Legalization of Marijuana Thread (Medicinal Possibilities, Business, Etc.)

[Howdyphillip]

What's the stereotype of a redneck partying with his drug of choice? Is he sitting in the back of his Chevy pickup rolling a joint or popping open a cold beer? How about a big city dweller riding around in the back of a car? Is the stereotype he's slamming back a brewsky or smoking a fat one?

Um... both

[S John]

Yea as a West Virginia native, possibly the most rural state east of the Mississippi, marijuana is just as popular there as anywhere I've ever lived. I'd say almost certainly more popular than it was in DC where everyone has a government / drug testing job. Fun fact, in some parts of West Virginia a joint is called a 'pig dick'.

[Ramsay Gimp]

Sturn,

Willie Nelson's face is next to "pothead" in the dictionary, and he's as country as they come. An urban vs rural divide seems more appropriate for stimulants, with coke/ex being more associated with the city and meth being the choice for god-fearin country folk.

Weed and alcohol are pretty universal

[Shryke]

Seriously. Weed and especially drinking just have different stereotypes about their (over)consumption when it comes to rural vs urban.

[Sturn]

Seriously. Weed and especially drinking just have different stereotypes about their (over)consumption when it comes to rural vs urban.

So you agree with me when you tweek the stereotype, after having become so upset with my initial example. Hilarious.

[Shryke]

So you agree with me when you tweek the stereotype, after having become so upset with my initial example. Hilarious.

No Sturn, you miss the point as always.

Urban and Rural and Suburban residents are all known for, say, smoking up about equally, it's just the stereotypes about how they go about that smoking that change.

You were trying to make some stupid point about how weed was an urban issue. Seemingly to tie this into some sort of larger political divide.

[Sturn]

You were trying to make some stupid point about how weed was an urban issue. Seemingly to tie this into some sort of larger political divide.

No I wasn't. Thanks for telling me what I was trying to say. What I actually was trying to say is pretty clear when I first said it. That post you found hilarious and won't quit about. You are the only one who seems to have an issue or confusion over it. Again, it's a stereotype to some. Half of the two stereotypes even are grounded in some empirical data linked above. Again, let it go, master of what is a stereotype and what is not.

[awesome possum]

Here's a first, and a sign that legalization is headed in the right direction

US Rep. Dana Rohrabacher ® of California says he backs legalizing recreational marijuana, the first Republican member of Congress to publicly support such a shift.

The longtime libertarian congressman from affluent Orange County told the Monitor on Monday he would "probably" endorse a 2016 California referendum to permit marijuana use by the general public, should it qualify for the ballot.

“If they put it on the ballot that they would legalize it, I’d probably support that ballot measure,” Representative Rohrabacher said in a phone interview. Elaborating on the issue nationwide, he adds: “By providing the federal government the right to control personal behavior, it’s totally contradictory to what our country is all about.”

[aceluby]

At this point the biggest hurdle for a full on legalization movement to catch fire is the issue w/ banks and a cash only business. It creates a 'mob' like atmosphere dealing with large amounts of cash that is both dangerous and stupid. Until the feds get rid of that blockade, or the first bank starts allowing credit card, bank, and other electronic transactions; it will only slowly move in the direction it currently is. But I'm guess that if it does get legalized in CA that this roadblock will topple fairly quickly.

[Sci-2]

The Legal Cannabis Business: A Talk with Mike "Zappy" Zapolin

How do people who want to start small independent cannabis business get one in motion?

The most important thing is to get educated. It’s so early right now that a little bit of knowledge can put you at the forefront of the industry. My advice is to simply get involved — now. It’s like getting into the oil, automobile, or the computer industries early. It didn’t really matter what you were doing, or what part of the industry you were in. If you were early, you did really well.

How challenging are the legal hoops that a potential cannabis business has to leap through?

The business challenges are really not very significant. It’s important to comply with the laws of the individual state that you’re in. But as long as you’re doing that, setting up a business, getting rolling is not difficult at all. The question is simply whether you want to handle the actual product, or if you want to support the industry. If you’re not growing product and handling product, there’s little barrier to your business being successful, if you want to handle product, grow or process it, there’s some minor hoops to jump through related to legal, but they’re well worth the effort.

