Obama Admin Says It Won't Fight Looser Marijuana Laws, With Conditions

schwit1 writes with news that the Obama administration has released a memo stating that it will not fight liberalized marijuana laws in states like Colorado and Washington, but made that promise conditional on a set of guidelines, such as requiring efforts to dissuade underage use. From the Washington Post's coverage: "Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole detailed the administration's new stance, even as he reiterated that marijuana remains illegal under federal law. The memo directs federal prosecutors to focus their resources on eight specific areas of enforcement, rather than targeting individual marijuana users, which even President Obama has acknowledged is not the best use of federal manpower. Those areas include preventing distribution of marijuana to minors, preventing the sale of pot to cartels and gangs, preventing sales to other states where the drug remains illegal under state law, and stopping the growing of marijuana on public lands."

Comments

Discouraging underage use?

[cold fjord]

Maybe this is why?

Is Marijuana a Safe Drug? Teenage Brain at Risk for Drug Abuse

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

There was also a study of New Zealanders. They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38. By comparison, those who never smoked pot had an average increase of one IQ point by the same age.

A reanalysis of the New Zealand data by Ole Røgeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, however, suggested that the IQ difference could be explained by socioeconomic factors. People who start smoking marijuana at an earlier age are often less intelligent to begin with.

You will find most of the research is similarly tainted.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that IQ measurements are crap and any attempt to compare "IQ" across any population without controlling for a zillion factors is ridiculous.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[SuricouRaven]

The ideal solution to me would be to treat it like tobacco: Keep it legal, but at the same time take measures to very strongly discourage use.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

Maybe this is why?

Is Marijuana a Safe Drug? Teenage Brain at Risk for Drug Abuse

Why modded -1? This study supports other studies that came to similar conclusions:

Yes. Marijuhana-abuse by minors is a big problem. Not if done once, but an abuse, that does not affect grown ups (from 21 or better, 25 years on) very much has a devastating effect on their brains. The reason, as I understood it, is the rearranging of the whole brain structure while being juvenile. This rearrangement, as new scans showed, is much more fundamental than previously known. And smoking grass fucks that up big time. And it messes with the hormon levels. Those rearrangements possibly can not take place after the normal timeframe. If they were haltet or obfuscated by marihuana abuse, those youngsters have a permanent brain damage.

But: Abusing any brain affecting drug in that time will possibly do the same, so drinking alcohol instead of smoking is not an option. If I had children, I would insist on limiting marijuhana use to one time pet year, four times max until they are 21 (you are an adult at 18 here, so a bit of cooperation from the other side would be necessary. Any smoking of marihuana under the age of 16 would be completely out of the question.

Your war on drugs was one big mistake. But inform yourself before letting your kids use it limitless. If those studies are right, they suggest that using marihuana (esp. in a vaporizer) is indeed less dangerous than alcohol for the body. And does not effect grown ups as much as heavy drinking would. Even really heavy abuse does not make you significantly dumber, just a measurable bit and it is possible that the brain could recover, except for some problems with the short time memory, which MAY stay. But for youngsters that use marijuhana heavily, it may be that it really blows their mind away. But they would be DEAD if they drank as much, so demonizing pot is really dumb. Being dead means no brain functions whatsoever, so instead of being less stellar in school, they would rot...

But: It seems like the dangers to young people were underestimated.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Mordok-DestroyerOfWo]

I'm no medicalologist, but I have to imagine that mass consumption of any mind-altering chemical (tobacco, alcohol, caffeine, etc.) while the brain is still developing will have an effect. The question is, is it worth keeping our prisons full of non-violent offenders to discourage their use?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

The ideal solution to me would be to treat it like tobacco: Keep it legal, but at the same time take measures to very strongly discourage use.

Except the tobacco scare tactics are unwarranted, with the possible exception for under-age use, or use while driving, as with any intoxicant.
Beer and wine regulatory mechanisms seem more appropriate. In fact Washington State tasked the Liquor board with the job of managing Marijuana sales and use in the state.

Yet still feds seem intent on sticking their oar in.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[geekoid]

tianted? you bias is showing.

There is a lot of good data the backs that up.
I would say there is enough evidence to put a over 21 law into effect until it is furthered studied.
It does seem to happen to upper middle class kids as well.

Clearly, we need better studies, but sometime we should be prudent.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

NZ, the country where almost every that drinks has no problem driving while drunk, because there are only around 3 million people in a land about the size of the UK.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[geekoid]

medicalologist, nice., I like it better the scienctician.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[interval1066]

Regulate it like alcohol, including enforcing bans on driving while high, just like alcohol. Now tax the hell out of it, and end of discussion. The "war" on pot was a rediculous waste of fed and state resources, and created a permanant underclass of unemployable criminals who've done nothing more thann get high. The fed needs to get off its high horse and rewrite whatever laws are keeping pot in the "felony" lists (other than, like I said, driving while high that results in killing someone, maybe). Enough is enough. Knock off this sham.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[PopeRatzo]

They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38.

I'm betting most people lose at least eight IQ points by the time they turn 38.

That's why the mathematicians who do the groundbreaking work mostly are younger than 38. There are still brilliant mathematicians older than that, but they're not the ones who are doing the most important new work.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[jopsen]

In social "sciences" these are valid means... and can infact be backed by statistics...

In social "sciences" a simple measurement with a lot data points is often better than quantitative data..

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

Yes. Those findings are not too clear. But on the other side, you could visit very heavy young users in clinics and watch those effects by yourself. Those guys really have problems they wouldn't if they smoked weed responsibly.

Paracelsus was no moron. German: Alle Ding' sind Gift, und nichts ohn' Gift; allein die Dosis macht, daß ein Ding kein Gift ist.
All things are poison, and nothing is without poison; only the dose permits something not to be poisonous. It may be impossible to use as much marijuhana as needed for dying on the poisonous effects of marihuana. But I would prevent minors from taking the risk of heavy marihuana abuse to find out what it REALLY does to the brain. Just like drinking alcohol on a regular basis, it may be a very bad idea for very young people that want to get a job were thinking may be neccessary.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

The ideal solution to me would be to treat it like tobacco: Keep it legal, but at the same time take measures to very strongly discourage use.

Why discourage it? Who is to say that we wouldn't be better off if most people smoked marijuana?

Maybe the crime rate would go down.
Maybe we'd all be happier.
Maybe everyone would be so damn depressed.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[jcr]

Nah, power-grubbers never did care about safety. The reason for this that that Obama's finally come to the dim realization that he'd better change sides on this issue like he did on gay marriage before it started to cost him politically.

-jcr

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

I modded you insightful but I'd like to challenge one point of yours: what makes you believe that smoking marijuana impairs one's ability to drive? This seems to be a common assumption among non-smokers, but I can tell you from (daily) experience such is not the case. It requires the consumption of quite a bit of pot to impair one's driving -- usually this means eating it rather than smoking it -- and once a person is that high they don't want to drive. It's just too stressful (as opposed to driving drunk, where alcohol gives one 'liquid courage').

Even with alcohol, one is considered legally drunk much before they've consumed enough to actually be impaired.

A person shouldn't be considered impaired just because a particular chemical is in their body. They should be given basic coordination tests -- such as a field sobriety test (but something that's computerized, kind of like a video game, to eliminate bias on the part of the officer). If you can't pass a field sobriety test because you're too old, you shouldn't be able to drive. If you can't pass it because of a prescribed medication, you shouldn't be able to drive. If you can't pass a field sobriety test because you're just a naturally uncoordinated person, you shouldn't be able to drive. A person's BAC or THC level is irrelevant, what's important is their ability to control a vehicle.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

If anything I'm biased in exactly the opposite direction than you might imagine.
I'm not a user, voted against legalization in Washington, and don't hold out any of the high hopes for legal marijuana that some of my neighbors rant about.

(My objection to it was more a mater of personal preferences, we seem to have enough intoxicated individuals running around loose in the world, and the fact that there is no valid test for driving under the influence. But its really not that big of a deal one way or the other.)

But I'm also able to see its not a gateway drug, and if you stop sending users to criminals to buy their entertainment they will stop being sold-Up to worse drugs. I haven't seen any ill effects among my friends that are users. Even those who have been smoking since their late teens, have held long and distinguished legal careers, elected to civil court judge positions, or held highly technical jobs for their entire career. All while using quietly at home.

I have no problem with the idea of keeping it out of the hands of teen-agers. Same goes for booze and cars.
You know, your chances of dying a violent death increases four fold when you have more than one visible tattoo. That alone is enough to restrict kids from tattoos if you ask me.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Two problems.

- First, the link in the GP post isn't about IQ. You're arguing apples (IQ) when the subject is oranges (mental health).

- Second, you overstate the results of Røgeberg's research.

Does marijuana lower IQ? New study challenges link

In an interview, Rogeberg said he's not claiming that his alternative explanation is definitely right, just that the methods and evidence in the original study aren't enough to rule it out. He suggested further analyses the researchers could do with their data.

The Duke scientists, who learned of Rogeberg's paper late last week, disagree and said they conducted new statistical tests that ruled out his explanation.

Rogeberg says they need to do still more work to truly rule it out.

As the researchers debate, experts unconnected to the two papers said the Rogeberg paper doesn't overturn the original study. It "raises some interesting points and possibilities," but provides "speculation" rather than new data based on real people, said Dr. Duncan Clark, who studies alcohol and drug use in adolescents at the University of Pittsburgh.

Dr. Nora Volkow, director of the National Institute on Drug Abuse, said observational studies of people like the Duke work can't definitively demonstrate that marijuana causes irreversible effects on the brain. In an email, she said Rogeberg's paper "looks sound" but doesn't prove that his alternative explanation is correct either.

Pot smokers might not turn into dopes after all

What do the original paper's authors make of Røgeberg's analysis?
Madeline Meier, a psychologist at the Duke Transdisciplinary Prevention Research Center in Durham, North Carolina, who co-wrote the original paper with her colleagues, says that Røgeberg's ideas are interesting. However, she points out that the authors of the first PNAS paper restricted their analysis to individuals in middle-class families and those with low or high socioeconomic status. The outcome suggests that the decline in IQ cannot be attributed to socioeconomic factors alone.

In their original analysis, Meier says, she and her colleagues controlled for socioeconomic status and found that in all socioeconomic categories, the IQs of children who were not heavy users remained unchanged from adolescence to adulthood. Therefore, she says, socioeconomic status does not influence IQ decline.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

Really?

That would be news to the New Zealand Ministry of Transport:

http://www.transport.govt.nz/research/Documents/alcohol-drugs-2012.pdf

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

So you are saying that social sciences aren't actually science? Say it isn't so!

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[darth_borehd]

Prediction: Marijuana advocates will claim this is invalid and all part of the conspiracy to keep the drug they are addicted to away from them. Just watch.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[couchslug]

Is MJ safer than jail?

The laws don't have their intended effect.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

Marijuana impairs attention. That seems to be the linkage that most people cite. But I find no hard statistics on this either.

Since there is no legally recognized impairment level for Marijuana, and no legally recognized tests, (other than blood draws) either device based tests, or field sobriety tests, its hard to prove the extent to which it is present in accident situations. So if there was a car crash, the police have no real way to prove it was even a factor.

University of Washington cited an Australian study showing that the research is a total mess in this area. So a local TV station then went out and did their own tests.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

No, they are statistical science. They say nothing about the behavior of individuals, but make useful predictions about the statistical distribution of behaviors in the population. Just like the gas laws, Zero Kelvin.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[RabidReindeer]

Regulate it like alcohol, including enforcing bans on driving while high, just like alcohol. Now tax the hell out of it, and end of discussion.

Question. Would taxing it control it? Unlike tobacco, or even alcohol, I thought weed was supposed to grow just like, um, weed.

Taxation can control a lot of things, but only until alternatives become less expensive ("expensive" not being solely in dollars and sense). In the case of Marijuana, the bar appears pretty low to me.

Then again, I never went that route, so I'm just guessing.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[RabidReindeer]

I modded you insightful but I'd like to challenge one point of yours: what makes you believe that smoking marijuana impairs one's ability to drive?

Because the whole point of it is to alter one's mental state?

Granted, some people drive so badly, that any change is likely for the better. I, of course, am not one of them.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

Yes. Those findings are not too clear. But on the other side, you could visit very heavy young users in clinics and watch those effects by yourself. Those guys really have problems they wouldn't if they smoked weed responsibly.

What clinics are treating heavy Marijuana users?

Are you playing the old "gateway drug" card again?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

In Colorado it is currently illegal to DUI of marijuana as well as no use in public

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

I've actually red some of those studies, but did not find cc ones. I wrote what I understand of those studies in the hope scientists came up with some citations here. It's easier to get to the sources if you actually bought the scientific papers, you know.

What is so bad in preventing minors from heavy use? It is not challenged that the brain needs some time to recover from a stoned weekend. And by time I do not mean a day.

Hammering the brain every day when you are supposed to get good marks and learn something is a good idea, because?

I am pro legalization, but I would not allow my kids to get stoned on a regular basis before they turned 21 and I suggest /.ers to do the same. I am a terrible person, I know.

And you know: Visiting some of those clinics, were they help those kids is indeed possible. Watch for yourself. And I am not talking about those poor guys that got their psychological illness caused by marihuana. For some, the funny voices you could hear when really stoned do not go away...

This is ridiculous. Alcohol is more dangerous than pot. Abusing pot heavily is still a bad idea because Paracelsus was right. The studies are out there. Find them for yourself. Why do some of us Nerds need to think only in yes and no? Sometimes it is just a bit more complex. I am not denying us the highs. I am just suggesting to be on the safe side with your kids - because I have (!) done my research and it sounds reasonable on more than one level. Let's leave it at that.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

"tax the hell out of it" is a good way to keep those blackmarket jobs intact. That leads to gangs and illegal activity. These are the major failures of the war on drugs. When are you people going to understand the wave of cause and effect that the drug war has brought on us? And it's already illegal to drive under marijuana, legal or not.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Kjella]

I'd lean more towards the explanation that older people have more knowledge and experience which means they're more set in their ways and don't challenge accepted truths like the younger generation does. While it also from time to time produces gems it's also the cause of all the people trying to reinvent the wheel, why go for the new and crazy when you can use the tried and true. It might not be quite as glamorous, but the world needs both highly competent doctors as well as the odd Nobel prize in medicine.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[HiThere]

I'm quite willing to believe that there are biased studies, but that doesn't make them all wrong. IIRC there was one that studied the effects on certain classes of neurons, or possibly certain brain structures, that don't usually finish development until the late teen-age years. If found that marijuana, interfered with the proper development of those structures. They were involved in finer aspects of judgement and motivation.

I've no reason to believe that study was biased. I can't remember the instrumentation that they used, whether it was MRI or something else, but it was a highly significant, and not judgment-based, conclusion. Of course, I didn't read the original report, so this could be reporting error. You're not only getting a third-hand report, but also one that can't offer you a citation. Do, however, notice that this isn't the same study that was reported above. And I know (remember) nothing about the sample size, or even if it was in the report I read.

Still, that's a plausible report. And the people I have known that started smoking pot before they were in college were a bit ... flakey. So the conclusion is also plausible.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

There was also a study of New Zealanders. They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38. By comparison, those who never smoked pot had an average increase of one IQ point by the same age.

A reanalysis of the New Zealand data by Ole Røgeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, however, suggested that the IQ difference could be explained by socioeconomic factors. People who start smoking marijuana at an earlier age are often less intelligent to begin with.

You will find most of the research is similarly tainted.

How does your bold print change the conclusion... Those who smoke pot are stupid... Either indicated by or as a result of smoking pot is absolutely irrelevant.

Simply stated... If you smoke pot you're an d idiot!!! and we have scientific evidence to back it up!

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Lehk228]

growing pot is quite a bit of work. right now it is worth it because it is illegal so a) the price is high and b) the enterprises selling it are shady

once those issues are cured with legalization, the effort time and legal risk of a tax evasion charge would really not be worth it compared tyo walking down to the gas station and buying a pack of scooby snacks.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"No, they are statistical science. They say nothing about the behavior of individuals, but make useful predictions about the statistical distribution of behaviors in the population."

They do no such thing. IQ Tests are arbitrary, subjective, and any genius will tell you that they are in effect meaningless. Add this to the fact that there is no way to isolate test subjects into control groups where variables are limited to one or a very few, and anyone who actually understands science will tell you that any "data" that you gather is meaningless and any conclusion you draw is doubly so. Statistical science is the study of data. It is meaningless unless your data has meaning. Since IQ "data" is not scientific (i.e. objective) data, no application of the scientific method can magically turn it into scientific data.

"Just like the gas laws, Zero Kelvin."

I am unfamiliar with the gas law that allows the measurement of the strength of the cognitive power of a gas. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[demonlapin]

I don't smoke or grow pot, but I do grow a couple of vegetables and fruits. I get probably twenty lemons a year off my small tree. Jalapeños, maybe thirty over the course of summer per plant. Basil, I get enough for maybe a couple of pints of pesto (and that is bulked up with pine nuts). It's a pleasant hobby and it is tasty, but it's not industrial production.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[cusco]

"heavy young users" of which drugs? If they're in a clinic it's probably because they have a multiple-drug problem, they're hardly a good representative sample of marijuana smokers.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, your chances of dying a violent death increases four fold when you have more than one visible tattoo. That alone is enough to restrict kids from tattoos if you ask me.

Can't tell if trolling, or if you're really one of the exceptionally thick skulls for whose benefit we have the saying "correlation!=causation"...

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[steveb3210]

They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38.

I'm betting most people lose at least eight IQ points by the time they turn 38.

That's why the mathematicians who do the groundbreaking work mostly are younger than 38. There are still brilliant mathematicians older than that, but they're not the ones who are doing the most important new work.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yitang_Zhang

Born in 1955 - recently had a breakthrough paper showing that there are infintely many primes with a gap at most 70million

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[kimvette]

I disagree, and so does this young child and her parents:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/health/charlotte-child-medical-marijuana

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[slick7]

The ideal solution to me would be to treat it like tobacco: Keep it legal, but at the same time take measures to very strongly discourage use.

Better yet, let everyone get high, then swoop in with the TSA/DHS party bus to camp FEMA where we have showers... er.. uh special smoking rooms where you can party to your hearts content.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[cusco]

It is not challenged that the brain needs some time to recover from a stoned weekend. And by time I do not mean a day.

I'll challenge it. I can drink three beers on Saturday night,and still feel like crap at noon on Sunday. I can spend the entire weekend stoned, stop smoking about 10:00 Sunday night, and function perfectly well Monday without any noticeable effect except to be a little more relaxed than most Mondays.

For some, the funny voices you could hear when really stoned do not go away

If they're hearing voices it has nothing to do with marijuana. That's not one of the effects of being stoned on pot. If they're hearing voices it's because they're schizophrenic. Their voices are there all the time, perhaps when they're stoned they're just a little more relaxed or curious and start listening.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[kimvette]

You voted against helping children like this:

http://www.cnn.com/2013/08/07/health/charlotte-child-medical-marijuana

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[kimvette]

And yet, it can fix broken juvenile brains

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

Washington recreational pot vote had nothing to do with medical marijuana.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

That must be why we have all those gangsters running around shooting each other over alcohol-wait...you mean that hasn't happened since Repeal? Hmm, maybe your anti-tax fantasy doesn't actually square with reality, my friend!

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well first of all, anecdotal experience on impairment is EXTREMELY suspect because a large part of impairment is an inability to accurately estimate how much you are impaired.

You yourself admitted that quite a bit of pot will impair somebody's driving, and I'm going to assert it's entirely possible for somebody to try to drive even though you think they aren't likely to want to. So let's do the studies, come up with a reasonable threshold. I see what you're saying about using a sobriety test rather than any specific threshold, but it would be good at minimum to come up with recommendations, if for no other reason than it would be nice to know approximately how much pot you can consume if you want to drive home , and by the time you get to take a sobriety test it is far, far too late. Whether it's "not within 5 minutes of eating an entire plate of pot brownies" or "not within 3 days of a second-hand breath of a joint" isn't the critical thing, and of course, like alcohol, it'll depend on your age/weight/gender/metabolism/etc..

If it turns out we really can't give any reasonable guidelines at all, that's something interesting too. And maybe the field sobriety test should be distributed broadly to people so they can self-evaluate, even if the consumer ones are configured conservatively (I heard that they used to distribute breathalyzers in some places, but it encouraged people to drive when they blew a result right on the edge of the legal limit).

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Not to mention that IQ measurements are crap and any attempt to compare "IQ" across any population without controlling for a zillion factors is ridiculous.

Methinks the lady doth protest too much.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

No. I know one in Hamburg. Those effects are real. And what is the big deal with other drugs? You could live longer as a heroin junkie than as an alcohol addict if given pharmacy-grade quality. You get more addicted to heroin than to alcohol. But the actual effects on your body are smaller.

In my opinion, the government should regulate drugs - all of them. And allow many now illegal drugs, except of course for the really bad ones like crystal meth or crocodile. But who would use them if alternatives are available at a reasonable price?

Prohibition is a bad idea. Getting stoned everyday while being 14 on the other hand is just as stupid. In Germany, you get adult at 18, except for some felonies were you may get a discount until 21.

When the government is holding you responsible for our actions, it should not interfere with self inflicted harm. No censoring of media were nobody was actually harmed. No punishments for possessing things that help you inflict harm on yourself.

But I expect the state to prohibit the selling of the really bad stuff and the selling of drugs to minors.

I am a foreigner. I do not believe in "doing adult crime, doing adult time" like it is the case in the US. But at 21, when people are old enough to take responibility for their actions, the state should leave us to our recreational activities of our choice.

I am against the criminalisation of the possession of drugs. But selling drugs to minors is another story.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[khellendros1984]

It's a metaphorical comparison, not a literal one.

They say nothing about the behavior of individuals, but make useful predictions about the statistical distribution of behaviors in the population.

Individual particles of a gas don't necessarily share all of the qualities of the gas as a whole. Some particles may be highly energetic in a low-energy mass, similar to how an individual may be a genius in a population of people with mediocre intelligence.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

In New York City, a pack of cigarettes ($3-$7.00 retail) has $5.85 in state/local excise taxes and $1.01 in federal excise tax.

Do you suppose they have more blackmarket cigarettes and associated crime than, say, Pennsylvania where the state excise tax is only $1.60/pack?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[mjwx]

There was also a study of New Zealanders. They found that people who began using pot earlier in life and used it most frequently over the years experienced an average decline of eight IQ points by the time they turned 38. By comparison, those who never smoked pot had an average increase of one IQ point by the same age.

A reanalysis of the New Zealand data by Ole Røgeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, however, suggested that the IQ difference could be explained by socioeconomic factors. People who start smoking marijuana at an earlier age are often less intelligent to begin with.

You will find most of the research is similarly tainted.

How such research is conducted.

Researcher: Have you used marijuana?
Dumb pot user: Yes
Smart pot user: No

The only real way to confirm this is to check for a history of drug related charges, which will only be present for the dumbest of the dumb.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[kimvette]

Oh sorry I didn't read the details.

I'm not for recreational use on a personal level but I do believe it should be legalized because the "war on drugs" is a failure of epic proportions.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[mjwx]

Marijuana impairs attention. That seems to be the linkage that most people cite. But I find no hard statistics on this either.

Well, there's plenty of evidence that Marijuana has effects on response time (like most depressants).

For most of us who've smoked pot, we know it definitely affects your faculties to the point where you cant drive safely, more over this is more noticeable to the user than it is with alcohol. Unlike alcohol, pot users tend to avoid taking extreme risks like excessive speed (people driving high tend to be slower than the median, which is still bad) but still have the problems with fine motor control (keeping the wheel straight) as well as reduced response speed and impaired perception.

I'm pro-decriminalisation of marijuana, but really it needs to be treated like other legal mind altering drugs (I.E. Alcohol). In Australia we treat driving under the influence of drugs to be the same as driving under the influence of Alcohol but you also get a drug conviction, not just a DUI conviction.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

This does not disprove parent:

Her mental health is decreasing by her illness, marijuhana helps. The negative effects on the brain by the drug are a mild side effect and should be minimalised by controlled quality of the drug and controlled consumption.

This is not "heavy use on a daily basis" to get high and increasing the taken amount to get the same high because the brain quickly gets used to it. It is used as a medicine, not as a mostly recreational activity.

The fact that the positive effects may outweigh the reducable negative effects does not mean that they do not exist.

E.g. chemo is sometimes bad for the brain and the rest of your body. Being dead or growing a brain tumor outweighs those effects many times, but it does not nullify them.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Fed and State resources? Those are not their resources. Those are YOUR resources that they took by force. Just sayin...

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about do no harm? As long as I am not hurting anyone or there is no injured party then there is no crime. That is the law that this country was founded on.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

yeah ? well that research is done by people with zeros in their last name. Good Ole Rogeberg from Ragnar? sounds completely made up to me.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Khyber]

"statistical science."

Oxymoron. Statistics are so variable (and continually variable) that they cannot be considered an effective or reliable part of any part of the scientific method.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Khyber]

"If you can't pass a field sobriety test because you're just a naturally uncoordinated person, you shouldn't be able to drive."

I know several people that can barely walk yet they drive better than 90% of Southern California. I'm quite sure many others on this site know similar people.

