On Saturday, March 7, 2015 at 11:55:21 AM UTC-5, Shadow wrote:
On Sat, 7 Mar 2015 07:46:33 -0800 (PST), trader_4
wrote:

Of course the same can be said for you, Shadow, and especially Robert Green,
who just spewed all over the place. For the record, my initial post, that
some of you found soooooo extreme and controversial, was that before taking
more steps to legalize pot, it would be a good idea to see the results for
a few years in the states where it's already been done. My god, how
extreme!

It's pretty extreme to jail people and ruin lives and then
suddenly you realize you were wrong all along.
How do you make it up to someone who was knifed or raped(and
got AIDS) in a jail she/he should never have been in, in the first
place. How do you explain that to the families. "Well, he's dead
because he used a harmless substance"

You're sadly misinformed. Almost no one is in prison in the USA for
smoking a joint or having a small amount of pot. The ones in prison
are there for sale/distribution.


Please don't use the "it's against the law" argument. We save
that for the lower IQs.

It is against the law. The pot heads know the law and if they
don't follow it, it's their own fault. If pot is so important
to them, they can move to a state where it's legal. And as I
said above, those with a joint or
a small amount of marijuana, are not in prison. They wind up with a
fine or suspended sentence, even for repeat offenses.



It would be a fantastic idea to make possession of pot
something you pay a fine for,

It already is in most of the USA. In NJ it's a disorderly person
offense for a small amount, typically handled with a fine. To
wind up in jail here, you have to do more than that.


and does not go on a criminal record. I
know pot is far more harmless than breaking the speed limit,

Others would disagree.


so maybe
the fine could be a little smaller. But a fine, no more, until it's
proved to be harmless beyond all doubt.
[]'s

Again, from a practical standpoint that's where we've been here
in much of the country for a long time now. Even the remaining
states, where the penalties *can* be harsher, they rarely are.
Unless you're wailing away on the cop, flipping a finger at the
judge, a habitual offender, it's hard to get jail time on possession
of a small amount. Prisons are full, we aren't putting these offenders
there. I'm also OK with changing the laws in the remaining
states so that it's just a fine on the books for possession of small
amounts.

On 03/07/2015 02:07 PM, Shadow wrote:
On Sat, 07 Mar 2015 13:14:02 -0800, T wrote:

On 03/07/2015 08:54 AM, Shadow wrote:
It would be a fantastic idea to make possession of pot
something you pay a fine for, and does not go on a criminal record. I
know pot is far more harmless than breaking the speed limit, so maybe
the fine could be a little smaller. But a fine, no more, until it's
proved to be harmless beyond all doubt.

Here is an idea. Just pay sales tax on it.

Where's the fun in that ? Got to make it sound like
punishment. A 5 dollar fine. Pronto. Ouch, that's gotta hurt.

Drug abuse (that includes alcohol) is stupid.
It is stupider try to force other not to.

Not stupider, impossible.
[]'s


Not impossible. Just not anywhere I would want to
live. Impossible in a free society

"trader_4" wrote in message
news:1730137e-4e0e-4667-9193-

Baloney.

In addition to being the Chief Junk Scientist, you're going into meat
cutting too?

http://www.lung.org/associations/sta...marijuana.html

Tobacco vs. Marijuana

This is like your other fact-deficient posts in a nutshell. The key words
in your quotation below are "when smoked in equal amounts." That almost
never happens in the real world. Pot smokers almost never smoke 2 packs a
day of joints. They'd be too stoned to ever get to pack # 2. So right away
the data is suspect and its authors are making a false comparison.

Like tobacco smoke, marijuana smoke contains cancer-causing chemicals.
There are
33 cancer-causing chemicals contained in marijuana. Marijuana smoke also
deposits tar
into the lungs. In fact, when equal amounts of marijuana and tobacco are
smoked,
marijuana deposits four times as much tar into the lungs. This is because
marijuana
joints are un-filtered and often more deeply inhaled than cigarettes

Another reader sharper than you would notice that it says marijuana contains
carcinogens but it never quite makes the leap to saying it causes cancer.
You'd think they'd make that claim if it were true instead of implying it,
just the way Fox News presents the "news" via innuendo. I suppose being
such a Fox fan, you've become easily bamboozled by "almost" facts and weasel
wording (like Bill O'Reilly saying he had "seen nuns being killed" but
actual meant "seen PICTURES of nuns being killed.")

