Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
95% of the medical marijuana advocates are recreational users and sellers that want a method to use and distribute it without facing criminal punishment. There are currently more marijuana dispensaries in L.A than there are Starbucks. That's because of recreational use, not medical use. Any medically viable parts of the marijuana plant could easily be extracted and made into a prescription drug so if it has medical benefits then the drug companies should manufacture it and supply it to pharmacies where distribution is controlled just as other prescription drugs.
There is simply no need for a "medical marijuana" law and California is a great example of what happens when you pass one. It looks great on paper but when someone converts the house next door to yours into a grow house and destroys your property value you'll wish it never happened. Either legalize marijuana completely or keep the law they way it is right now.
So what if recreational users are using the medcal marijuana laws for a shield from the current laws? The current drug laws don't make any sense. Meanwhile people who are sick and need the help that marijuana affords can get it without some zealous prosecutor, or DEA funded police force, sending them to jail. By the way, even the LA City Counsel, where the assertion that there were more dispenseries in LA than Starbucks quote originated, have backpeddled on that and have since said that it was a guess. They really didn't know how many there were. The real number seems to have been somewhere around 450 to 480. In any case that is moot now since the City Counsel finally passed an ordinance severaly limiting how many dispenseries there could be and the police have been diligent in closing down the illegal ones. So you can relax on that point. But don't forget, the proliferation of despenseries happened because LA failed to act, as they could have at any time, to limit how many could operate in the city.
You are right, in theory the plant could be processed and the effective constitutents could be manufactered into pills. In fact the Americam Medical Association would like to do research leading to just that outcome, but it's not happening because the DEA is failing to act on their request to reschedule marijuana from schedule 1 to schedule 2, and has rejected every other similar request. So don't expect to see any pills based on the natural plant any time soon. There is the synthetic Marinol, which will run you about $8,000 per year IF you can get a perscription, but it only contains THC and not all the other effective compounds in marijuana, which you can grow and use for FREE.
If the house next to yours becomes a grow house that is again a function of the local governments failure to act properly, not the fault of the person who is trying to meet demand. He is just operating according to forces in the market place and the legal environment he finds himself in, unregulated capitalism. If the cities would reasonably zone certain areas for growing the amounts needed to supply the market, and they enforced those laws instead of prohibiting growing county wide, then stealth grow houses would not need to exist. Look at it logically. It would be a lot more profitable, and less hassle for a grower, to grow in a warehouse than in a building designed as a private home. They use homes because they can't find a legal and suitable place to grow near their distributors and buyers. So in the end your conclusion is correct, marijuana should just simply be legalized. By not doing that we have the unacceptable situation we are in now.
Actually, I am a PhD Pharmacologist, and thus a drug expert and very well read on this issue. That said, your ignorance NCGT on this issue is clearly hard to deal with since you will not be able to provide logical reasons for your argument. You need to be more well read on the Cannabis/THC history. THey have tried for decades with marinol and dronabinol (synthetic THC) in pill form; however, it has been proven that it just isn't taken in the same way and effective as when its smoked. Its just whats been proven. And now with the advent of vaporization, there is ZERO arguments that detractors can use to say that medical marijuana should be legal. Since you do not have to combust (that means smoke) marijuana anymore, and can just extract the vapor, health issues are none.
Moreover, if you read studies, you will see the dependency and tolerance issues with opiates and other pain relievers. They have MANY more side effects than marijuana does, and marijuana does not have the dependency issue and is just able to work with pain much better. I did my PhD research on the CB1 receptor ( this is the cannabinoid receptor, the main subtype, located in the CNS (brain) primary). We have this CB1 and a CB2 receptor in the immune system naturally. What I mean is that GOD GAVE US RECEPTORS TO METABOLIZE THC and MARIJUANA's ACTIVE COMPOUNDS. Try to argue that anyway you want.
In addition to all the cancer-preventing properties that are being discovered with THC these days (they are showing it to be a strong tumor suppressor and acting to decrease the occurrence of proto oncogenes, or genes that can lead to cancer easily). Marijuana legalization would make the government plenty of $, give the medical patients the relief they need to escape persecution, and let people that like to recreationally smoke have that option without worrying about legal or financial problems with it. Its no different than wanting stopping to get a 6 or 12 pack at the store on a Friday afternoon. WHy should you not be able to stop and get an 1/8th of some real nice herb? I am real interested to hear any arguments now after stating my piece and giving you the lowdown.
And zthatzmanz28, clearly you just don't know enough about marijuana to really be arguing one way or the other. Run along and read the Bible now, you wouldn't want to be unprepared for church this Sunday!
"95% of the medical marijuana advocates are recreational users and sellers that want a method to use and distribute it without facing criminal punishment".
Criminal punishment is the government's answer to a problem that they have brought about.
The criminalization of marijuana has given our society, an even bigger problem than the marijuana itself
would have ever been, had they not moved as they did over 80 years ago, to keep it (at all cost), from the people.
For long years, our leaders, legislators and administrators have turned a blind eye to the concept of decriminalization,
only to see at this late date, that they have created a major problem that will not go away by itself. Through that
blindness and the unwillingness to face the marijuana issue honestly and intelligently, we find ourselves tied up with
greater problems than would've been seen if the government had never meddled with our personal freedom, the
God given right for each man or woman to decide for themselves, the maintenance of their own chemical mind.
"There are currently more marijuana dispensaries in L.A than there are Starbucks. That's because of recreational use, not medical use. Any medically viable parts of the marijuana plant could easily be extracted and made into a prescription drug so if it has medical benefits then the drug companies should manufacture it and supply it to pharmacies where distribution is controlled just as other prescription drugs".