If you can't think logically (like you've shown you really can't) you shouldn't be able to drive.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[cold fjord]

Quite agree.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

And I challenge your statement that

A person's BAC or THC level is irrelevant, what's important is their ability to control a vehicle.

Back in the late 70s, Car & Driver magazine did an informal study (with a couple of professional test drivers) which was later reprinted in High Times, IIRC.

Their results appeared to indicate that small amounts of cannabis actually improved the pros' driving performance slightly and for a very short while, after which performance fell rapidly to much less than normal. They found in addition that using more than a small amount also quickly caused the pros' driving performance to decrease to much less than normal.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[cold fjord]

Are you playing the old "gateway drug" [clubchopper.com]card again?

The claim is the data supports it.

"Data from epidemiological studies have repeatedly shown an association between cannabis use and subsequent addiction to heavy drugs and psychosis (i.e. schizophrenia)," said Didier Jutras-Aswad, one of the researchers, in a news release. "Interestingly, the risk to develop such disorders after cannabis exposure is not the same for all individuals and is correlated with genetic factors, the intensity of cannabis use and the age at which it occurs. When the first exposure occurs in younger versus older adolescents, the impact of cannabis seems to be worse in regard to many outcomes such as mental health, education attainment, delinquency and ability to conform to adult role." -- More

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

I am not talking about the usage of different drugs. Just marijuana. But beginning at a very young age younger than 18 or even 16, for a reasonable long time, repeatedly and in high quantities.

But again: Alcohol consumption on this level would be much worse. So despite what those puritan extremists tell us: The effects on the brain are no valid reason against the legalisation of drugs.

It just suggests that the other extreme point of view, that it has no negative effect on the brain of a human on any age whatsoever and that there should not be any regulation against the selling to minors for recreational purposes is wrong, nothing more.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

How such research is conducted.

Researcher: Have you used marijuana?

Dumb pot user: Yes

Smart pot user: No

Right.

The only real way to confirm this is to check for a history of drug related charges, which will only be present for the dumbest of the dumb.

Wrong.

(Try actually testing them for the presence of cannabinoids in their systems, maybe?)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

You don't know too much about Norway, or many people from there, do you? "Røgeberg" is a completely legitimate Norwegian surname.

BTW, Ø is not zero; it's the Norwegian (and Danish) equivalent of Ö.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

I was admiring the "DestroyerOfWo" part, myself. :)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

It is not challenged that the brain needs some time to recover from a stoned weekend. And by time I do not mean a day.

I'll challenge it. I can drink three beers on Saturday night,and still feel like crap at noon on Sunday. I can spend the entire weekend stoned, stop smoking about 10:00 Sunday night, and function perfectly well Monday without any noticeable effect except to be a little more relaxed than most Mondays.

You do realise you directly contradict yourself in the bolded sentence, don't you?

When I was a heavy user, I used to rationalise in a similar vein.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

So...

Everyone who wanted to overturn alcohol prohibition was an alcoholic, right?

And all who advocate equality for LGBT folks must be one of those weirdoes themselves.

Riiiight....

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

Why should I? This would mean to fall for the propaganda of people like you. Marijuana is not healthy when someone is not ill. And misusing it is dangerous. Just like everything else in the world is when someone misuses it. If you drink enough water, you die. If you eat to much the effects are unhealthy.

But the point is that we want to decide for ourselves what we do with our lives. Even if it is not healthy. Nobody forces you or us to smoke weed. When people harm themselves it should not be he governments business. Period.

There is no need to proof that playing computer games for months without much of a break for sleeping and eating is unhealthy in order to demand that playing computer games should not be banned and punishable by long prison terms. The war on drugs was bad in Germany, but in the US you lost any proportions.

A lot of people here try to state that marijuana is harmless because they believe the mainstream propaganda that doing bad things to yourself and thus damaging the economy a tiny bit for being a slightly less productive member of society is a criminal activity.

I do not think so. Especially if smoking weed has similar or much less negative effects as alcohol which is legal I do not think I need to deny the negative effects of heavy abuse of that substance in order to demand the legalisation.

Simple as that.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

Can you explain how IQ test data is subjective? It was my understanding that it was a bad indicator of intelligence as a whole because the repeatable IQ tests all depend on pattern recognition and other very narrow topics, and that the test itself had a "subjective" component in how the definition of "intelligence" was established—not in the test data itself.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

This is a very fascinating statement and I wish to understand how you arrived at it.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[zippthorne]

Google seems to think tobacco is pretty easy to grow if you're in the right climate, so I suspect that the same thing that keeps people buying regular cigarettes despite high taxation would come into play with marijuana as well - no one really wants to be bothered with the time and expense of going through the whole process to get a finished product when it's readily available in every corner store, gas station, and convenience mart.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

The bit about young mathematicians being ground-breakers isn't really proof; that age has gone up steadily as the size of the field (and the amount of learning required to truly reach the top) has increased. A medal devoted to recognizing the work of young mathematicians, the Fields Medal, occasionally gets boycotted because of this ageism.

Age seems to be linked to decreased intelligence because of societal roles more than anything innate: most people stop learning and move into positions in life where they're expected to either pass on knowledge or maintain and manage others. In academia, the tendency for this has been diminishing (no doubt because of ever-lengthening career ladders) and as a result it's been possible to defy that norm. A wonderful example: Bertrand Russell was still active in political activism well into his late nineties.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[Badblackdog]

I totally agree, I speak from the enlightened mind of a Master Weed Sommelier . If I am are too, baked, toasted, roasted, and fried to drive a vehicle, then I wouldn't get up of the sofa in the first place. It's called "couch-lock". It's hard to get there by smoking even good weed. For a smoker with a high tolerance such as myself, I pretty much have to eat a redicilous amount of "home made" baked goods or smoke some killa, monster, bad-ass, wicked, dog poop-looking Maroccon Hash to get, too high to drive. To much of anything is not good for you. What were we talking about? Oh, another benefit would be accurate measurements of potency for edibles and smokeables. Also a /. comments formatting question. Can I use HTML code from the IPhone app in my comments for italics, bold and hyper-links? I'm sure I should know this, not trying to be a dick or anything, but somebody give me a simple answer before the sarcastic wise ass answers start flying around. Dude, it took me like an hour and 45 minutes to type that.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[jdogalt]

But: It seems like the dangers to young people were underestimated.

And that - lack of scientific knowledge to benefit humanity - is in a nutshell, precisely what the Schedule-1-ness of cannabis has given humanity. Yes, I know there are very rare, and very tightly controlled exceptions to the prohibition on medical studies, but seriously, I'm still waiting for the declassified report that explains that cannabis was invented by the CIA or KGB or some such. Sadly the only other plausible theory I have is shameful incompetence for generations on the part of our leaders. Or complicity in a conspiracy to profit on an invented vice market. Or... seriously people, chime in with theories. I've been smoking a lot of herb for half my life- a couple decades now. And those are the best theories I have...

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Maxo-Texas]

Just keep in mind that outside of smoking them, the nicotine and THC/Cannibinoids are relatively modest in their effects.

You can deliver nicotine or THC/Cannibinoids as food, drink, heck- even chicken with dumplings or chocolates.

Just as with all drugs, some percentage will abuse them. It may be because of their genetic background (like native americans with alcohol), their upbringing, self medication for depression. But a large majority can use them without abuse.

I'm a bit fuzzy on this but I looked it up once and the percentage difference between tobacco and nicotine was 11% and 13%. I think cocaine was about 15% or 17% (but not sure).

I watched british documentary where they gave the reporter straight cannibinoids and she just had tons of fun, couldn't stop laughing, and had no ill effects.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[russotto]

In New York City, a pack of cigarettes ($3-$7.00 retail) has $5.85 in state/local excise taxes and $1.01 in federal excise tax.

Do you suppose they have more blackmarket cigarettes and associated crime than, say, Pennsylvania where the state excise tax is only $1.60/pack?

Yes./a?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Marijuana also increases reaction time, which can be very dangerous when handling a vehicle.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[mjwx]

The only real way to confirm this is to check for a history of drug related charges, which will only be present for the dumbest of the dumb.

Wrong.

(Try actually testing them for the presence of cannabinoids in their systems, maybe?)

Erm, wrong.

the question was "Have you used marijuana" not "are you currently high".

Finding THC in their system is only evidence of recent use, not historical use and you cant base a study on long term effects based on recent use.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Larryish]

Tried tobacco growing, the bugs ate it up.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Logic fail. Let me spell it out for you:

1. Drug charges != drug use: Drug charges are for possession, sale, or distribution. Whether you actually used the stuff yourself is of no consequence.

2. Lack of drug charges != lack of drug use: You don't get charged for not getting caught.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[cold fjord]

Interesting fact about prohibition, after it ended alcohol consumption per capita was half what it was before prohibition, and it didn't return to pre-prohibition levels until the 1970s.

Did Prohibition Really Work? Alcohol Prohibition as a Public Health Innovation

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[davester666]

Now I understand why here in Canada, Harper announced he was considered just fining people for simple possession instead of the current law which requires cops to formally charge you, take you to jail, then you get bail and have to go through a formal trial [last week, the association of police chiefs recommended just fining people, but the Justice Minister rejected it immediately].

Just another example of Harper chasing after whatever the US wants/is doing.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

no legally recognized tests, (other than blood draws) either device based tests, or field sobriety tests

I've got a field test - just ask them a question, and then ask them the same question 2 minutes later.

I'm not sure how to end that joke, but it seemed funny enough (I'm high as fuck right now.)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Khyber]

I see and hear tons of people going 'statistically speaking' and yet I can almost always show them contrary evidence.

An example I use from my experience in horticulture and photobiology: Statistically speaking, red and blue photons have higher absorption by plant leaves, hence why red and blue LED panels exist and claim to be very energy efficient. Scientifically speaking, green has higher overall quantum yield and thus is a better sustaining light source for photosynthesis, which is why the old-fashioned high-pressure sodium lamp works so well, despite an obvious lack of blue and quite horrible CRI. In this case, lumens (which is measured/weighted at 550-555nm green light) does matter.

But then it varies WILDLY per plant anyways, so statistics regarding this is bullshit, and has no place.

There's also the old saying: Lies, damn lies, and statistics. Very wise words to pay heed to when someone says "Statistically speaking..."

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[serviscope_minor]

There are still brilliant mathematicians older than that, but they're not the ones who are doing the most important new work.

I've usually seen the number quoted as 35. Andrew Wiles didn't start working on the proof of Fermat's last theorem until he was 35, completeing it age 42. Hard to argue that's not the most important new work.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Nefarious Wheel]

I am unfamiliar with the gas law that allows the measurement of the strength of the cognitive power of a gas. Perhaps you could enlighten me.

The metric you're looking for is the "Vote"

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

What does it matter if it is bad for young people if used too often? It still is less dangerous than alcohol, so the prohibition of cannabis can not be justified scientfically.

I find those studies extremely plausible, but I challenge the conclusion of the mass media and right wing nutjobs who use them as an argument against the legalisation. It is no problem if people start heavy smoking at 21 or 24 except for a relative slim chance to get cancer (if smoked instead of heated) or get a mental illness caused by the weed if the person has a precondition.

But drinking heavily does much more to the brain and the body than weed. There is IMHO no need to prove that it is good for the user. Those studies should only have consequences for the legal age (18, better 21) to buy weed as a recreational drug. Better be safe than sorry.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

I don't know all that much about photosystems, so I'll have to trust your first two statements at face value—but what you're describing has nothing to do with statistics at all; that's just a misunderstanding of the physics at hand. Statistical calculations are only valid if the hypothesis is valid—in this case, that high absorption is proportional to chlorophyll activation.

You don't have a problem with statistics, you have a problem with ignorance of the facts—that's perfectly normal and healthy, and is necessary in all sciences. There is no causal link between people who are poorly informed and people who back up their statements with statistics; it's just the case that overly simple hypotheses, for which it is easy to derive the relevant statistics, are also easy to arrive at.

In bioinformatics we use statistics at just about every waking moment, and they do matter quite a lot when considering the false positive rate for tests. A microarray containing a million wells that has an error rate of 10^-5 will generally have about a thousand bogus values in it—cases where genes either activated completely or not at all simply because of hardware or procedural defects. Similarly, the likelihood of a random valid open reading frame (start and stop codon spaced 3 * k nucleotides apart, for some value k) below about 100 nt has a higher chance of being spontaneous than being an actual gene. These are things that can easily be demonstrated to be true physically, and yet are perfectly predictable through statistical procedures.

So go easy on the math. Yes there are serious problems in the social and medical sciences with flawed and shill studies, and yes there are plenty of figures thrown around in politics that are derived through questionable methods, but what matters is really that the people generating the figures are fools and scoundrels, not the fact that they framed the results as statistical measures or used some mathematical framework to produce them. The most shameful uses of data collection and extrapolation generally aren't even statistically or empirically sound, as antivirus companies constantly remind us. Rely on your gut instinct that they're slimeballs, not that they tried to dress up their garbage to sound scientific.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Anyone who isn't an idiot doesn't put the slash that way round through the 0. For exactly that reason. Of course there are font designers that have no clue about such small things like letters and stuff.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope. It's because industrial hemp threatens too many lobbyist industries. It has nothing to do with drugs or kids or any of that. The government is paid wholesale by the petrochemical industry to block out superior and more efficient industries. Industrial hemp being enemy number one.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[swalve]

If I remember correctly, IQ tests are age-adjusted. On average, completely average people who score 100 at 18 should also score 100 at 38. So what they are saying is that pot smokers (allegedly) fall under the curve.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[swalve]

There is nothing wrong with crystal meth when it is clean and used at an appropriate dose. But street users use way too much of it and fry their brains out.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Inda]

For the first time ever, I've grown tobacco in my greenhouse, in the UK. I've also grown it outside but the size of the plants are about 50% smaller than the greenhouse plants. I'm going to harvest any day now.

One of the most simplist plants I've grown. They've needed no TLC.

My peers are interested in doing the same next year. Seeds are a penny each. One plant could last a smoker a month. A square metre per plant is not a lot of space for an expensive crop.

Um, my point: people will grow both plants if they have a little knowledge (three cheers for the internet).

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[blackest_k]

The edge of the legal limit is not a cliff, you don't step over it and become drunk as a skunk.
It is not an absolute measure of drunkenness and around the world it varies.
Driving at less than your best ability is not an offence in itself and if you think about other factors such as tiredness you can see how daft it is to see drinking within the limits is.

Which is the bigger problem a man having a couple of drinks and staying within the limits or the guy who goes to the gym and does a punishing work out or maybe the guy who didn't sleep so well last night because his child was teething or the programmer who's mind is distracted by the latest project he is working on?

I'm not advocating driving drunk but having a beer or a glass of wine doesn't make you drunk and unfit to drive.
The trouble really is that people who are unfit to drive have a hard time comprehending when they are and when they are not.

Many years back I used to work as a dispatch rider in London the positive side of the situation was I was technically self-employed so one morning when I got up for work I realised i was too tired to go out and work and I just told the controller I wasn't alert enough to be working that morning and I took the day off. Dispatch riding is a dangerous job and you need your wits about you or your liable to get injured or killed. In many other situations people would be feeling pressured to drive in fear of losing their job and that happens a lot more than you might think.

As for smoking weed and driving, that is very hard to call, you might be too impaired now to safely drive in an hour maybe not. Almost certainly after a nights sleep you would be fine. Some people claim to drive better when they are stoned, however they ignore the problem that they are likely to have to interact with some terrible drivers on the road and being mildly intoxicated isn't going to help avoid getting into trouble with those guys.

Some people have their best idea's when stoned, driving isn't one of them.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

A reanalysis of the New Zealand data by Ole Røgeberg of the Ragnar Frisch Center for Economic Research in Oslo, however, suggested that the IQ difference could be explained by socioeconomic factors. People who start smoking marijuana at an earlier age are often less intelligent to begin with.

It took a 'reanalysis' to come up with that? It never occurred to the original researchers?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Narcocide]

No, its not. You're thinking of the Hippocratic Oath, which isn't even a law, its just a traditional vow taken by western doctors in honor of some Greek guy who died a couple millinea ago.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Type44Q]

Your war on drugs was one big mistake.

Not for those it benefited.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[nospam007]

" IQ Tests are arbitrary, subjective, and any genius will tell you that they are in effect meaningless. "

But how do we know then that they are a genius?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

I am in favor of legalization and taxing of marijuana, but that comes with a warning that if governments get too greedy with their taxation, marijuana cultivation and sales will simply remain on the black market like it does today (in non-legal states). The government must allow legal marijuana to be cheaper than the black market if it hopes to raise any meaningful tax revenue from it.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Ogive17]

Just like alcohol, different amounts/types affect people in different ways. I can drink one beer then go drive myself home with no impairment. If my wife drinks 1/4 of a beer, she'll fall asleep within 10 minutes.

One of my best friends was a frequent smoker during college. He said it actually made his driving better because he felt like he was more careful. Granted he's a shitty driver to begin with, so his statement may be true. However I've been around enough "high" people to know their quick decision making skills are definitely impaired and I would not want them driving me home. I think they are less dangerous than a drunk guy on the road.. but that's not legal.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[dirtaddshp]

This is a NIDA study, and if you read their press releases they state "NIDA is only looking for negative effects of drugs, they disregard anything else they find" That is not science, that is bias! Also that was a rat study, not humans. And one more thing, if it was legalized it would be sold in liquor stores they would card... unlike drug dealers in the current legal situation.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

"Because the whole point of it is to alter one's mental state?"
So, it should also be illegal to drive after watching a sad/scary/funny movie?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[delt0r]

I get the same effect with alcohol.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Individual particles of a gas don't necessarily share all of the qualities of the gas as a whole. Some particles may be highly energetic in a low-energy mass, similar to how an individual may be a genius in a population of people with mediocre intelligence."

I am somewhat embarrassed for you that you think there is any similarity.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

In most states its illegal to grow your own tobacco.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, there's plenty of evidence that Marijuana has effects on response time (like most depressants).

But... isn't cannabis a stimulant?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"Can you explain how IQ test data is subjective?

You explained it yourself, but mistakenly thought that the question that elicits the "data" is the data. The question is the "measuring instrument", albeit one that is impossible to calibrate. The data is the final test taker's answers, and when taken as an aggregate, their total "score."

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"But how do we know then that they are a genius?"

Well, we don't know for sure. We can however rule out the possibility in various ways. For example, if someone cannot figure out that IQ tests definitely don't measure genius, they are not an intellectual genius. :-)

Genius is as subjective as IQ. It is a term we, as humans, throw around even though we cannot define it. In other words, genius is a lot like pornography. ;-) (I can look at something and determine that it isn't pornography, but there is a grey area where certain "candidates" would be considered porno to some, but art to others.)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Hatta]

Marijuana impairs attention.

Which to be honest, only affects navigation.

So if there was a car crash, the police have no real way to prove it was even a factor.

Why should it matter? What matters is what actually happened during a crash, and who did it. If I pull into traffic without looking, it doesn't matter whether I'm drunk, stoned, or sober. I'm at fault.

Punish people for what they actually do, not what's in their bloodstream.

University of Washington cited an Australian study showing that the research is a total mess in this area.

"the research is a total mess in this area" is government funded researcher code for "we don't have the data to support what the government wants to say, so give us more money and we'll see what we can do". It's been known since 1993, that cannabis at typical levels is less impairing than legally permissible levels of alcohol, and those who are impaired *overestimate* their impairment.

Also, any attempt to set blood THC limits is misguided. From the same 1993 DOT study:

One of the program's objectives was to determine whether it. is possible to predict driving
impairment by plasma concentrations of THC and/or its metabolite, THC-COOH, in single
samples. The answer is very clear: it is not. Plasma of drivers showing substantial impairment
in these studies contained both high and low THC concentrations; and, drivers with high plasma
concentrations showed substantial, but also no impairment, or even some improvement.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[bluefoxlucid]

"I drive high all the time and I'm fine, it doesn't impair your driving."

Studies have been done that actually index a sober person's ability against drunk peoples' abilities. Marijuana has surprisingly low impairment but it's significant, something like 0.06 on a scale where alcohol is between 0.27 and 0.48. Penicillin ranks around 0.18 on that scale.

Further, different drugs have differing effects that make a flat impairment measurement kind of nonsense. For example, alcohol makes it extremely difficult to process wtf is going on in general, as well as affecting judgment and extending reaction time, all while distorting the precision of the driver's fine motor skills needed to physically control the car even if his brain is 100% sober. Marijuana slows reaction time and can affect decision making to a lesser degree than alcohol. Ambien and Valerian root can both negate decision making--I went through a train crossing on Valerian once because I just saw it, acknowledged the stopped cars and barrier arm, and didn't really think to stop (that "don't take this unless you have 8 hours to devote to sleep" label specifically means more than 6).

With all of these, it's possible to "not be very impaired." You can be drunk as shit but somehow hobble the fucking car home all the time, in traffic, and be like, "Shhhhheeee I cam fffuckin duwhrife!" as you walk face first into a doorknob. Most sober people don't notice all the retarded shit they do when they're driving. I've swerved out of the way of drivers who changed lanes into the lane I was already in and watched them look back at me all pissed off like they don't know what I was fucking doing there; you'd think a normal, sober person would get that changing into an occupied lane is their fault, but they somehow don't get the impression that they did anything wrong there. It's unsurprising that people will drive around high without incident and conclude that they're not impaired and are driving quite well, but it's not really true.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Hatta]

Well, there's plenty of evidence that Marijuana has effects on response time (like most depressants).

The DOT says

One may question what the effect of THC on reaction time would have been if subjects had
driven at the same mean headway in all conditions? Covariance analysis of reaction time with
headway as covariate was applied to answer this question. Figure 5.7 shows the mean changes
in adjusted reaction times, from placebo levels. The figure makes clear that the differences in
the adjusted reaction times were much less than those in the original ones. Though each THC
dose increased reaction. time, none did significantly. This means that the elevation in the raw
reaction times following the lowest THC dose were simply due to a longer headway.

For most of us who've smoked pot, we know it definitely affects your faculties to the point where you cant drive safely

It *can* impair to that point, but generally doesn't. If you're so high you can't drive safely, you're going to know it.

really it needs to be treated like other legal mind altering drugs

Like other legal mind altering drugs like caffeine and benadryl.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Hatta]

Why modded -1? This study supports other studies that came to similar conclusions:

Because correlation does not imply causation.

If those studies are right,

Which is a big if. There is a huge incentive to find some, ANY justification to continue the war on drugs. There is little incentive to simply tell the truth. Look at the decades and decades of bad science drug warriors have pushed to justify their crimes. Every claim that has been made about the harms of Cannabis has fallen apart after further scrutiny.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[bluefoxlucid]

Somebody isn't familiar with either statistics or Culture Fair 3.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[bluefoxlucid]

Logical Fallacy: Cherry Picking. Also you're comparing a particular clinical effect with other unrelated clinical effect, which is false equivalence. Essentially someone said "It's well-known pouring water in your gas tank will fuck your car up" and you're like "And yet putting water in your car can fix an overheating engine!" and show someone adding water to the radiator. In this case, the water goes everywhere, so yeah it goes in the engine where it doesn't belong (bad) and into the radiator which is critically low (good), for an overall good effect.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[dirtaddshp]

I dont think a joint has ever assaulted me anally and given me AIDS.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[PopeRatzo]

Well, your one example completely destroys my argument that "the mathematicians who do the groundbreaking work mostly are younger than 38."

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

That doesn't seem good enough to me. If you say you aren't doing any harm by doing X, some imbeciles will find ways that make it seem you're doing 'harm,' and then claim that banning X would be justified. I think it's better to say that as long as doing X doesn't have to involve hurting someone, and it also wouldn't cause thousands of people to die or get injured when it's misused, then it shouldn't be banned. Anything else is just anti-freedom.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

We need to quit making completely unnecessary laws. Like the crap they pull 'but on the computer' laws, it is the same here.
There is no need at all for extra driving laws, killing someone with your car is already illegal, as is reckless endangerment, as is swerving over the line, as is driving at an unsafe speed, etc.
Find someone who is swerving, driving too slow or fast, making lane changes without signaling and you are a cop... Pull them the fuck over and deal with it.
Oh, they are not drunk or high, but instead 70 years old with coke bottle glasses?
TAKE the license, they are dangerous 100% of the time they drive, instead of just the one time you catch them under the influence.
I know in my area they let the old guys off with warnings. One ran over a kid in the wallmart parking lot a while back.. Thought the gas was the break. He should have had his license revoked years ago, but no, he was a bible thumping teetotaler so he got off time and time again, until he murdered a kid.

Sure, maybe we need to make driving while under the undue influence of an intoxicant a specific crime (still sounds like reckless endangerment to me). But it does not matter if it is beer, NyQuil, weed, or huffing sewage. If you can't drive safely that is the actual crime, it does not matter at all why.
 

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Either that, or somebody (we both know you mean me, of course) understands statistics a whole lot better than you do. There is a reason why there is an expression: Lies, damned lies, and statistics. The fact remains that statistical analysis of subjective "data" is not scientific. There is literally no way around it. There is no test you can devise, at least until we understand the brain, which will not be anytime soon.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Being able to intelligently discern what accepted truths need to be challenged is part of being above the rest, regardless of age.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Interesting, yes.

