US Officials Look To Move Marijuana To Lower-Risk Drug Category 220
The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has recommended easing restrictions on marijuana, a department spokesperson said on Wednesday, following a review request from the Biden Administration last year. Reuters reports: The scheduling recommendation for marijuana was provided to the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA) on Tuesday as part of President Biden's directive to HHS, the spokesperson said. "As part of this process, HHS conducted a scientific and medical evaluation for consideration by DEA. DEA has the final authority to schedule or reschedule a drug under the Controlled Substances Act. DEA will now initiate its review," a DEA spokesperson said.
Marijuana is currently classified as a schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, along with drugs like heroin and LSD. HHS is recommending reclassifying marijuana to say it has a moderate to low potential for dependence and a lower abuse potential, which would put it in a class with ketamine and testosterone. "If marijuana classification were to ease at the federal level, that could allow major stock exchanges to list businesses that are in the cannabis trade, and potentially allow foreign companies to begin selling their products in the United States," notes Reuters.
While marijuana remains illegal on the federal level, nearly 40 U.S. states have legalized it in some form. According to a survey last year from the Pew Research Center, "an overwhelming share of U.S. adults (88%) say either that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use by adults (59%) or that it should be legal for medical use only (30%)."
Marijuana is currently classified as a schedule I drug under the Controlled Substances Act, meaning it has a high potential for abuse and no accepted medical use, along with drugs like heroin and LSD. HHS is recommending reclassifying marijuana to say it has a moderate to low potential for dependence and a lower abuse potential, which would put it in a class with ketamine and testosterone. "If marijuana classification were to ease at the federal level, that could allow major stock exchanges to list businesses that are in the cannabis trade, and potentially allow foreign companies to begin selling their products in the United States," notes Reuters.
While marijuana remains illegal on the federal level, nearly 40 U.S. states have legalized it in some form. According to a survey last year from the Pew Research Center, "an overwhelming share of U.S. adults (88%) say either that marijuana should be legal for medical and recreational use by adults (59%) or that it should be legal for medical use only (30%)."
Marijuana Amnesty (Score:5, Insightful)
Indian legalization (Score:5, Interesting)
Re:Indian legalization (Score:5, Insightful)
Yeah that was a bad bad time for the world of drugs. The DEAs international efforts pretty much singlehandedly turned mexicos drug trade from "Weed growing farmers occasionally hooking up with low level gangsters to move shit across the border" into the full blown multi billion dollar cartels that plague mexico to this day.
The "war on drugs" has cost millions of lives plunged entire regions of south and central america into crime and destitution, funded terrorists and dictators and left millions of drug users at permanent risk of imprisonment , or in some countries worse, and beyond the reach of medical intervention.
All because politicians on both sides of the divide refuse to learn the lessons of the prohibition era. And the galling thing is, those fuckers know it. They just dont wanna fix it, becuase "tough on crime" gets votes, even though innevitably tough-on-crime just makes crime worse.
Re:Indian legalization (Score:5, Insightful)
They just dont wanna fix it, becuase "tough on crime" gets votes, even though innevitably tough-on-crime just makes crime worse.
That's one reason, but a more serious reason is that the war on drugs produces a lot of funding that they don't want to give up. It also provides a lot of opportunities for cops to conduct otherwise illegal searches. And of course, let us not forget ASSET FORFEITURE.
Re:Indian legalization (Score:4, Insightful)
This.
Prohibition profits the drug cartels, the police, and any politicians taking bribes from either.
Hell, the War on Drugs was begun explicitly to allow the federal government to crack down on hippies, black activists, other counter-culture groups that were vocally opposing the Vietnam War and other government abuses at home. They can't vote you out of power from prison.
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Yet pot and other drugs were made illegal with the stroke of a pen????
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No, they probably would have told you that over 90% of drugs smuggled across the border with Mexico come through major border crossings [cato.org] and that it is a waste of money to build fencing through remote areas where drugs are not being smuggled
Of course, any republican knows that it is really about fearing foreigners (who clean our houses, grow our food, landscape out communities and cook our food), and doing stupid, expensive things to allay those fears
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A country without borders isn't a country.
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"Close the border at will" translates to me as "build a Berlin Wall." As in, if Trump's coup had succeeded, they'd have closed the borders to keep educated Americans from moving out of the country.
