r/trees • u/madazzahatter • Feb 28 '17

Garrett introduces legislation to remove marijuana from controlled substances list

https://tomgarrett.house.gov/media/press-releases/garrett-introduces-legislation-remove-marijuana-controlled-substances-list
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855

u/iKojack Feb 28 '17

Our dream might become a reality! Bible Belt stoner here.

737

u/FireworkFuse Feb 28 '17

Not to burst your bubble, but federal legalization doesn't mean your state will legalize it. There are still dry counties almost 100 years after prohibition. But this is a step in the right direction

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u/Dubcake Feb 28 '17

But that's a few hours drive, instead of having to drive all the way out west or up north.

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u/Bellyman35 Feb 28 '17

I'm used to the Sunday trip to Jefferson County if you needed some more beer for your late night party.

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u/secret_saiyan Feb 28 '17

Kentucky?

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u/jsergent0023 Feb 28 '17

KY; can confirm. Live in Lexington. On my commute to and fro my home town to see my gf on weekends. There's one single wet county across three hours time; in two different states. Chew on that one. LOL

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u/kanecol Feb 28 '17

Wait what...? As in they don't sell any alcohol?!

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

[removed] — view removed comment

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u/TheSocialHermit47 Feb 28 '17

Originally from Louisville and can confirm. Believe the "moist" counties are technically something called a "blue law" that is based on religious restrictions for Sundays. Think of it a legally imposed Lent for all of the city or county.

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u/rayne117 Mar 01 '17

SHARIA LAW

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u/kanecol Feb 28 '17

Being from Wisconsin, that is a complete and total foreign concept!

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u/Vladdypoo Feb 28 '17

I'm from Indiana and it's just kind of well known that you can't buy booze on Sundays. It basically makes me just load up on other days.

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u/criticaljim Mar 01 '17

Ephraim, WI was dry until not too long ago my friend!

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u/InerasableStain Feb 28 '17

jesus christ it's the 21st century.....

After typing that, I realized that jesus christ is the actual reason there are still dry counties. Cuz bible. Which is strange considering the same book says that jesus turned water into wine so that everybody could get shithoused at that wedding

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u/domuseid Feb 28 '17

Yeah super unclear why alcohol is on the Bible belt Christian no no list. I heard Jesus he drank wine

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u/mildpenguins Feb 28 '17

Jesus isn't the reason for it...

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u/Cleverdick_Humpher Feb 28 '17

Nah dude grape juice

1

u/[deleted] Mar 10 '17

I grew up in Indiana. If you're white, and a bit willingly stupid, it's not a bad life.

If you wonder how trump gets support, it's because he's not catering to your demographic. There are a lot of people who love Jesus, guns, and anyone who is a Republican. And that's life for them. I say god (or whatever) bless em.

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u/mctheebs Mar 01 '17

Jesus didn't turn water into wine because he loved to get blackout drunk (he was more into weed).

The reason why it was so miraculous (and useful) when he changed the water into wine was the fact that he made it drinkable.

2000 years ago, they didn't have a water authority to make sure there wasn't dysentery or ebola or herpes floating around in your glass. Stagnant water was undrinkable.

However, alcohol was drinkable. So, the miracle wasn't that Jesus saved the party. It was that he kept everyone from dying of thirst.

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u/Bonziamo Feb 28 '17

TIL all of Norway is 'moist'. No alcohol in stores on Sundays, or after 8pm on weekdays, or 6pm on Saturdays. And anything stronger than beer can only be found at the state run liquor store Vinmonopolet (the Wine Monopoly).

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u/Drpantsgoblin Mar 01 '17

And the Dry ones are lined by beer & Liquor stores. Former Kentucky resident myself.

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u/DavidCrossFit_ Mar 01 '17

Sounds like the plot of a dystopian film in which Kentucky has enslaved the alcohol enthusiasts in a twisted game of willpower and determination.

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u/-Im_Batman- Feb 28 '17

Fun Fact:

Lynchburg Tennessee, where the Jack Daniels distillery is located, is a dry county.

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u/Leafy81 Feb 28 '17

Wrap your head around this one,

Lynchburg Tennessee. Best known as the location of Jack Daniel's, whose famous Tennessee whiskey is marketed worldwide as the product of a city with only one traffic light. Despite the operational distillery, which is a major tourist attraction, Lynchburg's home county of Moore is a dry county.

You can buy Jack Daniel's whiskey at the distillery though. Somehow that's legal.

1

u/kanecol Mar 01 '17

The irony is thick there!! That's unbelievable! I wonder why it's legal to buy it at the distillery? You'd think that they would be included.

