I'm not actually drunk or anything right now, but I'm feeling immense love towards this little community of ours! Really, I just love knowing that I always have this little corner of the Internet to turn to, and I love knowing the awesome, incredible, amazing people that are here too. I gotta say, I love you Ryan, and your incredible China stories and our conversations about economy and everything, I love you Jake and discussing theology with you, I love how incredibly insightful you've proved to be, Lauren, and believe me, talking to you actually helped me a lot. I also love all the other Orange Beltians that I don't speak to so regularly... We should talk more! I'm sure every one of you is awesome in his or hers special way.
Oh, and you must all definitively go to the OB meeting, it seems like such a wonderful opportunity!
I love Hong Kong. Seriously, this city is the perfect balance for me. It has all the awesome stuff China has, like food and language, without the crappy stuff, like internet censorship or mainland Chinese' inability to form a goddamn line. I can easily bust out four languages in a given day here, it's just so freaking international. There is so much opportunity here, so much to do and see. While I may not want to live in any big city for the rest of my life, I would love to live here for a few years for work. I could make some serious cash and business connections in a city like this.
...is it okay I professed love for something not related to the OB? Well if no I'll dole out the loving here too, since I have been drinking with buddies tonight. Rob, you're an awesome guy and I love talking South American politics and economics with you. Over the last year in China I've met several people I thought I would never see again, so who knows, our paths may cross someday, and if they do that would be awesome. Jakey, Mario, Laur-Boar, and anyone else whom I may see at the OB gathering later this summer, I am deeply looking forward to meeting you all. You guys rock.
Hong Kong seriously sounds like an awesome place. I can actually see myself trying to learn Chinese just to try and live there for a while. Cantonese or Mandarin, though?
Well, if you want to communicate with all the locals, then Cantonese is better. But it's really not necessary, because due to British influence almost everyone here speaks a little English. They also are learning more and more Mandarin to communicate with the mainland, which much more of the world's population speak.
Also, Cantonese is hard as shit. They don't have a universally accepted standard for learning it, so its words have either 6 or 9 different tones, depending on which system you want to use to learn it.
ROBERTO!! Sorry for leaving you hanging tonight, I definitely wish you luck even if I couldn't actually tell you over the interwebs. Good luck finishing it all!!!
i love you guys. imma drunk, i went to a jazz club with a couple peeps and listend to this multiethinc reggae band from shanghai, they were prety awesome.
I totally smoked my first bit of pot earlier today over at my friend's house. It has mostly worn off by now and I drove home, but I certainly can understand why everyone wants to legalize this shit.
I would have come in here and wrote glowing recommendations for all you guys while I was extremely under the influence but I started writing poetry and I didn't want to break the roll I was on.
The real benefit to legalizing it is that it's the most profitable product of the drug cartels, so legalizing it takes away their profits. Marijuana costs pennies to produce, and it's widely consumed nationwide because it's not really dangerous. Cocaine was really profitable up until the mid 80s when crack cocaine became widespread and oversaturated the market. Prices of crack have dropped enough to where it's not profitable enough to kill rival gangs and cartels over.
Legalize marijuana, and it will seriously hurt the drug cartels. They will not have as much money to afford mercenaries and guns in central America, and they won't be able to buy off as many politicians and police. Then maybe governments of countries like Mexico will finally reign in their drug cartel problems.
And from an economist's perspective, the money that the government could earn in taxing and regulating marijuana is sizable. Some analysts predict that anywhere from $40 to $100 billion a year could be transferred OUT of the cartel's pockets and INTO the government's through marijuana tax revenue.
The only particular reason it's illegal, (At least in the states, don't know as much about other countries) is because it's, as serephel stated, the most profitable drug. Not only is the part of cannabis that you smoke, but mostly cannabis' by-product, hemp. Now i'm sure you've all heard or read that hemp is incredibly versatile. However, most people don't know to what extent. Plastics, rope, clothes, fuel, and many other biodegradable products can be made cheaply and more environmentally efficient with hemp.
Sorry I kinda had an idea then just kept typing, bare with me, I've been awake for about 15 minutes.
EDIT:So I completely forgot to draw my statement to a point. It's illegal because if it had been legal for use in manufacturing and consumption, the resulting economic turnover would wreck huge corporations such as oil and energy companies that could not readily swap over to hemp like a clothing company could.
:tmyk:
Well, let me put it this way: I don't think that the opposition of major US manufacturers is the primary reason that cannabis is still illegal, but it doesn't help. The unholy alliance between social conservatives and fundamentalist capitalists fucks Jake over once again!!!
The real benefit to legalizing it is that it's the most profitable product of the drug cartels, so legalizing it takes away their profits. Marijuana costs pennies to produce, and it's widely consumed nationwide because it's not really dangerous. Cocaine was really profitable up until the mid 80s when crack cocaine became widespread and oversaturated the market. Prices of crack have dropped enough to where it's not profitable enough to kill rival gangs and cartels over.
Legalize marijuana, and it will seriously hurt the drug cartels. They will not have as much money to afford mercenaries and guns in central America, and they won't be able to buy off as many politicians and police. Then maybe governments of countries like Mexico will finally reign in their drug cartel problems.
And from an economist's perspective, the money that the government could earn in taxing and regulating marijuana is sizable. Some analysts predict that anywhere from $40 to $100 billion a year could be transferred OUT of the cartel's pockets and INTO the government's through marijuana tax revenue.
Just some food for thought.
