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Up to six plants, possession of an ounce and impending stores...I hope they peddle the same system here.

 

Best we can look forward to is medical cannabis for the next decade.

 

Stoners aren't always motivated, socially active types, neither are Australians.

 

Combine the two and you have too much apathy for law makers to take notice.

 

Californians deserve what they get because they fought for it.

 

I just emailed my local member to politely remind him that this is an issue many mainstream constituents care about, it's not just a fringe issue.

 

Until we hassle them, nothing will change.

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Peddle? You didn't approve of prop 64 @Responsible Choice ? It's not ideal, but this:

Quote

Possession of up to an ounce of cannabis is now legal for all adults 21 and over, as is the cultivation of up to six plants. Any marijuana grown from those plants is legal to possess. 

sounds like an improvement over our current situation to me.

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2 hours ago, stonewolf said:

Up to six plants, possession of an ounce and impending stores...I hope they peddle the same system here.

 

Best we can look forward to is medical cannabis for the next decade.

 

Stoners aren't always motivated, socially active types, neither are Australians.

 

Combine the two and you have too much apathy for law makers to take notice.

 

Californians deserve what they get because they fought for it.

 

I just emailed my local member to politely remind him that this is an issue many mainstream constituents care about, it's not just a fringe issue.

 

Until we hassle them, nothing will change.

 

Couldn't disagree more.

 

I feel we could almost say nothing and this will roll out; it's just if we don't it will be completely dominated by private and vested interests, as opposed to partially...

 

This issue has nothing to do with stoners; it is a human rights and public health issue and therefore universal.

 

As far as the prop is concerned, it's always in the fine print.

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29 minutes ago, Responsible Choice said:

 

Couldn't disagree more.

 

I feel we could almost say nothing and this will roll out; it's just if we don't it will be completely dominated by private and vested interests, as opposed to partially...

I think there will always be room for quality over quantity. And yes, like with pretty much everything else, private interests will dominate, but they can't dominate everyone who is willing to do it for themselves. 

 

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36 minutes ago, Responsible Choice said:

 

Couldn't disagree more.

 

I feel we could almost say nothing and this will roll out; it's just if we don't it will be completely dominated by private and vested interests, as opposed to partially...

 

This issue has nothing to do with stoners; it is a human rights and public health issue and therefore universal.

 

As far as the prop is concerned, it's always in the fine print.

While it is a public health and human right issue, most people don't see it that way.  It's seen as a fringe issue that will be ignored unless it's causing hurt politically.  See gay marriage.  Nobody wanted to touch it till the population screamed for attention.

 

I think Australia has a long way to go because like it or not, we are a far more conservative society than the US.

 

Every second person has a story about "weed gave my cousin psychosis" "stoners are lazy dole bludgers " .

 

The US in the last decade has really come out of the dutched up closet.  Respectable members of society are more likely to admit to smoking pot than in Australia.  Just compare the prevalence of casual cannabis use in Australian film and television with American.

 

The difference to the budget bottom line just isn't worth the potential election backlash politicians might receive.

 

When the polls hit 70% in favour of legalisation then the conversation will kick off.

 

Right now I think everyone has the obligation to be happy, productive and intelligent members of society who are open about their smoking habits.  Bring the conversation up as much as possible.  

 

If everyone who is opposed to cannabis knew about the amount of people in their life who smoke they might reconsider.  

 

"I never knew my doctor, yoga instructor and accountant all smoked pot"

 

And hound politicians.  Concisely, articulately and thoughtfully.

 

 

 

 

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1 hour ago, Responsible Choice said:

This issue has nothing to do with stoners; it is a human rights and public health issue and therefore universal

*applause*

 

Nicely put RC. This essentially sums up why I don't think the medical-first approach is necessarily a bad one. Sure, it's fucken ludicrously, laughably late, but like they say "the best time to plant a tree was twenty years ago, the second-best is now". And if the aim (as I hope it is) is to build a long-standing social institution which won't be re-banned the first time the political winds change, then I think establishing a firm footing in legitimate, scientifically-supported medical uses is a great way to start.

