Colorado the new ‘black market’?

[nbruno322]

The tone of this article (http://www.foxnews.com/politics/2014/06/06/colorado-new-black-market-pot-legalization-causing-headaches-for-surrounding/) is asinine in parts.


Mark Overman, the sheriff for Scotts Bluff County in Nebraska, said the trafficking is likely an "unintended consequence" of Colorado's decision last November, "but it was a completely predictable consequence."

"Putting people in jail, prosecuting them, that costs us money," Overman said. "Officers go to court, that's overtime. We may have to defend these people, and we're paying for their defense in many cases."

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said he won't rule out the possibility of taking Colorado to court to ask for reimbursement for the costs of dealing with a problem its neighbor created.

[tod evans]

Best solution Mr.Overman is to leave them the hell alone!

Face the reality of the situation and start training for a productive career as a burger flipper.

[proudclod229]

What was the constitution was written on again?

[liberty2897]

Best solution Mr.Overman is to leave them the hell alone!

Face the reality of the situation and start training for a productive career as a burger flipper.

Burger flipper in Seattle will make $15/hr before long...

[fr33]

Police in neighboring states have been targeting cars with Colorado license plates. They are resisting the inevitable spread of freedom. Their kids will look back on the stories their parents told them and think, "wow, my dad/mom was stupid."

Anyways... the black market is going to exist in these stages of decriminalization. In Colorado many of the dispensaries have to gouge and charge extremely high prices to pay for their licenses and deal with the scarcity of legally grown plants due to the regulations and the demand of tourism. On top of that there are high taxes for each purchase. The black market is definitely strong in these circumstances. Maybe not quite as strong as before weed was legalized but it's still there as an affordable option for those willing to risk taking part. And the consequences of those risks aren't as bad as before.

[bunklocoempire]

What was the constitution was written on again?

A script for Oxycontin and a Budweiser label?


Colorado the new ‘black market’? Pot legalization causing headaches for surrounding states
Love that FOX headline. Fox has really got a grip on all things free market. :rolleyes:

[Occam's Banana]

"Putting people in jail, prosecuting them, that costs us money," [Officer Friendly] said. "Officers go to court, that's overtime. We may have to defend these people, and we're paying for their defense in many cases."

But of course, NOT "putting people in jail, prosecuting them," etc. is not an option - is it, Officer Friendly? :rolleyes:

And no - doing those things does NOT "cost you money" ...

Officer Friendly and his Hut-Hutting Highwaymen aren't paying for a goddam thing - taxpayers (and Officer Friendly's other victims) are.


Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said he won't rule out the possibility of taking Colorado to court to ask for reimbursement for the costs of dealing with a problem its neighbor created.

Take yourself to court, asshole. YOU - and Officer Friendly, and all the other like you - are the cause of this so-called "problem."

[Uriel999]

What was the constitution was written on again?

What difference does it make?

[surf]

from the title, it sounded as if it referred to tons of home-grown non-taxed (and unregulated...) Colorado weed


"In fact, the legalized marijuana has become the black market for other states."

whinyass Cornhusker ought to be able to figure out that the way to minimize this "problem" is though decrim.

[Cleaner44]

"Putting people in jail, prosecuting them, that costs us money," Overman said.

Here's an idea... don't put people in jail or prosecute them for victimless crimes. Stupid sheriff is stupid.

[Zippyjuan]

What was the constitution was written on again?

In answer- parchment. http://www.archives.gov/preservation/formats/paper-vellum.html


The term parchment is a general term for an animal skin which has been prepared for writing or printing. Parchment has been made for centuries, and is usually calf, goat, or sheep skin. The term vellum from the French veau refers to a parchment made from calf skin. The manufacture of parchment is quite involved. After the skin is removed from the animal and any hair or flesh is cleaned away, it is stretched on a wooden frame. While it is stretched, the parchment maker or parchminer scrapes the surface of the skin with a special curved knife. In order to create tension in the skin, scraping is alternated by wetting and drying the skin. The parchment is scraped, wetted, and dried several times to bring it to the right thickness and tautness. Sometimes a final finish is achieved using pumice as an abrasive followed by chalk in order to prepare the surface of the skin to accept ink.

Parchment has traditionally been used instead of paper for important documents such as religious texts, public laws, indentures, and land records as it has always been considered a strong and stable material. The five pages of the U.S. Constitution as well as the Declaration of Independence, the Bill of Rights, and the Articles of Confederation are written on parchment.

