4 Ways Using Even Legal Marijuana Makes You a Second-Class Citizen

[lordsummerisle]

Marijuana is now legal in nine states constituting about one-fifth of the U.S. population, and medical marijuana is recognized in a total of 29 states. That means people in those states can possess and use marijuana without fear of criminal prosecutions (if they have a doctor's recommendation in the medical marijuana-only states).
But even in legal marijuana states, pot smokers face restrictions that in effect turn them into second-class citizens, unable to do things non-drug users or users of legally sanctioned drugs, such as alcohol, can do, or somehow punished for doing them.

https://www.alternet.org/drugs/4-ways-using-even-legal-marijuana-makes-you-second-class-citizen

[silverweb]

1. My landlord prohibits it.

Actually, the property management company does and it's standard in all their leases; the owner doesn't personally care. As site manager, I have a number of tenants who use medical cannabis, including one with MS who absolutely needs it for pain and muscle cramping/spasms. Myself, I vape a pure indica strain to go to sleep.

Privately, I have told these tenants that I will not enforce the rule because it's wrong to deprive people of their medicine. However, they have been cautioned about smoke drift and to realize that a tenant who does not approve could report it. They've been advised to keep all windows closed when smoking or, better yet, vape it or use edibles. I've called this the "No Smell, No Tell" workaround and so far, so good.

[lordsummerisle]

2. Wow, good on you...!

[silverweb]

5. Well, we'll see.

I think we're okay because we're a small complex and my property manager is a really good guy. He doesn't personally approve of cannabis but realizes it's medicine for many, and he basically said that "no smell, no tell" is okay with him. It's the corporate suits we have to keep it from, but they're mostly just paper-pushing money-grubbers and never come down here, anyway.

[vercetti2021]

3. Wish Texas would follow suit

Highly doubtful, but it would be good to help my depression.

[Ms. Toad]

4. Using marijuana is not legal in any state.

So the article is nonsense when it says,"That means people in those states can possess and use marijuana without fear of criminal prosecutions (if they have a doctor's recommendation in the medical marijuana-only states)."

Whether or not you agree with the law - and even if your state has removed state criminal penalties for marijuana use - marijuana is a controlled substance under federal law. That puts its use in the same legal category using heroin or cocaine. Until that changes, using marijuana is illegal - you are at risk for criminal prosecution (even if you have a prescription) and at for all consequences associated with engaging in criminal activity (such as the potential loss of employment, ban from gun ownership, parental rights implications, and loss of housing (even if not federally subsidized or not)). https://www.safeaccessnow.org/federal_marijuana_law (a bit dated, since it appears to be written before Trump took office and Sessions reinvigorated interest in federal prosecution of marijuana use).

Anyone who engages in civil disobedience by using marijuana needs to be aware of the consequences, and to be willing to accept the consequences - just like any other act of civil disobedience.

[lordsummerisle]

6. Federal enforcement just got a bit harder

https://www.dailymarijuanaobserver.com/single-post/2018/03/22/Medical-Marijuana-Protection-Clause-Included-In-New-Federal-Budget

[Ms. Toad]

7. Yup.

But that still leaves at illegal (subject to all of the consequences of engaging in an illegal activity - but for prosecution, i.e job, housing, etc ,)

[Calculating]

8. The feds seem to have bigger fish to fry than small time marijuana users/sellers in legal states

The remaining federal illegality seems to almost be a formality at this point. I really wish they would just get to changing the law already if they're going to ignore it. It's like they enjoy keeping it schedule 1 just to maintain potential power over citizen's lives.

[sl8]

9. What a curious system of government we have.

The people that make the laws make a law to withhold funding from the people that enforce the laws in order to prevent the people that enforce the laws from enforcing a previous law made by the people that make the laws.

What a simple and elegant system.

[lordsummerisle]

10. Well put