And just like the Berlin Wall, it would be sold to the sheep as blocking people from coming in (the Wall was called the "Anti-Fascist Protection Wall") while actually imprisoning people in the US.
BTW - I feel far safer in most of Europe than in the so-called "Land of the Free", where every halfwit has access to p
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"Close the border at will" translates to me as "build a Berlin Wall." As in, if Trump's coup had succeeded, they'd have closed the borders to keep educated Americans from moving out of the country.
And just like the Berlin Wall, it would be sold to the sheep as blocking people from coming in (the Wall was called the "Anti-Fascist Protection Wall") while actually imprisoning people in the US.
BTW - I feel far safer in most of Europe than in the so-called "Land of the Free", where every halfwit has access to powerful firearms.
I agree with you until you claimed your safety in Europe.
Umm, you do know European history don't you? The sentiments that have driven European countries to Genocide and mass government sponsored murder at home and in Africa and Russia have not disappeared, they are just sleeping. Y'all were busy genocidin' in the 1990's homie!
Human's are Nasty mofo's, and Europe is no island of peace.
Just noting - we Americans largely admit our crimes against others, like the horrible treatment of Native Americans an
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Sadly, the US was far more successful in destroying the Native Americans than the Fascists in the 1930s/40s were in exterminating Jews and Eastern Europeans. We can admit it as the "winners."
We can also admit that it was immigrants from Europe that did this. Might not like that, but there is no denial where the mental outlook came from, and which group has practiced genoocidal concepts as late as the mid 1990's.
It's pretty "funny", when we start with things like The Nasties were not as bad as the Americans - perhaps you might check that with Russia, you do know that your guys had a little bit to do with the 27 million killed in Russia, said russians being considered untermenschen by the Nas
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You realize that America has participated in plenty of mass-genocide at home as well? And those sentiments also remain? Several of my Native friends have had terrifying run-ins with the MAGA crowd.
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"we Americans largely admit our crimes against others, like the horrible treatment of Native Americans and the shame of slavery"
Do we? The current groupthink on the right is that slavery ultimately benefited slaves, while most of the country thinks slavery ended, which is typical ignorance of the Constitution and reality.
You really hate the USA, don't ya?
Maybe your narrative is correct - I do know if my thoughts about the USA were the same as your's, I'd be out of here pronto - because yours is the rhetoric of hopelessness, where all Americans are evil or at best willfully stupid.
How's hopelessness workin out for ya?
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I hate hypocrisy.
What country do you wish to move to that has no hypocrisy?
Now just between you and me and that guy next door always yelling at teenagers, what you really don't like is humanity.
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"Close the border at will" translates to me as "build a Berlin Wall." As in, if Trump's coup had succeeded, they'd have closed the borders to keep educated Americans from moving out of the country.
Then that's a severe case of Trump Derangement Syndrome you just described.
Educated Americans aren't leaving the USA by trekking across some desert in Arizona to Mexico, they are leaving by airplane. Do you believe that by closing the airports to international travel that educated, and presumably middle class, people would instead cross a desert into Mexico?
BTW - I feel far safer in most of Europe than in the so-called "Land of the Free", where every halfwit has access to powerful firearms.
Everyone that feels similarly is free to leave the USA for Europe. I suggest leaving before the next POTUS election so that if that evil Trump person
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How well are open borders working out for Europe right now?
About as well as the Berlin Wall, the Maginot line, the Atlantic Wall, The Sigfreid line, and Trump's Wall.
The business of attempting to seal yourself off from the rest of the world simply won't work. The only thing it does do is make the fear driven feel a little better until it's breached.
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No, it's more like saying it's pointless to put bars on your windows while leaving the front door open.
If 90% of contraband is coming through the checkpoints (via bribes, good hiding skills, etc.), then you should be concentrating your control efforts on fixing your checkpoints.
Once that's done, so that the remaining smuggling becomes a matter of moving contraband across miles of easily monitored wide-open desert? THEN you can worry about that part.
You don't even need the wall, just drones or watchtowers
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Re:Marijuana Amnesty (Score:5, Insightful)
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Okay, how many of them were messed up by the police and 'justice' system because of the drugs?