[Balefont]

The Legal Cannabis Business: A Talk with Mike "Zappy" Zapolin

I think the author exceedingly underestimates the various challenges to this business and some of the tangential businesses. Banking and taxation when dealing with the product, at this time under current federal law, is still a huge hurdle to overcome. Also, how each state eventually decides to roll out the laws of legalization is a huge unknown and will directly impact how you structure your business plan.

Yes, Colorado is opening up their laws to allow any adult to own and operate a pot shop starting in October but the other shops (which had been dispensaries) got to be first. There's a ton of cronyism to navigate and networking and still no guarantee that just anyone will be able to get a piece of the action from the beginning once state markets become available.

It's also very expensive to get started and have fun getting a business loan before the drug is rescheduled.

[Sci-2]

Hmmm, had a reply that was devoured and digest into oblivion. Anyway, thanks for the criticisms of that article Balefont - since I'm in a state that will hopefully legalize weed in 2016 I'm curious how the business end of things will ultimately end up going.

=-=-=

How Neuroscience Reinforces Racist Drug Policy

But as the late comedian Bill Hicks once asked with winking incredulity, “Why is marijuana against the law? It grows naturally upon our planet. Doesn’t the idea of making nature against the law seem to you a bit … unnatural?”

This unfortunate situation could be understood as a violation of a civil right. The current illegality of marijuana could be framed as still-racist scapegoating, but we suffer from the shared delusion that once enough time has passed we are exculpated from history. We often do not debate the legality of marijuana in terms of civil rights. Multiple cultures have known about this plant for thousands of years: It is a medicine as much as anything else. We have subsequently generated, using clinical studies, the awkward concept of "medical marijuana." This is a clumsy semantic compromise to justify access to marijuana by citizens who suffer from a wide assortment of ailments, from nausea to glaucoma to muscular dystrophy.

Much like in the case of craniotomy, the seemingly objective science of neuroimaging can be used to justify a moral argument for or against legal marijuana—to show it as a legitimate medicine, or as a danger to your health. But the trouble is that the argument against legalizing the drug cannot be disentangled from decades of racist policy.

[Sci-2]

Cannabis Rx: Cutting Through the Misinformation

Meanwhile, as a medical doctor and botanist, my aim has always been to filter out the cultural noise surrounding the genus Cannabis and see it dispassionately: as a plant with bioactivity in human beings that may have therapeutic value. From this perspective, what can it offer us?

As it turns out, a great deal. Research into possible medical uses of Cannabis is enjoying a renaissance. In recent years, studies have shown potential for treating nausea, vomiting, premenstrual syndrome, insomnia, migraines, multiple sclerosis, spinal cord injuries, alcohol abuse, collagen-induced arthritis, asthma, atherosclerosis, bipolar disorder, depression, Huntington's disease, Parkinson's disease, sickle-cell disease, sleep apnea, Alzheimer's disease and anorexia nervosa.

But perhaps most exciting, cannabinoids (chemical constituents of Cannabis, the best known being tetrahydrocannabinol or THC) may have a primary role in cancer treatment and prevention. A number of studies have shown that these compounds can inhibit tumor growth in laboratory animal models. In part, this is achieved by inhibiting angiogenesis, the formation of new blood vessels that tumors need in order to grow. What's more, cannabinoids seem to kill tumor cells without affecting surrounding normal cells. If these findings hold true as research progresses, cannabinoids would demonstrate a huge advantage over conventional chemotherapy agents, which too often destroy normal cells as well as cancer cells.

=-=-=

Cannabis Tincture

How to make cannabis tinctures in as little as one hour. Some people take months to do this but the longer you leave it the more chlorophyl you will extract. You can increase the amount of bud for a higher dosage. 4 grams of bud - 2oz of alcohol. Theoretically you can add up to 8 grams of bud - 2 oz of alcohol before you reach the saturation point of alcohol and it really only takes a few minutes to extract cannabinoids with alcohol. Those who have experience making Cannabis oil will know this.

[Sci-2]

Yeah, it definitely seems dubious when science is filtered through political lenses.

