Medical Marijuana Users Fight For Gun Rights
- Thread starter rainbowbob
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X-rap, the thing is with marijuana, people have a different range of reactions to it. In vgeneral, it doesn't make people in any way angry or out of control the way liquor does, but it is much harder to qantify intoxication with it than most substances.
TH1229, personally I wouldn't feel concerned about a person who was high on herb being armed around me, if they were on painkillers or drunk it would really worry me, but a bit stoned, no worries, I'd hjust be sure to keep the lunch meat away from them
TH1229, personally I wouldn't feel concerned about a person who was high on herb being armed around me, if they were on painkillers or drunk it would really worry me, but a bit stoned, no worries, I'd hjust be sure to keep the lunch meat away from them
rainbowbob
Member
You will be held accountable for damage caused when you shoot someone without justification regardless of whatever you may or may not have have ingested.
The law should be restricted to punishing unjust acts against others - not the potential to act. Penalizing a person for a theoretically increased potential to act unjustly as the result of ingesting a particular substance is as wrong as penalizing a gun owner for the theoretical potential to act unjustly as a result of carrying a firearm.
BikerRN
member
I think you bring forth an interesting part of this conundrum.
If we allow medical marijuana users to carry firearms, what is to keep the legislators from passing laws eliminating the carrying of weapons by those taking prescription hypertention medications? I think Pandora's Box is an apt description.
BikerRN
If we allow medical marijuana users to carry firearms, what is to keep the legislators from passing laws eliminating the carrying of weapons by those taking prescription hypertention medications? I think Pandora's Box is an apt description.
BikerRN
I'm surprised at some of the opinions of my fellow gun nuts. I'm of the school of thought that says, "My right to swing my arms ends at your nose." A lot of guys are quoting federal law that states it is unlawful to possess a firearm if a user of illegal drugs, yet Obama has declared no one would be prosecuted under federal law if they are abiding by their state's laws and using marijuana legally. The federal government even allowed a very closely controlled ~20 glaucoma patients to smoke marijuana joint for years until they died. This was breaking the federal law stated earlier, yet they did it anyways. So many of you seem to believe any law on the books is right, but do you still agree with something like the NFA act or Hughes amendment? We have imperfect laws with huge grey areas and this is clearly one of them where society should at least error on the side of personal freedoms. Otherwise how far should this go? Should our president not be allowed to declare war since he smoked pot and did coke 20 years ago?
It s slippery slope any time we start to add regulations rather than go towards more freedoms. Restricting medical mj users from carry may lead to the rationalization made by many of us here have made....that being, if mj intoxication is impairing enough to warrant disqualification, so should a wide range of other medications that are equally as intoxicating. By adding restrictions based on POTENTIAL of intoxication, every opiate users, benzo user, stimulant user, etc SHOULD face the restrictions put on those using medical marijuana in accordance to the law. I say punish the person if they do something wrong, but until then, carry by mmj patients shouldn't be handled differently than those using any other medication under their Dr's recommendations. You fear the same restrictions being put on users of other drugs....but, rationally, if we want to deny anyone using a drug that may lead to a degree of impairment ther right to carry, a LARGE number of medications, from painkillers to anti-depressants to ADD stimulants SHOULD be included. I think this is a case of "God forbid, if they ban people using mj from carrying, what about ME? what if MY prescription gets me disqualified?" Impairment is impairment, whether its someone toking mj for glucoma, or someone using Percoset for back pain. Just because it may not be "medicine" in your eyes, a medical professional disagreed. If we expect lawmakers to make "common sense" laws, lets stick to common sense....impairment can occur just as easily using a wide variety of prescription medications....... How about we we punish actions, not medical conditions? As soon as a mmj patient violates the law or demonstrates he or she is far less responsible than the average carrier, strip them of their rights....but how about allowing them to prove themselves, instead of acting on assumptions and what we think we know?
(not aimed specifically at you BikerRn, just using your statement as a jump-off point)
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coloradokevin
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There's nothing medical about marijuana.
For those who argue that marijuana is their medicine (for whatever BS disease they claim to have: chronic hangnails, back pain, leg cramps, etc), then I challenge you to answer these questions:
1) Why are you allowed to get this "medicine" in any quantity you want, without any prescription from a doctor?
2) Why are you able to buy this medicine from a 20-year-old stoner with a grow lamp, instead of a licensed pharmacist?
3) What other "medicine" is smoked?
3a) When was the last time anyone took their prescription medication by smoking it out of something that looks like Jerry Garcia's head?
