Rolling Cannabis Politics Thread

Hey, I'm all for opening up the question for a thorough public debate, but for 90% of voters the only way to initiate a debate is for some dramatic story to capture everyone's attention and focus it on the issue for a week or so. Whatever that dramatic story happens to be, it sets the framework for the discussion, and frankly, nothing about this dynamic is conducive to rational thinking, so we can only hope the irrational catalyst it provides for the debate will push people's emotions in favor of taking the rational side of the question.

It is a nice thought to "ignore the people who can't have a serious conversation about marijuana", because that kind of discussion favors ending the prohibition. Unfortunately, the general public has been fed so many slabs of television news about the horrors of drugs, and cop show plots fueled by evil druggies, and gossipy magazine articles and propaganda of every stripe in the popular media, that you can't just impose a whole new paradigm on them without resistance.

Even if our current set of politicians suddenly agreed that ending prohibition would be best, a new set of demagogues could easily supplant them, so long as the general public thinks prohibition is necessary to save them from druggies on crime sprees. This is precisely the sort of 'unserious', even ridiculous, idea that "people who can't have a serious conversation" still hold. But you can't wish those folks away. Changing enough of the public's mind means engaging with them over a long period.

Maybe the time really is right. I don't know. But I'm not averse to trying to launch as much sense into the nation as possible and then seeing how much it has the capacity to absorb.

there are a lot of people there whose symptoms could be alleviated by medical marijuana

hoo boy

I can't imagine how much weed you would have to smoke to cure the fact that you live in florida

^Post of the week!

<3

I actually kind of like Florida, but I couldn't just leave that dangling there.

last week's FRONTLINE had a 25 min segment on the current legal and political situation in california

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/the-pot-republic/

i enjoyed

^^that link streams the whole thing

At last, the field of genomics has something to offer Cheech and Chong. DNA sequencing hit a new high last night with the midnight release of the Cannabis sativa genome. The raw sequence was posted on Amazon’s EC2 public cloud computing service by a young company called Medicinal Genomics, which aims to explore the genomes of therapeutic plants.

http://www.scientificamerican.com/article.cfm?id=marijuana-plant-sequenced

High technology, etc.

Looking to make a fucking mint off of a more suitable synthetic that can be marketed to big pham for millions

hope they do indica next

fuck a more suitable synthetic, imo

We already have mutant nuclear weed, we don't need pharma. Weed is more like wine varietals and styles and pharmaceuticals will just end up being everclear/vodka.

Honestly, who would prefer a chemical to a naturally growing plant? Gross.
Also the politics of that: super duper gross.

naturally growing plant

I'm not sure one could describe most of the weed I see these days as 'naturally growing'.

If it grows out of the dirt, it's naturally growing, right? I mean, it may be a mutant variety, but it's grooooowing like plants do. I mean, I don't know that much about it tbh, but I imagine that it doesn't grow in a petri dish or a machine?

"natural" is a subjective term

Actually, a lot of hydroponic shit does kind of grow out of a petri dish.

I don't know that much about it tbh

I somehow misread this as about THC, lol.

I'd still rather artisinalol weed than some Monsanto fuckery, anyday.

i think the key thing is that as a patient you can grow your own and exercise some control over the process, but no way you can synthesize pills

after my 10 year experience with SSRIs - oh, long term, possibly permanent sexual side effects? discontinuation syndrome? elevated risk of suicidal thoughts? - i can understand people wanting to take more control over the process

Like I said about wine above, different weed has really different effects and knowing how to choose and how to dose is really important to me.

so here is a cutting-edge medicinal setup that with luck might yield ~ 1 lb/month, enough for about 25 patients?

obviously the plant would never grow like that "naturally", it would die under its own weight

whether you call that "gardening" or "agriculture" or "growing in a machine" or something more ominous like "nightmare mutant frankenstein weed" is up to you

fuck a more suitable synthetic, imo

of course! But you know that as soon as big pharmacy can come up with a “suitable” synthetic then it puts the kibosh on any talk of medicinal marijuana in its current form and that changes the conversation to a purely recreational aspect.