 

 

1 hour ago, Glaukus said:

I think there will always be room for quality over quantity. And yes, like with pretty much everything else, private interests will dominate, but they can't dominate everyone who is willing to do it for themselves.

Well actually they kinda can, if they have the money to lobby politicians to make it really hard for individuals (which they probably do) How many people bother to distil their own alcohol, or cure their own tobacco? It's not because the industrial products are cheap or great quality, it's because they've made sure the process is so inaccessible for individuals, and the penalties so out-of-proportion, that few bother.

Edited by Anodyne
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This month, Denver became the first U.S. city to allow people to use marijuana in bars and restaurants, though state licensing officials announced a rule Friday that prohibits businesses with liquor licenses from allowing pot consumption on their premises. The move strikes a major blow to the voter-passed initiative.

 

^ and a major blow for harm reduction as well! Positive of course.

 

This looks like a promising model pushing forward, with strong community consultation.

 

http://hightimes.com/news/oregon-cities-setting-rules-after-opting-in-to-legal-pot/

Edited by Responsible Choice
cosult?
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On 22/11/2016 at 8:32 PM, Responsible Choice said:

a rule .. prohibits businesses with liquor licenses from allowing pot consumption on their premises. The move strikes a major blow..

I dunno if that should be considered a bad thing... I actually kinda like the idea that businesses will have to choose which drug they want to serve.

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3 minutes ago, Anodyne said:

I dunno if that should be considered a bad thing... I actually kinda like the idea that businesses will have to choose which drug they want to serve.

The chips are kind of stacked in favour of cannabis assuming consumption levels are similar to alcohol.

 

Serve a minor appetite stimulant or a major one?  

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33 minutes ago, Anodyne said:

I dunno if that should be considered a bad thing... I actually kinda like the idea that businesses will have to choose which drug they want to serve.

 

Same. I reckon it's awesome they are making a responsible choice (/endshamelesspun) and that the culture of communities factors somewhere in the consideration process. 

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Related story: I don't know that it's ideal, as I haven't seen the policy detail, but there might be some movement as the Greens are (finally) ditching their opposition to legalisation http://www.smh.com.au/federal-politics/political-news/greens-in-radical-new-drug-legalisation-push-20161126-gsy5ee.html 

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Hot damn, that motherfucking bandwagon is going to grind to a halt once all of these parties jump on board. Just as well the wheels are fucking HUGE, and by wheels I mean dollars of course.

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My question may be slightly of topic but i guess it's somewhat political. if it came to the time where we were legally allowed to use cannabis recreationally or medically how would this fit in with our driving while under the influence rules. From what I understand cannabis can show up as a positive on roadside tests well after the affects have worn off? Does anyone know how this works in place where cannabis is legal?

 

tbg

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In Colorado they have a set blood-THC level - see http://norml.org/legal/item/colorado-drugged-driving and https://www.codot.gov/safety/alcohol-and-impaired-driving/druggeddriving/marijuana-and-driving for more details. It's not ideal, as for some people 5ng/ml is not significantly impairing. I've read that for most people, THC falls to below that threshold in about 3 hours. Edit: I just read that some people recommend 10 hours, just to be sure, and to get a good night's sleep.  I doubt it would be worse than the current situation in NSW, where any detectable amount can land you in court.

Edited by Yeti101
Completness

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I'm sure that better research has been done on this topic since I last researched it for uni 15 years ago, but back then the evidence seemed to point towards minimal impairment from [normal doses of] THC, which was totally negated by the subjects being very, very aware of how impaired they were, and adjusting their driving speeds accordingly. Which I'm sure cuts absolutely zero ice at an RBT station, I just found it an interesting point: drunk people underestimate how impaired they are, stoned people are fully aware, or even exaggerate.

