Back in the day I smoked — and inhaled — “dope.” And boy do I miss it. As someone who only drinks alcoholic beverages occasionally, someone who has a low tolerance for alcohol (and alcoholic wives), I’d much prefer to light the occasional joint to unwind. And laugh! My God did I laugh. But losing my gun rights would be no laughing matter. So . . .
I don’t keep, bear or smoke grass. If I’m somewhere where other people are lighting-up, I make myself scarce. ‘Cause smoking Mary Jane makes an American a prohibited person, firearms-wise. And I value my gun rights more than belly laughs and other, uh, activities enhanced by marijuana.
Speaking entirely theoretically, do you think someone who owns guns should avoid marijuana? Or is it worth the risk to your their gun rights to ingest a substance that’s safer than alcohol?
Quite simply, my feelings about marijuana aside, anybody who thinks it’s a good idea to commit a felony in order to have a little fun…. Is an idiot. I question every part of their judgement. It is not healthy to have your judgement questioned when you are in possession of a firearm.
I do think that marijuana should be reclassified like alcohol, in which case the treatment would be no different than it is with alcohol. However things being what they are, if a person thinks that there isn’t a problem, they probably figure it’s just fine to chug a bottle of whiskey while driving home from work. It *probably* won’t hit you till you get home, right?
100 WITH YOU and the article author. I know a few gun owners who smoke, not when around guns, but. . .
While herb is not covered in the constitution, that which grows naturally weather grain or fruit & yeast or other natural intoxicants SHOULD be just as much of a natural human right as is self defense. The two should not be mixed any more than intoxicants and any machinery.
Having said that It, I hope that the Federal government will catch up with my state and sever others and not go backwards. We have proven that prohibition does not work, why is it still a thing?
I believe Ricky Williams football contract was for $13 million dollars. But he preferred to smoke marijuana with his friends instead. You want to smoke pot??
Fine, quite your job because your boss won’t allow it. Williams likes marijuana more than he likes his $13 million dollar contract. Some people like pot more than they like guns.
http://profootballtalk.nbcsports.com/2016/07/08/ricky-williams-kind-of-quit-football-to-smoke-weed/
No, the physical harm from marijuana is hugely un- or under-reported. Inhaling anything that ain’t “air” is using up one of your inhalations of air. That’s the minor part. What you inhale is better for you than cigarettes in the same way that dying from a car wreck is better than being run over with a steam roller.
Further – if you need a substance to ‘escape’ today, you are not in it for today. If you’re not in it for today, you are not in it for tomorrow, or the tomorrow of tomorrow, or my tomorrow, or other’s tomorrows. No one can count on you to uphold Societal Agreement in that case.
You can say ‘so what’ but you are reaping what you did not sow in regard to Societal Agreement. You likely want the “armistice” of Societal Agreement.
“An illustrative example, of its result, is the average U.S. citizens’ positive expectation of obtaining a fresh doughnut, hot cup of coffee, and a current newspaper from the local convenience store, on their way to work.
How far removed from that, is the same individual surviving the natural elements of the night before, and waking up under a tree to the concern over whether or not armed conflict will be required to maintain the possession of a rudimentary shelter, and the proceeds of the days’ forage and hunt. Not to mention, the prospect of protecting the ‘possession’ of a desired mate, and resultant offspring.
The exact distance, between those two possibilities, is often called “society.” [J.M. Thomas, R., TERMS, 2012 Page 20].”
I have to strongly disagree. The whole reason why marijuana is a Class 1 narcotic is very simple back in the day when hemp was just becoming very popular all of a sudden canvas came out and the canvas manufacturers wanted to Outlaw him. This and later the whole craziness about Mexicans crossing the border high on marijuana and going nuts and all the other retarded films about how you lose your mind and I’ll kill your wife and blah blah blah blah all propaganda. You don’t lose your rights when you have a glass of wine, nor should you lose your rights if you occasionally smoke a marijuana cigarette. I think what we’re talking about here is just the basis of freedom. Another words I don’t care what you do at your house behind your doors or on your property as long as it doesn’t bother me and my family. I think it’s safe to say by now we have lost the War on Drugs.
I think you proved MY point.
Except that isn’t true. As we have proved with alcohol, you can uphold that agreement with responsible use. Abuse, like anything else can be harmful, but no where near as harmful as anything else, and certainly not on par with your hyperbole; There is not a single statistic that would confirm what you are saying. In fact, the societal effects of legalization could be said to be the opposite with millions being poured back in with the associated taxes. I would compare usage to TV usage in terms of its entertainment value and usage; it is benign in almost all cases, it’s distraction factor is much the same. The only difference is that THC is actually a useful pharmaceutical.
A fresh donut and a hot cup of coffee have a lot of sugar and caffeine, two very potent drugs.
So your are for the freedom to bear arms but the freedom of what to or not to put in ones own body is not ok? How does that work either you believe in freedom or you don’t simple as that
Are you implying that not following every law is abrogating the societal agreement? Or that chemically altering your mental state is necessarily an act of escape from reality? These are sincere rather than rhetorical questions.
Your quote doesn’t appear to be from the J. M. Thomas of whom I’m aware. I searched sentences here and there, and the only result on the internet is your post.
Where is it from? Did you write it and subsequently attribute it to a materials scientist?
@pk
It’s from his treatise/manifesto of which he has yet to share, and I continue to await.
It’s been proven time and again that it’s not the substance that’s the poison, it’s the dose. Arsenic will kill you in high doses. It’s specifically extracted to use as a poison. It’s also found in all tap water and rice.
A drink won’t make me an alcoholic who neglects my kids and beats my wife. Looking at a foxy lady on the beach isn’t cheating. A soda won’t turn me into a fatty. An afternoon nap won’t make me a procrastinator. A joint won’t cause me to quit my job and spend all my money on snacks… or cause me to take guns and use them to rob or shoot people.
Any vice a person has can ruin their life if they don’t control it. Hell, I know gym rats that ruin relationships because they’d rather be pumping iron than taking their girl on a date. Marijuana is no different.
Honestly, I can’t see weed doing anything for me that I can’t accomplish with a good cigar and two fingers of Laphroaig.
On the other hand, I’ve seen stoners do some incredibly stupid things. It’s much easier to control your alcohol dose than your THC dose. For example, I’ve had entire evenings where I have been slowly sipping scotch and came out of it with a damn near 0.0 BAC.
I tend to believe that if it (or any other drug) becomes de-criminalized, dosage control and safer methods of intake would be developed very quickly.
IE: Who would risk lung cancer smoking weed when you could crack open an Ice Colder Budweiser THC Tea? Or enjoy a cool water vapor E-Joint?
For that matter, who would inject heroine of unknown potency and dosage with a syringe, when you could chew a heroine gummy of a lower, and consistent dosage?
Part of the problem with illegal drugs is – their illegal. They aren’t monitored and tested by the FDA. There is no corporation that can be held legally responsible for bad dosages, improper labeling, or contaminated (or laced) product.
That said there is also no incentive for companies to spend R&D money to come up with new ways for people to take the drugs. Illegal buyers of an illegal substance can’t be choosers, and will buy dried marijuana leaves because its the only way they can get it. Any large company can see there’s a much larger market of people who would try it, but don’t want to inhale burning plant smoke.
The comparison between alcohol and marijuana is a total fail. Thousands of reports substantiate that use of marijuana eliminates flashbacks for people with PTSD — but alcohol only makes them worse (unless perhaps you drink to pass out).