It's important to remember that not all cigarettes are filtered and will
coat the lungs as equally as an unfiltered joint.. However lots of people
use water pipes and vaporizers and don't smoke unfiltered joints just
because they are too harsh.

Aside from that, research shows that marijuana actually may help reverse the
carcinogenic effects of tobacco and improve lung health. According to a
study published in Journal of the American Medical Association in January
2012,

Marijuana does not impair lung function and can even increase lung capacity.
Researchers looking for risk factors of heart disease tested the lung
function of 5,115 young adults over the course of 20 years. Tobacco smokers
lost lung function over time, but pot users actually showed an increase in
lung capacity.

But wait, there's more! A chemical found in marijuana stops cancer from
spreading. Cannabidiol (CBD) may help prevent cancer from spreading,
researchers at California Pacific Medical Center in San Francisco reported
in 2007.
Cannabidiol stops cancer by turning off a gene called Id-1, the study,

http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/18025276

published in the journal Molecular Cancer Therapeutics, found. Cancer cells
make more copies of this gene than non-cancerous cells, and it helps them
spread through the body. The researchers studied breast cancer cells in the
lab that had high expression levels of Id-1 and treated them with
cannabidiol. After treatment the cells had decreased Id-1 expression and
were less aggressive spreaders.

More on the study in the AMA journal referenced above:

Marijuana Smoking Not Linked to Chronic Breathing Problems Web MD
http://www.webmd.com/lung/news/20120...thing-problems

As more states legalize marijuana -- 16 states and the District of
Columbia now allow its medical use -- experts have worried that the kinds of
lung damage caused by cigarettes could also be brought on by pot smoking.
Indeed, cigarette smokers in the study saw their lung function drop
significantly over 20 years.

But that didn't happen to people who only smoked marijuana.

In fact, the study found that the lung function of most marijuana smokers
actually improved slightly over time.

There are lots and lots of other benefits, from treating glaucoma to PTSD:

http://www.businessinsider.com/healt...rijuana-2014-4

A 2006 study, published in the journal Molecular Pharmaceutics, found that
THC, the active chemical in marijuana, slows the formation of amyloid
plaques by blocking the enzyme in the brain that makes them. These plaques
are what kill brain cells and cause Alzheimer's.

Another study shows pot might be helpful in controlling MS.

Marijuana may ease painful symptoms of multiple sclerosis, a study
published in the Canadian Medical Association Journal in May suggests.

Jody Corey-Bloom studied 30 multiple sclerosis patients with painful
contractions in their muscles. These patients didn't respond to other
treatments, but after smoking marijuana for a few days they were in less
pain.

It's been shown to help people endure the painful treatments for HepC:

A 2006 study in the European Journal of Gastroenterology and Hepatology
found that 86% of patients using marijuana successfully completed their Hep
C therapy, while only 29% of non-smokers completed their treatment, possibly
because the marijuana helps lessens the treatments side effects.

It's being used in Israel to treat Parkinson's:
Recent research from Israel shows that smoking marijuana significantly
reduces pain and tremors and improves sleep for Parkinson's disease
patients. Particularly impressive was the improved fine motor skills among
patients.

Medical marijuana is legal in Israel for multiple conditions, and a lot of
research into the medical uses of cannabis is done there, supported by the
Israeli government.

So while there may be *some* harm - almost every medicine known to men
causes unwanted side-effects in *some* patients, the current prohibitions on
marijuana seem to be doing much more harm then good, IMHO.

--

Bobby G.

"Shadow" wrote in message
...

stuff snipped

Effects of pot last a few hours and can give you a positive
test for a month (3 months in the case of tests done on hair).
Effect of alcohol last up to 16 hours, and the next day your
test will be negative.

This issue came to the Supreme Court because drunk drivers realized that by
stalling the blood test for just a few hours, they could reduce their
blood-alcohol level to below the legal limit. Prosecutors wanted to be able
to immediately draw blood if drivers refused but the 4th Amendment
(unreasonable search and seizure) demands a warrant to do so. The SC agreed
so many states have set up on-call DA's and judges to get warrants ASAP in
such cases (which often occur late at night or on weekends). The
difference in the testing methodology makes claims like those we've seen
here highly suspect. Was the driver actually impaired even though he tested
positive for THC? Better testing methods will be required, obviously, that
give some sense of how impaired the driver was.

