Marijuana laws.....

[Brian Roth]

I decided to start a new thread, based from reply 107:

https://groupdiy.com/threads/wtf-florida.83321/page-6
I'm an Okie now living in Kansas.....flyover for all the folks on the coasts!

More than a few friends of mine served time in prison because of pot. In the Bad Olde Dayze in OK, possession of a joint could land you in prison with a felony rap.

I was SHOCKED a few years ago when an Okla initiative petition passed by popular vote to allow medicinal. Hell, Okla was perhaps the last state in the country to legalize liquor in the late 1950's.

But, the screechs from preachers and their reliable Republican allies :

https://kfor.com/news/your-local-election-hq/recreational-marijuana-failed-now-what/
One item in that article I linked:

"In addition to marijuana legalization, the measure would also allow Oklahomans previously convicted of marijuana-related crimes to apply for resentencing, reversing, modifying, and expunging of those convictions."

Sigh....over many years, more than a few friends did time in prison for mere possession and now have a felony on their list. Tough to find a REAL job (even if you worked in prison at a REAL job besides making license plates).

I was lucky...I used to smoke "wacky backy" in The Day but never got busted. But HELL....all those felony convictions for mere possesion created a whole bunch of convicted felons who will never get work at a decent job.

Yes, I hear "well pull yourself by your own bootstraps"....but being a felon cuts 99% of that away.

Bri

 

[Ó Draighnáin]

You got me, I thought this was going to be a potentiometer thread!

What happened to some of your friends was truly unfortunate. I feel for them.

 

[Brian Roth]

You got me, I thought this was going to be a potentiometer thread!

What happened to some of your friends was truly unfortunate. I feel for them.

OK.....my thread title wasn't meant to be click bait. Just a jump from another thread.....

Bri

 

[scott2000]

Going to start listing my pot stash one day

 

[Gold]

I can hardly believe the current state of things. Multiple pot stores have opened in my neighborhood in the last year. The war on drugs had a lot of collateral damage.

 

[JohnRoberts]

I favor decriminalizing marijuana and some recreational drugs, but as usual the government has screwed up even that good idea.... If/when marijuana is made legal, the criminal marijuana trade "should" dry up and eliminate the criminal element.... but taxes and regulation have provided an umbrella for illegal marijuana sales to still prosper under. I just saw a news clip this week showing bales of marijuana being smuggled up across the porous Mexican border. This tells me legal marijuana is still too expensive

I would be apprehensive about employees being regular smokers and operating heavy machinery but that's just another difficulty about managing young employees these days.

I would much prefer talking about pot(entiometer) tapers.... instead of yet another victim class.

I don't even know what the marijuana laws are in my current state, and don't care because it has been decades since I partaked of any wacky tobacky, and I likes my Johnny beer better.

JR

PS: Speaking of victims if you have noticed an surplus of TV commercials from ambulances chasers offering to help file claims about Camp LeJeune drinking water. Its because recent legislation expanded who could file to sue the government (aka suing taxpayers). Veteren's groups and republican lawmakers are trying to cap the contingency fee lawyers can charge. The feeding frenzy of TV ads suggests the lawyers are expecting a juicy payday.

 

[zebra50]

"I would much prefer talking about pot(entiometer) tapers..."

That's why I clicked on this topic! I'll go away again now.

 

[Gold]

One benefit if legalization is that there are no longer large amounts of helicopters looking for grow sites on state land in the Adirondacks every September and October. It's usually whisper quiet and I like it that way.

 

[john12ax7]

But, the screechs from preachers and their reliable Republican allies :

I wish more "religious" folks would read the Bible and I wish more "conservative" folks would read the constitution. If so things like the ridiculous war on drugs wouldn't happen. We would have a more compassionate and tolerant society.

 

[pucho812]

I’m with the other members who thought this was about potentiometers. That said, I find pot fairly harmless. The only real way it will kill you is if a ton of it hit you in the head or fell ontop of you.
It’s a gateway drug that leads you down the path of food.
But at the same time the illegal unlicensed pot shop next to the studio causes us grief. Their customers insist on parking in our car park and when asked to move try and pull the I’m tough and will mess you up routine.
Asking politely they refuse to move or at best give it will only be 5 minutes.
Anyway I really feel it’s not worth going after. There are far more dangerous drugs out there.

 

[user 41968]

The Chinese now raise most of the pot in Oklahoma.

