The Center for American Progress reports
On [February 27], days after White House Press Secretary Sean Spicer told reporters to expect stricter enforcement of federal pot law, Attorney General Jeff Sessions recycled discredited drug war talking points in remarks of his own.
"I believe it's an unhealthy practice, and current levels of THC in marijuana are very high compared to what they were a few years ago, and we're seeing real violence around that", Sessions said. "Experts are telling me there's more violence around marijuana than one would think and there's big money involved."
In reality, violent crime rates tend to decrease where marijuana is legalized.
Denver saw a 2.2 percent drop in violent crime rates in the year after the first legal recreational cannabis sales in Colorado. Overall property crime dropped by 8.9 percent [PDF] in the same period there, according to figures from the Drug Policy Alliance. In Washington, violent crime rates dropped by 10 percent [PDF] from 2011 to 2014. Voters legalized recreational marijuana there in 2012.
Medical marijuana laws, which have a longer track record for academics than recreational pot legalization, are also associated with stable or falling violent crime rates. In one 2014 study of the 11 states that legalized medical pot from 1990 to 2006, there was no increase in the seven major categories of violent crime and "some evidence of decreasing rates of some types of violent crime, namely homicide and assault."
[...] Elsewhere in his remarks, Sessions unwittingly made the case against treating pot activity like serious crime. "You can't sue somebody for drug debt". he said. "The only way to get your money is through strong-arm tactics, and violence tends to follow that."
Legalizing, regulating, and taxing the sale of marijuana is the surest way to remedying that exact tendency for pot commerce to trigger violent score-settling. Legalization invites pot business into the light, granting cannabusinesses at least partial access to official modes of recourse when they are defrauded.
8 states and the District of Columbia have legalised marijuana for recreational use.
Ever see anyone use cannabis and become more aggressive rather than more mellow?
Note: ThinkProgress redirects all accesses of their pages and will attach tracking numbers. I have made sure that those are not in the URLs.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by NotSanguine on Thursday March 02 2017, @07:42PM (4 children)
Granted, this is anecdotal but in my experience about 1/2 of those who get drunk are belligerent to a certain extent and a significant fraction of those want to beat someone.
The vast majority of potheads, on the other hand, aren't belligerent at all. They just want to eat Doritos and watch TV.
Apparently, Jeff Sessions doesn't like Doritos or TV. Just sayin'.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr
(Score: 2) by mechanicjay on Thursday March 02 2017, @08:01PM
Apparently, Jeff Sessions doesn't like Doritos or TV. Just sayin'.
Or:
Why does Jeff Sessions hate America?
Which, I think I might just start asking around to see what kind of responses I get.
My VMS box beat up your Windows box.
(Score: 2) by number6x on Thursday March 02 2017, @11:14PM
No, he really likes eating Doritos and watching TV, but the pot heads keep eating all the Doritos and they lost the remote and can't remember where it is.
(Score: 2) by dyingtolive on Friday March 03 2017, @04:22PM (1 child)
To a certain extent, I'd agree with you. That people get drunk and fight and break stuff and all that is commonly enough observed behavior. I've seen it myself at bars. Nothing out of hand, but people start shit and it escalates until someone removes them.
Strangely, I haven't understood that to be the case with myself. I usually seem to get nicer. One would be inclined to dismiss that, and I would as well, were it not for sober people telling me they wished as was as happy sober as I was drunk. I might just be in the other 50% who's all "I love you man" about it though.
Don't blame me, I voted for moose wang!
(Score: 2) by NotSanguine on Saturday March 04 2017, @01:17AM
Strangely, I haven't understood that to be the case with myself. I usually seem to get nicer. One would be inclined to dismiss that, and I would as well, were it not for sober people telling me they wished as was as happy sober as I was drunk. I might just be in the other 50% who's all "I love you man" about it though.
I'm generally a happy drunk too, except on those rare occasions when I get maudlin.
No, no, you're not thinking; you're just being logical. --Niels Bohr