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Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

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Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#151
post #84

Earlier quoted context omitted.

[flagged]

It's impossible for the general public to understand any actual risks associated with marijuana while they still believe in the reefer madness nonsense from almost a century ago. I'm sorry for your loss. Your comment reads like you disapprove of this pardon, which would seem quite short-sighted.

>Your comment reads like you disapprove of this pardon

you are reading into what I said, since I said nothing like that.

>actual risks associated with marijuana while they still believe in the reefer madness

Sure, back in those days, we didn't even know that cigarettes caused cancer, so we can't judge them based on today's knowledge, but many traditional beliefs did have a folk wisdom "correlation might just be causation"... so how is THC induced psychosis an indictment of the reefer madness hypothesis?

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#152

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That is not why fentanyl kills.

So are you going to tell me what it is then?

I don't have to. We've had a nationwide epidemic of deaths from regulated, labeled opiates, which is a fact that refutes your argument without requiring me to provide an alternative.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#153
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else was the government to continue to systemically hold down minorities in this country post-Civil Rights Act, while simultaneously enriching the Military Industrial Complex by flooding local law enforcement with military equipment paid for by US taxpayers?

Cannabis laws applied to all Americans.

They are not enforced the same way to all, though.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#155

For reference, as of January 2022 there were ZERO people in federal custody solely for simple possession of marijuana[0]. As a gesture, this seems fine. But the continued presence of cannabis on Schedule I makes an absolute mockery out of our entire code of laws. [0]: https://www.ussc.gov/research/research-reports/weighing-impa...

Sure, but thousands of people now have one less obstacle to passing a background check for a job, etc. I agree with you about the scheduling, but this is more than a gesture, and will have a material impact on a lot of people, especially in DC.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#156
post #149

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else was the government to continue to systemically hold down minorities in this country post-Civil Rights Act, while simultaneously enriching the Military Industrial Complex by flooding local law enforcement with military equipment paid for by US taxpayers?

Cannabis laws applied to all Americans.

At the discretion of both law enforcement officers and prosecutors.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#157
Much like The adoption of the Montreal Protocol on Substances that Deplete the Ozone Layer had no long term downsides and "fixed" the Ozone hole [1], this action is an unequivocal good and there are no long term downsides from my perspective.

[1]https://www.unep.org/news-and-stories/story/rebuilding-ozone...

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#158

I don't use cannabis. If it were to go away tomorrow, my life wouldn't change one bit. I am absolutely thrilled with this blanket pardon. Rephrasing the statement slightly, like: > I am pardoning additional individuals who may continue to experience the unnecessary collateral consequences of a conviction for simple possession of beer, attempted simple possession of beer, or use of beer. and it sounds utterly obvious,…

> that's caused far more societal harm than cannabis ever did.

Yes, I think this indisputably so. However, the more widely cannabis is used the greater the harms seem to be.

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#159

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Why does fentanyl kill? Because people buy it and don't understand the strength. Regulation would take care of that. So what's your argument here?

That is not why fentanyl kills.

Fentanyl is administered daily by medical professionals in all sorts of situations. If "not understanding it's strength" is not what causes people to overdose on it, then why aren't millions of people dying from its administration in a medical setting?

Re: Granting pardon for the offense of simple possession of or use of marijuana

#160

Earlier quoted context omitted.

How else was the government to continue to systemically hold down minorities in this country post-Civil Rights Act, while simultaneously enriching the Military Industrial Complex by flooding local law enforcement with military equipment paid for by US taxpayers?

You act as if they couldn't have gone about this 10,000 different ways. This worked because it's what the people wanted - in response to the 70s - not because some evil scheming overlord.

I don't think anyone wanted the sweeping disinformation campaign about marijuana that flooded both the airwaves and law-enforcement training syllabuses that we got from the federal government.

It is hard to expect a republic to make sensible decisions when it's citizens are being actively misinformed. It is also hard to not impute malice on people who push blatantly false information.

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