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

whitehouse.gov

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

#291

Post by krispyfi »

oooyay wrote: post #249
chimeracoder wrote: post #233

Earlier quoted context omitted.

OP is technically incorrect that rescheduling alone would solve the fentanyl problem, but not for the reasons you state. > For one, it's much cheaper than high quality heroin. Second, heroin used to be the dominant drug when people couldn't afford prescription pills. Peoples tolerances on opioids quickly build and some subset of the population were using so much heroin that they could more cheaply inject or smoke fen…

"Gateway drug theory" has to do with going from one class of drugs to another. That is not what I described. I described usage within a single class of drugs that has to do with chemically addictive properties, strength, and cost dictating the choice of the next drug. I can see your argument about cost, but I think it ignores that, for instance, tranq is now being used in combination with fent. The reason for that is…

I think you are mischaracterizing the emergence of tranq.

"Xylazine proliferated as a response to the shorter fentanyl highs, with drug sellers using it to extend the high & mimic a traditional heroin experience."

https://twitter.com/SyringeAccess/status/1626623755329097728...

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

#292

Post by tptacek »

CyberDildonics wrote: post #289
tptacek wrote: post #287

Earlier quoted context omitted.

More people die from oxycodone, even today, I think? than from heroin. Labeled regulated opioids are not safe.

Now you're way off the map. The originem claim was that controlled fentanyl dose would decrease overdoses. It wasn't about oxycodone being 'safe' (even though I gave you stats that showed 80% of deaths of from combining drugs), it wasn't about oxycodone vs heroin. Not to mention that way more people take oxycodone than heroin, so even from a stats 101 angle this doesn't make sense. Really, what is the point of a repl…

I don't think I am. The subtext of the original comment was that making opiates more widely available but more carefully regulated as to content and dosage would save lives. It pretty clearly would not do that. The high order bit of this problem is the number of people that start habitually using opiates; I think basically nothing else matters.

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

#293

Post by krispyfi »

kstrauser wrote: post #122
ZoomerCretin wrote: post #117

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Measured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge success. I think temporary society-scale prohibition when drug use becomes a widespread societal ill is good policy. Afterward, individual mandatory punishment/rehab for those who abuse drugs/alcohol and harm themselves and others should be the norm.

> Measured by annual average alcohol consumption in the US before and after prohibition, the 21st amendment was a huge success. That begs the question by assuming that's a good measurement. Is it? Since prohibition ended, has alcohol become so uniquely destructive here (compared to all other alcohol-allowing societies) that we've wanted to ban it again? I'm of the strong opinion that it's not. > I think temporary soc…

You likely live around well-adjusted prescription meth users and don't know it.

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

#294

Post by refurb »

codexb wrote: post #7

This will have virtually zero effect. The president only has the power to pardon people convicted or accused of violating federal law and prosecuted in federal court. The problem is that nearly all people arrested for simple possession of marijuana aren't charged under federal law nor prosecuted in federal court. They are charged under state law that similarly outlaws marijuana possession and prosecuted in state cour…

This will have virtually zero effect.

Oh it will have a huge effect politically. Biden can talk about how he is compassionate and fighting the injustice of federal marijuana crimes.

It's perfectly politically. Zero cost, and lots of benefit.

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

#295

Post by d0mine »

hedora wrote: post #282
crtified wrote: post #247

Earlier quoted context omitted.

I agree with your point. But the quoted statistic is confusing. Under what specifics would 300 people = 0.5% of the total prison population? As I understand it, the total prison population of the USA is over 1 million, and the subset designated 'federal prisoners' is, by itself, over 200,000.

That 0.5% figure is wrong. It’s closer to 20%. (350,000 people) Here is a write up of many prisoner stats from 2023. See slideshow 3: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html Note that terminology in this space is very important and subtle. 7 million people are arrested each year, and > 600K are sent to prison, but the total number of people in prison (and number that are incarcerated one way or another) is…

2% of the total population arrested each year sounds like a lot!

If we believe chatgpt, then the median time in prison is a couple of months.

I'm unsure about the math: "The arrival rate $\lambda$ is the rate at which people arrive in the queue, and the service rate $\mu$ is the rate at which people are served and leave the queue. In a stable system, the service rate must be greater than the arrival rate, otherwise the queue will grow indefinitely.