Even many of the folks who carry the "red cards" (MM cards) here in Colorado will openly admit that there's really nothing wrong with them. As a police officer, I've talked to many of the operators of local dispensaries (usually after they get robbed). These guys are down to Earth about the whole thing, and also admit that the overwhelming majority of their "patients" are just looking for a legal way to get high. And, even if local laws legalize marijuana, the substance is still a schedule 1 controlled substance at the federal level, thereby making it illegal (supremacy).
As far as guns are concerned, I'm tired of medical marijuana users claiming that they should be allowed to do anything a regular citizen does, while they are under the influence of marijuana. Simply put, you can't carry a gun while drunk, and you shouldn't be carrying one while high, either. Same goes for operating machinery or motor vehicles, or working in certain occupations.
Personally, the marijuana lobby has nothing more than a weak ancillary association with the topic of guns, and I'd be just as pleased to keep the pot heads out of the gun issue altogether.
That's just my not-so-humble $0.02.
P.S. I'm not even openly fighting against the legalization of marijuana. If the populace of this country wants marijuana to be legal, then so be it. I have NO interest in smoking marijuana myself, but I don't really care if the law allows for it within the comfort of a person's home. But, the current half-legal system of medical marijuana just makes a mockery of the judicial system, and modern medicine, even as it completely ignores federal law.
Additionally, if marijuana is ever legalized, I certainly don't want anyone driving a car or carrying a gun while they are under the influence. Rights are not absolute, and rights have limitations. The US Constitution doesn't grant anyone the inalienable right to get high, nor does it allow for someone to carry a gun when they are under the influence of a drug that can impact their ability to make an intelligent and rational decision.
The slippery slope argument isn't particularly valid in this case anyway. Under current laws in many states a person can already be charged for driving under the influence of many prescription drugs. Just because a medicine is prescribed does not necessarily mean that you are safe to operate a vehicle (or perhaps carry a gun) while you are under the influence of that medication. And, again, marijuana hardly qualifies as medicine.
For those who argue that marijuana is their medicine (for whatever BS disease they claim to have: chronic hangnails, back pain, leg cramps, etc), then I challenge you to answer these questions:
1) Why are you allowed to get this "medicine" in any quantity you want, without any prescription from a doctor?
2) Why are you able to buy this medicine from a 20-year-old stoner with a grow lamp, instead of a licensed pharmacist?
3) What other "medicine" is smoked?
3a) When was the last time anyone took their prescription medication by smoking it out of something that looks like Jerry Garcia's head?
Even many of the folks who carry the "red cards" (MM cards) here in Colorado will openly admit that there's really nothing wrong with them. As a police officer, I've talked to many of the operators of local dispensaries (usually after they get robbed). These guys are down to Earth about the whole thing, and also admit that the overwhelming majority of their "patients" are just looking for a legal way to get high. And, even if local laws legalize marijuana, the substance is still a schedule 1 controlled substance at the federal level, thereby making it illegal (supremacy).
As far as guns are concerned, I'm tired of medical marijuana users claiming that they should be allowed to do anything a regular citizen does, while they are under the influence of marijuana. Simply put, you can't carry a gun while drunk, and you shouldn't be carrying one while high, either. Same goes for operating machinery or motor vehicles, or working in certain occupations.
Personally, the marijuana lobby has nothing more than a weak ancillary association with the topic of guns, and I'd be just as pleased to keep the pot heads out of the gun issue altogether.
That's just my not-so-humble $0.02.
P.S. I'm not even openly fighting against the legalization of marijuana. If the populace of this country wants marijuana to be legal, then so be it. I have NO interest in smoking marijuana myself, but I don't really care if the law allows for it within the comfort of a person's home. But, the current half-legal system of medical marijuana just makes a mockery of the judicial system, and modern medicine, even as it completely ignores federal law.
Additionally, if marijuana is ever legalized, I certainly don't want anyone driving a car or carrying a gun while they are under the influence. Rights are not absolute, and rights have limitations. The US Constitution doesn't grant anyone the inalienable right to get high, nor does it allow for someone to carry a gun when they are under the influence of a drug that can impact their ability to make an intelligent and rational decision.
The slippery slope argument isn't particularly valid in this case anyway. Under current laws in many states a person can already be charged for driving under the influence of many prescription drugs. Just because a medicine is prescribed does not necessarily mean that you are safe to operate a vehicle (or perhaps carry a gun) while you are under the influence of that medication. And, again, marijuana hardly qualifies as medicine.
Again, to be arrested for DUID (driving under the influence of drugs, prescription or "street") intoxication HAS TO BE PROVEN. Again, if we are going to deny based on a PRESUMPTION of intoxication, EVERY drug with physiological effects would have to be included, becasue different medications make siome people loopy, while others function fine. We don't deny drivers licenses to everyone who has a scirpt for Xanax(though, if driving under the influence, we arrest), and by that token, we shouldn't deny ccw to those with medical mj prescriptions (but should instead enforce the law when they have actually done something wrong). The correlation is there, people just seem to refuse to see it....at least, IMO. When we deny rights based on presumptions and our own opinikons, rather than the facts at hand, we've started a trend I want no part of.
