Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The frogs are rarely mistaken.

Fight them, without becoming them!

Republicans seem to think life begins at the candlelight dinner the night before.

In after Baud. Damn.

Come for the politics, stay for the snark.

The US Supreme Court is on the ballot in november.

They are lying in pursuit of an agenda.

But frankly mr. cole, I’ll be happier when you get back to telling us to go fuck ourselves.

Our job is not to persuade republicans but to defeat them.

My right to basic bodily autonomy is not on the table. that’s the new deal.

“The defense has a certain level of trust in defendant that the government does not.”

You don’t get rid of your umbrella while it’s still raining.

Oh FFS you might as well trust a 6-year-old with a flamethrower.

“Joe Biden deserved better than he got from some folks in his own party.”

Impressively dumb. Congratulations.

We need to vote them all out and restore sane Democratic government.

If you are still in the gop, you are either an extremist yourself, or in bed with those who are.

I was promised a recession.

Perhaps you mistook them for somebody who gives a damn.

Imperialist aggressors must be defeated, or the whole world loses.

Let me eat cake. The rest of you could stand to lose some weight, frankly.

Seems like a complicated subject, have you tried yelling at it?

Trump makes a mockery of the legal system and cowardly judges just sit back and let him.

Shallow, uninformed, and lacking identity

You are here: Home / Politics / Domestic Politics / Reefer Madness- Not Only Insane, But Literally Killing People

Reefer Madness- Not Only Insane, But Literally Killing People

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This should surprise NO ONE:

Marijuana legalization in Colorado led to a “reversal” of opiate overdose deaths in that state, according to new research published in the American Journal of Public Health.

“After Colorado’s legalization of recreational cannabis sale and use, opioid-related deaths decreased more than 6% in the following 2 years,” write authors Melvin D. Livingston, Tracey E. Barnett, Chris Delcher and Alexander C. Wagenaar.

The authors stress that their results are preliminary, given that their study encompasses only two years of data after the state’s first recreational marijuana shops opened in 2014.

While numerous studies have shown an association between medical marijuana legalization and opioid overdose deaths, this report is one of the first to look at the impact of recreational marijuana laws on opioid deaths.

Marijuana is often highly effective at treating the same types of chronic pain that patients are often prescribed opiates for. Given the choice between marijuana and opiates, many patients appear to be opting for the former.

From a public health standpoint, this is a positive development, considering that relative to opiates, marijuana carries essentially zero risk of fatal overdose.

The reason it is important to separate “medical” marijuana and recreational marijuana usage is that “medical” marijuana is a lot of the time shit, and second, those being perscribed medical marijuana are probably a small subset of the population and in such bad shape they are probably also on other pain pill regimens.

Regardless, this is a good thing, and why the lying murderous fucks in big Pharma and the people they have paid off oppose legal marijuana.

Reader Interactions

66Comments

  1. 1.

    A Ghost to Most

    Hey, all you states still stuck in the 20th century:

    We’re doing great here in Sanity Land.
    Care to join us?

  2. 2.

    Davebo

    Have a family member that moved to CO and actually smokes less pot now. Then again, he smoked a lot of pot here! Was at a concert at Red Rocks in July with him and the air had a melodious odor. I gave it up years ago but was tempted….

  4. 4.

    Scott P.

    China reduced opioid addiction, which at its peak affected around 50% of the male population, to near zero without needing to legalize marijuana. Compared to that, 6% is a drop in the bucket.

  9. 9.

    A Ghost to Most

    @khead:
    Our schools are finally getting long-deferred maintenance done. It is working well (with adjustments as needed).

  15. 15.

    efgoldman

    @John Cole:

    China also takes people around the corner and shoots them in the back of the head.

    But there’s no question that they stop smoking weed immediately.

  18. 18.

    A Ghost to Most

    @Major Major Major Major: That will likely be remedied at his next election. He’s afraid to show himself in anything approaching public access.
    .
    Personally, I wouldn’t live in Cali again. Did not care for the weather, and disliked having to do everything with 1000 other people. Different strokes.

