Done With Pot, Moving On To Heroin

[SoCalMusicLover]

I've grown tired of smoking pot, but the latest announcement makes my decision to try something new, that much easier.

I'm trading in my bong for a needle! Apparently Heroin is no more dangerous for me than marijuana. I've smoked pot long enough to know it's downsides, so I'm sure that making the step to heroin will be easy.

Normally when I smoke too much marijuana, I get lethargic, sometimes wanting to take a nap. Anybody know what will happen if I shoot up too much heroin? Are the side effect minimal? Am I going to get the munchies, or feel the urge to play Dark Side Of The Moon on my stereo?

3 decades later, marijuana has finally become the gateway drug for me that "they" always claimed it would be. I'm so glad the government is reassuring me that shooting up each day with heroin, is no more dangerous than smoking a couple of bowls.

[JaneyVee]

1. You can give me your remaining pot.

I'll take it off your hands.

[Warren DeMontague]

3. you should try something safe, like alcohol.

Drink enough and maybe you'll experience a minor side effect like, oh, driving your car into a tree, having sex with Ted Nugent, choking on your own vomit, coma, or death.

Regular use may lead to some minor discomfort, you know, liver cirrhosis, that kind of thing. And particularly if you stop, pesky annoyances like hallucinations, delerium tremens, heart palpitations and again, death.

Stay away from dangerous marijuanas, though. That crap is TERRIBLE for you.

[Major Nikon]

10. Everybody knows the gateway drug of Texas is beer!

-- Kinky Friedman

[Warren DeMontague]

12. It would be a gateway drug if it didn't make it so hard to actually get through the gate

Without crashing into the gateposts.

[SCantiGOP]

11. You are evil

Having sex with Ted Nugent? They're ain't enough of any drug to cause that.

[Revanchist]

39. This documentary proves that it's fine.

[KT2000]

4. this is crazy

so many older people rely on marijuana for health reasons - lots of conservatives too. They are trying to cope with chronic illnesses and it helps relieve symptoms. This is just cruel.

[Warren DeMontague]

15. The DEA isnt going to let go of marijuana prohibition without a fight, obviously.

But rescheduling -or, preferably descheduling entirely- can also be done through congress or the executive branch.

[Mendocino]

5. Well you know that the marrywwwanna

will turn you socialist, next you'll be agreeing with "Mexicans, jazz musicians and damn commies. If you are high on the weed and someone tells you to bark like a dog, You will do it!" Oh wait.... Reefer Madness was like 80 years ago, never mind.

[SoCalMusicLover]

6. More Of The Same From Next Administration

Now that she defeated Bernie, I doubt we'll hear a single word about this issue from Ms Clinton ever again.

[Warren DeMontague]

9. The important thing is that California pass measure 64.

If the entire west coast is legal, there's very little anyone can do about it at that point. 50 million Americans not even including Colorado will be living in states where it is legal, regulated, taxed and available for consentng adults.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

14. In about 2018, British Columbia (and all of Canada) will have legal cannabis. . . nt

[Warren DeMontague]

17. I get the feeling sexy shirtless Justin Trudeau* is dragging his feet on it, though.

Which doesnt need to be the way things are done. OR managed to go from passing recreational legalization to limited recreational sales via medical dispensaries in less than a year.

*By the way, that's what I'm calling him from now on.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

20. Yes, commissions do take time for hearings & reports. I think Canada wants

I think Canada wants to do it really well, with the best combination of options they can find. The commission will probably report early 2018 and legislation might pass late 2018.

There is likely to be an election in 2019, four years after 2015, but it could be as late as 2020 or it could be earlier if the Liberals are popular in 2018, say, and want to lock that in for another 4 years.

I'm pretty sure the Liberals will want to have the whole deal sealed well before the next election. I don't think they want to run after the commission report and before legislation because then it makes the election too top heavy with the cannabis issue, too much like a referendum on it.

Alternatively they might call the election before the commission reports.

[Warren DeMontague]

21. I'm not gonna tell Canada how to run their affairs, of course.

However, I would take issue with any implication- not that you're doing that, of course- that Oregon isn't doing it "really well".

The rollout has been quick, safe, effective, widely praised and perhaps most importantly, very beneficial to our state's budgetary bottom line.

[Bernardo de La Paz]

22. Colorado seems to be going smoothly too. . . nt

[kag]

24. I live in Colorado, and am familiar with the issues, and I would say it's going VERY well here.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

23. For the first time in my life

I'm growing and smoking legally in Oregon.

[Warren DeMontague]

26. I indulge pretty infrequently, myself, at this point.

But you bet I celebrated legalization. I've been waiting a long time for it.

[WHEN CRABS ROAR]

16. Don't bet on it

The genie is out and it's not going back into the bottle.

I'm proud to have helped release it for over fifty years of just saying no I won't stop smoking and those hundred brick loads going to Canada helped in the effort too.

[Calculating]

7. Gonna take up smoking cigs

Considering that they're not a scheduled substance they must surely be safe. Just look at how attractive the people in cig adds are.

