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California launches legal sale of cannabis for recreational use
California will launch the world's largest regulated commercial market for recreational marijuana on Monday, as dozens of newly licensed stores catering to adults who enjoy the drug for its psychoactive effects open for business up and down the state.
It becomes the sixth U.S. state, and by far the most populous, venturing beyond legalized medical marijuana to permit the sale of cannabis products of all types to customers at least 21 years old.
Colorado, Washington, Oregon, Alaska and Nevada were the first to introduce recreational pot sales on a state-regulated, licensed and taxed basis. Massachusetts and Maine are on track to follow suit later this year.
With California and its 39.5 million residents officially joining the pack, more than one-in-five Americans now live in states where recreational marijuana is legal for purchase, even though cannabis remains classified as an illegal narcotic under U.S. law.
The marijuana market in California alone, which boasts the world's sixth-largest economy, is valued by most experts at several billion dollars annually and is expected to generate at least a $1 billion a year in tax revenue.
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(Score: 4, Insightful) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:51AM (9 children)
As long as cannabis is on Schedule I, the necessary research is not going to get done or will get done very slowly. That's not a good thing given that states have already taken matters into their own hands. Yet researchers still have their hands tied.
DEA Accused of Obstructing Research on Marijuana Benefits [soylentnews.org]
https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/to-your-health/wp/2016/08/10/u-s-affirms-its-prohibition-on-medical-marijuana/ [washingtonpost.com]
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Controlled_Substances_Act#Schedule_I_controlled_substances [wikipedia.org]
These criteria for Schedule I are applied in a completely arbitrary way by people who are biased against recreational drug use and hold attitudes not unlike those of Jeff Sessions. We can easily make a case for cannabis not meeting any of the 3 criteria, whereas the DEA and FDA insist that it meets all of them.
Even with the limited research done, there is no justification for the Schedule I status. It is a fraud perpetrated by the DEA and FDA. Congress is too chickenshit to do anything about it, even though they could amend the Controlled Substances Act or work around the DEA and FDA. Two administrations have tolerated the "states' rights" recreational cannabis legalization trend despite having the authority to initiate a major crackdown if they wanted to. The United Nations is also ready to change [medicaljane.com] course [herb.co] on cannabis, but existing treaties can be ignored by member nations with few real consequences.
I don't doubt that smoking cannabis is associated with health risks. Possibly vaping or using edibles or oil or whatever has less problems associated with it, but still has some negative effects. More research could make the picture clearer. But the Schedule I status has got to go no matter what.
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(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:08AM (1 child)
I do not disagree with anything you said. They point is the study of it is bad. I mean there are people walking around thinking it cures cancer. What we have are tons of 'wives tale' evidence. As it gets more and more legal perhaps maybe we can get real studies. People are going to use this stuff legal or not, healthy or not. Our gov should at least realize that.
(Score: 5, Interesting) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @02:48AM
Yup. The ultra pro-cannabis "it cures cancer!" people are a complete meme [youtube.com]. But they will persist as long as the government or officials continue to push anti-drug propaganda and failed policies. (And the lack of research also helps health lies spread unchecked.)
Also consider the rise of health bloggers attacking certain food additives or promoting certain supplements with scant evidence, and reaching potentially huge audiences. It's a bit of a parallel to the "fake news" phenomenon, except instead of purely ad revenues you've got health/superfood/supplement revenues (maybe in the form of referral links for the bloggers and tubers on the ground level) and people like Dr. Oz selling pure snake oil. On the other hand you have the push to schedule [soylentnews.org] kratom [soylentnews.org], something that anecdotally helps people who might otherwise end up strung up on opioids. The plural of anecdote is not data, but the government's response seems to be less about safety and more about control. Everything's very emotionally charged, and the DEA's reflexive pushes to put everything on Schedule I (the nuclear option) don't help the situation.
Personal production and use of all drugs should be decriminalized, except maybe in cases of what you would call chemical weapons, e.g. deadly nerve agents.
