Marijuana Fight Envelops Fisherman's Wharf (San Fran)

The New York Times from Drudge ^ | July 3, 2006 | JESSE McKINLEY

[A CA Guy]

SAN FRANCISCO, July 3 — The newest attraction planned for Fisherman's Wharf, San Francisco's most popular tourist destination, has no sign, no advertisements and not even a scrap of sourdough. Yet everyone seems to think that the new business, the Green Cross, will be a hit, drawing customers from all over the region to sample its aromatic wares.

For some, that is exactly the problem.

"The city is saturated with pot clubs," said T. Wade Randlett, the president of SF SOS, a quality-of-life group that opposes the planned club. "Fisherman's Wharf is a tourism attraction, and this is not the kind of tourism we're trying to attract."

Emboldened by a series of regulations passed last fall by the city's Board of Supervisors, some neighborhoods are resisting new marijuana dispensaries, which they say attract crime and dealers bent on reselling the drugs. In the debate over the new rules last year, several neighborhoods successfully lobbied to be exempted from having new clubs.

Other neighborhoods managed to get clubs shuttered, including a previous version of the Green Cross, which was forced out of a storefront in the city's Mission District after neighbors said they had seen a rise in drug dealing, traffic problems and petty crime, a charge the Green Cross denies.

And while the law was passed with seriously ill patients in mind, like those with AIDS and cancer, some critics say that now even people with commonplace aches and pains can get a doctor's recommendation.

[A CA Guy]

What can I say, anyone here really want to hear the pro-dope advocates tell you anymore that legalizing stuff makes it better and reduces criminal activity?

Here it was made legal and it sprung up pot shops and crime all over the place.

If they do want to continue to allow medical pot, they should have limited dispensaries under better control, all this rise in crime isn't good.

IMO this is just a peak at the problems we'd have if it were all legalized. Just the same, watch the pro-drug crowd overlook the facts and still fight for their dope.

The doctors giving a recommendation to people with commonplace aches and pains is again the dopers getting on back of the really sick folks to get their drugs. These doctors need to be prosecuted IMO.

The law needs to require IMO at least one government approved doctor to verify recommendations for pot and any doctor who prescribes the pot a lot and that appears to be some sort of activist themselves should be possibly removed from being allowed to recommend this stuff at all.

I have no problem with dying people and really bad off people getting some of this stuff in limited fashion and in limited places, but I think you know the law has failed when you get patients and doctors allowing those not that sick to participate in their sacrament of recreational drug use.

The crime popping up is a deal breaker for sure.

[Ostlandr]

Like I keep saying: Let's to a land swap with China, Taiwan for California. Each nation gets rid of a rogue province, China gets millions more socialists and we get millions more capitalists.

And for the record I have no problem with medical marijuana. I just think it should be done legally, by perscription.

[31R1O]

I think that the problem arises from the quasi legal status. In other words there is still money to be made. In my opinion if it were legal for any adult to own and grow their own plants the situation would be different. That doesn't mean do away with DUI and public intoxication laws at all. All that I'm saying that as long as there is a potential black market, the crime and such is going to be an issue.

[xpertskir]

"pro-drug crowd"

AKA "limited government intervention and freedom club"

While I do believe that the government really should not be chosing which drugs are legal(alcohol, oxycontin, ephedra, Valium) and which are dangerous and need to be criminalized(marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, ectasy).

While it is the duty of the state to keep its property owners safe IMO they are overstepping their bounds in classifying substances for personal use as arbitrarily legal or illegal.

[xpertskir]

"pro-drug crowd"

AKA "limited government intervention and freedom club"

While I do believe that the government really should not be chosing which drugs are legal(alcohol, oxycontin, ephedra, Valium) and which are dangerous and need to be criminalized(marijuana, LSD, psilocybin, ectasy).

While it is the duty of the state to keep its property owners safe IMO they are overstepping their bounds in classifying substances for personal use as arbitrarily legal or illegal.

[RonF]

Well, no - it wasn't made legal. If it had been made legal for recreational users, they wouldn't be faking illnesses and getting scrips to go to these pot clubs. And if it was made legal for medicinal purposes only (by which I mean legal at the Federal level), then it would be purchasable at your local CVS/Walgreens/Osco and the pot clubs would go away.

