March 18, 2015

"The government always used to say, 'We don't know the real bad effects of marijuana. We've never been able to test it.'"

"Well, I'm a walking guinea pig. I've been testing it for well over 50 years. I came in fifth on Dancing With the Stars at 76. This old stoner waltzed right by professional athletes because of the marijuana."

Said Tommy Chong. But dancing is more physical than mental. Let's check the guinea pig's mind:

What's your take on the current legal-weed situation in Washington, D.C.?

Typical Washington. You can smoke it, but you can't buy it and you can't sell it. It's so stupid. These guys are so lame. It's a money game. It's all about a paycheck for Washington, and the rich people are getting people in office that'll keep everybody's mind on everything else but raising taxes.

So you think that this legislation was written in a way to distract people?

Yes, totally. Looking at the political situation, it's self-serving for so many people, including the so-called righteous right. People are just doing things just for money.
And: "Marijuana is a perfect medicine. It replaces so many dangerous psychotic medicines that we're giving kids to calm them down. It's a safe sleep aid. It's been proven to kill cancer cells, and that alone should be put on a whole different pedestal. And you can see the problem there: Because it does cure cancer, it threatens all of these expensive cancer procedures, like the chemotherapy and all of these drugs that aren't covered by insurance and that cost people a ton of money."

It's all about money... rich people and their money... it's all rigged....

98 comments:

Robert Cook said...

"It's all about money... rich people and their money... it's all rigged...."

Well, of course. You reiterate Chong's (elided) observations as if you think he's a little baked, as if it's not self-evidently the way the world has always worked.

Gusty Winds said...

Dave's not here.

Cheech and Chong are hilarious. But they made their money portraying stoners as lazy dumbasses.

There's some truth in the comedy.

tim in vermont said...

Cosmic Robert.

Ann Althouse said...

"Well, of course. You reiterate Chong's (elided) observations as if you think he's a little baked, as if it's not self-evidently the way the world has always worked."

You are, if not baked, Cook(ed).

Robert Cook said...

If I am baked or cooked, it's all natural, as I've never been a pot smoker.

Ann Althouse said...

Pot is natural, man.

Fritz said...

So is botulism.

Fernandinande said...

I felt a lot safer when he was in prison.

iqvoice said...

Bleach kills cancer cells, but I don't recommend you drink it.

Ann Althouse said...

So is confused, fuzzy thinking.

sparrow said...

The long term health effects are well known; skrinkage of frontal lobes, increased lung cancer risk , increased risk of some psychiatric disorders etc. In some ways it's safer than alcohol but chronic use still has risks.

sojerofgod said...

What do ya'll expect?

Just as I don't go to an auto mechanic for my health care, I don't look to a Comedian for public policy making. Having celebrity to thank for giving him a megaphone doesn't make him smart.
That said, I believe the war on drugs has a large 'money thing' component especially for law enforcement. It is the source of much of the abuse of due process and asset forfeiture that has become little more than highway robbery by cops.
Putting poor people in prison for much of their lives over drugs should be a national disgrace.
I could go on but I have to go to work now to support the rest of us.

Anonymous said...

Always funny when a lush looks down her nose at the stoners, as if being a drunk is any better than being a burnout. (And yes, if you need wine with your meal then you are a drunk.)

rehajm said...

It's all about a paycheck for Washington, and the rich people are getting people in office that'll keep everybody's mind on everything else but raising taxes.

Well those rich people have done a piss poor job of that. Must have been due to all that pot.

J. Farmer said...

There are moneyed interests vehemently opposed to marijuana legalization. Mainly the pharmaceutical industry and the police and prison unions. However, I think the main obstacle to legalization has always been plain old fashioned paternalism. A lot of parents, I think, still fear that Reefer Madness may one day get ahold of their children.

Known Unknown said...

it's self-serving for so many people, including the so-called righteous right

Just when I thought Tommy was waking (and baking) up about the true core of any marijuana legislation is more tax revenue for the gubmint, he decides to double-down on tired liberal bonafides.

Dude, it's not the libertarians that are getting in the way of you buying, selling, or smoking.


Known Unknown said...

Cook is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in turkey bacon.

