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Leafly.com reports:
[On Thursday] the United States' capital, Washington D.C. (not to be confused with the state of Washington, which debuted its retail stores last week), officially decriminalizes cannabis. Under the new law, police officers can no longer demand identification from people caught possessing up to one ounce of cannabis, nor can they arrest people if they simply smell cannabis on them. Instead, they will confiscate any "visible contraband" and issue a ticket with a fine of $25.
Possession of amounts greater than one ounce can still result in arrest and being charged with a crime, but this is still a small victory for D.C. residents, especially blacks, who are being penalized and face having their lives ruined over a small amount of cannabis. Now how's about you look into legalization next, Nation's Capital?
(Score: 2, Interesting) by ld a, b on Saturday July 19 2014, @09:02AM
I see nothing wrong with cannabis usage or even with other drugs as long as no harm is done to innocent bystanders. That said, I have had no problem staying away from it given that using it could put me behind bars for years where I live now. Moreover, where I come from, dark-skinned people have no more trouble than light-skinned people avoiding a life of crime.
Who is forcing these Black people to smoke weed?
Frankly, if your "culture" involves being locked up in prison with gang members maybe it's time to change it regardless of marijuana legality. At the very least you are hurting your family and friends.
You can have your marijuana revival conventions *after* it is made legal.
10 little-endian boys went out to dine, a big-endian carp ate one, and then there were -246.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by Magic Oddball on Saturday July 19 2014, @01:08PM
Try reading up on the history of blacks in the United States... The basic answer is: when a person knows they have virtually no chance of escaping a life of soul-crushing poverty in the ghetto and watching their loved ones get killed in random attacks, they usually don't bother making decisions based on the need to not fuck up their future. At that point, numbing themselves to the despair and finding little bits of pleasure wherever they can becomes their goal.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2014, @01:24PM
> Moreover, where I come from, dark-skinned people have no more trouble than light-skinned people avoiding a life of crime.
You must not come from the USA.
In the USA blacks and whites use pot at roughly the same rates and yet the rates of arrest for pot are 3x-10x higher for blacks. [washingtonpost.com]
If you think that going to prison does not make it significantly harder to avoid a life a crime, you haven't been paying attention to how society treats ex-convicts.
(Score: 3, Insightful) by mcgrew on Saturday July 19 2014, @04:06PM
Why are you bringing race into the discussion? Race has nothing whatever to do with drug use, legal or not. And the culture you refer to isn't "black culture", it's the culture of poverty. Poor whites are no different than poor blacks, except that blacks are more often targeted by the police. Drive through the rough part of your city, you'll see that the white kids and black kids dress alike, talk alike, and act alike. Same as middle class people; a middle class black man is no more different from me than you are. See Gran Torino, it's exactly like a real life poor neighborhood.
As to harm from pot, the only harm is to the smoker himself. Pot doesn't cause cancer, despite what the idiotic Partnership for a Drug Free America says (this has been proven, pot even helps prevent cancer in cigarette smokers) but it can cause COPD. But then, so does smoking cigarettes or bonfires or burning leaves.
Carbon, The only element in the known universe to ever gain sentience
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday July 19 2014, @05:44PM
Blacks are arrested and imprisoned at a much higher rate for the same crime, despite similar rates of marijuana use among blacks and whites.
The More You Know.