DEA to reclassify Marijuana from schedule I to schedule III

[TC215]

Funny weed jokes aside, I will say that this is not all without problems. We had a guy up in Rockford stab and bludgeon 4 people to death after consuming what he said was tainted marijuana that made him psychotic. In California, a woman stabbed her boyfriend 108 times, killing him, after consuming marijuana that had an extremely elevated THC content and it triggered a psychotic episode.

I took care of a patient around the time that marijuana was recreationally legalized in IL who had consumed almost an entire can of edibles (patient had dementia and thought they were candy) and was brought into the hospital fully psychotic and it took a LONG time for it to even sort of abate. The combo of dementia and a huge amount of THC was pretty bad.

All that to say, "Reefer madness" while the butt of more than a few jokes, is a real actual thing and while Marijuana does have some definite benefits...like many a substance that is consumed for medical and recreational purposes, the dose determines whether it's a medicine or poison. It's not for everyone. Much like alcohol or tobacco.

It will be awhile before we know the long term effects of today’s more potent marijuana. This stuff isn’t the same weed from the 60’s (or even early 2000’s).

[SouthNarc]

It will be awhile before we know the long term effects of today’s more potent marijuana. This stuff isn’t the same weed from the 60’s (or even early 2000’s).

Yeah and that's an issue I have with marijuana being categorically legal. We really don't know.

https://kffhealthnews.org/news/artic...y-unregulated/

[Cool Breeze]

Yes, I live in a state in which marijuana is legal for recreational use at the state statute level. I find the smell of burning marijuana annoying. Marijuana absolutely doesn’t need to be a schedule 1 drug like PCP and heroin. Even meth and fentanyl are schedule 2 drugs.

Interesting that we experienced the same thing yet have come to different conclusions. To each their own.

Seeing what I have seen - I would have increased them all up and not brought marijuana down.

[mtnbkr]

Out there in East NM, maybe. Glad to hear it's working somewhere.

Here in Albuquerque, seems there's 3-5 weed 'dispensaries' every block and on every corner, and the streets/infrastructure/homelessness/etc is all still a hot mess. It's just a hot mess with more weed smoke now.

I can't remember if it was NM or AZ, but a couple years ago on our trip out west, we stopped at an intersection in a small town and there was a weed store on one corner and a pottery store on the opposite corner. The juxtaposition of two "pot" stores made me giggle after a long day on the road.

Chris

[mtnbkr]

I don’t have a problem with it being legal but I wish the public consumption was actually policed. I just got back from Vegas and was so sick of it smelling like weed everywhere. It’s the same thing here after 3 pm. All the main streets reek of it.

The one and only time I was in Vegas, in 2022, it smelled like piss and desperation to me.

Chris

[WobblyPossum]

I can't remember if it was NM or AZ, but a couple years ago on our trip out west, we stopped at an intersection in a small town and there was a weed store on one corner and a pottery store on the opposite corner. The juxtaposition of two "pot" stores made me giggle after a long day on the road.

Chris

I once pulled over a car in Albuquerque and called out the location to the rest of the team as “XX Street, the corner with the dispensary across the street from the other dispensary.”

[WobblyPossum]

Interesting that we experienced the same thing yet have come to different conclusions. To each their own.

Seeing what I have seen - I would have increased them all up and not brought marijuana down.

I never felt like my work in law enforcement impacted my community any less than during the two-three years I was working drugs. I truly felt that I was making absolutely no difference. The war on drugs as we’ve been fighting it has been an abject failure. Drugs are cheaper, more potent, and more readily available than they’ve ever been. Take Fentanyl for example. The last data I was briefed on indicated it costs the cartels approximately one cent to produce a fentanyl pill. These pills are selling for a little more than a dollar a piece at the wholesale level when you buy them by the 1,000 count (a “boat”). You can interdict a load of a few hundred thousand pills and the financial impact to the bad guys is practically nonexistent.