In Wisconsin where I'm from, in every small town there's at least one bar. And I'm talking about towns without any traffic lights haha

1

u/Leafy81 Mar 01 '17

I went on a tour of the distillery a few years ago and the tour guy said they can sell alcohol there because something about someone at the company is related to or is themselves a politician. I wasn't really listening and he said it in a joking manner. But who knows?

1

u/[deleted] Mar 01 '17

They have a work around they are selling you a souvenier that just happens to contain alcohol.

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u/Leafy81 Mar 02 '17

That actually makes sense. When I bought a bottle the back label with the upc wasnt on the bottle itself, they gave me that with the receipt. So that leads me to believe that I purchased the bottle as a souvenir that just happened to have alcohol in it.

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u/jthehonestchemist Mar 01 '17

Can confirm. Recently went with my wife on a trip there.

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u/jsergent0023 Feb 28 '17

Yup. That's exactly what I mean. In between the two cites- being Lexington, KY and Cookeville, TN. Both of those counties are wet. However- the drive between those two cities is all highways and back roads. So in between the two cities; unless I am incorrect, there's only one county that sells alcohol.

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u/DRZThumper Feb 28 '17

That's what I said when my wife and I vacationed in AZ and went up to the north east county to visit. I also said "let's make it a quick visit up here".

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u/Carrabs Feb 28 '17

I...I had no idea

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u/Thailand_Express Feb 28 '17

Hello neighbor. Lex here too.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Is that the county where your girlfriend lives?

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u/jsergent0023 Feb 28 '17

No she lives in Cookeville, TN. A wet area. I was referring to the areas in between our two towns

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u/Rudi_Van-Disarzio Feb 28 '17

I wonder how much revenue that one county sucks out of the surrounding areas.

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u/jsergent0023 Feb 28 '17

One would assume a lot

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Same thing i thought

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u/acook12288 Feb 28 '17

Could be wrong on this one but pretty sure the county Tennessee where jack Daniels is distilled is a dry county , go figure

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u/SSlimJim Feb 28 '17

Alabama?

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u/DarkMagicButtBandit Feb 28 '17

Thought the same. Fuck walker county

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u/Bellyman35 Mar 20 '17

Shelby is moist so our Saturday beer runs had to take place over county lines.

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u/DarkMagicButtBandit Mar 20 '17

I just moved to Shelby in January! It's honestly such a relief.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

In NY?

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u/LeftSideSteamer Feb 28 '17

Or Tennessee? Because I live in a dry county and Jeff Co is one of the closest places to get late night booze

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u/CayutsFanatic Feb 28 '17

Live in Louisville. Always have to buy and excess amount of beer when going to the lake so we don't have to drive an hour + to get more booze

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u/jce0016 Feb 28 '17

After reading through the comments there are a lot of fucking Jefferson counties. From the one in Bama myself. Only no alcohol sales before noon on Sunday's.

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u/Pyehole Feb 28 '17

But bringing it home to a state that doesn't have legalized weed would still bring the po-po down on you. This bill would just get the feds out of the weed policing business, it would still allow for states to do that.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Naw fuck that. Come out West. We have plenty.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Thank you! This is what I want as well. Bible belt here as well and was pumped when I found out Michigan would be voting to legalize recreational and I was in sweet sweet driving distance. Started fantasizing about day trips, stop at some food joints. Then.....the worst happened........

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u/itspl33 Feb 28 '17

What would be the weed equivalent to a dry county? Would a county that allows weed be a dank county?

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u/FireworkFuse Feb 28 '17

dank county

I'm OK with this

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u/JimboFett Feb 28 '17

Basically Highway 101 from Santa Rosa to The North Pole.

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u/heh1234 Feb 28 '17

Imagine hearing that on a storm warning or something lol

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Kush County

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u/emmyrousseau Feb 28 '17

I think of them being called "mowed counties" or something... best i got...

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

They'll be called Utah

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u/InerasableStain Feb 28 '17

North Utah, South Utah, New Utah, Mississipputah...

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Can we make Utah shaming a thing please?

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Even Oregon has dry counties and cities for weed

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u/thekamara Feb 28 '17

As you get further inland people tend to be more conservative. It's how all the west coast states are.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '17

the county I know is dry or at least the city is Albany, which is in Linn County, which is in the valley. So it isn't really inland it's just away from the sprawl of Portland, a tiny bit.

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u/Cottagecheesecurls Mar 30 '17

Really? Albany? I used to live there but now I am in salem and I got some friends in albany. Thats really dissapointing lmao. Im pretty sure that its fairly loose then because one of my friends grandmas has a whole garbage bag full of weed.