The terms parchment and vellum are also used in the paper making industry. Parchment paper is made from cellulose fibers prepared from fir trees or plants such as cotton or flax. Paper can be made which mimics the thickness and smooth surface of parchment. The terms refer to the finish of the paper and should not be relied upon as an indicator of its long term stability.


http://blog.constitutioncenter.org/2012/11/busting-some-myths-about-the-founding-fathers-and-marijuana/


Busting some myths about the Founding Fathers and marijuana

Is the Constitution really made out of hemp paper? Did Washington and Jefferson have acres of marijuana plants? One of these two statements is likely true.

The buzz about two new state laws allowing recreational marijuana use has people looking back to the age of the Founding Fathers, when hemp (a.k.a. marijuana) was a popular cash crop.

The theory is that the Framers knew about marijuana, grew it, and consumed it, so what’s the big deal about the states of Colorado and Washington making it legal?

Fortunately, along with the urban myths about hemp are some contemporaneous records about how the Colonists, and then the first generation of American citizens, viewed and used marijuana-related products.

So let’s start by clearing up a few myths about hemp, marijuana, and the men who ran society in the 18th century.

Myth 1: The Framers loved marijuana. In reality, the word “marijuana” or “marihuana” cropped up in the late 1890s, according to research at Kingston University in the United Kingdom. The Founders knew the plant as hemp.

Myth 2: The Constitution and the Declaration of Independence are written on hemp paper. The two great documents were written on parchment. The point of debate is that some working drafts of the documents might have been composed on paper made from hemp, which was widely used in that time period.

Myth 3: The Founders smoked hemp. If they did smoke hemp, they likely didn’t get high from it, since the type of hemp they grew had very low levels of THC, the active ingredient that causes euphoria.

Here’s one quote commonly attributed to Thomas Jefferson that our friends at Monticello debunked on their website.

Quotation: “Some of my finest hours have been spent on my back veranda, smoking hemp and observing as far as my eye can see.”

Status: “This statement has not been found in any of the writings of Thomas Jefferson. … Thomas Jefferson did grow hemp, but there is no evidence to suggest that Jefferson was a habitual smoker of hemp, tobacco, or any other substance.”

Hemp was a crop that dated back to the early English days in Colonial America. It was used to make rope and canvas products for ships, cloth for fabric, and pulp for paper.

George Washington wrote about growing hemp on his lands. We can’t confirm reports that Ben Franklin used hemp at his paper mills.

It seems doubtful that Washington and Jefferson grew hemp for recreational enjoyment. Now, for John Adams, there is a mysterious quote that comes from a column he wrote in several Boston newspapers.

Adams was a big fan of hemp as a multipurpose crop.

In 1763, writing as Humphrey Ploughjogger in the Boston Evening-Post, Adams had an odd postscript to a column he wrote about the advantages of growing hemp.

“Seems to me if grate Men dont leeve off writing Pollyticks, breaking Heads, boxing Ears, ringing Noses and kicking Breeches, we shall by and by want a world of Hemp more for our own consumshon,” Adams wrote.

But in an annotated version of the letter in the records of the Massachusetts Historical Society, it seems Adams was talking about hemp rope that was used to hang men, not the type of hemp smoked for pleasure.

[Occam's Banana]

Sign of the Apocalypse: "Headshops on Every Corner!"
http://www.lewrockwell.com/lrc-blog/sign-of-the-apocalypse-headshops-on-every-corner/
Ryan McMaken (13 June 2014)

In my Mises Daily article at Mises.org (http://www.mises.org/daily/6779/Why-Foreign-Politicians-Hate-Your-Freedom) today, I noted that police in states neighboring Colorado have taken to targeting cars with Colorado license plates for special treatment in the form of detainment, harassment, and more. Some Nebraskans have taken to demanding that Colorado taxpayers pay for Nebraska’s efforts to confiscate cannabis from Coloradans to take it across state lines.

Noted one sheriff:


“They passed a law and didn’t give a second thought to how it would impact surrounding states,” Cheyenne County sheriff John Jenson told the newspaper (http://www.latimes.com/nation/la-na-pot-trafficking-20140527-story.html#page=1). “If they want Colorado to be the High State and live up to all of those John Denver songs, they can keep it in their four walls. I don’t need Colorado’s problems in Nebraska.”