I’m with you on the edibles I believe that’s a safer way to do it not that I think it should be regulated I think regulation is more government infringement. But as far as lung cancer goes taking a gummy bear is really probably a good idea maybe not to your dentist LOL. But I’m with you up to the heroin gummy bear LOL that would probably taste just like ass reheated three days old LOL.
Smoking is still the preferred method among the majority. It’s easier to control dosages, and there is a social aspect as well.
Also, there is no correlation between smoking cannabis and lung cancer, for some unknown reason. It’s counterintuitive, but true.
Yes, I partake occasionally. It’s Colorado. There is truly zero chance of a Federal MJ charge. Guns and cannabis are kept separate. I may have a hit or a beer while I’m carrying, but the gun never comes out of the holster ever anyway.
Yes, in a better world, or were I a better man, I’d have neither vice. Cannabis is less of a mind-fuck for me.Booze makes me clumsy and careless. And I never use either to the point of intoxication, except for Christmas Eve. Tradition 🙂
They used to call what you’re describing “personal responsibility”. Alas today we have big daddy government instead.
I don’t use MJ any more even though it’s legal here. I still knock back a few brews. No, I don’t disarm but I also and I didn’t when I smoked pot.
The problem isn’t the substance, it’s the stupidity of certain people. Some substances however simply don’t mix with guns. Hardcore hallucinogens fall into that category.
Nothing wrong with partying but you gotta party responsibly. Sounds like you do.
“For example, I’ve had entire evenings where I have been slowly sipping scotch and came out of it with a damn near 0.0 BAC.”
At 40 bucks and up for that Laphroaig, the price tends to naturally ‘throttle’ its consumption…
It’s actually not that bad. A bottle of 18yo will run you ~$80 and will last several evenings. Far more cost effective than good wine at $25-$50 per bottle. I’m not a retarded frat boy doing shots to get hammered.
And I think all of your logic applied to alcohol works just as well applied to MJ. $80 is about 1/4 oz in most areas, will last several nights, is very economical, and most people aren’t smoking to get hammered Cheech and Chong style.
Any law prohibiting free choice is a law prohibiting freedom. Considering it is plant that can not be altered into a stronger substance and is used in it’s natural form, there is no reason it should be illegal. There should be restrictions the same as alcohol, but the government should not decide if we the people are capable of responsible use. Having said that, some people should not smoke, just as some people should not drink.
Agree on all points except that it can’t be altered into a stronger substance. The oil extracts they are making nowadays with the strains that are 20x or more times as powerful than that hippie grass you ofwg used to smoke, are totally bananas.
Maybe this is a quibble, but I’m assuming the guy you’re responding to meant actual chemically converted/modified, not just concentrated. Oils/waxes/hash is CONCENTRATED over the leaf/flower/bud, but its still the same substances. Kinda like Whiskey and beer. Same substance (ethanol) just in high concentrations. The way I read his post, he was contrasting this with, lets say Coca leaf (another natural product) that must be processed heavily and had a lot of chemsitry done to it, fundamentally altering the psychoactive substances, to become cocaine, and even FURTHER modified to become crack. Or like poppy plants (another natural product) that must be treated and converted to make the wide array of opiate drugs (morphine, heroin, oxy, etc).
Or things like meth (I seem to recall) which is purely chemical, no plant products involved.
Interesting that you mention coca into cocaine! It’s a fairly straightforward extraction, and making “crack” is simply removing the HCl from the cocaine hydrochloride commonly found as an illicit substance. The cocaine, as it is, is contained in the leaves as grown. There is no changing of this into other substances, just extraction except for the common white powder… which is cocaine HCl.
Chemistry is weird and gives strange impressions, sometimes.
Agreed, I find it odd that to prohibit alcohol the general government needed an amendment to the constitution, but to prohibit marijuana, and other once over the counter available consumables, a simple majority and any old law will do.
How DOES that work?
Apparently not very well…
If you look at the history it”s a bit like the NFA.
Back in the 30’s, I want to say 1937 or ’38, the government enacted the “Marihuana Tax Stamp Act”. But there’s a catch, there never were and probably never will be tax stamps available to the public. In fact, I don’t believe the government ever printed any stamps for that item.
The government got pretty shady about this, telling farmers that to get a tax stamp they had to bring a sample in order to prove they needed a stamp. Instead if issuing a stamp they arrested the farmers for not having a stamp and being in possession.
Of course a few years later the whole thing was “forgotten” during WWII. Synthetic ropes didn’t really exist back then so the government wanted farmers to grow marijuana to make hemp rope for the war effort and even went so far as to make huge posters promoting growing the stuff.
That effort, and the shipping of hemp to make the rope is why today, along many of our nation’s railroad tracks you find “ditch weed” growing wild. Occasionally it causes a scandal when local LEO’s cut down a bunch of it to add to the weight of pot they claim to have seized in order to get more money from DEA grants.
After the war the government went back to enforcement and also, generally, moved to synthetic rope. Yet another example of government mismanagement and selective enforcement of it’s own rules.
The whole thing wasn’t forgotten. SCOTUS ruled it unconstitutional in 1969 (Leary v. US) on 5th Amendment grounds because you had to incriminate yourself to get the stamp. Then they came at it from a food and drug safety angle, and the FDA labeled it a controlled dangerous substance and that’s where we find ourselves today.
So its the state cannot outlaw a Glock per se but gee wiz they make its attributes or lack there of part of product law. Perfect another gun off the streets.
I didn’t say it was outright forgotten, I said it was “forgotten” during the war effort, which is a factual statement. I should have pointed out however that the tax stamp issue was only the beginning of the story.
Currently the FDA doesn’t schedule substances, that falls to the DEA (though they often do so with FDA and other agency “guidance”).
I’m not sure exactly when the DEA got that authority but currently the FDA actually has a site they grow pot on and they obtained a license to do that for research purposes from the DEA. Effectively the DEA has unlimited authority to schedule substances as they see fit, a power given to them by Congress at some point (that I don’t recall off the top of my head) after Nixon started the War on Drugs. That authority allows them arbitrary power to decide what is and what is not considered an illegal narcotic under “federal law”.
“The government got pretty shady about this, telling farmers that to get a tax stamp they had to bring a sample in order to prove they needed a stamp. Instead if issuing a stamp they arrested the farmers for not having a stamp and being in possession.”
The situation you describe above is so blatant that it imposes a duty to remove the offender upon any citizen who knows beyond any reasonable doubt that it happened that way. I’ll go as far as to say that if the arresting agent was still alive a month after the farmer was released from custody, the farmer should have had his citizenship revoked. And that’s the first time in my life I’ve said that or even thought it.
“The situation you describe above is so blatant that…”
You should read the minutes from Congress and the arguments used to advance the law. It mainly revolves around the argument that “…niggers and spics smoke this shit and rape white women…”.
It was all some Reefer Madness/Devil’s Harvest type tomfuckery mixed with some real, authentic, old school racism. No one gave a shit about that, so why would they care about the enforcement mechanism?
Well, I wasn’t there, but as I understand it, the government didn’t want to outlaw alcohol, it was a group of fanatics (sumpthin’ sumpthin’ Christian Temperance Union?) insisting on it, got within one state of a Constitutional Convention, and finally got the Amendment passed. After a couple decades, the results were so clearly disastrous they were ignored and it was repealed. Worst the Gubt did was overenthusiastic enforcement once they discovered the graft and corruption it made available.
Avoid while owning? Personal.choice.
Carry while under the influence of anything that puts you outside of a stable and rational mental state (weed, heavier drugs, alcohol, rage or other emotional distress)? Probably a bad idea for most people; but as the man said, you need to known your limitations and act accordingly.
