I don’t think the DEA has the manpower to actually enforce drug laws at the local level. They’d have to send a small army of federal agents to Nevada just to enforce stupid possession laws. I can’t imagine that they could pull it off without making themselves look like idiots.
I would imagine that if Canada does legalize the plant that would make I-40 state troopers jobs easier. Mainly with “weeding out” those who bring us poor folks in the north and south east Mexican red buds.
*smack smack * 
Unfortunately, the police have retracted their endorsement of ballot initiative due to political pressure. Yeah, I guess the politicians know how to better patrol the streets than the cops. :rolleyes: Also, the ballot has to be voted on and passed twice, IIRC.
Federal law supercedes state law. The DEA could arrest you, just like they’re doing right now to medical marijuana clinics in California, a state where medical pot was approved by the voters.
They also don’t mind arresting the people brave enough to grow medical pot for registered users. Consider the case of poor Peter McWilliams. An outspoken medical marijuana activist, he was caught growing plants for himself and some other patients. He was tossed right in jail, despite the fact that he was dying of cancer and AIDS. He passed away in jail while awaiting trial.
Hell, that’s already happening. Well, it’s not technically legal in Canada, but the penalties for growing marijuana are negligible. I watched a very interesting show on cable a few weeks ago. They were talking to Canadian police who raid pot growers’ homes. The cops themselves said that growers rarely face any jail time at all, no matter how big their operation. They acknowledged that some second or third time commercial growers get prison time, but usually less than three months and never more than six.
Compare that to the U.S., where you can get mandatory minimum life sentences in some states if convicted of growing a certain amount of marijuana. There’s even a federal law on the books that allows the death penalty for kingpins in drug operations, provided that they have over 60,000 plants, or if it can be proven that they made $20 million in a single year. They don’t even have to kill anyone. Just grow enough weed and you could be dead!
It’s furthur worth noting that marijuana is not harmless, of course, but it is safer than alcohol or tobacco, at least according to the World Health Oranganization in Geneva. Their study proved what potheads have known for years, but it was suppressed due to political pressure. Luckily, some person with an actual mind of their own smuggled a copy of the report to Britain’s New Scientist magazine. It is available online here.
Over one million people are rotting away right now in prisons and local jails for non-violent drug offenses. Every year, 1.6 million get arrested for something proven to be less dangerous than the legal alternative. I want to get my buzz on, but don’t want to wake up with a hangover, so I belong in jail? Land of the free, my ass.
People just want to get high. Face it. You can’t legislate it. You can’t control it. There are records of drug use dating back over 10,000 years. They’ve always been here. They’ll always be here. It’s a war that cannot be won.
I think the late, great Bill Hicks put it more eloquently when he said:
3 ounces!?!?!? Uhmm do you know how much weed that is? That would last me -thinks- a helluva a long time as I don’t smoke that much at all. 3 grams sounds a little more reasonable… that’s about an 1/8th… little less I believe. Could be wrong as I don’t follow the weights and everything. Here now anything less than an 1/8th is pretty much just taken away with a warning… unless it’s in small baggies implying you are selling it. I think it’s also a fine as well, or that may be over an 1/8th…
Heck I know a few American’s online who think that BC is one bit pot and 'shroom field. Walk into any field with a lighter and you can get high as a kite. Of course there are only a couple of 'shroom fields and not many pot fields that I know of
Well that is just some of the best news I’ve heard in years. You wouldn’t happen to have any links for us, would you?
You gotta love Bill Hicks! One of my favorite lines:
“Isn’t making nature illegal sort of… unnatural?”
Hopefully the attached link works - that should let you know the status in Las Vegas!
An ounce is 7.1 grams, IIRC. And that’s fine and dandy if you don’t smoke that much, but many people do.
You also have to differentiate between shwag (low-grade Mexican pot at $60-100 an ounce) and kind bud (high-grade, usually grown indoors, often Canadian, $400 per ounce). The laws make no distinction. Three ounces of kind bud will last a smoker at least twice as long (if not much longer) than the same amount of shwag.
Laws based on weight alone (which every state’s laws are) unfairly penalize smokers in the Southern states where Mexican shwag is more common. A week’s worth of weed for heavy shwag smoker might be in the one-to-two ounce range here, whereas the same smoker might only partake of 1/4 to 1/2 ounce in the same amount of time if he was smoking kind bud up North.
From what I’ve read, the vast majority of marijuana grown in BC is grown indoors. Pot tends to grow a lot faster when it has 24 hours of light a day. It’s also not subject to weather, animals, or human intruders.
Furthurmore, there’s really no such thing as an intentional “'shroom field.” The most common variety of psilocybe mushroom (cubensis) grows in cow dung. The spores are spread from field to field by the wind. Intentional cultivation of psilocybe mushrooms requires a very clean, almost sterile indoor environment.
D’oh! A quarter ounce is 7.1 grams. An ounce is 28.4 grams.
I realize that it’s not an intentional 'shroom field… but there are places where you can go pretty much every summer and wander around the fields to find 'shrooms.
Some old friends have stories they’ve recounted to me of taking road trips to BC for that reason.