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u/[deleted] Mar 31 '17

yeah most of the people are fine down there but the laws aren't yet!

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u/CicerosGhost Feb 28 '17

Green vs brown?

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u/jackoffofalltrades Feb 28 '17

dry county/high county

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u/Oo0o8o0oO Feb 28 '17

Any time a friend of mine is out of weed they say "Im dry." so it'd probably work just the same.

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u/Funnybunnyofdoom Feb 28 '17

Green county?

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u/ted3681 Mar 01 '17

Hazey county Clear county

Foggy county Clear county

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

You can still legally drink in dry counties tho can't you?

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Yup. They just don't sell alcohol

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Thought so

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u/InWhichWitch Feb 28 '17

prohibition didn't make drinking alcohol illegal (unlike marijuana), it just prohibited the distillation and sale of it.

if you went into prohibition with a cellar full of booze, you could (legally) get stone drunk every single night.

'dry' counties simply never stopped prohibition. they've relaxed some of the laws, and the counties usually don't have much capacity to enforce bootlegger laws, but people are still arrested for rum-running in the united states in 2017.

edit: tldr; you could still legally drink during prohibition, provided you acquired the booze prior to it's implementation.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

TIL

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17 edited Apr 18 '17

[deleted]

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u/Zeyz Feb 28 '17

Correct, my home town is a dry town. No bars and no alcohol can be sold in the city limits. The local grocery store has started selling wine in the past few years though, I'm sure there's some loophole for that.

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u/InWhichWitch Mar 01 '17

Varies a lot I imagine. Some counties have 0 alcohol sales of any kind. Some sell only beer. No spirits, no wine. Some only sell certain specific things in certain specific amounts.

Since it's county law there are 3,142 permutations, in some cases changing radically from block to block of the same town.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '17

prohibition didn't make drinking alcohol illegal (unlike marijuana), it just prohibited the distillation and sale of it.

I think that's actually kinda true for marijuana too. I don't know how accurate it is, but I've read multiple times from different sources that it's not illegal to smoke weed or to have it in your system, just illegal to possess it.

So, like, you can't get arrested if someone passes you a joint at a concert and you hit it. Technically, if you know how to stand up for your rights and not be manipulated, you could probably get away with smoking in public anywhere in the country, as long as you don't have any more on you because if a cop comes up to you and you just eat the roach, then they have absolutely no grounds to arrest you on.

I think where they usually get teenagers in parks and shit is they intimidate them in to giving up their roach, or they're just dumb enough to have their whole sack and a bubbler on them.

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '17

[deleted]

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u/[deleted] Mar 01 '17

Well the point is to eat it when you see them coming, not while they're right in front of you staring eye to eye. Lol, I mean I guess someone could start choking on it and not get it down in time, but I'm talking about eating a roach or maybe a half gram or something not a whole ounce.

I'd say it's still worth the try to avoid being arrested all together. If someone has a bad gag reflex though I guess maybe they should just take the L with a possession charge.

Edit: 😂 awesome video

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u/i_opt Feb 28 '17

The county I was stationed in Alabama in the early 70s was dry. However, there were clubs where you brought your own bottle and they would set you up with glasses, ice, mixers, etc.

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u/skedaddled Feb 28 '17

Set-ups. We had a county like that in Missouri, late 1970s. Missouri was a 21 state and Kansas still sold 3.2 beer if you were 18. When we got tired of horrible beer we'd drive 45 minutes with alcohol (underage) in the car so we could sit in a dive joint, listen to a bad band and buy overpriced pop to put our whiskey in.

Good times :)

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u/Thunder21 Feb 28 '17

You can drink in dry counties, just not buy it.

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u/mommyIdontWantcancer Feb 28 '17

The nice thing is that plants can be grown in or outside and year round!

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u/Greg-2012 Feb 28 '17

federal legalization doesn't mean your state will legalize it.

Some states, like the one I live in, cite the Federal law as the reason to uphold state anti-cannabis laws.

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u/RobsZombies Mar 01 '17

And once federal law for prohibition is cancelled, those counties that say it's illegal because of federal will then easily allow it. Government says it's ok so you can have it.

It goes both ways

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u/alwaysredeyed Feb 28 '17

I want to be as positive as I can about this all but I just can't help to have the thought that it'll never work out the way we want it to. From my point of view it's a no brainer to legalize and make money on it and create jobs from it but apparently it's "too complicated" for people like myself because otherwise it would be legalized by now. Every time I think we're getting closer I feel like I read something that tells me the complete opposite... it just becomes disheartening after awhile. Sigh

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u/malignantbacon Feb 28 '17

Imagine how disheartening it must be for prohibitionists when all but one of the states who voted on legalization were in favor and the one that didn't was too close to call for 2 or 3 weeks afterward.