How many of them were messed up because of contaminated drugs?
How many of them were harmed because of actions to avoid the police due to the drugs?
We have like a million people behind bars in the USA due to drugs, and it prevents approximately zero use.
Re:Marijuana Amnesty (Score:4, Insightful)
That's a big [citation needed]. I know a lot of people who got messed up by drugs.
By making the possession of these drugs a felony we "help" these people that were messed up by drugs by keeping them locked up with rapists and murders for years, then letting them out into the world with a felony on their record so they can't get student loans, join the military, or get gainful employment by any of a number of means. We set them on a path where about the only jobs they can get are unskilled and semi-skilled labor, which likely leaves them with at best a lower middle class lifestyle. Should they fall into depression over this and fall back to drug use to take the edges of the shitty life they are living then they run the risk of repeat of time in jail, another felony on their record, and back to looking for work without an education or useful work experience.
Ever notice on the news reports that people are never charged with merely possessing drugs? It is always, "with intent to deliver". That's done on purpose.
Drug laws were written to catch those dealing drugs, not the addicts. But because of the "war on drugs" there's an implied "intent to deliver" if there's enough drugs to be split in half, as in "one for you and one for me". You see? If you have more drugs on you than you'd consume all at once then you are assumed to be a dealer. As if people only buy enough groceries at a time for the next meal, so if you are caught with a loaf of bread then you clearly intended to deliver bread slices to 20 different people. And if you only bought one slice of bread then you must have intended to cut the slice in half to deliver to two people, or eat half the slice and then sell the other half. If the quantity of the drugs is large enough to divide up to give to others then there's an implied "intent to deliver", and that means they can detect drugs somewhere because if there's more than one molecule then there's enough to divide up and deliver to many others.
I'm all about going after those dealing in drugs without the proper licensing and such but the way the laws have been interpreted there's no real distinction between those caught in addiction and the dealers abusing their addiction for profit.
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I know a lot of people who got messed up by drugs.
Anecdotal evidence fail.
You don't know the people who got messed up by the war on drugs, and you think your personal experience is relevant.
It is not, sir.
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heres some anecdotal evidence from my own life
100% of pot smokers I know feel their lives are better with pot, and my opinion will forever be that it is objectively not. That's a hill I will die on.
Though I appreciate the billable hours constantly resetting their passwords every long weekend.
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As long as you know that your anecdotal evidence is equally worthless, that's great. If you think it's meaningful, then you're the one who's forgetting something... every day. It doesn't even take you a long weekend.
Some of the smartest, best organized, most productive people I have known have been pot smokers. But I know that's irrelevant, because I'm one person and I don't know enough people well enough to have enough information to make statistically significant statements based on my experience.
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Legalizing all drugs by making everything OTC? It would be one thing if we could be sure they didn't give it to someone against their will and that overuse of antibiotics would decrease their effectiveness for everyone else, but I don't think that's possible.
We should probably take into consideration the bad decisions some people would inevitably make and I include my younger self in that. Of course some people would commit suicide where otherwise they wouldn't have or would have failed. And some people
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For those dealing with chronic pain there's no weaning off the drugs and living a better life. It's being weaned off the drugs and left in constant pain, where any demands to be treated for pain is met only with accusations of an addict trying to get high. There's many ailments where there is no cure, only managing the symptoms. Pain is such a common symptom of illness that every visit to a health care provider starts with asking if there is pain, if so then where and how bad. Going into an ER screaming
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That's probably why NLaAC said "hopefully", not "will". Though you do bring up a good point. Okay, I know basically how to make heroin. It used to be a prescription drug. Made in industrial quantities, it should be in the same price range per dose as OTC aspirin. I'd estimate the cost to be around $100 to supply an addict with a year's supply.
As such, yes, we could easily afford to give every opioid addict sufficient heroin to drive every opioid dealer bankrupt(other than the legal Uncle Sam). No law
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You have public companies running prisons getting $50K per year per inmate - in for years for simple possession on three-strikes.
The cannabis Prohibition was never about crime, it's about corporate profits.
Justice would look like Treason trials for everybody who was/is complicit.
(and to be clear, it's really rare for weed to improve one's life, so stay away if you can.)
Yet hanging the prison-for-profit bureaucrats is unlikely to happen. Perhaps we can swap out the weed inmates.