He professes to like no one in power but is clearly not an anarchist.

Hmmm.

MathMom said...

I sat next to a guy on a plane from Houston to Boston who had a very sad tale. His son had been a major stoner and finally had a psychotic break and spent 7 years in a mental hospital because of it. He lost several relationships because he couldn't leave pot, even after a couple of hospitalizations.

Lots of things are natural, like dog poo, but we don't smoke or ingest them.

Today's pot is much stronger than the pot of the 60's. Playing with your sanity doesn't seem like a great idea to me.

Laslo Spatula said...

I prefer my psychotic breaks to come naturally.

I am Laslo.

Roughcoat said...

Haven't smoked pot in over 35 years. Some of the pot I smoked back in the day was unbelievably potent. So much so that I suspected it was laced with chemical enhancers, soaked in PCP or some such. When I read that the pot of today is much stronger ... well, I don't know what to think? How could it be "much" stronger than the pot I sometimes smoked? It must be incredibly, outrageously, I-see-God strong. Someone please explain this to me.

tim in vermont said...

And yes, if you need wine with your meal then you are a drunk. - madisonfella

Hey! I suggest we all declare madisonfella queen and have her tell us all how to live in every detail of our lives!

Known Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
BarrySanders20 said...

From the cover of The Philosophy Book:

Over his own mind and body, the individual is sovereign.

Eric the Fruit Bat said...

People who think they've won the debate over same-sex marriage by evidence of leather queens prancing at a gay pride parade are no less tedious.

Quaestor said...

That someone can reach 76 years and still think like a backward 14-year-old says something, doesn't it? If Chong wants to attribute his terpsichorean prowess to pot, the he ought to credit his steel-trap reasoning powers to the weed as well.

Quaestor said...

Someone please explain this to me.

Horticulture and hybridization. When you were smoking pot was literally a weed. It grew without any cultivation to speak of. Today there are dozens of cultivars that are as much of product of selective breeding and cultivation as any maize or wheat. What was a weed is now a crop.

Quaestor said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
garage mahal said...

So is confused, fuzzy thinking.

How would you know?

Fernandinande said...

sojerofgod said...
Putting poor people in prison for much of their lives over drugs should be a national disgrace.


It is. Barbaric is as barbarian does.

MathMam said...
His son had been a major stoner and finally had a psychotic break and spent 7 years in a mental hospital because of it.


A few hundred years ago he'd probably be blaming witchcraft for the fact that his kid is crazy.

Quaestor said...

There was a time in my life when a stoner had a certain amiable charm... a little slow, a little distracted, mostly harmless. Now they're just boring as hell.

Quaestor said...

"And yes, if you need wine with your meal then you are a drunk."

madisonfella never fails to impress.

gerry said...

It's been proven to kill cancer cells

Stoner science.

David said...

Just returned from a week in San Francisco. The streets there are teeming with evidence of the negative impact of drugs. Alcohol is one of those drugs, and it is legal. Somehow a large part of our population has become convinced that since we have one harmful legal drug that we can't make illegal, we should create more of the same category.

madAsHell said...

Venice Beach! You pay some guy $30 bucks to write you a prescription, and then go next door to buy some pot.

The flotsam and jetsam of such a policy is scattered under the palms along the beach.

Someone please explain this to me.
One toke, and you are done.

buster said...

Garage at 9:07.

Very clever and funny.

Robert Cook said...

EMD said:

"Cook is an enigma wrapped in a riddle wrapped in turkey bacon."

Ggggggg...(turkey bacon!)

And:

"He professes to like no one in power but is clearly not an anarchist."

I am not an anarchist. I am also not an authoritarian. I believe in law and order and a civil society. But I believe in a society that is actually run by and for the people of that community, and I believe the law should serve all equally. In other words, I am a true-blue, Apple pie American...Richie Cunningham!

Our present government is neither representative of nor answerable to the people, and the law does not serve all equally. Both parties serve the same interests--the Wall Street/Financial Services/Corporate/Military/Police State complex--and "Democrat" and "Republican" are merely different brand names for the same product. And, obviously, the wealthy and powerful minority use the law to benefit themselves and to oppress and subjugate the majority.

