OT: So, what's it like when they legalized weed...

[Alistair]

Originally Posted by benb

The cannabis billboards have largely crowded out almost everything else in a lot of parts of Massachusetts.

Billboards are annoying in general. We have a few in VA, but really not many (for any items/services). I was amazed recently driving to FL how many billboards there are for sex shops and ambulance chasers.

Basically, ban all billboards, problem solved.

[lavi]

I think it's a good thing. Way better than alcohol. That's the real demon...and yet, no one bats an eyelash. Speaking of smelling it while driving. Surely, that happens. Ever notice the amount of empties along the side of roads in lots of places? I think Volvo driving soccer moms 100% drink boxed wine when driving around. Not matter what the substance, people are going to abuse it.

We (OR) have a 25% tax on it. It's still "cheap". The tax revenues are sizeable....so "good" for the state coffers. However, I don't know how the revenues are applied. In OR, we have morons in govn't, so I'm sure the funding is being mismanaged.

I'd rather have fun with marijuana and wake up clear headed...vs drinking a sixxer and waking up hung over. No thanks.

[makoti]

Originally Posted by Alistair

Other than the occasional whiff of weed, nothing really changes.

Since VA decriminalized, and medical dispensaries have opened up more broadly, that's the only change I've noticed. Same for downtown DC.

Wait. I live here. It's been decriminalized? Didn't know.
I guess that's how much it will change things.

[d_douglas]

Originally Posted by rallizes

How do you feel about liquor stores?

Exactly. I live in BC, as in BC bud. No real change, other than its commercialized, but I imagine it was the same 100years ago when booze ceased to be illegal.

My 10 and 12yr old kids now hear people talk about it, but theyre not in that ballpark yet. Honestly, I just hope its as civilized as when they have their first beer or whatever.

Good friends of mine are lifelong smokers, and they now just grown organic weed in their greenhouse - the good life!

I dont smoke, but I am pro-pot. I think its safer now than 10years ago, as it can be (better) regulated rather than having kids buying it from some idiot at school and its laced with fentanyl.

[unterhausen]

a restaurant we went to weekly closed and is now a dispensary. That's about it, I haven't noticed anything else except the potheads I know aren't as secretive about going to buy pot.

[benb]

If you want to read something interesting look at how they are doing payment processing.

No credit card company dares process Cannabis transactions across State lines for good reasons.

If you swipe your card inside one of these dispensaries they are using a bunch of oddball financial software/payment processing.

It appears as a cashless ATM withdrawl that goes through some kind of bizarre set of transactions so it looks like your CC paid another bank and then you made a withdrawl from that bank, but you never touched any cash, that bank then sends the money to the friendly payment processor and it somehow makes it's way to the dispensary.

[Toeclips]

Maryland has medical and in November it goes up to vote state wide for legalization over 21

[jamesdak]

Well for those of us who work for the federal government, have security clearances, and need to pass random piss tests it's a problem. It would suck to lose my job and career over second hand smoke.

And yeah, the drunks kill way too many people already here in Utah. I don't want stoned folks driving either. Passed a passel of teens the other day on my ride smoking the crap on a back road with their hopped up sports cars. Another risk I don't want to share the road with.

I honestly don't give a crap what folks do in private but when it may impact others I feel differently.

[FlashUNC]

I get more mailers for coupons from my local dispensaries.

That's the biggest annoyance, more junk mail.

[Doug Fattic]

I live in Niles, Michigan (where it is legal) just barely over the state line border from South Bend (Notre Dame), Indiana (where it is not). Suddenly the commercial activity for weed around me has increased dramatically in every way. The long greenhouses just down from me along the bike trail now grow weed instead of tomatoes. When I go to my welding supply store, somewhere in there barely visible are welding supplies if you look close. Everything else is weed related. My closest strip mall now has its most prominent store selling growing supplies.