It may be true that there are more medical marijuana dispensaries than there are Starbucks there in L.A. but look
a bit closer at the core issue: Starbucks is selling a drug also, caffeine. They are making a nice profit selling their legal
but recreational drug, so why are the medical or recreational users of marijuana wearing the scarlet letter here?
If you support the notion that the drug companies should have the right to process and sell the psychoactive or those
medically beneficial chemicals found in marijuana, aren't you effectively, just looking to shift the profit factor from the
citizen's hands to the coffers of big pharmacy? Will marijuana cease to be the "moral" issue that many believe it to be
once it begins to be sold in plastic vials in some pharmacy, rather than in plastic bags on the street?
There is simply no need for a "medical marijuana" law and California is a great example of what happens when you pass one. It looks great on paper but when someone converts the house next door to yours into a grow house and destroys your property value you'll wish it never happened. Either legalize marijuana completely or keep the law they way it is right now.
There was also never a need for marijuana, medical or recreational to have ever been criminalized and as to California,
pot would grow quite nicely, right here in my New York back yard or in any other state in the union for that matter.
As far as "looking great" on paper, so did all of those sub-prime mortgages that were written by the fat-cat bankers
and the financiers. I'd rather live next door to a grow-house any day than live next door to the foreclosed, boarded-up
and abandoned house next door, the eyesore that has destroyed MY property value and devaluated my own investment,
to a point beyond recovery.
I believe that your logic is somewhat flawed in several points.
In N.C. if marijuana is decriminalized, I think the state would probably run it like the ABC stores that sell booze. There would not be a store on every corner. A friend of mind said she knew someone in the tobacco industry, and they have been ready for years for the legalization. Don't know if this is true or not.
I think marijuana should be legalized. It is a natural plant that was put here on earth for us to consume however we see fit. I also feel the same way about opium and the coca plant. We don't need big brother holding our hand and telling us what is right and what isn't and trying to control what plants we can and can't grow from our soil, especially when God supposedly put these plants in the ground in the first place.
By the logic of making it illegal to grow these plants and possess them, we should make it illegal to grow any other fruit or vegetable of the earth, like corn, tomatoes, strawberries, etc.
Now before you throw the bible at me, let me make my point. Yes I understand that the illegal plants I mentioned may be addictive in nature when consumed, but they also serve a purpose, medically and recreationally. The fact is, the plants we consume that can legally grow in our gardens now is addicting. People have to have food every day for survival, right?. True, some people may overdose on the illegal plants and die as a result. People can also die by overdosing on food that is currently legal for us to grow in our back yards.
It is up to you and me how we choose to use and consume these plants, the currently illegal and legal alike, whether it be conservatively and sparingly, and benefit from their existence in our society, or binge on them, and die as a result. You can't control stupidity. People die all the time from "drug" overdoses, and people die all the time because of binge eating or poor food choice over the duration of their life. Look at it as a form of population control. This planet is overcrowded with idiots anyways, right?
In N.C. if marijuana is decriminalized, I think the state would probably run it like the ABC stores that sell booze. There would not be a store on every corner. A friend of mind said she knew someone in the tobacco industry, and they have been ready for years for the legalization. Don't know if this is true or not.
Not to go off topic, but you would think conservatives would try to push liquor stores into the free market. That would be a win for smaller government and free market economics. But noooo, the moral police is here to stay.
It would be so much better with a privatized liquor industry. Keep the crooks in government (see New Hanover ABC) away from the money
I believe the privatization of liquor is on the table. It was a while back, but saw something about it on local Charlotte news. I haven't heard anything lately, but if N.C. can make more money from taxes that way, it might happen.
I believe the privatization of liquor is on the table. It was a while back, but saw something about it on local Charlotte news. I haven't heard anything lately, but if N.C. can make more money from taxes that way, it might happen.
I know local governments don't want to give up this moneypot. But I do think alcohol sales would increase with privatization. It just makes sense. Those blue laws don't work anymore.
Why isn't Marijuana legalized?!? My mind can't even process this question, there isn't even an appropriate answer, all of them are branched from ignorance and foolishness. It's a plant it just grows that way. It's not like cocaine where you have to mix coca beans and kerosene. Its not crack you don't add baking soda and microwave it. You just pick the bud off and there you go it's like picking berries, sticky smelly berries. You can drink till you die from alcohol poisoning, but you have to smoke your full body weight to OD on marijuana. Yea, it's never happened. Not once, its been a few thousand years since marijuana started being consumed and not a single person has died from marijuana Over Dose. Oh and not to mention marijuana has over 1,000 uses besides making you feel happy... Like everlasting clothing, it's nutritious, it can make ice cream for the lactose intolerant, paper(an end to deforestation), it can be used in construction, fuel, rope, water and soil purification(such as cleaning water for drinking so you know... we stay alive.) With all these uses from a single plant, including entertainment, it's baffling that marijuana is still illegal. Thanks to 1930's "PROPAGANDA" people believe this plant is evil. Watch "Refer Madness" and then smoke weed and see how accurate there opinions are. Hitler had propaganda too, its amazing what ignorance does to people. Think for yourselves people. Be human. Legalize weed and gain everything you need.
You don't just pick the bud off...you do have to cure it.
Please register to post and access all features of our very popular forum. It is free and quick. Over $68,000 in prizes has already been given out to active posters on our forum. Additional giveaways are planned.
Detailed information about all U.S. cities, counties, and zip codes on our site: City-data.com.
Please register to participate in our discussions with 2 million other members - it's free and quick! Some forums can only be seen by registered members. After you create your account, you'll be able to customize options and access all our 15,000 new posts/day with fewer ads.
Marijuana and North Carolina
