the weed, thread

What kind of practical difference does legalizing make?


You can’t drive while smoking a joint? Can you be in a moving car? Parked car? Walking down street?
Do cops usually enter your house to make sure you are not lighting up?

tell that to the close to 30k (mostly minorities) who have been arrested for possession in the state of Virginia  in 2018 and now have a record

Side-Smartmatic wrote:
Ok this is some weird math
Based on records from other states, JLARC found that decriminalization could be expected to reduce marijuana arrests by about 60 percent and that legalization would reduce them by 84 percent.
So even legal there will be arrests 16% of the time?

almost, but not quite:

say an area (a city, a state, whatever) currently experiences 100 weed-related arrests a year.  if they were to decriminalize, they could expect that number to fall to 40/year, and with legalization it would be 16/year.

wait, you can be arrested for weed in areas where it's legal?  indeed you can.  just like you can be arrested for alcohol even if it's legal: where you consume it, how old you have to be, did you cause an accident and adit to consumption, how much you have in your possession (only applies to weed), etc.

thanks, smarty pants (both of you) now go spark a splif and give thanks to jah (just do it legally)

You didn’t answer my questions

You can’t drive while smoking a joint? Can you be in a moving car? Parked car? Walking down street?
Do cops usually enter your house to make sure you are not lighting up?

1. Nope
2. Probably not.
3. Hmm…grey area
4. Not 100% sure on this.  But like Alcohol, you can't drink in public.

But people are getting arrested for possession and suspicion all the time
I'm sure people have been arested because the cop smelled it outside the house

hutch wrote:
What kind of practical difference does legalizing make?

laws can be passed to allow retail locations to open, so you can get weed from a dispensary instead of a dealer.  cops can't arrest you for possession as long as you follow the rules (see below).  those seem like 2 pretty big differences vs. the current state of play.

hutch wrote:
You can’t drive while smoking a joint? Can you be in a moving car? Parked car? Walking down street?

i can only speak about WA, but: no, neither driver nor passengers can smoke and drive.  parked car OK as long as you're on private property, you can be fined for public consumption.  no walking down the street while blazing for the same reason.

alcohol is a good proxy for a lot of such questions: if you can't do it with booze, you probably can't do it with weed either.  not a perfect 1:1, though.

hutch wrote:
Do cops usually enter your house to make sure you are not lighting up?

state and local cops cannot enter your house if they only suspect you have a personal amount of weed, because it isn't a crime.  if they are in your house for some other valid reason and see that you have weed, they can do exactly nothing about it.  here's a trip: get arrested in WA, you're hauled down to jail, you appear in court, are given a date for your trial, you post bail, and on your way out of the courthouse the cops will give you your weed back. 

feds obviously take a different view, but i don't know of any DEA agents banging down doors to arrest weekend joint smokers.

folks on the right joke that cops will bust down your door to ensure that you ARE lighting up… ;D

sweetcell wrote:
folks on the right joke that cops will bust down your door to ensure that you ARE lighting up… ;D

I know a cop and he was like…my job would be so much easier if people just smoked weed instead of drinking

I am 100 percent behind legalization and decriminalizing weed

And expungements

hutch wrote:
And expungements

my understanding this is on the table…I think some stuff happened this year too
But they won't fix lives ruined for a record that will make it so you can't get a job

I think I have gotten high once this year.

hutch wrote:
I think I have gotten high once this year.

wasn’t even with me… if it wasn’t for COVID I’d be offended

Well it was with tim and Howard so you were invited!! Howard had a bunch he was taking back home

It was funny they gave me some cartridge pot cigarette and even after a whole explanation and story I still tried to light it!

hutch wrote:
you were invited!!

the day I found out I'd torn my Achilles tendon.

was bummed to miss H

The story reminds me of your Lavender session

Oh yah that’s right


Man this year has sucked

hutch wrote:
Man this year has sucked

that's an understatement, not descriptive enough to fully encompass the lameness

Did you read the part where it's gonna take 1 to 2 years for this to go into effect??

People are getting excited a little too prematurely here.  Just make it a 100% legal in January where people can start growing it and then figure out by the time summer comes along what kind of stores can sell it . . . it doesn't take 2 years to get that shit into effect.

WalkOnBack wrote:
People are getting excited a little too prematurely here. 

you are not wrong, but definitely a buzz kill ;)

Will get voted on in Jan and will pass (like a joint at a Phish show) then the Gov will sign in June and probably won't go in effect until the fall (if past experience is any indicator)

I was discussing with my stoner friends that it is in 2022 when the first good outdoor harvest will be had


There are already a few medical dispensaries in VA  getting ready to open, but from what I can tell they haven't even sold anything yet
https://www.vanorml.org/dispensaries
(none in NOVA?…but DC is so close) Manassas, Richmond, Bristol (check out their delivery zones map) I think they are required to deliver to highland (boom siss)

Gurl . . . no matter what city slickers tell you, Manassas is part of NOVA.  What, you think it's a suburb of The Plains?