Yep. I won’t even carry if I’m really ill (I’ve been known to hallucinate when sick enough–auditory only but still).
Let alone when having more than a drink or so over an evening, or on certain meds–post surgery I didn’t carry for probably 10-14 days because I was loopy as hell from the anesthetics and the pain meds.
I’m hoping pot gets legalized federally in the mid-distant future, but even if it is I’m not going to toke up if I’m carrying a gun.
Handling a firearm while under the influence is a big no no in my book. Used separately, I don’t see an issue. I would think twice about it in a state where it was not legal, though. Would make it a little tough to check the appropriate box on the 4473 if you just got a citation.
Federal Law on Marijuana is stupid. Alcohol? Just don’t drink and drive. Marijuana? Felon, no matter how you live the rest of your life.
Just like New York’s magazine limits. 7 round magazine? Just don’t commit any crime with it. 10 round magazine? Felon.
Government thinking they can legislate us into safety by restricting our freedoms is stupid. It’s the literal definition of stupid.
True crime is when you physically harm someone, damage their property, or use lies to destroy their livelihood. One could make the case that gross negligence threatening these things counts. Like drunk driving, or shouting fire in a crowded theater.
In what state is simple possession a felony???
I’m guessing it’s who does the arresting.
De-decriminalization is very much a thing here in Florida, some counties treat simple possession as a civil infraction, like a parking ticket.
Personally, my ideal political candidate is one who has no problem with me storing weed in my gunsafe.
(Were it legalized, I just may resume an affair with it, I had to set it aside due to working in a rather hazardous industry where random tests are the norm…)
Dont matter, it negates your “gun rights”, period!
Which gives my family fits!
My wife has “never ending pain”, hips, knees and back among other places, and has been diagnosed “with the worst case of fibromyaliga I have even seen!”, by several doctors.
And she wants to try the oil.
If I thought there was a chance in hell, I would divest myself of any gun related items and put her on it. Absolutely NOTHING ELSE works!
Arizona, for one. Simple possession of a tiny amount there is a felony. I’m sure there are other states as well. You can be on vacation in SW Colorado, camping out, smoking as much dope as you want legally, but travel 1/2 mile SW into Arizona and you’re a felon.
Wow, that’s crazy. Had no idea, but I looked it up and that seems to be correct. Even though medical is legal here, and recreational came close to passing (less than a 3-point split). A felony for simple possession seems at odds with the otherwise freedom-friendly atmosphere here.
Anyway, I’ve always considered the practical answer to the question of “marijuana and guns?” to be “marijuana *or* guns,” at least until the laws change. Although it strikes me as the pinnacle of arrogance for man to outlaw nature, owning guns and partaking in cannabis (even “legally,” like medical) is an unnecessary risk. There are enough legal entrapments in gun laws already without walking right into one.
I used to be an everyday smoker, and when you smoke like that, it becomes sort of normal to function as your tolerance goes up. But as I’ve become more concerned with fitness, health, and generally become more conservative, I’ve smoked less and less and now maybe once or twice a year. I am here to tell you, when you haven’t smoked in 6 months, it hits you like a ton of bricks. I would not want to have to defend myself in that situation, not even sure how I would manage it. So, as much as I enjoy it, I am very hesitant anymore, the climate has to be just right for me to even think about taking the risk.
everything is legal if you don’t get caught… So if you smoke just do it at home and don’t let anyone know… Honestly a dui costs a lot more then a possession ticket..
Here is the problem, we have more and more use of marijuana for medicinal use. We don’t punish gun owners for taking Percocets, Phenergan, etc (all of which marijuana has been prescribed to replace) while owning or even carrying.
Legalize pot across all states. Use the taxes to rebuild our infrastructure including increasing resources to guard our southern boarder.
People that smoke pot should be able to own guns. I haven’t smoked pot since 11th grade, but it didn’t get me so high I would go full “Reefer Madness.”
Now that I’m retired, and it’s legal here….
Hmmm.
Two points.
1. it has similar effects as alcohol so just as alcohol and firearms don’t mix …”euphoria, reduction of fatigue, and relief of tension . . . [It will] also increase appetite, distort the time sense, increase self-confidence, and, like alcohol, can relax some inhibitions.” (Fort, 1965)
2. My pet peeve is that our esteemed collectors of dues and donations that suggest they will save us from the attack on our rights should be actively changing the marijuana felony law(s) as it applies to all aspects of our lives but especially as it relates to keeping the offender from owning a gun under the laws of the land as contrary to the Constitution as they might be.
I do agree with your second point, but I have to say that (Fort, 1965) is full of shit. The short term and long term effects of alcohol and weed are completely different. As someone who used to use plenty of both, and knew countless people who did the same, the two are worlds apart in their effect.
Thanks for the clarification. Yea, I just grabbed that because weed is not a narcotic although ‘law’ defines it as such. Again a definition to serve a scary purpose to gain support for making it bad, bad, bad illegal. I still admonish my AR daily for looking so scary and getting its cousins banned from store shelves in my state. However, weed is now fine. Go figure.
I think (Fort, 1965) is dead on. Those effects are not “side” effects, they are the whole point. As long as you don’t get TOO self confident, TOO spaced out time-wise, etc.
I would argue that alcohol’s effects can be described in similar terms but to one who has experienced them they are completely different in a fundemental manner.
agree with overall point about not mixing with firearms, but the effects are quite the opposite in my experience with other humans. Folks seem to drive like granny with when high on weed and drive like an ass when drunk. Alcohol seems to remove paranoia and increase confidence, weed does the opposite. that said, both make you stupid in their own way temporarily so avoiding shooting with either of these substances is probably a good idea.
One thing about medical MJ is that for many people the dose needed to be medically effective is not enough to get in the least stoned — in fact, for some if they use that much it makes the problem worse, e.g. a vet I know with PTSD who uses edibles (brownies and cookies); if he takes enough to reach borderline stoned it tends to tip him into paranoia and then flashbacks.
Additionally, for medical purposes smoking is becoming less common as edibles and vaping are being found more effective.
People shouldn’t operate firearms, automobiles, chainsaws or even kitchen knives while under the influence of any mind altering substance.
Legality aside, the gun owner who enjoys weed worries me no more than the gun owner who enjoys bourbon, as long as the guns stay in the safe when intoxicants come out.
I’m not into marijuana myself, but its prohibition is thoroughly illogical. It’s not good for you, but it’s certainly no worse for you than booze, tobacco, or a steady diet of bacon cheeseburgers. Honestly, its legalization on the federal level is an inevitability once a few more old people in power shuffle off their mortal coils.
looking at our nation’s heart disease fatalities (>600K annual).. I’m going with “steady diet of bacon cheeseburgers” as being the deadliest on your list of vices.
not good for you if you smoke it…inconclusive or possibly even just fine if you injest it via edibles or vape it, unless of course you are under 20ish and your brain is still “growing” as there are some studies that suggest it can hurt you in that case. in any case, it is amazingly less harmful to society than alcohol and I just hate hypocrisy-legal or otherwise. Police “task force” yahoos roping down from black helicopters to bust some poor bastard with some plants in his yard is taxpayer waste of the highest level. Luckily, some states are dragging the feds to a level of sanity on this particular weed issue slowly but surely. One of the few things in which blue states are doing us all a favor.
“People shouldn’t operate firearms, automobiles, chainsaws or even kitchen knives while under the influence of any mind altering substance.”
There are a fair number of people who shouldn’t do those things UNLESS they’re under said influence!
I think the Marijuana laws are stupid, but even if it was suddenly legal tomorrow I wouldn’t bother.
