
Nevada marijuana legalization gets official OK for 2016 ballot - remotorboater
http://www.thecannabist.co/2014/12/08/nevada-marijuana-legalization-2016-ballot/24954/
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Tenhundfeld
I see two interesting things about this story:

1) There's no mention of tourism in that article. Vegas seems like a natural
fit for marijuana legalization, as a party destination, and while I don't have
hard data on this, I do wonder if they are/fear seeing a negative impact on
tourism as people seek out more "green friendly" destinations.

2) The utter lack of surprise about this. Another state
legalizing/decriminalizing marijuana, ho hum, whatevs. The issue has reached
the point where it feels inevitable. That's still a bit shocking for me (in a
good way).

I don't mean to equate the substance of the issue, but in my mind it feels
similar to the march of progress on marriage equality (AKA "gay marriage").
They're both areas where I've long thought our society needed obvious reforms,
but as the years marched by, I began to expect _not_ to see any substantive
changes in my life.

Now I sit here in my 30's, and by the time my daughter is an adult (~15
years), she'll live in a society where (probably/hopefully) most states have
some form of marriage equality and marijuana is at least decriminalized. That
is amazing to me.

P.S. For those who think it trivializes marriage equality to compare it to
marijuana legalization, I'll remind you that this issue isn't about making it
easier for people to get high. It's about the millions of lives hurt by a drug
arrest, over 11,0000,000 arrests for marijuana possession from 1996-2012 – and
the unequal enforcement of drug laws. For example, in California, a black
person is 10 times more likely to serve prison time for a marijuana arrest
than a non-black offender. And across the US, black offenders are 3.7 times
more likely than white offenders to be arrested for possession. Even ignoring
the unequal enforcement, about 12% of prisoners are serving time due to a
marijuana-related offense. So yeah, it's kind of a big deal.

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grecy
> _she 'll live in a society where (probably/hopefully) most states have some
> form of marriage equality and marijuana is at least decriminalized. That is
> amazing to me._

Welcome to the majority of developed countries on the planet now.

One day, you might even see universal healthcare!

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hippich
What are other countries where you are allowed to possess marijuana for
recreational usage? Also, what about other substances, like lsd, psilocybin,
or plants like peyote?

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hippich
Found this list -
[http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_country](http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Legality_of_cannabis_by_country)

As anonbanker noticed, Uruguay is where it is legal. Another one - North
Korea. The rest of places are either sorta-legal, or "decriminalized", which
often still come with fines or some kind of pressure from the law.

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stevesearer
It seems like marijuana legalization is the inevitable outcome at this point,
but I do wonder what will be the fate of people incarcerated in the time
between now and whatever point it happens in the future.

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ddingus
A lot has to depend on how quickly things go. If it takes 20 years to really
solidify the new direction, many of them will have served their time.

Say it takes 5 years? Could happen!

I think it will go more quickly for economic "land grab" type reasons. Those
who move early will gain advantages over those who move later. I know Oregon
was thinking growth in industry right along with savings from unproductive
corrections.

In that kind of scenario, movements are very highly likely to form to do
release advocacy. Some States may be active about it too. I suspect Oregon
will do this once the law is settled and working.

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ddingus
Just a comment here about how surreal this is.

Like many of us, pot has always been part of the underground culture,
associated with serious trouble.

Now that it's normalizing rapidly where I live, I see many of us just sort of
in a state of wonder. Very soon, it's going to be perfectly ordinary to have a
BBQ or some other basic social event and see people light a few up, talk,
code, game, whatever, and doing that will be as OK as drinking is.

Strange and wonderful times we live in.

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RangerScience
Man, I tell you, this'll have an impact on Burning Man. _What_ , I don't know,
but it's actually a kind of a huge point out there that "no, you can't just
tote up". I couldn't tell you the arrest numbers for weed, but my anecdotal
understanding is that it's the #1 mistake that gets you searched that reveals
all the _other_ stuff...

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anonbanker
and, just like the NRA had nothing to do with DC v. Heller (and in fact, filed
a brief _against_ it when CATO filed), NORML has nothing to do with these
victories.

the NRA was an elaborate way to milk money from gun owners whilst sabotaging
the overall movement. I can't help but think NORML is the exact same thing
from their track record.

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Sevzinn
Neat--it will be interesting to see how all the states go along. There won't
be the constitutional issue of gay marriage, so it looks like it's a matter of
the federal government leaving it up to the states eventually. Even ethanol
had a constitutional component (as opposed to just statute).

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Meowmore7
Remember when this site was about tech?

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seattlegal
If you think this doesn't relate to Tech, you must have never worked with
programmers on the west coast.

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Carrok
Or more generally, the insane amount of Tech now being developed around
marijuana cultivation and distribution. Like the highly customizable
automation system I just designed and installed in a legal grow house.

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johnward
This site seems to be mostly about tech and business (plus other things that
interest "hacker culture"). You can tell that cannibis is on it's way to be a
big business. The direction we are heading is full legalization nationwide
which is going to open up a new industry. If the US legalizes this drug it
will probably change the rest of the world because a lot of countries seem to
follow many of our drug policies.