  19. 19.

    coloradoblue

    Anyone who wants to know exactly *f’d* up our drug laws are, and how we got here, pick up a copy of “Chasing The Scream” by Johann Hari.

  21. 21.

    Big R

    @Rihilism: A quick poke around finds a Brookings study whose first table could be misinterpreted to make that claim.

    If that’s what happened, the answer to how China reduced opioid addiction by half is “by counting non opioid users as addicts, so the share of addicts on heroin dropped.”

  22. 22.

    kindness

    Wow, that’s kinda harsh John. I’ve had a Medical Cannabis card for about 10- years now. I will say the product is much better than what I got on the black market. I got the card because at my age I didn’t hang with 20 somethings too much any longer and got tired of not being able to find weed. I don’t really ‘need’ it but it sure has come in handy having it.

  23. 23.

    Rihilism

    @coloradoblue: Thanks for the book recommendation! I’ll check it out. If I’m not mistaken, isn’t pot illegal (most places that is) cause Hearst hated the browns?

  25. 25.

    A Ghost to Most

    @Big R:
    “Lies, damned lies, and statistics”

    “I can get you any answer you want.
    What’s it worth to you?”

  26. 26.

    A Ghost to Most

    TBOGG

    As part on an Intercept investigation into immigration policies under President Donald Trump, a cache of internal emails revealed that Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials were instructed to portray undocumented immigrants as criminals to justify unpopular mass raids.

    According to the emails — obtained by students at Vanderbilt University Law School using the Freedom of Information Act — DHS higher-ups instructed department officials to make a concerted effort to “put together a white paper covering the three most egregious cases,” of criminality in their respective cities.

    Of note, is the fact that the subject line on the email state: “Due Tonight for S1 – URGENT” — with “S1” — referring to then-Homeland Security head Gen. John Kelly who now serves at President Trump’s chief of staff.

    The emails also encouraged officials to use cases from other cities to pump up the narrative for the media if they were unable to compile a mere three incidents, with the instructions stating: “If a location has only one egregious case — then include an extra egregious case from another city.”


    In case you had some sympathy for John Kelly

  27. 27.

    Mnemosyne

    Remember, Mike Pence managed to cause an AIDS epidemic while he was governor of Indiana because he decided that needle exchange programs were immoral. He only changed the policy back under enormous pressure and proof that the number of AIDS cases had soared.

    These people don’t give a shit about facts and statistics. They only care about what fits with their “morals,” and their “morals” say that Pot Is Bad.

  28. 28.

    J R in WV

    John,

    There’s a big difference between Federal Marijuana used in government approved research, and medical marijuana being sold to and used by medical users in states with legal medical marijuana available to patients. Strains and concentrations in oils, edibles, sub-lingual drops, etc are sell defined and spelled out on Colorado packaging, both for recreational and medical buyers.

    Whether a particular product contains THC or CBC or other active substances derived from various strains of marijuana and how much of each is also specified on labels. Many medical strains and preparations have little or no THC and can’t give a user a high of any sort.

    On the other hand, Colorado vendors DO provide many edibles which will get you high, two truffles give you a tiny smile, and aid your tendency to giggle when appropriate. Three truffles, you should be where you need to be. One toke will do it with many products. 420 tourism is a real thing. Hotels and motels advertise “Smoking Rooms Available”!

    I believe the same is true in AZ, WA, OR, and CA.

  29. 29.

    coin operated

    @kindness: I have friends in Oregon who can’t thank the voters enough for recreational legalization. They’ll tell you straight up that medical grade marijuana is shitty weed indeed. The other benefit of legal grass is legal research with more strains. My daughter visited me here in Vegas a few weeks ago, and she was complaining about the poor quality CBDs we have here. She uses the CBDs for anxiety, and the stuff she gets back home in Oregon far outperforms anything produced in Nevada, where recreational weed just took affect.

  30. 30.

    Kay

    Oh God it’s even worse than that. They’re testing them like crazy because they’re scared to death of opiates and they’re all coming up positive for pot. In a sane world you’d be “great! you’re not going to die in the next 24 hours so congrats! Good job everybody!” but this is not a sane world. Opiates are making it harder for recreational pot smokers.