The crime comes from it being legal at the local level, but not at the State or Federal level.

[A CA Guy]

If you read the article, it was done by prescription Ostlandr.
I also have no problem with dying people and real massive problems having access to this stuff. The problem seems to be that people who are not that sick want to practice their sacrament of recreational drug abuse and it is ruining everything it touches.

That was why in my comments I suggested we limit harshly where people can get it.
We need to have an approved doctor who isn't a possible activist verifying the prescriptions and conditions.

China does have some drugs sneak in. A whole bunch comes in from Afghanistan and that could get Afghanistan spanked by China in the future.
I have friends who travel to China on business and for pleasure and hands get cut off at times in connection with drugs and other crimes. Not a great place to be caught using or moving drugs. (though I'm sure their upper class gets what they want)

[A CA Guy]

The pot houses are legal. They are attracting drug dealers to sell their stuff near by.

The problem has grown with the pot houses, so I think we need to limit them to maybe one every few miles.

Also we need to see to it that drug activist doctors can't get away with prescribing for anything shy of the worst cases.
If we see a doctor make a lot of prescriptions for pot, could be they are activist right?

Seems they have to get control of the whole thing, right now you have recreational abusers taking advantage of the current system, along with drug dealers.

[BlueDragon]

Let's see...an increase in traffic at Fisherman's Warf?
How was THAT determined??? Ever tried driving in North Beach? Or any where in S.F.? It's long beeen a good place to get one's car stolen, anyway.

(there was an old joke, attributed to Henny Youngman, addressing S.F.'s long existing parking problem, recently repeated here on another thread ---- he said "I've finally found out how to get a parking spot in San Francisco. Just buy a car that's already parked!")
An increase in "crime"? Like there was something less of an amount of "petty" crime, before that joint moved in?
HA! Just how could anyone say with certainty, "oh, it's the pot dispensary"? Have those committing "petty crimes" been found to have visited the dispensary, much less, "there has been an increase in small crimes, and it is all the pot clubs' fault"? Are they out picking pockets to buy pot? Are they stealing loaves of bread because they have the munchies?
If folks are commiting crimes, it's more because they are criminals, rather than they are either stoned on pot, or trying to get that way. Folks rob liquor stores to buy harder drugs, for the most part ---at least compared to pot.
Booze contributes more to crime, overall, than pot does.
And no, I don't smoke the stuff.
Still, Fisherman's Warf does seem a lousy place for a pot dispensary. What's the need for it to right there? To sell to the occassional geriatric tourist whom suffers chronic pain? Yea, right, like I really believe it's all so innocent.

[pabianice]

warning

[pageonetoo]

Here it was made legal and it sprung up pot shops and crime all over the place.

What specific crime increased? There are no numbers provided, only a casual suggestion, by an interested group.

I have no problem with ...

Like it really matters if you have no problem with it, gal. Waaahhhh, you sound like a charter member of the WCTU! What business of yours, is it is I wanted to sit on the lawn across from the Lincoln Memorial on July 4th, and waft the billowing clouds of burning bud. I will probably even partake a toke or three... along with thousands of others.

I went there a couple years ago. I watched a line of 20 (or so) Park Police winding their way through the clouds (I meant crowds). They hassled a few kids, but mainly were confiscating coolers with booze in them. There were signs clearly posted that you can't drink on Park property...

[A CA Guy]

arbitrarily?

The Food and Drug administration review which drugs are safe, habit forming and which may lead to social problems.

They are pretty good experts and it seems there has been some relief for those really very ill with pot. Problem IMO is that here we have seemingly dopers getting drug activist doctors prescribing left and right.

There are various safe guards in society we placed there through the government (us) which are very good.
Our work environment could be filled with lots of cancer causing drugs and life ending things if there was no government control over what is legal. It is the same exact thing with drugs in our personal life.

I would say everything is give and take, but we can't allow chemical use in our personal life or at work without review, we'd get IMO a ton more people killing themselves and damaging others and I bet the bottom line would be a hell of a lot more public tax dollars out the door.

[pageonetoo]

OOPS! Should read: What business of yours, is it IF I wanted to sit on the lawn across from the Lincoln Memorial on July 4th, and waft the billowing clouds of burning bud.