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Its about time that the federal govt declare a marijuana amnesty. There are thousands of people in jail for selling Marijuana or consuming marijuana or on secondary charges where the smell of marijuana was used to conduct a search which would have been illegal otherwise. As the feds have now admitted outlawing Marijuana was a mistake, the consequences of that mistake should be corrected too. Its not right to have publicly listed companies selling marijuana while there are still people in jail for the same actions.
What really grinds my gears here is the admission that it was a mistake, with zero effort AT ALL to fix that mistake. Lowering it's risk category doesn't reverse anything that's been done in the name of the war on drugs. And why would they fix it? It only really affects poor people. You never hear of a rich bastard busted with weed going to jail or prison for it. It's another way to keep the plebes in line. Hate your life enough to do drugs? If you get caught, we'll make sure you hate it even more! PROGRESS
Baby steps (Score:2)
It's baby steps. First you get it legalized, THEN you can start pushing to suspend/revoke the sentences for everybody currently incarcerated for it.
You think it's bad for this? The "legal system" is so indoctrinated into "procedure" that you might as well be pulling teeth trying to get them to release factually innocent people. Their justification will generally be along the lines of "but they were duly convicted and got their appeals already!" Despite new evidence of the Perry Mason sort, where he alwa
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Its about time that the federal govt declare a marijuana amnesty. There are thousands of people in jail for selling Marijuana or consuming marijuana or on secondary charges where the smell of marijuana was used to conduct a search which would have been illegal otherwise
One thing is for certain - the laws governing marijuana have destroyed many more lives than the use of marijuana has, or ever will.
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As the feds have now admitted outlawing Marijuana was a mistake
I'm sorry, but if you read up on it it was never a mistake. It was intentional, by design, to serve a specific purpose.
Tobacco is much more addictive, but not the right communities were smoking it for making it illegal to be of any use at the time.
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From The Children of Men [youtu.be]: "The government is handing out suicide kits, and anti-depressants in the rations, but ganja is still illegal."
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Re:... no (Score:4)
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Just so we're clear, because I don't think you really mean that. However, this statement makes it seem as you are totaly fine with the idea of sending the MF Special Forces after people that don't wear the government mandated symbol du jour.
Maybe just think it over.
Instead, my suggestion is to keep the govt's jackbooted thugs leashed to their kennels until we can find them something more productive to do.
Re:... no (Score:5, Insightful)
There are a number of catch-22s that are in place since cannabis is a schedule 1 drug
One is that any organization that receives federal funding can only do research aimed at showing harm, this has prevented any widely accepted studies in the medical properties of cannabis
Another is that any country that follows the UN Single Convention on Narcotics Drugs [unodc.org] gets stuck with the requirement that they interdict the production, trade, transport of use of cannabis as a narcotic.
The catch-22 was that US laws forced the UN laws on cannabis and the UN laws required the US laws remained the same
The fact that the US public has been able to break the back of this bullshit is not trivial, but we cannot let this appease the desire to legalize a plant nationwide that can provide a strong internal economy, provide for free trade in hemp, an important fiber and even produce money to provide mental care (over incarceration) for multiple forms of addiction, including those who will inevitably become addicted to cannabis
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I agree, it has been a horrendous bit of political kabuki to keep cannabis illegal at an international level
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There's illegal like here's a $500 dollar misdemeanor fine for making moonshine and then there's go to jail for 20 years felony illegal. Moving MJ from the second category to the first is still an improvement.
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This move does zilch to help, because now it's moved to where unless the weed is made by a real pharma company it's still illegal.
One step at a time.
There's no getting marijuana sold as a recreational drug like alcohol and tobacco, or over-the-counter drug like Tylenol and Benadryl, without first recognizing that it is at least safe enough to allow prescriptions by licensed physicians. Once the hurdle is cleared on making it legal then there can be a discussion on regulation. It would be nice to see politicians get out of the business of banning drugs and leaving that to physicians and those seeking medical treatment. At a minimum
Long overdue (Score:5, Insightful)
Re:Long overdue (Score:5, Informative)
We knew we couldn’t make it illegal to be either against the war or black, but by getting the public to associate the hippies with marijuana and blacks with heroin, and then criminalizing both heavily, we could disrupt those communities. We could arrest their leaders, raid their homes, break up their meetings, and vilify them night after night on the evening news.
