The South Dakota Republican Party has an e-mail blast of it’s own this morning, warning members of the pitfalls of signing the ballot measure petitions being circulated out there at the last minute, and to join the party’s planned efforts to fight some of the ballot measures that could appear in 2018:
Once the petitions are in though, can’t we start publishing full page ads with the names of the people who signed the suicide one under a headline “if your assigned DPOA is on this list you might want to consider a different one?”
Or post links with “find out here if your assigned DPOA wants to kill you.”
If you’re “concerned about limited government,” how do you not support the marijuana initiatives?
Move to Colorado, man. Its, like, a far-out awesome paradise with a pot-candy store on every corner.
It is probably serial troll and mind altering drug enthusiast Larry Kurtz. He gets thru the ban here sometimes and masquerades as a Conservative. He has been trolling Bob Mercer lately too.
Answer the question.
The state government is limiting dangerous drugs from getting to our children, marijuana, meth, heroin.
Plus Colorado is a disaster I can show you study after study of what a train wreck marijuana has been to that state…no thanks!
Marijuana isn’t in the same league as meth and heroin it terms of harm. But alcohol is. So is tobacco.
If the state’s interest is limiting danger, we picked the wrong ones to legalize.
By all means, show me your studies about Colorado. If things were as bad as you say, why is there no effort to recriminalize?
That one is easy, for the same reason South Dakota will never do away with video lottery. M O N E Y.
To be be honest our governments are addicted to taxes.
Sure, the tax revenues are nice, but if the negatives are really as bad as suggested, wouldn’t you think they’d reconsider, either legislatively or by initiative? Over half the states have legalized medical marijuana, and NOT ONE has gone back. Something like 10 have legalized recreationally and, again, NOT ONE has gone back. Doesn’t that tell you that the legalization and regulation works?
Besides, isn’t this the best possible type of tax increase? The vast majority of the transactions that produce marijuana tax revenue were occurring before legalization. No one who wants to smoke marijuana isn’t already smoking marijuana. By legalizing and regulating you are taking a massive amount of untaxed black market activity and bringing it into the light of day.
It’s good policy.
Too many potheads.
Nope. A very small percentage of the total population consumes marijuana. Yet legalization has widespread popular support. Try again.
Ok I will answer the question for you:
Because it’s really hard to get a pot smoker out of the basement.
As an empty nester I don’t have to worry about this anymore, but for the parents who haven’t gotten their kids launched yet, legalized pot is terrifying .
As I said earlier, I guess I should ignore the Jim Fiksdahl/Media One “Join the Conversation” campaign that the Chiesman Center is promoting. 🙂
Michael, Jon Fiksdal/Media One repeatedly bring in out of state petitioners funded by out of state money to fund ideas that were crafted by out of state people, all in an attempt to make a buck. A perversion of the initiated measure process, a disservice to the South Dakota citizen, and likely in violation of South Dakota law. The Chieseman Center has irreprepibly damaged their name.
Wrong!! It’s a CAVE attitude, you exhibit. Citizens Against Virtually Everything and it hurts the children. http://www.keloland.com/news/article/politics/ballot-question-campaigns-seek-signatures-as-deadline-looms
Anonymous 3:49,
I’ll answer for Anne but first: Are you liberal or conservative?
Full blooded conservative Republican, Troy. The kind that believes it’s important to be philosophically consistent. Believe it or not.
Anonymous,
Thanks for the answer.
Despite being a more a Libertarian Republican than a conservative Republican, there are issues where my conservatism transcends my libertarianism. Drug legalization is one such issue.
Whether I like it or not, as a society, we have socialized many of the consequences of bad choices. Screw around in school, never learn a trade, have no ambition, the taxpayer will insure you don’t live without shelter or food.
Because millions of people make bad choices with regard to opioids, we now have virtually the entire country clamoring for more public dollars for treatment, our health insurance dollars are being absorbed for treatment, and our economy is less robust because of the consequences of this single drug.
Same thing occurs to different degrees with cocaine, meth, etc. The bad consequences are transferred to me as a taxpayer, me in my health insurance premiums, and to me as a member of society.
Whether you accept the gateway claim or not, I don’t care. I do because I not only accept the research AND my personal observation of a high percentage of the marijuana users I know graduated to more serious drugs and/or I saw how it affected their success in life. Thus, for these reasons, as as conservative not willing to pay for the indirect costs that will be assessed to me and in conflict with my libertarian tendencies, I oppose legalization of marijuana for any reason. Period.
Not much to talk about when you end like that, Troy.
But I’ll venture to guess that 100% of the people you reference in your last paragraph drank alcohol and smoked cigarettes before they smoked pot. What’s the real gateway drug here?