Did this take into account all the folks who got gunned down, poisoned by bathtub gin, or imprisoned during Prohibition?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Kodack]

You obviously have no idea of what you're talking about. Marijuana intoxication increases attention sometimes to the point of excluding everything else. It can cause a person to focus on one thing and to give it their undevided attention similar to the way someone may get caught up in a good book or movie and not notice their cat jumped up on the couch.

In any case all of these arguments about Marijuana this, Marijuana that, trying to talk about negative effects are disingenuous at best. The fact is that there are MANY legal substances that have a far greater effect and impairment on people and their development than pot. The strongest opposition to marijuana decriminalization are often the people who know the least about it's actual effects, have had no experience with it, and perpetrate the same old disproven hokey science and myths.

The human brain has receptors for THC, the active chemical in marijuana. No other plant or drug binds to these receptors, they are exclusive to thc. Now why would that be if it were something that "killed brain cells" and made people stupid?

Let me tell you a few things about Marijuana that these rabid anti pot lobbyists don't want you to know.

1. It was made illegal in El Paso at the turn of the century not as a way to control drugs but as a way to persecute Mexican immigrants.
2. One of the most detailed and comprehensive studies on marijuanas effects was commissioned by Nixon. When the report concluded that marijuana does not harm people, lower IQ, destroy braincells, is not physically addictive, is safer than alcohol or tobacco, they squashed the report. President Regan buried it when he took office and instead supported the DARE program, one of the biggest misinformation campaigns in the last 30 years.
3. Marijuana is safer than table salt. It has no known toxicity and is impossible to overdose on. Marijuana intoxication also leaves no "hangover" or any lasting effects on people other than a sense of wellbeing.
4. Most of the illegally grown marijuana is grown locally. Buying pot may be illegal but it DOES NOT send money to the Taliban.....
5. The war on drugs has been a costly failure. Hardcore drugs like Heroin, Cocaine, and Methamphetamine continue to be cheaply available throughout the US. The only thing the war on drugs has helped is funnel more money into the hands of drug cartels much the same way that prohibition did to mobsters running illegal alcohol did. Prohibition didn't work then and it doesn't work now.

The only reason it is still illegal is because of circular logic.

Marijuana is illegal because it is bad.
Marijuana is bad because it is illegal.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[GameboyRMH]

Marijuana impairs attention.

Which to be honest, only affects navigation.

LOLWUT? Please explain how you don't need to pay attention to safely pilot a vehicle.

Why should it matter? What matters is what actually happened during a crash, and who did it. If I pull into traffic without looking, it doesn't matter whether I'm drunk, stoned, or sober. I'm at fault.

Punish people for what they actually do, not what's in their bloodstream.

But driving while impaired is a reckless act in itself which should carry a punishment. Do you disagree?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

That must be why we have all those gangsters running around shooting each other over alcohol-wait...you mean that hasn't happened since Repeal? Hmm, maybe your anti-tax fantasy doesn't actually square with reality, my friend!

If you go to a State which has Dry Counties, you'll notice there's always a store right across the county line which sells booze. You can sit in the parking lot on Friday afternoon and watch the line of cars coming from the dry county. It doesn't leave much room for black market sales within the dry county when you can just drive a half an hour and get legal liquor.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zordak]

There is a reason why there is an expression: Lies, damned lies, and statistics.

Specifically, the reason is that Mark Twain said it and a bunch of people quoted him.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[bluefoxlucid]

Culture Fair 3 attempts to analyze for both effects of learned data and unlearned data--it assumes that IQ tests are inherently faulty because people have a tendency to learn how to take an IQ test, and then separates out knowledge into crystalized and fluid knowledge and tests each separately.

Also, statistics tends to show normal distribution curves where something can validly be measured in a certain way. IQ tests in general produce normal population distributions with a mean and a variance that produces a proper normal distribution curve, so they're measuring something. The data may be "subjective", but it's "subjective" to different people in a mathematically consistent way, which is an objective measurement.

You're using the "intelligence is impossible to measure" argument, rather than outright saying "intelligence is a complex science and I don't understand it". Next you'll tell us it's physically impossible for bees to fly.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Just because they can barely walk does not mean that they are not safe to use their arms with whatever hand break setup they have. Sure, the field test must take disabilities into account, but if they can't do the eye track test and the rest... They are not safe to drive!

And, the fact that 90% of CA drivers would be considered mentally unfit to drive or care for themselves in most other states does not negate the fact that if you are not a safe driver, you should not drive.
I don't care if it is drugs, brain cancer, advanced Parkinson's disease , or a bad roll of the genetic dice.

Bad drivers should not legally be able to drive. Driving badly is a crime, and it does not matter one mouse fuck why you are a bad driver. Criminal ACTIONS should be punished. Stop the pre-crime bullshit with the rest of it.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[kimvette]

Apples and oranges. Your metaphor is flawed - a logical fallacy in fact. The evidence is growing so quickly that I am inclined to try MJ for my migraines; it reputedly works better than Imitrex and based on the amount I would need it would be much cheaper than Imitrex - plus there is a lower side effect profile, and since it is actually the low THC/high CBD strains which are appropriate for migraines I would not get a mental high from it (the highs is why I never tried it - I have zero interest in getting high off of MJ or anything else, zero interest in getting buzzed on alcohol, etc). Alcohol does work for my migraines but it takes 5-6 drinks to do so - which is bad for the liver and makes it impossible for me to drive (both legally and functionally since I am a lightweight as I rarely drink since I hate the feeling of being "buzzed"/drunk).

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

The data may be "subjective"

The fact that it's arbitrary and that we don't truly understand intelligence is really all that needs to be said.

You're using the "intelligence is impossible to measure" argument, rather than outright saying "intelligence is a complex science and I don't understand it".

Closer to the truth: Intelligence is a complex subject and we don't understand.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Specifically, there is a reason why Samuel Clemens said it.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Hatta]

LOLWUT? Please explain how you don't need to pay attention to safely pilot a vehicle.

Cannabis does not affect the sort of attention required for driving safely, only the type of attention needed for navigation. You might forget your exit, but you're not going to fail to notice stop lights.

But driving while impaired is a reckless act in itself which should carry a punishment. Do you disagree?

Only if the impairment is such that it causes you to actually drive recklessly. That almost never happens with Cannabis intoxication. If you're in full control of your vehicle, whether you are impaired or not is irrelevant. What matters is that you have full control of your vehicle.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

I would say... Don't drive at all if you are influenced by any type of drug..... If there is a chance that one out of 100 or one out of 1000 cannot handle a vehicle after using something then nobody should be allowed to take the risk....
For alcohol we can measure the blood-level and we can look at statistics on when people cause accidents.... If there is no way to detect a save level then have a 100% ban of operating a vehicle at all if influenced...

I'm all for legalization of most things, just keep it regulated to not affect other peoples safety... I'm even for giving out free things like meth and things, but under controlled forms since it's been proven to lover the crime in the area and it will cost society less if done.

Btw, i would even want to make it illegal to drive with a hangover, or even driving while having a fever.... As long as it increases the risk of causing a 3'rd party an injury it should not be allowed.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"so they're measuring something. "

There is nothing more scientific than saying "Hey, I'm measuring something, but I have no idea what!".

"You're using the "intelligence is impossible to measure" argument, rather than outright saying "intelligence is a complex science and I don't understand it". Next you'll tell us it's physically impossible for bees to fly."

Really. So explain how this part of my statement supports your "intelligence is impossible to measure" claim: : ". There is no test you can devise, at least until we understand the brain, which will not be anytime soon.". It is pretty clear that I didn't say it is impossible to measure. What I did say is that nobody (and I'll add especially you) understands how to measure it at the current time.

" Next you'll tell us it's physically impossible for bees to fly."

Do you even think before you type? Seriously.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

I make wine, and my father in law brews beer.
Guess what? We both still buy 90% of our wine and beer at the store.
While you can in theory make your own cheaper in reality it is a lot of work and effort, and to get a quality product you must spend a lot on the raw materials, PH meters, TDS testers.
Then you have nutrients, additives, imported french oak barrels for the wine and casks for aged fancy beers etc.
So, unless you have the scale of (and legal licenses) to be a micro brew or winery you really won't save $$.

Question... How many smokers do you know that grow their own tobacco?
At like $10 for a pack of 20 smokes you'd think nearly every smoker would be growing it.. But they don't.
You need space to grow, a way to dry, then something to pull any seeds out, shred it, roll it.. and some way to store it, knowledge of pests and treatments, etc. It's a lot of work.

Hell, these days how many people do you know who cooks 90% of the food they eat? 50%?
Frozen pizzas don't count, nor does store bought noodles + jars of tomato sauce + frozen meatballs, etc.
I mean, stuff you make from a chunk of raw meat, flour, eggs, and salt and spices. Total scratch?
Most people I know only make stuff truly from scratch a few times a year if that, and even with packaged things like noodles, sausages, meatballs, pre-seasoned meat and such one meal a day at most.
The rest of the time it is either a restaurant, frozen lunch, cup of noodles, sandwich with store bought lunch meat, salad or chicken from the store deli.

There will always be enthusiasts/hobbyist who make/build their own whatever (food, cars, computers, lawn equipment, etc) and manage to avoid some tax or regulation system, but they are a tiny minority and make up for it on the other end when they pay taxes for supplies and the like anyway.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

- Set max allowed price for it at ~75% of the current black market price...... have 50% tax on it.
- Allow anyone to have up to 5 plants for personal use. Require registration of the plants.
- Keep fines very high for black-market marijuana. If anyone is caught possessing marijuana (more than 2 joints) without a valid tax-stamp or do not have plants registered at home it will be classified as black-market.. Make it something like $100 per gram.
- Make it easy for people to grow/sell/pay tax. Do require random checks on grow-houses.
- Have an anonymous reward-program for exposing illegal grow-houses.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[bluefoxlucid]

Have you tried CDP-Choline? (Hit/Miss, if you're depleted you WILL have migraines...). There's this thing where people try to fix shit by throwing solutions at it (like CDP-Choline, as mentioned), but without trying to actually identify the problem. What's causing your migraines? I mean, painkillers won't fix the cause. High blood pressure (diuretics)? Sinus infection (antibiotics)? Inflammation (NSAIDs)? Your brain eating itself trying to strip acetylcholine out of existing brain cells to function (CDP-Choline)?

My metaphor isn't flawed. The idea that "X is beneficial because here is an instance of X being beneficial" is a flawed argument called cherry picking; the idea that "X is not harmful because here is an instance of X being beneficial" is a false equivalence or undistributed middle (it's been a while since I've taken up stomping people into the ground by grinding down their slipshod arguments; I'm not nearly as good at this as I once was). You can't target part of the brain with marijuana; you suck it in and let it do what it does. If there's a beneficial effect and a harmful effect, you take both; like any other drug (fucking Prednisone, Methylphenedate, adderall, etc.), you get both and decide if the benefit is worth the risk and harm.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[bluefoxlucid]

There is no test you can devise to show a cause or even real existence of global warming and climate change; at least until we understand climate, which will not be any time soon.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[echnaton192]

"Which is a big if.

There is a huge incentive to find some, ANY justification to continue the war on drugs. There is little incentive to simply tell the truth."

I do not think that the alternative to fact-ignoring drugwarfarers are fact-ignoring cannabispropagandist.

Cannabis is less bad than alcohol, so politicians need to get the f.ck off our lawn. There is NO need for us to prove that it it is healthy to state that it should be legal.

Most people here agree that it should not be sold to minors except for medical treatments. What would you suggest?

And do you REALLY believe that smoking 5 grams a day as a 13 year old over years won't effect their brains in an unwanted physical way?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[GameboyRMH]

Cannabis does not affect the sort of attention required for driving safely, only the type of attention needed for navigation. You might forget your exit, but you're not going to fail to notice stop lights.

Gonna need some scientific research on that. Stoned drivers do tend to be slow and uber-cautious (holding me up all the time), but on the other hand one did drive his truck into my sister's car once.

I've never tried driving while stoned because I feel too sluggish.

Only if the impairment is such that it causes you to actually drive recklessly. That almost never happens with Cannabis intoxication. If you're in full control of your vehicle, whether you are impaired or not is irrelevant. What matters is that you have full control of your vehicle.

If someone causes an accident while impaired to an extent that can be measured as being a dangerous amount (let's say the laws have reasonably defined which drugs cause dangerous impairment and what is a dangerous amount), how can you argue whether impairment played a role? You have to assume it did or you'd be letting off every dangerously drunk driver who causes an accident but wasn't caught by the cops beforehand.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

you know, all this shit about decriminalizing weed and being high right now.. i still can't find weed anywhere. i know the south is dry but this is a drought i'm experiencing

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Hatta]

If someone causes an accident

That's the only relevant fact. If you cause an accident you're at fault and you should be punished. Whether you were distracted because you were stoned, tired, had kids in the car, were trying to eat, were jamming out to tunes, or are just a shitty driver is irrelevant.

let's say the laws have reasonably defined which drugs cause dangerous impairment and what is a dangerous amount

That is factually impossible in the case of Cannabis, and has been known for 20 years. A 1993 study by the DOT determined that:

One of the program's objectives was to determine whether it. is possible to predict driving
impairment by plasma concentrations of THC and/or its metabolite, THC-COOH, in single
samples. The answer is very clear: it is not. Plasma of drivers showing substantial impairment
in these studies contained both high and low THC concentrations; and, drivers with high plasma
concentrations showed substantial, but also no impairment, or even some improvement

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Hatta]

I do not think that the alternative to fact-ignoring drugwarfarers are fact-ignoring cannabispropagandist.

History shows us that nearly every "scientific" study on the harms of Cannabis is nothing more than propaganda. Don't ignore that fact. Science is not as clear cut as you think it is.

Most people here agree that it should not be sold to minors except for medical treatments. What would you suggest?

I suggest that it should be sold at the grocery store, in between the coffee and the chocolate. Because as recreational substances go, Cannabis's safety is somewhere between that of coffee and chocolate.

And do you REALLY believe that smoking 5 grams a day as a 13 year old over years won't effect their brains in an unwanted physical way?

I'm willing to bet it's a hell of a lot better for your brain than high school football is.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know, your chances of dying a violent death increases four fold when you have more than one visible tattoo. That alone is enough to restrict kids from tattoos if you ask me.

Your failure to understand causality shows why giving you the right to vote on this issue (and others) was fundamentally a bad idea.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

There is approach you can take that you will ever succeed in changing the subject, or otherwise get you out of admitting, either explicitly or implicitly, that you are an idiot.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[steveb3210]

It was your second line actually...

"There are still brilliant mathematicians older than that, but they're not the ones who are doing the most important new work."

Zhang pwned the younglings...

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, modern meth is very different and has more damaging effects than meth made with pseudoephedrine (back when it was still called Crank). States ban on pseudoephedrine had the effect of recipes changing to an extent that the modern meth smoker is a completely different and far more fucked up person than an old style Crank speed-freak.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

We know it affects your faculties because you say so. We've got no evidence it affects anyone else that way. For those of us who smoke, we know you don't know what you're talking about.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[NeoMorphy]

I modded you insightful but I'd like to challenge one point of yours: what makes you believe that smoking marijuana impairs one's ability to drive? This seems to be a common assumption among non-smokers, but I can tell you from (daily) experience such is not the case. It requires the consumption of quite a bit of pot to impair one's driving -- usually this means eating it rather than smoking it -- and once a person is that high they don't want to drive. It's just too stressful (as opposed to driving drunk, where alcohol gives one 'liquid courage').

A lot of drugs affect your ability to drive, and you do not always notice the level of impairment. You don't realize how stoned you are, but the drivers giving you the finger as they drive by probably do. You probably did not realize that a lot of people smoke while driving, and if they get too stoned, it might be too late for them to safely maneuver to the breakdown lane, not that they would.

Even with alcohol, one is considered legally drunk much before they've consumed enough to actually be impaired.

You have to draw a line! Just because one person can drive after a case of beer doesn't mean we all can. You need you to make it clear that if you drink this much, don't drive. I don't care if you think you can drive, and I don't care if it turns out you can drive, don't. If driving is on the schedule, then monitor your drinking. If you can't monitor your drinking, you have a problem.

A person shouldn't be considered impaired just because a particular chemical is in their body. They should be given basic coordination tests -- such as a field sobriety test (but something that's computerized, kind of like a video game, to eliminate bias on the part of the officer). If you can't pass a field sobriety test because you're too old, you shouldn't be able to drive. If you can't pass it because of a prescribed medication, you shouldn't be able to drive. If you can't pass a field sobriety test because you're just a naturally uncoordinated person, you shouldn't be able to drive. A person's BAC or THC level is irrelevant, what's important is their ability to control a vehicle.

There is no doubt that there are a lot of people who should not be allowed to drive at all. I agree with you on that part. I'll even agree that there are people who can drive better while being legally drunk than some people can completely sober. And I'm not just talking about people who are too old to drive, there are young people who should never be allowed behind the wheel. There should be tougher driving tests for regular cars. If less capable drivers want to drive, let them drive Smart cars or mopeds, at least they won't do as much harm. There's no reason why elderly drivers need an SUV or Cadillac.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes, I do disagree. Unless you define careless as causing harm. Til harm is caused, there should be no punishment. The harm is not caused by impairment, it is caused by contact.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

What I explained does not make the typical IQ test subjective, it makes it misunderstood: it is simply a test of pattern recognition skill, rather than some sort of generalized, inherent intelligence (which probably doesn't even exist, as people can always be taught to learn better.) If individuals display a consistent drop in performance during IQ testing, trusting that the tests have been constructed in the same manner with comparable problems, then that really does say something coherent and meaningful, even if it's been wrongly described or isn't clearly understood—for example, that the subjects have been less motivated to hone their learning ability.

The study is actually very aggressive and very thorough about including a diverse collection of individuals from different backgrounds (both users and non-users), and can safely be assumed to be properly controlled for most describable variables, as the dataset was collected for a multitude of applications.

If the IQ test were completely uninformative or unrepeatable, it would've been thrown out long before its incompleteness was recognized.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[bluefoxlucid]

It wasn't a subject change; it was a similar argument that argues that a system is complex, thus is unmeasurable. Statistics is in essence the science of measuring systems that are not directly measurable: it says, "We don't know how it works, we don't know why it works, but we know that things naturally vary in these ways and we know that if we take a big enough sample we see these variances so we can make these predictions in this way."

Your entire argument is that intelligence is not well understood, so it's not subject to statistical analysis. I posited that climate is not well understood, and so all this AGW stuff is just the same window-licking, helmet-wearing rhetoric as IQ as a measurement of a particular cognitive ability. (IQ is divided into g(c) and g(f), the ability to leverage and re-apply prior experience to similar problems and to create new methods for novel problems; and also counterbalanced by EQ, which measures social abilities rather than analytical abilities. It's rather complex, and calling IQ a measure of "brain power" is kind of daft.)

The whole of chemistry and atomic physics are also based mostly on statistics, as well as biology and other physical sciences. There is, in fact, quite a lot of not-directly-observable stuff going on that we accept as factual that holds roughly as much water as "IQ Points" but that we apply to critical applications every day. Prescription and OTC drugs and the help and harm they do are often based on statistics--the toxic effects are almost always statistical--ranging from "we know it impacts X and Y neurons and Z chemical transport and think that those impact..." all the way up to "we have no fucking clue, but it works."

Exercise works about the same as IQ too; and the idea that a person who exercises (or even smokes) is going to be more healthy than someone who doesn't is as patently absurd as the notion that someone who can cut through a well-developed IQ test cold and hit ~100 points or whatever is median is going to be roughly as smart as the average person.

I can only posit that you have some kind of useful skill or you have less trouble with "technology" than the vast number of idiots on this planet, and so place yourself above the stupid; but can't work out an IQ test very well, or have done targeted IQ test busting of cheap $5 IQ books, and have concluded that the whole concept is bunk because it doesn't reflect your self-image. This is supported with your continuous condescending of other people and of anything you don't understand, up to and including questioning peoples' intelligence or will and ability to think.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[mcgrew]

Maybe this is why? Is Marijuana a Safe Drug? Teenage Brain at Risk for Drug Abuse

I guess we should outlaw alcohol for adult use as well, then. Nobody is suggesting that it should be legal to supply alcohol, cigarettes, marijuana, or any other mind-altering substance to minors. As it is now, it's easier for a minor to get pot than for an adult.

Your argument is disingenuous and, if I may say so, fucking stupid. You should be ashamed of yourself for such a disingenuous argument. The mods shoud be ashamed for taking you past +1.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[GameboyRMH]

I'm not willing to legalize impaired driving. It's a dangerous and reckless act on its own, whether you get away with it or not. I think causing an accident while impaired is worse than causing an accident due to being a shitty driver or temporarily distracted by something (not intentionally done by the driver) because the impairment is an additional act of recklessness that increases the chances of an accident. It's like if someone decided to tie one arm behind their back before getting into the car.

I'd be willing to fall back to some kind of coordination test for cannabis since it's apparently impossible to measure impairment through any kind of chemical test.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[mcgrew]

Well, there's plenty of evidence that Marijuana has effects on response time (like most depressants).

Since marijuana is not a depressant (yes, it can make you sleepy but so can benadryl, which is also not a depressant), you're going to have to give a citation re the for "effects on response time" for me to lend your statements any credence.

For most of us who've smoked pot, we know it definitely affects your faculties to the point where you cant drive safely

If you're too stoned to drive, by the time you get to the car you'll forget why you were getting in the damned thing.

still have the problems with fine motor control (keeping the wheel straight) as well as reduced response speed and impaired perception.

Never have I been so stoned I couldn't keep the wheel straight and never noticed reduced response time, but I'll take the word of a reputable study if you cite it. As to perception, that's never caused a problem for me walking, why should it driving? Note how people walk while talking on a cell phone, I've seen them walk blindly into telephone poles. I've had to avoid them to keep them from walking straight (well, staggering crookedly like people do while walking with cell phones).

I do agree it should be treated like cigarettes or alcohol -- completely legal for adults, harsh penalties to adults who supply it to minors.

The is the worst thing about today's marijuana laws: it's easier for a fifteen year old to buy pot than it is for a forty year old. The fifteen year old is guranteed to not be a narc, unlike the forty year old.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[GameboyRMH]

So then would it be OK if I walked into your workplace blindfolded and started throwing knives around, as long as they happened not to hit anyone?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"What I explained does not make the typical IQ test subjective,"

I must have misread this direct quote: "that the test itself had a "subjective" component in how the definition of "intelligence" was established". I'm one of those weird guys that thinks that, when a person says something is subjective, that they mean it is subjective. That being said, all human experience is subjective. You may not have learned that lesson yet ... I don't know. The fact that we both recognize a color as red in no way indicates that we perceive it the same.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Plonk

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

anti pot lobbyists don't want you to know.

Or right there is where I realized your tin foil hat is on way too tight...

As for "increases attention sometimes to the point of excluding everything else", you do realize that driving requires multi-tasking, don't you?
As you you focus on staying perfectly in your lane, you start micro-managing the steering wheel, without noticing the merging traffic all around you as your speed slowly decreases, and as you smack into the car in front. Don't laugh, I've seen it happen.

But like I said, that "Don't Want You to Know" phrase pretty much sends you into the conspiracy dumptster.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[LoRdTAW]

I would love to know where you got the numbers $3-$7 for a pack. In manhattan its about $14.50 a pack for the name brand stuff and slightly less for the off brand stuff. In the other boroughs its about $12 a pack. Out on long island in Nassau and Suffolk county its roughly $10.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[riverat1]

Quantum mechanics begs to differ with you.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Hatta]

I'm not willing to legalize impaired driving.

Impaired driving is already legal. It's legal to be impaired by fatigue. It's legal to be impaired by kids in the back seat. It's legal to be impaired by age. Nobody is at 100% all of the time, so we've all driven with some level of impairment. If you maintain full control of your vehicle, there's nothing wrong with that.

I'd be willing to fall back to some kind of coordination test for cannabis

A field sobriety test is a great option. If you fail the field sobriety test, you shouldn't be driving. It doesn't matter whether it's due to alcohol, THC, or an inner ear infection.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[cayenne8]

Since there is no legally recognized impairment level for Marijuana, and no legally recognized tests, (other than blood draws) either device based tests, or field sobriety tests, its hard to prove the extent to which it is present in accident situations. So if there was a car crash, the police have no real way to prove it was even a factor.

My large question is..."Who cares if it was a factor"?

I mean, if you are in a car and kill someone...they're dead. Unless someone ran YOU into them (another driver at fault)...you have commited a crime.

It shouldn't matter if you were drunk, stoned, sleep deprived, texting or are just a fuckup driver that can't drive well.....they have killed someone.

Killing someone will make them dead, no matter the reasons. It doesn't matter if you were drunk, or just not paying enough attention, the bottom line is they're dead, and now, you have to pay the penalty.

So, who cares if you can test for something?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Ah, another "genius" who flunked his IQ test. And on Slashdot, of all places. I'm shocked, I tell ya. Shocked.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[cayenne8]

You know..the absolute only thing I was hoping that the Obama and liberals in office would do...they haven't.

I was hopeful they'd repeal the war on drugs, especially pot....and put that wasted money to better use.