This imbalance in power and privilege is not unique to America; it is the nature of human societies, as is the ever-present contention between the privileged and powerful minority and...everyone else.

Paul said...

Easy way to see if pot damages the mind (or body.)

Research and find people from the '70s that took IQ test, became life long potheads, and give them the same IQ test again.

Should not be hard to do. Maybe I can get the government to give me a 20 million buck Grant for that, after all the spend that kind of money on researching the lives of sand fleas.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

MathMom said...
I sat next to a guy on a plane from Houston to Boston who had a very sad tale. His son had been a major stoner and finally had a psychotic break and spent 7 years in a mental hospital because of it.


The causality is unclear here. Addiction is a mental illness, elements of which can predate any exposure to drugs.

Everyone knew kids in school who were at risk for addiction of some form or the other well before they started drinking or smoking. Like many here I tried every drug I could get my hands on. No addiction, including to the ubiquitous alcohol.

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

Robert Cook said...
Our present government is neither representative of nor answerable to the people, and the law does not serve all equally. Both parties serve the same interests--the Wall Street/Financial Services/Corporate/Military/Police State complex--and "Democrat" and "Republican" are merely different brand names for the same product. And, obviously, the wealthy and powerful minority use the law to benefit themselves and to oppress and subjugate the majority.


It is hard to argue with this but the voters must take much of the responsibility for this state of affairs.

MathMom said...

AReasonableMan -

It's about a 4-hour flight from Houston to Boston. I was convinced by the long story that causality was confirmed.

YMMV.

Fernandinande -

A few hundred years ago he'd probably be blaming witchcraft for the fact that his kid is crazy.

Whatev.

Anonymous said...

Cheech: 'Marijuana been very good to me!'

Brando said...

I don't doubt that marijuana is bad for you--the same health effects of cigarettes and then some. But I also don't want government deciding for us what we can and can't eat, smoke or ingest, where it doesn't intrude on others. If someone wants to eat Cheetos all day, chase it with a shot of Everclear mixed with Pepsi, then do a line of coke off an unwashed hooker while playing high stakes poker with their gay lover, and cap it all off by cutting themselves for fun, then who am I to stop them?

Let your freak flag fly--your rights should include the right to make decisions I never would.

J. Farmer said...

@Brandon:

"I don't doubt that marijuana is bad for you--the same health effects of cigarettes and then some."

This is not exactly true. Plus there are alternative forms of consumption to smoking (e.g. vaporizing, edibles).

Anonymous said...

Cheech seems immature overall, with light-hearted, but sloppy, loopy, and corrupted thinking. I've noticed this tendency in people my age (60's) who still smoke pot regularly. Its as though they havn't changed a bit since 1973. There's a story, here.

Roughcoat said...

Quaestor:

Thanks. I need to clarify. I understand about horticulture and hybridization and all that. This is not new. I had friends in the 70s who were raising marijuana scientifically, as a crop. What I meant to say is: I don't know how I could get any more stoned on the pot of today than I got on the pot of yore. I mean, the pot of yore got me incredibly stoned. I don't see how it is possible to get any higher than I did, short of leaving this plain of existence entirely and permanently.

sparrow said...

Roughcoat,

There is a limit to the number of neuroreceptors you have in your body that can be triggered by THC and the other similar chemicals in pot. Once they are all filled up turning it up to 11 won't matter. After that it just about duration and drug clearance and that varies a lot.

jr565 said...

That's a pretty dangerous claim to
Make, that it cures cancer. Let me see the research.
And I rember the old song Legalize it by Peter Tosh.
And he says its good for asthma. As someone who has asthma and tried put a few times I can say it did nothing for asthma.
The very premise that you would coat your lungs with smoke and that it would somehow be good for asthma where the problem is difficulty breathing.
Look you want to get baked, fine. Don't pretend like its also magical medicine

Mountain Maven said...

Go to Colorado and see the ill effects of legalization.

or

Read this:
http://www.wsj.com/articles/william-bennett-and-robert-white-legal-pot-is-a-public-health-menace-1407970966

Revenant said...

