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Six Months After Legalizing Marijuana, Two Big Things Have Happened in Colorado
Mic.com ^ | 7/1/14 | Chris Miles

Posted on 07/02/2014 11:27:52 AM PDT by Rebelbase

$19 million in new tax revenue.

Marijuana-related arrests, which make up 50% of all drug-related crimes, have plummeted in Colorado, freeing up law enforcement to focus on other criminal activity. By removing marijuana penalties, the state saved somewhere between $12 million and $40 million in 2012, according to the Colorado Center on Law and Policy.

According to government data, the Denver city- and county-wide murder rate has dropped 52.9% since recreational marijuana use was legalized in January. This is compared to the same period last year, a time frame encompassing Jan. 1 through April 30.

(Excerpt) Read more at mic.com ...


TOPICS: Extended News; News/Current Events; US: Colorado; US: Oregon
KEYWORDS: cannabis; co2014; marijuana; pot; potheads; wod
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To: ConservingFreedom
Laws can only be changed once? What a feeble dodge.

You are minimizing the difference between a "law" and a Constitutional Amendment. Just more disingenuous crap from you.

221 posted on 07/07/2014 10:33:51 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: ConservingFreedom
I've never denied alcohol-related damage so I'm under no obligation to do any Googling.

You are implicitly denying it by asserting that there was no upside to Prohibition. Again, you do not seem to have the ability to be honest when you debate a topic.

Were we losing 70,000 people per year from Alcohol in 1933? No.

What were your cons again, and how do they stack up to 70,000 dead people per year?

222 posted on 07/07/2014 10:37:56 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
The analogy of drunks wasn't to excuse smoking pot.

Yes it was. There is no other point in bringing it up. Now you are just trying to walk it back.


lol. If this is how the discussion is going to go, then forget it. If I can't get you to understand simple things, then we'll both be wasting our time.
223 posted on 07/07/2014 10:41:13 AM PDT by fr_freak
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To: ConservingFreedom
Their own numbers give the lie to their claim

Then all you have done is to impugn the credibility of the link you yourself provided. Well done!

224 posted on 07/07/2014 10:52:03 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Laws can only be changed once?

You are minimizing the difference between a "law" and a Constitutional Amendment.

So you agree that a Constitutional amendment would be required to re-ban alcohol? Do you agree that a Constitutional amendment is required to give the federal government legitimate authority to ban drugs other than alcohol? (My answers are yes and yes.)

225 posted on 07/07/2014 10:52:21 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Then all you have done is to impugn the credibility of the link

Wrong - the DEA's numbers showing low and declining opium addiction when it was legal constitute a 'statement against interest' and thus have credibility, unlike their self-serving misconclusions.

226 posted on 07/07/2014 10:54:27 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: fr_freak
lol. If this is how the discussion is going to go, then forget it. If I can't get you to understand simple things, then we'll both be wasting our time.

I knew I would be wasting my time going in. I have argued with the legalization crowd for years, and they simply aren't amenable to looking at facts, reasoning or history.

They want what they want and they have a childish stubbornness to get it. Reasoning with them is pointless. The topic is always over their head because they only understand things in "simple" terms.

It isn't simple, but the pro-drug people are.

227 posted on 07/07/2014 10:55:46 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: DiogenesLamp
I've never denied alcohol-related damage so I'm under no obligation to do any Googling.

You are implicitly denying it by asserting that there was no upside to Prohibition.

Re-read the underlined passages - Prohibition did not effectively address alcohol-related damage:

The cons of Prohibition: 'Although consumption of alcohol fell at the beginning of Prohibition, it subsequently increased. Alcohol became more dangerous to consume; crime increased and became "organized"; the court and prison systems were stretched to the breaking point; and corruption of public officials was rampant. No measurable gains were made in productivity or reduced absenteeism. Prohibition removed a significant source of tax revenue and greatly increased government spending. It led many drinkers to switch to opium, marijuana, patent medicines, cocaine, and other dangerous substances that they would have been unlikely to encounter in the absence of Prohibition.

'Those results are documented from a variety of sources, most of which, ironically, are the work of supporters of Prohibition'

- Alcohol Prohibition Was a Failure

The pros of Prohibition: It made 'Progressives' and other nanny-statists feel good.

228 posted on 07/07/2014 10:58:43 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: ConservingFreedom
Do you agree that a Constitutional amendment is required to give the federal government legitimate authority to ban drugs other than alcohol? (My answers are yes and yes.)

No. Drugs are an existential threat to the existence of government and are therefore expressly covered under the defense clause of the US Constitution.