[pscot]

8. Harry J. Anslinger warned you this would happen

[Bernardo de La Paz]

13. Almost everybody who uses heroin used milk as a child. Beware of the white liquid gateway drug.

Got milk?

[Glimmer of Hope]

18. I live in the Baltimore and know this is what happens when you do heroin:

Seems pretty harmless. Just be careful that you don't fall into the street.

[subject]

19. Oxygen

is a gateway drug.

[colsohlibgal]

25. Having Heroin And Pot Classified The Same Is Ludicrous

We need to get real about both of them. Pot is no worse Han alcohol and Heroin is something else altogether, it can ruin your life in a hurry.

It is an option in my end of life thoughts though. How better to boogie on out of here if you have some warning, party it up for awhile then take enough to do the job.

[6chars]

29. Cocaine is only schedule 2.

[SammyWinstonJack]

31. So can alcohol ruin one's life in a hurry. Don't think pot holds that distinction.

[Warren DeMontague]

27. pot leads to eating, napping, more intense sex, and occasionally rambling philosophic speculation

HOW CAN ANYONE SAY IT'S NOT A MENACE?

[RobinA]

34. Don't Forget

the occasional uncontrollable laughter at things that some people would not consider funny. Gasping for breath, tears running out of eyes, evidence of just having too much damn fun. Can't have that. This world is serious business.

[Warren DeMontague]

35. Aye, It can also lead to people not taking 'authority' seriously enough

That's the crux of the biscuit, right there, I think.

[Ilsa]

28. I'm gonna take up hopping train cars.

I'm old and slow, but why should that stop me?

[SoCalMusicLover]

30. Thanks For All The Great Suggestions

I now feel comfortable smoking a carton of cigarettes, drinking a case of beer, snorting a few lines of coke, before finishing it off with a syringe of heroin.

And if anybody asks, I can maintain that I'm no worse off than if I had smoked a joint before bed.

[Warren DeMontague]

33. Who's lying? It's in the platform. Hopefully we'll get some traction, especially if CA passes

measure 64.

But the DEA is not exactly what you would call a disinterested party on the question of marijuana prohibition; in fact, it's what pays most of their bills. Hardly surprising that they'll find some inane way to try and not change the status quo. And they're not beholden to the Democratic Party platform, unfortunately.

There's tremendous institutional inertia in DC on the drug war, above and beyond everything else. I learned something else recently; in the last year of alcohol prohibition there were more raids and arrests than in all the prior years combined, apparently.

Prohibitionists don't let go easily, even when they know the game is up.

[Eleanors38]

42. Good post. The modern WOD was a means of controlling and jailing vast numbers of blacks, and

disrupting anti-war/lefty activists. This was all enhanced by Gingrich's placing pot and the WOD Front & Center in its strategy to both tar liberals and to cow the Democratic Party as Soft on Drugs©, and all the while the Party murmured (along with MSM) about how the WOD is just a "hot button issue" (code for it ain't that important, and I wish the bully would go away). The RW's strategy worked like a charm: Democrats got on board, and most black leadership went along with the plan. The GOPers got a cheap win and a big one, and left Democrats whimpering in tacit agreement.

The WOD remains one of the great, deep and transformational issues in the modern political era, but most folks are still wrapped up in that great Soma outlook guaranteed to end all intelligent conversation:. Economic determinism.

The way to Democratic Party overhaul and change is throgh the WOD. Expect strong resistance for years to come.

[RobinA]

36. Don't Rule Out

exciting combinations, however. For instance, I hear tell that pot mixed with an opiate and smoked can cause very pleasant side effects. This is just hearsay, of course, but I've learned that you can smoke this concoction, go to a concert of a band you don't really like, say Kansas, and have a damn good time just sitting on the floor listening to the music. Great relaxation, but without the dullness that can come from just the opiate. I hear.

[raven mad]

37. I'm literally overwhelmed that MY candidate agreed with them.

As IF, Hillary.............. as IF.................

[jtuck004]

38. White people making money, black folk going to jail. And this administration appointed this guy.

One would think we could make progress after 80 years of blatant racism, but the folks in charge must enjoy watching white folks build big business, while extorting fines and destroying lives of black people. Because that is precisely what is - continuing - today.

And with the recent clarification in their law, WA state made it safe for their white donors at political fundraisers, while black folks are being arrested outside for the same thing....in law.

Hell of a job there, folks.

The Failed Promise of Legal Pot
New laws on marijuana were supposed to boost tax revenues and free up cops to go after “real” criminals. But underground sales—and arrests—are still thriving.
...
Asking to be identified only by his initials, D.C., one of the young men on the corner, breaks it down. Business has fallen since the law passed, but enough people think they can score a bargain, or simply don’t trust the shiny new stores, to keep things moving. The police know about it—they always have—and they still bust dealers. Sometimes they do sweeps, D.C. says, referring to a well-publicized raid downtown. The cops are definitely more relaxed about it, he says, but sometimes they still show up and bust whoever’s around.

