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Weed Bill?


Omegahero09

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Oh, boy.

 

Congress is looking to give us the freedom to pay more taxes. Just as a footnote, you will pay around 40% in various sales and excise taxes on marijuana in Colorado. If this bill passes, it means that federal government will get another 25% cut, so 65% taxation for your freedom to smoke a particular plant.

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Still though, is it better to smoke in hiding? Or to buy off the American mob with taxes? Besides, if one is thrifty you could just grow your own and not pay the 65% until they make you get a license or something

 

Technically, people still have to smoke in hiding as it is against the law to smoke marijuana in public places and in your car. Of course, these restrictions aren't very well enforced so you still smell it and see it every where you go. Youths are puffing on vaporizers as they wait for the bus or walk down the street, just like any other smoker would do.

 

If I were still using, I would want to pay extra to keep it on the black market. It's not much cheaper to buy it legally with all the taxes. I spent around the same price on an eighth ounce of some popular and decently potent strains delivered to my door the summer before it was legalized in CO. It may be that supply was extremely ramped up in anticipation of legalization and the bureaucratic red tape was holding the equilibrium of the free market.

 

Legalization, in the manner it is being rolled out, gets to make politicians look like heroes of libertarian (or classical liberal) values when what is going on is the creation of another government sponsored drug cartel. If you attempt to become an independent unlicensed marijuana dealer, eventually you will get shut down, and jailed.

 

The threat of the gun is still there, the media and government are just painting it like everyone has a little more freedom when the opposite is true. The government is a little more free to control the monopoly of distribution while keeping and expanding the revenue stream. Before this paradigm shift, the revenue stream went through the corruption of police departments, and kickbacks for enforcement to look the other way or take down the up and coming hustlers.

 

If you think that perhaps the War on Drugs is over, you are mistaken. While a lot of largesse now comes from the taxpayers paying for the War on Terror, I'm sure the DEA and local and state police departments still want to get their beaks wet on drug money.

 

Alcohol, too, was once a controlled substance during Prohibition, and now it is legal and highly regulated under the stewardship of the BATF. In my perspective, alcoholism is a very troublesome social problem. I'm not exactly sure if it was prevalent before Prohibition and before the BATF, but today it is estimated that 5 million parents in the US have alcohol dependence issues, which makes them statistically more likely to smoke marijuana.

 

Soon the BATF will be in charge of marijuana regulation federally. It makes you wonder if in two to three generations, we will be reading about marijuana dependence in the media.

 

 

Updated February 14, 2014.

 

A new report from the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA) shows that almost 5 million alcohol-dependent or alcohol-abusing parents have at least one child living at home with them. These parents were more likely to smoke cigarettes, use illicit drugs and report household turbulence than other parents.

 

"Children living in homes with alcohol-dependent or abusing parents are at high risk of also becoming alcohol and drug abusers, with the potential of perpetuating the disease when they have their own children," SAMHSA Administrator Charles Curie said.

 

"The good news is children of alcoholic parents can be helped to build on their strengths and develop resilience to overcome their difficulties. We must also reach out to the parents and offer them an opportunity for recovery by encouraging them to enter and remain in substance abuse treatment."

 

SAMHSA released this new report during this year's observance of Children of Alcoholics Week. SAMHSA also partnered with the National Association for Children of Alcoholics (NACoA) this week to develop and distribute materials to community-based organizations to help them initiate local activities that can help reach children and youth who live in family environments dominated by alcohol.

 

The data, derived from the 2002 National Survey on Drug Use and Health, show that the almost five million parents with problems with alcohol who have children under age 18 at home constitute over a quarter (28 percent) of all adults with alcohol dependence or abuse. The majority of these parents (62 percent) are male and most of the parents (69 percent) were married.

 

The standard for determining alcohol dependence or alcohol abuse is the criteria in the American Psychiatric Association's Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-IV).

 

The data consistently show that parents who misuse alcohol are more likely to also use illicit drugs. The data indicate that over 35 percent of parents with past year alcohol dependence or abuse used illicit drugs in the past year, compared with only 11 percent of parents without alcohol problems.

 

Parents with alcohol problems were more likely to use marijuana, 25.8 percent compared with 7.1 percent; prescription drugs used non-medically, 16.3 percent versus 5.0 percent; cocaine, 9.5 percent versus 1.2 percent; hallucinogens, 3.1 percent versus 0.6 percent; and heroin 0.4 percent versus 0.1 percent.

 

Parents with alcohol problems were more likely to use cigarettes, 57.9 percent versus 30.6 percent, and were more likely to report living in turbulent homes. However, past year physical violence between parents and their spouses or partners did not differ significantly by whether or not the parent was alcohol-dependent or alcohol-abusing.

 

The report, "Alcohol Dependence or Abuse Among Parents with Children Living in the Home" was developed from SAMHSA's National Survey on Drug Use and Health. This survey interviews 68,126 respondents in their homes.

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Technically, people still have to smoke in hiding as it is against the law to smoke marijuana in public places and in your car. Of course, these restrictions aren't very well enforced so you still smell it and see it every where you go. Youths are puffing on vaporizers as they wait for the bus or walk down the street, just like any other smoker would do.

 

If I were still using, I would want to pay extra to keep it on the black market. It's not much cheaper to buy it legally with all the taxes. I spent around the same price on an eighth ounce of some popular and decently potent strains delivered to my door the summer before it was legalized in CO. It may be that supply was extremely ramped up in anticipation of legalization and the bureaucratic red tape was holding the equilibrium of the free market.

 

The threat of the gun is still there, the media and government are just painting it like everyone has a little more freedom when the opposite is true. The government is a little more free to control the monopoly of distribution while keeping and expanding the revenue stream. Before this paradigm shift, the revenue stream went through the corruption of police departments, and kickbacks for enforcement to look the other way or take down the up and coming hustlers.

 

If you think that perhaps the War on Drugs is over, you are mistaken. While a lot of largesse now comes from the taxpayers paying for the War on Terror, I'm sure the DEA and local and state police departments still want to get their beaks wet on drug money.

 

Oh man, you're right on. Thank you for the perspective, tbh I never really thought that far ahead in terms of just how much the state would profit off of drug legalization. Go figure..

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This quasi legalization is a bureaucrats dream and a consumer's nightmare as ETU hinted at in earlier post. It gives unproductive folk AKA govt. a reason to exist. Think of how many rules and brow beating we currently endure with "legal" alcohol.  "Legal" weed means the political parasites have another excuse to micromanage every aspect of your life for "your protection."
They will call it responsible use.  The reality is you must bow to their every whim to enjoy your freedom privilege while paying them extortion money they will call taxes. 

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