Drugs, Prostitution and Assisted Suicide should constitutional protected rights together white weapons for adults !
Live free ore die !
The only drug I wouldn’t mix with guns is alcohol. It makes you aggressive and belligerent, it destroys your motor skills, and your ability to make sound judgements. I’ve never heard of (or used) any other drug that does that. Ironic that it’s the only one we’re “allowed” to use.
But, to address the question posed above, I haven’t touched any substances that would endanger my right to bear arms in many years. That being said, if I wanted to smoke weed, I’d just do it, but very cautiously and carefully.
“The only drug I wouldn’t mix with guns is alcohol. It makes you aggressive and belligerent,…”
I disagree on the ‘making’ part.
In my personal (extensive) research with it, alcohol strips away inhibition, exposing the core personality of someone without the polite filters most of us use daily.
I agree 100 pct. on not mixing it. The two together turns me into a quivering mass of goo.
(I was *not* a nice drunk. I was a downright vicious prick, to be honest…)
I’m pretty sure that taking a hallucinogen can adversely effect your ability to make sound judgements.
But that is a strawman. Agreed we shouldn’t say all drugs, but MJ is particularly benign.
I’d agree that of the illegal recreational drugs, marijuana is the most benign, but let’s not pretend it’s not a mind altering substance. At the very least, when it comes to things such as operating a firearm or heavy machinery, it should be looked at like alcohol. Sure maybe you’re OK because you just took one little puff off that joint and that’s like me having a single can of light beer, but stoned or drunk, makes no difference. You shouldn’t be responsible for anything if you’re in that state, let alone something with potentially lethal consequences.
Of course, I was never saying it wasn’t. Regulation on par with alcohol is fine. That’s the end goal.
I’m generally opposed to the regulation of either. However, with pot you don’t necessarily know if you’re getting 3.2 beer or 151 rum until you suck it in, so some sort of rating system would be beneficial. With alcohol you don’t need to wait until it hits your brain to know the difference.
Legal weed is tested and has a THC rating.
As I noted before, you have to be really stupid to seek out a dealer whose supply is as you describe it, Petomane — and “seek out” is exactly the case, because any dealer who can’t tell you exactly what you’re buying has a hard time surviving, and wouldn’t be in business at all except for the dimwitted desperate.
In all honesty, it never had an adverse effect on my judgement, or that of my friends. Of course, we were careful about it and used used them the “right” way; we made plans and preparations beforehand, and stuck to them. Now that I’m thinking about it, we were actually far better organized with hallucinogens than you would expect for a bunch of teenage punks.
But generally, I don’t think hallucinogens really have an adverse effect on judgement, unless the person just has shitty judgement to begin with.
The best part about Colorado, Washington and California legalizing weed is that marijuana use can no longer be used as a justification to deny many people the right to own a gun because they will not be arrested to make it on the Federal roster (unless the gun owner self-reports on the 4473). That said, I still won’t touch weed.
If you DON’T self report on the 4473, you have committed felony perjury. Shops in my town will not sell to anyone who has a prescription for pot because of the federal prohibition. They are not going to imperil their license and their business for a pot head.
And if you DO self-report on the 4473, you’ve committed an immoral act by complying with an unjust law.
This is something we need to be teaching in our schools: complying with an unjust law is immoral, no less so than bullying or stealing.
The penalty for not complying with “unjust” laws is the same as for not complying with just laws. Whether a law is just or unjust is a matter of opinion. I have taught my children to do the responsible thing and petition lawmakers to change or eliminate laws and rules that I believe to be unjust.
Surf GW the problem is that the testing they do for thc can show up between 3 and 6 weeks after you’ve had your last smoke or cookie. You would be sober but the tests would say No.
Not legal in my state so I don’t bother as I prefer to keep my firearms.
Very familiar with the drug tests because I have administered them and also had to take them every 2 weeks. MJ can stay in the system for 3 months if ingested enough or in an oil form.
I won’t take drugs because I am very health oriented whether drugs are legal or not (I don’t even let the doctors prescribe me Vicodin after surgery).
But, having done background checks on people, roughly 60-70 percent of the population under 35 has used weed at some point. If there is an arrest for possession of weed, that person loses their right to own a gun under Federal law. Now that it takes more than an ounce to be a crime, many people are no longer at risk of losing their RKBA based on a youthful indiscretion. Weed for most people is a maturity thing – they try it in highschool or college and don’t do it when they have a job or family
Who gives a shit what anyone does to themeslves as long as it isn’t harming others?
Seriously?
If we’re working from a position of “potential harm” rife with “what ifs” well, then why don’t you all just kill yourselves now because clearly living is too much for you to handle what with all the “what ifs” and not.
The worst thing to happen to weed is the GM medical marijuana crap people are using.
Humans have been genetically modifying organisms since the adoption of wolf pups, by selective breeding. So you mean the carefully bred strains with different benefits? That’s the only genetic modification that’s been done, except by Monsanto, who are evil anyway so using anything they make is a bad idea.
I don’t smoke and never have. Despite having a college roommate who was a major smoker and a minor dealer, whom we all called “Captain Toke” back in the day, smoking anything just never appealed to me.
Nevertheless, I’d steer clear of smoking weed as a gunowner if I had any interest in it. It’s just very easy, through pre-employment, post-incident, or random drug tests, to get flagged as a user. Same thing with any routine testing at the doctor’s office.
I know, I know, there’s supposed to be medical privacy, but I don’t trust any of that. If there is a record of something anywhere, then a sufficiently motivated party will find it and use it against you. That could be an anti-gun doctor, an opposing lawyer’s researchers, the government, you name it.
There’s also the risk of obtaining it. Not everybody has access to a nice, professional dealer in an inconspicuous suburban setting. Simply engaging the drug trade can put you in close contact with some shady people in some sketchy places. Unexpected things can happen and compromise you in such scenarios.
Where states have made it legal, “access to a nice, professional dealer in an inconspicuous suburban setting” is exactly what people have, for the most part.
Of course. That’s what I meant by “not everybody has access”, clearly implying that some do. Even in those states, though, there isn’t a dispensary on every block. So even not all of those residents have access to a safe supply.
I saw a news report about Oregon that pointed out three towns in which there are now more marijuana shops than there are churches. That isn’t surprising at all; on my way to a doctor’s appointment in Portland today I passed five MJ shops — they’re so abundant you only have to drive a reasonably busy street to find one.
No, never done it probably never will; The whole smoking weed is natural thing doesn’t really fly with me; I don’t see people smoking foxglove, hemlock, nightshade or creosote. I believe it should be a person’s choice but I certainly don’t believe it’s a good one.
MJ is incredibly different to all of that. Yours is an odd and invalid comparison. A more valid one is comparison to pharmaceuticals. Many of which MJs effects can cover without the side effects and being completely benign to a person. If it is legalized you should give it a shot. Trying a couple of different strains is quite eye opening for people.
Whatever floats your boat.
I don’t have to agree with the choices you make to defend your right to make them.
No harm, no foul in my book.
Gotta lie about your personal life on a 4473? I don’t much care, it’s not like the government is straight with us and I’M HOPING it’s about as much of their business as what position you last fucked your wife or girlfriend (or whomever you choose) in. Just don’t get busted and it’s between you, God and the fencepost.
This. It’s not like they’re piss testing everyone in the state before the transfer. Am I user whiling I’m filling out the form? Nope. User or addicted is subjective. I rarely, very rarely partake, but it shouldn’t be a disqualifier at all.
This reminds me of a question on the Medical Screening Questionnaire.
“Have you experienced periods of unconsciousness?”
