Synthetic drug crackdown grows closer after Minnesota Senate passes bill
April 2, 2012 at 7:00 pm in Duluth News Tribune
Consequences for selling synthetic drugs soon could be stronger in Minnesota.
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Synthetic drug crackdown grows closer after Minnesota Senate passes bill
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Legalize Pot and poof…the synthetic market goes up in smoke…no market, no need for more police, more laws and regulation and more headaches and backlog for justice system. Then we can maybe returned to the old days once freed up the Justice system and our enforcement resources from both synthetics and weed and maybe we could stop this nonsense of giving violent offenders lighter sentences because have to make room for all our pot busted prisoners. It’s to point that a kid busted growing pot in home will do more prison time then a armed violent offender who’s committed murder. Keeping pot heads in prison but releasing violent criminals earlier back into society to make room for them is NOT making this a safer society, it’s insanity. Then so is the war on drugs and the very reason we made pot illegal…the government launched a fear propaganda campaign based on lies and today we have the highest percentage of population in world incarcerated because of it. We’ve had two presidents sitting in the oval office for 16 years we all know smoked pot, yet STILL we incarcerate kids for smoking it and ruin their lives and STILL the ignorant will claim it ruins one’s ambition..SMH!!
Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.”
— Thomas Jefferson
“Two of my favorite things are sitting on my front porch smoking a pipe of sweet hemp, and playing my Hohner harmonica.” – Abraham Lincoln (from a letter written by Lincoln during his presidency to the head of the Hohner Harmonica Company in Germany)
Ooops…make that 4 US Presidents..LOL
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Well said fastone ! The drug war has been lost, and to keep fighting it only takes away more and more of our civil rights, increases property crimes to committed to pay for a habit thats only expensive because it’s illegal. Much gang activity in the US and pretty much all drug cartel voilence on our Southern Boarder and elsewhere is solely due to our “drug war”.
Let’s face it, Americans take to many drugs illegal and legal….a whole lot of legal ones on the pharmacy shelf are over used too. We’re looking for the quick fix…the easy way out by treating our symptoms rather than the cause. So, I’m certainly not in “favor” the misuse or drugs, legal or illegal, but none the less I can recognize a lost cause when I see one and sometimes the cure (thousands of drug laws on top of each other and half our prison cencus due to these same laws) is worse than the disease.
I wonder how many years, or god forbid generations it will be before we realize this is just like prohibition, a lost cause that just makes lots of people criminals and fills our jails up.
Certainly there are potential holes in my arguments above, and adjustments that would need to be made, but I think an honest assessment and discussion of our current situation with an open mind as to how we can maybe lose a battle, but win the war would be a good way to start ……but I fear that’s not happening or going to happen anytime soon given the rate we’re passing more drug laws and increasing penalties.
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To answer your question on how many years or generations before we realize our mistakes? — It was 1930 that Anslinger as first essentially Director of what we now call the DEA, made Pot a federal crime. It was in late thirties and 40′s that he launched his smear propaganda campaign on the “devil weed” with movies the most infamous being Reefer Madness and posters, news movie reels etc.. He made wild baseless claims that marijuana would make the person commit murder, suicide and lead to insanity. The thing was he didn’t even believe it but he knew he could get more government funding, more staff and hence more power. The thing is he didn’t believe the nonsense but everyone else bought into it and still to this day, people are afraid of it obviously or we wouldn’t have our draconian laws against it.
Then 30+ years ago Reagan made it a “war on drugs” which like Janis said..it’s just a war on our own people. He started zero tolerance guidelines which for sentencing turned users into being incarcerated as if dealers and coined the still used “gateway drug”…another bogus claim but increased government funding for his war because gee, we didn’t have the cold war boogeyman to scare us with anymore. They surveyed heroin users and found majority first smoked weed, but am sure 100% also first had an underage beer too, it’s a catchy phrase to illicit fear and support but it’s nonsense. The point is as nonsensical as that was, there are still people walking around and believing that without thinking. Sometimes wonder if the government launched a typical fear campaign claiming~ Life is a sexually transmitted disease that is 100% fatal~ would folks stop having sex? Based on how easily the government can manipulate us to do what THEY want, I think most would.