Arguing that marijuana isn't bad for you is the wrong approach. The correct approach is: it is nobody else's damned business if it is bad for you or not.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

Fallacy of composition. Granting the fact that a life of pot smoking has not been harmful to Mr. Chong tells us very little about whether pot smoking would likely be harmful for the U.S. population as a whole.

Brando said...

"This is not exactly true. Plus there are alternative forms of consumption to smoking (e.g. vaporizing, edibles)."

It seems every day there are conflicting studies on the long and short term health effects of smoking pot, but I guess my overall point is it's probably bad for you but even so, it's up to you to decide what to do with your own body. Same as cigarettes, soda, Cheetos...

Unknown said...

I am not a prude by any means. In my day I probably lost more weed in my couch cushions than an average stoner smoked. By my mid thirties I guess I realized that it was an obstacle to living a normal life and gave it up. In hindsight I can see that it made me delusional and slightly paranoid.

If you want to smoke, spark up scooby. Let's just not pretend it's harmless. Or worse yet that it will make you a better dancer.

lgv said...

Thank you sparrow. Now that we are on a marijuana legalization kick, the actual health consequences have kind of disappeared.

Many of the same people who like to take a toke are the same ones who would like to outlaw smoking.

I think the burning of weed has health risks that are being ignored. We should be encouraging the consumption of cannabis by sugar free, gluten free, organically certified brownies.

William said...

The exact and opposite reaction to a Reefer Madness is Cheech.....I suppose pot has some beneficial and some harmful side effects, but it seems that both sides are more righteous than scientific in their examination of the subject..

garage mahal said...

Don't pretend like its also magical medicine

Why do you care what someone else thinks about pot?

cubanbob said...

The difference between alcohol and MJ is that most people most of the time that drink don't drink to the point of getting buzzed. On the other hand who smokes MJ not to get buzzed? In both drugs the majority of users do not get addicted or suffer other ill effects for the most part but for those who do, it is very damaging. As for MJ and mental health conditions, it can be devastating for those who are bipolar or bipolar and schizophrenic.

William said...

If you're at high risk for Parkinson's Disease, can you get a medical prescription for untaxed cigarettes.

ken in tx said...

I suspect that the idea that marijuana was good for asthma came from the fact that it was once sold in drug stores for that purpose. I worked in an old fashioned druggist/proprietor owned drug store. The owner kept a large variety of antique patent medicines. For old time sake I guess. Nobody ever bought them. One of them was asthma cigarettes, containing cannabis and other herbs. Another was Doughboy prophylactic powders. Lydia Pinkham's pills for female troubles. Carter's Little Liver pills.

luagha said...


Both Trayvon Martin and the gentle giant Michael Brown were high on pot when they foolishly attacked an armed individual and got themselves killed for it.

The lazy stoner is one common stereotype, but the paranoid aggressive and sudden psychotic break is the one hiding underneath.

(Trayvon Martin, at 158 lbs, tested at 1.5ng/ml of psychoactive in the blood, indicating that he had likely toked several hours ago or late the last evening. Michael Brown, at 296 lbs, tested at 12 ng/ml of psychoactive in the blood. He had likely toked within the hour, and was high as a kite.)

garage mahal said...

The difference between alcohol and MJ is that most people most of the time that drink don't drink to the point of getting buzzed

LOL. Okee.

William said...

Coffee apparently has lots of beneficial side effects. Masturbation is a prophylactic against prostate cancer. Blueberries have more antioxidants than broccoli. Mono sodium glutamate is harmless. So is garlic. Researchers keep hoping to find something nice to say about garlic and something bad to say about mono sodium glutamate, but their efforts were to no avail. God plays dice with edibles and bad habits and the universe.

Anonymous said...

To those people who say pot and other drugs should be legal, do you also say pot, or drinking, and driving should be legal?

jr565 said...

garage mahal wrote:
Why do you care what someone else thinks about pot?

Because one of the argumetns for its legalization is that its so good for you. It's medicine that can cure cancer!
People who have cancer might actually believe that it will.

garage mahal said...

Tons of people think praying to imaginary sky gods cure cancer too.

jr565 said...

garage mahal wrote:
Tons of people think praying to imaginary sky gods cure cancer too.

praying to sky gods is not illegal. And people arent' saying we should legalize praying to sky gods because it cures cancer.
If it involves changing a law, lets have some truth in advertising.

garage mahal said...

