Home | Community | Message Board

Cannabis Seeds Zamnesia
This site includes paid links. Please support our sponsors.


Welcome to the Shroomery Message Board! You are experiencing a small sample of what the site has to offer. Please login or register to post messages and view our exclusive members-only content. You'll gain access to additional forums, file attachments, board customizations, encrypted private messages, and much more!

Shop: North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Bridgetown Botanicals Bridgetown Botanicals, CBD Capsules   Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds, Bulk Cannabis Seeds

Jump to first unread post Pages: 1
OnlineYthanA
ᕕ( ᐛ )ᕗ
Male User Gallery

Registered: 08/08/97
Posts: 18,774
Loc: NY/MA/VT Borderlands Flag
Last seen: 5 minutes, 12 seconds
Marijuana likely to be decriminalized in D.C. * 1
    #19046052 - 10/28/13 01:10 PM (10 years, 3 months ago)

Marijuana likely to be decriminalized in D.C.
washingtonpost.com

Before long, smoking a joint in the nation’s capital might get you in even less trouble than parking on the wrong side of the street on street-cleaning day.

Ten of 13 members of the D.C. Council and Mayor Vincent C. Gray (D) have endorsed a plan to make small-time marijuana possession a civil rather than a criminal offense. That means recreational cannabis users wouldn’t face arrest, charges or jail time — any of which can destroy their lives — as long as they aren’t caught with more than an ounce of the drug. Instead, they would have to pay a fine, perhaps as low as $25. (The mayor also wants criminal penalties to remain for anyone caught using it in public.)

Much of the debate over the idea has focused on an American Civil Liberties Union report that suggests that the District and many other jurisdictions enforce their anti-marijuana laws unfairly, disproportionately arresting African American suspects. On these pages, Police Chief Cathy L. Lanier pushed back, insisting that factors such as a geographic concentration of tips about marijuana users, not biased policing, are responsible for the city’s arrest figures.

That debate does not need to be resolved to conclude that maintaining criminal penalties for small-time users of any race doesn’t make sense.

Enforcing criminal penalties against those who aren’t involved in trafficking or selling the drug would be too harsh and a waste of government resources. As it stands, very few people in the District are prosecuted for possessing less than an ounce of marijuana, unless there are other charges to go along with it. But even an arrest can make it difficult to find a good job.

Refraining from enforcing criminal penalties, on the other hand, would promote disrespect for the law.

An all-around better policy, long championed by District lawyer Paul Zukerberg, would be to slap small-time users with a civil fine, which is a measured way to send a message that the government does not condone or tolerate marijuana use. No one’s life would be permanently marred by getting caught with a joint. But violators would still have to pay, literally. In that vein, we would suggest that $25 — a smaller fine than that attached to low-level parking violations — is too modest a penalty. Maryland lawmakers considered setting a $100 fine this year, the same level that New York state approved last year. That sounds like the right size.

Attitudes about marijuana are changing, and quickly. A recent Gallup poll found that an astonishing 58 percent of Americans now favor legalizing the drug. Colorado and Washington state have both tried to do just that by changing their drug laws. Federal law still treats marijuana as an illicit substance, but Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. announced a policy this year that aims federal resources at high-level offenders. And now the District government is poised to join the 15 states that have decriminalized small-time pot possession.

Of all the official reactions to changing mores on marijuana, decriminalization is the best.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineCamwritesgonzo
The Unflushable Stool
Male User Gallery


Registered: 06/09/12
Posts: 2,333
Loc: On Uranus Flag
Last seen: 5 months, 23 days
Re: Marijuana likely to be decriminalized in D.C. [Re: Ythan]
    #19046664 - 10/28/13 03:34 PM (10 years, 3 months ago)

Can we haz this in Mini-soda? I wants smokez joints outside of Mall of America!


--------------------
"I've always maintained that reality is for those who can't face drugs."-Tom Waits
"I feel the same way about disco as I feel about herpes."-Hunter S. Thompson
A squid eating dough in a polyethylene bag is fast and bulbous, got me?