A few days later, the corner is empty. The reason is a Ford SUV, painted black, blue, and white, idling at the curb a few feet away; a police officer’s arm hangs out the window as he surveys the faces passing by. A few hours later he is gone, and the crowd is back. Mostly, the crowd is black. Mostly, the cops who will bust them are white. Mostly, on the corner it’s hard to see how anything was changed by a movement that aimed to change everything.
http://www.theatlantic.com/politics/archive/2016/05/legal-pot-and-the-black-market/481506/

“In many ways the imagery doesn't sit right,” said Michelle Alexander, associate professor of law at Ohio State University and author of The New Jim Crow: Mass Incarceration in the Age of Colorblindness in a public conversation on March 6 with Asha Bandele of the Drug Policy Alliance. “Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses, dreaming of cashing in big—big money, big businesses selling weed—after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed. Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing?
http://www.alternet.org/drugs/michelle-alexander-white-men-get-rich-legal-pot-black-men-stay-prison

[Egnever]

40. Both of those articles seem short sighted to me

it's like complaining the mob was still being targeted after prohibition ended.

I have been smoking pot for over 30 years and I have only recently bought it legally. The experience buying it legaly is a much better one than I ever had in my previous 30 years.

all these years later the mob is out of the liquor business and there are very few arrests for alcohol trafficking is that a bad thing?


Are you suggesting they should stop arresting street vendors when it is perfectly legal to go into a store and buy weed that is guaranteed to be not only good quality but the amount you buy is actually what you receive?

Sorry not buying the poor drug dealer line even though I participated in one way or another myself for nearly 30 years.

[jtuck004]

44. "...seem short sighted..." Well you do have that privilege. Clearly.

More of the same...

Black folk make up around 11% of Seattle's population, yet

"Black people are arrested at four times the rate of whites for dealing pot, even though whites are up to 32 percent more likely to sell the drug.
--Here.

Not only are they vastly outnumbered, by white folk who are more likely to be selling, they are arrested at 4 times the rate of white folk. Further, the new rules make legal only certain activities, and to join the club you need to be relatively well off, who own property or can get their hands on it on either side of the state.

Guess who that describes in Seattle - black or white folk? Try it in Spokane, not even close.

One of the wealthy or connected white cabal - the organization - the new "mob" in your words - growing 4000 or 10,000 or whatever plants which might sometimes be covered in powdery mildew or infested by insects, killed with pesticides that you would likely not use on your vegetables...they are perfectly legal if their paperwork is in order. Those "safe" products are in the stores.

The mob has been insulated by these new laws that put them in a position to profit from the rest of us.

They can go to cocktail parties, political fundraisers, the movies, out to dinner- no worries, mate.

That "poor drug dealer" characterization - she/he sells a gram to someone, jail. That was quick, eh? Black kid has to hide in a stairwell, white kid walks off down the street - but neither has the money to join the club. All they are trying to do is make it.

The wealthy white majority has made laws that target people of color who don't - who can't - act in the pre-approved white manner. For people who don't have the money to join the club.

It seems pretty open and shut, and not that hard to understand if one wants to.

I really don't give a shit what the useless bureaucrat ass hat in DC said, pot ain't heroin. The pres needs to fire his stupid ass. The fucking real estate agent running against Clinton is smarter than him.

Stopping this purposeful vengeance against people of color is the thing to do. Now.

[Calculating]

41. Meh

Why don't the drug dealers get permits and legally get in the game? Instead they just wanna deal illegally without permits and then cry racism when they get arrested.

[Rex]

43. Forget that man! Take up skydiving!

You want a RUSH? No drug on earth like adrenaline!

[Tsiyu]

45. "the death and destruction connected to heroin and opioids is indeed unprecedented and horrific"

said Chuck Rosenberg, acting head of the DEA earlier this year.


In the past two weeks, 20 people in Milwaukee County alone have died from heroin overdose.

http://www.jsonline.com/story/news/crime/2016/08/11/fentanyl-deaths-spike/88580884/

Now the DEA wants to spread the very irresponsible, dangerous lie that heroin and cannabis are the same thing?

Why don't we just say that leeches and antibiotics are the same thing? Or that drinking antifreeze is the same thing as chugging a beer?

Let's just completely fuck up our kids by lying to them. We don't need scientists or medical doctors or pharmaceutical researchers to tell us what's safe and what's not; we'll let a bunch of greedy, corrupt thugs LIE to our kids.

Everyone in the United States of America should be highly and acutely ashamed and outraged that a taxpayer-funded, government agency in the year 2016 is telling the public that heroin and cannabis are in any way, shape or form similar substances.

Evil always wins in 'Murica, tho. So keep spreading the lies, DEA.

When the kids outnumber your fucking goon supporters at the polls, they will defund your asses so fast you won't have time to say "forfeiture this", and then you lying losers can all stand in the unemployment lines and reflect on how you helped destroy communities all over this nation, you lowlife, lying sacks of shit.

Lie some more. We're used to it from you jackbooted gangbangers in the DEA.