I never thought of it that way. I was always thought that legalizing would allow them to distribute more marijuana without the risk of getting arrested. Legalization makes so much more sense now.
Are hemp products actually illegal? I don't think they are. I think that it's not a government/big business issue, it's more of a people issue; people associate hemp products with pot smoking (therefore law breaking) hippies, and so it has a negative stigma attached to it. Therefore the demand for hemp products is low, and manufacturers find it more profitable to use other materials instead.
Oh, also from an economic perspective, legalizing marijuana would relieve a lot of pressure on our jails by no longer incarcerating punk kids for having a bag on them. Every year it costs about $40,000 dollars to keep ONE person in jail. This wouldn't make any turnaround differences, but it would give state governments (California) a little extra breathing room in an otherwise dire economic crisis.
It's not legal because it's still not politically smart (as opposed to logically smart) to support it. People still believe that marijuana is going to kill people (I think it's almost impossible to overdose on, isn't it?). Does anyone remember those old commercials about pot? I think I remember one about some kids that were smoking pot in a car and then hit a kid, because they have slowed reflexes. That's a really stupid commercial, because you can't drink alcohol while driving, and that's a legal substance. But people don't see things that way.
If it's legalized then situations like that can be regulated. Then new campaigns can be started, like "Don't toke and drive".
I think it's almost impossible to overdose on, isn't it?
The LD50 (lethal dosage for the middle 50 percent of subjects) for THC for humans is so high you would have to smoke something like 1500 pounds of pot over the course of 15 minutes. You would probably die of oxygen deprivation first.
One estimate of Cannabis's LD50 for humans indicates that about 1500 pounds of Cannabis would have to be smoked within 15 minutes. This estimate is supported by studies which indicate that the effective dose of THC is at least 1000 times lower than the estimated lethal dose (a "safety ratio" of 1000:1). This is much higher than alcohol (safety ratio of 10), cocaine (15), or heroin (6).
Comments
And yeah, my icon used to be a cute little kitty nestled in a pair of mammaries. Let me see if I can find it...
I'm not actually drunk or anything right now, but I'm feeling immense love towards this little community of ours! Really, I just love knowing that I always have this little corner of the Internet to turn to, and I love knowing the awesome, incredible, amazing people that are here too. I gotta say, I love you Ryan, and your incredible China stories and our conversations about economy and everything, I love you Jake and discussing theology with you, I love how incredibly insightful you've proved to be, Lauren, and believe me, talking to you actually helped me a lot. I also love all the other Orange Beltians that I don't speak to so regularly... We should talk more! I'm sure every one of you is awesome in his or hers special way.
Oh, and you must all definitively go to the OB meeting, it seems like such a wonderful opportunity!
Group hug, anyone?
Oh, sorry. Force of habit.
...is it okay I professed love for something not related to the OB? Well if no I'll dole out the loving here too, since I have been drinking with buddies tonight. Rob, you're an awesome guy and I love talking South American politics and economics with you. Over the last year in China I've met several people I thought I would never see again, so who knows, our paths may cross someday, and if they do that would be awesome. Jakey, Mario, Laur-Boar, and anyone else whom I may see at the OB gathering later this summer, I am deeply looking forward to meeting you all. You guys rock.
Also, Cantonese is hard as shit. They don't have a universally accepted standard for learning it, so its words have either 6 or 9 different tones, depending on which system you want to use to learn it.
This is that voicemail.
i love you guys. imma drunk, i went to a jazz club with a couple peeps and listend to this multiethinc reggae band from shanghai, they were prety awesome.
looooove from china
night!
I would have come in here and wrote glowing recommendations for all you guys while I was extremely under the influence but I started writing poetry and I didn't want to break the roll I was on.
So I will say it now, all you people are awesome.
Legalize marijuana, and it will seriously hurt the drug cartels. They will not have as much money to afford mercenaries and guns in central America, and they won't be able to buy off as many politicians and police. Then maybe governments of countries like Mexico will finally reign in their drug cartel problems.
And from an economist's perspective, the money that the government could earn in taxing and regulating marijuana is sizable. Some analysts predict that anywhere from $40 to $100 billion a year could be transferred OUT of the cartel's pockets and INTO the government's through marijuana tax revenue.
Just some food for thought.
Sorry I kinda had an idea then just kept typing, bare with me, I've been awake for about 15 minutes.
EDIT:So I completely forgot to draw my statement to a point. It's illegal because if it had been legal for use in manufacturing and consumption, the resulting economic turnover would wreck huge corporations such as oil and energy companies that could not readily swap over to hemp like a clothing company could.
:tmyk:
MODERATORS 4 LEGALIZATION
Oh, also from an economic perspective, legalizing marijuana would relieve a lot of pressure on our jails by no longer incarcerating punk kids for having a bag on them. Every year it costs about $40,000 dollars to keep ONE person in jail. This wouldn't make any turnaround differences, but it would give state governments (California) a little extra breathing room in an otherwise dire economic crisis.
It's not legal because it's still not politically smart (as opposed to logically smart) to support it. People still believe that marijuana is going to kill people (I think it's almost impossible to overdose on, isn't it?). Does anyone remember those old commercials about pot? I think I remember one about some kids that were smoking pot in a car and then hit a kid, because they have slowed reflexes. That's a really stupid commercial, because you can't drink alcohol while driving, and that's a legal substance. But people don't see things that way.
If it's legalized then situations like that can be regulated. Then new campaigns can be started, like "Don't toke and drive".
Edit: Citation!
/drool.