fuck that, there's no such thing as "purely recreational aspect"

f you guys by the way for even being able to go to a weed store.

seriously though, when big pharma tries that, a nation of people is going to stand up and sit the fuck down with that. if i want to manage my blood pressure with a glass of red wine instead of a statin pill that's my goddamn right.

after a crazy 40 year boom big pharma is going to get its ass handed to it with this coming medicare thing so i don't expect they'll be guiding public policy on cannabis

haha stand up and SAY ...

fuck that, there's no such thing as "purely recreational aspect"

i know!
this is what they will say though "hey we have this pill now, there is no need for you guys to use this plant anymore, unless you just want to get HIGH"

No, we'll be all stoned, stand up all outraged, and then sit back down to try to remember why.

xpost

Aerosol, that's what they've been saying since the 80's.

seeing as "GETTING HIGH" hurts no one and is generally part of the deal with many existing mood disorder / anxiety medications i don't see they have a leg to stand on

also thank god for fiscal crisis and chaos in mexico, seems like we are *maybe* waking up from the "drug war" nightmare?

dude! look at what goes on here. you're over in CA going to your weed store and shit while people are getting busted for a couple of grams in THE BIG CITY
http://cityroom.blogs.nytimes.com/2011/08/17/council-members-call-for-change-to-marijuana-possession-law/

my co op gave free t shirts away a little while ago and I saw some woman in my building walking around with one on and I was like hey I go there too, and she was like, what, and I was like your shirt, I go to that co op and she was like oh a friend of mine just gave this to me no wonder people have been smiling and talking to me more today

another reason not to hate california

http://batzbatz.com/uploads/posts/2010-02/1266562133_1997-take-california.jpg

i moved from california in 2002 before there were any dispensaries really :(

I think maybe it's a little too cynical to assume that this is just about making a pill that they can patent. Sequencing the genomes of various medicinal plants can help lead to all sorts of further scientific understanding and medical breakthroughs.

I think maybe it's a little too cynical to assume that this is just about making a pill that they can patent.

It's just cynical enough. Pharmaceutical companies aren't non-profits!

actually ... i don't see the scientific application at all, unless they plan to breed cannabis or identify its relatives

my understanding was that the application of genome sequencing was studying the genome without worrying about the details of the traits

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/18/nyregion/parents-minor-marijuana-arrests-lead-to-child-neglect-cases.html?_r=1&ref=nyregion

Disgusting.

http://gothamist.com/2011/09/24/ray_kelly_to_nypd_marijuana_is_decr.php

I'm pretty convinced that Bloomberg is the number one impediment to more liberal marijuana policy in NYC. Too bad he's gonna be mayor for life.

Fed about to come down hard in cali ?

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rob-kampia/obama-from-first-to-worst_b_1001781.html

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2011/10/11/war-on-weed-obama-marijuana_n_1005483.html

http://www.scpr.org/programs/airtalk/2011/10/10/20970/doj-vs-pot

discussion from yesterday w/ one of the u.s. attorneys involved w/ the california shutdowns. i was thinking the reporting on these particular prosecutions has been (slightly) hysterical, the dude is all over the place with some of his answers but that's still my impression.

wanted to post this on one of the other active political threads but googleproofed here so:
at this point i'm pretty much ready to vote for the first candidate that promises to legalize marijuana no matter what party

It would appear that Obama is innoculating himself from campaign accusations of being soft on druggies and of probably being a secret druggie himself, which would certainly help explain his embrace of communism, Islam, and America-hating to a lot of folks.

Mordy, you'll be interested in voting for whatever candidate the libertarians drag in, I guess.

Who I mostly voted for in 2010: http://www.theatlantic.com/daily-dish/archive/2010/08/the-anti-prohibition-party/183998/