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2023-01-20 Economy
How America surrendered to marijuana: KAYLA BRANTLEY reveals how pot became ubiquitous across the US because it rakes in billions in tax dollars despite concerns about impact on health
[Daily Mail, where America gets its news] Within a decade, the U.S. went from cracking down on marijuana use to becoming a $47 billion industry.

But the road to having dispensaries on every corner, the smell of weed smoke freely in the air and criminal records expunged didn't happen overnight.

It took a couple of states leading the charge - Colorado and Washington in 2012 - to then ripple into near nation-wide legalization.

There are now 21 states where cannabis has been legalized for recreational use. Every corner of New York City, for example, is an assault on the nostrils with people lighting up a joint as early as before or just after their morning commute.

However, not everyone is on board with the marijuana revolution. Doctors and advocates have highlighted concerns about excessive use of cannabis in high risk groups, especially the youth.

DailyMail.com has examined when exactly America's war on drugs changed, the challenges the industry faces and the future of the billion-dollar business.
Posted by Skidmark 2023-01-20 00:00|| || Front Page|| [11142 views ]  Top

#1 The war on drugs failed. Time for a new approach. The drug gangs gained a lot from the war on drugs by making their product expensive and profitable. Now we're stealing their thunder.
Posted by Herman Hapsburg8987 2023-01-20 00:41||   2023-01-20 00:41|| Front Page Top

#2 Arguably Prohibition gave rise to organized crime, and so, too, did the "war on drugs" (or exacerbated the growth of organized crime).

Impacts on health? You mean like alcohol, cigarettes, and perhaps even junk food (whatever that means)?

Sorry, but I want to consume, smoke, imbibe, or ingest whatever I want. My body, my rules.

Marijuana needs to be decriminalized--period.
Posted by DooDahMan 2023-01-20 06:43||   2023-01-20 06:43|| Front Page Top

#3 Sorry, but I want to consume, smoke, imbibe, or ingest whatever I want. My body, my rules.

OK, just don't ask everyone else to subsidize those transplants and medical support later on that are required to put off the big reaper for things that are attributed to what ever you wanted to subject your body to.
Posted by Procopius2k 2023-01-20 07:10||   2023-01-20 07:10|| Front Page Top

#4 ^^^ Thanks for being presumptuous. But rest assured, I won't ask.
Posted by DooDahMan 2023-01-20 07:29||   2023-01-20 07:29|| Front Page Top

#5 Anyone who believes marijuana does not crush human initiative need look no further than the Libertarian Party. All the potential good that the libertarian project entails is lost in the obsession with weed.
Posted by M. Murcek 2023-01-20 07:41||   2023-01-20 07:41|| Front Page Top

#6 All the potential good that the libertarian project entails is lost in the obsession with weed.

It's the obsession more than the weed.
Posted by AlanC 2023-01-20 09:45||   2023-01-20 09:45|| Front Page Top

#7 Transplants? Medical support? Lol. You people literally have no idea what weed or what it does. How embarrassing.

On the off chance you were talking about smoking, the weed is pure and without the toxic chemicals that are added to tobacco. At any rate, edibles are where it's at. No stench, no inhaling, no muss no fuss. The last time I was with my brother, he had gummy bears impregnated with THC. Eat one and you're good for hours.

Transplants...bahaha.
Posted by Punky Elmigum9411 2023-01-20 10:28||   2023-01-20 10:28|| Front Page Top

#8 /\ Having worked with a "stoner" I fail to see your optimism. Marijuana, like alcohol, can be a debilitating crutch for some people and it "may be their body their choice", which I totally agree with, but when it becomes "their medical bills MY pocketbook" I start running out of sympathy quickly. YMMV, that's my view for what little a personal opinion is worth.
Posted by magpie 2023-01-20 10:59||   2023-01-20 10:59|| Front Page Top

#9 We actually know very little about marijuana and its effects. See, for example, this article in the New Yorker, of all places!

https://www.newyorker.com/magazine/2019/01/14/is-marijuana-as-safe-as-we-think
Posted by Tom 2023-01-20 11:22||   2023-01-20 11:22|| Front Page Top

#10 "I got baked and forgot to get a job / healthcare / annual checkup."