Admittedly that's possibly the only time most people care about science...

=-=-=

The Government Wants to Buy 12 Acres of Marijuana — for Research

Calling all pot farmers: Uncle Sam is looking to buy.

An arm of the National Institutes of Health dedicated to researching drug abuse and addiction “intends” to solicit proposals from those who can “harvest, process, analyze, store and distribute” cannabis, according to a listing posted Tuesday night on a federal government website.

[Balefont]

Fuck that. Why aren't they studying the benefits?

Meanwhile, one of our cancer patient's lymphoma is in remission four weeks into a six month chemo treatment.

[Suttree]

The reasons for this are many, but for me this validates all medical marijuana laws. Whether or not people have just replaced painkillers with weed as means of getting high, or they have found legitimate pain relief with weed as opposed to Vicodin or OxyContin, doesn't matter. You can't OD on herb.

[Sci-2]

Fuck that. Why aren't they studying the benefits?

Meanwhile, one of our cancer patient's lymphoma is in remission four weeks into a six month chemo treatment.

Probably no corporate donors from the pharmaceutical and/or for-profit prison industry are interested in medical benefits.

eta: is to are

[Suttree]

Unsurprisingly many leading Anti-Marijuana Academics Are Paid by Painkiller Drug Companies

Take, for example, Dr. Herbert Kleber of Columbia University. Kleber has impeccable academic credentials, and has been quoted in the press and in academic publications warning against the use of marijuana, which he stresses may cause wide-ranging addiction and public health issues. But when he's writing anti-pot opinion pieces for CBS News, or being quoted by NPR and CNBC, what's left unsaid is that Kleber has served as a paid consultant to leading prescription drug companies, including Purdue Pharma (the maker of OxyContin), Reckitt Benckiser (the producer of a painkiller called Nurofen), and Alkermes (the producer of a powerful new opioid called Zohydro).

Kleber, who did not respond to a request for comment, maintains important influence over the pot debate. For instance, his writing has been cited by the New York State Association of Chiefs of Police in its opposition to marijuana legalization, and has been published by the American Psychiatric Association in the organization's statement warning against marijuana for medicinal uses.

[Sci-2]

What were drugs? - The war on drugs was always a war against an idea. But ideas have a shelf-life, too, and this one has lost its potency

When the US President Richard Nixon announced his ‘war on drugs’ in 1971, there was no need to define the enemy. He meant, as everybody knew, the type of stuff you couldn’t buy in a drugstore. Drugs were trafficked exclusively on ‘the street’, within a subculture that was immediately identifiable (and never going to vote for Nixon anyway). His declaration of war was for the benefit of the majority of voters who saw these drugs, and the people who used them, as a threat to their way of life. If any further clarification was needed, the drugs Nixon had in his sights were the kind that were illegal.

Today, such certainties seem quaint and distant. This May, the UN office on drugs and crime announced that at least 348 ‘legal highs’ are being traded on the global market, a number that dwarfs the total of illegal drugs. This loosely defined cohort of substances is no longer being passed surreptitiously among an underground network of ‘drug users’ but sold to anybody on the internet, at street markets and petrol stations. It is hardly a surprise these days when someone from any stratum of society – police chiefs, corporate executives, royalty – turns out to be a drug user. The war on drugs has conspicuously failed on its own terms: it has not reduced the prevalence of drugs in society, or the harms they cause, or the criminal economy they feed. But it has also, at a deeper level, become incoherent. What is a drug these days?

[Sci-2]

States That Legalize Medical Marijuana See Fewer Painkiller Overdoses

As the number of patients who receive opioid prescriptions to treat non-cancer pain has increased in the past decade, so too have the number of overdoses. A new study, however, finds that states that legalized medical marijuana between 1999 and 2010 had 25% fewer annual overdose deaths than the rest of the U.S.

More specifically, the research, published in the Journal of the American Medical Association Internal Medicine, found that overdose deaths from opioids decreased by an average of 20% one year after the law's implementation, 25% by two years, and up to 33% by years five and six.

The study comes at a time when the CDC has warned that opioid overdoses are "skyrocketing." Since 1999, deaths from prescription painkillers have increased 400% among women and 265% among men.