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Cannabis Opposition: What Are Their Best Points?


washtenaut

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Kevin Sabet is still at it.  Reading his articles or watching him on TV often leads to me yelling into the heavens.  Most of his arguments are so poor it is too easy to rip into him.

 

As we get into arguments with cannabis opponents we often hear the same old crap.  It gets old going over the same ground again and again.  There are some valid points to be made by opponents too.  Every once in a while there is the intelligent discussion

 

In the interest of preparation, what are the valid points of the opposition?  We can counter them later but just to start, what might be valid concerns with relaxing cannabis laws?

 

 

 

http://www.cnn.com/2014/07/10/opinion/sabet-colorado-marijuana/index.html?hpt=hp_t3

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more weed could mean more dui

 

its a valid point and easy to counter with facts.

 

 

valid complaint i havent really heard of much, people dont want skunky smelling plants in their neighborhood.

but i guess thats a future complaint that has multiple reprocussions, including barbeque smoke, tobacco smoke, manure fertilizers, etc.

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interesting how butane explosions are considered as marijuana deaths. They may as well be associated with stupidity deaths, cigarette deaths, propane torch deaths,

fire deaths, lighter deaths, flint deaths, static electricity deaths, pyrex deaths,   

 

Prohibited pesticides, insecticides, miticides, fungicides used on medicine is mentioned in several anti mj articles. My patients came to me with the same valid concern.

 

 Glad we all of use safe proven ways to avoid pests, insects, mites and molds and prove them wrong. It would suck to see those issues used against us by the professional healthcare community as a valid reason not to trust in home made medicine.

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  • 3 weeks later...

Just stumbled on this thread.  I forgot I started it.

 

Sure looks like we don't think there are many really legit complaints about loosening laws.

 

- Driving under the influence

 

- Nuisance complaints regarding smell of growing cannabis

 

- increased exposure to pesticides, fungicides, etc

 

- Increased accidents from processing cannabis, such as butane explosions

 

 

 

I will add a couple that are certainly problematic

 

- That study suggesting that cannabis use in teens leads to a lowered IQ.  I believe it was an 8 point loss in IQ score

 

- If most adults have a supply of cannabis, more cannabis will fall into the hands of teens and children than today.  I agree that a teen will be less able to buy it if it becomes regulated and sold at retail outlets but more will be in their home for the stealing....similar to beer and wine today.

 

- dosing problems with tinctures, oils, and edibles.  It is one of the reasons cannabis fell out of favor with physicians in the early 1900's.

 

- strain names are meaningless to new users/patients, the MOST important group in gaining acceptance as medicine.  We need to think of a system so that the label means something as far as impact on the user.

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- If most adults have a supply of cannabis, more cannabis will fall into the hands of teens and children than today. I agree that a teen will be less able to buy it if it becomes regulated and sold at retail outlets but more will be in their home for the stealing....similar to beer and wine today.

Then treat it like your beer and wine.

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Slow down Resto, try to argue the other side of this, just to bring out the best points of the opposing view. 

 

What are the remaining strongest points of the opposition, even if they can be countered in some ways?

If they can be countered then they are not strong, they are trumped up. There is an endless well of trumped up things about cannabis. Most all are things taken out of context.
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If they can be countered then they are not strong, they are trumped up. There is an endless well of trumped up things about cannabis. Most all are things taken out of context.

 

My point is escaping you I fear. 

 

You, like some others here, are very well informed and could likely counter every argument with something.  There are counter arguments as you have pointed out to pretty much all of the opposition points or we wouldn't be so strongly in the corner we are in.  For you personally, there is no need to put together a collection of facts as you personally already know them.

 

The hope was to gather the best of the most recent opposing arguments, list them, and THEN, do a little research, and post OUR best counterpoints.

 

The end result would be a short one page collection of information that some folks here could then use to present to skeptics and obstructionists

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The Times piece is pretty inclusive. Looking back at the newspaper clipping that reports the legislative moves behind the CSA, I remember Mike Mansfield's fight against the reactionaries. He and others were up to speed with the issues in 1970. Any and all drug use should be treated as a public health issue and taken the hell away from law enforcement. The ACA must provide treatment in all cases, to include supervised drug use. In cases of addiction drugs should be provided and managed under a physician's care. That will not entirely put a stop to abuse, but it can be expected to minimize it, contain costs, and promote the general welfare. Arguments in support of cannabis are so readily available and compelling to consider almost unfair. Piling on is always great fun. We have every legitimate point covered. 

 

Keep your shoulder to the wheel. It is rolling in the right direction and gaining speed.

Edited by GregS
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an argument i've seen a few times that looks and sounds great...

 

'we've been telling people not to smoke because it causes cancer and death and birth defects and now we want to allow people to smoke marihuana?' 

 

prohibitionists always talk about 'risks' and cite the studies on kids funded by nida...

which is why they always fail logical arguments about legalizing for adults.

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http://www.cnbc.com/id/101883610?__source=yahoo%7Cfinance%7Cheadline%7Cheadline%7Cstory&par=yahoo&doc=101883610

 

Anyone who favors more states legalizing pot, or a federal law making it legal nationwide, needs to be aware of and prepared for some of the very predictable adverse results. Notably, that it will exacerbate income inequality.

 

For the record, I am in favor of legalizing marijuana. And not because I support marijuana use (I don't) but because I believe in more personal liberty.

 

Legalizing marijuana will have a number of ill effects: Marijuana addiction will go up. Marijuana-related DUI incidents will spike, as they already have in Colorado.