(btw, they told me they had a good place to dispose of the confiscated beer, etc. They had a party planned later!)

[A CA Guy]

The neighborhood are noticing legalization has brought more crime and drug dealers around the area with these pot shops.

[A CA Guy]

What specific crime increased?

Drug dealing and violent crimes like robbery were mentioned in the article.

What business of yours, is it is I wanted to sit on the lawn across from the Lincoln Memorial on July 4th, and waft the billowing clouds of burning bud. I will probably even partake a toke or three... along with thousands of others.

All those drugged Democrats could get other people hurt or killed with their intoxication in public.

[tertiary01]

Let's swap your state first. We could get rid of those who think like you and we would be miles ahead as a nation.

[Getready]

look up marinol...it is "thc" by prescription for
cancer patients, gives some cancer patients the munchies...

The dopers are just dopes, that's all.
Everybody pays in final analysis. They look fine today, 10
years from now they'll not remember their name. Very
sad indeed that people don't know that "pleasure" is NOT
always perfect.

[xpertskir]

"arbitrarily?

The Food and Drug administration review which drugs are safe, habit forming and which may lead to social problems."

Yes it is seemingly arbitrary...look at the side effects of prescription drugs. Just because all the "effects" side and otherwise are on the box do not make them any safer than drugs that come in baggies.

[xpertskir]

These threads always piss me off.

Conservatism is based in thousands of years of human experience, Liberalism is based in theory.

So those of you without experience choose not to post.

[Ostlandr]

My point exactly. This is similar to the abuse of alcohol under prescription by lax doctors during Prohibition.

My granddad taught me "If the law is wrong, change the law."
The Libs prefer to ignore inconvenient laws.

[Ostlandr]

Hey, I support legalization. We'll still have all the social ills that go along with drug abuse- but we'll reduce the crime associated with drug trafficking. The war on drugs is as much of a success as the prohibition of alcohol was.
Unfortunately, folks like us are in the minority. The majority of americans still want drugs to be illegal. And in a democratic society, we have to bow to the will of the majority, even if the majority is wrong.
It's the Libs that think a vocal minority can ally themselves with anarchist pols and activist judges to nullify laws they disagree with.

[A CA Guy]

Yes it is seemingly arbitrary...look at the side effects of prescription drugs. Just because all the "effects" side and otherwise are on the box do not make them any safer than drugs that come in baggies.

They always have to plaster any possible side effects all over the place to avoid lawsuits. You get the same thing on many over the counter stuff to also avoid lawsuits.
In most cases, the side effects of most legal drugs are minimal, but you do get the occasional person who reacts badly.

Some of the other drugs for perhaps things like Cancer are real harsh on the system and puts the body through hell, because the current way you kill a cancer is to try and kill the cancer tissue or tumor before it kills the healthy tissue and patient.

I do think companies are doing their best to reduce side effects, but some will always suffer from their own allergies to certain things.

Sometimes drugs that can save a life have the side effect of leaving the people dizzy. I think some of the drugs that deal with partially clogged arteries are like that as are some blood pressure medicines.
Comes down in some cases to dead or having some minor symptoms from using a medication.

I think in the next thirty years most side effects in medications will be greatly increased, they are getting better and better at medicine and we do live in miraculous times.

I do think there is a place for limited medical marijuana, but I think activist doctors and recreational drug users ruin it. I also have concern about all the crime these places have been attracting.

[RobRoy]

I haven't touched marijuana (the only illegal drug I ever took) since 1977. I think it is stupid, other than for real medical reasons.

I also think it should be legalized in the same way alcohol is.

[A CA Guy]

I meant to say the side effects over the next thirty years will decrease greatly with the marvels of our scientists.

We live in wondrous times.

[RobRoy]

>>The crime comes from it being legal at the local level, but not at the State or Federal level.<<

Exactly. Sometimes the devil is in the details, and a slight twist on a thing can completely change its effect.

A car with no steering wheel would look almost exactly like any other car - except it would be useless.

Treat this stuff like alcohol and not only would most of the problems go away, but we'd save a ton on the WOD.

[Rte66]

Love Potions at #9?

Crack with your Cracked Crabs?