    It’s such a mess. They’re right to be terrified of opiates- people are dropping dead – but it’s one big net and they’re collecting a lot of collateral damage pot smokers.

  31. 31.

    khead

    @A Ghost to Most:

    I think weed in WV is a no-brainer. For the cash and the opportunity to give addicted folks in the southern end of the state an alternative to stealing the copper out of the local church or abandoned mine to get cash for their latest fix. Sports gambling is a bit trickier due to the laws (cough, Nevada, cough) involved. See New Jersey sports gaming lawsuits. NJ keeps trying though.

    Once upon a time, the casino at Charles Town, WV was PACKED. I knew a ton of folks from MD, VA and DC who went there to gamble. You couldn’t get a seat at a blackjack table charging $25 to play on weekends. Of course, this was before Pennsylvania and Maryland jumped in with their casinos. I have no idea what it is like now, but I am guessing it ain’t so packed anymore.

    But single game sports gambling? I bet on the NFL in Delaware – but you have to play parlays – and those are a ripoff that heavily favor the house. So I bet light. However, I would drive to the eastern panhandle of WV every so often if it meant I could actually make money for going 5-2 instead of losing $15 like I did betting parlays in DE 2 weeks ago. The first state that manages to offer single game sports betting in the eastern US is gonna get a hell of a windfall. Especially if they let you smoke while betting.

  32. 32.

    Kay

    I’m not actually a big fan of legalized pot- I think pot does damage when you smoke a lot of it very young- but it’s time to triage.

    Pot smokers, you may go. These other people are dying.

  33. 33.

    khead

    I keep forgetting the bad words I can’t use – sorry about that – but could someone get me out of moderation hell? Heh. TIA.

  34. 34.

    oatler.

    I moved from OR to AZ earlier this year and I’m pretty confident I’m going to end up arrested in the state with a gun on it.

  35. 35.

    A Ghost to Most

    @J R in WV: Plus,in CO you can grow your own. Vastly better weed here than the crap they grow at that research place in Mississippi, of all types, from CBD only to high-test trippy weed.

    Lots of children with epilepsy move here for treatment with CBD products.

  36. 36.

    Kay

    Daniel Dale‏Verified account @ddale8 5h5 hours ago
    More
    Replying to @ddale8
    Trump is almost never called on his lies in real time. He just was, and he took the lie back. It’s not pointless to do the challenging.

    I found this insanely comforting. Rock bottom standards. He’ll still lie every 5 minutes but with proper management and lightening fast reflexes it is not useless to try to stop the lies from traveling.

  37. 37.

    NotMax

    @Rihilism

    Interesting rundown on the subject – Debunking the Hemp Conspiracy Theory.

    The belief that marijuana prohibition came about because of the secret machinations of an economic cabal ignores the pattern of every drug-law crusade in American history. From the 19th-century campaigns against opium and alcohol to the crack panic of the 1980s, they have all been fueled by racism and cultural war, conflated with fear of crime and occasionally abetted by well-intentioned reform impulses. (The financial self-interest of the prison-industrial complex has been a more recent development.) The first drug-prohibition laws in the United States were opium bans aimed at Chinese immigrants. San Francisco outlawed opium in 1875, and the state of California followed six years later. In 1886, an Oregon judge ruled that the state’s opium prohibition was constitutional even if it proceeded “more from a desire to vex and annoy the ‘Heathen Chinee’ than to protect the people from the evil habit,” notes Doris Marie Provine in Unequal Under Law: Race in the War on Drugs. In How the Other Half Lives, journalist Jacob Riis wrote of opium-addicted white prostitutes seduced by the “cruel cunning” of Chinese men.

