w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
It's nice that you get me high and all but I'm not even a balloon.
Think of the lonely deflated balloons.
Think of the lonely deflated balloons.
CEPS Well Hung Parliament (CEPS Social/Off Topic)
- Thread starter Escher's Waterfall
- Start date
Morninggloryseed
Bluelight Crew
Hmmm interesting stuff...skl's thread. I had no idea you were such a hardliner regarding your dislike of cannabis. Me, I wish it were fully legal everywhere primarly on principal. It is a commodity and should be sold like any other commodity in our capitalist society. And if you oppose the realities of a somewhat regulated market one could always grow their own. With the advances in LEDs...anyone can grow it for cheap/heat free and become a grey market supplier... if taxes and regulations are offensive. Or give it away for those predisposed to socialist flights of fancy.
Morninggloryseed
Bluelight Crew
Pleae do post a thread regarding billionaires stealing your social security money. This forum will only get better and better if readers actually post something....useful to read. I have yet to read a post that offers more than your trolling.
Post this thread with a editoral statement or two...dare ya. ☺
Post this thread with a editoral statement or two...dare ya. ☺
w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
Morninggloryseed
Bluelight Crew
Take the challange. Make a compelling post with a point...no harm done.
SKL
Bluelight Crew
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- 14,632
I hate pot but I agree with this, my opposition to the current state of affairs isn't because I dislike pot, it's about economic protectionism, basically; I support ending the prohibition of recreational drugs but only as far as decriminalization goes; I oppose legalization, and I particularly oppose legalization only in certain states, on economic protectionist grounds for the already-existing drug economy (think about it ... marijuana before state-level legalization was either run by cartels or small to medium sized businesses; if legalization comes, it will be run by large corporations and a lot of people will lose income relative to the current structure of the market; if it is decriminalized, large scale corporate operations won't be practicable, so it will encourage growth of medium to small economic activity of individual drug dealers, and will be less disruptive to the cartels, who should be considered a state level political power tbh, and legislation effecting trade that effects them should be considered at such a level. Furthermore, differing state laws regarding pot have a NAFTA-type effect on marijuana economies elsewhere, forcing more and more pot dealers just to become middlemen to be able to compete on price. They also encourage the growth and marketing of ridiculous things like shatter, again on economic grounds, whereas decriminalization will be more likely to allow the underground economy to continue more like it was. Legalization will only benefit big corporations, decriminalization will benefit your friendly neighborhood pot dealer. Same for dope and coke, etc.; let the markets continue as they are, with a little bit of regulation here and there, but no big corporations (although the cartels and such already are, but as I said they're basically state level actors and can't really be fucked with without the level of reservation you'd have about fucking with the economies of state level actors) but enact laws that punish things like fentanyl-lacing or whatever, encourage harm reduction, etc.)
w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
I dunno why I feel like you are asking me to do this, but without the cool 80s stuff.
swilow
Bluelight Crew
I enjoyed the physical challenge bit. Iirc.
Morninggloryseed
Bluelight Crew
w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
I forgot about that show
Some of my childhood nostalgia...I forgot how much the little things shaped me today as an adult. It's a nice walk down memory lane anyway.
I just watched a re-run of an episode of You Can't Do That on Television titled "Censorship" and it was made in 1985 or something and reminded me of the same bullshit we complain about today. Also it made me lol.
For many of us that's the way it is.
I won't bother going into detail, but let's just say that I don't even grow anymore because legal prices are that good. %)
SKL
Bluelight Crew
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- 14,632
^ so, in other words, you contribute to the damage done to other people's small business and effort to make a buck, promoting the corporatization, commodification, and increasing banality, not to say venality, of the entire scene, without contributing shit of your own, while probably contributing to lower working conditions for the people actually involved in production. and, depending on where you live, you may or may not have deceived your doctors or alternatively dealt with a straight up fucking croaking quack into getting the so-called "blue cared" for spurious reasons in which case they really ought to be on the fucking chopping block with their licenses with possible federal criminal charges. yeah. that deserves a smiley face alright.
420 blaze it.
I mean, by all means, go ahead.
I consume all sorts of products that have negative externalities and are exploitative of vulnerable workforces and all sorts of other shit. But own it without feeling like you're cool because your getting fucking stoned. Potheads really need to shut the fuck up already about that stuff and stop being smug; you're just dealing with a commodity like a McDonald's cheeseburger or an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt that benefits nobody but the brand and the corporation and possibly the franchise and absolutely assfucks everyone else in the production line over not to mention the people in production lines in other jurisdictions which isn't even an issue with clothes brands or food labels or whatever.
I hear it's bad for the environment, too.
But blaze it.
Anyway, getting stoned as a kid was a hell of a lot more fun when it as illegal and you had to worry about getting caught. When you were at the boss levels it was like playing hyper-sonic stoned blue-and-white blinking dodgeball at night or something. To think that this generation of youngsters is missing out on that shit makes me sad. Really, actually, and for true. It was a rite of passage. Now you can just hit bongs and munch doritos and play video games and, yes, that does make you a loser if it describes you (say, at least 2 out of 3.)
