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Important to distinguish between decriminalization and legalization though.
Interesting comment from the article:
As part of its war on drugs, Portugal has stopped prosecuting users. The substances listed in the Law 30/2000 table are still illegal in Portugal -- "Otherwise we would have gotten into trouble with the UN," Goulão explains -- but using these drugs is nothing more than a misdemeanor, much the same as a parking violation.
......
"The police still search people for drugs," Goulão points out. Hashish, cocaine, ecstasy -- Portuguese police still seize and destroy all these substances.
Before doing so, though, they first weigh the drugs and consult the official table with the list of 10-day limits. Anyone possessing drugs in excess of these amounts is treated as a dealer and charged in court. Anyone with less than the limit is told to report to a body known as a "warning commission on drug addiction" within the next 72 hours.
Here the article addresses the differences in decriminalization and legalization.
quote: Decriminalization, Not Legalization
Warnings, reminders and invitations to rehab -- it seems Portugal's war on drugs is a gentle one. "Humanistic and pragmatic" is how João Goulão describes the new program. It is based on decriminalization, which should not be confused with legalization. Portugal considered that path too, but ultimately decided not to take things quite that far.
Portugal decided to try and treat folks instead of jailing them. That is how you win the war on drugs. All this mandatory sentencing stuff has just thrown folks into jail to learn how to be felons when they come out IMO.
Location: planet octupulous is nearing earths atmosphere
13,621 posts, read 12,733,455 times
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Quote:
Originally Posted by KUchief25
Portugal decided to try and treat folks instead of jailing them. That is how you win the war on drugs. All this mandatory sentencing stuff has just thrown folks into jail to learn how to be felons when they come out IMO.
excerpt
(1997-1999) "The figures for cannabis use among the general population reveal the same pictures. The Netherlands does not differ greatly from other European countries. In contrast, a comparison with the US shows a striking difference in this area: 32.9% of Americans aged 12 and above have experience with cannabis and 5.1% have used in the past month. These figures are twice as high as those in the Netherlands." - See more at: Netherlands Compared With The United States | Drug War Facts
Oh BS............How do they get their numbers? Rick Steves travel blog? I mean cmon. I'm simply saying portgal would be a good study.........but our "leaders" could care less. Hell that is just basic sense...........something they don't have but what they do have is taxpayer money so they screeeeeeeem on.
Location: planet octupulous is nearing earths atmosphere
13,621 posts, read 12,733,455 times
Reputation: 20050
Quote:
Originally Posted by KUchief25
Oh BS............How do they get their numbers? Rick Steves travel blog? I mean cmon. I'm simply saying portgal would be a good study.........but our "leaders" could care less. Hell that is just basic sense...........something they don't have but what they do have is taxpayer money so they screeeeeeeem on.
so you ignore the other link?? just like I would expect here I will rub in your old fuddy duddy face again!!
"And for the record, I'm not a "delay type prohibitionist."
"Until you can prove it costs me absolutely nothing at all, it's prohibited."
"And within time, Colorado will be losing more money than it makes off of marijuana."
"Let's see where your crime stats go; lost time at work; work accidents; traffic accidents; etc etc etc."
Mircea
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Well Mircea, you've got a stubborn streak, that's for sure.
Sorry Mircea, no landmines here. My state has legalized for medical use. Afer 3 years, the sky hasn't fallen. We don't have any significant impacts (and believe me, my state is run by a Republican, if there were significant downsides to it, it would have been shut down on that pretext alone). The streets and buildings look pretty much the same.
Yes, for the record you are a delay prohibitionist, if we can judge from what you say (walks like a duck, most likely a duck). After all, you want to WAIT (wait means delay) to see what the costs are. As someone else pointed out, we know the costs of prohibition, and they are billions of dollars, without much to show for it. People killed on both sides of the law, including those private citizens who had nothing to do with illegal substances. People and dogs killed in no knock raids, including wrong addresses, just because the dogs were barking (that's what dogs do).
I don't have to prove that it costs you nothing, because your state has not passed any relaxation of prohibition, so legalization won't be costing the backward states anything, except a lost opportunity. It's the so called War on Drugs (actually a war on brown people) you'll continue to pay for, but that's on you and your neighbors and the people you elect. How about the hard dollar and social costs of that?
You will continue to pay at least millions of tax dollars, as a state, to prevent sick people, including babies with Davets Syndrome, from getting relief. If they die, like one baby did in NJ, because the parents couldn't get through the severe restriction in the med program there fast enough, it's no problem for you.
