52 Replies to “Interesting Happenings on the Left Coast”

  1. It takes courage to go against the grain especially at the high school level. Admirable indeed.

  2. When is there going to be a factual analysis and publication of the financial costs associated with medical expenses for psychosis treatments, lung damage and replacement, social costs, and pharma-costs for the side effects of prolonged and steady use of pot?
    These young men have gone out and done the research with the very wise counsel of caring parents who engaged and encouraged them to gather the facts and separate them from the fiction. Most of the bong-heads at the 4-20 events believe what all their piers and friends and dealers tell them about it being harmless. Sounds like the big tobacco companies have moved their marketing departments over to the pot industry.

  3. Pot is for hippies and dummies.
    Shiny Pony is going down in flames, and his position on pot is one of the main reasons why.
    Pot heads want you to believe that their view is mainstream. It is not.

  4. I remember driving behind someone in Calgary who let out a big cloud of the stuff. One thing to smoke it, but drive through a fog it produces upon exhaling and then stinking everyone around you?
    I didn’t hang around too long to see how his driving skills were.

  5. Allow for private healthcare,open carry , private property rights,castle law…..im ok with it being legal along with all other drugs and prostitution.

  6. I’m with Paul in Calgary. The harm from smoking weed is far less than the harm from prohibition. Smoke it if you must, but just stay off the roads. I don’t care if you want to inject heroin directly into your carotid artery, so long as you don’t drive and don’t toss yr used needles onto my property ( in which case you likely would need treatment for acute lead poisoning). Similarly, I couldn’t care less if idiots want to treat serious diseases with water, er , homeopathic remedies – as long as they don’t expect me to pay for it.

  7. Ha, I couldn’t get past the opening credits without laughing out loud. Sponsored by trial lawyers, not that they would ever have an agenda to keep weed illegal or anything. Too funny.
    Look, you do chronic anything and you will pay a price for it. That includes eating cheeseburgers, drinking Root Beer Schnapps, smoking weed or countless other indulgences. At least now, thanks to vaping, it is safer than ever to ingest marijuana responsibly. It’s one hell of a lot safer social drug than alcohol(society’s accepted killer drug), that is clear. Anyways, adults should have the freedom to make these decisions for themselves.
    If you TRULY want to protect kids then you MUST remove distribution of this product from criminals. That means removing the profit windfall created for gangs by prohibition which means legalization and control of distribution. This would also control adulteration and tampering. Are videos of thousands of youth toking up at these multiple events while cops stand idly by not enough evidence of the massive failure of the current policies? It should be.
    There is a reason organized gangs aren’t currently in city parks pushing that truly dangerous drug called whiskey to our children.

  8. Many here still conflate heroin , coke, etc. with marijuana. All drugs are bad and there’s no difference you believe.
    Still got a copy of “Refer Madness” on your shelf?
    So stupid.
    Everyone who enjoys a glass of wine or two will also end up under a bridge drinking rubbing alcohol as well?

  9. @Canadian Observer:
    If you think legalization is going to remove criminal involvement, I’m sorry to say that your posit is not entirely based on reality. That is a pipe dream (pun intentional).

  10. Canadian Observer >
    Dope is for dopes, but I wouldn’t have a problem legalizing it providing the government allowed Concealed Carry, Stand your Ground, and Castle Laws.
    I agree that legalizing pot would take some money out of organized crime and a few street punks. So where do they go for their easy money next?
    Criminals don’t stop being criminals because you took the easy cash out of their pockets. They simply look elsewhere, like robbery, home invasions, muggings, or finding bigger or even younger markets to peddle harder stuff.
    If the Liberal Left allowed the rest of us to arm and protect our families and communities, we should most definitely allow them to legally poison themselves.
    Fair is fair!

  11. I agree that there will always be an underground market and production, because when the government gets involved in any sort of business, the screw it up. You could expect lower potency pot ” for our own good” … And it will be loaded down with extortion level taxation.
    Post heads ar not suckers .., just folks who like an altered state as do boosters, Anne tens of millions of prescription drug users taking all sorts of side effect-laden, mood altering drug to help them cope with their chaotic lives.