Did we know we were lying about the drugs? Of course we did.”
~ John Ehrlichman, Assistant to the President for Domestic Affairs under President Richard Nixon
Re: Long overdue (Score:5, Informative)
Why are you blaming Nixon and such for activities that started long before they came into power. The shit storm started around 1910 when the government calling cannabis marijuana in order to emphasize its "foreign" nature. The campaign was completed with the Marijuana Tax act in 1937, which was replaced with the Controlled Substances Act in 1970. You _might_ be able to blame the 1970 action on Nixon, but good luck on blaming the prior 60 years on him as well. But you are correct in blaming racism, just totally wrong on how far back that racism went.
You might also want to lookup William Randolph Hearst's part in the issue. As it turns out, his wood pulp paper production was being threatened by hemp based paper, so he printed quite a bit of "yellow journalism" in his newspapers to sway public opinion on the subject.
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Re: Long overdue (Score:2)
Did you notice my mention of the Marijuana Tax Act of 1937? If so, then why would you think I didn't know of a major driver of that act?
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I got news for you...the new strategy is "BUT THINK OF THE CHILDREN". Our state decriminalized marijuana under one administration...but sadly some people using good-intentions backdoored a delay to recreational sales. The new administration doesn't like the decriminalized marijuana. In fact they flat out don't like legislation given the fact they've defied our legislature numerous times for the sake of law and order. Right to privacy in the state of Virginia? The state ruled the fourth amendment is invalid
lungs? (Score:2, Offtopic)
We spent decades getting most people to quit smoking so there would be less lung cancer and emphysema, now smoking is going up because of legalized pot.
Can't you potheads make mj brownies or some other way of getting the thc in?
Re:lungs? (Score:4, Insightful)
I made the mistake of making that same point on the politics sub of Reddit; it went over about as well as you'd expect (I can only assume there are a lot of potheads on Reddit).
Mostly, my take on it is that pot smoke is an extremely unpleasant odor and since Florida made medicinal pot legal, I've been noticing it outside in my neighborhood and have gone into stores where people absolutely reek of it on their clothing. According to the folks over on Reddit, I must just be imagining things because almost everyone who uses pot sticks completely to edibles and nobody smokes the stuff anymore, no sir-re-bob!
Normally I'm all for people doing whatever the hell they want to their own bodies, but there's still that whole "your right to swing your fist ends at my nose", or in this case, your right to smell like you've rolled in roadkill skunk ends at my nose.
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But edibles don't expose others to carcinogenic and organ irritating smoke.
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I like edibles and vapes, but I also smoke and I see a lot of people buying flower instead of edibles or vapes. Maybe the Redditors mean the people in their circle of friends. I don't smell it often where I live and I can't smell it when my next door neighbors vape on their back porch which I'm pretty sure they do every evening. I definitely smell it sometimes though - occasionally in traffic. Then again even before legalization I saw a few people smoking in cars and probably smelled it once or twice.
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Wrong, second hand smoke IS directly at us. Pot smokers on trains, in public buildings, in malls, in parks upwind of us including children, are a threat to the rest of us and exposing us to carcinogens.
You have a totally ignorant take.
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In my experience most people, especially on the younger-than-me end who use seem to greatly prefer concentrates, vapes and edibles over plain ol' smoking weed. The market for non-combustion devices is pretty wild.
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No one is using those things in parks, public buildings, stations buses, and trains here. Entitled potheads are lighting up and making us including children breath their carcinogens.
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We spent decades getting most people to quit smoking so there would be less lung cancer and emphysema, now smoking is going up because of legalized pot.
Can't you potheads make mj brownies or some other way of getting the thc in?
I remember discussing here years ago the UCLA study that showed not just no increase in cancer rates among cannabis flower smokers, but in fact a decrease. But here you are, stoking drug war propaganda. Why would you promote lies? Just to try to get mod points? How fucking pathetically needy.
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Why don't you check places that use peer reviewed science such as Mayo clinic and get back to us.
Evidence is that pot smoking increases risk of cancer especially lung cancer.
Let me guess, you're a pothead
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But in trains, stations, malls and public buildings people and myself are having to breath (illegally lit up) pot smoke.
