Decriminalization < > Legalization

I’m trying to avoid incessantly blogging about drugs, but confusion about Denver’s recent action has induced me to revisit the issue again to clarify the issue, mainly because it pisses me off when people say that Denver legalized psychedelic mushrooms, because it didn’t.

Denver (the city) not the entire state of Colorado, decriminalized psychedelic mushrooms.   They remain illegal.  However, if you are caught with them, instead of going to jail, you are simply hit with a fine.   Since they’re still on Federal Schedule I, all bets are off for getting caught by the FBI, though I’m not aware that federal authorities are prosecuting anyone hit with civil fines on decriminalized drugs.   Decriminalization doesn’t mean legalization, it just means that possession of modest amounts considered plausible for personal consumption, incurs a civil penalty and not criminal sanctions.  Larger amounts still incur misdemeanor or felony charges and jail time. 

Legalization (except as noted below) means you can buy and sell it – and so far, that means in dispensaries which are heavily regulated and collect the state taxes on the transactions.  Many states have decriminalized marijuana but not legalized it, so people still have to either buy it from illegal dealers or grow it themselves.  As a practical matter, the police rarely bother to enforce the law once it reaches this threshold.  This is probably the #1 benefit of decriminalization:  while ordinary people with no source for these drugs can’t purchase them from a dispensary, those who do have a source can buy and sell with little or no concern about unwanted intervention by the authorities – at least the local authorities.   

DC and Maine legalized possession, but not sale, of marijuana.  This means you have to grow it yourself.  The police might be inclined to ignore sales IF the parties get clever by selling other items of nominal value and including the market value of MJ in the transaction as a “free gift”, e.g. buy this otherwise worthless sticker for $60 and we’ll throw in a quarter ounce of marijuana for free.  This seems to be the case in DC.  While it violates the spirit of the law, it does adhere to the letter of the law.  The lawyer in me considers this a form of corruption, while the libertarian in me, who believes all drugs – even heroin – should be legal, views this as a rare occasion when the authorities reach an accommodation with private citizens which moves in the proper direction and counteracts laws which are improper and immoral. 

Maryland has recently legalized medical marijuana, and the statute allows a physician to prescribe marijuana, full blown with THC as opposed to non-psychoactive CBD, if he/she believes that the benefits in treating the patient’s condition, whatever it might be, outweigh the risks.  Given there are no risks associated with MJ, that means literally any condition would qualify, not just cancer or glaucoma.  Medical marijuana dispensaries are now open, including two in Rockville alone.  Sadly, Maryland also ruled that having a medical MJ bans you from owning guns, but that restriction may end up overcome by court rulings – we do have the Second Amendment, remember?   Stay tuned.  Like the selling a sticker and a quarter ounce, these loosely drafted medical marijuana laws act as a de facto loophole to counteract an otherwise bogus law.  Yet again, the libertarian in me applauds this. 

Oddly, many recreational marijuana dispensaries, such as in Colorado and Massachusetts, will sell to non-residents.  In MA, the stipulation is that all such MJ sold must be consumed in Massachusetts.  There’s a dispensary in Springfield, just up the road from Connecticut, where MJ remains illegal.  MA also borders New York, Rhode island, Vermont, and New Hampshire.  Guess what – those states are now seriously considering legalizing now.  Because there’s really no effective way to make sure that no one takes all that MA-purchased MJ into a bordering state.  D’oh!  Do we want that tax money going to Boston - or Hartford, Providence, Concord, Montpelier, or Albany?

What’s funny is that I know people who live in Colorado – and none of them smoke MJ.   Same with my friends in Massachusetts, Nevada and Canada.  Simply because you legalize it doesn’t mean everyone will do it.  We’ll see what happens in Denver, which now has a marginally larger array of mind-altering substances to sample.  Shrooms won’t be sold in dispensaries – yet- but the penalties for possessing smaller amounts will be substantially reduced, at least in Denver.   :D 

As noted earlier, even marijuana is still illegal at the Federal level.  Under Obama, the Feds took the position that they would hold off on enforcing federal marijuana laws in states such as Colorado and Washington which had legalized recreational MJ.  Jeff Sessions, until recently Donald Trump’s Attorney General, made noises that he would change that, but to my knowledge the Feds have yet to do so.  For his part, Trump himself varies from one day to the next, so I’m ill-inclined to pay attention to his position (as it changes by the hour, it seems).  Moreover, Chuck Schumer and others in Congress are proposing to end the Federal ban on MJ, which will not only make this a moot issue, but also allow MJ sellers to enter the banking system.  I won’t hold my breath, but overall the trends seem to be positive.  