/lel/
420 blaze it.
I mean, by all means, go ahead.
I consume all sorts of products that have negative externalities and are exploitative of vulnerable workforces and all sorts of other shit. But own it without feeling like you're cool because your getting fucking stoned. Potheads really need to shut the fuck up already about that stuff and stop being smug; you're just dealing with a commodity like a McDonald's cheeseburger or an Abercrombie and Fitch shirt that benefits nobody but the brand and the corporation and possibly the franchise and absolutely assfucks everyone else in the production line over not to mention the people in production lines in other jurisdictions which isn't even an issue with clothes brands or food labels or whatever.
I hear it's bad for the environment, too.
But blaze it.
Anyway, getting stoned as a kid was a hell of a lot more fun when it as illegal and you had to worry about getting caught. When you were at the boss levels it was like playing hyper-sonic stoned blue-and-white blinking dodgeball at night or something. To think that this generation of youngsters is missing out on that shit makes me sad. Really, actually, and for true. It was a rite of passage. Now you can just hit bongs and munch doritos and play video games and, yes, that does make you a loser if it describes you (say, at least 2 out of 3.)
/lel/
w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
I've never in my life met someone so butt-hurt by a progressive movement.
SKL
Bluelight Crew
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- 14,632
Trust me, I'm pretty butthurt about most progressive movements. This is not a progressive movement, though; and even if you could call it that, that's not even really why it bothers me (you might even say I'm critiquing it from the left, which you'd know if you actually read my posts.) I am fucking with you to a degree but I do indeed stand by my very, very jaundiced view of marijuana policy as implemented especially in California but for the most part most of the "legal" states.
w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
I caught your attempt with the jab at corporate America. However your comparison isn't possible without de-scheduling cannabis on a Federal level, which is another cat we will need to deal with eventually.
Are you pissed off at the way tobacco and alcohol are handled here? If so, what do you do about it? Do you brew your own, etc.?
SKL
Bluelight Crew
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Spurious comparison; tobacco and alcohol policies aren't imbalanced across states, with exceptions of differences in tax (which does lead to black market arbitrage opportunities) and certain restrictions on proof (Everclear and malt liquor being the important cases here), but they're controlled by large multinationals for the most part anyway; more interesting aspects of that question might relate to differences in statutes regarding home-brewing and particularly home distillation, but, although boutique beers do have their appeal, they're economically insignificant; also as a commodity marijuana is almost certainly quite a bit more fungible even amongst connoisseurs, the boutique beers' selling point is that they're boutique beers (to the point where, e.g., Blue Moon and Sam Adams pretend to be when they're not), and many people will buy them even at some increased effort and expense for that very reason. Marijuana users of course will also pay a premium for more potent or fancier weed but most serious marijuana users will not crawl over a dozen different kinds of decent weed to get to one particular strand. Thus, the little guy has half a chance in the beer industry, although of course most fail; the ancillary and startup costs are not insignificant, whereas with illicit marijuana they're negligible.
I am not coming at this from some idea of your right to smoke pot without being molested by law enforcement, which doesn't really get me excited at all, to me this is much more an economic and a jobs issue for the working class participant in the underground economy. This all combines in effecting imbalanced marijuana policy on people's livelihoods, which has already been quite drastic for some people, in usual fashion of widening the gap between the haves and have-nots of people involved in the industry, and also on public health (where it's been correlated with the emergence of things like "shatter," which are a not-inconsiderable public health problem, albeit not one as severe as, say, synthetic cannabinoids.) Small- to mid-sized dealers or people who used it to supplement their income are getting put out of business or seeing their margins drop, sometimes drop into negatives. While everything gets corporatized. I'll do a good solid bellylaugh at the smug corporate pot hipsters when they wind up in prison, though. The sheer smugness of it all is just so irritating; people breaking the law and really, honestly thinking that they're unlike other people (see: the same situation of people who buy and sell drugs online, imbecilic libertarians bellowing about "free Ross" and stuff.)
Or, to put it in bumper sticker form,
Support Local Dealers. Don't Legalize.
Making the marijuana economy more vertically integrated is bad for everyone, pretty much, even if it does make things more comfortable for the end user.
Legal toleration is one thing, de facto or even de jure (i.e., decriminalization) but legalization just fucks people out of their profit margin; and, let's face it, marijuana is de facto tolerated, if not everywhere, in a lot of places. Most places you are not going to get arrested for marijuana unless you are smoking it outside/while driving/etc or have it on your person while committing some other crime or having your place searched on suspicion of the same. Which is to say, pretty much no cops anywhere are going looking for people to bust for smoking pot unless they're being assholes about it. Possessing and selling marijuana is nowhere nearly as dangerous an occupation to your liberty than selling hard drugs, even in the most reactionary of jurisdictions in the U.S.
