Let’s look at this logically though. The reason for the differing penalties, determined by amount (greater than an ounce being felony), is to target dealers, giving them a harsher penalty. In this case however, despite the amount, the offender, Mr. Nelson, is CLEARLY not a drug dealer. Everyone knows this. So, despite the large quantity (1.5 lbs), it was most definitely intended for personal use. Therefore the penalty is fair.

2.) The notion that pot should be legalized, but the gov. should “tax the shit out of it.” If you legalize marijuana, then make it outrageously expensive, you’ve solved NOTHING. A black market will still exist for the drug, where it will be sold for lower prices. Much like there is an illegal cigarette trade, between states, where the cancer-sticks are smuggled over state lines to be sold, illegally, and a marginally more afordable price. Legalizing pot, and then taxing it, solves nothing. I think the best option would be simply to decriminalize it. Still technically illegal, but posession only being a civil infraction (like a traffic ticket) rather than a misdemeanor. In other words, keep it illegal, but drastically lower the penalties. I think a $20 ticket would be much more appropriate then jail time and $thousands in legal costs.

In the beginning there’s a lot of suckin and blowin, but in the end you ain’t left with a house.

-Willie Nelson joke.

I accept being busted.

“Capn Bobby Stout done found me out.”Jerry Hahn (I heard a rumor from a well-placed source that Jerry Hahn is returning to WSU to teach again.)

If they started policing people’s off-duty drinking habits, people might start seeing how little the Drug War has to do with public health.

That, of course, will never happen.

This is not true at all of alcohol, where the data is unambiguous. One of the points that is being made in Colorado and other places is that if people are going to use something recreationally, whether it be cannabis or alcohol makes a difference. Cannabis is safer.

If a parent is under the influence, slower reflex’s, ability to think properly, how can they look after children.”

Just substitute the word “alcohol” for the word “dope” and the same rings true….

And yet alcohol is not only legal, we advertise it on tv!

Mary, I suppose excessive use of anything pleasant or palliative (sugar, filet mignon) can produce the ‘flooding’ effect in the hippocampus, and the attendant discomfort when the substance is omitted. I would maintain that the threshhold for dependence on marijuana must be higher than most people could physically or financially afford to reach, or the concept of marijuana withdrawal would not be even be controversial. I’ve also noticed that some people are more prone to addiction than others, whatever the substance (the phrase “addictive personality” had been bantered about, but I suspect it’s more physical).

But as I’ve said, I’ve never met a marijuana addict. A fairly modest claim, but an accurate one. I’ve known more alcohol and cocaine addicts than I’d like.

One of the side-effects of cannabis prohibition is that people use other things they can get their hands on more easily and alter their consciousness anyhow. I knew some people that used to huff inhalants, no matter that it is probably the worst thing you can do to yourself, but it’s what they had access to.

Let people have cannabis under controls that maintain good quality and oversight, at least. Medical marijuana works very well. I would hope that nobody would oppose it, but obviously some do, for no rational reason.

This, people, is the “drug warrior” mentality on display–they KNOW what you’re thinking, and you’re doing. It doesn’t matter what you say (or do). If you question the Drug War, you’re on drugs. If you refuse to wee-wee or submit a hair sample, it’s because you’re hiding your habit.

George Lundberg nailed it: Guilty until proved innocent.

But your broad-bush, binary-universe perceptions are not reality. Prescriptions medications can be quite as dangerous as socially disapproved drugs, and I am reminded that (just ONE example) that Carl Sagan was a “pothead parent” (care to ask Dorion Sagan if his father was an irresponsible dope fiend?). There are plenty of ordinary people who have tried the dreaded weed, and some are still using it.

My point was the personal responsibility demands abandoning stupid rationalizations. Inhaling burning particles ain’t great for your lungs, and anyone else’s. Unattended honey can kill an infant; responsible parents look out for their children. Smoking spleef may be good for limited types of concentration tasks, but I wouldn’t recommend hitting the freeway.

Anything you put in your system has potentially negative consequences. An self-honest person will be wary of those, and take them into account, whether it’s the effects of corporate ’speed’ (coffee) or other psychoactive substances.

And, BTW, I have yet to meet a marijuana “addict.”

The answer is simple. Each time we would hear the song we would remember one word. After enough times … well … I know the entire lyrics of Alice’s Restaurant!

;^)

Let me just say that not even a Dominionist Christian has been willing to stake a position against the sacramental use of cannabis.

http://cannablog.wordpress.com/2006/09/06/letter-to-christopher-ortiz/

Let’s see if anyone wants to pick that one up and run with it.

Forcing that child to use pot to alter behaviour, is a dumb bitch. She should lose that child forever. I wonder if her boyfriend or husband allowed that to happen. If so, he’s just as guilty. A friend didn’t agree took her picture, so outraged. That was the right thing to do.

Potheads who smoke around children, is moronic? Do tell what your meaning?

Pothead parents are poor examples of parents. Because of some knothead belief like Kirk Muse said, freedom is ingesting anything a body desires.

The problem with Kirk’s thinking, those dope fiends don’t stay home. They tend to drive. They can act out stupidly in the presence of others being under the influence.

If a parent is under the influence, slower reflex’s, ability to think properly, how can they look after children.

When people get addicted by all the drugs their taking, who do they turn to. The gov to save them, and make a body, healthy and normal again. But drugs alter mental abilities, so they argue how taking drugs isn’t so bad. Few admit their an addict. That’s the first drug lie, they believe.

Mrage, that’s moronic on so many levels, I’m not sure where to begin.

A woman who blows smoke into an infant’s lungs is an idiot, period.

If adult citizens are not free to choose for themselves what goes intotheir own bodies–even in the privacy of their own homes, then the word freedom: is meaningless, empty and hallow.

SAN FRANCISCO, California — A Montana mother who allowed her 18-month-old baby daughter to inhale from a marijuana water pipe was properly convicted, but should not have to spend five years in jail, a U.S. appeals court ruled Friday.

Jessica Durham was photographed allowing her toddler Michala to suck from a marijuana water pipe, also known as a bong, in 2004 by a friend upset about the activity.

“Ms. Durham allegedly remarked that smoking improved Michala’s appetite and left Michala lethargic and mellow – a manner she found consistent with her own experience smoking marijuana,” Judge Louis Pollak of the U.S. 9th Circuit Court of Appeals wrote in summarizing the case.

In 2005, a lower court sentenced Durham to five years in prison for unlawful marijuana distribution. She appealed both the conviction and the sentence.

In its ruling Friday, a three-judge panel of the 9th Circuit upheld the conviction but said the sentence exceeded the applicable federal law which calls for punishment of no more than two years in prison.