Maybe praying should be illegal then. Zero evidence it works, and some people actually think it does, and might try it.

jr565 said...

"Maybe praying should be illegal then. Zero evidence it works, and some people actually think it does, and might try it. "
Maybe it works as well as pot does.
But regardless there is no law against praying. If you want to pass a law lets see how far it gets.
There is a law against pot being legal. If you want to pass the law that legalizes it, lets hear the argument
The idea that it cures cancer is not such an argument.

jr565 said...

California has a huge drought.
One of the causes are pot farms.

http://herald-review.com/news/national/marijuana-farms-worsen-california-drought/article_f672186f-3d1c-5ccd-8faf-e968ccb66e7d.html

So, doesn't cure cancer, contributing to record CA drought.

Known Unknown said...

I don't doubt that marijuana is bad for you--the same health effects of cigarettes and then some. But I also don't want government deciding for us what we can and can't eat, smoke or ingest, where it doesn't intrude on others. If someone wants to eat Cheetos all day, chase it with a shot of Everclear mixed with Pepsi, then do a line of coke off an unwashed hooker while playing high stakes poker with their gay lover, and cap it all off by cutting themselves for fun, then who am I to stop them?

That's great but when you SOCIALIZE the cost of medicine. Guess what? Everything is everyone's business.

The ACA and related works have the potential to become the greatest folly of any government program ever.

Why do you think Nanny Bloomberg wanted to ban 32 ounce sodas? For health reasons? Hell no, treating someone else's diabetes costs so damn much.

Robert Cook said...

"California has a huge drought.
One of the causes are pot farms."


Is it one of the causes, or does the use of water to irrigate the crops merely exacerbate the shortage of water?

I don't see how farming anything can cause droughts; droughts are caused by a lack of renewable fresh water, (rain, snow, springs, rivers, fresh running water of whatever kind).

In other words, it's the current climate conditions causing California's drought.

Robert Cook said...

"The difference between alcohol and MJ is that most people most of the time that drink don't drink to the point of getting buzzed."

Oh, please. The reason most people drink, even in moderation, is to get buzzed.

Blue@9 said...

I would think that a person who had a psychotic break was likely to have it regardless of pot or alcohol.

I prefer weed over liquor 9 times out of 10. Why? For one thing it's less physically impairing. I've stumbled home drunk, weaving down the sidewalk, but weed doesn't jellify my limbs like that.

The other thing is duration: getting drunk is a serious time commitment. Once you're drunk, you're not getting sober for hours and hours. Getting stoned is a 1-2 hour commitment at most (assuming you smoke. Eating a THC edible can be an all-day thing, which is why I also avoid edibles).

garage mahal said...

Every single reason to continue pot prohibition for adults is complete and utter horseshit. Powerful money wants it that way, so it is.

Brando said...

"Maybe praying should be illegal then. Zero evidence it works, and some people actually think it does, and might try it."

Praying does work, though--partly due to the power of suggestion, and partly because the rote practice can reduce heart rates and stress.

Brando said...

"Oh, please. The reason most people drink, even in moderation, is to get buzzed."

When considering the "drug" effect in certain products, it's not just whether there is ANY desire for a buzz, but what that desire is relative to other reasons to use it. For example, someone drinking a single glass of wine with dinner may in some small way want a buzz (which is why they're not drinking some nonalchoholic wine or juice) but for the most part is drinking it for the taste. Someone drinking even a single shot of Everclear is not likely doing it for the taste.

Where does pot fall into this? I'd say largely buzz, maybe some part asthetic or social interaction, and some part needing a reason to eat them Cheetos.

HoodlumDoodlum said...

garage mahal said... Powerful money wants it that way, so it is.

