AP: Sessions to end policy of federal nonintervention in state legal weed

[Victorian Gray]

http://time.com/10372/marijuana-deaths-german-study/

Thanks. See above

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Thanks. See above

I think there's more legitimate deaths from drinking too much water.

 

[theeedude]

The best way to build public support for something is have the Trump administration come out against it. I predict federally decriminalized weed in not too distant future.

 

[dainthomas]

http://time.com/10372/marijuana-deaths-german-study/

In other words, there are orders of magnitude more deaths from people falling off a toilet.

 

[Victorian Gray]

In other words, there are orders of magnitude more deaths from people falling off a toilet.

It's a pretty good place for heart attacks apparently, especially for older men.

"Although it doesn't get much press (for obvious reasons), a disproportionately high number of people (usually older men who are in high risk categories for heart disease) die on the toilet."

https://www.linkedin.com/pulse/heart-attacks-bathrooms-common-preventable-crap-terry-penney

 

[zerocool84]

http://time.com/10372/marijuana-deaths-german-study/

It says one of the guys already had a serious undiagnosed heart condition and the other person already had years of alcohol and drug use. So these two people that were "killed" by Marijuana already had other issues long before this. Marijuana alone did not kill them.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Hadn’t read through all 19 pages but hopefully this forces the hand of Congress to get off their ass and legalize. They are all (ALL) paid for by police unions, prison lobby, pharmaceutical industry, etc so nothing will happen. Current policy of states doing their thing but the fed gov keeping it illegal makes no sense. Obama had 8 years to stop imprisoning US citizens for effing marijuana possession and chose not to do it (but hey the memo said not a priority) so even though I know the Trump is the devil mantra continues it’s not like the Dems did any better. Sessions is a POS as is anyone who works to ruin lives and family’s over marijuana.

Fuck politicians suck.

 

[Sunburn74]

cannabinoid hyperemesis syndrome

and I love the way you all tap dance around deaths directly caused by using marijuana, it's funny.

CHS is rare, seen in only extreme users of marijuana, not associated with dying and completely reversible with cessation.

As for deaths related to marijuana its extremely hard to establish direct consequence causes as opposed to ethanol, cigarette use, etc. I suppose there are some indirect deaths that occur (ie burning down a house by accident or maybe trauma from falls) but the numbers are low enough to where data on it is extremely hard to find despite the prevalence of use. This actually is also a consequence of current laws (if something is illegal it can be hard to study it well).
Regardless for all these sorts of things the acceptable number of deaths (or pollution, or cases of herpes, or car accidents, or heck trolls on anandtech) is not zero. The reason why the acceptable number is never zero is the cost to society to maintain that zero number usually is so extreme either financially or legislatively or etc that it's self defeating. Imagine what we would have to do as society for example to eliminate ALL pollution? We basically would need to essentially wipe out most of humanity and regress technologically back to the Stone age. Society instead needs to ask is what is the right amount of bad things ? What is an ok amount that we are allowed to live with? This is true of pollution or gun deaths and smoking complications and marijuana use. However currently it is clear to me we are definitely over policing MMJ and paying too much as a society.

 

[FelixDeCat]

Yeh, that explains nearly $1B in CO sales of cannabis in 2016. All those customers must be lowlifes.

You really have no idea what you're talking about but that's not unusual at all.

Oh Really? You mentioned Colorado, eh....

The Colorado Department of Human Services (CDHS), which oversees the TANF program, has begun to convene a task force on apparent misuse of cash benefits, joining with other state agencies to work out the details of enforcement, including how to monitor transactions, what constitutes wrongful usage, and whether withdrawals at medical-marijuana dispensaries should be considered a potential abuse of welfare money.

Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/383334/welfare-cash-weed-colorado-jillian-kay-melchior

Sure, not all pot users are lazy good for nothing mind numbed unemployed robots that use welfare money to get high, but ....

Back in the early 1980's Ms. Nancy Reagan told me "just say no to drugs" and I think its a good philosophy to live by.

Watch this video and then I D.A.R.E. you to smoke another stick of weed.