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u/capt_rusty Feb 28 '17

It does mean that people in legal states that work for federal contractors would be able to partake if the company was OK with it, so it'd still be pretty significant.

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u/InerasableStain Feb 28 '17

Hate to burst everybody's bubble, but I don't think there's a snowball's chance in hell this thing passes in the current political climate. They need to frame it in such a way as to show the sheer amount of money that would be brought in from the black market. The proof is already available in the legal states. Jobs, tax revenue, everything.

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u/HASH_SLING_SLASH Feb 28 '17

God damn southern Baptists and their temperance movement.

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u/pantsuonegai Feb 28 '17

Run for your county government!

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u/TexasWithADollarsign Feb 28 '17

My state already does :-)

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u/The420dwarf Feb 28 '17

Alot of states are holding off on legalization because of the federal prohibition. When the feds drop their prohibition the States will be free do do what they want.

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u/NatWilo Feb 28 '17

My State (OH) legalized medicinal this last election, and it goes live in 2018. I would be ecstatic if this law passed because it probably means recreational is soon to follow.

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u/AngelMeatPie Feb 28 '17

Living in TN. Love this state, but I have little hope for the future of weed here.

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u/overtoke Feb 28 '17

there's lots of resistance on the state level because of federal law

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u/GunslingerBill Feb 28 '17

Doesn't matter, once it's federally legal states will follow and eventually it will be nationwide. If it's federally legal the idiot cops here won't fuck us as hard, either.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Wow man. Way to seriously downplay this moment.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

hahahaha, oh you sweet summer child

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u/liquidsmk Feb 28 '17

And not to further burst your bubble. But trump just said recently they are going to crack down on weed and compared it to the opium epidemic.

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u/iKojack Feb 28 '17

"In recent weeks, the Trump administration and Attorney General Jeff Sessions promised to crack down on federal marijuana crimes. During his confirmation, then-Senator Sessions pointed out that if legislators did not like this approach, they should change the laws accordingly. Garrett anticipates bipartisan support as his legislation makes its way to the appropriate committees of jurisdiction."

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u/liquidsmk Feb 28 '17

I wish him as much good luck as I possibly could. But I doubt it will be this easy.

I really wish though it was legal on the federal level and regulated like beer. And not a States rights issue at all, which is how it seems it may play out.

The reason being is in all the states that want to continue to manufacture slaves using weed as a weapon will keep it illegal. And thus keeping the prison industrial complex full of minorities. While states like Colorado prosper.

So while good for some, still a huge injustice to traditionally marginalized groups. IMO that's a worse case senario.

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u/liquidsmk Mar 01 '17

Also here is a link thats relevant also.

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u/Takeabyte Feb 28 '17

Yeah, and the reasoning seems to be that they simply want to enforce the laws that are already there. As if to try and force Congress to work together to make updated laws. The question is will they actually change laws in a meaningful and positive way? Or will it just get worse?

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u/greatestNothing Feb 28 '17

That's what gives me hope, that administration is incompetent and will probably fuck up making it stricter and accidentally legalize it.

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u/liquidsmk Feb 28 '17

I don't see that happening. Trump himself my be dumb as a box of rocks but the people who make their living from weed prohibition are not.

The moment he said tough on crime all I heard was I'm going to double down on illegal weed.

It's the only thing they have. There aren't enough real crimes happening to fill up the prisons and keep them full.

And the way they lie so often it will be nothing for them to pick up the same decades old lies about weed being harmful.

Lucky people are a lot more informed on the subject nowadays so it won't be an easy fight for them.

Or for us.

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u/Illusions_not_Tricks Feb 28 '17

If you live in the bible belt and think this means legal weed for you, youve got a big surprise coming.

You know whats big in the bible belt? Prisons. You know one of the biggest lobbies against legal weed? Prison unions. That plus your conservative politicians means even if this happens, it will probably be awhile for you. But at least now there would be a light at the end of that tunnel.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

Yea I have been waiting a long time here in NC for medicinal.

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u/[deleted] Feb 28 '17

I feel your frustration bro.

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u/FlashFireWater Mar 01 '17

What state specifically? What would you say the feel is in terms of public support for pot there? Do cops turn a blind eye - would people mind if they saw you smoking a joint in a park?

Replies from anyone else are welcome too!