    The path to the 1914 federal narcotics law that limited cocaine and opioids to medical use — and was almost immediately interpreted as prescribing narcotics to addicts — was more complex. The main rationale was ending the over-the-counter sale of patent medicines such as heroin cough syrup, but there was a definite racist streak among advocates for controlling cocaine. “Cocaine is often the direct incentive to the crime of rape by the Negroes,” Hamilton Wright, the hard-drinking doctor-turned-diplomat who spearheaded the first major multinational drug-control agreements, told Congress. In 1914, Dr. Edward Huntington Williams opined in the New York Times Magazine that “once the negro has formed the habit, he is irreclaimable. The only method to keep him from taking the drug is by imprisoning him.”
    [snip]
    In a country that was puritanical and racist enough in 1919 to outlaw alcohol in 1919, forbidding cannabis was politically very easy. Alcohol had been the most pervasive recreational drug in the Western world for millennia. Marijuana was virtually unknown. And though Prohibitionists — like the immigration laws of the 1920s, the resurgent Ku Klux Klan, and the 1928 presidential campaign against Irish Catholic Democrat Al Smith — demonized whiskey-sodden Micks, wine-soaked wops, traitorous beer-swilling Krauts and liquor-selling Jew shopkeepers, at least those people were sort of white. Marijuana was used mainly by Mexican immigrants and African-Americans.

    The Nixon-era escalation of the war on drugs was one of the few times in U.S. history when white users were a prime target, as marijuana and LSD provided legal pretexts to attack the ’60s counterculture. Richard Nixon’s White House tapes captured him in 1971 growling that “every one of the bastards that are out for legalizing marijuana is Jewish.”…

  39. 39.

    Rihilism

    @NotMax:
    From the same article:

    The campaign against cannabis heated up after Repeal. “I wish I could show you what a small marihuana cigaret can do to one of our degenerate Spanish-speaking residents,” a Colorado newspaper editor wrote in 1936. “The fatal marihuana cigarette must be recognized as a DEADLY DRUG, and American children must be PROTECTED AGAINST IT,” the Hearst newspapers editorialized.

    Harry Anslinger, head of the Federal Bureau of Narcotics, headed the charge. “If the hideous monster Frankenstein came face to face with the monster marihuana, he would drop dead of fright,” he thundered in 1937.

    An ambitious racist (a 1934 memo described an informant as a “ginger-colored nigger”) who had previously been federal assistant Prohibition commissioner, Anslinger railed against reefer in magazine articles like 1937’s “Marihuana: Assassin of Youth.” It featured gory stories like that of Victor Licata, a once “sane, rather quiet young man” from Tampa, Fla., who’d killed his family with an axe in 1933, after becoming “pitifully crazed” from smoking “muggles.” (Actually, the Tampa police had tried to have Licata committed to a mental hospital before he started smoking pot.)

    Anslinger’s other theme was that white girls would be ruined once they’d experienced the lurid pleasures of having a black man’s joint in their mouth. “Colored students at the Univ. of Minn. partying with female students (white) smoking and getting their sympathy with stories of racial persecution,” he noted. “Result, pregnancy.”

    Jesus fucking christ…

  40. 40.

    Gvg

    I am pretty sure prohibition was driven by women who thought it would reduce domestic abuse. There were all kinds of other motives but that was the main one.
    Racism has always been around everything but I don’t think it was the main one for that. Most of the historical flyers I have seen were pretty much directed at family well being. Men were drinking the rent and food money and beating wives etc. they didn’t get the results they intended of course.

  41. 41.

    Rihilism

    @A Ghost to Most: I have one friend who’s a pothead and another is an alcoholic. The pothead (who is 10 yrs older than me) will probably outlive me. I don’t expect the alcoholic (who is 2 yrs younger than me) to last more than five to ten years unless he makes a change. Alcohol destroys many people. I find the fact, that alcohol is legal and pot is not, to be obscene…

  42. 42.

    Mnemosyne

    @Kay:

    This is kind of where I am. It’s bullshit to claim that nobody ever gets addicted to pot because people get addicted to a lot of things that are not opiates, like gambling.

    But so far most of the evidence is that pot is far less harmful than opiates, so let’s go with harm reduction and treat pot addicts as needed.

  43. 43.

    Mnemosyne

    @Gvg:

    Yes, alcohol prohibition ran on a slightly different track and different tactics were used to get it banned. It was usually portrayed as a scourge by and for white people, much as opiate addiction is currently portrayed, and not something “foreign.”