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
InvisibleDebuteMachine

Registered: 09/29/06
Posts: 6,457
Re: Marijuana likely to be decriminalized in D.C. [Re: Camwritesgonzo]
    #19048300 - 10/28/13 07:37 PM (10 years, 3 months ago)

by the mall im assuming you meant this, right?





Decriminalizing would really help out users like me, who seriously keep it down low, discreet, and try to keep it American made bud only. I carry less than a joint, and I don't do it in "public spaces" or anywhere near the children.

Please DC, let me let you help me and yourself.


Edited by DebuteMachine (10/28/13 07:39 PM)


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Offlinexpl0de
ḆËŦŦЯ_őƑ_Ŧwo ƹvïlz
Male


Folding@home Statistics
Registered: 07/14/07
Posts: 2,213
Last seen: 3 years, 10 months
Re: Marijuana likely to be decriminalized in D.C. [Re: DebuteMachine]
    #19049304 - 10/28/13 10:16 PM (10 years, 3 months ago)

When the hell is florida going to wake up:sad:


--------------------


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
OfflineRockhound
The Rockweiler
Male User Gallery


Registered: 01/19/13
Posts: 664
Loc: hell creek anticline
Last seen: 8 years, 7 months
Re: Marijuana likely to be decriminalized in D.C. [Re: xpl0de]
    #19050067 - 10/29/13 01:41 AM (10 years, 3 months ago)

I will be content when I can legally grow my own 'erb. I'm not christian, but the opposition is, and their own bible suggests it is not good to not grow it (sow the herb, and make the most of it, or however it goes) right the fuck at the beginning in genesis.
So, it apparently is my god-given right to grow and smoke cannabis species. Do our  religous right leaders not advocate following gods' laws first, and country second? Civil disobedince?
Sorry if my refusal to capitalize god offends. GET OVER IT!


--------------------
Rocks speak to me, and tell me this:
The Hell Creek formation is a gigantic slab of rocks that covers several western states. It contains an account of the dinosaurs' demise.  In the late Cretaceous period, the first Cannabis species appear, and soon after, all the non-bird dinosaurs disappeared. Obviously, marihuana killed the dinosaurs. That giant meteor that smacked the yucatan peninsula right afterwards, coincidence.


Extras: Filter Print Post Top
Jump to top Pages: 1

Shop: North Spore North Spore Mushroom Grow Kits & Cultivation Supplies   Bridgetown Botanicals Bridgetown Botanicals, CBD Capsules   Original Sensible Seeds Autoflowering Cannabis Seeds, Bulk Cannabis Seeds


Similar ThreadsPosterViewsRepliesLast post
* The Next Front in the Marijuana Battle ChiefThunderbong 3,223 4 07/05/04 10:07 AM
by ChiefThunderbong
* U.S. states, not Canada, led way in decriminalization motamanM 3,029 2 06/18/03 12:32 AM
by DailyPot
* MARYLAND GOV. EHRLICH SIGNS MARIJUANA LAW motamanM 5,282 3 05/27/03 06:27 AM
by Seuss
* Canada: Marijuana law to be loosened trendalM 3,856 4 01/08/03 12:13 PM
by resin
* Marijuana should not be illegal veggieM 1,357 1 04/01/05 09:40 AM
by derx
* Medical Marijuana Outlets On Hold veggieM 1,053 0 04/14/05 11:36 AM
by veggie
* No laws ban possession of marijuana, court rules motamanM 3,086 1 05/17/03 03:20 PM
by Hans_Moleman
* Lawmakers find new source of revenue - medical marijuana [OR] veggieM 775 0 05/31/05 09:12 PM
by veggie

Extra information
You cannot start new topics / You cannot reply to topics
HTML is disabled / BBCode is enabled
Moderator: motaman, veggie, Alan Rockefeller, Mostly_Harmless
1,255 topic views. 1 members, 13 guests and 3 web crawlers are browsing this forum.
[ Show Images Only | Sort by Score | Print Topic ]
Search this thread:

Copyright 1997-2024 Mind Media. Some rights reserved.

Generated in 0.026 seconds spending 0.007 seconds on 14 queries.