You will continue to endorse Ohio's current program, which gives people who are charged with simple possession arrest records so they can't get housing, education or jobs, but that is OK with you because you enjoy paying for them now being dependant on the state, rather than enjoying a puff or two, like others do a beer. So you apparently like making productive people unproductive, so you can support them and tell them how to live.
You are also apparently a seer (can see the future) because you KNOW that CO will eventually have to pay more in social costs than they take in, although even the people of Colorado don't see it that way.
Yes, let's see where the crime stats go, since cannabis use in that state is no longer a crime, they should go down.
Traffic accidents have lowered, which is being attributed to less use of alcohol and more substitution of cannabis use instead.
There is NO reason that responsible people in Colorado are going to lose more time at work, in fact, since some use it medically to feel functional, time at work may increase. Again, accidents at work from people that use it, but are not high at work (responsible users) should not increase accidents at all. Employers in CO can still drug test their employees anytime they like.
Also keep in mind that many of the people in CO who are using it legally now, were also using it illegally before 01/01/2014, so any effect of use is going to already be factored into stats. You make the usual false assumption that suddenly when cannabis is legalized, everybody in the state will get high. The falsity of that statement is apparent if you substitute another drug or even alcohol. Let's try it. Suppose they legalized heroin in OHIO, where you are. Are you going to become a heroin addict? I don't think so.
I love the debate, but let's try to keep the debate focused on facts and not supposition, or conjecture, or your powers as a seer. Geesh, the next thing I know, you're going to go on a rant about, "the children"! , but that's just a guess, because unlike you, I don't know much about what the future holds.
Last edited by Beaconowner; 02-28-2014 at 01:49 PM..
Reason: spelling
Well the article that started off this thread was an estimate of an 18 month projection, and while I'm definitely on the "legalize it" end of the argument, I also think that's an overly generous estimate. We truly have no idea how much revenue we can expect. It would be absurd to base any projected figures off the official totals that are coming in for the first month or even two...because that's like basing your projected earnings of a business off the sales from the Grand Opening. You just can't do that.
But any revenue is good revenue, especially since the first 40mil goes to the schools.
To those asking why we don't just pay more income tax...
Colorado has TABOR (taxpayer's bill of rights) and pretty much every new tax necessitates a vote. Guess what happens when you ask a bunch of citizens if they want to pay a new tax or increased taxes? They say, "heck no!" But put it on someone else (pot smokers) and then it's different. As for the smokers, they want it to be legal and out from the black market shadows so badly that they'll pay whatever it takes to get it legit. If high taxes are what it takes to get society to accept that it's not just another flavor of heroin, crack, or meth...well, the pot users will bear that burden happily. It's progress, to them. So...good!
As for all these steep costs to society, Beaconowner is spot on with one thing...most of the people who now smoke legal pot, formerly smoked illegal pot. The use isn't suddenly skyrocketing because of the legality. I've never met anyone who said, "I'd love to smoke pot but it's ILLEGAL...so I can't." They just do it, or they don't. I know loads of CO residents who didn't smoke last year, and they still don't. I'm one of them. My life hasn't really changed much, gotta say.
I spoke to an ER nurse in Denver and asked her how many cases they tend to see of people having health emergencies because of MJ. She said she saw a couple of young people over the years who thought they were having some kind of heart attack, but it was determined that there was no life threatening event going on, they were merely paranoid that there might be. Said patients were held for a few hours until they sobered a little and calmed down, then sent home. No psychotic breaks due to pot use being reported in her hospital, no droves of cardiac or respiratory distress...
Oh, and as for this harming small businesses...wow, that's funny. Well, let's see. The Dew Drop Inn, a restaurant next door to a recreational shop in Pueblo reported the best sales in January that they'd ever seen in any previous January, which is evidently their typically slowest month. Not this year, it's not! I bet the new Voodoo Doughnut location up in Denver is doing great. Im thinking there's a certain segment of small business that's going to do better than ever.
Another poster early in the thread wondered where the supply is coming from. It's tracked seed to sale (regulations require this) and it is grown by the same business entity that is selling it. That is also required. The kind of strict tracking regulation that exists here in the CO model does a good job of preventing legit sellers from buying from black market sources.
Long story short: From the perspective of a CO resident, the sky is NOT falling.
They made more than they expected. Could this be a new viable income stream for all states? I believe so. The money you will save on incarceration PLUS the tax revenue could be a boost to the economy.
Good, then we can start expecting better care of our roads then.
You'd think. Somehow I doubt that money will make its way to CDOT. All freeway plans in Denver seem to involve overpriced toll lanes
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here I will rub in your old fuddy duddy face again!!
Ridgid "thinking"