 

 

To be clear, none of the problems are serious enough to warrant keeping marijuana illegal. But the one we need to talk about is income inequality. Here is how legalization will widen the chasm between rich and poor:

 

1. States will choose the winners. Licenses to sell cannabis in any form are not exactly easy to come by — and the states decide who gets them and how many will be awarded in total. When the government controls the sole legal path to entry into any industry, those who are deemed worthy of government approval get a major economic and political advantage over many, many others. Eventually, the financial gains allow those businesses to influence the regulation and often cut off potential newcomers to that industry. It's all a key part of what we call "regulatory capture" — you see it in everything from liquor licensing to the issuance of taxicab medallions.

 

 

 

In other words, state control of industry almost by definition concentrates wealth in the hands of a lot fewer people than the total number of people with the ability and desire to get into that industry.

 

Result? More inequality.

 

2. More pot smoking means more unemployment. A lot of experts believed that when Colorado legalized pot, a big number of casual users from out of state would be the biggest source of revenue for the marijuana businesses. But the opposite has turned out to be the case.

 

Colorado's pot market is dominated by a small number of state residents who are very heavy users. The Colorado State Department of Revenue just reported that the top 20 percent of marijuana users are using more than two-thirds of the cannabis supply.

 

 

The same study shows that only 9 percent of Colorado residents are using marijuana at all, so we're talking about fewer than 2 percent of the state's population consuming more than 66 percent of Colorado's pot.

 

Now THAT's inequality!

 

And it's also likely to be economic bad news for those 2-percenters. A study published this year by The National Survey on Drug Use and Health showed that people with drug addictions are at least twice as likely to be unemployed than those who aren't.

 

Unless the majority of the people who do succumb to marijuana abuse and addiction are already in the 1 percent, their economic descent will only add to economic inequality in the states that legalize pot.

 

 

 

 

Former Congressman and recovering addict Patrick Kennedy wrote earlier this week about the hundreds of letters he's received from middle class families who lost just about everything as they were forced to dig deep to pay for marijuana addiction treatments for their children and other family members.

 

Demand for admission to Colorado's existing drug addiction has soared since pot was legalized, prompting some of the leading centers to begin major new expansion programs.

 

Again, that's their choice and they've had fair warning. And the same is true about alcohol addiction, which has been a job killer for centuries.

 

But everyone needs to be prepared for this likely outcome: Some new millionaires will be created and some new wealth will be distributed. But lots of that wealth will also be concentrated at the top, and there will also be a new cause of financial destruction for middle and lower classes.

 

Will marijuana legalization destroy our society? Of course not. But like any new enterprise, it will reward the harder working and lucky among us much more than it will spread the wealth. And that's this conservative's best argument for it

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Colorado's pot market is dominated by a small number of state residents who are very heavy users. The Colorado State Department of Revenue just reported that the top 20 percent of marijuana users are using more than two-thirds of the cannabis supply.

 

 

The same study shows that only 9 percent of Colorado residents are using marijuana at all, so we're talking about fewer than 2 percent of the state's population consuming more than 66 percent of Colorado's pot.

 

 

heres the study.

 

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheadername1=Content-Disposition&blobheadername2=Content-Type&blobheadervalue1=inline%3B+filename%3D%22Market+Size+and+Demand+Study%2C+July+9%2C+2014.pdf%22&blobheadervalue2=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1252008574534&ssbinary=true

 

heres revenue from 2014 q2

http://www.colorado.gov/cs/Satellite?blobcol=urldata&blobheader=application%2Fpdf&blobkey=id&blobtable=MungoBlobs&blobwhere=1251951353302&ssbinary=true

 

retail sales ytd: $215,960,667

 

 

from the study: There are an estimated 485 thousand adult regular marijuana users once per month and 201 thousand adults using marijuana within the past year

study numbers: pop: 3.78million 21+ adults / 686,000 = 18% of adults in colorado use marijuana in the past (2011) year.

 

 

215,960,667 * 60% = 129,576,400

 

so 129,576,400 60percent of marijuana sold / 75600 top 20 percenters = $1713 per person. thats $285 a month (for 6 months).

 

 

looking at national stats, people age 21+ is 70% of population.

http://www.infoplease.com/us/census/data/demographic.html

 

 

study is all estimates though.

 

 

oh wait. wait just one stinkin minute.

 

 

The most recent and comprehensive data for Colorado marijuana use come from the National Survey on Drug Use and Health (NSDUH).

 

 

Notice that the survey data were collected most recently in 2010/2011, which precedes the advent of legal recreational marijuana in Colorado, which started only as of January 1, 2014.

 

the entire study is moo poo. based on the feds asking you if you smoke pot. from 2011.

 

 

 

 

 

However, the State Marijuana Inventory Tracking System does not cover illegal marijuana use and distribution, nor does it indicate whether the marijuana sold is being diverted to underground markets outside of Colorado.

Therefore, we must still rely heavily upon survey results, state demographics, and estimated marijuana usage

patterns in order to determine the estimated market size in Colorado.

great. toss out all that new beautiful data from the fancy penis marijuana tracking system you idiots regulated and use 3 year old fed moo poo numbers and estimates.

 

i'd love to see the number of people they got to do the survey.

page 141 on the NSDUH 2011 report says 23000 age 18-25 and 23000 age 26+

http://www.samhsa.gov/data/NSDUH/2011SummNatFindDetTables/Index.aspx

 

still though, you gonna tell the feds you smoke pot?

Edited by t-pain
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- That study suggesting that cannabis use in teens leads to a lowered IQ. I believe it was an 8 point loss in IQ score

 

Started smoking when I was in tenth grade. I got the highest SAT score at my high school and the second highest ACT score. Their study is weak.

oops, should've read the whole thread before replying...

Edited by Norby
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