Whose powerful money, though? I see this asserted a lot without too much additional detail.
To me an "overly Puritanical populace" argument, even combined with a false consciousness narrative, is easier to imagine than shadowy ill-defined Big Money interests. Pharm companies? They're in a position to force regulation that would make it possible for them to profit from pot? The State as a whole spends all that $ on enforcement, so even if the argument is that an individual department benefits you then need a dispersed costs/concentrated benefit argument (like w/sugar subsidies, etc). Correction officers unions, private prisons, same thing, plus the #s claimed to be incarcerated long-term for "just weed" are greatly exaggerated (and it's not like our benevolent State would run out of reasons to lock people up).

I'm not saying there's not powerful money keepin' weed illegal, but whose $ do you believe it is?

Anonymous said...

garagemahal: "Every single reason to continue pot prohibition for adults is complete and utter horseshit. Powerful money wants it that way, so it is."

Why "for adults"? I mean, if it's so harmless and all, why bother with the distinction?

garage mahal said...

I'm not saying there's not powerful money keepin' weed illegal, but whose $ do you believe it is?

Alcohol and pharma. Follow the money

It doesn't matter that this guy is a Republican. There is no daylight between the two parties on this issue.

Robert Cook said...

"Why 'for adults?' I mean, if it's so harmless and all, why bother with the distinction?"

There are plenty of things that are legal and considered acceptable, even commonplace, for adults that are prohibited for children.

Why?

Beloved Commenter AReasonableMan said...

jr565 said...
Because one of the argumetns for its legalization is that its so good for you. It's medicine that can cure cancer!
People who have cancer might actually believe that it will.


This is fairly obvious bullshit, although I have heard it before. Just because it doesn't cure cancer, however, doesn't mean it should be illegal.

jr565 said...

AReasonableMan wrote:
This is fairly obvious bullshit, although I have heard it before. Just because it doesn't cure cancer, however, doesn't mean it should be illegal.

True, but it's being touted as one of the reasons why it SHOULDN'T be illegal.

jr565 said...

garage mahal wrote:

Alcohol and pharma. Follow the money

You don't think there's a lot of money behind legalizing pot? Pot is a multibillion dollar enterprise.

jr565 said...

WE have companies that own dozens of other companies. YOu don't think that pharma or alcohol couldn't get in on pot and sell their product on the open market?
You don't think the cigarette companies couldn't expand their market by also selling pot?
Why would they be restricted from pot?

jr565 said...

McDonalds could buy a pot manufacturing company and sell pot as a side business. SO then big pharma is not exactly trying to repress pots sale. If they can sell it legally they TOO can get into the business.

And can get away with selling "drugs" that don't have to go through any of the trials that real drugs do before being put on the market.

jr565 said...

Hoodlum doodlum wrote:

Whose powerful money, though? I see this asserted a lot without too much additional detail.
To me an "overly Puritanical populace" argument, even combined with a false consciousness narrative, is easier to imagine than shadowy ill-defined Big Money interests. Pharm companies? They're in a position to force regulation that would make it possible for them to profit from pot? The State as a whole spends all that $ on enforcement, so even if the argument is that an individual department benefits you then need a dispersed costs/concentrated benefit argument (like w/sugar subsidies, etc). Correction officers unions, private prisons, same thing, plus the #s claimed to be incarcerated long-term for "just weed" are greatly exaggerated (and it's not like our benevolent State would run out of reasons to lock people up).

Money is money. If big pharma thought they could make money selling pot and it wasn't illegal to do so, why wouldn't they?

jr565 said...

WHo would be one of the first companies that got in on the market of pot? Probably RJ Reynolds. Simply move some of the tobacco field and turn them into pot farms.


http://www.cannabisculture.com/category/RJ-Reynolds

HoodlumDoodlum said...

jr565 said... If big pharma thought they could make money selling pot and it wasn't illegal to do so, why wouldn't they?

Right, that's roughly my thought--Pharma's positioned well to benefit greatly from legalization, in that they (as a collective anyway) could get the rules/laws written in ways that would benefit them (c.p. most regulations harm small business far worse than big businesses, and Pharma as a collective is pretty well-capitalized). The same could be true of the Booze Biz, as well--why wouldn't A.Bush support legalization for recreational THC if they could sell pot pale ale, especially if the general legalization mandated that only factories that pass FDA inspection (or xyz burdensome regulation) can include pot?

