it has been tried throughout the world. It fails every time. It’s that simple reality does not care about your feelings people that want drug use legal ignore reality and pretend like if they did it correctly he would have a good outcome, just like your argument fails in reality, so does people that think Socialism has not been done correctly?m. It fails because reality does not care about your feelings. Tobacco burden on society is a thing, but it doesn’t kill 22 year-old mothers of 2. It kills 50 year-old mothers of two after they have raise their kids that is a huge difference.

John Adams-“Our Constitution was made only for a moral and religious People. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other.”

Somes are smarter than others.

The flaw in your logic is that all of the things you're describing and bemoaning are happening anyway despite a 50 plus year declared war on drugs that has permeated every level of society even amongst people that have nothing to do with drugs. Drug profits are fueling drug demand and those profits are driven by the fact that the drugs are illegal. This is very simple economics that are understood by pretty much everyone but for some reason when it comes to drugs people have a blind spot to reality.

No argument there. I’ve never made that argument. That’s what you think I think. I’ve never once said it. The argument is what happens post legalization. You act like we’ll all be singing a Merl haggard song. “We'll all be drinkin' that free Bubble Up And eatin' that rainbow stew”

That’s not the real world results.

There's been too many people in this thread to keep up with what any one person thinks so I do apologize.

We already have the real world results and it's what we're seeing today with widespread rampant drug abuse that is not regulated in any form or fashion.

It's obvious that the demand for drugs is never going to go away so we have to attack the profits that the drug trade generates if we want to have any effect on the drug trade.

I want the incredibly wealthy transnational criminal cartels to cease to exist or to be greatly diminished because their profits are gone. I also want law enforcement in the United States to stop treating people like they are an adversary because they think everyone has meth in their pocket.

Drugs and abortion
If that is what you want to do
I don't care

What's the solution?

Arresting and putting in jail people like we are now doesn't seem to be helping right?

Maybe do the same as they do in Singapore?

I considered just executing people when you catch them with drugs. Singapore as you mentioned does that but they still have a problem with drugs for some reason.

The drug issue has many separate issues all wrapped into one but we're only using one tactic to deal with it and that's a law enforcement one. Each aspect of the drug trade needs to be attacked individually. The easiest and largest target to take down are the profits that drive the violent crime associated with the drug trade and probably also drives the market itself because the people who manufacture and distribute the drugs have a vested interest in widening their customer base to increase their profits.

I don't know what the answer is and neither does anyone else but obviously what we're doing isn't the solution or it would have worked by now.

Just a guess, but probably 100% of the people that want to use pot but not Fentanyl.

Build a wall around El Paso, deport them there and Portland. Stuffs basically legal there anyways

I always figured we could build voluntary prisons that people can check themselves into and have an unlimited access to any drug that they want. They can leave if they pass a drug test.

That is a very funny statement, you actually think the representatives we vote for pass laws in our interest and not theirs? You should back away from the pipe.

Yall still talking about this?

My thoughts exactly. I kept on seeing this at the top of the Active Threads. Nobody on either side is going to change the other side's mind.

Have you ever heard the old saying about wrestling with a pig?

I just Googled it.

Know it well. It's usually affiliated with Firemen.

Lots of psychopaths in this thread. Some real despicable people here.

So, you’ve been wrestling with pigs?

I was a varsity wrestler in both high school and college. I've also had a few blind dates with women that were chunkier than I preferred although the evenings did end well.

What makes a person a psychopath that you have seen in this thread?

Is it the side that thinks that the solution is an ever heavier boot on the citizenry's neck?

Is it the side that says enough is enough and that adults can make up their own mind and the government needs to mind their own business?

This POS right here is one



But besides him, it’s the usual POS “dentist” & “H-bone”.

Some truly disgusting people on here.

Are you drunk before 9 am?

Did you eat paint chips as a kid? Suffered any major hits to the head?

No on both counts.

Can’t believe Max Flav would even consider blanket and Doc to be worthy of my low level.

What a miserable way to exist. Get up, see who you can put down on them internets. I hope Flacidus can eventually find his way to peace.

What the heck did y’all say

What am I missing over here? Heard it’s getting chippy.

Are we pro fentanyl or anti fentanyl?

^^^^

There will always be people who think it is possible to 'Pick up a turd by the clean end'. Just ignore them.

I'm pro letting people partake in whatever they want...... even laced marijuana..... I stand my my statement. Who cares! Apparently this thought process is controversial

Are these people knowingly taking fentanyl marijuana or is it added, unbeknownst to them.

It is very concerning we are having 70000 opioid overdose deaths a year. That’s a lot of young people.
Kids do dumb things, make dumb decisions. Shouldn’t be a death sentence.