Re: Speaking of not good
 

same argument could have been made for bottleggers. If I can go to the corner and buy a litre of Ciroc I'm not going in the woods to buy some questionable booze from a shady guy to save a few bucks.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

In order:

Yes.

Convenience always dominates. And no - it's not easy to grow good stuff. And just like booze, once you develop a taste for the product, you'll want better quality. The regulated market could provide endless varieties - a huge draw only the very top flight dealers can currently provide.

What are the illegal growers going to do? They'd be like Napster fighting iTunes. Convenience, convenience, conevnience.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

It's not that hard to make your own beer or other hooch at home either. It's just that with it being readily available, there isn't much incentive to do it unless you particularly enjoy it.

I'm sure they will find other nefarious things to do, but hopefully ones with less consumer demand.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Speaking of booze, this post was read with much interest by members of my household. (Original article here.)

Re: Speaking of not good
 

That was my point. The problem isn't the drug itself, it's the stupid system that Cal created to make the drug quasi-legal.


I agree with all of this, but the inability to regulate what was supposed to be very narrow availability creates a bad track record. I don't think it's the reason for the recent federal statements, but if the feds actually imposed some pressure, so that medical pot was regulated the way it is supposed to be regulated, that would be a plus towards legalization.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Huge improvement on tincture, which tastes awful.

I imagine a fat merlot of that with some dark chocolate desserts would be amazing.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

I'm skeptical because I don't trust the Feds, but I do agree with the logic of your argument.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

You mean the Netherlands reclassifying 80% of the pot sold there as a hard drug like heroin?

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Why? Aren't the problems with the current set up largely the result of the fact that it's still illegal to grow and sell?

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Having combined the two together before (in Amsterdam, naturally), I'm not sure I would recommend the combination. Although it was the closest I have ever come to turning my brain all the way off.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

The medical pot law is grossly abused (this is based on what a couple of people have told me, including one who is extremely credible on the issue). Anyone can get a prescription for anything or nothing that gets them pot.

You can say that problem is that it's illegal to grow and sell. (Except, as a matter of state law, it's not -- there are allowances for growing for dispensaries, and of course for the dispensaries to sell to anyone with a prescription.) After all, if it's legal to grow and sell, there is no problem at all. But that's an odd way of looking at it, IMO.

The problem is that people have seen the medical pot law as a way to get an easy pass for buying drugs, and that everyone involved is facilitating this. (Another problem, at least arguably, is that there is no medical research on the therapeutic uses of pot, because the feds basically won't allow it. I think that's still the case, anyway.)

Re: Speaking of not good
 

I'm not sure, but given that for profit is not permitted, I don't think they are taxing income. They probably require fees for licensing, etc.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

I don't understand this argument. If pot were treated like alcohol, do you not think the state could regulate it?

ETA: STP

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Right. Understood. Why is this a problem?

Well, clearly there is more than one possible problem. You seem to see the pretext as a problem in and of itself. I do not. I simply do not care. And, actually, I guess I prefer that people use the pretext and buy from a dispensary rather from an even more underground dealer (although I concede that consumption would likely be lower).

But we agree that criminality surrounding the industry is a problem, one that I think stems primarily from the fact that it is still criminal (at least under federal law) to be engaged in the business. That is, law-abiding businesses aren't going to get involved, and those law abiding businesses don't have the same interest in strict compliance with the regs that would exist if it meant losing their license (not that that is ever perfect either).

Re: Speaking of not good
 

You've got a pretext -- limited availability for medical purposes, based on state law.

You've got an actuality -- widespread demand and abuse of the state law.

Because of both state and federal laws, only bad actors -- criminals, often very violent criminals -- are willing to fulfill that demand.

I view the above as a problem.



On this one, I favor enforcing the laws. Either a very restrictive medical pot law that creates only fairly small legitimate demand, which can be fulfilled by private/small-time growers. Or, complete legalization, so the large demand that exists can be filled by legitmate business.

Instead, we have the half-assed, "middle-of-the-road" situation that exists today. And as the saying goes, there ain't nothing in the middle of the road but yellow stripes and dead armadillos.



eta: The above-described problem is in addition to one I noted earlier, which is that the state, and the pro-legalization folks, are building a terrible track record for the notion that pot or other drugs can be broadly legalized but safely and effectively regulated.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

This makes no sense. The demand is there either way, regardless of the law. It will be filled either way, regardless of the law. The only question is, who is going to fill the demand. Wouldn't you rather have a portion of the demand filled by good or at least "not so bad actors" under less shady circumstances?

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Club largely covered it, but I still see the third step as the problem. Not least because I don't think the supply creates the demand. I think it's mostly there, and the question is who is going to fill it. With the current legal structure, the answer is people who aren't too concerned about the legalities.

Could be. You are much better positioned than I to tell.

I'm feeling very centrist today
 

I have one Facebook friend who posts relentlessly about his Tea Party activities, and the latest drops of genius from Ron Paul. I have another who posts about Occupy Wall Street, LA, and every other place.

It makes me feel like the people on this board are kind of, well, normal.

Weird.

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

My FB friend who posts the most about OWS also puts up endless posts glorifying Steve Jobs. The one who is really pro-Tea Party also gets all excited every time some juicy chunk of pork lands in his city.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

I've never heard that saying. I've never seen a dead armadillo. I like pot. Hi!

Re: Speaking of not good
 

There are white stripes in the middle of the road. Armadillos can spread leprosy.

Why aren't you out with the Occupy Whatever protestors?

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Translation:

"So, um, hey. What's the, um, hey are you going to finish that? Anyway, I was thinking and, uh, so I don't know or not sure if you are. What?"