Uhhh… Yeah, it’s called “sleeping”. Poorly worded question there guys.
Can’t argue against you there.
If they outlaw reverse cowgirl position, then only outlaws will do it in reverse cowgirl position.
so if you are one of the people saying ” if you own guns and you smoke weed, you are stupid because its illegal” then you are saying that if they made all firearms illegal tomorrow, you would turn them all in?????
Anyone who says they’re not worthless AF in too many ways while using ‘weed’ (and exponentially if you are a chronic user) ain’t seeing it from here.
If you need drugs of any kind to ‘get by’ you’re an unknown quantity. I won’t keep you from the means of protecting yourself, but don’t go pitching me that your “better” on a substance.
Well, you don’t understand it, then. Different strains have different effects. Some are quite liberating mentally, and relaxing. Do you feel the same way about pharmaceutical drugs for everything else? Because MJ covers much of that and should be thought of in that way.
Wait. Just so I’m clear. You’re comparing pharmaceuticals ti weed?
Pharmaceuticals are compounds researched, developed, and tested over many years by some of the most highly specialized and educated scientists in the world, in highly sophisticated drug trials, to ensure their safety and efficacy.
They’re produced (in the U.S.) in some of the most advanced manufacturing facilities in the world, under the most strict government regulation and against the backdrop of the most lucrative product liability legal system in the world.
They’re prescribed by medical doctors, themselves highly trained in the treatment of conditions with precise dosages, monitored for effectiveness and interactions, for the specific conditions.
You’re comparing all of that to smoking weed bought off of some guy you may have met 10 seconds ago, who sourced the product from some other random guy’s basement grow house, in whatever strain he happened to have, laced with whatever he happened to choose? Oh that’s rich!
Even dispensary weed isn’t exactly scientific. You get a ‘script from some willing doctor for any condition, real or imagined, then trot off to pick up your grass. There’s no mandate for follow-up.
At the grass hut, that product is dispensed by some kid, not a real pharmacist, and it can come from just about anywhere. When Washington first started selling, the process to obtain a license to sell was much shorter than the the actual growing and drying process of marijuana itself. So the first sales necessarily came from some blackmarket side of the hill operation!
I’m actually in favor of legalizing marijuana, and as the big corporations eventually take over the industry, the professionalism and scientific footing will become more secure. Now, though? The trade is a mix of low rent opportunists trying to go the legit route, and the usual assortment of criminal drug traffickers peddling whatever wares they dare.
None of that merits comparison to the pharmaceutical industry. That’s just you trying to drape street drugs in a mantle of unearned legitimacy.
You are plainly vastly ignorant of marijuana and its market. The whole deal these days is about strains, effectiveness, potency, dosage, etc. If you’re stupid enough to track down a dealer who doesn’t know those things about his product, you deserve what you get.
And at a medical marijuana shop, they know just as much about all the fifty or eighty or more different products they carry as any pharmacist knows about the corporate medications he’s peddling.
Actually not true at all. Much of the weed is actually heavily researched and developed by the growers. Producing it in different ways with different strains produces different effects, and the growers will often be very scientific about it. Many dealers can actually tell you exactly what you are getting, and different things about its effects. The medical marijuana is actually very specifically produced, just like big pharma, to give the end user the ability to get a consistent feeling to assist with their condition. It is not FDA approved because its prohibition would conflict with being accepted. If that would be removed, the research and production would get even better than now.
How about my blood pressure meds? They are substances, and I use them to get by. Am I an unknown quantity who shouldn’t be trusted?
exactly. Decades of generational brainwashing about MJ has taken it’s toll. It will take a long time to remove the damage done and stigma.
It depends on what you mean by “better”.
Pot definitely makes people better at mindless repetitive tasks.
When I used to get high I’d have urges to clean my house or apartment. Did a damn fine job too.
Ok, let me get this straight. All y’all basically just said the inverse of what I said, in that “if you could see it from here”.
Take it from someone who isn’t purposefully impairing my own judgment, your not “ok” when you’re on pot. When you are using, everyone knows, and it has a synergistic negative effect on your long term performance on anything, except convincing yourself that you’re ‘better’ because you’re on it.
Plus, you smell like bong water. Just sayin.
To the blood pressure med commenter: FU stupid, you know what I meant, and I know that you don’t mean anything.
“your not “ok” when you’re on pot. When you are using, everyone knows, and it has a synergistic negative effect on your long term performance on anything”
We have another prize for ignorance. The above is no more true of marijuana than it is of Prozac, Bartles & Jaymes, or coffee.
Literally not true, like, any of it. Most responsible users are very discreet, and everyday users hide it extremely well; it’s how they continue to make a life for themselves. You seem to have a lot of prejudices against smokers, and it is clouding the truth about it for you. None of what you say has been backed up. An abuser may appear like this on a night they are getting trashed, but so does an alcohol abuser, even in smell and appearance. Most that imbibe regularly do not look like that.
I believe it is absurd to prohibit MJ in the US. The law, as well as all of the reefer madness was admitted to not be a problem, but banned as a scapegoat for other things. Even representatives of our government have admitted the law is based on lies. There are many stoners, just like alcohol drinkers, that can appropriately handle themselves very well. The prohibition needs to be abolished for many reasons, the fact that you can be charged and lose rights over something so benign as MJ is absurd. Quite frankly, I don’t understand why the ACLU hasn’t challenged this prohibition yet with all the civil liberties it violates in the long run. We should not tell anyone what they can and cannot put in their bodies. That is their choice, just like owning firearms. They do not need to be mutually exclusive. I know stoners that for sure would handle their firearms proficiently and responsibly under the influence of MJ, even better than most people sober. For may, living a high lifestyle does not mean being constantly hungry and giggly, like the stereotype. Many of those I know that smoke every couple of hours are, in fact, more level headed and calm than most, with advanced problem solving, in some ways it augments them, and that is why they do it. Their reflexes aren’t the best, but I’ve seen them deescalate situations in brilliant ways. It would hurt noone to eliminate the prohibition, especially not gun owners. In fact, it would help many things in this country, as CO and OR have shown. The benefits are undeniable. Luckily, much of the population would rather see it sooner than later with recent revelations about non prohibited states, and we may see it in less than a decade, following Canada’s lead on complete recreational and medical legalization.
So far it’s informal but people in Oregon are beginning to see that marijuana is in fact a “reverse gateway” drug: with it openly available, use of harder drugs is down. Even if it had no other benefit, that alone is a good enough reason for the feds to back off their unconstitutional persecution.
Even though I’m from *that* generation and, once upon a time might have be able to stand next to Cheech and Chong, I found that 1) marijuana gave me a headache, and 2) I really don’t like to alter my state of consciousness. Still, as consciousness altering substances go, manijuana is among the more benign. It should at least be de-criminalized to at least a minor misdemeanor if not completely legalized. And no, you should not shoot or handle guns if you are high, nor when you are drunk. Realistically, however, the kind of people who will get high and then do something stupid with a gun are the kind of people who are so irresponsible that they’ll do completely stupid things with guns when they’re straight. Whether high or straight, I make it a rule to not be around people who tend to be stupid with guns.
For those of you who might not know or have forgotten, Farago launched a pro-weed blog back in October 2015 and proudly announced mjnewsfeed.com in a TTAG article before someone with enough sense to know better informed him that marijuana + guns = criminal prosecution; at which time he hastily deleted the following TTAG article:
Housekeeping: The TTAG Team Creates Marijuana Website” The people who bring you The Truth About Guns have launched a new website dedicated to marijuana news: mjnewsfeed.com It’s not a blog. It’s a news aggregator – with a difference. The software contains a proprietary algorithm (thank you, Nick) that automatically personalizes the content you see based on your reading preferences. (Provided you sign in with a Facebook account. If not, the site remains anonymous.) Click on the leaf to see a blurb, then decide whether or not you want to eat some more chocolate chip cookies. I mean, read the full story.