Alioto's Joints-R-Us?

[muir_redwoods]

"I would say everything is give and take, but we can't allow chemical use in our personal life or at work without review, we'd get IMO a ton more people killing themselves and damaging others and I bet the bottom line would be a hell of a lot more public tax dollars out the door."

Do you seriously imagine, for even a moment, that any of these stupid, pointless, expensive laws reduce consumption to any measurable degree? Really?

If so ,there's this bridge....

BTW< My only drug is coffee, no pot, booze nor anything else.

[A CA Guy]

I also think it should be legalized in the same way alcohol is.

Alcohol is illegal under many circumstances. Now pot has limited legal use and is illegal under many circumstances, so you have your wish.

Though the pro-recreational drug users with deny this with their last breath, there is a big difference between alcohol and pot.
Pot is breathed in and gets to the body with it's intoxicating ingredients almost instantly. With alcohol you can sip a little or drink a little with food and you won't have the same dangerous high effect.

Most don't consider pot that big a deal with minor use, if you get caught smoking with a small amount you get a ticket (big deal). If you are in the lifestyle so heavily that you smoke a lot or deal the drugs, that is where the line IMO gets crossed to the side of being a serious problem.

Lastly, the other reason it isn't legal is that you would grow the use and addiction of Pot like legalizing alcohol has. Only difference is where you may not get intoxicated with alcohol, you get high the first puff with pot.
So there is an apples and oranges thing going on between pot and alcohol. They are not the same thing at all. But if you are starting the movement to ban alcohol more so than it is now with abuse, then go for it!

[A CA Guy]

Pot is smoked and instantly gets into the body. That is faster than being injected with a drug. Look it up in medical websites if you don't believe it. Alcohol can be sipped or drank slowly over time with food and someone may never even get close to high. So, they are nothing like each other unless the alcohol drinker is abusing the drinking. Legalization of all pot would be a disaster, it gets instantly throughout the body when smoked through the lungs at lightening speed and that is nothing like alcohol at all. But, abusing the drinking of alcohol under many circumstances is illegal already, if you were looking to ban all alcohol, then go for it!

[A CA Guy]

I'm all for a bullet to the head of the drug runners who are caught trying to enter the USA bringing lots of the stuff in from Mexico and elsewhere.
The bulk of it comes from outside out country and Mexico who is basically a drug lord run country would itself benefit IMO if the drug lords got assassinated.

I believe in law enforcement in our country as well, we keep murders down with the threat of paying a price, so why wouldn't paying a price not REDUCE the crimes related to drugs?

We have never stopped all murders with law, and in the same way you will never end all the drug losers from using, but you can reduce participation and increases in addiction nationally, just as we do murder.

[muir_redwoods]

Why do you believe someone else has more standing than you do in deciding what chemicals you put into your body? Why would you let someone else, at the point of a gun, tell you which plants you can use and which you cannot?

[A CA Guy]

Why do you believe someone else has more standing than you do in deciding what chemicals you put into your body? Why would you let someone else, at the point of a gun, tell you which plants you can use and which you cannot?

Why do you believe someone else has more standing than you do in deciding what side of the road you drive on? Why would you let someone else, at the point of a gun, tell you which streetlights you must stop or drive through?

[tflabo]

"Like I keep saying: Let's to a land swap with China, Taiwan for California. Each nation gets rid of a rogue province, China gets millions more socialists and we get millions more capitalists."

Not land to swap but people...we get the Taiwanese in Calif. and they can move our Ca. liberals over to Taiwan
closer to their ideologic motherland... Red China.

[mc6809e]

What can I say, anyone here really want to hear the pro-dope advocates tell you anymore that legalizing stuff makes it better and reduces criminal activity?

Why do you hate freedom?

Seriously.

[xpertskir]

"Pot is smoked and instantly gets into the body. That is faster than being injected with a drug. Look it up in medical websites if you don't believe it. Alcohol can be sipped or drank slowly over time with food and someone may never even get close to high. So, they are nothing like each other unless the alcohol drinker is abusing the drinking."