  12. Paul in Calgary >
    I see I ditto’d your comment above.
    Glad you mentioned private health care. I’d also include scrapping Social Assistance and any other public welfare programs as well.
    Legalized or not, there will be plenty of private corporations and businesses that will still adhere to a legal No Drug Policy. Which is what many of the dopers dream they will loophole through if it was legalized.
    They can dream on, the only quacks that hire dopeheads are government to begin with. No serious employer, emergency services or otherwise would risk their investments to druggies.
    Hence another reason for the push for Socialization and forcible employment policies by the Liberal Left.

  13. peter >
    “Are you suggesting Wall St. lacks “serious businesses?”
    Don’t you?
    Wall St. at it’s best is simply an upscale dealership of financial goods. You have used cars and new cars, lets make a deal my friend.
    At it’s worst, a Ponzi scheme within a Ponzi scheme.
    Good luck with your doped out Financial Planner though, I’m sure he’ll put your best interests first.

  14. Good luck with your doped out Financial Planner though, I’m sure he’ll put your best interests first.
    What planet are you on? People that smoke pot recreationally are no more likely to be impaired at work than those who drink recreationally.
    Those who lump recreational pot smokers in with druggies only show their ignorance. The reason many move to harder dangerous drugs is because the government forces them to purchase from illegal unsavory sellers. To say that the simple act of smoking pot puts you on the path to meth is akin to saying having a beer will certainly cause alcoholism and societal decay.
    Let’s start examining all your drinking habits shall we?

  15. I work in the medical field seeing hard core stoners all the time.
    Anyone thinks this stuff is safe is nuts. You talk about people who can’t remember zip or hold a conversation.
    Booze is bad too, but when these folks lie about how it doesn’t harm….. fools!

  16. looks like the non dope smokers get better hair.
    ive always been told hemp oil was good for the hair. apparently not.

  17. Doowleb >
    “Let’s start examining all your drinking habits shall we?”
    Sure, I have no drinking “habit”, never have. Don’t smoke cigarettes or eat fast foods either.
    But you don’t need to convince me, you need to convince the millions of credible employers out there who provide top end jobs to those who pass a drug test. No pass, No Job, very simple.
    Of course the world needs poets, basket weavers, and pot paraphernalia vendors as well. Then for the “High End” sophisticated tokers there’s always a BA degree and a government position in uselessness somewhere.
    So in a nutshell, I’m not complaining. As I clearly stated earlier I’ll fully support legalization of pot if the government allows Concealed Carry, Castle Laws, scraps Social Assistance for all but the truly disabled, and privatizes health care.
    So what’s your issue with that?

  18. My issue is the undertone that anyone who smokes pot are the dredges of society with no self control.
    My issue is that those who have no self control are not limited to pot users. Drinking is a much more dangerous drug for society.
    My issue is that you still maintain that all pot smokers are deficient and unable to function in the top ranks of employment and society.
    My issue is that this type of “The Church Lady” thinking is old fashioned and likely to be punished at the polls. Those who maintain this ‘reefer madness’ alarmism will be marginalized because anyone under 50 knows most of your fears are bunk.

  19. doowleb >
    Well those are your issues, and they’re obviously very important to you.
    On the flipside, other people’s issues include the fact that the majority of adult drug users are indeed useless dregs on society, while the young users are indeed harming themselves both physically and mentally.
    But don’t let that stop you from supporting legalization because you like to have a toke from time to time and are worried about the risk of having a joint confiscated or worse an unlikely $50.00 fine.
    BTW when was the last time you were busted for smoking pot? Did they take your house & car and then throw you in the BIG house? Didn’t think so.
    In truth, I like the scummy little dealers out on the streets selling crap for easy money to people who need to escape reality. It helps keep them from climbing in the windows of my house, and a little further away from our schools.