Given that the total number of people in the queue $n$ is 1750000 and the arrival rate $\lambda$ is 600000 people per year, we can find the service rate $\mu$ by dividing the total number of people in the queue by the arrival rate:

$\mu = \frac{n}{\lambda} = \frac{1750000}{600000} \approx 2.92$ people per year.

This means that on average, about 2.92 people are served and leave the queue every year.

The median waiting time in the queue can be calculated using the formula for the median of an exponential distribution, which is $\frac{\ln(2)}{\mu}$.

So, the median waiting time in the queue in years is $\frac{\ln(2)}{2.92} \approx 0.237$ years."

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

#296

Post by oooyay »

krispyfi wrote: post #291
oooyay wrote: post #249

Earlier quoted context omitted.

"Gateway drug theory" has to do with going from one class of drugs to another. That is not what I described. I described usage within a single class of drugs that has to do with chemically addictive properties, strength, and cost dictating the choice of the next drug. I can see your argument about cost, but I think it ignores that, for instance, tranq is now being used in combination with fent. The reason for that is…

I think you are mischaracterizing the emergence of tranq. "Xylazine proliferated as a response to the shorter fentanyl highs, with drug sellers using it to extend the high & mimic a traditional heroin experience." https://twitter.com/SyringeAccess/status/1626623755329097728...

No, that's saying exactly what I am. It's increasing the potency of the drug. The DEA report says the same, although it also mentions xylazine is cheaper than the market price of fent: https://www.dea.gov/sites/default/files/2022-12/The%20Growin...

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

#297

Post by astrange »

DANmode wrote: post #269
Levitz wrote: post #225

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Does it really? Do people really think "Ah but of course the military needs more money, it's given a good use, since the police get it afterwards"?

That’s not even an uncharitable interpretation of what I wrote. I was talking about the domestic law enforcement continuing to use the stuff they got for cheap/federally subsidized, or free, because “it’s effective.”

They generally don't actually use it or have a use for it though, that's part of the problem. And I don't think buying replacement tires for an MRAP is a lot of subscription revenue.

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

#298

Post by pseudosavant »

thsksbd wrote: post #245
pseudosavant wrote: post #240

Earlier quoted context omitted.

And the cynic in me wonders why you think people having their voting rights rightfully restored is bad or suspect?

I don't think it's bad. What made you think I think that? I do think our current president is a swine of a human being who cares nothing for others but his immediate family. Evidence for this is that he himself is largely responsible for our draconian drug laws when it suited him politically, and now as his progressive wing is deserting him (for excellent reasons) he's politically motivated to do the right thing in v…

I don't mind people's voting rights being restored for any reason. It is too fundamental of a right to infringe, especially for small things like weed possession. I'm not even convinced we should take felon's voting rights.

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

#299

Post by scoofy »

mmcwilliams wrote: post #288
scoofy wrote: post #286

Earlier quoted context omitted.

>No. Criminalization does more harm than benefit. >For the vast majority of drug users that are not addicted, this is obvious. I'm pretty sure a couple decades of effectively legalized oxycodone and hydrocodone use shows this view is not correct.

But recreational use of those drugs isn't legalized and the highest death toll from opiate use comes from people who move from the pharmaceutical-grade drugs to unregulated street drugs.

You can call for both legalization and high regulation… that’s literally what prescription drugs are.

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

#300

Post by chmod775 »

d0mine wrote: post #295
hedora wrote: post #282

Earlier quoted context omitted.

That 0.5% figure is wrong. It’s closer to 20%. (350,000 people) Here is a write up of many prisoner stats from 2023. See slideshow 3: https://www.prisonpolicy.org/reports/pie2023.html Note that terminology in this space is very important and subtle. 7 million people are arrested each year, and > 600K are sent to prison, but the total number of people in prison (and number that are incarcerated one way or another) is…

2% of the total population arrested each year sounds like a lot! If we believe chatgpt, then the median time in prison is a couple of months. I'm unsure about the math: "The arrival rate $\lambda$ is the rate at which people arrive in the queue, and the service rate $\mu$ is the rate at which people are served and leave the queue. In a stable system, the service rate must be greater than the arrival rate, otherwise t…

> 2% of the total population arrested each year sounds like a lot!

It's probably mostly people getting arrested multiple times.

But yeah, there's a lot of arrests where police in other countries would have just ID'd people and sent them on their way. Arrests are simply the default operating procedure in the US, which is likely related to the fact that the lack of reliable national ID makes it harder to identify people on the spot.

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