Happy 420

Yeah, more weed jokes.  But not from me.   I’ll just offer up more observations on the topic.

4:20 & 4/20.   It’s not just Hitler’s birthday, it’s the alleged time and/or date to toke up.  Really, you can toke up at 4:19, 4:21, or any other time of day, and any other day of the year.  By now it’s so well known it’s not even special or unique. 

Stoners have a bad habit of assuming because they’re stoned and find literally everything funny, that everyone else will too – and find their nonstop laughter and amusement endearing.  Nope.  Please, laugh at everything responsibly.

New Jersey.   Despite the promises now-Governor Phil Murphy made during his election campaign last fall, weed is still not legal in the Magic Garden State.  Remember, he’s the governor, not the NJ state legislature, so he doesn’t pass laws, he simply refrains from vetoing laws which Governor Fatso would have nixed.   As for when the legislature will pass anything, we’ll have to wait and see.

Decriminalization vs. Legalization.   Chuck Schumer (D-NY) has indicated he’ll try decriminalizing MJ at the Federal level.  In Virginia, decriminalization is what Ralph Northam promised.  A step short of legalizing, it means possession of modest amounts, typically under a half ounce, becomes merely a civil offense.  In Virginia, possession of a half ounce – a large amount for personal use but too small to be Costco quantity (try more like a pound) – is still a Class 1 misdemeanor, i.e. the worst misdemeanor short of a felony.   Doing so at a Federal level would get the FBI and DEA off everyone’s ass, nationwide. 

The following states have decriminalized marijuana: Delaware, Connecticut, Maryland, Minnesota, Mississippi, Missouri, Nebraska, New Hampshire, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Rhode Island

By the way, we associate Federal drug enforcement with the Drug Enforcement Agency (DEA), but the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is also actively investigating and prosecuting drug offenses.  It seems the two agencies had a brief turf war but eventually reached an agreement: the FBI hassles us at home, and the DEA goes outside the US. 

Anyhow.  Decriminalization is NOT legalization.  The latter exists in several states right now, the pioneer being Colorado.  In that state, officially sanctioned dispensaries sell recreational marijuana.  An adult – and you don’t even have to be a Colorado resident – can go in and purchase modest amounts of high quality, THC-laden marijuana with colorful names like Ghost Trainwreck, Green Crack, Soul Diesel, OG Kush, Girl Scout Cookies, AK-47, and so on.  [Maybe the Trump crowd would be more tolerant if someone named a strain AR15.]

The following states have LEGALIZED recreational marijuana:  Alaska, California, Colorado (the first), Maine, Massachusetts, Nevada, Oregon, Washington State.   Leave it to the District of Columbia (Washington, DC) to screw things up:  possession and growing is legal, but buying and selling is not.  Either you live there and figure out how to grow it yourself, or you play games bartering with people.  The MA law is in effect but their dispensary system is not yet operational – they hope to have it going by fall 2018.  They will sell to non-residents but all weed has to be smoked in MA.   How about a reboot of Cheers?  Woody would be the perfect budtender. 

Outside the US, Uruguay was the first country to legalize recreational MJ.   Canada did so recently, but their system isn’t online yet.  FYI, weed is NOT legal in North Korea.  What is are some hemp cigarettes with no THC, and which the locals will not sell you.   

Medical vs. Recreational.  Marijuana has two major ingredients:  THC and CBD.  THC is the active ingredient which gives it psychoactive effect and makes Pink Floyd albums so awesome.  CBD is what cures cancer.  Recreational strains emphasize THC and ignore CBD, whereas medical strains have almost no THC and instead maximize CBD. 