 

[Jhhnn]

Hadn’t read through all 19 pages but hopefully this forces the hand of Congress to get off their ass and legalize. They are all (ALL) paid for by police unions, prison lobby, pharmaceutical industry, etc so nothing will happen. Current policy of states doing their thing but the fed gov keeping it illegal makes no sense. Obama had 8 years to stop imprisoning US citizens for effing marijuana possession and chose not to do it (but hey the memo said not a priority) so even though I know the Trump is the devil mantra continues it’s not like the Dems did any better. Sessions is a POS as is anyone who works to ruin lives and family’s over marijuana.

Fuck politicians suck.

Yeh, blame Obama. I mean, he only had a Right wing Republican Congress intent on shooting down anything he wanted & a fascist DEA steeped in the war on marijuana. Allowing legalization to proceed in WA & CO was a deft political coup that left his opponents twisting in the wind from their own States' Rights gibbet. It wasn't a battle he chose to fight but when confronted with a choice he threaded the needle to do the right thing. Like anybody having a passing familiarity with cannabis he knew full that legalization would work & all we needed was a chance to prove it. Five years in we're poised to destroy the whole rotten edifice.

Just say Thanks, Obama & STFU.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Could he not reschedule it? Did he need congress? I blame them all, everyone. If you are in government and not doing everything you absolutely can to stop this insanity you’re to blame and you’ve got destroyed families and lives on your hands.

 

[Jhhnn]

Oh Really? You mentioned Colorado, eh....



Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/383334/welfare-cash-weed-colorado-jillian-kay-melchior

Sure, not all pot users are lazy good for nothing mind numbed unemployed robots that use welfare money to get high, but ....

Back in the early 1980's Ms. Nancy Reagan told me "just say no to drugs" and I think its a good philosophy to live by.

Watch this video and then I D.A.R.E. you to smoke another stick of weed.

You're such an idiot. People have been taking cash TANF benefits at strip joints, liquor stores, racetracks & casinos for a very long while. Not many of them, of course, but it happens all the time.

It says nothing about cannabis users other than poor people like to get high, too.

 

[UberNeuman]

Could he not reschedule it? Did he need congress? I blame them all, everyone. If you are in government and not doing everything you absolutely can to stop this insanity you’re to blame and you’ve got destroyed families and lives on your hands.

ewww!! bothsidesbothsidesbothsides!!!!

/you fucking hack....

 

[Jhhnn]

Could he not reschedule it? Did he need congress? I blame them all, everyone. If you are in government and not doing everything you absolutely can to stop this insanity you’re to blame and you’ve got destroyed families and lives on your hands.

The President cannot unilaterally reschedule any drug. There's a whole bureaucratic thicket around that & they weren't willing, either. What he did was even better. He discarded the whole notion of MMJ in favor of the idea that people have the right to get high because they like it. That's what legalized cannabis is all about, the personal freedom to do that. It also establishes legal channels for consumers to obtain it- you know, safe retail environments, production facility inspections, contaminant screening, packaging, labeling & all that. In return, users voluntarily pay sin taxes to support all kinds of programs.

It's a whole paradigm shift & a healing opportunity, one that's good for America. It hugely changes police relations for the better & reduces the load on the Judiciary. It's superior public policy.

 

[UglyCasanova]

He didn’t though, he just put out a memo that it wouldn’t be a priority. And now Trump's dumbass AG is rescinding that.

 

[MagnusTheBrewer]

Oh Really? You mentioned Colorado, eh....



Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/383334/welfare-cash-weed-colorado-jillian-kay-melchior

Sure, not all pot users are lazy good for nothing mind numbed unemployed robots that use welfare money to get high, but ....

Back in the early 1980's Ms. Nancy Reagan told me "just say no to drugs" and I think its a good philosophy to live by.

Watch this video and then I D.A.R.E. you to smoke another stick of weed.

This

I would argue that the vast majority of people who smoke weed work and live normal lives. Your view of the world seems to be encased in a bubble of 50s rhetoric.

It's interesting you put your faith in the wife of a traitor.

 

[IronWing]

Oh Really? You mentioned Colorado, eh....



Read more at: http://www.nationalreview.com/article/383334/welfare-cash-weed-colorado-jillian-kay-melchior

Sure, not all pot users are lazy good for nothing mind numbed unemployed robots that use welfare money to get high, but ....

Back in the early 1980's Ms. Nancy Reagan told me "just say no to drugs" and I think its a good philosophy to live by.

