Posted on 10/26/2010 1:55:58 PM PDT by La Enchiladita
SAN FRANCISCO -- As California Democrats gain ground in the polls, one of the big questions left for Californians on Election Day is whether the state will become the first in the nation to legalize marijuana (and not just medical marijuana). As voters continue to mull over the issue, officials in the state and nationally are also considering their next moves.
There's new evidence to support the theory that Proposition 19 - the ballot initiative that would legalize marijuana in California and allow it to be taxed and regulated - could help Democrats, who are facing a challenging midterm election year. However, if the measure passes, it could plague the Democrats it helps usher into office with a bundle of political and policy headaches.
(Excerpt) Read more at cbsnews.com ...
Holder's DOJ has announced they would continue enforcing the federal pot ban even if Prop 19 passes. This raises an interesting policy question: Why then are "sanctuary cities" allowed to defy federal law?
some laws are more equal than others!
(I oppose Prop 19. But it is obvious that the feds enforce the laws they like and ignore the ones they don’t.)
You said it all. That could define the decline of the late, great, Golden State.
If this passes, it will be perfectly legal to drive while high. The current testing only test if someone took the drug in the last week or so. The test to see if the drug is currently in the bloodstream uses a machine that is prohibitively expensive. Drug users will be able to damage property and injure people with impunity.
Get all the potheads on their side. Very smart voting block “wink wink”
When CA promised that raising cigarette taxes would help ballance the budget, everyone with 1/2 a brain said it wouldn’t work.
The only thing taxing pot in CA will do is turn I-5 into the Pot Transport Coridor of the USA w trucks moving Pot into the state and $$$ to WA, OR and Mex.
Beyond that, let them go to hell and make sure they do so without a penny of Federal money to aid their law enforcement on any level for any reason, no money at all for any Federal matching funds, no federal money for grants or universities, and so on, and so forth.
California wants to have their cake and eat it too, then eat your cake, my cake, and all he cake they can find. Screw them.
have a nice day
People who smoke dope drive slower dude.
For me, it started one night at a party when we ran out of grass and I volunteered to replenish the supply. I stepped into my Austin Healey 3000 roadster and sped down the freeway at around 90 mph, oblivious to the fact that the highway had not yet opened or even been completed. Miraculously, I hit the brake just short of a flimsy barrier perched atop a 40-foot chasm.
Roadside sobriety tests are not at precise as breathalyzers, and I foresee no end of lawsuits and juries that have become accustomed to the idea that evidence should be precise and completely objective with nothing that can be seen as subjective.
Considering how prevalent pot use is, I think it is absurd that more of an effort has not been made to find a way of determining if someone is impaired by it. The need for a reasonably prices and usable device already exists. I don't really know if the technology is cost prohibitive, or if research into it is being obstructed by the DEA and FDA.
If it was legal, the person could say they smoked it three days ago. The test can't prove otherwise.
On the sidewalk.
They don’t drive safer.
More like four to ten weeks. Good thing pot is nowhere as debilitating as alcohol and some other street drugs. But still, I don't see how law enforcement could deal with legally stoned people driving with any consistency. Just say you smoked last week. Hard to prove otherwise with standard tests.
Says you. I guess you haven't known someone injured by a driver on this.
In no effective way will it be taxed, or be regulated, because pot is not a complex, time consuming to produce, flavorful, difficult to duplicate pleasure that has to be made somewhere a long away by experts, like Scotch, and fine cigars, and Marlboro cigarettes.
Pot is like growing a tomato plant in a pot, or in the backyard, or in the hall closet, a couple of pinches in a piece of newspaper, a couple of puffs, and the deed is done, and unlike tomatoes, a single plant can give you and your social circle all you need for years.
If you raise taxes then black market sales and those people quitting because of it will of course mean total revenue will not go up.
I don't like pot, but the practical sides of this are plentiful. You'll get savings of law enforcement $$$ because one main gang income is removed. Jails will get less crowded, allowing for more violent criminals. Price will go down due plentiful supply and lack of criminal-related overhead, so use will likely not go down as with cigarettes. All this means the net balance for the state's books is likely to be quite beneficial as long as the tax is not at such a level as to recreate a black market (if legal, taxed pot is more expensive than criminal-supplied pot, then economics says people will buy the criminal stuff).
My big reservation has been mentioned, how do you scientifically tell if someone's stoned? We need that to be able to bust stoned drivers just like we do drunk ones. We also need to make sure that although pot would be legal, employers would retain the right to fire or refuse employment to pot heads. I sure wouldn't hire one.
Especially while drolling verbally on their cellphone and eating munchies at the same time. Don't give me any crap about pot smokers being safe drivers, my firend who works an EMS van sees far too many torn up stoned people for me to believe it. Yes, booze is as bad or worse, so what. The issue is all about California wanting something else to tax, anyway, not about freedom and the BS people love to spew. Stupid people making themselves more stupid and paying taxes to do so is the height of insanity.
Making pot legal just grants California more money to go further into the hole with, that's all. They'll be projecting revenues and borrowing against those projections as soon as one report says it looks like the proposition will pass.
What legal ramifications were imposed on the driver?
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