 

[Tubetec]

30 years ago here in Ireland it was mostly hashish that people smoked , it wasnt even real , it was based on a highly pure extract of the canabis plant from places like the Leb and Syria , that made it easy to smuggle , it was then reconstituted by having extra plant based materials added in after it arrived at its destination . Typically it only contained a few % THC in the end at best , and its trade was directly funding troubles both here and in the middle east .
Over the years the weed became more and more popular and its THC content keeps getting higher ,
I believe in Holland they wont allow weed above around 22% even be sold legally ,
but I have a few friends in the US who tell me weed with 25% thc content is readily available , and hashish that goes upto 60% .
Theres no doubt about it these newer strains cause more problems , kids end up with the dealers at their parents door demanding money for weed which ended up smoked and not getting paid for .
Just like alcohol , some people have a bad reaction to weed , its not so much about the substance itself , more the personality and an addictive predisposition .

I recently found out Thailand has decriminalised weed entirely after lock down to try and rebuild the tourist industry . I know of one guy , payed a visit to Thailand around 25 years ago , they arrived at the hotel where a local offered them bags of weed , two minutes after their bags were delivered the cops stormed the place , he ended up in jail for around 3 months before they could get him out and as far as I know monnies had to be wired in the form of a bribe to make that happen . Both the cops and the criminals were taking their share of the spoils .

Its really difficult to get prescribed weed for medical reasons in this country still , despite tons of evidence of children who suffer seizures getting great benefits from it , where the usual pharmaceutical meds used to treat the conditions had more negative side effects than anything good .

I have a few friends over the years whos lives were destroyed by prescription meds , they'd have smoked and drank away for years without major issues , then later they get diagnosed with some kind of personality dissorder or told they were 'on the spectrum' ADD or ADHD , put on anti anxiety antipsychotic, anti depressant meds , usually a mix of several kinds ,
They went downhill very fast after that .
The medical establishment refutes any suggestion that its the pills are at fault , in many cases where people lost the plot the blame is layed firmly at the door of an underlying mental illness , not due to the fact that their simply wasnt the man power within the health system to give them the councilling they needed and they were simply loaded upto the gills with scripted meds and their state of mind wasnt properly monitored after the treatment started .

Sadly since covid the number of scripts filled out for these sorts of medications rose dramatically and yes were destined to have many more people falling appart at the seams , social media plays its part also , fanning the flames and creating a fake benchmark that people feel the need to live upto . Sowing the seeds of discontent is good for business ,but it leaves a trail of personal disasters in its wake for the people involved , big pharma is left off the hook everytime .

 

[Tubetec]

I used know a guy from the US before , he passed away about 18 months ago ,
he'd served time on home soil during the Vietnam era , he told me the squaddies teas and coffees were made from contaminated ground water while the officers drinking water was brought in from further afield , the officers seemed to like him around for some reason . Anyway he suffered all kinds health issues later in life due to his exposure on the base .

Im not really sure the point you were making John , but surely a government has to take responsibility for its mistakes , even if its only decades later the truth emerges .

 

[user 133392]

In order to not disappoint members looking for pot laws in other jurisdictions I took it upon myself to post Japanese pot laws.

 

[AnalogPackrat]

I can totally understand your frustration with the legal system's handling of marijuana possession. It's crazy to think that people have gone to jail for something as harmless as a joint. I'm glad that Oklahoma has taken a step forward by legalizing medicinal marijuana, but it's still not enough for those who have already been convicted. I wanted to mention something that might be helpful for your friends who are dealing with chronic pain as a result of their convictions.

ChatGPT, is that you?

 

[sodderboy]

Ha-ha! Prolly.

The state by state de-criminalization of skank is really about creating more chaos in our society, between the criminal/financial-local/federal law enforcement ramifications, and the fact that now there's Bread and Circuses, AND WEED fueling a major veer away from winning. US Americans really cannot handle it responsibly. It's but one part of a multidirectional assault on the republic.

Part of that chaos fuel will be the anger of those with a weed felony on their record. The states have not dealt with the unintended consequences there, what a surprise! They are supposedly giving licenses in NY to those with criminal convictions for weed, and to others for "equity". Any of those well deserving folks though are still bankrolled by some evil person with the seed $$. Another UC is the $$ itself. Everything has to be cash transactions because any electronic transaction for a class ? drug is a federal crime. So you have these huge armed security industries built to handle a massive cash biz infrastructure, with their own banks to boot. Ripe targets I would say.

The mess is intended, and successful so far. Sod the weed, I need a friggin' beer! Oh, it's not 0930 yet. . .
Mike