So depending on who is doing the study, results
can be misinterpreted, with a strong negative bias toward cannabis use.

Exactly. If you look at any number of "pot is evil" studies at a critical
level, pot gets blamed for things it has very little to do with. Kids have
been wrapping their cars around trees long before pot smoking became so
widespread. That's why *reliable* studies look at large numbers of subjects
and gross trends and not single outlier incidents that make great headlines
but not such good science.

Well, I only have my experience. I have never seen a traffic
accident caused by marijuana in around 20 years of ER. I've treated
hundreds of victims of accidents caused by alcohol.
Not much in the way of statistics, since there are at least 4
times as many heavy drinkers as there are pot smokers where I live ...

Hard to be sure! (-: People don't readily confess to pot use (or even gun
ownership) to people they don't know. I find that pot and guns are alike in
some strange ways. "Rednecks" and "lib loons" both smoke pot and both own
guns and in the privacy of their own homes, that should be OK with everyone.
Sadly, it's not. The gun grabbers and the pot-banners want to dictate terms
to others.

but it does show a trend.

And it's a trend supported by statistics. You can always find cases that
don't match the trends but when I was a police reporter, the horrible
accidents were almost always due to a drunk driver. I remember one of my
first fatalities when the uninjured driver of a car that killed a family of
five came up to me at the scene slurring the words "I'm SO sorry" and
desperately wanting me (or someone, I suppose) to forgive him. It took
everything I had to keep from punching him. The smell of lots of alcohol on
someone's breath still makes me very edgy.

"Although high blood THC is a fairly good indicator of being under the
influence, it is not infallible. Chronic users who develop tolerance
to THC may in some cases drive safely with very high blood levels of
THC. In one study, a subject with severe attention deficit disorder
could not pass a driving test while straight, but performed well with
a blood level of 71 ng/ml. No similar phenomenon is known for
alcohol."

That's why I tend to trust controllable simulator tests where as many of the
random factors as possible can be controlled. Those tests show time after
time that pot smokers rarely reach the speeds or intoxication of drunken
drivers. In the Joseph Beers case cited elsewhere, the jury deadlocked on
whether Beers was impaired by pot. Apparently experts testified because he
was such a regular smoker that he likely wasn't intoxicated, which typically
slows people down.

He opted to plead rather than face a second trial for the sake of the
families involved. So neither a judge nor a jury actually found him to be
impaired and obviously the jury had enough doubt to end the case in a
mistrial.

So if he wasn't actually impaired, he was just one of a 1,000 teens a year
that kill themselves or their friends by reckless driving and pot had very
little to do with the outcome. But it makes a great headline for the
pot-banners.

That's how I'd plead if I smoked pot......high tolerance ....

Beers might have skated using that defense had he gone through a second
trial. I'd never cop a plea to anything, FWIW, because it terminates any
appellate rights. Sadly, the current legal system is set up to bully people
into taking pleas using the threat of unreasonably long jail times if
convicted. Most of them are too poor to afford the legal fees it takes to
fight and get stuck with an overworked public defender. They invariably
advise their clients to plead even when the cases against them are weak
because they don't have the resources to fund a proper trial.

If you insist on a trial you can take advantage of lots of things that a
plea denies you. Witnesses move, evidence disappears, prosecutors retire or
move on, and, if you're innocent, the actual perpetrator could get caught
and confess. Fans of "Breaking Bad" know that if you have enough $, you can
even buy someone to confess! (-: The more time between arrest and
conviction, the more likely you are able to find exculpatory evidence or
have the charges dropped. With what happens in many of today's commercially
run prisons, it's best to stay out of there as long as you possibly can even
if you ARE guilty. You could end up with an Anally-Injected Death Sentence
(AIDS).

I've been looking for the case transcript of the Beers file, but haven't
found it. I would be interested to read the actual expert testimony that
managed to hang the jury before Beers copped a plea and whether they
actually had a blood THC level (or found other intoxicants). As you
probably know, most other serious intoxicants are metabolized very quickly.
Maybe he copped to THC because he had worse things in his system. Would be
nice to know if they did a hair-follicle test and a wide tox screen. Lots of
times that never happens.