The ONE thing I thought and hoped they could do...for some reason, have not even lifted a real finger to change the FEDERAL legality....and make this totally a states issue.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[riverat1]

Growing tobacco is not difficult. Lots of people brew their own beer and wine.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the science. You sound exactly like someone who complains that relativity/evolution/quantum can't possibly be right, but doesn't actually understand what they're objecting to.

If you have a model that makes quantitatively accurate, falsifiable predictions, then it's science, because that's what science does. Sure, statistical sciences can't make any useful predictions about the behavior/qualities of any given member of the population. Every gets that. Really.

Someone else mentioned quantum mechanics, but I prefer the gas laws. Pressure, volume, and temperature give you no useful information about the position and energy of any one molecule (beyond bounds that were obvious without the science), but pv = nrt to incredible accuracy, all the time.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

In case you're still reading replies: obviously the gas laws are an example of very exact and accurate statistical science. I'm guessing you knew that, given your user name, and are just trolling with this reply.

BTW, IQ is a very good scientific measure. It seems like it doesn't measure what you want it to (genius?) but that's fine, that's not it's job. IQs over 130 or so are pretty meaningless: that's not what the test was designed to measure. It's a very useful tool in assessing how well someone developmentally challenged could function in society (together with other tools). Above an IQ of 80 or so it's more of a statistical measure, but it's a good one if you respect its limitations.

Perhaps you're struggling with what a statistical measure is? It's much like temperature in the context of gas laws: it says nothing (well, very little) about the kinetic energy of individual molecules, but is quite an accurate and useful predictor of the behavior of a large population of molecules.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

There is nothing more scientific than saying "Hey, I'm measuring something, but I have no idea what!".

Did you mean that sarcastically or something? It's very true. The beginning of any science, the bedrock on which science is built, is repeatable measures. You can't do anything without recipes that let anyone arrive at the same number to describe some property of whatever you're studying.

I keep coming back to temperature (perhaps it's you user name). Scientific understanding of heat and temperature has evolved considerably over the years - no one really got what temperature measured before entropy was understood, and I wouldn't be so arrogant as to assume we've got it exactly right today. Didn't make temperature any less useful as a scientific measure.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

Well, it's a start. I'm frankly astonished that anyone in power federally would concede even the tiniest bit of power to the states, so I'm grateful for small things.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

Fret not, I'm exhaustively familiar with the problem of subjectivity. The trick is to recognize that subjective phenomena fall into two categories: (a) those that we can describe and (b) those that don't matter. If two fully trichromat (three colour-sighted; normal vision) individuals perceive red differently and yet draw the same conclusions about it (e.g. it goes well with what I think is orange) then the distinction doesn't matter; our visual cortices are simply taking different routes to the same destination. There may be a trillion little differences in how two brains process information, but like two bug-free programs written to a very tight specification, the differences aren't important.

The thing about the IQ test is that there's no definition of intelligence to test against. The first tests consisted heavily of common knowledge dependent questions structured as reasoning problems, but these have pitfalls—e.g. if you don't know math, then you can't do arithmetic-dependent problems (an obvious problem for children's IQ tests), and if you expect someone to reason about an everyday situation, then you have to hope they haven't thought about the question before and that their cultural background is compatible. This last one is a real sticking point, and what led to the idea of IQ testing being derided as racist for a long period of time, but the differences can be even more subtle: a colleague in psychology once recounted an incident where a young girl was told to find "what was missing" in a cartoon depicting a suburban setting—the correct answer was "shadows," but she felt it was much more important that the house didn't have a pool, because all of the houses in her neighbourhood did!

As a result, the modern IQ test has retracted into dealing with one type of challenge: "pick which shape comes next in the sequence." This eliminates the ambiguity of what's being tested—it's culturally neutral, reliable calibratable against other versions of the IQ test that do the same thing, and easily repeated—but it doesn't address the core question, which is: "what is intelligence?" The idea of testing pattern recognition as a metric of intelligence goes back to the assumption that it's a core part of the learning process, but if so it must be a very primitive, Pavlovian one—certainly, reading from a textbook or listening to a lecture requires no ability to detect underlying repetition.

On top of that, as I said earlier, this sort of IQ test is something you can practice for, at least if you haven't done it for a while. Pattern recognition may be in part a function of innate ability, but it's definitely also a skill that can be improved, otherwise a number of games would be totally unplayable. As a result a null hypothesis (no change) for the IQ test should predict a slight increase, as the participants review and come to terms with the first test, and you should distrust any study that claims a 1-2 point improvement, as these are almost certainly spurious. However, a negative change, or a significant positive change could still potentially be statistically meaningful results. That still leaves room for misunderstood causation (e.g. cannabis users are all stressed out and don't have time to learn, and so their skills atrophy) but it's definitely legitimate correlation.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[icebike]

I should have thought this was obvious.

With automobile crashes, society has, unfortunately, come to accept the fact that there will be a certain number of deaths, 32,367 in 2011 in the US, many of which are true "accidents", but many of which are preventable. (The news is not all bad on this front, as the number of deaths per capita and the number of deaths per 100 million vehicle miles traveled are all dropping dramatically).

When brakes fail and a vehicle crashes into a crowd of people and kills someone, the tragedy may be no less for those directly affected than had the same damage been done by a drunk driver.

But society realizes that the drunk driver had a choice, and is more culpable than the driver who's brakes failed.

So even though YOU DON'T CARE if impairment was a factor, society as a whole DOES, and our legal system DOES, and the driver DOES, and after the initial grief, the family of the victim DOES care.

If you can't test for impairment, or you have no laws indicating what exactly constitutes impairment, then you can't hold people liable for their choice to be impaired. And that makes a big difference to society as a whole, even if it doesn't matter to you.
It makes a big difference to the efforts to reduce that percentage of vehicle deaths which should clearly be controllable, (about 9,878 in 2011, or almost a third).

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[pnutjam]

Statistics are garbage. They have some limited usage, but usually they are akin to modeling the ocean with your bathtub.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[alexo]

From the article you linked to:

Only a minority (about one in four) of teenage users will develop an abusive or dependent relationship with the drug. This points to the fact that specific genetic or behavioral factors influence the likelihood that drug use will continue.

What is missing is the comparative data on those that were introduced to drugs after their teens.
If the percentage in that group is higher than 25%...

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Their results appeared to indicate that small amounts of cannabis actually improved the pros' driving performance slightly and for a very short while, after which performance fell rapidly to much less than normal. They found in addition that using more than a small amount also quickly caused the pros' driving performance to decrease to much less than normal.

Your post actually reads like evidence in support of the parent. Mainly that performance on the road is what matters, not BAC or Blood THC Content. BAC or Blood THC Content is handy since they're reasonable surrogates for performance since them being high tends to correlate with degraded performance. The issue is whether the problematic level of alcohol or THC in blood maps directly to level of impairment, or whether the level varies from person to person (what I've read seems to suggest this is a problem for both of these tests).

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Actually, I test at genius levels, thereby making your assumption rather absurd. Again, maybe I'm not a genius. I certainly wouldn't claim that I am because I test at the genius level, but at least I know you can't flunk an IQ Test.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"In case you're still reading replies: obviously the gas laws are an example of very exact and accurate statistical science. "

Yes. I'm not sure where your claim of trolling comes from. I quite specifically said the two have nothing in common. The gas laws are, as you said, science. IQ is not. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Well, you are missing one pretty important point. When we measure temperature we use an instrument capable of gathering scientific data. In other words, that data is objective. An IQ Test does not measure anything objectively. It is subjective, ergo no science. To extend your comparison, if we measured temperature by asking people "What temperature do you perceive it to be?" then we wouldn't arrive at any useful laws at all, now, would we?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

OK. You wrote a lot of words to say what I think we can both agree is in-arguably true. If you can't define something, you can't measure it. How many Angstroms long is that particle? If you don't know what an Angstrom is, you really can't answer that question, can you?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

I'm not sure that's an entirely apt comparison; the angstrom has a well-defined scientific value (even if an individual is ignorant of it), whereas we may never have a satisfactory way to quantify or qualify the true perception of colour. If we did, then it would no longer be a truly subjective phenomenon.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I wasn't making a comparison. I was making a point. We cannot define Intelligence, ergo it is impossible to make a scientific measurement of it. That's my point. That has been my point the whole time, but people keep trying to lead the conversation astray with absurd comparisons (I'm not saying you are doing that)

That being said, it is possible to determine objectively if something reflects light in the red spectrum, but again it is done with scientific equipment capable of doing spectral analysis, not by asking someone."was it red". Of course, if we couldn't first define red as having a wavelength of 620–750 nm, then we couldn't do that either. You are obviously smart. I wouldn't be surprised if you were smarter than I am. It can't possibly be too difficult for you to understand my point.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

The issue with intelligence is that it's too broad and vague a concept to be defined, not that it's absolute but unknown (as with angstroms) or inherently subjective (as with how a colour is interpreted and represented in an individual's field of vision after retinal processing, i.e. long after the frequency of incoming photons stops being relevant.) They're not quite apt metaphors, hence the confusion, but I understand your point and apologise for the cumbersomeness of the conversation thus far.

I'd actually argue that we should throw out the idea of intelligence altogether and just discuss the elements of it that we actually intend to indicate—pattern recognition, efficiency in decision-making, intuition, spatial reasoning ability, emotional self-awareness, and so on.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

The gas laws are, as you said, science. IQ is not. Why is it so hard for you to grasp that?

Because you're merely asserting that, not arguing for it. Argument is not merely repeating yourself louder, and adding insults. "Yes it is." "No it's not."

I'm not sure where your claim of trolling comes from

Many people have presented well-reasoned counter-arguments to your claim, but you've replied mostly with abuse and ignore the actual reasoning. That's what trolling looks like: seeking the emotional response at the expense of the rational.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

An IQ Test does not measure anything objectively. It is subjective, ergo no science.

OK, here's what you're missing:

A measure is scientific precisely if anyone can measure the same conditions at any time or place and get the same answer, or nearly the same answer but the range of error is know. Repeatable quantitative results are science.

If two different researchers give you an IQ test, they're going to get the same result within a known error range (assuming the specific questions are different). If you control the conditions under which the test is administered, so that e.g. both tests are the same time of day, in a quiet, distraction-free environment, and so on, the range of error is quite small, at least for IQs near or below average.

That's why IQ is a scientific measure. Just what it measures is a separate discussion, but there is a well studied category of tasks for which it's a very good predictor.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zontar The Mindless]

Then you conveniently missed that the eventual outcome was still impaired function, regardless of dosage.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

There hasn't been a single well reasoned argument to counter the fact that IQ is supposed to measure Intelligence, even though intelligence cannot be defined. Nobody has made a compelling argument, nor could they, that an IQ Test is not subjective. Plenty of people have made arguments that sound plausible if you don't know the difference between subjectivity and objectivity.

All human experience is subjective. Ergo, there is no way to make a scientific measurement using the human instrument. Period. It isn't open to discussion, nor is it possible to make a reasonable argument to the contrary. Some day we may be able to use a scientific instrument akin to an MRI to gather objective measurements which could be indicators of a persons reasoning power. Until then, IQ Tests are not, nor could they be, science.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

There hasn't been a single well reasoned argument to counter the fact that IQ is supposed to measure Intelligence

Ah, well, that's your first mistake. There's no widespread agreement on what "intelligence" even means. IQ is a scientific measure of something in the ballpark, and is a decent predictor of one's ability to succeed at a set of tasks that most would agree are related to "intelligence".

No one in the field would say that IQ measures "intelligence", whatever that is, but you have to name a measure something so you can talk about it. IQ is a repeatable quantitative measure, and what's more it's a useful one: you can predict some stuff with it. That's science, right there.

All human experience is subjective. Ergo, there is no way to make a scientific measurement using the human instrument. Period. It isn't open to discussion, nor is it possible to make a reasonable argument to the contrary.

Again, that's an assertion, not an argument.

You should meet some scientists who are using the many repeatable, quantitative measures they've invented that involve asking people questions, and successfully predicting the outcomes of experiments using those measures and theories derived from them. You can say "no, what you're doing every day is impossible, it's not open to discussion", but I doubt they'll believe you.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

" There's no widespread agreement on what "intelligence" even means."

So you are saying that my first mistake was saying something which you would then repeat as if I never said it? Plonk.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[lgw]

Huh, so you give up after 1 sentence. Nice.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Kodack]

Yes don't want you to know as in there are plenty of reports talking about pots evils that have been discredited and the DARE program outright lied to a generation of people.

It's not a conspiracy it's a simple fact that it is difficult to have a meaningful debate about marijuana policy without disinformation about it's supposed harms.

And your assertion that "you've seen it" how people drive when their stoned, I know nothing about the road worthiness of your friends or family, sober or high, but you miss the point and start doing a straw man argument. I wasn't advocating smoking pot and driving and I don't know where you decided to argue that back.

The disinformation is that marijuana kills brain cells and makes you stupid. This has never been proven but it has been proven that alcohol kills brain cells and in fact if given to children and infants it causes life long mental impairment.

I doubt you have had much experience with the real effects of Marijuana to know real dangers from disinformation.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Khyber]

"Spoken like someone who doesn't understand the science. "

Hi, research director here. Try again when you can do something other than resort to making rather ridiculous assumptions and statements.

If it's not 100% every single time, then it's useless. Any margin of error or deviation means whatever you think is true simply is not. True 99.99999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999999% of the time is still not true. Doesn't matter if you're at 100 sigma certainty. If it's not 100% every single time, it's a useless statistic.

Oh, and quantum mechanics? I work with photons all day long, and how they interact with biological systems. Plenty of QM happening there. Again, try again when you can do something other than make ridiculous statements and assumptions.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[LMariachi]

Growing weed is easy. Growing good weed is pretty involved.

As far as tobacco, my understanding is that the difficulty is not in growing it (provided you’re in an appropriate zone,) but in the processing of it. It has to be hung up and cured without getting moldy, for one thing.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

Thanks for pointing out the parent post... what a sad example of many Americans' lack of knowledge about the outside world...

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I agree with you for the most part, but I don't agree that the categories you enumerate are any less broad and vague. Again, they are subjective, cannot be defined with the technology we have available to us today, and objective analysis of them is guaranteed to be a fools errand. In any case, there is no need to apologize, plus I wouldn't want to get you mad and then run into you in a dark alley! :-)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

It's a pretty common name—I was also murdered four years ago in Scotland.

I have to disagree with you about suggesting those other things are subjective, though. They have objective definitions within psychology—definitions that comprehensive enough to include everything that you or I might consider part of intelligence. They're anything but vague.

To flesh out the examples I gave: emotional intelligence has a very specific meaning and can be tested for, pattern recognition is extremely well-understood and can easily be accomplished by a computer (and tested with the standard IQ test!), decision-making efficiency can be clearly measured in a variety of contexts and is simply the speed at which decisions are made under varying degrees of situational complexity, intuition is skill in recognizing and reasoning about the nature of a concept or phenomenon (and is part of the exam in any UI design course), and spatial reasoning is already a problem heavily described and being studied by AI researchers.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

OK. Well there is where our beliefs diverge substantially. Psychology isn't science, ergo none of their definitions involve science. You seem to have bought into the idea that there are "soft sciences." The term soft science is merely a term that people throw around when they want to add some legitimacy to their field of study, and figure that tagging along with the respected science community will give them a leg up in their arguments.

Note that I am not saying that psychology isn't useful; mereley that it does not meet the basic qualifications necessary to be categorized as a science.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

I don't know why you've brought that up; at no point have I been trying to assert that psychology is founded upon evidence-based hypothesis testing. Philosophy has probed the human mind for thousands of years, and while most of its predictions have been wrong, it is rare if ever that something which is correct has been passed by except due to external interference. There are plenty of things that experimentalism is insufficient to study, most obviously mathematics. This does not make them invalid. Science is only one part of how we understand the world; to assume everything in life must be scientifically-founded is to reject the whole of human civilization and the thinkers who invented natural philosophy. Psychology must make do because it is illegal and unethical to perform proper experiments—and even your second link concedes: "Some research is far more scientifically rigorous. And the field often yields interesting and important insights."

More to the point, all of the domains I brought up, with the exception of emotional intelligence, are problems studied in cognitive science, the field at the juncture between AI, psychology, and neuroscience that seeks to build a bottom-up model of how the brain works. They are all either backed with rigorous, repeatable experiments, or are theoretically airtight, or both.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

I'm not looking to start a fight. We are, however, discussing the measuring of things. By definition, measuring is a science and is used to gather objective data. Psychology never measures anything. It can't. It exists solely in the domain of subjectivity. That is why I brought it up. I was also very explicit in saying that it is not without its use.

" Science is only one part of how we understand the world; to assume everything in life must be scientifically-founded is to reject the whole of human civilization and the thinkers who invented natural philosophy. "

I like philosophy; human civilization ... not so much ;-)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Lehk228]

as long as the permitting process is strreamlined for simple compliance and simple enforcement it will not be worth it to illegally avoid taxes.

issue permits with a duration and number of plants, with no restrictions on how permits can be combined or treansferred with the plants, this way if a friend is going to plant-sit for you just bring your permit with the potted pot plant and they are in compliance too, each permit would just have a # of plants it covers, a start and expiration date, and a serial # so it can be validated.

alternativly have a sign over requirement where a transfer fee must be paid and each certificate must be registered to an owner with the state, this would be necessary if there were different laws regarding commercial scale and personal scale production or caps on production

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

So what, exactly, do you think an IQ score is, if not a measurement? Bear in mind that the uncertainty in a quiz is no different than the uncertainty in a physical measuring instrument; they are governed by the same family of statistical distributions. Just because we don't know exactly how IQ relates to pattern recognition ability doesn't make it irrelevant; science is laden with metrics that are meaningful and objective but not direct representations of the underlying phenomenon (for example, we only have a rough idea about how absorbed radiation dosage over time equates to health risks.)

You may want to read up on Behaviorism—widely disparaged as inhumane and simplistic, but completely empirical, reproducible, and appropriately well-funded by some governments. Along with forbidden experiments, it quickly becomes apparent that only ethical necessity forces psychology to lean on philosophical insight for understanding certain areas; wherever possible, experimental methodology is employed and venerated with ever-increasing rigour. The same can be said of any of the social sciences.

Many parts of psychology are rigorous and measurable, and these sub-problems within the vague umbrella of "intelligence" are about as solid as you can get, since they're all analytical skills. Even if the tests are indirect, they're still objectively meaningful.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

"So what, exactly, do you think an IQ score is, if not a measurement?"

I thought we already put this one to bed without supper. The results are indicators of human behavior, they don't measure anything becuase they attempt to quantify human subjectivity.

"Bear in mind that the uncertainty in a quiz is no different than the uncertainty in a physical measuring instrument"

I won't bear it in mind, because it simply isn't true. You are comparing Apples and Zebras.

" The same can be said of any of the social sciences."

You keep using that oxymoron. There is no such thing as a social science. There are no "soft" sciences. Applying mathematics to analyze subjective experiences doesn't magically turn the data into objective data.

"Many parts of psychology are rigorous and measurable, and these sub-problems within the vague umbrella of "intelligence" are about as solid as you can get, since they're all analytical skills."

Actually, that is what makes them as liquid as they can possibly get. The key word is analytical. I know you want to believe that human behavior is predictable; it just feels safer. The fact remains that human behavior cannot be measured, and it is not predictable.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

I'll get back to the rest of your post once we sort this disaster out:

The fact remains that human behavior [...] is not predictable.

The brain is not capable of producing any phenomena that violate the laws of physics, and to the best of our knowledge does not exploit any quantum phenomena that are beyond a computer's ability to simulate or represent with sufficient precision. Where is this profound unpredictability coming from?

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Your assumption is that the brain and the mind are the same thing.

"The brain is not capable of producing any phenomena that violate the laws of physics"

Are you certain of that statement? It is an unfortunate term .. the "laws" of physics. I think you may be interpreting my statements to say that science is "correct" and anything that is not science can not be "correct". As we both know, science is often wrong. Both science and psychology attempt to ascribe an order to the universe that likely isn't actually there. Both are driven by the need to believe that everything can be understood if we only had the requisite knowledge and resources. It is the human prime fallibility; this belief in an order that doesn't actually exist on a level that we as humans can ever comprehend. The crazy people call it God. The sane ones call it The Tao. I, falling neatly into neither category, don't call it anything. I merely recognize the truth that we will never know the truth ;-)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

We can know the ways in which something behaves without understanding what it is. The unanswerable questions about the nature of the universe do not prevent us from recognizing the patterns of behaviour or the interactions of things that occur within it. This is the third time you've tried to argue from an incorrect generalization.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Zero__Kelvin]

Look. You say Toe-may-to ... I say To-mah-to ... let's call the whole thing off. In other words, reasonable people can agree to disagree. I know you are wrong when you say that psychology is a science, and you know I'm wrong when I say it isn't. The fact that this proves my point is immaterial :-)

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[Samantha Wright]

Knowledge doesn't exist until you can prove it, and two mutually exclusive statements cannot both be true. I will respect your right to hold to your beliefs and to put an end to this conversation, but the decision to do so is no acceptance or validation of your position, which remain illogical. Your justification for why psychology is not a science depends on science having the same flaws that you accuse psychology of having.

It appears to me that you don't have a formal logic education, and that you probably haven't been exposed to a balanced survey of philosophical thought. You're a wonderfully articulate person, but the claims you've been making remain unjustified; at several points you say things that lead to the rejection of the very notion of an axiom, which means that the very act of existing makes you hypocritical. I would strongly encourage you to reach out and consider other perspectives.

That all being said, I wish you well, and I understand if you want to stop discussing this.

Re: Discouraging underage use?

[Anonymous Coward]

I started smoking at 9, my IQ is 186 now at 50.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[jwhitener]

has a devastating effect on their brains

That seems to be an exaggeration of the statements in the link you provided.

Here's some snippets from your link:

"Currently, it's difficult to confirm a certain causal link between drug consumption at the resulting behavior"

"it's possible that the consumption of cannabis during this time could influence the way in which these sections develop"

"So what else did the researchers find? Only a minority (about one in four) of teenage users will develop an abusive or dependent relationship with the drug. This points to the fact that specific genetic or behavioral factors influence the likelihood that drug use will continue."

So while they conclude this:

""It is now clear from the scientific data that cannabis is not harmless to the adolescent brain, specifically those who are most vulnerable from a genetic or psychological standpoint,""

It is not quantified. It is likely far more governed by genetics and other factors. And like most studies where it is difficult if not impossible to have 'control' subjects, they can't rule out the possibility that these youths would have had some behavioral or addiction problems with or without the use of cannabis.

Re:Discouraging underage use?

[DarthVain]

I noticed you put IQ in "Air Quotes" which would be my comment. IQ as an intelligence indicator is pretty flawed to begin with.

I would agree that it is likely largely socioeconomic factors however. Not having the guidance, opportunity, or education might have a lot to do with it.

Then again, you might as well outlaw being poor if that is the case.

Perhaps the US should stop the War on Drug and start a War on Poverty. I bet the outcomes would be a lot better.

Provided of course they don't take the meaning of War literally, as that would be bad.

The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

Obama doesn't seem to understand the restrictions on executive power.

Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not? Law enforcement is part of the executive branch.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Actually, that is exactly what it does. If you think the executive has ever enforced all the laws on the book, you are a fool. The resources simply have never existed.

It's just the highest level of prosecutorial discretion.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[zlives]

what is this constitution you speak off?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Well, it used to be a seriously taken document that we, the people, wrote up to protect ourselves from facist, oppressive governments like the one we have now.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[LetterRip]

Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.

The government has limited resources and it is literally impossible to enforce all of the federal laws to the full extent. Therefore the government must prioritize enforcement. If some laws are so low in priority that there is no enforcement, then congress can increase funding for federal law enforcement officials if they really want those enforced.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce.

Which specific item of the constitution do you imagine prevents that?

As the lead of the federal executive, it's precisely his job to choose what priorities the feds have, amongst those things they are empowered to do.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[AdamHaun]

Every jurisdiction effectively picks and chooses which laws it's going to enforce and when. It's called "prioritizing". And sure enough, that's what the feds are doing:

The memo directs federal prosecutors to focus their resources on eight specific areas of enforcement, rather than targeting individual marijuana users, which even President Obama has acknowledged is not the best use of federal manpower.

The moral and legal value of prioritization is in the results (i.e. who gets targeted and who gets ignored), not the act itself.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.

With so many laws on the books everyone in law enforcement choose which laws to enforce. Google "three felonies a day".

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[multisync]

Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce

You seriously believe the office of the Attorney General lacks the authority to give federal prosecutors direction on how they manage their limited resources?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[KiloByte]

No, this means the amount of laws needs to be cut by a factor of 100 if not 1000.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Someone needs to learn U.S. civics.

The executive branch is much like the cops. If they choose not to arrest you for jaywalking they do not "execute" that law. It is directly in his power to control what they focus their enforcement of the laws on.

The power of the Executive Branch is vested in the President of the United States, who also acts as head of state and Commander-in-Chief of the armed forces. The President is responsible for implementing and enforcing the laws written by Congress and, to that end, appoints the heads of the federal agencies, including the Cabinet. The Vice President is also part of the Executive Branch, ready to assume the Presidency should the need arise.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/our-government/executive-branch

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[icebike]

Obama doesn't seem to understand the restrictions on executive power.

Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.

Exactly. This administration plays pretty fast and loose with enforcement and SELECTIVE enforcement. Enforcing marijuana laws in one place and not another is a clear violation of the equal protection clause.

Enforcing marijuana laws anywhere is somewhat questionable, in that its largely a harmless drug.

You could, I suppose, take the position that Once a state enacts laws and regulations on the sale and use of marijuana that it then has clearly taken control of the policing of marijuana use back into its own hands, and therefore the Tenth Amendment kicks in. However, I haven't seen any indication that this is Obama's reasoning.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[NoKaOi]

Obama doesn't seem to understand the restrictions on executive power.

Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.

Actually, law enforcement is the executive branch's job. It was congress's failure to recognize the constitution that was the failure on this one. Can somebody please explain to me why in 1917 it required a constitutional amendment for the federal government to make alcohol illegal, which would show it was recognized that without the 18th amendment, that making alcohol illegal was a violation of the constitution because the federal government didn't have that power, but now the federal government can make marijuana illegal without a constitutional amendment? Whether or not a drug is illegal is supposed to be up to each state, not the federal government.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[tibit]

Must have never heard of prosecutorial discretion, then. Nobody, neither personally nor at any level of government, has any obligation to uniformly enforce all laws. I'd have hoped that people who think otherwise are just happy drug users - to my bewilderment, it turns out not to be the case :(

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Sure he does... this is part of the "checks and balances."

Legislative branch passes a bad law? Executive decides it wont enforce it. Consider it a form of prosecutorial discretion.

Legislative branch doesnt like that? They can impeach him.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

Which specific item of the constitution do you imagine prevents that?

Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight:

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

How exactly does "picking which laws I want to enforce" get lumped into his oath to "faithfully execute" his office? ... not that this is the first time he's opted to ignore the law and rule by fiat.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[PRMan]

Other documents that used to be taken seriously, and were written for the concerns of their times, (and are still hung on to by some.)

The Old Testament. The New Testament. The Torah. The Koran. The Magna Carta. The Domesday Book.

The Bible is still the best selling book in the world by over 40 times. So by "some" what you really mean is billions.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

The real irony is the black President siding with states' rights over the rule of federal law which is arguably the greater morally.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[icebike]

But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?

The only prosecutorial discretion being practiced here is the evaluation of the likelihood of obtaining
a verdict in a state like Washington or Colorado, where juries are simply going to start handing federal prosecutors their hat.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

So fascist and oppressive that they are announcing that they've got better things to do than enforce laws which have been on the books for decadses.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

This administration plays pretty fast and loose with enforcement and SELECTIVE enforcement.

Who said the feds are going to selectively enforce? The presidential memo specifically says the new policies for enforcement apply in ALL states.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[microbox]

But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?

Are you kidding? Do you always drive the speed limit? Do you always cross and sidewalks? Do you always give way to people on crossing the road. (As soon as the foot hits asphalt you are meant to stop.) In Queensland Australia, it is illegal to pass a person on the right side.

There is a difference between rule and law.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

You seem to be assuming that constitutional amendments are passed by the federal government alone, and ignoring the fact that 3/4ths of the several states must also ratify a given amendment for it to be adopted.

As far as it taking an amendment to make alcohol illegal but not pot... talk to the courts. They have (sadly) upheld the federal laws to this effect repeatedly.

Granted... they did once also say that a farmer growing wheat on his own land and for his own consumption did run afoul of a federal law (Wickard v Filburn)... so this is all nothing new.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[CohibaVancouver]

The government has limited resources and it is literally impossible to enforce all of the federal laws to the full extent. Therefore the government must prioritize enforcement.

No, the government needs to axe the laws. Drives me bananas when governments pass law after law after law, with no mechanism for enforcement. It should be required that the government fund enforcement if a new law is passed, and that enforcement cannot be funded through borrowing.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

If I could only up-vote you

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Mr. Slippery]

Well, it used to be a seriously taken document...

When was that?

The Alien and Sedition Acts were passed just seven years after the Bill of Rights. The Bill Of Rights was pretty dormant until the 1930s, and nobody took that "equal protection" bit seriously until the 1960s.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[alexander_686]

The Domesday Book is still taken very seriously today. In fact, I can’t think of one person who does not think of it seriously.

It is one of the best historical surveys of England and Wales. A classic example of primary documentation. I can think of few things that can rival it until America starting doing census back in the 1880.

Or are you thinking about something else?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[icebike]

What the fuck does Queensland have to do with the issue at hand?

The federal government does not enforce traffic laws, (except in federal parks). It is done by state and county/city enforcement, and it varies by location because they have different laws in each area.

A federal felony in one state is a federal felony in another state, and each state should get the same enforcement level (or lack there-of). This usually happens. Its the norm. Except with this administration, which likes to play divide and conquer.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Think hard about all that.... He isn't violating the constitution.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

The Bible is still the best selling book in the world by over 40 times.

Bullshit. It's not even the world's best selling book, let alone 40 times the nearest competitor. Your religious leader lied to you.

If you think otherwise, a citation that doesn't originate from a religious organisation please?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[JohnG]

Well, the constitution doesn't allow the federal government to enforce marijuana laws at all. That's why they had to pass an amendment to enforce alcohol prohibition at the federal level. Aside from preventing the sale of marijuana across state lines, the federal government has no constitutional authority to enforce the laws that Obama is saying he will be lenient on. Seems to me this is one of the few times that he actually does understand the restrictions on his power.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

No, that's exactly what I was referring to. It's a list of who owns what. No more and no less. And as it's a millennia old, none of that property is still in the same hands.

Of course all of the documents I listed are interesting as history. And the US constitution will be too, long after it no longer is used as a current legal document.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Frobnicator]

In the United States, both selective enforcement and selective prosecution are generally legal.

You can go back over a century to Yick Wo v Hopkins (1886) to see SCOTUS rulings on that. There are probably older rulings than that, but I'm too lazy to look them up.

Impartial selective enforcement is legal to a degree. On its face police cannot enforce every law on the books. Even if they do intervene, the officer may know there is insufficient evidence for a known violation. Even if they intervene and there is likely sufficient evidence, they may believe a lesser action is appropriate, such as giving an individual a warning for a minor offense. Similarly for selective prosecution, the state is not required to blindly prosecute every offense, but to use prudence in selecting which cases to prosecute. Yes sometimes it is abused, but generally it is to the citizen's favor of dropping a case rather than abuses of prosecuting aggressively.

Prejudicial selective enforcement is not legal. Only applying the law to people of a specific skin color or economic status or age or other aspect, that is unlawful.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[SuricouRaven]

The Domesday book is not a book of law. It's an inventory. A very comprehensive inventory.

William the Conqueror, having just earned that title, was left with a bit of a problem: He was now the new ruler of England, but didn't know exactly how much he ruled. The records were a mess, and he needed to put his own loyal men in positions of land ownership and power, which required knowing which land was the most valuable. To make it even worse for him, the existing landowners recognised that their possessions were about to be appropriated and handed out to the lackeys of the new ruler - and they weren't above bickering, lying and outright forgery to try to keep as much as they could, so ownership disputes were common. Landowners squabbled over claimed ownership both to increase their holdings and, when the tax man came to visit, to claim the land and tax burden really belonged to their rivals. With such poor formal records, it often came down to one man's word against another's. To solve this William commissioned a massive survey of his entire country - every last peasant, field and pig - and upon completion, declared that the ownership records of this book were authorative and uncontestable. It has been proving an invaluable resource for historians ever since.

The book is more accurately spelt 'domesday' but pronounced 'doomsday.' Domesday was just the spelling of the time.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

From Guiness book of world records:

"Although it is impossible to obtain exact figures, there is little doubt that the Bible is the worlds best-selling and most widely distributed book." Then they go on to talk about the billions of copied printed and distributed. Lots of big numbers.

That's from 2 seconds on Google. I'm sure there are lots of other citations.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Barlo_Mung_42]

This directive applies to all states, not just Wa and Co.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[interkin3tic]

I'd argue that the laws should be decided on their merits or problems, not something purely artificial like "This seems like a good number of laws."

If we told the government it could do ten things and only ten things, the first thing it would do would be to try to increase the number. The second would be to define however many things it was doing as ten. The third would be taxes. The fourth would be NSA spying. They'd argue about the remaining six slots, and after heated yelling matches on cable news, it would be announced that education, healthcare, and several other services you might actually use sadly could not be included on the list of ten.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[geekoid]

Nope.

This is the best political move to get it legalized. If the people in the state want it legal, the fed is saying they are going to respect that states right, with qualifiers.

It's a great move and the best one that could happen in the current political climate. As far as moving towadrs legalization.

Please try to remember he is contending with a congress full of obstructionist and people who would let the country burn before legalizing marijuana.

" This usually happens. Its the norm."
no, not really.

How is this divide an conquer? If your state want's it to be legal, then we won't go in.

And the poster was just using Queensland as an example of rule or law. Calm down.

Oh, you are so filled with hate for Obama that you stopped thinking. I should have gathered that form the first post.
My bad, please go on frothing.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

It should be required that the government fund enforcement if a new law is passed

I'll do you one better. It should be required that the government pre-fund enforcement, say, to a period of 75 years.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[geekoid]

Spoken with all the experience, knowledge and view of a 14 year old.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Posts like his are why I drink.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

How exactly does "picking which laws I want to enforce" get lumped into his oath to "faithfully execute" his office?

"Hmm, this person robbed a liquor store, but this other one shot up a mall. But I can only allocate enough resources to prosecute one of them. I know, I'll flip a coin!"

Yeah, it's a total mystery how consciously picking which law to prosecute constitutes faithfully executing his office.

Moron.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[geekoid]

Can you not read? maybe english is a second language?

first off:
I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

there isn't enough money, so the best of his ability is to prioritize.

"not that this is the first time a president opted to ignore the law and rule by fiat."
FIFY

You should try to understand the parts of the Constitution you quote as well as comprehend what all the words mean.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[KiloByte]

You have still way too much faith in the government. Their primary concern is monetizing (or otherwise consummating) the power they got. Spying alone won't get them bribes^Wcampaign donations, it's merely a tool to make the donations less likely to dry out.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

I can see why you are marked as a "freak" user. You have no logical argument.

Says the person who responds not to my post but to how Slashdot identified friends/foes.

Yes... quite logical.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Kal Zekdor]

Which specific item of the constitution do you imagine prevents that?

Article Two, Section One, Clause Eight:

I do solemnly swear that I will faithfully execute the Office of President of the United States, and will to the best of my Ability, preserve, protect and defend the Constitution of the United States.

How exactly does "picking which laws I want to enforce" get lumped into his oath to "faithfully execute" his office? ... not that this is the first time he's opted to ignore the law and rule by fiat.

Did you just say that Obama is violating the constitution because Obama is violating the constitution? I'm no fan of Obama, but, seriously? Try a specific reference that isn't a tautology. As far as I understand it, it is the job of the Executive branch to execute the laws as set forth by the Legislative branch, and they have wide latitude in doing so.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Federal drug prohibition is prohibited by the US constitution (10th amendment, although the spirit of the constitution makes it superfluous). This is why we needed an amendment to outlook alcohol. If we are to talk about the constitution, Obama has the constitutional duty to NOT enforce drug laws

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[jcr]

Federal marijuana prohibition is not a law, it is a usurpation. It took a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol, and that amendment was repealed. There is no legal authority whatsoever for the federal government to ban a drug.

-jcr

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[icebike]

Ah, only in your twisted mind.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

http://www.guinnessworldrecords.com/records-1/best-selling-book-of-non-fiction/

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

BOOM! Roasted.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[alienzed]

He's not a King, he is the president and works with thousands of public servants to provide the service the government does... It sounds so strange when people call him by name, as if he was the only person in Washington responsible for anything.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[HornWumpus]

Not that simple.

When 215 first passed, conventional wisdom was stay under 100 plants. Federal minimum sentences start to go crazy at that number. I was meticulous, never had more then 100, including cuttings. Even doing sea of green, indoors. Paranoia about feds, some counties had fucking cops busting people in neighboring counties. Lots of local cops thought they could call the feds anytime they couldn't bust someone with local laws. I had been growing for a decade (honestly, I'm old; almost two decades), illegally. Didn't really change my life at all except making good clones easy.

Now, the big outside guys just don't care. They are in counties that have passed specific authorizations and know which side their bread is buttered on. You have locally legal, sheriff inspected, taxed, multi-thousand plant farms. The state passed the buck to the counties a decade ago, I expect they knew exactly how that would turn out. Rural counties; pay your taxes, use your own land, don't let us catch you selling out of state. Urban counties; don't annoy your neighbors too much. You've been able to see my patch on Google earth for six years now. No I won't provide a link.

The difference is down to crazies doing things openly, flaunting the feds. Making them hurt when they lose in state court, e.g. making the cops PAY a grower the price they had claimed it was worth when they were prosecuting him.

The feds simply don't have the budget and can't find juries, so they don't enter battles they can't win. Make no mistake, their are specific agents and local cops that are daily pissed, would be busy full time busting people, if they had the budget. But at the end of the day the feds only have so much money for cops and the state of California has flat refused to prosecute 'medical', even to the point of voting out DAs who don't listen. You think the other DAs didn't hop into line? These are lawyers...

I had a friend who lived in the highrise apartment across the street from the federal building in downtown Sacramento. We smoked bongs on his balcony in full view of the FBI and DEA offices. Should have seen his face when I pointed to the FBI office as I blew a huge hit of 'train wreck' their way. If only their windows opened, they could have smelled it. Ten years ago so his fear wasn't completely irrational. We were mooning them, so to speak. He was just realizing it, kind of dense.

He wouldn't take a plant for his balcony, no matter how much I tried. I never would have flowered right anyhow, too much light at night from the FBI and DEA meetings.

This hasn't been a democrat effort. They are as useless as the republicans on this subject.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

From Guiness book of world records:

"Although it is impossible to obtain exact figures, there is little doubt that the Bible is the worlds best-selling and most widely distributed book." Then they go on to talk about the billions of copied printed and distributed. Lots of big numbers.

That's from 2 seconds on Google. I'm sure there are lots of other citations.

http://www.statisticbrain.com/bibles-printed/
Estimate is 6 billion (thousand million) sold.
6b/2000 years=3M

So the Bible series (King Jame,s old T, New T, etc) sells 3 millions copies per year,on average.
The Harry Potter series has sold about a half billion in ten years, or 50M a year.

So Harry Potter outsells the Bible nearly 17 to 1. Oddly, irrational though it is, the Harry Potter series is the more internally consistent, but that may be because it was intelligently designed instead of a random evolution of parables and urban legends.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[gman003]

NCC-1700, USS Constitution. First ship in the Constitution class, which included the NCC-1701 Enterprise.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Froboz23]

Establishing drug legislative policy requires a joint effort between the states and the federal government, especially when reefering to marijuana, instead of this state-by-state grass roots effort. It’s high time that they hashed these problems out. Still, it's nice to see that Eric Holder is willing to be blunt about this issue instead of just blowing smoke. He understands that we'ed all be better off with this decision.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Artifakt]

The very same people who told you this, told you Bush 43 could pick and choose any way he wanted simply via a signing statement, under the theory of his having "Unitary Executivehood". The VERY SAME PEOPLE! Why are you letting anyone use you like that without getting angry? Do you not remember these liars telling you the exact opposite when their guy was in power? Are you too young to have noticed what they said only six to ten years ago?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

and they have wide latitude in doing so

There may be some latitude, but not 'wide latitude'... to quote the ruling in the recent Yucca mountain decision against the NRC:

Our analysis begins with settled, bedrock principles of constitutional law. Under Article II of the Constitution and relevant Supreme Court precedents, the President must follow statutory mandates so long as there is appropriated money available and the President has no constitutional objection to the statute. So, too, the President must abide by statutory prohibitions unless the President has a constitutional objection to the prohibition. If the President has a constitutional objection to a statutory mandate or prohibition, the President may decline to follow the law unless and until a final Court order dictates otherwise. But the President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections. Of course, if Congress appropriates no money for a statutorily mandated program, the Executive obviously cannot move forward. But absent a lack of funds or a claim of unconstitutionality that has not been rejected by final Court order, the Executive must abide by statutory mandates and prohibitions.

It goes on from there quite a bit, but then this is nothing new, the President has a long history of playing "catch me if you can" with policies and selective enforcement.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

there isn't enough money, so the best of his ability is to prioritize.

Did I miss a bake sale outside of the DOJ as they tried to raise funds to prosecute those they just can't afford to anymore?

If not, clearly then it should be trivial to find the list of charges that the DOJ had de-prioritized because of lack of money to prosecute them.

What's that? Just the other week the DOJ also asked prosecutors to withhold evidence or opt for lessor charges in other drug crimes, not because of a lack of money, but because of a dislike of mandatory minimum sentences? http://thinkprogress.org/justice/2013/08/12/2444441/holder-sentencing-and-drugs/

Odd too that today the Obama Administration announced a couple of proposed changed to federal firearm regulations, one that will cost it tax revenue by denying of the re-importation of WWII era firearms... and another will require even more time & money to be spent (by both individuals and the BATF) when buying NFA items.

It's almost as if the claim of lack of money... is just an excuse to conduct policy in a way that they would prefer.

So yes, I am able to read... but also comprehend what I read and do not tailor either to just the subject at hand, might I suggest you try it?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[lgw]

Do we really need to explain why selective enforcement is bad? The executive branch is supposed to enforce law equitably, not grant exceptions for politicians, friends, and major contributors - but that's been growing for some time now (yes, it's worse under Obama, that's why "growing", but it's been a problem for several presidents now).

I just don't understand why Congress puts up with it. It's their toes being stepped on. The Constitution sort of just assumed that the branches of government would want to police each other. There aren't really checks and balances to prevent the Congress from making itself irrelevant by ignoring continual executive power grab. That's supposed to be the check and balance!

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[bill_mcgonigle]

Drives me bananas when governments pass law after law after law, with no mechanism for enforcement. It should be required that the government fund enforcement if a new law is passed, and that enforcement cannot be funded through borrowing.

Unlikely - the point of doing that is, that when you need to "get" somebody, you can pull out a huge laundry list of "crimes" that they've committed and then force them into a plea deal (instead of life in prison for a minor crime, plus add-ons).

King George did much the same thing in the American Colonies.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[lgw]

Unlike the others, the Constitution can be easily amended by the people if and where it seems outdated. Why the heck have we been ignoring it instead of amending it for the past 20-30 years? Why is everyone OK with no longer being a nation of laws? Not to Godwin the thread, but have the horrible examples of rule by Men instead of Law really been forgotten?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[HiThere]

I would argue that if there are so many laws the average citizen can't know what's legal and what isn't, then either ignorance of the law SHOULD be an excuse, or there needs to be a reduction in the number (and complexity) of the laws.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[lgw]

It's utterly pointless to have criminal law as it applies to individuals exceed what can be easily learned by the people. A law the people don't know or remember serves only as a tool for oppression, it serves no good social purpose at all.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[lgw]

Wait, are you actually objecting to spending infinite money on infinite things? Ahhh, you value giving the government infinite power more than infinite money. I get it.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Charliemopps]

No, you're talking about governments that have over-legislated the people. They've tried to micro-manage the citizenry to the point that they can no longer enforce the laws and have to pick and choose. That should never be the case. If everyone ignores a law, why does it exist? So the police can enforce it selectively? They enforce drug laws on the poor, minorities, and undesirables under the false assumption that throwing the drug dealers (i.e. all the adults) in jail will somehow lift them out of poverty. Meanwhile enforcing those same laws on those who have the means to conceal their use is almost impossible. I'd be willing to bet 90% of the pot grown in this country is grown in suburban basements and amidst corn fields. You can have a $100,000 crop in a 10x10 indoor area in 4 months if you know what you're doing. There's no way they're ever going to stop that... but they sure can bust the 16yr old black kids that pick up a Quarter pond and take it back to the hood so they can pay rent.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Artifakt]

I'm starting to think he seriously believes that just so long as it's Obama's AG, and will see no contradiction when a Republican gets in office and suddenly the same people who told him it was unconstitutional start claiming the AG (or the President) has that authority again. I feel very bad about this thread, because it tempts me to start a rumor that the constitution says Presidents whose last names start with vowels can't direct elements of the executive branch during months with an "R" in them, and see if it gains traction with some of these people.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Nidi62]

Obama doesn't seem to understand the restrictions on executive power.

Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.

All he really has to do is state what he as already said as an Executive Order. This essentially carries the force of law, and while a subsequent president could override the EO, it rarely if ever happens. People honestly tend to just kind of forget about them.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew never Queensland Australia was actually in America.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Kal Zekdor]

and they have wide latitude in doing so

There may be some latitude, but not 'wide latitude'... to quote the ruling in the recent Yucca mountain decision against the NRC:

Our analysis begins with settled, bedrock principles of constitutional law. Under Article II of the Constitution and relevant Supreme Court precedents, the President must follow statutory mandates so long as there is appropriated money available and the President has no constitutional objection to the statute. So, too, the President must abide by statutory prohibitions unless the President has a constitutional objection to the prohibition. If the President has a constitutional objection to a statutory mandate or prohibition, the President may decline to follow the law unless and until a final Court order dictates otherwise. But the President may not decline to follow a statutory mandate or prohibition simply because of policy objections. Of course, if Congress appropriates no money for a statutorily mandated program, the Executive obviously cannot move forward. But absent a lack of funds or a claim of unconstitutionality that has not been rejected by final Court order, the Executive must abide by statutory mandates and prohibitions.

It goes on from there quite a bit, but then this is nothing new, the President has a long history of playing "catch me if you can" with policies and selective enforcement.

An interesting and informative quote; thanks for sharing it. However, in this specific case I'm not sure it applies, as Obama is basically saying he won't challenge state laws on the issue. Unless there is precedent saying that the executive branch must enforce federal law over state law (which there very well may be, IANAL), I don't think it's relevant.

As to the act itself, not whether it oversteps his authority, I am rather supportive. I do not smoke pot, and I feel anyone who does so is an idiot wasting his life, but, on the other hand, I feel the same about alcohol, and just take a look a prohibition to see how well that turns out. Any move to reduce government expense (and, indeed, generate income by taxing the stuff), while reducing overcrowding in prisons, and simultaneously reducing the wealth of criminal organizations, is in my mind a good thing.

However, if these actions do in fact overstep presidential authority, then I want to know exactly how and why, so that I can argue towards curbing them. Governmental power creep, however well-intentioned (as it almost always is), must be fought at every opportunity. Vigilance is the price of liberty

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[J053]

Federal marijuana prohibition is not a law, it is a usurpation. It took a constitutional amendment to ban alcohol, and that amendment was repealed. There is no legal authority whatsoever for the federal government to ban a drug.

-jcr

Actually, the basis for present-day prohibition of marijuana is the Single Convention on Narcotic Drugs of 1961, which updated the Paris Convention of 1931. The Paris Convention was targeted at opioids, while the Single Convention of 1931 added cannabis and other drugs, as well as establishing the "Schedules" of drugs used today. Since the Single Convention is a treaty, it had to be ratified by the US Senate (in 1967), and has the same force as any other law or provision of the Constitution itself (see Art. VI, US Constitution). Thus, no Amendment was required to allow Congress to pass legislation implementing the Convention.

I don't like it, but it's not unconstitutional.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

But if it happens too much, the government loses legitimacy.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

There is no legal authority whatsoever for the federal government to ban any drug.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Rockoon]

Only applying the law to people of a specific skin color or economic status or age or other aspect, that is unlawful.

..and where does applying the law to people of a specific state but not to another specific state sit?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Nope.

This is the best political move to get it legalized. If the people in the state want it legal, the fed is saying they are going to respect that states right, with qualifiers.

It's a great move and the best one that could happen in the current political climate. As far as moving towadrs legalization.

I look forward to hearing you recapitulate your support for states' right to nullify federal law (and the federal executive refusing to enforce laws) when, say, Montana allows free ownership of Montana-made machine guns with no federal oversight.

Granted, I'm a libertarian so I applaud legalization of drugs *and* guns. However, you're a liberal so I expect some hypocrisy about why Presidential refusal to enforce drug laws is great, but doing the same for guns would be horrible.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[jcr]

Nope. A treaty can't amend the constitution, and a constitutional amendment is the only legal way to increase the power of the federal government. If a treaty could do so, then the rest of the constitution would be moot.

-jcr

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

It's convincingly argued that the absurd overexpansion of the interstate commerce clause that gave us Federal backing of the civil rights movement is also the source of the government's claimed authority to regulate drugs.

One should be careful when approaching this problem, it's thorny.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[kimvette]

Modern politicians find due process to be too constricting, that's why.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

So run for office, convince the people that your way is the right way, and push through change. Find people who feel the same way that you do, and inspire them to run for office as well. Publicize your views and make the country aware of how and why they're good. America is built to allow you to do this. It's possible to vote into power an entire government full of people who will drastically change how the government works.

The problem is that, like it or not, many of the citizens of this country will disagree with what you personally believe is right and just. It's easy to sit back in your chair and loudly proclaim that the government is broken, but once you see all the complications in getting that done, you realize why we are where we are.