Watch this video and then I D.A.R.E. you to smoke another stick of weed.

Keeping weed illegal takes the worst possible outcomes of weed use and guarantees them happening. How is having a bunch of folks in prison for weed better than having "unemployed robots that use welfare money"?

 

[pcgeek11]

Do you support alcohol being a non-controlled substance?

My point was against " Free the weed ".

As I have stated earlier controlled like liquor. ATF and State Laws etc....

 

[Jhhnn]

He didn’t though, he just put out a memo that it wouldn’t be a priority. And now Trump's dumbass AG is rescinding that.

You're trying really, really hard to not get it, huh? Obama helped to change the whole conversation. Sessions is like the Nazi commander on the eastern front after the battle of Stalingrad. They fought valiantly but no longer had the strength to prevail. Sessons can't prevail w/o fear of the unknown. It's always been the greatest weapon in the war on marijuana.

We'll see, but I seriously doubt any of our US attorneys will take him up on his offer to re-engage in the war on marijuana. The US Attorney for CO has already announced he's having no part of it as have others. Politely, of course. It would completely undermine the trust that makes joint drug task forces possible & effective. It's also like walking into a blast furnace, eyes wide shut.

 

[UglyCasanova]

Obama helped to change the whole conversation.

No

The conversation changed around Obama, he wasn’t the proponent. He’d be just fine using the fed gov to lock up US citizens, public pressure was mounting otherwise though.

 

[pcgeek11]

There have been a hand full of deaths in the entire world due to mj overdose and none of them have been children. You have to seriously work at it to overdose. Yes, it should be kept out of the hands of children like cigarettes and alcohol.

You have seen a case where a human has died from a cannabis overdose?

The case I was reading was the infant which seems to be undecided from the original claims.

My mistake.

 

[pcgeek11]

No, there hasn't.

The case I was reading about was the 11 month old and the doctor has withdrawn the statement about the MJ overdose causing the death.

https://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2017/nov/16/marijuana-overdose-killed-11-month-old-infant-doct/

https://www.nbcnews.com/health/kids...-whether-baby-died-marijuana-overdose-n821801

http://www.9news.com/news/health/colorado-doctors-claim-first-marijuana-overdose-death/491760125

And the change in the story:

http://www.nydailynews.com/news/nat...-not-die-marijuana-overdose-article-1.3640087

 

[Jhhnn]

No

The conversation changed around Obama, he wasn’t the proponent. He’d be just fine using the fed gov to lock up US citizens, public pressure was mounting otherwise though.

Yada, yada, yada. Confronted with an unexpected opportunity, Obama did the right thing. He created the most harmonious situation that he possibly could have at the time. He made it easy for other states to follow, enabled activists entirely. And he made it not about him. He gave legalization the chance it needed.

Or we could have taken the high hard one from ol' Mitt. Go figure, huh?

 

[Sunburn74]

Could he not reschedule it? Did he need congress? I blame them all, everyone. If you are in government and not doing everything you absolutely can to stop this insanity you’re to blame and you’ve got destroyed families and lives on your hands.

He could have. Apparently the AG and the secretary of health and human services can independently reschedule it. Obama didn't direct them to. Really there is no excuse for him on this issue other than perhaps seeing the writing on the wall that national legalization was inevitable and there was no need for him to specifically be the one to speed it up when states were already voting on it left and right. I would definitely give him a C- or D+ on this issue.

 

[Jhhnn]

He could have. Apparently the AG and the secretary of health and human services can independently reschedule it. Obama didn't direct them to. Really there is no excuse for him on this issue other than perhaps seeing the writing on the wall that national legalization was inevitable and there was no need for him to specifically be the one to speed it up when states were already voting on it left and right. I would definitely give him a C- or D+ on this issue.

WTF are you talking about? His acceptance of legalized cannabis set off a cascade of legalization efforts. Putting it in terms of States' Rights & personal freedom sweeps away the argument of scheduling & medical benefit entirely. Administratively creating an enforcement regime to accommodate it was a stroke of political genius.

That's the long game & we're winning. We wouldn't be had he asserted the supremacy of federal law. He could have readily thwarted retail marijuana at the time, but not now. It's too late, & I'm sure he figured it would be.