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Paraphrasing Marley here but something along the lines of "the herb reveals you to yourself"? :huh:

 

I've been pondering whether or not a 'stoned driving test' might not help with this question, as in you take a standardised dose, then you take a purpose built driving test. Start off small and work towards a say 40mg license or some such. Obviously very little pondering around the logistics has occurred... :blush:

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I'll have to dig around for it, but I know there has been talk of better way of dealing with the driving question. In the interim, it would be good for people to write to Senator Di Natale etc. to voice support, and/or write to their various representatives (at both state and federal level) to suggest they adopt a similar policy. 

 

Going to be an interesting couple of years. The cultural influence of California might be considerable. 

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Yeah I just had a quick search but couldn't find the article - a while back New Scientist (I think?) wrote about work that was being done to create what was essentially a simple little handheld computer game, to be used to test drivers' impairment. The idea was that cops could pull someone over, ask them to play through a level of the game to prove that they were capable of doing all the things needed to drive safely: judging distances, reacting quickly, keeping track of multiple tasks and things in their peripheral vision. The thing that I really liked about this idea was that it tested ACTUAL BLOODY IMPAIRMENT, not just what happened to be in your bloodstream at the time. And so people who smoked a joint last night would pass just fine, whereas people who were impaired for other non-drug-related reasons (like sleep-deprivation) might fail. And aside from the overall idea of actually testing the thing that you want to test, this might also be the only way to tell from an on-the-spot test whether someone is impaired from a novel/analogue-type drug, which there may be no existing forensic tests for, so may not show up on swab or even blood testing.

 

Of course, this type of test is only superior if the aim is to make sure that people are driving safely. If the real aim of roadside drug testing is actually just to give cops reasonable-suspicion to search people, then no, this probably wouldn't work at all.

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Not sure - I can't imagine that anxiety would make taking such a test any easier. If you failed the test due to anxiety, but had no THC in your system, I can't imagine you'd get in much trouble. 

 

I'd hope some reasonable arrangement could be made. If it means I have to go on a roster of designated drivers for my friends who are more regular smokers, I can live with that :)

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And if you have an anxiety disorder?

Well in this utopian future that I'm envisioning that contains such things as [tests which might actually test the thing they're trying to test, rather than some thing which may or may not correlate to the thing they're trying to test], I should think that people with anxiety disorders would now have access to medical marijuana, so perhaps that would help?

 

Also, we're not talking about sitting an exam here, the idea was that it would just test your capacity to do basic stuff like multitasking and reflexes. If people are so anxious that they can't perform simple tasks like pressing a button whenever the red dot appears in the corner of the screen, then I would have to wonder how they would handle road-ragers or any other stressful situations which they might encounter whilst driving.

 

In the unlikely event that these ever did become a thing, perhaps people who are able to drive competently but have specific anxieties which make them unable to press buttons while cops are watching, would be able to appeal on medical grounds if they failed? Or even to preemptively get some kind of letter from their doctor for the RTA so that there was a mark on their drivers licence which asks that they be given an alternative test due to their condition. Whatever the solution was, I think it would be much easier to iron out the kinks in this style of test, than it would be to work out exactly how many ng/ml equaled dangerous impairment for every single drug which drivers might have taken.

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the bad behavior of law enforcement, and then people with conditions don't get the same access to facilities the way our system is able to expect from them.

I would ask what Earth agency in alignment with such a collective has doing with that leeway?

Edited by manu
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So, apparently Lancashire (UK) has a licensed cannabis dispensary now http://prestoncannabisclub.co.uk/  - no idea how this all works - would be interested in getting the inside word on this.

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Want jobs and economic growth? Just fucking legalise it then. The longer our states delay the more we miss out on the boom. See California and the other 28 or so states in the US that are going bonkers:

 

http://hightimes.com/business/pot-jobs-expected-to-triple-in-coming-years/

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