Recipe for sorrow.
Posted by M. Murcek 2023-01-20 11:35||   2023-01-20 11:35|| Front Page Top

#11 OK, just don't ask everyone else to subsidize those transplants and medical support later on that are required to put off the big reaper for things that are attributed to what ever you wanted to subject your body to.

I believe insurance companies have actuaries who can at least recommend how different types of behavior will affect your premiums. At least that's how it should work. As far as harmful substances go, I think if you consider the toll that is taken by obesity and diabetes, sugar would rank right up there with heroin. But in our culture people are constantly encouraged to eat cake, ice cream, donuts and cookies. To each their poison I guess. But I would agree that we shouldn't be asked to subsidize healthcare for people whose habits are unhealthy and I still think we should secure the border and take military action against Mexico's drug cartels.

I always thought it was ironic that people who can legally smoke tobacco wanted to put marijuana smokers in jail. As old as I am, I've seen a lot of people, many of them people that I still miss today, get sick and die from smoking tobacco. You can debate all day about which is worse: tobacco or marijuana. It's probably best to avoid both of them.
Posted by Abu Uluque 2023-01-20 12:50||   2023-01-20 12:50|| Front Page Top

#12 in states with legalized recreational marijuana, there have been significant increases in juvenile psychosis

the medical path by which THC leads to marijuana psychosis is still in the early stages of investigation but there is little doubt that this is happening

THC concentration in for-sale marijuana is far higher than it was 30 or 20 or even 5 years ago
Posted by lord garth 2023-01-20 14:54||   2023-01-20 14:54|| Front Page Top

#13 one of the difficulties with researching the issue of marijuana psychosis is that marijuana sold is highly variable in its purity

several dozen potential psychoactive compounds are in raw marijuana and when it is smoked the number of compounds doubles or triples
Posted by lord garth 2023-01-20 14:57||   2023-01-20 14:57|| Front Page Top

#14 Though the weed debate has been going on since long before COVID vaxx, the trajectory is the same. On one side, true believers who call anyone who says differently uninformed conspiracy zealots.
Posted by M. Murcek  2023-01-20 14:58||   2023-01-20 14:58|| Front Page Top

#15 Like what the craft beer IPA industry did, trying to 'out Hops' each other.
Posted by swksvolFF 2023-01-20 15:03||   2023-01-20 15:03|| Front Page Top

#16 Life and health insurance often set your rates according to your smoking status and sometimes your alcohol consumption, would make sense to price policies according to cannabis use too.
Posted by Glenmore  2023-01-20 15:13||   2023-01-20 15:13|| Front Page Top

#17 "Sorry, but I want to consume, smoke, imbibe, or ingest whatever I want. My body, my rules."

Okay - I can play that game:

If you don't get your daily cardio for a healthy heart then develop cardiac and heart problems - FO and die.

If you dont wear your seat belt and get into an accident - FO and die.

If you dont wear your helmet and wreck your motorcycle or bicycle - FO and die.

If you dont heed the warning and fall off the top step of a ladder, FO and die.

If you are a daily drinker or smoker and those habits catch up to you - FO and die.

If you eat a lot of sugary snacks and drink a lot of soda and develop diabetes - FO and die.

If you don't moderate your diet and become a fatty fat fatso - FO and die.

If you dont look both ways crossing the street and get hit by a car, FO and die.

If you run with scissors, trip-fall and impale yourself, FO and die.

If you dive into the shallow end of the pool, knock yourself out and start drowning, FO and die.

If you get a STD via sex without a condom, FO and die.

If you lift with your back and not your knees, and ruin your back, FO and die.

Basically if you do anything I don't like and it effects your health negatively, and it's not a behavior I engage in, and the opposite is beneficially good for you, be like Jesus or FO & die.

Those are the rules, right? So long as they are applied equally, I think we can agree.
Posted by mossomo 2023-01-20 16:05||   2023-01-20 16:05|| Front Page Top

#18 Positions harden on this issue in mid- to late adolescence, then are only changed if one knows someone who became addicted or became a murderous paranoid schizophrenic.
Posted by trailing wife 2023-01-20 19:43||   2023-01-20 19:43|| Front Page Top

#19 Why do everyone I know that inhaled smoke from something burning have died already?
Posted by Mad Eye Omeretch7959 2023-01-20 19:47||   2023-01-20 19:47|| Front Page Top

14:09 Grom the Affective
14:04 Super Hose
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13:37 Procopius2k
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