Apparently at some point during the last several months, Farago and crew decided to take down the mjnewsfeed.com website they once were so giddy over.
I’d prefer people stay away from it for the same reasons I’d prefer people stay away from tobacco, alcohol, trans fats, refined sugars, and discount brothels: excessive use tends to be bad for your health. Last I checked though, becoming unhealthy isn’t a crime.
“…is it worth the risk to your gun rights…”
In short, no. It’s not the odds, it’s the stakes. Weed isn’t a hill I would choose to die on.
I would prefer that people avoid it for the same reason I wish people would avoid tobacco, alcohol, refined sugars, trans fats, and discount brothels: excessive use tends to be bad for your health. Last I checked though, becoming unhealthy isn’t a crime.
“…is it worth the risk to your gun rights…”
In short, no. Its not the odds, its the stakes. It’s not a hill I would choose to die on.
Lamely amusing how stoners apply depleted brain cell logic to arrive at the conclusion that since marijuana smokers inhale to get stoned, everyone who drinks alcohol does so to get drunk. I personally have no problem with alcoholics facing the same firearms restrictions as stoners.
You are conflating abuser with responsible user. Couldn’t one argue that the question about being a user of or addicted to marijuana or depressant or stimulant or blah blah on the 4473 might apply to alcohol too as a depressant?
Except many of us here defending it are not stoners. If you think most stoners do it to be conked out vegetables, you would be very wrong. Many that you walk around with during the day, you wouldn’t even realize they inbibe regularly.
That would be heroin addicts, crack heads, and meth tweekers who become “conked out vegetables”. Stoners or pot heads smoke weed to get high (aka stoned). My teenage years were during the 70’s so I’m well aware of the difference between a few drinks and sharing a joint. The only reason to smoke weed back then and now is to get high, so don’t bother with pissing on my leg and tell me it’s raining. Today’s marijuana has mega potent THC levels compared to weed of the 60’s & 70’s, so only a chronic marijuana user with a high tolerance to THC could claim not to feel “stoned” after inhaling or ingesting even a small dose of modern cannibis.
should I consider it a risk if I take a toke or two when I sit down to handload my ammo? do you know what a toke or two might do for an every day smoker? in a state that says it is recreationally legal for those 21+, should it really concern anyone that I may spark up a joint as a means to simply relax? should I be punished for wearing a pistol on my hip, and growing a plant because I find them a beautiful plant? if my neighbors are ok with my hippy tendencies as a gun owner, why should anyone else care? I’m not getting drunk and beating the shit out of my wife and kids so there shouldn’t ever be question about what a late night may bring for me. I’d much rather smoke a little refer than even sip wine, the effects are polar opposites.
I got high every day many years ago. Never got in a car accident but most pot wasn’t hyper-potent ganja. Now it is. I have an old friend who still getshigh often and has tons of guns. And hunts. I know he never buys firearms at an FFL. As in income nobody knows nothin’…
Just leaving this here:
Opiates come from plant, cocaine comes from a plant, and most of what you need to make meth can be acquired at a grocery store.
I’ve never known a hard drug user that started with hard drugs, always started with pot.
Of the alcoholics I know, few have tried hard drugs, most have dried pot.
How many of those hard drug users started with nicotine and alcohol before weed? I would venture to guess half or more. But it is undeniable that 99% or more of hard drug users tried weed before harder stuff. But seeing as about 50% of the US population ADMITS to having tried weed and nowhere near 50% are hard drug users is it fair to imply that it is a gateway?
Your opinion of that actually conflicts with official research that has actually found weed is a reverse gateway drug; those that take it are less likely to do harder drugs. More hard drug addicts do start with alcohol far before. Alcohol has been identified as the most abused gateway drug in existence.
Here’s a question based on several posts….
Being under the influence of medical MJ or other doctor ordered narcotic prescription could put a DGU into legal trouble, as in being used against you at trial.
Isn’t any drug, alcohol, other altering substance a legal danger to Carrying or DFG?
And/Also what about coverage by the NRA’s new CarryGuard, whatever it’s called, and other gun insurance of same type.
just pondering..
You should absolutely be allowed to smoke marijuana and own guns. Do I? No. But I hate the idea that our rights are dependent on whether or not Uncle Sam deems some of our activities allowable and others not. To hell with that.
I went to college in the ’60s and during that time I did not live in a cave, so I can say with total authority that one does not need a shotgun to shotgun ganja.
‘…safer than alcohol?’
I’m not sure where you’d get the idea that it’s safer than alcohol, other than possibly the fact that there are more drunk driving accidents than stoned accidents. But that’s purely due to the fact that alcohol is legal and a large number of people do their drinking in public venues and then drive, while pot, being illegal is mostly consumed in the privacy of it’s users’ homes. But driving stoned is still a thing.
Otherwise it will ruin your lungs faster than alcohol will ruin you liver. It literally makes your brain smaller, causes paranoia and increased likelihood of schizophrenia and dementia. While they’re both the objects of addiction, there’s a fundamental difference in that alcohol is not a drug, it’s food. There’s 7 calories in every gram. We do not metabolize drugs. And it’s a good thing we do metabolize it, the bacteria in our guts makes an ounce + (200 proof) every day and even our own cells produce a small amount. It is physically impossible to abstain from alcohol. If we couldn’t metabolize it we’d all be dead within a month. At best marijuana is no more dangerous than alcohol.
That said, I don’t believe that it’s the proper role of government (and unconstitutional in the case of the federal government) to dictate what an adult can put into his/her own body, and marijuana is probably the most benign of the illegal recreational drugs, so I’m all for legalizing it. But I still think it’s stupid to use it.
Actually if you eat it, your liver does in fact metabolize it and it produces a completely different psychoactive compound: 11-hydroxy THC
It appears that I used an overly narrow definition of the word ‘metabolize’. Alcohol is metabolized as food and we derive energy from it. THC is metabolized into another form by our bodies but is not itself a source of energy, although we do derive energy from other ingredients in the brownie.
The evidence on dementia & schizophrenia is not a straight-line matter: for heavy users, i.e. people getting actually stoned several times a week, apparently there is an increased risk, but for moderate users who just get the mild relaxation, there’s nothing.
Interestingly, it’s definitely useful to treat both dementia and schizophrenia — at least in non-users, which is what studies so far have looked at, but that’s changing so we should know more in the next year or so.
As with alcohol I’m sure the most serious heath effects are mostly confined to heavy users. There are people who get up every day and the first thing they do is hit the whiskey and there are people who get up in the morning and light up. Although I’ll admit that the medical community loves to hype up studies that suggest ‘having one drink a week could kill you!!!’. Less so with pot, but I highly doubt the health risks are less to casual pot smokers than to casual drinkers.
Probably so, but the risk from smoking being more than from drinking isn’t due to it being marijuana, it’s due to it being smoke. I have an aversion to inhaling any smoke, since I had health problems due to smoke inhalation as an early teen (when the old lawn mower started my grandmother’s high dry grass on fire and it became a brush fire), so I avoid even campfire smoke.
I once heard that there’s more tar in a single joint than an entire pack of cigarettes. Something like 50 known carcinogens, so that’s probably less the tobacco though. I would think ingesting it would be more salubrious.
