tvashtarkatena

OK, DD, I get it. Enjoy your pouting session. Sorry you couldn't hold your own or maintain your sense of humor in the debate.

Do you feel bullied? If so, why?

Dood, you're the Wal-mart container ship of posting.

I don't really want to get sucked into a long winded megalomania trip, with someone who has never been wrong, nor ever will be. I just like flinging a little poo at the bully once in a while. That's way more fun. Bully? What, you've become some kinda humorless pussy all of a sudden? Tedious.

Proof positive that if you cut ClearChannel the check, they'll run the ad.

and good looking.

It's not my fault that I'm so fucking smart.

The induced one-hitter fall alone would present a significant hazard.

Overstate my case? Moi?

There are a few ways to think about marijuana pricing. Marijuana is not legal in Amsterdam, contrary to popular belief. It is tolerated in certain districts however, but there is no corporate distribution/production/volume business behind it, as there is with beer. Prices run average about $9/gm, $250/oz, 4000/lb. Comparable to the low end black market pricing here. That makes sense: it's still a black market product with limited supply and high demand fueled by a healthy international tourist trade. Now let's compare that to tobacco. In the form of cigarettes, tobacco retails for $1000/lb. Surprised? Do the math. A pack of smokes retails for $5 to $8 and weighs .12 oz. Cigarette related violent crime? Um...no. But drug comparisons by weight aren't necessarily meaningful. Let's look at $/high. I'd say cigarettes are WAY more expensive than pot when measured that way. Now, let's look at beer. A yuppy beer runs you $5. It takes 3 or 4 to get you buzzed. $20 per buzz, let's say. That buys you about 2 gm of pot. Anybody gonna smoke all that in one sitting? You and your taun tuan maybe, but you alone? Good luck, Toots. Pot, even at black market prices, is already much cheaper per high than alcohol at the retail level. Supply and demand will determine the price of pot after legalization. Production wise, pot is easier to produce than tobacco, the latter of which needs huge amounts of space, infrastructure, inputs in the form of pesticides, etc. (tobacco is famously subject to a huge variety of pathogens), and a specialized climate. It's not hard to imagine that the black market price of pot will be cut in half after legalization, which would make it only twice as expensive as tobacco per lb at retail prices. Add to that its almost certain ubiquity after legalization (1 in 2 adults have smoked out, and many would gladly reduce their alcohol intake in favor a gentler, less physically painful high)and it would be hard to imagine that much, if any, pot related crime would continue to occur. So, if pot is cheaper than beer now, why the crime? Unlike alcohol, pot is concentrated, and so its easy to transport/steal a large monetary amount of it. Furthermore, grow ops are private operations that may or may not have security, and that security usually means shooting first. Add to that the healthy number of sketchy characters attracted to the illegal trades and it can be a volatile combination. Legal businesses like tobacco and alcohol, in contrast, are run by upstanding Americans who would never dream of doing anything untoward or criminal. Jokes aside, tobacco executives don't typically resort to shooting each other, although I'm sure they've thought about shooting a few lawyers from time to time.

That's actually a fine profession, as is mine, but I consider my personal life (and yours) to be an unacceptable target of ridicule on a climbing web-site. Not only am I going to refrain from gratuitously ridiculing your job, I'm not going to make fun of your wife and children either because my pals do it for me. Fixed that for ya.

That, and the fact that the 250 legal pot dispensaries in the state of California have experienced little to no violent crime to date, despite charging the very high, black market prices I mentioned in my first post on the subject.

Right, because no one ever gets shot over something that's legal? Legalization won't bring the price down to the cost of a head of lettuce, and some folks want to steal anything of value. I do think there would be much less violence and the organizational aspect of the drug trade would change, with gangs like Phillip Morris and Monsanto running the show instead. My experience with concerned parents suggests that most of them are afraid their children are going to do what they did. Evidence from the field (my offspring are 18 and 28) suggests that not to be the case. Nice rhetorical bullshit with the head of lettuce comment, OW, but it's just bullshit and you know it. Let's use a more intelligent and relevant example: high end booze. Good scotch, tequila, etc, can run $100 a fifth; probably comparable to what good weed (which is actually quite a bit easier to produce with less capital equipment) would go for per unit 'evening of fun'. Statistically, nobody steals that shit. Now, people do knock over liquor stores for the till. but then, they any store with that magical high cash/low security/good location combination is a potential target. It really has nothing to do with what's being sold. Furthermore, anyone can grow their own high grade weed in an apartment space with very little investment. No intoxicant is easier to make, save beer and cider, both of which are dirt cheap. It's very likely that the price of weed would fall to that of a really good beer...and we all know how often a home brewing operation gets burglarized.

Why, then, is it full of ass-babies? That, unfortunately, is no joke. It is.

Add to this the checkered history of marijuana criminalization; which has nothing to do with public health and safety, and everything to do with Harry Anslinger's desire to keep his Bureau of ATF alive after Prohibition, WR Hearst's timber interests and famous hatred of Mexicans and blacks, and Dupont's need to promote nylon and other less sustainable hemp substitutes, and you've got a typical American corporate-cock-in-government-mouth story of why we've been saddled with a devastating war on pot all these years.

My brother runs the public defenders office in Humboldt County, and down there, most of the drug related violent crime is about pot. Street value of good pot runs $4 to $6K /lb. A well grown plant can produce 2 to 5 lbs, and a grower can produce up to 4 crops per year indoors. Do the math. Even a small operation constitutes a big draw for some jaggoff who wants to score big without doing the work. Add to this some guns, and people get shot. This would simply not happen, not once, not ever, if that weed was legal. The main arguments against legalization come from concerned parents. Preventing under age kids from taking a lot of drugs when their brains are still forming and their decision making processes are not mature is a legitimate concern. The statistical reality is that their children are much more at risk of physical injury or death from arrest and incarceration than from 'drug dealers' or 'being too high'. Furthermore, kids who are busted face stiff monetary penalties, loss of employment, and loss of educational opportunities. What happens to a kid when society shuts off all of their healthy, legal options for living a decent life? Finally, it's a myth that pot is a 'controlled substance'. Tobacco and alcohol, much harder to get when under age than pot, are 'controlled substances'. Pot is an uncontrolled substance. If pot were legal, it would be more difficult for those under age to obtain, not less.

Just don't berth in Lake Powell...unless you've got some spare double wide axles, that is.

Mr. Jintao, tear down this Wal-mart!

Well, I guess that explains the mess we're in, then.

Please run. Oh, please.

I just added a rod and reel to my Christmas list. I thought the trailer sucked. The opening scenes were great, as they must be, but half a second into the first night scene, the audience knew they were definitely not in Kansas anymore. Plus, there's lots of unbolted climbing....

Avatar in 3D. You won't be needing it.

It's not taking, but still....

to your credit, FW, you're at least trying to educate yourself

but...you are all those things....