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I agree with you vaping is more than a thousand times safer, for nicotine and for thc.
Our FDA is siding with death for a multi billion dollar industry rather than using common sense and prevention of horrible disease.
The real question. (Score:5, Insightful)
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Do people even know what "heroin" means? It means "illegal diamorphine", because if it is prescribed by a physician then it's called "diamorpine". It isn't prescribed in the USA though, because reasons. There's a drug that is prescribed, one twice as potent per gram, called hydromorphone or dilaudid. Have a look on how heroin compares: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/... [wikipedia.org]
I'm sure people have heard this before, "It's the dose that makes the poison." There is nothing wrong with heroin, except that the defi
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As I recall, under the law the DEA and FDA share jurisdiction on defining how drugs are scheduled. The DEA isn't likely to reschedule marijuana since marijuana makes up a large portion of their workload. Rescheduling marijuana would make a large portion of the DEA redundant. I don't recall if the FDA can act on rescheduling marijuana alone, but if they can then it's unlikely they'd do so based on pressure from many different angles or many reasons.
As I recall the DEA is largely redundant as it is now bec
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You may be right or wrong on how drugs are scheduled, but I have to point out that weed is one of the few drugs that congress itself scheduled. As in the DEA and FDA have zero choice in the matter anyways until congress either reschedules it or releases control.
So marijuana is scheduled higher (Score:3, Informative)
It's one of those things that when you find out it's hard to believe it's true because it's so insane. Then again the CIA really did sell crack cocaine in the inner City to fund death squads in South America and Ronald Reagan really did arrange for American hostages to be held longer to win an election.
All these things are verifiable facts and it literally sounds like I'm trolling as I type them out here. .
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It is rarely a good idea to provide Americans with an accurate version of their history. They will not thank you.
Seriously? Why are you trying to nanny me? (Score:2)
Stop pretending like you can regulate anything except the masses. Anyone with resources can do what they want. And always will.
Remove your own bias here. Start recording data and use data to judge if punishment helps or hurts. Then change it over time...
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Start recording data and use data to judge if punishment helps or hurts.
Here's some data you will conveniently ignore or make excuses how it's not relevant.
Cannabis Use Disorder is on the rise [cnn.com], both in the U.S. and around the world including Netherlands, Germany, Australia, New Zealand, Ireland and France.
Marijuana users have significantly higher levels of heavy metals [cnn.com] in their bodies than non-users. “Compared to non-users, marijuana users had 27% higher levels of lead in their blood, and 21% higher
Where are all the 2FA supporters? (Score:3)
Federal Law prohibits anyone from being in possession of a Schedule I or II drug while also in possession of a firearm. Not just at the federal level. California has the same laws too.
I don't understand how anyone can claim this is constitutional but then no one actually cares about the constitution.
I'm in suburban / rural-ish California where there are a lot of pro gun Republicans so I always find it funny how they will toke up on the weekends then show off their gun collections all the while completely ignoring that they could get fucked at any time. But they are white so *shrug*
Gosh, I wonder how the DEA will rule? (Score:2)
Re:Gosh, I wonder how the DEA will rule? (Score:5, Insightful)
Biden's positions seem hardcore but they make sense through his lens. His son almost died and really struggled with drug abuse.
I get it. It took hospital and rehab to get me past alcohol (3 years coming up on Dec. 4). Almost died and all of that (lost two weeks of time). Rehab was transformative.
Anyway, Biden has bore witness to terrible addiction. His views on drugs are shaped by this direct experience.
Regarding marijuana, he probably still thinks "gateway drug" when it's nothing of the sort. That's my guess.
The DEA is guarding budget and doesn't want to eat crow about being in the wrong for so long (I bet that's the correct order).
But hey, marijuana is legal in many places and it's a good thing. Far safter than alcohol, WAY safer (there can be certainty of death with alcohol situationally).
The answer is simple and we'll get there, it will be treated like alcohol. This means some states will be more strict. There will be dry areas (there are).
It would be comical to visit a KY pot grower where you couldn't sample or purchase the product, similar to distilleries there.
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Regarding marijuana, he probably still thinks "gateway drug" when it's nothing of the sort. That's my guess.