In a more perfect-world kind of scenario, though, that I think I already outlined, I'd like to see federal drug laws repealed totally, local policies focused on harm reduction, and allowing small businesses to flourish; let the government get it's pound of flesh by bringing back tax stamps, perhaps, rather than by having things run in a traditional corporate fashion.
Besides, if we legalized the marijuana industry federally in the U.S., all those jobs would vanish to Mexico instantly, as Mexico would be almost certain to follow. The cartels and the new marijuana megacorps would make interesting bedfellows though.
I am not coming at this from some idea of your right to smoke pot without being molested by law enforcement, which doesn't really get me excited at all, to me this is much more an economic and a jobs issue for the working class participant in the underground economy. This all combines in effecting imbalanced marijuana policy on people's livelihoods, which has already been quite drastic for some people, in usual fashion of widening the gap between the haves and have-nots of people involved in the industry, and also on public health (where it's been correlated with the emergence of things like "shatter," which are a not-inconsiderable public health problem, albeit not one as severe as, say, synthetic cannabinoids.) Small- to mid-sized dealers or people who used it to supplement their income are getting put out of business or seeing their margins drop, sometimes drop into negatives. While everything gets corporatized. I'll do a good solid bellylaugh at the smug corporate pot hipsters when they wind up in prison, though. The sheer smugness of it all is just so irritating; people breaking the law and really, honestly thinking that they're unlike other people (see: the same situation of people who buy and sell drugs online, imbecilic libertarians bellowing about "free Ross" and stuff.)
Or, to put it in bumper sticker form,
Support Local Dealers. Don't Legalize.
Making the marijuana economy more vertically integrated is bad for everyone, pretty much, even if it does make things more comfortable for the end user.
Legal toleration is one thing, de facto or even de jure (i.e., decriminalization) but legalization just fucks people out of their profit margin; and, let's face it, marijuana is de facto tolerated, if not everywhere, in a lot of places. Most places you are not going to get arrested for marijuana unless you are smoking it outside/while driving/etc or have it on your person while committing some other crime or having your place searched on suspicion of the same. Which is to say, pretty much no cops anywhere are going looking for people to bust for smoking pot unless they're being assholes about it. Possessing and selling marijuana is nowhere nearly as dangerous an occupation to your liberty than selling hard drugs, even in the most reactionary of jurisdictions in the U.S.
In a more perfect-world kind of scenario, though, that I think I already outlined, I'd like to see federal drug laws repealed totally, local policies focused on harm reduction, and allowing small businesses to flourish; let the government get it's pound of flesh by bringing back tax stamps, perhaps, rather than by having things run in a traditional corporate fashion.
Besides, if we legalized the marijuana industry federally in the U.S., all those jobs would vanish to Mexico instantly, as Mexico would be almost certain to follow. The cartels and the new marijuana megacorps would make interesting bedfellows though.
w01fg4ng
Bluelighter
When I turn down some pot (which does happen occasionally), it's after I've gone past literally HUNDREDS of legal strains. Fuck a dozen that's nothing.
You're right they aren't the same thing at all.
And I laugh at them.
A lot of the local dealers that were good in Colorado are now making MILLIONS in legal weed. They are laughing at themselves too. haha!
Have you SEEN their weed?
ppssshh!
They are not competition.
SKL
Bluelight Crew
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That was a post totally devoid of common sense and explicitly laughing at people who are struggling economically, which is OK with you, I guess, to you, if you can 420 blaze it. You do know that a lot of people are struggling in this country, right? If your Bluelight account wasn't 7 years old I would be sure that you weren't out of your mid-teens and supported by your parents; maybe now you're in college and supported by your parents, who the hell knows. You don't know much about the illegal drug business, either, do you? Your last point or two in particular is unredeemably stupid, seeing as I'm talking about a hypothetical (or rather, inevitable) situation where the marijuana business in the US moved to Mexico, rather than the Mexican product remaining the same; and a few dealers are making millions, sure, when all the rest get fucked over and will wind up probably working for minimum wage doing shit work. You're just aggressively not getting the point, so I'm done; if mgs or sj anyone else sensible wants to chime in about anything, go ahead.
All of this is the same old eliminating inefficencies in the market bullshit, which is the same bullshit that moves our jobs to Mexico, the same bullshit that has people buying drugs online now, whatever. It's the same stuff. You can sit comfortably, I guess, and let it ruin people's lives. I can, too, because I have a well-paying job, but I have respect for my roots and empathy for other people. You're just a jackass. I grew up in a town ruined by NAFTA. I supported myself by being on my hustle. Now I see the hustle being ruined by the same phenomena.
All of this is the same old eliminating inefficencies in the market bullshit, which is the same bullshit that moves our jobs to Mexico, the same bullshit that has people buying drugs online now, whatever. It's the same stuff. You can sit comfortably, I guess, and let it ruin people's lives. I can, too, because I have a well-paying job, but I have respect for my roots and empathy for other people. You're just a jackass. I grew up in a town ruined by NAFTA. I supported myself by being on my hustle. Now I see the hustle being ruined by the same phenomena.
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