I think it'd have to be true that Big Booze would think they'd lose so much (in market share terms) to the pot crowd (assuming pot and booze are close substitutes) and that Pharma would lose so much in OTC pill sales to people medicating with pot that any sales they got IN the pot market would be swamped by losses. Maybe that's the case, but I'm not sure it's obviously the case.

Follow up research: have beer & booze sales cratered in areas where recreational pot has been legalized (or those parts of those areas with younger demographics)?

RecChief said...

Tommy Chong's act is stuck in the '70s. Doing the same thing for 45 years and being unable to move beyond it seems like a hallmark of potheads

JamesB.BKK said...

@Robert Cook: "Both parties serve the same interests--the Wall Street/Financial Services/Corporate/Military/Police State complex--and "Democrat" and "Republican" are merely different brand names for the same product."

All is in service to interests of the State itself. The ruses that the State serves the people and that the State's court officials look after the people's interests is further to those interests. In the US today, the bad effects of the destruction of federalism and its restrictions on centralized state power some time ago are merely being revealed.

FullMoon said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
cubanbob said...

Robert Cook said...
"The difference between alcohol and MJ is that most people most of the time that drink don't drink to the point of getting buzzed."

Oh, please. The reason most people drink, even in moderation, is to get buzzed.

3/18/15, 1:03 PM"

Maybe you and garage think drinking equates to downing a keg of beer or a bottle of whiskey but not everyone has those drinking habits. A glass of wine with a dinner isn't going to get anyone buzzed, certainly not like smoking a joint does. But both of you feel free to espouse your nonsense.

Anonymous said...

Maybe you and garage think drinking equates to downing a keg of beer or a bottle of whiskey but not everyone has those drinking habits. A glass of wine with a dinner isn't going to get anyone buzzed, certainly not like smoking a joint does. But both of you feel free to espouse your nonsense.

At the beginning of the football season I buy a 12 pack of beer.

Usually by the end of the football season, I have some left.

Anonymous said...

The difference between alcohol and MJ is that most people most of the time that drink don't drink to the point of getting buzzed

That's not the difference.

The difference is alcohol can be drunk in moderation. There is nothing about alcohol that says you must get high while drinking it. It's only when we drink too much alcohol too quickly for our bodies to metabolize that we find ourselves getting drunk.

This isn't the case with Marijuana. The purpose of Marijuana is for the high.

Alcohol, in moderation, also works as a food. Our bodies can consume it and use it, as long as we don't drink too much of it. There are healthy diet consequences to a proper consumption of alcohol.

Marijuana, in moderation, is still a toxin being introduced into our system that our system wasn't meant to process.

Brando said...

"At the beginning of the football season I buy a 12 pack of beer.

Usually by the end of the football season, I have some left."

Does your football season end by the first half of the first game? You must be a Redskins fan.

J. Farmer said...

@eric:

"Marijuana, in moderation, is still a toxin being introduced into our system that our system wasn't meant to process."

Meanwhile, alcohol kills about 70,000 or 80,000 Americans every year.

Robert Cook said...

"A glass of wine with a dinner isn't going to get anyone buzzed, certainly not like smoking a joint does."

No one says drinking a glass of wine with dinner is equivalent to smoking a joint, but people who drink wine with dinner experience subtle effects of the wine, even if only a pleasant relaxation. This is a "buzz."

Drinking one shot glass of whiskey, a martini with gin or vodka, a couple of beers or three--all considered typical, moderate, social drinking--will be felt by the drinker, even if, again, only as a pleasant relaxation. This is a "buzz."

Paul Ciotti said...

As someone who went to Berkeley back in the day I never could understand the appeal of marijuana. Sure it gave you a buzz, but why would I want a buzz in my head anymore than I would want ringing in my ears or soda pop up my nose?

Blue@9 said...

Marijuana, in moderation, is still a toxin being introduced into our system that our system wasn't meant to process.

We wouldn't get high on marijuana if our system wasn't meant to process it. We have cannabinoid receptors.

Also, it is possible to smoke in moderation too, just as it's possible to drink in moderation. This is why it's such nonsense when people say that pot is more dangerous now because it's stronger. That's like saying whiskey is more dangerous than beer because people might start drinking pints of it.