I’m not sure what these problem are exactly, unless he means one of these things:

1. 43,000 people, net, moved to Colorado (http://vizynary.com/2013/11/18/restless-america-state-to-state-migration-in-2012/)in 2012 while 5500 people, net, left Nebraska. People vote with their feet, and Nebraska has been found wanting.

2. Home price appreciation is greater (http://www.fhfa.gov/DataTools/Downloads/Pages/House-Price-Index-Datasets.aspx) in Colorado than Nebraska, indicating higher demand for real estate. (Since Nebraska and Colorado are subject to identical monetary policy, we can attribute variances to genuine differences in demand. (5% growth in FHFA index for NE vs. 9% growth in CO.)

3. Colorado’s population is better educated (http://www.statemaster.com/graph/edu_bac_deg_or_hig_by_per-bachelor-s-degree-higher-percentage) (Percentage of population with bachelor’s degree or higher: CO is #3, Nebraska is #33.

4. Colorado has a higher per capita income (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_U.S._states_by_income): CO: #9, NE: #26.

Yep, big problems, those. I suppose the sheriff, talking to his fellow tax-eaters in law enforcement views it as a problem because his pals, like this totalitarian nut (http://www.rawstory.com/rs/2014/01/16/dea-official-freaks-out-at-senate-hearing-reckless-marijuana-legalization-scares-us/), think its craaaaazy to let people eat or smoke what they want without government approval. (Ludwig von Mises rightly pointed out that if you concede that government can control what you eat or smoke, then you have no grounds (http://mises.org/daily/6563/Mises-Explains-the-Drug-War) whatosever to argue that government should be limited in any way at all.)

But never underestimate how many people, including those who claim to be “for small government” who drank the public school kool-aid on cannabis. Writes one reader in response to my column today:


I would think that the neighboring States should be happy with the CO experiment. [if by "experiment" he means "return to pre-1930 status quo," then "experiment" is correct, I suppose] It gets the crazys [sic] out of their State where they can buy the stuff without robbing someone for the price.

My Son lives outside Denver. DowntownDenver is a madhouse. [If by "madhouse" you mean central business district where people work in offices by day and eat in restaurants by night, then yes, it is a "madhouse."] Every other storefront is selling weed. [Some stoners no doubt wish that were true, but...]

So, it is a magnate. [sic]

Given this fellow’s use of English, it seems that “drugs should be illegal” is the the only thing he learned in school. But it nicely illustrates that people devoted to conventional thinking are willing to believe pretty much anything about any place that has a tiny bit of extra freedom.

Most states I have visited have liquor stores in every strip mall, and yet no one seems terribly concerned about this. But many have been trained to regard cannabis use as somehow far more exotic and dangerous than alcohol usage.

These are the same people who ask the ridiculous question: “Are you prepared to deal with the consequences of legalized cannabis?” If by “consequences” they mean fewer non-violent husbands, mothers, fathers, and teens rotting in government cages, then yes, I am prepared to deal with those “consequences.”

And if they wonder if I’m prepared to endure a world that in drug legalization is like 1910 in America where one could buy cocaine and cannabis and opium in every corner drug store, then yes, I guess we could return to that “dangerous” social experiment that plunged America into chaos before the Drug War began.

By the way, I can’t resist including this dramatization of how Coloradans view Nebraska:

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlt4vwS0wsg]


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qlt4vwS0wsg


Copyright © 2014 by LewRockwell.com. Permission to reprint in whole or in part is gladly granted, provided full credit and a live link are provided.

[thoughtomator]

Nebraska Attorney General Jon Bruning said he won't rule out the possibility of taking Colorado to court to ask for reimbursement for the costs of dealing with a problem its neighbor created.

I am speechless.

[bunklocoempire]

I am speechless.

I wonder what General Jon thinks of Colorado's Nebraska's gravity problem.

[Occam's Banana]

It's officially official ...

From another thread: http://www.ronpaulforums.com/showthread.php?465138-Colorado-sued-by-neighboring-states-over-legal-marijuana

Colorado sued by neighboring states over legal marijuana

The attorneys general of Nebraska and Oklahoma sued Colorado in the U.S. Supreme Court on Thursday, arguing state-legalized marijuana from Colorado is improperly spilling across state lines.

[...]