  20. I do think pot smokers are, in the main, a**h*les. I’ve lived next to enough of them: it seems like the only damn thing that matters to them in the world is there ability to get stoned. And if you’ve ever lived with pot-smoking neighbours, the stink of it is nauseating. I was living in Ottawa when the Martin Liberals were mulling decriminalization and the cops stopped enforcing possession laws–idiots were smoking up everywhere, the bus stops, the public parks (by kid’s playgrounds), at the downtown cenotaph, etc. And that’s pretty much what I would expect if they ever did decriminalize. The rummies at least know to drink under the bridges, not around my kids!
    And now that I’ve been doing work in the downtown of Hamilton, I’ve come in contact with the mentally ill who self-medicate with pot, and make their conditions exponentially worse (and don’t take my word for the science, it’s clinically proven to exacerbate and even prompt schizophrenia).
    I think our enlightened elites are quite happy to have half of us stoned and thereby that much more complacent in the face of civilizational decline.
    btw, I’m no Church Lady, I’ve seen what this stuff does to kids, to families… how rationalizing that it’s no worse than whisky somehow earns it a right to be legalized, I can’t fathom. The stuff on the streets is vastly more potent than what the sixties hippies smoked. Say what you want about my Jameson’s, I don’t worry about my occasional dram turning out to be wood alcohol.

  21. >> My issue is the undertone that anyone who smokes pot are the dredges of society with no self control.
    That’s because they are.
    >> My issue is that those who have no self control are not limited to pot users. Drinking is a much more dangerous drug for society.
    The age old defunct argument that “alcohol is the same as pot”. They are not at all the same, not medically nor socially.
    >> My issue is that you still maintain that all pot smokers are deficient and unable to function in the top ranks of employment and society.
    Read the recent studies. The facts are piling up.
    >> My issue is that this type of “The Church Lady” thinking is old fashioned and likely to be punished at the polls. Those who maintain this ‘reefer madness’ alarmism will be marginalized because anyone under 50 knows most of your fears are bunk.
    No, in fact it is pot smokers who will be marginalized.

  22. Well, the old saying “Often wrong but never in doubt” applies to many here. I’m not going to stand on a pulpit trying to change anyone’s mind on pot. The simple fact is I couldn’t give a damn what you think. Most here are conservative. I don’t think it’s necessary that we all agree on everything.

  23. “I don’t think it’s necessary that we all agree on everything.”
    No harm, no foul, you made your case and provided an opposing opinion with civil intelligence.

  24. Every Conservative should fight hard to keep pot illegal.
    Think of it as a privatized Liberal welfare/ charity program that tax’s Liberals for drugs while keeping the vermin with some pocket change and lethargic.
    You will otherwise never see a Liberal willingly donate a personal dime towards keeping societies scum in the shadows.
    And what about Liberals with firearms, does anyone here truly wish to see Liberals and communists armed? Hell no. That’s why Police criminal and mental health background checks for a firearms licence is actually a good thing.
    Hint: Liberals don’t do well on criminal and mental background checks. Ergo Liberals are very much less likely to be legally armed, a very good thing.

  25. Part of the reason you don’t see gangs pushing booze in the parks to kids is that it is not particularly profitable to run an illegal distillery. The space required, storage, distribution etc, for illegal booze to create 1 million dollars worth, would be substantial.
    To do so with pot, only requires a large basement and a few months.
    Re legalization all that will do is expand the market for organized crime.

  26. Alcohol is the most costly drug to society.
    Society refuses to admit that alcohol is a drug, and is by far the most abused.
    Any one of the psychological “problems” attributed to pot are much the same as those attributed to alcohol.
    Which drug fuels most instances of domestic violence?
    Young pot smokers are loud and obnoxious, perhaps (they’re probably drinking as well), but no more than young drunks.
    Drinkers piss me off because they think they are above it all when it comes to drug use and have the attitude that I’ve got my drug – f you.
    Alcohol is the gateway drug, pretty safe bet that, for the vast majority, alcohol is their first rec drug.