TL;DR: STFU unless you're out there busting your ass to make these changes you want to see.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[jcr]

That's another very common resort for power-grabbing, to pretend that the commerce clause grants the power to do anything and everything the government wants to do. The purpose of the commerce clause was to prohibit the states from creating internal trade barriers.

-jcr

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?

You obviously don't understand the difference between state and federal laws.

Some laws vary from one state to the next.

Federal laws ( thanks to years of huge over reaching by scumbag US Attorneys who are eager to
abuse the leeway which has been associated with the Interstate Commerce laws ) tend to be more
uniform throughout the 50 states in the fascist empire which calls itself the United States.

-

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

This isn't "insightful". As other have pointed out, it is just wrong. The ability of the president to NOT enforce a law that he disagrees with is a part of checks and balances/separation of power.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

What are you talking about? DO you have any idea how many Bibles are sold? Remember it's been translated into a bazillion languages, while most NYT bestsellers, even if translated, are popular mainly in their native language.

The main competitors are other religious texts, and certain communist texts.

This said, the "by over 40 times" is extremely suspect. The Lord of the Rings has about 150 million sales. That takes us to about 6 billion sales. I do suspect that among Christians (including the doesn't-go-to-church-not-really-religious-but-still-technically-Christian people) and even atheists in Christian-dominated countries, the average number of bibles owned and purchased is greater than 1 (think of those hotel bibles, for instance). But among the countries with other dominant religions, I'll guess significantly less than 1. And I'm betting the population of bible owners is at an all-time high compared to any previous generation.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[aardvarkjoe]

I just don't understand why Congress puts up with it. It's their toes being stepped on.

This is mostly due to the belief of many congressmen (along with most of the voting public) that the office of President is really that of Supreme Legislator.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[icebike]

But a SPECIFIC offense ought to be treated the same in one place as another, don't you think?

You obviously don't understand the difference between state and federal laws.

Some laws vary from one state to the next.

Federal laws ( thanks to years of huge over reaching by scumbag US Attorneys who are eager to
abuse the leeway which has been associated with the Interstate Commerce laws ) tend to be more
uniform throughout the 50 states in the fascist empire which calls itself the United States.

-

Let me refine my question so that your pea-brain can understand:

But a SPECIFIC federal offense ought to be treated the same by the federal government in one place as another, don't you think?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

I knew never Queensland Australia was actually in America.

Motherfucker, __EVERYWHERE__ is in America if I say so, and the sooner
your bitch ass realizes it the better off you will be.

                                                                                - I am Barack Obama and this message
                                                                                    has been authorized by the fact that a man
                                                                                    follows me around with the briefcase which
                                                                                    contains the launch codes.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

What should bother people is the fact the courts shot down the illegal federal anti gay laws, do to right violations.

And the argument for legalizing cannabis should be the same, the constitution clearly defines ones body there own property, and that person can do with it what they wish, including ingesting, or taking any substance, but yet there are several laws against suicide, and numerous other things!!!

I always thought the federal branch was as close to communism (them and unions) as you could get. How is it they continue to have absolute power over the supreme courts? Another part of this country that is a mind f##k.

If the south had won the civil war, judging by the way they are to this day, I actually think we would be worse off, we wouldn't have the federal government, but with you wouldn't notice any difference.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[turp182]

Burn the flag and start a riot.

Burn the Constitution and no one shows up.

Such is the level of governmental literacy in the US.

America, Fuck Yeah! pretty much sums up the average American attitude to limits on the government (or pure apathy, this is the case for much of the population). The government has the fear approach scientifically perfected, terrorists are after us and our children are at risk.

Let freedom be reigned.

Sad but true.

I'm going to play some guitar (Sublime's River's of Babylon, a good song that is very easy, also Obvious Bicycle by Vampire Weekend). Provides solace and peace for me. Not so much for my neighbors...

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Best selling and highest distribution are two completely different numbers. With over 1 billion Catholics alone, I could see it being the most widely printed book, but I expect too many copies are free for it to have the highest revenue.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Jeremi]

..and where does applying the law to people of a specific state but not to another specific state sit?

As a matter of prudent use of resources, it's probably better to give priority to the laws the people of the state want enforced, over the laws that they have clearly indicated they do not want enforced.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[ShadowRangerRIT]

You're off by roughly a factor of 4. Prior to the printing press, the number of bibles produced yearly would have been trivial. Printing of the Bible from non-movable type woodcuts preceded the Gutenberg press by a century (give or take), but prior to movable type, the numbers were still fairly trivial. During the early years of movable type (1475-1500) only 20 million books were printed total, less than a million a year (source). So in order to hit 6B, you'd be dividing (roughly) over the last 500 years, not 2000. So the yearly print runs would be over 10 million, and probably 2-3x that recently (given that the rate of production would surely be much higher now than it was in 1500-1800).

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Mr. Slippery]

How exactly does "picking which laws I want to enforce" get lumped into his oath to "faithfully execute" his office?

When Congress passes an unconstitutional law -- which many drugs laws are -- for the POTUS to enforce it would be a violation of his oath. Of course, they do it anyway. :-/

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Just like everything else the Federal Government does that it does not have Constitutional authority over, they claim it falls under the Commerce Clause. The bad thing is that SCOTUS always sides with the government.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[rtb61]

Constitutionally it is not. The basic premise of the US constitution is all are equal under the law. Every crime is to be treated equally due to circumstance and not the person. More importantly whilst the constitution allows federal law to control trade between states it specifically excludes what may be lawfully produced in each state. You again have the constitutional professor blatantly breaking the constitution by claiming the imperial right to define what agricultural products can be produced inside of a state and under what conditions. The Feds certainly can sit on the border of each state and seek to control the flow of products it deems illegal but it has no power to control what is produced and consumed within a state. The only reason the choom gang coward is buckling now is because state are pushing for a constitutional challenge to bust the drugs laws wide open and leave them up to each state individually.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Darinbob]

I think he does have such power. If there is not enough resources to enforce all laws fully then the executive is certainly allowed to decide which laws to focus the most effort on. Similarly, in a small town the police chief can decide that no extra hours need to be spent enforcing the no-jaywalking rules.

Of course this means it needs to be applied fairly. Ie, if the mayor parks illegally and never gets a ticket but everyone else in town gets a ticket for the same thing, then that's an abuse of power.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Darinbob]

It's only relatively recently that congress has decided that they need to be in the role of executive or judical. Ie creating minimum sentencing guidelines because they felt judges were too lenient (never mind that the real reason was to get votes). Historically congress was limited to creating laws, but not enforcing or adjudicating them.

Now certainly congress and the people retain the power to sue the executive branch if laws are selectively enforced for the benefit of friends or other malfeasance.

(Personally I don't find a problem with this particular issue. However for the issue of same sex marriage in California with the Supreme Court, I do find it to be a lot murkier. I think it's presumably ok for the California government to not bother putting up a defense of the law in court, but given the nature of California that the proposition 8 supporters should have been granted legal standing (after all the voters created the law and are essentially a 4th branch of government with power equal or greater than legislative). Then when it did go back to state court it would have been overturned anyway. Ie, prop 8 overturned on principle rather than some odd loophole.)

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Darinbob]

It sounds like they will enforce the federal marijuana laws equally in all states, I don't see any favoritism here. However there are states with state laws against its use and states with state laws allowing its use, but that has little to do with the feds. Basically these are common sense guidelines; prosecute the use and growing of marijuana where it affects the federal interests (gangs, cartels, etc).

These laws have always been selectively enforced anyway. Black guy with pot and you get a felony, white guy with pot and you get a misdemeanor or a warning.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Zontar The Mindless]

ProTip: Hitting someone with a joint doesn't usually inflict grievous bodily harm. Unless your rolling papers are steel-jacketed, perhaps.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Darinbob]

This is not what this news article says will happen. These guidelines are for ALL states, those with or without the liberalized marijuana laws. The only case where the particular states matter is the issue of sales across state lines where one state has liberal marijuana laws and the other does not.

Nothing here says that they'll look the other way in California and Colorado but crack down with federal felonies in Georgia and Virginia.

States already have their own laws and most marijuana prosecutions are at the state leval and not the federal level.

The feds have always focused most of their drug enforcement resources on drug cartels or gangs, so in that sense nothing much is really changing.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[alexander_686]

I am still confused.

All of the other books have inspired people to great, good, and bad deeds. They have inspired poets and caused wars.

The Domesday Book is a tax role. I have never hear of it causing a war, a poem to be written, or a good deed done.. Taxs yes, but not a tax role.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[zippthorne]

However, that's not the argument he's making....

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Notwithstanding: the real problem with this is the erosion of rule of law. Sure, in this case it seems that "freedom" is winning via a backdoor route, but it sets a dangerous precedent.

Sure, today it's "okay" because you're pragmatic and like the result. Tomorrow it's a different party's president using the same approach for machine guns, civil rights, environmental laws, or whatever else you find anathema. What now?

I prefer when the power of the executive is restricted. History shows it's safer when the president's hands are tied. Hell, we now have an imperial presidency that asserts the right to order the extrajudicial execution of US citizens. Do we *really* need to give the office even more power?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[iris-n]

Can you elaborate on that? My laymen impression is that prosecutorial discretion allows you to at any time ignore any law you wish. But to ignore a specific law all the time seems a bit of an exaggeration.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[sjames]

It is entirely within his power to prioritize the enforcement of laws, and he has decided that this gets the lowest priority of all.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[sjames]

There's a lot of laws and not enough money to enforce them all with vigor. The best thing to do is prioritize based on importance and feasibility. Enforcing drug laws against a fairly harmless plant in a state that doesn't want those laws and won't cooperate is a lot less productive and more expensive than enforcing laws against crimes that have victims with the support of local authorities.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[sjames]

If the president believes mandatory minimum sentences are un-Constitutional, he is sworn to make sure they don't happen.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Except... you know... in those giant national parks that we have out here in the west. The state is like 1/4 national park. And that's where the ski areas are.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Spoken with all the experience, knowledge and view of a 14 year old.

Why am I not surprised that a man-child like yourself is upset when he recognises the same behaviour in others?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

But only applying the laws to those that criticize the government is.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Rockoon]

Nothing here says that they'll look the other way in California and Colorado but crack down with federal felonies in Georgia and Virginia.

They already crack down on federal marijuana felonies in all States. Nothing here says that they wont continue this policy within States that havent taken it upon themselves to rescheduled marijuana.

We arent talking about new law here. The DEA has and uses its authority to arrest and prosecute marijuana growers, and nothing here says that its different now.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[squiggleslash]

I don't know, isn't it? By implication, anyway?

It looks like he's taken a 10th Amendment approach. Those States that have banned weed, as is their right, get lots of Federal government help so the Federal government can assist with the whole "interstate commerce" part of the drugs world. Those States that have legalized weed get left alone as the Federal government doesn't have the right to enforce anything.

I appreciate the most of the time when someone talks about the tenth, or States Rights* in general, they think of it as a hard wall where the Federal government cannot do something that the States have jurisdiction over. But you could also say that the States have a right, on an individual level, to let the Feds in, especially where there's an interstate commerce issue, which there very definitely is with drugs.

And (warning: I pretty much guarantee idiot mods will consider the next part a troll or flamebait - shut up and understand, idiots) if you go back to the original definition of States Rights, the right of a state to treat black people like shit, there's some precedent to this. The Federal government did pass laws to help enforce slavery in the South, even though it never directly had the power to enslave anyone. Those laws were enforced 100% in the South, and enforced in the North only to the extent that they affected the South. That is, a Northern "slaveowner" had no Federal protection, but a southern slave who escaped to the North would find themselves pursued by Federal forces, who'd eventually repatriate said slave back to their Southern "owner". Nobody declared these laws unconstitutional, although the fact anti-slavery forces were on the verge of overturning them was the major reason why the South seceded.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

No, you're talking about governments that have over-legislated the people

I think the point is that drug prohibition is an example of over-legislation.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[necro81]

wrote up to protect ourselves from facist, oppressive governments like the one we have now

Fascism is a 20th century invention; it did not exist during the monarchy of George III. Oppression and tyranny have existed since ... well, probably before there was civilization.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[crtreece]

I see what you did there.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

You are forgetting we have this thing called the constitution and the supremacy clause which basically says that state laws that conflict with federal law are “without effect.” The federal government has a law that says this is illegal and per the Constitution this overrides the state laws. It is NOT within the presidents power to not enforce this. It doesn't matter if others in the past haven't enforced things- they were wrong also. If he wants to allow it he needs to change the federal law first which requires congress. As the law stands now this is NOT a state by state decision. As you stated, this is purely a political move, and like the facts state, not a legal move. Stop accepting everything this president (or any politician) doe, no matter how wrong or technically illegal it is, s as long as it fits your agenda. Maybe if both sides of the aisle werent so obsessed with calling each other frothing at the mouth haters, they could actually work together and get something productive done.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

Why are you assuming I side with Bush on this matter? Obama and Bush are basically the same person with different rhetoric on most subjects.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

Well we agree on the prohibition issue. But Obama is placing conditions on his refusal to enforce as well, which is definitely beyond the scope of his authority and demonstrates he is not doing this out of recognition of constitutional limitations.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

He hasn't taken a 10th Amendment approach though. If he did, he wouldn't be trying to make his lack of enforcement conditional. A 10th Amendment approach wouldn't put him in a position to do so.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

It is a law, it's just not a constitutional law. I agree with your reasoning other than that. Laws are laws, even unconstitutional ones. And I think Obama should be refusing to enforce this, but only on 10th Amendment grounds and/or the reason of it violating the commerce clause as intended by the framers.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in Pursuance thereof; and all Treaties made, or which shall be made, under the Authority of the United States, shall be the supreme Law of the Land; and the Judges in every State shall be bound thereby, any Thing in the Constitution or Laws of any State to the Contrary notwithstanding.

Unfortunately, Article Six does have certain implied authority given in that respect, but when the constitution was written, this sort of treaty wasn't what they had in mind as far as I can tell.

As the Supreme Court ruled in 1957, "No agreement with a foreign nation can confer power on the Congress, or on any other branch of Government, which is free from the restraints of the Constitution." So thankfully, armed with that ruling, the Supreme Court affirmed that while the federal government does have the authority to enter into treaties, that the federal government cannot invent for itself powers by entering into treaties.

Unfortunately, the Supreme Court also seems content to pretend the Commerce Clause is a legitimate avenue for total federal domination.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

It's not really that ironic. Obama has done everything in his power to ensure that the federal government decreases its moral position and increases the difficulty for anyone to improve their position in life.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

Choosing not to enforce would be one thing. Especially if citing either violation of the 10th amendment or inappropriate application of the commerce clause. However, that's not the case, and with Obama believing he's in a position to throw out conditions for the subject as an executive rather than a legislator, it's not looking like prosecutorial discretion to me. It looks more like legislation in the guise of executive action.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

Yes, and the new policies clearly do not mesh with the equal protection clause.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

The difference between 1917 and the present drug law is that our current policies are only allowed due to the complete abandonment of the intent as written in the language of the 1700s of the Commerce Clause. Federal blanket prohibitions and restrictions on intrastate matters is entirely outside the intended scope of power given by the constitution.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

The constitutionally required oath of office requires the president to faithfully execute those responsibilities, including the enforcing of laws written by congress. This does not meet that requirement.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

The thing is, he didn't make a valid argument on constitutionality by citing either the Commerce Clause or Tenth Amendment. He simply created a set of criteria for when to enforce out of whole cloth, probably with violations included that violate the equal protection clause. That's where the problem arises.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

I love how everyone assumes people critical of Emperor Obama's behaviour will somehow give Republicans a pass. Both parties are amazingly corrupt, and career politicians grab power whenever they can. That's not news.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Let me refine my question so that your pea-brain can understand:

Yeah, because that will totally make GP (and everyone else who misunderstood* you) more willing to take you seriously.

*When 50 people all "misunderstand" you in the same manner, it isn't their pea-brains that is the problem. It's your pea-brain that is the problem.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

If I had mod points, I'd call this insightful.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Interesting. CohibaVancouver suggests that government should be required to provide funds for enforcement of every law that they pass as a means of limiting "stupid" laws, and you respond by calling them a 14 year old. No explanation as to why it is a dumb idea, or why it would not work, just a "your idea is dumb and so are you, now run along while us grownups talk".

If you cannot refute the idea, just insult the person and hope other people are too stupid to call you out on it, eh?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[dywolf]

He didn't say anything about nto enforcing.
He said they won't fight the laws passed by these states.

As in, the United States Government represented by the Department of Justice will not take The State of Colorado to court to have their law removed.

Then, rather than a top down public policy enforcement that says "The government says pot is bad for you, tough luck", the people instead via state legislatures and later via the Congress can instead cause a new public policy reflective of new or evolving societal mores that say "We dont care, we want the pot."

God forbid the people actually get a say in what laws they have to live by.

That's an entirely different ballgame than "not enforcing", which is BS claim.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

The government has limited resources and it is literally impossible to enforce all of the federal laws to the full extent. Therefore the government must prioritize enforcement.

No, the government needs to axe the laws. Drives me bananas when governments pass law after law after law, with no mechanism for enforcement. It should be required that the government fund enforcement if a new law is passed, and that enforcement cannot be funded through borrowing.

Controlling the budget for enforcement is one of the primary components of our system of checks and balances. It's squarely in the hands of Congress, and any time you hear someone talking about the President's "economic plan" or "budget" you should hit them in the face with a copy of a High School US Government textbook.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[XcepticZP]

The fuck is wrong with you? What's the point of enacting a law if you don't do your utmost best to enforce it to the letter? Oh, you want "selective enforcement"? So that police can use their "discretion" when applying the law? Law, you know, that thing we told government to enforce for us. The thing that we hold on a mighty pedestal as the ultimate expression of our collective morals?

To create a law and then not enforce it properly is not only morally corrupt, but it will lead to individuals finding that law corrupt if not finding the whole law-making process unjust and immoral. You shouldn't be making a law that you can not feasibly enforce, or have no intention of fully enforcing. This is what the people above you said, yet your little attack of calling someone a 14 year old gets modded up. Fuck you and the morally corrupt collective you hail from.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[dywolf]

exactly. int he same of DOMA you had people saying on the right "THEY HAVE TO ENFORCE IT, THEY HAVE TO DEFEND IT" ...

why? there is an obvious growing support for gay marriage, and opposition to DOMA. why should the fed fight to protect something that is obviously becoming quickly AGAINST the wishes of the governed? i garuntee if they actually did that, you'd then have people on the right saying "See? They dont care about the wishes of the people! they're trying to ram their version of government down our throats".

same thing here. they're backing off some, in this case not going to fight the state of colorado and gt a court to say "the fed's rules trump yours, yours is invalid". instead theyre letting the people work it out, eventually if support increases enough we'll see a new policy reflective of an evolving stance on pot become the national policy.

I mean, God forbid the people of the nation actually get a say in the laws they live by, and have a government that respects them.

(and I'm against pot legalization, but this post isnt about my own personal opinion, its about why and what the Adminstration is really doing and the justification for it)

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Speaking of the Constitution, where in it does it give the federal government any power whatsoever to regulate recreational drugs?
Oh, that's right it does not!
They needed an amendment to ban alcohol, but not other drugs?
They have never had constitutional authority to do what they are doing now.
The interstate commerce clause, that was used to start the FDA and its predecessor, might apply to the FDA but you have to remember, the FDA was started because of FRAUD. There were people selling 'liver pills' and putting whatever the hell they wanted in it and making all kinds of wild claims about how they cured everything. In the interest of the public good and to stop the interstate trade in actual poison sold as cures the Federal Government was allowed to regulate medicine. It had nothing to do with recreational drugs or what plants could be grown by whom.
Later, after prohibition was ended the stars aligned and here we had this large prohibition enforcement organization with nothing to do, politicians involved with it loosing clout, the start of the great depression making getting rid of 'Mexicans' (ignore the fact that they were NATIVES who had more right to be in the south than the white Euro asshole invaders) a priority, commercial interests in wood pulp, fear that black men would steal white woman and look white men in the eye.. And all of the sudden what was a narrow ruling that allowed the interstate commerce clause to stop medical fraud became Federal dominance in an area that it had no legal authority over to begin with.
Add that one racist crook Nixon, and his hatred of 'hippies' (aka people who wont vote for me and keep calling me on my shit).. And here we are now; A trillion $$ poorer with nothing to show for it but broken homes, a permanent class of unemployable, and gangsters running amok around the US and the world again.
Great Job USA, Great Job.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Right, but where is the money going to come from for this new rule??

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Agent0013]

That's why they didn't originally make marijuana illegal. They made a law requiring a stamp to possess or sell it. Then they didn't make any stamps, so having it was de facto illegal.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Thus, no Amendment was required...

Phooey. The Constitution does NOT grant the American Government the ability to increase its powers simply because France said it was going to, as well. All righteous power flows from the Constitution, and any document that Congress signs outside of that authority is null and void; we just need a court (or revolution) to declare it unconstitutional.

Again, treaties signed by Congress share the same weight as laws signed by Congress, and not a feather more. If Congress can pass unconstitutional laws, and have them struck down, the same can be said of treaties; if the authority isn't there, then there's no argument.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

People really need to stop pretending that fascism is anything but despotism with a good marketing department.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

And the ones retained need to be simplified. It shouldn't take a lawyer just to know how to obey the law (if there aren't contradictions preventing doing so at all).

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[LoRdTAW]

Its the official brand of toilet paper for the government.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

I'd argue that the only 'Laws' outside of the constitution and bill of rights we need are to make:
Murder
Rape
Theft
and the related crimes of
Assault and Reckless endangerment
Harassment
Fraud and libel (theft of public standing)

Everything else is just codes and regulation surrounding things like cars and the like, but unless there is a victim that can claim (or in the case of murder, a body/evidence) they were harmed in these ways there is no CRIME, and no one should go to jail.
Now, fines, fees, and rulings to correct things like dangerous buildings or the like are fine, but again, no victim, no crime, no jail. End of story.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

1) I said a non religious source. The Guiness Book of Records admits it's impossible to get figures, then goes on to source it's information from "The Bibles Society". Definately a religious source.
2) It's certainly not non-fiction work.
2) Other works of fiction, such as The Da Vinci Code, and The Harry Potter books clearly outsell it.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

What are you talking about? DO you have any idea how many Bibles are sold?

Nobody does. Which is one of the things that makes it a bogus claim.

Remember it's been translated into a bazillion languages, while most NYT bestsellers, even if translated, are popular mainly in their native language.

Stuff like the Da Vinci Code and the Harry Potter books are also translated into many languages and are popular around the word. They sell more than the bible.

I don't know where you are from. But Americans are more likely to believe the bible outsells everything else, because America is a very Christian country, with more interest in the bible that even the other Christian countries. Most of the world isn't like that.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

I was brought up a Catholic. I've never bought a bible. But I was given a cheap Gideon's bible at school, which I later threw away. So I'm sure you're right. Gideons must have printed an awful lot of bibles that don't count as sales.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Maybe the reverse, if a law for a victimless crime has not been enforced for 20 years that law is automatically stricken from the books. Gets rid of all the BS laws that get passed over time.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[alexo]

On its face police cannot enforce every law on the books.

Which is good evidence that there are way too many laws.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

They only figures they present are from religious organisations. Which I specifically excluded as a source which could be used to back up the ridiculous claims from religious organisations that the bible outsells every other book.

You can't say the government are telling the truth by quoting figures claimed by the government. The same goes for religious organisations.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

So Harry Potter outsells the Bible nearly 17 to 1.

Yes, that sounds more like it.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[BasilBrush]

Good estimations. But the conclusion that Harry Potter outsells the Bible is inescapable.

Religious organisations claiming otherwise are lying. And not just about that.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

Given all the legislation they've rammed through over the years that had little to no public support, why not just do the same with legislation that would outlaw due process?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

Sounds reasonable... if true... where is the statement to that effect?

More so, why only in certain drug cases?

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

Bingo. And worse, this administration has shown itself quite willing to attack state laws when they think they violate federal law (or just mirror them).

See AZs (failed) attempt to mirror federal immigration law in some respects (while others the feds join hand in hand with states on), or voter ID laws across the country. Hell, we see now in the wake of the striking down of section 4(A) of the Voting Rights Act of 1965... the older DOJ still seeks to sue Texas under section 5... which is fully dependent on 4(a) being replaced.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Anonymous Coward]

The problem with that, is who defines "victimless". I'm sure the government would claim that there is no such thing as a victimless crime. At the very least, the "crime" deprived the government of.. something.

Re: The emperor has no clothes

[Kal Zekdor]

The crux of the matter is whether or not states have the right to declare Marajuana legal, when federal law declares it an illegal substance. If that is within state power, then the entire thing is moot.

I know there are plenty of instances where federal law can override state law, but is there anything written down anywhere saying that the Executive branch has a duty to enforce federal law, even when it conflicts with state law? If there is, then Obama is shirking his presidential responsibility. If there is not, then he is simply respecting States' rights. (Which is a very smart political move.)