I’m not for the legalization of all drugs even though I feel someone has the right to be stupid and ruin their lives if want. I am for the decrimilazation of drugs and instead of incarceration getting those people treatment and help for harder drugs. Education instead of enforement, treatment instead of incarceration. I’m also alright with busting drug cartels for harder drugs, the problem is we can’t impact that and are spending all our energy on busting users. Drug use is a victimless crime, with harder drugs they may be ruining own lives but if don’t commit a crime because of it, why are we sending them to prison? Dougherty was taking a perscription drug and killed a couple of people, he didn’t go to prison. Rush Limbaugh was illegally taking and addicted to perscription drugs, he didn’t go to prison to name but two. Our perscription mood altering drugs to treat mental illiness has gone up 800% in last 40 years and we have a high percentage of adolescent white boys on Ritlin and that’s OK because big Pharma is making a killing. But a kid caught growing weed in back yard, he does hard time? Again, folks don’t think it through, they parrot that…”Well drugs ruin lives!!”…never stopping to think what a double XX felony charge and 10 years in prison does if not ruining a persons life beyond all dispute.
We don’t just have the highest percentage of population in world incarcerated, but we actually have 25% of the whole worlds prison population. Alarms should be sounding in everyone’s head that we have a serious out of control problem and it’s our government. It’s a money train for our government, more power, more money…and typical ..the wrong solultion to wrong problem.
Everyone should watch the History Channel special on the history of marijuana…it’s an eye opener…we first made pot illegal because we noticed the illegal mexicans were smoking it on the weekends and so, and kid you not, it was made illegal as a solution to solving the illegal immigration problem…80 years later why isn’t anyone asking…and how’s that working out? On either front?
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Comparing real marijuana to methamphetamine is like comparing a cup of coffee to heroin.
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Merv people turn to meth because it’s cheaper and they can make it at home.
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Duluth must really be the hell hole you people claim it is.
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Geez, I was being sarcastic. I guess people don’t like that kind of thing here. What I meant was that if you shut this down these people will find a different drug. The damage has been done and deciding to incarcerate people solves nothing. What about their children? Their families? Are you going to lock them up too? Is the legislature going to support them?
Even Pat Robertson said to legalize. Prohibition didn’t work, but my dad made a lot of money off of it. It actually allowed me to go to college and get ahead of where my father ever had the opportunity to go in life.
If you are going to arrest anyone go after the doctors who prescribe heroin to their patients. There is your drug epidemic right now.
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I agree that natural pot should be legalized. ALL recent and real studies show benefits and no harmful effects. In fact the only harmful effects come from it being illegal. You can’t stop its use so why not benefit off it legally via taxes and less money to drug lords etc. They can find a marker in it that only stays in your system a few hours so its use driving or at work can be discouraged. PS haven’t used it in decades. But absolutely agree alcohol and tobacco are 100 times worse and will lead to many many more problems than pot.
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If you really want a good laugh, listen to chiefs like Ramsay and their hypocrisy.
Booze Prohibition: “This was stupid and cost lots of cops their lives”
Pot Prohibition: “We have to be vigilant…” blah blah blah.
Never mind that nobody has ever died from THC poisoning. Ever. Never mind you’ll never find a street cop who ever went fisticuffs with someone who was simply baked.
This state & country are so completely backwards when it comes to this stuff. And the thing is, it’s not along party lines. Republicans should be against the illegality of pot due to personal liberties & private enterprise. Democrats should be against the illegality due to the racist roots of past laws, increased tax revenue, and taking money away from Big Pharma.
But…..both sides are political whores who make tons of money in campaign contributions from pharma, agriculture, petrochemical, and other industries, and then dole out tons of money to chiefies like Ramsay so his guys can play Billy BadBoy.
Hot debate. What do you think?
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Finally a bill to keep pace with underground chemists who keep tweaking the compounds to evade the state ban. Drug makers have been able to simply shift their formulas to keep the drugs legal, and this bill would address that.
The intent of the law is to drive unsavory head shops like Last Place on Earth out of business with 5 year felony prison sentences. The law has been effective in other states and Last Place is on its last legs. GOOD RIDDANCE.
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Where do you think his customers will go? Will you be happy when they are robbing your home to buy meth? Maybe while you are at the drug store one will come in and rob it and you get shot.
Do you think this make the problem disappear?
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Drug problems won’t disappear if Last Place is shut down since the poison remains widely available and easy to purchase from online retailers.
Drug-related crime would fall if h-ll hole Last Chance was shut down. Hundreds of visitors make specials trips to congregate in front of this eyesore and closing it will have a clear deterrent effect by eliminating a meeting place for drug users.
Last Place acts as an advertising arm for the illegal drug industry. The unregulated poison is readily available and visible and more teenagers become involved in what may be perceived as cool, casual drug taking. The ‘legal highs’ add to the population’s appetite for drugs of all kinds and softens up a whole new generation of drug-users who may go on to addiction and abuse of harder, illegal drugs.
As a concerned parent one may have a different perspective. A parent doesn’t want to stand by and say it’s ok for a head shop to sell unregulated drugs that nobody has any idea what’s contained in them. The government has responded at long last and this bill provides ensures at least this one avenue of availability will be cut off.
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