LMAO---let me again reiterate how much these threads piss me off, because of ANTI drug propaganda that is used to prove points. Just as with alcohol, smoking pot is not a linear event. The more you consume the more it will affect you and visa-versa. Also, injection is the fasted way to have a substance enter the body and "start working." Your whole point about smoking a drug is ungrounded, false, and does nothing to differentiate between alcohol and pot.

Revert to my other post, Conservatism is based in experience, liberalism is based in theory. So get "experienced" or don't post on these threads which you know nothing about.

[mc6809e]

Why do you believe someone else has more standing than you do in deciding what side of the road you drive on? Why would you let someone else, at the point of a gun, tell you which streetlights you must stop or drive through?

The roads are a shared resource. I own them as much as anyone. We establish a political process for determining just what the rules will be for this shared resource.

My body, on the other hand, is not public property. I should be able to decide what the rules are for my own body. Not you.

[A CA Guy]

Freedom is great, as is civilization. Both are really good, SERIOUSLY!

[A CA Guy]

What is the difference in how fast something gets throughout the system between smoking and the stomach?

Smoking something gets what you smoked throughout the body by way of the lungs instantly, the stomach is considered slow by comparison.

You can drink slowly and eat food and never get high.
Smoking gets the ingredients of pot throughout the body instantly.

Alcohol and pot are two different things entirely. They are not two peas in a pod.

We all get you want to use alcohol as a platform to legalize recreational drugs, but they are so different that you really can compare them until the alcohol drinker abuses the alcohol (which is when you could be legally breaking the law depending on where and what you are doing).

[Beckwith]

Is that you robertpaulsen?

[Central Scrutiniser]

Here it was made legal and it sprung up pot shops and crime all over the place.

Any statistics? Or just your slanted anectdotal views?

[RobRoy]

>>Alcohol is illegal under many circumstances. Now pot has limited legal use and is illegal under many circumstances, so you have your wish.<<

No, I don't. When A person can go into any safeway and legally buy Marijuana after showing ID proving they are over 21 and paying money, then I will "have my wish".

[microgood]

You can drink slowly and eat food and never get high.

I suppose it is possibly but why expose your liver to alcohol if you are not going to get anything out of it? The whole point of drinking alcohol is to get a buzz, as the whole point of drinking caffeine is to get a buzz. I guess we could deny it but we would be lying to ourselves.

[A CA Guy]

My body, on the other hand, is not public property. I should be able to decide what the rules are for my own body. Not you.

You live in area with the public where the public have written the laws we are to all live by (called a civilization).

I think you have the perfect attitude for someone who wishes to live in a private island, but if you want to live in a populated area, you are going to be more so limited by the laws governing the populated areas.

Seems I see druggies all the time accessing shared resources because of their behavior that they can't pay for, like rehab centers, hospitals and public burials.

[RobRoy]

So?

I have the God given right to grow and use Marijuana. Imagine if people could get high just as easily off dandylions. Boy oh boy would the nanny state have it's hands full.

BTW, I must re-iterate that I haven't touched the stuff since 1977 and was shocked to find my friend (a manager at Microsoft in his late 40's) sharing a bong with friends in his backyard at a party LITERALLY trying to hide it from my observation.

I think the stuff is really stupid, outside real medical applications. But from my perspective it is a rights issue.

[RobRoy]

Murder involves more than one person.

[A CA Guy]

I believe robertpaulsen is robertpaulsen.

[A CA Guy]

Just the citizens reporting the facts in the story we are discussing and the crimes like actual robberies referred to in the same article.

I'm sure you can investigate and find a bunch more, go for it.

[RobRoy]

>>Why would you let someone else, at the point of a gun, tell you which streetlights you must stop or drive through?<<

I don't. I live in Washington state, where there is no rule of law since the last election. I stop at red lights when it would be dangerous to go through, or when there are cops around. Otherwise...so far, so good.

I treat ALL red lights as "flashing red", unless there is a cop around. It is all a game. If I get a ticket it is like landing on someone elses property in a game of monopoly. I just want to avoid Boardwalk with a hotel! ;)

[xpertskir]

"Is that you robertpaulsen?"

LMAO--IT HAS TO BE

[A CA Guy]

No, I don't. When A person can go into any safeway and legally buy Marijuana after showing ID proving they are over 21 and paying money, then I will "have my wish".

You want full out recreational drug use, no thanks!