I’m at the point where I’d rather see them all legalized and taxed with the tax revenue being used to support drug court and treatment programs to help people manage their addictions better. Locking up drug users seems to make even less of a difference than locking up the dealers.

[SouthNarc]

I never felt like my work in law enforcement impacted my community any less than during the two-three years I was working drugs. I truly felt that I was making absolutely no difference. The war on drugs as we’ve been fighting it has been an abject failure. Drugs are cheaper, more potent, and more readily available than they’ve ever been. Take Fentanyl for example. The last data I was briefed on indicated it costs the cartels approximately one cent to produce a fentanyl pill. These pills are selling for a little more than a dollar a piece at the wholesale level when you buy them by the 1,000 count (a “boat”). You can interdict a load of a few hundred thousand pills and the financial impact to the bad guys is practically nonexistent.

I’m at the point where I’d rather see them all legalized and taxed with the tax revenue being used to support drug court and treatment programs to help people manage their addictions better. Locking up drug users seems to make even less of a difference than locking up the dealers.

I felt the same way after I retired in 2011.

This shit doesn’t work…fuck it…legalize ALL of it. I could care less what people put in their bodies.

Last weekend 13 years later I teach an EWO in San Francisco in a martial arts school that straddles the Mission and the Castro.

Dystopian zombie shithole.

Watching a dude squat and shit on the sidewalk literally within 10 feet of me and also watching a girl shoot up in broad daylight on a busy street corner, tells me that NONE of the legalization, decriminalization, tolerance, compassion…..whatever you want to call it….thats not working either.

Giving a homeless drug addict the wood shampoo and locking them up sure as fuck wasn’t compassionate.

The public also didn’t have to sidestep around addicts shooting heroin and piles of human shit either.

Progressive policies aren’t “progress” IMO.

[WobblyPossum]

I felt the same way after I retired in 2011.

This shit doesn’t work…fuck it…legalize ALL of it. I could care less what people put in their bodies.

Last weekend 13 years later I teach an EWO in San Francisco in a martial arts school that straddles the Mission and the Castro.

Dystopian zombie shithole.

Watching a dude squat and shit on the sidewalk literally within 10 feet of me and also watching a girl shoot up in broad daylight on a busy street corner, tells me that NONE of the legalization, decriminalization, tolerance, compassion…..whatever you want to call it….thats not working either.

Giving a homeless drug addict the wood shampoo and locking them up sure as fuck wasn’t compassionate.

The public also didn’t have to sidestep around addicts shooting heroin and piles of human shit either.

Progressive policies aren’t “progress” IMO.

You’re entirely right, as usual. The answer isn’t cracking down on everything and locking everyone up and the answer isn’t going all Lord of the Flies and not enforcing anything. There shouldn’t be tolerance for public use and there shouldn’t be tolerance for shitting in the public square. I’ve long been of the opinion that I didn’t much care what the motivation was behind someone’s crime. If you rob a store to feed a drug habit, is it any different than if you do it just for kicks? We’ve got laws against things like shitting in the street. Let’s enforce them. I don’t care if you’re doing it because you’re mentally ill and self medicating with drugs or if you’re just homeless and didn’t feel like finding a nearby McDonald’s to crap in.

[SouthNarc]

You’re entirely right, as usual. The answer isn’t cracking down on everything and locking everyone up and the answer isn’t going all Lord of the Flies and not enforcing anything. There shouldn’t be tolerance for public use and there shouldn’t be tolerance for shitting in the public square. I’ve long been of the opinion that I didn’t much care what the motivation was behind someone’s crime. If you rob a store to feed a drug habit, is it any different than if you do it just for kicks? We’ve got laws against things like shitting in the street. Let’s enforce them. I don’t care if you’re doing it because you’re mentally ill and self medicating with drugs or if you’re just homeless and didn’t feel like finding a nearby McDonald’s to crap in.

Man I think this is where the majority of the country is on EVERYTHING.

I think MOST regular people think to themselves “Yeah okay….we could have been doing better. But THIS shit sure isn’t working either”