Despite major ballot initiatives pending in Massachusetts and Michigan, these are the two most-reported marijuana stories of the month:
1. Some guy who tried to trade pot for a meal at McDonalds.
2. Miss Teen Louisiana losing her crown after ditching the bill at a restaurant and leaving behind her purse, which contained her ID and some marijuana.
No matter what happens, the media will always be primarily interested in the most trivial, embarrassing marijuana-related news that can possibly be drudged up. Nothing we say or do is ever going to change that. And for what it’s worth, I must admit that stories like this are just priceless and deserve every click.
But as long as this kind of inconsequential fluff continues to dominate marijuana-related press coverage, the worst stereotypes will endure and the effort to stimulate serious discussion of our marijuana laws will remain a steep uphill battle.
1. Some guy who tried to trade pot for a meal at McDonalds.
2. Miss Teen Louisiana losing her crown after ditching the bill at a restaurant and leaving behind her purse, which contained her ID and some marijuana.
No matter what happens, the media will always be primarily interested in the most trivial, embarrassing marijuana-related news that can possibly be drudged up. Nothing we say or do is ever going to change that. And for what it’s worth, I must admit that stories like this are just priceless and deserve every click.
But as long as this kind of inconsequential fluff continues to dominate marijuana-related press coverage, the worst stereotypes will endure and the effort to stimulate serious discussion of our marijuana laws will remain a steep uphill battle.
Looking for the easiest way to join the anti-drug war movement? You've found it!
Goal of Reform: Regulating the market or normlizing consumption?
Did people who previously supported laws that prohibited regulation of the alcohol market abandon such policies because they saw alcohol consumers in a new light?
Miss Teen Louisiana is a perfect example of how our laws do not prohibit the existence of a marijuana market but only prohibit its regulation, fostering unrestricted teen access.
If we don't regulate marijuana, then our children might end up like the guy trading marijuana for a happy meal.
Well then why cant we just
Well then why cant we just regulate it? Is it really that bad? I think not, but people have just classifed "pot" as a drug and with that tittle it makes it hard for people to see it not bad at all.
How can something that grows
How can something that grows out of the ground naturally and is unmodified in ANY way be classified as a 'drug' in the first place? Marijuana isn't a compound. There's no formula. It doesn't need to be concentrated or refined.
You plant a seed.
It grows.
You harvest the plant.
It dries.
You smoke it.
It is unfathomable stupidity to me that we live in a country that condones any number of manmade vices from coffee to beer, cigarettes to steroids, but comes unglued over the use of an herb that's grown wild and free since we swung down from the trees.
Please, no more "Marijuana is just a plant" arguments.
"How can something that grows out of the ground naturally and is unmodified in ANY way be classified as a 'drug' in the first place?
How can something that grows out of the ground naturally and is unmodified in ANY way be classified as a 'drug' in the first place? Marijuana isn't a compound. There's no formula. It doesn't need to be concentrated or refined.
You plant a seed.
It grows.
You harvest the plant.
It dries.
You smoke it."
Like opium?
Rationality, Yes please I will have that
Thats what we need. Rational and critical thinkers instead of shooting from the hip, who cares what the constituents say.
A multi-billion dollar industry with dollars just floating away on the black market or to out of country hands.
Yeah that makes sense.
Hi Scott, I did a Google
Hi Scott,
I did a Google news search on "marijuana," and, sure enough, the Miss Teen Louisiana story got a lot of coverage. The McDonald's story didn't even show up. I did a search on "marijuana" "mcdonald's" and now I find the story you reference, but we got a total of 153 hits, most of them unrelated to your story. I'm counting only 21 news sources that ran with this story, belying your assertion that this was one of the most-reported stories of the month.
I did a news search on "michigan" "proposal 1," and got 165 hits. Near as I can tell, all of them were about the marijuana proposal. I tried "massachusetts" "question 2" and got 109 hits. Most of both of these seem to be from media sources within their respective states. It appears that every important paper in either state has devoted column space to presenting the arguments pro and contra. But after you've done that, what is there to do? Rehash the same arguments over and over again? How many times are you going to do that?
Most of the stories that came up with my original "marijuana" search seemed to be the routine police-blotter drug-bust sort of things. So-and-so caught with 14 pounds of marijuana, or whatever. I must respectfully disagree with your view that the media are "primarily interested in the most trivial, embarrassing marijuana-related news that can possibly be drudged up." Sure, some stories are hard to resist, but they make up a small part of what is reported.
rachelrachel
McDonalds
The marijuana/McDonalds story dominated my marijuana google alerts for weeks. Seems like some of the stories have already dropped out of the cache. You're right that it doesn't look like much at this point.
well.......
well how many times do u hear some one dieing over pot....none....and how many times do u here some one dieing over
someing a tobacco like over 10.000.000 and alcohol kills 2 times that
Alcohol is considered a
Alcohol is considered a class five drug and thats the as high as it gets. Mary Jane is a level one. God made pot Man made beer Who do you Trust!!
true >.>
i trust god!!!!
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but have u ever heard some one dieing over pot ?
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an yes i know legalizzing pot wood be a step in the right direction cuz the world wood have no war an there wood be no groups of people at school there wood just be one big group of friends an there wood be no fights...(most likely cuz there to hi) an they wood think better on there work an they wood be relaxed an not all stressed out...
Uhm.. no,not exactly
Pot isn't a miracle drug for everyone. There would still be war and hate. That's just how life is.
Legalizing pot, however, would be the most logical thing to do. People aren't stupid. The only reason it's illegal is because the government can't profit from it/regulate it easily. Because it's a seed and anyone can easily grow it, it makes it harder for the government to profit. And because weed is primarily bought using cash, you can easily avoid paying anything in taxes to the gov.
It's really all about money, in my opinion. Anybody who's ever seen a real drug addict (who tend to start with prescription pills/OTC sleep aids and such), or alcoholic, can attest to how retarded our laws really are sometimes.
So it's OK because it's legal, even though those two things been proven to kill and become highly addictive.
Honestly, when have you ever heard of a pot-related death? When has anyone "OD'd" on it? When has someone smoked so much that they feel compelled to drive a vehicle wrecklessly?
I dunno. I just think it's greed.
Time to let people think for themselves, government.
i under stand 100%
yha that is true there wood be still war .... but if the government put taxis on pot they wold make more money ..an when ppl get high they like never want to go an drive they just want to chill an home .....
hmmmm
Alcohol is natural, sugar from fruit ferments in sunlight, there's a butterfly that drinks this fermented fruit sugar and becomes drunk and inevitably gets eaten so thats blown the "God made pot Man made beer" idea, which is bollocks to me anyway because i don't believe in god. Now onto this chump "How can something that grows out of the ground naturally and is unmodified in ANY way be classified as a 'drug' in the first place? Marijuana isn't a compound. There's no formula. It doesn't need to be concentrated or refined". Does this idiot think that if something is natural is doesn't have a chemical compound. It contains a chemical called Tetrahydrocannabinol or THC which affects the brain. We couldn't legalise it even if we wanted to, think of all the new laws and paperwork, plus its such an easy thing to grow because so many people have the expertise we wouldn't be able to stop home grown crops so people would be breaking the law still to save money
Sure do know someone in York
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