There’s plenty of well-educated, successful, ambitious marijuana users out there Troy. They just can’t tell you about it, so your opinion is based on the ones you do know, the losers. Losers get derailed by all kinds of substances, habits, and hobbies — with most of them being perfectly legal. The “indirect costs” of sugar, alcohol, and tobacco far, far exceed the costs of marijuana. If government should be in the business of drawing lines here, haven’t we drawn it completely arbitrarily?
Also, since you mention opioids, are you aware of the research suggesting that opioid abuse goes down significantly in states that have legalized marijuana?
Mr. Jones – Claiming marijuana leads users to opiates is akin to saying riding a bicycle leads to becoming a Hells Angel. You claim a “high percentage” of your pot smoking acquaintances graduated to more serious drugs. Substantiate that claim with more precise information and explain why your acquaintances are outside the normal statistical model. Most opioid users began with marijuana but very few marijuana users graduate to opioids. Yours is an unbelievable assertion requiring clarity or repeal.
Anonymous,
First, you are anonymous so I disregard EVERYTHING you say. You submit yourself to no accountability. How would I substantiate my observation? Give names? To a person who won’t give his? Hilarious.
Second, that is my observation. I’ve seen too many of people I know graduate to worse drugs (not just opioids). I’m against it. I stand by that observation.
Third, being a gateway drug is not the entirety of why I have my position. Not comprehensive of all of my reasons, the socialization of bad choices of which I consider marijuana use and how I end up footing the bill motivates me to say no to allowing you to use marijuana AND being willing to have your behavior a crime imposing THAT cost on you.
Fourth, I glossed over the impact on job performance. I know literally hundreds of employers and managers. I’ve never heard one say “Sure love my pothead employees” but I’ve heard plenty say the opposite. And they don’t care if it is lower level hourly employees or higher level salaried employees. Bosses only care about what they think impacts performance and don’t care what you do in your off hours. But, if they think it affects performance, they think it because they’ve observed it. Mr. Anonymous, it is costing you opportunity and income whether you realize it or not. And, because you won’t be able to fully fund your living expenses through death, I’ll end up subsidizing your pot-addled self.
Fifth, I couldn’t care less if you marijuana addled mind believes me or not. My opinion is mine and I’ll advocate and vote supportive of my opinion.
Just so you know Troy, you’re talking to two different anonymous people here.
Absolutely. Cast your one vote and continue to stagger the wrong way down history’s highway. The majority of Americans disagree with you but your vote is your personal choice. We all know how you feel about choice, right Mr. Jones?
I don’t care what a majority of Americans think (a lot of the liberal states are already high on pot anyway!)…just as long as majority of a South Dakotans say no for the 4th time to this DOPE!
It’s not enough for you to choose not to use? You need to tell others what to do?
Even when the majority says you’re wrong? Where’s that get ‘ya?
Polls said Hillary would win also
First, all pot-addled anonymous posters sound the same to me.
Second, reference to “history’s highway” is a too easy to detect use of euphemism for following the culture or the crowd to manipulate by threatening an isolation. I have my own mind and I will follow neither. My self-esteem doesn’t change if I’m in the majority or the minority.
Third, your attempt to make relevant my view on another matter is what I’d expect from a pot addled weak mind to employ a logic fallacy in an attempt to discredit because you can’t make your own argument stand up by fact or logic.
Fourth, as a corollary to #2, have you changed all your deeply held convictions to match the view of a majority? Assuming you are the person who asked Anne Beal the question at the top of board and then demanded she answer your question, that is an absolutely bizarre and hypocritical statement. No wonder you don’t submit to any accountability by posting your name. You have no scruples.
No one asked Anne a question, Troy. That question was posed generally, not in response to Anne’s comment.
Your misunderstanding about this led you to make some significant but incorrect judgments about a person’s character (“no scruples”). You are a man of faith, are you not? I trust you can appreciate the moral component of this kind of behavior. If you want the citations, I would be happy to provide them.
None of your ad hominem attacks are warranted, especially to the poster who answered your “liberal or conservative” inquiry.
You hold yourself out as being committed to the dialectic but you don’t walk the walk. I suspect it’s because you know your position on this issue cannot withstand reasoned critique.
I acknowledge that commenting anonymously makes it harder to follow, and I even accept that it mildly affects credibility, but no reasonable person can read the exchange above and believe that you’ve behaved as an honorable participant in an honest dialogue.
In the immortal words of Ice Cube, you better check yourself before you wreck yourself.
I can think of two girls in my dorm at UMass who didn’t smoke pot; everybody else did.
We did not go on to use hard drugs. I have never bought that gateway-drug argument. It’s a throw-back to when we were also warned that rock music would lead to premarital sex. Hard drug users probably grew up eating Mac & cheese, too.
But what my classmates and friends all started noticing, in addition to the side effects of the munchies, was that, in the words of a friend at UPenn, “ pot screws you up.” And as a friend at UMass observed “it isn’t even cool anymore, now that so many uncool people are doing it.”
So we quit smoking pot, quit watching cartoons and Gilligan’s island, quit eating entire Sara Lee cheesecakes with cherries, and even cut back on the bananas and Hershey’s syrup.