Perhaps we don't even need to kill off the Controlled Substances Act + scheduling system. Instead, remove the criminal penalties tied to the scheduling system. Then maybe the lists could be made compiled using a scientific approach measuring harm and medical value instead of the fear of recreational "abuse". People could still use their recreational drugs, as long as they don't try to sell them (on a large scale). We could encourage the use of "safer" drugs like cannabis or LSD and steer people away from deadlier opioids, meth, cocaine, etc. Of course, you need an encouraged drug for each category since different drugs are used for different reasons. Kratom could be the encouraged replacement for opioids which people are getting hooked on after using painkillers like tramadol. The FDA Commissioner had some funny mixed messaging on kratom recently. [soylentnews.org]
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(Score: 4, Informative) by Pslytely Psycho on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:02AM (6 children)
The most proper study of all is ongoing.
As now the entire west coast has legalized recreational use. So far, it has been a net positive for society.
In fact, the reality here is it has dispelled the stereotype of the 'doper.' The people of the stereotype simply are not the people visiting the pot shops. Here, the pot is as cheap, and in many cases far cheaper than the street, with edibles, waxes, etc and the clientele is rarely the down and out doper variety, but instead it's grandma, that shop owner down the street, the apartment manager, the professional in suit and tie and your neighbor.
It's caused the near complete death of the black market locally.
It is highly regulated and the state makes a killing in taxes as the shops proliferate. Hell, you can't drive ten blocks without running into a weed store. The are nearly as ubiquitous here as the espresso stands that are on nearly every corner.
As we were the first to implement the law (by about a week ahead of CO as I recall) this marks six years. Society failed to collapse, we got a large influx of jobs, taxes, economic growth, and no real negatives. It has even better support now than before, as people began to realize just who turned out to be tokers, and the stereotypes melted away.
What better study than real life?
Alex Jones lawyer inspires new TV series: CSI Moron Division.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:25AM (1 child)
That doesn't have a lot of bearing on long-term health effects. There are plenty of studies still being done on alcohol, tobacco, coffee, etc. The data for cannabis is lacking due to government restrictions, or tainted due to reefer madness and getting grant money based on saying what certain feds wanted to hear (I know that some researchers, like Donald Tashkin, have flipped and supported cannabis in recent years).
But it's clear that no matter what the health effects are (they won't be as bad as alcohol or tobacco), it should be decriminalized federally, and it also makes good sense to legalize and tax it (leading to economic benefits, reduction in crime, less money to the cartels, etc.).
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(Score: 2) by HiThere on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:34AM
FWIW, I have known people who basically couldn't safely use marijuana. So far I've known one and met two briefly. I have no idea how many users I've met. It seems that there is the marijuana equivalent of the alcoholic, though I'm sure the mechanism is different. And I'm *guessing* that the proportion is smaller. None of the three were violent, but all were either extremely unreliable or, the one I knew, abstainers.
This is such a small sample that it almost doesn't even count as anecdotal, but with no real studies I don't know of any better data.
Javascript is what you use to allow unknown third parties to run software you have no idea about on your computer.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday January 02 2018, @06:57AM (3 children)
Can we also mention the loss of revenue to criminal gangs? Jeez, it would be worth legalizing just to deprive violent criminals their source of revenue and reduce the expense of law enforcement / incarceration. Anything else, whatever, is icing on the cake.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Tuesday January 02 2018, @07:03AM (2 children)
It's also a loss of revenue for law enforcement gangs who use asset forfeiture to take money, drugs, and possessions away from criminals as well as ordinary citizens.
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(Score: 2) by deimtee on Tuesday January 02 2018, @01:50PM (1 child)
They can still take the money and the assets. You have to prove you weren't buying drugs to even have a chance of getting any back. Good luck proving a negative.
Personally, I can't see how that doesn't violate the fourth amendment, but then I am not a lawyer.
If you cough while drinking cheap red wine it really cleans out your sinuses.
(Score: 1) by khallow on Tuesday January 02 2018, @04:13PM
It does violate the Fourth. But while you might have rights against unlawful seizure of property, apparently, your property doesn't have those rights too. /sarc