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[sjames]

It's just one of many reasons the executive branch could have such a policy and be firmly within it's power. Your link gave another, too expensive.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

Again, I am waiting for more than just a cursory claim along the lines of "to save money, stop charging anyone who commits a crime on Tuesdays"... for if such a proclamation is enough, then anyone screaming "it's coming right for us" is enough justification to claim the out of season shooting of an animal or person is justifiable... yet we see no evidence that their budgetary issue is such that they are diverting money from these prosecutions to other much more needed areas.

Re: The emperor has no clothes

[DaHat]

Gonzales v. Raich says states do not have that right to declare marijuana legal (at least for medicinal purposes).

As I said, this is another case of this administration picking & choosing which laws they wish to enforce and those they do not for simply policy reasons.

The administration declares (and gets court approval) to say that states have limited authority to enforce federal immigration laws in the case of Arizona... but turn the other way when cities & states go out of their way to ignore other federal immigration laws.

Re: The emperor has no clothes

[Kal Zekdor]

Interesting. It definitely seems like a gray matter, then. Neither explicitly allowed nor explicitly forbidden. In such cases, I believe that it's best to err on the side of reduction of executive power, and object to this move by Obama.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[sjames]

Since Obama is notably not being challenged on these things the excuse, however thin, is obviously enough. Even the crazy birthers are letting that one go.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[necro81]

People really need to stop pretending that fascism is anything but despotism with a good marketing department

Maybe, but I am one of those people who still feel that words and definitions have actual and specific meanings (like instead of, uh, like, ya know, seriously). To my ears, when I hear someone saying that the constitution was written to protect us from fascism, the author, even if their meaning is understood and has a valid point, still comes off sounding like a dumbass that doesn't know history.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[intermodal]

The constitution was written to protect against a great many things that were not yet invented. It hasn't been a success on all levels, but it has been at least somewhat successful in many cases.

Re:The emperor has no clothes

[Uberbah]

Hell, I'm pro-legalization, but Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him to pick and choose which laws he will and will not enforce. Not that it's ever stopped him.

Aside from prosecutor discretion - which Obama has used to get off bankers and war criminals but persecute whisteblowers - the Controlled Substances Act allows the President to move marijuana off of Schedule I without having to go through Congress first.

So while Obama is a sycophant, coward, and hypocrite, he does actually have all the authority he needs to get the federal government to back off on marijuana.

Spaced Out!

[cookYourDog]

Is it possible that the US's lack of prison space had anything to do with this? Or do we want to REALLY BE SOME COUNTRY, and beat the world record (ours) for highest per-capita incarceration rate?

Re:Spaced Out!

[zlives]

Outsourced prisons and then removal of citizenship will fix that. Most felons already can't vote.

Re:Spaced Out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Prisons are businesses anymore...it's easier to fill them with nonviolent drug users and much much safer for the guards. I mean really, the whole reason weed was against the law in the first place was to protect our law enforcement officials from the truly dangerous criminals.

Re:Spaced Out!

[CanHasDIY]

Meh, they're probably just trying to lull us into a false sense of security before deploying the dragnet.

Remember, private prisons often sell themselves on promises of 90-95% fill rates!

Re:Spaced Out!

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama not keeping his word? Inconceivable!

Re:Spaced Out!

[echnaton192]

Outsourced prisons and then removal of citizenship will fix that. Most felons already can't vote.

What, like forever?

Just googled it. This is sick.

Re:Spaced Out!

[Zontar The Mindless]

I mean really, the whole reason weed was against the law in the first place was to protect our law enforcement officials from the truly dangerous criminals.

Um, no. The whole reason weed was made illegal was to keep our innocent White girls from being seduced by those unscrupulous Negroes.

Re:Spaced Out!

[Zontar The Mindless]

"Let 100 Flowertops Bloom", eh?

Re:Spaced Out!

[CanHasDIY]

Never heard it put that way before, but yea, pretty much.

Its a free country

[Anonymous Coward]

As long as you do exactly what the government asks, no questions asked

Weasel words

[fhic]

All of these "conditions" are arbitrary and open to whatever interpretation the feds feel like today. In the meantime, it's still being kept as a Schedule 1 drug. This administration has repeatedly and consistently said one thing and done another. You'll forgive me if I don't believe a word of this, which has no more weight than a touchy-feely press release.

Re:Weasel words

[zlives]

i almost wish the statute of limitation was long enough that the Last 3 presidents could have been brought up on charges... maybe that would change the thinking.

Re:Weasel words

[RoknrolZombie]

The feds will flipflop on this as soon as Obama is out of office. Right now he's trying to save face and this is a really easy way for him to do it without having to spend more money. As soon as the new boss buys his way into office it'll be his (or hers, but really it'll be his) discretion to prosecute users in those states.

Re:Weasel words

[DanTheStone]

Agreed. If you have the ability to fix a problem and choose not to, you should not be congratulated for standing on a soapbox and saying it should be fixed.

Re:Weasel words

[Sponge Bath]

The next few years will demonstrate legal recreational use won't cause the Reefer Madness Armageddon. More people will recognize the stupidity of squandering billions on the prohibition/prison industry and a tipping point will be reached.

Re:Weasel words

[girlintraining]

All of these "conditions" are arbitrary and open to whatever interpretation the feds feel like today.

Well, Obama has about as much credibility here as his detractors, which is to say, not much. I lost the last of my respect when he issued a memo saying he'd only use drones in the event of an imminent danger to the country. He then went on to redefine imminent in geological terms, and danger as pretty much whatever the Administration thought it was. Your point here is very valid -- what the government says anymore has as much value as a Zimbabwe dollar. What it does, however, can be judged.

All the people who were convicted under laws the administration nows says are outmodded are still in jail. Local police continue to arrest people for simple possession. The DEA continues to raid and burn dispensaries in these states, and abduct their owners (and sometimes patients). Their behavior has changed not at all.

So, at least in the opinion of this author, the federal government will continue to act in this fashion, until such time as enough states pass laws about this that it becomes tenable to disband the DEA by means of an amendment to the Constitution. Congress will not back down; Even if tomorrow it was revealed that a new discovery means that we could synthesize the cure for cancer from marijuana, these assholes would continue breaking down people's doors and shooting them... though probably then for violating some company's patent. -_-

Re:Weasel words

[SoupGuru]

But it's better than Obama saying he's going to double the enforcement of marijuana laws, right? Or do you want the laws enforced? I get confused. It's so hard to understand people when they're more interested in tearing the man down than any discussion.

The President just said he's not going to enforce federal pot laws in states that want to legalize it. I think that's kind of a big fucking deal. If you're pro-legalization, this should be a big fucking deal. The President himself just legitimized your position that has been marginalized for DECADES.

Re:Weasel words

[BasilBrush]

The feds will flipflop on this as soon as Obama is out of office.

That depends. If it's a Republican president, you're probably right. If it's a democrat one, that's unlikely.

In this day and age, the majority of Democratic voters don't want a war on cannabis users. And there's no strong business case to either (other than the private prisons providers.) That reality applies just as much to the next Democrat president as this one.

Re:Weasel words

[icebike]

Exactly, given ALL the evidence, and all the studies, the fact that this remains Schedule 1 clearly shows that DEA is driving the law, and not the other way around.

But as more states follow Colorado and Washington, the whole issue ill eventually resolve itself, as congress will be forced to remove it from the purview of the DEA.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

It's like GWB's signing statements, which he used as ways to modify enforcement elements of laws that he couldn't veto and maintain his needed political capital.

Re:Weasel words

[interkin3tic]

Specifically on this issue too. Obama said he wouldn't spend federal funds fighting state's medical marijuana laws, yet his government has raided more dispensaries in states with medical marijuana laws than Bush's. source.

I don't regret voting for him in the general elections, but I do regret not giving money or volunteering for a better candidate in the primaries.

Re:Weasel words

[geekoid]

He's smarter then that, a lot smarter. He is position to get the feds to stop enforcing it completely. Once enough states allow it it will be impossible for them to turn back, no matter who is in power next.

Neither part can undo it without going against what they claim their party stands for.

This is a brilliant political move.

Re:Weasel words

[darth_borehd]

The next few years will demonstrate legal recreational use won't cause the Reefer Madness Armageddon. More people will recognize the stupidity of squandering billions on the prohibition/prison industry and a tipping point will be reached.

What I think is more likely is that they will find legalizing a dangerous drug to be a disaster for their society and economy. I predict the number of addicts will approximately double, car accidents caused by being under THC influence will increase, addictive behavior will cause more families to suffer and to be torn apart, bankruptcies due to marijuana consumption will go up, and their economy will erode as until they finally realize what a horrible mistake they made.

Marijuana is a dangerous schedule 1 drug. It should stay that way.

Re:Weasel words

[darth_borehd]

All the evidence that is not propaganda by marijuana advocates show that should remain illegal.

Re:Weasel words

[hurfy]

Have they ever gone after individual users in the 1st place?

Not hard to promise not to do something you don't do, haven't done, and don't intend on doing ;)

Did they promise not to bother the Stores? Suppliers? Growers? Banks?

Anyways, it should be interesting. The only places that seem to qualify here as sales locations are in areas i don't care to go to.... the biker bar strip, and the strip club strip. There will not be any place in my neighborhood. It will require a special trip to one of the 2 worst areas in town because that is the only place far enough away from schools to qualify. Not sure what that does unless we plan on limiting travel to 21 and older :P Maybe we get a clump of shops outside town on an offramp or something, wouldn't be any farther than 'in town' anyway.

Soon have every cop within 100 miles looking for ID plates at the smokeshops in WA and the WA plates at the ID liquor store. The fact you aren't supposed to do liquor across state lines either didn't stop ID from putting the big new liquor store at the border.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

When can we classify alcohol as just as dangerous?

Because there is literally nothing you mentioned in your FUD that could not be said about booze, literally not a single thing.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

bwahahahahaha... wait... were you being serious?

Re:Weasel words

[icebike]

So if you disagree with any evidence its propaganda.

I see. Duly noted.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

wtf dude ? the vyvanse they gave me instead is way more dangerous, yet i can legally drive on it

Re:Weasel words

[zlives]

hind sight for me suggests ... should have voted for H. Clinton

Re:Weasel words

[HiThere]

I think you don't understand how the drug laws were imposed in the first place. Often against tremendous public opinion. Just not active enough opinion that they would do anything about it. (Alcohol prohibition was a separate case. It's a part of the war of the sexes. When a large portion of the male population would off fighting a war, prohibition got voted in. Getting rid of it was a real problem, and we are still suffering from the after effects that it caused, e.g. a major increase in organized crime.)

P.S.: Organized crime isn't interested in a drug that doesn't carry significant penalties (or hefty import duties). Doesn't matter for this subject whether or not it's addictive, though naturally it prefers more addictive drugs. Watch out if tobacco is ever made illegal.

Re:Weasel words

[HiThere]

IIRC, it was the feds that first decided to make certain drugs illegal. (Well, certain communities had ordinances, but that's not the same thing.)

Re:Weasel words

[Jeremi]

hind sight for me suggests ... should have voted for H. Clinton

Good news... it looks like you'll get another chance to do that in 2016 ;)

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

You should see the studies the feds do on marijuana, I do not have a citation, is was removed by the feds, but 90-95% of pot smoked in the US was grown in the US. Before any medical usage laws, and before two states allowed it to become legal in small amounts.

The brash fantasy that 40-50% of marijuana coming into the country from "Mexico" isn't a total lie but they are misleading the public with that number.
If you break down (which is what the feds actual do) when it comes to "IMPORTED" percentages then this stat wouldn't be to far off. But the are publicly saying that 40-50 percent of the marijuana problem is from Mexico. The reality is they only account for about 3% of the total problem.

It goes without saying but cartels are more interested in the black market, and cocaine, heroin as major money makers, marijuana really does nothing for them since it is too bulky, and they are very aware of the fact marijuana is easy to grow within the US, so they aren't making any real money from it.

The other percentages from that 90-95% are from varying countries which breaks down into 1% and 0.5% Canada about 1%, Cuba, Jamaica, and Haiti Islands 2%, Asia-- 1-2%, Sweden, Finland 0.5% ect ect...

Re:Weasel words

[Jeremi]

All the evidence that is not propaganda by marijuana advocates show that should remain illegal.

Similar evidence shows that alcohol and tobacco are much more harmful than marijuana -- both to their users and to society as a whole. How to explain the double standard?

Re:Weasel words

[blackraven14250]

The difference between then and now is that there's plenty of highly active people in the movement towards legalization, while there were not when it was criminalized.

Re:Weasel words

[zippthorne]

Lax enforcement of an unjust law allows the law to continue on the books. There is some argument for trying for "perfect" enforcement - it will then affect enough people that the clamor to strike the law from the books will become too great to ignore.

Re:Weasel words

[Derec01]

Legit question. What evidence are you talking about?

I'm no pot advocate. The smell is pretty sickening. However, I have known people who partake to some degree. While I frankly don't like how it affects them, it's not worse than being around annoying drunk people. Even illegal, it's not a huge drain on their income, and their use from what I can tell is maybe weekly, and far from being as compulsive as tobacco. No random scary freak outs either.

Maybe adds a bit of danger to society, but we allow people to do other things that are dangerous, including drinking and owning guns and there's just a huge cost to locking these people up, but monetarily and societally.

Honestly, why should I care that people smoke pot? What's the evidence that it's worth caring about? Convince me, here.

Re:Weasel words

[dak664]

Big industry was behind both making both alcohol and MJ illegal. Competition from alcohol and hemp products threatened to constrain the profits of Standard Oil, DuPont, and General Motors. Prohibition was allowed to end after Ford was forced to stopped making engines that could use ethanol blends.

  Interesting history here http://www.starchiefpress.com/articles/article35.html.

Re:Weasel words

[Anonymous Coward]

private prisons aren't even that big of a business input right now. They make up 10% of the prison system, and mainly act as overflow. It has political clout, but not nearly as much as people think it does. It mainly relies on the fact that building a state prison is a clusterfuck now, and by contracting with a private entity, the state can get a new prison without having to deal with the nightmare that is the approval process (NIMBY, eminent domain, etc)

The Cannabis legalization (among many reasons) is part of the emphasis to cut LE spending in a way that won't hurt coverage. The Tax Money from Cannabis, the greatly reduced overhead in LE, and taking the Cartel's primary fundraising activity away will do wonders for America.

Re:Weasel words

[interkin3tic]

I did actually. I still wonder if she would have been better, specifically because the Clintons know how to handle congressional republicans fighting dirty. I think a white woman also would have riled up the lunatic fringe of the right wing less. Not that it's a good reason to not have a black president, just that I think politics may have been a little less contentious. I'm skeptical that the Tea Party would have been as much of a thing.

Re:Weasel words

[zlives]

yeah ... lets see what she has to say...

Re:Weasel words

[zlives]

I think the republicans would consider this a clinton 3rd term and basically consider (wrongfully) that she is just doing what bill is saying. However that would let her accomplish more than obama. My issue with Obama is not what he has not been able to accomplish but rather what he has done.

Re:Weasel words

[darth_borehd]

Most criminals test positive for THC at the time of their arrest. Cannabis is also the drug most often linked to crime.

http://www.mcclatchydc.com/2013/05/23/192101/marijuana-is-drug-most-often-linked.html#.Uie38z_hcuw

Re:Weasel words

[Uberbah]

I did actually. I still wonder if she would have been better, specifically because the Clintons know how to handle congressional republicans fighting dirty.

So does Obama. He doesn't lose to Republicans, he takes a dive for them.

Re:Weasel words

[Uberbah]

The next few years will demonstrate legal recreational use won't cause the Reefer Madness Armageddon. More people will recognize the stupidity of squandering billions on the prohibition/prison industry and a tipping point will be reached.

The problem is that many monied interests have figured out how to monetize marijuana prohibition. If they had done that in the 30's for alcohol, it would have taken another fifty years to repeal the 21st Amendment.

Re:Weasel words

[Uberbah]

The feds will flipflop on this as soon as Obama is out of office. Right now he's trying to save face and this is a really easy way for him to do it without having to spend more money. As soon as the new boss buys his way into office it'll be his (or hers, but really it'll be his) discretion to prosecute users in those states.

That's kinda hard to do once the genie is out of the bottle and facts are on the ground. Take gay military service: sure, the next president is free to kick gays out of the military again, since Obama's weak-sauce "repeal" had no anti-discrimination language.

But the next president will have to work against a 4 year long record of gay service. President Jeb Bush could also go back to persecuting marijuana users, but would still have to work against the fact on the ground that marijuana isn't a dangerous drug.

Re:Weasel words

[RoknrolZombie]

That's kinda hard to do once the genie is out of the bottle and facts are on the ground. Take gay military service: sure, the next president is free to kick gays out of the military again, since Obama's weak-sauce "repeal" had no anti-discrimination language.

But the next president will have to work against a 4 year long record of gay service.

No, the next president will have to work against 20 years of recorded gay service. Bill Clinton enacted "don't ask, don't tell" back in the early 90's as a way to allow homosexuals to serve. After 20 years, and considering that the US Military has been complaining about the low IQ's of recent grads, they'll continue to accept anyone that'll do the job.

Weed is a different issue entirely. So far, we've had 8 years of Obama (more or less) not prosecuting, true enough, but we've also watched him flip flop on that very same topic at least twice. During his initial campaign he implied that he would push to legalize weed...as soon as he was in office he claimed that he just wanted to maintain the status quo. During his second election it didn't come up, but there have been quite a few petitions at Whitehouse.gov about it and so far the only official response from the WhiteHouse is that they "trust in the science that they already have", which means that they trust in the propaganda that was spouted in the 30's.

His decision to not prosecute patients (and to not prosecute Washington/Colorado residents) is totally at his discretion. When the Republicans are back in the white house (which I totally expect considering how poorly Obama has done), weed doesn't have a chance.

President Jeb Bush could also go back to persecuting marijuana users, but would still have to work against the fact on the ground that marijuana isn't a dangerous drug.

It's not about saving lives, it's about filling prisons. If it were about saving lives booze would be classified at a much higher risk than weed.

More fallout from Snowdon....

[whoever57]

a rather crude attempt to get Obama's supporters back on his side.

"Don't look over there..... look here, shiny!"

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[Ghjnut]

If he gets us all thoroughly stoned, we may forget what we were up in arms about. That conniving bastard!

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[Anonymous Coward]

Why? He doesn't give a shit about anything (other than starting another middle-east war which his citizens don't want). He's had his maximum two terms, put through all the laws his corporate controllers wanted = job done. Come next election, he'll just be another half-caste doing the dinner talk circuit to make a living. He utter failed after the abysmal Bush / Rumsfeld warmongering regime, and will be remembered as an utter liar.

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[Anonymous Coward]

Dude, like... Just pass the Cheetos. Woah... Pass sounds like past so like... when you pass something in the present, and I receive it... That's like... you passed it to me in the past. Far-out man~

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[khallow]

He doesn't give a shit about anything (other than starting another middle-east war which his citizens don't want).

If that's what he wants, then he's not trying very hard. It's been a year since Obama's "red line" speech on Syrian chemical attacks and all we've gotten in the meantime is a bunch of talk. If he really wanted a war, then the casus belli has happened. Where's the shock and awe?

Come next election, he'll just be another half-caste doing the dinner talk circuit to make a living.

I look forward to that time.

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[Anonymous Coward]

Judging by your post, you're quite versed in crude attempts.

Self-Awareness: It's not just for breakfast anymore.

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[Anonymous Coward]

No fucking kidding. The Miley Cyrus hump-dance thing didn't seem to work, because he underestimated we libertarian's intelligence, and now he's pushing maryjewanna on our kids as plan B.

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[Typical Slashdotter]

Oh no, there's a scandal going on, so the president absolutely shouldn't do anything else until the scandal is completely resolved! And if it's something you like, that's even more sinister!

Re:More fallout from Snowdon....

[Jeremi]

If he really wanted a war, then the casus belli has happened. Where's the shock and awe?

Hopefully buried somewhere under the Pottery Barn. Perhaps (unlike our previous president) Obama is aware of the Powell Doctrine.

Finally an Exec. order I agree with.

[Badblackdog]

"Pass the dutchie to the left hand side"

Yes, but what about banking?

[14erCleaner]

Are the Feds going to stop harassing banks that accept marijuana businesses as customers? Currently, medical dispensaries have to operate as cash-only businesses, which leaves them vulnerable to robberies.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

so.. drug cartels are fine customers but marijuana growers aren't good enough for banks? O.o I guess it's a volume thing...

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[stox]

Also, they can't deduct expenses from their revenue for tax purposes. So, basically, they have to pay the current tax rates on revenue, and not income.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

What about banking, and what about police raids on legal marijuana dispensaries with SWAT teams and flash grenades and weapons?

I guess on the other hand, we're undoing nearly 80 years of behaviour here. There are bound to be complete fuck ups. The apparatus set up to "wage war" on cannabis is absolutely vast, and no-one seems to know what the fuck they're doing..

I guess watching a few videos for Seattle Hempfest this year made me realise just how far the cause for legislation has come on. There may be hope after all.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Cocaine is legally illegal, whereas pot is illegally legal. That means that if you're a cocaine dealer, you can lie about not being a cocaine dealer, and say that you're into real estate, or something. If you're trying to provide marijuana, legally, then you have to stick to the legalities (which are obviously confusing for a reason) of it.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[PraiseBob]

Also relevant: DEA bans Armored car services from picking up Pot Shop cash

Step 1) Prevent credit cards from being used
Step 2) Prevent armored car services from being used
Step 3) Complain about the high number of robberies and crime that type of business "attracts" and use that as justification for more regulation / bans

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

Also, they can't deduct expenses from their revenue for tax purposes. So, basically, they have to pay the current tax rates on revenue, and not income.

That's not true. They can be a "coffee shop" that happens to carry mj as a sideline. Thus, labor, rent, utilities, etc are all deductible. The mj itself may or may not be, but that's not 100% of expenses anyway.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[14erCleaner]

Yes, businesses can evade all the regulations via fraud. So what?

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[alienzed]

I don't think it's the cash that is making them vulnerable to robberies... and please, no, don't stop harassing banks, ever.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[Nidi62]

Currently, medical dispensaries have to operate as cash-only businesses, which leaves them vulnerable to robberies.

They should just switch to Bitcoins ;)

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[Anonymous Coward]

California requires electronic payment of taxes for businesses that pay an average of $20,000 per month in sales and use taxes.

Re: Yes, but what about banking?

[nbritton]

Are the Feds going to stop harassing banks that accept marijuana businesses as customers? Currently, medical dispensaries have to operate as cash-only businesses, which leaves them vulnerable to robberies.

I hear Bitcoin Savings & Trust is looking for new customers. In all seriousness, the dispensaries could join together an form their own credit union.

Re: Yes, but what about banking?

[Strong Arm Coat]

In all seriousness, the dispensaries could join together an form their own credit union.

Yes, and then the feds would say "Look at all these dirty drug companies colluding together to launder money!"

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[Agent0013]

How about these states make it illegal for DEA agents to be in the state. And give hunting licences out for anyone wanting to legally kill a DEA agent. I would love to see a state let it's citizens take out the federal agents that come into the state and break the law with such abandon.

Re:Yes, but what about banking?

[LMariachi]

Why don’t they buy their own armored cars? You only need to be licensed and bonded to carry other people’s money or do bank-to-bank transfers.

this Washingtonian's observation

[themushroom]

preventing the sale of pot to cartels and gangs, preventing sales to other states where the drug remains illegal under state law, and stopping the growing of marijuana on public lands.

Which is typically how you get pot in the first place, historically. Now you just buy it in the store! :-D

Meantime, drive down your average Washington metro city's street and you'll see dispenseries every other block. Funny how that industry cropped up so quicklike. (Irony: Voters closed the state liquor stores, so alcohol vendors have popped up next to the marijuana vendors.)

Re:this Washingtonian's observation

[Anonymous Coward]

The liquor stores went away because an Initiative passed which allows it to now be sold at grocery stores and other retailers.

Re:this Washingtonian's observation

[Anonymous Coward]

What's ironic about closing state liquor stores - every ABC state I've ever visited had inferior selection vs. private business.

In other words NSA needs

[future assassin]

more money. Use the NSA to spy on drug usage/distribution and use that as evidence http://www.reuters.com/article/2013/08/05/us-dea-sod-idUSBRE97409R20130805

That's all very nice

[Trailer Trash]

But, in the end, the real question is under what Constitutional authority the federal government supposes to ban or even regulate a substance that is grown and sold within a state. You'd think a "Constitutional scholar" like our beloved President would ask that before he started enforcing laws with vigor as he has.

Oh, and for those of you wondering - there is no such Constitutional authority. Marijuana is under the purview of the states, and if a state says "it's legal", it's legal. Period. The appropriate thing to do would be to make it a felony for federal agents to attempt to enforce unconstitutional laws in your state at the same time you legalize marijuana, with the stipulation that they have to pay for all legal defenses out of their own pockets. Problem solved tomorrow.

Re:That's all very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

During his Constitutional studies he might have noticed that those laws have always been held to be valid. Did your curriculum skip over those cases? You might want to ask for a refund on your law degree.

Re:That's all very nice

[dkleinsc]

The appropriate thing to do would be to make it a felony for federal agents to attempt to enforce unconstitutional laws in your state at the same time you legalize marijuana, with the stipulation that they have to pay for all legal defenses out of their own pockets.

