Do a lot of people in CO smoke pot? Should MJ be legal? (authority, housing)

[Sunderpig2]

Considering how some parts of the country think that puffs of pot cause insanity and instant urges to commit crimes (based on no personal knowledge whatsoever), it's refreshing (reefer-eshing) to see a realistic understanding of the plant and it's uses.

[joeandmich]

Originally Posted by Juliemac

""government has a legitimate role in protecting the populace from the hazards imposed by irresponsible dopers. Nobody has a "right" to abuse a substance and then place their neighbors at risk by exposing them to the potential consequences of their impairment.""
[+] Rate thi

By that logic, please have the government also come and take my neighbor's guns... he is exposing me to potential dangers if one of his elementary aged kids picks one up and fires it towards my yard. And take his booze too.. he could easily run me down when he comes barreling in from the bar some night.... Oh wait...those things are both perfectly legal and I need to assume gun owners and alcohol drinkers are responsible folks who will make the right choice and exercise their freedoms responsibly. See how that works?

Touche'

[joeandmich]

Originally Posted by Bob from down south

No, I don't see how that works.

We run random DUI checkpoints to look for alcohol-impaired drivers. Many states have dram-shop laws that make giving a drink to someone cause for legal action against the drink provider if the drinker then goes out and hurts someone. That's a much less insidious risk than something like a dope-addled nurse getting a decimal point wrong and giving you a lethal 10x dose of medication, or dope-addled drivers hitting the roads in large numbers and killing your family because enforcement is tremendously difficult (nearly impossible) without a breathalyzer-like spot test for THC intoxication.

We can't protect everyone against every risk, but the number of fools who would be putting legalized drugs into their bodies and then inflicting the results on the rest of us is a huge nontrivial basket of risk that needs to be considered for the common good. It's widespread human nature for the losers and dregs of our society to get loaded on whatever is available and hit the streets. And having marijuana as easily available as tobacco to adolescents and teens presents another huge danger added to the minefield kids already have to traverse to grow up, especially with the large numbers left to grow up on their own without competent parental supervision. A kid that doesn't give a cr*p about school because he's living in a pot-induced stupor tends to grow up not being worth a cr*p as a member of society. There are too many like that now...what we don't need is to apply a big multiplier to that number.

So how is legal drug use different than legal alcohol use? I wouldn't want a pilot of a place or a nurse to be impaired by drinking either. In fact from my experience pot smokers usually stay home and watch tv not go out looking for adventure like alcohol does. Now if you are referring to other drugs like cocaine then you get more adventuresome behavior just like alcohol abuse.

[CarsonCityKid]

Here's to hoping amendment 64 does not pass.

[CosmicWizard]

The other side of the coin........Here's hoping that my YES vote helps to pass amendment 64!

[CALIFRE]

I'm with the Majority of voters on this issue. YES! on 64.

[Mike from back east]

Two more votes here for the YES option.

We'll know in 30 hours.

[jazzlover]

Everybody forgets that all the President (whomever that will be) has to do is actually obey his oath of his office--to uphold the laws and Constitution of the United States (and not just to selectively uphold the laws he or she agrees with and ignore the rest)--and the whole Amendment 64 issue is a moot point. The proposed Amendment violates Federal law and would be overturned in a second if the Federal government actually enforced the Supremacy Clause. If the Amendment passes, I fully expect a lawsuit to be filed to compel the Federal government to enforce that Supremacy Clause and declare the Colorado Constitutional Amendment a violation of Federal law. That would not be the first time that a Colorado Constitutional Amendment that clearly violates Federal law gets struck down.

Whether one agrees with the Federal marijuana laws or not, those laws remain in effect. The fact that the Obama administration has refused to enforce them is, in fact, a violation of the President's Oath of Office that is an impeachable offense--if anyone in this country actually believes in the rule of law, anymore. When everyone in the country, from the President on down, thinks that duly enacted laws only have to be obeyed when it is convenient or pleasant, we are only a short step from anarchy.

[Josseppie]

Your right technically it does but in the United States movements generally start on the state level then if they gain enough wide spread support can cause change on the national level.

[jazzlover]

Originally Posted by Josseppie

Your right technically it does but in the United States movements generally start on the state level then if they gain enough wide spread support can cause change on the national level.

Yeah, that "movement" is called getting a majority in both Houses of the US Congress to pass legislation to change the law and getting the President to sign it--a task which is apparently too much trouble for the "pot legalization" crowd to undertake. The last time a bunch of states decided that duly-enacted Federal laws should be ignored because they weren't popular in some states and that those "dissenting" states "would show the Federal government the error in its ways" by flagrantly passing laws that violated the Federal laws, it led to the bloodiest war in US history--the Civil War--that nearly destroyed the country.