AS for the questions proposed earlier:
1) Why are you allowed to get this "medicine" in any quantity you want, without any prescription from a doctor? Aspirin is FAR more toxic than cannabis, and can be bought in any quantity one chooses to do so
2) Why are you able to buy this medicine from a 20-year-old stoner with a grow lamp, instead of a licensed pharmacist? Again, theres been some less than bright clerks working at walmart that will sell me all the tylenol I want....
3) What other "medicine" is smoked? And Who says cannabis HAS to be smoked? It CAn be taken orally as well. Even for those unable to keep pills down due to chemo or other nausea, vaporization allows them to get the thc from the cannabis without releasing many of the other, possibly harmful compounds. Who "inhales vapor" for a medication, you ask.....just about every asthma sufferer i know has an "inhaler"!
3a) When was the last time anyone took their prescription medication by smoking it out of something that looks like Jerry Garcia's head? Thats just a gross generalization made by someone unfamiliar with the varied methods of cannabis ingestion.
AS for the questions proposed earlier:
1) Why are you allowed to get this "medicine" in any quantity you want, without any prescription from a doctor? Aspirin is FAR more toxic than cannabis, and can be bought in any quantity one chooses to do so
2) Why are you able to buy this medicine from a 20-year-old stoner with a grow lamp, instead of a licensed pharmacist? Again, theres been some less than bright clerks working at walmart that will sell me all the tylenol I want....
3) What other "medicine" is smoked? And Who says cannabis HAS to be smoked? It CAn be taken orally as well. Even for those unable to keep pills down due to chemo or other nausea, vaporization allows them to get the thc from the cannabis without releasing many of the other, possibly harmful compounds. Who "inhales vapor" for a medication, you ask.....just about every asthma sufferer i know has an "inhaler"!
3a) When was the last time anyone took their prescription medication by smoking it out of something that looks like Jerry Garcia's head? Thats just a gross generalization made by someone unfamiliar with the varied methods of cannabis ingestion.
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We note what you think the law should be. That is not in fact what the law is. And it is doubtful that the law will ever be as you wish.rainbowbob said:
Many people thought that about right to carry at one point...does that mean they should have given up on the idea, simply because some didn't see the concept of concealed carry as a good thing? Thats whats great about this country....people are not only free to have an opinion that may run contrary to your own, but they are free to actively work to change the laws more to their liking. Some people don't like it when people mobilize to change the laws to something more suitable.....The Brady Bunch comes to mind....Mayors against Gun Violence as well.... Our laws are forever changing, being adapted to the times we find ourselves in. Rarely are our laws static, and with determination and preserverance, ideas once scoffed at by many become the norm, ev en legally recognized. Pointing out that ones idea of what the law should be doesn't match reality is meaningless. we know what the law IS....what our job as Americans is to make sure that we feel its right, and if not, to do something about it. Nothing is more American than letting your voice be heard and taking an active part in the process of self-government.....A viewpoints popularity shouldn't determine its legitimacy, or whether its worth a look at changing....
Some things are reasonably possible. Others are not. Rainbowbob's vision has about as much chance of coming to pass as repealing DUI laws.Davek1977 said:
Penalizing driving under the influence is
to which rainbowbob objects. One will be penalized for driving with a specified amount of alcohol in one's blood even if he hasn't hurt anyone as a result. But do you really think you'd ever be able to get such laws repealed?rainbowbob said:
lizziedog1
Member
As many of you know, I teach at a school for "bad" boys. Many of them are there for drug related charges. Some have dealer backgrounds. When talking to them about legalization of Marujuana, some are against it.
They are against it because it would diminish its street value and put a crimp of their business. These kids might be criminals, but they ain't dumb.
They are against it because it would diminish its street value and put a crimp of their business. These kids might be criminals, but they ain't dumb.
And here silly me thought taking the profits away from cartels and gangs, and putting that same money into the tax coffers, would be a good thing. Regardless of who rakes in the profit from cannabis sales, they are going to continue. What it comes down to is where you'd rather that money be going....to fund the coyote's next shipment of illegal immigrants, or towards improving our schools, roads, and other parts of the infrastructure we've allowed to deteriorate while pumping billions annually into programs that invariably result in MORE drugs...of GREATER purity...to hit our streets at LOWEWR PRICES than ever. How long are we going to play this game of ultimate redundancy?
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