I think it all depends. Alcohol on your breath is something you’re going to carry around with you pretty much no matter what you do.
If you don’t smoke pot in an enclosed area and take a couple precautions, you really can’t smell it on someone.
Anyway, I suppose its a tangent.
My fear is that government healthcare pokes a big gaping hole in the historic anti-prohibition logic that people should make their own choices as long as they’re harming only themselves. If the government takes over healthcare, self-harm is now everyone’s business, and gives the government more incentive than ever to escalate the drug war to previously unimagined levels.
In California, particularly L.A. and San Francisco and their environs, we already have a situation where nobody smokes tobacco in public. The proposed legalization statute still prohibits smoking marijuana in public.
As for the tax evasion issue, I think the revenue to be generated is probably a lot less than people think, to begin with. Unlike tobacco and booze, pot is reasonably easy to “manufacture” – as it were – at home. Many users are just going to opt for that, instead of paying money to someone else for it. (I, too, support legalization, but not because I think it will solve California’s budget woes.) As an example of something which is already highly taxed, the bootlegging of tobacco may be a minor element in the grand scheme of criminal enterprises. But it can’t possibly be a major part of it. When’s the last time you heard about two gangs battling it out over the bootleg cigarette trade? Not that it doesn’t happen somewhere, sometime. But there’s no way you can compare the amount of criminality surrounding a prohibited product with one that is merely taxed.
Except I don’t know how much more they could escalate it. The only way to effectively interdict such behavior would be to mount security cameras in people’s houses, and conscript half the population to monitor and report on the other half.i
Self harm is already the business of everyone in the insurance pool, but so far nobody (to my knowledge) has tried to prohibit and punish every type of behavior that is potentially risky.
I think if they were to try to do such a thing under the concept of Socialized Medicine, they would have already tried it in The Nanny State (Britain).
Just not going to fly in the US.
I doubt this will pass but I’ll go and vote for it anyway.
(not much of a post, just wanted to subscribe to the thread)
Jesus christ, you don’t have to post to subscribe. You click on “thread tools” then on “subscribe” then on “add subscription”.
Well that’s no fun. 
Sure it is. It’s just a different kind of fun.
Expand your horizons, man.
I bet most users will not be growing their own. No matter how easy it is.
I bet a lot of people who normally don’t vote will be motivated to support this measure. It could make polling the issue dificult.
I don’t understand what the problem is here? Maybe it’s because I live here in California where no one smokes anywhere (basically).
And smoking is not the only way to partake, of course.
I was just thinking about this last night. If it gets legalized, will smoking be the default method of marijuana use?
I dunno. I read about one guy who diffuses it into olive oil and drizzles it on spaghetti and whatnot. I’d love to try legal pot cooking.
Yeah, smoking in most places in California is about as commonplace as it is on Star Trek.
I think 1964 was about the last time a Californian just walked into someone’s house and lit up. Most smokers don’t even smoke inside their own homes.
This is untrue. Possession of under an ounce of marijuana is a misdemeanor, under Health and Safety Code section 11357(b). Maximum penalty, however, is a $100 fine.
I have a feeling it is going to be defeated. All the law enforcement types, and their families will be voting against, because it cuts into their business model, and they are already gearing up the scare campaign. The soccer moms will be up in arms, even though many of them toked up before popping out the snowflakes and maybe still do but can’t bear the thought of little Tyler or Brianna getting their hands on some, and the husbands will be henpecked into going along, so basically anyone with kids will be against it, then there is the old fogey contingent who thinks it is the tool of the devil, and the Bible thumpers… All these folks are going to turn out heavy and vote against.
This against the stoners? Duuude! Election day was YESTERDAY!?! Bummer!
I’m in college and went to a high school in the city and consider myself pretty knowledgeable about the economics of the drug trade. Obviously this is anecdotal, but I don’t really think this is true.
Weed is pretty cheap as far as drugs go. You can smoke a bowl for a couple bucks and a blunt for five. Considering that generally accepted weed prices (~10 dollars/gram at small quantities) are more a result of the risks involved in dealing and the lack of a true marketplace than cost of production, I imagine that even with taxation, prices would remain about the same. This is supported by existing prices for medicinal and in Holland (I think it costs a little bit more than 10/gram, but the quality is better).
If legal weed was approx. the same price as illegal weed is now (which I think is a fair assumption), everyone I know would switch. No one enjoys the criminal aspect of marijuana, or dealing with the shady people that sell it, or not knowing what you’re getting when you buy it.
Basically, this was a long way of making this point: People will pay a premium for legal weed. Legalization would marginalize the illegal marijuana trade, just like repealing prohibition marginalized bootlegging.
I wonder if this will help or hurt the other statewide elections. Who will this bring to the polls more - social conservatives who will also make Meg the governor, and Carly the Senator? Alternatively, will we get a huge youth turnout and a stronger left-wing vibe to the election?
I will vote for it, but won’t smoke personally. I cough up a lung every time I try to smoke.