Listen, dude, you protest too much. Sitting on the couch with a half empty bag of stale Doritos and watching "Say Yes to the Dress" because you cannot find the motivation to get up a retrieve the remote that is sitting four feet away from you IS AN ADVERSE SIDE EFFECT.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

They occupied my building yesterday! Or at least part of the lobby of my building. They were making quite a ruckus. I was going to join them, but I was on the way to spin class. When I got back, I found one of them sitting in my chair with sunglasses on smoking one of my cigars.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

I have decided to join them by occupying various wall street owned luxury boxes. Hey Hey! Ho Ho! Wall Street Bonuses have to go!

Re: Speaking of not good
 

I thought that was the intended effect.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

That can be easily countered with methamphetamines.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

It's frightening how pushy they are. And how fast they're evolving. I saw one drinking a Pina Colada at the Rittenhouse Hotel. His spines were perfect.

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

I've deduced this of tea party folk: To compute one's IQ, add up the seconds it takes him in a political conversation to use the word "Soros."

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

at the start of the TP movement what shocked me most was some people on FaceBook who were wrapped up in it, like a client who always seemed sane for example. Of course FB also surprised me with all the burn outs and promiscuous girls from HS who are now praising the baby Jesus every other day.

The client posted something a few months back where she quit the TP. They were having a speaker in to explain how obama is muslim and is moving us to sharia. It pushed her over the edge. She had been there because she didn't want the government to keep taxing her and spending money on others, plain and simple, but the crazy eventually scared her. I bet they're a much smaller force by the next election.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Paranoid, jumpy, and with Dorito breath is no way to go through life, son.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

2. Go to YouTube and search "breaking bad everyone knows it's Wendy" (or is it windy?) if you want a real world glimpse of what it's like to be on meth.

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

The level of disinformation we have, in a society of dumb people who want a simple answer, might as well be a detonator switch.

I listen to right wing talk radio now and again just to get an idea of what's going on in that part of our culture. I heard some guy just today - a creepy fucker named Mark Levin - talking about how Chris Christie was a closet socialist. What's the purity test here? Anything that isn't John Birch is no longer a conservative?

And then I listen to some of the nonsense coming from Occupy Wall Street... You know, I'd like them to succeed. We do need some reforms. We've all sorts of bad incentives, and fucked up values, in this country (myself included in many things). We shouldn't value a fucking douchebag frat brother of yours, or mine, who trades fucking financial instruments above a heart surgeon. It's twisted. Really, it is. But these loons are not going to change shit acting like a fucking left wing version of the Tea Party.

They should do the smart thing and organize a mass withdrawal of funds and simultaneous one month default on BofA and Citi. The only way to fix Wall Street is to drive it into cardiac arrest. And the best way to do that is to drive the stocks of two very weak TBTF banks below $4.50. A mass default movement would do that. The short sellers would jump in fast and stampede would be on, and given our illiterate financial press, OWS would get all the credit.

But explaining this to them would be like Steve Hawking try to explain string theory to the cast of Jersey Shore.

Re: Speaking of not good
 

Anyone who's done coke in the past decade has done meth.

Real cocaine is a 45 min. per line ride (decreasing by @5 min per line), and you can sleep like a baby afterward. If you're jittery and guzzling whisky at 4:00 am, yours was cut with meth.

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

Steven Hawking doesn't get string theory. I've asked him for a primer just before I was going to go hit on Eva S at a mixer at Stanford. The shaky fuck didn't get that string theory was originally proposed as an explanation for the observed relationship between mass and spin for certain particles called hadrons, which include the proton and neutron. Things didn't work out, though, and Quantum Chromodynamics eventually proved a better theory for hadrons. How could I rely on anything he told me after that?

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

Where's the fix in this?

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

Where was the fix in Rosa Parks getting arrested for not moving from a muni bus seat in bumfuck Mississippi? Where was the fix in Gandhi or Mandela or Biko or Walesa getting arrested and fomenting in prison? Where was the fix in charging, seizing, thieving, and destroying the tea?

Re: Speaking of not good
 

and btw, good shit:

http://blogs.browardpalmbeach.com/pu...ngs_former.php

like dislike, PJ's tired attempted jokes flail and make that side look childish and cheap, and the contrary point is eloquently made. The plutocrats are slowly losing this public argument.

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

Challenging and in some ways compelling chart essay.

I find some of the rhetoric meritorious, but some of it fails for me. It doesn't address the lack of mobility of labor compared to the past, or that a large subsection of Americans (excepting bankers and farm workers) do not have the deToqueville work ethic. Disability and medicare, Fritos, a cell phone, a fridge, a microwave are fine. Poverty according to the government, but better than actual hard work.

Surprisingly, I have a lot of support for the "occupy" movement. In general, though, rarely when it comes to individuals who I see speak. Kinda like med pot, great idea and I'm sure it helps some, but all I see are 23-year old bangers hanging outside of "clinics," and entire weekly newspapers filled with ads for $50 medical "consultations." Spokespeople and message do matter. See, e.g. Rosa Parks, MLK. Gandhi, that Google kid in Eygpt.

And the message should be greed. The so-called 1% job producers are keeping it and not creating jobs. See, e.g., the unemployment rate and the wealth statistics. Done. Out. Your argument fails; we are taking our consequential damages, attorney fees, and punitives.

Re: I'm feeling very centrist today
 

Let me restate. Wouldn't the most likely outcome from Sebbby's approach be more federal support for BoA and Citi? Maybe that would spark a movement but I both doubt it and doubt that I would like it (more likely TP than 99%).

Re: My God, you are an idiot.
 

I cannot "2" this enough.