    ETA: The fact that alcohol was not as strongly racialized probably helped end Prohibition more quickly.

  45. 45.

    J R in WV

    I’m kind of surprised this topic didn’t get a lot more commentary than it has.

    I guess everyone is watching Monday Night Football, or just recovering from their busy weekend…

    There is other stuff happening, I guess. We took the dogs to the vet, cats tomorrow, wish us luck! They’re ferocious beasts!!!

  46. 46.

    E

    The 18-34 age demographic has nearly a 70 percent support for legalization of marijuana; the only demographic under 50 percent support is age 65 and over. And even those folks are above 40 percent support. These conversations about legalization are going to become moot in the very near future. If you want to rid your state of younger, more educated people, prohibition is a great place to start. I’m looking at you, Arizona, Texas, and the entire South.

  47. 47.

    StringOnAStick

    Pot helps with anxiety, so that’s nice. It also doesn’t cause cirrhosis, fatty liver, and all the other things directly caused by alcohol, which is also a depressant.

    I have problems with arthritis pain in various joints, and I have been amazed by how many fewer pain pills (OTC and prescribed) that I take now thanks to legal pot. Luckily my boss is offended by employers who drug test their employees.

  48. 48.

    Fair Economist

    To put Colorado’s achievement in context, while opiate deaths went down 6% in CO, they went up about 25% in the country as a whole. So it’s more like legalization cut 1/3 off the opiate death rate, which is an incredible achievement.

  49. 49.

    Miss Bianca

    @StringOnAStick: @StringOnAStick: unluckily, my boss is +not+ offended by random drug tests, altho’ i am. I consider it a violation of the Fourth Amendment, personally. It;s one of the reasons that i am seriously considering looking elsewhere for work – pot helps me with both depression and mild arthritis, and besides i just plain enjoy it

  50. 50.

    WaterGirl

    @Miss Bianca: If my job permitted drug testing, I think I would try to find something else. And I say that as someone who doesn’t even take any drugs or smoke pot. It’s demeaning and disrespectful.

  52. 52.

    J R in WV

    Nothing in random testing about probable cause, is there?

    Even in schools they had to go to making agreement to random (read everyone) testing a requirement to play football or be a cheerleader. I guess now probably to be in Marching Band. I learned to carry a 55 pound silver plated brass Sousaphone in a 4 mile parade, then do the halftime routine, then do marching demonstrations for the judges. Reason I’m still able to carry a bag of feed or concrete today, 50 years later.

    I AM offended by random drug tests. They are not constitutional in any shape or form.

  53. 53.

    J R in WV

    @Kelly:

    OOwww! That just hurts! But thanks for letting us know… can we come and visit? On the Road picture? No faces, just the work in progress…

  54. 54.

    PhoenixRising

    @J R in WV: yeah I have quite a bit to say but been sitting with my mom. Her sister’s son, my cousin, was found dead over the weekend. The killer was alcohol; the murder took 30 years to complete; the funeral will be family only.

    His life was wasted and the only help he ever got was 12 steps every time he continued to use.

    I am really mad.

  55. 55.

    hitchhiker

    Former pothead here. I’m one of the whatever fraction of people who develop a dependency on the stuff — like, using it at all means using it all the time. Even when I’d rather not, or when I have sh*t to do, or when I need to keep it together.

    In one period of my life I used it every single day for 9 straight years.

    Then I got sorted out, fell in love with a recovering alcoholic, became respectable, had some kids, raised ’em … wasn’t tempted to use again b/c I knew what what would happen. I’d been to jail for possession, and that’s not something I’d forgive myself for putting my kids through.

    So, no pot for 25 years or so, and then, hey! I’m in WA, it’s legal, there’s 5 stores within walking distance of my apt, the kids are grown and launched, I’m semi-retired … within a few days it was as if I’d never stopped at all. Every. Single. Day. And it took several months to get sorted out again.

    I go to meetings now, because what I found out is that I’m capable of massive self-deception & I need to be among people who understand this, and who also find that weed is not something they can take or leave.