I read where one guy shaved all his hair (body and head) to avoid the
follicle test not knowing the prosecutors merely had to wait until it grew
out just enough to yank out a follicle. The only way for such a strategy to
succeed (I'm guessing) is to bikini wax your entire body. OUCH! (-:

--
Bobby G.

"Shadow" wrote in message
wrote:

stuff snipped

The WashPost just ran a survey that said 80% of the people asked (in a
survey about GMOs) said that food containing DNA should all be labeled.
That says it all. With all the misinformation about THC that's been put
forth in the last few decades, it's no wonder the vox populi is vacuous.

They made Margareth Thatcher put "does not contain DNA***" on
fish fingers, which due to de-regulamentation, were legally made of
wood celulose.
[]'s

*** actually, a dumbed-down version of that. I think it was
"does not contain fish". There was also one for the chicken, which
contained no traces of chicken.

There was a Chinese dumpling maker that was using recycled cardboard instead
of meat to make the fillings and we he was caught and forced to use real
meat, the customers all complained and wanted the old recipe dumplings back.

--
Bobby G.

On 03/08/2015 08:01 PM, Robert Green wrote:
Better testing methods will be required, obviously, that
give some sense of how impaired the driver was.

Why don't they just enforce the Reckless Driving statues
that already have on the books? Who cares what they
are high on or if they were sober and texting while driving?

On 2015-03-09, T wrote:

Who cares what they are high on or if they were sober and texting
while driving?

That would allow waaay too much potential revenue to be ignored.
Besides, if there's an accident, the LEs gotta spend their own
resources figuring out who's at fault. Easier to catch --and
charge($)-- 'em before they actually do something negative.

nb

On 03/09/2015 11:02 AM, notbob wrote:
On 2015-03-09, T wrote:

Who cares what they are high on or if they were sober and texting
while driving?

That would allow waaay too much potential revenue to be ignored.
Besides, if there's an accident, the LEs gotta spend their own
resources figuring out who's at fault. Easier to catch --and
charge($)-- 'em before they actually do something negative.

nb


Way too much of this is about revenue. The government
is the most greedy entity on the face of this earth.

Instead of harassing the citizens to make more money
by turning LE's into highway robbers, just make your case to
the public to raise sales taxes. And if turned down, here is
an idea, learn to live within your means.

On 03/09/2015 10:57 AM, T wrote:
On 03/08/2015 08:01 PM, Robert Green wrote:
Better testing methods will be required, obviously, that
give some sense of how impaired the driver was.

Why don't they just enforce the Reckless Driving statues
that already have on the books? Who cares what they
are high on or if they were sober and texting while driving?


Or cold medicine, or sleep deprivation, or fiddling
with the radio, or driving while angry, or on
(legal) designer opiates, yada, yada, yada.

Prove the case that public safety was endangered
and prosecute it!

Cops now have cameras on their cars now a days. Just
film the idiot! "Look-e-here judge, this is where he
swerved and hit a curb, this is were he almost hit a tree,
here is where he stopped to take a leak in the middle of
the road, here is where he drove down the center line,
here is where he hit a cat. Okay, scratch that, that was
a public service."

The way I look at it, you can be just as big an
idiot as you want, just keep it to yourself and
don't endanger anyone else.

-T

I was about to say driving while "****ed", but "****ed"
is an expression for drunk in England. The English
have an interesting swear word vocabulary that
trumps ours by about five fold.

On 2015-03-09, T wrote:

I was about to say driving while "****ed", but "****ed"
is an expression for drunk in England. The English
have an interesting swear word vocabulary that
trumps ours by about five fold.

I love Limey lingo. Who else but the British would turn "****" into a
male oriented swear word and use it incessantly? Use that term in the
US and any females within earshot will cut yer balls off!

nb

On 03/09/2015 11:44 AM, notbob wrote:
On 2015-03-09, T wrote:

I was about to say driving while "****ed", but "****ed"
is an expression for drunk in England. The English
have an interesting swear word vocabulary that
trumps ours by about five fold.

I love Limey lingo. Who else but the British would turn "****" into a
male oriented swear word and use it incessantly? Use that term in the
US and any females within earshot will cut yer balls off!

nb


Or "fag" for cigarette

On Mon, 09 Mar 2015 10:57:56 -0700, T wrote:

Why don't they just enforce the Reckless Driving statues
that already have on the books?

Reckless driving requires willful and wantonness.

BTDT in a '68 GTO