I’m going to have trouble holding back the snark on this one. As the State House today passed the medical marijuana bill (which is not perfect, but a step up from the mess we currently have) this quote somehow managed to come out of the mouth of a legislator:
Opponents argue that this moves the state one step closer to full-blown legalization and doesn’t set up enough safeguards to keep marijuana out of the hands of children.
“It fosters ambiguity,” said Rep. Kevin Parker, R-Spokane. “We are confusing kids, we are confusing the law, and we are making it harder on law enforcement when the budgets we’re writing are reducing law enforcement in this state.”
That’s an overwhelming amount of stupid right there, so I’ll break this up into three parts:
We are confusing kids
In a word, no. It’s not confusing to any child anywhere in this state that there are stores that sell a plant product to sick people any more than it confuses kids that there are pharmacies that sell drugs to sick people. We tell kids not to use prescription drugs, yet those drugs are still sold in pharmacies to people whose doctors tell them they can have it. Is that confusing to kids? No. Our kids aren’t that stupid, and our legislators shouldn’t be either.
We are confusing the law
What? The reason that this bill came about was because the existing law was really unclear and confusing about what was allowed when it came to supplying medical marijuana patients. What SB 5073 represents is an attempt to make the law less confusing, and it’s impossible to look at the bill today and claim that it’s more gray than the status quo. I still have concerns with it, but it’s a big clarification of what had been very unclear up until now.
We are making it harder on law enforcement when the budgets we’re writing are reducing law enforcement in this state
This is just award-winning stupid. Every time we have a case where a patient or provider is clearly getting screwed over, we hear the same exact excuse from law enforcement, “We just want the rules to be clear, until then, we have to arrest people.” This bill does that. This bill makes the rules clear so that law enforcement can stop wasting money and time trying to figure out who’s supplying medical marijuana for people suffering from MS, cancer and other ailments and finally focus more of their time on real criminals and real crime. This bill will save law enforcement and our criminal justice system a significant amount of money by making it clearer who’s following the law and who isn’t. Anyone who says otherwise is either clueless or being stupid on purpose.
Just legalize it, and call it a day! Haven’t we had enough of this 1930s-style propaganda campaign? Wasn’t “Reefer Madness” about the silliest and most dishonest movie ever?
Let’s just legalize this and finally end Prohibition! Let’s end the silliness!
And since we’re taking about stupid, here’s some more.
Hell, half the kids are already taking mommies pills and breaking into daddies stash of weed…
I have this crazy thought that someday society will look back on this failed foolishness and wonder why? Just hope I can live to see a bit of it. I am especially interested in seeing the development of industrial hemp. I’d love to see fields of it growing in Eastern Washington.
@2
Yeah, we can’t take a donation from a dispensary, but we can only take them from places like Safeway where you can get a case of Bud Light and drink a few on your drive home and Right Aide where you get your bogus oxycontin scrips filled.
How do these morons get elected? Simple: a majority of voters in Spokane are morons. That’s also how Cathy McMorris keeps getting re-elected.
@6
Back when the congressman from the 5th CD had a D next to his name he won by winning big enough in Spokane and Walla Walla that it covered his loses in booneyville.
@3&5
I think I’ve been listing to too much Drive-By Truckers lately.
I had know idea that it cost more money for law enforcement to not arrest people than it did to arrest them! If that’s true, then the Republicans should be able to reach their tax-reducing nirvana by throwing everyone in jail!
Yeah, have to keep “drugs” out of the hands of kids. Because making a drug like marijuana illegal, meaning you can ONLY get it illegally, has worked SO well for the last century. (sigh)
Kids in Jr. High School can get marijuana easier than a beer. It’s a joke. The entire “war on a drugs” is a joke. It’s about money, not about safety or “the children”.
What’s “confusing” to the kids is adults with their whiskey, beer and cigarettes lecturing kids (who can look stuff upon the internet now a days) about the dangers of marijuana.
Tea Party’s Plan To End The Middle Class
One thing Rep. Paul Ryan isn’t telling senior citizens is that his vouchers to replace Medicare would pay only 1/3 of the cost of purchasing health insurance comparable to Medicare.
Another thing he isn’t telling you is that if Tea Partiers get away with this, their next target is slashing Social Security benefits for today’s retirees and eliminating them altogether for future senior citizens.
Finally, what he isn’t telling you is the real purpose of all this is to give tax cuts to people making over $1 million a year.
http://www.dailyfinance.com/st...../19907193/
@11: He’s just finishing what Reagan started.
I favor outright leagalization for marijuana.
13 – Heh. So do I and a big fat tax like we have on cigarettes right on top of it.
Something’s got to make up for the right wing’s wars of choice and their miserable tax breaks for billionaires.
@14
cool…lets let the pot smokers pay for the tax cuts…I am all for that.
what say you, Lee?
@15 Judging by what’s coming from the rightwing these days a marijuana tax would hit the GOPers hard. I’m for it!
Maybe the right wingers are concerned that pot smokers seldom get fired up into hate causes, which is the GOP and Tea Party strategy. Pot smokers just want everyone to find a way to chill out and get along.
Of course, the paranoia which tends to accompany extended pot use might work to their favor. Except that most of them are paranoid about getting caught. If it were legal, they may not be that paranoid.
Apart from morons (like the Missouri state senator who claimed people receiving unemployment benefits “enslave” workers), who really aren’t that much of a problem simply because it’s so obvious to everyone they’re morons, there are some very smart people with bad intentions who get elected by lying to the voters about their intentions — Scott Walker, for example. These people are far more dangerous than the idiots.
We’ve just had a big debate over the federal budget and now we’re heading into an even bigger one, starting with President Obama’s budget speech tomorrow night.
It’s now apparent that the Tea Partiers who stirred up senior citizens by telling them Obama would cut their Medicare are … out to deeply slash Medicare.
Now that we’ve seen Rep. Paul Ryan’s budget blueprint, its centerpiece is cutting Medicare benefits by two-thirds. No doubt he rode into Congress on the votes of lots of senior citizens gulled into believing he would protect their Medicare benefits from those nasty Democrats. And, probably, some of them still don’t see him for the charlatan he is.
I was in high school back in the early ’60s when Medicare was enacted. I remember very well how much the Republicans of that time hated Medicare. They labeled it “socialized medicine” and “communism.” Well, I have news for you, Republicans still hate Medicare’s guts; and now, emboldened by the passions they’ve stirred up by demagoging the deficit and debt issue, they’re going for the jugular.
And if they succeed in gutting and privatizing Medicare, don’t think for one moment that they won’t set their sights on the big kahuna: Social Security. In fact, they already have.
The bottom line is that if you want to keep Social Security and Medicare for yourself and your children, you have to vote Democrat. If you hate yourself, then by all means vote Republican. Because if you vote Republican that’s what you’re doing — hating yourself and cutting off your own balls. Why anyone would vote Republican is a mystery I can’t figure out.