It is no different in effect than that of someone importing biological weapons to use against us. Actually biological weapons are probably not as deadly to our system of governance as are drugs.

China legalized drugs. Drugs Destroyed the nation of China. Legalized drugs are an existential threat to any government which tolerates them.

229 posted on 07/07/2014 11:00:12 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: fr_freak; DiogenesLamp
Are you ready to re-instate Prohibition because of those drunks?

He may be - see post #195 and replies.

230 posted on 07/07/2014 11:04:58 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: DiogenesLamp
Do you agree that a Constitutional amendment is required to give the federal government legitimate authority to ban drugs other than alcohol? (My answers are yes and yes.)

No. Drugs are an existential threat to the existence of government and are therefore expressly covered under the defense clause of the US Constitution.

So all government needs to do to ban Z is declare it "an existential threat to the existence of government"? Have you considered what a Democratic/RINO Congress might do with such authority?

231 posted on 07/07/2014 11:07:11 AM PDT by ConservingFreedom (A goverrnment strong enough to impose your standards is strong enough to ban them.)
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To: DiogenesLamp

I’ve read most of your posts - you are engaging in some deliberate obtuseness, though the possibility exists that you’re not pretending.


232 posted on 07/07/2014 11:16:14 AM PDT by fr_freak
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To: ConservingFreedom; DiogenesLamp

“Drugs are an existential threat to the existence of government...”

Sounds like someone got a little freaky after eating shrooms and is now over-compensating to appear normal to The Watchers. ;^)


233 posted on 07/07/2014 11:16:56 AM PDT by headsonpikes (Mass murder and cannibalism are the twin sacraments of socialism - "Who-whom?"-Lenin)
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To: DiogenesLamp

bump

You cannot argue with people who think Brave New World was a guidebook to Utopia


234 posted on 07/07/2014 11:18:28 AM PDT by GeronL (Vote for Conservatives not for Republicans)
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To: ConservingFreedom
Wrong - the DEA's numbers showing low and declining opium addiction when it was legal constitute a 'statement against interest' and thus have credibility, unlike their self-serving misconclusions.

Conversely they could represent a mistake and/or bad data. How they would get accurate data on drug addiction in 1880 is itself a cause for speculation.

For China, we have good records because the British KEPT very good records of Opium shipments.


235 posted on 07/07/2014 11:19:35 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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To: headsonpikes

It certainly is another way to rationalize “War on X” where “X” is the demonized (and often, but not always, inanimate) thing of the day. X could be pot, liquor, guns, dissent, Jews... (yeah, color me biased, I visited a Holocaust memorial the other day).


236 posted on 07/07/2014 11:20:18 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: DiogenesLamp

You are purposefully missing my point.

Scumbags are scumbags. Blaming inanimate objects for their scumbag behavior is illogical. Blame the scumbag. Quit getting your panties in a wad about inanimate objects.


237 posted on 07/07/2014 11:22:18 AM PDT by EricT. (Everything not forbidden is compulsory.)
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To: DiogenesLamp

And all this opium rage represented Chinese making free choices? No pushing?


238 posted on 07/07/2014 11:22:19 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: EricT.

Or better yet, hold the scumbag responsible to go to the Lord and mend his ways.


239 posted on 07/07/2014 11:28:21 AM PDT by HiTech RedNeck (Embrace the Lion of Judah and He will roar for you and teach you to roar too. See my page.)
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To: ConservingFreedom
I'm not going to bother looking at any of your information regarding Prohibition. For my entire life, I have been inundated with the declaration that "Prohibition was a failure", and this bit of conventional wisdom is so ubiquitous that you are hard pressed to find any contrary opinion. (especially with lawmakers deliberately undermining the whole thing anyways, just as they are doing now with other issues like Illegal immigration.)

I myself noticed that we are losing *75,000 people to Alcohol every year, and I very much doubt this would be happening were Alcohol illegal.

Yes, the people who like drugs and alcohol have written for years that prohibiting it was a great mistake. As you pointed out regarding "statements against interest" I will point out that most of these "research" essays are "statements for interest" and therefore cannot be accepted on the face of them as being objectively correct. They are merely supporting the same old agenda these people have always pushed.

*I'm going to keep increasing this number till you decide to look up the actual number and correct me. Since I think you play fast and loose with the facts, I feel no obligation to be reasonable or consistent either.

240 posted on 07/07/2014 11:30:22 AM PDT by DiogenesLamp (Partus Sequitur Patrem)
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