Then he's not "thinking" at all, and we should demand better from our elected officials.
It would be comical to visit a KY pot grower where you couldn't sample or purchase the product, similar to distilleries there.
That's how dispensaries are in California now. Everything is sealed up and you can't even smell the product before buying. And the prices are higher than anyone going in there for weed. The only thing it's worth buying from a club is extract. Everything else is not only much cheaper but also much BETTER on the grey market. Club weed is almost always total fucking trash because it's insufficiently cured. I'm not buying th
Politicians are slowly finding a spine, maybe (Score:2)
I found out that Congress passed some law restricting federal funds from being used to enforce federal marijuana bans in states that made marijuana possession and use legal. That's pretty spineless. Either marijuana should be legal or it should not. Carving out enforcement by states like that is an unequal enforcement of the law and should have been deemed in violation of the US Constitution. But to challenge anything in court requires first getting convicted of the crime at issue. If anyone pushes too
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No. They're not. There's a whole group of them that want to literally make anyone who uses marijuana a traitor. There is a group that want to see not just stronger federal laws but they want to actually see life sentences for simple posession. These are the ones that are rapidly gaining power by echoing hate and racism.
In case you haven't noticed...that sadly will get you a lot of places...especially when you empower those people to commit acts and then do everything to protect those people after they viola
Lowering the schedule isn't enough (Score:2)
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Actually, lowering the schedule doesn't further enshrine it as a crime. It already is a crime. Putting it in a lower category actually helps. It's like the cop might not be able to pull you over if your tags are a day or two out of date. They can still technically issue you a ticket; but [they're not] supposed to pull you over for it. They can only tack that on to a ticket if a primary reason for stopping was met...like speeding.
Be real...if there are levers in government to be pulled...they will be pulled.
Re: Left-Wing Nutters Rejoice! (Score:2)
You imagine conservatives don't enjoy porn? Pffft.
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I mean the right wing are the same people who are fighting tooth and nail to prevent us from banning child marriage. I think it's fair to question their motives in some regard
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There's idiots like this on all political sides, people that want the state to remove everything they dislike from the world, thinking it is some sort of genie of the lamp or something like it.
There's a reason why even meme political charts add the authoritarian/libertarian axis, as its otherwise impossible to even begin to understand political sides.
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You can't have something like the Cuban Missile Crisis with Nazis being on the other side. They would joyfully fire all their silos at the slightest opportunity, singing songs to Der Fuhrer as the world of men vaporizes.
As small as the difference seems between a psychopath incapable of morality and a sadist incapable of even refraining from doing harm, the difference has made the diffe
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To cite that meme political chart again, it's not an 1D line, left-right. there's the authoritarian/libertarian axis as well. to simplify, left and right define what will be done, while authoritarian/libertarian decides who does it, and the nazis were the most authoritarian government system we ever got, at a point the government was aiming to even decide who marries who.
The USSR wanted the government to be the only corporation "to be of the people", while the nazi regime wanted the government to replace re
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I agree there are idiots on all sides, but it seems lately the idiots have taken over the GOP although I'm not sure "idiots" is the right word in their case.
I've never agreed entirely with either major party, but I've leaned Republican most of my life. I was raised that way, what can I say? I wish there were more Republicans like Liz Cheney and Adam Kinzinger, but we saw what the GOP did to them. They put Country First, which is also the name of a PAC Kinzinger founded. Others put trump first which I fou
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Are you suggesting cannabis is a "gateway drug"? I was drinking vodka with 3 other teens the first time I tried it. It was a fun night, but I didn't start using it regularly until college.
If you think people (especially teens) didn't get their hands on marijuana long before even California thought seriously about medical marijuana, you're mistaken. I remember the garbage I used to get too. No doubt most of it came from Mexico given the very compressed bricks it was usually pressed into. Marijuana becam
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I mean if that's the way you feel then we'll reclassify caffeine as schedule I. Maybe most of the OTC pain killers need to go schedule 1. I mean you take enough Tylenol by accident you can fuck up your liver. Oh...there's a warning on this about that.
Oh..what's this? There's a warning on my recreational marijuana about possible health risks.
Get the fuck over yourself and stop blowing shit out of proportion. You've tried to connect two things that aren't. Go back to sucking conservative dick.