I haven't heard any regrets from states that have legalized weed. On the contrary, reduction in crime, the lowered expense of imprisoning people, and welcome taxes have been beneficial. Weed is far less destructive than alcohol or gambling. If anything, what has needlessly destroyed and blighted lives has been the war on drugs, a war that is now seen by many as an assault on minorities and the poor.
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If you haven’t heard any regrets, it’s because you haven’t been listening outside of your bubble.
The law was poorly written and doesn’t include enough protections for people who, for whatever reasons, do not want to be exposed to the drug. The public was poorly informed regarding their rights and responsibilities, and there is little room for science-based adjustments.
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Yeah to all you people who are gonna get your panties in a bunch over pot legalization here are some sobering statistics:
70% of Americans drink at least once a week
37 million binge drink at least once a week
Alcohol is the third leading cause of premature mortality in the US
Between 2000-2015 178,000 motor vehicle deaths attributed to alcohol.
Large proportion of violent incidents are related to alcohol.
Alcohol has been linked to an increase in breast, liver esophagus and colorectal cancer.
Want to make the world a slightly better place? Make pot legal and alcohol illegal (although history has shown prohibition of anything someone really wants doesn't work)
Maybe if we were all stoned (including our glorious morons in Washington) we wouldn't be so hard up to go around killing people or invading countries.
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Murphy's a democrat ... Sweeny's a democrat... the Republican's aren't stopping it. They got sports betting right through and it's happening. What's the big hold up? I can help but think someone with corrupt or greedy or some stupid motive is doing it. I heard the Governor on the radio tonight, and he basically talked around the issue. Honestly it's time for a new Senate President, Sweeny just isn't smart enough to get much done.
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@Doctor Woo Isn't it interesting how quickly they were able to make sports gambling legal? Not a peep on the devastation caused by gambling to people addicted to it.
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Grow Garden State.
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A bit of a heads up. In a Jersey Shore weekly paper they have the police reports and arrests for possession of grass have replaced DWI's as the most reported crime. A very large majority of the persons named are from NYC and to be arrested they were probably smoking weed in public which is not ignored in NJ.
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Oh goody, just when we need Americans who use their brains for critical thinking in a time when we have a malignant narcissist in the White House, and a do-nothing Congress, we become a nation of potheads whose brains are on slow drive. Any more good news for us, NYT?
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I have a PhD from an great university, written books and articles, have started and sold 3 businesses, have 4 patents, a very healthy marriage, go to church, raised three great kids, and have smoked cannabis nearly every day for the past 30 years. You know the guy who mows your lawn down there on the Southern Outer Banks? He does the same thing. Your interesting friend at the book club? She has a gravity bong taller than Gary Coleman. That nice Episcopal priest with the well scrubbed kids and wife who makes killer rhubarb pie? He developed his own strain that he grows in his basement. Grow Up!
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What about alcohol? Much worse than mj.
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Legal weed is a stunning cultural reversal.
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Realistically, NJ legalizing without NY being on-board would create so many problems that it's probably a non-starter.
Maybe try starting with Connecticut, to bridge the gap from Mass?
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Just another indicator of the degradation of morals and values America. What's next, heroin boutiques around every corner?
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Marijuana is not nearly as dangerous as alcohol which destroys families and lives every minute.
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Truth in advertising: I’ve seen and heard of plenty people’s lives and families “destroyed” by marijuana (ab)use.
If you want to advocate for legal pot, fine, but at least be honest.
1
I don’t understand the calls for decriminalisation from the geriatric NYT readership. The only reasons seem to be tied to age-related fear of change.
Decriminalisation not only leaves the drug cartels in place, it significantly strengthens them! It gives them easier access to a substantial revenue stream, while denying legitimate American businesses that same access. If you had to choose between profits going to American businesses violent drug cartels....who on Earth would willingly choose the cartels?
With the widespread availability of medical and black market marijuana you can be assured that the vast majority of people who want the stuff can already get it. You will not see a significant spike in use after the initial curiosity dies down. Most of the new users will be middle aged people who are most at risk of over-indulgence. In their efforts to just toe-in they overwhelmingly prefer edibles, which are by far the most easily abused form of the drug. Once they’ve had a freak out or two they’ll mostly drop from the market and the economy will stabilise around those life-long enthusiasts that make up the bulk of the market today.