    Telling you all this because I ALSO think that it makes sense for pot to be legal, and I hope they finally do study how it works and what sort of dosing/strains are effective for things like nausea and anxiety and pain. But it’s really a life-killer for a few of us. We don’t get cirrhosis, we don’t drive too fast, we don’t get aggressive, we don’t get the DTs or wet brain.

    We just quietly collapse in on ourselves while our lives drift by.

  56. 56.

    Ruckus

    @J R in WV:
    I disagree slightly with drug tests being wrong.
    If you work in a job or play in a sport where being under the influence could easily cause harm to others, I see nothing wrong with it and in fact it to be necessary. Say a heavy crane operator, a heavy truck driver or a dangerous extreme sport participant, an airline pilot, cops. But other than that, no.

  57. 57.

    StringOnAStick

    @hitchhiker: Understood, and I’m glad you’ve found your personal truth on how you react to using pot. I’m also glad you are OK with it being legal for others.

    Like Miss Bianca, I like it and use it for pain control and for fun. I don’t drink; I took at hard look at the many generations of alcoholics I’m descended from on both sides and decided to stop, though I never drank a lot, I could sure see a pattern of increased use 30 years ago when I stopped. I don’t miss it and find it odd that every town is stuffed full of places whose business model is selling booze to people who will soon try to drive home, and that’s OK whereas a pot smoker smoking at home can go to jail. Its nuts. I use pot maybe once a week, if that.

  58. 58.

    hitchhiker

    @StringOnAStick:

    Yeah, there’s no logic to the way we deal with alcohol, even without comparing it to pot. It always makes me shake my head, for example, to see it for sale on the ferries here. I mean, you drive your car onto a boat and they let you buy beer and wine on the boat before you drive off on the other side.

    What?!

    I have lots of friends who I know smoke a little now and then, because every so often someone or other would offer to share. They seem fine. But at meetings for potheads, the story is always the same … big shame & all the dysfunctional relationship things that go with having secrets, plus just all those lost days.

  59. 59.

    A Ghost to Not

    Glad I am not alone.

    I don’t have pain issues, and indicas just loge me out, but sativas calm me down and gets the creative thing going. These days, sometimes it’s hard to get past all the bullshit.

  60. 60.

    Ruckus

    @StringOnAStick:
    Lived in OH for 11 yrs. Worked in a dry town for 5 of those, Westerville, home of the temperance museum. You still had to purchase hard liquor in a state store with limited hours but you could buy all the drinks you wanted at a bar and drive home. Lived in SC for 2 yrs in the navy and it was even worse back in the 70s. Have no clue about now in SC. But I lived in OH this century, not almost 50 yrs ago.

  61. 61.

    Ruckus

    @hitchhiker:
    I stopped smoking over 30 yrs ago. I didn’t have an issue with addiction, I just got tired of it. And I saw what you are talking about. Some had issues with pot, just like some have issues with alcohol. I think I’m fortunate in that regard, I’ve even stopped an opiate drug that was prescribed for me. It wasn’t doing what it was supposed to be for me and everything just turned gray and bland. Life had no snap, no surprises, no sunrises, it was just blah. It did kill pain though. It did that by turning me into a zombie who could feel nothing. That’s not living, that’s avoiding.

  62. 62.

    akryan

    LOL, a lot of times medical weed is bullshit. Yeah, I can attest to that. My brother-in-law has been nursing his knee injury for about 15 years now. That sprain he got in high school must have been a bitch.

  63. 63.

    Bruce K

    Y’know, I’m okay with the concept of medical marijuana – just so long as it’s tested and held to a quality standard so that it actually does what it’s being prescribed for.

    I’d be more interested if it could be administered in some form other than burning and inhaling, and if its analgesic effects could be isolated from the, ah, cognitive impairment…

  64. 64.

    Miss Bianca

    @Bruce K: ah, hello…welcome to CBD oil, extracted from cannabis. All the analgesic, none of the mind-altering effects. Works unbelievably well for pain…but i find a bit of the THC is still better for the depression.

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