In Buchanan a nearby town (where I go sometimes to buy a sub for lunch) can have people lined up for several blocks waiting to get their marijuana. All of this new business activity is noticeable. I don't drink or smoke but am unconcerned about this new development. When a certain percentage of the population does not agree with criminalization, then it doesn't make sense to try and force people to not do something they will try to get around the rules anyway. That just makes laws a farce.

Just over the state line in Indiana are a bunch of small retail shops that sell cigarettes. The taxes in Michigan are a lot higher than they are for cigarettes in Indiana. It is illegal to buy across state lines but I doubt anybody has every been arrested for doing so.

[benb]

It would be really interesting if anyone has ever failed a test over second hand smoke and actually proved that's how it happened.

That sounds more like an excuse someone would make when they were actually partaking.

I can't really think of what the hypothetical situation is where you can be forced to inhale second hand MJ smoke. Most states where it is legalized do not allow you to smoke it in public. And if someone is outdoors you need to be all over them to breath much of it in. Anywhere it's allowed to be used indoors you would have to question why you are there if you are tested and have to worry about it.

Testing is problematic.. there are a bunch of jobs it is not safe to do while intoxicated but none of the tests actually test that. The police here were pushing hard for a new law to test drivers while stopped.. it failed because the tests were not able to be proven to work as intended and it was determined it would just turn into a tool for the police to arrest who they felt like arresting.

[Octave]

Originally Posted by benb

It would be really interesting if anyone has ever failed a test over secondhand smoke and actually proved that's how it happened.

That sounds more like an excuse someone would make when they were actually partaking.

Yes, that is generally nonsense. The ng/ml limits on testing for THC would not be anywhere near achieved by secondhand smoke, which doesn't contain a lot of THC to begin with and isn't concentrated enough in blood, let alone urine, to show a positive test.

Testing is problematic.. there are a bunch of jobs it is not safe to do while intoxicated but none of the tests actually test that. The police here were pushing hard for a new law to test drivers while stopped.. it failed because the tests were not able to be proven to work as intended and it was determined it would just turn into a tool for the police to arrest who they felt like arresting.

The problem is that early iterations of the tests were unable to determine real-time concentrations due to the half-life of THC and its metabolites being substantially longer than the actual activity of the drug. In other words, those tests would show a 'positive' when the activity of the drug was long passed (say, 8-10 hours after smoking) but the metabolites are still hanging around in plasma or urine or saliva. The techniques for this are vastly improved now and will likely result in good roadside or on-job testing in the next few years.

[truth]

Originally Posted by bigbill

My ex smoked a lot of weed, sometimes 2-3 times a day. She had friends in Seattle that would send it in packages of coffee beans to where we lived in Texas. I think the potency is the biggest issue. Until it is federally legalized and regulated, suppliers will try to outdo each other in potency. In the 60s and 70s, potency was 2-4% THC. Now it can be in the 20% range. Increased potency has led to addiction which I got to see first-hand.

https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6312155/

This "article" seems filled with nonsense. It lacks citations about historic THC content and refers to CBD as 'the protective component of the plant' with zero explanation of what that means. This is a continuation of anti-marijuana rhetoric.

I do think THC content has likely gone up. I don't have high confidence in the values measured in seized drugs at any time, especially 30-40 years ago. The laboratory testing has improved significantly and comparisons of modern results to historic results are almost always incorrect.

[Mark McM]

Originally Posted by benb

It would be really interesting if anyone has ever failed a test over second hand smoke and actually proved that's how it happened.

That sounds more like an excuse someone would make when they were actually partaking.

Ross Rebagliati, a Canadian snow boarder, was stripped of an Olympic gold medal after he failed a drug test which found him positive for cannabis. He appealed the decision, claiming the positive test was from 2nd hand smoke. An appeals court ruled in his favor - not specifically because they believed the 2nd hand smoke claim, but because cannabis had not been officially banned by the IOC. It also came out that the only athletes who the IOC tested for cannabis were snow boarders.

[Geemalar]

Outside of catching a whiff every so often while out on a ride, it’s had absolutely no immediate effect on me.

Maybe they’ll use some of the taxes generated to pave some of my favorite roads around here.