In other words: legalisation will lead to very small, barely perceptible changes for most people in most circumstances. It will create jobs and entrepreneurial opportunities while saving innocent people from incarceration. It is a near total win-win.
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Your claim of imperceptible changes is not borne out by both data (of which there is too little) and anecdotal evidence.
And your snideness doesn’t help your argument, little one.
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When a primary rationale for legalization of Marijuana seems to focus on tax revenue, I become worried. Certainly, decriminalization of personal use of marijuana seems to be a remedy that has many advantages. However, the commercial availability of this drug for recreational use may add to the problems inherent in drug use in general. What kind of message do our children see in these slick advertisements supporting marijuana use? Many seem to suggest that marijuana use has no down-side. How will we address overuse and addiction issues as the drug becomes widely available? We have ethanol as a legal drug already and while there are obviously many differences in the liabilities, the fact of the matter is that both are associated with overuse, DWIs and other significant issues. This will only increase with widespread recreational availability. I am not opposed to medical use and do see a legitimate application. However, the intense interest in marketing and sales for recreational use - as demonstrated in this article - is indicative of the lucrative nature of the recreational push. When money and profit are critical considerations. and the potential for harm is not, then we may end up with another problem like alcohol, rather than the benign product that we are being sold. Unfortunately, the real answers may be decades in the future when it is hard to reverse course.
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Big corporate and private equity money is now behind legalization of marijuana. Cash starved states lust for the tax revenues, so it's just a matter of time.
It seems odd to me how the perception of pot has changed over the decades. When I first started smoking, it was regarded as extremely subversive and dangerous. A high school classmate was one of my suppliers in the 1960's. He got busted by the police in 1968 and the Suburban Trends ran a special editorial calling him a "purveyor of horror". Now all that has changed.
I haven't smoked a joint in over 30 years, after I discovered that I couldn't seem to control my smoking and driving habit. Prior to the drinking driver laws, it had never occurred to me that driving under the influence was a bad idea that could put the lives of other people at risk.
We are about to see major changes in social norms as people begin to smoke publicly. Can we expect to see joints for sale behind the counter at the EZ mart?
Some of my old friends still smoke and I don't care at all. I would prefer decriminalization. No one should go to jail for possessing user amounts of pot. But corporations with big money interests want the profits of legalization. I wonder what the unintended consequences will be.
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Yes, get ready for pot sales all around. Walking down one of the main commercial arteries in my moderate-population city, I encountered approximately five shops in 6-7 blocks and a small convenience store we stopped at for some water had e-cigarettes and marijuana pipes casually displayed at a 5-10 year-old’s eye level, as well as higher up for those of us more than 5 feet tall. Gone are the funky head shops of yore. Big money is all around. Even major Republican leaders are sinking cash into it without a thought except profit.
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@Mama How many place sell alcohol in that same area?
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@Still waiting One place selling alcohol, I believe. And IMHO justifying exposure of children to pot, both indirectly and directly through 2nd-hand smoke, by redirecting to alcohol sales is a nonstarter.
For one thing, no one is looting alcohol down babies’ throats as they are strollered down the street or through a farmers market or past city hall. The same cannot be said of legalized marijuana. 20 years ago there was very little marijuana smoke on the streets and plazas of our city. Now it is on every commercial street in the area and floating in the air by city and state government buildings.
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Cuomo in ny is caving to the pot crowd due to political and monetary pressues. instead of sticking to his moral convictions and principals. i believe the legalization of pot will do more harm than good. getting teens addicted on weed, people driving high causing accidents.the effects of addicition affect every facet of society. medical costs, etc... sure the state will reap the benenfits of the taxes levied on the sales of pot. but in the long run will pay a much higher price.
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@Charles Why do you believe that when none of it has come true in legal states. Cannabis isn’t addictive and teen use in legal states has gone down or stayed the same since legalization. Similarly an increase in traffic accidents directly due to cannabis has not materialized despite the Continued hysteria over the topic. The tax money in legal states are funding things like scholarships and infrastructure improvements. The tax revenue far outweighs the costs associated with legalization. All it take is taking an unbiased look at the way things have progressed in legal states to see that the sky obviously hasn’t fallen.
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Nobody gets addicted to marijuana. Alcohol is the addictive drug.
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It is not true that marijuana is not addictive. It might not be physically addictive (thought some long-time users I’ve known might disagree), but it most certainly can be addictive psychologically. Ask any therapist who’s had clients try to stop after months or years of heavy use. Some can do it, some can’t, just like with tobacco.