The medical laws vary.   The more liberal laws simply allow a doctor to issue a prescription for MJ if he/she believes you have some condition for which it would help.   California’s law, passed back in 1996, was this type, which acted in some ways as de facto legalization.   Other states were stricter, specifically narrowing this to certain unpleasant conditions like cancer, epilepsy, and other nasty diseases which most people don’t have.  Moreover, they often limited the patient to CBD oil which has no THC – i.e. you can’t get high off it.

Flower vs. Edibles vs. Hash.  Generally we think of MJ as the leafy herb people smoke in joints (horrendously inefficient), pipes, bongs, or more recently, vaporizers. 

Edibles are weed-infused cookies, brownies, gummies, etc.  The MJ has to be specially treated into butter or oil and then cooked normally into food you can eat.  The effects come on in two hours – instead of relatively instantaneously for smoked herb – but are 4 times what you could expect for the smoked version.  This has screwed up people who had never smoked and suddenly munched down on cookies and wondered what happened.  Even experienced smokers are warned to start slowly and take into account the two hour delay.  A major benefit of edibles, however, is not having smoke and smell everywhere.   With more places banning indoor smoking these days – e.g. literally everywhere in DC – that makes edibles more convenient.

At the top end is hash, wax, shatter, etc., essentially highly concentrated marijuana.  This can be consumed in a bong or special pipe.   See The Hasheesh Eater, by Fitzhugh Ludlow (1850s account by a verbose New Yorker).  It’s available wherever legal marijuana is available and probably best for those who have “been there, done that” and ready to maximize their MJ experience. 

Vape Shops.  These have sprung up like wildfire.  It seems every time I drive down the street I notice a new vape shop open.  Ostensibly these are for tobacco smokers who use vape pens and vaporizers to smoke their traditional herb, but they sell bongs and other items which are almost exclusively associated with marijuana.  Do NOT refer to marijuana, even if you’re buying a bong. 

Other drugs.  California is now debating legalizing – or at least decriminalizing – psychedelic mushrooms.  These are usually psilocybe cubensis – though there are lots of different psychoactive varieties – and considerably stronger than marijuana.  Mushrooms are a good approximation of LSD, though not exactly the same;  mushrooms sometimes induce nausea and other unpleasant physical effects which are absent with LSD.  Both cause intense hallucinations when consumed in sufficient quantity.   Even if these were fully legalized for recreational use – an outcome I’d consider optimistic even for California – the sheer intensity of these drugs makes them much less appealing and desirable relative to marijuana.

Heroin.   Rather than go on about meth, ecstasy (MDMA), cocaine, etc. I’ll simply head to the top.  Heroin is by its nature physically addictive.  Bayer invented it in 1895 as a safe, non-addictive alternative to morphine, only to find it was neither.  It was criminalized in the US in 1924.   As too many people have found out the hard way, you can die of a heroin overdose – which is not true of marijuana.

Despite that, I would argue that heroin should be legal.  While legalizing it would not make it non-addictive, it would be safer, though not completely safe.  The #1 thing making heroin dangerous, though, is its illegality.  Available cheap, in known doses and quality, the risk would be brought down to manageable levels.  As a practical matter, I would argue that demand for cheap, legal, top quality heroin would still be a fraction of demand for any other drug, especially marijuana. 

Moreover, if heroin can be legalized, all those drugs between marijuana and heroin could also be legalized.  The biggest concern for doing so is the consensus – an unproven assumption but taken as irrebuttable fact – that if you legalize something, literally EVERYONE will do it.  Legalize gay marriage, and overnight all these happily married heterosexual couples will abandon their opposite-sex spouses and hook up with same-sex partners.  Legalize cocaine and everyone will snort it.  Legalize heroin and we’re all stabbing our arms with needles.  Legalize LSD and we’re all flying jumbo jets into rainbows.  You get the idea. 

I know several people who live in Colorado.  How many of them smoke marijuana? NONE.   I don’t know anyone who left their opposite sex spouse to go get married to a same-sex partner simply because their state suddenly legalized gay marriage.  I know nobody – myself included – who would even try heroin if it were legalized tomorrow.  And if you really think about it, very few people actually would.  

   

For those of you who do toke, enjoy today while it lasts.  And tomorrow, and the next day….