Gone to Pot

[roy]

Hey folks just got saw the story headlines showed a story about getting taught how to grow and how to smoke.

 

check it out its on now

 

cheers roy

[Fibrofeend]

Thanks for that, wouldn't have known otherwise.

Was a pretty balanced report i thought.

[Crunchy]

source: http://sixtyminutes.ninemsn.com.au/blog.as...owcomments=true

 

 

 

Just more complete shit that does nothing but try and paint cannabis users in a negative light.

Please be sure to post MANY COMMENTS!

 

Aside from the occasional wine and cheese night during my hazy university days and the odd risqué postcard from Amsterdam, the imagery of dope smoking being a mainstream pursuit has always appeared to me as just that — funny imagery but totally unrealistic.

 

That is, until California came knocking. Having collected enough petition signatures to satisfy the vagaries of their constitution, the pro-dopers have been successful in forcing a state-wide vote — our version of a referendum — to legalise cannabis. Now, it remains to be seen if they can convince the majority to roll their own but what is apparent is that every pot head in the country knows that if they can get this across the line, then marijuana as a registered, saleable drug will be looked at differently by every other state in America.

 

The principle driver for all this, of course, is money. As with the illegal trade, it's the monetary value of the stuff in taxable dollars that is extremely appealing to the Californian treasury. It's anticipated the revenue would tip into the billions, alongside cigarettes and alcohol. The question is though, at what social cost? The rusted-on smokers that we met at Oaksterdam University in Berkeley raised exactly the sort of argument you would expect from people attending a 'Cannabis Campus' — you know the spiel; that it's a natural herb, can't do you any harm, it's legalisation is long overdue and smoking it should never turn people into criminals. All pretty benign on the face of it but, interestingly, when you spend time at one of the many marijuana dispensaries that have been popping up around Los Angeles and San Francisco, you start to see a different point of view. These walk-in dope cafes sell the drug to anyone with the appropriate medical certificate, which is as easy to get as visiting a GP and asking for marijuana as a form of pain relief.

 

Incredibly, these places can sell up to two ounces to every customer, every single day, without questions. That's a lot of hooch to dull a fair bit of pain and coincidentally, on the day we visited, the customers I talked to all had bad backs. The supervisor told me they typically served about 500 smokers a day — that's a huge number of crook backs! The other thing that worried me about these customers, without trying to be judgemental, was their complete lack of what some might refer to as a regular lifestyle. Perhaps too much pain leads to too much dope and not enough work? I wondered if that cycle would be any different if marijuana was made legal.

 

The other reality check comes when you meet someone like Perth girl Jade Bowler. Having sucked on a bong from her early teens, she will tell you straight out that the green weed is a gateway drug that can only lead to a soul-destroying finale. All you have to do is smoke it long enough and often enough. It's hard to argue with personal experience. Supporters of Jade, like WA Premier Colin Barnett, are flabbergasted that California can even contemplate the possibility of selling it at the local service station. He thinks the relatively recent evidence of its links to mental health issues is reason enough to crack down even more heavily on the punishment side.

 

That's where this issue becomes really thorny. Just days ago, US President Obama announced he's sending 1200 National Guard troops to the Mexican border to combat violence linked to drug smuggling. That's precisely what Sheriff Arvin West has been asking for and, as you'll see, the good Sheriff who's straight out of central casting, is not a bloke you would easily say no to. Looking after Hudspeth County in southern Texas means the Sheriff's evidence room is packed with seized pot and when we visited the border with him, it was easy to see how such a vast, barren area could be exploited by drug cartels and illegal immigrants. Off camera, he also told some intriguing stories of how Mexican police and sometimes soldiers not only turned a blind eye but helped the drug runners across the border.

 

Naturally, you would expect a conservative view from the Sheriff but he is convinced the black market for dope will be just as strong even if it is legalised because the proposal covers only those over 21. It's the youth, says Sheriff West, who will be effectively sold out by their elders.

 

Those ageing Californian baby boomers will get their vote toward the end of the year and, while it's not quite a case of the lunatics finally running the asylum, it certainly reeks of old hippies getting their own back on the establishment.

[Ozzy420]

Why do ppl have to bullshit about weed, YES some ppl should not smoke as will screw them over.

 

The WA gov is using the story of Jade Bowler and there flag ship to say look this is what smoking weed will do to you she is only one out of a small % that it screws up but they dont tell of what other probs and drugs she may have been on at the time, same old story blame it on the weed...

[Crunchy]

The show turned out to have some positive points, but the presenter (the same guy who wrote the above article) was completely cynical throughout the feature, using the same pejorative rhetoric as in the article (pro-dopers, calling the legitimate sale of medical marijuana 'scoring', etc).

The dispensary/college lady was awesome though, she completely owned the presenter when he tried to say something about dieing from cannabis and she was like "Too bad you cant die from cannabis, Nice try though" xD

[Fibrofeend]

The show turned out to have some positive points, but the presenter (the same guy who wrote the above article) was completely cynical throughout the feature, using the same pejorative rhetoric as in the article (pro-dopers, calling the legitimate sale of medical marijuana 'scoring', etc).

The dispensary/college lady was awesome though, she completely owned the presenter when he tried to say something about dieing from cannabis and she was like "Too bad you cant die from cannabis, Nice try though" xD

 

Yes agreed!

But at the least its better than the total one sided BS that they usually go on with.

It provided information to the main stream media audience about what is going on in other parts of the world

regarding cannabis use.

 

But yeah they just cant help putting that ONE person on saying how it ruined their life.

Well clearly it didn't, she is only 19 for fucks sake! yeah she had a trouble growing up, and prob turned to

cannabis for help, then unconsciously abused it. She looks fine now, happy little go getter!

 

The media just loves to focus on the extremes, breeding generations of people who see everything in black and white.

[Crunchy]

haha true fibro, i wish the prohibitionists would realize that if u tell a teen that marijuana is addictive or that they are addicted then theyre going to believe it and will feel powerless to stop or lower their use

[Crunchy]

once again 90% of the comments to this article are on our side

its encouraging to read them honestly

[mull-ray]

"Those ageing Californian baby boomers will get their vote toward the end of the year and, while it's not quite a case of the lunatics finally running the asylum, it certainly reeks of old hippies getting their own back on the establishment."

 

Funny!!! The lunatics are already running the asylum. It's called government.

 

Seems to me that some junkies want to blame the drugs rather than take responsibility for their own choices and actions and that for every Jade there are hundreds of smokers who will say that all they have had are positive experiences..... only this doesn't make good press.

[mull-ray]

Ah Jesus just realized it's that hypocrite Liam Bartlett. When Neil Brooks, the WA gold medal swimmer, got arrested for growing two pot plants (1 was a clone) and the press painted him to be growing it for financial reasons Bartlett got on his high horse on radio and criticized Brooksy. What he (Bartlett) failed to mention was he himself liked to dabble with cocaine (yeah mate how's that going?). Fuck off Bartlett ---- you're a lying backstabbing hypocritical piece of shit that represents the worst the media has to offer. Brooksy was a damned decent guy and bastards like you turned on him and he was forced to leave WA as a result.