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And I forgot to mention the many huge new billboard advertisements for marijuana dispensaries my kids and I now regularly see not only while o. The interstate freeways, but also on lots of local street. Pretty challenging to explain to kiddos old enough to ask what they are about. Other pharmaceuticals and even tobacco cigs don’t do this, but somehow marijuana slipped through. And believe me, many of the dispensaries’ logos and marketing visuals are quite attractive and eye-catching to kids.
Openly smoking and otherwise using marijuana has definitely increased in our community since (a) medicinal marijuana was made easily available and, more so, since (b) recreational use was legalized. Now, also, there is a lot less a reasonably protective parent can do to avoid having their children exposed both to psychoactive smoke (which impacts little, still-developing brains much more easily and in more harmful ways) and to slick advertising materials promoting the use of its now many tasty flavors... er, I mean the shops that sell these “goodies”
Some good tax revenue and some good times, sure; but not at the expense of our children’s physical and psychological well-being. Nor at the expense of drivers and passengers harmed by stoned fellow drivers — another more common encounter these days.
At very least, state public health and law enforcement agencies must first develop and deploy mass public ed campaigns re the health risks and legal limitations on pot use and penalties.
5
@Mama wha do you do when you pass a strip club or a bar? How do you explain to them why there is beer being sold in there presence as Chuck E. Cheese’s or pretty much everywhere else that’s not exclusively a family restaurant and even then they most likely serve beer? Why is it ok for people to rot in jail over a harmless plant because you might have to have a slightly more difficult time dealing with your own children? We can’t anesthetize the entire world nor should we.
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@Mama: This Bud's for you!
It is NOT harmless, especially for very young children, and your claim that it is exposed your dishonesty.
And one major difference between the marijuana industry and topless bars is that no one patronizing those establishments is stripping me or my kids, and no one is literally polluting our bodies by themselves drinking alcohol. The proper analogy is not to alcohol but to second-hand smoke.
And if you think marijuana is so benign, why has it been classified as a medication? I’ve known folks whose symptoms of glaucoma have been mitigated with marijuana. If it’s powerful enough to do that for an adult, think about the impact of it on babies’ otherwise-normal ocular pressure. If I take blood-pressure-lowering medications (substances) to help control high BP or lessen the impact of stage fright, does that mean it’s harmless and it’s ok for me to stir some into the water you’re about to drink? I think not.
You want to get high, do it in a place and in a way that doesn’t impinge on others’ health and safety. Including your own and other people’s children.
1
Should New Jersey legalize marijuana use for adults, it will have profound implications for the region given the state's location between New York City and Philadelphia. It is difficult to imagine that residents of those cities will not be motivated to purchase marijuana in New Jersey or that the New Jersey would not welcome their tax dollars. As such, it is difficult to imagine that New York and Pennsylvania would allow New Jersey to capture tens of millions of tax dollars from their residents for long. While that might not change marijuana laws in every state in the northeast, New Jersey's move would ripple out through the most densely populated section of the United States.
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It's kosher too. At least some brands are certified kosher.
Don't smoke or vape, eat it. Safer for all involved.
7
Here in Progressive, supposedly health-conscious California, my 2nd Grace child has been exposed to wafts of second-hand marijuana smoke even in front of our city hall and the sidewalk across from the school. Our neighbors smoke pot and fill the air between our homes with the smoke. We regularly smell marijuana smoke from nearby cars as we drive in town and even as we wait in bumper to bumper traffic on the freeways. The police do nothing about any of this, in let because the District Attorneys have indicated it’s a low priority and won’t be prosecuted. Everyone knows seems to know this, but not to know or care about limitations written into the law. I hope NJ and NY don’t make the same mistakes. I hope they build in better protections for little kids and other vulnerable persons whose brains, hearts, lungs, etc are all at greater risk thanks to bad law
4
And the risks of alcohol abuse—which surely you have witnessed—doesn’t bother you.
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Don’t try to change the topic. We are talking about marijuana, not alcohol.
And please see my other responses to the specious alcohol analogy. And other’s explanations about the differences.
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Yes, the adverse impacts of alcohol use are concerning; but marijuana use or abuse is not a good solution to those problems, so why bring it up?
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"Opened just a few weeks ago, Harmony Dispensary..." The cannabis plants in the photo are a lot more mature than "just a few weeks".