While it does produce slightly more tar, the number is not even close to that high. The American Lung Association has also announced that while there is more tar, there is no direct connection from Marijuana to lung cancer.
I think people say weed is safer than alcohol because there are about 80,000 alcohol related deaths every year and no one has overdosed on cannabis.
As far as it shrinking your brain, I haven’t seen any relevant tests showing that for adults with developed brains (about 24 years and older). Increased likelihood of schizophrenia? I have heard that adolescent use can increase the likelihood of recognizing/ developing it earlier. However, not necessarily causing someone who wasn’t going to be schizo to contract it.
Alcohol is most certainly a drug. Any chemical that alters you state of mind and physical abilities is certainly a drug, regardless of if it is taken through the stomach and metabolized. So alcohol, psychedelic mushrooms, and thc edibles are all drugs even though they are metabolized.
All that said, we both agree that it should be legalized federally.
Just going by the dictionary definition of drug:
http://www.dictionary.com/browse/drug?s=t
c. any article, other than food, intended to affect the structure or any function of the body of humans or other animals.
Certainly fewer people drive stoned than drunk. However there is this;
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cannabis_(drug)#Adverse_effects
According to the United States Department of Health and Human Services, there were 455,000 emergency room visits associated with cannabis use in 2011. These statistics include visits in which the patient was treated for a condition induced by or related to recent cannabis use. The drug use must be “implicated” in the emergency department visit, but does not need to be the direct cause of the visit. Most of the illicit drug emergency room visits involved multiple drugs.[57] In 129,000 cases, cannabis was the only implicated drug
Those visits that were cannabis alone were from people who freaked out at the effects, not those injured by it. There has never been a case of deadly Marijuana poisioning, and MJ has never been directly cited as the source of any death.
So nobody has ever been involved in a fatal car accident because they were too stoned to drive? Ever? I would find that hard to believe.
Some states have reported a drop in traffic accidents after legalization.
Washington noted a slight increase, including an increase in accidents where marijuana use was found via blood tests, but in no case were examiners willing to say marijuana was a cause, merely that it was present.
Anecdotally, a traffic cop here reported that the most common kind of accident for marijuana users is drifting off into the ditch, with little damage to anything, vehicle or people.
That wouldn’t a direct death caused by marijuana, as it would be the accident and not the marijuana It would be extremely hard to determine that it was because the effects on that person aren’t really known, nor do you know if they were actually high at the time as marijuana can remain in the system for weeks, even months. That’s why even in news reports we’re seeing as more fatal car accident victims test positive in legal states, there are not more fatal car accidents overall. Essentially that would say more people are smoking, but not causing more accidents than normal. Driving while smoking should not be encouraged, but their driving is markedly improved over drunks and those on their phones (which is worse than drunk driving).
http://www.drugfreeworld.org/drugfacts/alcohol.html
^But I don’t care to split hairs on if it is technically a drug or not. If its not a drug than it is a more dangerous beverage than weed.
Of those 129,000 emergency room visits I bet most were Denver tourists who wanted to try an edible so they eat a whole brownie and freaked out. Then at the ER they were probably given a bottle of water, some Doritos, and a bed to sleep it off.
As for driving stoned that is stupid and thankfully no one wants to see that legalized. Although pot outsold alcohol in Colorado since it was legalized and that means more people are smoking which means less are drinking. More high drivers and less drunk drivers is a far from an ideal scenario but better than the reverse. I would rather share the road with a high driver than a drunk driver any day.
Also you said to Raymond that you heard a J has more tar than a pack of cigs. It is 100% true that weed has more tar than tobacco but I do not think its more than an entire pack. More importantly though, tar itself is not the end of the world health wise. Yes heavy weed users are more likely to experience things like chronic bronchitis. But all things in moderation. Yes I do believe that weed in moderation is much safer. Also weed does have about 50 known carcinogens but few are know to be harmful. Weed use alone has not been directly linked to lung cancer but I do doubt that it can be good for them. Cigarettes have hundreds of carcinogens by the way. Many of them directly linked to cancer.
13 years ago while going thru chemo I smoked. That was the only time it was worth risking my gun rights.
I believe you aren’t free unless you can do whatever you want with your body. You should be able to sell it for sex or spare parts, or fill it with alcohol, weed, meth, heroine, cyanide, or twinkies. As long as you’re only hurting yourself, more power to you. Freedoms can be abused, like criminals or crazies using guns, but that isn’t a reason to take the freedoms away from everybody else.
Unfortunately, that isn’t the current law. For me, it’s an easy choice since I freely choose not to get high or drunk, but everyone doesn’t have to follow my choice. It’s up to the individual to balance the freedoms they have vs. ones they think they should have, whether it’s substances or guns that are too quiet, too short, hold too many rounds, are scary looking, or fire too many bullets. Either accept the infringements, jump through the legal barriers, be ready to pay the consequences, or be willing to serve as a test case to get the law changed.
‘…I freely choose not to get high or drunk…’
Yet you’re mum on selling your body for sex and twinkies.
I totally agree, however the state should have in extreme cases the authority to protect children from their parents. Although they like to push the boundaries of that authority. But if someone’s drug use is putting their children at risk then they are ignoring their legal and moral responsibilities.
Second part is very true, and I would say the same about alcohol.
Due to my breakfast pastry habit and marriage, I can’t give sex away, much less sell it.
We already have laws against child abuse, neglect, and endangerment. I don’t see much difference if the source of the neglect is drugs, booze, or just not being around. I’m against preemptive bans, as I am against the blanket removal of guns from a household to prevent child accidents.
More to the substance of the video, I find the court’s arguments on just about all points to be failures. What they got right is that the law burdens the exercise of the right to keep and bear arms. But even under intermediate scrutiny, there’s not enough evidence to suggest that there’s any reduction in violence due to forbidding marijuana users from having guns — and there’s certainly evidence to suggest that people using marijuana are less violent, so the court has a serious problem with its assertion.
Of course for an enumerated right it’s inappropriate to use mere intermediate scrutiny in the first place, so their actual fail on that standard is a definite fail for the appropriate strict scrutiny. (Though personally, since the wording of the Second is the strictest in the Bill of Rights, I hold that it should be subjected to a level tighter even than strict.)
Nobody can sip good bourban and not change his BAL. It may not pass .08, but I wouldn’t bet on it. It is very easy to have an illegal blood alcohol count, that I won’t drive after drinking even 1 beer.
Do what you like, but don’t get caught in Ca on a night when they channel all cars on a road into a stp and check – because they also lie about the results if there is room at the jail.
And if they do not like you, they will claim they smelled Marijuana – just try to get out of that, even if you haven’t smoked in 20 years.
Quote: ” that which grows naturally weather grain or fruit & yeast or other natural intoxicants SHOULD be just as much of a natural human right as is self defense.”
Don’t forget other “natural” substances such as heroin, cocaine, morphine, opium, psilocybin, mescaline,etc.
All of those substances go through heavy alteration from their natural states. Marijuana is bred like GM crops to produce its different effects and is simply picked and maybe dried (Although usually not as it is sold by weight and the water contributes to that so they can charge the same for less). MJ is entirely smoked in an unaltered state from when it is stripped from the crop. Concentrated substances are boiled, dried, ground, and the THC is extracted to produce the wax and oil without adding any harmful chemical ingredients. You can produce those in your kitchen with normal marijuana procured from local dealers and no other chemicals. The same cannot be said of anything except possibly the psilocybin which is also directly extracted (which is as safe and legal with responsible usage and can be used for medicinal effects).