  27. The harm of pot is dwarfed by the taxpayers’ dollars that will be collected if it’s legalized. I have no problem with smoking pot, people do lots of things that are not good for them. I am against the government regulating and taxing it, and pulling that money out of the economy.

  28. Please. More stories about reefer madness.
    It helps one more easily identify those uninformed,generalizing ignorant twits that think they know how to live your life much better than you.
    Or what used to be known as Liberals.

  29. I agree that pot is for stupid people. There are some exceptions to that – but they are the exceptions. I’ve seen enough elderly hippies that have been on that crap for most of their adult lives and it shows. It’s always the same too – they don’t have enough money to live well and constantly complain about it; but they always have money for weed. Also – they always make the case that booze is legal so pot should be. Only a simpleton or a child would make an argument like that.
    I MIGHT consider legalization if drug testing for welfare clods were instituted, and druggies got bumped to the back of the bus in the healthcare system.

  30. RGB >
    “Drinkers piss me off because………”
    Exactly, and dopers piss other people off because……….
    There is no moral equivalent argument between alcohol and drugs, both are bad for individuals and society. One does not make the other right. The druggy “alcohol argument” is a red herring. One happens to be legal the other not, alcohol does destroy and so does AIDS.
    I could care less about what an individual does, it’s only what they do to me, and all intoxicating drugs have the potential to piss with me, either directly or indirectly. So piss on them.
    I’d be cool with allowing individuals to get as wasted as they want inside their residence or private club. If they’re found in public they’d be fined & jailed. +Plus no welfare or “free” health care for addicts. ++Plus concealed carry and castle laws for all citizens without criminal records or mental health issues. (Including drug and alcohol addictions).

  31. By far the biggest danger of pot is the absolute lie that it is relatively harmless. And as for the other lie that taxing pot will fill the government coffers, all it will do is open the door wider for organized crime to undercut the “legal” stuff (with organized crime collecting the “taxes”), and also allowing organized crime to operate more in the open. The same nonsense is going on with cigarettes with organized crime raking in untold hundreds of millions.
    And the cost of dealing with IQ lowered young adults will, of course, require more government bureaucrats dealing with that issue.

  32. The big difference I see is intent: I can drink a glass of wine to enjoy the taste and enhance my meal, the intent is not to get blasted out of my mind. The sole intent of smoking marijuana is to get stoned. The other aspect is risk: it is fairly easy to (a) detect a drunk and (b) confirm it with a breathalyzer. It is not easy without a blood test to determine if your bus driver or pilot is in a mind-altered state if marijuana is involved. That said, there is a ‘risk to the public’ aspect with smoking up that is more readily detectable with booze.

  33. No one under 40 cares. Some of my friends drink; some vape. I like both from time to time. You have to remind me that it not already legal.

  34. Matt Kenney >
    “No one under 40 cares”
    Precisely why there are no adults around anymore. But they will care one day when they wake up and have some flavor of jackboot standing on their necks.

  35. Exactly right Aviator. In addition, ehtanol is a naturally occurring substance in our blood. The key chemicals in dope are not.

  36. I agreed with everything you said, except one: Control of Distribution. That just re-invites the criminal element back into the game. Make selling it a crime, but allow anybody to grow it in small batches for personal consumption. If it’s legal, or more correctly, de-criminalized, it will have no street value as you can get it from your own little garden. Gangs and bikers will go elsewhere to make money. Who is going to purchase something for any amount of money that they can get for free?