2
In Albany & Trenton, as always, it's all about How can we game this? By comparison liquor licensing and regulation are a pig's trough for politicians. The bureaus, study commissions, licensing, lobbyists, campaign contributions, patronage. The idea of simple, straight legalization is alien and threatening. Their ultimate question is, What's in it for us?
3
For god's sake, just do it. Criminals have profited from dope for decades. Enough already.
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All of a sudden marijuana is the miracle cure-all for everything.
Admit it, you just like getting high. Nothing wrong with that. Better than booze.
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@MIKEinNYC I see some silly stuff on social media myself, but the science on CBD is legit. And marijuana's ability to reduce anxiety, settle the stomach and increase appetite is also meaningfully helpful to people who suffer from a variety of ailments.
@MIKEinNYC it’s about just wanting to get high it’s also about very real medical benefits as well. But ultimately it’s mainly about the folks rotting in jail or having their kids taken away from them or getting their lives ruined over a criminal conviction. There is no justification for prohibition whatsoever it’s been throughly proven to be a colossal failure and the outcome it hopes to prevent isn’t even that big of an impact on society to begin with.
1
As an adult resident of a state with legal recreational marijuana, I enjoy walking into a store, speaking with knowledgeable salespeople, and purchasing well labeled and reasonably priced pot. Not really much different than going to a liquor store. My state is making loads of money in taxes, we aren’t experiencing more kids smoking, and no one is going to jail for small amounts of marijuana. I hope the states considering legal recreational pot look to the evidence from those of us who have done it to see it’s been a positive step.
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As opposed to: Massachusetts, where dispensaries had been set to open on July 1 this year, and were of course delayed as the ccc---whatever commission, a new state body, sits on their hands, refusing to issue any licenses, claiming they need more time and what not. What are the members of this commission paid to do? Just look to either Colorado, Oregon, or Washington as a guideline. This has been done already and there's no excuse for further delay.
The initiative that passed here was "to tax and regulate cannabis LIKE alcohol." So what's the problem? First you reregulated how much anyone can possess on their person, and on their premises, and then you renegotiated the tax, but since then there's been plenty of time to roll this out and yet NOTHING has happened. NJ may be close, let's hope they're less insistent silly delays based on "getting it right" (because no one ever will because you can't please everyone all the time).
19
@matty right! Mass govt is working against the will of the people who voted for legalization, most towns on cape cod have banned pot shops, against the will of the voters.
8
"...the fate of recreational use remains unclear..."
Not really. Recreational use is here to stay. The government can choose to catch up with the public on this matter or it can continue to delude itself that it "controls" anything via law enforcement when it effectively chooses to sustain lucrative black markets through illegality.
There's a desire expressed by the governor and others to "get it right" in New Jersey, yet there's no mention of home cultivation. Most consumers would rather buy a pre-packaged product that requires no effort beyond going to the store (or even just calling delivery.) States like to make the argument they need to maintain control over the invariably non-fatal substance.
Yet there's really no reasons beyond maximizing the last increment of tax revenue and limiting the market to larger entities willing to grease palms to get government set their way that suggest a reason to not permit home grow. It's less than 10% in the market and is safer than making home brew beer, which BTW really only became mostly legal in the 70s.
I'd suggest that turning the war into cannabis into a war on home grow is not really what the public expects, but that's what they'll end up getting. That's been a persistent feature of cannabis reform that is dominated by the industry in other states. It's time to start legalizing for the public good. Make home grow legal, too.
28
Up here in Maine we voted legal recreational by a majority of the voters in 2016. Still nothing. Many towns have banned it, thwarting the will of the voters. It looks like the powers that be think if they drag their feet long enough, people will just forget about it and it will go away.
22
@Bill Wilkerson same thing is happening in Mass. against the will of the voters.
4
@Bill Wilkerson yer governor is one of the worse in the country. As long as he’s in office he will do everything he can to block legalization any way he can. It’s really infuriating even just watching from the outside. Hopefully y’all will be able to express your displeasure at the voting booth.
1
In the old days in Hoboken, we used to get the smell of chocolate from the huge Van Leer chocolate plant, mixed with the smell from half dozen or so of the coffee roasters in SW Hoboken.
Chocolate and coffee, now that’ll give you a sweet buzz.
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@New World
Marijuana + coffee is an excellent combination as well.
5