The problem with people who either smoke pot or think it should be legal is they put the second amendment in last place to getting marijuana. That is the Achilles Heel of the libertarian thinking. The only thing Libertarians really care about is putting things in to their bodies. I include the Liberals and the Left in the same desire.
In California Washington State and Colorado you got the best access to legal marijuana. But gun control, gun confiscation go together with legal pot. Growing up in Sacramento in the 1970’s everyone who supported legalizing marijuana also supported gun control. And that has not changed. White people only now want guns because they are pot dealers. But guess what??
Black people have always believed in having guns when dealing marijuana.
Colorado has had an increase of welfare and homeless people because you can get legal pot and be on the “free stuff” list from the government. The libertarian Reason magazine came out against drug testing for welfare people. Libertarians have never believed in personal responsibility.
I’m very proud to put the human right of self defense above putting marijuana or anything else into my body. The three L’s created a utopia for putting things into your body on the west coast.
You just can’t have guns.
You make a lot of effort to classify people and their behavior. You seem to also know what other people think and feel. Perhaps you should quit projecting.
wade
I don’t need to project. I speak to truth. The pot legalization crowd in the 1970s said, “if we can just make marijuana legal it will reduce crime.”
“It will reduce gun violence.” It is a fact that the marijuana legalization crowd and its leadership were and still are anti-second amendment. Where is the leadership who put ballots to the vote to make pot legal on the issue of gun ownership??? You are the one projecting Wade. You project a pro-gun position onto an leader who supports pot legalization. They have never supported the second amendment. Only one pot smoker is going to court to get a gun. Why only one???????
Are you telling me the white people who now deal pot can’t figure out they need guns???? They have lots of money to pay for lawyers to up for a legal fight.
That fact that you have never heard of this tells me you are younger than me and don’t no history. They are utopians and so are you.
Marijuana smokers don’t support the Bill Of Rights. But they do support driving while intoxicated. Libertarian John Stossel has forever said “you have a right to dive intoxicated.”
If you smash into a pole then you have committed a crime because the pole was not your property. Interesting how John Stossel, libertarian, never uses, running over a person or driving a car intoxicated smashing into a stranger house as his example of libertarianism.
I don’t care if you or anyone smokes pot in their home. Its not the governments business. But if you get into your car to get a six-pack at the store to go along with your marijuana high, I hope you get arrested.
http://www.foxnews.com/health/2017/01/03/supervised-injection-site-for-addicts-could-save-san-francisco-money-lives.html
Libertarians totally support using the government to interfere with the individual. They support welfare system. They want the government to pleasure them with “free intoxicates” and other “free stuff”.
You would be laughed out of the hall at every Libertarian gathering I’ve been at, and outside someone would calmly explain that you are confusing liberals with libertarians.
The evidence of your ignorance is your citing John Stossel on drugs — you plainly don’t know anything else about him. Just for starters, why doesn’t he use your moronic examples to illustrate libertarianism? Precisely because he, as all libertarians, does in fact believe deeply in personal responsibility — and firmly oppose the nanny state position you advocate.
roymond
https://reason.com/archives/2017/06/03/the-indestructible-idea-of-the
“The Indestructible Idea of the Basic Income”
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Z5LyFKrikZQ
John Stossel – Abolish Drunk Driving Laws
Libertarians will trade your guns right for legal public intoxication. And they do want the state in your business as much as possible. As long as they can put things into their bodies without government interference.
LOL
You provide two solid pieces of evidence AGAINST your claims.
Thanks for the laugh.
No, I won’t jeopardize my RKBA to use Marijuana. Recently, I found this interview Steven Crowder conducted with a neurologist who provides some persuasive information on the effects Marijuana’s intoxicant and some other components have been found to have on the Human Brain and adolescent neural development.
You may dislike Crowder, but hearing what Dr. Boniface has to say is worth the 37 minutes it takes to watch the interview, if for no other reason than to expand your base knowledge of this matter, given the trend towards legalization.
https://www.louderwithcrowder.com/marijuana-good-or-bad-doctors-weigh-in/
I have said several times before I have no problem with people who smoke pot in your home. But I think you are a fool. You have chosen to use pot instead of having a gun. You have chosen to lose your job for being intoxicated on duty.
Yes their are people who need marijuana for cancer treatment and other serious illness. I’m glad these people can get it. But the cancer patient is being used as a fig leaf by drug addicts.
People do get addicted to the doctor prescriptions. That’s not good. Is it good to get addicted to a marijuana prescription????
Or is it OK???
Thanks for the video. I hope there is serious research into the use of cannabis. Most real medical marijuana does not get you intoxicated. It does cost more because they take the THC out. And that’s the real issue. The white pot dealers want easy money.
Well, this answers a question I’ve long had and shortens my online reading list.
Cannabis is just another crutch for the weak willed in their quest of escapism;
personnel freedom is not an issue neither is the Law, when your excessive use of what ever product you choose becomes so habit forming it interferes with another persons freedom it then becomes Vendetta!
where i work, the personnel have no freedom.
“Coffee is just another crutch for the weak willed in their quest of escapism.”
FTFY
Beer is my drug of choice.
an excellent start.
don’t forget d.a.r.e.
drugs are really excellent.
Sunshine is my drug of choice.
Though where I live, this Native American prayer is quite appropriate:
Don’t you ever, you in the sky,
Don’t you ever get tired
of having the clouds between you and us?
lotta stuffed shirts here. can you build a straw man by stuffing it full of hemp stalks?
live your life. protect yourself. get to a secluded spot if your going to clown.
if you can manage to maintain some semblance of moderation in your passions, then genetics will decide much of your fate healthwise.
i see some self proclaimed non- users listing so many health concerns. some of you spouting off about these medical issues are about to sit doen to a nice american dinner (i project). better floss your damn teeth to keep the strep out of your heart valves.
laughter is damn good medicine. go easy on the lungs and liver.
1) the ban on grass is an outrageous violation of the basic right to do whatever you want as long as you’re not shirking responsibilities (eg raising your kids decently) or violating other people’s rights.
2) the war on drugs is political bs designed to target blacks and leftists. It has been an utter failure and should be abandoned.
3) the idea that enjoying a little herb means you give up basic constitutional freedoms is disgusting.
I find that a misuse of the word “disgusting”. Far better to say “vile”, and the rearranged form of its letters, “evil”.
The degree to which some here have bought into the nanny-state/police-state propaganda is astounding. With statements such as “The only reason to smoke weed back then and now is to get high”, and the belief that marijuana is addictive, and the utter unawareness of actually buying it, the ignorance is astounding as well.
With such abundant willingness to surrender intelligence to the easy path of letting others tell you what to think, I despair for our Republic.
Nothing funnier than a stoner taking a stab at stringing together a few words intended to resemble an intelligent argument. Sad lesson is that cannibis satured brains can’t regenerate brain cells.
Ah, Ted — can’t win on facts, so you go to ad hominem.
Being stoned sucks, as far as I’m concerned — it’s a waste of a good mind. Yet all you have is calling me a “stoner”.
^^^^^^^^^^^^^ And there is the perfect example of which you speak, Roymond. I fully agree with you, the ignorance and projection in this thread is truly astounding… “As long as I can enjoy MY freedom, who cares what you hippies and stoners want?”
Unfortunately this brings another word to mind – frightening! Trust me, I despair right along with you.
Ah, Ted — can’t win on facts, so he goes to ad hominem, with as little knowledge as is being displayed about marijuana.
Being stoned sucks, as far as I’m concerned — it’s a waste of a good mind. Yet all he has is calling me a “stoner”… when I’d seriously contemplate shooting anyone who got me stoned.
Comments are closed.