  37. “The big difference I see is intent: I can drink a glass of wine to enjoy the taste and enhance my meal, the intent is not to get blasted out of my mind. The sole intent of smoking marijuana is to get stoned.”
    Aviator
    What a bunch of doodoo that comment is. People drink to get the buzz, with a meal or not. Even if you don’t get piss drunk with your plate of spaghetti, your drink the wine primarily for the buzz don’t be an hypocrite.
    Facts: You can drink yourself into a coma and die = In one session.
    There is no recorded evidence of anybody dying of a THC overdose, EVER.
    When you smoke weed, you get to a certain point where there is no more higher effect to be reached. You just waste your stash. Any experienced toker knows this.
    “How come the THC content keeps increasing then?” Answer: It’s not to get higher, it’s for the illegal dealers to be able to grow less material for same effect. Also the advantage of higher THC is that you need to smoke less throat burning stuff to get your high.
    In the 70’s, weed was transformed into hashish which is basically a THC concentrate. Today, it is cheaper to just sell the better quality weed (Buds) instead.

  38. Why is it that people who usually argue in favour of freedom in many other aspects of life get bent out of shape over pot?
    I’m going to do what I want to do, and you can’t do anything about it as an impotent far-right conservative voter with no options. I’ll vape weed, I’ll collect guns, I’ll ride bicycles and I’ll excel in my professional career. Like you gun nuts say, “You can take my [pot] out of my cold dead hands.”
    Still feeling brave? How much is it worth to you?

  39. Jon >
    “I’m going to do what I want to do, and you can’t do anything about it…………”
    Oh oh here come the loons.
    Do you have reading comprehension issues or something? I’ve never once said on this thread that I would stand in the way of retarded people harming themselves. In fact I encourage it, the less of you around the better.
    So don’t try to put words in my mouth, mine are on public record and verifiable.
    In a nutshell I’m simply standing up for the protection of me and mine, who gives a rats ass about you. Go ahead get busted for drugs and watch that little gun collection go bye, bye. I’ll be laughing all the way to the range. As well as doing whatever the hell I want to do. Just legally 🙂

  40. Are you serious?
    The conversation is about how weed is going to be legalized and you can’t do a thing about it as a fringe conservative. You’re stuck with people like me, who will still consider funding your retirement benefits if you get out of the way on social issues. Otherwise that money is going to be pissed away by an NDP PM who doesn’t give a @#$% about old people because they don’t vote for the left.
    What is keeping weed illegal worth to you? Splitting the right again? Giving money to organized crime? Sending RCMP officers in to bust college kids? Maybe you didn’t smoke weed in college. Maybe you didn’t go to college. Either way, it’s no reason to be jealous of teenagers having fun.
    I don’t mean to break it to you too harshly, but it is you who is considered a loon. Look at yourself. You spend all day every day posting on a far right blog. Are you retired? Maybe disabled from a life of labour? You clearly have too much time as you’re spending it on something entirely unproductive.
    Yielding on social issues, such as pot, abortion and homosexuality will allow otherwise conservative values to thrive. Don’t fight your cultural-religious war on the back of our economic fight. You’re weakening the case for voting conservative. Surely that isn’t your intention. Our liberty is at stake, don’t conflate it with your chance to moralize by political force.
    Good day sir.

  41. Jon, with respect, you can not understand the value of having drugs a criminal offence unless you understand the power of the untaxed dirty money and who really benefits from it. (hint it is finance/banking). This is the only explanation that makes any sense. I posted a link above that leads to a detailed discussion of the real issue and how the money works.

  42. Jon >
    “Are you serious?”
    What do you think? – K99
    “You’re stuck with people like me, who will still consider funding your retirement benefits if you get out of the way on social issues”
    No not really,I’m not stuck with you at all and I will definitely fund my own retirement thank you. – K99
    “What is keeping weed illegal worth to you?”
    Read my comments above – K99
    “Are you retired?”
    Not at all, I’m an oilfield executive with three personal offices in three Canadian cities which I fly between on a weekly bases, much of my online posting is from airports. From 2000 to 2011 I travelled between my offices in Singapore and Calgary on a monthly bases. – K99
    “You’re weakening the case for voting conservative.”
    No I’m not, but you are, broaden yourself – K99
    “…but it is you who is considered a loon”
    Heh, if you say so – K99

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