But I made a point of telling my kids about the pot and the munchies and they were duly disgusted. It’s not cool if your own mother did it.
A TV spot of grandparents smoking pot, laughing hysterically at stupid sitcoms, and eating frosting out of tubs, while the younger generation looks on and asks “what are we going to do with them?” might be all you need to do to defeat this.
we were also warned that rock music would lead to premarital sex.
Now you tell me. I wasted a lot of moola on concert tickets back in the day. Freebird!!!
Most of the problems in Colorado are not due to the formerly outstanding citizens deciding to start smoking pot. It’s the influx of stoners moving out of mom’s basement in other states and migrating to Colorado. Then expecting the state to support them when they can’t or won’t get a job. Basically relocating the welfare/food stamp/etc expenses to Colorado while simultaneously increasing the problems associated with a large increase in the homeless (petty crimes, public urination and defecation, STIs, etc)
There are more old women who tell lies on blogs than there are kids who won’t move out of parent’s basements. You’re way too old to be an empty nester. You’ve become a crazy old lady who’s afraid of things that aren’t real.
Are you saying I made up that stuff about smoking pot at UMass in the 60s? Like what else was there to do in Amherst back then?
I was in Pierpont Hall, part of Project 10; arrived in 1968. You can read up on the debauchery here:
http://www.chronos-historical.org/pierpont/
Yes I was there, among the very first residents. I don’t need to make stuff up. I lived it.
Pot messes you up. And it’s not even cool.
Anonymous,
Point out an adhominem attack I made. If it is concluding your mind is pot addled, it shows all the signs. If you don’t use pot, I apologize. If you do, you should be proud of what you are doing to yourself.
I don’t apologize for combining two anonymous posters (if that is true) into one. If you don’t want to be lumped into with another of the same opinion, use a pseudonym or even your own name.
I stand by my statements and opinion.
I don’t use drugs, Troy but I know lots of people who smoke pot and drink beer and wine recreationally who are in a better place mentally and socially than you. Your continued anger and hostility lends one to recommend some counseling for your health. I don’t know you and telling my name wouldn’t change that. I care about you the way Jesus cared for wayward strangers.
This is a great resource to counter the snake oil claims by NASD and the pro pot advocates. Started by parents in Colorado it has been spreading to other states. Parents Opposed to Pot https://www.facebook.com/poppotorg/
Their website has plenty of info. Need to get this going in South Dakota
Anonymous,
Thank you for your concern about me and my inability to suffer hypocrites and fools patiently. I assure you it will be given all the consideration it deserves.
Troy, I take that as meaning you think you’re just fine and I’m wrong and that’s understandable. Does any other reader, anonymous or named think Troy’s at a dangerous crossroad concerning his mental health. Let’s try to help our neighbor, huh? What do you think?
Anonymous 8:57am
Troy’s comments were well spoken, totally make sense and his observations are shared by many on this particular issue. Who amongst us has not had our lives touched by someone many of which we care about and love suffering from mental illness and especially addiction? It is fairly common. There is a difference between helping and enabling. Many of those who’s lives revolve around getting stoned off pot are the one’s that have unresolved issues especially with the messaging that smoking pot is good for them. Those in the depths of addiction will fight like heck, can be manipulative and nasty when their source to numb themselves is threatened. They are the ones who need help to be healthier mentally. Otherwise it eventually affect the rest of us in negative ways and drags society down costing families, businesses and taxpayers.
Yep, you’re wrong, that was easy.
Troy’s one of the tougher commenters to debate and he’s got bigger balls than most, he doesn’t post as Anonymous and from what I see you do. I think one of his most successful schoolings was handed to Malachi, sweet snowflake tears;)
I am kind of an upfront get throught eh BS guy…Ms Mentele (sp?) can you just set the record straight…
Are you intending to run for the legislature and if so with what party?
If so why do you think you would be a good legislator?
Then do you think you will make the signature requirement for-
1 Medical marijuana
2 Recreational marijuana
3 Assisted suicide
4 Mail in your ballot voting
Thank you in advance for setting the record straight
Guys, a little civility please. Throwing insults is not keeping it on topic.
Marijuana use was the engine which launched Sara Lee and Baskin-Robbins into national prominence. A late night broadcast of a Sara Lee “everybody doesn’t like something, but nobody doesn’t like Sara Lee” ad was enough to send stoners to the grocery store at closing time. Grocery chains started staying open all night to accommodate them. And the Sara Lee jingle was everybody’s favorite song.
Meanwhile, Baskin-Robbins discovered that for stoners, going out for ice cream wasn’t a social event, and they would be perfectly content to sit in rows of of old school desks and not talk to anybody while satisfying the munchies.
So it does stimulate the economy, just as it stimulates your appetite. It makes you fat and stupid. People who want it legal think we need more fat and stupid people.