That doesn't work. Here's why:

This Constitution, and the Laws of the United States which shall be made in pursuance thereof; and all treaties made, or which shall be made, under the authority of the United States, shall be the supreme law of the land; and the judges in every state shall be bound thereby, anything in the constitution or laws of any state to the contrary notwithstanding.

That makes any state attempting to nullify a federal law completely pointless, even if they keep on trying to do so (the latest being Missouri).

The recourse you're supposed to have is this: Demand from your federal elected officials that they change / repeal the federal law about it. Obama says he's changing federal law enforcement practice (who knows if it will actually change), but the only legitimate legal option here is to get Congress to change it.

Re:That's all very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Wickard vs Filburn was EXACTLY the case you are asking about. Supreme court ruled the commerce clause allowed the federal government to regulate an item grown on a farmer's land used by the farmer himself, it didn't even leave his private property much less the state.

Since that decision the federal government has used the commerce clause to regulate anything that could be sold for money even if it doesn't cross state lines.

Vote smaller government if you want less of this, but as long as you vote for the guys growing the government faster you will get more of it.

Re:That's all very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

SCOTUS said it federal territory under interstate commerse clause, even if it is grown, sold and consumed entirely within one state. Yes it is the most horrific decision ever, however it is the law of the land.

Re:That's all very nice

[Trailer Trash]

These laws weren't made under Constitutional authority. You can't wipe your ass with it and then say "hey, the Constitution says you can't do that". It either matters or it doesn't, and since we're clearly in the "it doesn't" territory....

Re:That's all very nice

[Trailer Trash]

Yes, and the SCOTUS was full of shit when they decided that.

Re:That's all very nice

[Sloppy]

if a state says "it's legal", it's legal. Period.

If 99% of the voters say "the Republicrats say it's Interstate Commerce and I'm going to keep voting Republicrat" then it's within federal powers.

(Not their constitution-granted powers, just their legitimate-by-might powers. But don't we all pretty much agree, that Might is all we care about? If not, please cite.)

Re:That's all very nice

[HiThere]

How can you vote for smaller government, when the party that SAYS they stand for smaller government increase the size of the government faster than their opposition?

If there were a viable alternative, then you might have a point. If candidates were compelled to keep their campaign promises, then you might have a point. But as long as we have plurality wins voting, we're going to get one of two power mad psychotics. Just pray whoever we end up with isn't also a scociopath.

Re:That's all very nice

[shentino]

interstate commerce. general welfare.

Re:That's all very nice

[Anonymous Coward]

Are you dumb enough to believe those are valid reasons or are you just listing their BS excuses?

Re:That's all very nice

[alexo]

How can you vote for smaller government, when the party that SAYS they stand for smaller government increase the size of the government faster than their opposition?

This assumes that the only choice is either D or D. This is incorrect.

If there were a viable alternative, then you might have a point.

There are alternatives, but it will take time and effort to make them viable. You are welcome to participate.

Re:That's all very nice

[HiThere]

I've supported candidates before. Some of them got in. I was uniformly disappointed. Perhaps some of the ones that didn't get in wouldn't have disappointed me. But I have speculations (based on observations which are hardly proof) that a part of the reason that some of them didn't get in was because they intended to keep their promises.

It is a characteristic of the "plurality wins" electoral system that it will settle down into a quasi-stable state with two parties. Majority wins (e.g. Condorcet or Instant Runoff Voting) do not have this characteristic. In those voting systems what the populace actually wants has a larger effect on which candidate will get elected. (We found that recently in a city election, where we were using IRV. The candidate actually elected was not the person who got a plurality during the first round, but was someone much more acceptable to the populace at large. Granted, city elections don't have a large presence of party politics, but analogs are present.

Re:That's all very nice

[alexo]

In order to change a democratic system, you first have to either elect candidates that will effect that change, or start a revolution.
It is up to you to decide which route you want to follow.

Zero Credibility

[Anonymous Coward]

He has zero credibility, after what he said about not coming down on clinics as long as they were conforming to state law.

Re:Zero Credibility

[dadelbunts]

Instead there have been more DEA raids under him than any other administration. Fuck this guy and his lies.

Everyone has to set priorities for everything

[Beryllium Sphere(tm)]

Complete enforcement of every law on the books is impossible. Making choices is inevitable.

With a hundred quatloos to spend, it is better management to spend a hundred deterring sales to minors than to split it between protecting children and harassing adults.

Making choices consistent with the will of the people and with states's rights seems like a good idea.

Since there is no rule of law

[Baldrson]

Since there is no rule of law, as is obviously the case given the Constitution grants no powers to the Federal government to regulate intrastate manufacture and use of drugs, what's keeping people in power alive?

Re:Since there is no rule of law

[rahvin112]

The supreme court ruled a long time ago at the start of the war on drugs that the Fed's have the right to restrict intrastate drug production and distribution because it "creates a market". So no such luck there, the Supreme court allowed congress to poke so many holes in states rights that you will have no such luck defending the end of prohibition. As has been said many time, the war on drugs allowed the government far more powers than they ever had in the past or the founders ever intended them to have.

Hell the government can take your property without you ever being convicted of a crime just by claiming it was used in a drug crime. Little or no proof even required and even if they do charge you and you beat bogus charges they can still take the property. The war on drugs ruined much of the real freedom we had and most of the population cheered it away.

Re:Since there is no rule of law

[Baldrson]

The Supreme Court is not supreme over the Constitution. The Supreme Court can rule on CASES and even then its rulings are not law. State nullification is an option. Presidential nullification is an option. Congress can even rule that the Supreme Court cannot hear cases relating to specific areas. The Constitution is there in plain English for anyone to read and it is silly to believe that the original intent of it, or of any of the Amendments, was to so violate State powers. Agreed, a lot of people are cowed by their high school "civics education" into believing otherwise, but there, again, high school teachers aren't supreme over the Constitution either.

Good!

[reboot246]

Being stoned is a great way to cope with this economy. The government seems to be on something (I'm not quite sure what), so why not the general population?

Smoke 'em if you got 'em!

Re:Good!

[Strong Arm Coat]

The government seems to be on something (I'm not quite sure what) [...].

Given the government's aggression, violence, willingness to fight and kill over everything, I'd say they're actually off their nicotine and need to start smoking again as soon as they can.

I really like these new Marijuana laws

[rsilvergun]

they let the police ignore wealthy smokers while still using the Federal Law to lock up poor people. It's a great way to keep the poor out of your neighborhood. Odds are if you get a group of lower income people together at least one has pot on him, and Federal law lets you seize everyone's property. Sure, legally you get it back, but if you're working 50+ hours/week at two $7.25/hr jobs who's got time for that (unless you can afford a lawyer, but then wealth rears it's head again).

So viva la Medical Marijuana, and our two separate legal systems: One for the poors and one for the rich.

And alcohol?

[dutchwhizzman]

Alcohol use and probably more "allowed substances" will probably also have a measurable correlation between IQ, IQ loss and demographics. The difference is that alcohol is not illegal and marijuana is in NZ. Notice I said correlation, not relation or causation. Only double blind studies between identical twins in identical demographics who will not use any other substance or partake any activity that has been related to IQ loss will give anything close to scientific proof. I'm not saying that smoking MJ won't make you stupid or that it's not bad for you. I'm merely questioning the validity of the research method.

Netherlands

[Atticka]

Let us not forget that in the Netherlands (Amsterdam) pot is still technically a controlled substance in their law books. They have a policy of "non-enforcement" similar to what Obama is introducing.

Re:Weasel words FTFY

[zlives]

Road Rage caused by others being under THC influence will increase, addictive behavior will cause the exact same number of families to suffer and to be torn apart, bankruptcies due to marijuana consumption will go up while bankruptcies due to alcohol consumption will go down by the same number.

Why does everybody want to get on drugs?

[Anonymous Coward]

You know that drugs are bad for you, don't you? So why does everybody want to get on them? I hardly know anybody who's not a regular user of some drug: Alcohol, Nicotine, and I guess it's soon going to be OK to admit to THC as well. People usually want to know more, be more intelligent, so why do they keep sabotaging themselves?

Re:Why does everybody want to get on drugs?

[manwargi]

Everyone has a vice for coping with a hard, painful world. Sometimes it is drinking. Sometimes it is smoking. Sometimes it is cheating on their partner. Porn. Hard drugs; and some would dare to argue that prescribed psyche medication is the same thing but more legal. Escapism to the fantasy of books/movies/games. The excitement of gambling. In the absence of these things people will do absolutely absurd things to get out of their skull such as strangling themselves or "i-dosing". Don't forget about suicide. Many brilliant minds belong to someone addicted to something or depressed and looking for a way out. While I don't smoke or use any drugs myself I won't judge anybody who does too hard.

Re:Why does everybody want to get on drugs?

[jwhitener]

"Everyone has a vice for coping"

That is a dangerous stereotype to perpetuate. You'd be unfortunately correct if you said "lots of people have a vice they use to cope....". However, lots of people have healthy coping mechanisms that don't overrun their lives. Exercise for example. Or some sort of sport or pastime. Some hobby.

Funny Voices?

[Anonymous Coward]

For some, the funny voices you could hear when really stoned do not go away...

You don't hear funny voices while stoned. Nor do you see pink elephants when drunk. If either of these things happen the culprit is likely psychological not pharmaceutical.

Re:Funny Voices?

[cold fjord]

Maybe you need to read the link. Marijuana use can lead to psychosis.

Re:Funny Voices?

[Anonymous Coward]

For some, the funny voices you could hear when really stoned do not go away...

You don't hear funny voices while stoned.

Wrong. Just google it. Hallucinations are possible if the dosage and the conditions are right. It's different from a LSD trip, but hearing voices or having optical hallucinations is no problem at all. The difference to the guys in the clinic is that drug inflicted hallucinations usually go away after a few hours for most people and that one does know that it will be over soon.

Re:Funny Voices?

[Anonymous Coward]

No, the chemistry does not work that way.

Time to Trim a Branch

[jigawatt]

Executive Orders + Selective Enforcement => Congress is not needed at all

interstate commerce

[Anonymous Coward]

This current drug laws are an abuse of the interstate commerce act anyway.

When do we get to fix this?

[Anonymous Coward]

When do we get to start executing prohibitionists to make up for the decades of abuse and unconstitutional imprisonment?

Law enforcement "interests"

[reve_etrange]

From a related article:

Deputy Attorney General James Cole also issued a three-and-a-half page memo..."expectation that states...will address the threat those state laws could pose to public safety, public health and other law enforcement interests"

Hmm, bet we can guess those "interests." Like keeping their hands on their drug money and free labor.

Wow.... amazing....

[ogdenk]

GOVT: MARIJUANA IS STILL ILLEGAL FEDERALLY DESPITE WHAT CO AND WA THINK ......time passes......
CITIZENS: Hey, stop f**king spying on us!!!!! WTF are you doing breaking the law?! Why are you persecuting Americans?!

GOVT: Hey, come down..... totalitarianism isn't so bad.... have a bong hit.

he has the power

[globaljustin]

Obama's position does not constitutionally allow him

Absolutely it does. He is the Chief Executive of the Executive Branch.

The Attorney General, the Fed's top prosecutor, is chosen by and answers to Obama.

It is not like an Inspector General of say, the State Dept...they are more independent.

This policy is a directive that is **within prosecutorial discretion**

Prosecutorial discretion.

Shame on you and the mods who voted you up...you know better....bad stoner!

Hey Subby!

[Anonymous Coward]

You misspelled "Loser."

How Many Times....

[dcollins]

... will he lie about this while the drug raids continue and even accelerate under his watch?

You're kidding me right??

[Rhurazz12]

WTF is the point of having looser Mary Jane laws in those states if the damn government won't loosen their end on a federal level? Just because pot threatened the hemp industry doesn't mean it's the end of the world dammit! Other countries legalize it and do just fine, and there's very few complaints. Take it to this country to screw shit up that shouldn't have been screwed in the first place!

That seems remarkably reasonable, so...

[Anonymous Coward]

Why not just legalize it federally?

Take MJ off schedule 1, please

[PeterM from Berkeley]

MJ has been shown to have legitimate medical uses. It doesn't belong on Schedule 1.

If it's off Schedule 1 then research to use it SAFELY as a drug can proceed far more easily, and maybe we can use it for things like neuropathic pain and appetite recovery during chemotherapy WITHOUT the potential brain-damaging side effects.

I've got a friend who has neuropathic pain and none of the legal drugs work for him. And he can't use MJ because he's subject to drug testing.

Take MJ off Schedule 1 and maybe he can stop living with pain 24/7!

--PM

Re:Take MJ off schedule 1, please

[Anonymous Coward]

MJ has been shown to have legitimate medical uses. It doesn't belong on Schedule 1.

It's position on the Schedule has nothing to do with science, it's about politics. In recent years when enough people showed logic and evidence that ought to move it down the schedule, the response was that it should remain schedule I because "The lack of dangerous effects and lack of known health risks means it's more likely to be used so it's more dangerous because it's safer".

Take MJ off Schedule 1 and maybe he can stop living with pain 24/7!

Michael Jackson is dead, just FYI. He's not in any pain any more.

Re:Take MJ off schedule 1, please

[Anonymous Coward]

MJ has been shown to have legitimate medical uses.

No it hasn't. In fact it has been shown to produce serious health effects. It's a carcinogen.

Re:Take MJ off schedule 1, please

[Anonymous Coward]

MJ has been shown to have legitimate medical uses. It doesn't belong on Schedule 1.

Quite a number of things get placed on Schedule I due to political issues, rather than their addictive properties. Another example is GHB which turns out to be an excellent sleep aid (most sleep conditions respond positively to it), just it is such a good sleep aid it was getting used for date rape.

Re:Take MJ off schedule 1, please

[ToddInSF]

NO ! GHB was occasionally used as a "date rape" drug, but DEFINITELY not anywhere NEAR as often as ALCOHOL ! ! !

GHB, when properly used, was making people healthy, happy, productive, and getting them off dangerous prescription medications !

The HUGE concern about GHB began, not when it was sold in health food stores and being used primarily by bodybuilders and people who were on to it's healthful applications; it was targeted because suddenly OLDER PEOPLE who had been on multiple prescription medications no longer NEEDED them !

Like ALL drugs, the backlash against their proper positive uses was fueled by a notoriously corrupt media with ties to big industry/advertisers, with an agenda and interest in intentionally misinforming the public and securing the created dependency on the crap that their advertisers peddle.

Yes, GHB was AWESOME for getting a good night's sleep. But that is just a tiny part of the reason GHB was absolutely BELOVED by people using it regularly, in carefully measured doses, to improve overall health.

People were feeling younger, their skin was softer, their outlook on life better, they were more self aware more muscular, more healthy.

And we musn't have THAT when we have toxic drugs and terror and fear to peddle !

Not Full Disclosure

[Anonymous Coward]

No one seems interested in listing all of the Eight Areas. They said they would avoid individual marijuana users, but one of the biggest problems is the federal government raiding state marijuana farms, and they didn't say anything about making them legal.

In fact, they explicitely said Public Land, as in STATE MARIJUANA FARMS.

Most police forces have rules deemphasizing individual marijuana use as it is, as individual users are the small fry, what you want are the dealers.

Basically, the Feds are saying next to nothing of value.

Get high...

[Anonymous Coward]

Obama will legalize Marijuana so Americans stop giving a shit about everything the government does.

Re:Weasel words FTFY

[Zargg]

Wow...

Road Rage caused by others being under THC influence will increase.

Seriously? You've never been around a high person have you?

addictive behavior will cause the exact same number of families to suffer and to be torn apart

Most studies say it is about as addictive as caffeine...most of it is psychological even, not physical.

bankruptcies due to marijuana consumption will go up while bankruptcies due to alcohol consumption will go down by the same number.

I'm just going to LOL at this one!

Apples and Oranges...

[Anonymous Coward]

Lets see... smoking 10 to 20 g of tobacco a day? Pretty average... smoking 10-20g of MJ everyday? good luck with that...Even as a pretty heavy user you can grow your pot at home with a growbox on 1-2 square-meter, where you'd need a rather big area to grow your daily need of tobacco (which almost surely rules out indoor growing)...considering you can harvest your weed every 8-12 weeks (depending on which sort you grow) compared to 1 harvest/year for tobacco in most climates ... etc etc etc... I think you get the point.
Homegrown weed comes down to about 3-5 euros per g (equipment, electricity, nutrition, etc included) so go on... try to tax the hell out of me.

Re:Apples and Oranges...

[RabidReindeer]

Lets see... smoking 10 to 20 g of tobacco a day? Pretty average... smoking 10-20g of MJ everyday? good luck with that...Even as a pretty heavy user you can grow your pot at home with a growbox on 1-2 square-meter, where you'd need a rather big area to grow your daily need of tobacco (which almost surely rules out indoor growing)...considering you can harvest your weed every 8-12 weeks (depending on which sort you grow) compared to 1 harvest/year for tobacco in most climates ... etc etc etc... I think you get the point.
Homegrown weed comes down to about 3-5 euros per g (equipment, electricity, nutrition, etc included) so go on... try to tax the hell out of me.

Yeah, tobacco is grown commercially around here. As far as I know, you could grow it for personal use, but you don't hear about anyone doing it, despite the high taxes.

Indoor/outdoor pot farms, however...

umm...

[Anonymous Coward]

didnt he promise this once already before sending the DEA in after the medheads?

Simple

[Anonymous Coward]

Personal choice, personal responsibility..

Any government intervention is a waste of time and money.

gotta disagree with your driving assessment

[Anonymous Coward]

I tend to follow the speed limit exactly if high, and I don't mean very very high. If I feel too impaired I won't drive. The drug makes a person less likely to take risks and almost paranoid of risks. Paranoia is not a desired effect but it can happen.
I also stay perfectly centered in my lane. I think of the drug as putting me into the same mental ability of an elderly driver. Hopefully I won't barrel through a farmers market. I don't think there is much danger.
With the burned out dopamine level, I could very well be in the same ability level as say an 80 yr+ driver. It may also be worth noting that not all marijuana is the same. There are 50 active molecules identified so far, and not all plants will produce all of them. Plants also vary widely in the ratio of different molecules. The effects from smoking different plants can vary widely. Perhaps I haven't had any that really impairs my ability to drive. Alcohol is 1 molecule, and seems to impair in a dose related curve. Testing for impairment by a breathalyzer for pot won't work. Field sobriety test is really the best way. Can a person walk in a line and catch an object tossed at their face while following directions or answering questions from an officer? I could, and I think better than any elderly driver and certainly better than a drunk driver.

Old laws

[phorm]

Indeed, there are books and websites dedicated to old laws that would seem crazy by normal standards but are still on the books. They've never been removed, it's just that they ceased to be prosecuted. Perhaps pot use will fall under this.

The problem is, though, those laws are still on the books. They could be used for malicious or targeted prosecution. How about getting fined for bothering bullfrogs in Arizona, or a 30-day sentence for flirting in Little Rock Arkansas?

Dropping prosecution is a good start, but eventually outdated laws need to be removed.

Rule of thumb

[Anonymous Coward]

Anything with 'science' in the name isn't a science.

Re:Rule of thumb

[jopsen]

Anything with 'science' in the name isn't a science.

If only someone had told me that before I spend 5 years on an MSc. in Computer Science :)

Re:Weasel words FTFY

[Anonymous Coward]

hehe
dude you are high right now aren't you. your ability to read is severely affected.

The dangers of pot

[alexo]

Smoking marijuana can lead to serious consequences, up to and including becoming a POT-US.

ofcourse not, money talks

[KingBenny]

mayor Juana cant be taxed unless its legal and sopa aint dead because
money talks ...
bitter? me ? nooo why would i be, how could i ever be, what for
money talks

Who mentioned Syria?

[Anonymous Coward]

Chew on a piece of this instead!

Illegal under and illegal law

[Anonymous Coward]

Deputy Attorney General James M. Cole detailed the administration's new stance, even as he reiterated that marijuana remains illegal under federal law.

Marijuana use or possession is illegal under a law that violates fundamental rights, and hence is an illegal law.

That the people in states such as Colorado and Washington have chosen to legalize marijuana use demonstrates beyond any possibility of doubt that such use is an exercise of rights retained by the people under the 9th Amendment, and reserved to the people under the 10th Amendment.

It should not, of course, require this kind of massive effort to assert such rights. Any individual should be able to assert such rights, and the appropriate people -- police officers / judges / district attorneys / all legal professionals -- should have sufficient common sense, integrity, and moral courage to know when such assertions are reasonable, even or especially when they contradict existing law.

German officers were tried at Nuremberg for obeying the orders of their legal superiors, as required by German law. At Nuremberg we set the precedent that not all things a law requires are necessarily valid, and that individual judgement is required to determine when a law violates fundamental rights. Having done this, should we not hold our own officials to the same standard? Indeed, we can assert a right to do just this as yet another right "retained by the people".

It would have been reasonable to have laws at the state level, as part of the police power of the state, that penalize people for marijuana use while doing things like driving a car, or for providing marijuana to a minor without the permission of the parent. Such laws would likely be generally accepted by the people as being reasonable and not involving a violation of the rights reserved to the people (provided these laws were clearly written and minimal in scope: the government that governs best governs least). The federal government has no general authority to enact even such minor laws, except with respect to federal land. The existing federal laws go far beyond this limited mandate.

Arresting people under the existing federal laws that criminalize the possession of marijuana is not a legitimate exercise of government authority (and it never was). The actions of government officials that do this are indistinguishable from the actions of private citizens engaging in criminal kidnapping for ransom. More precisely, the actions of the FORMER government officials are indistinguishable, as the individuals involved, by violating their oaths to uphold the Bill of Rights, are disqualified from holding any position of public trust or responsibility.

By definition, rights retained by the people are retained by the people, which does not at all mean the same thing as stealable by the government. As such, no entity of government, not the President, not his District Attorney General, not the Congress, and not even the Supreme Court, can take away such rights. Any precedents, orders, or rules to the contrary are themselves illegal.

In short, the DA has just violated his oath to uphold the Bill of Rights.

Unfortunately, this kind of thing is now so common in the US legal profession -- which is in a position of massive ethical conflict of interest with respect to acknowledging both the 9th Amendment rights "retained by the people" and the 10th Amendment rights "reserved to the people" -- as to be the norm.

Open ended Bill's of Rights -- such as the one James Madison gave the USA -- are dangerous documents from a lawyer's perspective. After all, if the people can assert something like "reasonable conduct under reasonable circumstances, where the people and not their government decides what is reasonable", as a fundamental individual right -- doing this is entirely consistent with the 9th Amendment -- that would have all sorts of negative consequences for the legal profession's ability to abuse the legal system. Further, complicated /

Just when I thought I was out ...

[Zero__Kelvin]

... they pull me back in!

"Knowledge doesn't exist until you can prove it, and two mutually exclusive statements cannot both be true."

You are exhibiting mutual exclusion syndrome with that statement. MES is a term that I coined in my teens to describe an inherent "disorder" of the human mind that causes people to see things as being either true or false when in fact they can be both. ( For example, light appears to be both a particle and a wave.) It actually turns out that two mutually exclusive statements can in fact be true; just not in the same instant in four-space. Of course, in order to be stuck in that mindset, you have to limit your understanding of reality to four-space.

"Your justification for why psychology is not a science depends on science having the same flaws that you accuse psychology of having."

When did I claim otherwise? I think I was pretty clear that they both have the same inherent flaw. That flaw is the fallibility of the human mind; the belief that we can truly understand the universe around us given enough requisite knowledge and resources. Both approaches are doomed to failure.

"It appears to me that you don't have a formal logic education"

Thank You! It might surprise you to learn that I was reverse engineering operating systems and re-implementing my own version when I was a teenager, with no formal education of computer systems, and my software continues to be rock solid, secure, and properly functioning to this day. I say this for two reasons, neither of which is to appear "impressive". The first is that if my software works, I clearly have a solid grasp of some form of logic, and that can and has been empirically proved. The second point is this: I know many software engineers with a formal education that I wouldn't hire to do janitorial work. I guess what I am saying is that formal education isn't necessarily all that it is cracked up to be. OTOH, if it is any consolation, I recently came across a copy of a book on FOL called "Language, Proof and Logic" and have thus far managed to find the software needed for the book and got it to run on Linux, so maybe you'll like me better when I've had a chance to grok it ;-)

" at several points you say things that lead to the rejection of the very notion of an axiom, which means that the very act of existing makes you hypocritical. I would strongly encourage you to reach out and consider other perspectives."

Exactly. Godel incompleteness isn't just for mathematicians anymore ;-). (and the very fact that we exist does make us hypocritical, BTW)

" You're a wonderfully articulate person"

Aw shucks [blushes]

In any case, I hope you realize that I know I'm not 100% right, anymore than I think you are 100% wrong. Hell, then again, you probably are 100% right and I probably am 100% wrong. [ Bet you didn't predict that ;-) ]

And Obama could do it with the stroke of a pen

[Uberbah]

Take MJ off Schedule 1 and maybe he can stop living with pain 24/7!

The Controlled Substances Act allows the executive branch to reclassify drugs from Schedule 1 without going through Congress. Which means the hypocrite in chief would rather maintain the status quo.